Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud Anthropophagos

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Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud Anthropophagos ("The Acts of Andrew and Matthias among the Anthropophagi") which exists in several Latin manuscript traditions, is the dramatic romance featuring the Apostles Andrew and Matthias[1] among the cannibals, a thriller featuring gory details that was written for a Christian audience in the second century CE. Constantin von Tischendorf[2] published an edited text following Johann Karl Thilo, 1846.[3]

Acta Andreae et Matthiae in urbe anthropophagarum, according to Richard Adelbert Lipsius, belonged to the middle of the second century. This apocryphal text relates that Matthias went among the cannibals and, being cast into prison, was delivered by Andrew. The narrative is a Romance with no historical value. Heinz Hofmann classes it "secondary apocrypha", that is, one derived from apocryphal sources;[4] the ghoulish man-eaters remind Hofmann of the killing of Socrates by the witch Meroë in Apuleius' Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass Among the Latin texts of the Acta Andreae et Mattiae, F. Blatt[5] notes how the mss in Codex Casanatensis particularly expands upon the horror to describe the instruments and vessels the cannibals use for the slaughter.

  1. ^ Matthias was the pseudepigraphical author of a lost Gospel of Matthias that Clement of Alexandria knew.
  2. ^ Acta apostolorum apocrypha, Leipzig, 1851.
  3. ^ Thilo, "Acta SS. apostolorum Andreae et Matthiae et commentatio de corundem origine quaestiones novas et litterarias in annum 1847
  4. ^ Heinz Hofmann, Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context 1999:162
  5. ^ Blatt, ed. Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen der Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud Anthropophagos. (Giessen) 1930