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The Epistola Apostolorum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2011

Kirsopp Lake
Affiliation:
Harvard University

Extract

In 1895 there appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Prussian Academy an account of Eine bisher unbekannte altchristliche Schrift in koptischer Sprache, by Carl Schmidt, at that time a scholar of the German Imperial Archaeological Institute in Egypt. Schmidt was helped in further research on this document by Pierre Lacau, the Egyptologist, but a full publication was delayed in the hope of further knowledge. This has come, slowly but satisfactorily from new discoveries and the friendly coöperation of French, English, and German scholars.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1921

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References

1 Sitzungsbericht der phil.-hist. Classe vom 20 Juni, 1895.

2 Wiener Palimpseste, I. Teil. Cod. Palat. Vindobonensis 16, olim Bobbiensis (Sitzungsber. d. k. Akad. d. Wissensch. in. Wien, phil.-hist. Klasse, Band clix, 7 Abteil.), and Hauler, Wiener Studien, 1908, Bd. xxx, pp. 308 ff.

3 Vol. ix, part 3. Le testament en Galilée de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.

4 Owing to the excellence of the international mail, it reached America in the following year.

5 The title is Geapräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung, ein katholischapostolisches Sendschreiben des 2ten Jahrhunderts; but in the body of the book Schmidt always speaks of the document as the Epistola Apostolorum.

6 The only reason for doubting this is that the manuscript appears to be defective.

7 It is unnecessary to point out how closely this resembles Irenaeus.

8 Bousset replied in an article which he had passed for press only a few days before his sudden death on March 15. It is published in the Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, July 1920, with a note of affectionate farewell from the editor, Erwin Preuschen, who has himself since then passed away. Requiescant a laboribus suis, opera enim illorum sequuntur illos.

9 Καὶ ταύτην μαρτυρίαν ϕέρουσιν ἀπὸ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου πάλιν λέγοντες ὄτι ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ ἵνα γένηται ὡς ὁ διδάσκαλος. τί ούν; ϕησί, περιετμήθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς, περιτμήθητι καὶ αὐτός. Χριστὸς κατ ὰ νόμον, ϕησίν, ἐπολιτεύσατο, καὶ αὐτὸς τὰ ἴσα ποίησον. ὅθεν καί τινες ἐκ τούτων ὡς ὑπὸ δηλητηρίων ὑϕαρπαχθέντες πείθονται ταῖς πιθανολογίαις διὰ τὸ τὸν Χριστóν περιτετμῆσθαι. Epiph. xxviii, 5, 1 f. Cf. also Αὐχοῦσι δὲ πάλιν περιτομὴν ἔχοντες … καὶ δῆτα ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὴν σύστασιν ταύτης βούλονται ϕέρειν, ὡς καὶ οἱ περὶ Κήρινθον. ϕασὶ γὰρ καὶ οὗτοι κατὰ τὸν ἐκείνων ληρώδη λόγον, ἀρκετὸν τῷ μαθητῇ εἶναι ὠς ὁ διδάσκαλος. περιετμήθη, ϕησίν, ὁ Χριστός, καὶ σὺ περιτμήθητι. Epiph. xxx. 26, 1 f.

10 Can Papias have been referring to the Epistola when he expressed his famous preference for oral tradition to that which was written?

10a Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1914, pp. 210 ff.

11 The list in KO runs as follows: John, Matthew, Peter, Andrew, Philip, Simon, James, Nathanael, Thomas, Cephas, Bartholomew.

12 See the Note, “Simon, Cephas, Peter,” below, p. 95.

13 Irenaeus says Et Cerinthus autem quidam in Asia … docuit, but Hippolytus, who is otherwise obviously copying Irenaeus, says Κήρινθος δέ τις αὐτὸς Αἰγυπτίων παιδείᾳ ἀσκηθεὶς ἔλεγεν κ. τ. λ. Harvey therefore proposed to emend in Asia to in Aegypto, and treats Cerinthus as an Egyptian.

14 In chapter 4 the Epistola obviously refers to the Gospel of Thomas, or one of the cognate gospels, in the course of the discussion between Jesus and a Rabbi as to the meaning of Alpha and Beta.