Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/543

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STORY OF JOSEPH.
427

And when the robber had said these things, Jesus saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Demas, that this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise. And the children of the kingdom, the children of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.[1] And thou alone shalt dwell in Paradise until my second coming, when I shall judge those who have not confessed my name. And he said to the robber, Go and tell the Cherubim and the powers, who wave the flaming sword, who have guarded Paradise since Adam the first formed was in Paradise, and transgressed, and kept not my commandments, and I cast him out from thence: and none of the former shall see Paradise until I am about to come the second time to judge the living and the dead, — writing thus, —

Jesus Christ the Son of God, who descended from the heights of heaven, who came forth from the bosom of the invisible Father inseparably, and came down into the world to become incarnate and to be nailed to the cross, that I might save Adam whom I formed, — to my archangelic powers, the door-keepers of Paradise, the servants of my father: I will and command that the man who is crucified with me should enter, that he should receive remission of sins for my sake, and that arrayed in an incorruptible body he should enter

  1. Luke xxiii. 43; Matt. viii. 11, 12.