PSEUDEPIGRAPHA. — These writings (Gr. ψευδεργίαφαρός = with a false title) are so called by Protestants, while Catholics refer to them as the apocryphal books (v.) of the Old Testament.
Even non-Catholic scholars (G. Beer, Pseudepigraphen, in Realen. für prot. Theol. und Kirche, XVI, p. 220) acknowledge the inappropriateness of this designation, since not all apocryphal works are presented pseudonymously as the works of ancient patriarchs or prophets.
The first to apply a similar term to an apocryphal writing was perhaps Cassiodorus (Institutiones, I, 5), who states that, according to St. Jerome, the Book of Wisdom would be *pseudographus*, inasmuch as its true author (believed to be Philo of Alexandria) presented it as the work of Solomon.