Page:The Apocryphal New Testament (1924).djvu/511

Paul tells also how he saw the streets of Amente desolate, and brought away a fragment of the broken gates in his hand. There were still some souls in punishment—the murderers, sorcerers, and those who cast little children into the water.

The apostles land, and with Apollonius the shipman go up to the city. The Jews refuse to let them in. They see 'a bird which is called True' digging in a wall. This is really a scarabaeus, δίκαιρσν in Greek, which word has been mistaken for Sikatov. Andrew says, 'Thou bird δίκαυσς, go into the city to where the dead boy is, and tell them that we are at the gate and cannot enter; let them open to us.' The scarab gives the message and the people threaten to stone the Jews. At this point the governor comes out; the matter is explained to him by the people and by the Jews, who add, 'if they are the disciples of the living God, why does he not open the gate for them?' The governor is impressed by this and calls on the apostles to open for themselves. They consult, and Paul, suddenly inspired, strikes the gates with the fragment of wood from Amente, and they are swallowed up in the earth.

Here two leaves are lost. We gather that the Jews had practised some fraud about a dead, or supposedly dead, man, and had tied up his face with grave clothes, 'so that he could not breathe'. One guesses that the apostles bade the dead rise, but he was so tightly bound that nothing happened.

We find a dispute going on: the apostles say that the only thing is to order the dead to be loosed. The Jews seek to flee, but they are held by the soldiers till the grave clothes are loosed. The apostles pray: the dead rises and falls at the apostles' feet, saying, 'Forgive me for my folly,' and tells 'everything that had happened'. Andrew says to the Jews, 'Who is now the deceiver of the people? We or you?' It appears from this that the dead man in question has been an accomplice of the Jews in their trick, and is not the dead child whom the apostles were to raise, and doubtless did raise when they first entered the city. This is confirmed by the next words of the Jews (fragmentary): they fall at the apostles’ feet and say . . . ' (we) killed him in folly, thinking that he would not rise'. They ask for baptism. And the act concludes with a general conversion—apparently of 27,000 Jews.

The other story, yet more fragmentary, tells of a woman who bore a child in the desert, killed it, cut it in pieces, and gave it to a dog to eat, to conceal her crime. At this moment Andrew and his companions came up. The woman fled, and the dog came to Andrew and spoke, and called him to come and see what had been done. Andrew consulted with Philemon (who figures as his companion in the Ethiopic Acts)and prayed. In his prayer he alludes to a miracle wrought by Christ on Mount Gebal, 'when, a great multitude being gathered, thou didst command that all the scattered stones and grains of sand should be gathered