Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/247

 vm] CHRISTIAN PROSE 229 their narratives was the variously told story of the separation of the apostles after Pentecost, in order that each might proceed to the country which the casting of lots had declared to be the field of his missionary labors.^ Sometimes the apostles set out at the com- mand of the Lord Jesus ; and it is often through his miraculous intervention that they reach their haven. The Lord not only guides or transports them there, but continues with them an ever present aid in many forms ; he appears as pilot, as a little child, or in the form of an apostle. These various apocryphal Acts appear to have orig- inated in heretical settings together of tradition, and to have been revised in Catholic circles, as was the case with the apocryphal Gospels. They contain many beautiful legends ; * yet on the whole, they constitute a popular and puerile literature wherein the magical and the romantic unite. The miracle is the unfailing occurrence; only the natural and rational is absent. It is a mountebank propagation of the faith that these Acts set forth.* Further, the Christian apocryphal Gospels and Acts show traits of puerility, if not of literary decadence, similar to much in the Greek love-romances and the romance of Alexander.* They answered to a popular and crude literary taste. They have no perception of fitness. Vitally related sequence is lacking; things ^ 8m, e.g., beginning of Acta of Thonuu. Paul. nf Man^atera.
 * Above all, the Domine quo vadU of the Act* of Peter and
 * See, for example, the Acta of Andrew and Matthew in the City
 * Ante, Chap. III.