I

WOODBROOKE STUDIES
VOL. II
 PUBLISHED FOR THE TRUSTEES OF
THE WOODBROOKE SETTLEMENT, SELLY OAK, BIRMINGHAM

W. HEFFER & BYSONS LIMITED

CAMBRIDGE
WOODBROOKE STUDIES
CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS IN SYRIAC, ARABIC,
AND GARSHUNI, EDITED AND TRANSLATED
WITH A CRITICAL APPARATUS
BY

A. MINGANA

WITH TWO INTRODUCTIONS

BY

RENDEL HARRIS

VOLUME 2
1. TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY
2. THE LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN

3. THE MARTYRDOM OF PILATE

Reprinted from the " BULLETIN OF THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY,"

Volume 12, 1928

CAMBRIDGE
W. HEFFER & SONS LIMITED

1928
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The present volume is the second of the series of the " Wood-
brooke Studies" which I have drawn from texts contained in MSS.
of my own collection.
I have followed with interest the reviews of the first volume

of the "Studies" which have appeared in the leading theological

and Oriental journals of Europe and America, especially those
printed in Germany. I wish here to express my thanks for the
appreciative remarks of all the scholars who have discoursed on the
theme, and to assure them that I have taken notice of their words
of friendly criticism concerning the form and arrangement of the
" Studies " whenever 1 have felt justified in doing so, with a view
to further improvement.
In answer to inquiries, I may here state : (a) that the photo-
graphic reproductions appearing in the "Studies" are executed at
Bourn ville, Birmingham ; (<$) that my collection of MSS. on
Christian literature in Syriac, Garshuni, Arabic and Ethiopic has
been given in trust by Mr. Edward Cadbury to the Woodbrooke
Settlement, Selly Oak, Birmingham, the name of which appears
on the title-page of the "Studies."
A word of thanks is due to the Aberdeen University Press
and to the Arabic and Syriac compositors for the satisfactory way
in which they have performed a difficult task.
It is a pleasing duty to express my gratitude to my venerable
friend for the vigour of his two Introductions and the virility of
his inimitable style.1
A. MINGANA.
JOHN RYLAXDS LIBRARY,
1st August, 1928.

1 His curious slip to the effect that Luke was the recorder of the dream
of Pilate's wife instead of Matthew has been corrected in the present
volume.
 CONTENTS.
PAGES

TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY 1-162

Introduction • 1-10
Preface and Translation 11-90
Facsimiles of Mingana Syr. 17 91-162
LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN ........ 163-240
Introduction 163-177
Preface and Translation 178-210
Text 211-240

MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 241-332

Preface and Translation 241-282
Text 283-332
 WOODBROOKE STUDIES.
CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS IN SYRIAC. ARABIC, AND GARS HUM
EDITED AND TRANSLATED WITH A CRITICAL APPARATUS.

BY A. MINGANA.
WITH INTRODUCTIONS.

BY RENDEL HARRIS.
FASC. 3.
The Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before the Caliph
Mahdi.
INTRODUCTION.
IN the year 781 A.D. in the reign of Mahdi, the third of the
Abbassid Caliphs at Bagdad, there occurred a two-days' debate
between the Catholicos or Patriarch of the East Syrian Church
(who was also the recognised head of all Eastern Christians) and the
Caliph himself, as being the spiritual and temporal head of the
Mohammedan religion. It was a time when Islam was in the fresh-
ness of its new faith and animated by the glory of those sweeping
triumphs by which the Most Holy (blessed is He !) appeared to have
attested the call to belief and the associated call to arms of his new
prophet and messenger. With the final consolidation of the new faith
and the necessary canonisation of its great document (one book this
time, not four), there had come also the dawn of a new civilisation,
of \vhich Mohammed himself had never dreamed, and the splendour
of Bagdad, founded by Mahdi's predecessor, Mansur, had, to some
extent, retrieved the age-long ruins of its neighbour, Babylon the Great.
We are close to the days of the prime of Haroun al Raschid, who is,
in fact, second son and ultimately the successor of the Caliph with
whom the Patriarch Timothy held his debate, and he is actually
engaged on a military expedition on behalf of his father for the further
conquest of the unsubdued West, at the time when the discussion was
taking place. What is more important for us to realise is, not that we
2 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
are near to the romantic days of Al Raschid, but that we are very
close indeed to the days of Mohammed himself. Less than 1 50 years
have elapsed since the death of the prophet ; and it is not only in a
historical sense that we are aware of contiguity with the first of the
Commanders of the Faithful ; in a literary sense we are even nearer
still to the Islamic beginnings, for we have no earlier documentary
evidence than the one before us of the relations between what is com-
monly regarded as decadent Christianity and dominant and minatory
Islam. The period to which we refer is almost a tabula rasa for
the history of Islam itself. So Dr. Mingana is directly contributing to
Mohammedan history. Nor will the document, which is here
published for the first time, be undervalued by either Christian or
Moslem, if we find, on reading it, that Christianity, at least in Meso-
potamia, was not so decadent as has been commonly assumed, nor Islam
so blighted by intolerance, at least in Bagdad, as it has been in later
days and under less generous rulers. So we may read the debate with
an open mind, whether we are Moslems or Christians, and we shall at
least be able to admit from either side, if we take sides with the Patriarch
or with the Caliph, that the Christian religion is not a mere collection of
traditions flanked and buttressed by obsolete practices and rituals, and
that the Islamic doctrine, which has next to nothing to apologise for in the
shape of obscure rituals, was, in the time of the early Abbassid Caliphs,
undivorced from reason, and not requiring, either first or last, the sacri-
fice of the intellect. As we read the report of the conference, we
shall be surprised to find how keen the two antagonists are to appreciate
one another's arguments : the Patriarch praises the Caliph, endorsing
from time to time his theology, and we feel the sincerity of his com-
mendations, which outrun any possible cloak of hypocrisy ; and the
Caliph on his side is so touched by the piety and the eloquence of his
antagonist that he breaks out into an appeal which, if done into Latin,
would be, ' O cum talis sis, utinam noster esses.'
" If you accepted Mohammed as a prophet," said the Caliph,
" your words would be beautiful and their meanings fine."
On the other side the Patriarch carries the language of conciliation
so far as to startle a modern Christian reader ; he does not, like
Tennyson's Mogul Emperor, say,

" I stagger at the Koran and the sword ; "

 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 3
he uses the Kuran as a text-book in the debate, and, to a certain extent,
allows the sword as a lawful instrument of propaganda, provided, of
course, that it is used, like the Old Testament uses it, in the suppres-
sion of idolatry. " Who will not," says Timothy, "praise, honour,
and exalt the one who not only fought for God in words, but showed
also his zeal for him in the sword ? as Moses did with the Children
of Israel when he saw that they had fashioned a golden calf, and when
he killed all those who were worshipping it ..." from which it
appears that Timothy would have made an excellent Puritan, and a
great preacher of the Old Testament among the Ironsides ; but we
must not anticipate the general arguments of the new book, in the desire
to assure our readers that they will not find a more temperate and
judicious use of controversial weapons and methods than are disclosed
in the document before us. One further preliminary caution may be
given to those who read the book from the standpoint of what is called
Orthodox Christianity. Do not be deterred from estimating the work
rightly by a preliminary objection to the Christian representative (for he
was the official representative of all the churches), as a Nestorian. It
may, we think, safely be said that there is very little in Timothy's
presentation of Christian doctrine which is not altogether in accord with
Catholic definitions. Once indeed he deals a heavy blow at the
Jacobite Syrians and the Greeks for their Patripassian theology, but
this objection to a dying or a suffering God may be taken in an ortho-
dox sense. We must not, of course, expect to find him betraying
acquaintance with beliefs which are accretions to the Faith on the part
of Western and mediaeval Christianity such as, for example, the As-
sumption of the Virgin, of which he clearly knows nothing ; his
Mariolatry indeed is moderate enough ; if, however, the modern
reader does not ask too much from the Patriarch's noble confession of
faith, he will find as much as he has a right to ask or to expect. And
now let us turn to our Apology, and see what it tells us with regard
to the opinions of the Moslems on the one hand, and the Christian
believer on the other. A few words on Christian Apologetic in
general will serve to introduce the matter.
Apology or the Defence of the Faith is inherent in the Christian
religion, from its first publication and (we may safely say) to the very
end of its possible existence as a religion. Our Lord Himself
announced that Apology was a prime function of His believers and
4 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
followers. You shall be brought before Sanhedrin and beaten in
Synagogues, yes ! and before kings and rulers shall ye be set for my
sake, to give your testimony to them. In this way Jesus describes
what we may call a progressive Apologetic, an expanding defence ;
the judges change, the defence will change to match the court. It is a
court of Jews to begin with, a court of world-rulers later on. Notice
the vision of Jesus in the matter of Apology, and His implied assertion
of His own central position in any legal proceedings against you for
my sake. And as He is in the dock, and eternally numbered with
the transgressors, His followers will be entrusted with two privileges ;
either they will be standing in the dock with Him and He with them,
or they will be allowed to act as Counsel for His defence ; He does
not propose to pass either Jewish or Pagan courts without a proper
Apologia.
Naturally the manner of the defence will vary, according to the
constitution of the Court, and the code of laws which has been
infringed. We shall, however, find that in Christian Apologia there
is almost always a reminiscence of the fact that the first Court which
sat to judge the Christian believer was a Jewish Sanhedrin. They
had their own lictors, before ever Roman fasces were seen, and their
"forty stripes save one" were the primal condemnation which de-
veloped into the " Non licet vos esse" of imperial power. It is
important to keep this in mind because we shall see in the document
before us abundant traces that the Testimony which Jesus foretold was,
to begin with, a Testimony against the Jeivs, and that it was
developed along this line, even though the Jewish advocates had ceased
to appear, and the Jews themselves had come to be dismissed with
contempt by the Christian Orator. One cannot understand Christian
apologetic apart from the relation of Christianity to Judaism. We shall
return to this point presently.
We were speaking of the Christian advocate under the name of
the Orator, but we shall need to remind ourselves that this is just what
Jesus warned his disciples not to be. They were not to premeditate,
nor prepare set speeches ; their position was to be on the one hand a
prepared and preferred Silence, plus what we may without irreverence
call the Luck of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit itself should tell them,
at the very time of the inquisition, what they ought to say, as well as
what they were to abstain from preparing to say. No doubt in the
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 5
first ages, and often in later ages, saints and martyrs have followed the
counsel of their Master : it was, however, a counsel of perfection,
which soon gave way to what seemed to be a more reasonable manner
of affirming or confirming Christian truth ; and so we have philosophers
with documents, which they throw at the heads of princes, without
waiting for the arrest which they may feel sure will not very long be
deferred. Where there is no Court to which they may be handed
over, they will make use of literature, especially in the form of
Dialogue, and say in book-form the things which they would like to
say in a full and open Court. Justin Martyr, for instance, does not
really vary his theme in passing from his Apology to his Dialogue
with Trypho. Either document will show the same arguments and
the same proof -texts. The Apology was never recited, and some
people say that the Dialogue, considered as a discourse between real
persons, never occurred. We are not disposed to concede this ; only
we are bearing in mind that Apology tends to a literary form, and
that Justin's case shows it to be derived from an anti- Judaic matrix,
even when the anti-Judaic argument may be flanked by, or even set
aside in favour of, a more philosophical presentation. Aristides also is
a true philosopher ; you can see his Stoic dress the minute he rises to
speak ; while Justin is a Platonist, and tries to handle the philosophical
argument for the Being of God ; but the dress fits him awkwardly,
and he is not really happy until he pulls out from under his robe the
Book of the Prophets of Israel.
These preliminary considerations will help us to understand the
position which Timothy is going to take up before the Caliph. He
will take part in a philosophical and theological argument, more
because the Caliph presses him into it than because he loves it ; but
he knows that the common ground of their agreement does not lie in
the Moslem philosophy, however much they may overlap Christian
thought, but in the common use of sacred books as a court of appeal ;
and he is sensible that his friendly antagonist agrees with him in this
and is much nearer to him than any Chief Rabbi of a hundred
Sanhedrins could be. Each of the debaters has enlarged his library of
references : both accept the Torah ; both accept the Gospel (only the
Caliph puts in a caveat against possible corruptions either of Torah or
Gospel, in a sense that would be unfavourable to Islam) ; and what is
more strange, both accept in some sense the Kuran, or at least the
6 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
Christian debater is willing to use the Kuran in cases where its testi-
mony coincides with that of the Law and the Prophets. The area of
reference, extended in this way, and even when qualified by limitations,
is a wider area than could be marked out if the Caliph had been, let
us say, a Prince of Judaism. In that sense Christian and Moslem are
nearer together than either could be in a debate with Judaistic
controversialists. Indeed, the reader, who for the first time turns these
pages, will say, we did not believe they could be so near together.
Moreover it is not merely an artificial approximation, caused on the
one hand by the courtesy and grace of a prince, who has the very life
of his opponent contingent upon a word that he might say, but is too
good a Moslem to say, and on the other hand evoked by the courage
of the Patriarch, and the clearness of his utterance. The two are at
one in a number of fundamental points, and this underlying unity so
well expressed and so generously admitted on both sides, is what gives
the document something more than a passing value. As we have
said, the Jews are outside the arena of debate ; at least it seems so.
It is, however, only seeming. One cannot keep the Jews out of either
Christian or Moslem tradition and apologetic.
In this connection I may, perhaps, be allowed to recall something
which I wrote some years since in review of a tract which my dear
friend, Mrs. Gibson, had written on what she called The Tmine
Nature of God.
The discourse which Mrs. Gibson published was an Arabic treatise
which she had transcribed from an early MS. in the Library of the
Convent of St. Kathrine on Mount Sinai. It was edited by her1
under the title " On the Triune Nature of God" and was evidently
intended as a piece of propaganda, either in the conversion by a
Christian writer of his Moslem neighbours, or as an Apology for
Christian doctrine in the same quarter. It was a valuable contribution
to our history of early Moslem and Christian relations ; for the date, if
rightly assigned, is very nearly as early as the text of Timothy upon
which we are engaged. I took exception, however, to the title, which
I asserted should have been Contra Mukammedanos, as it was not
limited to an exposition of the Doctrine of the Trinity, but covered a
wider ground of debate between Moslems and Christians ; and I went

1 In the seventh volume of Studio. Sinaitica.

 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 7
on to point out in the pages of the American Journal of Theology J
that the writer, whom Mrs. Gibson had unearthed, had made use of
the very same Scriptural arguments in dealing with Moslems that his
predecessors had been in the habit of using against the Jews. In fact
he had for the most part transcribed and followed the lost book of
Testimonies against the Jews, with the slight modification that was
made necessary by the change in the persons addressed from Jews to
Moslems.
My reason for referring to the matter here lies in the fact that
Timothy has done the very same thing. One has only to take up such
a book as Cyprian's Testimonies, with its proofs that the Jews have
fallen from grace, that new worship and a new covenant have been
called for, followed by the series of Biblical proofs on the nature
of the Messiah, to satisfy ourselves completely that we are sailing on
the same stream of Christian thought as Justin and Irenaeus, Tertullian,
and Cyprian. Look, for instance, at the following statements of
Timothy :
" O our victorious King, the changes that were to take place
in the law given through Moses, God has clearly predicted
previously through the prophets whom we have mentioned.
God said thus through the prophet Jeremiah, and showed the
dissolution of the Law of Moses and the setting up of the Gospel,
' Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant, etc.' "
Here Timothy is following closely the method of Cyprian's first
book of Testimonies. He goes on to tell the Caliph that
' We have received concerning Christ numerous and distinct
testmonies from the Torah and the prophet 's" " The Jews did not
accept Jesus in spite of the fact that the Torah and the prophets were
full of testimonies about Him." These he proceeds torepeat, in the
same way as Justin and Cyprian repeat them, only adding to the
Christian corpus of Testimonies such corroboration as he can extract
from the pages of the Kuran, of which he has evidently been a careful
student. When he is challenged to say whether the title Servant Oj
God is not more proper for Christ than the title Son of God, he
replies :

1 For January, 1901.

 8 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

" He has indeed been called not only a servant, on account

of his service, but a stone^ the door, the way, and a lamb. He
was called a stone, not because He was a stone by nature, but
because of the truth of His teaching, etc."
Here we recognise one of the lost titles of Christ, to which a
whole section was assigned in the primitive Book of Testimonies, but
which passed out of currency at an early date, except where the
Testimonies of the Prophets conserved it. We do not think that any
one will read the Patriarch's biblical arguments carefully without seeing
that they are based upon a previous collection of prophecies. These
prophecies were collected for use against the Jews to whom the appeal
to Law and Prophets was in order ; but it must never be forgotten
that the Law and the Prophets are equally a Court of Appeal for the
Moslems. The only question that can arise is whether the Law and
the Prophets and the Testimonies that they contain have been trans-
mitted to us in an exact and incorrupt text. The challenge as to
purity of transmission is made by the Caliph in the usual Moslem
form ; we were surprised to find it so early ; the text of both Old
and New Testament and the contained Testimonies has been, he says,
falsified by the omission of the name of Muhammad as the Prophet
of God. The Patriarch is seen at great advantage in his argument
that the concurrence of Jewish and Christian teachers in the text that
they use contradicts the possibility of corruption ; they cannot have
agreed to falsify texts about Muhammad of whom the early writers
have never heard. Let the uncorrupt copies be produced ; since they
cannot all have been destroyed ; and since they cannot be found, it is
safe to say that they never existed. There has been no corruption.
Of the general trend of the argument we may say that the debate
very nearly resolves into a concession on one side that " I would be
persuaded to be a Moslem if it were possible." Could concession go
further than the admission that Muhammad walked in the steps of the
prophets, whether we call him the Prophet or not : or the statement
that if I had found in the Gospel a prophecy concerning the coming of
Muhammad, I would have left the Gospel for the Kuran, as I have
left the Torah and the Prophets for the Gospel ? All of this is
consistent with " sweet reasonableness." The defect of the Kuran is
the lack of evidence for the Kuran, in Timothy's judgment. He
makes no concession that is not consistent with orthodox Christian
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 9
belief ; on the other hand, when he moves outside religion into state-
craft, and calls those who oppose in the West the new militarism of

the East by the name of "murderers" deserving "fire and hell," he

goes further than either a serious Christian or a sober-minded Moslem
could follow him.1 Was it a crime to defend Constantinople against
Bagdad, and would it be no crime but the highest virtue to defend
? " Murderers " was a two-edged epithet ;
either could Byzantium
Bagdadsideagainst use it ; neither side should do so.
Setting aside these instances of extreme political concession and
inconsistency, which at least may add to our constant wonder how
such tractable and submissive people as the Patriarch represents could
ever be chosen as subjects for massacre and extermination, we turn
with admiration to the dignity and the courteousness of the Caliph's
attitude in debate. If he is pressed into a position in which he has
nothing to reply, or where nothing further can be said with advantage,
he introduces a new subject, or repeats a former statement. Some-
times, as when the Patriarch, having used up material illustrations of
the Doctrine of the Trinity, such as the favourite one (there is no
better) of the Sun and its Light and its Heat, makes a noble confession
that all such similitudes are insufficient for the exposition of the Nature
of God, the Caliph observes (with a twinkle in his eye) that " You will
not go very far with God in your bodily comparisons and similitudes."
Which, indeed, the Patriach had admitted in advance, and was ready
to concede and repeat, only with the explanation that the creature,
discoursing on the nature of the Creator, must necessarily use the
materials for discourse that Creation supplies. So they continue their

two-days' discourse, agreeing where they can, as on the Virgin Birth

of Jesus and the sinlessness of His character (which the Caliph holds
it is blasphemy to deny), and differing where they must, as on the
Unity or Trinity of God, and on the question whether either God or
Christ really died on the Cross.
In the end the Patriarch comes back to the use of similitudes, this
time to one that is not transcendental in its interpretation, the Parable,
as we may call it, of the Lost Pearl, in a darkened house, on a fog-
ridden day. Jesus Himself had played with the Quest for such a
Pearl in the Gospel ; but this time the Pearl is not overseas ; it has
Was he perhaps affected by the fanaticism of certain persecuting
Byzantine Emperors?
10 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
been dropped on the floor of the house ; many are searching for it,
many think they have found it, one grasping a stone, another a bit of
glass or the like, while one only holds the recovered jewel. Who shall
say in whose hands the treasure lies ? The day shall declare it. When
the fog lifts we shall know. We have it, says the Caliph, with a
Eureka of his own which has the very ring of reality. Amen, says the
Patriarch, may we all be found in possession of it, when the Day of
Judgment, of illuminated and undeceived Judgment arrives. The
Patriarch, however, was too good a Christian to allow it to be thought
that all faiths, including the one which he represented, stood an equal
chance till the Last Day. He alters his similitude of the Pearl to
prevent misapprehension of the Divine Revelation, as a figure of which
the Pearl has been introduced. The Pearl which eveiyone is groping
after in the darkened room and in the fog-laden atmosphere has a
luminosity of its own. One can find it in the dark, without waiting for
the ' awful rose of Dawn * at the end of the world, in which both
Moslem and Christian believe. He indicates some of the ways in which
this soft radianc? of the Truth discloses itself ; for God does not leave
Himself without witness ; there are in all times signs and wonders,
words and works of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. And so the
assembly dissolves, the two noble champions withdraw from the arena,
the Patriarch first praying for his Majesty and his heirs a kingdom that
shall not be moved.
RENDEL HARRIS.
 PREFACE, EDITION AND TRANSLATION.
BY A. MINGANA.
PREFATORY NOTE.
1GIVE in the following pages the text and the translation —
accompanied by a critical apparatus — of an official Apology of
Christianity. The writer of the Apology is the celebrated
Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I. (A.D. 780-823), and the man to whom
it was delivered by word of mouth is no less than Mahdi, the third
'Abbassid Caliph (A.D. 775-785). There is reason to believe that it
was delivered in this way towards the end of A.D. 781 or at the latest
782. See below, p. 84. The Apology is mentioned by 'Abdisho*
of Nisibin in his Catalogue under the title " Discussion with Mahdi."
Assemani, Bib. Orient., nl 162.
The Apology is in the form of a private theological discussion between
Timothy and Mahdi. It is not necessary to suppose that every word
in it was uttered verbatim^ but there are strong reasons for believing
that it contains as faithful an analysis as could possibly be made under
the circumstances of the questions and answers of the Caliph and the
Patriarch. We may also state with some confidence that the Patri-
arch's intention having mainly been to show to his correspondent and
co-religionists in general the nature and the extent of his answers to
the Caliph's questions, he may have neglected to record all the words
of the latter and contented himself with mentioning only the gist of his
objections. This colloquy was naturally conducted in Arabic, but we
have it now before us in the Syriac style of one of the most illustrious
ecclesiastical dignitaries that have ever honoured a high Patriarchal
See of any Church either Eastern or Western.1
It is naturally somewhat difficult to ascertain the duration of the time
tfiat must have elapsed between the two days of the oral discussion of
the two friendly antagonists, and the days in which that oral discussion
was first written down in its present form by the Christian protagonist

1 On his remarkable zeal in the spread of Christianity in Central Asia

see my Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia, 1925, pp. 12-17,
30, 74-76. See also my Early Spread of Christianity in India, 1926,
pp. 34 and 64.
12 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

From the nature of some phrases used in the text I am inclined to

believe that that time could not have been very considerable, and I
consider that A.D. 783 constitutes the lowest limit to which we might
ascribe it with safety, since the author uses in this connection the words
"before these days" (p. 16).
I have in my footnotes compared Timothy's Apology under Mahdi
in the eighth century with two other Apologies of the ninth century :
that of 'Abd al-Masih b. Ishak al- Kindi, and that of 'Ali b. Rabban
at-Tabari. Kindi's Apology — to which I refer by the word Risalah
— is in favour of Christianity and was written under the Caliph Ma'mun
(A.D. 813-833),1 and that of Ibn Rabban is entitled Kitab ad- Din
wad-Daulah, is in favour of Islam, and was written under the Caliph
Mutawakkil (A.D. 847-86 1).2
I may here note that I believe that Kindi's Apology mentioned by
the Muslim Blruni 3 and the Christian Nestorian ' Abdlsho' of Nisibin 4
is a genuine and authentic work. His adversary, who Blruni tells us
was 'Abdallah b. Isma'il al-Hashimi, informs us5 that he had frequent
discussions with the Patriarch Timothy, the author of the present
Apology. The Apology itself makes mention of contemporary events
that took place in the time of the author, such as the insurrection of
Atabag al-Khurrami,G and counts two hundred years from the time in
which the Prophet lived down to the time in which it was written.'
Kindi himself being decidedly a Nestorian could not possibly be con-
fused wtth any other author of a hostile community from the beginning
of the ninth to the end of the tenth century, such as the Jacobite
Yahya b. 'Adi who died in A.D. 974. Kindi8 quotes the Nestorian
hymn, " Blessed be the one who created the light," 9 explains the
" sleep " of Lazarus through the Nestorian exegesis,10 and clearly shows
in many passages his adhesion to the Nestorian Christological belief in the
mystery of the Incarnation.11 No Jacobite author could possibly have
done this.
Further, no other milieu was so favourable for the writing of a
1 1 use in my references the Arabic text published in Cairo in 1912 by
the Nile Mission Press.
2 My references are to my own edition and translation of the work in
1922-1923. 3Athar, p. 205 (edit. Sachau).
4 Catalogue in Assemani Bibl. Orient., iii. 213.
5 Risalah, p. 8. *Ibid., p. 53. 'Ibid., p. 65. * Ibid., p. 105.
9 In Bedjan's Breviarium Chaldaicum, i, ii, and iii, p. 47.
10 Risalah, p. 63. n See ibid., pp. 124-125, etc.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 13

book of such an aggressive tone as that created by the Caliph Ma'mun,1

and no author could have spoken in such a way of himself, of his ad-
versary and of Islam in general except a man of a true and noble
Arabian extraction as Kindi, on his own showing," was.
As to the distinction between si/at dhat and sifat fil they are
adaptations to Arabic and Islamic philosophy of the previously known
Syriac terms of dilaita dakkyana and dilaita de-sa' drill ha. Even
the present Apology of Timothy alludes to this distinction. I cannot,
therefore, see why a Christian Arab author writing about A.D. 820
should not have made use of this philosophical notion which was at
home in Christian circles of his time, and in my judgment the argument
taken from the use of these two terms in favour of a later date for the
Christian Apology3 is scientifically unwarranted by the Nestorian
philosophical studies of the time.
It has also been urged that another detail might suggest that the
Christian Apology was not composed by Kindi but by an author of
the tenth century, and that is the allusion that it makes to the fact that
the name of Muhammad is believed by the Muslims to be incribed on
the base of the throne of God.4 It has been said ° that since Tabari
who died in A.D. 923 refuted an opinion similar to this held by the
Hanbali Barbahari, the Apology could not be ascribed to about
A.D. 820. But is it not probable that such a belief was held also by
some Muslims in A.D. 820 ? What proof have we that it was the
Hanbali Barbahari who was the first man to hold and enunciate such a
belief ? After a careful study of the subject I have come to — in my
judgment — the only probable conclusion : that from internal and external
evidence Kindi's Apology for Christianity is genuine and authentic
in spite of some variants exhibited by the different Arabic and Garshuni
MSS. that contain it. The contrary opinion is, I believe, a mistake
which should be at once corrected.
To return to our present Apology : I may state with some con-
fidence that the Patriarch Timothy was well acquainted with the
contents of the Kur'an, but his knowledge does not seem to have been
acquired at first-hand ; it was rather derived from some Christians of
his own community. It is also very doubtful whether he was aware
of the existence of a Syriac translation of the Islamic Book. The
p. 134. 8 Ibid., pp. 98 and 135.
3 Encydop&dia of Islam, ii. 1021. 4In Risalah, pp. 55-56.
5 Encyclopedia of Islam, ii. 1021.
14 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

phrase " I heard " and the Kur'anic Arabic words that he uses in this
connection suggest that he was dependent upon an Arabic and not a
Syriac text of the Kur'an.
The most important verses of the Kur'an which he quotes in a
Syriac translation are lii. 48 ; iv. 156 ; iv. 159 ; iv. 1 70 ; xix. 1 7 ;
xix. 34 ; xxi. 91 ; and xc. 1-3. He is also aware of the existence of
the mysterious letters found at the beginning of some Surahs. The
usefulness of these quotations for the criticism of the text of the Kur'an
is emphasised in my foot-notes, but it will not be here out of place to
put side by side the Syriac text of the Kur'an as quoted by Barsalibi
— a text which I edited and translated in 1925 l — and by Timothy.
If both texts are identical there would be strong reasons for believing
that the Jacobite Barsalibi and the Nestorian Timothy were quoting
from a text lying before them. On the whole, however, the balance
is in favour of the opinion that Timothy's text is not Barsalibi's text.
Barsalibi. Timothy.
|Jo - frnr>VAo ]] |]} w»OlQ£i^. o |]o «jO1Q\^O j]

iv, 156.

>>ZiaLo 0105 j
xix, 34.

iii, 48. • -»
Not in Barsalibi. xix, 1 7. • ^»? U*C

xxi, 91

• oriLo , i\i> oaio xc, 1-:

Not in Bar?alibi. 1r^ loOUj

iv, 170.
1 An Ancient Syriac Translation of the Kuran.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 15
The only old MS. that contains the present Apology is the one
preserved in the Monastery of our Lady, near Alkosh,1 which may be
ascribed to about the thirteenth Christian century. From it are tran-
scribed Seert 65,' Vatican 8 1,3 Mardin 50, 4 and Mingana 17.
Apart frem Seert 65 which might have been ascribed to the eighteenth
century all the other MSS. were copied in the nineteenth century, and
if we have a faithful copy of the MS. of the Monastery of our Lady
we have practically all the other MSS.
For my present edition I give all Mingana 1 7 in facsimile. It was
transcribed some thirty years ago by the very able copyist, the priest
Abraham Shikwana of Alkosh, from the above MS. of the Monastery
of our Lady, and in my last journey to the East (in 1925) I collated
it myself with the original MS. The reader has therefore every
reason to rely on the accuracy of the text of the Apology. In some
passages my translation slightly deviates from the text for the sake of
clearness. The editorial plural is sometimes maintained.
In an article in the J.R. A. S. (1920, p. 481) on Ibn Rabban's
Apology for Islam I drew attention to the fact that religious contro-
versies between Muslims and Christians had not undergone any
appreciable change since the 9th century ; the same remark holds good
with regard to Timothy's and Kindi's Apologies for Christianity.
TRANSLATION.
With the assistance of God we will write the debate held by the
Patriarch Mar Timothy before Mahdi, the Commander of
the Faithful, by way of question and answer % on the subject
of the Christian religion.

On the one hand I feel repugnance to write to your Lordship,5

and on the other I am anxious to do so. I feel repugnance, on account

^o. 90 (7C) in A. Scher's catalogue in J.A., 1906, p. 57. The

reference to No. 96 in Baumstark's Gesch. d. Syr. Lit., p. 21 7, is a misprint.
:In Scher's catalogue. In my last journey to the East in 1925 I was
informed on the spot that this MS. was among those which had been
destroyed by Kurds in the world war of 1914-1918.
3 In /A, 1909, p. 263 and in Zeit. f. Assyr., ix., p. 363.
4 In Revue des Bibliotheques, \ 908, p. 80. No special mention, how-
erer, is made of the Apology in the Catalogue.
3 The correspondent of the Patriarch. He was possibly either Sergius
priest, monk and teacher of the monastery of Mar Abraham, or Sergius,
Metropolitan of Elam.
 lo \VOOnnROOKt: SIVOIKS
of the futility of the outcome of the work It is true that 1 could not
Km acquired a mature experience of such a futility from the angle
cfrscussion Heroin mentioned, but 1 may state that 1 have acquired such
an experience from discussions that took place before the one involved
in the promt lucubration,1 / *m «*i*w£t in order to confirm and
corroborate a traditional habit, inasmuch as the habit of friendly
correspondence hat acquired the right of prescription from very early
times, and has thereby received an additional title to existence ; as a
matter of fact k is bom and grow* in us from our childhood, nay even
KitVruxv.. .iiul it i> W.N Jmfell fa xhAc- .-i luiUl ot Mu-h a Jm.ition.
\ H AM MUM, KoW%Ver, Mid ^ An Kx^miK I -^m^imo uitiin^
this law, especially when I am reminded by a wise man who says that
it is useless to draw upon that which is difficult to inherit This is
also due to the fact that the subject is to me difficult and is even
against my nature, but we know that habit conquers inclination, as a

Weoften see that a strong and well rooted branch goes spontaneously
back to its former and congenial stale after it has been violently twisted,
and we do find that when powerful torrents are diverted from their
natural channels with violence, they return immediately to their natural
and customary course, without the need of any violence, This
Happens to me in relation to your groat wisdom j to put a stop to our
correspondence we must needs make me of violence, but after the
ca&afcH* of this viokftce* we go back to our natural state, while love
conquers all between us and covers die weaknesses of the Desh whkh
ate Ml of shame and confusion* and also many other human proclmties
whkh are known to the mind, but which the speech conceals and
hides under the veil of silence. Such weaknesses are well known to
your great wisdom* as if you were their father and originator, and are
also known to all the members of the Orthodox Church, Love
covers and hides all these weaknesses as Aft water covers and hides
die rodb that are under k. But let us now embark on our mam
subject in the way sanctioned by our old habit and ancient custom.
Lei it be known to your wisdom, O God-loving Lord, that before
the* days 1 had an audience of our victorious King, and according to
usage I prawd God and h» Majesty. When, in the. nmited spnot
E*k *** onghal
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 17
allowed to me, 1 had finished the words of my complimentary address,
'n which I spake of the nature of God and His Eternity, he did some-
thing to me, which he had never done before ; he said to me : " O
Catholicos, a man like you who possesses all this knowledge and
utters such sublime words concerning God, is not justified in saying
about God that He married a woman from whom He begat a son."
- And I replied to his Majesty '• " And who is, O God-loving King,
who has ever uttered such a blasphemy concerning God ? "• -And our
vu lorious King said to me : " What then do you say that Christ is ?"
—And 1 replied to his Majesty : " O King, Christ is the Word-God,
who appeared in the flesh for the salvation of the world." — And our
victorious King questioned me : " Do you not say that Christ is the
Son of God ? " —And 1 replied to his Majesty : " O King, Christ is
the Son of God, and 1 confess Him and worship Him as such. This
1 learned from Christ Himself in the Gospel and from the Books of
the Torah and of the Prophets, which know Him and call Him by the
name of " Son of God " but not a son in the flesh as children are born
in the carnal way, but an admirable and wonderful Son, more
sublime and higher than mind and words, as it fits a divine Son to be."
Our King asked then : " How ? " — And I replied to his Majesty :
" O our King, that He is a Son and one that is born, we learn it and
believe in it, but we dare not investigate how He was born before the
times, and we are not able to understand the fact at all, as God is
incomprehensible and inexplicable in all things ; but we may say in an
imperfect simile that as light is born of the sun and word of the soul,
so also Christ who is Word, is born of God, high above the times and
before all the worlds." — And our King said to me : " Do you not say
that He was born of the Virgin Maiy ? " — And I said to his Majesty :
" We say it and confess it. The very same Christ is the Word born
of the Father, and a man born of Mary. From the fact that He is
Word-God, He is born of the Father before the times, as light from
the sun and word from the soul ; and from the fact that He is man
He is born of the Virgin Mary, in time ; from the Father He is, there-
fore, born eternally, and from the Mother He is born in time, without

1 The Christian apologist Kindi refutes an objection of his adversary,

' Abdallah b. Isma'il al-Hashimi, which was in almost identical terms : " We
never say about the Most High God that He married a woman from whom
2 Cf. Is. ix. 6.
He begat a son," AY.sw.'W//, p. 37.
18 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
a Father, without any marital contact, and without any break in the
seals of the virginity of His Mother."
Then our God-loving King said to me : " That He was born of
Mary without marital intercourse is found in the Book,1 and is well
known, but is it possible that He was born without breaking the seals
of the virginity of His mother ? " — And I replied to him : " O King,
if we consider both facts in the light of natural law, they are impossible,
because it is impossible that a man should be born without breaking the
seals of his mother's virginity, and is equally impossible that He should
be conceived without a man's intercourse. But if we consider not
nature but God, the Lord of nature, as the Virgin was able to conceive
without marital relations, so was she able to be delivered of her child
without any break in her virginal seals. There is nothing impossible
with God,2 who can do everything."-— Then the King said : " That a
man can be born withour marital intercourse is borne out by the
example of Adam, who was fashioned by God from earth without any
marital intercourse, but that a man can be born without breaking his
mother's virginal seals we have no proof, either from Book nor from
nature."
And 1 replied to his Majesty in the following manner : " That
He was born without breaking the virginal seals of His mother we
have evidence from Book and nature. From Book there is the
example of Eve who was born from the side of Adam without having
rent it or fractured it, and the example of Jesus Christ who ascended
to Heaven without having torn and breached the firmament. In this
way He was born of Mary without having broken her virginal seals
or fractured them. This can also be illustrated from nature : all
fruits are born of trees without breaking or tearing them, and sight is born
of the eye while the latter is not broken or torn, and the perfume of
apples and all aromatic substances is born of their respective trees or
plants without breaking and tearing them, and the rays are born of the
sun without tearing or breaking its spheric form. As all these are
born of their generators without tearing them or rending them, so also
Christ was born of Mary without breaking her virginal seals ; as His
eternal birth from the Father is wonderful, so also is His temporal
birth from Mary."

1 Kur an, iii. 41 ; xxi. 91 . 2 Luke i. 37. Kur'in iii. 41 , etc.

 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 19
And our King said to me : " How was that Eternal One born in
time ?" — And I answered : " It is not in His eternity that He was
born of Mary, O our King, but in His temporalness and humanity."
— And our King said to me : " There are, therefore, two distinct
beings : if one is eternal and God from God as you said, and the
other temporal, the latter is therefore a pure man from Mary." — And
I retorted : " Christ is not two beings, O King, nor two Sons, but
Son and Christ are one ; there are in Him two natures, one of which
belongs to the Word and the other one which is from Mary, clothed
itself l with the Word-God." — And the King said : " They are, there-
fore, two, one of whom created and fashioned, and the other uncreated
and unfashioned," — And I said to him : " We do not deny the duality
of natures, O King, nor their mutual relations, but we profess that
both of them constitute one Christ and Son."
And the King retorted : "If He is one He is not two ; and if
He is two, He is not one." — And I replied to him : " A man is one,
while in reality he is two : one in his composition and individuality,
and two in the distinction found between his soul and his body ; the
former is invisible and spiritual, and the latter visible and corporeal.
Our King, together with the insignia of his Kingdom is also one King
and not two, however great may be the difference that separates him
from his dresses. In the same way the Word of God, together with
the clothings of humanity which He put on from Mary, is one and the
same Christ, and not two, although there is in Him the natural differ-
ence between the Word-God and His humanity ; and the fact that
He is one does not preclude the fact that He is also two. The very
same Christ and Son is indeed known and confessed as one, and the
fact that He is also two does not imply confusion or mixture, because
the known attributes of His natures are kept in one person ~ of the Son
and Christ."
And our King retorted to me : " Even in this you cannot save
yourself from duality in Christ." — And I demonstrated the fact to him
through another illustration and said : " The tongue and the word are

1 Note the semi-Nestorian expression of " putting on, clothing oneself

with " as applied to the union of God with man in the Incarnation. In the
following pages we shall not attempt to render this expression into English
at every time.
Parsopa, =
20 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
one with the voice in which they are clothed, in a way that the two
are not two words nor two tongues, but one word, together with the
tongue and the voice, so that they are called by all one tongue with
the word and the voice, and in them one does not expel two. This is
also the case with the Word-God ; He is one with His humanity,
while preserving the distinction between His invisibility and His
visibility, and between His Divinity and His humanity. Christ is one
in His son-ship, and two in the attributes of His natures."
And our King said to me : " Did not Jesus Christ say, I am going
to My God and to your God ? " l — And I said : " It is true that this
sentence has been said by our Saviour, but there is another sentence
which precedes it and which is worthy of mention." — And the King
asked: "Which is it?" — And I said: "Our Lord said to His
Disciples ' I am going to My Father and to your Father, and to My
God and your God.' " — And our King said : " How can this be ?
If He says that He is His Father, He is not His God, and if He is
His God, He is not His Father ; what is this contradiction ? " —And
I replied to him : " There is no contradiction here, O God-loving
King. The fact that He is His Father by nature does not carry with
it that He is also His God by nature, and the fact that He is His
God by nature does not imply that He is His Father by nature. He
is, however, from His Father by the nature of the Word, born of Him
from eternity, as light from the sun and word from the soul ; and
God is His God by the nature of the humanity of the Word born of
Mary. Man is living and rational only by the nature of his soul,
which has indeed received from God a living and rational nature, but
he is said to be living and rational in his body also, through its associa-
tion with this living and rational soul. In reality what he is by nature
when his body and soul are separated, is not what he is in its composite
state when his body and soul are united. In spite of all this however,
he is called one living and rational man and not tivo. In the same
way God is called, and is, the Christ's Father by the nature of the
union of Word- God with our human nature, and on the other hand
He is called His God by the nature of His humanity that He took
from us in union with the Word-God.
" In this way He is then one Son and Christ, and not two. He

1 John xx. 17. " The Arabic niu/tal.

 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 21
was not born of Mary in the same way as He was born of God, nor
was He born of God in the same way as He was born of Mary. So
the Son and the Christ are really one, in spite of His births being two,
and the same Christ has God as Father by nature, and as God :
Father by the fact that He is Word-God, and God by the fact of His
birth from Mary."
Our King showed here marks of doubt as to the possibility of all
the above explanations, and I removed his doubt through another
illustration, and said : " The letter of the Commander of the Faithful
is one, both in the words that are written in it and in the papyrus on
which the words are written, and our King, the King of Kings, is
called both the father and the owner of his letter. He is called its
father through the words born of his soul, which have been impressed
on the papyrus, and he is called its owner through his being the owner
of the papyrus on which the words have been written. Neither the
papyrus, however, is, by nature, from the soul of the King, nor the
words are by nature from the papyrus-reed, but the words are by
nature born of the soul of the King, and the papyrus is by nature made
of the papyrus-reed, t,e., from Trarrupo?.1 In this same way Christ is
one, both in His being Word-God and in His humanity taken from
us, but the very same God of Christ is both His Father and His
God : His Father, from the fact that He was born before the times of
the Father, and His God from the fact that He was born in time of
Mary. By nature, however, He is not a man from the Father, nor
is the Word by nature from Mary, but He is the very same Christ
both from the Father and from Mary, in the first case as God, and in
the second case as man."
Then our God- loving King said to me : " How can the spirit who
has no genital organs beget ?" — And I replied to him: "O God-
loving King, how can the spirit then do things and create without
possessing organs of creation. As He created the worlds without
instruments of creation, so He was born without the medium of the
genital organs. If He could not be born without the intermediary of
the genital organs, He could not by inference have created without the

1 There is no doubt therefore that the official letters and documents of

the early Abbasids were written on papyrus and not on parchment. The
Arabic word Kirtas seems by inference to indicate papyrus in the majority
of cases, if not always.
22 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
intermediary of the instruments of creation. If He created without
any instruments of creation, He was, therefore, born without the genital
organs. Lo, the sun also begets the rays of light without any genital
organs. God is therefore able to beget and create, although He is a
simple and not a composite spirit ; and without any genital organs and
instruments of creation He begets the Son and makes the Spirit proceed
from the essence of His person as the sun does for the light and the

heat."
And our King said to me : " Do you believe in Father, Son and
Holy Spirit ? " — And I answered : "I worship them and believe in
them." — Then our King said: 'You, therefore, believe in three
Gods ? " — And I replied to our King : " The belief in the above
three names, consists in the belief in three Persons, and the belief in
these three Persons consists in the belief in one God. The belief in
the above three names, consists therefore in the belief in one God. We
believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one God. So Jesus Christ
taught us, and so we have learnt from the revelation of the books of the
prophets. As our God-loving King is one King with his word and
his spirit, and not three Kings, and as no one is able to distinguish
him, his word and his spirit from himself and no one calls him King
independently of his word and his spirit, so also God is one God with
His Word and His Spirit, and not three Gods, because the Word and
the Spirit of God are inseparable from Him. And as the sun with
its light and its heat is not called three suns but one sun, so also God
with His Word and His Spirit is not three Gods but is and is called
one God."
Then the King said to me : ' What is my word ? It is some-
thing that vanishes and disappears." — And I replied to him : " As
God does not resemble in His nature the Commander of the Faithful,
so also the Word and the Spirit of God do not resemble those of the
Commander of the Faithful. We men sometimes exist and sometimes
do not exist because we have a beginning and an end, as we are created.
This is the case also with our word and our spirit, which at one time
exist, and at another cease to exist, and have a beginning and an end.
God, however, who is higher and more exalted than all is not like us
in this respect, but He exists divinely and eternally, and there was no
time in which He was not, nor will there be a time in which He will
not be. He has no beginning and no end, because He is not created.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 23
In the same way are His Word and His Spirit, who exist divinely
and eternally, that is to say without beginning and without end, as
God with God, without any separation."
Then our King said to me : " Are the Word and the Spirit not
separable from God ? " — And I replied : " No : never. As light and
heat are not separable from the sun, so also (the Word) and the Spirit
of God are not separable from Him. If one separates from the sun
its light and its heat, it will immediately become neither light- giver nor
heat-producer, and consequently it will cease to be sun, so also if one
separates from God His Word and His Spirit, He will cease to be a
rational and living God, because the one who has no reason is called
irrational,1 and the one who has no spirit " is dead. If one, therefore,
ventures to say about God that there was a time in which He had no
Word and no Spirit, such a one would blaspheme against God, because
his saying would be equivalent to asserting that there was a time in
which God had no reason and no life. If such adjectives are con-
sidered asblasphemy and abomination when said of God, it follows
that God begat the Word in a divine and eternal way, as a source of
wisdom, and had the Spirit proceeding from Him eternally and without
any beginning, as a source of life. God is indeed the eternal source of
life and wisdom ; as a source of wisdom He imparts by His Word
wisdom to all the rational beings, and as a source of life He causes life
to flow to all the living beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, because
God is the creator of everything by means of His Word and His

Spirit."
And our powerful King said to me : " Tell me from which books
you! can show me that the Word and the Spirit are eternally with
God." — And I replied : ' We can demonstrate this first from the
Books of the Prophets, and afterwards from the Gospel. As to the
prophets, David said first thus : ' By the Word of the Lord were the
heavens made, and all His hosts by the Spirit of His mouth.' 3 In
another passage he glorifies the Word of God as if it were God, in the
following terms : ' I shall glorify the Word of God.' 4 Further, in
speaking of the resurrection of the dead he said of God, ' Thou sendest

1 In Syr. the same root milltha is used to express both " reason " and
" word." The author plays on this identical root in a constant manner.
2 In Syr. " Spirit " which means also " soul."
3 Ps. xxxiii. 6 (Peshitta). 4Ps. Ivi. 10 (Peshitta).
24 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
forth Thy Spirit and they are created, and Thou renewest the face of
the earth.' l The prophet David would not have glorified a created
being, nor would he have called creator and renewer some one who
was created and fashioned. In another passage he speaks of the Word
of God as itself God, without a beginning and without an end, because
he writes : 2 ' Thou art for ever, O Lord, and Thy Word standeth in
Heaven ; ' he teaches here that as God is for ever in heaven, so also
the Word of God is in heaven for ever and without an end, because
he who is without an end is also without a beginning, and he who has
no beginning has no end.
" Afterwards comes the prophet Isaiah who speaks of the Word
of God in a way similar to that of David, in saying thus : ' The grass
withereth and the flower fadeth, but the Word of our God standeth
for ever.' 3 Other prophets also speak of this point in several passages.
So far as the Gospel is concerned we gather the same conclusion from
the following passage : ' In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.' 4 We are taught here two
things : that the Word is eternal, and that the same Word is God by
nature. All these the Gospel teaches about the Word, and it teaches
us also the same thing concerning the Spirit in the very same chapter,
' In Him was life,' 5 i.e., in the same Word — God was ' life ' which
means " (in Him) was Spirit " or " He was it." In saying of the
Word in the first passage that He " was," does not refer to any begin-
ning, and so is the case with regard to the second passage referring to
the Spirit. Indeed the Gospel in using this " was " is not speaking of
His creation but of His eternity. If Spirit is life and life is eternally
in God, the Spirit is consequently eternally in God. And Jesus Christ
(Holy Ghost ?) is the Spirit of God, and the life and light of men.
" In one passage Christ said to His Father, ' And now, O Father,
glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was.' 6 He said here, * with the glory
which He had before the world was, and not which came to Him ; '
if He had said, ' With the glory which kad come to me with Thee
before the world was,' He would have taught us that He was a
created and made being, but since He said ' with the glory which /
had with Thee before the world was ' He clearly taught us that while
1 Ps. civ. 30. '2 Ps. cxix. 89 (Peshitta). 3 Is. xl. 8.
*John i. 1. 6John i. 4. 6John xvii. 5.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 25
all the world was created He alone was without a beginning, as the
Word of God.
" In another passage while He was about to ascend to Heaven
He said to His disciples, ' Go and teach all nations and baptise them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' l
Jesus Christ would not have allowed Himself to count created and
made beings with the One who is uncreated and unmade, and tem-
poral beings with the One who has no beginning and no end. As
the wise men do not mix promiscuously with one another in one count
sun, stone and horse, nor pearl, gold and brass, but say, for instance,
in a separate way : three pearls, or three stars, as these are similar in
nature and resemble one another in everything, so also would the case
be with Jesus Christ, who would have never allowed himself to count
with God His Word and His Spirit, if He did not know that they
were equal to God in nature. How could He have made equal in
honour and royal power the one who was not God in nature with the
one who was, or the one who was temporal with the one who was
eternal ? It is not the servants who participate in royal honour but
the children "
Then our King said to me : "What is the difference between the
Son and the Spirit, and how is it that the Son is not the Spirit nor
the Spirit the Son ? Since you said that God is not composite there
should not be any difference with God in the fact that He begets and
makes proceed from Himself." — And I replied to our King as follows :
' There is no difference, O King, between the persons in their rela-
tion to one another, except that the first is not begotten, and the
second is begotten, and the third proceeds ; and God consists in
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; and He begat the former and made
the latter proceed from Him from eternity without any bodily cleavage
and separation in the organs and places that are fit for generation and
procession. God is not composite and has no body, and since the
terms ' cleavage ' and ' organs ' imply a body — because all bodies
are composite — it follows that ' cleavage ' and ' organs ' do not apply
to God ; indeed God being without body and not being composite,
is thought of without any notion of ' cleavage ' and ' separation.'
xxviii. 19.

• Most of the above Biblical

apologist Kindi in his Risalah, pp.passages are quoted also by the Christian
43, 147-148.
3
26 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
Reason comes out of the soul — because mind comes out of the soul—
but it comes out of it without any suffering, without any cleavage, and
without the instrumentality of organs. The very same sun begets
light and makes heat come out of it, without any cleavage or bodily
separation, and in a way that all the light is from all the sun and all
the heat from all its spheric globe.
" All the reason and all the mind are from all the soul, the former
by process of birth and the second by that of procession, as all the
heat and all the mind are with the sun and with the soul respectively,
and all the heat and all the reason are with the soul, with the sun,
and with ourselves, while light does not become heat nor heat light.
This very method applies to the Word and the Spirit : the former is
begotten, and the latter proceeds from God and the Father, not
through any material cleavage, and any suffering, nor from a special
organ, but as from an uncircumscribed being : an uncircumscribed one
in an uncircumscribed fashion, and one who is all in all without space
and time, in a way that the Son is not the Spirit, nor the Spirit the
Son, in qualifications and attributes.
" From the whole of an apple the whole of the scent and the
whole of the taste are begotten and proceed in a way that the apple
does not make the scent proceed from one part of it and beget the
taste from another, but scent and taste come out of all the apple.
While scent and taste are mixed with each other and with the apple,
they are nevertheless separate in a way that taste is not scent and scent
is not taste, and are not confused with each other, nor separated from
each other, but are so to speak mixed together in a separate way, and
separated from each other in a mixed way, by a process that is as
amazing as it is incomprehensible. In this very way from the uncir-
cumscribed Father the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds, in an
uncircumscribed way : the eternal from the eternal, the uncreated
from the uncreated, the spiritual from the spiritual. Since they are
uncircumscribed they are not separated from one another, and since
they are not bodies they are not mixed and confused with one another,
but are separated in their persons in a united way, so to speak, and
are united in their nature in a separate way. God is, therefore, one

in nature with three personal attributes."

And our King said to me : "If they are not separated by remote-
ness and nearness as they are uncircumscribed, the Father therefore,
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 27
and the Spirit clothed also themselves with the human body, together
with the Son ; if the Father and the Spirit did not put on human
body with the Son, how is it that they are not separated by distance
and space ? " — And I replied to his Majesty : " As the word of the
King clothes itself with the papyrus on which it is written, while his
soul and his mind cannot be said to do the same, and as his soul and
his mind while not separated from his word, cannot nevertheless be
said that they clothe themselves with the papyrus, so also is the case
with the Word of God ; because although He put on our human
body without having been separated from the Father and the Spirit,
yet the Father and the Spirit cannot be said to have put on our
human body.
" Further, the word that is begotten cf the soul clothes itself with
the voice that is caused by the vibration of the air, and yet it is not
separated from the soul and the mind, and the soul and the mind are
not said that they clothe themselves with the voice, and no man ever
says that he heard the mind and the soul of so-and-so, but he does
say that he heard the word of so-and-so, and this in spite of the fact
that the word is not remote from the mind, nor the mind from the
soul, and are not separated from one another. In this very way the
Word- God clothed Himself with a body from ourselves, without
having been separated in the least from the Father and the Spirit, and
in this way also the Father and the Spirit are not said to have put on
human body with the Word.
" Finally, the body is believed to be and actually is the temple
and the clothing of the soul, but it is not believed and actually is not
the temple and the clothing of the word and of the mind, in spite of
the fact that neither the word nor the mind are remote from the soul,
nor is the soul itself remote from the word and the mind. In this way
the Word alone is spoken of as having put on our human body, while
the Father and the Spirit are not said to have put it on, in spite of the
fact that they are not remote from the Word in distance and locality."
The objections and the difficulties raised by our Sovereign have been
rebutted and explained in the above way.
After these the King said to me : " Who is your head and your
leader?"— And I replied: "Our Lord Jesus Christ." — And our
King asked me: "Was Jesus Christ circumcised or not?" — And I
-answered : " He was."— And our King asked me : " Why do you
28 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
not then circumcise yourself ? If your head aud leader is Jesus
Christ, and Jesus Christ was circumcised, you should also by necessity
circumcise yourself." — And I spoke thus : " O King, Jesus Christ
was both circumcised and baptised. He was circumcised eight days
after His birth according to the injunction of the Law, and He was
baptised while He was about thirty years of age, and by His baptism
He annulled circumcision. I do not follow the Law as the Christ
followed all the Law ; l I follow the Gospel, and that is why I do
not circumcise myself in spite of the fact that Christ circumcised Him-
self, but I baptise myself with water and spirit like Him. I believe
in Jesus Christ, and since Jesus Christ was baptised I consider baptism
as an urgent necessity for me.2 I leave the image and cleave to the
reality."
And our King asked me : " How did Jesus Christ abolish
circumcision and what is the meaning of the ' image ' you have spoken
of ? " — And I replied : " All the Torah, was, O King, the image of
the Gospel. The sacrifices that are in the Law are the image of the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the priesthood and high-priesthood of
the Law are the image of the high-priesthood of Christ, and the
carnal circumcision is the image of His spiritual circumcision. As He
abolished the Law by the Gospel, and the sacrifices by His sacrifice,
and the priesthood of the Law by His priesthood, so also He
abolished and annulled the carnal circumcision which is performed by
the work of the hands of men by means of His circumcision which is
not performed by the work of the hands of men but by the power of
the Spirit, and it is the sacrament3 of the Kingdom of Heaven and of
the resurrection from death."
And our King said : " If Christ abolished the Law and all its
requirements, He is, therefore, its enemy and its adversary. We call
enemies those who destroy and contradict one another." — And I
replied to him : " The light of the stars is abolished by the light of
the sun, and the light of the latter is not for that the enemy of that of

1CL Matt. v. 17.

2 This objection about the circumcision of Christ and the uncircumcision
of Christians is also mentioned and refuted by the Christian apologist Kindi,
Risalah, p. 109. It is likewise alluded to by the Muslim apologist 'AH
Tabari, Kitab ud-D'in, pp. 159-160 of my translation.
3 The same Syriac word means both "mystery" and " sacrament."
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 29
the former ; the functions of childhood are also abolished by those of
manhood, and man is not for that the enemy of himself ; an earthly
kingdom is also abolished by the heavenly Kingdom, and the King-
dom of God is not for that the enemy of men. In this very way
Jesus Christ abolished and destroyed the Law by the Gospel, while
He is not for that the enemy and the adversaiy of the Law."
And our King said to me : " Where did Jesus Christ worship
and pray in the years that elapsed between His birth and His
ascension to Heaven ? Was it not in the house of holiness l and in
Jerusalem ? " — And I replied : ' Yes." — And our King asked :
" Why then do you worship God and pray in the direction of the
East?" — And I replied: "The true worship of the Omnipotent
God, O King, will be performed by mankind in the Kingdom of
Heaven, and the image of the Kingdom of Heaven in the earth is the
paradise of Eden ; now as the paradise of Eden is in the east, we
therefore worship God and pray rightly in the direction of the east in
which is the Paradise which is the image of the Kingdom of Heaven.
There is also another reason for our conduct : Jesus Christ walked in
the flesh thirty-three years on the earth, O King. In the thirtieth
year he repaid to God all the debt that the human kind and angels
owed to Him. It was a debt that no man and no angel was able to
pay, because there has never been a created being that was free from
sin, except the Man with whom God clothed Himself and became
one with Him in a wonderful unity.2
" After having then paid to God the debt of all the creatures and
abrogated, annulled, and torn the contract containing it, He went to
the Jordan, to John the Baptist, and was baptised by him, and thus
the One who was the image of the Kingdom of Heaven placed this
baptism of His in the forefront of the Christian life. From the day
of His baptism to that of His ascension to heaven there are three
years, and it is in these three years that He has taught us all the
economy of the Christian religion : baptism, laws, ordinances, prayers,
worship in the direction of the east, and the sacrifice that we offer.
All these things He practised in His person and taught us to practise
ourselves. Because He wished to proclaim to the world through
His disciples : the Gospel, the baptism, the sacrifice and the worship
1 I.e. Temple. Syr. baita d-makdsha from which the Arab, bait
al-makdis.
- This teaching is that of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
30 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
and prayer to God, He performed and fulfilled them all in His own
person, in order that His disciples might fulfil themselves what they
had seen Him practising Himself, and that they might teach others to
do the same.
" Further, the worship of God started at the beginning in the
East ; it is indeed in that direction that Adam and his children
worshipped God, because the Paradise is in the direction of the east.1
Moreover, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses used to worship
God and to pray while turning towards the east and Paradise, that is
towards the direction and the place in which God had been worshipped
from the beginning by Adam and his children, as we have just now
said. It is for this reason that Jesus Christ taught His disciples to
worship God and pray towards the east. Because Adam transgressed
the commandment of God, he was driven out of Paradise, and when
he went out of Paradise he was thrown on this accursed earth.
Having been thrown on this accursed earth, he turned his face away
from God, and his children worshipped demons, stars, sun, moon and
graven and molten images. The Word of God came then to the
children of men in a human body, and in His person paid to God the
debt that they were owing Him. To remind them, however, of the
place from which their father was driven because of his transgression
of the commandment, He made them turn their faces towards Paradise
in their worship and prayer, because it is in it that God was first
worshipped.
" Because Jesus Christ saved men from the deportation of Satan,
and the Word of God freed them from the worship of idols, He
rightly turned also the direction of their sight and their mind towards
God and towards Paradise where He was first worshipped. He
simply brought back the one who was going astray to the house of
his father. This is also the reason why the angel Gabriel, when
announcing to Mary the conception of Jesus Christ, appeared to her
from the direction of the east as it is written in your book.2 Finally,
we worship God in the direction of the east, because being light He
is more congruously worshipped in the direction of the light."
1 That the Paradise of Eden was situated in the direction of the East is
the opinion of the majority of Eastern Fathers, many of whom believe also
that it is found in the firmament. To it, according to them, the souls of the
just go till the day of the Resurrection.
2 Kur'an, xix. 16.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 31
Our King then said to me : " Did Christ then worship and
pray ? " — And I answered his Majesty : " He did worship and
pray." — And our King retorted saying : "By the fact that you say
that He worshipped and prayed, you deny His divinity, because if
He worshipped and prayed He is not God ; if He was God, he
would not have worshipped and prayed." — And I replied : " He
did not worship and pray as God, because as such He is the receiver
of the worship and prayer of both the celestial and the terrestrial beings,
in conjunction with the Father and the Spirit, but He worshipped
and prayed as a man, son of our human kind. It has been made
manifest by our previous words that the very same Jesus Christ is
Word-God and man, as God He is born of the Father, and as man
of Mary. He further worshipped and prayed for our sake, because
He Himself was in no need of worship and prayer."
And our King said to me : " There is no creature that has no
need of worship and prayer." — And I replied : " Has Jesus Christ,
the Word of God, sinned or not?"-— And our King said : " May
God preserve me from saying such a thing ! " —And I then asked :
"Has God created the worlds with His Word or not?" And
our King replied in the affirmative and said " Yes." — And I then
asked : "Is the one who is neither a sinner nor in need of anything,
in need of worship and prayer ? " — And our King answered " No."
— And I then said to him : "If the Christ is a Word from God, and
a man from Mary, and if as a Word of God He is the Lord of every-
thing, and as a man He did not commit any sin as the Book and our
King testify, and if he who is the Lord of everything and a creator is
not in need, and he who is not a sinner is pure, it follows that Jesus
Christ worshipped and prayed to God neither as one in need nor as a
sinner, but He worshipped and prayed in order to teach worship and
prayer to His disciples, and through them to every human being.
' The disciples would not have yielded to His teaching, if He had
not put it into practice in His own person. There is no creature that
has not sinned except Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and He is the
only created being who in His own humanity appeared above the dirt
of sin. As He was baptised without having any need of baptism,
and as He died on the Cross but not because of His own sin, so also

1 The Arab, ctudhu billahi.

32 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
He gave Himself to worship and prayer not for His own sake but
in order to impart their knowledge to His disciples."
Our God-loving King ended the above subject here, and embarked
on another theme and said to me : " How is it that you accept Christ
and the Gospel from the testimony of the Torah and of the prophets,
and you do not accept Muhammad from the testimony of Christ and
the Gospel ? " And I replied to his Majesty : " O our King, we
have received concerning Christ numerous and distinct testimonies from
the Torah and the prophets. All of the latter prophesied in one
accord and harmony in one place about His mother : " Behold a
virgin shall conceive and bear a son,"2 and taught us that He shall
be conceived and born without marital intercourse like the Word of
God. It is inded fit that the One who was born of the Father with-
out a mother should have been born in the flesh from a virgin mother
without a father, in order that His second birth may be a witness to
His first birth. In another place they reveal to us His name : " And
His name shall be called Emmanuel, Wonderful, Counsellor, and

Mighty God of the worlds."3

" In another place the prophets reveal to us the miracles that He
will work at His coming in saying, ' Behold your God will come. . . .
He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then shall the lame
man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be loosened.' 4
Yet in another place they disclose to us His passion and His death,
' He shall be killed for our transgressions, and humbled for our
iniquities.'5 Sometimes they speak to us about His resurrection,
' For Thou hast not left my soul in Sheol, nor hast Thou suffered
Thy Holy One to see corruption,' 6 and ' The Lord hath said unto
me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten Thee.' 7 Some
other times they teach us concerning His Ascension to Heaven, ' Thou
hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive, and Thou hast
made gifts to men,' 8 and ' God went up in glory, and the Lord with
the sound of a trumpet.' 9
1 That the name of Muhammad is found in Jewish and Christian Books
is the claim made by the Prophet himself in Kur'an, vii. 156 : " The
ummi prophet whom they find written down with them in the Torah and
the Gospel." See also Ixi. 6.
- Is. vii. 14. 3 Is. vii. 14 and ix. 6. 4 Is. xxxv. 4-6. 5 Is. liii. 5.
fi Ps. xvi. 10. ' Ps. ii. 7. 8 Ps. Ixviii. 18. 9 Ps. xlvii. 5.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 33
"Some other times they reveal to us His coming down from
heaven in saying, ' I am one like the son of men coming on the clouds
of heaven, and they brought Him near before the Ancient of days,
and there was given Him dominion, and glory and a kingdom that
all peoples of the earth should serve Him and worship Him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom shall not pass
away nor be destroyed.' : "These and scores of other passages of the
prophets show us Jesus Christ in a clear mirror and point to Him.
So far as Muhammad is concerned I have not received a single
testimony either from Jesus Christ or from the Gospel which would
refer to his name or to his works "
And our benevolent and gracious King made a sign to mean
that he was not convinced, then he repeated twice to me the question :
"Have you not received any ? "—And I replied to him: "No,
0 God-loving King, I have not received any." — And the King asked
me: "Who is then the Paraclete ? "—And I answered: The
Spirit of God." — And the King asked: "What is the Spirit of
God ?" — And I replied : " God, by nature ; and one who proceeds,
by attribute ; as Jesus Christ taught about Him." — And our glorious
King said : " And what did Jesus Christ teach about Him ?" — And
1 answered : " He spoke to His disciples as follows : ' When I go
away to Heaven, I will send unto you the Spirit- Paraclete who pro-
ceedeth from the Father, whom the world cannot receive, who dwelleth
with you and is among you, who searcheth all things, even the deep
things of God, who will bring to your remembrance all the truth that
I have said unto you, and who will take of mine and show unto you.' '
And our King said to me : "All these refer to Muhammad."1
—And I replied to him : "If Muhammad were the Paraclete, since
the Paraclete is the Spirit of God, Muhammad, would, therefore, be
the Spirit of God ; and the Spirit of God being uncircumscribed like
God, Muhammad would also be uncircumscribed like God ; and he
vii. 13-14.
2 John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 7 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10.
3 The Muslims have always believed that the Paraclete spoken of in
the Gospel referred to Muhammad. See Kitab ad-Din of Ibn Rabban (pp.
1 40-1 4 1 of my translation), who even corroborates his statement by an appeal
to the numerical value of the letters of the word. Many other writers (such
as Yahsubi in his shifa) counts the name Paraclete among the various
names of the Prophet.
34 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
who is uncircumscribed being invisible, Muhammad would also be in-
visible and without a human body ; and he who is without a body
being uncomposed, Muhammad would also be uncomposed. Indeed
he who is a spirit has no body, and he who has no body is also in-
visible, and he who is invisible is also uncircumscribed ; but he who is
circumscribed is not the Spirit of God, and he who is not the Spirit of
God is not the Paraclete. It follows from all this that Muhammad
is not the Paraclete. The Paraclete is from heaven and of the nature
of the Father, and Muhammad is from the earth and of the nature of
Adam. Since heaven is not the same thing as earth, nor is God
the Father identical with Adam, the Paraclete is not, therefore,
Muhammad.

" Further, the Paraclete searches the deep things of God, but
Muhammad owns that he does not know what might befall him and
those who accept him.1 He who searches all things even the deep
things of God is not identical with the one who does not know what
might happen to him and to those who acknowledge him. Muhammad
is therefore not the Paraclete. Again, the Paraclete, as Jesus told
His disciples, was with them and among them while He was speaking
to them, and since Muhammad was not with them and among them,
he cannot, therefore, have been the Paraclete. Finally, the Paraclete
descended on the disciples ten days after the ascension of Jesus to
heaven, while Muhammad was born more than six hundred years
later, and this impedes Muhammad from being the Paraclete. And
Jesus taught the disciples that the Paraclete is one God in three
persons, and since Muhammad does not believe in the doctrine of
three persons in one Godhead, he cannot be the Paraclete. And the
Paraclete wrought all sorts of prodigies and miracles through the
disciples, and since Muhammad did not work a single miracle through
his followers and his disciples, he is not the Paraclete.
' That the Spirit- Paraclete is consubstantial with the Father and
the Son is borne out by the fact that He is the maker of the heavenly
powers and of everything, and since he who is the maker and creator
of everything is God, the Spirit- Paraclete is therefore God ; but the
world is not able to receive God, as Jesus Christ said,2 because God
is uncircumscribed. Now if Muhammad were the Paraclete, since

1 Kur'im, vi. 50 ; vii. 188 ; xi. 33, etc. 2 John xiv. 17.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 35
this same Paraclete is the Spirit of God, Muhammad would therefore
be the Spirit of God. Further, since David said, ' By the Spirit of
God all the powers have been created,'1 celestial and terrestrial,
Muhammad would be the creator of the celestial and terrestrial beings.
Now since Muhammad is not the creator of heaven and earth, and
since he who is not creator is not the Spirit of God, Muhammad is,
therefore, not the Spirit of God ; and since the one who is not the
Spirit of God is by inference not the Paraclete, Muhammad is not the
Paraclete.
"If he were mentioned in the Gospel, this mention would have
been marked by a distinct portraiture characterising his coming, his
name, his mother, and his people as the true portraiture of the coming
of Jesus Christ is found in the Torah and in the prophets. Since
nothing resembling this is found in the Gospel concerning Muhammad,
it is evident that there is no mention of him in it at all, and that is the
reason why I have not received a single testimony from the Gospel
about him." :
And the God- loving King said to me : " As the Jews behaved
towards Jesus whom they did not accept, so the Christians behaved
towards Muhammad whom they did not accept." — And I replied to
his Majesty : " The Jews did not accept Jesus in spite of the fact that
the Torah and the prophets were full of testimonies about Him, and
this renders them worthy of condemnation. As to us we have not
accepted Muhammad because we have not a single testimony about
him in our Books." — And our King said : " There were many
testimonies but the Books have been corrupted, and you have removed
them." — And I replied to him thus : " Where is it known, O King,
that the Books have been corrupted by us, and where is that uncor-
rupted Book from which you have learned that the Books which we
use have been corrupted ? If there is such a book let it be placed in
the middle in order that we may learn from it which is the corrupted
lPs. xxxiii. 6; cir. 30.
- The bulk of Muslim testimony, based on Kur'an, vii. 156, is to the effect
that the name of Muhammad is found in the Gospel. Almost all the work
of Ibn Rabban entitled Kitab ad-Din wad-Daulah has been written for the
purpose of showing that this name is found in Jewish and Christian scriptures.
(See especially pp. 77-146 of my translation.) Cf. Ibn Sa'd's Tabakat, i.,
ii.,
and 89theand i. i., 123, and see the commentator Tabari on Kur'an, vii. 156,
historians Ibn Hisham and Tabari.
36 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
Gospel and hold to that which is not corrupted. If there is no such
a Gospel, how do you know that the Gospel of which we make use
is corrupted ?
' What possible gain could we have gathered from corrupting the
Gospel ? Even if there was mention of Muhammad made in the
Gospel, we would not have deleted his name from it ; we would have
simply said that Muhammad has not come yet, and that he was not
the one whom you follow, and that he was going to come in the future.
Take the example of the Jews : they cannot delete the name of Jesus
from the Torah and the Prophets, they only contend against Him in
saying openly that He was going to come in the future, and that He
has not come yet into the world. They resemble a blind man 1 with-
out eyes who stands in plain daylight and contends that the sun has
not yet risen. We also would have done likewise ; we would not
have dared to remove the name of Muhammad from our Book if it
were found anywhere in it ; we would have simply quibbled concern-
ing his right name and person like the Jews do in the case of Jesus.
To tell the truth, if I had found in the Gospel a prophecy concerning
the coming of Muhammad, I would have left the Gospel for the
Kur'an, as I have left the Torah and the Prophets for the Gospel."
And our King said to me : " Do you not believe that our Book was
given by God ?" — And I replied to him : " It is not my business to
decide whether it is from God or not. But I will say something of
which your Majesty is well aware, and that is all the words of God
found in the Torah and in the Prophets, and those of them found in
the Gospel and in the writings of the Apostles, have been confirmed
by signs and miracles ; as to the words of your Book they have not
been corroborated by a single sign or miracle. It is imperative that
signs and miracles should be annulled by other signs and miracles.
When God wished to abrogate 2 the Mosaic law, He confirmed by
the signs and miracles wrought by the Christ and the Apostles that the
words of the Gospel were from God, and by this He abrogated the
words of the Torah and the first miracles.3 Similarly, as He abrogated

1 Read samya in sing. " Read d-nisiirc.

3 Muslim tradition, somewhat against Kur'an, xxix. 49, etc., is full of
miracles of all sorts attributed to the Prophet. All these miracles have
apparently been invented in order to answer the objection of the Christians
to the effect that since Muhammad performed no miracle he was not a
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 37
the first signs and miracles by second ones, He ought to have abrogated
the second signs and miracles by third ones. If God had wished to
abrogate the Gospel and introduce another Book in its place He would
have done this, because signs and miracles are witnesses of His will ;
but your Book has not been confirmed by a single sign and miracle.
Since signs and miracles are proofs of the will of God, the conclusion
drawn from their absence in your Book is well known to your Majesty."
And our King asked : ' Who is then the rider on an ass,
and the rider on a camel ? " — And I replied : 'The rider on an
ass is Darius the Mede, son of Assuerus, and the rider on a
camel is Cyrus the Persian, who was from El am. The King of
Elam destroyed the kingdom of the Medes, and passed it to the
Persians,1 as Darius the Mede had destroyed the kingdom of the
Babylonians and passed it to the Medes."
And our King said to me : " From where is this known ? "
And I replied : " From the context. In the preceding passage the
prophet said, ' Go up, O Elam, and mountains of Media.' ~ By the
words ' Mountains of Media ' Darius the Mede is meant, and by the
word ' Elam ' the kingdom of the Persians is designated. The Book
says also in the words that follow, ' And one of the horsemen came
and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen,' and shows clearly that the
passage refers to Darius and Cyrus, because it is they who destroyed
the kingdom of the Babylonians."
And our King said : " Why did he say that the first was riding
on an ass. and the second on a camel ?" — And I replied : "The
reason is that asses are generally more in use in the country of the
Medes, while in the country of the Persians and Elamites camels are
more in evidence. Through animals the prophet referred to countries,
and through countries to the powers and kingdoms which were to
rise in them. Further, because the kingdom of the Medes was to be
weak and indolent while that of the Persians or Elamites was to be

prophet. Pp. 30-60 of my edition of Ibn Rabban's Apology, the Kitab

ad-Din laad-Daulak, have been written for this purpose. The extent to
which later tradition amplified this fabulous theme may be gauged by the
references giren in Wensinck's Handbook of Early Muhammadan
Tradition, pp. 165-168. The thome of the lack of miracles on the part of
the Prophet is emphasised by the Christian apologist Kindi, Risalah, pp. 62
sqq. and 67.
1 Read l-Parsaye. - Is. xxi. 2.
38 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
strong and valiant, God alluded to the kingdom of the Medes through
the weak ass, and to that of Elamite and Persians through the valiant
camel. In the Book of Daniel also God alluded to the kingdom of
the Medes through the indolent bear, and to that of the Elamites and
Persians through the valiant leopard.1 Again, in the vision of the
King Nebuchadnezzar God symbolised the kingdom of the Medes
in the malleable silver, while that of the Persians and Elamites in the
strong brass.12 In this same way the prophet alluded to the kingdom
of Media through the ass, and to that of Elam through the camel."
And our King said to me : "The rider on the ass is Jesus and
the rider on the camel is Muhammad." — And I answered his
Majesty : " O our God-loving King, neither the order of times nor
the succession of events will allow us to refer in this passage the riding
on the ass to Christ and the riding on the camel to Muhammad. It
is known with accuracy from i the order and succession of the revela-
tions to the prophets that the ass refers to the Medes and the camel to
the Elamites, and this order of the revelations and this succession of
events impede us from ascribing the words of the scripture to other
persons. Even if one, through similarity between adjectives and
names, does violence to the context and refers the passage dealing with
the ass to Jesus on account of a different passage : ' Lowly, and
riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass,' 3 yet it is not
possible to refer the passage dealing with the camel to Muhammad."
And our King said : " For what reason ? " — And I replied :
" Because the prophet Jacob said, ' The sceptre of the kingdom shall
not depart from Judah, nor an utterer of prophecy from his seed, until
Jesus Christ come, because kingdom is His, and He is the expectation
of the peoples.' 5 In this he shows that after the coming of the Christ
1 Dan. vii. 5-6. 2 Dan. ii. 31 sqq. * Ezech. ix. 9.
4 A great deal is made of this prophecy of Isaiah concerning the rider
on an ass and the rider on a camel in Ibn Rabban's Apology the Kttab ad-
Dln (pp. 95-97 of my edition). The author concludes his references to it in
the following words of my own translation : "Are not men of intelligence
and science amongst the People of the Book ashamed to attribute such a
clear and sublime prophecy to some rude and barbarous people? . . . Did
not the adversaries feel abashed in saying that the rightly guided prophets of
the family of Isaac prophesied about the Kings of Babylon, Media, Persia,
and Khuzistan, and neglected to mention such an eminent Prophet and such
a great and Abrahamic nation ? "
5 Gen. xlix. 10 (Peshitta with slight changes).
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 39
there will be neither prophet nor prophecy. And Daniel also concurs
in saying that for putting an end to all vision and prophecy, and for
the coming of Christ, the King, seven weeks and threescore and two
weeks will elapse, and then the Christ will be killed, and there will
not be any more kingdom and prophecy in Jerusalem/ In this he
showed that visions and prophecies will come to an end with the
Christ. And the Christ Himself said : ' The prophets and theTorah
prophesied until John.' " Every prophecy, therefore, ended with the
time of Christ, and after Christ there was no prophecy nor did any
prophet rise.3 All the prophets prophesied about Jesus Christ, and
the Christ directed us to the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is superfluous
that after the knowledge that we have of God and the Kingdom of
Heaven we should be brought down to the knowledge of the human
and earthly things.
" As to the prophets they prophesied sometimes concerning the
earthly affairs and kingdoms, and some other times concerning the
adorable Epiphany and Incarnation of the Word-God. As to Jesus
Christ He did not reveal to us things dealing with the law and
earthly affairs, but He solely taught us things dealing with the
knowledge of God and the Kingdom of Heaven. We have already
said that all prophecy extended as far as Christ only, as Christ Him-
self and the prophets asserted, and since from the time of Christ
downwards only the Kingdom of God is being preached, as Jesus
Christ taught, it is superfluous that after the adorable Incarnation of
Christ we should accept and acknowledge another prophecy and
another prophet. A good and praiseworthy order of things is that
which takes us up from the bottom to the top, from the human to the
divine things, and from the earthly to the heavenly things ; but an
order which would lower us from top to bottom, from divine to
worldly, and from heavenly to earthly, things, is bad and blame-

worthy."
And our victorious King said to me : " Why do you worship the
Cross ? " — And I replied : " First because it is the cause of life." —
1 Dan. ix. 24 sqq. - Matt. xi. 13.
The last of the prophets, according to Muslim apologists, is Muhammad :
" If the prophet had not appeared the prophecies of the prophets about Ishmael
and about die Prophet who is the last of the prophets would hare necessarily
become withoutct passim.
of my edition object." Ibn Rabban's Apology, the Kitab ad-Din, p. 77
40 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

And our glorious King said to me : "A cross is not the cause of life
but rather of death." — And I replied to him : " The cross, is as you
say, O King, the cause of death ; but death is also the cause of
resurrection, and resurrection is the cause of life and immortality. In
this sense the cross is the cause of life and immortality, and this is
the reason why through it, as a symbol of life and immortality, we
worship one and indivisible God. It is through it that God opened to
us the source of life and immortality, and God who at the beginning
ordered light to come out of darkness, who sweetened bitter water in
bitter wood, who through the sight of a deadly serpent granted life to
the children of Israel — handed to us the fruit of life from the wood
of the Cross, and caused rays of immortality to shine upon us from
the branches of the Cross.
"As we honour the roots because of the fruits that come out of
them, so also we honour the Cross as the root of which the fruit of life
was born to us, and from which the ray of immortality shone1 upon
us. As a decisive proof of the love of God for all, luminous rays of
His love shine from all His creatures visible and invisible, but the
most luminous rays of the love of God are those that shine from the
rational beings. This love of God can then be demonstrated from all
creatures, and from the ordinary Divine Providence that is manifest in
them, but the great wealth of His love for all humanity is more strikingly
in evidence in the fact that He delivered to death in the flesh His
beloved Son for the life, salvation, and resurrection of all. It is only
just, therefore, O our victorious King, that the medium through which
God showed His love to all, should also be the medium through
which all should show their love to God."
And our King said to me : " Can God then Himself die ? " — And
I replied to his Majesty : " The Son of God died in our nature, but
not in His Divinity. When the royal purple and the insignia of the
kingdom are torn, the dishonour redounds to the King : so also is the
case with the death of the body of the Son-God." — And our King
said to me : "May God preserve me from saying such a thing.3 They
did not kill Him and they did not crucify Him, but He made a

1 Read we-azlegh with a waw.

'This subject of the worship of the Cross is also alluded to at some
length by the Christian apologist Kindi in his Risalak, p. 139.
3 Here as above on p. 3 1 the Arab, a'udhu billTiJii.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 41
similitude for them in this way." l — And I said to him : " It is written
in the Silrat l/sa, ' Peace be upon me the day I was born, and the
day I die, and the day I shall be sent again alive.' " This passage
shows that He died and rose up. Further, God said to 'Isa (Jesus)
" I will make Thee die and take Thee up again to me." J
And our King said : " He did not die then, but He will die
afterwards." — And I replied to him : " Therefore He did not go up
to heaven either, nor was He sent again alive, but He will go up to
heaven afterwards and will be sent again alive in the future. No, our
King, Jesus did go up to heaven a long time ago, and has been sent
again alive, as your Book also testifies. If He went up it is obvious
that He had died previously, and if He had died, it is known that
He had died by crucifixion, as the Prophets had stated before His

coming."
And our King said to me : " Which prophet said that He died
by crucifixion ? " — And I replied to his Majesty : " First the prophet
David, who said, ' They pierced my hands and my feet, and my bones
cried ; and they looked and stared upon me ; they parted my garments
among them and cast lots upon my vesture.'4 The Gospel testifies
that all these were fulfilled. And Isaiah said, ' He shall be killed for
our sins and humbled for our iniquity.* a And the prophet Jeremiah
said, ' Wood will eat into His flesh and will destroy Him from the
land of the living. I gave my body to wounds and my cheeks to
blows, and I did not turn my face from shame and spittle.* 6 And the
prophet Daniel said, ' And the Messiah shall be killed but not for
Himself.' ' And the prophet Zechariah said, ' And smite the shepherd
of Israel on his cheeks,' and ' O sword, awake against my shepherd.' s
Indeed numerous are the passages in which the prophets spoke of His
death, murder, and crucifixion."
And our King said : " He made a similitude only for them in this
way." — And I replied to him : " And who made a similitude for
them in this way, O our King ? How did God deceive them and

1 Kur'an, iv. 156. The Kurra apparently read the verb as shabbaha
and not shubbiha in the time of the Patriarch Timothy.
• Kur'an, xix. 34.
0 Kur'an, iii. 48. The Syriac niarfa? from Arab, wa-rafi'uka.
4 Ps. xxii. 16-18 (Peshitta). 5Is., liii. 5 (Peshitta).
c"Ze
Cf,ch.Jer.xiii.
Lam., iii. 4 and 30 etc. ' Dan. ix. 26. Read lath.
7.
42 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
show them something which was not true ? It is incongruous to God
that He should deceive and show something for another thing. If
God deceived them and made a similitude for them, the Apostles who
simply wrote what God had shown to them, would be innocent of the
deception, and the real cause of it would be God. If on the other
hand, we say that it is Satan who made such a similitude for the
Apostles, what has Satan to do in the Economy of God ? And who
dares to say about the hawarlyun * that Satan was able to deceive
them ? The Apostles drove and cast away the demons, who shouted
and run away from them on account of the Divine power that was
accompanying them. If crucifixion was only an unreal similitude, and
if from it death took place, even death would be an unreal similitude ;
we further assert that from this death there has been resurrection, which
in this case would also be an unreal similitude ; then out of this resur-
rection there has been ascension to heaven, which would also be unreal
and untrue. Now since the resurrection precedes the ascension, this
resurrection is also a reality and not a similitude ; and since death was
a reality and not a similitude, and since death is preceded by crucifixion,
this crucifixion is consequently a reality also, and not an illusion or a
similitude."
And our King said : "It was not honourable to Jesus Christ
that God should have allowed Him to be delivered to Jews in order
that they might kill Him." — And I answered his Majesty: "The
prophets have been killed by the Jews, but that not all those who
have been killed by the Jews are despicable and devoid of honour 2 is
borne out by the fact that none of the true prophets is despicable and
devoid of honour in the sight of God. Since it is true that the prophets
have generally been killed by the Jews, it follows that not all those
who have been killed by the Jews are despicable and devoid of
honour. This we assert for the prophets. So far as Jesus Christ is
concerned we say that the Jews crucified only the Christ in the flesh,
which He delivered to them voluntarily, and His murder was not
imposed forcibly upon Him by them. Because He, Jesus Christ, said,
* I have power upon my soul to lay it down, and I have power to take

1 The Arabic word often used in the Kur'an to express " Apostles."
It is of Ethiopic origin.
2 The word " Jew " has been, and is often in our days, a term of derision
in the East, where also it indicates weakness and powerlessness.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 43
it again ; and no man taketh it from me.' : In this He showed that
He would suffer out of His own free will, and not out of His own
weakness or from the omnipotence of the Jews. He who when hang-
ing on the wood of the Cross moved the heavens, shook the earth,
changed the dazzling sun into darkness and the shining moon into
blood- redness, and He who rent the stones and the graves, raised
and resuscitated the dead, could not be so weak as not to be able to
save Himself from the hands of the Jews. It is, therefore, out of His
own free will that He approached the suffering on the cross and death,
and He did not bear the death of crucifixion at the hands of the Jews
out of abjection and weakness on His part, but He bore both cruci-
fixion and death at the hands of the Jews out of His own free will."
And our King said : "No blame attaches, therefore, to the Jews
from His death, if they simply fulfilled and satisfied His wish." — And
I answered his Majesty : "If the Jews had solely crucified Him in
order that He might raise the dead and ascend to heaven, they would
naturally have been not only free from blame, but worthy of thousands
of crowns and of encomia of all kinds, but if these same Jews crucified
Him in order not that He might rise up again from the dead and ascend
to heaven, but in order that they might intensify His death and obliterate
Him from the surface of the earth, they would with great justice be
worthy of blame and death. Indeed they crucified Him not in order
that He might go up to heaven but go down to Sheol ; God, however,

raised Him up from the dead and took Him up to heaven."

And our God- loving King said to me ; " Which of the two things
would you be willing to admit ? Was the Christ willing to be
crucified or not ? If He was willing to be crucified, the Jews who
simply accomplished His will should not be cursed and despised. If,
however, He was not willing to be crucified and He was crucified, He
was weak and the Jews were strong. In this case, how can He be
God. He who found Himself unable to deliver Himself from the

hands of His crucifiers whose will appeared to be stronger than His ? "
And I answered these objections by other questions as follows :
'What would our King, endowed with high acumen and great
wisdom, say to this : When God created Satan as one of the angels,
did He wish this Satan to be an angel or not ? If God wished Him

'Johnx. 18.
44 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
to be Satan instead of an angel, the wicked Satan would, therefore,
simply be accomplishing the will of God ; but if God did not wish
Satan * to be Satan but an angel, and in spite of that he became Satan,
the will of Satan became stronger than the will of God. How can
we then call God one whose will was overcome by the will of Satan,
and one against whom Satan prevailed ?
" Another question : Did God wish Adam to go out of Paradise
or not ? If He wished to drive him out of Paradise, why should
Satan be blamed, who simply helped to do the will of God in his
driving Adam from Paradise. On the other hand, if God did not
wish Adam to go out of Paradise, how is it that the will of God
became weak and was overcome, while the will of Satan became
strong and prevailed ? How can He be God, if His will has been
completely overcome ? The fact that Satan and Adam sinned against
the will of God does not affect the divinity of God and does not show
Him to be weak and deficient, and the fact that God had willed
Satan to fall from heaven and Adam to go out of Paradise does not
absolve Satan and Adam from blame and censure, and the fact that
they did not sin to accomplish the will of God but to accomplish their
own will are a good analogy to the case of Jesus Christ. He should
not indeed be precluded from being God, nor should He be rendered
weak and deficient in strength by the fact that the Jews sinned but not
by His will, and that in their insolence they crucified Him ; and the
fact that the Christ wished to be crucified and die for the life, resurrec-
tion and salvation of all should not exempt the Jews from hell and curse.
" The Jews did not crucify the Christ because He willed it, but
they crucified Him because of their hatred and malice both to Himself
and to the One who sent Him. They crucified Him in order that
they might destroy Him completely, and He willed to be crucified so
that He might live again and rise from the dead, and be to all men the
sign and proof of the resurrection of the dead.
" Another question : What would our victorious and powerful
King say about those who fight for the sake of God.J Do they wish
to be killed or not ? If they do not wish to be killed and are killed,
their death has no merit, and they will not go to heaven •/ and if they
1 The Arabic Kur'anic word ibl'is.
2 The Arabic : mutawwcftn bi-sab~il il lahi.
3 Syr. ganntha from which the Kur'anic
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 45
wish to be killed, are their murderers blameworthy or not ? If they
are not blameworthy, how is it that unbelievers who killed Muslims
and believers are not blameworthy, and if they are blameworthy, why
should they be so when what they did was simply to fulfil the wish of
the victims ? The fact is that the murderers of the men who fight for
the sake of God are not exempted from fire and hell ; indeed, the
murderers do not slay them so that they may go to heaven, but they
do it out of their wickedness and in order to destroy them. In this way
also the Jews will not be exempted from the eternal fire by the fact
that Jesus Christ wished to be crucified and die for all. They did not
crucify Him because He wished to be crucified, but because they
wished to crucify Him. They did not crucify Him in order that He
might live again and rise up from the dead, but they crucified Him in
order that He might be destroyed once for all. Let this suffice for this
subject.
" Jesus was also able to save Himself from the Jews, if He had
wished to do so. This is known first from the fact that on several
occasions they ventured to seize Him, but because He did not wish to
be seized by them, no one laid hands on Him. It is also known by
the fact that while He was hanging on the cross, He moved the
heavens, shook the earth, darkened the sun, blood-reddened the moon,
rent the stones, opened the graves, and gave life to the dead that were
in them. He who was able to do all these things in such a divine
way, was surely able to save Himself from the Jews. And He who
rescued from the mouth of Sheol in such a wonderful way the temple
of His humanity after it had lain therein for three days and three
nights, was surely able to save and rescue the very same temple from
the unjust Jews, but if He had saved it He would not have been
crucified, and if He had not been crucified He would not have died,
and if He had not died He would not have risen up to immortal life,
and if He had not risen up to immortal life, the children of men would
have remained without a sign and a decisive proof of the immortal life.
' To-day because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
the eyes of all the children of men look towards an immortal life, and
consequently in order that this expectation of the immortal life and of
the world to come might be indelibly impressed upon mankind, it was
right that Jesus Christ should rise from the dead ; but in order that He
might rise from the dead, it was right that He should first die, and in
46 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
order that He might truly die it was imperative that His death should
have been first witnessed by all, as His resurrection was witnessed by
all. This is why He died by crucifixion. If He were to suffer, to be
crucified and die before all, when He had to rise from the dead His
resurrection would also be believed by all. Immortal life is thus the
fruit of the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead — a resurrection which all believers expect — is the outcome of the
death on the cross.
" If He had delivered Himself from the hands of His crucifiers,
He would have brought profit to Himself alone, and would have been
of no use to the rest of mankind, like Enoch and Elijah who are kept
in Paradise beyond the reach of death for their exclusive benefit, but
now that He delivered Himself into the hands of crucifiers, and they
dared to kill Him on their own account, He conquered death after
three days and three nights, rose up to immortal life and brought profit
first to His own self and then to all creatures, and He became the sign
and proof of resuscitation and resurrection to all rational beings. He
put His wish into practice in an Economy full of wisdom, and His
crucifiers cannot be absolved from blame any more than the brothers of
Joseph can be absolved from blame.
"When Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave to some men,
and he afterwards rose up from slavery to the government of Egypt, it
was not the aim of those who sold him that he should govern Egypt.
If they had dreamed of this they would never have sold him into
slavery. Indeed, those who were unable to bear the recital of Joseph's
dreams on account of their intense jealousy and violent envy, how
could they have borne seeing him at the head of a Government. They
sold him into slavery but God, because of the injustice done to him by
his brothers, raised him from slavery to power. This analogy applies
to the Jews and to Satan their teacher : if they had known that Christ
would rise again to life from the dead and ascend from earth to
heaven after His crucifixion, they would never have induced them-
selves to crucify Him, but they crucified Him out of their own wicked

will."
" What would you say to this, O King of Kings : If your Majesty
had a house and wanted to pull it down in order to rebuild it again, if
an enemy came and pulled it down and burned it with fire, would you
give thanks to that enemy for his action in pulling down the house, or
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 47
would you not rather inflict punishment on him, as on one who had de-
molished and burned a house belonging to your Majesty ? " — And our
King replied : " The one who would do such a thing would deserve
a painful death " — And I then answered : "So also the Jews deserve
all lands of woes, because they wished to demolish and destroy the
temple of the Word of God, which was anointed and confirmed by
the Holy Spirit, which was divinely fashioned without the intervention
of man from a holy virgin, and which God raised afterwards to heaven.
God showed in all this its thorough distinction from, and its high
superiority over, all else. As the heaven is high above the earth, the
temple of the Word of God is greater and more distinguished than all
angels and children of men. If Jesus Christ is in heaven and heaven
is the throne of God, it follows that Jesus Christ sat on the throne of

God."
And our King said to me : " Who gave you the Gospel ? " —
And I replied to his Majesty : " Our Lord Jesus Christ" — And our
victorious King asked: "Was it before or after His ascension to
heaven ? " — And I replied to him : " Before His ascension to heaven.
As the Gospel is the narrative of the Economy of the works and
words of Jesus Christ, and as the works of Jesus Christ were done
and His concrete words were uttered before His ascension to heaven,
it follows that the Gospel was delivered to us before His ascension to
heaven. Further, if the Gospel is the proclamation of the Kingdom
of Heaven, and this proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven has
been delivered to us by the mouth of our Lord, it follows that the
Gospel was also delivered to us by the mouth of our Lord."
And our King, invested with power, said to me : " Was not a
part of the Gospel written by Matthew, another part by Mark, a
third part by Luke, and a fourth part by John ? " — And I replied to
his Majesty : " It is true, O our King, that these four men wrote the
Gospel. They did not write it, however, out of their own head nor
from the fancies of their mind. Indeed they had no literary attain-
ments of any kind, and by profession they were generally fishermen,
shoemakers or tentmakers. They wrote and transmitted to us what
they had heard and learned from Jesus Christ, who had taught them
in actions and words during all the rime He was walking with them in
the flesh on the earth, and what the Spirit- Paraclete had reminded
them of."
48 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

And our King said to me: "Why are they different from one
another and contradict one another ? " — And I answered his Majesty :
" It is true that there is difference between their words, as to contradic-
tion there is not any between them, not even in a single case. Different
people write differently even on the creation of God, the Lord of all :
some of them speak of the great height of heaven, some others of the
brilliant rays of the sun, some others of the wonderful phases of the
moon, some others of the fine beauty of the stars, some others of the
atmosphere, some others of the land and sea, and some others of some
other topics. Further, among the people who write on heaven alone
some speak of its immense height and some others of the swiftness of
its movement, and among those who speak of the sun alone, some
write on the high and dazzling resplendence of its light, some others on
its heat, some others on the roundness of its sphere, some others on its
purity and clearness, and some others on its multitudinous powers and
effects.

" Let your Majesty order some men to write on the topic of the
resplendent glory of your Majesty, and some others on the great
quantity of your gold and silver, and some others on the lustre of your
pearls and precious stones, and some others on the beauty and fine
features of the face of your Majesty, and some others on the power,
might and strength of your Kingdom, and some others on the wisdom
and intelligence of your Majesty, and yet some others on your gentle-
ness, virtue, and piety. In what they will write there might be
differences of words in their statements of facts, but there will not be
any contradiction between them, not even in a single item. They will
all be right in all that they will write, although some of them might
omit some items, because there is no one who is able to speak with
accuracy of everything dealing with the works of God nor with the
greatness of the glory of your Majesty. The above applies to what
the evangelists wrote concerning the words, deeds, and natures of Jesus
Christ. There are here and there differences in their statements, but
as to contradictions there are none whatever. The four of them write
in the same way and without discrepancies and differences on the main
topics of His conception, birth, baptism, teaching, passion on the cross,
death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to heaven."
And our powerful King said to me : ' You should know, O
Catholics, that as God gave the law through the prophet Moses and
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 49
the Gospel through the Christ, so He gave the furkan l through
Muhammad" — And I replied : " O my victorious King, the changes
that were to take place in the law given through Moses, God had
clearly predicted previously through the prophets whom we have
mentioned. God said thus through the prophet Jeremiah and showed
the dissolution of the law of Moses and the setting up of the Gospel,
' Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah : not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
which covenant they nullified, and I also despised them, saith the
Lord : but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel : After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in
their minds and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man
his neighbour nor his brother, saying. " Know the Lord," for they
shall
In theallabove
knowwords
me from
God the least of thembothunto
demonstrated the the greatest of
dissolution of the
them.'
law~
of Moses and the setting up of the Gospel.
' Through another prophet, called Joel, God disclosed the signs
which would occur at the time of the dissolution of the Torah and the
setting up of the Gospel, and the signs concerning the Spirit- Paraclete
which the Apostles, the commanders of the army of the Gospel, were
to receive, because He said through him, ' And afterwards I will
pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your
young men shall see visions. And on my servants and on my hand-
maidenswill
I pour my spirit in those days.' 3 This is said of the
Spirit- Paraclete who descended on the Apostles after the ascension of
Jesus to heaven, according to the promise that He had previously
given. And the prophet adds, ' And I will show wonders in the
1 I.e. the Kur'an. This Kur'anic word is the Syriac furkana,
" salvation."
- Jer. xxxi. 32-34. This prophecy is with much ingenuity ascribed to
Muhammad and to Islam by the Muslim apologist, 'AH b. Rabban Tabari,
who concludes his statement as follows : " These meanings cannot be
ascribed
translation.to any other besides the Muslims." Kitab ad Dm, p. 125 of my
3 Joel ii. 28-29.
50 WOODBROOK STUDIES
heavens and the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood.' l All
this took place at the Passion of Jesus Christ on the Cross. And he
further adds, ' Before the great and the terrible day of the Lord ; *
he calls the * great and terrible day of the Lord,2 the day on which
the Word- God will appear in our flesh with great power and glory of
angels, and the day on which the stars will fall from heaven, as Jesus
Himself said in the Gospel.'3 And the prophet further adds,
' Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,' that
is to say whosoever shall receive the Gospel of God shall live an
everlasting life.
" God, therefore, pointed clearly to the transition from the Law
to the Gospel when He showed us a new covenant, and signs,
witnessed by men, that appeared in heaven and earth, in sun, moon,
and stars, and when He showed us the gifts of the Holy Spirit which
He imparted to the Apostles : wonders, signs, and miracles. God
nowhere showed such irrefragable signs for the transition from the
Gospel to something else. The Law that was given by Moses was
the symbol of the Gospel, and the Gospel is the symbol of the
Kingdom of Heaven, and there is nothing higher than the Kingdom
of Heaven."
And our powerful King said to me : " Did not God say clearly
to the children of Israel, ' I will raise you up a prophet from among
your brethren like unto me.' 4 Who are the brethren of the children
of Israel besides the Arabs,5 and who is the prophet like unto Moses
besides Muhammad?" — And I answered his Majesty: 'The
Israelites have many other brethren besides the Arabs, O our
Sovereign. First of all the six sons of Abraham by Keturah are
nearer to the Arabs than the Israelites, then the Edomites composed
of three hundred clans are also nearer to the Israelites than the Arabs.
Jacob from whom descended the Israelites, and Esau from whom
sprang the Edomites are indeed brothers and sons of Isaac, and Isaac
from whom the Jews descend and Ishmael from whom the Arabs
spring, together with Zimran and Jokshan6 and their brothers, the
sons of Keturah, are children of Abraham. If the sentence of the

1 Joel ii. 30. " The Cod. repeats inadvertently.

3 Cf. Matt. xxv. etc. 4 Deut. xviii. 18.
5 Lit. Ishmaelites. 6 Cod. Joktan ex errore see Gen. xxv. 2.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 51
prophet Moses refers to the brethren of the children of Israel and not
to their own twelve tribes, it would be more appropriate to apply it
to the Edomites, because it has been shown that they are nearer to
the Israelites than the Arabs. It is not only the Arabs who are
the brethren of the Israelites but also the Ammonites and the
Moabites.
" Further, Moses said to the children of Israel that God will raise
up from among their brethren a prophet to themselves and not to the
Arabs, because he says that the prophet whom the Lord your God
will raise up will be from among yourselves and not from outside
yourselves, from your brethren and not from strangers, and then that
prophet will be similar and not dissimilar to him in doctrine. This
Biblical passage resembles that other passage in which God said to
them concerning a king, ' I will raise up for thee a long from thy
brethren.' 1 As in the subject of a king God does not refer to the
children of Ishmael by the word ' their brethren,' so also in the
subject of a prophet He does not refer to them through the same
word.

" Further, you assert that Muhammad has been sent as a prophet
to his own people." We must examine in this respect the construction
of the words. It is said : a prophet from yourselves, from among
your brethren, and like unto me. If Muhammad be a prophet like
Moses, Moses wrought miracles and prodigies ; and Muhammad, who
would in this case be a prophet like Moses, should have wrought
many miracles and prodigies. And then, if Muhammad be a
prophet like Moses, since Moses practised and taught the Law that
was given to him on Mount Sinai, Muhammad should similarly have
taught the Torah and practised the circumcision, and observed the
Jewish Sabbath and festivals. Muhammad did not teach the Torah,
and Moses taught the Torah, the prophet Muhammad is not, there-
fore, like unto Moses, because the one who was to be a prophet like
unto Moses, would not have changed anything from Moses, and the
one who is different in one thing from Moses is not a prophet like
unto Moses. The prophet Moses spoke the above words concerning
the prophets who from time to time rose after him from this or that
Jewish tribe, such as Joshua son of Nun, David, Samuel, and others

lCt. 1 Kings xiv. 14; Jer. xxx. 10. -Arab. Kaum.

52 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
after them, who from generation to generation were sent to the
Israelites." ]
And our victorious King said to me : " What is the punishment
of the man who kills his mother ? " — And I replied to his Majesty :
" And what is the punishment of the man who does not respect the
honour of his mother?" — And our King said to me: "Strokes,
fetters, and death." — And I said to his Majesty : " The decision of
your Majesty is just. And the man who kills his mother is also liable
to the same punishment." — And our King said to me : " Jesus Christ
is, therefore, liable to the same punishment, because He let His
mother die and so killed her." — And I asked the King : " Which is
the highest, this world or the world to come ? " And our King
answered : " The world to come." — And I then replied to his
Majesty : " If Jesus Christ let His mother die, and through death He
transferred her to the next world, which as your Majesty asserts is
better than this one, He therefore invested His mother with a
higher dignity and more sublime honour ; and since the one who
honours his mother is worthy of all blessings, Jesus Christ who
transferred His mother from the mortal life to the immortal one and
from the land of troubles to the Kingdom of Heaven, is, therefore,
worthy of all blessings.
' What should Jesus Christ have done ? While He takes up
everybody from earth to heaven, and while, as God said, He causes
them to be immortal after having been mortal, should He only have

1 Great ingenuity is shown by the Muslim apologist, 'AH b. Rabban

Tabari, to ascribe this prophecy to Muhammad. We will quote him here
in full : " And God has not raised up a prophet from among the brethren
of the children of Israel except Muhammad. The phrase, ' from the midst
of them ' acts as a corroboration and limitation, viz. that he will be from the
children of their father, and not from an avuncular relationship of his. As
to Christ and the rest of the prophets, they were from the Israelites them-
selves ;and he who believes that the Most High God has not put a
distinction between the man who is from the Jews themselves and the man
who is from their brethren, believes wrongly. The one who might claim
that this prophecy is about the Christ, would overlook two peculiarities and
show ignorance in two aspects ; the first is that the Christ is from the
children of David, and David is from themselves and not from their
brethren ; the second is that he who says once that the Christ is Creator
and not created, and then pretends that the Christ is like Moses, his speech
is contradictory
of my translation. and his saying is inconsistent." Kitab ad-D~Di, pp. 85-86
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 53
left His own mother in this mortal life ? This would have been
a great disgrace ; but her death which took place like that of every
other human being, was only natural and did not bring the smallest
disgrace to her. As it was not a dishonour to her to have been born
from a womb, so also it was not a dishonour to her to have been born
again to eternal life from death and earth.1 If Mary had not died,
she would not have risen ; and if she had not risen, she would have
been far from the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is fair that Mary, the
mother of Jesus Christ through whom the Kingdom of Heaven was
revealed, should have been raised up first to heaven. It was, there-
fore, imperative that she should have died. He who demolishes a
house in order to renew it and ornament it, is not blameworthy but

praiseworthy."
And our King said to me : "Is Jesus Christ good or not ? "-
And I replied to his Majesty : " If Jesus Christ is the Word of God,
and God is good, Jesus Christ is, therefore, good. He is one nature
with God, like light is one with the sun." — And our King said :
" How then did Jesus say, ' There is none good but one, that is one
God ? " —And I replied to him : " Was the Prophet David just or
not ? " — And our King said : " He was just and head of the just."-
And I said then : " How then did the prophet David say, ' There is
no one that is just, no, not one,' " —And our King said : " This
saying does not include David. It has been said of the wicked ones." —
And I said : "So also the sentence, ' There is none good but one '
cannot possibly include the Christ. As the sentence, ' There is no
one that is just ' embraces many others to the exclusion of David, so
also the sentence, ' There is none good ' embraces many others to
the exclusion of Jesus Christ, and as David did not include himself
when he said, ' There is no just man, no, not even one,' so also the
Christ did not include Himself when he said, ' There is none good
but one, and that is one God.'
' The very same Jesus Christ who said about Himself, ' I am the
good shepherd,' 4 could not have said the above sentence, ' There is
none good ' about Himself. Indeed, He said this sentence about the
one whom He was addressing. The latter was thinking this in his
1 The following pronoun and verb are probably to be used in feminine :
la h for Ian, tithiledh for nithiledh.
2 Matt. xix. 1 7. 3 Peshitta Version. 4 John x. 1 1.
54 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
heart : how difficult are the laws that Jesus Christ is establishing !
There is none good but one God who gave us all the good things
found in the land of promise. As to Jesus Christ, He disclosed to
him his hidden thoughts and showed to him that his words were in
flagrant contradiction with his thoughts, in calling Him in his words
* good master ' while in his thoughts he was saying ' This one was no
good,' and wishing to rebuke him He disclosed to him his thoughts
and said to him, ' Why callest thou me good with thy tongue while
in thy thoughts thou sayest about me, " This one is no good, because
He orders me to squander my fortune ; there is none good but one
that is God " ' ? Jesus Christ makes mention both of a good man and
a good tree.1 How is it possible that there is a good man and a
good tree, and Jesus Christ alone is not good ? How can this be

possible ? "
And our King said to me : " If you accepted Muhammad as a
prophet your words would be beautiful and your meanings fine "-
And I replied to his Majesty: "We find that there is only one
prophet who would come to the world after the ascension of Jesus
Christ to heaven and His descent from heaven.2 This we know
from the prophet Malachi and from the angel Gabriel when he an-
nounced the birth of John to Zechariah."
And our King said : " And who is that prophet ?" — And 1 re-
plied :" The prophet Elijah. The prophet Malachi who is the last of
the prophets of the Law, said, ' Remember ye the law of Moses, my
servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the
statutes and judgments. Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet,
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And
he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of
the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse.' 3 And the angel Gabriel when announcing to Zechariah the
1 Luke vi. 43, etc.
2 That the line of defence of the Christians against the Muslims of the
eighth and ninth centuries was to the effect that no prophet will rise after
Christ is borne out by the Muslim apologist, 'Ali b. Rabban Tabari, who in
his Apology
the Christians,(Kitab ad-D'tn,
Acts xi. pp. 115,
24 ; xiii. 17-18
; xxi. of which
9, in my edition) quotesspeaks
St. Luke against
of
prophets. On the Christian side it is well emphasised by the apologist
Kindi in his Risalah, p. 78.
3 Mai. iv. 4-6.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 55
birth of John reminded him of these very words, because he said to
him, * Fear not, Zechariah, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife
Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his
birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall be
filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb. And
many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of the prophet
Elijah, to turn l the hearts of the fathers to the children and the dis-
obedient to the wisdom of the just, and to make ready a people pre-
pared for the Lord."
"Think, O our victorious Sovereign, how the angel called Jesus
' the Lord their God.' It is this prophet Elijah who, as we have
learned, will come into the world after the ascension of Jesus to
heaven. He will come to rebuke the Antichrist, and to teach and
preach to everybody concerning the second apparition of Jesus from
heaven. As John, son of Zechariah, came before His apparition in
the flesh, and announced Him to everybody in saying, ' Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ' ' ' He is that
shall baptise with Holy Ghost and fire,' 4 ' He is the one the latchet of
whose shoes I am not worthy to unloosen ' — so also the prophet
Elijah is going to come before the divine apparition of Jesus Christ
from heaven in order to announce beforehand to all His glorious ap-
parition, and to make them ready for His presence.
" Both messsengers, John and Elijah, are from one power of the
Spirit, with the difference that one already came before Christ and the
other is going to come before Him, and their coming is similar and to
the same effect. In the second coming He will appear from heaven
in a great glory of angels, to effect the resurrection of all the children
of Adam from the graves. As the Word of God, He created every-
thing from the beginning and He is going to renew everything at the
end. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and there is no
end and no limit to His Kingdom."
And our highly intelligent Sovereign said : "If you had not cor-
rupted the Torah and the Gospel, you would have found in them
Muhammad also with the other prophets." — And to set his mind at
1 Read d-naphne with a Dalath. 2 Luke i. 13-17
3 John i. 29. 4 Matt iii. 1 1 . » Luke iii. 16.
56 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

rest on this subject I replied to him : " To the mind of your Majesty,
O my illustrious Sovereign — you to whom God has granted that intel-
ligence and broad-mindedness which are so useful for the administration
of public and private affairs of the people, and you who speak and act
in a way that is congruous with the dignity of your Majesty — it is due
to inquire why and for what purpose we might have corrupted the
Books. Both the Torah and the prophets proclaim as with the voice
of thunder and teach us collectively the divinity and humanity of Christ,
His wonderful birth from His Father before the times, a birth which
no man will ever be able to describe and to comprehend. It is written,
' Who shall declare his generation,' l and, ' His coming out is in the
beginning, from the days of the worlds ' 2 and, ' From the womb before
the morning-star I have begotten Thee ' and, ' His name is before the
3
sun."' So far as His temporal birth is concerned it is written, ' Behold a
virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel.' 4
David and Isaiah and all the other prophets reveal to us clearly and
distinctly the signs and miracles that He was going to perform in His
appearance in the flesh, and the accurate knowledge of God with which
the earth was going to be filled through this appearance. They tell us
about His passion, His crucifixion, and His death in the flesh, as we
have demonstrated above. They tell us about His resurrection from
the dwelling of the dead and His ascension to heaven. Finally they
enlighten us concerning His second appearance from heaven and con-
cerning the resurrection of the dead which He is going to effect, and
the judgment which He is going to hold for all, as one who is God
and the Word of God. O our Sovereign, while all the corpus of the
Christian doctrine is embodied in the Torah and the Gospel like a clear
symbol and mirror, for what reason could we have dared to corrupt
these living witnesses of our faith ? They are indeed the witnesses of
our truth, O our Sovereign, and from them shines on us the resplendent
light of the duality of the natures of the divinity and humanity of Christ,
and that of His death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. It could
1 Is. liii. 8. 2 Cf. Is. li. 9 ; Prov. viii. 23-24.
3 Cf. Ps. ii. 7 ; Ixxii. 17; Is. xliv. 2, 24. This prophecy of David,
" His name is before the sun " is referred by the Muslim apologist, ' AH b.
Rabban Tabari, to Muhammud himself. Kitab-ad-Din, pp. 90 and 1 15
of my translation.
Ms. yii. 14.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 57
never have been possible for us to stir ourselves against ourselves, and
tamper with the testimony of the Torah and the gospel to our Saviour.
" Even if we were able to corrupt the Books of the Torah and the
Gospel that we have with us, how could we have tampered with those
that are with the Jews ? If one says here that we have corrupted those
that are in our hands while the Jews themselves corrupted those that
are in theirs, how is it that the Jews have not corrupted those passages
through which the Christian religion is established ? The Christians
never have had and will never have such deadly enemies as the Jews ;
if the Jews had, therefore, tampered with their Book, how could we
Christians induce ourselves to accept a text which had been cor-
rupted and changed, a text which would have shaken the very founda-
tions of the truth of our religion ? No ; the truth is that neither we
nor the Jews have ever tampered with the Books. Our mutual hos-
tility isthe best guarantee to our statement.1
" If the Christians and the Jews are enemies, and if there is no
possibility that enemies should have a common agreement on the line
that divides them, it was therefore impossible for the Christians and
the Jews to agree on the corruption of the Books. Indeed the Jews
disagree with us on the meaning of some verbs and nouns, tenses and
persons, but concerning the words themselves they have never had any
disagreement with us. The very same words are found with us and
with them without any changes. Since the Torah and the Prophets
teach the truth of Christianity, we would have never allowed ourselves
to corrupt them, and that is the reason why, O our victorious Sovereign,
we could have never tampered with the Torah and the Prophets.
' The very same reason holds good with regard to the Gospel,
which we could not and would not have corrupted under any circum-
stances. What the ancient prophets prophesied about the Christ is
written in the Gospel about the Christ. The ray of light that shines
on the eyes of our souls is the same from the Torah, from the prophets,
and from the Gospel. The only difference is that in the first two Books
the light is in words uttered in advance of the facts, while in the last
Book it is in the facts themselves. What the prophets had taught us
about the divinity and humanity of Christ, and about all the Economy
That the Jews and Christians are enemies and that this enmity is a
guarantee of the genuineness of the Biblical text is also emphasised by
Kindi in his Risalah, p. 150.
5
58 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

of the Word-God in the flesh, the Gospel proclaimed to us without

corruption in a glorious manner. Further, God, the giver of both the
Torah and the Gospel is one, and if we had changed them in any
way, we would have changed those things which according to some
people are somewhat undignified in our faith."
And our victorious King asked me : " And what are those things
which you call undignified in our faith ? " — And I replied to his benev-
olence :" Things such as the growth of Christ in stature and wisdom ;
His food, drink, and fatigue ; His ire and lack of omniscience ; His
prayer, passion, crucifixion, and burial, and all such things which are
believed by some people to be mean and debasing. We might have
changed these and similar things held by some people to be mean and
undignified ; we might have also changed things that are believed by
some other people to be contradictory, such as the questions dealing
with the times, days, verbs, pronouns, and facts, questions which appear
to some people to furnish a handle for objections that tend to some ex-
tent to weaken our statement. I submit that we might have been
tempted to alter these, but since we did not induce ourselves to alter
them, how could we have dared to tamper with whole passages re-
vealed byGod ? Not only could we not dream of tampering with
them, but we are proud of them and consider them as higher and
more sublime than others. From such higher and more sublime pas-
sages we learn that Jesus is an eternal God, and believe that He is
consubstantial with the Father, and from the passages that are believed
by some to be mean and undignified we learn that this same Jesus is a
true man and having the same human nature as ourselves.
" No, O our victorious Sovereign, we have not changed, not even
one iota, in the Divine Book, and if the name of Muhammad were in
the Book, how we would have expected his coming and longed for it,
as we expected with an eager desire to meet those about whom the
prophets wrote, when they actually came or they were about to come.
Further, what closer relationship have we with the Jews than with the
Arabs that we should have accepted the Christ who appeared from
the Jews while rejecting the Prophet that appeared from the Arabs ?
Our natural relationship with the Jews and with the Arabs is on the
same footing. Truth to tell, the Jews, before the appearance of
Christ, were honoured more than all other nations by God and by
men, but after the sublime appearance of the Word-God from them,
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 59
since they shut their eyes in order not to rejoice in the light that came
to enlighten the world, they have been despised and dejected, and
they thought of God as other people did.
" A shell is kept in the royal treasuries as long as it contains
a pearl, but when the pearl has been extracted from it, it is thrown
outside and trodden under the feet of everyone. In this same way
are the Jews : as long as the Christ had not appeared from them,
but was hidden in them as a pearl is hidden in a shell, they were
respected by all men, and God showed them to others, as a glorious
and enlightened people, by means of the numerous signs and wonders
that He performed among them ; but after the appearance from them
of the Christ-God in the flesh, and their rejection of His revelation
and their turning away from Him, they were delivered to slavery
among all other peoples.
"The Jews are, therefore, despised to-day and rejected by all,
but the contrary is the case with the Arabs, who are to-day held in
great honour and esteem by God and men, because they forsook
idolatry and polytheism, and worshipped and honoured one God ;
in this they deserve the love and the praise of all ; if, therefore, there
was an allusion to their Prophet in the Books, not only we would not
have introduced any changes in it, but we would have accepted him
with great joy and pleasure, in the same way as we are expecting the
one of whom we spoke, and who is going to appear at the end of
the world. We are not the correctors but the observers of the com-
mandments ofGod."
And our Sovereign said with a jocular smile : " We shall hear
you about these at some other time, when business affairs give us a better
opportunity for such an intimate exchange of words."
And I praised God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who
grants to earthly Kings such a wisdom and understanding in order
that through them they may administer their Empire without hindrance.
And I blessed also his Majesty and prayed that God may preserve
him to the world for many years and establish his throne in piety
and righteousness for ever and ever. And in this way I left him on
the first day.
HERE END THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF THE FIRST DAY.
60 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF THE SECOND DAY.

The next day l I had an audience of his Majesty. Such audiences

had contantly taken place previously, sometimes for the affairs of the
State, and some other times for the love of wisdom and learning which
was burning in the soul of his Majesty. He is a lovable man, and
loves also learning when he finds it in other people, and on this
account he directed against me the weight of his objections, whenever
necessary.
After I had paid to him my usual respects as King of Kings, he
began to address me and converse with me not in a harsh and haughty
tone, since harshness and haughtiness are remote from his soul, but in
a sweet and benevolent way.
And our King of Kings said to me : " O Catholicos, did you
bring a Gospel with you, as I had asked you ? *'• — And I replied to
his exalted Majesty : "I have brought one, O our victorious and
God-loving King." — And our victorious Sovereign said to me :
' Who gave you this Book ? "—And I replied to him : " It is the
Word of God that gave us the Gospel, O our God-loving King."-
And our King said : " Was it not written by four Apostles ? "
And I replied to him : "It was written by four Apostles, as our
King has said, but not out of their own heads, but out of what they
heard and learned from the Word-God. If then the Gospel was
written by the Apostles, and if the Apostles simply wrote what they
heard and learned from the Word-God, the Gospel has, therefore,
been given in reality by the Word-God. Similarly, the Torah was
written by Moses, but since Moses heard and learned it from an
angel, and the angel heard and learned it from God, we assert that
the Torah was given by God and not by Moses.
" In the same way also the Muslims say that they have received
the Kur'an from Muhammad, but since Muhammad received know-
ledge and writing from an angel, they, therefore, affirm that the
Book that was divulged through him was not Muhammad's or the
angel's but God's. So also we Christians believe that although the
Gospel was given to us by the Apostles, it was not given as from them
but as from God, His Word and His Spirit. Further, the letters

1 Or possibly : On another occasion.

- Here also the Kur'anic Arabic word kawariyun.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 61
and official documents l of your Majesty are written by the hands of
scribes and clerks, but they are not said to be those of scribes, but

those of your Majesty, and of the Commander of the Faithful."

And our gracious and wise King said to me : " What do you say
about Muhammad ?" — And I replied to his Majesty : " Muhammad
is worthy of all praise, by all reasonable people, O my Sovereign.
He walked in the path of the prophets, and trod in the track of the
lovers of God. All the prophets taught the doctrine of one God,
and since Muhammad taught the doctrine of the unity of God, he
walked, therefore, in the path of the prophets. Further, all the
prophets drove men away from bad works, and brought them nearer
to good works, and since Muhammad drove his people away from bad
works and brought them nearer to the good ones, he walked, therefore,
in the path of the prophets. Again, all the prophets separated men
from idolatry and polytheism, and attached them to God and to His
cult, and since Muhammad separated his people from idolatry and
polytheism, and attached them to the cult and the knowledge of one
God, beside whom there is no other God, it is obvious that he walked
in the path of the prophets. Finally Muhammad taught about God,
His Word and His Spirit, and since all the prophets had prophesied
about God, His Word and His Spirit, Muhammad walked, therefore,
in the path of all the prophets.
" Who will not praise, honour and exalt the one who not only
fought for God in words, but showed also his zeal for Him in the
sword ? As Moses did with the Children of Israel when he saw
that they had fashioned a golden calf which they worshipped, and
killed all of those who were worshipping it, so also Muhammad
evinced an ardent zeal towards God, and loved and honoured Him
more than his own soul, his people and his relatives. He praised,
honoured and exalted those who worshipped God with him, and
promised them kingdom, praise and honour from God, both in this
world and in the world to come in the Garden.' But those who
worshipped idols and not God he fought and opposed, and showed to
them the torments of hell and of the fire which is never quenched and
in which all evildoers burn eternally.
" And what Abraham, that friend and beloved of God, did in

: Arab, tumar. - The Paradise of the Kur'an.

62 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
turning his face from idols and from his kinsmen, and looking only
towards one God and becoming the preacher of one God to other
peoples, this also Muhammad did. He turned his face from idols and
their worshippers, whether those idols were those of his own kinsmen
or of strangers, and he honoured and worshipped only one God.
Because of this God honoured him exceedingly and brought low l be-
fore his feet two powerful kingdoms which roared in the world like a
lion and made the voice of their authority heard in all the earth that is
below heaven like thunder, viz : the Kingdom of the Persians and that
of the Romans. The former kingdom, that is to say the Kingdom of
the Persians, worshipped the creatures instead of the Creator, and the
latter, that is to say the Kingdom of the Romans, attributed suffering
and death in the flesh to the one who cannot suffer and die in any way
and through any process.2 He further extended the power of his
authority through the Commander of the Faithful and his children from
east to west, and from north to south. Who will not praise, O our
victorious King, the one whom God has praised, and will not weave
a crown of glory and majesty to the one whom God has glorified and
exalted ? These and similar things I and all God-lovers utter about
Muhammad, O my sovereign."
And our King said to me : ' ' You should, therefore, accept the
words of the Prophet." — And I replied to his gracious Majesty :
' Which words of his our victorious King believes that I must accept ? "
— And our King said to me : " That God is one and that there is no
other one besides Him." — And I replied : " This belief in one God,
0 my Sovereign, I have learned from the Torah, from the Prophets
and from the Gospel. I stand by it and shall die in it." — And our
victorious King said to me : " You believe in one God, as you said,
but one in three." — And 1 answered his sentence : " I do not deny that
1 believe in one God in three, and three in one, but not in three dif-
ferent Godheads, however, but in the persons of God's Word and His
Spirit. I believe that these three constitute one God, not in their
person but in their nature. I have shown how in my previous

words."
And our King asked : " How is it that these three persons whom
you mention do not constitute three Gods ? " And I answered his
1 Put a waw before the verb.
2 Allusion to the Jacobites and Melchites.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 63
Majesty : " Because the three of them constitute one God, O our
victorious King, and the fact that He is only one God precludes the
hypothesis that there are three Gods." — And our King retorted : " The
fact that there are three precludes the statement that there is only one
God. If there are three, how can they be one ?" — And I replied :
" We believe that they are three, O our Sovereign, not in Godhead,
but in persons, and that they are one not in persons but in Godhead."
— And our King retorted : "The fact that they are three precludes
the statement that they are one, and the fact that they are one pre-
cludes the statement that they are three. This everybody will
admit." — And 1 said to him : " The three in Him are the cause of
one, and the one that of three, O our King. Those three have always
been the cause of one, and that one of three." — And our King said to
me : " How can one be the cause of three and three of one ? What is
this ? " — And I answered his question : " One is the cause of three, O
our King, because this number one is the cause of the number two, and
the number two that of the number three. This is, how, one is the
cause of three, as I said, O King. On the other hand the number
three is also the cause of the number one because since the number three
is caused by the number two and this number two by the number one,
the number three is therefore the cause of number one."
And our King said to me : "In this process the number four would
also be the cause of number five and so on, and the question of one
Godhead would resolve itself into many Godheads, which, as you say,
is the doctrine not of the Christians but of the Magians." — And 1
replied to our King : "In every comparison there is a time at which
one must stop, because it does not resemble reality in everything. We
should remember that all numbers are included in number three. In-
deed the number three is both complete and perfect J and all numbers
are included in a complete and perfect number. In this number three
all other numbers are included, O our victorious King. Above three
all other numbers are simply numbers added to themselves, by means
of that complete and perfect number, as it is said. It follows from all
this that one is the cause of three and three of one, as we suggested."
—And our King said to me : " Neither three nor two can possibly be
said of God." — And 1 replied to his Majesty : " Neither, therefore,

1 Cf . the medieval Latin adage : Omne trinum perfectum.

64 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

one." — And our King asked : " How ? " — And I answered : "If the
cause of three is two, the cause of two would be one, and in this case
the cause of three would also be one. If then God cannot he said to
be three, and the cause of three is two and that of two one, God can-
not, therefore be called one either. Indeed this number one being the
cause and the beginning of all numbers, and there being no number in
God, we should not have applied it to Him. As, however, we do
apply this number to God without any reference to the beginning of
an arithmetical number, we apply to Him also the number three
without any implication of multiplication or division of Gods, but with
a particular reference to the Word and the Spirit of God, through
which heaven and earth have been created, as we have demonstrated
in our previous colloquy.1 If the number three cannot be applied to
God, since it is caused by the number one, the latter could not by in-
ference beapplied to God either, but if the number one can be applied
to God, since this number one is the cause of the number three, the last
number can therefore be applied also to God."
And our victorious King said: 'The number three denotes
plurality, and since there cannot be plurality in Godhead, this number
three has no room at all in Godhead." — And I replied to his Majesty :
" The number one is also the cause and the beginning of all number,
O our King, and number is the cause of plurality. Since there cannot
be any kind of plurality in God, even the number one would have no
room in Him." — And our King said : " the number one as applied to
God is attested in the Book." — And I said : "So also is the case,
O our King, with a number implying plurality. We find often such
a number in the Torah, in the Prophets and in the Gospel, and as I
hear, in your Book also, not, however, in connection with Godhead
but in relation to humanity."
" So far as the Torah is concerned it is written in it, ' Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness ; ' e and ' The man is become as
1 The Christian apologist Kindi (Rtsalak, p. 35) develops this same idea
of number one and number three to his adversary 'Abdallah b. Isma'il al-
Hashimi and concludes as follows : "In number (also God is one because)
He embraces all sorts of numbers, and number in itself is not numbered.
Number, however, is divided into an even number and an odd number, and
both even and odd numbers are finally included in the number three."
Risalah, p. 36.
- Gen. i. 26.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 65
one of us ; ' : and, ' Let us go down, and there confound their language.' 2
As to the Prophets, it is witten in them, ' Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord
of Hosts ; ' 3 and ' The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me ; ' 4 and
* By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all His hosts
by the Spirit of His mouth.' ° As to the Gospel, it is written in it,
* Go ye and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' " As to your Book, it is
written in it, ' And we sent to her our Spirit,' and ' We breathed into
her from our Spirit,' s and ' We fashioned,' ' We said,' ' We did,' and
all such expressions which are said of God in a plural form. If the
Holy Books refer these words to God in a plural form, what the Books
say concerning God we have to say and admit. Since we had to pre-
serve without change the number one as applied to God, we had also
by inference to preserve without modification the number three, that is
to say plurality, as applied to Him. The number one refers to nature
and Godhead, and the number three to God, His Word and His
Spirit, because God has never been, is not, and will never be, without

Word and Spirit." *

And our wise Sovereign said : ' The plural form in connection
with God, in the expressions ' We sent,' ' We breathed,' ' We said,'
etc., has been used in the Books not as a sign of persons or of Trinity,
but as a mark of Divine majesty and power. It is even the habit of
the kings and governors of the earth to use such a mode of speech."
—And I replied to the wealth of his intelligence : " What your glorious
Majesty has said is true. To you God gave knowledge and under-
standing along with power and greatness, more than to all other
countries and kings. The community of all mankind, whether composed
of freemen or of subjected races is personified in the kings, and the

1 Gen. iii. 22
" Gen. xi. 7. The very same argument taken from the plural of majesty
to prove the Trinity is used by Kindi in his Apology for Christianity (Risalah,
pp. 40-44), where the same Biblical verses are quoted to the same effect.
"Is. vi. 3. Ms. xlviii. 16.
I Ps. xxx. 6 (Peshitta). f> Matt, xxviii. 19.
' Kur'an, xix. 1 7 (read luathah in fern.).
*ICur'an, xxi. 91 (read bah in fern.).
' The idea that there was no time in which God could have been devoid
of mind and life or otherwise of word and spirit is developed also by Kindi
in his Apology for Christianity, Risalah, p. 39.
66 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
community of mankind being composed of innumerable persons, the
kings rightly make use of the plural form in expressions such as, ' We
ordered,' ' We said,' ' We did,' etc. Indeed the kings represent col-
lectively allthe community of mankind individually. If all men are one
with the king, and the king orders, says and does, all men order, say
and do in the king, and he says and does in the name of all.
" Further, the kings are human beings, and human beings are com-
posed of body and soul, and the body is in its turn composed of the
power of the four elements. Because a human being is composed of
many elements, the kings make use not unjustly of the plural form of
speech, such as * We did,' ' We ordered,' etc.1 As to God who is
simple in His nature and one in His essence and remote from all
division and bodily composition, what greatness and honour can possibly
come to Him when He, who is one and undivided against Himself,
says in the plural form, ' We ordered,' and, ' We did ? ' The greatest
honour that can be offered to God is that He should be believed in by
all as He is. In His essence He is one, but He is three because of
His Word and His Spirit. This Word and this Spirit are living
beings and are of His nature, as the word and the spirit of our vic-
torious King are of his nature, and he is one King with his word and
spirit, which are constantly with him without cessation, without division
and without displacement.
' When, therefore, expressions such as, ' We spoke,' ' We said,'
' We did,' and ' Our image and likeness,* are said to refer to God,
His Word and His Spirit, they are referred in the way just described,
O King of Kings. Who is more closely united to God than His
Word through which He created all, governs all land directs all ?
Or who is nearer to Him than His Spirit through which He vivifies,
sanctifies and renews all ? David spoke thus : ' By the Word of the
Lord were the heavens made, and all His hosts by the Spirit of His
mouth ; * " and, ' He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered
them from destruction ; ' 3 and ' Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit and
they are created, and Thou renewest the face of the earth.' 4
" If one asserts that the expressions, ' Our image' and ' Our like-
1 Put a waw before d-akh. This idea is developed by Kindi in his
Apology (Risalah p. 42) on the same lines.
2 Ps. xxxiii. 6 (Peshitta). 3 Ps. cvii. 20.
4 Ps. civ. 30.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 67
ness' used by Moses and the expressions, ' We made,* and ' We
breathed,* used by Muhammad,1 do not refer to God but to the angels,
how disgraceful it would be to believe that the image and the likeness
of God and those of the angels, that is of the creator and the created,
are one ! How dishonourable it would be to affirm that God says,
orders and does with the angels and His creatures ! God orders and
does like the Lord and the creator, and orders and does in a way that
transcends that of all others ; but the angels being creatures and
servants, do not order with God, but are under the order of God ;
they do not create with God, but are very much created by God. The
angels are what David said about them, ' Who maketh His angels
spirits and His ministers a flaming fire.' ~ In this he shows that they
are made and created.
"As to the Word and Spirit of God the prophet David says that
they are not created and made, but creators and makers : 3 ' By the
Word of the Lord were the heavens made,' and not His Word alone ;
and ' the heavenly hosts were created by His Spirit ' and not His
Spirit alone ; and, ' Because He said and they were made, and He
commanded and they were created.' * It is obvious that one who
' says,' ' says ' and ' commands ' by word, and that the word precedes
the action, and the thought precedes the deed. Since God is one
without any other before Him, with Him and after Him, and since
all the above expressions which denote plurality cannot be ascribed to
angels, and since the nature of God is absolutely free from all composi-
tions— to whom could we ascribe then all such expressions ? I believe,
0 our victorious King, that they refer to the Word and the Spirit of
God. If it is right that the expression ' One God ' is true, it is also
right that the expression ' We ordered,' ' We said,' and ' We breathed
from our Spirit ' are without doubt true and not false. It is also pos-
sible that the three letters placed before some Surahs in the Kur'an, as
1 have learned, such as A.L.R and T.S.M. and Y.S.M. and others,

1 This Kur'anic use of the plural ive in connection with God is also taken
as an argument in favour of the Trinity by the Christian apologist Kindi.
Risalah, p. 42.
- Ps. civ. 4.
It would perhaps be better to put the verbs and pronouns of this sen-
tence inplural.
4 Ps. cxlviii. 5.
68 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
which are three in number, refer also in your Book to God, His Word
and His Spirit.1
And our victorious King said : " And what did impede the
Prophet from saying that this was so, that is that these letters clearly
referred to God, His Word and His Spirit ? " — And I replied to his
Majesty : " The obstacle might have come from the weakness of those
people who would be listening to such a thing. People whose ears
were accustomed to the multiplicity of idols and false gods could not
have listened to the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or to
that of one God, His Word, and His Spirit. They would have be-
lieved that this also was polytheism. This is the reason why your
Prophet proclaimed openly the doctrine of one God, but that of the
Trinity he only showed it in a somewhat veiled and mysterious way,
that is to say through his mention of God, and of His Spirit and
through the expressions ' We sent our Spirit ' and ' We fashioned a
complete man.' 2 He did not teach it openly in order that his hearers
may not be scandalised by it and think of polytheism, and he did not
hide it completely in order that he may not deviate from the path
followed by Moses, Isaiah, and other prophets, but he showed it
symbolically by means of the three letters that precede the Surahs.
" The ancient prophets had also spoken of the unity of the nature
of God and used words referring to this unity in an open and clear
way, but the words which referred to His three persons they used
them in a somewhat veiled and symbolical way. They did so not for
any other reason than that of the weakness of men whose mind was
bound up in idolatry and polytheism. When, however, Christ
appeared to us in the flesh, He proclaimed openly and clearly what
the prophets had said in a veiled and symbolical way, ' Go ye,' said

1 The Patriarch refers here to the mysterious letters placed at the

beginning of some Surahs of the Kur'an. It is highly interesting to learn that
the Christians at the very beginning of the 'Abbasid dynasty understood them
to refer
are foundto before
the Holy Trinity.
Surahs 10, 11,In12,
the14Kur'an
and 15,ofandourtheday the T.S.M.
letters letters A.L.R.
before
Surahs xxvi. and xxviii., but the three letters Y.S.M. are not found before
any Surah at all, but Surah xxxvi has only the two letters Y.S. Why this
last change in our modern Kur'an ? There is no question of a copyist's
error in the Syriac text, because the letters are named in words and not
written in figures only.
- Kur'anic expressions.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 69
He to His Disciples, ' and baptise all nations in the name of the
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.' l Moses also uttered
the same thing in a way that means both one and three, ' Hear, O
Israel,' said he, ' The Lord your God is one Lord.' " In saying He
' is one,' he refers to the one nature of Godhead, and in saying the
three words, ' Lord, God, and Lord ' he refers to the three persons
of that Godhead, as if one was saying that God, His Word and His
Spirit were one eternal God. Job also said, ' The Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken ; blessed be the name of the Lord.' 3 In blessing the
single name of the Lord, Job used it three times, in reference to one
in three."
And our King said to me : " If He is one, He is not three ; and
if He is three, He is not one ; what is this contradiction ? " — And I
answered : " The sun is also one, O our victorious King, in its spheric
globe, its light and its heat, and the very same sun is also three, one
sun in three powers. In the same way the soul has the powers of
reason and intelligence, and the very same soul is one in one thing and
three in another thing. In the same way also a piece of three gold
denarii, is called one and three, one in its gold that is to say in its
nature, and three in its persons that is to say in the number of denarii.
The fact that the above objects are one does not contradict and annul
the other fact — that they are also three, and the fact that they are
three does not contradict and annul the fact that they are also one.
" In the very same way the fact that God is one does not annul
the other fact that He is in three persons, and the fact that He is in
three persons does not annul the other fact that He is one God. Man
is a being which is living, rational and mortal, and he is one and three,
one in being one man and three in being living, rational and mortal,
and this idea gives rise to three notions not contradictory but rather
confirmatory to one another. By the fact that man is one, he is by
necessity living, rational and mortal, and by the fact that he is living,
rational and mortal, he is by necessity one man. This applies also to
God in whom the fact of His being three does not annul the other fact
that He is one and vice versa, but these two facts confirm and cor-
roborate each other. If He is one God, He is the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit ; and if He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy

1 Matt, xxviii. 19. - Deut. vi. 4. 8 Job. 121.

70 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
Spirit, He is one God, because the eternal nature of God consists in
Fatherhood, Filiation, and Procession, and in the three of them He is
one God, and in being one God He is the three of them."
And our King said to me : "Do you say that the nature of God
is composed of the above three, as the human nature is composed of its
being living, rational, and mortal, and as the sun is composed of light,
heat, and sphericity, and as the soul is composed of reason and intelli-
gence, and as gold is composed of height, depth, and width ? " — And I
denied this and said : " No, this is not so." — And our King said to
me : " Why then do you wish to demonstrate with bodily demonstra-
tions One who has no body and is not composed ? " — And I answered
his Majesty : " Because there is no other God like Him, from whom
I might draw a demonstration as to what is a being that has no be-
ginning and no end." — And our King said to me : " It is never allowed
to draw a demonstration from the creatures concerning the Creator."
—And I said to Him : " We will then be in complete ignorance of
God, O King of Kings."
And our King said : " Why ? "-—And I answered : " Because all
that we say about God is deducted from natural things that we have
with us ; as such are the adjectives : King of all Kings, Lord of all
Lords, Mighty, Powerful, Omnipotent, Light, Wisdom, and Judge.
We call God by these and similar adjectives from things that are with
us, and it is from them that we take our demonstration concerning God.
If we remove Him from such demonstrations and do not speak of Him
through them, with what and through what could we figure in our
mind Him who is higher than all image and likeness ? "
And our victorious King said to me : " We call God by these
names, not because we understand Him to resemble things that we
have with us, but in order to show that He is far above them, without
comparison. In this way, we do not attribute to God things that are
with us, we rather ascribe to ourselves things that are His, with great
mercy from Him and great imperfection from us. Words such as :
kingdom, life, power, greatness, honour, wisdom, sight, knowledge,
and justice, etc., belong truly, naturally and eternally to God, and they
only belong to us in an unnatural, imperfect, and temporal way. With
God they have not begun and they will not end, but with us children

of men they began and they will end."

And I replied to his Majesty : " All that your Majesty said on
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 71
this subject, O our victorious King, has been said with perfect wisdom
and great knowledge ; this is especially true of what you have just
now said. It was not indeed with the intention of lowering God to a
comparison with His creatures, that from the latter I drew a com-
parison concerning Him who, in reality, has no comparison with the
created beings at all. I made use of such similes solely for the purpose
of uplifting my mind from the created things to God. All the things
that we have with us compare very imperfectly with the things of
God. Even in saying of God that He is one, we introduce in our mind
division concerning Him, because when we say for instance one man,
one angel, one denarius, one pearl, we immediately think of a division
that singles out and separates one denarius from many denarii, one
pearl from many pearls, one angel from many angels, and one man
from many men.
" A man would not be counting rightly but promiscuously if He
were to say : one man and two angels, one horse and two asses, one
denarius and two pence, one pearl and two emeralds. Every entity is
counted with the entities of its own species, and we say : one, two, or
three men ; one, two, or three angels ; one, two, or three denarii ; one,
two, or three pearls, as the case may be. With all these calculations
in saying one we introduce, as I said, the element of division, but in
speaking of God we cannot do the same thing, because there are no
other entities of the same species as Himself which would introduce
division in Him in the same sense as in our saying : one angel or one
man. He is one, single and unique in His nature. Likewise when
we say three we do not think of bodies or numbers, and when we say :
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we do not say it in a way that implies
division, separation, or promiscuity, but we think of it as something high
above us in a divine, incomprehensible, and indescribable way.
" Our fathers and our children were born from marital union and
intercourse, and their fatherhood and filiation have a beginning and an
end. Further, a father was a son before becoming a father, and all
relationships are liable to natural dissolution and cessation. As to
Fatherhood, Filiation, and Procession in God they are not in a way
similar to those of our humanity, but in a divine way that mind cannot
comprehend. They do not arise from any intercourse between them,
nor are they from time or in the time but eternally without beginning
and without end. Since the above three attributes are of the nature
72 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
of God, and the nature of God has no beginning and no end, they also
are without a beginning and without an end. And since He who is
without a beginning and without an end is also unchangeable, that
Fatherhood, therefore, that Filiation and that Procession are immutable
and will remain without any modification. The things that are with
us give but an imperfect comparison with the things that are above,
because things that are God's are above comparison and likeness, as
we have already demonstrated."
And our victorious King said : " The mind of rational beings will
not agree to speak of God who is eternally one in Himself in terms of
Trinity." — And I answered : " Since the mind of the rational beings
is created, and no created being can comprehend God, you have
rightly affirmed, O King of Kings, that the mind of the rational beings
will not agree to speak of one God in terms of Trinity. The mind,
however, of the rational beings can only extend to the acts of God,
and even then in an imperfect and partial manner ; as to the nature of
God we learn things that belong to it not so much from our rational
mind as from the Books of Revelation, i.e. from what God Himself
has revealed and taught about Himself through His Word and
Spirit :
" The Word of God said, ' No one knoweth the Father but the
Son, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father,' l and, ' The Spirit
searcheth all things even the deep things of God.' 2 No one knows
what there is in man except man's own spirit that is in him, so also no
one knows what is in God except the Spirit of God. The Word and
the Spirit of God, being eternally from His own nature — as heat and
light from the sun, and as reason 3 and mind from the soul — alone see
and know the Divine nature, and it is they who have revealed and
taught us in the sacred Books that God is one and three, as I have
already shown in my above words from the Torah, the Prophets, the
Gospel, and the Kur'an according to what I have learned from those
who are versed in the knowledge of your Book.
" Were it not for the fact that His Word and His Spirit were
eternally from His own nature God would not have spoken of Him-
self in the Torah, as, * Our image and Our likeness ; ' 4 and ' Behold
1 John passim. - 1 Cor. ii. 10.
also
Here i. 26.
43 Gen. the same Syriac word milltha means " word " and " reason."
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 73
the man is become as one of us ; ' l and ' Let us go down and there
confound their language ; ' " and the Kur'an would not have said,
' And we sent to her our Spirit ; ' 3 and ' We breathed into her from
our Spirit ; ' 4 and ' We did,* ' We said,* and so on. By such
expressions (The Kur'an) refers to God and His Word and His
Spirit as we have said above. Has not the mind of the rational
beings, O our victorious Sovereign, to follow the words of God
rather than its own fanciful conceptions ? The inspired Books are
surely right, and since we find in them that one and the same prophet
speaks of God as one and as three, we are compelled by the nature
of the subject to believe it."
And our powerful Sovereign said to me : "How does the nature
of the subject compel us to believe it ? " — And I answered : " Because
my Sovereign and my King granted full freedom to his obedient
servant to speak before him, may I further implore your Majesty to be
willing that I ask more questions ? " And our King said : " Ask
anything you want." — And I then said : "Is not God a simple and
uncircumscribed Spirit?" — And our King said 'Yes." — And I
asked his Majesty : " Does He perceive in an uncircumscribed way
with all His being, or does He perceive like us with one part only
and not with another ? " — And our King answered : " He perceives
with all its nature without any circumscription." — And 1 asked :
;* Was there any other thing with Him from eternity, or not ? "•
And our King answered : " Surely not." — And I asked : " Does
not a perceiver perceive a perceived object ? " And our King
answered : " Yes."
And I then asked : "If God is a perceiver and knower from the
beginning and from eternity, a perceiver and a knower perceives and
knows a perceived and known object, and because there was no
created thing that was eternally with God — since He created after-
wards when He wished — in case there was no other being with Him,
whom He might perceive and know eternally, how could He be
called a perceiver and a knower in a Divine and eternal sense, and
before the creation of the world ? "
And our victorious King answered : " What you have said is true.
' Gen. w. 22. - Gen. xi. 7.
3 Kur'an xix. 1 7. (Here also read Iwathah in fern.)
1 Kur'an xxi. 91 (Here also
6 read bah in fern.)
74 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
It is indeed necessary that a perceiver should perceive a perceived
object, and the knower a known one, but it is possible to say that He
perceived and knew His own self." — And I asked : "If He is all
a perceiver without any circumscription, so that He does not perceive
and know with one part and is perceived and known with another
part, how can a perceiver of this kind perceive Himself ? The eye
of man is the perceiver and it perceives the other objects, but it can
never perceive its own self except with another eye like itself, because
the sight of the eye is unable to perceive itself. If the sight of the
composed eye cannot be divided into parts so that a part of it
perceives itself, and the other part is perceived by itself, how can we
think of God who is a Spirit without body, without division, and
without parts that He perceives Himself and is perceived by
Himself ? "
And our intelligent Sovereign asked : " Which of the two do you
admit: does God perceive Himself or not?" — And I answered:
" Yes ; He perceives and knows Himself with a sight that has no
limits and a knowledge that has no bounds." — And our King asked :
" How is it that your argumentation and reasoning concerning
divisions, separations, and partitions do not rebound against you ? "
And I replied to him : " God perceives and knows Himself through
His Word and the Spirit that proceeds from Him. The Word and
the Spirit are a clear mirror of the Father, a mirror that is not foreign
to Him but of the same essence and nature as Himself, without any
limits and bounds. He was perceiving His Word, His Spirit, and
His creatures, divinely, eternally, and before the worlds, with this
difference, however, that He was perceiving and knowing His Word
and His Spirit as His nature, His very nature, and He was eternally
perceiving and knowing His creatures not as His nature but as His
creatures. He was perceiving and knowing His Word and His
Spirit as existing divinely and eternally, and His creatures not as
existing then but as going to exist in the future. Through His Word
and His Spirit He perceives and knows the beauty, the splendour,
and the infiniteness of His own nature, and through His creatures the
beauty of His wisdom, of His power, and of His goodness, now,
before now, and before all times, movements, and beginnings."
And our King asked philosophically : " Are they parts of one
another, and placed at a distance from one another, so that one part
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 75
perceives and the other is perceived ? " — And I replied to his
Majesty : " No, not so, O King of Kings. They are not parts of
one another, because a simple being has no parts and no composition ;
nor are they placed at a distance one from the other, because the
infiniteness of God, of His Word, and of His Spirit is one. The
Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Spirit, without any break,
distance, and confusion of any kind, as the soul is in the reason and
the reason in the mind, without break and confusion ; and as the
spheric globe of the sun is in its light, and this light in its heat ; and
as the colour, scent, and taste are in the apple, without any break,
confusion, and promiscuity. All figures, comparisons, and images, are
far below that adorable and ineffable nature of God, so there is fear
that we may be falsely held to believe in the plurality of Godhead."
And our powerful and wise King said : "There is such a fear
indeed." — And I said : " O King of Kings, this would arise in case
we diminished something from Godhead, just as well as if we added
something to it. As it is a blasphemy to add something to Godhead,
it is also a blasphemy to diminish something from it in our belief, and
as it is not allowed to add anything to the sun or to the pearl, so it is
not allowed to diminish anything from them. He who divests God
of His Word and His Spirit, resembles the one who would divest
the sun of its light and its heat, and the soul of its reason and its mind,
and the pearl of its beauty and its lustre. As it is impossible to
conceive a pearl without lustre, or a sun without light, or a soul with-
out reason and mind, so it is never possible that God should be
without Word and Spirit If, therefore, Word and Spirit are God's
by nature, and God is eternal, it follows that the Word and the Spirit
of God are also eternal. They are not added to Him from outside
that one might think of the plurality of Godhead, but it is of the
essence of God to possess both Word and Spirit."
And our victorious King said : " In your previous words you
said that the perceiver perceives the one that is perceived, and the one
that is perceived perceives also the one that perceives ; and that if they
be near a thing they are all there at the same time, because the Word
and the Spirit of God are the object that is perceived by God and
are eternal like the perceiver ; and if there is no perceiver there is no
perceived object either, and if there is no perceived object there is no
perceiver. Did you say these things, or not ?"— And I answered :
76 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

" I did say them, O our victorious King." — And the King of Kings
said : " But it is possible that God was perceiving His creatures
before He created them." — And I said : " O our victorious King,
we cannot think or say otherwise. God perceived and knew eternally
His creatures, before He brought them into being."
And our King said : " The nature of the subject will not compel
us, therefore, to believe that if the perceiver is eternal, the perceived
should also be eternal, because the fact that God is an eternal
perceiver of the creature does not carry with it the necessity that the
creature which is perceived by Him is also eternal, and the fact that
the creature is perceived does not carry with it the necessity that He
also is the perceived object like it. As such a necessity as that you
were mentioning in the case of the creature has been vitiated, so also
is the case with regard to the Word and the Spirit."
And I said : " O our King, it is not the same kind of perception
that affects the creature on the one hand, and the Word and the
Spirit on the other. This may be known and demonstrated as
follows : it is true that God was perceiving the creature eternally, but
the creature is not infinite, and God is infinite, the creature has a
limited perceptibility, and the perception of God has no limits.
Further, the nature of God having no limits, His knowledge also has
no limits, as the divine David says, ' His understanding is infinite.' 1
If God, therefore, has any perception, and if He is infinite and
unlimited, that perception must by necessity be infinite and unlimited,
and if His perception is infinite, it perceives a perceived object that is
likewise infinite ; but the perceived object that is infinite being only
the nature of God, it follows that His Word and His Spirit are from
His nature, in the same way as the word and the spirit of a man are
from human nature. It is, therefore, obvious that if God is an infinite
perceiver, the Word and the Spirit that are from Him are also
infinite.
" God knows His Word and His Spirit in an infinite way as His
Knowledge and His perception are infinite, but He perceives and
knows His creature not in the same infinite way as are His perception
and His Knowledge, but in a finite way according to the limits of the
creature and of the human nature. He perceived His creature only

1 Ps. cxlvii. 5.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 77
through His prescience, and not as a substance that is of the same
nature as Himself, and, on the contrary, He perceived the Word and
the Spirit not through His prescience but as a substance that is of the
same nature as Himself. This is the reason why the prophet David
said, ' For ever, art thou O Lord, and Thy Word is settled in heaven ; * :
and likewise the prophet Isaiah, ' The grass withereth and the flower
fadeth, but the Word of our Lord shall stand forever,' ~ In this
passage Isaiah counts all the world as grass and flower, and the Word
and the Spirit of God as something imperishable, immortal, and
eternal .
" If, therefore, God is an infinite perceiver, the object that is
perceived by Him has also to be infinite, in order that His perception
of the perceived should not be incomplete in places. And who is
this infinite- perceived except the Word and the Spirit of God ?
God indeed was not without perception and a perceived object of the
same nature as Himself till He brought His creature into being, but
He possessed along with His eternal perception and eternal knowledge
a perceived object that was eternal and a known object that was also
eternal. It is not permissible to say of God that He was not a
perceiver and a knower, till the time in which He created. And if
God is eternally a perceiver and a knower, and if a perceiver of the
perceived and a knower of the known is truly a perceiver and a knower,
and if His Word and His Spirit were perceived by Him divinely and
eternally, it follows that these same Word and Spirit were eternally
with Him. As to His creatures, He created them afterwards, when
He wished, by means of His Word and His Spirit."
And our King said to me : "O Catholicos, if this is your religion
and that of the Christians, I will say this, that the Word and the
Spirit are also creatures of God, and there is no one who is uncreated
except one God." — And 1 replied : "If the Word and the Spirit are
also creatures of God like the rest, by means of whom did God create
the heaven and the earth and all that they contain ? The Books
teach us that He created the world by means of His Word and His
Spirit — by means of whom did He then create this Word and this
Spirit ? If He created them by means of another word and another
spirit, the same conclusion would also be applied to them : will they

1 Ps. cxix. 89 (Peskitta). - Is. ad. 8.

78 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
be created or uncreated ? If uncreated, the religion of the Catholicos
and of the Christians is vindicated ; and if created, by means of whom
did God create them ? And this process of gibberish argumentation
will go on indefinitely until we stop at that Word and that Spirit
hidden eternally in God, by means of whom we assert that the worlds
were created."
And the King said : " You appear to believe in three heads, O
Catholicos." — And I said : " This is certainly not so, O our victorious
King. I believe in one head, the eternal God the Father, from whom
the Word shone and the Spirit radiated eternally, together, and before
all times, the former by way of filiation and the latter by way of
procession, not in a bodily but in a divine way that befits God. This
is the reason why they are not three separate Gods. The Word and
the Spirit are eternally from the single nature of God, who is not one
person divested of word and spirit as the weakness of the Jewish
belief has it. He shines and emits rays eternally with the light of
His Word and the radiation of His Spirit, and He is one head with
His Word and His Spirit. I do not believe in God as stripped of
His Word and Spirit, in the case of the former without mind l and
reason, and in the case of the latter without spirit and life. It is only
the idolators who believe in false gods or idols who have neither
reason nor life."
And our victorious King said : "It seems to me that you believe
in a vacuous God, since you believe that He has 2 a child." — And I
answered : " O King, I do not believe that God is either vacuous or
solid, because both these adjectives denote bodies. If vacuity and
solidity belong to bodies, and God is a Spirit without a body, neither
of the two qualifications can be ascribed to Him." — And the King
said : " What then do you believe that God is if He is neither
vacuous nor solid ? " — And I replied to His Majesty : " God is a
Spirit and an incorporeal light, from whom shine and radiate eternally
and divinely His Word and His Spirit. The soul begets the mind
and causes reason to proceed from it, and the fire begets the light and

1 The author is constantly playing on the Syriac word inilltJia which

means both "word" and "reason."
2 Cod. is ; the reading ith laih seems, however, to be better than
ithauh. The Caliph's objection bears on the fact that since God begets,
something goes out of Him and He is consequently vacuous.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 79
causes heat to proceed from its nature, and we do not say that either
the soul or fire are hollow or solid. So also is the case with regard to
God, about Whom we never say that He is vacuous or solid when
He makes His Word shine and His Spirit radiate from His essence

eternally."
And our victorious King said : " What is the difference in God
between shining and radiating ? " — And I replied : " There is the
same difference between shining and radiating in God as that found in
the illustration furnished by the fire and the apple : the fire begets the
light and causes heat to proceed from it, and the apple begets the
scent and causes the taste and savour to proceed from it. Al-
though both the fire and the apple give rise, the former to light and
heat, and the latter to scent and savour, yet they do not do it in the
same manner and with an identical effect on the one and the same
sense of our body. We receive the heat of the fire with the sense
of feeling, the light with the eyes, the scent of the apple with the
sense of smell, and the sweetness of its savour with the palate. From
this it becomes clear that the mode of filiation is different from that of
procession. This is as far as one can go from bodily comparisons and
similes to the realities and to God."
And the King said : " You will not go very far with God in
your bodily comparisons and similes." — And I said : " O King,
because I am a bodily man I made use of bodily metaphors, and not
of those that are without any body and any composition. Because I
am a bodily man, and not a spiritual being, I make use of bodily
comparisons in speaking of God. How could I or any other human
being speak of God as He is with a tongue of flesh, with lips fashioned
of mud, and with a soul and mind closely united to a body ? This is
far beyond the power of men and angels to do. God Himself speaks
with the prophets about Himself not as He is, because they cannot
know and hear about Him as He is, but simply in the way that fits
in with their own nature, a way they are able to understand. In His
revelations to the ancient prophets sometimes He revealed Himself as
man, sometimes as fire, sometimes as wind, and some other times in
some other ways and similitudes.
' The divine David said, ' He then spoke in visions to His holy
ones ; ' J and the Prophet Hosea said on behalf of God, ' I have
:Ps. Ixxxix. 19 (Peshitta).
80 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
multiplied my visions and used similitudes by the ministry of the
prophets ; ' l and one of the Apostles of Christ said, ' God at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in time past unto our fathers by the
prophets.'2 If God appeared and spake to the ancient in bodily
similitudes and symbols, we with stronger reason find ourselves
completely unable to speak of God and to understand anything
concerning Him except through bodily similitudes and metaphors. I
shall here make bold and assert that I hope I shall not deserve any
blame from your Majesty if I say that you are in the earth the
representative of God for the earthly people ; now God maketh His
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the
just and the unjust.3 Your Majesty also in the similitude of God
will make us worthy of forgiveness if in the fact of being earthly
beings we speak of God in an earthly way and not in a spiritual way
like spiritual beings."
And our victorious King said : ' You are right in what you
said before and say now on the subject that God is above all the
thoughts and minds of created beings, and that all the thoughts and
minds of created beings are lower not only than God Himself but also
His work. The fact, however, that you put the servant and the Lord
on the same footing you make the creator equal with the created, and
in this you fall into error and falsehood."
And I replied : " O my Sovereign, that the Word and the Spirit
of God should be called servants and created I considered and consider
not far from unbelief. If the Word and the Spirit are believed to be
from God, and God is conceived to be a Lord and not a servant,
His Word and Spirit are also, by inference, lords and not servants.
It is one and the same freedom that belongs to God and to His Word
and Spirit, and they are called Word and Spirit of God not in an
unreal, but in a true, sense. The kingdom which my victorious
Sovereign possesses is the same as that held by his word and his
spirit, so that no one separates his word and his spirit from his
kingdom, and he shines in the diadem of kingdom together with
his word and his spirit in a way that they are not three Kings,
and in a way that he does not shine in the diadem of kingdom apart
from his word and his spirit.

1 Hos. xii. 10. 2 Heb. i. 1. s Matt. v. 45.

 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 81
" If it please your Majesty, O my powerful Sovereign, I will also
say this : the splendour and the glory of the kingdom shine in one
and the same way in the Commander of the Faithful x and in his
sons Musa and Harun,' and in spite of the fact that kingdom and
lordship in them are one, their personalities are different. For this
reason no one would venture to consider, without the splendour of
kingdom, not only the Commander of the Faithful but also the
beautiful flowers and majestic blossoms that budded and blossomed out
of him ; indeed the three of them blossom in an identical kingdom,
and this one and the same kingdom shines and radiates in each one
of them, so that no one dares to ascribe servitude to any of them. In
a small and partial way the same light of kingdom, lordship, and
divinity shines and radiates eternally in the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, or if one prefers to put it, in God, His Word, and His
Spirit, and no one is allowed to give to any of them the name of
servant. If the Word and the Spirit are servants of God, while they
are from God Himself, the logical conclusion to be drawn I leave to a
tongue other than mine to utter."
And the King said : " It is very easy for your tongue, O
Catholicos, to prove the existence of that Lord and God, and the
existence also of that consubstantial servant, and to draw conclusions
sometimes or to abstain from them some other times, but the minds
and the will of rational beings are induced to follow not your mind
which is visible in your conclusions, but the law of nature and the
inspired Books."
And I replied : " O our victorious King, I have proved my words
that I have uttered in the first day and to-day both from nature and
from Book. So far as arguments from nature are concerned, I argued,
confirmed, and corroborated my words sometimes from the soul with
its mind and its reason ; sometimes from the fire with its light and its
heat ; sometimes from the apple with its scent and its savour ; and
some other times from your Majesty and from the rational and royal
flowers that grew from it : Musa and Harun, the sons of your
Majesty. As to the inspired Books, I proved the object under

'-The ^Caliph Mahdi himself.

Harun is of course the future and famous Harun ar-Rashld. About
Musa, the other son of the Caliph Mahdi, see Tabari, Annales, iii. I,
pp. 452-458.
82 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
discussion sometimes from Moses, sometimes from David, and some
other times I appealed to the Kur'an, as a witness to prove my state-
ment.
" God said to the prophet David and caused him further to
prophesy in the following manner concerning His Word and His
Spirit, ' I have set up my King on my holy hill of Zion.' l Before
this He had called Him His Christ, * Against the Lord and against
His Christ.'2 If the Christ of God is a King, it follows that the
Christ is not a servant but a King. Afterwards David called Him
twice Son, ' Thou art my Son and this day I have begotten Thee,' 3
and, * Kiss the Son lest the Lord be angry and ye perish from His
way.' 4 If the Christ, therefore, is a Son, as God called Him through
the prophet David, and if no son is a servant, it follows, O King, that
the Christ is not a servant. In another passage the same prophet
David called the Christ ' Lord,' ' Son,' and ' A priest for ever,' because
he said, ' The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand.' 5
And in order to show that Christ is of the same nature and power as
God, he said on behalf of the Father as follows, ' In the beauties of
holiness from the womb I have begotten Thee from the beginning.' 6
God, therefore, called Christ ' a Lord ' through the prophet David, and
since no true Lord is a servant, it follows that Christ is not a servant.7
" Further, Christ has been called through David one ' begotten of
God ' both ' from eternity ' and ' In the beauties of holiness from the
womb.' Since no one begotten of God is a servant, the Christ, there-
fore, O King of Kings, is not a servant and created, but He is
uncreated and a Lord. God said also through the prophet Isaiah to
Ahaz, King of Israel, ' Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son,
and His name shall be called — not a servant — but Emmanuel, which
being interpreted is, God with us.* 8 The same Isaiah said, * For unto
'Ps. ii. 6. 2Ps. ii. 2. 3Ps. ii. 7.
4 Ps. ii. 12. 5 Ps. ex. 1 and 4. 6 Ps. ex. 3 (Peshitta).
7 The Muslim apologist, 'AH b. Rabban Tabari, argues that the term
"lord" in Syriac mara is applied sometimes in the Bible to men, and
therefore in Deut. xxxiii. 23; Is. xl. 10-11 and Ixiii. 14-16 the word
designates Muhammad. See Kitab ad-Din, pp. 87, 100, and 1 16 of my
edition. The idea that the word mara, " Lord," refers sometimes in the
Bible to men is of course taken by Tabari from Syrian commentators whom
he knew perfectly.
8 Is. vii. 14; Matt. i. 23.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 83
us a Child — and not a servant — is born, and unto us a Son — not a
servant and a created being — is given, and His name has been called
Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God of the Worlds.'1 If the
Christ, therefore, is the Son of God, this Son of God, as God Him-
self spoke through the prophet Isaiah, is the ' mighty God of the
worlds,' and not a servant in subjection, but a Lord and a Prince. It
follows, O our victorious King, that the Christ is surely a Lord and
a Prince, and not a servant in subjection.
" As your Majesty would wax angry if your children were called
servants, so also God will be wrathful if anybody called His Word
and His Spirit servants. As the honour and dishonour of the
children of your Majesty redound on you, so also and in a higher
degree the honour and dishonour of God's Word and Spirit redound
on Him. It is for this reason that Christ said in the Gospel, ' He
that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father who hath sent
Him,' ' and, ' He who honoureth not the Son shall not see life, but
the wrath of God shall abide on him.' °
4 The above is written in the Gospel. I heard also that it is
written in the Kur'an that Christ is the Word and the Spirit of God,4
and not a servant. If Christ is the Word and the Spirit of God, as the
Kur'an testifies, He is not a servant but a Lord, because the Word
and the Spirit of God are Lords. It is by this method, O our God-
loving King, based on the law of nature and on divinely inspired
words, and not on purely human argumentation, word, and thought,
that I both in the present and in the first conversation have demon-
strated the lordship and the sonship of Christ, and the Divine

Trinity." 5
Our victorious King said : "Has not the Christ been called also
several times a servant by the prophets ?" — And I said : " I am
aware, O my Sovereign, of the fact that the Christ has also been
called a servant, but that this appellation does not imply a real servi-
tude isborne out by the illustration that may be taken from the status
of Harun, the blossom and the flower of your Majesty. He is now

1 Is. ix. 6. - John T. 23.

3 John iii. 36, where " believeth " for " honoureth."
4 Kur'an, iv. 169. Cf. iii. 40.
J Some of the above Biblical verses are quoted also by the Christian
apologist Kindi in his Risalah, pp. 146- 148.
84 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

called by everybody ' Heir Presumptive,' ' but after your long reign,
he will be proclaimed King and Sovereign by all. He served his
military service through the mission entrusted to him by your Majesty
to repair to Constantinople against the rebellious and tyrannical By-
zantines.2 Through this service and mission he will not lose 3 his
royal sonship and his freedom, nor his princely honour and glory, and
acquire the simple name of servitude and subjection, like any other
individual. So also is the case with the Christ, the Son of the
heavenly King. He fulfilled the will of His Father in His coming
on His military mission to mankind, and in His victory over sin, death,
and Satan. He did not by this act lose His royal Sonship, and did
not become a stranger to Divinity, Lordship, and Kingdom, nor did
He put on the dishonour of servitude and subjection like any other
individual.
" Further, the prophets called Him not by what He was, but by
what He was believed by the Jews to be. In one place the prophets
called Him, according to the belief of the Jews, ' A Servant, a Rejected
one, one without form or comeliness, a Stricken one, a Smitten one, a
man of many sorrows.' 4 In another place, however, it has been said
of Him that, ' He is the fairest of the children of men,0 the Mighty
God of the worlds, the Father of the future world, the Messenger of
the Great Counsel of God, Prince of Peace, a Son, and a Child," as
we demonstrated in our former replies. The last adjectives refer to
His nature, and He has been spoken of through the first adjectives on
account of the mission that He performed to His father for the salvation
of all, and in compliance with the belief of the Jews who only looked
at Him in His humanity, and were totally incapable of considering
Him in the nature of His divinity that clothed itself completely with
humanity.
1 Arab, wall al-'ahd.
* This expedition of Harun, son of the Caliph Mahdi, against the
Byzantines led by Nicetas and governed by the Empress Irene and Leo is
told at some length on the Muslim side by Tabari under the year A.H. 165
(A.D. 781), Annales, iii. i. pp. 503-505. Cf. also the historians, Ibn
Khaldun, iii. p. 213, and Mukaddasi, p. 150, etc.
3 It appears that this second conversation between Timothy and the
Caliph took place in A.D. 781, while Harun, the Caliph's son, had not
returned yet from his expedition against the Byzantines. The sentences
used in the text do not seem to yield to another interpretation.
Ms. liii. 2-4. 5Ps. xlv. 2. "Is. ix. 6.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 85
" Some ignorant Byzantines who know nothing of the kingship and
sonship of your son Harun, may consider him and call him a simple
soldier and not a Prince and a King, but those who know him with
certainty will not call him a simple soldier, but will consider him and
call him King and Prince. In this way the prophets considered the
Christ our Lord as God, King, and Son, but the unbelieving Jews
believed Him to be a servant and a mere man under subjection. He
has indeed been called not only a servant, on account of His service,
but also a stone, a door, the way, and a lamb.1 He was called a
stone, not because He was a stone by nature, but because of the truth
of His teaching ; and a door, because it is through Him that we entered
into the knowledge of God : and the way, because it is He who in His
person opened to us the way of immortality ; and a lamb, because He
was immolated for the life of the world. In this same way He was
called also a servant, not because He was a servant by nature, but on
account of the service which He performed for our salvation, and on
account of the belief of the Jews.
" I heard also that it is written in your Book that the Christ was
sent not as a servant, but as a son, ' I swear by this mountain and by
the begetter and His Child.' ' A child is like his father, whether the
latter be a servant or a freeman, and if it is written, ' The Christ doth
surely not disdain to be a servant of God,' 3 it is also written that God
doth not disdain to be a Father to Christ because He said through the
prophet about the Christ, ' He will be to Me a Son 4 — and not a servant '
—and, also ' I will make Him a first-born — not a servant — and will raise
Him up above the Kings of the earth.' 5 If Christ has been raised by
God above the Kings of the earth, He who is above the Kings cannot
be a servant, Christ is, therefore, O King, not a servant and one under
^All these adjectives are known to the Muslim apologist Ibn Rabban.
Kitab-ad-D'in, p. 83 of my edition.
2 Kur'an xc. 1-3, is interpreted by late Muslim commentators to mean :
' I do not swear by the Lord of the land . . . nor by the begetter and
what He begets.' In the early Islam the first word was evidently read as
la-uksimu, ' I shall swear ' (with an affirmation), instead of la-uksimu, ' I
shall not swear ' (with a negation). I believe
interpretation preserved in the present apologythat the ancient reading and
are more in harmony with
the Kur'anic text.
Kur'an iv. 1 70. The author is using the Arabic word istankafa as
in the Kur'an.
4 2 Sam. vii. 14 : Heb. i. 5. 5 Ps. Ixxxix. 27.
86 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
subjection, but a King of Kings and a Lord. It is not possible that a
servant should be above angels and kings.
" God said also about the Christ through the same prophet David,
' His name shall endure for ever, and His name is before the sun-
All men shall be blessed by Him, and all shall glorify Him.' l How
can the name of a servant endure for ever, and how can the name of a
servant be before the sun and other creatures, and how can all nations
be blessed by a servant, and how can all nations glorify a servant ?
God said to His Word and His Spirit, ' Ask of me, and I shall give
Thee the nations for Thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the
earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt shepherd them with a rod of
iron. Be wise now, O ye Kings, and be instructed, ye judges of the
earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and hold to Him with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye stray from His way, when
His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their
trust in Him.' 2 If all the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth
are the inheritance and the possession of the Christ, and if he who has
under his authority all the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth
is not a servant, the Christ, therefore, O our victorious Sovereign, is
not a servant, but a Lord and Master ; and if the Kings and the
judges of the earth have been ordered by God to serve the Christ with
fear and hold to Him with trembling, it is impossible that this same
Christ who is served, held to, and kissed by the Kings and judges of
the earth should be a servant.
"It follows, O^our victorious Sovereign, that the Christ is a King
of Kings, since Kings worshipped and worship Him ; and a Lord and
judge of judges, since judges served and serve Him with fear. If He
were a servant, what kind of a wrath and destruction could He bring
on the unbelievers, and what kind of a blessing could He bestow on
those who put their trust in Him ? That He is a Lord over all and
a Master over all, He testifies about Himself, and His testimony is
true. Indeed He said to His disciples when He was about to ascend
to heaven, and mount on the Cherubim and fly on the spiritual wings of
the Seraphim, ' All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.' 3
If Christ has been given all the power of heaven and earth, He who

1 Ps. Ixxii. 1 7 (Peshitta). See above p. 56 how Ibn Rabban, the Muslim
apologist, refers this verse to Muhammad.
2 Ps. ii. 8-12 (Peshitta). 3 Matt xxriii. 18.
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 87
is constituted in this way in heaven and in earth is God over all, and
Christ, therefore, is God over all. If He is not a true God, how can
He have power in heaven and in earth ; and if He has power in
heaven and in earth, how can He not be true God ? Indeed He has
power in heaven and in earth because He is God, since any one who
has power in heaven and in earth is God.
" The Archangel Gabriel testified to this when he announced His
conception to the always virgin Mary, ' And He shall reign over the
house of Jacob, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end.' l If the
Christ reigns for ever, and if the one who reigns for ever there is no
end to his kingdom, it follows, O our Sovereign, that Christ is a
Lord and God over all. The prophet Daniel testified also to this in
saying, ' I saw one like the son of men coming on the clouds of heaven,
and they brought Him near before the Ancient of days, who gave
Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all nations should serve
Him and worship Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and His kingdom shall not pass away and be destroyed.'" If the
kingdom of Christ shall not pass away and be destroyed, He is God
over all, and Christ is, therefore, God over all, O our King : over the
prophets and the angels.3
" If Christ has been called by the prophets God and Lord, and if
it has been said by some people that God suffered and died in the
flesh, it is evident that it is the human nature which the Word-God took
from us that suffered and died, because in no Book, neither in the
prophets nor in the Gospel, do we find that God Himself died in the
flesh, but we do find in all of them that the Son and Jesus Christ died
in the flesh. The expression that God suffered and died in the flesh
is not right."
And our victorious King asked : " And who are those who say
that God suffered and died in the flesh." — And I answered : " The
Jacobites and Melchites say that God suffered and died in the flesh,
as to us we not only do not assert that God suffered and died in our
nature, but that He even removed the passibility of our human nature
that He put on from Mary by His impassibility, and its mortality by
His immortality, and He made it to resemble divinity, to the extent
that a created being is capable of resembling his Creator. A created
1 Luke i. 33. -Dan. vii. 13-14.
3 About two words are here missing in the MS.
88 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
being cannot make himself resemble his Creator, but the Creator is
able to bring His creature to His own resemblance. It is not the
picture that makes the painter paint a picture in its own resemblance,
but it is the painter that paints the picture to his own resemblance ; it
is not the wood that works and fashions a carpenter in its resemblance,
but it is the carpenter that fashions the wood in his resemblance. In
this same way it is not the mortal and passible nature that renders
God passible and mortal like itself, but it is by necessity God that
renders the passible and mortal human nature impassible and immortal
like Himself. On the one hand, this is what the Jacobites and
Melchites say, and, on the other, this is what we say. It behoves
your Majesty to decide who are those who believe rightly and those
who believe wrongly."
And our victorious King said : " In this matter you believe more
rightly than the others. Who dares to assert that God dies ? I think
that even demons do not say such a thing. In what, however, you
say concerning one Word and Son of God, all of you are wrong."-
And I replied to his Majesty : " O our victorious King, in this world
we are all of us as in a dark house in the middle of the night. If at
night and in a dark house a precious pearl happens to fall in the midst
of people, and all become aware of its existence, every one would strive
to pick up the pearl, which will not fall to the lot of all but to the
lot of one only, while one will get hold of the pearl itself, another one
of a piece of glass, a third one of a stone or of a bit of earth, but every
one will be happy and proud that he is the real possessor of the pearl.
When, however, night and darkness disappear, and light and day
arise, then every one of those men who had believed that they had the
pearl, would extend and stretch his hand towards the light, which
alone can show what every one has in hand. He who possesses the
pearl will rejoice and be happy and pleased with it, while those who
had in hand pieces of glass and bits of stone only will weep and be
sad, and will sigh and shed tears.
" In this same way we children of men are in this perishable world
as in darkness. The pearl of the true faith fell in the midst of all of us,
and it is undoubtedly in the hand of one of us, while all of us believe
that we possess the precious object. In the world to come, however,
the darkness of mortality passes, and the fog of ignorance dissolves,
since it is the true and the real light to which the fog of ignorance is
 TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 89
absolutely foreign. In it the possessors of the pearl will rejoice, be
happy and pleased, and the possessors of mere pieces of stone will
weep, sigh, and shed tears, as we said above."
And our victorious King said : " The possessors of the pearl are
not known in this world, O Catholicos." — And I answered : " They
are partially known, O our victorious King." — And our victorious and
very wise King said : " What do you mean by partially known, and
by what are they known as such ?" — And I answered : "By good
works, O our victorious King, and pious deeds, and by the wonders
and miracles that God performs through those who possess the true
faith. As the lustre of a pearl is somewhat visible even in the dark-
ness of the night, so also the rays of the true faith shine to some extent
even in the darkness and the fog of the present world. God indeed
has not left the pure pearl of the faith completely without testimony
and evidence, first in the prophets and then in the Gospel. He first
confirmed the true faith in Him through Moses, once by means of the
prodigies and miracles that He wrought in Egypt, and another time
when He divided the waters of the Red Sea into two and allowed the
Israelites to cross it safely, but drowned the Egyptians in its depths.
He also split and divided the Jordan into two through Joshua, son of
Nun, and allowed the Israelites to cross it without any harm to them-
selves, and tied the sun and the moon to their own places until the
Jewish people were well avenged upon their enemies. He acted in the
same way through the prophets who rose in different generations, viz. :
through David, Elijah, and Elisha.
" Afterwards He confirmed the faith through Christ our Lord by
the miracles and prodigies which He wrought for the help of the
children of men. In this way the Disciples performed miracles greater
even than those wrought by Christ. These signs, miracles, and
prodigies wrought in the name of Jesus Christ are the bright rays and
the shining lustre of the precious pearl of the faith, and it is by the
brightness of such rays that the possessors of this pearl which is so full
of lustre and so precious that it outweighs all the world in the balance,
are known."
And our victorious King said : " We have hope in God that we
are the possessors of this pearl, and that we hold it in our hands."-
And I replied : " Amen, O King. But may God grant us that we
too may share it with you, and rejoice in the shining and beaming
7
90 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
lustre of the pearl ! God has placed the pearl of His faith before all
of us like the shining rays of the sun, and every one who wishes can
enjoy the light of the sun.
" We pray God, who is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, to
preserve the crown of the kingdom and the throne of the Commander
of the Faithful for multitudinous days and numerous years ! May
He also raise after him Musa and Harun and 'Ali l to the throne of
his kingdom for ever and ever ! May He subjugate before them and
before their descendants after them all the barbarous nations, and may
all the kings and governors of the world serve our Sovereign and his
sons after him till the day in which the Kingdom of Heaven is revealed
from heaven to earth ! "
And our victorious King said : " Miracles have been and are
sometimes performed even by unbelievers." — And I replied to his
Majesty : " These, O our victorious King, are not miracles but decep-
tive similitudes of the demons, and are performed not by the prophets
of God and by holy men, but by idolaters and wicked men. This is
the reason why I said that good works and miracles are the lustre of
the pearl of the faith. Indeed, Moses performed miracles in Egypt,
and the sorcerers Jannes and Jambres performed them also there, but
Moses performed them by the power of God, and the sorcerers through
the deceptions of the demons. The power of God, however, pre-
vailed, and that of the demons was defeated.
" In Rome also Simon Cephas and Simon Magus performed
miracles, but the former performed them by the power of God, and
the latter by the power of the demons, and for this reason Simon
Cephas was honoured and Simon Magus was laughed at and despised
by every one, and his deception was exposed before the eyes of all
celestial and terrestrial beings."
At this our victorious King rose up and entered his audience
chamber, and I left him and returned in peace to my patriarchal
residence.
Here ends tke controversy of tke Patriarch Mar Timothy L
with Mahdi, the Caliph of the Muslims. May eternal praise
be to God!
1 A third son of Mahdi, nicknamed ibn Ritah. See Tabari, Annalcs,
iii. 3, pp. 137, 501, 522, 1035. The Cod. has erroneously 'Alah.
TIMOTHY'S APOLOGY 91
92 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
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 WOODBROOKE STUDIES.
CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS IN SYRIAC, ARABIC, AND GARSHtJNI
EDITED AND TRANSLATED WITH A CRITICAL APPARATUS.
BY A. MINGANA.
WITH INTRODUCTIONS.

BY RENDEL HARRIS.
FASC. 4.
The Lament of the Virgin and the Martyrdom of Pilate.
INTRODUCTION.
IN the present issue of the Woodbrooke Studies Dr. Mingana
publishes two documents, which are associated together by the
fact of a common Egyptian origin, and by their occurring side
by side in the popular religious literature which was preserved in the
Arabic language, as spoken by unlettered people, and recorded in the
Syriac character, which combination of speech and script we call by
the name of Garshuni. Of the popularity of this kind of story-telling
and writing there can be no doubt ; the particular documents to which
we refer from the Paris Library and the Mingana collection,
though they bear internal evidence of Egyptian origin, have come
from a much wider field ; they were found in Mesopotamia as well
as on the Nile ; and although they are not of any great antiquity, as
far as the actual copies go from which we take our texts, the argument
for their wide popular diffusion is made stronger by the observation that
they are comparatively modern products of the Oriental religious mind.
They must have moved fast, when they are found to have moved so
far. Nor does their modern dress preclude the supposition that they
may contain iragments of early tradition embedded in their pages, for
it is precisely in such popular stories, the Folk- Lore of the Christian
religion, that we are accustomed to find survivals of the most primitive
beliefs and opinions.
163 12
 164 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
The two documents before us are concerned, the one with the
spiritual history of Pontius Pilate, who is made over into an accepted
and glorified saint, accepted in the Church on the earth and glorified
in the Church in the heaven ; the other with the sorrows of the
Virgin, not this time at the cross, but rather at the empty tomb, where
she has, as we shall see, exchanged personality with the Magdalene.
We may call one of the documents by the title of Pilatus beatus ;
the other, by an adaptation of the conventional form, may pass as
Stabat Magdalena. The author of the Pilahis is said to be no less
a person than the great Gamaliel ; the second is a sermon in which an
earlier tale is retold, as the former was also adopted, not without much
eloquence, by the Coptic Bishop of Behnesa, a place more familiar to
modern scholars under its Greek name of Oxyrhyncus, and from the
discovery of papyri associated therewith.
In the second volume of the Patrologia Orientalis there appeared
a collection of Coptic Apocrypha under the editorship of E. Revillout,
amongst which stood a number of Coptic fragments, of which Gamaliel
was supposed to be the author, and whose contents were similar to
those of the present document. In the same collection there was
a fragment describing the appearance of Jesus to Mary at the sepulchre,
where there is the confusion between Mary the Virgin and Mary
Magdalene to which we have referred above. Clearly, then, the
present documents are not entirely novel ; they existed, in part, in
Coptic fragments of a similar type with which they must be carefully
compared, and in so far as the connection can be made out, it is with
the Coptic Church and its literature that we are brought into contact.
Not altogether novel, nor altogether unexpected. For, if we turn
to the Apocryphal New Testament of M. R. James, we shall find
that, after making a summary of the Revillout fragments, he adds in
conclusion (p. 152) the following sagacious and almost prophetical

passage :—
" It may be as well to register here the statement or warning
that the Copts were tireless in producing embroideries upon
the Biblical stories, and perhaps in rewriting older documents
to suit their own taste. Only fresh discoveries of older texts can
enable us to decide how much, if any, of the details which these
later fragments supply, is really archaic."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 165

If we add to the words ' discoveries of older texts ' the expansion
1 and more complete texts,' we shall have almost a summary of the
documents before us. They are fresh discoveries of Coptic embroideries
upon Biblical texts. We will compare presently the Revillout and
other fragments (or as, following Dr. James we may say, ' frills ' of
Biblical tapestry) with the texts of our documents, but first we must
deal with the general question of the canonisation of St. Pilate and his
appearance in the Calendar.
Eveiyone who studies ancient liturgies to which calendars are
properly prefixed or attached, is aware of the importance that belongs
to the calendar in determining the local provenience of a document.
If we find a Psalter, Book of Hours or Missal, the first thing we do
is to examine the calendar ; if it records the sanctity of St. Theodulf, it
is probably from the area of Orleans ; if the Three Kings, probably
from Cologne ; if St. Denys, perhaps from Pans, and so on, with
greater or less degrees of local definition. The obvious reason being
that the saints have a preference for localities, or localities a preference
for saints. It is not even necessary that the saint should have had a
real existence. St. Lucy of Syracuse was probably invented to set off
against the superior magic of St. Agnes of Catania, and both of them
are probably apocryphal. Saints may be the badges of cities, the
personifications of provinces. In this way they acquire political signi-
ficance as well as local celebrity, though it may not always be easy to
see what the political meaning is, for even great Churches cover their
tracks, and as Jesus once pointed out, the religious world is divided into
two sects, those who worship they know not what, and those who know
what they worship. How many members of the Catholic Church can
tell us why, in the invocation of the saints in the Mass, the names of
the Apostles are followed, amongst other pious supplementary beings,
by the names of Cosmas and Damian ? All we can say is that these
are imported from the East where they were a pair of twin-brothers
practising medicine without fee, a very thin disguise of the Heavenly
Twins ; but why they came to Rome, who shall say ? That they
should become the patron saints of the Medici is more obvious. In
this case we may fail to detect political significance, even if we are
sure it was there.
A more clear illustration may be found to the above generalised
statement as to political significance accompanying local provenience
166 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

in the case -of the Twins who presided over Soissons and the area
around it. Howi'many churches are devoted to the memory of
Crispin andf^Crispinian whose very names betray brotherhood by
assonance. Yet these names have recently been restored to the pro-
posed new Anglican Calendar, not because they are twins (which
Heaven forfend !) but because they helped the English to win the
battle of 'Agincourt and so led Henry V. to say through Shakespeare
that
" Crispin-Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered."
The-liturgical sanction is, therefore, political ; it is also literary, and
we may say, if we please, that Shakespeare is in the calendar, if we
know what <we~ worship.
Now in returning to our theme, which is the canonisation of Pilate,
we observe first of all that it is local. Pilate is a saint in the Coptic
Church. He is, also, a saint in the Greek Church appearing in their
lists along with his wife Procula. We shall find all about Procula in
reading our document. She is, in fact, one of the links in the evidence
for canonisation. She attained celestial rank herself, and drew her
husband after her. We must try and review the evidence. The
Copts, indeed, have gone so far in conferring rank upon him that they
regard him as a citizen of their own country as well as one of the
high-born kinsmen of heaven. He is even reviled in our story on ac-
count ofhis nationality, as Pilate the Egyptian. So we may say that
Pilate is a saint of the Levant and Egypt, but not, as far as one can
see, of the Syrian Churches or of the Latins. However, we have
learnt something, for if this liturgical acceptance is not universal, it
will be very probable that where he does attain calendar rank, it will
be reached gradually, for it is almost impossible to believe that any
people who were familiar with the Gospels, or able to supplement
them from the pages of the historian Josephus, should have, at one
step, moved from the conception of a villain to the contemplation of a
saint. The process must have been gradual, and the embroidery of
Dr. James was attached to the story bit by bit. We must study the
matter more closely in order to find out how the Jewish hatred for
a wicked and rapacious governor was changed into a pious memory of
the Christians.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 167
Meanwhile we find we are in a position of historical advantage,
for whether good or bad, rapacious or compassionate, we are sure that
Pilate existed. Not even Mr. J. M. Robertson can prove his history
to be capable of reduction to myth. There is too much about him in
Tacitus, and Philo, and Josephus, over and above what we find in
the Gospels, to allow us to regard him, at all events, as the villain
of the Gospel Tragedy. We may have our suspicions about Procula,
whom we find conjoined in canonicity, as we may have our doubts
about the canonisation itself ; but Pilate is too firmly set in history to
be capable of displacement.
In the earliest creed of the Church, so far as we can detect it in the
dark backward and abysm of time, there are only three historical per-
sons, Jesus, Mary, and Pilate ; Jesus was born of Mary and suffered
under Pontius Pilate. When we think of this historical reference, we
may be perplexed at the terms employed. They are commonly ren-
deredunder
' Pontius Pilate' (eVt Ylovriov FletXarov) which probably
means ' in the days of Pontius Pilate.' We should have expected
the creed to say, ' In the time of Tiberius ' (eTrt Ti/3epiov) and if the
statement is to have chronological value for those who were taught to
recite the creed, Pontius Pilate bulks larger than the Emperor. We
should not a priori have expected this ; it certainly suggests a very
high antiquity for the creedal formula, even if one explains that it as-
sumes the Gospel record. For as far as the Roman governors of pro-
vinces were concerned, they did not make calendars out of them ; they
passed away, and the peoples they pillaged were glad to forget them.
Does one make a Sicilian calendar with Verres in it ? But where is
a Roman governor whom people over the wide area of the early
Christian propaganda were glad to remember, and were instructed not
to forget ?
The same thing occurs in the curious reference to Pontius Pilate in
the Pastoral Epistles. These epistles, whatever may be the ultimate
decision as to their authorship, are of much later date than the Gospels ;
they were certainly written long after Pontius Pilate had come to a
good or bad end. Yet we find St. Paul advising St. Timothy to re-
member that the confession of faith which he had himself made in the
presence of many witnesses had a parallel in the good confession of
Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate. Here the same expression, eVt
FleiXarou is used, and we can hardly translate it as 'under
 168 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

Pontius Pilate.' It looks almost creedal ; so we have again, whatever

the date of the document may be, a historical remembrance of the
Roman governor, who occupies so great a place in the Gospel.
The point which we have made may seem to be trivial ; it is not
really so. If we were writing the history of that time as contempor-
aneous observers, we should have said 'in the days of Tiberius,' or if
we were Galileans, ' in the time of Herod.' Here we pick up our
clue and the interpretation of the dignity which Pilate attained ; he
has attained it at the expense, not of Tiberius, but of Herod. Why
has Herod no place in the creed, no record in the noble confession of
Jesus ? One bad man is as good as another in this connection, and
the Gospels make no secret of Herod's contempt for Jesus. Pilate and
Herod were made friends by the Trial of Christ. How then do they
occupy such diverse positions as the history of the Church develops ?
Is not Herod just as distinguished a historical character as Pilate ?
In the Acts of the Apostles the two are associated in the proof
from the second Psalm that the heathen who raged and the kings and
rulers of the earth who gathered together against the Messiah were
Herod and Pilate and the Jews. They are all in the same con-
demnation fortheir impotent rage. We have to explain how Pilate
became detached from Herod and dissociated from the Jews, and how
he became a Christian and was revered as a saint. Our document
will help us to understand the process ; but we are not limited to our
late Coptic tradition or its Greek correlative. We can actually trace
the beginning of the process in the times which immediately followed
the publication of the Gospels.
When the fragment of the lost Gospel of Peter was recovered
from an Egyptian tomb in the year 1884, the opening sentences of the
new document were significant :
" But of the Jews no man washed his hands, neither did
Herod nor any one of his judges ; and whereas they would
not wash, Pilate rose up."
Here we have a definite removal of Pilate from the Jews and
Herod ; and the writer goes on to make Herod and not Pilate pro-
nounce the condemnation of Jesus. In Dr. James' introduction to the
fragment, which he does not think of an earlier date than A.D. 1 50, he
remarks that " another characteristic of (the Gospel) is its extremely
anti-Judaic attitude. Blame is thrown on the Jews wherever possible,
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 169

and Pilate is whitewashed." It might be equally well said that blame

was thrown upon Herod. So here we have, before the middle of
the second century, the commencement of the process of canonisation,
which, in its preliminary stage, may properly be called whitewashing.
It is from the Gospel itself that the process starts, the uncanonical
Gospel merely accentuating the statement of the canonical. Pilate
washes his hands, and Pilate dissociates himself from Herod and from
the Jews. That is the road to sanctity. The action of Pilate to which
we refer became stereotyped in Christian teaching and in Christian art.
The Catacombs record it, and, to come down to modern times, the
great East window of Kings' College, Cambridge, represents Pilate as
its central figure, washing his hands as the central act of his part in the
sacred drama. So much of the tradition is probably continuous from
the beginning ; for we find when we read the Apocryphal Acts of
Pilate that special emphasis is laid on the fact that Pilate took water
and washed his hands before the sun. This may have been derived
from the Gospel of Peter, for there must have been a reference to
Pilate's action before we can say that ' none of the Jews nor Herod '
washed hands ; and anyone can verify for himself that in the Acts of
Pilate the whitewash has been applied in a very liberal manner, and
the anti-Judaic attitude is as pronounced, on Pilate's part, as possible.
We even suspect that he quotes actual Christian Testimonies against
the Jews, however unsuitable that may be for a Roman governor.
The elongation between them has now gone far beyond what the
Gospels assert.
If the point of departure for the canonisation of Pilate is the
evangelical statement that he washed his hands in public, as if to dis-
own the verdict which he was about to pronounce, a similar starting-
point for his wife Procula will be found in the story of her dream, in
consequence of which she sent a message of appeal to her husband not
to countenance the attack which the Jews were making on Jesus. Here
also the canonisation is a gradual evolution of legendary ideas. She
obtains first a name, then a religion, and lastly a conversion : she is
Procula, the Jewess ; she becomes, as in our book, Procula the
Christian.
There is, however, this difference between her progress and that
of Pilate. We cannot be as sure of the historicity of the incident
which Matthew records, and of the involved personality, as we can be
 170 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

sure of Pilate. If we are asked why we should blur a figure

which Matthew has inserted on his canvas, the answer must be
made that, without unduly disparaging Matthew and his work, we
must admit that Procula is not the only wife who has dreams and
uses them as intercessory appeals with her husband on behalf of the
abject and the suffering. For instance, we were engaged in a recent
study of the Apocryphal Life of Jeremiah^ Here we found the
statement that the wife of Nebuchadnezzar makes a personal appeal
to her husband not to engage in hostile movement against the Jews,
on the ground that they are the people of God, and obtain at once
whatever they ask from Him. With this we compared the story in
the Talmud,2 where the mother of the Persian King, Shapor II, says
to her son, " Have nothing to do with those Jews, for whatever they
ask from their Lord, He gives it them." The queen-mother's name
is Iphra-Hormiz, and when we notice that in the Jeremiah story she
is awakened out of sleep in order to intercede for the Jews, the parallel
between Iphra-Hormiz and Procula becomes even closer than that
with the wife of Nebuchadnezzar. So we must reserve the question
of Procula's historicity, for fear of falling into a cycle of folk-lore
legends. Or, if we set that suspicion on one side, we may at least
ask, in view of the sympathies which the Jews recognise on the part of
Iphra-Hormiz with themselves, whether it is not natural to have re-
garded Pilate's wife as a Jewess, either actually or secretly. At all
events the Apocryphal writers recognised her as such at a very early
date ; nor was there any improbability in the Roman Governor having
a Jewess for wife. We have a similar case, and there must have been
many more, in Felix and Drusilla. That Procula was a Jewess
becomes an actual motive in the narration of the Acts of Pilate ; for
here we find Pilate using it as an argument with the Jews, when
trying to dissuade them from further hostility to Jesus ; accordingly,
" Pilate called unto him all the Jews, and said unto them : ' Ye know
that my wife feareth God, and favoureth rather the customs of the
Jews, with you * ? They say unto him : ' Yes, we know it.' Pilate
saith unto them : ' Lo ! my wife hath sent unto me, saying : Have
nothing to do with this just man, for I have suffered many things
because of him by night.' But the Jews answered and said unto

1 Woodbrooke Studies, Vol. I. 2 Taanith, xxiv., 2.

 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 171

Pilate : ' Said we not unto thee that he is a sorcerer ? Behold, he

hath sent a vision of a dream unto thy wife.' "
In this account there is no difference of opinion between Pilate and
the Jews on the question whether Procula is a Jewess. They only
differ on the point whether Jesus is a magician or not. If Matthew's
account is genuine history, it must at a very early date have had
attached to it the observation that Procula was a Jewess. After
that the Christian story-teller has only to record her conversion to the
Christian faith, such as we find her confessing in the document before
us. Long before the Acts of Pilate were in circulation, Christian
writers had taken steps to explain that Procula belonged to their fold
and not to the other.
Origen could hardly be expected to keep his contemplative and
allegorical mind off the statement in the Gospel that Pilate's wife had
suffered on account of Christ. Was not such suffering a form of
confession, the open door to sanctity ? He will not commit himself
too absolutely to the proposition that Pilate's wife is, by the evangelical
description, a Christian. "God only knows," says he, "whether the
beginning of her conversion was the fact of her suffering many things
for Jesus in a vision. It is, however, so stated in certain writings
which are not among the authorised scriptures" (tamen continetur
etiam hoc in scripturis quibusdam non publicis).1 Here the conversion
is assumed, and a reference is made to documents of a character similar
to the one that we are studying. We have in this way obtained a
rapid vision of the process by which Pilate's wife passed into the
calendars of the Coptic Church as St. Procula, and the Greek Church
as St. Procla. In the Coptic Church Pilate and his wife are com-
memorated together ; in the Greek Church their fellowship is not so
evident ; indeed it is not clear from the popular Synaxarion why
Procla is commemorated. The Zante Synaxarion has no historical
introduction, but only the doggerel Greek verses with which every
notice of a saint is summed up, in this case as follows : —
"E^ci 77ape<T7CL>crai> ere, FTpd/cXa, AecrTrdr^s,
O netXara* irpiv CTOJ Tra/aacrras <rv£,vya).
It is not very easy to make out the meaning of this : how did the
Lord stand by Pilate ? and how does the Lord have Procla standing
1 Origen, Comni. in Matt., 122.
172 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

by him ? These are very bad verses ; they assume that Procla is
a Christian ; do they make a similar assumption for Pilate ? How
soon, in any case, did Pilate " strike the trail ? "
According to Tertullian, Pilate was always a Christian, if judged
by his conscience. Tertullian goes up to him and says, " Almost
thou persuadest me that thou art a Christian." The problem is,
how to put that Christian conscience "on the film," where consciences
are so hard to register, and where the mere washing of hands seemed
an inadequate demonstration of faith. So it occurred to some Christian
story-teller that the right way to stage the conversion, and make it
historically incontrovertible, was to put Pilate through the very same
sufferings which, in consequence of his lack of courage, were inflicted
on Jesus. Let the unjust judge become the criminal, and let him be
scourged and spit on and finally crucified after the manner of Jesus.
This is the main thread of the story of Pilate as we have it in our
document.
As we have seen above, it is to the Coptic Church that Pilate
owes the greater part of his spiritual dignity ; and this Coptic element
in tradition comes out clearly enough in our documents, even though
they should actually be written in Arabic. This does not mean that
the original point of departure of the widespread Pilate literature was
Egyptian. The nucleus of the mass of legends is the very early
belief that Pilate made some sort of a report to Rome, which, if it
ever existed and could be recovered, would be the official Acts of
Pilate of which our existing A eta Pilati are a clumsy caricature.
Such a belief in such a document is found in the Eastern Church as
well as in the West. For instance, that very early Syriac document
which Cureton published under the title of the Doctrine of Simon
Cephas in the City of Rome has it in a very definite form.
'Touching these things the Governor Pilate was also witness,
for he sent and made them known to Caesar, and these things, and
more than these things, were read before him in your city. And on
this account Caesar was angry against Pilate, etc."
It is clear that the existence of an official report from Pilate to
Tiberius was common belief in the Church everywhere and not
limited to Egypt. That our documents have a Coptic ancestry is

M/., 21.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 173
evident from their study both internal and external. Here is a curious
bit of evidence which might easily escape notice, but will be significant
to those who are expert in the study of ancient documents. When
Pilate is challenged by the imperial messenger who has come from
Tiberius, and asked to explain why he killed Jesus without consulting
the Emperor, he expresses his willingness to die for the name of Christ
The Jews then say to the imperial envoy : " What is the use of
speaking to him while he insults you in the Coptic language ? " a
sentence which will be perplexing to most readers : but there is some-
thing like the same perplexity in the English Bible in the Book of
Daniel (Dan. ii. 4), where we are told that the magicians said to the
king in Syriac, etc. What really happened was that there was a
linguistic change in the document at this point from Hebrew to Syriac
or Aramaic, and this change has been noted on the margin and has
affected the speech of the magicians. In the same way the words
in the Coptic language have crept into our text. They only mean
that there has been a change of dialect, probably from Arabic to Coptic,
in the original documents. There is no need to make Pilate talk
Coptic, even if he is elsewhere called an Egyptian. Other traces of
Coptic in the tradition of our Pilate story will easily be detected.
We are not, however, limited to a study of our MSS. when
we affirm the existence of Egyptian elements in the tradition. As we
have already pointed out, there are in existence a number of Coptic
documents, chiefly preserved in fragments, which are of considerable
age and occupy themselves with the very same theme as those here
presented. The principal of these is the series which were published
by M. Revillout, and are reproduced in the second volume of the
Patrologia Orientalis. Although only a series of fragments, the
major part of them form a part of a lost document, written in the
name of Gamaliel, and forming what we may call the Gamaliel book
on Pontius Pilate and the Sorrows of the Virgin. But this is the very
same authorship that is suggested in our MSS. Our text, although
recurring in somewhat diverse forms, is a Gamaliel book.
The proof of these statements is not difficult. We have an account
of the way in which Barabbas, who is here called Barnaban, plotted
with the Jews, using his wicked wife as an intermediary, in order to
secure the arrest of the Saviour. Then we are told that " after this
the wicked company of the Jews resolved to kill Pilate and his wife
174 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

and his children and to plunder their possessions. ' When /,

Gamaliel, learnt the conspiracy of these wicked people, I did not
neglect the matter, but I hastened to Joseph of Arimathea, etc."
Here it will be noticed that the indirect narration of the historian has
suddenly become direct, and Gamaliel is the speaker. The book,
then, may rightly be described as a Gamaliel book.
Again, we have an account of the onslaught made by the Jews
upon Joseph and Nicodemus for the part which they had in the
burial of the Lord. The angel Gabriel comes to their aid, and then
we are told that " those two blessed ones (i.e. Joseph and Nicodemus)
sent for me in secret, me, Gamaliel, and narrated to me what the
angel had spoken to them." The narration has now changed into
oratio recta and Gamaliel is the speaker. Turn next to the second
section of our story, that which relates especially to the sorrows
of the Virgin and read the concluding paragraph :—
" Let us here end the discourse on the Virgin and her sweet
wailing, and on the death and resurrection of her Son from the dead.
These words have been written by Gamaliel and Nicodemus, the
venerable chiefs, and they placed them in Jerusalem, the holy

Here we have an external testimony to be joined to the previous

city."
internal evidence that the whole of our documents profess to be by the
hand of Gamaliel. But Gamaliel is in the text as well as in the
colophon ; for in the text we have, " I Gamaliel was following the
crowd to the well that was in the garden."
If now we turn to the Revillout fragments either as printed in
Coptic and translated in the Patrologia Orientalis, or as summarised
by Dr. M. R. James in his Apocryphal New Testament, we shall
find that the thirteenth fragment begins with a dialogue between Pilate
and the Centurion, who go to the garden of Joseph, where the Jews
say the body of Jesus lies at the bottom of a well. The story moves
into the direct narration, " And I, Gamaliel, followed them among
the
and band."
an almostSoexact
here,coincidence
also, we have
with theourassumed
text. Gamaliel authorship,
It was not difficult, even before the discovery of our documents, to
infer that the major part of the Revillout fragments belonged to a
single book. Revillout, indeed, was wrong in calling this book by the
name of the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, but he was corrected by
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 175

Baurastark, who rightly recognised the Gamaliel authorship l and united

the fragments numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13 under his name.
Now that we have our own complete document to work from, it is
easy to see fragment after fragment from Revillout in our text.
The easiest way to put before the reader the fact that our docu-
ment is substantially the lost or missing Gamaliel book of which
Revillout and others have brought forward fragments, will be to take
a single one of Revillout's published documents, translated below by
Dr. Mingana, for a closer study, and leave the remainder for reference
in Dr. Mingana's foot-notes at the places where they naturally occur.
Suppose, then, we take the thirteenth fragment (of which Dr. James
has given an account on p. 15 1 of his Apocryphal New Testament}
We premise that this fragment, as was pointed out above, is definitely
assigned to Gamaliel. It contains an incident in the story of the
Centurion who, in the Gospel, has the oversight of the crucifixion of
Jesus, and was so overwhelmed by what he saw and heard at that
time as to break out into an ejaculation of supreme faith and wonder.
It was natural enough, and might indeed have been predicted, that
legend should accumulate round the person of this Centurion. It does
so in a manner that has some parallel with that of Procula. First of
all he must have a name, and then a new religion. This is found by
dentifying him with the soldier in the Fourth Gospel, who pierced
the side of Jesus, after death, to assure himself of the same, with a
spear. The Greek word for spear being Xoy^T; (Lonche), it was
easy to christen him Longinus ; that preserved his Latin soldiery and
his Greek armature. The next thing was to christen him in a more
exact sense by making him a primitive confessor and believer in Jesus,
and this was almost ready to hand in the Gospel itself. It only
remains, to use Dr. James' way of describing the manner of production
of these Coptic documents, to put the frill on the frock. That brings
us to the thirteenth fragment of Revillout. It was written on a double
leaf, with an evident discontinuity between them, of which the natural
explanation is that another double leaf or more stood between the
folded portions of the fragment. Let us see what can be done by
way of divination as to the missing pages and their contents, before
Dr. Mingana comes to our aid with his Garshuni text.

1 Revue Biblique Internationale, 1906, p. 245.

 176 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

Dr. James puts the case thus :—

" It is a narrative connected with the resurrection. We find Pilate
examining four soldiers as to their statement that the body of Jesus was
stolen. (This is the account in Matthew.) One (the second ; the
testimony of the first is gone) says the eleven apostles took the body ;
the third says Joseph and Nicodemus ; the fourth, ' we were asleep.'
They are imprisoned, and Pilate goes with the Centurion and the
priests to the tomb and finds the grave-clothes. He says, ' If the body
had been stolen, these would have been taken too.' They say, ' These
grave-clothes belong to some one else.' Pilate remembers the words
of Jesus, ' Great wonders must happen in my tomb,' and goes in and
weeps over the shroud. Then he turns to the Centurion, who had
but one eye, having lost the other in battle."
The exact terms of the fragment at this point are as follows,
according to Revillout's translation :—
" II fixa son attention sur le centurion qui se tenait debout a la
porte du tombeau et vit qu'il n'avait qu'un seul oeil (car on avail
creve 1'autre dans le combat) et qu'il la cachait de sa main, tout le
temps, ne pasthevoir
pourcomes la lumiere."
Then gap, of which Dr. James not unnaturally says
that in the gap no doubt stood the statement that the Centurion's eye
was healed by contact with the grave-clothes of the Redeemer. Now
let us turn to our document. We first restore the evidence of soldier
No. 1 :
" Pilate said to him, ' Tell me the truth : who carried away the
of Jesus
bodyThen ? ' and he answered, ' Peter John.' "
andtomb
we look at the visit of Pilate to the :
" Pilate took the wrappings, that is the pieces of linen with which
Jesus was shrouded, wept over them and embraced them with joy.
Then he looked at the Centurion who was standing at the entrance
to the tomb, and who was with one eye only, as his other eye had
been put out in a war, and a considerable time had elapsed without
his having seen anything with it. Pilate then conceived the idea,
through the greatness of his faith, that these wrappings will give light
to the Centurion's eye, etc."
In this way Dr. James' conjecture was justified. The motive for
the miracle lies further back. Miracles were to be expected, says
Pilate, at the tomb of Jesus : one of them was that the blind should
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 177

there receive their sight. Hence the one-eyed Longinus and his
recovery.
The simple incident which we have been studying will enable the
reader to see how our new document helps us to unify and arrange
the Coptic fragments which had been collected by Revillout and others.
It is interesting to notice that from another quarter, the literature of
the Ethiopic church, another fragment of the Gamaliel book has come
to light. This may have also come from a Coptic source, or perhaps
from the Arabic. Dr. James quotes it from the Newbery House
Magazine for 1892, p. 641. In this fragment the "Jews explain to
Pilate that the sweet odour of the sepulchre is due to the spices put on
the body by Joseph, and to the flowers in the garden. . . . After a
gap is a prayer of Pilate's in which he asks pardon for having put
' another body in the place where they put Thy body.' "
The reader will easily find out what is the reason of the gap, and
how the body of the penitent thief came to be put into the sepulchre
of Jesus in place of His own. It is quite one of the most interesting
episodes in our narration, one of the prettiest frills upon the somewhat
torn robe of the Gospels. That there may be some early elements in
these traditions should be conceded ; but the actual historical gain is
an almost irreducible minimum, for it stands already near zero.
All who read these accounts will admire the skill with which Dr.
Mingana has reduced to shape for us these difficult documents. We
doubt if anyone else would even have attempted the task.

RENDEL HARRIS.
 PREFACES, EDITIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS.
BY A. MINGANA.
/. The Lament of the Virgin.
PREFATORY NOTE.

I GIVE in the following pages the text and the translation (ac-
companied bya critical apparatus) of a new document dealing
with the resurrection of our Lord and the lamentations of His
mother over His body on the occasion of His crucifixion. The im-
mediate author of the document is said to be Cyriacus, bishop of
Oxyrhynchus, but the real although naturally apocryphal author of all
the historical events that it contains is Gamaliel, who often speaks in it
in the first person. It seems to constitute another link in the apocryphal
chain of the A eta Pilati or the Gospel of Nicodemus. It has also the
advantage of supplying the deficiencies of the Coptic fragments pub-
lished byRevillout under the general but possibly inaccurate title of
Evangile des douze Apdtres} In some respect it may also be brought
within the circle of the documents edited by Lacau in his Fragments
d'Apocryphes Copies? and of the Coptic Gospel of Bartholomew
first translated by Crum 3 and then edited and translated by Budge.4
I have edited the work from two MSS. of my own collection
numbered Mingana Syr. 87 and Mingana Syr. 127 (henceforth
M. 87 and M. 127). M. 87 has no date, but on palaeographic
ground may be ascribed to about A.D. 1450, and M. 127 is dated
1994 of the Greeks (A.D. 1683). I was unable to find a third MS.
containing the document in the catalogues of the public libraries of
Europe.
1 Pat. Orient. ii. 123-183. See about this title Baumstark in Revue
Biblique, 1906, p. 245. He rightly refers the story to a Gamaliel apocry-
phon. The present documents bear out his opinion.
2 Mhnoires de I'Institut Fran$ais d" Archfologie Orientale du Caire,
1904.
3 Light of Egypt, 1910.
4 Coptic Apocrypha in the dialect of Upper Egypt \ 1913.
178
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 179
There are sufficient variants in the two MSS. to justify us in hold-
ing that they are independent of each other, but we should be infring-
ing the rules of philology and textual criticism were we to assert that
they represent two distinct recensions of the same story. The story is
undoubtedly one and the variant readings exhibited by the MSS. are
to a greater or lesser degree similar to those exhibited by more than
half of all the existing Oriental MSS.
I placed the text of M. 87 in the body of the page and relegated
to the foot-notes the variants of M. 127. As the number of these
variants is not very considerable, I have not found it cumbersome to
register almost all of them with the exception of those which are ex-
clusively ofthe domain of orthography. I have likewise referred in
the translation to all the important discrepancies of the two MSS.
I have edited the text in Garshuni (Arabic in Syriac characters)
as it is found in the MSS., and in order not to swell the foot-notes
without appreciable advantage I have neglected to correct the numer-
ous grammatical mistakes committed by the author. These are more
or less similar to those to which I often drew the attention of the
reader in the notes found in the first volume of my Woodbrooke
Studies.
To show the close relationship that exists between our new docu-
ment and the mutilated Coptic fragments published by E. Revillout in
the Pat. Orient, (ii. 169- 1 74), I shall give here a complete translation
of the latter. It will be seen at a glance that our new document is
derived from Coptic sources, and that in the case of fragment 1 5 it is
a direct translation from such Coptic texts as the following. I indicate
the lacunae in the fragments by three dots.

FRAGMENT 14.

"... The mothers who in these countries have seen the death of
their children, when they go to their tomb in order to see the body of
those over whom they weep, great consolation and great . . . result
for them. As to me I came out to see it ... with all these . . .
1
hanging on the cross like a robber ... 3 Lo ...
"... She opened her eyes, as they were closed in order not to
look towards the earth because of its scandals. And she said to Him
with joy : ' O Master, my Lord, my God, my Son, you have risen,
180 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

you have truly risen.' But He restrained her and implored her, say-
ing : ' O my mother, do not touch me. Wait for a while, because it
is the garment which my Father gave me when He raised me up. It
is impossible that anything carnal should touch me until I go to heaven.'
" This body, however, is the one in which I spent nine months in
your womb. . . . Know these things, O my mother. This flesh is
the one which I received in you. It is the one which rested in my
tomb, and it is also the one which rose to-day and which stands now
before you. Examine well my hands and my feet, O Mary, my
mother, and know that it is me whom you have nourished. Do not
doubt, O my mother, that I am your Son. It is I who delivered you
into the hands of John at the time when I was hanging on the cross.
" Now, O my mother, go in haste and tell my brethren and say
to them . . . according to His words which I uttered to you, go to
Galilee where you will find me. Hasten because it is not possible for
me not to go to heaven to my Father.
" Those who have suffered with me on the earth . . . (The rest
is missing.)
FRAGMENT 15.

"... And (Pilate) called the second (soldier) and said to him :
' I know that you are more truthful than all these. Tell me (how
many Apostles) took the body of Jesus in the tomb ? And he
answered : " Eleven of them came with their disciples, and took it by
stealth, and separated themselves only from this one' (i.e. Judas ?).
" And he summoned the third and said to him : ' I esteem your
witness more than that of the rest. Who took the body of Jesus in
the tomb ? ' And he replied to him : ' Joseph and Nicodemus and
their parents' (sic).
" And he summoned the fourth and said to him : ' You are the
most important one among them, and I let them go all of them. Tell
me now (what happened) when they took from your hands the body of
Jesus in the tomb ? ' And he replied to him : ' O my lord, we were
asleep. We had forgotten ourselves and we were not able to know
who took it. Then we rose up and looked for it but did not find it. ...

We have apprised . . .'

"... Pilate said to the Jews and to the centurion : ' These
people are lying in this way and their words are contradictory.' And
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 181
he gave orders to secure soldiers until he had gone to the tomb. At
that moment he rose up with the heads of the Jews, the Sanhedrin,
and the high priests. They found the wrappings placed on the
ground without body there.
" And Pilate said, ' O men who hate their own souls, if they had
taken the body they would have also taken the wrappings.' And they
said to him : ' Do you not see that they are not his but that they belong
to some others ? ' Pilate remembered then the words of Jesus : ' It is
imperative that great miracles should take place in my tomb.' Pilate
hastened then to enter into the tomb. He seized the wrappings of Jesus,
which he pressed against his breast and over which he wept. He kissed
them with joy as if Jesus were wrapt in them. Then he looked at
the centurion who was standing at the door of the tomb and noticed
that he had one eye only — because they had put out the other in a
war — which he hid with his hand all the time in order not to see the
light
" Then Pilate . . .
. . . The flame of his wrath has come on you. And they
acquiesced in this condemnation, saying : ' may His blood and His
death be on us for ever ! '
" And Pilate said to the centurion : ' O my brother, do not
exchange in vain the true life which you have received for the lie and
the quiet (sic) of the Jews.' This is what he said in the presence of
the Jews. . . .
. . . Pilate and the centurion went to the well of water of the
garden, which was very deep. And I Gamaliel followed them in the
crowd. They looked in the well and the Jews cried : ' O Pilate . . .
Is this not the body of Jesus who died ? ' And (Joseph and Nico-
demus) said : ' O our Lord, the wrappings which you hold are those
of Jesus. As to this body it belongs to the robber who was crucified
with Jesus . . . Joseph and Nicodemus placed the wrappings . . .
... And Pilate remembered what Jesus had said : ' The
dead shall rise in my tomb.' And thereupon he summoned the
heads of the Jews and said to them : ' Do you believe that this is the
Nazarene ? ' And they answered : ' We believe.' And he said :
' It is
the right then to place His body in His tomb, as it is done to all
dead
There is no doubt whatever that the present Garshuni document
182 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

which I am editing and translating is a translation, or at least a very

close imitation, of a Coptic document of which fragments only have
come down to us. That Egypt is also responsible for many other
statements of the author will be made abundantly clear in the foot-
notes that I have ventured to add to the narrative.
In my opinion the present document has nothing in common with
Syriac literature or with the Syrian and Palestinian Church in general.
It has been preserved to us by West Syrian copyists living either in
Egypt or in Palestine, and this constitutes the only link that connects
it with the great Syrian Church. This remark applies with equal
right to the two works : A Jeremiah Apocrypkon and A New
Life of John the Baptist which I edited and translated in the first
volume of my Woodbrooke Studies and to the Martyrdom of Pilate
which I have also edited and translated below.
I give to the work the provisional title of The Lament of the
Virgin.
TRANSLATION.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
we will write a discourse composed by Cyriacus,1 bishop of the town
of Bahnasa,2 on the merits of the pure Virgin our Lady 3 Mary, and
her affectionate weeping on the day of the crucifixion of our Lord,
when on the day of His holy resurrection she went to the door of the
sepulchre of her Son and did not find His body, because He had
risen up from the dead. May his 4 blessing be with us. Amen.
He said :
The weeping of Jacob, the head of the Patriarchs, has been

1 This Cyriacus is to be identified with " Cyriacus, bishop of Bahnasa "

who has two Arabic discourses on the history of the flight of Christ to
Egypt. They are found in Paris Arab. 155 (pp. 160-188) and analysed in
R.O.C., xv. 157-161. He lived in the beginning of the 15th century.
2 Formerly a rather important town near the Lybian desert, and in our
days an insignificant village. In old Egyptian it is called Permezet, in
Coptic Penje and in Greek ITe/ATTT?;. It is better known to us by another
Greek name Oxyrhynchus. It was a bishopric, and constituted one of the
chief centres of Christian Egypt ; it has been said that at one time it con-
tained as many as 360 churches. Although much exaggerated the number
testifies to the importance of the place as a Christian centre.
3 The Syr. Mart. See my note in Woodbrooke Studies, vol. i., p. 243.
4 Bishop Cyriacus. M. 127 has: "his prayer."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 183
renewed to-day, O my beloved ; why then should not the Virgin
Mary weep over her Son whom she conceived in virginity ? Why
should not the Virgin Mary weep over the one for whom she suffered
the pangs of parturition ? x Why should not the Virgin Mary weep
over the one into whose divine mouth she placed her virginal breast ?
Why should not the Virgin weep over the manger, whic^ is in
Bethlehem ? Why should not the Virgin weep over her beloved
Son whom she carried during nine months of gestation ? Why should
not the Virgin weep over the one whom she brought forth and suckled ?
If Rachel weeps over children whom she has never embraced, why
should not the Virgin weep over the one whom she carried in her
arms like all babes ? ' If Rachel weeps over children for whom she
did not run from place to place, why should not the Virgin weep
over her child with whom she ran from country to country ? If
Rachel weeps over children whose tombs she has not seen, why
should not the Virgin weep at the door of her only Son's sepulchre ?
The weeping of a venerable old man"3 has been renewed to-day
for a young,4 virgin woman. Jacob did not see Joseph bound by his
brothers, but the Virgin saw her Son nailed to the wood of the cross.
Jacob did not see Joseph when his brothers threw him while hungry
into the depths of the well, so that he might weep over him ; but the
Virgin saw her Son hanging on the cross in the middle (of two male-
factors), before all the Jews. Jacob did not see Joseph when his
brothers stripped him of his clothes, but the Virgin saw her Son in
a naked state in the middle of Jews devoid of understanding. Jacob
did not see Joseph being sold to Egyptian merchants for thirty denarii,
but the Virgin saw her Son when Judas sold Him for thirty pieces of
silver. Jacob wept over a foreign blood and over a robe that was not
torn by wild beasts, but it is over a divine blood smeared on the rock
of the Kranion '" that the Virgin is weeping, and over the foreign
robe0 which her Son was wearing, since they had divided His
garments among themselves. The brothers of Joseph wept and

1 Evidently the author does not believe in the painless birth of Christ.
2 Lit. " like all men."
The Patriarch Jacob mentioned at the beginning.
Read Shabbatin,
D The author uses the Greek word tcpaviov (al-akranion).
' Which foreign robe ?
 184 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

repented that they had sold their brother, but the Children of Israel
did not weep when they sold their Lord.1 The sons of Jacob rejoiced
when their brother reigned (over Egypt), but the Jews did not rejoice
when their Lord rose up from the dead.
O pure Virgin, your wailing over the tomb of your beloved Son
is truly sweet and your voice is melodious in the middle of the angels,
when they brought to you the sad news and said : " O Mary, what
are you doing sitting, while your Son is standing before the Governor
and is being judged and insulted by the High Priest of the Jews ? "
O Mary, what are you doing sitting, while your Son is being stripped
in the court of His garment dyed (with His blood) ? O daughter of
Joiakim, what are you doing sitting, while your Son is carrying alone
a cross in the streets of Jerusalem, and no one comes near Him ? O
dove of Hannah what are you doing sitting, while your Son is being
crucified in the place of the Kranion ? O seed of David, why have
they lifted your Son on the cross ?
O my pure and Virgin Lady, your wailing is truly sweet to-day
in the house of John, while saying : 2 " Oh, how bitter is this
messenger who came to me to-day ! He is more bitter than the
messenger of death who came to Job and to Jacob — Israel. Oh,
how cruel is the intelligencer who came to me to-day, O my Child !
He is more cruel than the one who announced to Lot the burning of
his town. Oh, how painful is the news that came to me to-day, O
my child ! It is more painful than the news concerning the death of
the valiant men of Israel. Oh, how cruel is the messenger who
brought me this bad news, O my child ! (This child) has comforted
me for thirty years, and He never furnished me with an occasion to
chide Him and scold Him. (What adds bitterness) to the news is
that the one who brought it to me is Salome ! All my sorrow has
began again !
" O my child, I have never been to a Governor, nor have I ever
stood before a judge. I have never seen a robber being killed, nor
have I ever gone to the Kranion, nor do I know the place of the
Golgotha. O my child, I have never stood before a man engaged in
litigation so that I might realise the false wisdom (that has been applied
to your case) ; nor have I ever been present in a law court, so that I
1This sentence is missing in M. 127.
2M. 127 : "while sitting."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 185

might realise the injustice that has been done to you. O my child, I
am inside the house of John, and you are in the house of the High-
Priest Annas. O my child, this cruel news that concerns you has
outweighed the sadness of my orphanhood, and the painful information
relating to you has to-day l deprived me of my joy. The angel
announced to me your birth in Nazareth, and I have been announced
this cruel news about you in Jerusalem.' Your Annunciation occurred
to me in the house of Joseph, and this bad news was brought to me in
the house of John. O my beloved, I was rejoicing in my heart and
saying constantly, ' To-morrow we shall have our passover, accomplish
the ordinance of the feast and return to our home ; ' the passover has
come to me, O my beloved Son, with weeping and wailing ! My
feast has changed into lamentation and my passover into grief ! "
The Virgin uttered this affectionate wailing " in the house of John
when they brought to her the sad news of her Son. Then she began
to look for one of His holy disciples to walk with her, but she did not
find any, because all had fled and forsaken Him from fear of the Jews.
She asked for Peter to accompany her, and she was informed that from
his fear of the High Priest he had denied her Son, saying, " I do not
know Him," and that he had gone and hidden himself from Him.
She asked for James, the brother of the Lord, and she was informed
that he had fled and left Him on the mount where He was seized.
She asked for Andrew, and she was informed that he had never come
with Him to town at all. She asked for Thomas, and she was in-
formed that he had thrown down his garments and fled. She asked
for the son of Tulmas,4 and she was informed that he was the first of
His brethren to flee. She asked for Philip, and she was informed that
when he saw the torches burning, he was terrified and fled. She asked
for James, the brother of John, and she was informed that he never
even looked at Him. She asked for Matthew, and she was informed
that he was afraid of the Jews ° more than all others, as they had a
special grudge against him from the time he used to collect taxes from

1 M. 87 omits " to-day."

- See on this word my note in Woodbrooke Studies, vol. L, p. 153.
3M. 127 omits "affectionate wailing."
*I.e, Bartholomew. The author is dividing the word into two and
translating the Aramaeo-Syriac bar by "son of."
3 M. 87 adds : " and of the High Priests."
186 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
them, and he had, therefore, fled in the darkness of the night. In short
she asked for all of them, and she did not find a single one of them
except John who had accompanied Him to the Kranion and the
Golgotha.
Then the Virgin resumed her weeping and wailing, because she
was not able to find any of the Apostles, the disciples of her Son,
except John, and said while weeping :
" Woe is me, O my Son and O my beloved, because your brethren
fled and disappeared. O my father Peter, I was thinking every day
that you would not deny your Master. You have not been given
gold and silver that you denied Him so quickly. You have not been
presented with a boat and oars, why then did you deny to-day your
Master and your Lord ? You have not had the gift of a son or a
daughter (as the price of your denial), O Peter, and you have not had
the offer of exchanging Him for a brother or a friend, why then this
spiritless weakness of yours ? You did not see a second cross, O
Peter, which you believed might be for you, that you were so terrified
that you denied Him. He gave you a tongue of iron, O Peter, and
you melted it and spoiled it without fire or a smith. He bestowed
grace upon you,1 O Peter, more than all men, and you did not bear
now a single slap for your Master. He bestowed on you, O Peter,
two eyes the light of which does not fade, and you did not feel ashamed
to deny their light." He confided to you, O Peter, the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven, and you did not suffer a short time (for Him) in
the prison of the High Priest.
" He made you, O Peter, His deputy to all the world, and you
did not endure a single temptation 3 for your Master. He made you,
O Peter, a father to all the world, and you did not act in a brotherly
love for a single short hour towards my Son. He imposed His divine
hand on your head,4 O Peter, and you did not agree b to have a crown
of thorns on your head before you had denied Him. Even if you say,

that 1follows.
Lit. " he gave grace to your face " which is in harmony with the " slap "
2 The word should be in the dual form.
y M. 87 : " temptation for a short time."
4 In the Book of the Resurrection of Christ by the Apostle Bartholomew
(in James' Apocryphal N. T., p. 184) it is said that the Father, with the Son
and the Holy Ghost, laid His hand on the head of Peter.
5 A colloquial word is used here.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 187
0 Peter, that my Son is not your Master but only your friend, it did
not behove you to deny Him in this way. If you had to endure, O
Peter, all the tribulations undergone with us by my father : Joseph,
you should have been dragged to Herod with my Son.' If you had to
bear like him the pains of the journey to the country of Egypt, you
might not have been able to endure a single one of them. May the
dew of heaven nurture your bones, O my father Joseph, the just man,
and mav the tree of life nourish 3 your soul because you have endured
my tribulations with me, and have not denied my Son ! O Peter,
they have not brought you before the Governor, nor have they
placed you before the high tribunal that you denied your Master so

quickly."
When the Virgin finished her lamentations over the denial of Peter
in the house of John, she sent for John, who came and found her
weeping. Then both John and the Virgin wept over the Lord Jesus.
Then John said to the Virgin : " O my mother, do not weep over
Peter for his denial of my Master, because he has not the same blame
attached to him as that which attaches to Judas who betrayed Him.
1 heard what "my Master said at the evening meal and what Peter said
to Him, ' Be it far from you, Lord, this shall not be unto you,' 4 but I
will give my life for you. And I heard my Lord and my Master
rebuking him three times saying to him, ' Go ye behind me, Satan,
you have become an offence to me, for you think not of the things that
be of God, but of those things that be of men.' ° Now, O my Lady
and my mother, do not weep over my father Peter, because his denial
will be (the symbol of) repentance to sinners, as he gave the lie to his
own words and corroborated the words of his Master."
Then the Virgin gave herself to bitter weeping because she had
not seen her Son, and she reverted again to her painful lamentations
in the house of John and said : " I adjure you, O John, to show me
the way to the Kranion. I adjure you, O John, to accompany me
to the Golgotha. I have never seen yet a robber being crucified, nor

Father" denotes here in the Eastern parlance, "a dear old man."
- Lit. " with Him." 3 Read tnkit.
meal.4 Matt. xvi. 22. The sentence was of course not uttered at the last

stated0 Matt.
in the xvi.
text.23. Christ rebuked Peter only once and not three times as
188 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

have I stood near a robber when he was being beheaded.1 I shall

forsake my town and my great freedom, and shall go bare-footed to
the place in which my beloved Son has been crucified like common
robbers, because He is alone and not one of His brethren is standing
near Him, and there is not here with you any of your friends who
would say anything about you. O my child, the sorrow of a mother
for her beloved son is something, and the sorrow of a friend for his
friend is another thing ; the pain of the heart of a mother weeping
over her beloved son is something, and the weeping of a friend over
his friend is another thing. My sorrow, O my child, is to-day greater
than that of all the world, and of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and my weeping is more bitter than that of all who shall gather2
me."
near When John noticed that she was not able to cease her weeping
and wailing and that he on his part was unable to comfort her, because
she was saying : " If I do not see Him I cannot be comforted," he said
to her : " Get up, and I will accompany you to the Kranion, so that
you may see Him." The Virgin, therefore, went out of the house of
John and walked in the streets of Jerusalem. People who saw the
Virgin walking said to one another : " From where is this wailing
woman ? " And the people of the bazaars said : " We have never
seen this woman buying anything from this bazaar." Some others said
" This is a foreign woman and she walks in this street as if she did
not know it." The people, however, who recognised in John the
disciple of the Lord Jesus, said : " This may perhaps be His mother
going to see Him on the cross." Some people said : " This is the
wife of Joseph," and some others said : " The news of His conception
was brought to her." Finally, some people said : " Look at her, how 3
beautiful is her face and her weeping," and yet some others said : " We
have not seen another one in this town like her, and her face resembles
that of her Son." In short, every one in the market was saying some-
thing about her and how noticeable was her appearance in the streets
of the town. And Salome was walking behind her, while some other
women covered her with her veil, but she was not observing anything
but only listening to the sorrow of her heart.

1 The text uses here ra's " head " in feminine under the influence of
Ke<pa\ri. See my note in Woodbrooke Studies, vol. i., p. 249.
a Codd. " who are gathered." 3 Read ma.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 189
When she reached the Golgotha, she noticed a great throng of
people in groups of different tribes and clans looking at (her Son) on
the Cross. People of various nationalities,1 from all districts had
assembled in Jerusalem in that holy month for the immolation of the
lamb : Amgazites,' Balakites,3 Moabites, Kabarites,4 and Ishmaelites.
All these were pressing in groups against one another for the great
and wonderful sight. Some people were saying : " They condemned
this one to-day with injustice," and some others were saying : " They
have emptied their wrath on Him." Some were saying: 'They
were seeking the death of this one for many years," and some others
were saying : " They have killed a brave man to-day." Some were
saying : "If there was justice in this town, they would never have
been able to kill this one," and yet some others were saying : "This
is the one for whom the Emperor sent in order to make Him a King
over all Judaea,0 and that is why Herod ordered His death." Some
people cursed Herod because of Him, saying : " The one who took
his brother's wife while he was still alive and rendered him a poor and
a wretched man, has also killed this one without pity."
As to the Virgin she inclined her face towards the earth on
account of her weeping and humility, and she was not able to see her
Son quickly because of her painful weeping and the thronging of the
great multitudes of people. She said, therefore, to John : " Where is
my beloved Son so that I may see Him ; the pressing of these numerous

1Lit "many languages-" The construction of the sentence with the

word lughat is here strange and denotes a Greek or a Coptic original.
2 M. 127 : Magazites. I cannot identify this people without textual
emendations. Can it be a copyist's error for A morites ? The graphic dif-
ference between Avigazites and Amorites is rather slight in ancient and
undotted Arabic characters from which the present Garshuni document
appears to me to be derived
3 Are they descendants of Balak, King of Moab of Num. xxii.-xxiv. etc. ?
The Moabites come immediately after as a separate people. The author
does not seem to be versed in Jewish history.
I cannot identify this people without textual emendations.
0 In the Coptic fragments edited by Revillout (Nos. 2 and 4) in Pat.
Orient, ii., p. 132 sqq., it is said that the Emperor Tiberius ordered twice
that Jesus should be made King. The first occasion was when Carius sent
the Apostle John to report to him about Jesus, and the second time was when
Jesus was speaking to the Apostles on the mountain. See also Robinson's
Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 176, and James' Apocryphal N.T., p. 146.
Cf. Johnvi. 15.
190 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

people against one another does not allow me to see Him." And
John said to her : " Lift your head towards the western side of these
people, and you will see Him extended on the cross." And the
Virgin looked towards all those multitudes of people, and she saw
Him. She did not cease to wade with John through the multitudes
until she came and stood at His right, and looked at Him in His
sufferings.
When God saw His mother He looked towards John and said
to him : " O man, this is your mother," and then He said to His
mother : " O mother, this is your son." ] And John held the
Virgin's hand in order to take her to his house, but the Virgin, his
mother, said : "O John, let me weep" over Him, as He has no
brother and no sister, and do not deprive me of Him. O my Son,
would that I had with you a crown of thorns on my head, and would
that I could make it as painful as yours. If the penalty of all the
robbers is crucifixion, why have they not stripped you of your garments,
0 Judas, since you are a thief and stole from the bag ? 3 O John,
look at my wretchedness to-day in the middle of these multitudes.
Look at my lowliness and at the pains of my heart. Let me look at
His face to my satisfaction. Let me look at His sufferings to my
satisfaction, as I have never seen Him in such a state before, except
to-day. Let me weep over Him, because my sufferings are to-day
greater than His sufferings. The lying-place of all the paupers is
the dung-heap, let me then look at Him to my satisfaction, because
1 am an orphan without father, without mother, and without relatives." 4
This is the wailing indulged in by the Virgin while she was at the
right side of her Son. She was in a state of confusion owing to the
intensity of her pain, and because of the greatness of her sorrow she
did not notice the great multitudes that were present. She was only
bent on weeping. Now there were present there Joanna,0 wife of
Chuza, Mary Magdalene and Salome, and these got hold of the
Lady (Mary) and lifted her up. Her wailing was truly sweet while
1 John xix. 26-27.
- M. 87 : " Leave His mother alone, O John, and let her weep."
3 John xii. 6. 4 M. 87 : " without a man."
6 The author writes this name of Luke viii. 3, and xxiv. 10, as Yona or
Yawanna which is more the Greek I wanna than the Syriac Yohan. John
xix. 25 and Matt, xxvii. 56, do not mention this Joanna as standing near
the cross. From where did the author derive this information ?
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 191

she was surrounded by pure women, who were weeping with her
because of the sweetness of her words. Other Jewish women who
heard her weeping scoffed at her saying : " Our vengeance has come
to-day on you and on your Son, because it is through you that our
wombs have become childless from the year in which you brought
Him forth."1
The heads of the Jews spoke then with the soldiers of Herod and
hardened their hearts to kill (Jesus). They had informed Herod that
Pilate with a great number of people loved Jesus, and they had
added : " We fear that in going to crucify Him, those people might
raise against us and snatch Him from our hands on the advice of
Pilate. Give us, therefore, order and power to crucify Him." : And
they had given him much money, and he had given them the power
required and sent his soldiers to them. This is the reason why Pilate
did not go out with him that day ; he feared an armed conflict
between him and the Jews. Indeed Pilate and his wife loved (Jesus)
like their own soul, and the flogging that he had ordered for Him
was done in order to satisfy the wicked Jews, and so to save Him
from death. Had he known that they would crucify Him, if he were
to die with his wife and his sons, he would not have laid hands on
Him at all. The Jews had lied to Pilate saying : " If you only
chastise this rebel for us, and if he ceases to heal people on the
Sabbath day, we will release Him." It is under this false pretext that
Pilate had ordered Him 3 to be flagellated.
The above conspiracy took place before the Virgin stood at the
right side of Her Son and John wished to take her to his house. She
then rose weeping and lamenting and returned to town, saying :
" I leave you in peace,4 O my child, you and the cross upon which
you have been lifted up. I salute a your face full of grace, which they
have insulted and at which they have railed. I salute your nudity, O
King, who is in the middle of robbers. I salute your royal garment,
1 From where did the author get this information ?
2 That it was Herod and not Pilate who killed the Christ is also the
belief of the Ethiopia Church : " He (Paul) is a disciple of Jesus Christ
whom Herod the son of Archelaus slew in the days of Pontius Pilate."
Budge's The Contendings of the Apostles, ii., 556.
B The Arabic sentence is wrongly constructed as if Pilate himself had
flogged Jesus.
4 I.e., farewell. 5 Lit. I ask.
192 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
O my child, which is in the hands of your enemies. I salute you, O
my beloved, with the crown of thorns which is overshadowing you."
The Virgin was saying all this while she was being taken weeping
to the house of John. There she did not cease to weep, nor did she
give slumber to her eyelids,1 but she kept weeping and wailing. After
(John) had placed her in the house he did not neglect to go to the
Kranion and witness till the end all the sufferings of his Master.
When the body2 had ceased to function, He gave up the ghost.
Then all the town shook from the great earthquake that occurred in
the earth and the signs that took place in heaven. When the Virgin
noticed that the earth quaked and that darkness spread over all the
town, she said : " This is a sign that my Son has died." While she
was saying this, lo, John came weeping. And the Virgin said to
him: "Is it not true that my Son died3 on the cross?" And he
inclined his head and said, " Yes, He died."
How great were the weeping and the lamentations of the Virgin at
that hour ! 4 With intense pains of the heart she wept and said :
" Woe is me, O my child, because of this dreadful death which you
have incurred. I did not find a Governor to inquire into the injustice
done to me, nor a judge to gauge the pains of my heart. O Governor,
if you had judged with justice according to the law, the Son of the
King would not have been killed while hungry and thirsty. O High
Priest, if you had judged with justice, Judas would have been worthy
of crucifixion 5 instead of my Son. If you had pondered over your
decision, O Governor, you would not have crucified my Son in His
nudity.6 If you had judged with equity, O High Priest, you would
not have released a robber from death, and killed the Prince. If you
had judged with equity, O Governor, you would not have killed a
valiant man while war 7 is looking you in the face. If you had judged
with equity, O High Priest, you would not have uttered insulting
words to your Master.

1 Ps. oxxii. 4. 2M. 87: "the soul."

3M. 127: " Did my Son die ?"
4 In cap. x. of the Recension B of the Greek text of the Acts of Pilate
long quotations are also given from the lamentations of the Virgin when she
was informed by John of the crucifixion of Jesus. Cf. James' Apocryphal
N.T., p. 116.
•'M. 127, "death."
6 M. 127, omits " in His nudity." 7 Which war ?
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 193

" I hear that at a time when people are at war, if it happens that
they capture the son of the King, they take great care of him and do
not kill him, but send him to his father as an honour, why then, O
High Priest, when you asked (my Son) the truth and He told it to
you, you hated Him ? l You preferred a lie and put your trust on it.
You asked for truth, do you not know then that the one who is
standing before you is truthful, nay truth and life ? "
Truly, O Virgin, O holy Mary, you have met with injustice in
the town of Jerusalem more than many of your generation, because
they attacked the great one who was in it, and delivered Him to the
judgment of death.
After all this, the Christ was still hanging on the cross, and many
confessed saying: "This man who performed all these deeds is the
Son of God." : All the people who believed wept while He was on
the cross. Then Pilate summoned the centurion who was sent by
Herod in order to crucify (Jesus), and he ushered him into his house
and said to him : " Have you seen, O my brother, what the Jews
and Herod did to this just Man, and how they killed Him with such
an injustice that all this happened on the earth ? I tell you, O my
brother, that all this evil is not by my will but on the advice of
Herod. I wished to release Him and save Him from death, but
when I noticed that this was against the wish of Herod, 1 delivered
Him to the Jews for crucifixion. See now, what ransom shall we give
to God for His Son whom we have killed ? " Then the centurion
together with the owner of the spear and Pilate began to weep bitterly
saying : " May His blood be on Herod and on the High Priest ! "
Then Pilate summoned the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas
before the public and said to them : " O haters of bodies 4 and
drinkers of blood unjustly shed, see now what happened as a con-
sequence ofthe death of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross. May His
blood be on you and on your children ! " And they struck at their
chests and at their faces saying : " May the blood of this erring man
be on us and on our children a for a thousand generations ! " And
1 Cf. Matt. xxvi. 63-64. 2 John xiv. 16.
3 Cf. Matt, xxvii. 54.
* M. 87, " O people with long robes on their bodies." About all the
incidents in the present story see the Coptic fragments which I translated in
the Prefatory Note.
5 Matt, xxvii. 25.
 194 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

Pilate said, " What ! even now after all the signs that He showed in
heaven and earth, you are not awestruck and amazed like all the
people ? " And they said : " We are not afraid because we have
fulfilled the law."
And Pilate said : " O High Priest, if you have fulfilled the law,
why are your clothes rent ? The law says that if a High Priest rends
his clothes, he falls from office." And he answered : " I rent my
clothes1 because He blasphemed against the Most High God and
against the law." And Pilate said to him : "I order you not to enter
the temple2 another time like a High Priest but like a rebel. And if
anyone tells me that you have gone to the temple I will cut off your
head." And the High Priest said to him : " Which Governor among
your predecessors has in the preceding time interdicted a High Priest,
and has enjoyed a long term of office ? " He said this because he
was under the jurisdiction of Herod.
And Pilate said to him : " Are not then the signs that have so
far occurred sufficient for you, as they are for all the people ? " And
the High Priest said to Pilate : " You are a young shoot in this town,
and you do not know the meaning and the portent of these signs.
This month is Barmudah 4 and in it the revolution of the sun and the
moon takes place. At this time the sorcerers give to the moon the
colour of blood and detract the ray of the sun by their spells. They
do it in order to exact work from the husbandman 5 and to prognosti-
cate concerning the fruits, the crops, the wines and the oils." This is
what the High Priest lied and said.
Then Pilate rose from his chair and scourged him with a rough
whip ; he plucked also the hair of his beard, and tormented him and
said : " You wish to bring the wrath ° (of God) on the earth on
account of your hatred for Jesus." Then the centurion and the
soldier said : " You prefer death to life." After having chastised
him on the recommendation of Pilate, they sent him to prison on the
advice of the centurion, until such time as they would send him to the
Emperor.
1 Matt. xxvi. 65.
2 Lit. "to the Holy," which may refer to the "holy city" of Jerusalem.
3 M. 127 has for the last sentence : " that you should interdict me."
* Coptic month corresponding with our March to April.
5 Lit. " They ask for die works of the servants."
6 M. 127 : " that the wrath should come."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 195

After this Pilate conferred with the centurion and said : " Is His
body going to hang on the cross ? " And the centurion said to Pilate :
" The power is in your hands, O Governor." And Pilate said to
him : " Do you wish that we should take Him down from the cross
and confide Him to a reliable man for three days, in order that per-
chance He may rise as He Himself raised many people from the
dead ? " When Pilate uttered these words the heads of the Jews
shouted suddenly and said : " It is against the law to deliver a dead
man to any one. The grave is the resting-place of the dead."
After this Joseph, who is from Arimathea, came to Pilate and
asked permission to take down the body of Jesus Christ from the cross.
And Pilate was pleased and he ordered it to be given to him ; and
the Jews walked behind him with the guards. Joseph, then, took it
down from the cross and buried it in conjunction with Nicodemus.
The Jews, however, had an argument with him because they did not
wish to bring down His body from the cross, but to leave it on the
wood like that of all other robbers, because Jesus had made : mention
of His resurrection. After they had shrouded Him well in perfume,
myrrh, and new linen wrappings, which had not been used for another
man at all, they laid Him in a new tomb in which no other body had
ever been laid, because it was newly made for Joseph himself, the
owner of the garden. They then fastened Him well " till the third day.
When the body of Jesus was placed in the sepulchre the Jews
went to Pilate and said : " You know that it is the Sabbath ; " and
they asked for four witnesses for His tomb, two from the soldiers of
Herod, and two from the soldiers of the centurion. They confided
the tomb to them and ordered them to guard it till the third day.
And the centurion remained in Jerusalem till the third day in order to
see the miracle ; and he said : "If Jesus rises from the dead, I shall
have no further need of the power of Herod."
After all this John went in haste to the Virgin and said to her :
' They have laid my Master in a good new tomb, and have shrouded
Him with new wrappings, good perfume, and myrrh of a high quality.
And the Virgin enquired : " Who was the one who did this good
thing to my beloved Son ? " And he informed her 3 that it was
Joseph and Nicodemus, the venerable chiefs.
1 Lit " if he had not made."
2 M. 127 : " Placed guards over Him." 3 Read fa a Yamaha.
14
196 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
And the Virgin did not cease her weeping and wailing, and said :
" If they have placed my beloved Son under the tree of life, I shall
not be comforted unless I see Him. If they have placed the robe of
Solomon over the body of my Son, I shall not be comforted unless I
see His tomb. If they have poured the perfume of Aaron over the
body of my Son, I cannot be comforted unless I see His burial-place.
If they have laid my Son in the graves of the prophets, I shall not be
comforted unless I see Him. If the grave in which my Son is lying is
that of Elisha, I shall not be comforted unless I see Him. If the place
in which they have placed my son is Paradise itself, I shall not be
comforted unless I see Him. May the dew of Heaven nurture you,
O my father Joseph, and may the firmament nourish you,1 O Nicode-
mus, for the little good work you did to my Son on the cross !
' Would that I had been weeping under your cross, O my Son !
Even if I could not find your body, O my beloved, I would have
grasped your blood, because although Jacob did not find the blood of
Joseph, he wept over the blood of another. Woe is me, O my be-
loved Son, because I have not seen your body and your blood.2 If I
had found your blood, O my Child, I would have purified my garment
with it, and if I had found your garment, it would have been as a
garment of Joseph 3 to me. The blood over which Jacob wept was a
foreign blood, and that over which I weep is flowing from the side of
my Son. If they have not broken your bones, O my Son, as it is
written in their law, so that (the malefactors) might be delivered from
their pain, they have pushed the spear-head into your divine side.
" No evil deed was left, O my beloved, which they did not do to
you before they crucified you, and no injustice was left, O my beloved,
which they did not do to you. Woe is me, O my beloved Son, my
reins are bursting inside me. I never saw a physician healing people
like you, O my beloved Son, and in spite of that they struck 4 you.
You have been a physician to their diseases which you cured, and in
spite of that they nailed you to the wood of the cross. You have been
a physician, O my Child,5 to their men born blind, and you gave them
1 About this sentence, cf. An Apocryphal Jeremiah, in my Woodbrooke
Studies, vol. i., p. 159.
" M. 127 omits all this sentence.
3 Presumably not her husband but the Patriarch.
4 There is a slight difference in the meaning of the texts of the two MSS.
5M. 127: "O my Son."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 197

their sight,1 and in spite of that the unbelieving Jews did not feel
ashamed to insult you. You have been a physician, O my Son, and
you drove out their demons from them, and in spite of that they did
not honour you but said, ' You drive them out by Beel-Zebul.' " You
have been a physician, O my Son, and you cured them from haemor-
rhage, and in spite of that they did not feel ashamed of you, but they
pierced you in your side, O my beloved, with a spear-head. I adjure
you, O John, to come with me to the tomb of my Son. I implore you,
O John, to accompany me to my only Son so that I may pay a visit to
His cross.3 I know, O John, that I am putting you to much trouble
with the sorrow of my heart, but have patience with me and you will
receive much blessing from my beloved Son."
The Virgin uttered these and similar words in her lamentations
and said : 5 " O John, if 1 do not see His tomb I shall not be comforted
in my sorrow." And John used to comfort her saying : " Cease your
weeping because they have buried Him with perfume, incense, and
new wrappings, near a garden." The Virgin, however, wept, saying :
" If the ark of Noah were the place of the burial of my Son, I shall
not be comforted unless I see Him and weep over Him." And John
said to her : "How can you go while four soldiers from the soldiers
of the Governor are lying on the sepulchre ? " And the Virgin
remained in this weeping and wailing over her Son in the day of His
crucifixion, the Sabbath day, to the morning of Sunday.
As to the soldiers whom the Governor had detailed to guard the
tomb, the heads of the Jews had entered with them into a conspiracy
unknown to the Governor and the Centurion, to the effect that if the
erring one were perchance to rise they should inform them of the fact
before the Governor. For this and for their not disclosing this
conspiracy to Pilate they were promised much money and silver. The
Jews held this conspiracy with the soldiers before the latter went to
guard the tomb.
When, however (Jesus) rose and many signs took place at His
1 M. 127 omits this sentence.
end. ' The author does not use the Syriac form Beel-Zebub with a b at the
" Lit. " So that I may pay Him a visit on the cross." M. 127 omits all
this sentence.
"M. 87 omits "from my beloved Son."
'JM. 127 omits all this sentence.
198 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
resurrection, the soldiers were frightened and terrified, and became
like dead men. They entered the town early in the morning and
remembering the deceitful words of the Jews they went to them while
it was still dark before they went to the Governor and apprised them
of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth * had risen from the dead as He
had predicted. The Jews went then in haste and related to the High
Priest the words of the soldiers to the effect that Jesus had risen from
the dead ; and they shouted saying : " Woe to the Jews and to their
lives, because this day has more evil in it for them than the day in
which He was crucified. What shall we do if the Governor and
the centurion hear that He rose from the dead. We shall all fall into
his hands. But let us see first what really took place." And they
went to the tomb while it was still early in the morning, and did not
find the body of Jesus in it. Then they tore their garments, gave
silver to the four soldiers apart from His garments and said : " Will
He appear to everybody ? " In short every one of them (in their
confusion) said something.2
As to the Virgin she did not neglect to go to the tomb early on
Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene had, however, preceded her to
the sepulchre3 and noticed that the stone had been rolled away from
it. And the Virgin said : "This is a sign that occurred in the case
of my Son, and it perplexes me ; Who rolled away this stone from
the door of the sepulchre ? " The Virgin looked then in the four
directions of the tomb, and did not find in it the body of her Son, and
she sat down and reverted to her wailing and lamentation and said :
" Woe is me, O my beloved Son, who is it that carried your
body and added to the sorrow of my heart ? I have not been at all
to the tomb of my father nor to that of my mother ; when my father
died I was a young girl in the temple. Nor have I ever been to the
grave of my father Joseph 4 who endured so many 5 troubles with you,
O my Son. This day that I came to your tomb, O my Son, in order
to inform myself concerning your body, another sorrow has been
1 M. 127 omits " of Nazareth." 2 Lit. " A word."
8 This is against the following document or Martyrdom of Pilate which
wrongly asserts that it was the Virgin Mary who went first to the sepulchre.
See below, p. 245.
4 I.e., Joseph her husband. In the following page Joseph dies on the
day of the crucifixion. On the use of the word " father " in this connection
see above, p. 187.
5 Lit. " all these."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 199
added to my sorrow. This day that I came to your tomb, O my
Child, I met with a bitter disappointment, as I did not find your body
in it, O my Son.1 On the Golgotha they did not permit me to satisfy
my desire for looking at you to my satisfaction, and to-day they did
not allow me to satisfy my desire for looking at your body in the grave
to my heart's desire. On the day of your birth, in Bethlehem, O my
beloved Son, when your star shone, Herod did not glorify you, and
on the day of your crucifixion, O my Son, when the sun suffered
eclipse, the Jews ' did not believe in you.
" On the day I brought you forth in Bethlehem, O my Son, your
angels surrounded you in order to glorify you, and on the day of your
resurrection, O my beloved Son, your brethren forsook you.0 On the
day I brought you forth in Bethlehem, O my beloved Son, the
shepherds came at day-break and worshipped you, and on the day of
your death, O my beloved Son, I came to your tomb and did not find
your body in it. On the day I brought you forth in Bethlehem, O
my Son, the Magi came to you with their offerings, and on the day of
your crucifixion, O my Son,4 a wicked robber insulted you. The day
of your birth in Bethlehem, O my Son, the animals praised it, and on
the day of your crucifixion, O my beloved, I met with pain and
sorrow.0 On the day of your birth in Bethlehem, O my beloved Son,
Joseph served you, and on the day of your crucifixion, O my beloved,
the same Joseph, my father, died.6
" Woe is me, O my beloved, there is no sorrow like my sorrow,
nor is there any pain like the pain of a mother looking at her son on
the wood of the cross. O my Son, I went to the Golgotha and did
not see your body on the wood of the cross ; ' and I came to the door
of your tomb asking for you, and you did not answer me. Woe is
me, O my beloved Son, my sorrow is twofold to-day, because I did
not see your body on the wood so that I might weep over it,' and
because I did not find it in the tomb so that I might worship it. I adjure
the four soldiers who keep watch over your tomb and your body to
1 M. 127 omits " O my Son." - M. 127 omits " the Jews."
3 M. 87 adds : " with anxiety." 4 M. 87 : " O light of my eyes."
* M. 87 : " with pain of the heart."
"The author evidently believes that Joseph died on the day of the
crucifixion of Jesus.
The author refers here to a second visit by the Virgin to the Golgotha.
b M. 87 omits this sentence.
200 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

deliver your body if perchance they have removed it through bribery.1

I implore Joseph and weep before Nicodemus to reassure me concern-
ing your body since they took it on their own responsibility from Pilate
and laid it in this tomb. I have never seen Joseph nor do I know
Nicodemus, but on account of the intensity of my pain I let my heart

them."
go toThis is what the Virgin said over the tomb of her Son. She was
perplexed in her soul from her fear of the Jews and from the fact that she
did not find the body of her Son in the tomb. While she was think-
ing deeply 2 a sudden light shone and an exquisite perfume was perceived
from the right side of the tomb, as if wafted from an incense tree.3
The Virgin looked towards the direction of the scent and saw the good
God standing, clad in a heavenly robe and His face greatly suffused with
joy. And He said to her : " O woman, what makes you burst into this
affectionate wailing at this empty tomb which contains no body ? "
And she replied : "It is my sorrow ; and this sorrow, O my Lord,
arises from the fact that I did not find the body of my Son, so that I
might weep over it and be somewhat comforted." And Jesus said to
her : " If you were not satisfied in weeping and wailing throughout all
this length of time, had you found the body of your Son in the tomb
you would have never ceased your lamentation." And she replied :
" O my lord, if I had found it I would have been somewhat comforted

And he said to her : " O woman, if you had seen your Son dead,
you by it."' have had no comfort in looking at His side pierced with a
would
spear, at His hands and feet wounded by the driving of nails in them,
and at His body smeared with blood. Now, O woman, comfort
yourself, because it was more advantageous for you not to have seen
Him dead and wept all the more over Him. What comfort did you
derive when you saw Him alive on the cross, and dead with wrappings
round Him ? Truly, O woman, you have had much courage in
your soul in coming to this place, while it is still dark and while all
this great disturbance reigns in the town. The guards went from
here and are now conspiring with the Jews in lying terms concerning
your Son. Does the tomb, in which the body of your Son was laid

LLit. "by silver." 2M. 127 omits this sentence.

3 M. 127 omits the last sentence.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 201

belong to the Jews ? l No, O woman, I know the man called Joseph,
and this garden belongs to him."
And the Virgin said to him : " O my lord, you know everything
that happened to my Son, and the love which they showed to Him
in laying Him in this tomb. I could not bear to stay in the house of
John any longer, but I came to enquire after Him. Now, O my lord,
since2 you are the owner of the garden — and the beauty of your
dresses 3 and the sweet words with which you have answered me
testify to this — if there is pity in your heart for me show it to me now,
because I have no other child. Disclose to me His secret and what
they did with His body since I did not find it in His tomb. Have
the Jews carried it away because of their hatred for the Governor
concerning it ? And also, O my lord, if it is hidden in your garden
and you know who took it there, have pity on me and show me its
place so that I may just see it. By your life, O my brother, I have
never seen this place except to-day."
And Jesus said to her : " O Mary, you have wept sufficiently.
The living one 4 is the one who is speaking to you ; the one who was
crucified is now standing near you ; the one whom you are seeking is
the one who is comforting you ; the one for whom you are asking is
the one who is clad in this heavenly robe ; the one whose tomb you
are wishing to see is the one who smashed the doors of brass.5 O
Mary, recognise my glory ; lo I am comforting you with the words of
life, be not ashamed therefore, nor afraid. Look at my face, O my
mother, and you will recognise me. It is I who raised Lazarus in
Bethany. It is I Jesus who is resurrection and life. It is I Jesus
whose blood flowed on the rock in the Kranion. It is I Jesus who
is comforting you in your sorrow. It is I Jesus over whom you are
weeping, who is now comforting you at the beginning of His resurrec-
tion. No one took away my body, O my mother, but I rose according
to the will of my Father. You came to-day to the tomb, O my
mother, and I took up out of Hades all those who were fettered in
it, and saved those who had fallen into sin."

1 M. 87 omits this sentence. 2 Lit. " If."

3 M. 127, " with your glory."
4 al-hayy seems to be used here as a title. It is one of the old titles
of Christ.
5 /.* of Hades.
202 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

When the Virgin heard this she received strength and comfort 1
and ceased her weeping and anxiety. She lifted up her eyes from
the ground, filled her sight from Him, saw Him in the grace of His
divinity and said : " You have truly risen, O my Son and my Lord !
You have truly risen ! " And she bent over Him and embraced
Him. And He said to her : " Enough, O mother, of the joy which
I granted you through my resurrection. Look now at the spoliation
of Hades, O my mother, and see how glad and joyful its inmates
are. I shall present them as an offering to my Father before I take
to Paradise." ''
themAnd the Virgin looked round Him and saw the multitudes which
He had taken up from Hades, clad in white robes. She was amazed
at them, and Jesus said to her : " Go in haste and announce my
resurrection from the dead to my brethren. Go in haste, O my
mother, leave this place and do not stand at the right side of my
tomb, because a company of the Jews will come with Pilate to find
out what took place, and see if 1 4 would raise the dead, and give
sight to the blind and motion to the lame."
After the Lord Jesus said this to His mother He disappeared from
her sight. She then left the tomb with haste and went and told the
Apostles and the women that the Lord had risen from the dead,5 and
they also came to see what had happened. The news spread then in
all the town that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead as He had
said, and that He told His mother : "I will precede you to Jerusalem,
you will all see me and I will bless you there." '
As to the High Priests and the Jews, they went in the morning to
Pilate, the Governor, as if they had heard nothing, and said to him :
" O our lord Governor, error has increased and scandals have multiplied
1 M. 127 omits " and comfort."
2 M. 1270 only : " You have truly risen, O my father."
3 On the descent of Christ into Hades see Gospel of Nicodemus in
James'
Fathers. Apocryphal N.T., pp. 123-140, and many other works of the
4 M. 127 omits this sentence.
5 There is no doubt that present document attributes to the Virgin Mary
the incidents attributed by John the Evangelist (xx. 1-19) to Mary Magdalene.
The same thing is done by the author of the Martyrdom of Pilate. See
below, p. 245.
r'M. 127 has: ". . . as He had said to His mother. 1 will precede
you to Galilee." This is of course more in harmony with Matt, xxviii. 7.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 203

to-day at the sepulchre. Summon the soldiers, one by one, so that

they may relate His story to us, before any of us goes there." And
Pilate said to them " I heard that He rose from the dead. I believe
what I saw in a vision that Jesus rose this day from the dead. By the
life of the Emperor and by the law of Moses I do not lie when I say
that I saw Him last night while I was lying in my bed, and was grieved
at the fact that I had laid hands on Him, and thought that perchance
He may be the Son of God on account of the signs that appeared in
heaven when He died on the cross. I saw Him standing and shining
more than the sun. All the town, except the gathering-place of the
Jews, shone with His light more than the light of the sun. And He
said to me :

' O Pilate, why are you weeping because you ordered Jesus to be
flogged ? What is written about Him has been fulfilled. Return to
me, and 1 will forgive you. I am Jesus who died on the cross. I am
Jesus who rose to-day l from the dead. This light which you see to-
day is the glory of my resurrection which has enlightened all the world
with joy. Look well, O Pilate, and see that this sign which shines on
the inhabited earth is more luminous than the light of the sun and is to
convince you that I rose from the dead. Hasten to my tomb and you
will see the wrappings lying in it guarded by angels. Kiss them and
worship them. Fight for my resurrection and you will witness many
miracles to-day at the sepulchre : the lame shall walk, the blind shall
see, and the dead shall rise by my power." O Pilate, you will shine
in the light of my resurrection, which the Jews will deny.' "
When Pilate uttered these words in his house the Jews raised their
voices and said : " O our lord, the emir,3 it is not necessary to relate
all this to the people, as it is nothing but a dream. The law says,
' At the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is established ' ; 4
instead of three witnesses, lo there are four who guarded the tomb. If
these tell you that He rose, their words are true, and if they do not do
so, we shall have nothing to do with dreams."
Then Pilate summoned the four soldiers and said to them : " What

1 M. 127 omits "to-day."

- M. 87 : " and the dead lo I shall raise by my death."
" The word emir is here the translation of the Coptic word meaning
prases. See Pat. Orient, ii., 171.
ut. xvii. 6; xix. 15; Matt, xviii. 16.
204 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

happened to-day at the sepulchre ? " And they divided curse among
themselves and lied and said that He did not rise but was carried away.
And Pilate ordered that they should be separated from one another in
different places. The first one was then ushered in, and Pilate said to
him : " Tell me the truth who carried away the body of Jesus ? "
And he answered : " Peter and John." And the Governor ordered
him to be removed to a place by himself. Then he summoned the
second one and said to him : "I know that you do not speak but
the truth, tell me which of the apostles carried away the body of Jesus
from the tomb ? " And he answered : " The eleven apostles came
with His disciples z and carried Him away by stealth." And Pilate
ordered that this one also should be removed to a place by himself.
He then summoned the third one and said to him : "I value your
testimony more than that of all the others, tell me who carried away
the body of Jesus from the sepulchre ? " And he answered : " Joseph
and Nicodemus."2
Pilate then called the fourth one and said to him : " You are the
head of these soldiers and I confided them to you. Disclose to me now
all what took place, and how they removed the body of Jesus from
the tomb while you were guarding it." And he answered : " O our
Lord the emir, we were asleep and we do not know who carried it
away. When we woke up we looked for it and found it below the
water which is in the garden, and we said that they did this, out of

fear."
Then Pilate said to the Jews and to the centurion : " Are these
words consistent ? Are they not sustained by lies ? " And he
ordered that the soldiers should be kept under guard until he had
gone himself to the tomb. Then he arose with the high priests and
the heads of the soldiers3 and went to the tomb. They found the
wrappings lying in the tomb 4 without the body.5 And Pilate said :
" O men who hate their own life, if they had taken away the body
would they not have taken the wrappings with it ? " And (the Jews)
answered : " See, these wrappings do not belong to Him, but to
some one else." And Pilate recalled the words of Jesus to him that

*M. 127 omits: "with His disciples."

2 M. 87 adds : " And the rest of their relations."
3 M. 87, " and the heads and the soldiers."
4 M. 127 omits " in the tomb." 5 Lit. " without any man."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 205
great miracles will take place in the sepulchre, and he hastened and
entered into it, and took the wrappings, that is to say the pieces of
linen with which Jesus was shrouded, wept over them and embraced
them with joy.
Then he looked at the centurion who was standing at the entrance
of the tomb, and who was with one eye only as his other eye had
been put out in a war, and a considerable time had elapsed without
him having seen anything with it Pilate then conceived the idea,
through the greatness of his faith, that these wrappings will give light
to the centurion's eye and with this thought he presented the wrappings
to him and said : " O my brother, do you not perceive the exquisite-
ness of the odour of these wrappings and see as if they were sprinkled
with perfume and incense ? "
And the Jews said : " O Pilate, you know that Joseph placed on
Him much perfume and incense, and that they shrouded Him with
myrrh and sweet spices of aloe, and this sweet scent comes from them."
And Pilate said to them : " If they placed perfumes on the wrappings
only, why is all this tomb perfumed with musk and sweet spices of
high value and exquisite odour ? " And they answered : " The scent
that you are smelling is the odour of the flowers of the gardens, wafted
by the winds."' And Pilate replied to them : "You have trodden
on the path of perdition for yourselves, have walked in it and fallen in
a place from which you will have no deliverance for ever." And they
said to him : " Nothing is due to you from us, and you had no right
to come to the tomb of this man. You are the Governor of the City 3
and not of this tomb. Lo, the High Priests and the heads of the Jews
are cognisant of the affair, and it does not behove you to fight the Jews
for the sake of a dead man."
And Pilate said to the centurion : " O brother, do you not notice
the bitterness of the hatred that the Jews have for the Lord Jesus ?
We have acted according to their desires and have crucified Him,
and all the world was on the brink of ruin and destruction on account
of their injustice. They want us now to stumble on their sin and
aver that He has not risen from the dead, in order that His wrath

1 M. 87 omits " and incense."

• M. 127 omits the last sentence.
3 M. 87, " to those who are in need in it ; and they have not made you
the Governor of this tomb."
206 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

may come back on us1 another time and destroy us completely.'

Pilate uttered these words to the centurion while holding the wrap-
pings with his hands and embracing them. Then he said : " I believe
that the body which has been wrapped in you rose from the dead."
And the centurion also had faith like Pilate, and seizing the wrappings
he embraced them, and when they touched his face he immediately
saw with the blind eye as before, as if Jesus had laid His hand on it
as He had done with the man who was born blind.
How great was the spectacle of the multitudes who had also gone
to the tomb ! They were from all countries, and they had come to
Jerusalem for the Passover, and seen (Jesus) on the cross on the day
of the crucifixion. When they had heard that Pilate had gone to the
sepulchre to see whether Jesus had risen, they also had come with the
expectation that He might rise and appear to them like Lazarus.
This is the reason why great multitudes had come to the tomb of
Jesus in order to see Him. And they beheld the great miracles and
how the centurion saw, and were amazed at what (Jesus) had done.
And Pilate said to the centurion : " O my brother, observe the
miracles of Jesus in His tomb apart from the miracles that took place
at His death on the cross." And the centurion tore up his clothes in
order the better to show his joy and the favour2 which he had
received, and said : " The power of Jesus has been made manifest.
He is truly God and Son of God, and I have believed in Him. My
faith has increased from the fact that He being God rose from the
dead. I shall not serve a king any more, but solely my God Jesus." :
And he threw away his sword and gave up his military career.4
While the wrappings were twisted round his hands he ran to this
place and that place and embraced them. And Pilate was greatly
amazed and glorified God.
And the Jews said to the centurion : " You are a stranger, and
you do not know the deeds done by Jesus through Beel-Zebul.6
1 M. 127, " So that He may send His wrath against us."
- M. 87, " all the grace." 3 M. 127 adds, " Christ."
4M. 87, "and the shield of his military career."
5 See my note above and compare the following : " And the Jews
said (to Pilate) : . " He is a sorcerer and it is in the name of Beelzebub,
prince of the demons, that he drives away demons," Gosfel of Nicodemus
in Migne's Diet, des Apocryphes, i., 1 103 and 1 106; James' Apocr. N.T.,
p. 96. This is of course inspired from Matt. xii. 24, Luke xi. 15.
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 207

What He did in His life He is now doing at His death." And

they added : "When a sorcerer dies, the Genii1 do other deeds in
his grave and they deceive many people through them. These deeds
are indeed those of sorcerers and conjurers." And Pilate said to
them : " We have never heard that sorcerers and conjurers performed
such miracles. Since you are heaping2 lies out of your own mind on
the life of the Lord, His wrath will come on you." And they said :
" We deliver our souls to judgment, may His blood be on 3 us and
our children for ever and ever." And Pilate said to the centurion :
" O my brother, do not exchange cheaply the great gift which you
have received for the lie of the hatred of the Jews."
Then Pilate turned to the Jews and said to them : " Where is
the dead man who, you said, was Jesus ? It is perchance He."
And the Jews preceded Pilate and the centurion to the well which
was in the garden, and it was a deep well. And I Gamaliel was
following with the crowd. And they went down to the bottom of
the well, and found in it the dead man shrouded and laid in a separate
place. And the Jews shouted : " Here is the Nazarene sorcerer
who gave us so much trouble ! You say that He rose, and He is at
the bottom of the well ! " And Pilate ordered them to draw him
up, and summoned Joseph and Nicodemus and said to them : " Are
these the wrappings with which you shrouded the body of Jesus ? "
And they answered : " The wrappings which you are holding in
your hands are those of Jesus. As to this corpse it is that of the
robber who was crucified with Jesus." And the company of the
Jews4 threw themselves on Joseph and Nicodemus wishing to cast
them into the depth of the well because they had spoken the truth.
They would have done it were it not for the fact that Pilate and his
soldiers shielded them.

1This word seems at first sight to denote a post-Islamic author. It

must, however, be remembered that the word Jinn is found in Ethiopia in
the sense of " demon," " evil spirit." Further, the word in the mind of the
author may have been "demon, evil spirit" and the translator — in case the
document is a translation by Cyriacus — may have used an Arabic word that
was better understood by his readers.
• Cod. " prophesying."
aM. 87, "But they delivered their souls to judgment saying: 'May
His blood and His death be on them.' "
4M. 127, " All the Jews."
208 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
When Pilate noticed their confusion and their cry he beckoned to
them to be quiet. He had full confidence in the words spoken to
him by the Lord Jesus to the effect that dead men would rise from
His tomb. He summoned, therefore, the heads of the Jews and said
to them : " We do not believe at all that this is Jesus of Nazareth."
And they replied to him : "If you believe it or do not believe it,1 we
do believe it." And he said to them : "It is right then that we
should leave him in his tomb like other dead men." And he
summoned Joseph and Nicodemus another time and said to them :
" Shroud him with these wrappings as before." And the Jews
shouted : " We do not accept Joseph, and Nicodemus has 2 no portion
with us, because his3 portion is with Jesus." And Pilate said : "I
greater right." '
have Then they took the wrappings that belonged to the Lord Jesus
and shrouded 5 the body of that dead man with them. And Pilate
and his soldiers lifted it and placed it in the tomb in which Jesus lay.
And he ordered the people to place the stone at the entrance of the
tomb as they had done in the case of Jesus. Then Pilate stretched
his hands and prayed at the door of the sepulchre and said thus :—
"I implore you to-day, O Lord Jesus. You are the resurrection
and the life, the giver of life to all and to the dead. I believe that
you rose again as you appeared to me. Do not judge me, O my
Lord, because I am doing this. I have not done it from fear of the
Jews, nor to test your resurrection. O my Lord, I have confidence in
your words and in the miracles which you have wrought. You are
living because you raised many dead men. Now, >O my Lord, do
not be angry with me because I placed a foreign corpse in the place in
which lay your body. I did this to put to shame and confusion those
who deny your resurrection. To them belong shame and confusion
for ever and ever, and to you are due glory and honour from the
mouth of your servant Pilate for ever and for ever and ever." l
*M. 127 omits "or do not believe it."
- M. 127: "We do not accept Joseph and Nicodemus because they
have no portion with us."
3M. 127: "their." 4 M. 127 adds: "than they."
5 Under the influence of Syriac the text places the pronoun before the
noun immediately after the verb, which is contrary to the genius of the
Arabic language.
t!M. 127 adds: "Amen."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 209
When Pilate recited this prayer with outstretched hands at the
tomb, a voice came from the dead man saying : " O my lord Pilate,
open to me the door of the tomb in order that I may come out. I
was the first to open the door l of Paradise. Lift the stone, O my
lord Pilate, so that I may come out by the power of my Lord Jesus
Christ who rose from the dead."
And Pilate shouted with jubilation on account of the joy and
happiness which filled his heart and his soul, to such an extent that
the rocks echoed his voice. And he then ordered the people that
were standing to lift the stone from the door of the tomb, and im-
mediately the dead man came out walking, and he bowed before
Pilate, the Governor. As to the Jews who were present, they were
seized with panic, shame, and confusion, and ran away wailing
secretly from their fear of the Governor.
And Pilate ordered all the soldiers to pursue the Jews and strike
them with the swords which they were holding, and they wounded
many of them. Then Pilate turned to the dead man and said to him :
" O my son, who raised you in this short time ? It is only in case
Jesus was with you that He would have been able to raise you so
quickly." And the dead man " said to him : " Did you not see the
great light that shone ? The Lord Jesus raised me while you were
praying, and spoke to me saying, ' Tell my beloved Pilate to fight for
my resurrection because I have decided to appoint him his portion in
Paradise 3 as I appointed to you. It is imperative that they should
condemn him as they have condemned me, before they take off his
'
head.'
And Pilate said to him : " From where are you,4 and who threw
you in this well ? " And the robber replied, saying : " I am the
robber who has been crucified at His right. I have been deemed
worthy of all favours and gifts before my Lord Jesus Christ because of
the few comforting words that I uttered while He was on the wood of
the cross. I was the first one to rise from the tomb of Jesus, O my
lord Pilate, and as you opened to me the door of His sepulchre, so He
opened to me the door of Paradise. I recognise this high perfume as
it is from the tree of life which my soul is enjoying."
1 M. 127 omits " door." - M. 87, " and he."
b M. 87, " to appoint him his portion from the tree of life."
4 M. 127, " From which tribe are you ? "
210 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
At that moment I Gamaliel followed the crowd and my fathers
Joseph and Nicodemus, because fear did not allow the Apostles to
come to the sepulchre and witness what happened to Him. They
were hiding in every place from fear of the Jews. I, Gamaliel, walked
with the crowds and witnessed all what happened in the tomb of my
Lord Jesus,1 and the great fight that Pilate undertook against the High
Priests,2 who returned to town with haste, pressing against one another
on account of His resurrection from the dead, while Pilate was hold-
ing the wrappings on his arms. And the multitudes wished to see
those men who had come to town on the occasion of the feast of the
Passover from every district and from every tribe.
Then Pilate repaired to the house of the High Priest along with the
crowd, and they demolished it and plundered all what he 3 had. And
Pilate said to the centurion : " O my brother,4 you saw with your
own eyes and heard (with your own ears) the great number of people
who believed in Jesus Christ on account of the resplendent miracles
witnessed also by the wicked and accursed Jews, who did not believe."
Let us here end the discourse on the Virgin and her sweet wailing,
and on the death and resurrection of her Son from the dead. These
(words) have been written by Gamaliel and Nicodemus, the venerable
chiefs, and they placed them in Jerusalem, the holy city, and in all the
districts that surround it, by the grace and love 5 of our Lord and God
Jesus Christ to whom are due glory, power, and honour0 for ever and
ever. Amen.
Here ends this great discourse. May God have mercy upon the
scribe, the reader, the attentive hearers, and all the believers ! Amen.
Amen. Amen.

1 M. 127 omits "of my Lord Jesus."

-M. 127 adds "the accursed."
3 M. 127, " they." 4 M. 87 omits " O my brother."
0 M. 87, " and the love of men which belongs to."
" M. 87 omits " power and honour."
 LAMENT OF THE VIRGIN 211

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ADUO*
 //. Martyrdom of Pilate.
PREFATORY NOTE.
I give in the following pages the text and the translation (ac-
companied bya critical apparatus) of an apocryphal document entitled
Martyrdom of Pilate. Like the previous document it is attributed
to Cyriacus, bishop of Oxyrhynchus, but the real author of all its
historical narrative is, as we learn from the beginning and the end of
the story and from some passages found in the middle of it, Gamaliel
himself. We may, therefore, consider it as a second Gamaliel
apocryphon.
I have edited the text from three independent MSS. Two of
them belong to my own collection of MSS. and are numbered Mingana
Syr. 127 and Mingana Syr. 355 (hereafter M. 127 and M. 355),
The third MS. is Paris Arab. 1521 (hereafter P.). M. 127 and
M. 355 are written in Garshuni (Arabic in Syriac characters) and P. is
in Arabic characters.' From notes that I have ventured to write at the
foot of the following pages, it will be seen that I believe that M. 355
is transcribed from a MS. which was in Arabic characters. The
same conclusion may to some extent be reached with regard to
M. 127.
I have placed the text of M. 127 in the body of the page and the
variants of M. 355 and P. in the footnotes. I have transcribed each
MS. in the characters in which it was found, viz. M. 127 and M. 355
in Garshuni, and P. in Arabic. I have given almost all the variants
of M. 355, but in order not to render the text of the notes very bulky
[ have noted only the most important variants of P. In the final
section, however, which deals with the Apostle John and his voyage
to Rome— a section which is completely missing in M. 127 — I registered
also nearly all the variants of P. As there were only two MSS. to
be dealt with, the footnotes did not appear to me to be abnormally
bulky by the adoption of such a method.

P. 35 in Baron de Slane's Catalogue dcs wamiscrits arabes. In the

" ancient fonds" the number of the MS. was 160.
-About Cod: Vat. Syr. 199, see below.
241
242 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
I have also read Cod, Vat. Syr. 199 which is in Garshuni like
my own MSS. I noticed that it follows generally either M. 127 or
M. 355, and that only occasionally it agrees with P.1
I adopted also the above method for another and a more cogent
reason. The variant readings exhibited by the three MSS. are so
numerous, so varied in character and so important that I have come to
the conclusion that they represent three more or less different recensions
of the story, and that P. was executed with an eye on the interest of
Egyptian Christians. Now to condense in a single narrative the text
of three different recensions of a story is almost an impossibility. The
problem could have been better solved if I had edited separately the
text of all M. 127, all M. 355, and all P. as I did in the case of the
Apocryphal Jeremiah* but the story did not appear to me to be of
such importance as to justify this course.
M. 127 is dated 1994 of the Greeks (A.D. 1683), and it is the
same MS. as that which contains the above documents dealing with
the Virgin Mary and the death and resurrection of Christ or the
Lament of the Virgin as I have called it. M. 355 has no date,
but may be ascribed to about A.D. 1800. P. is assigned by Baron
de Slane to the 16th Christian century, which is probable, with the
sole reservation that I am tempted to place it towards the end
rather than the beginning or the middle of the 16th century.
In the translation I only registered in the footnotes the most
important variants which seemed to me likely to throw light on the
sources of the author. Further, I did not attempt to correct the
numerous lexicographical and grammatical mistakes found in the text
of the three MSS. for reasons given in the preface of the previous
document.
The document appears to me to be, like its predecessors, exclusively

1 The photographs of the pages of the MS. were kindly communicated

by Mr. Crum, but they came to me too late to be utilised for the text. To
give the reader a fairly accurate idea of the peculiarities of the MS. I placed
at the end of the edition the important variants of the first half of the story,
but I have done this only in cases in which V. 199 — as we may call the MS.
— differs from the other three MSS. which I have utilised for my edition.
It will be useful here to remark that V. 199 contains (against M. 127) the
final part of the story which deals with the Apostle John and his voyage to
Rome.
2 In my Woodbrooke Studies, vol. i., pp. 1 48-233.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 243
Coptic in origin. Among the Christian Churches of the East it is only
the Coptic Church that considers Pilate as a saint and holds a feast in
his honour. The Syrian Churches while not so hostile to Pilate as
the Western Churches, do not certainly go so far as to make a saint
of him, in spite of the fact that a West Syrian Patriarch bore the
name Pilate?
That the document falls within the circle of the Ada Pilati and
the 'Avafopd UL\O.TOV goes without saying.2 The Anaphora seems
to presuppose the Ada, itself later than the TrapaSocris HtXarov
which relates, like the present document, that the Emperor summoned
Pilate to Rome to answer for the crucifixion of Jesus, and there con-
demned him to death. In my opinion all these Greek documents
emanate also from Egypt, and Egypt alone. They have nothing to
do with Syria and Palestine, and have very little in common with the
Churches of the West.
The reader will doubtless notice from my foot-notes that I have
compared the present document with the Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic
apocrypha so ably edited and translated by Budge, and also with
some other parallel documents.

TRANSLATION.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
we will begin with the help and assistance of God to write the
history 3 of Pilate, the Governor of the City of Jerusalem.4 May his
prayers be with the children of baptism. Amen.

1 Assemani, Bibl. Orient.^ ii. 325. The tradition of the Ethiopic Church
is to the effect that Pilate reported Longinus (one of the soldiers who had
crucified Jesus) to Tiberius, who had him brought and tortured. See Book
of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church (edit. Budge), iv. 1 146.
2 The two redactions of these two documents are edited by Tischenodorf
in his Evang, Afocr., p. 433 sqq. (2nd edit). All these Greek documents
are
The either analysed
Apocryphal Newor Testament.
translated in M. R. James* useful and handy work :

3 P. calls the story:

doxology. "Martyrdom of Pilate" immediately Rafter the
4 P. and M. 127 often write the word Jerusalem with a yodh at the
beginning in the Hebrew way instead of an Alapk according to the Arabic
and Syriac mode of writing. This tends to prove their Egyptian origin.
See my note in Woodbrooke Studies, TO!, i., p. 153.
244 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

A treatise composed by the holy Cyriacus,1 bishop of the town of

Bahnasa,2 on the resurrection of our Lord from the dead, and on the
tribulations undergone by Pontius3 Pilate in the holy city, at the time
of the crucifixion. In it he makes mention also of Joseph of Arimathaea
and Nicodemus, the venerable chiefs, and of the persecution suffered
by Pilate at the hand of the Jews for the name of Christ — to whom
be glory and worship — and of the torments inflicted on him by Herod
before he was sent by the latter to the Metropolis, the great city of
Rome, where his head was cut off and his martyrdom completed.*
The story is told as found in the copy written by Gamaliel and Horus,5
the good, pious, and respectable teachers in all things dealing with
God. They wrote it, because they were present with Joseph and
Nicodemus and witnessed the ordeals of Christ which became the
source of our life, and His glorious resurrection. They related that
they wrote this martyrdom 6 after the prodigies and miracles that took
place in the tomb of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, consequent upon
His resurrection from the dead, and at the end of the machinations
and intrigues of the wicked Jews. May the peace of God be with
us. Amen.
When our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified in the place called
Kranion? which being interpreted means a row of stones — and it is

1 P. has Hyriacus or Horiacus and so also M. 355 prima manu. See

about him in my note above, p. 182, About the child Horus or Harpokrates
see Budge's Coptic Apocrypha, p. 184.
'2See the previous document, p. 182.
3 An unusually bad error has been committed by Baron de Slane in his
Catalogue des Manuscrits Arabes (de la Bibliotheque Nationale), p. 35.
Having read the word Bitnti as Nabati (in Arabic characters the simple
transposition of the dot of nun and ba\ he translated the sentence as " Pilate
le Nabateen " instead of " Pontius Pilate"
4 M. 127 has " where Andrew Pilate."
'"P. gives the name as Anaius (Anayos). This Anaius appears to me to
be the man called Aeneas in the Coptic fragments of the Gospel of Nicodemus
'{James* Apocryphal N. T., p. 95), where he states that he was the " Protector
of praetorian rank, learned in the law " and avers that he translated from
Hebrew into Greek, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius, the memorials
concerning Jesus, which were deposited with Pontius Pilate. See Aeneas'
own preface to the Coptic Acta Pilati in Pat. Orient., ix., p. 65 sqq.
6 Or "this confession."
7 Al-akranlon (Calvary). Here as in the preceding treatise, the author
is transliterating the Greek tcpaviov.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 245

the Golgotha1 — the venerable chiefs Joseph and Nicoderaus got

possession of His body and placed it in a new tomb. The Virgin
Mary began then to weep and to show a keen desire to go to the
tomb of her Son, but she could not do so from fear of the Jews,
because it was the Sabbath Day, which follows Friday, and in it no
one was allowed to proceed anywhere or to undertake any work.
When the morning of Sunday arrived Mary took with her other
women ' who carried with them sweet spices and perfumes with
which to anoint the tomb of the Saviour. And Mary3 preceded
the other women who followed her to the sepulchre early in the
morning.
When she4 reached the sepulchre she found the stone rolled
away from it, and while in a state of amazement, she looked into the
place in which lay the body of Jesus, but did not find it ; she found,
however, the linen clothes lying there, and the napkin that was over
the head separated from the linen clothes and wrapped together in a
place by itself. She saw also two angels in white sitting, the one at
the head and the other at the feet.3
While she was weeping she turned herself back and saw the
Saviour standing, and He said to her : ' Woman, why are you
weeping ? " She, supposing Him to be the gardener answered Him
saying : " Sir, if you have borne Him hence tell me where you have
laid Him, and I will go and take Him away. And the Saviour said
to her : "O Mary." And she answered and said " Rabboni "
-which is to say My Master. 'You rose, O my Son and my God,
•and your resurrection is magnificent, because you rose and granted
salvation to the human kind, but O my Son and my God, I am

1 The author has used the Greek and the Semitic form of the Calvary.
I can find no probable support for his interpretation " Row of Stones."
2 M. 355 and M. 127 mention here their names which are Mary
Magdalene and Salome.
3 M. 355 adds here " Magdalene" which seems to contradict the trend
of the narrative of the story. There is no doubt that the document, against
John xxi. 18, believes that it was the Virgin Mary and not Mary Magdalene
that went first to the sepulchre. This error is also committed by the author
of the so-called Gospel of the Twelve Apostles (Pat. Orient., ii., p. 130).
4 M. 127 uses here the plural form : They reached, they found.
5 Cf. John xx. 7. M. 127 and partly M. 355 add here: "And the
angels said to her, ' What ails thee and why seekest thou the living among the
•dead? " (Luke xxiv. 5).
 246 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

amazed at your having allowed l these wicked people to inflict on you

all these sufferings." And the Saviour said to her, " I have already
told you all this before it happened."
And when His mother heard what He said to her and ascertained
that it was He, she rejoiced and wished ardently to go near Him and
worship Him. She was indeed so overjoyed that she thought she was
dreaming. But He said to her : " Do not come near Me, because I
have not gone yet to My Father. This is the reason why no corporeal
being is able to approach Me and touch Me. Go you rather to My
brethren and announce to them this joy which you have witnessed, and
tell them to go to Galilee where they shall see Me.2 Lo, I have told
you." Then the Virgin Mary began to ask the Saviour, her Son, con-
cerning the events that took place at the hands of the wicked Jews on
the day of the Crucifixion, when He was hanging on the wood of the
Cross and she was standing near Him and weeping, and He explained
to her all the events that she had witnessed, one by one.
She said to Him : " O my beloved Son, O Life of my spirit and
Master of my soul and body, why did you cry and say on the wood
of the Cross, ' Eloi, Eloi, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' 3 And also,
' Scripture is fulfilled,' and also ' Father, into Thy hands I commend
my spirit.' " 4 And He answered and said to her : " O my beloved
mother, I cried to the Father with a sigh, like an only Son to His
Father, and asked Him to allow Me to die,5 in order to redeem with
My death the death of Adam whom sin had killed and whom the
sentence of death had cast into Hades. Yes, O mother, I cried to
the Father and implored Him to look upon My humiliation and have
pity on Adam and grant him another grace. And when I remembered
his hunger and thirst I said, 'I thirst,'6 and asked the Father on his
behalf to quench his thirst from the water of the eternal life. When
my side was pierced with a spear,7 and I drank the cup 8 which all
men are bound to drink, I asked the Father that on the day of my
rising from the dead I might raise Adam from the death of sin, since I
was pierced in my side because of him.
1 1 follow here P. There are in these sentences profound discrepancies
between the three MSS.
2 Cf. Matt, xxviii. 7 ; Mark xvi. 7.
3 Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 33. 4 Luke xxiii. 46.
6 1 follow P. and M. 127. e John xix. 28.
7 John xix. 34. ' Cf. Matt. xxvi. 39.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 247

" O my mother, the hierarchies of Heaven scoffed at Adam and

complained about him to the Father saying, ' All this happened to
your only Son because of an earthly man on whom you breathed the
breath of life.' The Father, however, rebuked them and said ' This
is the creation of my hand and I love Him more than you.' Hades
complained l about him to Me and said, ' Let me cast him into the
bottom of the pit,' but I rebuked it and said ' Shut up your mouth,
you will no more rise and seize Adam and cast him into the depths.
He does not deserve now to be with you for one single hour. I came
now to break up and smash your doors and throw you to the lowest
depths, and to raise Adam to the heights.'
' The tormenting angels of Hell whose habit is to turn towards the
west began then to vociferate, and they kindled fires which they inflamed
with pitch and sulphur and shouted concerning the sin of Adam and
said : ' Let us destroy him and throw him to the great sufferings of
the fire of Hell.' Further, when they heard my conversation with
him at the time I was lifted on the wood of the Cross and my saying
to him : ' O Adam, it is for your sake that all this has happened to
me ' they cried and said, ' Deliver him into our hands, sir, and we
will do to him what he rightly deserves, and we will destroy him as if
he had never existed.' I rebuked them, however, and sternly reproved
them, and I disclosed to them the fact that I have shed My precious
blood for him so that I might save him and give him a share in My
Kingdom.
" O my mother, I remembered the sadness and sorrowfulness that
fell to the lot of Paradise. I recalled, O my mother, the mournfulness
of Paradise and the fact that it was empty from the time in which
Adam was driven out of it. Through My Passion and My Cruci-
fixion meant
I to restore Adam to Paradise. Did you not know,
then, O my mother, why I remained nine months in your womb, and
do you not understand the cause of my coming into this world ? Did
you not know that the events about which the ancient prophets have
prophesied had to take place ? Did you not realise that all this had
to happen and that I had to deliver the rest of the captives from the
hands of the enemy, and bring them out of the prison of Hades ?
The future tense is generally used in the following sentences in M. 127
and M. 355. For some of the above details cf. the Coptic Book of the
Resurrection by the Apostle Bartholomew
18 in Budge's Coptic Apocrypha, p.
197 v*& passim.
 248 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

" I suffered all what I did suffer in order to elevate the elect to the
heights of Heaven. I interceded with the Father on their behalf, not
only by words but by the shedding of My blood on the Cross before
you,1 in order to deliver them and Adam their father from the evil
consequences of his transgression. I do not hold him, therefore,
responsible for the blasphemies uttered against Me for his sins, nor
answerable for My thirst, for the crown of thorns which was placed
on my head, for the hanging of my body on the wood of the Cross,
and for the death which I accepted for him. On the contrary I asked
the Father to forgive him all his sins. Have patience, O my mother,
and I will ask the Father to tear up the written document of the
slavery of Adam. O my mother, what would be the utility of this
shedding of My blood on the earth if I did not raise this body to
Heaven ? In this day the heavenly beings will be reconciled with the
terrestrial ones. Go now, in joy, O my mother, because I rose from
the dead. I have demolished the wall of partitions2 of Hades, and
I have opened the door of Paradise for the thief at My right. I have
also opened the door of Heaven before the angels 3 and they flapped
their wings, the archangels girded their loins with their shining and
majestic girdles, the heavenly powers danced with hymns and canticles,
the Cherubim4 and Seraphim began their glorifications, the Dominions
desired to contemplate intensely the glory of My divinity, and the
Thrones stood before the Throne." {
This is what the Saviour told His mother near the door of the
tomb by way of consolation. He further said to her : " No corporeal
man can touch Me because I am clad in an imperishable garment and
immortal robe, till the time in which I shall ascend to My Father."
When He uttered these words He disappeared from her sight and
recommended her to tell His disciples to go to Galilee where they
would see Him. When the women returned and narrated to the
disciples the words which they had heard from the Saviour, they did
not believe them, but fear did not allow them to show themselves to
anyone until they repaired to Galilee.
1 1 follow P. in this sentence. 2 Cf. Ephes. ii. 14.
3 P., " The doors of heaven are to-day open before me."
4 P. writes the word with a shin instead of a Kaf. See my remark in
the Woodbrooke Studies, vol. i., p. 188.
5 There are some discrepancies here between the MSS. and some verbs
are in the aorist tense.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 249
When Pilate noticed all the miracles and prodigies that emanated
from the tomb of the Saviour, he went to his house and prepared a
great banquet for the poor and the needy on account of the joy that
he experienced at the resurrection of the Saviour ; this was even more
so in the case of Procula/ his wife, because she loved the Saviour
intensely on account of what she had seen in her dream concerning
Him. She had already made preparations to go and see the tomb in
which the Saviour was placed in order to worship Him and know
the precise spot in which His body was laid. A company of Jews,
however, became cognisant of her plan and went and apprised
their chiefs and told them that the wife of Pilate was in that very night
proceeding to the tomb. These wicked people circulated the news
among themselves, and after a conference, decided to lie in wait for her
in order to seize her and kill Pilate.
They, therefore, summoned Barnaban,2 the robber, and said to
him : " We do not need to remind you of all the benefactions which
we have showered on you. We set you free and delivered you from
prison against the wish of the Governor, and we crucified Jesus of
Nazareth in your place. We want you now to accompany us to-night
to the tomb of Jesus and to do your best for us. It has come to our
knowledge that that wicked foreigner, called Pilate, wishes to go with
his wife and his children to the tomb of Jesus in order to worship Him.
We will lie in wait for them and you will help us to kill them, destroy
Pilate and plunder their possessions."
The affair appealed to Barnaban and pleased him exceedingly.
He desired to possess something as he had come out of prison a pauper
and a mendicant. When he heard, therefore, of possessions to plunder
he was glad because he loved gold and silver. He was the brother
of the w*ife of Judas who is from the wicked and perverse stock.3 The

1 Procula or Procla (in the text Abrukald) is also the name of the wife
of Pilate in the Gospel of Nicodemus in Migne's Diet, des Apocryphes, i.,
1105. See James* Apocr. New Testament, p. 155. That she became
a Christian is a tradition confirmed by an author as early as Origen (Horn.
on Mt., 35). She is considered a saint in the Greek Church where she
has a feast on October 27th. Some writers have even identified her with
Claudia of 2 Tim. iv. 21. This, however, is a pure fiction.
' There seems to be no doubt that this Barnaban is the robber Barabbas
of Matt. xvii. 1 7-26, etc., who has been preferred to Christ.
3 Does he mean the stock of Herod or that of the Jews ?
250 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

wife of Barnaban, the sister of Judas, used to urge her husband to ask
his Master 1 to intervene and deliver her brother from prison. Judas
asked this several times of the Saviour, who, however, did not pay any
heed to his saying and neglected it, because He was aware of what
the man was going to be. When the sister noticed that He did not
speak on behalf of her brother, she forsook Him completely. This
was also on account of what her husband used to steal from the bag.2
She began then to pay visits to the wives of the priests and incite them
to crucify the Saviour.
After this the wicked company of the Jews resolved to kill Pilate
with his wife and his children and to plunder his possessions. When
I Gamaliel learned the conspiracy of these wicked people I did not
neglect the matter, but I hastened to Joseph of Arimathaea, who had
shrouded the body of the Saviour, and I disclosed to him the conspiracy
of the Jews and their evil plot. When he heard it he hastened to the
court and informed Pilate, the Governor, of what the Jews had plotted
and were about to do to him. Whereupon Pilate summoned a com-
pany of his troops and revealed to them what had taken place ; and
he informed also the sentinels of the town and told them to be on their
guard.
Then the God-loving Procula, wife of Pilate, arose in the night,
took with her her maid- servants, her ladies-in-waiting and a number
of private attendants3 and proceeded to the tomb of the Saviour.
She worshipped in the tomb and spread on it and also on the wood
of the holy Cross perfumes of high value and sweet spices of exquisite
scent. She then lit up many lamps in the tomb and burned much
incense therein. While they were standing near the tomb the servants
of the Jewish priests and a band of men and officers4 with attendants,
and a great company from the party of the elders arose and proceeded
with the robber Barnaban to the tomb of the Saviour and to the spot
where the womenfolk of Pilate were praying. Then the soldiers of
Pilate sprang on them with swords, spears and stones, put them to
the sword,5 seized the robber Barnaban, bound him with fetters and
brought him to Pilate.
1 I.e. the Christ.
2 Cf. John xiii. 29. P. and M. 355 : " On account of the revenue that
accrued to her from the thefts of her husband."
8 M. 355 says only : " Her maid-servants."
4 Cf. John xviii. 3. 6 P. omits this sentence.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 251

When Pilate saw him he asked him : " Are you the robber
Barnaban whom I released from prison, and instead of whose blood
we shed innocent blood ? That innocent blood which we have
unjustly shed will not fail to wreak vengeance on the one who acted
towards him in an iniquitous way. To-day will redound on you all
the evil, theft, robbery by violence, and homicide which you have
perpetrated in this town, the inhabitants of which chose to release you
and ransom you with the blood of Jesus. Now, O wretched and
miserable one, God will show His justice towards you to-day. O
robber, the shedding of the blood of Jesus with which they ransomed
your own blood will not be slow in avenging itself on you." Then
Pilate ordered that they should take Barnaban to the place where the
Saviour was crucified, that they should crucify him there head down-
wards, that they should pierce him with a spear before he expired,
that they should break the bones of his legs in order that he might die
quickly, on account of all the untruthfulness told by his people. The
soldiers of Pilate took him, did with him what Pilate had ordered,
and killed him,1 five days ' after the resurrection of the Saviour.
When this took place the Jewish people became incensed against
Pilate and began to say to one another : " Comrades, Barnaban 3 has
gone from us and Pilate is left. Come, let us write a report about
Pilate from King Herod to the Emperor Tiberius Caesar, and ask
him to kill him for us ; we will give three talents 4 of gold to Herod
in order that he may help us to murder him." Many Jews, then,
men and women, tore up their clothings, threw ashes on their heads,
and repaired to King Herod in Galilee. They began to vociferate,
and their clamour reached such a pitch that the town was in a state
of commotion. They shouted and said : " How is it that we have
no king to-day except Pilate the foreigner, who is from the land of
Egypt ? 5 And they clamoured and said : " He has thwarted and

1 M. 127 adds here ; " And he went to hell, and an evil journey it is."
This last sentence is from Kur, ii., 120, etc.
'2 M. 355 " five months."
3 P. has "Jesus," which seems to be a better text.
4 A Kintar in terms of gold generally weighs a hundred rails and is
worth one thousand dinars (denarii).
0 1 have not come across a good authority for this statement apart from the
Coptic fragments referred to in my note below, p. 254. Crum adds in Journal
of Egyptian Archeology (1927, p. 23), that the Ethiopic translation has
252 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
despised the injunctions of the King, changed our habits and customs,
and destroyed the laws of our fathers in conjunction with Joseph and
Nicodemus. How is it that all power has gone from Herod ? We
ask your Majesty as our King, to deliver us from him.1 He has
killed Barnaban whom you had ordered to be released from prison on
account of his courage and valour in his fight for the King and in his
endeavour to defeat the King's enemies. He did all this without
consulting the King and on the advice of Joseph and Nicodemus.
Now you are competent to judge between us and him and to write
and inform the Emperor Caesar of his affair and of all that he did to
us for the sake of Jesus of Nazareth."
Herod became then incensed against Pilate and wrote about him
many lying things which he sent to Tiberius Caesar, and despatched
with his report men of high standing among the Jews in order to render
his report more effective. It happened that the letters of Herod
preceded those of Pilate by one day. The Jews read them to the
Emperor with all the slanders and iniquitous testimonies which they
contained, and asked him to kill Pilate and his confederates. In the
morning the letters of Pilate reached the Emperor,2 and in them was
an account of all the deeds of Jesus, His crucifixion, His death, His
resurrection from the dead, the quaking of the earth, the eclipse of the
sun, and the destruction of the idols and their falling from their thrones
on the day of His crucifixion.
When the Emperor Tiberius read and heard what the Jews had
done to the Saviour at His crucifixion, he wept on account of the deep
sorrow that he felt ; and when he reached the place in which were
the names of the heads of the Jews who were the cause of the cruci-
fixion of Jesus, he found that some of them were among those who
had come to him in order to vent their grievances about Pilate. He,

Pilatos Masari (B.M. 690, fol. 99*), "Pilate the Magician," which would
simply be a mistranscription of the Arabic masri " the Egyptian." The
Melchite Eutychius (in C.S.C.O., i., 91) contends that Pilate was of Italian
origin, from an island named Pontah and situated near Rome.
1 This sentence is found in P. only.
2 That Pilate wrote a report to Tiberius concerning Jesus is suggested
by Justin (I Ap. 35), Tertullian (Ap. 21), and Eusebius (H.E. ii. 2). I
cannot decide with certainty if there is any historical value in this suggestion,
but the report cannot be the one implied in the present document nor those
reports preserved in Greek and Syriac and printed by Tischendorf and
Rahmani respectively.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 253

therefore, summoned them before him and said to them : " O chiefs
of iniquity, here is the letter of Pilate, and he is testifying against you
that it was you who crucified Jesus of Nazareth. 1 will order now
that none of you be left alive in the world on account of your cruel
deeds to Jesus. He ordered, therefore, that they should be killed and
their bodies be hung on the heights that surmounted the gates of the
city. Then he sent a messenger after Pilate and summoned him
before him in order that he might tell him the truth concerning the
miracles that emanated from the tomb of the Saviour.
When the messenger of the Emperor reached Jerusalem, the
chiefs of the Jews assembled and went to Herod, and apprised him
of the arrival of the messenger of the Emperor for the purpose of
summoning Pilate, Joseph and Nicodemus. They spoke to him out
of their spite and jealousy and told him that they would bribe the
messenger if he would kill Pilate, but he said to them that he was
unable to do so without the sanction of the Emperor. In the morning
Herod came to Jerusalem to have a word with Pilate on the affair.
When Pilate heard this he went to his wife and said to her : " O my
sister Procula,1 arise and hide in a place on account of what Herod is
going to do to me. The mob, the heads of the Jewish people and the
messenger of the Emperor have come. I do not know if they have
come to take off my head or to torment me for the sake of the Saviour.
Arise you, take your children and go out of this town. Watch, how-
ever, over my body if they are bent on taking off my head. Give
silver to the soldiers and redeem my body from them, shroud it, and
place it near the tomb of my Lord Jesus in order that His grace may
overtake me. Do this even if you have to give all my possessions for
the purpose."
When his wife heard these words she tore up her garments, and
began to pluck the hair of her head, saying, " What are these words
you are uttering to me, my lord Pilate. Have I not sufficient pain
in my heart on account of what you did with Jesus in crucifying Him ?
To tell you the truth, O brother, you have comforted my heart to-day
in apprising me of your possible death. If God did not spare His
only Son but delivered Him up for us,2 neither I nor you will flee from
1 This sentence is missing in M. 127 and the previous sentences are
somewhat differently worded in the three MSS.
~ Cf. Rom. viii. 32.
254 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

death for Him. What utility shall we have from our nation ? l
O brother, if you love me more than you love Him, it is blameworthy.
God knows that we are both of us one body, and as we did not
separate from each other in this world, neither we nor our children
should be separated the one from the other in the Kingdom of

Heaven."
While Procula, the wife of Pilate, was saying this, the troops
came and surrounded him and took him to the court of Herod, in
the presence of the messenger of the Emperor, who said : " Are you
Pilate who said ' There is no hand over my hand ? 2 How did you
kill this Jesus without consulting the Emperor ? " Pilate did not give
him any answer to this question but only said : " My lord, if these
have had so little fear of God as to crucify His beloved Son, I am
prepared to die for His holy name, I have faith that if I die for His
name I shall possess the eternal life, and you will not impede me from
His glory." The Jewish people said then to the messenger of the
Emperor : " What is the utility of speaking to him while he insults
you in the Coptic language ? "
Immediately after (the envoy of the Emperor) gave orders that he
should be stripped of his clothes, that a napkin should be tied round
his loins, and that he should be flagellated with a rough whip. Herod
incited them to flog him well, and the Jewish people said : " O Pilate
all the sufferings you inflicted on Barnaban have now come back on
your own head. You prided yourself and said that you were the
Governor, and the Emperor. Now no power of any kind remains to
you in the city of Jerusalem." Pilate bore with patience this taunt
while he was being flogged with the whip, and his innocent blood
flowed profusely on the ground before them like flowing water.
Then his wife Procula hastened and came to him and began to
urge and encourage him, saying, " O martyr, O my brother Pilate,
how I wish to die with the death with which you will die ! " The
Jews seized her immediately with her hair and threw her before her

1 Found only in P. 2 I.e., more powerful than I am.

3 That Pilate was of Egyptian origin is also the statement of the Coptic
fragments edited by Revillout (No. 4) in Pat. Orient., ii., p. 151, seqq. and
Robinson, Copt. Apocryphal Gospels, p. 176. Cf. James, Apocr. N.T.,
p. 148. See also my note abore p. 251 and Crum in J.E.A., 1927,
P. 23.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 255

husband in order to intensify his affront and indignity.1 The holy

Procula, however, was jubilant in her heart and began to say : " O
my brother Pilate, the beginning of this first honour that came to me 1
offer to Christ and to His holy name." :
The Jews then said to Pilate : " Know that this punishment
which is inflicted on you is not for what you have done to Jesus of
Nazareth, but for your murdering of Barnaban." And he replied to
them : " Would that I could be found worthy to be crucified with
my wife and children for the name of Jesus, and that He could be
left alive to me ; but I believe, rather I am sure of the fact, that He is
alive and that He has eternal life, which He imparts to all believers
in Him." The Jews answered Him and said : " O Pilate, your life
is like His life and your lot is similar to His lot." And he said :
" Amen. My life is with Him, and His judgment will be on you
and your children." : The Jews then sprang upon him, and some of
them slapped him, some others struck him on the face, and some
others insulted him and reviled him saying : " We will not release you
until you die on the wood like your God Jesus."
When the messenger of the Emperor noticed the intensity of their
hatred against him he took him from their hands and said to them :
' The Emperor has not permitted me to do this, nor has he ordered
me to torture him and to kill him, until I have brought him before
him." The Jews, however, satisfied him with much money and said
to him : " Kill him and his affair will not reach the ears of the
Emperor." And they asked him to give them permission to drag him
in the streets of the town bound with fetters and accompanied by his
bare-headed wife ; and this was granted to them. How bitter was
the weeping in Jerusalem, when people saw Pilate and his wife with
their hands bound with fetters behind their back and dragged in the
streets, while the Jews were applauding and saying : " This is like the
crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth ! " When the hirelings were tired of

1 Sic P., but M. 127 : "in order to insult her" and M. 355 : " in order
toYaJikiruha
burn her."andA Yahrukuha.
slight graphic error arising
19 in Arabic characters between

'2 Sz'c P., but M. 127 and M. 355 : " the beginning of your honour offer
it to ..."
3 Sic P., but M. 127 and M. 355 : " My judgment is on the Jews and
their children."
256 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
the work of dragging they threw them in prison while still bound with
iron fetters, but beaming with joy.
Then the false witnesses and teachers of error sat and wrote many
lies about Pilate, saying : " This is Pilate who said, ' There is no hand
over my hand and no other king beside me.' This is Pilate who ab-
rogated our prescriptions. This is the one who demolished our syna-
gogues, inwhich people read the law and the commandments. This
is the one who killed the indomitable Barnaban." When they wrote
this they began to bring accusations against Joseph and Nicodemus, and
they brought them bound with fetters l before Herod, as they had done
with Pilate. He ordered them to be flogged and their possessions
plundered, like Pilate's, and they were so much weakened by scourg-
ing and so impoverished that they resembled Job at the time of his
poverty.
Then the iniquitous Jews sat and conspired together to burn the
tomb of the Saviour on account of the prodigies and miracles that they
saw emanating from it, and they asked for the wood of the cross to be
burnt likewise. Joseph, however, had taken it and placed it in a
hidden place in the sepulchre. The Jews, therefore, brought fire
which they kindled round the sepulchre, but it did no harm of any
kind to it, nor did it reach it ; and to hide their shame, they hid ' the
entrance of the sepulchre and placed a stone over it in order that no
one might penetrate into it. The Jews did all this.
When Pilate and his wife, and Joseph and Nicodemus, were in
prison, Herod asked the messenger of the Emperor to empower him
to send Joseph and Nicodemus to their own town and to kill them
therein, but the messenger of the Emperor did not allow him to do
so. Then the Jews asked Herod to secure for them from the mes-
senger of the Emperor a permit which would allow them to crucify
Pilate like his Master, and when they bribed him with much money
he delivered Pilate to them in order that they might crucify him and
kill him.
While they had conspired thus to kill Pilate with his wife and his
children, lo, the keepers of the prison came to Pilate shaking and
trembling. They began to implore the messenger of the Emperor,
saying : " O our lord the Vizier, either do with Pilate what you have
1 " Bound with fetters " is only found in P.
2 Or "they sealed."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 257

intended to do with him, or take him away from us.1 From the time
you have ordered him to be imprisoned with his wife, they have not
been left alone, but a spiritual man is constantly with them, whose
light is more dazzling even than that of the sun. We saw him com-
ing down from Heaven and embracing them, after which the fetters
and shackles with which they were bound were torn up, and their iron
melted like water from their feet ; further, the column to which they
were tied bent down and worshipped that spiritual being, and it is
even now in that bent state, inclining to the ground."
Then they asked them and said : ' What is the description of
that man ?" And they answered : " He is a Galilean by appear-
ance, and his hair is beautiful and flowing in curls round him." He
spoke at a great length with Pilate and his wife, and said to him, ' O
Pilate, you shall be crucified on the wood of the Cross like me, and
they shall place a crown of thorns on your head like me, but they will
not be able to kill you here : they will take you to the Emperor
Tiberius, before whom you will stand and who will order you to be
crucified a second time.' They were also having much intimate con-
versation with each other."
When the Jews heard these words from the gaolers an intense fear
seized them and their hearts palpitated. They began to say to one
another : " Even if they kill us and kill our children we will kill and
crucify Pilate." Then Herod enjoined the gaolers not to repeat these
words before anybody else until Pilate was killed. When Pilate heard
these words he was greatly pleased.
Meanwhile the Jews advanced much silver to the messenger of the
Emperor — and it amounted to such a quantity that it carried conviction,
and he allowed them to crucify him. Then they rushed like mad dogs
to the gaol in order to take him out and crucify him.3 When they
entered the gaol they found him smiling and joyful, while the fetters
were loosed from him and from his wife, and the column was leaning
towards the ground like a tree bent by the force of the wind.
The Jews took then Pilate and his wife and brought them to the
open court. They stripped him of his garments, tied a napkin round
his waist to cover his nudity, and began to march them through all the
1 P., " Do not take him from us."
'2 M. 127, " He is Jesus of Nazareth."
3 All these sentences are only found in P.
 258 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
city until they reached the spot where they had crucified the two
malefactors, and they crucified him there.
God, however, who is full of mercy, inculcated forgetfulness into
the mind of the Jews so that none of them stretched an evil hand
towards the wife of Pilate. Indeed, she was standing near him urging
and encouraging him, saying : " O my brother Pilate, remember the
One who comforted you and came to you in this very night. Endure
and bear your tribulations for His name." And when they were intend-
ing to lift him on the cross, they remembered the Cross of the Saviour,
and for this they immediately opened the sepulchre and took the wood
of the cross and crucified Pilate on it. They fastened him tightly on
it with nails, placed on his head a crown of thorns, arrayed him in
a purple garment,1 and began to pierce his side with a spear while
shouting and saying : '* O Pilate, disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, if your
Master has risen from the dead come down from the cross, and we
will believe in Him." 2
The blessed Pilate began to pray while hanging on the cross, and
said : " O my Lord, 1 have polluted your holy cross by the hanging
of my body on it, because it is a pure wood and my body is an impure
body ; your blood is an innocent blood, and my blood 3 is carnal. I
do not weep now, O my Lord, because I have been crucified for your
name, but I weep because I have defiled and polluted your holy cross.
I do not sigh, O my Lord, for help, but I shed tears because you have
borne all these sufferings for us sinners. I do not weep, O my Lord,
because they have crucified me.4 Have pity on me, your sinning
servant, who has been lifted up on your holy cross, as I am not worthy
of all these benefits. I do not sigh because of my nudity, but I Weep
for your deep humility andi self-effacement.5 Now I ask you, O my
Lord Jesus Christ, not in my own name, but for the glory of your
Majesty and the honour of your Cross, to grant rest " and a happy lot

1 Cf. John xix. 2-5. Note how the author is at some pains here and else-
where to reproduce in the case of Pilate all the incidents of the Passion of
Christ.
? Cf. Matt, xxvii. 43.
3 1 follow V. 199. The three other MSS. have " body " for " blood."
4 The preceding sentences are only found in P.
5 In the above sentences I have taken the best wording represented by
the three MSS.
6 Syr. niyaha.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 259
to my poor soul. Grant rest to me, your servant Pilate, to your
maidservant Procula, and to my children, in the day in which you will

come to judge the world." ]

This is what Pilate said, and his God-loving wife Procula
approached him, kissed his legs while he was hanging on the wood
of the cross, and said : " Why are you weeping on the wood of the
Cross ? You are ahead of us in sitting before the throne of the Judge.
You are ahead of us in lighting your lamp at the wedding of your
Lord Jesus Christ. You are ahead of us, O my brother Pilate, in
lying in the banquet of a thousand years." You are ahead of us in
wearing the diadem of the king in the dignified law court of Judgment.
Blessed are you, O Pilate, for having been lifted up on the wood of
the cross, and this lifting will make you worthy of sitting in the
Kingdom of Heaven."
This is what the blessed Procula said under the cross, while all
eyes were gazing at her. She further said : " You have preceded us
and sat before the throne of judgment. Now you have lit your lamps
in the at
scoff wedding of your
her and Master."
at Pilate. ThenAnd
two the Jews came
crowns began down
to rail from
and
Heaven, equal to each other in glory and majesty, and a voice from
Heaven was heard saying : " Know, O Pilate and Procula, that you
will be crowned with these two crowns that came down to you from
Heaven, because of the sufferings you have borne for your God and
your great faith in Him." Then the two crowns disappeared and
went up to Heaven.
When the multitudes noticed this miracle, they hastened and
brought down Pilate from the cross alive, then they heated water for
him and washed his body with it, after which they put on him his
garments, and brought him and his wife Procula to the messenger of
the Emperor and said : "If the Emperor has sent you to destroy this
city, listen to the cruel Herod.3 You do not know his great cunning
1 P. " Give her (my wife) rest and comfort in the day in which she shall
come to you."
- The author seems to hare a tendancy to a millenium. The sentence
is only found in P.
; The author apparently identifies this Herod with Herod Antipas, who
was the son of Herod the Great by Malthace (Josephus, Ant. Jud., xvii. i.
3), and who ordered the death of John the Baptist (Josephus, Ant., xviii. v.
2). In another passage below, p. 265, the author appears to identify this
260 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
and machinations. He became jealous of his brother, took his wife
Herodia from him and killed him with hunger and thirst, through the
hatred and cruelty that are in him. Do you not see what he did in
the city in these days ? He killed a just man because of his own
sympathy with the Jews and God wishes to destroy us all because of
him. What advantage will ever come to Jerusalem if you allowed
Pilate, its Governor, to be murdered in it. Truth to tell it is Herod
that deserves death instead of Pilate. If the Emperor was aware of
the deeds of Herod he would not have empowered him to rule over
this city and torment Pilate and his wife.1 After all the affairs of the
city are in the hands of the Emperor, and Herod has neither a word
to »»say in the matter, nor power and jurisdiction of any kind over
us.
When the Vizier heard these words from the multitude he was
pleased with them, and he released Pilate until he had brought his
case before the Emperor. Now the Emperor had an only son whom
he loved tenderly more than all his kingdom. It happened that the
boy went into a bath to wash,2 and an evil spirit entered there into
him, strangled him and threw him to the ground dead. His father
and mother came then to him with intense grief, in order to take him
and bury him, and they buried him near them and wailed and wept
over him night and day for three complete months. One day when
the Emperor was sitting wailing and weeping over the loss of his son,
his wife came down to him, bowed before him and said to him : " O
my lord, we have had much sorrow and our bereavement has affected
our brain." And the Emperor said to her : " And how has our
brain been affected ? " And she replied to him and said : " O my
lord, I recalled that some time ago the inhabitants of Jerusalem sent to
you a letter concerning a certain Jesus of Nazareth 3 whom the Jews
had crucified, and they reported that He had raised dead men while
He was alive. And Pilate also, the Governor of the town, wrote to
you a letter in which he registered the miracles and prodigies which

Herod with Herod Agrippa i. In the " New Life of John the Baptist "
which I edited and translated in vol. i. of the Woodbrooke Studies (p. 25 1),
Herod Antipas is said to have died of a sudden stroke.
1 M. 127 has no reference to the wife.
2M. 127, "to swim."
3 P. " the prophet"
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 261
He had wrought. He told us that He had raised up the dead,
healed the cripples : and the sick, opened the eyes of the blind and
the ears of the deaf. He further added that many miracles and
prodigies were taking place even now at His tomb. This is the
reason why I said that we have been stupid, that we have been struck
with forgetfulness and our brain has been affected. Indeed, if we
had sent our son, when he died, to His tomb, he would have been
alive now."
When the Emperor heard these words he rose from his forgetful-
ness and remained for a long time in a state of confusion, meditating
over the words of his wife. Then he immediately summoned his
faithful servants ~ and enjoined them to fill vessels with gifts to be sent
to Jerusalem. He also despatched brave and courageous men to the
tomb of his son, which they opened and from which they took the
coffin that contained the body and brought it to the father. When
he saw that all the flesh of his limbs had suffered putrefaction and
disappeared and that nothing was left from his body but the bones,
he and his wife wept bitterly for a long time. Then he took ink, pen
and papyrus,3 and wrote as follows :—
' Tiberius the Emperor of the earth and the servant of the King
of Heaven asks you and implores your love, O my Lord Jesus Christ,
whom I do not know at all, whom I did not perceive, and to whom
I have never had the honour and the worth to speak. A man named
Pilate bore witness to the miracles which you wrought, and reported
that you rose from the dead, and I believed his words ; he told me
that you gave sight to the blind, and I believed this about you ; he
mentioned to me that you made wine out of water, and I did not
doubt it from you ; he wrote also to me that you raised from the dead
a man called Lazarus four days after he had died, and I became
convinced in my mind that you had done it. He also testified and
said that the miracles which you wrought, the tomb in which your
body is laid was also working them. I believed in you and was con-
vinced that you are the Son of God. As you are in heaven so also
you are on the earth and in the tomb. Now, O my Lord, have pity
on the weakness of your servant Tiberius ; remember him with your

*M. 127, "those possessed by demons."

2M. 127, "his agent," P. "the agents of his property."
3 Kirtas means also " parchment."
262 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
grace, and have mercy on the wretchedness of Caesar, my son and
your servant, whom I have sent to your tomb. Grant him life, O my
Lord and my God.1 I heard that you were the resurrection and the
life " to all the dead from Adam till now. I believed that you have
suffered pains in order to deliver the sons of men from the hands of
the enemy. If you will, let your grace overtake me.3 Amen."
After the Emperor had written this letter he sealed and sent it to
his messenger in Jerusalem. He also said to his faithful servants : 4
" Inform yourselves about the tomb of Jesus whom the Jews have
crucified, in which they placed His body and from which He rose the
third day, and lay the body of my son in it. I have faith that my
son whom I am sending dead in a coffin to Jerusalem will come back
to me alive." And they departed and reached Jerusalem with the
letter of the Emperor and the dead body of his son, accompanied by
thousands of attendants, female servants and male servants ; and they
went to Herod and to the messenger of the Emperor.
At that time Pilate and his wife were in prison. In the night the
Lord Jesus Christ appeared to them a second time and said to Pilate :
" Peace be with you, O Pilate ! Peace be with you, you whose name
was the first to be pronounced by the Father's mouth of life.5 It is
inevitable that you should be judged in the court of the Emperor
Tiberius.6 Now is the word of the Father fulfilled, because I stood
before you and you sat and judged me. Be not grieved, O Pilate,
because they have crucified you for me, since this has saved you from
your sin and from the act of your scoffing at me. You have been
flagellated, O Pilate, in order that you might be redeemed of the sin
of my flagellation, which you ordered. Your blood has been shed,
O Pilate, in order that you might be purified from the sin of the
shedding of my blood. You have been lifted up on the wood of the
1 M. 355 and P. add : " And raise him up from the dead in order that I
may believe in you and in your miracles."
2 Cf. John xi. 25.
3 P. adds : " To you is glory due with your good Father and the Holy
Spirit forever and ever," and M. 127 is here : " Have pity on me with your
grace, O most merciful of the merciful." This last expression is from the
Kur'an (Surah vii., verse 150).
4 Here as above M. 127 " his agent," P. however ; " his soldiers."
5 Or "by the mouth of life, the Father." M 127 omits these sentences
altogether.
°M. 355 and P : "of a man called Pilate."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 263
cross, O Pilate, in order that you might be saved from the sin of your
saying to (the Jews) ' Take ye Him and crucify Him.' 1 They have
stripped you of your garments, O Pilate, in order that you might be
absolved from the sin of the stripping of my garments. They have
placed a crown of thorns on your head, O Pilate, in order that you
might be saved from the punishment of the crown of thorns that your
soldiers placed on my head. You have been dragged in the streets of
the town, O Pilate, in order that you might be saved from the sin of
my carrying of the cross which you ordered while in the seat of
judgment. Everything that has happened to you is for the sole reason
that you may be saved from the sin of my death.
"As to your God-loving wife Procula, tell her not to grieve at the
fact that they took her bare-headed, as my own mother Mary was
rendered bare-headed in the town of Jerusalem on the day of my
death. All the inhabitants of 'the earth with their offerings and sacri-
fices are not worth to me a single hair of my mother's head. O Pilate,
tell your wife Procula not to grieve at the fact that they took her out
of her palace and the inhabitants of the town saw her bare-headed, as
Mary, my mother, took me also from country to country and from
town to town and experienced the pains of expatriation."
" O Pilate, as your wife Procula comforted you with her words
at the time of your crucifixion, so my beloved mother comforted me
with her words while I was hanging on the wood of the cross and
said to me : 'I convey you peace, O my beloved Son, and light of
my eyes.' 3 Now, O Pilate, do not be afraid because it is inevitable

1 John xix. 6.
- P. adds : " and of the desert of the mountain of Kuskam." This Kus-
kam is the place in which the holy family took refuge at the time of the
flight of Christ from Herod, according to the Syriac vision of Theophilus,
Patriarch of Alexandria. See Mingana, Syr. 5 ff. 1 - 18^ and Mingana, Syr.
39 ff. 56^-70^, and cf. my note in \Voodbrooke Studies, vol. i., p. 255.
See also R.O.C., xv., 128-132. The place was afterwards called Muhar-
rak, and in due course a church was built in it to commemorate the event.
See Pat. Orient, iii., 255. The place is also referred to in Ethiopic litera-
ture :" Joseph rose up and took our holy Lady, the Virgin Mary, and came
unto the country of Egypt and went to Mount Kues Kuam." Budge's One
Hundred and Ten Miracles of Our Lady Mary, p. 145. Kuskam is the
modern Kus about sixteen miles north of Luxor, but some authorities place
it near the Red Sea.
0 The last clause is found in P. only.
264 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
that you should enter into another fight for me near Tiberius Caesar,
and here is a sign for you to this effect : Caesar, the son of the Emperor,
has arrived here. His father sent him here dead, out of his great faith.
They will soon summon you and deliver you from prison, take him to
the tomb in which my body was laid, and as I gave life to Lazarus
and to the son of the widow in the town of Nain, so I will give life to
this boy because of his father's faith. Grow cheerful, O Pilate, and
fight for my resurrection."
The Saviour spoke these words to Pilate and disappeared from
his sight. When they brought the son of the Emperor, and the
vizier saw that he was dead and that he was accompanied by a
considerable army of soldiers, he and all the town of Jerusalem
were frightened, because they believed that he had died on the way.
They were terrified lest the Emperor should order the town to be
burnt and its inhabitants destroyed, but when they perused the letter
of the Emperor they were struck by the depth of his humility and
the greatness of his faith and were much astonished.
When Herod and the Jewish community heard this news they
feared that the son of the Emperor should rise and live again, and
they conspired with the guards who were keeping watch over the
body of the son of the Emperor, and gave them much gold and
silver in order that they might allow them to take his body stealthily
and hide it ; and the wicked community accomplished what they
had conceived.1
When Pilate was freed from prison for the sake of placing the
body of the son of the Emperor in the tomb of the Saviour, in
company with Joseph and Nicodemus, a Jew came by stealth in the
darkness of the night and stole the body of the son of the Emperor
from the coffin, at the command of Herod and of the priests. In the
morning when they sought the body of the son of the Emperor and
did not find it, all the city was thrown into confusion, and the heads
of the Jews assembled and went to the messenger of the Emperor
and told him that no one could have done this but Pilate, Joseph
and Nicodemus.
When the vizier heard these words he took Joseph and
Nicodemus and scourged them, but no one laid harmful hands on
Pilate, because, the people who had witnessed his crucifixion had
1 This last clause is only found in P.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 265
noticed the crowns that had come down from heaven for him and his
wife. While Joseph and Nicodemus were bound with fetters and in
the power of Herod, Gabriel the head of the angels, came down from
heaven and extended his wings over them, and all the place shone
with light, and he began to speak to them saying : " I am the angel
Gabriel who took the head of John away from the wicked Herod,
the father of the present iniquitous king, and proclaimed his sin in all
the world ; ] I will now destroy this wicked Herod, and he will die
of the pains and hunger which he will experience, and vermin will
breed in his body like his father.2 As to you, O Joseph and
Nicodemus, here is what the Lord says : ' Your sufferings resemble
my sufferings ; you became martyrs, and I, too, was a martyr.' It is I
who delivered you from destruction at the hands of the wicked ones,
and it is I who enjoined the cloud to remove you, and delivered you
from their hands. It is, however, imperative, that you should stand
before the Emperor. As to the body of the son of the Emperor
which the heads of the Jews have concealed in order that the glory of
the Christ might not be made manifest, I shall disclose its hiding-
place and bring it before the people."
This is what the angel Gabriel told the venerable chiefs Joseph
and Nicodemus. And these two blessed ones sent for me, in secret,
me Gamaliel, and narrated to me what the angel had spoken to them,
because, I the weak Gamaliel, was the disciple of these blessed ones.3
When I left them I noticed a great commotion in the town where
people were saying to one another that the coffin containing the body
of the son of the Emperor had been discovered in a Jewish house,
and that the reason for stealing the body was to inculpate Pilate and
discredit the resurrection of our Lord. The news spread in all the
town that Herod and the High Priests of the Jews had connived and
stolen the body of the son of the Emperor.

1 See my edition and translation of A New Life of John the Baptist in

vol. i. of Woodbooke Studies, p. 245 sqq.
• Cf., Acts. xii. 23. It appears from this that the author identifies this
Herod with Herod Agrippa who died in A.D. 44 (Josephus, Ant. Jud. xix.
viii. 2) and who was the son of Aristobulus, son of Herod the Great by
Mariamme, granddaughter of Hyrcanus. There is some confusion in the
author's mind
identified him concerning
with Herod the dynasty of the Herods. He had apparently
Antipas.
°M. 127 has instead: "And I comforted them and strengthened them."
266 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
In the meantime the archangel Gabriel removed the body of the
son of the Emperor from the place in which it was hidden, and brought
it and placed it before the vizier, and disappeared. At that very
moment the vizier was incensed against Herod, and he threw an arrow
at him, which caused him much pain. His body bred worms, and
he died from the intensity of his pain.1 As to the Jews who had
hidden the body of the son of the Emperor, their houses were burnt
together with their sons and daughters, and in this way they died an
ignominious death, more ignominious than that of all men.
The vizier took then Joseph and Nicodemus from prison and
handed to them the body of the son of the Emperor and his coffin ; he
handed also to them2 the letter of the Emperor, and they read it and
were amazed at his wisdom, his deep humility and great faith. Then
they lifted their eyes to heaven and said : " O Lord our God, O
resurrection of the living and the dead, make manifest your power in
the son of the Emperor Tiberius and accept the supplications of his
father and have pity on him as you had pity on the son of the widow
in the town of Nain. With your great power raise his son alive in
order that he may glorify your holy name. Accept, O Lord, the
strong faith of his father as you accepted the strong faith of Mary and
Martha and raised for them their brother Lazarus. Have pity on
him, O Lord Jesus Christ, and comfort the heart of the father by the
resurrection of the son ; give him life, and let your holy sepulchre make
him live again, in order that his faith in you may be strengthened like
the rest, and in order that he may ascertain your resurrection from the

The blessed ones spoke these words over the coffin of the son of the
dead."
Emperor while dead ; then they took him and placed him in the tomb
of the Saviour, and adjusted the stone to the door of the tomb. And
the son of the Emperor remained four days in the tomb with a closed
door, and they experienced deep sorrow at his long stay in the tomb
and at his not having risen quickly. On the fourth day, however, he
rose from the dead, the stone that was at the door of the tomb rolled
away backwards, and the guards, terrified at the sight, went in haste to
Pilate and began shouting and saying : " Come, our lord Pilate, and
1 M. 127 adds here : " And he went to hell, and an evil journey is it ! "
This last sentence is from Kur'an, ii. 1 20, etc.
*M. 127 adds also: "to Pilate,"
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 267
see how the son of the Emperor, who was in the tomb of Jesus, has
risen, and how the stone rolled away without the help of a human

hand."
Pilate then bowed himself to the ground, together with Joseph and
Nicodemus, and worshipped in great joy ; then they all of them with
the vizier of the Emperor and all the army repaired to the tomb of
the Saviour, and they observed that Caesar, the son of the Emperor,
had risen and was sitting over l the coffin in which his body lay. He
appeared bewildered with eyes fixed on the royal garment which he
was wearing. They cried to him, saying : " O Caesar, come out with
the power of the One who raised you. Let our joy be perfect in this
day as in the day in which our Saviour rose from the dead." At that
very moment he jumped and came out of the tomb and sat on the
stone. Then the vizier of his father approached him, bowed down
and worshipped before him and said to him : " O my lord, what
happened to you and why are you in a state of stupefaction ? " And
he answered saying :—
" I am bewildered at the greatness of the glory, kingdom and
power of my Lord Jesus who raised me from the dead, and I do not
see the like of Him in any one of the men that are standing here,' nor
do I see in them anything like His Majesty. His glory and His
Majesty are indeed great. What is the honour of my father in com-
parison with this King ? This is the King of Kings, and Lord of
Lords. What is the diadem of my father in comparison with His
glory and the light of His Cross ? What are the sweet scents of my
father in comparison with the sublime perfume that exhales from this
Jesus ? 3 All the rulers of the earth cannot live after their death, but
this powerful ruler, Jesus, has the power to do it. No one fears any
king after he dies, but this Jesus, King of Kings, all angels, human
beings and demons fear His name, and the doors of hell tremble from
their dread of Him. All the tormenting spirits who take the souls of
the wicked ones, and who are more wicked than the beasts of prey,
dragons and vipers, I saw that they were terrified when a voice
came to them, saying : ' Jesus orders you to take up this soul from
amongst you, because He wants it.' They did not see Him, but
only heard the one who pronounced His name.
1 M. 355 : " in." - P. " In all the world."
3 There are here some discrepancies in the MSS.
 268 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

" I was then taken forthwith out of the torments in which I was
lying, and He called me by my name saying : " O Caesar, rise up ;
I have given you to your parents on account of their faith in Me, and
in order that they might fight for My resurrection." Then He placed
His cross on the coffin in which I was lying, and my bones adhered
to one another, and my soul recognised its body. When my soul was
united to my body I experienced a great joy, but fear overtook me
after that lest He should deliver me again to them."
This is what the son of the Emperor said while sitting on the
stone that was placed on the tomb of the Saviour. Then he asked
those who were standing near him, saying : " What is the name of
this town ? " And they answered him : " Jerusalem." ] Then he
inquired about his father and mother, and they informed him that they
were alive and that they were in the Capital of the Empire. After
this Pilate, Joseph and Nicodemus cried and said : Honour and glory
be to you, O our Lord Jesus Christ, You who have revived dead
bones and given life to those who love You ! "
When the vizier noticed what had taken place, he went to a dung-
heap and began to throw earth and ashes on his head in sign of the
deep sorrow that he felt at his treatment of Pilate and his wife. Then
he kissed the head of Pilate and asked forgiveness from him and his
companions, and wept bitterly on the tomb of the Saviour on account
of the magnitude of the miracle that had taken place in the person of
the dead man who was now standing alive. Immediately after the vizier
began to write a report to the Emperor, and informed him that his son
who was dead was now speaking to him, and announced to him the
great joy of the resuscitation of his son Caesar, and his resurrection
from the dead. Then the vizier handed also papyrus 2 to his master,
the son of the Emperor, and asked him to write himself to his father,
in his own handwriting. And he wrote as follows :
" I Caesar, son of the Emperor Tiberius, was dead like the rest of
mankind, and my body was decomposed and became earth in the
grave, in which it lay for three months. The greatness of your faith
sent me to Jerusalem hoping that I will rise from the dead by the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have now risen from the dead.3
My eyes saw the Lord Jesus in the flesh which He took from the
1P. adds " the Holy City." 2Or parchment.
3 This sentence is missing in M. 127.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 269
Virgin Mary, and He is in an ineffable and indescribable glory. He
called me by ray name, saying, ' O Caesar, arise now and stand up
alive, and become the beginning of the resurrection of the dead.' !
He then took me out of the hand of death, and His voice gave life to
my body. He bestowed on you this great gift of my life, O my father,
because of your great confidence and faith in Him, and He has raised
me in order that you might increase in the glorification of His Majesty.
I greet you,2 O Emperor, my father. My hand which had suffered
putrefaction in the grave and the fingers of which had dissolved into
earth, is writing to you this greeting." l
The letter was handed to a courier who preceded Caesar to his
father, and announced the great joy to him. When the missive
reached the Emperor he read it, and when he reached in it the
passage in which it was said,4 " your son who was dead is writing this
to you with his own hand, and the Omnipotent Lord raised me from
the dead in Jerusalem," he was immediately bewildered and confused,
like Jacob when he received the intelligence that his son was alive ;
and he began to say to himself, "Is it possible that my son is alive ?
Is this news true ? " Then he went to his wife and read to her the
letter of her son Caesar in which it was written that Jesus raised him
from the dead.
The Queen threw then from her the dignity of the wives of the
kings, when she heard that her son was alive, and became like a
lioness. They called the courier who earned the letter and they said
to him : "Be careful to speak the truth, and to tell us the story of
our son exactly as it happened. Life or death are placed before you
as the result of your words. If we see the face of our son another
time, we will crown you with the crown of the kingdom and give you
much money, but if we do not see the face of our son, your only
reward with us will be sword and death. Go now to prison until we
see the outcome of your words."
The Emperor did not neglect the affair of his son, but despatched
immediately other couriers to ascertain whether what had been said
concerning his son was true or not. The couriers of the Emperor

1 Cf, Colos. i. 18. - Lit. " I convey you peace."

3 P. adds : " And the report to your paternity. Be in good health in the
Lord. Amen,"
* This clause is missing in M. 127.
270 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
took the way to Jerusalem and found out that the son of the Emperor
and his army were coming to the Emperor. The couriers of the
Emperor delivered then to Caesar the letter of his father Tiberius.
Astonished at what they saw they proceeded to the Capital which
they reached one day before the entry of the son of the Emperor, and
early next morning the son of the Emperor arrived.
Who would describe the great joy and the sublime spectacle of
that day ! When the Emperor heard of the presence of his son he
went out to meet him with so much haste that all the town was in a
state of commotion,1 especially when its inhabitants noticed the
Emperor walking on his feet to go to his son, and exultant with joy
because he was going to meet him. When he saw his face he began
to cry, and weep from joy, saying : " Glory be to you, O Jesus of
Nazareth, O God of earth and heaven, who vivified the bones that
had suffered dissolution. Your grace overtook me to-day, because
you raised my son from the dead. I am to-day as if I had seen the
Lord Jesus, and although I shall confess and believe every day in you
and in your great power, to-day the belief of my heart is more
intense.
"The resurrection of Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, four
days after his death, was not so wonderful, O my Lord, because you
were with him on the earth ; the great wonder is that you raised my
son, Caesar, three months after his death. This miracle is also greater
than that you wrought for the son of the widow in the town of Nain,
because you were before the bier and you raised him before his
descent into the grave. The grace that you have granted me, O my
Lord, is greater than that which you granted to Jacob when he was
told that his son Joseph was alive, and he went to him and saw him.
My son remained three months in the grave and by your power you
raised him from the dead."
This is what the Emperor said with a heart brimming with joy,
while embracing his risen son. Then he said to his son : " O Caesar,
my son, 1 am as joyful to-day as if I had seen the Saviour rising from
the dead and raising my son for me." The miracles which I heard
He was working, I see them to-day with my own eyes." Then the
1 This sentence is only found in P.
2 M. 127 has: "This is what the Emperor said concerning the resur-
rection ofhis son."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 271

father ordered that his son should ride in a litter,1 and he cried saying '
" O our Lord Jesus Christ Who was crucified, Who rose from the
dead and raised my son for me ! " How great was the joy of the
town when they saw that the one who was dead had risen from the
dead after a death of three months ! There was also much singing
and jubilation before and after him while he was riding.
Then Caesar began to narrate to his father and mother all what
he had seen and all that Jesus — to Whom be glory — had done to
him. He told them about Hell and the torments he saw in it.
Then his father asked him and said : " Tell me about the physical
characteristics, features and image of this man." And he said to
him :2 " Father, what is your glory in comparison with that of this
great King. There is no likeness of His glory in all the world, and
nothing like the resplendence of the diadem of His Kingdom. His
speech is life and His rancour is wrath.3 The light of the sun cannot
reach the brightness of His splendour, and the dignity of His garment
is not to be found with any other king of the earth. His throne is
a burning fire, and His cross is the light and the brightness of His
majesty, which transcends the majesty of all the terrestrial beings.
I, O father, did not see Him before His crucifixion to know His
portraiture and His features, but summon Pilate, the Governor of
Jerusalem, and he will inform you of His physical characteristics,
features and image."
And the Emperor immediately summoned Pilate who was
presented to him, and he asked him : " Are you the Governor Pilate
who crucified Jesus ? " And he replied : " Yes, it is I your servant
who stands before you. As to the crucifixion of Jesus, our living
God, the Jews did not listen to my words on the matter, and it is
Annas and Caiaphas who decided judicially on His crucifixion."
And the Emperor Tiberius said : " You saw all the miracles and
prodigies which He wrought, and I have been informed that at the
time of His crucifixion you were sitting and judging His case. Now
describe to me His image, His portraiture, His picture, His majesty,
and His beauty." And Pilate said to him : "I bear witness before
1 M. 127 adds : " Preceded by thousands and thousands of marching
soldiers."
2 M. 127 omits all the following description.
8 Rather unseemly. 20
272 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

you, O Emperor, my lord, that He has been three times,1 in my

court, and I did not ascertain His portraiture and His characteristics :
once I saw that He was of the colour of fire,2 and once 1 saw Him
like a bird flying to the heights of Heaven and the angels speaking to
Him ; 3 but your maidservant, my wife, and my children saw Him in
their dream, and warned me against stretching a harmful hand towards
Him. O my lord, by your life, I gave my two children to the Jews
on His behalf in order that they might not crucify Him, and in order
that they might release Him until I had brought His case before my
lord the Emperor, but they did not listen to my words ; they released
a robber from prison and murder, and they took and crucified Jesus.
Let it be known, however, to you, O my lord, that He did this out
of His own freewill."
And the Emperor Tiberius said to him : "Tell me from where
He is and from what place He comes, and how and when He came
down from Heaven so that the Jews found Him, seized Him, crucified
Him, and murdered Him." ' And Pilate said to him : " They
testified to me that His mother is a virgin, chaste and pure, that He
was born of her without breaking her virginal seals, and that her name
is Mary. The angel of the Lord came down from heaven and
announced to her that she will conceive from the Holy Spirit and
bring forth a Son whose name shall be called Emmanuel." And the
Emperor said to him : " And how long did He remain on the earth ? "
And Pilate answered : " Thirty years."
And the Emperor said to him : " And in all this length of time
you saw this man, noticed the miracles and the prodigies that He
was performing, and you did not inform me of His affair." And
Pilate replied to him : "By your life, O my lord the Emperor, in all
this length of time I did not see Him nor did I perceive His face
except on the day of the crucifixion, when the Jews brought Him to
me and crucified Him." And Tiberius said to him : " You have
acted high-handedly, and have not informed me of His affair. ° They
M. 127 "three days." * M. 127 omits this sentence.
3 P. adds : " And worshipping Him."
4 The answer is given succinctly in M. 1 27 as follows : " And he narrated
to him His descent from heaven, His dwelling in a virgin, and His thirty years
stay on the earth-"
5 M. 355 adds here : " You ate and drank with Him." M. 127 omits
all this question of the Emperor.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 273
delivered Him to you, and you did not remember His miracles and
prodigies, and you did not feel awestruck in His presence, and the
glory of His divinity did not frighten you. I will now kill you and
do to you what you did to Him."
The Emperor Tiberius spoke thus and immediately after the
soldiers seized Pilate and took him out in order to cut off his head,
but the Emperor ordered that he should be crucified another time
before he was beheaded. And they crucified him outside the city,
struck him on the head with a reed-stick, and nailed him to the wood,
pierced his side with a spear, tormented him with grievous torments
and after that proceeded to cut off his head.1 And the blessed Pilate
asked the soldiers to give him ~ a little respite so that he might pray.
And he immediately knelt down and began to pray, saying :
" O my Lord Jesus Christ who took away all the sins of the
world,3 have pity on your servant Pilate and forgive all my stumblings,
omissions and sins. Guard my poor soul and deliver it from torments.4
I beseech you, O my Lord and my God, do not separate my soul
from that of your maidservant Procula, but make her worthy to be
with me in the place of rest.0 Do not forget your servants, my
children, because while I was in the world, O Lord, I delivered them
to death for your sake as a ransom for your crucifixion, but the Jews
refused them. Do not let the tribulations of Pilate be in vain. I
have indeed dared to judge you, O just Judge, but do not rebuke me
for this sin which I have committed, because you are a merciful
and compassionate God, and I am a created being, and I dared to
say to you ' Who are You ? ' ' I implore you, O my Lord, not to
put me to shame and not to rebuke me because I caused you to bear
your cross and said to the Jews : ' Take ye Him and crucify Him.' '
And they did all this while I was in the seat of judgment8 O my
Lord, my God, and my Saviour, I beseech you not to remove me
from your glory but to grant me your mercy. To you be glory and
honour for ever. Amen."

1 M. 127 omits all the above sentences.

2 M. 355 adds here : " to take him down from the cross."
8 Cf. John i. 29.
* P- and M- 355 : " from the route which it is following."
5 Syr. niyaha. ' M. 127; " From where are you ? "
' John xix- 6- 8M- 127 omits all the above sentences-
274 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
Pilate uttered these words while kneeling on the ground. And
I, Gamaliel was not able to restrain my tears when I saw the weeping
of the blessed Pilate when he began to implore the soldiers to deliver
his body to his servants after they had cut off his head. Then he
turned and noticed one of his servants, Basil ius1 with a number of
friends, all weeping, and he said to them : 2 " Do not weep over my
death, because my Lord has tasted death for us. When you see that
they have cut off my head, I want you to shroud my body well, to
bring it to Jerusalem and there dig a grave for me near the tomb of
Jesus, my Lord and my Saviour, in order that He may have pity on

After
' Pilate had said this they cut off his head on the fifteenth of
me."
the month of June.4 Then we 8 got hold of his body, shrouded it and
took it to Jerusalem, as he had wished. When we reached the town
we found that his wife Procula and her two children had died c on
the very day of our arrival, and we placed them all in one grave near
the sepulchre of the Redeemer.
As to the Jews, the Emperor Tiberius sent orders to Jerusalem
and had them all killed. He also sought Herod to slay him, but he
was informed that he had died before Pilate.7
After this the wife of the Emperor Tiberius spoke to her husband
and said to him : " O my lord Emperor, you knew and saw 8 what
1 P. " one of his servants and Phasilius, his majordomo." M. 127
omits this sentence altogether.
2 M. 127, " and this is what Pilate said to his relatives and his friends."
3 There are differences in the MSS. in the wording of this sentence. 1
followed M. 127 in my translation.
4 Syrian month hezlran (old style). M. 355 and P. use here the Coptic
month Bawunah. There are many discrepancies here in the wording of the
three MSS. I followed M. 127 which has the shortest text The Copts
honour Pilate and his wife on June 25 (new style). Cf. G. A. Miiller,
Pontius Pilatus der funfte Prokurator, p. 7.
5 M. 127 and P. use for all these verbs the 3rd pers. plur.
6M. 355, and P. use here tanayyahu from the Syr. ittnih.
7 M. 127 ends here with the colophon by Gamaliel, which comes later,
and the following colophon : " This book is finished in 1994 of the Greeks,
on a Friday, 13th October, in the time of our Fathers: Patriarch 'Abdal-
Masih, and Mar Basil Maphrian of the East, and Mar Gregory the servant
of the See of the Holy City. It was copied by the hand of the weakest of
men, Joseph, a priest by name but a sinner by works." I give in the
following pages the continuation of the story as found in M. 355 and P.
9 P. " knew and / saw."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 275
the Saviour Jesus did in resuscitating to us our son from the dead, and
we, O my lord Emperor, feel much sorrow because we did not see
Him, and because we were unworthy of perceiving Him. The Jews
killed Him unjustly and you killed the Governor who empowered
them to kill Him.1 If it pleases you, O my lord Emperor, we will
send for His mother in order that we may see her, because it has
come to our knowledge that she is living at this moment in Jerusalem,
the city of the Jews. We will take her before us and crown her with
the crown of the kingdom and send her back to her country in order
that all may honour her, and in order that no wicked Jew may stretch
a harmful hand towards her, as they did with her son." When the
Emperor heard these words from his wife they pleased him, and he
despatched many soldiers, female attendants, and palace officials to
Jerusalem in order to bring the Virgin Mary to them so that they
might crown her with the crown of the kingdom.
Before this, our Saviour, King of Kings, appeared to His mother
and to the Apostles, His elect, and He disclosed to them many
secrets, and informed them that the Emperor Tiberius had sent for the
Virgin Mary. Then after having laid upon John to repair to the
Emperor Tiberius," He turned to Mary, His mother, and said to her :
" O my beloved mother, I shall take you to My kingdom and show
you a great glory, greater than all the perishable glory and kingdom
of this world. I am aware, O mother, of the fact that you were for
many days in pains for Me, and that you endured tribulations for My
sake,0 in travelling from country to country and from town to town ;
now I have come to take you in order that you might travel with Me
to the city of the living God. You have toiled enough, O mother,
come to the abode of joy and eternal rest4 You have toiled with
Me, O mother, in the sorrow that overtook you on the day of the
Crucifixion, come now and I will take you to the comfort of My
kingdom.
' You have toiled, O mother, and your heart has suffered for Me,
make haste and accompany Me to the eternal hymn of joy and to a
repose that has no end. You have toiled, O mother, in your weeping
at the door of the sepulchre, come now and see My glory and the
1 This last sentence is not found in M. 355.
P. adds : " To receive good rewards from him."
a P. omits these sentences. 4 This sentence is not found in P.
276 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

majesty of My throne,1 sitting as I am in the middle of thousands and:

myriads of angels. You have wept for Me, O mother, on the
Kramon 2 and Golgotha, make haste and come to the eternal heihtgs.
O mother, your feet were tired in the streets of the earthly Jerusalem,
come now and see the beauty of the heavenly Jerusalem. O mother,,
you were hungry and thirsty for My sake, come now and have your
satisfaction in the pleasures of heaven in My kingdom. O mother,
you wept in the house of John for My sake, come now and hear the
melodies of the exultations of the Cherubim and Seraphim 3 who glorify
Me, My Father and the Holy Spirit."
This is what the Saviour said to His mother to comfort her. Then-
she passed away and He sent her before Him on the wings of the
Cherubim. As to the Apostles, they sorrowed greatly, bowed down,
worshipped Him and asked Him saying: "O Lord, what is this
sorrow that you have prepared for us, in taking away your mother,
and in separating her from us ? She used to comfort us, your
disciples, since the day you left us and ascended to heaven. To-day
great sorrow has filled our heart, and we became bereft of your sight 4
and the sight of your virgin mother, and deprived of her salutary
teaching." And the Saviour replied saying : " O my beloved and O
my members, do not be sad on account of the passing away of My
mother from you. She has not died, but she has gone to the dwellings
of rest, joy and eternal life.5 She toiled much with Me in this world,
and now I have taken her up 6 to heaven, and you will soon see her
and she will see you, because you are bound to face the death imposed
on mankind. I shall take her and travel with her in the dwellings of
the pious, and she shall see the Kingdom of Heaven and know My
great love for her.7
" Did I not send you another time 8 to the third heaven and you
saw the heavenly Jerusalem in which your names are inscribed ? Did

1 P. : " That you may see in the glory of My Father."

2 I.e., Calvary. See the beginning of the story.
3 The MSS. exhibit slight differences here. 4 P. omits.
6 P. : " She has not gone from the world for pain, but she went in order to
rest in the dwellings of rest, life and eternal joy."
8 P : " You saw her ascending to."
7 P. : " In rest and eternal life. I comforted her with this in order that
she may know my great love for her."
8 P. : " Several rimes."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 277
not the Father call you children because you became My beloved
disciples ? How could I not give heaven to My virgin mother in
whose womb I remained nine months, from whose breasts I sucked
milk like other children, and on whose lap I sat like other babes ?
How could 1 not comfort her heart and remove from it the sadness
and sorrow which she experienced in this world for My sake ? Lo
the kings of the earth wish to summon her in order to bestow their
honours upon her, but which earthly king is able to bestow upon her
honours on earth as she deserves ? Lo, the seven doors are open
before her and the twelve doors l of the heavenly Jerusalem are also
thrown open before her. The greeting of the Father has reached her,
saying, ' Be welcome, O Mary ; the habitations of Heaven will submit
to you, and the seven trumpets * will sing before you. The sea of fire
will serve3 before you, and the sun and the moon will be at your
feet. All the choirs of heaven will sing before you, and heaven and
earth will dance with canticles on the day of your Assumption.' '
This is what the Lord said to His disciples concerning His holy
mother. Then He turned to John, His beloved, and said to him :
' You shall have to stand before Tiberius Caesar, and bear witness to
him about what you saw the Jews doing to Me on the wood of the
cross." The Saviour said these words to His holy disciples and dis-
appeared from their sight.
Some days later the troops which the Emperor Tiberius had sent
to Jerusalem arrived, accompanied by Palace officials and female at-
tendants from the Queen. They carried also with them the crown of
the kingdom, royal garments, glorious dresses, and precious and princely
robes. They scoured all the land of Judaea in search of the Virgin,
but they did not find her because she had left this world and ascended
to heaven.4 They took, however, the blessed John and brought him to

1 About the twelve doors of heayen see the Syriac History of the
Blessed Virgin, pp. 120-121 of the text (edit. Budge). Each door
symbolised an Apostle of Christ. As to the seven doors they are the
ordinary doors of the traditional seven heavens.
" M. 355 : " the lions at the gate." The seven trumpets are, however,
mentioned in the Mysteries of St. John the Apostle, edited and translated by
Budge in the Coptic Apocrypha, p. 247. They are said there to be appointed
over the heavenly dew.
3 P., "will be quenched."
4 P : " and did not find her at all because she had gone to heaven."
278 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
the Emperor Tiberius. When the Emperor saw him he said to him :
"' Are you John, the beloved of the Lord and the friend of Jesus ? "
And John answered and said : "By the will of God and His grace,
I am, O my lord Emperor, the one who is called by this name.1
And now, O my lord, who is worthy to unloose his shoe's latchet ?
Who is able to grasp the rays of the sun or to embrace lightning ?
The judgments of God are light and truth, O Emperor, and the light
-of truth condescended to come to us from the essence of God, and
humbling Himself, He called us His brothers, friends, and Apostles.2
By your life, O my lord Emperor, He never called us slaves, but
always brothers and friends." J
Then the Emperor said to him : " Having performed all these
miracles and prodigies, how could the Jews pierce His heart with a
spear ?" And the blessed John replied : "The life of all of us con-
sists ofwater and blood, and both of them sprang from His holy side.
Before His crucifixion His virgin mother nudged Him at His side in
Cana of Galilee, because people were in need of wine, and said to
Him : ' O my beloved Son, they have no wine to drink at the wed-
ding.' And our Lord turned and said to her : ' O woman, you
have placed in advance your finger on the spot at which they will
pierce My side.4 You have asked Me, O mother, to make wine
mixed with water in order that the guests of the wedding might drink
of it ; in this you have placed in advance your hand in the spring of
water and blood which will jet forth from my side, and from which I
shall give the faithful to drink.' It is not good, O Emperor, that you
should study too deeply the greatness of His divinity, that is to say of
God and His works which the intelligence of men is unable to com-

prehend."
And the Emperor said to him : " Are you the disciple who was
standing near Him at the time of His Crucifixion ? " And John
replied : " Yes, I was present there and saw all that the Jews did to
our Lord Jesus Christ on the wood of the cross." And the Emperor

1 M. 355 : " by His will and His love He called me by this name."
2 P : " He came down to us, poor people, and called us His brothers,
tthe friends of His Father, on account of His love for men."
3 P. adds: "of His Father."
adds; "in order to give the faithful to drink-"
5 M. 355
4M. 355 omits the last sentence.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 279

said to him : " You will then know how to paint His image for me
in the figure l which He had on the cross, exactly as He was crucified
for us." And John replied : " Yes, I will paint Him." And the
Emperor ordered a slab of good stone,2 and the blessed John painted
the figure of the Saviour on it 3 according to the order of the Emperor.
When it was finished the blessed John bent his head over it in order
to kiss it with his mouth, and immediately after the lips of the Saviour
turned to the lips 4 of the blessed John, and they kissed each other.
The Emperor Tiberius witnessed all this, and he was greatly
amazed and bewildered. Then the icon which represented the image
of our Lord cried and said : " It is enough, O John, that you painted
my image and the figure of my crucifixion, as you witnessed it on the
day of the crucifixion. It was not fair on your part, you my beloved,
to crucify me after my resurrection from the dead ; 3 it would have
been better if you had painted my figure according to the image you
saw of me after my resurrection. The Jews crucified me once at the
hand of Herod, why do you crucify me again at the hand of Tiberius ? '
The soldiers divided my garments among themselves in Jerusalem once,
do not allow the inhabitants of Rome also to see my nudity. My side
was pierced with a spear on Friday,' do not pierce me, O John, my
beloved, another time after my resurrection. I called Judas 8 my friend,
and he delivered me to death ; but I love you, O John, more than all
the world, do not leave me, therefore, in the sufferings of the crucifixion,
because I rose from the dead. You know, O John, the joy that you
experienced, you and my virgin mother, on the day of my resurrection,
since, therefore, I rose from the dead, do not leave me in the passion
of the cross. Know, O John, that my resurrection was joy and glad-
ness to all the earth." '
After the image said this to John, the voice was heard no more.

1 M. 355 has here haibah, " dignity." I take this to be a mistake for hat ah,
"image,
was figure." was This
transcribed showsin undotted
written clearly that the original
Arabic from inwhich
characters which the MS.is
there
no graphic difference between the two words. I believe that the variant
could not have arisen otherwise.
2 P. omits " stone."
1 M. 355 ; " on this slab of marble." P. omits " marble."
4 P. " Adhered to the lips." 5 M. 355 omits this sentence.
c There are considerable verbal differences here in the two MSS.
M. 355 adds here "which was passover day."
* M. 355, " John." 9 P. omits this sentence.
280 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
When the Emperor heard these wonderful words, his mind came back,
to him and he rose on his feet, kissed the head of John and said :
'You are truly the disciple of Jesus Christ whom He loved, and yoit
are His friend." And the Emperor took the image and embraced it,,
then he placed it on a high pedestal at that place, like the image of the
Son of God in the country of the Byzantines.1 Then the Emperor
gave much money to John and bestowed many benefits on him, but he
refused to take anything. Then he went out of the city, and a column
of light carried him away and brought him to the Mount of Olives.
He greeted the Apostles, his brethren, and narrated to them what he
did in Rome, and all what happened to him with the Emperor Tiberius.
After this the Apostles desired to see the Virgin Mary and said :
" We have seen our brother John, perchance we shall not be unworthy
to see our lady, the Virgin Mary,2 before our death." While the
Apostles were saying this, lo the pure Virgin appeared to them in great
glory. They fell on their faces before the majesty of the precious robe
which she was wearing. She came to James and John and raised
them first, then she raised the rest of the Apostles, and began to tell
them about a part only of the heavenly glory found in the abode of
rest, and informed them that she saw Pilate, his wife and his children
in a great glory while the cross of Her Son was shining on them.
After having told them this she disappeared from their sight.3
And I Gamaliel had learnt the art of writing, the science of
Judaism 4 and that of the Apostles our Fathers, and had also stepped
in the science of the philosophers until I had acquired the knowledge
of the right answer, and learnt the mystery of the resurrection of the
Lord Christ,5 and the miracles which He performed, and what
happened to the vizier of the Emperor, and to Galilus and the
1 P. : " In the country of the Armenians, down to our own day." On the
different representations of the Christ see Smith's and Cheetham's Dictionary
of Christian Antiquities, i. 5 1 1 -5 18 and 874-880. I do not precisely know
to which image the author refers as found in Asia Minor or Armenia.
There seems to be no relation whatever between the picture of our Lord as
drawn by John the Apostle and the account of the History of the Likeness of
Christ, edited and translated by Budge in 1899, pp. 157-210 (of the text).
" There are here verbal differences in the narration.
3 M. 355 omits this sentence.
4 P. : " And the books of our fathers."
5 M. 355 : " the mystery of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and
His resurrection from the dead."
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 281
Emperor Tiberius, and I put all to writing and composed it as a
memorial l of the holy resurrection.
(The final words of the story in M. 127 which should have stood
.above on p. 274 are) :
I beseech you, O brethren, I the weak Cyriacus, to pray for me
in order that God may forgive my mistakes (through) His Son Jesus
Christ who suffered for us by His will, and release all those who
are bound with the fetters of sin. We ask Him to forgive us our sins
and all the bad deeds of our past life, which we have committed with
knowledge or without knowledge. As He has rendered us here
worthy of His knowledge, may He assemble us all in His heavenly
Kingdom, through the grace and mercy of our Saviour Jesus Christ
to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
(The final words of the story in M. 355 are) :
And I beseech you to pray for me and to forgive me, me the weak
Hyriacus. Pray for me so that the Lord may forgive me my mistakes,
He who is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who
suffered for us by His will. May He release all those who are bound
with the fetters of sin, He who is the Christ of the worlds and the
Saviour of all ! We ask Him to forgive us our sins and all the bad
deeds of our past lives, which we committed with knowledge or
which we committed without knowledge. May He forgive them all
in the greatness of His mercy ! And as He has assembled us here may
He render us worthy to assemble in His kingdom, in the heavenly
Jerusalem ! May the Grace and mercy of our Saviour Jesus Christ
be with us. To Him be glory in conjunction with His good Father
and the Holy Spirit, now, always and for ever and ever, Amen.
Praise be to God the Lord of the worlds.2 It has ended by the help
of God.
(The final words and the colophon of P. are) :—
. . . Because He, the men-loving God, who saved us by His
cross, will also save us and forgive us in His divinity. As He has
rendered us worthy of the joy of His resurrection may He render us
also worthy to assemble in His eternal kingdom, in order that we may

1 P : "I wrote all these to you and placed it as a memorial." As stated

-aboYe M. 127 places this colophon of Gamaliel after the crucifixion of Pilate
Avhere he ends the story.
2 A Kur'anic expression.
282 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
bless and glorify His holy name. To Him are due glory, honour,
and worship in conjunction with His good Father and the Holy
Spirit, now, always and for ever and ever, Amen. Here ends by
the help of God the Martyrdom of Pilate, of his wife and children.
May their intercession be with all the children of baptism. Amen.
And tne weak copyist, who is a sinner, implores all those who come
across this life, and all those who read it and hear it to ask for the
forgiveness of his sins. He who says a bad word shall be met with
its equal, but he who finds a mistake and corrects it, the Lord will
improve for him this world and the world to come with His peace.
Amen.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 283

;n") ffii . Vn ^jQ -T0-^ O1

.on . 5 f .^n«

jo-^mlL
rn . Vnn* »^CT1 <-i

.jlm A

13 "ouoiX]]! ai!>ol i n^vo OLi^*la^ ^o)])]] 1o>oi|»o

15 i V^VQ aiSo^o ^^ >o oi1oi*lL oioi u

1Omiu.

P A**,. 3 Adds \ZU\ • P P> JSj ^/* u-i-*^1 ^H1. an<J writes the name
as j-j»\i^», and M 355 writes it prima manu as »CDQOU>OO1 . * Adds
rn Vn] . ft ^ OT*S ^O^iO -ff>n ^]l .<7io ^eon^i.^o. in -Ojppn, . .Vv
. 8 Has two headings and consequently
repeats some words. And P omits CTli,V>t for «!O;-^ says
for pilp*^ writes s^A for ^-^Q-^ writes J«J^ and for ^2O writes
^fclj. • Ann. P omits. 7 Both omit. 8.
a .m oVn^. Oim]j pCU. P is Jj^l jj'lj ^ OJ»1
10 jcooViiooiO . u Omits. P is u-^1^ J^1^ u^^-

*111 oli J 12 13
P omits. M Omits. 18 far^CD • le Both add loi*2> .

21
284 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

2 [, « m ^\] ou*^ C1]-,^ ; n n^v *+s> l

^v^ Vnr> . ^. .

^010 OI »2Li.5

.o\ mrt. 6 r .Vnj ••> Vnvl onft* ^ocn m rt\

v] ^oiA»Z AJ]DO . innZ [7] wiirllL ^^vr2 r^r

»,£)£ ooZ ixiLa laurel

i>OCU OO1O '•> >

^QSo] *^ oi^o Au [10]

^010 -^1 ^QJQJ ixL.-r.io Zpl ^

oio *^-^ A r^ai^o '^u.^ ^oanSo loplo p] ^QCQJO

An n m [12] JXLI^ ^|o . .\
13
" |>oZ]
16

]ai i n\ , m .. ^ i^oZ ^olo 18 [AO m »]

oiio .oSo 19
21 j" .<^>] jOlQoa Oljj-O 20

1 Both add ^40 and P writes U^ill after '^0^ . 2

3 Both OljSoloiOO « 4 Both *Q*A » 5 ^QOLi ^H^m » « Omits.

P adds s^1 J^ c^ 8-^il but omits ^r1^^0^ * 7 Adds ^^^'r^0

« t.v^^ . 9 Omits. 10 Adds ^O'H . And P rd-. u Both
12 Adds OUj]]pi-iQ^» P is only {j^* oJ^lj>-l »j~i l^*- ^-^if* (SjJ

£\ (.^ L>> without proper names. 13 ZpOO . P U^ o^i . u ZZ] .

16 Z^O . 16 *Q|O . 17 Omits. P L^bi" * A\J *-<=• U-i. 18
p after ^JDo proceeds
19 Omits. 20 Olr^0 ^lAQ^O OHCL^QiiD . P omits this sentence and the

preceding one. 21
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 285

.] --.

001 ^

[01; i m ^/]
, 10 [j
12 r.Voo .
, V^^n^
AVp o"j n
13
ou]

•
16
rii
-

?ai A |J

-^A .^ 1 as 01 <ri ^1
1?oi2
1)001

,01
1 Omits. - 6 Both
uJU* elX> L b.
P has only »j^" ^ 7 001 i .
* OU-MJ . 6

8 Omits. 9 ^o !>OQnlL wilJo . P has in the

preceding sentence : j» ^~»5 <i**i ^»V jl l» ^J*. lj ctliV*J c

\j i-i^-JU
<=* lil ^V! lI
lo Omits. u 13
-r»\ A
,0 ^

0V *u> jJl l54SiI. " ^o -^u . " The order of the sentence is
reversed, but the sense is the same. P omits all this sentence and adds
\. 16 .iimV>AS. |3o .
All this sentence is in P : >J J u>^>l UT
UU. J 1 Ul 1 eb-Li
Jc ^s
286 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

J»OCU wkffl 1

GlZO wA [3]

ZpjZ
ono.»

ou|rJ-1*o0
ZoSu

21 C
O

^Q i » .. ^ 17
wkll> ^Ailo wJ^\ rn Av i« Ion*

ounce] *n**AaLk .miS ^ ^]a ^ -" Aao]o; aiJ

joou^L . 2 oil^lo » 3 Adds ^Xaic&v • * Adds

1 ^1 » 5 Adds Alo 1^1 J>oZ .^jAoiZ l>^ioi ^Q^, W.Q^. » p jl^L.
for »jjAaiZ, and adds ^jj ,JL-1 <&*. Jfe>\\>> 6 P o^ ^Vl Jl e^i^ lil

i L o/JJ lil 1 I* f» • r* J'' 7 <*l.r^ . s Repeats. 9 Both

add 'JiO. 10 P adds uJW j>L»>.L, J* r> y-1 «JLij.
" Omits. 13 Adds oiAi . i* vfa . " p is
• 16 U4o • 1T P >;^ ^ J\ \fz V

18
19P,j*«!l. 20Aloo. P 5l>\i iJ^li. al P ^1 dL^J ^/^J J* y-J elili
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 287

CUjJ

^ A.^ joi. Av 6 "^i2v ,11 oil **.

^ A>]r> r8] "jo^Zoi oils 1?oi

J»oA oul^) aunAouo

oLk3
I* ^P?Z • w» 10

. '•- So>l auio r^ ZU.M <£ ^Alc 001 ^1 1 ji^s .m A >]

13
>Ql -«^ A ^ ,QI - Av . .ygy^r.
Zi . ]>

au] .A^Vv ^ .pr> A .

kJC7lZrCj} r-»r^ 1T \ '

.mAo 18

8 P adds p**? (jje\ . 9 Oil Al^ 1 *^A*j . P omits.

11 Omits. " Omits. 13 P ±?\ 0\ I.-J-JI J* j^ ^ U
^11 Jl ..jT. u Adds OllfioZ wL^ia^j] «JL2* P j ij>*slj eL. o
?«-.," i*J'ul».l . 15 w*/1— X\ Ol— i-»jCC Q_^\ 0 » 16 Omits 17 .
.. - ; ,^ , A"ft*re r^> (^X*L*I \ • '-^' ' Jj^ * Jkl tC«JJ I O«fl— *%Ji ^^
288 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

13 o .iaftsn ]]o ^
. GUI AimO ^i^\ ZoSdlL oL£>10£3 ]3o

7 [Aie»] ^AM ]]] ^

. .

j ALo»oio Aaooo wo] ]Sooo . ZloLoPl ^z> ^Lc Aloo ,0

.\S jDovralL • [^^3 jA? Ann A**Aa Ip] ^o i » .. ^
Al wiv 10

. 13 [-

oaio ino^Vv ^Is ,11 aiZ^al .SnV)^ ail]£> ]k> ]>oi

1B [^Z^o V» IcnX A]
]3 16 [^ H i ^r

.] loVLolo ]OU1 **££) 1>01

l8[loZ| vl
19

1 Both add IOL^O, 2 Both add duaaO »Al -rC^ ^'^ BO

3 Both add -^iOy, . * P o\ Ul v^! ^^ i/1
5 Adds ^AaSo^. e cn^la. *^L^
» Both ^>1* 8 Adds
9 Both >A> Ann A*jAao. " p
n

v j IH^. v^vij b ^u ru.

14 Omits. 1B Omits. 19 16 -Jio» n P adds »jj. e)U. " Both
Both omit.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 289

[Do] -<*n ^ ^OOT-IH Jxilo [^^oj

. VA ^ .^ loaoij * [A— -A] H-U [3] 1o>
£[$] oijoi ^
JJ . O OlUG -» D ^ ^QO *A2> > »

oil A Uo A] .nlm^^o xlA »>v> S \

.]
AJ)S lou]] Uoo^l 01/^,01 i

v]so] . ^o\>*^
:
^-^Lo 01\ ryj^Z

Jo .

oi>oi
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.
13

^^L .A) ,J UyA^ rO OU^Z) ]tvVn jCOT

001

[23] oiAy.010

5 P ^ Ij^l&i 1>\T. 6 Both

7 Both add ^S^V)^ Ol*S AO ^i. * lV^\> And P
10 Both ^a }oi
And P ^XH IMj »lr*Vl

^n^l . a* Adds -^UiL . 15 Both add oio

16 Adds >aiD ^1. 17Padds ^-LSL* J Jli ^jJl. 180ioiao,
19 P *! UJJ*-i p^-i^J Jl c^ilia-. 20 Id^ *-AM ^SOiJ --^V
31 AAnio looisVoio ^ooiXAo. 22 AAoJo. 2s Adds oijUo]o.
24 P U.
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290 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

Oil ^>\\

OLJ]] 01 n m n i 2 [rij-» i *^»

OO1 -»r^ ]?OOU * [CTUyOI OS]

AooZ AJ|O ]>oou
J_3 IjOOUO .6[
AaAl* ^olo « [oi^Ao
] ^^ !xAlui ^D OU]] ^A> ^A 8 [VrCD^A^O] ^D Ou|] OlldO

| jSol ^a Z^Zu ^oX 10 [ou]] 9 [oiAal". 21) ]vi\g

" [*oo,J Ji. ^So IOL. 01 OIO;OL»] ^o ^k) A^J] oui

.-i oi))]olo oiA^oio ^coo^lL^ IcAAoj ^1 1S

(sic) \^n^ ]a]
>oio]]l Asooil ^ol « [-j^L] ACT]
,£0.. ^20 ^^ ["] .^fDo> ls "w^o] i
[20]
»l] jD UQS oiajio »JL^Q^ JD
[23]
.v.vn A 'jaolo] [2*] jpfcu^v 'jfialo }•-.

25
i >Aoo.
2 Both omit. 8 0142x^0 ^oi^. *
6 Both ^MrCa^» 6 'H^>» 7 Omits. 8
9 ^^ (Sic). 10 N">V»^ 0* " B°th ^^^ ^°

OIOEOSU vb ^jiL. 12 Both Icooi au. 13 Both

UP omits. 16P omits.
20 Adds 16-^OV
Both

l°'°l»Z1 . 23 Both add ^Or»-r». a4 Both add

mi . <^ ^& ^^.. 25 Both omit.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 291

in^So CU]D jaoa^L^ A.yOi lico-^1 Jc

3 5o] 2 OAs .]aauo 2V»?o loi^a..!' lai \ Soo
t
1"1 ^ • d]
-^ A \J

ti\so

iooi
u
joou^k] diioiaiL ^olp lj]o ;o<^^ 10 r. Ao

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oi>oi ^2 . ^
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i JCO^lLa 01^.01 OlHL 01Q»V) ^O. « oUjJI^ i.,l4i» yiwj l^jl.

M 355 only }oi>laA 3BothAsoi?o. 4 Both ;nnV. 5 Both

^InSfl^ yflo^ oujs lai^o -j!L V1n^fl^. 6 Omits. " Adds

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11 Omits. 12 Adds?OOLJ^ wAl IdCiZo^/c)^. 13 Omits. P
14 P omits. 15 r^. 16 Omits. 17 P JlixVI. 18 Adds As
AAalk ADO oiAliai -,*. AndP> jTeLlc jl rJJl. 19 Both
20 Both OlHL Arl 50014
292 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

oia
oio akiiO o 031 ^Ao0 •^ •* .Q 2
. W]_JCTI . > i ^r
cnZok) A^n 01 O;»\VQ 0101^ /jo •"•
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And P u j JJ1 &•• 5 Both 010^^ JJDQ^lka OIQ 7 O1Q1**

» And P

10 Omits. UPU. 12Both

. 15 Both add

"U>«-i. 17V1. 18»U?« P omits. 19 Addsloio

P uWj- 20 Both
 293
MARTYRDOM OF PILATE

,1 A/uo - ;,oo

^0X0 oils Ijoi] ci]i] ; m TIP

AJ] [*] JPlo ,

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3>CDOSni,n»10 ^IflDCLi 1>01 JX5OIO, P\#. 4 Both add

6 T 8 AS. 13 to
ai
10 Omits. u P. adds eiU! Je. 12 Both *S
i* t>>,mV)^ OUJ^. 19 « Both omit. 16 J^O. « Omits.
Adds 01,11. And P

. 21 OlllD.
294 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

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« i ^ . 4

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i=oaco-,lD >-• ^.lo ^A) 10 [Av^.] j^o )Lo onal ^oai,m»to
>a_A»?o-. ^1L axuso'ri] i. " [o^s^lL] .^s ] V^So .

A )] ]2lo UL£J ^£>Ao]o ,iV>nn 13 Uoo-^l aAs] Vi] oiA..

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i ]opV> tl ^al^l |So lo^ .-a ./S^in^ 16 Aoroio
)]o] wipe W.AJ] . iV>on^) . [17] .SnV)^ A^]J wuorij^ o]
19 OA*> ]2 18 ufiCLi laTiOiZlo 013-iST)^ 0101

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. .
4 ___ - _
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45 Adds i>oai£DOJ .sfirii ^A>^ 01,11
And P

aJu. 9 P iji, ^j^Ji 1M ^ **- ^j. 10

12 ^ j^ AD? Aaa^L Ijois >ooQ^]l . ^ AV>m isolo . 13
14 P omits. 15 Both i>oailo OlSc^A . 16 *Z>O,1±£>Q . 17 Adds
Omits. 19 Omits.
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oA
>q, i CD ;n n

i
IjOl
.
AvVnco 1 Vnx ClA.t O1
X.1 A
•r
It rn^rV. >T 1 V
001 I Vo i I " ^^^^ i «^Q1O IG1_2G I) !•*

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•^O * ^ i ^CCL^l IJLjL^^ hj ji-CD u OT-—k^^^^ %ji*^^^ ^M^ CLn^lL_^\
• f»
7 ^

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|>O1 AliA-O fcSi-A-DO . r-. ^H uAl .tn A AVo» ^

^_.

.»ifn V^v .iojca*. 3 -J'r^?. PJJ. * Both

6 P adds J»l I* J JijJK 6 P omits. 7 «»imV>^\ AQ£tL»
8 Both OlijQ . 9 P adds J.1 li f« bul 1x* b>U Ui . 10 Both
11 Both add U*A 01?01 «^a» 12 Inverts the order. 13
OI. u AwiD. And P Ji** Jl jykilj. 15 Omits.
18 Both add »Ai loALo ]>}
AndPi*iljJK
296 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

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ASa4iZ ,0 ^V ^JjD^j'rO ^So oi Alia w^ ^So yiAs L,

001 AJ]O wJ^xCL^v 001 AJ] ^S\
_ .

.]a »x2vlL oi_lo>o 0102^ •

ou (sic)

^2)0 * - -^ ^
* OLA ZcLLo] OL2

13 [->» .

OI9OI .fHi OU Ql vCQi.0 * >OOLv Oil

15 [tt*lo] ^ooiaLtla » ["] Aom^o oiAu^ ]io K.

«1 *QA*Am
JAji ]oj].DO

1 Omits. a A^^o loaZou. 3 P

6 Omits. And P

Adds o'p^* 8 Both omit. 9 Adds ^DO^U^JS uuOl. »• Adds

l loioo-r*j^ ^Sn^al oik>ko1. And P «>-4» U^f U*jj rlJ*

p t^yi ^V- " '"'^^^ -^ loLiDyol. And P

\**J5I ^-Jl rU ju!/. 14 Both add ui^U^. And P adds J»VJ^

"Omits. " >^»
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 297
.oia

oiiio ~i

iooi&ia loAi-tO ouAi "joaZo

5[O1OL»O] jocru^L Jo

.>Vi

Jo .
oil
,

OlA.tO1O pir^A^ AonV> 0010

r>Vno .

]oi|31 losnZ ]SoLo . [171

iOGIO

18

P ^ ol^Vlj UV\ ^-ail J^U ^JJt jft, iiJ^Vl i *Jj Oj»i V tfjJl

J«J1 . 2 ^A.]0. 3 Adds ^DO^lka » * P yyfc (we) J^.Jj

5 OlffllJ. 6 Omits. 7 Omits. 8 Omits.
S»olo oi\Ano« 10 oi^iVy^. u Both ]^o
]j,ll ^D AA*. " P adds eUjT J«i.

16 Both add QQ2i • K Both add -J^U^ • 18 Both

19 Both oiljl^v. M oui.
And P adds alUl l. 21 Both
 298 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

ifc\^ .ffi i\

VI »0^ ^OOUJZ) lO'rOu Idjja ^^• 3 [.cft/fi^y] ^o?al ^

rftV i ^A> ,100

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AJ)O ^A^] ^uU^o 2UC1 ^«o lojoiU
t]2O . 12 U^l OlOO'rM^i ^Aja] OuJLl mn^V ^^ .*^ A ^
13 » w w

C -A** "

oiA..oio jca^^ ^so .18[ai2 l>ai

20
21 J ^DQ_LaJjanJjo ^icocu A..C

'^10 vAp OllOSOi 2*^22 ^]J0

i .

,110] « [22] oiafAA **L» .m^llio ioaA ixAco

1 Both omit. 2 Both add ^r

C^» *Both^4^^» 6 Both omit. 6Padds
7 P adds JArt >•• 8 Both add

. 10 Both omit.
11 Adds ?Qi.« 12 Both omit. 13 1/uaa. " Both IOL^S >Z1Z J*iXo
Ijfi}. 16Adds*Q^. leBo^oiAl. » Omits. 18 Omits.
19 Both add JQOV^?QQjJQ» ao Both AdfiOJ . 21 P elijl ijj-.
22 Both add
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 299

. ! ;oi>]Jo]o

a [.flQjjO'J- jli, »*1L loojO s^O &>-,** (tic)

5 ;lalfco; .^.S^^ * o olcu cA. o
'[ai^j-sl U]cf ;6;J-»Z
aiA..oio 001 s ;ai_m£i
9 '.s\5i] U

n >ooi i Ss
>].O •pt^t-lLo
•
2>oai2 -^ooZak) Icu^ ^r•

?Q^>U^O 12
OG1O ^Jl JOllL

• l>ai chs . uu] u lo

17 [^^o oiA-.oio] »aL£]Lha ASo JxAoZo [16;^j.U^ 15[*iQ*^] oci

.] >ro ]

. 1] ,rr>^ ^iD 2* r^S^j ]>O1 [23]

.o

1 Omits. 2 V.NVV\. 3AddSr*rM>.

P VJ-*-- 5 Both ^-A4o. e Both add OlQ AiaZ J. 7p ^ Vj.
* Both OlMoAlte . 9 Both *i^ . 10 Both omit. u Both omit.
"Omits. 13 Both add rOl>. » Both ^A^kj. 15 Omits. And P
4»j)l g^-lj. 16 Both add OlAi Ayr^O ] 1 ffi M OTpA»O. 17 Omits.
18 Both add .nA^k. 19 Adds JCDOi'fQjL^. 20 Qmits. P is : e>>»»x,
eJjJL-j J^lj JL.U . 21 Both lo^O^aA* . 22 Botll adcj
23 AJJ, -»oouJ^. -4 Both omit. "Omits. -6
22
300 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

V1 * [jxujo^l; ^t^calL l^o] ^oZ . oi-cii^jo

]n\A n« 2 [»*A**j ^coV^ ^D ^U ^o]La!^ Ijoi ]ola_Qj 13

001 *nalZa^ Aal**k> 0010 6 U*;_a 0010 S^amoAk) aio,_.o

01 A.. 010

AD oufl T

. O] .1 »a^v lolls OUUfiO^ !>OO12

1o . ^"Mcn oio-nl. o 10 [.o

.oaico >oou^L
Ao 010; n Vi n
AaoZ w»aio oin\o (sic) ^ly-coZo ouaoZ « omi^

V^vn^v '^•'^i 16 1*'0?] «*^iS»^ ^Ai 15 [OILS**] loj

[»olo] la^A
Q oiaoZo]o
.o
'W1 i »^>n
[ao] ^loccLi , iV>\Z .m^lliO U 19 [^alo£L»o] .QOJ^I ]n\s .

1 Both omit. 2 ^ -»* 3 Adds

1?01 »1SQCD J>0\ o^. And P further adds : Jj-, l>el

Jl c_,^)! Ju i/^i taloVy 1^ c^jllj *Ju^ ^ ^ 0\ Jl M

^Vj 1^- 4 loJ^A. » Both add 'r

6 Both add ^V-«'r^ 010-0 ^ A iW ^iAJ^,
P Jis^1 and adds ^LJ ^ tjjej. 8 Both J>OOIO |o.

9 Omits. "Both^^. "P^XH^jJ- 12 Omits. l3 Omits.

And P adds c^ y J- u ^o
16 lop>« And P |jy^' " Omits- 18
ao Adds .itiffiSn^ followed by ^
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 301
-^ A.^ - Av ^o AJ] Apts ZloiolJ) ^iO ^So 5olo

^ A ^ ^^Xi 0010 -A*-» 1r^ -pr>^1.^ ^nn^V)^ /jo

Aon W.

,£0.. 001 ^

2 001 ^fCCLO -iJ21 iO> 001

'-/^ A j

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^ ..
)01 wAi -^VvVo 0010 m.Vr. o

JZ AmnSo .1]] Aar^mo [12J ^ A.^v ?OA

1 Both add Z]oS0]]] ^^0 ^So *>)o C3ul. And P further adds \>_

^'£* v ^j ^j ^A^\ Jc ^ tiy\ Jjjl ^V?- 2 P L5J-» ^»>

3 P omits. 4 P JV jCllil J, <s)U-l Jc oJL, JV i5Ju- U JV1 ^ lil ^
lil Jj ^J-- l> Jjc Jc (— i-U, lil (j^J .y-jijl eLJL, c: — *j c:....o (jju- \j

5P omits. 6Pj^- 7 P eLJL. ^j Je- 8 P

• P UjliJ o^j. 10 P eUt Jtt ^1 r^JI j ^ UL 1^1. up adds

tojl *1J i^1. " P adds J5j? ul oJL-
\i u^' •A*-- rfs— Jl »-i eJju- - el».L»*
302 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

3
oilooZ

yd .m (]] 1 n U ^teo4 AooZ ^010] Ioio'r4i^

n»^v wkfiop ^o)Lo] Am\, o
Av] ^n A4-2O

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oi>oi .1 I

13

oijcn
oil

[20]
ouu.Sn^ 01901
(tic) ou,\s >L.] . ^01 oi^i
oilAoo

1 Both add .coa^^a M» 2 Both oio*D. 3 Both

* P adds ily-iJl. s P omits. 6 P omits. T P omits. 'Add
9 P omits and M 355 adds OlSolpllo. « P adds ^ ^L- and M 355
ll P adds 1^. 12 P ^ja. 13 And P ^W'.
and M 355 !>ooiQa4a, » P iTvi. 16 Both loZjo
17 Both ISollo 01QSOMO, 18 Both omit. 19 P adds
2°
21 Adds '^° ^COQ^;^* (^• 22 P omits all and reverses the
->*•
order of the following24 sentences. 23 OUJD] AAo OuU^£ OliAo ^Lo 1?OI
P isil^ . 26 Adds U?0'r»1 .
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 303
oioi

o A .]] [3 ru? .
oi\,D
5 ^oi.^O
. « [<*•> A^;o. 011^,2,02 JiAo

mi . vn^v )] lo;oiA..oio oi>oi

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12 ^oo^p . ^
and M. 355
7 Both ZoSo . 8 P «U ^ A^J A^
oiA^oio. • 4lfloAik
u ou-a^o V]JD jaA and P
10 Both omit. Adds

Uti. 15PaddSu-^U». M Am A.
17 l>0010p^2. The expressions are totally different in P. 18 P

fUI ^/w. 19 P *JI o>Uj «JjJ and M 355

20 P omits.
 •5fl.
304 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

3[di|SQL] U-Ai Apo ^Ao p^x&vo u^] Us»1

001 Jioo . ouZpj

• "jolcoj] |jjso] Zp>
wi^k [8] >1Q£CU
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inverts the order of the sentence.
and P U\i .

8 Adds ->
11 Adds and P ^112 •And P9 Adds
£/Jl 13 P omits. u P
15 Both add 19 P sJi U u
16 ii«i . » Both omit.
- 20 Omits.
and P
and ^ l
21 p \jL,ji. aa Adds O. » P omiti. 24 Both
and P y?l
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MARTYRDOM OF PILATE

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ft ^rrt. ]Vw> v>

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001 AJ| .^1 AociwZo loi\Sn s i 14^1 [«]

] Vno .

^A V) ».; n Ol-^j

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001 AJ A s V? m

7 Both

^ Adds 4-Q-S and P >V. nd P adds •.

3 P ^|j >fc. * Both omit. 5 OlllflD. 6P

8 Adds *lloo dilte>>. 9 Both r»]o Socu. 10 fl], u
A!OM. 12 Both >aio. 13 Both add oi^a
14 Both omit. 15 Both add . » • mVl
17 lfloil O loio. 18 Both add
. " P is till the end of the letter: o-i ^ ^1 U|

20 Omits.
306 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

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10 [^o ȣ)Q] ^po Jo.. o

Jpo .^AsolL ^10

16 [^fCQa',*^,.^ ,,.\V^] " [^JCLij] w^S JjAfi)

L AJ}

20

1 Omits. 2 Both wUS« yLcu^ ^» v . ^ Both »sAo so }?oi

4 Both add ^dA*0^ ^2). 8 Ol^U*^1 and P »oUU
6 Both add JooJ^ *JLS ZloLoPl ^^o ^io ±o\oo oi^a
* ou].la .
ouolo jAsoIL. 9 Both omit. 10
Adds

Both \to&\ lor^ I* ;A J>ollca^ JBQ^U^a HOT*^, }oul

J -r^ 'r*n^ . " .la.} . 1B Both
. 16 Both •£$] . ir Omits. 18 Both
" Both omit. 20 Both omit. 21 Both omit. 22 J
x>oii Alo V^A» 33 Both *
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 307

* Av j^j

Vn 7.V^ IjOUQS -m ^]1 . «~> ]j m i .

] Ail© ^1 AliQx.

010 . wiZoLo ioZ] Zioi^Z

^001 1?] i

Aao . ^1,11 IQJQIU

Ad]
loiOy.pl

-o. (
^
OUJrLO au OTJL.,10
A.. 01]
Aoo [•] 010

jZ^i [10] ^Zy^o VI

in an
13 .m^l.n U vV1o [»]
015010
'^*^ >£OCLi;ni J ,11
aiio]K
;t -^ lioi A. o yjo ou|
OlOl 0010
O1\CD>1 ,£)] 01^0 O

OlilDJJJ)
3 Both 6 Ac|d8

1 Omits. 5 Both
4 Adds 14 Both
" Both add
» Omits. 8 P adds rli-i Jr* j
11 Both add AooZ
and P alone ia
Denial
and M 355 adds

?]
308 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

jcn^o .m^lli-) U ]aaL . » [01 AO]

3[AoolL
. Gin.

>ol Aoi] ADO 001 ^>]D •pi/o

_. I ^ _ .
011 i,Sn^ ^D^^O ,,iSV)^ Arn^i .} loafco

. 8 [jSoCI] >AA IrM

cru] ]Q3]_s 9 ouon^o

010
oVv . ^AM ./XsnV ^1 r^x^r3 ^o1^2ail JxJP
^SXQDQuO 15[OOI] r V^<^^ ;
L. oiSi

^iO .,i\^n^ ^1 ,£0..

[20] 19 [j^So!^ ,_o1] ,£0^.

)al]_oo 21

Both OUJD], 2 Both add OlCD,nV)Hv« 3 Omits. 4 Adds

and P^- 8 Omits. 6 Adds OlXJ-CO> wOi], 7 Both
8 Both omit. 9 Both omit. 10 Both omit.
"Omits. 12P»x-*. 13 P il and M 355 oi^ao laoij. "OTOJJQD
Oioao*0 and P adds also »jUTiJiyi i*Vi A> j-j/ii ^jJlj. 1B Adds (lao
J»Q4]L£) AiD. 16 Both omit. 1T 6l^-a_D »j-a. 18 Both omit.
19 P omits. 20 Adds ZoalAlk ^Lo. 31 P <sAUl
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 309
3[r»r»

lolp ^A AAbUl lo?oiU ,0 oul [•]

.

^^ ,]_DO jxujo'ri] «£)]Zo ^Z) loJ^s "U^ A^ .moSni?on i 10

] ^ fo^. ^io Ap AaVrTL. O1O*U-2>Q^ »«Lii 1>OO1O [6]

oils .<^<^ *U\s> ^oaiA

f^ ^.U-So^ Jli]^.. 001 pi 7
[•] s [.fft . ;^v l>ai ^o

- \m^^; l>ai lail ] p]o

01,21.. ^LO JO J^XLiO n
. f . |^o 1>O1 -frioVn.^no> in . >

U-»l P]S l?oi» - JxisZ-^ . ,

"[^l^Vl >ri ^00 MJJoilL ^k> ^QSrOjl ^^ 001 p]o
001
IpiOl* pi
Z).

[ls] bolpO loiDQoZ .1 ^0^1 y£S Uo "

loco)

, 17

18

1 Omits and P^-Vl . 2 iooia,^. jyOO. 3 Both omit. 4 Both

5 P adds 4- \jj~ \jftf_M icU1 J and both invert the
order. 6 Adds OlO-,^^!!) and P adds c*fj! J. T AdOaO.
8 Omits. 9 Both add OlXa IxalUlL ^2> OlAx^OQ 2lplo. 10 Both

Jn*?©-^ .fHlV^. " .IQ^O ^1,1^ and P »yll. la P (Jr..

13 51-^Bl x]]oi ^ and Pj\rW ^ «)^. u ^OOUri]. 15Adds
JOQ^'^^4. 16Both^-. " OlilAo] and p ^L 18 Omits and
both add ^-olAaSolL ^CDO^ and P alone
 310 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

«ju» Aa *^joajio [l] ].»>••> A.]1] ^r>

[>oaiA»aoo ^ooi/uvi
001]
L^Qx^i OLtQ..] ofi t.

OUOIS flDOiO ^CU)0-H . oiD OLLifSQ **£> 7

]>ooio]

2>o]Lo] aAl..O Olfi

OlfiL O OIx2)

8
.

^l>o] . Z]So aiyj -A JoUUI Z,*

, 1-0] wi^L joou^Lo * " [^So^v («/c)

..

- cr> ^]1 . «^

is [)alloo] ] ^ ^^ ^A ^OOUOIA] 1aia> ^oou) k>Z .

1 Adds »>lAaSoik uflooi ^001. 2 Both

tlooii iolZl AID AUlUo 3 Both '
and M 355 adds ^oooo, 4 Omits. 6 P ^^.. 6 P — Jl and
M 3550li^. 'Bothcn-,^^. 8 Both omit.
10 p jjjJU ^»j-^ jjiUsi. " Both omit. 12
13 P adds j^-Ui. u Both add ^Aio!L ^1 ,£0^ ^OOli ASjO and P
adds oj.UI j. " laio-,^^ ^.Ssn^ cjii)co> ^oaii. " Both omit
17 Adds •riAalk. 18 Both
 OF PILATE 311
MARTYRDOM
ioi

Annjo ;r

* Oils] Oil i>CLi^Z

^ L.i Jxa^i Aloo ]ioo 01^0 [7] "Li [6] *o

Oils]]
Oil

[13] ;oo w^s 0101^00 oiopf ioZ .A^So 0010

]oZ]o

OO1 O1 OL.

i^OO and P omits. 2 Both add

and P *J6 £*j. 4 Both add U~« 5 Both J

7 P adds iiU. 8 Omits. 9 Omits. 10 Both OlZ^o. " p
f**W|^ L?J^ u^'^^-* J^*^ jjrfjijl (sJ^J and M 355 ^^5 <TU_u_^
]o
^•r00 and the rest. 12 Both OU.C;] ^tiOi] . 13 P adds
:^ Adds A^lO ...SVl^v ^ol. 15 Both jjao. 16 P add
Uy- and M 355 1^'rCD ±O\O ^O A^*T3. " Both ZldLoj

18 P 1>*I and M 355 liA^l . 19 P Jj.1 . 20 Both omit. 21 Both I

22 Both omit. 23 P Pj~i and M 355 *mfnV^ AQOL.
24 Both omit. 25 Both omi*.
312 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

0010
.l-D — r^ ZoalAik * [*00-£>] >CQ^L>

011 iS*") Aicl/u 0010 oAciL, Aoijl _k> A/iVft"* 0010 ou^> oi,m-.
V» s-iAite OlxlL lOwla . OlAi ^.

. \n V>
or>^

^.^ ]LO [10] -H^O U Oil £)0 OUa ^^Q fiO pO

12 [|LljS O «

il Solo ioailo
Ol-^DO Oll.]^ OO1

] Vne . [»] ^- J1««^ ^i^lcOO ^olSQ^ ^lSO OOT ]>O1

.. 001

iocniio ZoSa» ^Lo ADO *4i]31 ^i ffl m AD . " [01,11

AD] . ^ooLi [20] Ijoi •pint oiU*^ ^Ai oiZoio

a and P adds

3 Both add 55*0. 4 P J^ and 355 -*>• 5 P adds

6 Both omit. 7 Adds ^AJLo] . n o« « Adds
a 010-a] . 10 P adds eJJJU u A^DAJiO and
Both oA A]o. 13 Adds wi^CD. u P omits and adds

and P proceeds differently. " Adds

^LQCQji l?cn .Oi (^ t^£>l ,JA w»^ ^] n^\ and proceeds

y-0. JliA, and P is somewhat different. 20 Both add
 313
MARTYRDOM OF PILATE

^lo 01 Snml

!>oai

^ ^^ 1,01 fO,i.Z /)

>] «•* [7]

IOJQTU
t '" ^
[io] m^A^ ^v *,o2 . » [aiflp

. loipm..

oai°

ail _j ai>oi
0102]
!bocrul aio^nSs'ja i»OO10

cn V) i V)

19

joio ^ooi_a]_iu ,**! j ioaiZoLo

' Both omit. 3 P omits.

4 P omits. 5 P adds liJl« *iV. • Both add Pr» r^ losV)m Ao

8 Both omit. 9 Omits. "Adds
" i|5. w y*,.. « B vl. " Both omit.
" P ^1 ijijL. ^jy.. 16 Both omit. 17 Both omit. 18 Both omit.
19 Both omit and P adds \*
314 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

•• 01 A., 0010 0100] j

ojo
0010

^lolL A-,* oiAiU°

^Ol^CD'^O]
[»]

«^
01 r*
12

[13]Z]k> ,0 -liD

^-»

,00
OlpZZ] ^
OO1° *^
18

19
[20]

1 Both tl-3 r^ V^>» 2 Both .Vif)Mi» 3 Both omit. 4

>1^ UD» 5 Both add ZioU -A2L ^'^ diSo^ AJJo. 6 Both
add (P J~0 *coa£lka »flDl> An n» l>Aalo» » ZJOL^. p omits
and both add Jxala^ (P «^
JoonSo. 8 Both .onm» 9 Both add
" and M 355 adds
10 P »jlj and both add

12 P omits. 13 Adds 'r*^^ 'nVna. " Both -Aoo 01^ j

" P dL,U. 16 Adds ?^CQa ]lo U*»» P is totally different. 1T Adds
Z)oLo]]} v-«^ ^SD ASQD ,0 loiO, 18 Both omit. 19 P is differently
worded. 20 Both .mmSn^v U^ \1 (P omits) AQ£Qa. 21 Both r*;o\.
c
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 315
• \
H . .
3

01)01r -1"1Al.o l^A^) . [s] ^.^Ik l>oia oiO'rASo oioa]

,0 U> -
Jo * [01,^2 oil]cD*^k ai>oi

_»

OO1

12 [:*"^ >oi 001

1'pDO
[U^> tl

AsJ oil
ZaSn^o cru,. ^Ai \3^>Q ^c] Ul Aaoo
0V,. O -3'
] Vr>
..
O au.o 1} [^lu]
. Zoiolko

1 Both v'V>v -^ . ' p cjiyi ^ l|»U1 eJi,. s Both omit

4 P e^T^l; liU. jjTelljiV iJVWJl »J*j. 5 Both add ^Oi^S^» 6 P j^
and M 355 omits. 7 Both add JSOOiifcajL^ . 8 Both add }oiO AOO
OUJ2) £> wi .S^OV^v **. 9 P UUl ,j* viudbl Ui Jl
" P ^-Jl ^-e. " oAo and p
» Both -JLO] ^U >r£) ->Z1. 23
^ Both omit and p j^ ^ ^ ,4
omit. 15Both h~'ri. M*r4^. 17^Ao» P worded differently,
•\J* liAJ. l> Both oA^V. . » pkJ . M
316 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

oiAoo *A2 ALA As OILS') jiol Aioou XiX ,,AvA> . ^--^

0112] A AID jo D w»,lL 1 **L» pi |]aa>>

Aocoi vlo . ' j] So) 001]

oipmso
]o-.Q£>
? >. ipS .
[S]

lonnmo loo^Zo 01,

-.« [>
oipo

. .n»..s\
2)U«] •

..n» > 0010

OO1O

. ,

Zi

- ><y>

AID -> .i|s oiZolo

001
oi>oio
Ollop AlD

1 Omits. 2 Both omit and P worded differently,

3 Adds >CDn ij Oi^ * P »j^. 5 Both omit and P
worded differently. 6 Both **»; 7 Both omit. 8 Omits.
P worded differently, *i»l ^*l ^*- U csUJI UV
Ljjjl J*l ljjj»U. U) 9 Omits. P worded differ-
" Omits. P worded differ-
ently, eU X\i Jlc o^ ^*. lo Omits.
ently, Uj* c>ij J^J o^ ^1 £• ^j-i v^1
f*51 WJ- " Both
add Uii- Aj^lQ . 13 Both add OL«1 .
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 317
U
3
»g>
001

001

•-
-*^ ^c * oaio

aiiolol
]?OT- .

-^ v] .

]?] oiLi.^L aijcn

i A Am
1 Ol2|32 ;1
. *££>]> oaio
Oil A QIOl* OliJ ^J
["]
OUJD]
loZ ""] oi?aii» ^ ]Sf>\n 13

O12)
coic . .«^

Ol

a Omits. 3 Both Qi\QQ^ «,.\<n^ ^.s Uo l?oi>

4 Both OlAJjoUas. * .lljcaa. s -^Jl *A loiolo. P inverts
the order of this section. 7 Omits. s Omits. 9 Adds > ^O .
10 AddsOlZoSD. P inverts the order. n Adds onOmA^o. P omits.
and P *y\. "Adds .» i n npAj^p ^ p on]y
-oo. P omits. 15 Adds S>Q i » .1 ^v **a Old] ,10 ^OLi
l* Omits. l" Both add ^» A] Aioo . 18 Both add in more or less similar
terms .
318 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
ocn AJ] oil
Oil

'Z JxAa

01J01 l> a) -^.vnv ,nnr».'0. ^

. AID cnrA . Aoo ^2 v*j} ^ ]o>cn*o . louj .

' [01]}) ocn >]o

li^lLoO k)
Gl] ou]

o
.AAJL, wtr

]] 1 («c) ^-jo-^ Jxxjio . [9]

1 A InoS^] ^.rA . iNon wAx loxy jocnAl

. aiarA.o cnasmlo [»] AQ_EQU» ]_k)lo
aA A|o . ouio l^Aol ])ai jj.
aAop ai'r^a^] . oai ,)^LD ^a) ^Loo ocn ,_-.]
]3o ^ -.
.QILi DO *Stvt COQljaO OljuM Olios . OuO .Z

^ ,11 cnoViZ pa -. OLI JXLAo * CTIJQJ vLJ^» AASo

90J ocn cnnA t o AiA«Z i|_j ocn crufiop . . j|]
OO1O

Acoil v^^ cn^o«o cnlLASD .a^} uA** cnrA. A^io cnj

^L\ASD ^i^lVi OCTIO 2>QjA»9CLkS vjJ^o

1 y^£>l^>] . 2 Both omit. 3 P \^ . 4

. P differently. 5Z)ia>. «^A-S£LO**So
p ^^V. 7 Both add: >U^ ^cAo cnjcnW oi^a?. P
8 Adds AuO^ 1 • 9 Adds A»V^ kA** ^a . lfl Both
-r^»« " Add« -l^v. P ~i L^liJ1 " Omits.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 319

. i [Ollffl .o

OIJO1 wiuSO ^vn .mn>»^. ^

iZ Jxilo loilso^i ^ wiAlL

>cr> ^ .^.7"). >.r> .rr> ^]1 . ^

IQCD [2] oii^a]

a] .[*]oiQ£il.o ^^ w^L oia [3]1oZ]
. 6 [oio >*A^J

. aim]) ]opU^ aia..p]

tl Ann auj]Z

010 _»o
_» ^A^»
^^» ] <^> pr>^v ^,
1,0 Ap Aoo ^ ^ t
-<w»ffi.gi ^|o . aiaXAoo aiorA.
«£QJ> r^Mr2 OIJOl^O OT\oAo ^5^ OlZ^O .] -Av *)o>OUl
] V> ffi
OlSC£0] w^i-j-

Oil Ak) . .)]]] - Av m Vo] o ^n oi^ ±O20 .^Avn^v oil

auic ,-iZ^Z AaSo ^oa^UjLa . P is :
U ..Jl Ab ~i » JJ1 ttUJ

io^ JOI^l Jx&O and P *-*?•. 3 Adds ?OOuA . * Both add

J-J>OV»Z ^} -^ ^k) ^^ Lj] AlS£Ll >CPQLi; Oi^ Oil A]_0
(P omits) [011,^0 As-^o Al^l] . oi^Ua IjAs^ ]]o (UlU)

l^lo ailk) . The last sentence is in P Vj

5 Both omit. 6 P db **_»! Lil 131 A;
7 Adds

r-»r*

Z ^ yioo . 8 Adds
and P JJS *-lc Ijta ul. • AoriiO ^li 1,^0 Oiolp.
320 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

omn

13o

>Z 13 o

]ou] .^ Av
-\\U ..t.m V> ^^jAnoZ 13 o .

^\ mil

0010 .m^lKn oi^lo \±o Ijoi]

D -,0^1 J^X AlAlio^ l^lo .-

?Uvyl31 -A A^A* ooio .m^llin 16 [^
oi] . oufco\A oijin^, vo^ oiml
A..13 loa^Z 17 [lla
3 Both oilo^.lo oiloi)]

CTUS CTinl^liD, 4PaddscJj. 6 P &£> '< J\ k>-jj J»-l. 6 -?o

V13 ^H^l» '^jj^l, jji. 8Both>?lo. 9P omits. 10Adds
13 o ^L«pZ )3 wi,ifin i* ^ilo ^oiA*}
l>cn loV^o cnorA.lo oiop %om AV A\oo ^a^.
^lSD>*2. " P dc^. 13 Both add
0010 OLiAnOJ ^Al -A..O and P adds

jl before Pilate and omits "on the earth." 15Pljj.iJl. 1G P omits.

7 P A;»y *lj ^jUj-ol ^ i^Ua-j AiJ i y^W^ O'tA^'^J AiUic J>-l Jj».j oftJl J

4.1 1. ^ JU» *,lc ^jC and M 355, >coni\\imn ilo AaA^ ^oZ etc.
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 321
AQCCLi

HK* ^it iomio ^'1 ^ol> lop") ^o J>ooul

-vo m. • «~>o
3

OUX&22 «^ . .
4
loZ]o
/)
lA.y01 lOj-^O SOOl^O.O ,110

]al,o o wi

,00 >9

Z loin]] I ^.^2 <_10 OlALoU^O MH^C ,£0.1 ZJO.O

.*>oiij
n\ Al n

1 Both omit. 2.u.mSn ^n<o» 3P

JU, U'^j.^b * p ^i u
*«- \4^- jJl U\l«i!^J>rdl Ov yJUc^ VJ^l ^1 rJi and'M 355,

J elLJ^\T«^jlJ
' ..jj^ j i:UI elt j
. M. U J»tf *a:Ulj
w-»l c;:r-;^fl!lj. M omits all this but has also OUOQS for J'r»U*» P proceeds
*
il US' ^^ J! jj-jJUJI »j^». IjU* »jl4* J^i L j» ^ ^. The
text of M 355 is similar to that of M 1 27 with the exception that he uses the
first pers. plur. fcpl, oiUaa, oio U^^l, U^o.o, K>iO« 5
So also P. 6 Adds ^iol -ll^O OlZ|3^. •p > ,^ j»
fe Adds i-ooiZoxco i>ocn>]3ol ^-^o. 9 p Us US'.
 322 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

.1
] no

f ^r^ QiVtiV),^ ]t\] V)^ ^Lo io^Z ]_Lo

QUO] V) m^\ o

. . ^>^ CTll -y^ -» .m ^n^ AQCd. p Auk) 6\£)]jQ

Colophon of M 127.

uoo io o ... oi ]aVl Aoo

^0*90
Sou] «JL£) CTUJJJQU ^ i smZo oiv2)]o ou

^'r*Z 9GL»
>oon » S i ro^a ^

Here ends the story in M 127. The following addition to it is from

M 355 and P 1521:

AAoo

\l£> loAa]>0

Vf>

1 I have repeated the first two lines to make the sequence of the

story complete. a Omits. 3 Adds S&M. 4 u^1 *»- V* ^Uc X cLil

I.\iU
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 323
, cnopic >oou^k oiolAo] , r i
-v™r>. cn^ko .ala ACDJJ - [yiSsn^
ouoi ^L -».<J wioio i<LA*>ol *s> ]ou] 3

joouA ^io ,+*] SOi «[]] ^LT) («c) I

01 nv^ *> - oil

10
0i_.
ln

]i .rft

>01 _J^

UoV.1 18 »

o ou-i,iD -- ou-ijio ^Soo nSo w, .

[ao] »^2>a£Z ^.Zw wi^p] A^Z]

Ji. - Omits. 3 ^^ Ails U^kJ **l.

Omits. 'liJucJIU^. 6Vj li-^s j 14-^1 l»^^y. T Omits.

Ij* elUI ^- Ui. 9 l^fJ*. 10 i.jlj oUbj " dL

12 ^i^^. . 12 Omits. 14 Adds i-J *>JjJ ' *- Jiljj •

15 Omits. 16 Omits. " Adds >^" jJl . l8 ^i\ eiil i.-..!1 ^.1 .
"Omits. 20Adds..
324 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

**&V>]3 . »Sn\oia .nS.^v Soo* ^2 4**^ ^ 3 ou^u] v

MjaiL Jaio -A
w^k]])

.6 ^

. .rrtn r> 6

i]Qj»
u.
J

V^<^^ 13

tU^ 1?cn 001 ]lo rA4o 2>ooio u[oil ..Vco ]opo

"[Aloi] >1

jA . r
i S»olAjil |_3? ^o H^ I? [>
. 01 i m»>V Icn-SfljLyiZ r* ] i v» vr> I8 [^

Omits. 2- 3«aJJli.

^1 jjs» j ^Ji^j (Jtlcj-j ^ Ujc . 7 J-*. Jc. 8 Omits. 'Inverts

the order. 10 j^1 eL-* ^ Ujc ^j^Ulj pHj^1 ^H^" ^^ «^ j^*-1' J^

J^j. n *JjJlj). " Omits. 13 jj&l i^1 >• U Omits. l5 eu
cui
18
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 325

•^ AAVn ]ai_l_al 2Zl_LO 001

] ^ m^. .^L afloiAia) 1 1r»As~ ioXJi^v l>oi

]cru]o]

i>cuJ- ^^ ^Z-^ ] ^o m^v Zm\V> >ail»Zo J

. >P v Ul .] -m A .
]oASaol w.^ ^9,1^ ^Zpko .asZ
VA vn ^ ]ou)Z v^^ ^So loAi^'O joai* aiicoZ

.
,£) QUO] V^ rO^v i<LA*Jo] ^£5 ^ ^

^] m Vr> -J]

Omits. * ^l— Jl ^r-J cz-i. \4^3 s^cl ,jyi 1jj>

' Omits. 10 Adds U1 . » ^jjjjl JULVI .

Jc. 1S UJi. 14 ^U ^Jl iiUlj ^^Jlj i\0lj '£l!j . 15 bj

yjj^ ,JU\ djU. " Adds >b . 17 ^Vl Jc

" Omits. M ^»\- 21'UJ1.

326 WOODBROOKE STUDIES

i
5

[7] Jfi

]>oi * .*^ A-^. s ^^Ai wk2 «u. yO oiZj

9 )Ol^|31 OI^CD^O 9 ' w»9

^r^x ?Uy\i^l oiil-Lcu oZ] AiS

11 jll ^iD Zi*>0 >]0.. V>m v ^nn] i<LiX»io1 10
12 V.

.090^0] ^9,1^ 13 [,nn\ft i] ]>oou .9} As

Ijcn ^ AioAj] ,0 louB]
..

001 AJ] ail A)o 16

[5Qji] -

9CU
21 ACDJO oi|o9.]o 0102} ^1^9

3 Omits. 4ei!jU. 5 Omits. • J»l

7 Adds elUl^ . 8 ^c Jc ^ ^Jl ijU Ui_, oi
9 Omits. 10 Jl dJJl A-C ^^1^* J^> rU. u i^
i^\4Jj. 12 Omits. 13 Omits and inverts the order. u Omits. 15
16 Omits. " JJiij. 18 X\5 *jU. 19j» W A^J *1»
ao
 MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 327

[5] -Q't i^Q 4 [2U31] oijoi .la ^J^s ...Nv^ oil

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and adds jJUl ^^ ^ l|Li ^«

M Omits. M OmiU.
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MARTYRDOM OF PILATE 329

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ion? w^o )o] Aoo ]

J Oil!

The end is in P :

Vl jJjSCL J f Ua.}M jjJW-* UT U*as 4A.U

JU1 A.J! ,». yf^j jJ/Vlj J^1 *J JLJ ^oJl 1J* ^-jJiJl **-! J^j cs),U
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lj iL^ 1* ^1 AsJ-j U<i j»j ^j *J\i*l *l» -, Jli ^ J(, \j\lJ1 i/i^

Variants of the Cod. Vat. Syr. 199.

P. L.orH.
283, n. 10, tCDOoVt'OOO

284, ]. 10, after Ji^ adds:

285, n. 4, . loiSilo

1. 7, for AVAoA>/) hag.

286, I. 3, after iOi^ adds :
L 14, omits : •£$]
287, 1. 9, omit* : Aa]s
n. 11, Oioia
289, 1. 7, after ^O\»^\ adds
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D. 12, V]m^Ul ^iD y]* Ar>1

1. 15, for «i*^OS has ^11 and for AQfiCLi has always
n. 20, lo^> ^/u» >ocn
290, 1. 10, for Ali^O has : 24
n. 24, after ^CD^pW^ adds: )o>OlBLi
291, n. 18,
332 WOODBROOKE STUDIES
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292, n. 4, ^r£&
1. 9, for AorM has:
I. 20, before OlfloU> has :
293, n. 13, has JDloo] for: ,11
II. 15, 16, omits them.

1. 19, for *>A» has: A.O

294, n. 13, omits all its text.

1. 17, after ]O;&M adds: ™" » <^ oijQl -^

295, 1. 3, omits:
1. 6, wij
296, 1. 5, after ]>O1 adds:
1. 20, omits: *A

297, 1. 4, for loll^O has :

I 8, for 01 p] has:
1. 19, for JO^v has :
298, n. 7, adds: }Ox£& VJL£)
1- 11, for loia&O^lo has :
1- 15, for _.*£o!ik has:
299, 1. 1, for Iojio]o2 has:
1. 6, for Ufa has : ]j\Q
1. 8, before Al&nj|o has:
300, 1. 1, omits: OloX^JO
1. 13, for y »^ » has : —* »^»
301, 1. 7, for ^rfiQoO has:
302, 1. 5, for V^~^ has :
1. 10, for Ol^rMAlQ^v has:

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