The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East

And when Pilate came to the place he prayed in silence, saying, O Lord, destroy not me with the wicked Hebrews, for I should not have laid hands upon thee, but for the nation of lawless Jews, because they provoked sedition against me: but thou knowest that I did it in ignorance. Destroy me not, therefore, for this my sin, nor be mindful of the evil that is in me, O Lord, and in thy servant Procla who standeth with me in this the hour of my death, whom thou taughtest to prophesy that thou must be nailed to the cross. Do not punish her too in my sin, but forgive us, and number us in the portion of thy just ones. And behold, when Pilate had finished his prayer, there came a voice from heaven, saying, All generations and the families of the Gentiles shall call thee blessed, because under thee were fulfilled all these things that were spoken by the prophets concerning me; and thou thyself must appear as my witness at my second coming, when I shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel, and them that have not confessed my name. And the Prefect cut off the head of Pilate, and behold an angel of the Lord received it. And when his wife Procla saw the angel coming and received his head, she also, being filled with joy, forthwith gave up the ghost, and was buried with her husband.

THE END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The worth and spirit of the various apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings may be further gathered from the following works:

B. PICK, "The Extra-canonical Life of Christ" (New York, 1903).
J. E. THOMPSON, "Books which Influenced Our Lord" (Edinburgh,
1891).

H. J. WICKS, "The Doctrine of God in the Jewish Apocrypha" (Lon-
don, 1915).

G. H. Box, "The Ezra Apocalypse" (London, 1912).

W. J. DEANE, "Pseudepigrapha" (Edinburgh, 1891).

The texts themselves, usually with full discussions of them, have been translated into English as follows:

R. H. CHARLES, "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament" (Oxford, 1913), 2 vols.

E. C. BISSELL, "The Apocrypha of the Old Testament" (New
York, 1880).

W. B. STEVENSON, "Wisdom and the Jewish Apocryphal Writings"
(London, 1903).

E. A. W. BUDGE, "Coptic Apocrypha" (London, 1913).

M. D. GIBSON, "Apocrypha Arabica" (London, 1901).

E. A. W. BUDGE, "History of the Blessed Virgin" (London, 1899).
B. H. COOPER, "The Apocryphal Gospels" (London, 7th ed., 1910).
R. A. WESTCOTT, "Gospel of Nicodemus" (London, 1915).