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THE INDIAN ANTIQUABY.
(JANUARY, 1903.
As regards the Greek and Latin versions of these Aots, it may be convenient here first to quote what Mr. Alexander Walker said about them in the introduction to his English translation of Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations, published at Edinburgh in 1870. Writing first of the Greek Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in general, he said:
"These stories came at length to form a sort of apostolic cycle.... They exist also in " Latin form in the ten books of the Acts of the Apostles, compiled probably in the sixth century, "and falsely attributed to Abdias, the first bishop of Babylon, by whom it was, of course, written in “Hebrew."
Afterwards coming to the Acts of St. Thomas, he wrote:
"The substance of this book is of great antiquity, and in its original form it was held in great "estimation by the heretics of the first and second centuries. The main heresy whic, it contained " was that the Apostle Thomas baptized, not with water, but with oil only. It is mentioned " by Epiphanius, Tarribius, and Nicephoras, condemned in the decree of Gelasius, and in the "Synopsis of Scripture ascribed to Athanasius, in which it is placed, along with the Acts of Peter, “ Acts of John, and other books, among the Antilegomena. St. Augustine in three passages "refers to the book in such a way as to show that he had it in something very like its present form. "Two centuries later, Pseudo-Abdias made & recension of the book, rejecting the more heretical "portions, and adapting it generally to orthodox use. Photins attributes the authorship of this "document, as of many other apocryphal Acts, to Leucius Charinus.
"The Greek text was first edited, with copious notes and prolegomena, by Thilo in 1823. The "text from which the present translation is made is a recension of five MSS., the oldest of the "tenth century."
Then as regards The Consommation of Thomas, he wrote:
This is properly a portion of the preceding book. Pseudo-Abdias follows it very closely, but - the Greek of some chapters of his translation or compilation has not yet been discovered.
"The text, edited by Tischendorf for the first time, is from a MS, of the eleventh centary."
These extracte, though now rather out of date, even as regards the Greek text, will give an idea of the age and authority of the Acts, Mr. Walker wrote before the publication of the Syriac version, and does not seem to have been aware of its existence.
The Syrisc version was published for the first time by Dr. W. Wright in 1871, in Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 Vols., London, 1871. Till then, only the Greek and Latin had been available, and Dr. Wright wrote in his preface (Vol. I, p. XII.), "we have here for the first time the Acts "[of St. Thomas] in a nearly complete form."
The Syriac text edited by Dr. Wright was from a MS, in the British Museum (Add. 14645), written 936. From internal evidence he dated the composition not later than the 4th century. Mr. F. C. Burkitt, on additional evidence, says "I do not think we shall be far wrong if we put "the date of our Acts before the middle of the 3rd century." (Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 1899, p. 76.)
Since Dr. Wright published his text, two additional Syriac texts have come to light. These are the MS. in the Sachau collection at Berlin, and the MS. in the Cambridge University Library.
Mr. Burkitt says of the Sachau MS, that it is later than the British Museum one, and has an abridged text; perhaps it would be better to say a less interpolated text, though he expresses no such view. He states also that the Cambridge MS. is a transcript of the Sachau one. (Studia Sinaitioa, No. IX., London, 1900, Appendix VII.)
We have also some recently discovered fragments which have been edited and translated by Mr. Burkitt in Studia Sinaitioa, No. IX., Apps. VI. and VII., London, 1900. As far as they go,
