PSEUDEPIGRAPHA. — This is the name given by Protestants (Greek φεσθειάγραφος, “with a false title”) to the books called apocrypha (v.) of the Old Testament by Catholics.
Even non-Catholic authors (G. Beer, Pseudepigraphen, in Realenc. für prot. Theol. und Kirche, XVI, p. 229) recognize the inappropriateness of this designation, since not all the apocrypha present themselves under pseudonyms as works of ancient patriarchs or prophets.
The first to designate an apocryphal writing with a similar term was perhaps Cassiodoro (Institutiones, I, 5), who states that, according to St. Jerome, the Book of Wisdom would be pseudographus, since its true author (believed to be Filone di Alessandria) had presented it as a work of Solomon. Angelo Penna