Page:The Apocryphal New Testament (1924).djvu/115

cease. I know when you were born and how long you have to live. All cried out in wonder: We have never heard the like. Jesus: Does this surprise you? I will tell you more. I have seen Abraham. None could answer. Jesus: I have been among you with the children, and ye have not known me. I have spoken with you as with the wise and ye have not understood my voice, for ye are less than me, and of little faith.

XXXI. Zachyas said: Give him to me and I will take him to Levi who shall teach him letters. Levi bade him answer to Aleph: he was silent. Levi smote him with a rod of storax on the head. Jesus: Why smitest thou me? Know of a truth that he which is smitten teacheth the smiter more than he is taught of him. For I can teach thee the things that thou thyself sayest. But all these which speak and hear are blind like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal wherein is. no perception of those things that are signified by their sound. Further he said to Zachyas (?): Every letter from Aleph to Thau is discerned by the arrangement of it. Do thou then first say what Thau is, and I will tell thee what Aleph is. And again he said: They that know not Aleph, how can they tell Thau, hypocrites that they are? Say ye what Aleph is first and then will I believe you when ye say Beth. (I quote this to show how the text is conflated out of various earlier forms.) He said to the master: Let the master of the law say what the first letter is, or why it hath many triangles (eight adjectives follow). Levi was stupefied and then began to lament: Ought he to live on the earth? Nay, rather is he worthy to be hung on a great cross. He can put out fire and escape all torments by guile. I think he was born before the flood, before the deluge. What womb bare him? What mother gave him birth? What breasts suckled him? I fly before him, &c., &c.

Jesus smiled and said with command to all the children of Israel that stood and heard him: Let the unfruitful bear fruit, and the blind see, and the lame walk straight, and the poor enjoy good things, and the dead revive, and every one return into a restored state, and abide in him who is the root of life and of everlasting sweetness. All were healed who had fallen into evil infirmities. No one thereafter dared to say aught to him or hear aught of him.

(This speech is simplified from every trace of mystery.)

XXXII. At Nazareth the boy Zeno fell from the soler and was raised. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus went thence to Jericho.

XXXIII. Jesus' pitcher was broken by a child, and he brought water in his cloak.

XXXIV. He took a little corn out of his mother's barn and sowed it. When reaped it made three cors, which he gave away.

(Another manuscript has a form like that of the Latin Thomas.)

XXXV–XXXVI do not occur in Thomas nor in the manuscript just mentioned.