Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/90

lxxxvi sent it to Augustus Cæsar. These titles are not worth much.

The prologue represents one Ananias as saying that he found the Acts in Hebrew and translated them into Greek, in the time of Theodosius and Valentinian. This may be taken as pretty good evidence that our Greek text did not appear before 440.

A second introduction professes to give the date of the events recorded, and refers the original composition to Nicodemus, who is said to have written in Hebrew.

If the first prologue has any value, it teaches us that the book was really unknown till the date mentioned, because Ananias claims to have been the discoverer as well as the translator.

Dr. Tischendorf, however, believes the book appeared as early as the second century. If so, the prologue is a forgery, and all that the supposed Ananias could have done was to modify a document already widely circulated. Tertullian, some two centuries and a quarter earlier, had appealed to certain Acts of Pilate, and Justin Martyr long before that had done the same. If they meant this book, it existed in Africa (in Latin), and in Europe (