Page:The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas.djvu/18

 historical background, or their geographical and ethnographical scenery. Yet, at the same time, all efforts to derive from them any trustworthy particulars as to the actual histories of the apostles themselves, or to extract from the confused mass of legends any sound historical nucleus, have hitherto proved almost always unsuccessful. Such are in the main the characteristic points given by Lipsius in the beginning of his work mentioned before.