It is clear that the Acta Pilati in their present form are largely dependent on the canonical Gospels, and that many of the additions are fabri- cations put forward for apologetic reasons. The aim of the writer is to furnish convincing proof of the truths of Christianity ; wliat could better serve his purpose than to show Pilate on the side of Christ, and to narrate incidents touching Christ's resurrection which not even His enemies could challenge? Heathen asjiersions on the birth of •Tisus are al.so disposed of by evidence given at Mis trial.
riie second part of the Gospel— T/ip Descent info ll.iiJiw — represents in .a developed form the tra- dition, early and widely accepted, which was ba.sed on 1 P 3'' (' He went and preached unto the spirits in prison '). Earlier traces of the same tradition are found in the Go.iprl nf Prfrr (' And they heard
a voice from heaven, s.i them that sleep? Ai the Cro.ss, Yea'), ami The Gospel of A, Vincent de Beanvais by .Jacobus de Voi.i and through these \m influence.
m preached to IS hcaril from
'.kfTnY by
,,/ 1/. '/■".« and ,' . I'lcnda, I l.ii-iL-aching
GOSPELS (APOCRYPHAL)
GOVERNOR
685
LiTERATDRE.— Tischendorf, Emiiij. Apuci PUatusttkleii, Aii'iti: Ajiast<l;irsrlurlil,^n ; Cmnpiifiitl'nl itr.^ I'S. - /;<//■. k r,i ihl<'/i lliilj
Altehr. IJtI. i. -Jl It:. CIn.m. I. r,n:;il\ ; ^,m f. NT
Moniiusen. /. ' d. altehr. Lilt Handb. 14311.
Heniiccke, NT Ap:.
C. (6) 2. The Legend of Abgar. — In Eusebius (HE i. 13. 6tt'.) we tind letter.s purporting to have passed between Abgar v. king of Ede.ssa, and Jesus. Eusebius states that the letters were preserved in the royal archives, and gives a literal translation of them from the Syriae. Abgar, who was suffer- ing from an incurable disease, having heard of Christ's wonderful power of healing, wrote, en- treating Christ to come and cure him, and offering Him a re.sidence in Edi >sa, when' He would be safe from the malice ni ili'' -lew-.. Jesus replied that He must accoinpli-li Hi- mi — inn and ascend to Him who had sent Him, l>ut tliat after His ascension He would send one of His disciples, who would cure the king and bring life to him and all who were with him. Then follows an account, also translated from the Syriac, of the fullilment of Christ's promise in the sending by the Apostle Thomas of Thaddseus, one of the Seventy, to
The legendary character of the correspondence is beyond all doubt, although its genuineness was accepted by Eusebius, and has been defended by several scholars, among them Cureton and Phillips in England (see Phillips, Adclai the Apostle, ixff). It had its origin some time after the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {c. 170), owing to a desire to have an Apostolic foundation for the Church. The date of it is probably the second half of the 3rd century.
The correspondence and the narrative of Addai's mission found a place, with many additions, in the Syriac Teaching of Added, which dates from about 400. The legend had a wide influence, and found credence in all sections of the Church, not- withstanding the doubts expressed regarding it in the Gelasian Decree ; a Greek recension of it — the Acts of ThaddiEus — contains in addition the story of the portrait of Jesus miraculously stamped on a napkin. See also art. Abgar.
The legendary letter of Clnist was in widespread favour as a talisman to gu.-iril against dangers of all kinds. For this purpose it -was placed at the city gate of Edessa and at tlie doors of private
Up to quite recent times copies of the letter were to be found framed in the houses of the peasantry in England (see Donehoo, Apocryphal and Legendary Life of Christ, 223).
LiTEKATUBE.— Lipsius, Die edessenische Abgarsage, 1880, Dip,
- '' . Apostelgeschichten, ii. 2. 178 £f. ; Zahn, Forschungen,
fl., NT Kan. i. 369 ff. ; Tixiront. Les origines de Viglise
d'Edesse, 1888; Harnaok, AlUhi. ^.„o. ,. .,„„.,., .i.ugc., AUchr. Litt. 228 f.; Phillips, Doctrine of Addai the Apostk, 1876 ; Stulcken in Hennecke, NT Apokr. 76 11., Handb. 153 11.
D. Gospel of Tatian.— The Gospel of Tatian, better known as the Diatc.'isaron,* was a Harmony of the four Gospels, in all likelihood written origin- ally in Syriac for the use of the Church at Edessa. The author of the Harmony was a disciple of Justin Martyr in Rome ; but, being condenmed for hereti- cal views, he returned to his native land in the valley of the Euphrates about the year 172. Be- tween that date and the close of the 2nd cent. his ' patchwork Gospel ' was written, in which, using the chronological scheme of the Fourth
* Diatessaron (Sii TS(riri/uo>) is variously interpreted. The ex- pression is generally regarded as signifying a compilation in which only the .four Gospels were used ; but as the word was in use as a musical terminus technicus to denote a harmony, Tatian might have employed it as a description of his work, no matter how many Gospels he had drawn upon (Hanilyn Hill, Earliest Life, 21 ; Jiilicher, Einleitung, 391 f.).
( iospel, he wove into a connected narrati\e the four i I ilicrent accounts of our Lord's life. It is doubtful \ hither, before the appearance of the Diatessaron, III' four Gospels circulated separately in the Syrian I 'liuri-li : but Imwever that may be, it was clearly Taliuiis iiitrnliiiii 111 iiroviilc ;i ( iospel for popular use wliirh >liiiMM ,,l.\i;ilc llir disadvantages of having llii' ii.iii.itiM' III (_lni>t.s life in difl'erent forms.' Till' , uiliiiir ;j,,rs to show that tile Z^OT- tcssaron. \\A- iii uinrial u^^e in the Syrian Church up to the lii-iiiiiuij III till' :3tli cent. In the Teach- ing of Add, n [,'. tiiii) HI' lead that 'a large multi- tude of people asseiiililed day by day and came to the prayer of the service, and to the reading of the Old and New Testament, of the Diatessaron,' etc. (PhUlips, Addai the Apostle, 34). In the middle of the 4th cent. Ephraem used the Diatessaron as the basis of his famous commentary on the Gospels. But from the 5th cent, onwards Tatian's Gospel was displaced from ijublic worship by the new translation of the separate Gospels made under Rabbula, — the Peshitta, the Syriac Vulgate, — although, largely owing to the commentary of Ephraem, it continued to be read and to exert an influence for many centuries later.