Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/246

 228 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. " to bless and not to curse, for he is killing our chil- dren." ' Not all of this apocrypha touching Jesus confines itself to the periods of his birth and childhood. The story of his trial, crucifixion, and ascension was told in the canonical Gospels ; the apocrypha expands even these authoritatively narrated subjects.^ But where was Jesus' spirit while his body lay in the tomb? The late canonical writing of Jude says that he de- scended to Hades. This suggestion or tradition was soon mightily elaborated, and the legend comes down to us in the second part of the Acts of Pilate, otherwise called the Gospel of Nicodemus.^ This is a narrative of considerable power and dignity ; perhaps no other story regarding Christ more forcibly impressed the Middle Ages. The apocryphal Acts of the various apostles have literary and intellectual traits of the apocryphal Gos- pels. They offered greater opportunity for the growth of romantic episode.* The normal starting-point of 1 Gospel of Thomas, 4. See also Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 26- 29. This part of the apocryphal narrative may have been fostered by certain of the Gnostic doctrines of the completed divine nature of Christ from his birth. 2 See, e.g., the Acts of Pilate, first part. 8 With Gospel of Nicodemus, etc., compare Sib. Orac, VIII, 310-313, which mentions the descent into Hades "heralding hope to all the holy ones" there. Ephraim Syrus (died 373 a.d.) describes this descent and the conflict with death and Satan in the Nisibene Hymns, XXXV et seq. See Library of Nicene Fathers, 2d series, Vol. XIII. a slave and handicraftsman to an Indian merchant, the agent of an Indian king, and the merchant takes the apostle to India, to the royal court. This is romantic.
 * For instance, in the Acts of Thomas, the Lord sells Thomas as