Heresy VI, Of the Acts of the Apostles

OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES — Heresy VI (De Actis Apostolorum haeresis VI)

Not to receive the Acts of the Apostles.

This heresy Eusebius, in the fourth book of the Ecclesiastical History, attributes — out of the opinion of Irenaeus — to Tatian and to Severus, from whom the Severian heretics were named. ¹ Philaster likewise, in his Catalogue, ascribes it to Cerinthus. ² Augustine, in the book On the Utility of Believing, to Honoratus, assigns the same heresy to the Manichaeans, ³ who for this reason would not accept this book: because its author wrote that the Spirit, the Paraclete, promised by Christ, came on the day of Pentecost — long before the times of Manichaeus, whom they believed to have been that Paraclete Spirit promised by Christ. “But since that book” (says Augustine) “has in itself so many things similar to those which the Manichaeans accept and believe concerning the divine scriptures, it seems to be a mark of great folly that they do not believe and accept this one also.” Jerome, in the Catalogue of Illustrious Men, writes that this book was of old corrupted by a certain Asiatic presbyter, saying thus: “Therefore the periodoi [travels] of Paul and of Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptized lion, added to the book of the acts of the apostles, we reckon among the apocryphal scriptures. But Tertullian also, near to the times of the apostles, relates that a certain presbyter in Asia, a σπουδαστὴν [zealous devotee] of the Apostle Paul, was convicted before John of being the author of the book, and confessed that he had done this for love of Paul.” In the confutation of this error, therefore, no labor need be expended by me: because, since I have found among no writers any reasons on account of which the heretics cast this book away, there is no need that we make them any answer — save that this heresy of theirs is condemned by the long-continued use of the church, by the approbation of all the fathers, and by the authority of all the Councils — especially that of Laodicea, the third of Carthage, and, last of all, that of Trent — in whose catalogues this book is recounted among the other divine scriptures.