Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/91

Rh in Greek). I cannot see the force of the arguments for the early origin of the book, but the style in which it is written compels me to refer our present Greek text to the fifth century. From beginning to end, prologue included, we have the degraded and corrupt Greek of the fifth and following centuries. As for the chronological note at the beginning, the writer could have found the materials for that very easily. Meanwhile these introductions are not contained in all the copies, and as I have said, those which have them do not by any means agree. The reader has only to turn to the examples contained in this volume to see what I mean. I even venture to doubt whether we ought to call this book in any of its forms "The Acts of Pilate," although Dr. Tischendorf has thus entitled his first Latin text on the authority of Gregory of Tours, and not from any manuscript of the document itself. "Acts of Pilate," and "Gospel of Nicodemus," are convenient popular designations, and nothing more, for they do not appear to have originally belonged to the book. "Acts of Pilate" is no doubt adopted because it is supposed that Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Epiphanius quoted substantially the same work as we now have; but it is a misnomer, as there is nothing