The Acts of Andrew and Matthias; The Acts of Peter and Andrew; The Acts of Andrew and Paul

J. K. Elliott

The Acts of Andrew and Matthias among the Cannibals was at one time thought to have belonged to the original Acts of Andrew. This apocryphon survives in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic. Gregory of Tours' epitome of the Acts of Andrew gives a short abstract of it in chs. 1 and 2 , possibly because he found this apocryphon prefixed to his copy of the Acts of Andrew.

Flamion, in his study of all the Andrew traditions, argued on several grounds that it was unlikely that the Acts of Andrew and Matthias belonged to the Acts of Andrew, and that is the view accepted by Prieur, although MacDonald has recently attempted to revive the hypothesis that with the possible exclusion of chs. 11–15 it was part of the original Acts of Andrew. If MacDonald is correct, then this Acts must be of third‐century rather than fifth‐century composition. For MacDonald the Acts of Andrew including the Acts of Andrew and Matthias influenced the opening sequence in The Acts of Thomas, and this influence is also seen in the Martyrium Prius (of Andrew). He also claims that the Acts of Andrew and Matthias influenced the Acts of Philip, the Acts of John by Prochorus, and the Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena.

The Old English poem attributed to Cynewulf is based on this work and it has been edited by, among others, K. R. Brooke, Andreas and the Fates of the Apostles (Oxford, 1961), who is of the opinion that the ultimate source is a Greek text but mediated through Latin (although not the Latin of Blatt's publications). Two Old English prose versions also exist, and these are independent of Andreas and of the Latin and Greek.

MacDonald's translation based on his eclectic text is reproduced below (with minor adaptations).

The Acts of Peter and Andrew is a sequel to the Acts of Andrew and Matthias and seems to be one of the attempts made to complete the Acts of Andrew and Matthias—presumably, on MacDonald's argument, after it had been detached from the rest of the Acts of Andrew. It exists in Greek and Slavonic and, in a different form, in Ethiopic. A summary, based on James, is given below.

Also included below is a summary of another apocryphon belonging to the Andrew cycle, the eighth–ninth century Acts of Andrew and Paul which has survived in Coptic.