"The distinctive christology of the text" and its lack of mention of church organisation, liturgy, and ecclesiastical rites, lead one to "militate for an early dating".
James,[6] Matthias is portrayed as a captive in a country of anthropophagi (literally 'man-eaters', i.e. cannibals) and is rescued by Andrew and Jesus; it is no longer considered to be a portion of the text of Acta Andreae.
For example, aside from the usual miracles of raising the dead, healing the blind, and so forth, he survives being placed amongst fierce animals, calms storms, and defeats armies simply by crossing himself.
[7] Gregory of Tours was delighted to find a copy and wrote a drastically reduced recension of it about 593,[8] leaving out the parts for "which, because of its excessive verbosity, [it] was called by some apocryphal", for which he felt it had been condemned.
His free version expunges the detail that the apostle's ascetic preaching induced the proconsul's wife to leave her husband—socially and morally unacceptable to a Merovingian audience—[9] brings the narrative into conformity with catholic orthodoxy of his time, then adds new material.