my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased"; the Holy Spirit being present in the form of a white dove.22

CHAPTER LV

This is He whom we suppliantly adore, who gave to us being and life, and took us from our mothers' wombs; who, for our sake, took upon him a human body and redeemed us, that eternal mercy might embrace us, and that he might show us his clemency in liberality and beneficence, and generosity and benevolence. To him be the glory and goodness and power and dominion from henceforth unto eternal ages. Amen.

Here ends the whole of the Gospel of the Infancy, with the help of God most high, according to what we found in the original.

22 Matt. iii. 13-17; Luke ii. 21-23.

THE GOSPELS OF NICODEMUS

"It [The Nicodemus Gospel] is perhaps the most famous of the New Testament Apocrypha, and its merits, such as they are, have attracted to it much attention."

-B. H. COWPER.

THE

THE GOSPELS OF NICODEMUS

(INTRODUCTION)

HE Gospels of Nicodemus form the most important and interesting of the apocrypha dealing with the death and resurrection of Christ. There was no such early gathering of legends around the ending of Jesus' earthly life as gathered around the infancy. The later Middle Ages had several " Acts of Pilate," but none of these can be traced to any early date. The Gospel of Nicodemus, however, in its earliest form dates back probably to A.D. 440, and may be even older. Later versions then expanded and retouched the story of Nicodemus until it became a long and fantastic narrative including some impressive visions of Satan and Hell.

As for Nicodemus, in Scripture he is the learned man who came to Jesus to be taught. As the true Gospels tell us nothing of his later life, nor of his death, he was a natural subject to be thus represented as watching and writing down the closing events of Christ's dealings with mankind. A later version of the tale, however, names another and much later Nicodemus, an otherwise unknown Roman governor, as being the author. Indeed the tale so grew and changed with the passing centuries that, to let the modern reader see it all, we give here first the oldest, or Greek, version of Nicodemus, then a later Latin version, then the noted "second part," the vivid "Harrowing of Hell." This story of Christ in hell does not appear in the oldest manuscripts of Nicodemus.

At a still later period, apparently, Pilate's part in this gospel was further expanded until he became, to the Middle Ages, a great criminal, haunted always by a terrible remorse, which drives him ultimately to suicide. We give here the first form in which the Pilate legend was expanded in the Nicodemus gospel, and then some very early letters (from about A.D. 400) which name Pilate as their author.

THE GREEK GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS

Acts of our Lord Jesus Christ wrought in the time of Pontius

Pilate

PROLOGUE

I, Ananias, a provincial warden, being a disciple of the law, from the divine Scriptures recognized our Lord Jesus Christ, and came to him by faith, and was also accounted worthy of holy baptism. Now when searching the records which were made in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Jews laid up under Pontius Pilate, I found that these records were written in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I translated them into Greek for the information of all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the government of our lord Flavius Theodosius, the 17th year, and in the 6th consulate of Flavius Valentinianus, in the 9th indiction.1

All therefore who read and copy into other books remember me and pray for me, that God may be propitious to me, and be gracious to my sins which I have committed against him.2

Peace to those who read and those who hear, and to their servants. Amen.

In the 15th year of the government of Tiberius Cæsar, King of the Romans; and of Herod, King of Galilee, the 19th

1 The dates given in the consular tables do not agree in all editions, but I do not find any in which the 17th of Theodosius and the 6th of Valentinian come together. The 17th consulate of Theodosius is by some placed in A.D. 441, and the 5th of Valentinian in 442; while the 18th of Theodosius falls in 446, and the 6th of Valentinian in 447. The 9th indiction, according to Dufresnoy, falls in 441. We may therefore correct the text by reading the 17th consulate of Theodosius, and the 5th of Valentinian, which would be A.D. 441-2. The Coptic has the 5th of Valentinian, and the Latin the 18th of Theodosius.

2 Ancient scribes were very much in the habit of putting in requests for the prayers of their readers.

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