THE BOOK OF THE RESURRECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 76

THE BOOK OF THE RESURRECTION.

LEGENDS OF ST. JOHN. “The Dock of the Resurrection,” a long and remarkable apocryphon, is (says the Standard), one of the chief items of a work just issued by the British Museum under the title “Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt.” “The Book of the Resurrection,” which is attributed to St. Bartholomew the Apostle, describes the descent of Christ into Hell, the conquest of Death and his sons, the defeat of the Devil, the destruction of the gates, bolts, and bars of Hell, the extinction of its fires, and the overthrow of its blazing cauldrons. The account continues with the liberation of Adam and Eve and all the children of men, the final condemnation of Judas Iscariot, the ascent from Hell of Christ, His resurrection. His appearances to the Apostles, His enthronement on the right hand of the Father in His Tabernacle of Light in the Seventh Heaven, and closes with the reconciliation of God with Adam and his sons in the presence of myriads of cherubim, thrones. ' dominions, principalities, powers, archangels, angels, and all the hosts of Heaven. Here and there in the work thcr j are passages that resemble parks of the mediaeval composition known as the “Harrowing of Hell” ; but its contents are entirely different from those, of the second part of the Gospel of Nicodenuis, which deals with Christ’s descent into Hell. The whole apocryphon exhibits strong Egyptian (Gnostic) influence, and professes to give the actual words of the Divine nnkm wn language in which Christ and the Virgin Mary were said to have conversed vith each other.

The manuscript from which the text is edited was written probably in the tenth or eleventh century, and was presented to the Church of Iliarte by an unnamed benefactor, wiio states in the colophon that he supplied his own parchment. In view of 'the importance of the work the trustees of the museum ordered a complete facsimile of the manuscript to bo made and published with the text. Two of the Apocrypha printed in this new volume deal with St. John the Apostle. The text of the first is edited from the vellum MSS. Oriental No. 6782, which was written in a.d. 990. It states that St. John was in Ephesus, and that, having made a long prayer and given an address to his followers, he ordered them to dig a grave for him outside the city. In this he laid himself down and died peacefully; but when his disciples came the next day they could not find His body.

The second Apocryphon of St. John is a very curious work. According to it Christ sent a cloud into all parts of the world in which the Apostles were that it might bring them to Him on the Mount of Olives. When all had arrived, St. John asked Christ to explain to him the mysteries of the heavens and the laws which regulated the fall of dew and rain and other natural phenomena. Having summoned a cherubim (sic) Christ commited John to his care, and told him to answer fully all questions. Having set John on his wing of light, the angel boro him up tlrrough the seven heavens and described to him their construction. He

showed him the 12 rulers of the worlds of I light, and the fountain whence fell the j rain upon the earth, and described to him the laws which govern the succession of day and night. In the eastern part of ! the earth, also, he showed him Paradise, j and Adam walking about in it burying ! in the ground the heaps of leaves which fell from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. -—Oaths bv Water and Wheat.—

The angel impre.sed upon St. John the sacredness of oaths sworn by water and by wheat, because the former existed before the heavens were created and because the latter was formed from portions of the invisible body of

God and the body of His Son. Having explained to St. John why Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and wept, and answered his questions about predestination and whether animals have souls and will live after death, the angel brought St. John down to the disciples on the Mount of Olives.

The last Apocryphon in the volume concerns St. John the Baptist, aval is found in an encomium on this saint, which is attributed to St. John Chrysostom. He tells us that he discovered the narrative written in a little old volume preserved in the library of the holy city. Jerusalem, among the manuscripts which had been deposited there by the apostles. According to it Christ was on the Mount ot Olives surrounded by the apostles, who were questioning Him about St. John the Baptist. He commanded a cloud to come, and all ascended into the heights of heaven. When He had shown them all the heavens but the third, he brought them into the Third Heaven—a most glorious place. They saw there John the Baptist and his father and mother arrayed in splendid apparel set with precious stones. —The Boat of Gold.— Summoning to Him Michael and the seven archangels and Sedekiel, Christ called upon them one by one to bear witness to the fact that He' had bestowed upon John the Baptist the Third Heaven. He then enumerated the great gifts which He had given to Him, the best and greatest of them all being a boat of gold, intended for the use of the souls of those who had loved John upon earth. These souls would find their way to the boat of gold after the death of their bodies, and John would ferry them over the Lake of Fire and land them in his Third Heaven. No soul, good or had, could enter this heaven except after baptism in the river of fire which consumes the wicked, but to the righteous followers of John seems only like a hot bath. There was there also another boat, which was provided with oars and lamps. When the souls of the righteous had taken their places in it the oars worked by themselves and rowed it over the dark waters, the lamps lighting it on the way. The remaining texts in this volume are a life of Pisentius, Bishop of Coptos, in the seventh century, and a series of instructions to a brother who had lost his temper and reviled a yellow monk, by Pachomius, the archimandrite of the famous monastery of Tagenna. All are written in the dialect of Upper Egypt, and are published for the first time. The editing of the texts, with English translations, has been done by Dr E. A. Wallis Budge, keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum.