In a sermon on the Archangel Michael attributed to Timothy II, patriarch of Alexandria († 477) (CPG 2529; clavis coptica 0404),3 the pretended author finds a writing of the apostle John transcribed by his disciple, who is called Proclus in the only Sahidic witness presently known: Now it came to pass that I, the least of all men, Timothy your father, went up to Jerusalem to worship the Cross of our Savior, and [His] life-giving tomb, and the holy places wherein our Savior walked about. Afterwards I went into the house of the mother of Proclus, the disciple of John the Evangelist, and I dwelt therein, and I found a parchment book (Coptic words) which Proclus, the disciple of John, had written; and the people who were in the house had taken it and were using it as a phylactery
I see that the material was first translated by Budge back in 1915. But what strikes me is the idea that Proclus - I am assuming the famous Proclus the Montanist mentioned in Eusebius several times - is mentioned as a 'disciple of John the Evangelist.' Perhaps it will be argued that this just some 'other Proclus.' But I have always suspected that the Montanists were Johannine (owing to their presumed association with Polycarp). This has only reinforced that notion that much more.
How could a much later tradition have claimed to have identified a text written by an otherwise obscure Montanist, and further one which so identified him as a disciple of John? I think there is something to this. Oral traditions are a tricky thing. They appear flimsy and worthless at first glance. Sometimes they most certain turn out to be garbage. But every once and a while we look back and find - my God, there really is something to this ...
UPDATE - I found an online edition of Brill Publishing Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem on the Life and the Passion of Christ, A Coptic Apocryphon (2013) - one of the texts mentioned in his thesis - here. Don't we live in an incredible age? Seriously, anyone living today should stop romanticizing about some other age. This is the best.
