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Apocrypha of the New Testament
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Introductory Notice to Apocrypha of the New Testament.
[1672] Comp. John viii. 56-58.
[1673] Or, literally, inferior to me.
[1674] 1 Cor. xiii. 1, xiv. 7.
[1675] Tau, and not Teth, is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
[1676] The original—triangulos gradatos, subacutos, mediatos, obductos, productos, erectos, stratos, curvistratos—is hopelessly corrupt. Compare the passages in the following Apocrypha. [The Gospel of Thomas, first Greek form, chaps. 6, 7, and parallel passages.—R.] It obviously, however, refers to the Pentalpha, Pentacle, or Solomon’s Seal, celebrated in the remains of the magical books that have come down to us under the names of Hermas and the Pythagoreans. The Pentalpha was formed by joining by straight lines the alternate angles of a regular pentagon, and thus contained numerous triangles. The Pythagoreans called it the Hygiea or symbol of health, and it was frequently engraved on amulets and coins. It is still, if the books are to be trusted, a symbol of power in the higher grades of freemasonry.
[1677] i.e., It is not wonderful that we do not understand what he says, for we do not know what he is.
[1679] The kor or chomer was, according to Jahn, equal to 32 pecks 1 pint.
[1680] Multiplicibus suis.
[1681] Josh. iii. 16; 2 Kings ii. 8.
[1682] One of the mss. tells the story, not of Joseph, but of a certain builder, a worker in wood.
[1683] Lit., boy.
[1684] One of themss. here inserts: And when Jesus was with other children He repeatedly went up and sat down upon a balcony, and many of them began to do likewise, and they fell down and broke their legs and arms. And the Lord Jesus healed them all.
[1685] Note that the letters are Greek here.
[1687] In place of this chapter, one of the mss. has a number of miracles copied from the canonical Gospels—the walking on the sea, the feeding of the five thousand, the healing of a blind man, the raising of Lazarus, and the raising of a certain young man.
[1688] According to the tradition preserved by Hegesippus and Tertullian, James and Judas were husbandmen. See Apost. Const., ch. lxvii.
[1689] Comp.Acts xxviii.
[1690] One of themss. has: And when Joseph, worn out with old age, died and was buried with his parents, the blessed Mary lived with her nephews, or with the children of her sisters; for Anna and Emerina were sisters. Of Emerina was born Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. And as Anna, the mother of the blessed Mary, was very beautiful, when Joachim was dead she was married to Cleophas, by whom she had a second daughter. She called her Mary, and gave her to Alphæus to wife; and of her was born James the son of Alphæus, and Philip his brother. And her second husband having died, Anna was married to a third husband named Salome, by whom she had a third daughter. She called her Mary likewise, and gave her to Zebedee to wife; and of her were born James the son of Zebedee, and John the Evangelist.
Another passage to the same effect is prefixed to the Gospel. It reads Emeria for Emerina, and Joseph for Philip. It ends with a quotation from Jerome’s sermon upon Easter:—We read in the Gospels that there were four Mary’s—first, the mother of the Lord the Saviour; second, His maternal aunt, who was called Mary of Cleophas; third, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, fourth, Mary Magdalene—though some maintain that the mother of James and Joseph was His aunt.
The same ms. thus concludes: The holy Apostle and Evangelist John with his own hand wrote this little book in Hebrew, and the learned doctor Jerome rendered it from Hebrew into Latin.
[1691] 1 Macc. iv. 52-59; 2 Macc. x. 1-8; John x. 22; Josephus, Antiq. xii. 7.
[1692] The spelling in the text is that in the Hebrew, the Samaritan Codex, the Targums, and the Textus Receptus. There is no Issachar in the list of high priests.
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