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This maximum of date they are compelled to concede, because Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century quotes from the Gnostic Acts of John which indubitably formed part of the Leucian collection.
The controversy between Lipsius and Zahn was conditioned by the fact that they both agreed that the Acts of John quote from the Fourth Gospel. Zahn placed this Gospel earlier in date than Lipsius and was anxious to find in the Acts an early witness to that Gospel, indeed the earliest witness.
It has, however, been strongly contested by Corssen whether the Acts quote from the Gospel; and as far as I can myself see from the passages adduced, there does not seem to be absolute evidence of any direct quotation. There is indubitably a close similarity of diction, as is so often the case in similar problems concerning nearly contemporary documents; but the problem is more easily satisfied by considering the writers as belonging to the same circle, than by seeking to prove direct literary plagiarism.
However this may be, we are not to suppose that Leucius invented the Acts; he collected and adapted and wrote up the material. If he had invented all of it, he would have been a genius of no mean order.
Leucius has a style of his own, and he also moved in a certain sweet atmosphere that is characteristic of the best in the Johannine tradition--the tradition of love, and intimacy, and simplicity; very different, for instance, from the more formal Pauline atmosphere.
The Acts of John are indubitably Leucian, and judging by literary style so are the Acts of Peter. As to the rest of the Acts of the original Leucian collection, there is at present no certainty, and those assigned to Leucius by later writers must be put on one side as far as their present remains are concerned.
It has been surmised by James that as Luke (Loukas) wrote the Orthodox Acts, the writer who wrote the Gnostic Acts called himself Leucius (Leukios) to suggest he was one and the same person; but this I consider highly improbable. The Gnostics are in general inventors and not copyists.
It is also of interest to note that Zahn considers that the account of the genesis of the Fourth Gospel given by the writer of the Muratorian Fragment ( c. 170 A.D.) was taken from the Leucian Acts. This Gospel is there said to have been written by a certain John, who was "of the Disciples." His "fellow-disciples and bishops" had apparently urged him to write a Gospel, but John hesitated to accept the responsibility, and proposed that they should all fast together for three days, and tell one another if anything was revealed to them. On the same night it is revealed to Andrew, who is "of the Apostles," that while all revised John should write down all things in his own name.
If this information is taken from the Leucian Acts, it follows of course that their writer was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel. If we take this as certain--though from the adduced parallel phrases alone I cannot myself be quite certain--then the question arises how could Leucius have put into the mouth of John doctrines which are opposed to the teaching of the Gospel? To this question James gives the following answer:
"His notion is that St. John wrote for the multitude certain comparatively plain and easy episodes in the life of the Lord: but that to the inner circle of the faithful his teaching was widely different. In the Gospel and Epistles we have his exoteric teaching: in the Acts his esoteric."
This of course exactly reverses the relation that Corssen supposes to have existed between the Acts and Gospel; namely that the author of the Acts did not know the Gospel at all.
It is of course the general Gnostic position that all true scripture had an under-meaning. The gospel-narratives were written for the people, but at the same time in such a fashion as to set forth allegorically the mysteries.
If, then, any propaganda of these hidden mysteries was to be attempted in a less veiled form, it follows that a more spiritual standpoint had to be insisted on; and the popular narrative which was generally taken in a physical and material sense, was replaced by a more plastic and suggestive setting and exposition.
But--we may ask, at any rate in the case of the Fourth Gospel--was it the Gospel-narrative that was prior in date, and the Gnostic rewriting of Gospel-incidents subsequent; or was it that the Gnostic ideas existed prior to the writing of the Gospel, and the matter incorporated into the Gnostic Acts derived directly from the same body of ideas that inspired the Gospel?
As it now proved beyond all question that the Gnosis was pre-Christian, and that in what is generally called Gnosticism we are dealing with a Christianized
Gnosis which demonstrably existed in the time of Paul, and which Paul found already existing in the Churches, we must conclude that there is nothing inherently improbable in the latter alternative.
Moreover, the Gnosticism of the Acts of John is general and simple and cannot be assigned to this or that particular school of the Christian Gnosis.
The marvellous and beautiful Hymn, which is the subject of this small volume, is found in what are without doubt the Leucian Acts of John. That, however, Leucius himself composed the Hymn is by no means to be taken for granted. Leucius was a collector and redactor--he used sources; and I have myself no doubt that the Hymn existed in Gnostic circles prior to the composition of the Acts --indeed, that it was a most precious document.
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