Page:The Apocryphal New Testament (1924).djvu/188

 8. Revillout no. 6, p. 157. Lacau, p. 33.

Jesus and the apostles at table. The table turned of itself after Jesus had partaken of a dish, to present it to each apostle.

Matthias set a dish on the table in which was a cock, and told Jesus how, when he was killing it, the Jews said: 'The blood of your master shall be shed like that of this cock.' Jesus smiled and answered that it was true; and after some more words, bade the cock come to life and fly away and 'announce the day whereon they will deliver me up'. And it did so.

After these things Akrosina, the wife of Simon the Pharisee, brought a cock cut up with a knife, put it in a magnificent dish, and set it on the table before our Lord. Jesus said, 'My time is at hand'. He blessed the bread and gave it to Judas. Satan entered into him and he went out&mdash;without receiving the blessing of Jesus.

Jesus touched the slain cock and it stood up whole. He bade it follow Judas and see what he did, and return and report it: he endowed it with human speech. It followed Judas home: his wife urged him to betray Jesus. He went to the temple. The dialogue with the Jews is reported, and Paul of Tarsus, 'son of Josue Almason, son of Cadafanâ', a rough man, says, 'Now, thou, deliver him into my hands without error'.

The cock returned to Bethany, and sat before Jesus and wept bitterly, and told all the story. The disciples wept. Jesus dismissed the cock to mount up into the sky for a thousand years.

The fragments 7 and 8 most probably belong to the beginning of the Book of Bartholomew, which has to be noticed hereafter. Certainly this is the case with Revillout no. 12, p- 165 (Lacau 8, p. 34), which narrates the death of Ananias.

9. Revillout no. 10, p. 161. A dialogue between Christ and Pilate expanded from that in St. John.