Traditions, advising us: Wonder thou at the things that are before thee: making this the first step to further knowledge.
iii. 4. 26. (The Gnostics) say that Matthias also taught thus: that we should fight with the flesh and abuse it, not yielding to it at all for licentious pleasure, but should make the soul grow by faith and knowledge.
vii. 13. 82. They say that in the Traditions Matthias the apostle said that on every occasion, if the neighbour of a chosen one sin, the chosen one hath sinned: for had he behaved himself as the word enjoins, the neighbour also would have been ashamed of his way of life, so as not to sin.
This, too, is thought by Zahn to be traceable to the same source:
Strom. iv. 6. 35. It is said that Zacchaeus (or, as some say, Matthias), the chief publican, when he had heard the Lord, who condescended to come to him, said: Behold, the half of my goods I give in alms, Lord: and if I have defrauded any man of ought, I restore it fourfold. Whereupon also the Saviour said: The Son of man is come to-day and hath found that which was lost.
Hippolytus tells us that the heretics Basilides and Isidorus (his son) asserted that Matthias had spoken unto them certain secret words which he had heard from the Saviour, being taught by him apart.
GOSPEL OF PETER
The two fragments which we possess of the text of this book will be found among the Passion narratives and the Apocalypses respectively. Here I place the notices of it that are found in the Church writers. There are but three.
Origen on Matthew, x. 17. (They of Nazareth thought that Jesus) was the son of Joseph and Mary: but the brothers of Jesus some (founding on a tradition of the Gospel entitled according to Peter or of the Book of James) say were sons of Joseph by a former wife who had lived with him before Mary.
The Book of James is the so-called Protevangelium, given below.
Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. vi. 12, treating of Serapion, bishop of Antioch about a.d. 190, says:
There is another treatise composed by him about the Gospel called ‘according to Peter’, which he drew up to expose the false statements contained in it, for the benefit of some members of the church at Rhossus, who by the means of the aforesaid book had succumbed to unorthodox doctrines. Of this it will be well to adduce some passages in which he states his view of the book, writing thus:
For we, brethren, accept Peter and the other apostles as we would Christ, but, as experienced men, we repudiate what is
