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The Gospel That Broke the Fourth Wall

The Gospel That Broke the Fourth Wall

Last updated on: July 30, 2026 at 6:15 am by Philip Jenkins

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The Gospel That Broke the Fourth Wall 2026-07-30T06:15:48-04:00 Philip Jenkins

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I am presently working on the discovery of real and alleged ancient gospels and scriptures during the Late Renaissance – roughly, the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Today I will be looking at one truly odd bogus gospel, and suggesting a context for it that I find amazing and even inspiring. And in literary terms, it is about 350 years ahead of its time.

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Now There Was A Pharisee, A Man Named Nicodemus

To begin with a name. If you were a conservative Christian believer in this era, whether Catholic or Protestant, the name you detested and feared above all was Nicodemus. Nicodemus was the Jewish leader in the Gospel of John who came to Jesus, but only covertly, and at night. He thus became the patron saint for all those in later times who maintained their religion as a front, but held different opinions in their own minds.

Outwardly, those Nicodemites conformed to whatever state church held power, while underneath, they secretly sympathized with some other doctrine, which was officially forbidden. They held that clandestine stance in the hope that conditions might eventually change for the better, when the crazies were no longer in charge, and the covert moderates could emerge from their spiritual closets. I have blogged at some length on these Nicodemites.

John Calvin and his followers became incandescent at the mention of the Nicodemites who lived under Catholic rule. Just why did they not frankly admit their Protestant credentials and face the consequences, all the ignominy and Inquisitorial violence? Why would anyone object to that? Were not Christians meant to be martyrs for truth? Why on earth didn’t they want to be burned alive?

That whole rhetoric refers to Protestants who maintained their true beliefs while living under Catholic regimes, but the secretive shadow of Nicodemus covered many other groups, not least Catholics who conformed sufficiently to survive in Protestant lands. England, typically, had its legions of “Church Papists.” But in much of Europe, “crypto” populations of many kinds proliferated, persisting within the confines of an alien required faith. There were conquered Muslims who pretended to accept the new Catholic order imposed upon them; crypto-Jews who struggled to avoid detection by the Catholic Inquisition; and a great many crypto-Christians living under Ottoman Muslim rule. Conversions and religious transitions of all kinds were common, and who could tell how sincere they were? Masking and masquerading were a common fact of spiritual life.

In such a world, incidentally, your greatest risk of breaking cover and being detected did not involve any rash theological statements that you might utter casually. The worst potential giveaways involved food and drink, and which foods you might be seen to consume, and at which times and seasons. Publicly violating fasts, feasts, and dietary restrictions was a very risky endeavor. You are what you refuse to eat.

The Nicodemites Strike back

We hear a lot of attacks on those shifty Nicodemites, but what did they themselves think about the world? As an intellectual exercise, imagine that some of those stealth believers tried to present their own views to the world, not – God forbid – in a signed tract that would bring down the wrath of the authorities, but in some supposedly ancient anonymous writing that they claimed to have dredged up from obscurity somewhere? Even a lost and rediscovered gospel? What would it look like?

The situation is not hypothetical, nor is it a mere intellectual exercise: just look at the Gospel of Barnabas, to which I have referred on several recent occasions. Briefly, Barnabas presents itself as the one authentic gospel, which tells the real story of Jesus before St Paul made up all his foolish nonsense about Resurrections, the Trinity and so on. As it stands, it offers a Jesus who in many ways is very close to the canonical figure, except that he repeatedly declares the future coming of a new prophet, who will be Muhammad. The book survives in both Italian and Spanish, and it is a matter of debate which version came first. In 1709, the Irish Deist John Toland found a manuscript copy in Amsterdam, which he published in 1718 under the title of Nazarenus.

As we have it, Barnabas probably originated with the Moriscos, Spanish Muslims who converted at least notionally to Christianity, but who were expelled from the Spanish possessions in 1609. If we had to guess, then a date in the 1590s or so would not be too far off. That is my own best estimate about geographical origin, although others have located the gospel’s origins in Venice or, seriously, Transylvania. For what it is worth, the first person to show any recorded awareness of the work was Ibrahim al-Taybili, a Spanish Morisco.

But Barnabas is far more than a simple Muslim apologetic. At every stage we encounter truly subversive themes of deception and illusion, which allegedly permeate all the major faiths. As we learn about two thirds of the way through a very long text, the Gospel purports to be written by the scribe Nicodemus – hmm, have we come across that name before recently? Nicodemus is the one who understands concealed truth. He appreciates when a document is likely to be forged or misleading, and can discern truthful and bogus writings. But his honesty can only take him so far, and he needs the miraculous aid of Jesus to allow him to make the final leap to accepting the truth of the texts.

As the story progresses, he becomes Jesus’s follower, and his host. In his openness to divine truth and his willingness to penetrate the veil of literary deception, he will appear in John’s Gospel as the seeker who approaches Jesus by night, in darkness both literal and spiritual. As such, he stands in for a great many modern day doubters, seekers, and Nicodemites.

Scriptures: Genuine, Bogus, and Deceptive

“Nicodemus” declares the untrustworthiness of all texts and particularly of scriptures, not because they have been inaccurately delivered to humanity – an intolerable thought – but because they have been subsequently falsified, by priests, scribes, and clergy. Issues of forgery, authenticity, and scribal integrity abound. In one story, Nicodemus reports finding in the high priest’s library the actual and authentic text of the Book of Moses which differs radically from the Old Testament used by the church at large. The introduction to Barnabas itself likewise claims that this was the true gospel purloined from the Vatican’s Papal library, quite unlike the vulgar canonical gospels held out to the ignorant masses.

The Jesus of Barnabas tells the troubling (and authentic) Old Testament story of Micaiah, from 1 Kings 22. This obscure story reports how a faithful prophet is commanded to give a false and misleading message in order to destroy an enemy king. A heavenly angel or spirit thus inspires the speaking of false words or bogus prophecy. How are we meant to believe anything that is written, or revealed? What is there to rely on in this treacherous world? (I have blogged about this wrenching story).

Prophets of Deceit

But when we read all these “gospel” stories about Jesus, we must always recall that we are reading them in a book that is itself bogus or deceptive, and which admits that fact upfront. Even if the author of Barnabas was presenting the words that he felt most sincerely that Jesus would have said, he knew that he was not presenting an authentic history, or reproducing the actual words of Barnabas as he claimed.

A forger is thus assuring his readers that even the most ostensibly authoritative texts have been contaminated, a warning that extended to scriptures. Almost certainly he saw himself in Nicodemus, reading out a story that he knew or suspected to be false, but acting under a divine command. He is the distant heir of Micaiah, who speaks false words for heavenly purposes. At every point, that author is reaching out to the reader, leading them through the contorted realities of fiction, asking them why on earth they think they are getting from the text, and why they should accept it. The reader is thoroughly implicated. Try as I might, I can’t resist quoting Charles Baudelaire here: “Hypocrite lecteur, – mon semblable, – mon frère!”

To borrow the title of an article I once wrote for Christian Century, Barnabas is “A Gospel That Admits It’s A False Prophecy.” Alternatively, trust me, I’m lying!

Imagine reading Barnabas in 1610 or so, when Protestants believed in sola scriptura, and Catholics relied on Scripture interpreted by tradition, and by the authoritative Church. And suddenly, we enter a world where all texts, including scriptures, must be seen as fluid and unreliable.

Barnabas as Metafiction

As I have suggested, Barnabas assumes a high degree of intelligence in the reader, and the person’s capacity to see beyond superficial meanings. It is thoroughly metafictional, in the sense of never letting you forget that you are reading a fictional work. The author repeatedly steps beyond the fourth wall to remind you of that fact, and in the process often grabs you by the sleeve and pulls you in.

Now, that fourth wall idea seems very modern, and for 1600, it is almost incredibly ahead of its time. So can I think of any vague parallel? And yes indeed I can, and I am not the first person to do so. Once upon a time, there was an author called Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote a stunning novel called Don Quijote, which is Spanish for “Breaking the Fourth Wall” (sorry, I am being deceptive in saying that). The book was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, not a million years apart from the likely composition of the Gospel of Barnabas, nor of that epic forgery called the Lead Plates of Sacromonte, which I described last time.

Who Wrote Don Quijote?

We can all agree that Cervantes wrote Don Quijote. Well, no, actually, as he says, he did no such thing, and truly, he was not the author. After describing taking the opening chapters from the Archives of La Mancha (about which Cervantes is kidding, or lying), he then makes clear that he is using an Arabic manuscript that he discovered, which was actually the work of the great (imaginary and non-existent) historian Cide Hamete Benengeli. Almost certainly, that figure is based on the real life Morisco Miguel de Luna, whom we encountered last time as a major sponsor of the forged Lead Plates affair.

Like the author of Barnabas, Cervantes describes how he found this precious document:

One day, as I was in the Alcana of Toledo [the Moorish bazaar], a boy came up to sell some pamphlets and old papers to a silk mercer, and, as I am fond of reading even the very scraps of paper in the streets, led by this natural bent of mine I took up one of the pamphlets the boy had for sale, and saw that it was in characters which I recognized as Arabic, and as I was unable to read them though I could recognize them, I looked about to see if there were any Spanish-speaking Morisco at hand to read them for me; nor was there any great difficulty in finding such an interpreter, for even had I sought one for an older and better language I should have found him. In short, chance provided me with one, who when I told him what I wanted and put the book into his hands, opened it in the middle and after reading a little in it began to laugh……

I was struck with surprise and amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he told me it meant, “_History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian_.” It required great caution to hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching it from the silk mercer, I bought all the papers and pamphlets from the boy for half a real; and if he had had his wits about him and had known how eager I was for them, he might have safely calculated on making more than six reals by the bargain. I withdrew at once with the Morisco into the cloister of the cathedral, and begged him to turn all these pamphlets that related to Don Quixote into the Castilian tongue, without omitting or adding anything to them, offering him whatever payment he pleased. He was satisfied with two arrobas of raisins and two bushels of wheat, and promised to translate them faithfully and with all despatch; but to make the matter easier, and not to let such a precious find out of my hands, I took him to my house, where in little more than a month and a half he translated the whole just as it is set down here.

By using that device, Cervantes tries to make the reader believe that this is an authentic book and an authentic historical character, very much like, oh, the authors of such pseudo-gospels as Barnabas did with Jesus. Cervantes not only quotes the Arabic historian, but comments regularly on his writing technique, and on what he has omitted from his narrative.

Cervantes again is kidding, or lying, according to taste, but seriously, all vaguely literate readers are in on the joke here. They all know that Cervantes is the author, and that Cide Hamete Benengeli is imaginary. Exactly like the readers of Barnabas are meant to think about Nicodemus.

It all tracks back to those Moriscos, does it not?

The name Benengeli apparently contains a brilliant pun, and references the Arabic name for “son of a deer.” Cervantes’s own name includes the Spanish word ciervo, which is likewise deer. It is as if Cervantes himself is the great historian Benengeli, under a different hat.

True Lies

As Quijote proceeds, those metafictional plays become ever more frequent. In one typical scene, the delusional knight Quijote is approached by a fanboy called Samson, who has read all about him in that mythical history by Cide Hamete Benengeli. Quijote then discusses the author of the novel in which he is appearing as a character:

Don Quixote made him rise, and said, “So, then, it is true that there is a history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it?”

“So true is it, señor,” said Samson, “that my belief is there are more than twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day. Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed, and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and I am persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there will not be a translation of it.”

Later, Sancho objects to how he is portrayed in stories circulating about him, which vary from the true and authentic accounts by the (invented) Morisco historian:

“Believe me,” said Sancho, “the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cide Hamete Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves; my master valiant, wise, and true in love, and I simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard.”

“I believe it,” said Don Juan; “and were it possible, an order should be issued that no one should have the presumption to deal with anything relating to Don Quixote, save his original author Cide Hamete; just as Alexander commanded that no one should presume to paint his portrait save Apelles.”

That sound you hear is the shattering of the Fourth Wall that separates the fictional characters and the real world people who are reading about them. Real world, fictional… whatever that means. What’s the difference?

Barnabas and Quijote

Barnabas and Quijote have a great many resemblances, and each in its way is a work of dazzling and mind-stretching originality. As I say, I am not the first to point out these analogies, as you will see from the sizable bibliography I have compiled for these blogs. See especially the writing of the Dutch scholar Gerard Albert Wiegers.

But each work raises issues to which we will often return in this series of blogs. I defy you ever again to read an account of a “new” discovery of an ancient gospel without having these ideas front and center in your mind. Especially on the subject of “authenticity.”

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