Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
The resemblance of P. Got. 21 to the letter sent by Jesus to Abgar had already occurred to me when I saw Bell's review of Frisk's publication. Bell there expresses the opinion that “the text looks like a version of the ‘Letter to Abgar.’” It is in reality nothing else.
1 Classical Review, XLIII, 6, p. 237.
2 Frisk, Hjalmar, Papyrus grecs de la Bibliothèque Municipale de Gothembourg, Göteborg, 1929.Google Scholar
3 Ghedini, , Lettere Cristiane, Milan, 1923, pp. 12 f.Google Scholar
4 Lipsius, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, pars prior, p. 274, 1. 3. Since the so-called Christian form of the praescriptio was early current among non-christians when the writer was of rank inferior to that of the person whom he was addressing (Ghedini, loc. cit.), the form of the praescriptio in Acta Thaddaei is not necessarily Christian.
5 Lipsius, p. 281,1. 17.
6 Schwartz-Mommsen, Eusebius Werke, II. 1, p. 88 (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, Leipzig, 1903).
7 In Acta Thaddaei the message is transmitted by word of mouth and hence is considerably abbreviated.
8 Matt. 5, 14. References to patristic literature for the use of ϕῶς to describe the body of Christians are to be found in Suicer, Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, which I have not been able to consult. A convenient list of the Christian significations of the word is in Stephanus, Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, VIII, p. 1202.
9 Jannaris, Historical Greek Grammar, App. V, 20 B; Moulton, Grammar of New Testament Greek: Prolegomena, p. 240.
10 Dobschütz, E. von, Christusbilder, p. 203* ff. (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 1899).Google Scholar
11 E. von Dobschütz, p. 206*, 1. 131.
12 E. von Dobschütz, pp. 124, 179; Hennecke, , Handbuch zu den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, Tübingen, 1904, p. 161.Google Scholar