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was a follower of Marcion, who lived in the second century, "and had the same peculiar doctrines which are ascribed to "Lucianus, who was a companion of Marcion, and therefore "that he probably was the very same person as Lucianus, who "was most certainly a remarkable interpolator of the canonical Gospels, and a forger of apocryphal Gospels y."

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This conjecture, I confess, shews not only much learning and ingenious criticism, but at first view seems very probable; but upon a strict inquiry will, I believe, appear to be groundless: for,

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1. Leucius, of whom I am writing, the author of these apocryphal Acts now under consideration, was a Manichee; so he is expressly called by St. Austin and pope Gelasius, “and his spurious writings contained the peculiar favourite doctrines z "of the Manichees :" now it is a matter well known, that the Manichees were not in being till the time of Aurelius Probus, or Dioclesian, i. e. not till the latter end of the third century; wherefore it is evident, either that the Montanists were mistaken in saying Leucius was a favourite of their sect, which are indeed the words of Pacianus, (Phryges animatos se a Leucio mentiri,) or else the Leucius there mentioned must be a different person from him of that name, of whom we are speaking; or else, which perhaps may be the truth of the case, the word animatos means the reviving or encouraging their principles, and not, as Dr. Mill thinks, the first spreading of them. Whichever it be, it is plain, Leucius did not live before the latter end of the third, or beginning of the fourth century after Christ; and consequently, that Leucius and Lucianus were really different persons, who lived at above an hundred years distance from each other.

2. Whereas Dr. Mill says, Leucius was the follower of Marcion as well as Lucianus, and therefore probably the same person, living in the second century, and for this cites Photius, Cod. 114. "This, I aver, is utterly false,” there being no such thing said in that place of Photius, nor the name of Marcion so much as mentioned there. But that learned doctor seems

* Prolegom. in Nov. Test. §. 334.
y Vid. loc. plur. in hoc capite citata.
z Phot. Bibl. Cod. 114.

a

Cyril of Jerusalem says, the Manichees arose seventy years before him, p. 141.

to have been led into this mistake for want of consulting Photius himself, and by misunderstanding the following words of Dr. Grabe b. Leucius, Marcionis successor, Secul. II. cujus actus summatim perstrinxit Photius, Cod. 114. The reason of my mentioning this is, to give the reader a specimen of Dr. Mill's negligence in citations, which is but too visible in other parts of his famous work on the New Testament: as for instance, I remember, somewhere he collects a various reading from the Syriac version, whereas that most perfectly agrees in that place with our present Greek: but the doctor, either not understanding the Syriac language, or not consulting it, made only use of the Latin translation of the Syriac, which indeed is in that place faulty, and not only different from the Greek, but its original, viz. Syriac.

3. As to the agreement of the sentiments of Leucius and Lucianus, which the doctor urges to prove them to have been the same persons, it is easily answered, that Leucius adopted into his scheme the principles of most of the former heretics, as I have above shewed out of Photius, and will appear more fully hereafter; and therefore nothing can be concluded hence to prove Leucius to have been the same with Lucianus, or to have lived in the second century.

Leucius therefore living in the fourth century, we are from the writers of that later age to take all our accounts of him; and indeed we do not find his name in any one before Austin, Jerome, and Philastrius, who all lived towards the latter end of that age. He seems to me to have been the father of those heretics, who are called by St. Austin Seleuciani, from his name Seleucus, (which I above proved to be the same name with Leucius,) who were also called Hermiani. They held, that the world was not made by God, but co-eternal with him; that God did not make men's souls, but angels, out of fire and air; that Christ does not sit at the right hand of the Father in a human body, but that he lodged his body in the sun according to that, Psalm xix. 4. He hath set his tabernacle in the sun. They deny any future resurrection, and place it only in the daily procreation of children. These seem to have been the followers of this heretic, and these his principles, Spicileg. Patr. tom. 1. p. 78. De Hæres. Num. 59. T. Opp. 6.

if he may be said to have had any, who received those of all

sects.

As to these Acts, published by Leucius, there needs little more to be said to prove them spurious. They are asserted to be so by all who mention them, and rejected as monstrous and impious forgeries: apocryphal therefore by Prop. IV. V. and VI. I add also by Prop. VIII. and IX. as containing things false and fabulous, trifles contrary to truth; such are those stories of Maximilla and Iphidamia, in the fragment produced out of St. Austin; such especially is that in the same fragment, of God's appearing in the form of a little boy, and feigning the voice of a woman: such, lastly, is that mentioned by Philastrius, that the souls of men were like the souls of dogs and beasts. Thus much may be sufficient concerning these apocryphal Acts; of which I should now add no more, if I did not think it would be as entertaining to my readers, as myself, to transcribe the judgment of Photius concerning them, who, though a writer of the ninth century, well deserves regarding, not only because he had read the book, but that his judgment is always valuable. After he had said he perused these Acts, and that they appeared to be wrote by Leucius Charinus, he adds, (Cod. 114.) Ἡ δὲ φράσις εἰς τὸ παντελὲς ἀνώμαλός τε καὶ παρηλλαγμένη. Καὶ συντάξεσι γὰρ καὶ λέξεσι κέχρηται ἐνίοτε μὲν οὐκ ἠμελημέναις, κατὰ δὲ τὸ πλεῖστον ἀγοραίοις καὶ πεπατημέναις. Καὶ οὐδὲν τῆς ὁμα λῆς καὶ αὐτοσχεδίου φράσεως, καὶ τῆς ἐκεῖθεν ἐμφύτου χάριτος, καθ' ἣν ὁ εὐαγγελικός τε καὶ ἀποστολικὸς διαμεμόρφωται λόγος, οὐδ ̓ ἴχ

νος ἐμφαίνων. Γέμει δὲ καὶ μω

ρίας πολλῆς, καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἑαυτὴν μάχης καὶ ἐναντιώσεως. Φησὶ γὰρ

ἄλλον εἶναι τὸν τῶν Ἰουδαίων θεὸν, καὶ κακόν, οὗ καὶ Σίμωνα τὸν Μάγον ὑπηρέτην καθεστάναι, ἄλλον δὲ τὸν Χριστὸν, ὅν φησιν ἀγα

The style of it is irregular and inconsistent. He uses phrases and words sometimes, which are not mean, but for the most part such as are bald and common. There is not in it the least sign of an even free style, or of that beauty that attends such a natural style, in which the writings of the evan

gelists and apostles are composed.

It abounds with many foolish and

silly contradictions. For he says,

that the God of the Jews, whose

minister Simon Magus was, was a

bad God, and that Christ was a different God from him, and a good God: and then again perverting and confounding every

θόν· καὶ φυρῶν ἅπαντα καὶ συγχέων, καλεῖ αὐτὸν καὶ πατέρα καὶ υἱόν· λέγει δὲ, μήδ' ἐνανθρωπήσαι ἀληθῶς, ἀλλὰ δόξαι· καὶ πολλὰ πολλάκις φανῆναι τοῖς μαθηταῖς, νέον, καὶ πρεσβύτην πάλιν, καὶ πάλιν παῖδας, καὶ μείζονα, καὶ ἐλάττονα, καὶ μέγιστον, ὥς τε τὴν κορυφὴν διήκειν, ἔσθ' ὅτε μέχρις

οὐρανοῦ. Πολλὰς δὲ καὶ περὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ κενολογίας καὶ ἀτοπίας ἀναπλάττει, καὶ τὸν Χριστὸν μὴ σταυρωθῆναι, ἀλλ ̓ ἕτερον ἀντ ̓ αὐτοῦ, καὶ καταγελᾶν διὰ τοῦτο τῶν σταυρούντων. Γάμους δὲ νομίμους ἀθετεῖ, καὶ πᾶσαν γένεσιν πονηράν τε καὶ τοῦ πονηροῦ λέγει. καὶ πλάστην τῶν δαιμόνων ἄλλον ἐκ κληροῖ· νεκρῶν δὲ ἀνθρώπων καὶ βοῶν καὶ κτηνῶν παραλογωτάτας καὶ μειρακιώδεις τερατεύεται ἀναστάσεις. δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ κατ ̓ εἰκόνων τοῖς εἰκονομάχοις ἐν ταῖς Ἰωάννου πράξεσι δογματίζειν· καὶ ἁπλῶς αὕτη ἡ βίβλος μυρία παιδαριώδη καὶ ἀπίθανα καὶ κακόπλαστα καὶ

ψευδῆ καὶ μωρὰ καὶ ἄλλοις μαχόμενα, καὶ ἀσεβῆ καὶ ἄθεα περίεχει. ἣν εἰπών τις πάσης αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ μητέρα, οὐκ ἂν ἀποσφαλείη τοῦ εἰκότος.

e Dr. Mill supposes a fragment of these Acts extant in a manuscript in the Bodleian, Cod. Barocc. n. 180. fol. III. For in that, Christ is said sometimes to have appeared in the form of a boy.

f This passage inclines me to conjecture, that these books were interpo

thing, he calls the Father and the Son one and the same: but he

adds, that Christ was not really a man, but only appeared to be so, and that he appeared often in various shapes to his disciples, sometimes as a young man, sometimes again as an old man, and sometimes as a child; sometimes larger,

sometimes less ; sometimes so tall, as

that his head would reach up to the heavens. Besides, he has invented many idle and ridiculous stories about the cross; and that Christ was not crucified himself, but another in his stead, for which he laughed at the crucifiers. He denies the use of lawful marriages, and makes all generation to be evil, and from the Devil. He supposes another creator of the devils. He held a most prodigiously absurd sort of resurrection, both of men and oxen, and all cattle. He seems also in the Acts of John with the [Iconomachi] enemies of images, to dispute against the use of them f. In a word, that

book contains ten thousand childish, incredible, ill-designing, lying, foolish, contradictions, profane and impious stories ; so that one may not unjustly say, he was the source and author of every heresy.

lated, seeing in the time of Leucius, the controversy about images was unknown, it not arising until the eighth century. But perhaps Photius, living in the time when this dispute was hot, might imagine more than Leucius intended. He only says, Δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ κατ' εἰκόνων, &c.

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Besides the above-cited places of the fathers, where these Acts are expressly mentioned, they seem to be referred to in that passage of Epiphanius above produced, No. XXV. where speaking of the Ebionites, he says, "among other apo"stles' names they counterfeited the names of Matthew, James, "and also John; as also in that of St. Austin in his dispute against the anonymous author (whether Marcionite or Manichee, or both, is not certain) whom he calls, "the enemy of the "law and the prophets:" in that book, against which he writes, he says, the author g De apocryphis posuit testimonia, quæ sub nominibus apostolorum Andreæ Joannisque conscripta sunt; quæ si illorum essent, recepta essent ab ecclesia, quæ ab illorum temporibus per episcoporum successiones certissimas, usque ad nostra et deinceps tempora perseverat.

Made citations out of the apocryphal books under the names of the apostles Andrew and John; which, if they were really theirs, would have been received by the church, which has continued under an uninterrupted succession of bishops, from their time to ours, &c.

There can scarce be any reason to doubt, but these were the same Acts which were composed by Leucius, if we consider what is above said, as also that they are the same mentioned in the Decree of pope Innocent I. h Cætera autem, quæ sub nomine Petri et Joannis, quæ a quodam Leucio scripta sunt, vel sub nomine Andreæ, quæ a Nexocharide et Leonide philosophis; non solum repudianda, verum etiam noveris esse damnanda.

But the other books under the name of Peter and John, which were written by one Leucius, or under the name of Andrew, which were written by Nexocharides and Leonides philosophers; know, that they are not only to be rejected, but condemned.

I confess, in this Decree the books of Andrew, and those of Peter and John, are made different, as wrote by different authors, viz. the latter by Leucius, and the former by Leonides and Nexocharides: but nothing is more probable than the conjecture of Mr. Fabritius, "that Innocent was mistaken in these names, and that they were no other than the name of Leu"cius Charinus corruptly written." It seems to me to be ac8 Contr. Advers. Leg. et Proph. lib.1. cap. 20. T. Opp. 6.

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h Epist. ad Exuper. 3. c. 7.

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