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us the offering that is above, on the third day after he rose. So it was done, and the chanter went up on a great stone and sang: Precious in the sight of the Lord. . . . I slept and rose up again. . . . And they answered: Shall not the sleeper awake? . . . Now will I arise, saith the Lord. Alleluia. They read the gospel and made the offering.
26 It was about the sixth hour, and Plato looked out to sea seven stadia away, and lo, Matthew standing on the sea between two men in bright apparel, and the beautiful child before them. And they said Amen, Alleluia. And the sea was to look upon like a crystal stone, and before the Child a cross came up out of the deep, and at the lower end of it the coffin of Matthew: and in a moment it was set on the land where they were.
27 The king beheld all from a window, and came down and fell at their feet and confessed his sin and his belief. He would give them the palace for a sanctuary, and the coffin should be laid on his golden couch in the great hall. Plato baptized and communicated him. 28 The apostle appeared and said: Thy name shall no more be Bulphamnus but Matthew; thy son not Bulphandrus but also Matthew; thy wife Ziphagia, Sophia; and his wife Orba, Synesis. He ordained the king a priest, being 37, his son a deacon, being 17: his wife a priestess (presbytis) and his son's wife a deaconess, being 17. [29 (in one recension only) : The king destroyed his idols, and issued a decree establishing the new faith.] 30 Matthew bade them offer the offering daily for forty-nine days and repeat it yearly, and told Plato he should join him in three years, and be succeeded by the king, and he by his son. Then with two angels he departed to heaven. 31 And a voice came, promising peace and safety to the city.
His day is the 14th of Gorpiaeus (al. 16 November; Lat. 11 October).
The most effective part of these Acts is the vision after Matthew's death: the interest in liturgy is quite prominent here.
We will now take a review of the Latin Acts as contained in the
APOSTOLIC HISTORY OF ABDIAS
of which something has already been said.
It is in ten books. Book I treats of St. Peter. Chapters i-v are drawn from the Gospels and Acts; vi-xiv extracted from the Clementine literature; xv, the ordination of Clement; xvi, Paul arrives, and from this to the end (xx) is the contest with Simon and the Martyrdom from the Pseudo-Hegesippus de excidio Hierosolymae, lib. iii.
Book II, of Paul: i-vi from the canonical Acts; vii, viii from the Martyrdom.
Book III, of Andrew, is Gregory's book of miracles, and the Passion.
Book IV, of James the Great, gives us new matter, only found here, though doubtless there was a Greek original.