Jesus's Words

The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes

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A summary of the Apocriticus

An introduction to the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes cannot be written on the ordinary lines. This is the first time that it has been introduced to English readers, and those who wish to study it in the original Greek will find it very difficult to obtain a copy of the only edition. My own study of this obscure and neglected author has probably been more lengthy than that of any one outside Germany, and it is therefore a great pleasure to share with others the result of it. He is still surrounded with so much uncertainty that it is impossible to offer final conclusions with regard to him, but he is full of an interest which is in many ways unique, and his work not only affords a critical problem which should prove fascinating to many besides myself, but also contains much that is both interesting and novel. The Apocriticus really presents us with two separate works, for the questions of a heathen objector are in each case quoted verbatim before the "answer" is given. As the objections represent an attack on the Scriptures in detail, and undoubtedly reflect the philosophy of Porphyry, the famous Neoplatonist of the third century, the reproduction of them preserves for us a form of anti-Christian literature in a fulness which has no parallel. I have therefore translated them without any abbreviation. The answers have proved too lengthy to give in full, but, rather than offer a mere selection, I have translated the most important parts, and given the rest in the form of a summary.

Such is the chequered history of the work, that the author's name, date, and country have always been a matter of doubt, while the dialogue which he claims to be reproducing in his book has generally been considered a mere literary device. It was rescued from oblivion by its use in a bitter controversy in the ninth century, after which there is no mention of it until the sixteenth, when its use was again controversial. When its genuineness was then called in question, the only Manuscript was found to have disappeared from Venice. Nothing more is heard of the book until 1867, when a Manuscript was found in Epirus, and taken to Athens. It was collated by a young French scholar, who died before it could be published. The destructive criticism of a series of German scholars reduced its importance and checked the study of it. While I was myself talking of another collation, a German scholar sought it at Athens and found that the Manuscript was not in the Library, but in private possession, with the risk of being lost. The only edition is increasingly difficult to obtain, and there is a danger of the Apocriticus again sinking into oblivion. I therefore greatly welcome this opportunity of making it more widely known.

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