The Apocryphal Acts of Andrew

The Apocryphal Acts of Andrew is the first modern collection of studies on the most important aspects of the Acts of Andrew, an early Christian novel (of sorts), which has been only partially preserved in Greek, Latin and Coptic. In addition to a thorough discussion of its date and place of origin, this book discusses many aspects of the Acts of Andrew, such as its interest in magic, martyrdom and the devil, its preoccupation with scatology, and its interest in eroticism. It looks at its relationship to Poimandres, with the pagan novels and with other Christian writings, in particular the Acts of John and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias. Much attention is paid to the spiritual climate of the Acts of Andrew and its connections with Platonism and gnosticism. Finally, it analyses the Armenian translation, which is shown to be an important witness to the original text.