Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/128

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If you see a vessel which has been made, though you do not see the maker of it, yet you believe that there was a maker. And in the same way when you see a house, though you do not see the builder of it, yet your intelligence assures you that there must be one. Now when I contemplated myself, and examined my composition, I understood that I had a creator, and that, as he liked, so he created me and shaped my form, without having consulted me. If I had been my own maker, I should have made myself with more beauty and completeness. But he who created me made me lower than some and higher than others. And I also understood this, that he would take me out of this life without consulting me. And when I understood this, and realised the facts of our life, viz., that we can neither increase nor diminish our stature, nor renew what has grown old, or can get back again any of our limbs which may fall off, and that neither kings, nor braves, nor sages, nor the mighty ones can do this. And then I saw the coming of night after day, and the courses of the firmament; and from them I gathered that all things have a creator, and that he is not like his creatures. And if he were like them, then that which happens to his creatures would also happen to him. (I knew) that, as he declares, so a thing happens, and when he decrees anything it is achieved. And he raises again people to life, such as they were from the first. For his command is swifter than a two-edged sword and is higher than glittering lightning. He, if it so please him, annihilates and establishes afresh everything. And blessed and glorious is his name, for ever and ever, Amen.

There was close by them a certain man, one of the Anchorites. He came and laid the body along with Balavari; and then went his way into the presence of Barakia the king, and told him of what had happened. But he went off with some of the bishops and priests, he gathered up the holy relics of Iodasaph and Balavari, and conserved them in a golden shrine, and with great honour he decorated the saint. And he built over it a church in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to whom is glory for ever and ever, Amen. And whosoever come hither with faith, they, even up to the present day, are healed of all their diseases. And we too pray to God that by their prayers we may be rescued from the pains of hell, and may glorify God, to whom is glory and honour and worship now and always and for all eternity. Amen.

The oppressor was overpowered, and the evil serpent struck down by the grace of a single being.

This apocryph is preceded in the Georgian manuscript by the following notice: "At one time I came into the country of Ethiopia, where in the library of the king of the Indians I found this book in which these deeds are written."