Pseudo-Evodius

Pseudo-Evodius is the author of three Coptic language Christian works that were probably created at some point in the 6th–8th centuries. The author pseudepigraphically identifies himself as Evodius of Rome and "successor of Peter", which is almost certainly a reference to the 1st-century bishop Evodius. Not very much remains of early records of Evodius, but older sources generally placed him as Bishop of Antioch, not Rome. It is not known whether the author made a mistake and thought that Evodius succeeded Peter in Rome rather than Antioch, or intentionally moved him as part of an appeal to Roman authority, or if a genuine Egyptian Christian tradition existed that directly claimed Evodius went to Rome at some point.

The three works of New Testament apocrypha are all homilies. They have been given titles by later scholars as the Homily on the Dormition of the Virgin, Homily on the Passion and Resurrection, and Homily on the Life of Jesus and His Love for the Apostles. They are "apostolic memoirs", a genre that flourished in Egyptian Christianity.

Authorship and date The surviving manuscripts of Pseudo-Evodius are written in the Coptic language, the probable original language and the language of most Egyptian Christians in the era. They appear to be written in the 6th, 7th, or 8th centuries. Similarities in theme and their writing style suggest the same author behind all three, not separate authors attributing their work to Evodius. Very little is known of the original bishop Evodius, nor of Egyptian beliefs (if any) on him; he may have merely been a venerated person to emphasize the antiquity of the views within the homilies as going back to the Apostolic Age. Stephen Shoemaker suggests a 6th century date of around 550 CE on the grounds of the author seemingly being unaware of a Coptic tradition that the Virgin Mary's body remained on earth for 206 days before being taken up to heaven, and that this tradition became prominent in the 550–700 era, making such a later date less likely. Stephen Shoemaker, who wrote a comparative analysis of various versions of the Dormition legend, writes that "for its sheer quantity of anti‐Jewish invective, the St. Michael homily stands apart as among the most particularly anti‐Jewish of the ancient Dormition traditions."

Homily on the Passion and Resurrection quote|Whenever the gentile or the Jew tells me "the God Jesus did not rise", I myself reprove his stupidity thus: You godless one, "truly are the sight of the eyes trusted more than the hearing of the ears," as the wise Paul once said.|author=Homily on the Passion and Resurrection 3

There are seven manuscripts of the homily extant. Only one is complete: M.595, a parchment manuscript held by the Morgan Library & Museum, created in the 9th century. It was part of a cache of Coptic manuscripts found in 1910 at the ruins of the Monastery of Saint Michael in Hamouli, Egypt and acquired for J. P. Morgan in 1911. The other six manuscripts preserve only fragments of the text, with the earliest dating to the 8th century.

Timothy Pettipiece argues that the earliest section shows some connection with the Questions of Bartholomew, Book of Bartholomew, and Gospel of Nicodemus in structure and style, in particular its depiction of Lazarus in the underworld seemingly echoing traditions of the Harrowing of Hell. If the author really was living in an Egyptian monastery, which were usually situated away from crowded river cities and in the desert, it is possible that the fishing tournament was metaphorical for God and the Devil fishing for the monks themselves in the desert. This would make it a reference to the "fishers of men" line from the gospels. John throwing a stone at the devil is a motif seen in the Stoning of the Devil in the Islamic hajj, although the nature of any connection is difficult to hypothesize.