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

Chapter 5.

But one Nicodemus, a Jew, stood before the governor, and said:&#160; I entreat, mercifully allow me to say a few words.&#160; Pilate says to him:&#160; Say on.&#160; Nicodemus says:&#160; I said to the elders and the priests and the Levites, and to all the multitude of the Jews, in the synagogue, What have you to do with this man?&#160; This man does many wonders and signs, which no one of men has done or can do.&#160; Let him go, and do not devise any evil against him:&#160; if the signs which he does are of God, they will stand; but if of men, they will come to nothing.&#160; For Moses also, being sent by God into Egypt, did many signs, which God told him to do before Pharaoh king of Egypt.&#160; And the sorcerers Jamnes and Mambres were there healing, and they did, they also, the signs which Moses did, but not all; and the Egyptians deemed them as gods, Jamnes and Mambres.&#160; And since the signs which they did were not of God, they perished, both they and those who believed in them.&#160; And now let this man go, for he is not deserving of death.

The Jews say to Nicodemus:&#160; Thou hast become his disciple, and takest his part. &#160; Nicodemus says to them:&#160; Has the governor also become his disciple, and does he take his part?&#160; Has not C&#230;sar set him over that dignity?&#160; And the Jews were raging and gnashing with their teeth against Nicodemus.&#160; Pilate says to them:&#160; Why do you gnash with your teeth against him, when you are hearing the truth?&#160; The Jews say to Nicodemus:&#160; Mayst thou receive his truth, and a portion with him!&#160; Nicodemus says:&#160; Amen, amen, amen; may I receive it, as you have said!