Page:The Apocryphal New Testament (1924).djvu/508

There are also Greek Acts of Barnabas, edited last by Bonnet, of which the interest is strictly local; they describe his travels and death in Cyprus—where they were doubtless written (not earlier than the fifth century). With them must be classed the lives of other Cypriote saints of the apostolic age, Heraclides of Tamasus and Auxibius of Soli.

Acts of James the Great in Greek (ed. Ebersolt, Paris, 1902) are without interest.

Acts of Thomas in Greek, edited by me from a British Museum MS. (in Apocr. Anecd. ii), are a version (probably) of the Acts in the Egyptian cycle, which we have in Ethiopic.

More important, because more widely diffused, are the various late Acts and Passions of Peter and Paul. These occupy a large space in Lipsius's edition, where the following texts are printed:

1. The Passion of Peter, attributed to Linus, Peter's successor in the see of Rome, addressed to the churches of East and West: in Latin. It follows the course of the original Martyrdom, adding some details, e.g. the names of Processus and Martinian, Peter's gaolers, and a vision, when Peter is crucified, of 'angels standing with crowns of the flowers of roses and lilies, and upon the top of the upright cross Peter standing and receiving a book from Christ, and reading from it the words which he was speaking'.

2. The Passion of Paul, by Linus, in Latin. This, again, is the original Martyrdom with a few additions. On the way to execution Paul meets Plautilla, a noble matron, and borrows the kerchief from her head to bind his eyes: she is to wait for him and he will give it back. Returning, the soldiers met Plautilla rejoicing; and when they taunted her, she told them that Paul, with a celestial company, had come to her, and returned the blood-stained kerchief, which she showed them. There is a passage about Seneca, too: see below, p. 480.

In both, the speeches are variously altered and amplified.

The remaining texts all represent Peter and Paul as joining in the contest with Simon, and being martyred at the same time: the older legends making a year intervene between their deaths. We have first:

3. The Passion of Peter and Paul under the name of Marcellus. The Latin text is the better known: there is one manuscript of a Greek form of it. The opening words are Cum venisset Paulus Romam.

As in all these texts, there is a good deal about Simon's magic arts. When confronted with the apostles before Nero, he makes large dogs appear and attack the apostles: but Peter has foreseen this, and has some barley bread, which he has blessed, concealed in his sleeve, and, producing it, makes the dogs vanish.

Pilate's letter to Claudius (see p. 146) is produced and read before Nero.

When Simon flies in the air, Peter adjures the demons who are carrying him to let him fall; and his body is broken into four pieces. The death of Nero is mentioned, and an attempt of some devout men from the East to carry off the bodies of the apostles.