L'Histoire Apostolique d'Abdias premier Evesque de Babylon

L’Histoire Apostolique d’Abdias, premier evesque de Babylon
Institué par les Apostres, tournée d’Hebrieu en Grec par Eutrope, puis en Latin par Jule Africain aussi Evesques, & nouvellement traduitte en nostre vulgaire.

À Paris, Chez Guillaume Guillard, & la veuve Amory. 1564

Duodecimo (117x111mm) - Limp vellum binding with flaps, flat spine, untitled. (8) ll., (144) ll. Strange blank endpapers at the beginning and end with traces of printing from another work, suggesting printer's scraps. The border of the endpapers appears different from the border of the book; it does not show the same signs of aging, suggesting a post-printing assembly.

Book consisting of 10 apocryphal acts from the New Testament, very popular throughout medieval Europe, part of a collection entitled Virtutes Apostolorum (Apostolic History). These texts recount the works, miracles, persecutions, and deaths of the apostles.

Called Pseudo-Abdias, these acts were attributed to Obadiah in 1552 by the editor Wolfgang Lazius. Abdias was one of the 72 disciples of Jesus, consecrated the first bishop of Babylon by Saints Simon and Jude. 

It was Wolfgang Lazius who gave these ten texts the title "Abdiae Babyloniae episcopi et apostolorum discipuli de historia certaminis apostolici libri decem" in 1552.
On the title page, he presents the book as a Latin translation written by Julius Africanus, based on Eutropius's Greek version of Obadiah's Hebrew text.

Abdias of Babylon is not to be confused with Abdias, a prophet of the Old Testament.

This edition comes from parchments found in an ancient monastery in Lower Austria and in a convent of St. Trudbert built during the time of Emperor Phocas in Germany.

All these texts are believed to have separate origins, and their attribution to Obadiah is likely due to a misinterpretation by Wolfgang Lazius in the sixth book of the Passion of Simon and Jude. (1) The editor reinforces this idea of attribution in his preface and in the foreword he attributes to Julius and Eutropius.

Thanks to a study by Guy Philippart in 1977, more than 90 manuscript sources are now identified for the twenty or so texts in the Virtutes Apostolorum.(2) The oldest date from the 8th century and are thought to have been first compiled into a coherent collection in the late 6th or 7th century. (1) Indeed, Abdias's texts contain numerous traces of the literary milieu of the Frankish ecclesiastical world of the late 6th century.(3)

Richard Adelbert Lipsius theorized that this set of apocryphal gospels was compiled during the second half of the 6th century in a Frankish monastery and was certainly revised or censored in line with the Catholic teaching of the time in order to erase the Gnostic origins of the ancient texts. (4)

“The particular interest of the pseudo-Abdias is to inform us about the legends that, in the Frankish world of the 6th century, were current about the apostles, and to have preserved for us, in admittedly very derivative accounts, some of the oldest apocryphal Acts.”
Alfred Vacant and Eugène Mangenot

Here are the 10 texts that make up this Apostolic History:
1 - Passion of Saint Peter
2 - Passion of Saint Paul
3 - Acts of Saint Andrew
4 - Passion of Saint James, brother of Saint John, son of Zebetaeus
5 - Acts of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
6 - Passion of James, brother of the Lord and of Simon and Jude
7 - Passion of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
8 - Passion of Saint Bartholomew
9 - The Miracles of Thomas
10 - Acts of Philip

Condition: The calf of the binding bears the marks of age with dark spots. Traces of waterstaining on the ends of the inner leaves. The interior is in good condition. (see photos)

(1) Burke, Tony, and Brandon W. Hawk. “Apostolic Histories (Virtutes apostolorum).”

(2) Philippart, Guy. Les légendes latines et autres manuscrits hagiographiques. Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental 24-25. Turnhout : Brepols, 1977.

(3) Dictionnaire de théologie catholique
Texte établi par Alfred Vacant et Eugène Mangenot, Letouzey et Ané, 1909 (Tome 1.1 : AARON — APOLLINAIRE, p. 23-24).
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_th%C3%A9ologie_catholique/ABDIAS,_%C3%A9v%C3%AAque_de_Babylone

(4) Lipsius, Richard A. Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden. 2 vol. en 3 parties. Braunschweig, 1883-1890 (voir vol. 1, pp. 117-178).

Bibliographie :
Migne, Jacques-Paul. Dictionnaire des Apocryphes . 2 vol. 1856 p.24

An extremely rare first edition in French; the WorldCat and the USTC list only four copies, one of which is at the BNF. A second edition was printed in Lyon in 1582 by Benoist Rigaud.