The book of A.P. Skogorev introduces the reader to a little-known layer of early Christian literature that reflects the mentality and artistic tastes of ordinary Christians of the 2nd-5th centuries. Introductory articles containing characteristics of stylistic, genre and ideological features of the published apocrypha are sent to the texts. Most of the published monuments were first translated into Russian. Among them - "The Acts of the Apostle Paul" - the earliest of the apocryphal acts that have come down to us, compiled in the middle of the 2nd century. from the traditions of the ancient Church.