In speaking of the trial of Jesus, Justin says: "For also as the prophet saith, they reviled him and set him on the judgment seat and said: Judge for us,"(5) a peculiarity which is not found in the Canonical Gospels. Justin had just quoted the words of Isaiah (lxv. 2, lviii. 2)... "They now ask of me judgment and dare to draw nigh to God," and then he cites Psalm xxii. 16, 22: "They pierced my hands and my feet, and upon my vesture they cast lots." He says that this did not happen to David, but was fulfilled in Christ, and the expression regarding the piercing the hands and feet referred to the nails of the cross which were driven through his hands and feet. And after he was crucified they cast lots upon his vesture. "And that these things occurred," he continues, "you may learn from the Acts drawn up under Pontius Pilate."(6) He likewise upon another occasion refers to the same Acta for confirmation of statements.(7) The Gospel of Nicodemus or Gesta {325} Pilati, now extant, does not contain the circumstance to which we are now referring, but in contradiction to the statement in the fourth Gospel (xviii. 28, 29) the Jews in this apocryphal work freely go into the very judgment seat of Pilate.(1) Teschendorf maintains that the first part of the Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acta Pilati, still extant, is the work, with more or less of interpolation, which, existing in the second century, is referred to by Justin.(2) A few reasons may here be given against such a conclusion. The fact of Jesus being set upon the judgment seat is not contained in the extant Acta Pilati at all, and therefore this work does not correspond with Justin's statement. It seems most unreasonable to suppose that Justin should seriously refer Roman Emperors to a work of this description, so manifestly composed by a Christian, and the Acta to which he directs them must have been a presumed official document, to which they had access, as of course no other evidence could be of any weight with them.(3) The extant work neither pretends to be, nor has in the slightest degree the form of, an official report. Moreover, the prologue attached to it distinctly states that Ananias, a provincial warden in the reign of Flavius Theodosius (towards the middle of the fifth century), found these Acts written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, and that he translated them into Greek.(4) The work itself, therefore, only pretends to be a private composition in Hebrew, and does not claim any relation to Pontius Pilate. The Greek is very corrupt and {326}