Acts of Andrew

The Acts of Andrew in the surviving version is probably a 3rd century work, according to Jean-Marc Prieur in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (vol. 1, p. 246), but it shows signs of a mid-2nd century origin: "The distinctive christology of the text, its silence concerning the historical and biblical Jesus, and its distance from later institutional organization and ecclesiastical rites militate for an early dating. Moreover, its serene tone and unawareness of any polemic against some of its ideas as heterodox, particularly in the area of christology, show that it derived from a period when the christology of the Great Church had not yet taken firm shape." (Prieur).

Eusebius of Caesarea knew the work, which he dismissed as the production of a heretic and absurd. The Acts of Andrew is often classed as a gnostic work, but Geoff Trowbridge asserts that " The importance of martyrdom is stressed throughout, which is not in line with Gnostic philosophy." (Trowbridge link)

There is an early fragment in Coptic, but the Acts have been edited from Greek and Latin manuscripts of the 12th century.

External links

• Early Christian Writings: Acts of Andrew
• Geoff Trowbridge, The "Whole" Bible