Page:The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas.djvu/243

 regarded as the invention of the heretical composer of the Acts, much of the ritual, and possibly even some of the words, simply represent the usage of the church before these Encratites branched off, and which they retained after their separation.

We also find in these Acts some interesting notices on "Baptism" and the "Eucharist," besides the copious use made in these Acts of the New Testament.

Whether the Syriac or the Greek was the original language of the Acts is difficult to decide, although the opinion is in favor of the latter. Where we followed another text, especially the Syriac, the matter is put within < >. A small portion of the Acts has been translated into English by A. Walker for the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1867 seq.); chaps. 39, 40, 41, 62-158 are omitted, because the matter was not in Tischendorf's text. We refer to this fact to show the importance of the recension of the text now extant in Bonnet's edition, which we followed throughout.

1. At that time we the apostles were all in Jerusalem—Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew, the taxgatherer; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas the son of James—and we portioned out the regions of the world, in order that each one of us might go into