Pilate said to those who said that demons were subject to him, Why were your teachers not also subject to him? They say unto Pilate, We know not. And others said, That he raised up Lazarus from the sepulchre, when he had been dead four days. And the governor, becoming afraid, said to all the multitude of the Jews, Why will ye shed innocent blood?" The story proceeds much as in the gospels, the names of the malefactors being given; and when Pilate remarks the three hours' darkness to the Jews, they answer, "An eclipse of the sun has happened in the usual manner" (chap. xi.). Chap. xiii. gives a full account of the conversation between the Jews and the Roman soldiers alluded to in Matt. xxviii. 11-15. The remaining chapters relate the proceedings of the Jews after the resurrection, and are of no special interest. There is a second Gospel of Nicodemus, varying on some points from the one quoted above, which assumes to be "compiled by a Jew, named Aeneas; translated from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek, by Nicodemus, a Roman Toparch." Then we find a second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus, or "The Descent of Christ to the Under World," which relates how Jesus descended into Hades, and how he ordered Satan to be bound, and then he "blessed Adam on the forehead with the sign of the cross; and he did this also to the patriarchs, and the prophets, and martyrs, and forefathers, and took them up, and sprang up out of Hades." This story manifestly runs side by side with the tradition in 1. Pet. iii. 19, 20, wherein it is stated that Jesus "went and preached unto the spirits in prison," and that preaching is placed between his death (v. 18) and his resurrection (v. 21). The saving by baptism (v. 21) is also alluded to in this connection in Nicodemus, wherein (chap, xi.) the dead are baptised. The Latin versions of the Gospels of Nicodemus vary in details from the Greek, but not more than do the four canonical. In these, as in all the apocryphal writings, there is nothing specially to distinguish them from the accepted Scriptures; improbabilities and contradictions abound in all; miracles render them all alike incredible; myriad chains of similarity bind them all to each other, necessitating either the rejection of all as fabulous, or the acceptance of all as historical. Whether we regard external or internal evidence, we come to the same conclusion, _that there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the uncanonical writings_.