It is supposed by several that this story was an original invention of Moḥammad’s; but they are certainly mistaken: for several sectaries held the same opinion long before his time. The Basilidians, in the very beginning of Christianity, denied that Christ himself suffered, but [asserted] that Simon the Cirenean was crucified in his place. The Corinthians before them, and the Carpocratians next (to name no more of those who affirmed Jesus to have been a mere man), did believe the same thing, that it was not himself, but one of his followers, very like him, that was crucified. Photius tells us that he read a book entitled ‘The Journeys of the Apostles,’ relating the acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul; and among other things contained therein this was one, that Christ was not crucified, but another in his stead, and that therefore he laughed at his crucifiers, or those who thought they had crucified him.—S. [337] This miracle is thus related by the commentators. Jesus having at the request of his followers asked it of God, a red table immediately descended in their sight between two clouds and was set before them; whereupon he rose up, and, having made the ablution, prayed, and then took off the cloth which covered the table, saying, ‘In the name of God, the best provider of food.’ What the provisions were with which the table was furnished is a matter wherein the expositors are not agreed. One will have them to be nine cakes of bread and nine fishes; another, bread and flesh; another, all sorts of food except flesh; another, all sorts of food except bread and flesh; another, all except bread and fish; another, one fish which had the taste of all manner of food; another, fruits of Paradise: but the most received tradition is that when the table was uncovered there appeared a fish ready dressed, without scales or prickly fins, dropping with fat, having salt placed at its head, and vinegar at its tail, and round it all sorts of herbs except leeks, and five loaves of bread, on one of which there were olives, on the second honey, on the third butter, on the fourth cheese, and on the fifth dried flesh. They add that Jesus at the request of the apostles showed them another miracle by restoring the fish to life and causing its scales and fins to return to it; at which the standers-by being affrighted, he caused it to become as it was before: that one thousand three hundred men and women, all afflicted with bodily infirmities or poverty, ate of these provisions and were satisfied, the fish remaining whole as it was at the first: that then the table flew up to heaven in the sight of all; and every one who had partaken of this food were delivered from their infirmities and misfortunes: and that it continued to descend for forty days together, at dinner-time, and stood on the ground till the sun declined, and was then taken up into the clouds. Some of the Moḥammadan writers are of opinion that this table did not really