The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments RemainBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Apocryphal Gospels
The disciples, amongst whom is Judas, who unobserved, has mingled with
them, are sorely grieved; but Jeschu encourages them, and bids them
believe in him, and they will obtain thrones in heaven. Then he goes with
them to the Paschal Feast, in hopes of again being able to penetrate into
the Holy of Holies, and reading again the incommunicable Name, and of thus
recovering his power. But Judas forewarns the elders, and as Jeschu enters
the Temple he is attacked by armed men. The Jewish servants do not know
Jeschu from his disciples. Accordingly Judas flings himself down before
him, and thus indicates whom they are to take. Some of the disciples offer
resistance, but are speedily overcome, and take to flight to the
mountains, where they are caught and executed.
“But the elders of Jerusalem led Jeschu in chains into the city,
and bound him to a marble pillar, and scourged him, and said,
Where are now all the miracles thou hast wrought? And they plaited
a crown of thorns and set it on his head. Then the Fatherless was
in anguish through thirst, and he cried, saying, Give me water to
drink! So they gave him acid vinegar; and after he had drunk
thereof he cried, Of me did my father David prophesy, They gave me
gall to eat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.(113)
But they answered, If thou wert God, why didst thou not know it
was vinegar before tasting of it? Now thou art at the brink of the
grave, and changest not. But Jeschu wept and said, My God, my God!
why hast thou forsaken me? And the elders said, If thou be God,
save thyself from our hands. But Jeschu answered, saying, My blood
is shed for the redemption of the world, for Isaiah prophesied of
me, He was wounded for our transgression and bruised for our
iniquities; our chastisement lies upon him that we may have peace,
and by his wounds we are healed.(114) Then they led Jeschu forth
before the greater and the lesser Sanhedrim, and he was sentenced
to be stoned, and then to be hung on a tree. And it was the eve of
the Passover and of the Sabbath. And they led him forth to the
place where the punishment of stoning was wont to be executed, and
they stoned him there till he was dead. And after that, the wise
men hung him on the tree; but no tree would bear him; each brake
and yielded. And when even was come the wise men said, We may not,
on account of the Fatherless, break the letter of the law (which
forbids that one who is hung should remain all night on the tree).
Though he may have set at naught the law, yet will not we.
Therefore they buried the Fatherless in the place where he was
stoned. And when, midnight was come, the disciples came and seated
themselves on the grave, and wept and lamented him. Now when Judas
saw this, he took the body away and buried it in his garden under
a brook. He diverted the water of the brook elsewhere; but when
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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