Page:The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas.djvu/143

 their heretical character. The Docetism of the Acts comes out very plainly from this evidence. John is related as informing his disciples among other things that when he tried to lay hold on our Lord it had sometimes appeared to him to find solid substance, but not at other times. This passage is evidently alluded to by Clement of Alexandria (Hypotyposes on I John, 1, 1), who states that he read "in the traditions" that when John handled the body of our Lord it offered no resistance, but yielded place to the apostle's hand. This is one of the reasons for thinking it possible that these Acts may be as old as Clement of Alexandria. But it is probable that the Acts of John were in circulation before the time of Clement. Zahn dates the Leucian Acts of John as early as 130; Lipsius places them thirty years later. Like the Acts of Paul, those of John no doubt originated in Asia Minor.

The Acts as we now have them, are not complete. They commence with c. 18, and narrate, roughly speaking: 1, arrival and first abode at Ephesus (c. 18–55); 2, return to Ephesus, and second abode (Drusiana narrative, c. 58–86); 3, the life of Jesus and his trance (c. 87–105); 4, the end of John (c. 106–115). For this matter, besides the manuscripts, together with the acts of the second Nicene Council, Bonnet made use of a number of manuscripts, which he mentions in the preface. Besides these manuscripts, use has been made of the work of Abdias, the reputed author of a collection of apocryphal acts of the Apostles. This Abdias claimed to have been the first bishop of Babylon, is said to have written the deeds of the apostles in Hebrew, which his disciple Eutropius translated into Greek and the historian Africanus divided into 10 books. The work was edited by Wolfgang Lazius, Basel, 1551, and often reprinted. The fifth book of ''Abdiæ Episc. Babyloniæ Historia Certaminis Apostolorum'' treats of John, and contains matter which seems to belong to the original Leucian Acts, and is of greater importance for the reconstruction of the text than the life of John, composed