Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Apocrypha of the New Testament/Acts of Pilate: First Greek Form/Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

And one Nicodemus, a Jew, stood before the procurator, and said:&#160; I beseech your honour, let me say a few words.&#160; Pilate says:&#160; Say on.&#160; Nicodemus says:&#160; I said to the elders and the priests and Levites, and to all the multitude of the Jews in the synagogue, What do you seek to do with this man?&#160; This man does many miracles and strange things, which no one has done or will do.&#160; Let him go, and do not wish any evil against him.&#160; If the miracles which he does are of God, they will stand; but if man, they will come to nothing. &#160; For assuredly Moses, being sent by God into Egypt, did many miracles, which the Lord commanded him to do before Pharaoh king of Egypt.&#160; And there were there Jannes and Jambres, servants of Pharaoh, and they also did not a few of the miracles which Moses did; and the Egyptians took them to be gods&#8212;this Jannes and this Jambres. &#160; But, since the miracles which they did were not of God, both they and those who believed in them were destroyed.&#160; And now release this man, for he is not deserving of death.

The Jews say to Nicodemus:&#160; Thou hast become his disciple, and therefore thou defendest him.&#160; Nicodemus says to them:&#160; Perhaps, too, the procurator has become his disciple, because he defends him.&#160; Has the emperor not appointed him to this place of dignity?&#160; And the Jews were vehemently enraged, and gnashed their teeth against Nicodemus.&#160; Pilate says to them:&#160; Why do you gnash your teeth against him when you hear the truth?&#160; The Jews say to Nicodemus:&#160; Mayst thou receive his truth and his portion.&#160; Nicodemus says:&#160; Amen, amen; may I receive it, as you have said.