The Assumption of the Virgin: Coptic and Syriac Texts
The Assumption of the Virgin: Coptic and Syriac Texts
Translated by M. R. James
4th–6th century AD
The Coptic and Syriac accounts of the death and assumption of the Virgin Mary in James’s English: the Discourse of Theodosius and the Coptic texts, and the Syriac narratives. The Latin accounts of the Passing of Mary are printed beside it in this volume.
Coptic Texts
1 As was the case with the Acts of Pilate, we must admit that we have as yet no critical edition of the very numerous forms of this legend. We have texts in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, not to mention derivatives in many vernacular mediaeval versions, all of which would have to be dealt with in a comprehensive survey. Clearly the present collection cannot attempt to do that. What it can do is to present a statement of the contents of the principal ancient versions. My own belief is that the legend was first elaborated, if it did not originate, in Egypt: and therefore the Sahidic and Bohairic texts will receive special attention. The standard Greek writing on the subject is one attributed to St. John, which is edited from five manuscripts (of eleventh-fourteenth centuries) by Tischendorf. This was exploited and inflated in sermon-form by John, archbishop of Thessalonica, in the seventh century. It will be translated here.
2 The standard Latin form is that attributed to Melito, bishop of Sardis: often printed, last by Tischendorf (Transitus Mariae B). What Tischendorf calls the Latin A form is attributed to Joseph of Arimathaea. The text, which is very divergent in various copies, is printed by Tischendorf from three late manuscripts, all Italian. Of the Syriac, of which there are many forms, we have editions by Wright, Budge, and Mrs. Lewis. The Arabic, edited by Enger in 1854, is akin to the Syriac; it is not very important for our purpose, nor is the Ethiopic, edited by Chaine in Apocrypha de B. V. M.
The Assumption. Coptic Texts
3 Of these we have two complete texts in Bohairic and one in Sahidic, with fragments of others. The first Bohairic account is in a Homily attributed to Evodius (usually described as first bishop of Antioch, but here), archbishop of Rome, the successor and spiritual son of Peter; he insists that he was an eyewitness of all that he tells. (Ed. by Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels.) The first four sections of the homily are panegyric. The narrative begins with V. Evodius first tells of his calling by Jesus. He was with Peter and Andrew and Alexander and Rufus his kinsmen, and followed Jesus when Peter and Andrew did, and was of the seventy-two disciples. They lived with Mary after the Passion, as did Salome and Joanna and the rest of the virgins who were with her, and Peter sanctified an altar in the house. VI. On the twentieth of the month Tobi, they were all gathered at the altar, and Jesus appeared and greeted them. He bade Peter prepare the altar because 'I must needs take a great offering from your midst on the morrow, before that each one of you goes to the lot that hath fallen to him to preach therein'. He then ordained Peter archbishop, and others, including Evodius, presbyters, and also deacons, readers, psalmists, and doorkeepers; and departed to heaven. They remained, wondering what the offering was to be.
4 VII. On the twenty-first of Tobi Jesus returned, on the chariot of the cherubim, with thousands of angels, and David the sweet singer. 'We' besought him to tell what the great offering was to be, and he told them that it was his Mother whom he was to take to himself. (Here, as elsewhere, I do not pretend to give the long discourses which occur, but only the bare skeleton of the story.) VIII. We all wept, and Peter asked if it was not possible that Mary should never die, and then if she might not be left to them for a few days. But the Lord said that her time was accomplished. IX. The women, and also Mary, wept, but Jesus consoled her. She said: I have heard that Death has many terrible faces. How shall I bear to see them? He said: How dost thou fear his divine shape when the Life of all the world is with thee? And he kissed her, and blessed them all, and bade Peter look upon the altar for heavenly garments which the Father had sent to shroud Mary in.
5 X. Mary arose and was arrayed in the garments, and turned to the east and uttered a prayer in the language of heaven, and then lay down, still facing eastward. Jesus made us stand for the prayer, and the virgins also who used to minister in the temple and had come to wait on Mary after the Passion. We asked them why they left it. They said: When we saw the darkness at the crucifixion we fled into the holy of holies and shut the door. We saw a strong angel come down with a sword, and he rent the veil in twain: and we heard a great voice (from the house of the altar Sah.), saying, Woe to thee, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets. The angel of the altar flew up into the canopy of the altar with the angel of the sword: and we knew that God had left his people, and we fled to his Mother.
6 XI. The virgins stood about Mary singing, and Jesus sat by her. She besought him to save her from the many terrors of the next world—the accusers of Amenti, the dragon of the abyss, the river of fire that proves the righteous and the wicked. (All this Sah. omits.) XII. He comforted her and said to the apostles: Let us withdraw outside for a little while, for Death cannot approach while I am here. And they went out and he sat on a stone, and looked up to heaven and groaned and said: I have overcome thee, O Death, that dwellest in the storehouses of the south. Come, appear to my virgin mother: but not in a fearful shape. He appeared, and when she saw him, her soul leaped into the bosom of her son—white as snow, and he wrapped it in garments of fine linen and gave it to Michael.
7 All the women wept; Salome ran to Jesus and said: Behold, she whom thou lovest is dead. David the singer rejoiced and said: Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. (The Sahidic does not describe the moment of death, but says it took place at the ninth hour of the 21st of Tobi: and omits David.) XIII. They re-entered the house and found her lying dead, and Jesus blessed her. XIV. Jesus shrouded the body in the heavenly garments, and they were fastened thereto. He bade the apostles take up the body, Peter bearing the head and John the feet, and carry it to a new tomb in the field of Jehoshaphat, and watch it for three and a half days. David rejoiced, saying: She shall be brought unto the King, &c. (Ps. xlv. 14), and: Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place (Ps. cxxxii. 8).
8 (Sah. omits details: the order is merely to carry the body to the tomb: David again omitted.) XV. Jesus ascended with Mary's soul in the chariot of the Cherubim. (Sah. merely: he hid himself from us.) We took up the body, and when we came to the field of Jehoshaphat, the Jews heard the singing and came out intending to burn the body. But a wall of fire encompassed us, and they were blinded: and the body was laid in the tomb and watched for three and a half days. (Sah. omits all after the blindness.) XVI. The Jews were in terror and confessed their sin and asked pardon. Their eyes were opened and they sought and found not the body: and they were amazed and confessed themselves guilty. (Here Sah. has a very confusing insertion. When the eyes of the Jews have been opened: 'there came a great choir of angels and caught away the body of the Virgin, and Peter and John and we looked on while she was carried to heaven, until we lost sight of it. And the Jews saw it also, and confessed themselves guilty.
9 XVII. At mid-day on the fourth day all were gathered at the tomb. A great voice came, saying: Go every one to his place till the seventh month: for I have hardened the heart of the Jews, and they will not be able to find the tomb or the body till I take it up to heaven. Return on the 16th of Mesore. We returned to the house. In the seventh month after the death, i. e. on 15th of Mesore, we reassembled at the tomb and spent the night in watching and singing. (Sah. has only: We returned to the house.) XVIII. At dawn on the 16th of Mesore, Jesus appeared. Peter said: We are grieved that we have not seen thy Mother since her death. Jesus said: She shall now come. The chariot of the Cherubim appeared with the Virgin seated in it. There were greetings. Jesus bade the apostles go and preach in all the world. He spent all that day with us and with his Mother, and gave us the salutation of peace and went up to heaven in glory.
10 XIX. Such was the death of the Virgin on the 21st of Tobi, and her assumption on 16th Mesore. I, Evodius, saw it all. The sermon ends with a blessing. (Sah. has: XVIII. At dawn on the eighth day after her death Jesus appeared (as in Boh.), and the fragment ends at his promise that the apostles shall now see the Virgin.) The other Sahidic account is in the 'Twentieth Discourse of Cyril of Jerusalem', edited by Budge (Misc. Copt. texts). We have seen what he says of the early part of the life of the Virgin. At p. 642 (Eng. trans.) he takes up the subject of her death. A considerable portion of this had been already edited by Robinson as Sahidic Fragment IV of the Life of the Virgin, pp. 24-40. For ten (Rob. fifteen) years after the resurrection, according to Josephus and Irenaeus(!), John and Mary lived together at Jerusalem. One day the Virgin bade John summon Peter and James: and they sat down before her and she addressed them, reminding them of the life of Jesus (up to the Ascension and Pentecost). She went on to say that Jesus had come to her and warned her that her time was accomplished. 'I will hide thy body in the earth, no man shall find it until the day when I raise it incorruptible. A great church shall be built over it.' Now therefore summon the virgins.
11 It was done. Mary took the hand of one of them, Mary Magdalene, now very old, and committed the others to her charge. She bade Peter fetch from the house of his disciple Birrus the linen clothes she had committed to him: James was to buy for a stater (shekel, Rob.) spices and perfumes. John lighted the lamps. Mary spread the linen on the ground and poured the spices upon it and stood and prayed, facing east: she asked to be delivered from the terrors of the next world—the dragon and the river of fire. Then she lay down facing east. Jesus appeared on the Cherubim and bade her not fear death. And said to Death: Come, O thou who art in the chambers of the south. When Mary saw him her soul leaped into the bosom of her Son, and he wrapped it in a garment of light. She fell asleep on the night of the 20th day of Tobi (early on the 21st, Rob.).
12 The Lord bade the apostles take the body to the valley of Jehoshaphat and set down the bier, because of the Jews, and he would hide it. In the morning they took it forth. The Jews heard the singing, and took counsel and set out with fire to burn it. The apostles saw them coming, and dropped the bier and fled. The Jews found nothing but the bier, and that they burnt. A sweet odour came from the place where the body was laid, and a voice said: Let no man give himself the trouble of seeking it till the great day of the appearing of Christ. The Jews were ashamed and fled, and told their neighbours, but bade them tell no one. This is Cyril's account, which entirely shuts out a corporal assumption, but has frequent coincidences of language and matter with the Bohairic account of Evodius, and the Sahidic fragments of the same.
The Discourse of Theodosius
13 Archbishop of Alexandria (probably the Jacobite Patriarch of 536-68). It is in Bohairic, edited by Robinson (p. 90), who calls it the Second Bohairic account: he omits fifteen pages of homiletic matter at the beginning. I. At the moment of the Ascension Jesus charged Peter, 'his bishop', and John to remain with Mary till her death. 11. She was living in Jerusalem with a number of virgins. 'We also, the apostles Peter and John', were with her. On the 20th of Tobi we came to her and found her amazed. She explained that that night, after she had finished the 'little office (synaxis)', she slumbered and saw a beautiful youth about thirty years of age, 'and you also standing at his right hand, with garments in your hands'. She perceived that it was Jesus, and he told her that the garments were her shroud; and he vanished. Then Mary makes a long discourse on the horrors of death—the river of fire, the two powers of light and darkness, the avengers with diverse faces, the worm, the unquenchable fire which three tears will put out, the ruler of darkness.
14 On hearing this we wept. 111. There was a knocking at the door. It was the virgins who had come from the Mount of Olives, with censers and lamps. They had been warned by a voice in the night to come to Mary, who was to die next day. Mary bade us withdraw a little, and uttered a (long) thanksgiving to her Son, and a prayer to be delivered from the terrors of the next world. IV. There were thunderings and lightnings. Jesus came on a chariot of light with Moses, David, the prophets, and the righteous kings, and addressed Mary. (There is a refrain to the speech, 'O my beloved Mother, arise, let us go hence'.) Mary spoke comfort to the apostles. Jesus spoke of the necessity of death. If she were translated, 'wicked men will think concerning thee that thou art a power which came down from heaven, and that the dispensation (the Incarnation) took place in appearance'.
15 V. He turned to the apostles—to me Peter and to John—and said that Mary should appear to them again. 'There are 206 days from her death unto her holy assumption. I will bring her unto you arrayed in this body.' He bade them bring garments and perfumes from the altar, which were sent from heaven. They spread them on the bed. The Virgin arose and prayed him to receive her. VI. She lay down on the garments, turned her face to him, and straightway commended her spirit into his hands. He bade us prepare her for burial, and gave us three palms from paradise and three branches of the olive-tree which Noah's dove brought to Noah, and we laid them on her body. Peter was to bear the head, John the feet. The Jews would plot against her, but they should be blinded. The body was to be placed in the stone coffin and watched, and in 206 days he would bring the soul to it.
16 He went up to heaven and presented the soul to the Father and the Holy Ghost. And the voice of the Holy Trinity was heard welcoming the soul. VII. We carried the body out to the field of Jehoshaphat. The Jews saw it and took counsel to come and burn it. The apostles set down the bier and fled. Darkness came on the Jews, and they were blinded and smitten by their own fire. They cried out for mercy and were healed, and many were converted. We returned to Jerusalem, and often came back to the tomb. VIII. When the 206 days were over, on the evening of the 15th, that is the morning of the 16th of Mesore, we gathered at the tomb and watched all night. At the tenth hour there were thunderings, and a choir of angels was heard, and David's harp. Jesus came on the chariots of the Cherubim with the soul of the Virgin seated in his bosom, and greeted us.
17 He called over the coffin and bade the body arise (a long address). IX. The coffin, which had been shut like Noah's ark, opened. The body arose and 'embraced its own soul, even as two brothers who are come from a strange country, and they were united one with another'. David said, 'Mercy and truth are met together' (&c.). Jesus went up to heaven, blessing us, and we heard the voice of the powers singing: Bring to the Lord the honour due unto his name. The virgins that be her fellows (her holy deeds) shall be her company (&c.). Here we have the corporal assumption after 206 days. Yet another Sahidic fragment is to be found in Revillout (Patrol. Orient. Apocryphes Coptes, I, fr. 16, p. 174). He attributes it quite without reason to the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles. It is told by an eyewitness, but he cannot be identified.
18 We here encounter the high priest whose hand is smitten off when he touches the bier: he appears in the other versions. The high priest begs to be healed. Peter says, if he believes in Jesus Christ he can be healed. The high priest acknowledges that he and his people crucified Jesus (knowing him to be the Son of God) because he drove the traders out of the temple. Peter bids him, if he believes, to embrace the body of the Virgin and profess his belief. He does so and takes his own cut-off hand and puts it to the stump, and it adheres. Peter bids him take 'this palm branch' and go to the city and lay it on the eyes of those who are blind. He found many of them lamenting, and all who believed were healed. Meanwhile the apostles laid the body in the tomb and remained there, to wait till the Lord should come and raise it up as he had said.
19 They bade the virgins go home in peace: but they wanted to stay there too. Peter and John reassured them. They asked to be blessed, and Peter blessed them. At the third hour of the day the converted high priest came and told Peter that the Jews were still plotting to burn the body and the tomb. Peter warned the disciples: but God sent forgetfulness upon the Jews. And the apostles took courage. And a voice from heaven came also, promising safety. It came to pass after that we reached the 16th of Mesore, and were gathered with the apostles at the tomb. We saw lightnings and were afraid. There was a sweet odour and a sound of trumpets. The door of the tomb opened: there was a great light within. A chariot descended in fire: Jesus was in it; he greeted us. He called into the tomb: Mary, my mother, arise! And we saw her in the body, as if she had never died. Jesus took her into the chariot. The angels went before them. A voice called, 'Peace be to you, my brethren'.
20 The miracle was even greater than that of the resurrection of Jesus, which no one saw except Mary and Mary Magdalene.
The Syriac Narratives
1 The Syriac narratives of the Assumption of the Virgin form a very large mass of writing. The principal texts are: 1. That edited by W. Wright in the Journal of Sacred Literature for 1865, and again by Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis in Studia Sinaitica, XI. Apocrypha Syriaca, 1902. In the latter the translation fills pp. 12–69 in quarto. 2. 2, 2 a. Edited by Wright in Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the N. T., 1865, pp. 18–24 (2), and 24–41 (2 a). These are pieces of two distinct works, which he has put together under one heading. Both are fragmentary: the first is the simplest of the Syriac versions. The second (2 a) is akin to 1. 3. That in Sir E. A. Wallis Budge's History of the B. V. M., Luzac's Semitic Text and Translation Series, vol. v, 1899, pp. 97–153. 4. The fragments in Wright's Contributions called Obsequies of the Holy Virgin (pp. 42–51 and Preface, 10–15).
2 Of these nos. 1, 2, 2 a, 3 have much in common; 4 is very peculiar. Some account of each shall be given. No. 1 (Wright and Lewis) is a congeries of documents divided into six books (really five, but six are promised): Book I, after a panegyrical introduction, tells how the narrative was found. It was attested in autograph by James, bishop of Jerusalem. Two apostles wrote each of the six books, and they were entrusted to John. His copy was found at Ephesus, attested by the Twelve and the Seventy-two, and written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Book II. In the year 344 (of the era of the Greeks), on the third day of the latter Teshrin (September), being the third day of the week at the third hour, Mary went to the tomb. The Jews immediately after the Passion had closed it with great stones, and forbidden resort to it on pain of death. They also hid the cross, spear, sponge, robe, crown of thorns, and nails.
3 The priests told the guardians of the tomb to stone Mary if she came there again. They said, 'Do it yourselves'. On the Friday Mary burnt incense there: Gabriel came down and told her of her approaching death. (There is no mention of a palm.) The guards informed the priests that Mary had come again. The priests asked the governor to forbid her. At this time Abgar of Edessa (converted by Addai) wished to destroy Jerusalem because of Christ's death, and came as far as Euphrates, but hesitated to cross it. He wrote to the procurator Sabinus, who sent the letter to Tiberius, who was greatly moved against the Jews. The Jews were alarmed. They said to the governor: Forbid Mary to go to the tomb. He said: Forbid her yourselves. A long abusive speech of the Jews to Mary follows. She left Jerusalem and went to Bethlehem with her three virgins, Callêtha, daughter of Nicodemus, Neshra, daughter of Gamaliel, Tabitha, daughter of Arehelaus. (There is a description of the service which these did to Mary: Gabriel tells her to go to Bethlehem.)
4 On Friday Mary burnt incense and prayed that John might be sent to her. John was brought from Ephesus. His arrival and conversation with Mary. The other apostles were brought. Here we are following the Greek text pretty closely. John received the apostles. They each told Mary how they had come. The correspondence with the Greek is curiously exact. Mark was performing the service of the third hour. Matthew says: 'I have given and am giving glory to God,' and so on. The Greek, however, does not give the speeches of those who had been raised from the grave to come, but the Syriac does, for Philip, Simon, Luke, and Andrew. And after Andrew, Bartholomew (not already dead) follows, as in the Greek. There was a great concourse of angels, and the Bethlehemites in fear went and told the governor and the priests. Book III. All the great signs attracted people from many quarters. Before this many used to come to the Virgin to be healed. (Five instances are given of cares.)
5 There was now a festival at Jerusalem, and many sick went out to Bethlehem to be healed. 2,800 were cured. = Gk. 28, but more diffuse. On the 21st of Teshrin II in the night, men rose up to attack the house. Angels of fire descended from heaven. = Gk. 29, but there the attackers are confounded and turned back. Syr. has nothing of this. The priests insisted on Mary's banishment by the governor. He sent a chiliarch to Bethlehem with thirty men. The Spirit told the apostles to take Mary to Jerusalem. They did so and held a five days' service. Meanwhile the chiliarch found nothing at Bethlehem, and the priests said this was due to magic. This last is not in Gk. 31-3, which is, otherwise, represented well. After the five days, Mary's presence in Jerusalem was realized. The Jews wished the governor to burn the house: he told them to do so themselves, and watched from a distance. The attackers were scorched and burnt. The governor declared his belief in Christ. = Gk. 34-5. Here the Syriac has a very long digression not represented in the Greek, and belonging properly, it seems, to the story of the Cross (pp. 39-50).
6 Caleb the Sadducee, who was a secret believer, whispered to the governor that he should adjure the Jews by the God of Israel to tell him their real opinion about Jesus. So all Jerusalem was assembled: and there follows a long altercation between the believers and unbelievers before the governor. Eventually some of the latter are forced by scourging to tell how they had hidden the cross, &c. The governor (rather inconsequently) has the place obstructed with great stones. He then goes to see Mary. He greets the apostles (and they tell him how they came there. This is only in 2). Mary at his request tells him the story of the Annunciation. The governor left Jerusalem and went to Rome and told the emperor, and the account of all this was written down by disciples at Rome, who also wrote to the apostles telling them of various miracles (seven are told) which Mary had wrought.
7 The text then leaps to § 45 of the Greek, omitting (in this place) all notice of the death of the Virgin. The Spirit told the apostles to bear her to a place where were three caves, and to lay her on a bench there and await his bidding. Jephonias, 'strong and tall, and handsome of figure', attacked them—was smitten and healed (but Mary is not dead yet, for she speaks to him). Peter gave a dry rod to Jephonias and sent him to the Jews. The rod blossomed. He healed a man born blind, and many others. = Gk. 45–7, and Lat. xii–xv. The Greek has not the healing of the Jews, and the Syriac has distorted it. The apostles laid Mary in the eastern cave and held a service of three days and nights. Some Jews came to the cave: three ventured in, and were burnt and swallowed up. Many believed, but the priests threatened and bribed them.
8 This, which concludes Book III, is badly confused in the Syriac, which has made the great mistake of saying that the apostles bore the Virgin to the cave before she was dead. Book IV. While the apostles were ministering about Mary in the cave the Spirit spoke to them, and told the story of the Annunciation. He spoke also of the date of her death, and then told how Sunday is the day of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Entry, Resurrection, Ascension, and Judgement. = Gk. 36. Eve, Anna, Elisabeth, Adam, and other patriarchs now came and greeted Mary, and then the procession of heavenly chariots, and then Christ. His words to her, and her answer. Her kissing of his hand, and prayers and blessing and death, are as in Gk. 38–44, but the blessing is far longer. Then the body was prepared for burial. Twelve chariots took up the apostles and bore them all to Paradise (cf. the alternative text of Gk. 48): and they returned thence and ordained a commemoration of her three times a year. Cf. Gk. 49.
9 After this is a very long disquisition on the rules which the apostles made about the commemoration: it need not even be summarized here (pp. 59–62). When they had come back to the cave they agreed to write a book in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and commit it to John: and, with more unimportant matter following on this, the book ends. Book V, pp. 64-9. This is a diffuse account of the Virgin's visit to Paradise. One paragraph tells of her seeing Gehenna. John and Peter were with her, and she revealed everything to John and told him to write it: it would be made public at the end of the world. Christ then says he will tell her what is to happen at his second coming: but nothing is told. Mary answers with thanksgiving and prayer—and Book V ends. Book VI does not appear. 2. (Wright: Contributions, p. 18.)
10 A prefatory section declares the apostles to be the witnesses and authors of what follows. The story then begins, and gives a shorter form of what we have had, in this order: Mary goes to the tomb. The Jews threaten to stone her. She asks Jesus to take her out of the world. The angel comes to tell her her prayer is heard. The guards of the tomb report this. The Jews ask Sabinus the governor to banish her. He refers them to her. They come and abuse her. She goes to Bethlehem with the three virgins (named as in 1). She prays that John may be sent. He comes. The other apostles arrive. They begin to tell how they came. The first fragment ends in John's narrative. It was left unfinished by the scribe. 2 a. p. 24. This begins in the midst of the dispute between believers and unbelievers before the governor, and the story follows the course of 1 down to the point where the apostles lay Mary in the cave. Here the first fragment of 2 a ends.
11 p. 39. The second fragment of 2 a does not seem to have an exact textual equivalent in 1. Chariots of light and saints arrive, and Mary is borne to paradise. The apostles return to the Mount of Olives, and pray to be allowed to ordain a commemoration of Mary. And so with rather a long doxology the book ends. It is, so far as we have it, far more compact and coherent than 1 or 3. 3. (Budge.) This is mainly identical in content with 1, but has points of its own. Mary goes to the tomb. The Jews plot to kill her, close the cave, set guards on it. Gabriel comes. The guards report it. Mary goes to Bethlehem with the three virgins (as above). The Jews hid the cross, &c., and asserted that 'here are buried the Book of Moses and the box of manna and the rod of Aaron and the mantle of Elijah', so that if miracles did happen there, they could be attributed to those relics.
12 Abgar's letter. Sabinus is angry with the Jews. Mary prayed that the apostles might be sent. John came. Then the others. The statement that they came and the circumstances of their doing so are put into one narrative, not repeated as in 1. After the apostles had greeted Mary, Anne, Elisabeth, Adam, &c., came, and all the various orders of saints and angels: and Christ. This dialogue and her prayers are rather shortened, but essentially as in 1. Mary died and her soul was taken up. Then we have a bad dislocation. The believers in the city went to the governor and told him the truth about Jesus and the Jews. He was angry with the chiefs, and smote them and told them not to harm the Christians. This is a condensation into a few lines of the dispute before the governor. Yet this dispute occurs later on. Here, however, we have the sequel.
13 The governor visited Mary with his sick son (who was healed). The apostles told him of their miraculous coming. The governor went to Rome and told the emperor, and the believers there wrote down the wonderful record. This is a shorter form of 1. A paragraph on the age of Mary (52) follows. The apostles said, 'Let us make a distinction between the burial of believers and non-believers, and make a beginning with Mary'. They prepared her body for burial, and set out in procession. The Jews saw it and bribed the governor not to interfere with them. They also bribed a gigantic soldier of his, Yophana, to go with them and attack the bier. Then we have the affliction and cure of Yophana, who goes back to the governor, and he laughs at the Jews. The apostles laid the body in the cave. Peter asked the multitude to set guards over it. He also spoke to the believers of the glory of Mary.
14 The Jews plotted and put a number of dead bodies in the cave, but in vain: and then tried to burn the body but were burnt themselves. Then the apostles brought out the body and laid it on a bier. Then came all the chariots of light, and the body was put in a chariot of light, and it and all the apostles went up to Paradise. And the cloud took them back to Jerusalem. And they wrote down all the triumphs of the Virgin and sent the books everywhere, and ordained three yearly commemorations; and were taken back to the places whence they had come. Then a homiletical paragraph. It introduces the revelation of John about the Virgin in Paradise. = No. 1, Book V. The Jews thought the body was still in the cave, and they went in and found it not. Many believed. The unbelievers (again?) put dead bodies in the cave.
15 The believers told the governor, and he sent Yophana, who confiscated all the goods of the offenders. 'Here I will write of the miracles which the Bethlehemites saw wrought in the upper chamber where Mary lay.' Visions of angels, multitudes of sick healed: six miracles narrated, as in 1. The healing of 2,800 people. Plot to attack the house. Descent of angels of fire. All this is in 1. The priests insisted on the banishment of Mary. The chiliarch sent. The apostles bore Mary to Bethlehem (read Jerusalem). The five days' service. The house in Jerusalem attacked, the besiegers burnt, the governor's declaration of belief. The dispute between believers and unbelievers before the governor. The hiding-place of the cross obstructed. Then afterwards the disciples of the apostles wrote (to various places), and wrote an account of the departure of Mary, and took it with them to Byzantium. And then a series of miracles is narrated, which are nearly all identical with those in 1.
16 4. Wright. (Obsequies of the Holy Virgin, Contributions, p. 42.) The fragments printed and summarized by Wright in the Preface contain these incidents: The appearance of the Lord to his mother: her last words and death. Her soul is delivered to Michael. Peter begins to speak to Christ. The funeral procession. Jews are blinded, and he who tries to overset the bier has his arms fixed to it. They are restored. Peter gives him a staff with which he heals 5,000 blinded people. p. 42. First long fragment. Paul is speaking, and telling a long story about Solomon, who had been told by a demon that a certain young man would die. A form of this story occurs in the Testament of Solomon. The apostles ask Paul to go on speaking, 'for our Lord hath sent thee to gladden us during these three days'. Paul asks them what they will preach when they go forth: and is answered by Peter, John, and Andrew. He criticizes them as too severe, and recommends a gentler policy. They are angry.
17 And as they were all sitting disputing before the entrance to Mary's tomb, Jesus appeared and justified Paul's view, as against the others. He summoned Michael and bade him bring forth the body of Mary into the clouds. They were all carried to Paradise. The apostles then asked the Lord to show them the place of torment, reminding him of his promise that on the day of the departure of Mary they should see it. They were all taken on a cloud to the west. The Lord spoke to the angels of the pit, and the earth sprang upwards and they saw the pit. The lost saw Michael and begged for respite. Mary and the apostles fell down and interceded for them. Michael spoke to them, telling them that at all the twelve hours of the day and of the night the angels intercede for creation. The angel of the waters intercedes for the waters. Here the fragment ends.
18 p. 48. The next fragment is a story told by Michael to Mary, of the concealing of the bones of Joseph in the Nile by Pharaoh and their discovery by Moses. It seems as if this must have been told in answer to some inquiry of Mary's about her own body, and therefore it should be placed earlier in order. p. 50. The last fragment is a curious story about Jesus testing the apostles, evidently during his life on earth. It is so puzzling and uncommon as to be worth quoting in full: 'them according to their wish. And he sent by the hand of the apostles to them (to ask) were these things not so? And he said: These are the shepherds of the house of Israel, who are praying for the sheep, that they may be sanctified and made glorious before the sons of men: and themselves they are not able to sanctify, because they exalt themselves like the strong. Did I not give them many signs?
19 And the apostles said: Lord, lo they beseech and pray, and repent, and kneel upon their knees. Why dost thou not hear them? Our Lord says unto them: I too was willing to hear them, but there is deception in them (as) ye too know. And when Jesus wished to show the apostles for what reason he did not hear them, he took them up into a mountain and let them become hungry. And when the apostles had gone, they asked of him, and say unto him: Lord we are hungry; what have we then to eat in this desert? And Jesus told them to go to the trees which were before them. And he said to them: Go to those trees which are over against us, whose branches are many and fair and beautiful at a distance, and from them ye shall get food. And when the apostles went, they did not find fruit on the trees.
20 And they returned to Jesus, and said: Good Teacher, thou didst send us to those trees which are over against us, and we went and found on them no fruit, but only branches which were fair and beautiful, but there was no fruit on them. And Jesus said to them: Ye have not seen them, because the trees grow straight upwards. Go therefore at once, because the trees are bending themselves, and ye shall find on them fruit, and get yourselves food. And when they went, they found the trees bending down, but they did not find fruit upon them. And they returned again to Jesus in great distress, and say to him: What is this, Teacher, that we are mocked? For at first thou didst say to us, 'Ye shall find trees which are straight, and there is fruit on them,' and we found none. Why are we mocked? But it is fitting that thou shouldst teach us what this is that has happened; for we think that what thou didst wish to teach us is false; for by a visible power the trees were laid hold of and bent down. If this be a temptation, make known to us what it is.
21 And Jesus said to them: Go and sit under them, and ye shall see what it is that abides on them, but ye shall not be able to bend them again. And when the apostles went and sat under the trees, straightway the trees threw down stinking worms. And the apostles came again to Jesus and say to him: Teacher, dost thou wish to lead us astray or to turn us away from thee.'... The trees of course represent the leaders or priests of the Jews whose prayers are ineffectual because of their moral defects. The story has no parallel that I know of, and to my mind has a rather ancient complexion. This whole book of the Obsequies stands quite apart from the rest of the narratives: it had, we see, the framework, with the Jew attacking the bier and so forth; but this framework was evidently used for the insertion of a number of quite extraneous discourses and stories, and what we have of these is so unusual that we must greatly regret the loss of the rest. The undoubted fact that this form of the story somehow penetrated to Ireland gives additional interest to the book.
22 Wright assigned the manuscript to the latter part of the fifth century. Besides the forms we have reviewed there are versions in Arabic (ed. Enger, 1854), Aethiopic (Chaine, Corpus script. christ. Orient., 1909), Armenian (Vetter, Theol. Quartalschrift, 1902). These agree in their main features with the Syriac books and do not demand a detailed analysis. The Armenian, as usual, has its own peculiar and 'unauthorized' additions. Our survey of the narratives shows that there are two great groups, one of which is represented in Coptic only—but not uniformly by all the Coptic authorities. In this there is a long interval between the death of Mary and her corporal assumption—206 days, from 21 Tobi to 16 Mesore (one authority gives only seven days, and one excludes a corporal assumption). Also we hear nothing of the summoning of the apostles from their missionary work: Peter and John are the only two who are prominent. Further, only one fragment (Copt. 4) has the story of a Jew smitten for touching the bier, and healed.
23 Also in all Mary is warned of her death by her Son, not by an angel. In the Greek, Latin, and Syriac (1, 2, 3) the death is announced by an angel; in Greek and Latin he brings a palm-branch (and so, too, in Copt. 4), but not in Syriac. The apostles are summoned from all parts of the world and from their graves, and tell how they came. The 'governor' figures largely in Syriac and appears in Greek. The controversy before him, which is only in the oriental versions, seems to have been borrowed from another writing: the real point of it is the hiding of the cross at the end. The Jew who attacks the bier (usually Jephonias, but Ruben in the latest text, Lat. A) is a constant feature: he also figures in the Coptic fragment 4. In Greek, Latin, and Copt. 4 he heals the blinded people with the palm-branch: in Syriac with Peter's staff.
24 The corporal assumption takes place very soon after the death. Less emphasis is laid upon it than in the Coptic texts.