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have now come to that original and characteristic product of early Syriac-speaking Christianity, the Acts of Judas Thomas, the brother of our Lord and the Apostle of India.

I am quite aware that this statement is highly controversial. The Acta Thomae are commonly supposed to be one of a series of fabulous Greek tales describing the missionary adventures of all the Apostles. This conception of the work I hold to be altogether erroneous. That the stories told in the Acts of Thomas have little or no historical basis is indeed almost self-evident, but I do not believe that it was intended to form part of a series, and I believe most firmly that it was originally composed in Syriac, not Greek. Possibly also I ought to