Page:The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas.djvu/241

 century (see Lipsius, I, 227 ff.). To harmonize it with the already existing tradition which speaks of his labors or death in Syria, it has been assumed that his remains were transferred from India to Edessa. Barhebræus (d. 1286) even records that the coffin was brought to Edessa under Bishop Eulogius (end of the fourth century). According to the Latin Passio (i.e. Consummation) of Thomas (see Lipsius, I, 144) the transference took place under Alexander Severus after his victory over Ardasir (233 A. D.).

Of his early life we learn from the Acts just as little as from the New Testament. Here he is sometimes connected with Matthew (Matt. X, 3), sometimes with Philip (Acts I, 13). Only from the gospel of John we learn that his name signifies "twin" (XI, 16; XX, 24; XXI, 2). In the Acts he is called Judas (thus already an ancient Syriac version in John XIV, 22) with the surname of Thomas (comp. Euseb., I, 13, 11), and the surname is explained by this that he was a twin of Jesus whom he resembled very much (c. 11 f., 31, 39).

Among the books read by Photius (Bibl., 114) was a volume purporting to be written by Leucius Charinus and containing the travels of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul. The stichometry of Nicephorus contains a record of the number of stichoi in the travels of Peter, John, and Thomas, respectively, viz.: 2,750, 2,600, 1,600. The Acts of Thomas were held in great estimation especially in Gnostic circles, among the Encratites (Epiphan, 47, 1), the Apostolici (Epiphan, 61, 1), the Manichaeans (August against Faustus, XXII, 79; against Adinatus, 17, and others), the Priscillians (Turribius of Astorga in a letter to Idacius and Ceponius 5; see Zahn, Acta Joannis, p. 200).

In preparing his text Bonnet collated twenty-one Greek manuscripts, the most important of which are a Paris Codex (1510 from the XI or XII cent. cod. P.) and a Latin Codex (Vallicellanus B. 35 from the XI cent. cod. U.). Both these codices alone contain the Acts in a complete form; the hymn to the soul, hitherto extant only in the Syriac, is found only in cod. U.

Besides the Greek witnesses the Syriac Acts edited from a London codex (Mus. Brit. Syr. Add., 14645, from the year