The incidents of the dog and of the child are from the Acts of Peter (only there the child is seven months old): but the lion and the dumb people (or mules) are not; and it seems that the lion is certainly from the Acts of Paul.[1] Perhaps it was the Ephesian lion. In the Ethiopic life of Paul we do find a talking lion.
Lastly, in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (finished in 1156) is this passage which, whatever its source, preserves a record of an apocryphal speech of Paul.
iv. 9. He has told the stories of the self-sacrifice of Codrus and Lycurgus, which he gets from the historian Justin. Then he continues:
I make use of these examples the more readily because I find that the apostle Paul when preaching to the Athenians made use of them also. That excellent preacher strove so to impress on their minds Jesus Christ and him crucified, that he might show by the example of heathens how the release of many came about through the shame of the cross. And this, he argued, could not happen save by the blood of the just, and of those who bore rule over the people. Further, no one could be found capable of freeing all, both Jews and Gentiles, save he unto whom the heathen are given for an inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth assigned for his possession. And such a one he said could be no other than the Son of God Almighty, since no one but God has subjected to himself all nations and lands. As, then, he proclaimed the shame of the cross in such a way as gradually to purge away the foolishness of the heathen, little by little he raised the word of faith and the language of his preaching, up to the Word of God, the wisdom of God, and the very throne of the divine majesty: and, lest the power of the gospel should seem mean in the weakness of the flesh by dint of the slanders of Jews and the folly of heathens, he set forth the works of the crucified, which were confirmed by the witness of common report; since it was plain to all that none but God could do such things. But as report eften falsifies, in both directions, report was assisted by the fact that Christ’s disciples did even greater works, seeing that by the shadow of a disciple (Peter) the sick were healed of every kind of disease. What more? The ingenuities of an Aristotle, the subtleties of a Chrysippus, the gins of all the philosophers were defeated by the rising of one who had been dead. (This last sentence is borrowed from Jerome (Ep. (to Pammachius) 57 or 34.)[2]
- ↑ Jerome, quoting Tertullian, but adding some details to what he says (the source of them is doubtful), speaks of ‘that whole fable about the baptized lion’. It reminds us of Commodian’s words: but Jerome is a bad witness about apocryphal books, which he despises and reviles.
- ↑ preached, in order that many might speak (or learn) of him, God made a lion’, &c. The miracle was done in order to attract the attention of ‘many’ hearers.
