xix. 26), and is preserved in several Greek, Syriac,

Arabic and Latin manuscripts;

g. The _Ev. Nicodemi_ (John xix. 39) in Greek and Lat. contains two Jewish writings of the 2nd century. The first part consists of the _Gesta_ or _Acta Pilati_. There can be no doubt of its identity with the _Acta Pilati_ quoted by Justin, Tert., Euseb., Epiph. It contains the stories of the canonical Gospels variously amplified and an account of the judicial proceedings evidently intended to demonstrate Jesus’ innocence of the charges brought against Him by His enemies. The second part, bearing the title _Descensus Christi ad inferos_, is of much later origin, telling of the descent of Christ into Hades along with two of the saints who rose with him (Matt. xxvii. 52), Leucius and Carinus, sons of Simeon (Luke ii. 25).[86]

§ 32.5.

II. The numerous =Apocryphal Histories and Legends of the Apostles= were partly of heretical, and partly of Catholic, origin. While the former have in view the establishing of their heretical doctrines and peculiar forms of worship, constitution and life by representing them as Apostolic institutions, the latter arose mostly out of a local patriotic intention to secure to particular churches the glory of being founded by an Apostle. Those inspired by Gnostic influences far exceed in importance and number not only the Ebionitic but also the genuinely Catholic. The Manichæans especially produced many and succeeded in circulating them widely. The more their historico-romantic contents pandered to the taste of that age for fantastic tales of miracles and visions the surer were they to find access among Catholic circles.--A collection of such histories under the title of Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων was received as canonical by Gnostics and Manichæans, and even by many of the Church Fathers. Augustine first named as its supposed author one Leucius. We find this name some decades later in Epiphanius as that of a pupil of John and opponent of the Ebionite Christology, and also in Pacianus of Barcelona as that of one falsely claimed as an authority by the Montanists. According to Photius this collection embraced the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul, and the author’s full name was Leucius Carinus, who also appears in the second part of the _Acta Pilati_, but in quite other circumstances and surroundings. That all the five books were composed by one author is not probable; perhaps originally only the Acts of John bore the name of Leucius, which was subsequently transferred to the whole. Zahn’s view, on the other hand, is, that the Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων, especially the _Acts of John_, was written under the falsely assumed name of John’s pupil Leucius, about A.D. 130, at a time when the Gnostics had not yet been separated from the Church as a heretical sect, was even at a later period accepted as genuine by the Catholic church teachers notwithstanding the objectionable character of much of its contents, its modal docetic Christology and encratite Ethics with contempt of marriage, rejection of animal food and the use of wine and the demand of voluntary poverty, and held in high esteem as a source of the second rank for the Apostolic history. Lipsius considers that it was composed in the interests of the vulgar Gnosticism (§ 27) in the second half of the 2nd, or first half of the 3rd cent., and proves that from Eusebius down to Photius, who brands it as πασῆς αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ μητέρα, the Catholic church teachers without exception speak of it as heretical and godless, and that the frequent patristic references to the _Historiæ ecclesiasticiæ_ do not apply to it but to Catholic modifications of it, which were regarded as the genuine and generally credible original writing of Leucius which were wickedly falsified by the Manichæans.--Catholic modifications of particular Gnostic Περίοδοι, as well as independent Catholic writings of this sort in Greek are still preserved in MS. in great numbers and have for the most part been printed. The _Hist. certaminis apostolici_ in ten books, which the supposed pupil of the Apostles Abdias, first bishop of Babylon, wrote in Hebrew, was translated by his pupil Eutropius into Greek and by Julius Africanus into Latin.[87]--They are all useless for determining the history of the Apostolic Age, although abundantly so used in the Catholic church tradition. For the history of doctrines and sects, the history of the canon, worship, ecclesiastical customs and modes of thought during the 2nd-4th cents., they are of the utmost importance.

§ 32.6.

From the many apocryphal monographs still preserved on the life, works and martyrdom of the biblical Apostles and their coadjutors, in addition to the Pseudo-Clementines already discussed in § 28, 3, the following are the most important.

a. The Greek =Acta Petri et Pauli=. These describe the journeys of Paul to Rome, the disputation of the two Apostles at Rome with Simon Magus, and the Roman martyrdom of both, and constitute the source of the traditions regarding Peter and Paul which are at the present day regarded in the Roman Catholic Church as historical. These Acts, however, as Lipsius has shown, are not an original work, but date from about A.D. 160, and consist of a Catholic reproduction of Ebionite or Anti-Pauline, _Acts of Peter_, with additions from Gentile-Christian traditions of Paul. The _Acts of Peter_ take up the story where the Pseudo-Clementines end, as may be seen even from their Catholic reproduction, for they make Simon Magus, followed everywhere and overcome by the Apostle Peter, at last seek refuge in Rome, where, again unmasked by Peter, he met a miserable end (§ 25, 2). As the Κηρύγματα Πέτρου which formed the basis of the Pseudo-Clementine writings combats the specifically Pauline doctrines as derived from Simon Magus (§ 28, 4), so the Acts of Peter identify him even personally with Paul, for they maliciously and spitefully assign well-known facts from the Apostle’s life to Simon Magus, which are _bona fide_ in the Catholic reproduction assumed to be genuine works of Simon.--The Gnostic _Acts of Peter_ and _Acts of Paul_ had wrought up the current Ebionite and Catholic traditions about the doings and martyr deaths of the two Apostles with fanciful adornments and embellishments after the style and in the interests of Gnosticism. A considerable fragment of these, purified indeed by Catholic hands, is preserved to us in the _Passio Petri et Pauli_, to which is attached the name of Linus, the pretended successor of Peter. The fortunes of the two Apostles are related quite independently of one another: Paul makes his appearance at Rome only after the death of Peter. Of the _non-heretical Acts of Paul_ which according to Eusebius were in earlier times received in many churches as holy scripture (§ 36, 8), no trace has as yet been discovered.

b. Among the Greek =Acts of John=, the remnants of the Leucian Περίοδοι Ἰωάννου preserved in their original form deserve to be first mentioned. According to Zahn, they are one of the earliest witnesses for the genuineness of the Gospel of John, and give the deathblow to the theory that with and after the Apostle John, there was in Ephesus another John the Presbyter distinct from him (§ 16, 2). Lipsius, on the other hand, places their composition in the second half of the 2nd cent., and deprives them of that significance for the life of the Apostle, but admits their great value for a knowledge of doctrines, principles and forms of worship of the vulgar Gnosticism then widely spread. The Πράξεις Ἰωάννου, greatly esteemed in the Greek church, and often translated into other languages, written in the 5th cent. by a Catholic hand and ascribed to Prochoros [Prochorus] the deacon of Jerusalem (Acts