Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/92

lxxxviii about it resembling the official report to which the two first-named Fathers allude.

Having mentioned Gregory of Tours, I add that he is the first writer who, in my opinion, unquestionably cites our present Acts of Pilate. He is placed by Cave at 573. I have found no traces of it in Syriac, but it partly exists in Latin in a MS. of possibly the fifth century, and in a Coptic MS. of about the same date. Later on it became immensely popular in Europe and was translated into Anglo-Saxon and other languages.

Not to prolong this discussion about the date of the book, let us ask who wrote it? and in what language it was written? I answer briefly, it was written in Greek, by a converted Jew, who was acquainted with Hebrew. The Greek is, as I have said, very corrupt, and is tinged by Latin influences on the one hand, and by Hebrew influences on the other. Greek forms of Latin words are frequent, and sundry Hebrew words and phrases also appear in Greek characters. There are also a number of places where the idiom is Hebrew rather than Greek. The writer had at least the Old Testament in Hebrew. That he was a Jew is tolerably clear from the occurrence of details of a purely Jewish