Apocryphon ("secret writing"), plural apocrypha, was a Greek term for a genre of Jewish and Early Christian writings that were meant to impart "secret teachings" or gnosis (knowledge) that could not be publicly taught. Jesus is portrayed as having briefly withheld his messianic identity from the public and as giving private instruction to the apostles, and to figures in the canonical Gospels of the New Testament and secret teachings attributed to Jesus furnish the material of the "sayings" of the Gospel of Thomas and part of the material of the Gospel of Mary, which is purportedly a secret teaching supposedly committed to a trusted disciple by Jesus after his resurrection. The secret teaching in Gnostic literature refers to several things.

Examples include: