Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/446

This page has been validated.
330
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.

ing it, were greatly grieved, and neither ate nor drank that day. And Pilate, calling the Jews, said to them, Have ye seen what was done? And they said to the governor, There has been an eclipse of the sun, as is usual.

Now his acquaintance and the women who had followed him out of Galilee, stood afar off beholding these things. And behold, a certain man, Joseph by name, a counsellor, of Arimathea a city of the Jews, a good and just man, who did not consent to their counsels nor deeds, and who himself expected the kingdom of God, went away to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. And taking him down from the cross, he wrapped him in a clean linen cloth, and placed him in his own new tomb wherein no one had been laid.

CHAPTER XII.

Now the Jews having heard that Joseph had begged the body of Jesus, sought for him and the twelve men who had said that he was not born of fornication, and for Nicodemus, and for many others who had stood before Pilate and made known his good works. But they were all hidden, and Nicodemus alone appeared to them, because he was a chief man of the Jews, and he said to them, How did ye come into the synagogue? The Jews say unto