Page:The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas.djvu/7



The publication of the epoch-making work by Lipsius on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles comprising about 1800 pages closely printed; Schmidt's Coptic Acta Pauli, more especially the critical edition of the Apocryphal Acts by Lipsius and Bonnet, have opened a large, but very little cultivated field of ancient Christian literature. The oldest of these Acts are those which are treated in the present volume. They give us a picture of Christianity towards the end of the second century. They are important for the history of the Christian cultus in the second and third cent., and by their description of the divine service in the houses they supplement of picture delineated in the Acts of the Apostles. They are also important for the history of Christian poetry which commences among the Gnostics; in short: though these Acts contain both "truth and fiction," they cannot be ignored by the teacher and preacher, the missionary and historian. What has hitherto been a terra incognita generally speaking, has now been made accessible, especially by the beautiful edition of Lipsius and Bonnet, whose text must now be considered as textus receptus. Tischendorf's text which was published in 1851, is now superseded by this later publication,