The Apocryphal Acts of Andrew

by Anonymous, Jan N. Bremmer (Editor)

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 kind of novel, which has only partially been preserved in Greek, Latin and Coptic. In addition to a thorough discussion of its date and place of origin, the collection of essays discusses many aspects of the Acts of Andrew, such as its interest in magic, martyrdom and the place of the devil, its preoccupation with scatology, and its interest in eroticism. It looks at its relationship with Poimandres, with the pagan novels and with other Christian writings, in particular the Acts of John and the Acts of Andrew and Mathias. Much attention is paid to 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.

200 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Airam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cray cray. Reassuring to know this was deemed unhinged even at the time.
Poor Aegeates, if only he had wound up in a Greek novel rather than in Christian oddball acta, he would have been a typical character, a good husband even. Here he is demonized for not being chaste and for expecting to have sex with his wife, although he actually reveals himself quite the loving and patient husband. He was in the right century, in the wrong literary genre. His wife Maximilla tricks him into having sex with her "promiscuous" servant for months, and when he finds out, the servant of course is mutilated and fed to the dogs, but oh well, Maximilla's chastity is preserved. Some good old Christian values! Andrew himself is willingly crucified so that she can retain her chastity and "quit a foul and polluted way of life". But after Andrew's death she separates from Aegeates and joins a group of Christians. Aegeates kills himself because he cannot live without her.
Here's a thought, Maximilla, if you are going to separate, do it before using your servant as a sexual puppet, deceiving your husband into repeatedly and unknowingly cheating on you, and having your idol killed. Ah, but then Andrew would not have been a martyr!
This is some straight up cult shit.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Acts of Andrew and Mathais in the country of the cannibals is interesting for what is says about the time it was written. In the 8th century A.D, this book is a great read as pure fiction