Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/503

Rh These, dearest brethren, are the things which we have seen, and, being adjured, testify unto you, He also attesting who died for us and rose again: for as it is written, so hath it come to pass in all things.

when the paper was finished and read, all who heard fell upon their faces, weeping bitterly, and violently smiting their breasts, crying and saying with one accord, Woe unto us: Wherefore hath this befallen us unhappy ones? Pilate fled, Annas and Caiaphas fled, the priests and Levites fled, and also the people of the Jews, lamenting and saying, Woe unto us unhappy ones: we have shed holy blood upon earth.

Therefore for three days and three nights they tasted neither bread nor water, neither did any of them return into the synagogue. But on the third day, when the council assembled again, the other paper (that of Leucius) was read; and it was found to be neither more nor less by a single letter than what the writing of Karinus contained. Then the assembly was troubled, and they all lamented forty days and forty nights, looking for destruction from God, and the vengeance of God. But the kind and most high merciful One did not at once destroy them, liberally vouchsafing to them space for