been excised altogether or some harmless platitude has been substituted, but the general accuracy of the text as published by Wright is attested by the very ancient palimpsest fragments at Sinai.
I have designated the work as unorthodox. This perhaps requires some justification. Judged by an Athanasian standard it is of course quite heretical, but the standard of the early Syriac-speaking Churches was nearer that of Aphraates. To my own mind the un-catholic note is struck in the puritan recklessness of the writer: he never allows for the weakness of humanity or for the economy of Church government. This is the note of Tertullian, of Montanus, of the Donatists—the note struck in our own century by Edward Irving. But more definite indications are not wanting. In the first place, I cannot believe that an orthodox circle would have developed the very remarkable belief that Judas Thomas—Judas the Twin—was the twin-brother of our Lord Himself. Not only do men and women in these Acts mistake the one for the other, but the very devils and wild beasts
