A pseudepigraph (also anglicized as "pseudepigraphon") is a falsely attributed work, a text whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. The name of the author to whom the work is falsely attributed is often prefixed with the particle "pseudo-", such as "pseudo-Aristotle" or "pseudo-Dionysius." These terms refer to the anonymous authors of works falsely attributed to Aristotle and Dionysius the Areopagite, respectively.
In biblical studies, the term pseudepigrapha can refer to an assorted collection of Jewish religious works thought to be written c. 300 BCE to 300 CE. They are distinguished by Protestants from the deuterocanonical books (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the books that appear in extant copies of the Septuagint in the fourth century or later and the Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles. In Catholic usage, the Old Testament books accepted by the Catholic Church are referred to as the deuterocanonical books, and Catholic writers commonly reserve the word apocrypha for spurious or noncanonical writings rather than for the deuterocanon. In addition, two books considered canonical in the Orthodox Tewahedo churches, the Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees, are noncanonical in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons and are classified by most scholars among the Old Testament pseudepigrapha.
