Pinakes | Πίνακες

Résumé :

This article presents the first critical edition, together with its English translation and introduction, of a post-Byzantine metaphrasis of the first two acts of the Greek Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (=ATh). This metaphrasis is based on the version BHG 1831d, which has also been recently published, and is preserved in two 16th – 17th century manuscripts (London, British Library, Add. 34554; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, gr. 24). In the first codex, f. 32 was added in the middle of the text with a fragment from a homily attributed to Patriarch Christopher of Alexandria which mentions a snake that gives a pearl to a man every day. This scene may have reminded the individual who inserted the folium here of the original and primitive ATh, more specifically the section of the Hymn of the Pearl, preserved just in one manuscript. Keywords: Acts of Thomas, Metaphrasis, Post-byzantine literature, Apocryphal Acts, Hagiography