The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas/Preface
PREFACE
The publication of the epoch-making work by Lipsius on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles comprising about 1800 pages closely printed; Schmidt's Coptic Acta Pauli, more especially the critical edition of the Apocryphal Acts by Lipsius and Bonnet, have opened a large, but very little cultivated field of ancient Christian literature. The oldest of these Acts are those which are treated in the present volume. They give us a picture of Christianity towards the end of the second century. They are important for the history of the Christian cultus in the second and third cent., and by their description of the divine service in the houses they supplement of picture delineated in the Acts of the Apostles. They are also important for the history of Christian poetry which commences among the Gnostics; in short: though these Acts contain both "truth and fiction," they cannot be ignored by the teacher and preacher, the missionary and historian. What has hitherto been a terra incognita generally speaking, has now been made accessible, especially by the beautiful edition of Lipsius and Bonnet, whose text must now be considered as textus receptus. Tischendorf's text which was published in 1851, is now superseded by this later publication, and what is said of the text concerns also the English translation of Apocryphal Acts based on Tischendorf's work. As an illustration we only refer to the fact that chaps. 39–41, 62–158 now found in the Acts of Thomas are wanting in Tischendorf's edition. The Acts of Paul and Thecla formerly regarded as a separate book, are now proven to be a part of the Acts of Paul, to which also belongs the so-called third epistle to the Corinthians. Without calling attention to many other points, it is obvious that the Apocryphal Acts, as far as they have been translated into English, need a thorough revision, if not a new translation. For the present we offer the oldest and therefore most important Acts. That these Acts cannot be ignored because they form an important contribution to the primitive literature of the Church, the reader can readily see from the special introductions and literature. In the preparation of the present volume the work edited by Edgar Hennecke has been of great help. I have also made free use of the English translation of the Apocryphal Acts by A. Walker in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinb. 1867), as far as was possible. In other respects the present work is entirely independent, and whatever its shortcomings may be, we have the satisfaction that it is the first effort to make the researches of Lipsius, Bonnet, Schmidt, etc. accessible to the English reader.
B P.
Newark, New Jersey, Nov. 1908.