Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/679

 doctrinal reason for rejecting them. The Docetic Leucius, who denied the true manhood of our Lord, was at the opposite pole from the Ebionites, who asserted Him to be mere man, and therefore the Acts of John might well have contained a confutation of Ebionism. The Acts of Leucius were in use among the Manichees in the time of St. Augustine. Faustus the Manichean (bk. 30, c. 4, vol. viii. p. 447) appeals to Acts of the four apostles mentioned by Photius (Peter, Andrew, Thomas, and John), charging the Catholic party with wrongly excluding them from their canon. In several places Augustine refers to the same Acts (Copt. Adimant. 117, viii. 137, 139; Cont. Faust. xxii. 79, p. 409; Cont. adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 20, p. 570), and he names as the author Leutius, the name being written in some MSS. Levitius or Leuticius (Act. cum Felice, ii. 6, p. 489; see also de Fid. cc. 5, 38, App. pp. 25, 33). In the passage last cited, the writer, supposed to be Evodius of Uzala, a contemporary of Augustine, quotes from the Acts of Andrew a story of Maximilla, the wife of the proconsul Egeas under whom St. Andrew suffered, who, to avoid having intercourse with her husband, without his knowledge substituted her maid in her own place; and on another occasion, when she and her companion were engaged hearing the apostle, an angel, by imitating their voices, deceived the husband into the belief that they were still in her bedchamber. This story, which agrees with what Photius tells of the author's condemnation of sexual intercourse, is much softened in the still extant Acts of Pseudo-Abdias, which are an orthodox recasting of a heretical original. We find still the names of Maximilla and Egeas; but Maximilla does not refuse intercourse with her husband, and only excites his displeasure because, on account of her eagerness to hear the apostle, she can be with him less frequently; and, without any angelic deception, providential means are devised to prevent Egeas from surprising his wife at the Christian meeting. These Augustinian notices enable us to infer that it was the same work Philaster had in view when he stated (Haer. 88) that the Manichees had Acts purporting to be written by disciples of St. Andrew, and describing apostle's doings when he passed from Pontus into Greece. He adds that these heretics had also Acts of Peter, John, and Paul, containing stories of miracles in which beasts were made to speak; for that these heretics counted the souls of men and of beasts alike (see Epiph. Haer. 66, p. 625). In the Gelasian decree on apocryphal books we read: "Libri omnes, quos fecit Leucius discipulus diaboli, apocryphi," where we have various readings, Lucianus and Seleucius (Thiel, Epp. Rom. Pont. 463). In the spurious correspondence between Jerome and Chromatius and Heliodorus, Jerome is represented as giving an orthodox version of certain authentic additions to St. Matthew's narrative, of which a heretical version had been given by Leucius (or, as it is printed, Seleucus), the author of the Acts already mentioned. In the letter of Innocent to Exsuperius (Mansi, iii. 1041) he condemns documents bearing the name of Matthew, of James the Less, of Peter and Paul written by Leucius, of Andrew written by Xenocharis and Leonidas the philosophers, and of Thomas. It has been conjectured that in Xenocharis an adjective has been joined with a proper name, and that we have here a corruption of Charinus. In the Latin version of the apocryphal Descensus Christi ad inferos (Tischendorf, Evan. Apoc. p. 369), two sons of the aged Simeon, named Leucius and Charinus, are represented as having died before our Lord, and as miraculously returning to bear witness to His triumphs in the under world. The writer clearly borrowed these names from the apocryphal Acts; did he there find warrant for regarding them as the names of distinct persons, or was Photius right in reporting both names to have been given to the same person? It would seem that only the Acts of John and perhaps of Peter named Leucius as their author: the necessities of the fiction would require the Acts of Andrew to be attested by a different witness, possibly Charinus, and it is conceivable that Photius may have combined the names merely from his judging, no doubt rightly, that all the Acts had a common author. Concerning the Acts of Paul in use among the Manicheans see and. Besides the authorities already cited, the Acts of Leucius are mentioned by Turribius, a Spanish bp. of the first half of the 5th cent., from whom we learn that they were used by the Priscillianists, and that the Acts of Thomas related a baptism, not in water but in oil, according to the Manichean fashion; and by Pseudo-Mellitus (Fabric. Cod. Apoc. N.T. ii. 604), who acknowledges the truth of apostolic miracles related by Leucius, but argues against his doctrine of two principles. Pacian (Ep. i. 2; Migne, Patr. Lat. xiii. 1053) says, "Phryges nobiliores qui se animatos a Leucio mentiuntur, se institutos a Proculo gloriantur." On this passage Zahn (see infra) mainly relies for dating the Acts of Leucius earlier than 160. But no other writer mentions a Montanist use of these Acts, and on this subject the authority of Pacian does not count for much. The context does not indicate that he had much personal knowledge of the sect, and his heretical notices appear to be derived from the Syntagma of Hippolytus, where we have no reason to think that he would have found any mention of Leucius. It is highly probable that Pacian, as well as others of his contemporaries, believed that Leucius was a real companion of St. John, and therefore no doubt earlier than Montanus; but that he had any means of real knowledge as to this we have no reason to believe. Besides those authorities which mention Leucius by name, others speak of apocryphal Acts, and probably refer to the same literature. Thus the Synopsis Scripturae ascribed to Athanasius (ii. 154) speaks of books called the Travels (περίοδοι) of Peter, of John, and of Thomas; and by the second the Leucian story is probably intended. Eusebius (iii. 25) tells of Acts of Andrew and of John; Epiphanius (Haer. 47) states that the Encratites used Acts of Andrew, John, and Thomas; that the Apostolici relied on Acts of Andrew and Thomas (ib. 61); and that those whom he calls Origeniani used Acts of Andrew (ib. 63). It is worth remarking that it is of the