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The Gospel Nicodemus
Chapter XXII
1 Pilate goes to the temple; calls together
the rulers, and scribes, and doctors.
2 Commands the gates to be shut;
orders the book of the Scriptures; and
causes the Jews to relate what they really
knew concerning Christ.
14 They declare that they crucified Christ
in ignorance, and that they now know him
to be the Son of God, according to the
testimony of the Scriptures; which,
after they put him to death, were examined.
AFTER these things Pilate went
to the temple of the Jews,
and called together all the rulers
and scribes, and doctors of the
law, and went with them into a
chapel of the temple.
2 And commanding that all the
gates should be shut, said to them,
I have heard that ye have a certain
large book in this temple; I desire
you, therefore, that it may be
brought before me.
3 And when the great book,
carried by four ministers of the
temple, and adorned with gold and
precious stones, was brought,
Pilate said to them all, I adjure
you by the God of your Fathers,
who made and commanded this temple
to be built, that ye conceal not the
truth from me.
4 Ye know all the things which
are written in that book; tell me
therefore now, if ye in the
Scriptures have found any thing of
that Jesus whom ye crucified, and at
what time of the world he, ought
to have come: show it me.
5 Then having sworn Annas and
Caiaphas, they commanded all the
rest who were with them to go out
of the chapel.
6 And they shut the gates of the
temple and of the chapel, and said
to Pilate, Thou hast made us to
swear, O judge, by the building of
this temple, to declare to thee that
which is true and right.
7 After we had crucified Jesus,
not knowing that he was the Son
of God, but supposing he wrought
his miracles by some magical arts,
we summoned a large assembly in
this temple.
8 And when we were deliberating
among one another about the
miracles which Jesus had wrought,
we found many witnesses of our
own country, who declared that
they had seen him alive after his
death, and that they heard him
discoursing with his disciples, and
saw him ascending into the height
of the heavens, and entering into
them;
9 And we saw two witnesses,
whose bodies Jesus raised from the
dead, who told us of many strange
things which Jesus did among the
dead, of which we have a written
account in our hands.
10 And it is our custom annually
to open this holy book before an
assembly, and to search there for
the counsel of God.
11 And we found in the first of
the seventy books, where Michael
the archangel is speaking to the
third son of Adam the first man,
an account that after five thousand
five hundred years, Christ the
most beloved son of God was to
come on earth,
12 And we further considered,
that perhaps he was the very God
of Israel who spoke to Moses,
Thou shalt make the ark of the
testimony; two cubits and a half
shall be the length thereof, and a
cubit and a half the breadth thereof,
and a cubit and a half the height
thereof.
13 By these five cubits and a
half for the building of the ark
of the Old Testament, we perceived
and knew that in five thousand
years and half (one thousand) years,
Jesus Christ was to come in the
ark or tabernacle of a body;
14 And so our Scriptures testify
that he is the Son of God, and the
Lord and King of Israel.
15 And because after his suffering,
our chief priests were surprised
at the signs which were wrought
by his means, we opened that book
to search all the generations down
to the generation of Joseph and
Mary the mother of Jesus,
supposing him to be of the
seed of David;
16 And we found the account of
the creation, and at what time he
made the heaven and the earth,
and the first man Adam, and that
from thence to the flood, were two
thousand seven hundred and forty-
eight years.
17 And from the flood to Abraham,
nine hundred and twelve.
And from Abraham to Moses, four
hundred and thirty. And from
Moses to David the King, five
hundred and ten.
18 And from David to the Babylonish
captivity five hundred years.
And from the Babylonish captivity
to the incarnation of Christ, four
hundred years.
19 The sum of all which amounts
to five thousand and half (a thousand.)
20 And so it appears, that Jesus
whom we crucified, is Jesus Christ
the Son of God, and true Almighty
God. Amen.
(In the name of the Holy Trinity,
thus end the acts of our Saviour
Jesus Christ, which the Emperor
Theodosius the Great found at
Jerusalem, in the hall of Pontius
Pilate, among the public records;
the things were acted in the
nineteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,
Emperor of the Romans, and in
the seventeenth year of the
government of Herod, the son of
Herod and of Galilee, on the
eighth of the calends of April,
which is the twenty-third day of
the month of March, in the CCIId
Olympiad, when Joseph and Caiaphas
were rulers of the Jews; being a
History written in Hebrew by
Nicodemus, of what happened after
our Saviour's crucifixion.)
REFERENCES TO THE GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS, FORMERLY
CALLED THE ACTS OF PONTIUS PILATE.
[Although this Gospel is, by some among the learned, supposed to have
been really written by Nicodemus, who became a disciple of Jesus Christ,
and conversed with him; others conjecture that it was a forgery towards
the close of the third century by some zealous believer, who, observing
that there had been appeals made by the Christians of the former age,
to the acts of Pilate, but that such acts could not be produced,
imagined it would be of service to Christianity to fabricate and publish
this Gospel; as it would both confirm the Christians under persecution,
and convince the Heathens of the truth of the Christian religion. The
Rev. Jeremiah Jones says, that such pious frauds were very common among
Christians even in the first three centuries; and that a forgery of this
nature, with the view above-mentioned, seems natural and probable. The
same author, in noticing that Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History,
charges the Pagans with having forged and published a book, called "The
Acts of Pilate," takes occasion to observe that the internal evidence of
this Gospel shows it was not the work of any Heathen, but that if in the
latter end of the third century we find it in use among Christians (as
it was then certainly in some churches), and about the same time find a
forgery of the Heathens under the same title, it seems exceedingly
probable that some Christians, at that time, should publish such a piece
as this, in order partly to confront the spurious one of the Pagans, and
partly to support those appeals which had been made by former Christians
to the Acts of Pilate; and Mr. Jones says, he thinks so more particularly
as we have innumerable instances of forgeries by the faithful in the
primitive ages, grounded on less plausible reasons. Whether it be
canonical or not, it is of very great antiquity, and is appealed to by
several of the ancient Christians. The present translation is made from
the Gospel, published by Grynaeus in the Orthodoxographa, vol. i, tom,
ii, p. 613.]
Notwithstanding the diversity of opinions here alluded to, the majority
of the learned believe that the internal evidence of the authenticity of
this Gospel is manifested in the correct details of that period of
Christ's life on which it treats, while it far excels the canonical
Evangelists narrative of the trial of our Saviour before Pilate, with
more minute particulars of persons, evidence, circumstance, &c.
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