Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/238

122 his body that, when they desired to take it off, it was found like iron—immoveable and inseparable. Nor could they find any edges in the shroud, which thing filled them with the greatest astonishment. At length they bore him away to a place where there was a cave, and they opened the door to deposit his body among the bodies of his fathers. Then came into my mind the day on which he journeyed with me into Egypt, and that great trouble which he endured on my account. Then I wept for his death a long time, and bowing over his body, I said:—

who renderest all human knowledge vain, and callest forth so many tears and lamentations, certainly it is God my Father who hath allowed thee this power. For through the transgression of Adam and his wife. Eve, men die, and death spareth not even one. Yet nothing happeneth or befalleth any one without the commandment of my Father. Men have existed, indeed, who have prolonged their life to as much as nine hundred years; but they have died. Nay, though some of them may have lived longer, they nevertheless succumbed to the same fate, nor did any of them ever say, I have not tasted death. But the Lord never inflicteth