The Apocryphal Acts had a remarkable influence in the later history of the church. After the establishment of Christianity under Constantine men turned their eyes to the earlier years of struggle and persecution. A deep interest was awakened in the events of the heroic age of the faith--the age of martyrs and apostles. Acts of martyrs were eagerly read, and in particular the Apocryphal Acts were drawn upon to satisfy the desire for a fuller knowledge of the apostles than was afforded by the canonical books. The heretical teaching with which the apostolic legends were associated in these Acts led to their condemnation by ecclesiastical authority, but the ban of the church was unavailing to eradicate the taste for the vivid colors of apostolic romance. In these circumstances church writers set themselves the task of rewriting the earlier Acts, omitting what was clearly heretical and retaining the miraculous and supernatural elements. And not only so, but the material of the Acts was freely used in the fabrication of lives of other apostles, as we find in the collection of the so-called Abdias in the 6th century. The result was that from the 4th to the 11th century literature of this kind, dealing with the apostles, grew apace and "formed the favorite reading of Christians, from Ireland to the Abyssinian mountains and from Persia to Spain" (Harnack). Apostolic legends were reproduced in religious poems; they appeared in martyrologies and calendars; they formed the subject of homilies on the feast-days of the apostles, and incidents from them were depicted in Christian article New cycles of legends arose in the Syrian and Coptic churches; and the Coptic legends were translated into Arabic and from Arabic into Ethiopic (Gadla Hawaryat--The Contendings of the Apostles). Literature of this kind was the fruitful mother of every kind of superstition. "Whole generations of Christians (as Harnack says), yes, whole Christian nations were intellectually blinded by the dazzling appearance of these tales. They lost the eye not only for the true light of history but also for the light of truth itself" (Gesch. der altchr. Lit., I, xxvi). It is noteworthy that the apocryphal correspondence with the Corinthians in the Acts of Paul was received as canonical in the Syrian and Armenian churches.
LITERATURE.
The Apocryphal Acts form the subject of a voluminous literature. The earlier editions of the available texts by Fabricius (1703) and Tischendorf (1851) have been completely superseded by Lipsius-Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (1891-1903), which contains texts not only of the earlier but also of many of the later Acts. Translations of earlier Acts with valuable introductions are to be found in Hennecke, New Testament Apokryphen (1904), while critical discussions and elucidation of the text are given in Hennecke, Handbuch zu den New Testament Apokryphen (1904). These two works are indispensable to the student. English translations of earlier Acts with short introductions in Pick, Apocryphal Acts (1909). The critical work of Lipsius on these Acts was epoch-making: Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden (1883-90). Full lists of literature may be found in Hennecke and Pick. The following may be mentioned here: Zahn, Geschichte des New Testament Kanons, II, 832 ff (1892); Forschungen zur Gesch. des New Testament Kanons, VI, 14 if, 194 ff (1900); Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, I, 116 ff (1893); II, 493 ff, 541 ff (1897); James, Apocrypha Anecdota (Texts and Studies, V, 1, 1897); Ehrhard, Die altchristliche Litteratur u. i. Erforsch. (1900); C. Schmidt, "Die Alten Petrusakten" (T U, IX, 1, 1903). Useful as setting forth the religious significance of the Acts are Pfleiderer, Primitive Christianity, III, 170 ff (translation 1910); Liechtenhahn, Die Offenbarung im Gnosticismus (1901). The chapter in Salmon's Introduction to the New Testament (325 ff) may be consulted. A short account of the Acts written with full knowledge is given in Geffcken, Christliche Apokryphen (Religionssgeschichtliche Volksbucher, 1908).