Apocryphal Tales recounts and presents various neglected, suppressed, strange or simply bewildering tales relating to the age of early Christianity. In writing these essays, Dimitris Kyrtatas makes frequent use of the so-called apocryphal gospels, acts and revelations. Much of his evidence, however, is taken also from the official body of Christian scripture, from works by the Church Fathers and, above all, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. Yet even when this information is gleaned from official sources, the tales he presents us with tend to be those that have escaped the eye of scholarly attention.
Apocryphal Tales bring us closer to legend and fantasy than to the facts and events usually dealt with by traditional history. Yet this does not necessarily mean that it contain less truth. This book, therefore, provides an extremely enlightening introduction to the history of ideas in the early Christian age, providing a crucial supplement to traditional historical approaches.