The Balaam Text from Tell Deir ‘Allā
Older reconstruction
(1) The sayings of Balaam, son of Beor, the man who was a seer of the gods. Lo! Gods came to him in the night and spoke to him (2) according to these words. Then they said to Balaam, son of Beor, thus: Let someone make a ... hearafter, so that what you have heard may be seen!" (3) And Balaam rose in the morning ... right hand ... and could not eat and wept (4) aloud. Then his people came in to him and said to Balaam, son of Beor, "Do you fast? ... Do you weep?" And he (5) said to them, "Sit down! I shall inform you what the Shaddaying have done. Now come, see the deeds of the gods! The gods have gathered (6) and the Shaddayin have taken their places in the assembly and said to Sh..., thus: 'Sew the skies shut with your thick cloud! There let there be darkness and no (7) perpetual shining and no radiance! For you will put a seal upon the thick cloud of darkness and you will not remove it forever! For the swift has (8) reproached the eagle, the voice of vultures resounds. The stork has the young of the NHS-bird and ripped up the chicks of the heron. The swallow has belittled (9) the dove, and the sparrow ... and ... the staff. Instead of ewes the stick is driven along. Hares have eaten (10) ... Freemen ... have drunk wine, and hyenas have listened to instruction. The whelps of the (11) fox laughs at wise men, and the poor woman has mixed myrhh, and the priestess (12) ... to the one who wears a girdle of threads. The esteemed esteems and the esteemer is esteemed. And everyone has seen those things that decree offspring and young. (15) ... to the leopard. The piglet has chased the young (16) of those who are girded and the eye ...'"
Newer reconstruction
Combination 1
i.1 The misfortunes of the Book of Balaam, son of Beor. A divine seer was he.
i.1 The gods came to him at night.
And he beheld a vision in accordance with El's utterance.
They said to Balaam, son of Beor:
"So will it be done, with naught surviving.
No one has seen the likes of what you have heard!"
i.5 Balaam arose on the morrow;
He summoned the heads of the assembly to him,
i.6 And for two days he fasted, and wept bitterly.
Then his intimates entered into his presence,
and they said to Balaam, son of Beor,
"Why do you fast, and why do you weep?"
i.7 Then he said to them: "Be seated, and I will relate to you what the Shaddai gods have planned,
And go, see the acts of the god!"
i.7 "The gods have banded together;
i.8 The Shaddai gods have established a council,
And they have said to the goddess Shagar:
'Sew up, close up the heavens with dense cloud,
That darkness exist there, not brilliance;
Obscurity and not clarity;
i.9 So that you instill dread in dense darkness.
And - never utter a sound again!'
i.10 It shall be that the swift and crane will shriek insult to the eagle,
And a nest of vultures shall cry out in response.
The stork, the young of the falcon and the owl,
i.11 The chicks of the heron, sparrow and cluster of eagles;
Pigeons and birds, and fowl in the sky.
And a rod shall flay the cattle;
Where there are ewes, a staff shall be brought.
Hares - eat together!
Freely feed, oh beasts of the field!
And freely drink, asses and hyenas!"
Balaam Acts to Save the Goddess and the Land
i.12 Heed the admonition, adversaries of Shagar-and-Ištar!
... skilled diviner.
To skilled diviners shall one take you, and to an oracle;
i.14 To a perfumer of myrrh and a priestess.
Who covers his body with oil,
And rubs himself with olive oil.
To one bearing an offering in a horn;
i.14 One augurer after another, and yet another.
As one augurer broke away from his colleagues,
The strikers departed ...
i.15 They heard incantations from afar
...
Then disease was unleashed
i.16 And all beheld acts of distress.
Shagar-and-Ištar did not ...
i.17 The piglet drove out the leopard
And the ... drove out the young of the ...
... double offerings
And he beheld ...
Combination 2
ii.4 ... a girl those who were used? to be saturated with love ...
ii.5 ... a blinded one and the whole moistened? soil? ...
ii.6 El satisfied himself with lovemaking
And then El fashioned an eternal house;
A house ...
ii.7 A house where no traveler enters
Nor does a bridegroom enter there
ii.8 Worm rot from a grave.
From the reckless affairs of men.
And from the lustful desires of people.
ii.9 If it is for counsel, on will not counsel with you!
Or for advising him, one will not take advice!
ii.10 From the bed they cover themselves with a wrap.
If you hate him, he will be mortally afflicted.
If you ...
---
Worm rot is under your head.
You shall lie on your eternal bedding,
To pass away to ...
ii.12 ... in their heart.
The corpse moans in his heart,
He moans ...
---
... a daughter.
There, kings behold ...
ii.13 There is no mercy when Death seizes a suckling.
And a suckling ...
And a suckling ...
A suckling ...
There ... shall be.
ii.14 The heart of the corpse is desolate
As he approaches Sheol.
...
To the edge of Sheol,
And the shadow of the hedge ...
ii.15 "The quest of a king is moth rot,
And the quest of ...
... seers.
ii.16 Your quest is distant from you.
To know how to deliver an oracle to his people.
You have been condemned for your speech
ii.17 And banned from pronouncing words of execration.
Lines ii.18-29 are incomprehensible
ii.30 El will be wrathful ...
ii.31 ... he will eat ...
ii.32 ... my heart is a heart? ...
ii.33 (Incomprehensible)
ii.34 ... for three?...
ii.35 She? will drip of abundant? rain ...
ii.36 She? will drip of dew and ...
ii.37 ... look for fodder and he? will eat ...
Other combinations
iv.a.3 ... for heat? ...
iv.g.i ... green herbs ...
v.c.3 ... she? will faint ...
v.c.4 ... he was pulled down? ...
v.d.2 ... sprinkle ...
v.d.3 ... they came in crowds ...
v.f.2 ... hasten ...
v.q.1 ... horse and ...
vii.c.3 ... bone/strong/strength...
viii.b.1 ... head ...
viii.b.2 ... desire ...
viii.d.2 ... and Balaam, the son of Beor ...
ix.a.3 ... he is not cursed, his hands ...
x.b.1 ... is my lady?, Shagar? ...
x.d.2 ... for? him/her, his/her hands will wither. Take? ...
x.d.3 ... brother and chieftain? ...
xi.b in the depths ...
xii.c.2 ... Balaam, the son of Beor, saying you/she will...
The History of the Thirty Pieces of Silver
The Legend of the Thirty Pieces of Silver (LTPS) is a medieval apocryphon which traces the transmission of the coins paid to betray Jesus from Terah’s gift of the coins to Abraham to Judas’ purchase of the Field of Blood in Acts 1:18-19. The text is extant in a variety of forms and languages including Latin, Syriac, Arabic and Armenian, and several European languages including German, English, Italian, Spanish and Catalan. The following translation is based on the Western recension of the Syriac text.
The story of the origin of the thirty silver pieces which Iscariot received as the price of the Messiah. These pieces which Judas received from the Jewish priests, where are they from and what is their story?
These pieces were made by Terah, the father of Abraham. Abraham gave them to his son Isaac. And Isaac bought a village with them. The master of it brought them to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh sent them to Solomon, the son of David, for the temple he was building. And Solomon took the pieces and placed them round the door of the altar.
When Nebuchadnezzar came and took captive the children of Israel, he entered the temple of Solomon and saw that these pieces were beautiful, and he took and brought them to Babylon with the captive children of Israel.
And there were some Persians there as hostages. When Nebuchadnezzar came from Jerusalem, they sent him everything fit for kings. And when king Nebuchadnezzar saw that all they had sent him was beautiful, he released their sons and gave them many presents. He gave them also those pieces. And the Persians brought them to their fathers.
When Christ was born and they saw the star, they rose and took those pieces and gold and myrrh and frankincense. They took those pieces and set forth on a journey until they reached the vicinity of Edessa. The day grew dark and they fell asleep on the side of the road. And in the morning they arose to continue their journey. They left those pieces where they slept and did not know it. Some merchants came and found the pieces.
And they came to the vicinity of Edessa by a well of water. And on that very day an angel came to the shepherds of that land and he gave them a garment without a seam on the upper end. And he said to them, “Take the garment in which is life to humanity.” The shepherds took the garment and came to a well of water. And they found the merchants who had found the pieces near the well of water. They said to the merchants, “Will you buy this beautiful garment without seam at the upper end?” The merchants said to them, “Bring it here.” And when the merchants saw this garment, they marveled at it very much. The merchants said to the shepherds, “We have beautiful pieces worthy of a kings. Take them and give us this garment.”
When the merchants had taken the garment, they arrived in the city and stopped at an inn. Abgar the king sent for the merchants and said to them, “Have you anything worthy of a king that I could buy from you?” The merchants said to him, “Yes, we have a garment without a seam at the upper end.” When king Abgar saw that garment of which there was no equal, he said to them, “Where did you get this garment?” They said to him, “We came to a certain well by the gate of your city. And some shepherds said to us, ‘We have a garment without a seam at the upper end. Will you buy it?’ And we looked at the garment and saw that there was no other like it in the world. We had with us thirty pieces with images of kings which we gave to the shepherds and received the garment. And these pieces are worthy of kings such as yourself.”
When Abgar heard this, he sent for the shepherds and took the pieces from them. And Abgar sent the pieces and the garment to Christ for the good that he had done him with regard to Abgar’s disease from which he had cured him. When Christ saw the garment and the pieces, he took the garment and sent the pieces to the Jewish treasury. Our Lord knew their secrets. That is why he sent these pieces with which he would be bought.
And when the Jews came to Judas Iscariot they said to him, “Deliver to us Jesus, son of Joseph!” He said to them: “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they rose and got those thirty pieces and gave them to Judas Iscariot. And Iscariot returned them to the Jews. They bought with them a burial-place for strangers. And then they brought the pieces to Solomon’s temple and threw them into a fountain inside the temple—the pieces and the staff of Moses the prophet—and thus hid them.
The Dialogue of the Paralytic With Christ
This brief apocryphon is an expansion of the story of Jesus and the paralytic from John 5:1-15, though here it is situated after the resurrection. The text is extant in Georgian and Armenian, but ultimately derives from a Greek original. It has been published only once in a modern language—into French by Bernard Outtier for the second volume of Écrits apocryphes chrétiens (pp. 63-74). The following is translated from Outtier’s work.
1 There was a paralyzed man, poor and without a Master, invalid and without resources, disabled and helpless, paralyzed and deprived of the use of all his limbs; he was indeed blind, without strength in his hands, disabled of the two feet and covered with wounds. He was thus stretched out in a street, in the town of Jerusalem, for the alms which people gave him. And this occurred in the time of Christianity, after the ascension of Christ to heaven in the glory of the Father, from whom he had not separated.
2 Out of his love of men, Christ descended to the Earth and like a man, he passed by, under pretext of some business, on the street in which the paralytic was stretched out. Christ came and stood close to the paralytic. He greeted him and said: “Why are you sitting here?” The paralytic said: “For alms, because I am lame and blind, crippled and without a Master, as you can see.”
3 Christ said: “How long have you been lying here?” The paralytic said: “It has been thirty-eight years that I have sat here in torment.” Christ said: “What sickness do you have?” The paralytic said: “I am what you see: filled with afflictions and lying on the ground hindered.” He said: “Do you have a powerful patron?” The paralytic: “I have somebody: Christ; of importance: my wounds; as parents, my hunger and my indigence; as life, the blindness of my eyes and disability of my body.” Jesus said: “The one who lives well until the end, will live.” The paralytic: “Until when will I live well? Christ has made of me the fable of all the people.” Jesus said: “The one whom the Lord loves, he cures.”
4 The paralytic said: “Christ has cured me; today, I am worthy. But I want to ask you: who are you, you who say all of this to me?” Christ said: “I am a man like you. Ask what you want.” The paralytic: “Are you a priest, or a doctor?” Jesus said: “I am neither a priest, nor a doctor.” The paralytic: “What kind of man are you then? Your smell is that of a priest, your words, of a doctor.” Jesus said: “I am a man who walks a lot, a traveler.”
5 The paralytic said: “Where do you come from?” Jesus said: “From the country of the Indians.” The paralytic said: “Did you stay in a school?” Jesus said: “I studied a little and I endeavor to learn still, because I have a strong will and I try hard, if possible, to arrive at true knowledge.” The paralytic said: “Did you not hear of the doctor Athenogene? Where is he?” Jesus said: “I am his student, but I know a practice greater than his.” The paralytic said: “You are a young man and you speak according to your intelligence. How can a pupil know more that the Master?” Jesus said: “Goodness, greatness, is recognized in work.”
6 The paralytic said: “Have mercy on me, so that you also may have mercy with the arrival of Christ.” Jesus said: “You, how do you know Christ?” The paralytic said: “I heard some talk of his reputation, because his apostles preached to the entire universe the power of his miracles, which also the holy gospel reports.” Christ said: “Since, then, you know Christ, his holy gospel and the apostles, why are you not cured?” The paralytic said: “Me? I did not have anyone to carry me to the feet of the apostles, who were curing”
7 Jesus said: “What would you give me to cure you?” The paralytic said: “Who else could cure me, if not only the right hand of Christ?” Christ said: “Whereas you have hopes at this point in Christ, why did he not cure you? Would you not be unbelieving and guilty of very serious sins?” Then the paralytic became angry and said: “In what would I have sinned, since I do not have the means of sinning? My eyes are blind and my hands without strength; my feet are crippled and I am devastated by my wounds. This is my business and my work: night and day, to pray to Christ for the good and the peace of this world, and especially for those who give me alms and for my afflictions.” Christ said: “Why then at this point suffer do you suffer, if you are not sinning? Indeed, Christ loves the just and hates the sinner, cures the just and makes suffer the sinner.” The paralytic said: “Would you not be one of his disciples?” Jesus said: “Me? I am not one of his disciples and I did not hear his preaching.”
8 The paralytic said: “Did you not hear of his incarnation which saves the world? That he descended from the skies and was incarnated from the Blessed Virgin Mary? He was born in a cave, received gifts from the Magi, was honored by the shepherds, was adored by angels, was glorified by kings and was served by celestial being. At forty days old, he came to the Temple and opened the door which had been closed by himself; he was pampered by the old man and was proclaimed God; he untied the old man of the bonds of the body and made him pass from death to life. He fled to Egypt and destroyed the idols. He was baptized by John in the Jordan river, accepted the testimony of his father’s voice and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of dove. He fasted forty days and triumphed over the tempter in three forms of combat; he walked on air and tread upon the waves of the sea; he changed water into wine and carnal desire by chastity of the spirit. He drove out demons, purified the lepers, returned walking to the lame, sight to the blind; he multiplied the bread, raised the dead; he forgave the sins of lepers, returned just the publican. He was crucified and buried, was raised from the dead and rose gloriously to the Father in heaven; he sat down on the right-hand side of the Father in the heights; he will return to judge the living and the dead and to reward each one according to his works.”
9 Jesus said: “Where did you learn all this?” The paralytic: “I learned it from the doctors and heard from preachers.” Christ said: “Since you are so eloquent, why did Christ not send you to preach his Gospel?” The paralytic said: “He gave me in my share pains of the body and blindness in my eyes.” Jesus said: “That is what you deserve.”
10 Then the paralytic became angry and said: “Today I receive what I deserve, but you, you will not remain unpunished.” Jesus said: “It is from your language that you must be in this state.” The paralytic said: “I have received what is returned to me according to my merits; your reward will come according to your merits.” Jesus said: “You are accustomed to speaking much. Your language is eloquent and your face impudent; you are blind from birth for your shame. But if you want to recover health, give me what you have, and I will cure you.”
11 The paralytic: “What do you want to receive from me, because I do not have anything?” Jesus said: “I know that you have many gold coins wrapped in your bag. Give me that and I will cure you your atrocious afflictions.” The paralytic: “You look like a rich man; how would I have gold coins?” Jesus said: “If you do not have gold, give me some money.” The paralytic: “No, I do not have money.” Jesus said: “You have some, but you are miserly; you do not want to give.” The paralytic said: “I said: ‘You were born rich’; how would I have money and gold?”
12 Jesus said: “What do you have then?” The paralytic said: “Christ is the witness, I have four pennies and a piece of bread, and two coppers; here: take that for you and cure me.” Jesus said: “When one has swept the house, two or three coppers and even more leave with the brush, and one throws to the dogs the piece of bread.” The paralytic: “Two coppers are the wages of an imbecile, and the servant eats the piece of bread.”
13 Jesus said: “You said: ‘I have seven afflictions.’ For a payment such as you offer, would you would remove all your afflictions?” The paralytic: “You are terribly greedy and you are an eager man. Would you be relative of Judas?” Jesus said: “Do you not know that any man is a son of Adam and that we, all men, form only one family? But each one will be remunerated according to his works.” The paralytic: “Well, if the remuneration is to each one according to his works, I will not perish.” Jesus said: “It is because of your thoughts that you are in these afflictions.”
14 The paralytic: “Although, of body, I would be exposed as a laughing stock, of spirit I am invited in the womb of Abraham.” Jesus said: “It is because of your misdeeds that here you are tortured, and over there also, you will be tortured.” The paralytic: “You believe yourself largely loved by God, but Christ has prepared for you the dark darkness and the fire of Gehenna.” Christ said: “I do not render worship to that which throws me in the outer darkness and the pit of Gehenna.”
15 Then the paralytic became angry and said: “Go and remove yourself from me, the legless cripple, because here: you disavowed Christ. Remove yourself from me, poor that I am; today, you prevented me from begging. You orate thus with the council of the kings and you ruin the country. Go, remove yourself from me, unhappy that I am and find yourself a speaker in the city.” Jesus said: “You boast so much in Christ that it seems that you are a relative of Christ or a great benefactor. Are you so that your merits are something in front of Christ?”
16 The paralytic said: “I believe in Christ my God and I have in him the hope of finding mercy, as far as he is concerned. Although I would be sinning, he atones for sins. Although I would be lost, he finds those who were lost. Although I would be scorned, he honors the scorned. Although I would be corrupted, he is a renewer. Although I would have died, he gives life. He who cured the wounds of Adam by his sufferings on the cross, will cure me. He who has raised Lazarus, dead for four days, will also have pity on me and will give me health.”
Then Jesus had pity for him and said to him in a soft voice: “Stand up, take your palate and walk!” And at once the man rose—his limbs healthy, his feet swift, his hands skillful, his arms robust, his eyes brilliant with light. He went, his limbs strong, and glorified God, and he no longer saw Jesus.
17 And now, that nobody doubts what I have just said, thinking: “That did not happen”; it really did happen and it is not too much for the compassion of the divine will which loves men. Because he who fought with Jacob from evening until dawn, who was united without confusion with our sinful nature and has made incorruptible our corruptible flesh that he took from the Blessed Virgin Mary, and without sin the sinful flesh spoke with the same mercy with the paralytic and gave him health: Christ, our God.
The Beheading of John
This text is listed as one of three “Passions” of John in Geerard’s CANT (180; BHG 831-833). The other two have yet to be published. The Beheading is translated from the only edition ever made of the text: A. Vassiliev, Anecdota graeco-byzantina, I, Moscow, 1893, pp. 1-4, based on Montis Casin. 277 (11th c.). At least two other manuscripts exist (Vat. gr. 1192, 15th c.; and Vat. gr. 1989, 12th c.), but these have not been evaluated. This is the first translation of the text into a modern language.
Testimony on the beheading of the holy John, the Forerunner. Lord Bless.
CHAPTER ONE
1 In the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus, after our Lord Jesus Christ was born according to the flesh in Bethlehem of Judea, Herod Antipatris, king of Judea, sought to kill Jesus.
2 Then Michael came and said to Joseph: “Flee with the child and his mother to Egypt.”
3 When Herod was seeking the Lord and did not find him, he commanded to kill the children in Bethlehem. Then Elizabeth took up her son and fled into the hill-country.
CHAPTER TWO
1 And Herod, looking for John and not finding him, dispatched to Zechariah his father, saying to him: “Where is your son? Where did you hide him? Bring him to me. Do you not know that your life is in my hands?”
2 Zechariah said: “I do not know where my son is. I am a servant to the Lord and I remain at the altar.”
3 Hearing these things, Herod sent his assassins and murdered him in the temple of God at the altar.
4 Early in the morning all the people went in the sanctuary and waited for Zechariah at the hour of the formal greeting. And when he delayed in coming out to them, someone dared to go in, and behold a voice came in the sanctuary saying: “Zechariah has been murdered.”
5 All the people mourned for him until the seventh day. And the blood of Zechariah became stone fixed to the altar. And his body was not found.
CHAPTER THREE
1 While Elizabeth was going to the hill country with her son, she fainted and called out: “Mountain of God, receive a mother with a son, who are pursued unjustly.”
2 And immediately, the mountain was split open and received her inside. And there, in the opening, Elisabeth stayed with her son John. And the hand of the Lord was with them and angels provided for them.
3 And the assassins of Herod went up to the opening and found no place to go in.
4 And in that place there was a spring of water on the left of the opening and on the right bread was placed.
5 When John was five months old, the angel said to Elizabeth: “Wean the child and no longer offer the mother’s breast, but take locusts from the tree by the shelter and wild honey from the rock at your head and be sustained with them. They will not fail until God commands you to depart from here.”
CHAPTER FOUR
1 When the child became 13 months old he began to leap and to walk. And the angel said to Elizabeth: “Come out from here and go to your home, for the ones seeking to kill your son have died.”
2 And Elizabeth said: “Lord, I cannot find the road and where I must go.” And immediately, when she lifted up the child upon her lap, she received in a vision as if she had come through the air to her home.
CHAPTER FIVE
1 When John became thirty, he went to every city and region proclaiming a baptism of repentance and self-control. And he ate locusts—that is, palm trees—and wild honey, and for clothing he had camel-hair and a leather belt around his waist.
2 And the report of John went out to all Judea. From which Herod heard that John was at the Jordan baptizing people, and he dispatched and summoned him. And then John was 32 years old.
3 Herod said to him: “Are you John, the son of Zechariah? Do you know that your blood is in my hand?”
4 And he said to him cheerfully: “I am the son of Zechariah, whose blood poured out in the sanctuary of God, and he cried out concerning you and the senselessness of you, lawless one.”
5 This Herod was different from the father of Archelaus. This one was king after Archelaus, the first son of Herod fled to Galilee.
6 Since he was as wicked as the first Herod, John pronounced the first charge and said: “Be ashamed because you took the wife of Philip, your brother. Do you not fear God?”
CHAPTER SIX
1 Then Herod whipped John and threw him in prison.
2 And when John was in the prison, he stung Herod even more about Polia, the wife of Philip. And Herod was afraid to kill John and Polia did not want to set him free from the prison.
3 Those who were served orders went and at the fourth hour they hung him by the head and burnt him, the holy one.
4 And John said to Herod: “Why are you distressed? Are you condemned by the truth?”
5 Herod said: “What truth are you talking about? Is it not in the law of Moses that if a brother dies without offspring, the living brother shall the wife left behind and raise to him offspring in Israel?”
6 And John said: “Pay careful attention to the law of God in this because a sorcerer killed your brother and took his wife; however, also when he was alive, she committed adultery with you. Look, his soul cries out to God and readily God must avenge him so that you (pl) will depart life badly.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
1 Herod became deeply distressed at these things and desired to release John. And it happened in those days Herod had a birthday. And at the gathering, he invited the daughter of Herod to dance.
2 And when she danced he vowed to her a guarantee of anything, so that whatever she asked he would give to her. And she asked her mother.
3 And she said to her: “Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”
4 And when she told her father about John, Herod was deeply grieved. Nevertheless, because of the oath, he sent a soldier of the guard and beheaded John. And he gave his head to Herodias upon a platter and she offered it to her mother Polia.
5 And his disciples came at night and took the body.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1 And the angel said to Elizabeth: “Rise, go to Bethlehem and take the body of your son and bury it where his father will rest.”
2 And the angel led her to the house of Zechariah in the sanctuary of the Lord up to the altar. And a great voice came in the temple and suddenly an earthquake and thunder. And the altar was restored and the body of Zechariah was seen.
3 And Elizabeth buried John there beneath the altar. And the Most High summoned her saying: “Look, the blood of your husband, which will not be wiped away until the time of the condemnation of Herod. The burial place of your husband and your son no-one will know.”
CHAPTER NINE
1 And in her time, the daughter of Herod, on a winter’s day when it was cold, was playing near a frozen well of water and she fell in the thawed water.
2 And those nearby wishing to pull her out, cut off her head and her trunk went down.
3 And when Herod sat down, the head of Herodias was brought, and he put it upon his lap.
4 And he began to cry and say: “Oh righteous water, of unjust death most sharp. Oh, tomb of the saints in the holy sanctuary be prepared! Oh righteous tomb not accepting unjust bodies, but opening to the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.”
5 And as Herod was dying, the earth did not accept his body, but threw it up. And the birds of heaven came and consumed his flesh.
CHAPTER TEN
1 All these things I, Euriptus, wrote, the disciple of John, the second of his disciples according to strictness, so that all the brothers in Christ would observe the festival of the remembrance and resting-place of John, the beloved of Christ, the Forerunner and Baptist, on August 29.
2 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of us. To him, the glory and the power forever and ever, amen.
The Letter from Heaven
The following version, reproduced from Per Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), p. 25-26, is said to be from Mesopotamia. Numerous versions of the Letter exist and in a dizzying number of languages. The earliest known example appeared in 584/585 CE.
Whosoever works on the Sabbath day shall be cursed. I command you to go to church and keep the Lord’s Day holy, without any manner of work. You shall not idle or misspend your time in bedecking yourself with superfluities, costly apparel and vain dressing, for I have ordained it a day of rest. I will have that day kept holy, that your sins may be forgiven you.
You shall not break my commandments but observe and keep them, they being written in my own hand and spoken with my own mouth. You shall not only go to church yourself, but also your man servants and your maid servants. Observe my words and learn my commandments. You shall finish your labor every Saturday in the afternoon by six o’clock, at which hour the preparation for the Sabbath begins.
I advise you to fast five days in the year, beginning with Good Friday and continuing the four Fridays following, in remembrance of the five bloody wounds I received for you and all mankind. You shall diligently and peaceably labor in your respective callings wherein it has pleased God to call you. You shall love one another and cause them that are not baptized to come to church and receive the holy sacraments, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, and to be made members of the church. In so doing I will give you long life and many blessings; your land shall be replenished and bring forth abundance. I will comfort you in the greatest temptations, and surely he that does to the contrary shall be cursed. I will also send hardness of heart upon them until I have consumed them, especially upon hardened and impenitent unbelievers.
He that has given to the poor shall not be unprofited. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day, for the seventh day have I taken as a resting day to myself.
He that has a copy of this letter, written in my own hand and spoken with my own mouth, and keeps it without publishing it to others, shall not prosper, but he that publishes it to others shall be blessed of me. And if their sins be in number as the stars of the sky, and they truly believe in me, they shall be pardoned. And if they believe not this writing and my commandments, I will send my plagues upon them and consume both you and your children.
Whosoever shall have a copy of this letter and keep it in their house, nothing shall hurt them, and if any woman be in childbirth and put her trust in me, she shall be delivered of her child. You shall hear no more of me but by the Holy Spirit until the Day of Judgment. All goodness and prosperity shall be in the house where a copy of this letter shall be found.
Whosoever works on the Sabbath day shall be cursed. I command you to go to church and keep the Lord’s Day holy, without any manner of work. You shall not idle or misspend your time in bedecking yourself with superfluities, costly apparel and vain dressing, for I have ordained it a day of rest. I will have that day kept holy, that your sins may be forgiven you.
You shall not break my commandments but observe and keep them, they being written in my own hand and spoken with my own mouth. You shall not only go to church yourself, but also your man servants and your maid servants. Observe my words and learn my commandments. You shall finish your labor every Saturday in the afternoon by six o’clock, at which hour the preparation for the Sabbath begins.
I advise you to fast five days in the year, beginning with Good Friday and continuing the four Fridays following, in remembrance of the five bloody wounds I received for you and all mankind. You shall diligently and peaceably labor in your respective callings wherein it has pleased God to call you. You shall love one another and cause them that are not baptized to come to church and receive the holy sacraments, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, and to be made members of the church. In so doing I will give you long life and many blessings; your land shall be replenished and bring forth abundance. I will comfort you in the greatest temptations, and surely he that does to the contrary shall be cursed. I will also send hardness of heart upon them until I have consumed them, especially upon hardened and impenitent unbelievers.
He that has given to the poor shall not be unprofited. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day, for the seventh day have I taken as a resting day to myself.
He that has a copy of this letter, written in my own hand and spoken with my own mouth, and keeps it without publishing it to others, shall not prosper, but he that publishes it to others shall be blessed of me. And if their sins be in number as the stars of the sky, and they truly believe in me, they shall be pardoned. And if they believe not this writing and my commandments, I will send my plagues upon them and consume both you and your children.
Whosoever shall have a copy of this letter and keep it in their house, nothing shall hurt them, and if any woman be in childbirth and put her trust in me, she shall be delivered of her child. You shall hear no more of me but by the Holy Spirit until the Day of Judgment. All goodness and prosperity shall be in the house where a copy of this letter shall be found.
The Life of Mary Magdalene
The Golden Legend or Lives Of The Saints Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275 Englished by William Caxton, First Edition 1483 From the Temple Classics Edited by F.S. Ellis
Here followeth the life of Saint Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene had her surname of Magdalo, a castle, and was born of right noble lineage and parents, which were descended of the lineage of kings. And her father was named Cyrus, and her mother Eucharis. She with her brother Lazarus, and her sister Martha, possessed the castle of Magdalo, which is two miles from Nazareth, and Bethany, the castle which is nigh to Jerusalem, and also a great part of Jerusalem, which, all these things they departed among them. In such wise that Mary had the castle Magdalo, whereof she had her name Magdalene. And Lazarus had the part of the city of Jerusalem, and Martha had to her part Bethany. And when Mary gave herself to all delights of the body, and Lazarus entended all to knighthood, Martha, which was wise, governed nobly her brother's part and also her sister's, and also her own, and administered to knights, and her servants, and to poor men, such necessities as they needed. Nevertheless, after the ascension of our Lord, they sold all these things, and brought the value thereof, and laid it at the feet of the apostles.
MARY MAGDALENE AND JESUS
Then when Magdalene abounded in riches, and because delight is fellow to riches and abundance of things; and for so much as she shone in beauty greatly, and in riches, so much the more she submitted her body to delight, and therefore she lost her right name, and was called customably a sinner. And when our Lord Jesu Christ preached there and in other places, she was inspired with the Holy Ghost, and went into the house of Simon leprous, whereas our Lord dined. Then she durst not, because she was a sinner, appear tofore the just and good people, but remained behind at the feet of our Lord, and washed his feet with the tears of her eyes and dryed them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointments. For the inhabitants of that region used baths and ointments for the overgreat burning and heat of the sun. And because that Simon the Pharisee thought in himself that, if our Lord had been a very prophet, he would not have suffered a sinful woman to have touched him, then our Lord reproved him of his presumption, and forgave the woman all her sins.
And this is she, that same Mary Magdalene to whom our Lord gave so many great gifts. And showed so great signs of love, that he took from her seven devils. He embraced her all in his love, and made her right familiar with him. He would that she should be his hostess, and his procuress on his journey, and he ofttimes excused her sweetly; for he excused her against the Pharisee which said that she was not clean, and unto her sister that said she was idle, unto Judas, who said that she was a wastresse of goods. And when he saw her weep he could not withhold his tears. And for the love of her he raised Lazarus which had been four days dead, and healed her sister from the flux of blood which had held her seven years. And by the merits of her he made Martelle, chamberer of her sister Martha, to say that sweet word: Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But, after St. Ambrose, it was Martha that said so, and this was her chamberer.
This Mary Magdalene is she that washed the feet of our Lord and dried them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointment, and did solemn penance in the time of grace, and was the first that chose the best part, which was at the feet of our Lord, and heard his preaching. Which anointed his head; at his passion was nigh unto the cross; which made ready ointments, and would anoint his body, and would not depart from the monument when his disciples departed. To whom Jesu Christ appeared first after his resurrection, and was fellow to the apostles, and made of our Lord apostolesse of the apostles, then after the ascension of our Lord, the fourteenth year from his passion, long after that the Jews had slain St. Stephen, and had cast out the other disciples out of the Jewry, which went into divers countries, and preached the word of God.
MARY MAGDALENE GOES TO MARSEILLE WITH MARTHA AND LAZARUS
There was that time with the apostles St. Maximin, which was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, to whom the blessed Mary Magdalene was committed by St. Peter, and then, when the disciples were departed, St. Maximin, Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus her brother, Martha her sister, Marcelle, chamberer of Martha, and St. Cedony which was born blind, and after enlumined of our Lord; all these together, and many other Christian men were taken of the miscreants and put in a ship in the sea, without any tackle or rudder, for to be drowned. But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, where, as none would receive them to be lodged, they dwelled and abode under a porch tofore a temple of the people of that country.
And when the blessed Mary Magdalene saw the people assembled at this temple for to do sacrifice to the idols, she arose up peaceably with a glad visage, a discreet tongue and well speaking, and began to preach the faith and law of Jesu Christ, and withdrew from the worshipping of the idols. Then were they amarvelled of the beauty, of the reason, and of the fair speaking of her. And it was no marvel that the mouth that had kissed the feet of our Lord so debonairly and so goodly, should be inspired with the word of God more than the other.
THE MIRACLE CHILD
And after that, it happed that the prince of the province and his wife made sacrifice to the idols for to have a child. And Mary Magdalene preached to them Jesu Christ and forbade them those sacrifices. And after that a little while, Mary Magdalene appeared in a vision to that lady, saying: Wherefore hast thou so much riches and sufferest the poor people our Lord to die for hunger and for cold?
And she doubted, and was afraid to show this vision to her lord. And then the second night she appeared to her again and said in likewise and adjousted thereto menaces, if she warned not her husband for to comfort the poor and needy, and yet she said nothing thereof to her husband.
And then she appeared to her the third night, when it was dark, and to her husband also, with a frowning and angry visage like fire, like as all the house had burned, and said: Thou tyrant and member of thy father the devil, with that serpent thy wife, that will not say to thee my words, thou restest now enemy of the cross, which hast filled thy belly by gluttony, with divers manner of meats and sufferest to perish for hunger the holy saints of our Lord. Liest thou not in a palace wrapped with clothes of silk. And thou seest them without harbour, discomforted, and goest forth and takest no regard to them. Thou shalt not escape so ne depart without punishment, thou tyrant and felon because thou hast so long tarried.
And when Mary Magdalene had said thus she departed away. Then the lady awoke and sighed. And the husband sighed strongly also for the same cause, and trembled. And then she said: Sir, hast thou seen the sweven that I have seen?
I have seen, said he, that I am greatly amarvelled of, and am sore afraid what we shall do. And his wife said: It is more profitable for us to obey her, than to run into the ire of her God, whom she preacheth.
For which cause they received them into their house, and ministered to them all that was necessary and needful to them.
Then as Mary Magdalene preached on a time, the said prince said to her: Weenest thou that thou mayst defend the law that thou preachest?
And she answered: Certainly, I am ready to defend it, as she that is confirmed every day by miracles, and by the predication of our master, St. Peter, which now sitteth in the see at Rome.
To whom then the prince said: I and my wife be ready to obey thee in all things, if thou mayst get of thy god whom thou preachest, that we might have a child.
And then Mary Magdalene said that it should not be left, and then prayed unto our Lord that he would vouchsafe of his grace to give to them a son. And our Lord heard her prayers, and the lady conceived. Then her husband would go to St. Peter for to wit if it were true that Mary Magdalene had preached of Jesu Christ. Then his wife said to him: What will ye do sir, ween ye to go without me? Nay, when thou shalt depart, I shall depart with thee, and when thou shalt return again I shall return, and when thou shalt rest and tarry, I shall rest and tarry.
To whom her husband answered, and said: Dame, it shall not be so, for thou art great, and the perils of the sea be without number. Thou mightest lightly perish, thou shalt abide at home and take heed to our possessions.
And this lady for nothing would not change her purpose, but fell down on her knees at his feet sore weeping, requiring him to take her with him. And so at last he consented, and granted her request. Then Mary Magdalene set the sign of the cross on their shoulders, to the end that the fiend might not empesh nor let them in their journey. Then charged they a ship abundantly of all that was necessary to them, and left all their things in the keeping of Mary Magdalene, and went forth on their pilgrimage.
And when they had made their course, and sailed a day and a night, there arose a great tempest and orage. And the wind increased and grew over hideous, in such wise that this lady, which was great, and nigh the time of her childing, began to wax feeble, and had great anguishes for the great waves and troubling of the sea, and soon after began to travail, and was delivered of a fair son, by occasion of the storm and tempest, and in her childing died.
And when the child was born he cried for to have comfort of the teats of his mother, and made a piteous noise. Alas! what sorrow was this to the father, to have a son born which was the cause of the death of his mother, and he might not live, for there was none to nourish him. Alas! what shall this pilgrim do, that seeth his wife dead, and his son crying after the breast of his mother? And the pilgrim wept strongly and said: Alas! caitiff, alas! What shall I do? I desired to have a son, and I have lost both the mother and the son.
And the mariners then said: This dead body must be cast mto the sea, or else we all shall perish, for as long as she shall abide with us, this tempest shall not cease.
And when they had taken the body for to cast it into the sea, the husband said: Abide and suffer a little, and if ye will not spare to me my wife, yet at least spare the little child that cryeth, I pray you to tarry a while, for to know if the mother be aswoon of the pain, and that she might revive.
And whilst he thus spake to them, the shipmen espied a mountain not far from the ship. And then they said that it was best to set the ship toward the land and to bury it there, and so to save it from devouring of the fishes of the sea. And the good man did so much with the mariners, what for prayers and for money, that they brought the body to the mountain. And when they should have digged for to make a pit to lay the body in, they found it so hard a rock that they might not enter for hardness of the stone. And they left the body there lying, and covered it with a mantle.
And the father laid his little son at the breast of the dead mother and said weeping: O Mary Magdalene, why camest thou to Marseilles to my great loss and evil adventure? Why have I at thine instance enterprised this journey? Hast thou required of God that my wife should conceive and should die at the childing of her son? For now it behoveth that the child that she hath conceived and borne, perish because it hath no nurse. This have I had by thy prayer, and to thee I commend them, to whom I have commended all my goods. And also I commend to thy God, if he be mighty, that he remember the soul of the mother, that he by thy prayer have pity on the child that he perish not.
Then covered he the body all about with the mantle, and the child also, and then returned to the ship, and held forth his journey. And when he came to St. Peter, St. Peter came against him, and when he saw the sign of the cross upon his shoulder, he demanded him what he was, and wherefore he came, and he told to him all by order. To whom Peter said: Peace be to thee, thou art welcome, and hast believed good counsel. And be thou not heavy if thy wife sleep, and the little child rest with her, for our Lord is almighty for to give to whom he will, and to take away that he hath given, and to reestablish and give again that he hath taken, and to turn all heaviness and weeping into joy.
Then Peter led him into Jerusalem, and showed to him all the places where Jesu Christ preached and did miracles, and the place where he suffered death, and where he ascended into heaven. And when he was well-informed of St. Peter in the faith, and that two years were passed since he departed from Marseilles, he took his ship for to return again into his country.
And as they sailed by the sea, they came, by the ordinance of God, by the rock where the body of his wife was left, and his son. Then by prayers and gifts he did so much that they arrived thereon. And the little child, whom Mary Magdalene had kept, went oft journeying to the seaside, and, like small children, took small stones and threw them into the sea. And when they came they saw the little child playing with stones on the seaside, as he was wont to do. And then they marvelled much what he was. And when the child saw them, which never had seen people tofore, he was afraid, and ran secretly to his mother's breast and hid him under the mantle. And then the father of the child went for to see more appertly, and took the mantle, and found the child, which was right fair, sucking his mother's breast. Then he took the child in his arms and said: O blessed Mary Magdalene, I were well happy and blessed if my wife were now alive, and might live, and come again with me into my country. I know verily and believe that thou who hast given to me my son, and hast fed and kept him two years in this rock, mayst well re-establish his mother to her first health.
And with these words the woman respired, and took life, and said, like as she had been waked of her sleep: O blessed Mary Magdalene thou art of great merit and glorious, for in the pains of my deliverance thou wert my midwife, and in all my necessities thou hast accomplished to me the service of a chamberer.
And when her husband heard that thing he amarvelled much, and said: Livest thou my right dear and best beloved wife?
To whom she said: Yea, certainly I live, and am now first come from the pilgrimage from whence thou art come, and all in like wise as St. Peter led thee in Jerusalem, and showed to thee all the places where our Lord suffered death, was buried and ascended to heaven, and many other places, I was with you, with Mary Magdalene, which led and accompanied me, and showed to me all the places which I well remember and have in mind. And there recounted to him all the miracles that her husband had seen, and never failed of one article, nor went out of the way from the truth.
And then the good pilgrim received his wife and his child and went to ship. And soon after they came to the port of Marseilles. And they found the blessed Mary Magdalene preaching with her disciples. And then they kneeled down to her feet, and recounted to her all that had happened to them, and received baptism of St. Maximin. And then they destroyed all the temples of the idols in the city of Marseilles, and made churches of Jesu Christ. And with one accord they chose the blessed St. Lazarus for to be bishop of that city.
And afterward they came to the city of Aix, and by great miracles and preaching they brought the people there to the faith of Jesu Christ. And there St. Maximin was ordained to be bishop.
MARY MAGDALENE IN THE DESERT
In this meanwhile the blessed Mary Magdalene, desirous of sovereign contemplation, sought a right sharp desert, and took a place which was ordained by the angel of God, and abode there by the space of thirty years without knowledge of anybody. In which place she had no comfort of running water, nor solace of trees, nor of herbs. And that was because our Redeemer did do show it openly, that he had ordained for her refection celestial, and no bodily meats. And every day at every hour canonical she was lifted up in the air of angels, and heard the glorious song of the heavenly companies with her bodily ears. Of which she was fed and filled with right sweet meats, and then was brought again by the angels unto her proper place, in such wise as she had no need of corporal nourishing.
A Priest is Granted a Vision of St. Mary Magdalene
It happed that a priest, which desired to lead a solitary life, took a cell for himself a twelve-furlong from the place of Mary Magdalene. On a day our Lord opened the eyes of that priest, and he saw with his bodily eyes in what manner the angels descended into the place where the blessed Magdalene dwelt, and how they lifted her in the air, and after by the space of an hour brought her again with divine praisings to the same place. And then the priest desired greatly to know the truth of this marvellous vision, and made his prayers to Almighty God, and went with great devotion unto the place.
And when he approached nigh to it a stone's cast, his thighs began to swell and wax feeble, and his entrails began within him to lack breath and sigh for fear. And as soon as he returned he had his thighs all whole, and ready for to go. And when he enforced him to go to the place, all his body was in languor, and might not move.
And then he understood that it was a secret celestial place where no man human might come, and then he called the name of Jesu, and said: I conjure thee by our Lord, that if thou be a man or other creature reasonable, that dwellest in this cave, that thou answer me, and tell me the truth of thee.
And when he had said this three times, the blessed Mary Magdalene answered: Come more near, and thou shalt know that thou desirest.
And then he came trembling unto the half way, and she said to him: Rememberest thou not of the gospel of Mary Magdalene, the renowned sinful woman, which washed the feet of our Saviour with her tears, and dried them with the hair of her head, and desired to have forgiveness of her sins?
And the priest said to her: I remember it well, that is more than thirty years that holy church believeth and confesseth that it was done.
She Sends the Priest to St. Maximin
And then she said: I am she that by the space of thirty years have been here without witting of any person, and like as it was suffered to thee yesterday to see me, in like wise I am every day lift up by the hands of the angels into the air, and have deserved to hear with my bodily ears the right sweet song of the company celestial. And because it is showed to me of our Lord that I shall depart out of this world, go to Maximin, and say to him that the next day after the resurrection of our lord, in the same time that he is accustomed to arise and go to matins, that he alone enter into his oratory, and that by the ministry and service of angels he shall find me there.
And the priest heard the voice of her, like as it had been the voice of an angel, but he saw nothing; and then anon he went to St. Maximin, and told to him all by order.
St. Maximin’s Vision of St. Mary Magdalene
Then St. Maximin was replenished of great joy, and thanked greatly our Lord. And on the said day and hour, as is aforesaid, he entered into his oratory, and saw the blessed Mary Magdalene standing in the quire or choir yet among the angels that brought her, and was lift up from the earth the space of two or three cubits. And praying to our Lord she held up her hands, and when St. Maximin saw her, he was afraid to approach to her. And she returned to him, and said: Come hither mine own father, and flee not thy daughter.
And when he approached and came to her, as it is read in the books of the said St. Maximin, for the customable vision that she had of angels every day, the cheer and visage of her shone as clear as it had been the rays of the sun.
Her Soul is Taken to Heaven
And then all the clerks and the priests aforesaid were called, and Mary Magdalene received the body and blood of our Lord of the hands of the bishop with great abundance of tears, and after, she stretched her body tofore the altar, and her right blessed soul departed from the body and went to our Lord.
And after it was departed, there issued out of the body an odour so sweet-smelling that it remained there by the space of seven days to all them that entered in. And the blessed Maximin anointed the body of her with divers precious ointments, and buried it honourably, and after commanded that his body should be buried by hers after his death.
THE WITNESS OF HEGESIPPUS AND JOSEPHUS
Hegesippus, with other books of Josephus accord enough with the said story, and Josephus saith in his treatise that the blessed Mary Magdalene, after the ascension of our Lord, for the burning love that she had to Jesu Christ and for the grief and discomfort that she had for the absence of her master our Lord, she would never see man. But after when she came into the country of Aix, she went into desert, and dwelt there thirty years without knowing of any man or woman. And he saith that, every day at the seven hours canonical she was lifted in the air of the angels. But he saith that, when the priest came to her, he found her enclosed in her cell; and she required of him a vestment, and he delivered to her one, which she clothed and covered her with. And she went with him to the church and received the communion, and then made her prayers with joined hands, and rested in peace.
MIRACLES OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE
The Duke of Burgundy and the Translation of Her Relics
In the time of Charles the great, in the year of our Lord seven hundred and seventy-one, Gerard, duke of Burgundy might have no child by his wife, wherefore he gave largely alms to the poor people, and founded many churches, and many monasteries. And when he had made the abbey of Vesoul, he and the abbot of the monastery sent a monk with a good reasonable fellowship into Aix, for to bring thither if they might of the relics of St. Mary Magdalene.
And when the monk came to the said city, he found it all destroyed of paynims. Then by adventure he found the sepulchre, for the writing upon the sepulchre of marble showed well that the blessed lady Mary Magdalene rested and lay there, and the history of her was marvellously entailed and carved in the sepulchre. And then this monk opened it by night and took the relics, and bare them to his lodging. And that same night Mary Magdalene appeared to that monk, saying: Doubt thee nothing, make an end of the work. Then he returned homeward until he came half a mile from the monastery. But he might in no wise remove the relics from thence, till that the abbot and monks came with procession, and received them honestly. And soon after the duke had a child by his wife.
The Pilgrim Knight Revived
There was a knight that had a custom every year to go a pilgrimage unto the body of St. Mary Magdalene, which knight was slain in battle. And as his friends wept for him lying on his bier, they said with sweet and devout quarrels, why she suffered her devout servant to die without confession and penance. Then suddenly he that was dead arose, all they being sore abashed, and made one to call a priest to him, and confessed him with great devotion, and received the blessed sacrament, and then rested in peace.
The Mother Saved from Shipwreck
There was a ship charged with men and women that was perished and all to-brake, and there was among them a woman with child, which saw herself in peril to be drowned, and cried fast on Mary Magdalene for succour and help, making her avow that if she might be saved by her merits, and escape that peril, if she had a son she should give him to the monastery. And anon as she had so avowed, a woman of honourable habit and beauty appeared to her, and took her by the chin and brought her to the rivage all safe, and the other perished and were drowned. And after, she was delivered and had a son, and accomplished her avow like as she had promised.
The Story of Mary Magdalene and St. John
Some say that St. Mary Magdalene was wedded to St. John the Evangelist when Christ called him from the wedding, and when he was called from her, she had thereof indignation that her husband was taken from her, and went and gave herself to all delight, but because it was not convenable that the calling of St. John should be occasion of her damnation, therefore our Lord converted her mercifully to penance, and because he had taken from her sovereign delight of the flesh, he replenished her with sovereign delight spiritual tofore all other, that is the love of God. And it is said that he ennobled St. John tofore all other with the sweetness of his familiarity, because he had taken him from the delight aforesaid.
She Helps a Blind Man See Her Church
There was a man which was blind on both his eyes, and did him to be led to the monastery of the blessed Mary Magdalene for to visit her body. His leader said to him that he saw the church. And then the blind man escried and said with a high voice: O blessed Mary Magdalene, help me that I may deserve once to see thy church. And anon his eyes were opened, and saw clearly all things about him.
The Man Whose Sins Were Erased
There was another man that wrote his sins in a schedule and laid it under the coverture of the altar of Mary Magdalene, meekly praying her that she should get for him pardon and forgiveness, and a while after, he took the schedule again, and found all his sins effaced and struck out.
The Man in Debtors’ Prison
Another man was holden in prison for debt of money, in irons. And he called unto his help ofttimes Mary Magdalene. And on a night a fair woman appeared to him and brake all his irons, and opened the door, and commanded him to go his way; and when he saw himself loose he fled away anon.
The Sinful Clerk of Flanders
There was a clerk of Flanders named Stephen Rysen, and mounted in so great and disordinate felony, that he haunted all manner sins. And such thing as appertained to his health he would not hear. Nevertheless he had great devotion in the blessed Mary Magdalene and fasted her vigil, and honoured her feast.
And on a time as he visited her tomb, he was not all asleep nor well awaked, when Mary Magdalene appeared to him like a much fair woman, sustained with two angels, one on the right side, and another on the left side, and said to him, looking on him despitously: Stephen, why reputest thou the deeds of my merits to be unworthy? Wherefore mayst not thou at the instance of my merits and prayers be moved to penance? For since the time that thou begannest to have devotion in me, I have alway prayed God for thee firmly. Arise up therefore and repent thee, and I shall not leave thee till thou be reconciled to God.
And then forthwith he felt so great grace shed in him, that he forsook and renounced the world and entered into religion, and was after of right perfect life. And at the death of him was seen Mary Magdalene, standing beside the bier with angels which bare the soul up to heaven with heavenly song in likeness of a white dove.
Then let us pray to this blessed Mary Magdalene that she get us grace to do penance here for our sins, that after this life we may come to her in everlasting bliss in heaven. Amen.
The Epistle of Titus, the Disciple of Paul on the Estate of Chastity
1 Great and honorable is the divine promise which the Lord has made with his own mouth to them that are holy and pure: He will bestow upon them what eyes have not seen nor ears heard, nor has it entered into any human heart. And from eternity to eternity there will be a race incomparable and incomprehensible.
2 Blessed then are those who have not polluted their flesh by craving for this world, but are dead to the world that they may live for God! To whom neither flesh nor blood has shown deadly secrets, but the Spirit has shone upon them and shown some better thing so that even in this … and instant of our pilgrimage on the earth they may display an angelic appearance. As the Lord says, Such are to be called angels.
3 Those then who are not defiled with women he calls an angelic host. Those who have not abandoned themselves to men, he calls virgins, as the apostle of Christ says: the unmarried think day and night on godly things, that is, to act properly and to please Him alone, and not to deny by their doings what they have promised in words. Why should a virgin who is already betrothed to Christ be united with a carnal man?
4 It is not lawful to cling to a man and to serve him more than God. Virgin! Thou hast cast off Christ, to whom thou wert betrothed! Thou hast separated thyself from Him, thou who strivest to remain united to another! O beauteous maidenhood, at the last thou art stuck fast in love to a male being! O holy ascetic state, thou disappearest when the saints match human offenses!
5 O body, thou art put to the yoke of the law of God, and ever and again committest fornication! Thou art crucified to this world and continuest to act up to it! If the apostle Paul forbade communion to a woman caught in an adulterous relation with a strange man, how much more when those concerned are saints dedicated to Christ! Thou art caught in the vile fellowship of this world, and yet regardest thyself as worthy of the blood of Christ or as united with his body! But this is not the case: if thou eat of the flesh of the Lord unworthily, then thou takest vainly instead of life the fire of thine everlasting punishment! O virgin: if thou strivest to please another, then thou hast already committed a sin of volition, for the Evangelist says: one cannot serve two masters, for he obeys the one, and despises the other. O virgin! So is it also with thee. Thou despised God, whilst striving to please a man.
6 Wherefore contemplate the footprints of our ancestors! Consider the daughter of Jephthah: willing to do what had been promised by her father and vowing her own self as a sacrifice to the Lord, she first manifested her connection with God and took other virgins with her that in the mountains throughout sixty days they might bewail her virginity. O luminous secrets which disclose the future in advance! Virgin is joined with virgin, and in love to her she bewails the peril of her flesh until the day of her reward comes! Rightly does he say "sixty days", since he means the sixtyfold reward of holiness which the ascetic can gain through many pains, according to the teaching of the apostle: Let us not lose courage, he says, in the hardest labors, in affliction, in grief, in suffering abuse: we suffer persecution, but we are not forsaken, because we bear in our body the passion of Christ. Wherefore we are by no means overcome. And again the same apostle left an example behind him, describing his own disasters and saying: I have labored much, I have frequently been imprisoned, I have suffered extremely many floggings, I have often fallen into deadly peril. Of the Jews, he says, I have five times received forty stripes save one, three times have I been beaten with rods, once have I been stoned; thrice have I suffered shipwreck, a day and night I have spent in the depth of the sea; I have often journeyed, often been in peril of rivers, in peril of robbers, in peril among unbelievers in manifold ways, in peril among false brethren; in trouble and labor, frequently in sorrow, in many watchings, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings, in cold and nakedness, in inward anxieties, besides the cares which do not have direct reference to my personal suffering. And in all these I have not lost courage, because Christ was and still is with me.
7 Oh, through how much trouble does man attain to glory! Besides there is the word of the Lord, who says: Whom I love, he says, I rebuke and chasten that the righteous man may be tested as gold in the crucible. What bodily joy can there be then in the life to come if the word of the Lord runs: Oh! As a virgin, as a woman, so is the mystery of resurrection which you have shown to me, you who in the beginning of the world did institute vain feasts for yourselves and delighted in the wantonness of the Gentiles and behaved in the same way as those who take delight therein. Behold what sort of young maidens there are among you! But come and ponder over this, that there is one who tries the soul and a last day of retribution and persecution.
8 Where then art thou now, thou who hast passed the time of thy youth happily with a sinner, the apostle testifying moreover that neither flesh nor blood will possess the kingdom of God?
9 And again the law runs: Let not a man glory in his strength, but rather let him trust in the Lord, and Jeremiah says: Accursed is he who puts his hope in man. And in the Psalms it is said: It is better to trust in the Lord than to rely on men. Why then art thou not afraid to abandon the Lord and to trust in a man who in the last judgment will not save thee but rather destroy? Consider and take note of the happening about which the following account informs us: A peasant had a girl who was a virgin. She was also his only daughter, and therefore he besought Peter to offer a prayer for her. After he had prayed, the apostle said to the father that the Lord would bestow upon her what was expedient for her soul. Immediately the girl fell down dead. O reward worthy and ever pleasing to God, to escape the shamelessness of the flesh and to break the pride of the blood! But this distrustful old man, failing to recognize the worth of the heavenly grace, that is, the divine blessing, besought Peter again that his only daughter be raised from the dead. And some days later, after she had been raised, a man who passed himself off as a believer came into the house of the old man to stay with him, and seduced the girl, and the two of them never appeared again.
10 For the man who dishonors his own body makes himself like the godless. And therefore the dwelling-place of the godless cannot be found out, as David says: I sought him but he was nowhere to be found, as also in the mentioned case of death those two did not dare to appear any more. Thou oughtest then, O virgin, to fear the judgment of this law: If, says Moses, a betrothed virgin is caught unawares with another man, let the two of them be brought before the court of elders and be condemned to death.
11 These happenings have been recorded for us on whom the end of this age has come. One thing stands fast: should a virgin who is betrothed to Christ be caught unawares with another man, let them both be committed in the final sentence before the court of the elders, that is, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose charge it is to investigate the case of their children. Then will the fathers disown their children as evildoers. And finally the malefactors will cry amidst the torment of their punishment: Hear us, O Lord God, for our father Abraham has not known us, and Isaac and Jacob have disowned us! Thus let the children conduct themselves that some day they may find themselves in the bosom of father Abraham. That is to say, that they may remain praiseworthy in his remembrance and be not as the daughters of Zion whom the Holy Spirit reproaches through Isaiah: They moved together through the streets, dancing with their heads erect. And they engaged themselves to men in the villages of Jerusalem, and heaped up iniquity to the sky, and the Lord was angry and delivered them up to king Nebuchadnezzar to slavery for seventy years.
12 You also are disobedient and undisciplined, you who do something even worse than the first committed. In the end you also will be delivered up to the wicked king Nebuchadnezzar, as he says, that is, to the devil who will fall on you. And as the Jews, after they had spent seventy years in anguish, returned to their own places of abode, so a period of seven years is now appointed under Antichrist. But the pain of these seven years presents eternal anguish. And as, after their return to their homeland, they henceforth experienced much evil, so is it also now with these: after death the soul of each one will be tormented unto the judgment day. And again, after the slaughter of the beast, the first resurrection will take place; and then will the faithless souls return to their dwellings; and according to the increase of their earlier evil-doings will their torment now be augmented beyond the first punishment.
13 Therefore beloved, we must combat the works of the flesh because of the coming retribution. In order then that ye may escape eternal torment, ye must struggle, daughters, against flesh and blood so long as a period for that continues and a few days still remain wherein ye may contend for life. Why should the man who has renounced the flesh be held fast in its lust? Why, O virgin, thou who hast renounced a man, dost thou hug his physical beauty? Why givest thou up to a strange woman, that is, one belonging to Christ, thy body which was not made for that? Why strivest thou against thine own salvation to find death in love? Hear the apostle who says to you: See, he says, that ye give not place to the flesh through the liberty of God. And again: Fulfill not the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. These are opposed to one another. Therefore, he says, do not what ye would. Otherwise the Spirit of God is not in you. O inherently false one, to despise the commandments of the holy law and through a deceitful marriage to lose in secret the life everlasting! O honeyed cheat, to draw on torment in the future! O unbridled passion for glory, to offend against the devotion that has been vowed to God! O steps that lead astray from the way, that a virgin is fond of the flesh of another! O faithless craving, theft of fire, honor entangled in crime! O alluring symbol of vice that brings disdain! O concealed thievery, to give an appearance of humility and chastity! O gloom of the dark deed which plunders the glory of Christ for ever! O fleeting remembrance of holiness which strives after death in the name of beauty! O silver that has been refused, which according to the saying of Isaiah is not worthy of God! O dishonored Sabbath in which the works of the flesh come to light in the last days and times! O foot, that failest on the way to holiness and dost not arrive at a sure habitation! O ship burst open by pirates, thou that gettest away empty and miserable! O house that is undermined by burglars whilst the watchmen sleep and lose the costly treasure! O maidenly youth, thou that fallest off miserably from right conduct! O enlargement of trust in this world which turns into desolation in eternity! O consequence of unchastity which brings down upon itself the malady of melancholy! O fountain of sweet poison which springs up from flesh as inextricable entanglement! O wretched house founded upon sand! O despicable crime of this time, that corruptest not thine own members but those of a stranger! O fleeting enjoyment on the brink of collapse! O parcel of deceit! O unsleeping ardor for the perdition of the soul! O tower that is in building to be left unfinished! O shameful work, thou art the scorn of them that pass by! Why, O virgin, dost thou not ponder over it and estimate the heavenly charges before laying the foundation? In the beginning thou hast acted too hastily, and before the house was completed, thou hast already experienced a terrible collapse! In your case the saying of the law has been fulfilled, the prophecy has come to pass: Many a tract of land, it says, is built upon and soon it grows old; temples and cities are built in the land and soon they are abandoned! O flames of lust! The unclean profane with their lust the temple of God and by Him are condemned to destruction! Oh, a contest is entered upon in the stadium, and when it has hardly come to grappling, the shields fall to the ground! O city captured by enemies and reduced to a wilderness!
14 Against this whorish behavior the Lord turns through Ezekiel saying: Thou hast built thee thy brothel, thou hast desecrated thy beauty and thy comeliness in every by-way, thou hast become an unclean woman, thou who hast heaped up shamelessness for thyself. Thy disgrace in the unchastity which thou hast practiced with thy lovers will yet come to light. And again, As I live saith the Lord, Sodom has not so done as thou Jerusalem and thy daughters. But the iniquity of Sodom, thy sister, is fulfilled. For Samaria has not committed the half of thy sins. Thou hast multiplied iniquities beyond thy sister in all that thou hast done. Wherefore be ashamed and take thy disgrace upon thy head.
15 O how frequently the scourgings and beatings of God are not spared, and yet no one takes to heart the word of the Lord to be concerned about the future life! Has not Jerusalem, possessing the law, sinned more than Sodom and Gomorrah, which possessed no law? And have not the crimes of Jerusalem, whose sons and daughters have stood under the banner of faith, outweighed those of Samaria, which already from the beginning was worldly-minded?
16 On the unprecedented crime of this new people the apostle says: One hears commonly of unchastity among you and indeed of such unchastity as is never met with among the Gentiles, that one lives with his father’s wife. And ye are yet puffed up, and do not rather mourn, that such an evil-doer may be removed from your midst. I am indeed absent in the body, but in the spirit am among you and already, as if I were present, I have passed sentence on the evil-doer: to hand over that man to Satan in the name of Christ.
17 O invention of the devil, sport for those about to perish! Oh poison instead of honey, to take a father’s wife in the same way as any bride dedicated to Christ whom in thine heart thou hast craved for! O man, thou hast lent no ear to the wisdom that says to thee: the lust of the ascetic dishonors the virgin. So also did the first created man fall because of a virgin: when he saw a woman giving him a smile, he fell. His senses became tied to a craving which he had never known before; assuredly he had not experienced earlier its flavor and the sweetness that proved his downfall. O man who fearest not the face of this criminal person, passing by whom many have lost their lives. The disciple of the Lord, Judas Jacobi, brings that to our remembrance when he says: Beloved, I would bring to your remembrance, though ye know, what happened to them who were oppressed by the corruption of the flesh, as for instance the genuine persons who did not preserve their dignity, but abandoned their heavenly abode, and enticed by lust, went to the daughters of men to dwell with them.
18 Today also they forfeit the angelic character who crave to dwell with strange daughters, according to the word of the Lord who proclaimed to Isaiah: woe unto you who join house to house and add field to field that they may draw nigh one another. And in Micah it is said: Bewail the house which you have pulled on yourselves and endure of yourselves the punishment of indignation. Does the Lord mean perhaps the house or the field of this time when he warns against pressing them together? No rather it is a matter here of warnings in reference to holiness, in which the separation of man and woman is ordered. So the Lord also admonishes us through Jeremiah, saying, It is an excellent thing for a man that he bear his yoke in his youth; he will sit alone when his hope is real; he will keep quiet and have patience. ‘To bear the yoke’ is then to observe God’s order. And in conclusion the Lord says: Take my yoke upon you. And further, ‘in his youth’ means in his hope. Thus he has commanded that salvation be preserved in lonely celibacy, so that each one of you may remain as a lonely tower according to the saying of the Evangelist that house should not remain upon house, but should come down at once. Why then, O man, dost thou make haste to build you a ruin upon a strange house and thus to occasion not only your own destruction but also that of the bride of Christ who is united to you?
19 And also if thou art free from unchastity, already thou committest a sin in keeping up connections with women; for finally thus says the Lord in the Gospel: "He who looks upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." On this account a man must live for God sincerely and free from all lust. In Daniel also we read: As these false old men, who had craved for the beauty of Susanna, were unable to practice any unchastity with her, they slandered her. Susanna was brought before their court, and these rogues had her stand before them with her head uncovered so that they might satisfy their craving at least in looking at her beauty. And thus they were unable to escape capital punishment. How much more when the last day comes! What thinkest thou, will Christ do to those who have surrendered their own members to rape? The apostle has already shown the future in advance, saying: Let no temptation take hold of you, he says, save what is human! O temptation to sensuality! Man is not able to control himself, and inflicts on himself the predicted fatal wounds! O exhalations of the flesh! The glowing fire hidden deep in the heart nourishes a conflagration! O ignoble fight, to strike root in a dark night! O tree of seducing fruit that shows thick foliage! O false lips, out of which honey drops and which in the end are as bitter as poison! O charming eloquence, the words of which shoot arrows into the heart! O madness of love: death fetters the young as a chain, whilst wisdom announces the future, this is what it always orders: Avoid, my son, every evil and everything that resembles it. And further, And every man who takes part in a foot-race abstains from all things that he may be able to obtain the crown that is prepared for him.
20 Why takest thou, O man, a woman as a servant? Consider the conduct of our holy ancestors. Thus Elias, a noble man who still lives in the body, took a young man as a servant, to whom also he left his mantle as a holy keepsake when he was taken up into paradise in a chariot of fire. There Enoch also lives in the body, who was carried away there in the first age. O holy dispensation of God, who has provided for the coming age! Enoch, the righteous, from among the first people, was commissioned to commit to writing a history of the first men, and the holy Elias was given the task of registering the new deeds of this later people!
21 All that has thus to be construed according to the condition of our time: each of the two springs from his own age, Enoch as a symbol of righteousness and Elias as a symbol of holiness. But we must comply with the rule of our holiness, as the apostle says: In body and spirit genus must resemble genus and the disciple the master. And the spirit of Elias rested finally on Elisha. He also begged of him that he might immediately receive from him a double blessing like the one which later the Lord gave to his advanced disciples, saying, He that believes on me will also do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these. But such grace is granted only to those who fulfill the commandments of the Master. What should we now say? If Elisha served in the house of Elias to comply with the rule of propriety and the boy Gehazi assisted the prophet Elisha as Baruch the prophet Jeremiah in order to leave us an instructive remembrance, why does a man take a woman as servant under a semblance of holiness? If it is a matter of a close relative, then that will do; but not if she is a strange woman. After the flood, the sons of Noah looked for places for themselves where they might build cities, and they named them after their wives. Precisely so do these men now behave who are united to women.
22 O ascetics of God who look back at women to offer them gifts, to give them property, to promise them houses, to make them presents of clothes, to surrender to them their own souls and yield to their name all that belongs to them! If thou then, O man, behavest rightly and innocently, why dost thou not take thine own sister with thee? Why dost thou not give her all that belongs to thee, and thou wilt possess every thing? Further and further thou separatest thyself from her: thou hatest her, thou persecutest her. And yet thy greatest safety is in her. Nay, separated from her thou attachest thyself to another. And thus dost thou think to remain wealthy in body and not be controlled by any lust, and dost say that thou possessest the heavenly hope. Hear a word that holds good for thee. Consider what the Lord in the Gospel says to Mary: Touch me not, says he, for I am not yet ascended to my Father! O divine examples which have been written for us! And Paul, the chosen vessel of the Lord and the impregnable wall among the disciples, admonishes us when in the course of his mission the virgin Thecla, full of innocent faithfulness to Christ wished to kiss his chain — mark thou what the apostle said to her: Touch me not, he said, because of the frailty of this time. Thou dost see then, O young man, what the present Lord and the recorded testament of the disciple have said against the flesh. For they did not order the women to withdraw for their own sakes, for the Lord cannot be tempted and just as little can Paul, his vicar, but these admonitions and commands were uttered for the sake of us who are now members of Christ.
23 Above all the ascetic should avoid women on that account and see to it that he does worthily the duty entrusted to him by God. Consider the rebuilding of Jerusalem; at the time of this laborious work every man was armed and mail-clad, and with one hand he built whilst in the other he held fast a sword, always ready to contend against the enemy. Apprehend then the mystery, how one should build the sanctuary of celibacy: in ascetic loneliness one hand must be engaged in the work that an extremely beautiful city may be built for God, whilst the other grasps the sword and is always ready for acting against the wicked devil. That is then to be interpreted in this way: both hands, that is, the spirit and the flesh, have in mutual harmony to bring the building to completion, the spirit being always on the lookout for the enemy and the flesh building on the bedrock of good conduct. Therefore it is said in the Gospel: Let your works shine before men that they may glorify your Father in heaven. Behold what a splendid structure is built in the heavenly Jerusalem. In this city one contends rightly in a lonely position, without any intercourse with the flesh, as it stands in the Gospel: In the coming age, says the Lord, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be as angels in heaven. Thus we must endeavor through blameless conduct to gain for ourselves everlasting honor in the future age. O man, who understandest nothing at all of the fruits of righteousness, why has the Lord made the divine phoenix and not given it a little wife, but allowed it to remain in loneliness? Manifestly only on purpose to show the standing of virginity, that is, that young men, remote from intercourse with women, should remain holy. And its resurrection points finally to life. In this connection David says in the Psalms: I will lay me down and sleep in peace for thou, O Lord, makest me to dwell lonesome in hope. O great security, when a man lives lonesome in the body! Thou canst not expect to bind glowing coals on thy garment, and not set the robe alight. Should you do such a thing, then you will remain naked and your shame will be manifest. Add to this the word of the prophet: All flesh is grass. That a man then may not go up in flames, let him keep far from fire. Why exposest thou thine eternal salvation to loss through a trifle? Hast thou not read in the law this word that holds good for thee: The people sat down to eat and to drink; and they rose to make merry; and of them 23,000 fell there? For they had begun to have intercourse with the daughters of men, that is, they allowed themselves to be invited by them to their unclean sacrifices, and the children of Israel dedicated themselves to Baalpeor.
24 Behold, what a godless play it was in which the children of Israel allowed themselves to be entangled, and perished! Seeing in advance how such criminal doings would multiply until the end, Christ the Saviour was grieved, and he said: Woe, woe unto the souls that despise their own judgment! For I see men who delight their soul in vanity and abandon themselves to the unclean world. I see also how all that is for the benefit of the enemy! Therefore I can stand by them and say: O souls that apply yourselves to unchastity and have no fear before God! The Gibeonites also in the time of the Judges moved the Lord to indignation. Twelve thousand strong men arose to overthrow the city, and only three hundred and two virgins who had had no sexual intercourse with men came forth alive. The name Gibeonites signifies children of confusion, who received the body of Christ in the form of a woman, and prostituted it to their amusement, and made it an object of derision and mockery. Dost thou not do likewise in venturing to ridicule the members of Christ with a virgin? For all of us, both men and women, who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. It is then a matter of the violation not of earthly flesh but of the body of Christ. And rightly was that city taken by the attacking twelve legions, which were a symbol of the twelve apostles. Rightly have they sprung from a strong race, for they are called sons of thunder. In the last judgment they will appear, equipped with might, to perform miracles against the Gentiles. And they will judge the twelve tribes of Israel, sitting on twelve thrones. And no one from the church will then be able to get away, apart from the virgins dedicated to God, whose members have not been defiled by the enemy with the infection of his evil will. The number also suggests the sign of the cross: for 300 is written with the Greek letter T, and T is the figure of the cross, which makes its appearance in the life of virginity. Rightly also is the kingdom of heaven to be arrived at through five virgins, by which he means that the promises can be certain only through purity and wisdom. And therefore the promise was not fulfilled to Abraham through fleshly procreation, but it was through divine inspiration that he received the blessing. What would we then say to this? Can virginity not perhaps itself lead to eternal torment? Oh yes!, but these five virgins were foolish, precisely as are those who today have not watched over their flesh but have marred their readiness for battle through desire for the male sex. Wherefore also David says in the Psalms: Those who mounted on horses fell asleep. In the body indeed they went on horseback, but they were unable to persist in their virgin watchfulness, just like the children of confusion who were again thrown from their horses. O dark cringing of the flesh which has turned into torment! Finally they will reprove themselves for their past doings with the following words: O wretched flesh, which has brought us to ruin! Had we not suffered ourselves to be misled by thee, then we also could have been numbered among the saints!
25 O man, who believest that all things shall be! Thou knowest that different judgments must be passed on sinners. In the member with which each man has sinned, in the same also shall he be tormented.
26 The prophet Elias bears witness to a vision: The angel of the Lord, he says, showed me a deep valley, which is called Gehenna, burning with brimstone and pitch. In this place the souls of many sinners dwell and are tormented in different ways. Some suffer hanging from the genitals, others by the tongue, some by the eyes, others head downwards. The women are tormented in their breasts, and the young hang from their hands. Some virgins are roasted on a gridiron, and other souls undergo an unceasing torment. The multiplicity of the torments answers to the diversity of the sins of each. The adulterers and the corrupters of such as are under age are tormented in their genitals. Those who hang from their tongues are the blasphemers and false witnesses. They have their eyes burned who have stumbled through their glances and who have looked at foul things with craving for them. Head downwards there hang those who have detested the righteousness of God, who have been evil-minded, quarrelsome towards their fellows. Rightly then are they burned according to the punishment imposed on them. If some women are punished with torment in their breasts, then these are women who for sport have surrendered their own bodies to men, and for this reason these also hang from their hands. Solomon took these things into account, saying: Blessed is the eunuch who has committed no offense with his hands. And again, If thou controllest the craving of thy heart, then art thou an athlete.
27 And through wisdom he admonishes in the following way: Of what benefit to an idol is an offering when it can neither taste nor smell it? Just as little does it benefit a eunuch to embrace a virgin. O my son, thou shouldest not make her the object of your pleasure! Thou seest clearly that thou hast become a stranger to God.
28 In another passage we read: I abhor such sport, he says, unclean heresy, lust of the ascetic, bodies entwined in one another! I am ashamed to bring forward the further final doings, which the enemy has instigated and to which the apostle has prudently called our attention, saying: I am afraid concerning you lest ye be seduced by the enemy, as in those days Eve was cunningly tempted by the serpent.
29 Therefore, watching craftily, let us arm ourselves with spiritual weapons that we may be able to defeat the giant, as the discourse of the Lord by his prophet runs: He who defeats a giant, says he, takes his spoil. That means to bridle the desires of the flesh that, as its spoil, we may be able to carry away the everlasting resurrection. That can only take place after we have been renewed to the glory of God. How wilt thou then be capable of defeating a giant if thou art prevented by women? Hear the thanksgiving rendered by John, the disciple of the Lord, when praying before his death: O Lord, thou who from my infancy until this age has preserved me untouched by woman, thou who hast kept my body from them so that the mere sight of a woman excites abhorrence in me. O gift of God, to remain untouched by the influence of women! By the grace of this holy state thou canst love what is abominable to the flesh. But thou honorary ascetic, how canst thou believe that thou canst remain free from sordid deed if willingly thou hast women always before thee? Does what we teach here stand perhaps outside the law? Compare with this what even the demons declared when they made confession before the deacon Dyrus on the arrival of John: In the last times many will attempt to dispossess us, saying that they are free from women, and from craving after them and clean. And ye if we desired it, we could possess even them themselves.
30 Thou seest then, O man, how the strange spirits, that is, the deeds of the devil, testify to thee that one can be overcome by womanly beauty. How then canst thou set free the bodies possessed by them if thou thyself art possessed by them? To conquer them one must have in oneself the necessary power. Beware then of being possessed by the evil one or of being conquered by the adulterer, that is, keep thyself far from association with women and from pleasantry with them during meal-times. Thus runs the word of Holy Scripture: Suffer not thy heart to be enticed by her lest thou also come to death. Thus, my child, beware of her, as of a serpent's head. Receive into thine heart the admonitions of the blessed John, who when he was invited to a wedding, came only for the sake of chastity. And what did he say? Little children, whilst your flesh is still pure and you have a body that is still untouched and are not in a state of moral corruption and are not besmirched by Satan, the extremely hostile and shameless opponent of chastity, understand in fuller measure the mystery of the matrimonial association: it is an attempt of the serpent, ignorance of doctrine, violence done to the seed, a gift of death, an office of destruction, instruction in division, an office of moral corruption, a tarrying distraction, a sowing between them of the enemy, an ambush of Satan, a device of the malevolent one, dirty fruit of birth, a shedding of blood, a passion of the heart, a desertion of reason, the earnest of punishment, a deed of torment, a work of fire, a sign of the enemy, the deadly malice of eagerness, a kiss of deceit, an association in bitterness, an excitement of the heart, an invention of corruption, a craving for a phantom, a worldly course of life, the devil’s stage-play, an enemy of life, a fetter of darkness, intoxication of the mind, mockery by the enemy, a stumbling-block to life which separates from the Lord, a beginning of disobedience, the end of life, and death. Hearing this, little children, bind yourselves each one in an inseparable, true and holy marriage whilst ye await the one incomparable and true bridegroom from heaven, Christ the eternal bridegroom.
31 If the apostle allowed marriage itself to be dissolved that it might not occasion a heaping up of offenses, what should we say of the state of the ascetic, which most of all should be free from fleshly lust? O bodies separated from one another and already dedicated to Christ! O carnal glow of youth, difficult to quench! O dew that, flowing down from heaven, warms the cold vessel! O those who have ventured to call back to life the lost heavenly dignity! O endless glory of the saints, from death set free! O field pleasing to Christ, which brings forth eternal fruits! O denial of the flesh, spiritual nuptials with eternal marriage-ties in the heavenly habitations! O how much one can do in the conflict for chastity when one is discerning!
32 When finally the apostle Andrew came to a wedding to show the glory of God, he separated the spouses intended for one another, the women and the men, and taught them to remain holy in celibacy. O glory of the one-horned lamb that separates the sheep from the goats, whilst the Lord himself admonishes us: Hear me, my chosen sheep, and fear not the wolf. Not to fear the wolf means to flee from the offense of death. To separate the sheep from the goats means to keep oneself free from foul sins, to live in solitude as one of God’s ascetics. So also it is said in Ezra in reference to the future: Come ye from all cities to Jerusalem to the mount and bring with you cypress and palm leaves and build you detached booths!
33 Thou seest then, O holy man, that the hope described by the authors named holds good for us that, pure in body, we may live in solitude in our booths and that no one of us suffer himself to be fettered by carnal love. For, according to the question and answer of Christ, our Lord, the cypress is a mystery of chastity. Its spike on a single stalk rightly aims at the sky. By the palm leaves also he signifies the victory, the glory of martyrdom. Out of these two kinds of trees are the booths built, which are the bodies of the saints. And since he added out of the mount, that is, from the body of Christ, he meant doubtless the relevant substance. Blessed then are those who preserve this substance! These the Lord praises through Isaiah: Every one that does not profane the Sabbath but keeps it and takes hold of my covenant, them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer, and their offering and burnt offering will be accepted on my altar. So saith the Lord. The keeping holy of the Sabbath clearly means not to defile the pure flesh. And therefore was it ordered in the books of the patriarchs that no unprofitable work should be done on the Sabbath. Clearly then it is a positive fact that God forbids the doing of the works of this world in the flesh that is dedicated to Him.
34 Once upon a time on a Sabbath two men were surprised collecting wood, and God in indignation ordered that the two of them should be put to death. That took place in the past, but it is to be interpreted in the following way: the two collectors of wood signify those who are committing sin, their evil-doings being symbolized by the collected foliage. And therefore the bundle of wood could not be made by one person alone, but it was two together who defiled the Sabbath. Rightly does the Lord give warning by Ezekiel: Behold the princes of Israel, they have despised my sanctuary and defiled my Sabbaths; adulterous men have shed blood in thy midst, O Jerusalem.
35 O most beautiful city, in the midst of thy beauty they have exposed their father’s nakedness! O priceless holiness of God rejected by all evil-doers! O Sabbaths dedicated to Christ, desecrated by burglars! O priceless city, redeemed by the blood of Christ and overwhelmed with most filthy indecencies! The exposing of the father’s nakedness means assuredly the violation of the virginity that has been consecrated to God. Finally the Lord urges him on, namely the prophet, to lodge the following reproach: Each one of you has defiled a wife not his own in shameless act, and each one of you has ravished his father’s daughter. O error of judgment! The devil entices many minds to ravish not their own but the bride of Christ! O imitation of the animal way of life, when a man sleeps with his father’s daughter and with one born of the self-same mother!
36 Therefore, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the lawgiver sounds: Cursed be he who lies with his own sister. And the people said, Amen, Amen. Why art thou not afraid to lie with this sister, daughter of thy father and of they mother—here Christ is meant as father and the church as mother—as if thou couldest evade the punishment that is to be imposed by the court? Consider the by-gone doings recorded in the Books of the Kings, for example, when Adonijah craved for the Sunamite Abishag, his father’s girl, who was a symbol of the virginity that is dedicated to Christ, was he not because of a mere thought …? And if Adonijah was punished with death without having realized his purpose, how much more today he who is found guilty of such a deed? If Adonijah perished because of a word, what punishment, thinkest thou, will be measured out for the act? It is hard for a man controlled by lust to come forth unsullied, as the word of the Lord through the prophet Haggai indicates, saying: Ask the priests concerning the law and say: if one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment and after that do touch with his skirt bread, wine, oil, or any other food, will it thereby be holy or not? And the priest answered and said, No. And Haggai said: so is it also with this people and with this nation before me saith the Lord. Now it is the sanctified flesh, dedicated to chastity, that was touched by the skirt of the baptismal robe. But he showed that had it come into contact with what is despicable, this food would not thereby become holy; for the material food signifies the transient wishes of the human mind. That is carnal food, and it is not pleasing to the Holy Spirit. Therefore he decreed that the king’s garment should not be considered as holy thereby. And further he has likewise shown that there is a state of defilement whereby the creature also is defiled. What Moses had already previously said has been made clear to us by the author of this saying: Everything that an unclean person touches shall be unclean. And what says Haggai in addition? Even so this people and this race, saith the Lord. The city governor orders that the city dwellers be like him! O thou that turnest aside from holiness and usurpest honor for thyself, putting thyself on a par with that priest! O unreasonable king, thou that exploitest the people to rebellion! O the resemblance of an insincere course of life; many step in and out without justice! O worldly reckoning which is rejected by Christ! In conclusion he reproves them on the last day with the words: Depart from me, ye evil-doers, I know you not: so will I speak to those who go into destruction.
37 Thou seest how those who counterfeit holy celibacy, the enemies of chastity, the unjust corrupters of belief, the destroyers of the flock of God will be rejected. He shows that no one will escape punishment. Why thinkest thou, O foolish man, that what thou committest in secrecy is not forbidden, when God is Lord of the night and of the day, saying for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, and hid, that shall not be known. If one knows that it is not lawful to comply with the divers desires of the flesh and does what he regards as contrary to belief, can that not be described as obstinate offense? And it is that even if he does not give a thought to the fact that, although no one is present, contempt of the law weighs more heavily than unchastity. The lusts of the flesh must be deplored; this greediness must be expelled from the mind; but thou repentest not of this offense, and passest thyself off as guiltless when on the threshold of the glory that is due to guiltlessness and praisest thyself! But consider what David prophesies and what the Holy Spirit says through his mouth: I said, he says, ye are gods and altogether the children of the Highest, but ye will die like men and perish like one of the princes. O gods who die a human death! O glory of princes that falls from the height into the depth! That will take place some day, there being a separation between the righteous and the profane, and no fellowship of the believer with the unrighteous, of death with life. Or else consider what lies between destruction and salvation! Today the prophecy of the Lord through Ezekiel has finally come to fulfillment: My house, he says, has for me turned into such dross as brass, iron, tin, lead in the midst of silver. Into such a mixture have you turned. For in the state of the ascetic, which is silver, there have emerged in the end alloys of different sorts, bad ingredients. Now these are the elements of this mixture. The iron signifies the hardness of the heart in which wisdom of the spiritual mind has taken no root. Reuben was rightly characterized by Jacob as the hardness of iron, for he is reckoned the hardest among those who belong to the Jewish people. The lead signifies the heaviness of the flesh, which is extremely heavy. By this is signified the offense which submerges men in the destruction of death, for the submerging of Pharaoh and his people as lead in the sea according to the account in Scripture was only a sign for us. And similarly we are admonished through Zechariah: The mouth of a shameless woman is stopped up with lead, whereby crime is clearly meant. The brass signifies the stench of the sinful flesh, after which the sons of Israel craved in Egypt when they longed for the fleshpots. And on that account they died and were unable to come into possession of the ancestral promises, precisely as those also who suffer themselves to be enticed by the cravings of the flesh will not attain to the possession of the kingdom of God! The interpretation of the tin is this: They are tin who dazzle our eyes with the wisdom of God and who in the matter of chastity exhibit an appearance of polluted silver, but who are in no wise of great value in the church. They will be rejected according to the saying of Solomon: In secrecy they carry out abortions and at the same time think that they will live forever. That is then the mixture that has come to be in the house of God. O seducers of women who concoct new doctrine! Burglars in strange houses, corrupters of maidens, violators of chastity, apostates from belief, resisters of the truth, rebels to the discipline of God! O outrageous mixture! Thou hast turned into silver, that is, to chastity, and therefore these will be melted in the furnace of burning judgment, and then will the Lord purify for himself precious, pure, sterling, fine silver for that holy Jerusalem with a view to preparing for himself the paternal throne. But the others, of whom we have spoken above, who have apostatized from belief, these will go into eternal torment! Blessed are those who have remained holy in body and united in spirit, for they will often speak to God! Blessed are those who have kept themselves from the unchastity of this world, for they will be pleasing to Christ, the Son of God, and to the Father, the Lord! Blessed are those who have kept the baptism of salvation, for they will enjoy eternal delight. He who has the hearing of the heart, let him hear what God promises: To the victor, he says, will I give to eat of the tree of life which stands in the paradise of my God. O incorruptible nourishment that comes from the tree of wisdom, the leaves of which are destined for the healing of nations, where there shall be no curse and where no unclean flesh can enter, where no spite from unrighteous works and no lie will find a place, but only God and the Lamb will be enthroned. Their servants will render them homage forever and ever! These then are the servants of God who always minister to His will and please Him, who live not for the flesh but for the Holy Spirit. These are they who will not be overtaken by the second death and who will eat of the hidden manna, the food of the heavenly paradise. They will receive the white stone, the helmet of eternal salvation, upon which is written the ineffable name of God, which no man knows save he who has received it. O host most white, legions of sanctity, precious to God, to whom Christ the Lord orders royal powers to be given for the judging of all! Like the potter’s useless vessels will they smash them! I will give them, he says, the eternal morning star, as I myself received it from my Father. Likewise will he grant those victors to be clad in splendid clothing, nor will their name ever be deleted from the book of life. I will confess them, he says, before my Father and his angels in heaven. Blessed therefore are they who persevere even unto the end, as the Lord says: To him that overcometh will I grant to sit at my right hand in my throne, even as I have overcome and sit on the right hand of my Father in his throne to all ages forever and ever. Amen.
HERE ENDETH THE EPISTLE OF TITUS, THE DISCIPLE OF PAUL,
ON THE ESTATE OF CHASTITY.
The Coptic Apocryphon of Enoch
This manuscript fragment includes an ascent of Enoch, angelic revelations granted to him, and interactions between him and his sister Tabitha. This late antique work is explicitly Christian.
... tremble. If he sees them in their iniquities which they do, he will write them immediately, and your entire image will go to perdition. But seek rather for ... ... if he ... he will ... violence ... his power. ... balances ... in that world ... them completely ...
... of the archangel. He put it upon the balances of righteousness. He brought other mighty angels ... fiery ... that is, the name of the Son of God seated at the right hand of his Father. He bowed down at the feet of his Father, saying, O my Father, do not ...
... begat him ... under ... he received .... Truly, moreover, the righteous man, that is, Jared feared God, for God’s angels also loved him because of his ... and his ....
... he was taken up to heaven. He perceived the mysteries that are hidden in the eons of the height, and all the minds that are hidden in the eons of the Light and the ... of the .... ... he ....
... words .... ... day, while he stood upon the mountain, behold an angel of God appeared to him, girded about his loins with a golden girdle, with a crown of adamant ....
... said to him, Enoch, son of Jared, take this book in my hand and read in it, and reveal the name. Enoch said to him, Who ... ... my ... and you ... him ... .
... good ... will become ... whether ... to comfort ... write them ... from his ... him which .... my God will bestow upon you a name more famous than that of any man. You will be taken to heaven in your body, and you will be placed in the midst of the storehouse ....
... since the angel had informed him about them on the mountain. He found three seals, and the ... the writings ... ... upon ... the holy one of the Lord, ... virgin ... that ... might spend the thousand years upon the earth except ... abyss ....
... the one who ... in ... he found it to be the name of the Holy Spirit. Enoch said, My lord, behold three invisible names I have found written in the book ....
... a single counsel which is in them. They guide the heaven and the earth. The name of the Father touches the third ... which is upon ... ... is written ....
... in ... Enoch ... judge ... names ... ... in ... of her. Behold, what is my ... becoming which you have begotten from me? Behold three times she spoke with great words ....
... true. Neither was it known, nor could it be revealed, unless you go and reveal it in the midst of your father and your mother ... ... Enoch ... Enoch, my son, ... .
God looked down upon you and he saw you to be an elect one and removed from every evil. He said, .... Well, then will any other man be taken up to heaven in his body except me? She said to him, Our Lord ....
Two will be taken up to heaven in their bodies, one Elijah, and another Tabitha ... the place where .... except by forming another man like our father Adam, and that he inhabit the earth. She said to him, My brother Methuselah is the fruit that will come forth from you.
... tremble. If he sees them in their iniquities which they do, he will write them immediately, and your entire image will go to perdition. But seek rather for ... ... if he ... he will ... violence ... his power. ... balances ... in that world ... them completely ...
... of the archangel. He put it upon the balances of righteousness. He brought other mighty angels ... fiery ... that is, the name of the Son of God seated at the right hand of his Father. He bowed down at the feet of his Father, saying, O my Father, do not ...
... begat him ... under ... he received .... Truly, moreover, the righteous man, that is, Jared feared God, for God’s angels also loved him because of his ... and his ....
... he was taken up to heaven. He perceived the mysteries that are hidden in the eons of the height, and all the minds that are hidden in the eons of the Light and the ... of the .... ... he ....
... words .... ... day, while he stood upon the mountain, behold an angel of God appeared to him, girded about his loins with a golden girdle, with a crown of adamant ....
... said to him, Enoch, son of Jared, take this book in my hand and read in it, and reveal the name. Enoch said to him, Who ... ... my ... and you ... him ... .
... good ... will become ... whether ... to comfort ... write them ... from his ... him which .... my God will bestow upon you a name more famous than that of any man. You will be taken to heaven in your body, and you will be placed in the midst of the storehouse ....
... since the angel had informed him about them on the mountain. He found three seals, and the ... the writings ... ... upon ... the holy one of the Lord, ... virgin ... that ... might spend the thousand years upon the earth except ... abyss ....
... the one who ... in ... he found it to be the name of the Holy Spirit. Enoch said, My lord, behold three invisible names I have found written in the book ....
... a single counsel which is in them. They guide the heaven and the earth. The name of the Father touches the third ... which is upon ... ... is written ....
... in ... Enoch ... judge ... names ... ... in ... of her. Behold, what is my ... becoming which you have begotten from me? Behold three times she spoke with great words ....
... true. Neither was it known, nor could it be revealed, unless you go and reveal it in the midst of your father and your mother ... ... Enoch ... Enoch, my son, ... .
God looked down upon you and he saw you to be an elect one and removed from every evil. He said, .... Well, then will any other man be taken up to heaven in his body except me? She said to him, Our Lord ....
Two will be taken up to heaven in their bodies, one Elijah, and another Tabitha ... the place where .... except by forming another man like our father Adam, and that he inhabit the earth. She said to him, My brother Methuselah is the fruit that will come forth from you.
THE TESTAMENT OF ISAAC
Translated by K. H. KUHN . "An English Translation of the Sahidic Version of the “Testament of Isaac" in JTS N.S.. xviii (1967)
This is the going forth from the body of Isaac the patriarch: he died on the twenty-fourth of Mesore ( 17 August) in the peace of God. Amen.
1 Now Isaac the patriarch writes his testament and addresses his words of instruction to his son Jacob and to all those gathered round him. The blessings of the patriarch will be on those who come after us, even those who listen to these words, to these words of instruction and these medicines of life, so that the grace of God may be with all those who believe. This is the end of obedience, as it is written. You have heard a word, let it abide with you – which means that a man should strive patiently with what he hears. God gives grace to those who believe: he who believes the words of God and of his saints will be an inheritor of the Kingdom of God. God has been with the generations gone by, which have passed away, because of their innocence and their faith towards God. He will be with the generations to come also.
2. Now it came to pass, when the time had come for the Patriarch Isaac to go forth from the body, God sent to him the angel of his father Abraham at dawn on the twenty- second of Mesore. He said to him. Hail, son of promise! (Now it was the daily custom of the righteous old man Isaac to converse with the angels.) He lifted his face up to the face of the angel : he saw him assuming the likeness of his father Abraham; and he opened his mouth and raised his voice and cried out in great joy, I have seen your face like someone who has seen the lace of God. The angel said to him. Listen, my beloved Isaac: 1 have been sent for you by God to take you to the heavens and set you beside your father Abraham, so that you can see all the saints; for your father is expecting you and is coming for you himself. Behold, a throne has been set up for you close to your father Abraham, and your lot and your beloved son Jacob's lot will surpass that of all others in the whole of God's creation that is why you have been given for evermore the name of Patriarch and Father of the World. But the God-loviig old man Isaac said to the angel, ‘I am astonished by you,for you are my father’.The angel answered. my beloved Isaac, I am the angel that ministers to your father Abraham. But rejoice now, for I am to take you out of sorrow into gladness, out of suffering to rest for ever. I am to transport you from prison to a place where you can range at will — to a place of joy and gladness: I am to take you to where there is light and merriment and rejoicing and abundance that never fails. So then, draw up your testament and a statement for your household. for I am to translate you to rest for all eternity. Blessed is your father who begot you: blessed are you also: blessed is your son Jacob; and blessed are your descendants that will come after you.
3. Now Jacob heard them talking together, but he said nothing. Our father Isaac said to the angel with a heavy heart. What shall I do about the light of my eyes, my beloved son Jacob? For I am afraid of what Esau might do to him - you know the situation. The angel said to him: ‘My beloved Isaac, if all the nations on earth were gathered together, they would not be able to bring these blessings pronounced over Jacob to nothing. When you blessed him, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit blessed him; and Michael and Gabriel and all the angels and all the heavenly ones and the spirits of all the righteous and your father Abraham all answered Amen. The sword therefore, shall not touch his body; but he shall be held in high honor and grow great and spread far and wide, and twelve thrones shall spring from him’. Our father Isaac said to the angel: ‘You have given me much comfort, but do not let Jacob know in case he is distressed’. The angel said to him: ‘My beloved Isaac, blessed is every righteous man who goes forth from the body: blessed are they when they meet with God. Woe. woe, woe, three times woe to the sinner, because he has been born into this world: great sufferings will come to him. Isaac, beloved of God. give these instructions, therefore, to your sons, and the instructions your father has given you. Hide nothing from Jacob, so that he can write them as instructions for the generations that will come after you. and those who love God may live their lives in accordance with them. And take care that I am able to fetch you with Joy. without delay. The peace of my Lord that he has given me. I give to you, as I go to him who sent me’.
4. And when the angel had said this, he rose from the bed on which Isaac was sleeping. He went back to the worlds on high while our father Isaac watched him go, astonished at the vision he had seen. And he said: ‘ I shall not see daylight before I am sent for’. And while he was thinking this, behold, Jacob got up and came to the door of the room. The angel had cast a sleep over him so that he should not hear them; and he got up and ran to where his father slept and said to him: ‘My father, whom have you been talking to?’, Our father Isaac said to him: ‘You have heard, my son: your aged father has been sent for to be taken from you’, and Jacob put his arms round his father's neck and wept, saying: ‘Ah me! My strength has left me: today you have made me an orphan, my father’. Our father Isaac embraced his son Jacob and wept; and both wept together until they could weep no more .And Jacob said: ‘Take me with you, father Isaac’. But Isaac replied: ‘I would not have it so, my son; wait until you arc sent for, my loved one. I remember on the day when the whole earth was shaken from end to end talking to my lord and father Abraham, and I had no strength to do anything. What god has ordained, he has ordained for each one by sure authority: his ordinances are immutable. But I know, and I am glad that I am to go to God, and I am strengthened by a guiding spirit; for this is a way that no one can escape. Listen, my son, Where is the first creation of the hands of God - our father Adam and our mother Eve? Where is Abel, and after him Mahalalel, and Jared, and our father Enoch, and Methuselah, and our father Noah, and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth? .After these Arpachshad, and Cainan, and Shelah, and Eber, and Reu, and Serug, and Nahor, and Terah, and my blessed father Abraham, and Lot his brother? All these experienced death except the perfect one, our father Enoch.' .After these, forty-two generations more shall pass until Christ comes, born of a pure virgin called Mary. He will spend thirty years preaching in the world. At the end of all this, he will choose twelve men and reveal to them his mysteries and teach them about the archetype of his body and his true blood by means of bread and wine: and the bread will become the body of God and the wine will become the blood of God. And then he will ascend the tree of the cross and die for the whole creation, and rise on the third day and despoil hell, and deliver all mankind from the enemy. The generations to come will be saved by his body and by his blood until the end of time. The sacrifices of Christians will not cease until the end of time, whether offered secretly or openly; and the Antichrist will not appear so long as they offer up their sacrifice. Blessed is every man who performs that service and believes in it, because the archetypal service is in the heavens; and they shall celebrate with the Son of God in his kingdom’.
5. While the God-loving old man, our father Isaac, was saying this, all his household gathered round him and wept. His son told all his relations, and they came to him in tears. Now our father Isaac had made for himself a bedroom in his house; and when his sight began to fail he withdrew into it and remained there for a hundred years, fasting daily until evening, and offering for himself and his household a young animal for their soul. And he spent half the night in prayer and praise of Giod. Thus he lived an ascetic life for a hundred years. And he kept three periods of forty days as fasts each year, neither drinking wine nor eating fruit nor sleeping on his bed. And he prayed and gave thanks to God continually.
6. Now when it became generally known that the man of God had regained his sight, people gathered to him from everywhere, listening to his words of life; for they realized that a holy spirit of God was speaking in him. The great ones who came said to him: ‘You can now see clearly enough: how comes it that after your sight had failed you have now regained it?’ The God-loving old man smiled and said to them: ‘My sons and brothers, the God of my father Abraham has brought this about to comfort me in my old age. But the priest of God said to him: ‘Tell me what I ought to do, my father Isaac’. Our father Isaac said to him: ‘Keep your body holy, for the temple of God is set in it. Do not engage in controversy with other men in case an angry word escapes your mouth. Be on your guard against evil-speaking, against vainglory, and against uttering any thoughtless word; and see that your hands do not reach out after what is not yours. Do not offer a sacrifice with a blemish in it; and wash yourself with water when you approach the altar. Do not mix the thoughts of the world with the thoughts of God when you stand before him. Do your utmost to be at peace with everyone. When you stand before God and offer your sacrifice. when you come to offer it on the altar, you should recite privately a hundred prayers to God and make this confession to God saying: ‘Oh God, the incomprehensible, the unfathomable, the unattainable, the pure treasure, purify me in love; for I am flesh and blood and I run defiled to thee, that thou mayest purify me. I come burdened, and I ask that thou mayest lighten my burden: a fire will burn wood, and thy mercy will take away mine iniquities. Forgive me, me that am a sinner: I forgive the whole creation that thou hast made, 1 have no complaint against anyone: I am at peace with all that is made in thine image: I am unmoved by all the evil reasonings that have been brought before me. I am thy servant and the son of thy maidservant: 1 am the one who sins, thou art the one who forgives: forgive me and enable me to stand in thy holy place. Let my sacrifice be acceptable before thee: do not reject me because of my sins; but receive me unto thee, in spite of my many sins, like a sheep that has gone astray. God who hast been with our father Adam, and Abel. and Noah, and our father Abraham, and his son Isaac, who hast been with Jacob, be thou with me also, and receive my sacrifice from my hand’. As you recite all this, take your sacrifice and offer it; and strive heavenwards because of the sacrifice of God, so that you do not displease him. For the work of the priest is no small thing.
7. Every priest today (and till the end of time) must be temperate as regards his food and drink and sleep; neither should he talk about events connected with this world, nor listen to anyone who is talking about them. Rather should he spend his whole life occupied with prayer and vigils and recitation until our God sends for him in peace. Every man on earth, be he priest or monk (for after a long time they will love the life of holy retreat), must renounce the world and all its evil cares and join in the holy service the angels render in purity to God. And they will be honored before God and his angels because of their holy sacrifices and their angelic service, which is like the archetype that is rendered in the heavens. And the angels will be their friends, because of their perfect faith and their purity; and great is their honor before God.In a word, whether great or small, sinlessness is required of us. The chief sins worthy of repentance are these: You shall not kill with the sword; You shall not kill with the tongue either: You shall not commit fornication with your body; You shall not commit fornication with your thoughts; You shall not go in to the young to defile them; You shall not be envious; You shall not be angry until the sun has set; You shall not be proud in disposition; You shall not rejoice over your neighbor's fall: You shall not slander; You shall not look at a woman with a lustful eye; and. Do not readily listen to slander. We need to beware of these things, and of others like them, till each one of us is secure from the wrath that shall be revealed from heaven.
8. Now when the people gathered about him heard him, they cried out aloud saying. This is meet and right..Amen. But the God-loving old man was silent: he drew up his blanket: he covered his face.And the people and the priest were silent, so that he could rest himself a little. But the angel of his father .Abraham came to him and took him up into the heavens. He saw terrors and tumults spread abroad on this side and on that; and it was a terror and a tumult fearful to behold. Some had the face of a camel, others had the face of a lion: some had the face of a dog, others had but one eye and had tongs in their hands, three els long, all of iron. I looked, and behold, a man was brought, and those who brought him went with him. When they reached the beasts, those who went with him withdrew to one side: the lion advanced towards him, tore him apart into little pieces, and swallowed him; it then vomited him up, and he became like himself again; and the next beast treated him in just the same way. In short, they passed him on from one to the other; each one would tear him into pieces, swallow him, and then vomit him up; and he would become like himself again. I said to the angel: What sin has this man committed, my lord, that all this is done to him? The angel said to me: ‘This man you are looking at now had a quarrel with his neighbor, and he died without their being reconciled. See, he has been handed over to five chief tormentors: they spend a year tormenting him for every hour he spent Quarreling with his neighbor’. The angel also said to me: ‘My beloved Isaac, do you think these are the only ones? Believe me Isaac. beloved of God, there are six hundred thousand tormentors. They spend a year tormenting a man for every hour that he spends sinning – if he did not repent, that is, before he went forth From the body.
9. He led me on and brought me to a fiery river. the waters of wich were an ell high, and its noise like the noise of heaven's thunder. And 1 saw a host of souls submerged in it; and those who were in that river cried out and wept aloud, and there was a great commotion and much groaning. But it is a discerning fire that does not touch the righteous, yet burns up sinners and boils them in the stench that surrounds them. I saw also the pit of the abyss, the smoke of which went up in clouds; I saw men sunk in it grinding their teeth, crying out and wailing, and each one was groaning. The angel said to me. Look and see these others too. And when I had looked at them. the angel said to me,'' These are those who have committed the sin of Sodom; these are indeed in great distress. I saw also pits full of worms that do not sleep; I saw Abdemerouchos who is in charge of the punishments, made all of fire, threatening the tormentors in hell and saying. Beat them until they know that God is. I saw a house built of fiery stone, and there were grown men underneath it, crying out and wailing. The angel said to me. Look with your eyes and contemplate the Punishments. I said to the angel, .My eyes could not endure it; for how long must These punishments go on? He said to me. Until the merciful God has pity.
10. After this the angel took me up into the heavens; I saw my father, Abraham and I made obeisance to him. He saluted me, with all the saints, and the saints honored me because of my father; I they walked with me and took me to my Father, I worshiped him with all the saints. Songs of praise rang out, Thou art holy, thou art holy, thou art holy. King, Lord Sabaoth: the heavens and the earth are full of thy holy glory. The Lord said to my father from the holy place, ‘Is good that you have come, Abraham, your righteous root and faithful saint: it is good that you have come to our city. Whatever you may want to ask now, make your requests in the name of your beloved son Isaac, and they shall be yours indeed’. My father Abraham said. ‘Thine is the power, Oh Lord Almighty’. The Lord said to Abraham, ‘As for all those who are given the name of my beloved Isaac, let each one of them copy out his testament and honor it, and feed a poor man with bread in the name of my beloved Isaac on the day of his holy commemoration; to you will I grant them as sons in my kingdom’. Abraham said. ‘My Lord Almighty, if a man cannot copy out his testament,' can'st thou not in thy mercy accept him, for thou art merciful and compassionate?’ The Lord said to Abraham: ‘Let him feed a poor man with bread, and I will give him to you as a gift and as a son in my kingdom, and he shall come with you to the first hour of the thousand years. Abraham said, ‘Suppose he is poor and has no means of getting bread?’ The Lord said, ‘Let him spend the night of my beloved Isaac’s commemoration without sleep, and I will give him to you as a gift and an inheritor in my kingdom’. My father Abraham said ‘Suppose he is weak and has no strength, canst thou not in thy mercy accept him in love?’. The Lord said to him. ‘Let him offer up a little incense in the name of your beloved son Isaac, and I will give him to you as a son in my kingdom. If he has no means of getting incense, let him seek out a copy of his testament and read it on my beloved Isaac’s day. If he cannot read it, let him go and listen to others who can. If he is unable to do any of these things, let him go into his house and say a hundred Prayers, and I will give him to you as a son in my kingdom. But the most essential thing of all is that he should offer a sacrifice in my beloved Isaac's name, For his body was offered as a sacrifice.'Yet not only will I give you everyone called by my beloved Isaac's name as a son in my Kingdom; I will give you also everyone who does one of the things I have mentioned. And i will give you everyone who concerns himself about Isaac's life and his testament, or does any compassionate act. such as giving someone a cup of water to drink, or who copies out his testament with his own hand, and those who read it with all their heart in faith, believing everything that I have said. .My power and the power of my beloved Son and the Holy Spirit shall be with them, and I will give them to you as sons in my kingdom. Peace to all of you, all my saints’.
11. Now when he had said this, songs of praise rang out. Thou art holy, thou art holy, thou art holy. King. Lord .Sabaoth; the heavens and the earth are full of thy holy glory. The Father said to Michael from the holy place: ‘Michael, my steward, go quickly and gather together the angels and all the saints, so that they may come and meet my beloved Isaac. And Michael sounded the trumpet at once. All the saints gathered with the angels and came to the couch of our father Isaac:'the Lord mounted his chariot, and the seraphim were in front of him with the angels.And when they came to our father Isaac's couch, our father Isaac beheld our Lord's face immediately turned towards him full of joy. He cried out: ‘It is good that thou hast come, my Lord, and thy great archangel Michael: it is good that you have come, thy father Abraham, and all the saints.
12. Now when he had said this, Jacob embraced his Father; he kissed his mouth and wept. Our father Isaac fixed his eyes on him and motioned to him to be silent. Our father Isaac said to the Lord: ‘Remember my beloved Jacob’. The Lord said to him: ‘My power shall be with him; and when the time comes and I become man and die and rise from the dead on the third day, I will put your name in everyone's mind, and they will invoke you as their father.' Isaac said to Jacob: ‘My beloved son, this is the last commandment I give you today; keep a sharp eye on yourself Do not dishonor the image of God; for what you do to the image of man, you do to the image of God, and God will do it to you too in the place where you will meet him. This is the beginning and the end. Now when he had said this, our Lord brought his soul out of his body, and it was white as snow. He greeted it: he set it on the chariot with him: he took it up into the heavens, with the seraphim making music before him, and all the angels and the saints. He freely granted him the good things of his kingdom for ever, and all the requests our father Abraham had asked of the Lord he freely granted him as a covenant for ever.
13. This is the going forth from the body of our father Isaac, the patriarch, on the twenty-fourth of the month Mesore.And the day on which his father Abraham offered him as a sacrifice is the eighteenth of Mechir.(12 February) The heavens and the earth were full of the soothing odor of our father Isaac, like choice silver: this is the sacrifice of our father Isaac the patriarch. When Abraham offered him as a sacrifice to God, the soothing odor of Isaac's sacrifice went up into the heavens. Blessed is every man who performs an act of mercy in the name of these patriarchs, for they will be their sons in the kingdom of the heavens. For our Lord has made with them a covenant for ever, that everyone who performs an act of mercy on the day of their commemoration shall be given to them as a son in the kingdom of the heavens forever. And they shall come to the first hour of the thousand years, in accordance with the promise of our Lord, even our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, through whom every glory is due to him and his good Father and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life to all creation and one in being with the Father and the Son, now and always, for ever and ever. Amen''
THE TESTAMENT OF JACOB
This again is the going forth from the body of our father Jacob the patriarch, who is called Israel, on the twenty-eighth of the month Mesore ( 21 August ) in the peace of God. Amen.
1. Now it came to pass when the time had come for our beloved father Jacob the patriarch, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, to go forth from the body (and the God-loving Jacob was well on in years), the Lord sent Michael the archangel to him.And he said to him, Israel, my beloved, you righteous root, write your words of instruction for your sons, and draw up your testament for them, and concern yourself about those of your household, for the time has come for you to go to your fathers and rejoice with them for ever. And when the God-loving Jacob heard this from the angel, he answered and said to him. My lord, for it was his daily custom to talk to angels. He said to him. May the will of the Lord be done.
2. And God blessed our father Jacob. He made for himself a place apart, to which he withdrew and offered his prayers to God day and night, while the angels visited him and guarded him and kept him safe and gave him strength in everything. God blessed him; and his people increased greatly in numbers in the land of Egypt. For at the time he went down to Egypt to his son Joseph, his sight was failing as a result of continual weeping and worrying over his son Joseph; but after he arrived in Egypt and had seen his son Joseph's face, he saw everything clearly again.And Jacob Israel flung on his son Joseph's neck; he greeted him with tears and said: ‘Now let me die, for I have seen your face once more while you are still alive, my beloved’. And Joseph ruled over the whole of Egypt. Jacob lived in the land of Gashen for seventeen years. He became very old and attained a great age: he kept all the commandments and lived always in the fear of the Lord: and his sight failed so that he could see no one because of extreme old age.
3. He lifted his eyes towards the radiance of the angel who was speaking to him, who was in appearance and in face like his father Isaac: he was afraid and troubled. The angel said to him. Do not be afraid, Jacob: I am the angel who has been with you from your youth. I chose you to receive your father Isaac's blessing, and your mother Rebecca's. I am with you, Israel, in everything you do and everything you have seen. It was I who delivered you from Laban when he pursued you; I blessed you, and all your wives, and your sons, and all your cattle. It was I too who rescued you from Esau. It was I too who brought you down into the land of Egypt, Israel; and I have spread you out far and wide. Blessed is your father Abraham, for he became a friend of the Most High God because of his hospitality. Blessed is your lather Isaac who gave you life, for his sacrifice was perfect and pleasing to God. Blessed are you too, Jacob, for you saw God face to face and beheld the host of the angels of the Most High God. You saw the ladder set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. You also saw the Lord set on the top of it in power too great for words. You cried out saying: ‘This is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Blessed are you, for you have found strength in God and are strong among men.
Now, therefore, do not be troubled, beloved of God. Blessed are you, Israel, and blessed are all your descendants, for you shall be called patriarchs until the end of this age; for you are my people, and you are the root of the servants of God. Blessed is every nation which emulates your purity, and your virtues, and your righteousness, and your good works. Blessed is the man who commemorates you on your honored festival. Blessed is he who does a charitable deed in your name, or gives a man a cup of cold water, or brings a perfect offering to your place, or to any place, in your name, or receives a stranger, or visits the sick, or comforts an orphan, or clothes someone who is naked, in your name. He shall lack no good thing in this world; and in the world to come he shall have eternal life.And further, whoever writes an account of your life with its labors, or whoever makes a copy of it with his hands, or whoever reads it attentively, and whoever listens to it with faith and a resolute heart, and whoever emulates your manner of life -they shall be forgiven all their sins, and they shall be freely granted you in the kingdom of the heavens. So get up now, for you are to exchange trouble and sorrow for eternal rest, and you are to be borne away to a repose that never ceases, to a rest that never ends, and to a light that never sets, and to pleasure and gladness and spiritual joy. So now, give your commands to your sons, and peace be with you; for I am about to go to him who sent me’.
4. And when he had said this to him, the angel left him in peace and returned to the heavens, while Jacob gazed after him. .And those who were in the house heard him giving thanks to the Lord and glorifying him with praises. And all his sons gathered round him, from the youngest to the eldest of them, all in tears and in great distress, saying. He is about to go away and leave us. And they said to him. What shall we do, beloved father, For we are aliens in a foreign land?. And Jacob said to them. Do not be afraid, for God appeared to me in Mesopotamia saying: ‘I am the God of your fathers: do not be afraid: I am with you for ever, and with your descendants that shall come after you for ever: the land on which you are standing I will give to you and your descendants for ever. And again he said to me, Do not be afraid to go down into Egypt; I will go with you down to Egypt; and I will increase your numbers, and your descendants shall flourish for ever, and Joseph shall lay his hands upon your eyes. And your people shall increase greatly in Egypt; and then they shall return to me here, and I will do them good because of you. But now you must leave this place.
5. And after this the time drew near for Jacob Israel to go forth from the body. He called Joseph and spoke to him as follows: ‘If I have found favor with you, then put your blessed hand upon my thigh and swear to me on oath before the Lord to lay my body in my fathers grave.And Joseph said to him, I will do as you ask, my God-loving father. His father said to him. I would have you swear; and Joseph swore the oath to Jacob his father that he would take his body to his fathers grave. And Jacob bowed himself upon his son’s neck.
6. Now after this it was reported to Joseph. Behold, your father is in a sorry state. He took his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh and came to his father Israel. When Israel saw them, he said to Joseph,: ‘Who are these, my son?’ Joseph said to his father Jacob Israel: ‘These are my sons that God has given me in the land of my humiliation’. Israel said: ‘Bring them near to me’. Now Israel's sight had failed because of his great age, and he could hardly see. .And Joseph' brought them close to him; and he kissed them. When Israel had embraced them, he said, God will add to your descendants; And Joseph made his two sons, Ephraim and .Manasseh, do obeisance to him on the ground: Joseph put Manasseh under his right hand and Ephraim under his left hand. But Israel changed his hands: he laid his right hand on Ephraim’s head and his left hand on Manasseh’s head. And he blessed them; he gave them their patrimony, saying: ‘The God who approved my fathers Abraham and Isaac, The God who has looked after me from my childhood till today. The angel who rescues me from all my tribulations. Bless these lads who are my sons. With whom is left my name. And the name of my holy fathers Abraham and Isaac. They shall multiply; they shall increase; They shall become a great people on the earth. Afterwards Israel said to Joseph: ‘I am dying: but you will return to the land of your fathers, and God will be with you. Behold, you have been more favored than your brothers, for I have taken the Amorites with my bow and my sword’.
7. Jacob called all his sons and said to them, Come to me. all of you, so that I can tell you what will happen to you. and also what will happen to each one of you at the end of time. All Israel's sons gathered round him, from the youngest to the eldest of them. Jacob Israel answered and said to his sons: ‘Listen, sons of Jacob, listen to Israel your father, from Reuben my first-born unto Benjamin’. He told his sons what would happen to all twelve of them, name by name and tribe by tribe, with heaven's blessing. Then all kept silence so that he might rest a little.
8. He was taken up into the heavens to visit the resting-places. And behold, a host of tormentors came out. The appearance of each one was different; and they were ready to torment the sinners - that is the fornicators, and the harlots, and the Catamites, and the Sodomites, and the adulterers, and those who have corrupted God's creation, and the magicians, and the sorcerers, and the unrighteous, and the idol-worshipers, and the astrologers, and the slanderers and the double-tongued. In short, many are the punishments for all the sins we have mentioned; the unquenchable fire, the outer darkness, the place where there shall be weeping and grinding of teeth, and the worm that does not sleep. And it is a terrible thing for you to be brought before the judge, and it is a terrible thing to come into the hands o f the living God. Woe to all sinful men for whom these tortures and these tormentors are prepared. And again afterwards he took me and showed me the place where my fathers Abraham and Isaac were, a place that was all light; and they were glad and rejoiced in the kingdom of the heavens, in the city of the beloved.And he showed me all the resting-places and all the good things prepared for the righteous, and the things that eye has not seen nor ear heard, and have not come into the heart of men. that God has prepared for those who love him and do his will on earth (for if they end well, they do his will).
9. After this, Jacob said to his sons: ‘Behold I am about to be taken away and laid to rest with my people; lay my body with my people in the double grave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, where Abraham and his wife .Sarah were buried, where Isaac was buried, in the path of the field and the grave that is in it, which was bought from the sons of Heth’. And when Jacob had finished saying this, he drew his feet up on to his bed; he went forth from the body like; every man. And the Lord came from heaven with Michael and Gabriel accompanying him, and many legions of angels singing before him. They took the soul of Jacob Israel to abodes of light with his holy fathers Abraham and Isaac. Such was the life of Jacob Israel the patriarch. Joseph presented him to Pharaoh when he was a hundred and thirty years old and he spent another seventeen years in Egypt; together this makes a hundred and forty-seven years. He went to his rest in a ripe old age, perfect in every virtue and spiritual grace; and he glorified God in all his ways, in the peace of God. Amen.
10. Joseph threw himself upon his father, kissing him and weeping for him. And Joseph instructed his servants, the embalmers, saying: ‘Embalm my father in accordance with the best Egyptian practice’. They spent forty days embalming Israel; and when the forts days of Israel's embalming were over, they spent another eights days mourning for him. And when the days of Pharaoh's mourning were over (for he had been weeping for Jacob because of his love for Joseph). Joseph spoke with Pharaoh's great ones and said to them: ‘If I may claim this favor from you, speak on my behalf to Pharaoh the king saying: My father made me take an oath when he was about to go forth from the body, saying: Bury my body in my fathers grave in the land of Canaan. .So now I ask to be allowed to go and bury my father there and come back again’. Pharaoh the king said to Joseph the wise: ‘Go in peace and bury your lather as he made you swear to do; take with you chariots and wagons, and all the great ones of my kingdom, and as many of my servants as you need’. Joseph worshiped God in Pharaoh's presence and went out from him. And Joseph set out to bury his father. Many of Pharaoh's servants went with him. and the elders of Egypt as well as all Joseph's household, and his brothers, and the whole of Israel's household. And there went up with him chariots and horsemen; they were a very great company. And they stopped at the threshing floor of Gadad, which is on the bank on the other side of Jordan. They mourned for him there with a great and bitter mourning; and they mourned for him for seven days. Those in the lowland heard the mourning at the threshing-floor of Gadad, and they said: ‘This great mourning is a mourning of the Egyptians, so that that place is called The Mourning of Egypt to this day’. They took Israel and buried him in the land of Canaan in the double grave that Abraham had bought as a burial-place for silver from Ephron the Hittite, opposite Mamre. And Joseph returned to Egypt together with his brothers and the party from Pharaoh's household. After his father's death Joseph lived for many more years and was king over Egypt. But Jacob Israel died and was laid with his people.
11. Behold now, we have told you these things as best we could in order to instruct you about the going forth from the body of our father the patriarch Jacob Israel. 'It is written in the divinely inspired scriptures and the ancient books of our fathers the apostles, even I, Athanasius your father. If you want confirmation of this testament of the patriarch Jacob, take the book Genesis of the prophet Moses, the lawgiver, and read what is in it: your mind will be enlightened: you will find this, and more, written about it. .And again, you will find mention of God and his angels, for God was a friend to the patriarchs while they were yet in the body and spoke with them many times in many passages of scripture. And you will find that he spoke too in many passages in scripture with the patriarch Jacob, saying. I will bless your descendants and make them as many as the stars of heaven. And again, Jacob spoke with his son Joseph saying, My God appeared to me in the land of Canaan at Luz: he blessed me saying: ‘I will bless you and make you too many to be counted, and peoples and nations shall spring from you; I will give this land to your descendants after you as a possession for all time’.
12. See then, my beloved, we have heard these things about our fathers the patriarchs. Let us therefore emulate their deeds and their virtues, and their love of God and their love of men, and their hospitality, that we may be worthy to become their sons in the kingdom of the heavens, and that they may pray for us to God that he may save us from punishments in hell which the holy patriarch Jacob spoke about in his words full of all sweetness, when he taught his sons about the punishments and called them the sword of the Lord God. These are the river of fire that is prepared, and which engulfs sinners in its waves and those that have defiled themselves. These are the things the patriarch Jacob revealed when he taught the rest of his sons, that those that love instruction should listen to him and do what is good at all times, and love one another, and strive after love and pity. For pity triumphs over judgment and love covers a multitude of sins; and again. He who has pity on a poor man lends on usury to God.
13. So now. my sons, let neither prayer nor fasting be lacking, and persist in them continually; for they drive away the demons. My sons, keep yourselves from fornication, and anger, and adultery, and every evil thing, and especially from violence, and blasphemy, and theft. For no man of violence will inherit the kingdom of the heavens, neither will any fornicator, nor catamite, nor sodomite, nor blasphemer, nor covetous man, nor curser, nor anyone who is defiled. In short, these and the others we have mentioned will not inherit the kingdom of God. My sons, honor the saints, for it is they who pray for you, that your descendants may prosper and that the land may be yours as an inheritance for ever. My sons, be hospitable, that you may share the lot of our father Abraham, the great patriarch. My .sons, love the poor, that as you do to the poor man here, so God may give you the bread of eternal life in the heavens unto the end. He who feeds a poor man with bread here, God will feed him from the tree of life. Clothe the poor man who is naked here on earth, that God may put on you a robe of glory in the heavens, and so you may become a true son of our holy fathers the patriarchs. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the heavens for ever. Call to mind the word of God here and remember the saints, and take care that copies of their memoirs and their hymns are made for the encouragement of those who hear them, so that your name also may be written in the book of life in the heavens, and you too may be numbered with the number of God's saints who have pleased him in their generation, and take part in the chorus with the angels in the land of the living. We commemorate the saints, our fathers the patriarchs, at this very time every year; our father Abraham the patriarch on the twenty-eighth of Mesore, also our father Isaac the patriarch on the twenty-eighth of Mesore, and again our father Jacob on the twenty-eighth of this same month Mesore, as we have found it written in the ancient books of our holy fathers who were pleasing unto God. Through their supplication and their prayers may all of us together be granted to share their lot in the kingdom of our Lord and our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory of the Father with him and the Holy life-giving Spirit now and always and for ever. Amen. Remember me, that God may forgive me all my sins and give me understanding and give me stability without sin. Amen.