New Testament Apocrypha

Interrelation of Platonic and Jewish-Christian Aspects of the Symbolism of the Cross in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, Church Fathers and Christian Iconography

“…As P. Heldt has noted, "the Armenian version of the sixth or seventh century is the most reliable source for Andrew's speech before his crucifixion, explaining that he and the cross, being of the same nature, are in the process of being unified, and that the cross reveals only partly the secret that it bears." 71 In this way, one may suppose that the Christological conceptions found in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, as it seems, can be interpreted in a way unforseen by their authors, and in an Armenian cultural context the cross of light from the Acts of John was, probably, comprehended as a symbol of the Cyrillian notion of the suffering Logos, which was interrelated with the Armenian tradition of the worship of the cross. As it was noted by W.H.C.…”