Testament of Our Lord in Galilee

Known under this title from the earliest edited version (Ethiopic, in which it is combined with other writings), the Epistula Apostolorum is also known in Coptic, on which the best edition is based, and in a Latin fragment. In the form of a circular letter from the eleven apostles to the universal church, it deals with such supernatural questions as the Incarnation and Ascension, somewhat mythologically, but in an explicitly anti- Gnostic way, emphasizing the true flesh of Christ. First dated in the sixties of the second century and ascribed to Asia Minor, it has more recently been linked with Egypt in the early second century. Its antecedents are to be seen in Jewish Christianity, and the Dead Sea Scrolls* may cast some light on it.