Page:The Apocryphal New Testament (1924).djvu/104



C. Schmidt’s version, p. 77. Mary answered and said: Thy Power prophesied through David: Grace and Truth are met together, Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other. Truth hath flourished out of the earth, and Righteousness hath looked down from heaven. Thus did thy Power prophesy once concerning thee. When thou wast little, before the Spirit came upon thee, the Spirit came from the height whilst thou wast in a vineyard with Joseph, and came unto me in mine house in thy likeness, and I knew it not, and I thought that it was thou. And the Spirit said unto me: Where is Jesus my brother, that I may meet with him? And when it spake thus unto me, I was in perplexity, and thought that it was a phantom come to tempt me. I took it therefore and bound it to the foot of the bed that was in mine house, until I should go forth unto thee and Joseph in the field and find you in the vineyard, where Joseph was staking the vineyard. It came to pass then, that when thou heardest me tell the matter unto J oseph, thou understoodest the matter, and didst rejoice, and say: Where is he, that I may behold him? otherwise I will tarry for him in this place. And it came to pass, when Joseph heard thee speak these words, he was troubled: and we went together and entered into the house and found the Spirit bound to the bed. And we looked upon thee and upon it, and found that thou wert like unto him: and he that was bound to the bed was loosed, and embraced thee and kissed thee, and thou also kissedst him, and ye became one.

Mary goes on to expound the application of the passage she had quoted from the Psalm.

In a Paris manuscript (gr. 239) of the Gospel of Thomas a fragment of this story is contained in Greek (Tisch., p. 148 n.). It occurs in no other Greek or Latin manuscript of Thomas. But in the Milan Ambrosian MS. L. 58 sup., edited in facsimile by Ceriani for Gibson Craig (1873, Canonical Histories and Apocryphal Legends), it occurs in Latin on p. 12, being the first miracle after the Return from Egypt. It is also told in the Arabic Gospel, ch. 88, and, at great length, in the Armenian (ch. xxi, Peeters, p. 232-46). Thilo quotes a Mohammedan version (p. 150), and shows that the tale was current in Persia. There seems little doubt that it stood in the completer texts of the