ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

One of the canonical books of the New Testament. It contains a great part of the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, beginning at our Lord’s ascension, and continued down to St. Paul’s arrival at Rome, after his appeal to Cæsar; comprehending in all about thirty years. St. Luke has been generally considered the author of this book; and his principal design in writing it was to obviate the false Acts, and false histories, which began to be dispersed up and down the world. The exact time of his writing it is not known; but it must have been written at least two years after St. Paul’s arrival at Rome, because it informs us that St. Paul “dwelt two whole years in his own hired house.” Perhaps he wrote it while he remained with St. Paul, during the time of his imprisonment, Acts xxviii. 30. St. Luke wrote this work in Greek; and his language is generally purer, and more elegant, than that of the other writers of the New Testament. Epíphanius ( Hæres. xxx. chap. 3 and 6) tells us that this book was translated by the Ebionites out of Greek into Hebrew, that is, into Syriac, which was the common language of the Jews in Palestine; but that those heretics corrupted it with a mixture of many falsities and impieties, injurious to the memory of the apostles. St. Jerome a ures us, that a certain priest of Asia added to the true, genuine Acts, the voyages of St. Paul and St. Thecla, and the story of baptizing a lion. Tertullian ( de Baptismo , chap. xvii.) tells us that St. John the evangelist, having convicted this priest of varying from the truth in this relation, the good man excused himself, saying, he did it purely out of love to St. Paul. The Mar cio nites and Manichæans, because they were sensible that this book too plainly condemned their errors, rejected it out of the Canon of Scripture. (Tertull. contra Marcion , lib. 5.) There were several spurious Acts of The Apostles ; particularly, I. The Acts of the Apostles, supposed to be written by Abdias, the pretended bishop of Babylon, who gave out, that he was ordained bishop by the apostles themselves, when they were upon their journey into Persia. II. The Acts of St. Peter: this book came originally from the school of the Ebionites. III. The Acts of St. Paul, which is entirely lost. Eusebius, who had seen it, pronounces it of no authority. IV. The Acts of St. John the Evangelist; a book made use of by the Encratites, Manichæans, and Priscillianists. V. The Acts of St. Andrew; received by the Manichæans, Encratites, and Apo tactics. VI. The Acts of St. Thomas the Apostle; received particularly by the Manichæans. VII. The Acts of St. Philip: this book the Gnostics made use of. VIII. The Acts of St. Matthias. Some have imagined that the Jews for a long time had concealed the original Acts of the Life and Death of St. Matthias, written in Hebrew; and that a monk of the abbey of St. Matthias at Treves, having got them out of their hands, procured them to be translated into Latin, and published them. But the critics will not allow them to be genuine and authentic.— Cotelerius. Fabric i us Apocr. N. T. Tillemont, Hist. Eccles.