not included in this high estimate of the Apostles is
shewn by this fact among others, that the earlier Apocryphal Acts of the
Apostles are much less occupied with his person than with the rest of
the Apostles. The features of the old legends which make the Apostles in
their deeds, their fate, nay even in appearance as far as possible,
equal to the person of Jesus himself deserve special consideration (see,
for example the descent of the Apostles into hell in Herm. Sim. IX. 16),
for it is just here that the fact above established that the activity of
the Apostles was to make up for the want of the activity of Jesus
himself among the nations stands clearly out (See Acta Johannis ed. Zahn
p 246 [Greek: ho eklexamenos hemas eis apostolen ethnon ho ekpempsas
hemas eis ten oikoumenen theos ho deixas heauton dia ton apostolon] also
the remarkable declaration of Origen about the Chronicle of Phlegon
[Hadrian], that what holds good of Christ, is in that Chronicle
transferred to Peter; finally we may recall to mind the visions in which
an Apostle suddenly appears as Christ). Between the judgment of value
[Greek: hemeis tous apostolous apodechometha hos Christon] and those
creations of fancy in which the Apostles appear as gods and demigods
there is certainly a great interval but it can be proved that there are
stages lying between these extreme points. It is therefore permissible
to call to mind here the oldest Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles although
they may have originated almost completely in Gnostic circles (see also
the Pistis Sophia which brings a metaphysical theory to the
establishment of the authority of the Apostles, p. 11, 14; see Texte u
Unters VII. 2 p. 61 ff.). Gnosticism here as frequently elsewhere is
related to common Christianity as excess progressing to the invention of
a myth with a tendency to a historical theorem determined by the effort
to maintain one's own position; cf. the article from the _kerygma_ of
Peter in Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48 [Greek: Exelexamen humas dodeka
mathetas, k.t.l.] the introduction to the basal writing of the first 6
books of the Apostolic Constitutions and the introduction to the
Egyptian ritual, [Greek: kata keleusin tou kuriou humon k.t.l.] Besides
it must be admitted that the origin of the idea of tradition and its
connection with the twelve is obscure; what is historically reliable
here has still to be investigated, even the work of Seufert (Der Urspr.
u. d. Bedeutung des Apostola