Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/183

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THE GOSPEL OF PSEUDO-MATTHEW.
67

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Now again, the son of Annas the priest of the temple, who had come with Joseph, holding a stick in his hand, while all beheld, with excessive rage broke open the pools which Jesus had made with his hands, and spilled out of them the water which he had gathered in them from the stream. For he stopped the water-channel by which the water entered, and then destroyed it. When Jesus saw this, he said to the boy who had destroyed his pools, O, most base seed of iniquity! O, son of death! workman of Satan! truly the fruit of thy seed shall be without vigour, and thy roots without moisture, and thy branches dry and not bearing fruit. And, at once, as all beheld, the boy withered and died.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Then Joseph trembled, and took hold of Jesus, and went with him to his house, and his mother with him. And behold, suddenly from the opposite side, a certain boy, himself also a worker of iniquity, ran and thrust himself against the shoulder of Jesus,

    tribes of Israel in these Apocrypha is worth noting, as an additional proof that their writers were ill informed on some very important points. The malevolent character of the early miracles ascribed to Jesus, is good evidence that the early Christian fabulists were as ignorant of the true spirit of Christ as of some other matters.