Page:Traditions of Palestine (microform) (IA traditionsofpale00martrich).pdf/120

 could find no rest while he knew not whether the sepulchre had been opened by the hand of man or of a god. With him waited some priests and Jewish teachers who proved to him out of their Scriptures that Jesus could not be the Messiah; and that, if not the Messiah, he must be an enemy to their faith and people.

When the centurion entered the apartment, the governor hastened to meet him, saying, “Hast thou learned what has become of the body, and who opened the sepulchre?”

“I have.”

“From his disciples?”

“From themselves, for who should know so well as they?”

Pilate rejoiced, and the priests smiled while they said,

“Tell us by whose hands the stone was moved, and by what contrivance the body was conveyed away, and whither it is gone. Speak; that the delusion of the people may be ended.”

The centurion calmly replied,

“Ye teach that your God once made a rock in the desert to open at the command of your lawgiver, Moses. A greater messenger from