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21 Bel and the Dragon, vers. 33-39.
23 MS. C adds: and in Cana of Galilee made wine out of water.
24 MS. C has this las tsection as follows: For I am Joseph, who laid the body of our Lord Jesus Christ in my sepulchre, and saw Him and spoke with Him after His resurrection; who afterwards kept His most pious mother in my house until her assumption into the heavens, and served her according to my poewr; who also was deemed worthy to hear and see from her holy mouth many secrets, which I have written and keep in my heart. That which I saw with mine eyes, and heard with mine ears, of her holy and glorious assumption, I have written for faithful Christians, and those that fear God; and while I live I shall not cease to preach, speak, and write them to all nations. And let every Christian know, that if he keep this writing by him, even in his house, whether he be cleric, or lay, or a woman, the devil will not hurt him; his son will not be lunatic, or demoniac, or deaf, or blind; no one will die suddenly in his house; in whatever tribulation he cries to her, he will be herad; and in the day of his death he will have her with her holy virgins for his help. I beseech continually that the same most pious and merciful queen may be always mindful of m, and all who believe in her and hope before her most pious Son, or Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns God through endless ages of ages. Amen.
1 The other MS. has the following introductory chapter: Melito, servant of Christ, bishop of the church of Sardis, to the venerable brethren in the Lord appointed at Laodicea, in peace greeting. I remember that I have often written of one Leucius, who, having along with ourselves associated with the apostles, turned aside through alienated feeling sand a rash soul from the path of rectitude, and inserted very many things in his books about the acts of the apostles. Of their powers, indeed, he said many and diverse things; but of their teaching he gave a very false account, affirming that they taught otherwise than they did, and establishing his own impious statements, as it were, by their words. Nor did he think this to be enough; but he even vitiated, by his impious writing, the assumption of the blessed ever-virgin Mary, the other of God, to such a degree that it would be impious not only to read it in the church of God, but even to hear it. When you ask us, therefore, what we heard from the Apostle John, we simply write this, and have directed it to your brotherhood; believing, not the strange dogmas hatched by heretics, but the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, while the threefold person of the Godheda and undivided substance remains; believing not that two human natures was created by a good God, which by the craft of the serpent was vitiated through sin, and restored through the grace of Christ. [Tischendorf gives this from Maxima Bibliotheca vet. patr., ii. 2, pp. 212 sqq. (ed. Sugdun).-R.]
4 The other MS. has a better reading: For, behold, on the third day I am to depart from the body; and I have heard, etc.
5 The other MS. here adds: And there came with them Paul, converted from the circumcision, who had been selected along with Barnabas for the ministry of the Gentiles. And when there was a pious contention among them as to which of them should be the first to pray to the Lord to show them the reason, and Peter was urging Paul to pray first, Paul answered and said: That is thy duty, to begin first, especially seeing that thou hast been chosen by God a pillar 9Gal. ii. 9) of the Church, and thou hast precedence of all in the apostleship; but it is by no means mine, for I am the least of you all, and Christ was seen by me as one born out of due time (1 Cor. xv. 8); nor-do I presume to make myself equal to you: nevertheless by the grace of God I am what I am (1 Cor. xv. 10).
6 The other MS. adds: at the humility of Paul.
9 This does not seem to make very good sense. Another reading is: And the splendour appeared great, and nothing was perceived, while the body, perfectly clean, and unstained by any horror of filth, was being washed.
11 The other MS. inserts: And Paul said to him: And I, who am younger than any of you, will carry along with thee. And when all had agreed, Peter, raising the bier at the head, began to sing and say.
18 The other MS. has: And when he had said this, "I believe."
19 Gen. xix. 11; Wisd. xix. 17.
1 Compae these Canons: Nicaea, vi.; Constantinople, ii., iii.; Ephesus, viii.; and Chalcedon, xxviii.
2 Episcopus ab extra; i.e., head of temporalities.
3 Hincmar of Rheims opposed them as he could. See Prichard's Hincmar, Oxford, 1849.
4 See vol. v. p. 154, Elucidation III.
5 See his Eccles. History, Cent. iii. p. 173, ed. Longdon, 1693.