- ANF08. The Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementia, Apocrypha, Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa and Syriac Documents, Remains of the First Age

Chapter 16.

When Joseph had thus spoken, the chief priests cried out to the people: We know that Jesus had a father and mother; how can we believe that he is the Christ? One of the Levites answered and said: I know the family of Jesus, noble-minded men,¹⁹²⁷

¹⁹²⁷ Or, literally, men of good family.
great servants of God, and receiving tithes from the people of the Jews. And I know also Symeon the elder, that he received him when he was an infant, and said to him: Now thou sendest away Thy servant, O Lord.

The Jews said: Let us now find the three men that saw him on the Mount of Olives, that we may question them, and learn the truth more accurately. They found them, and brought them before all, and made them swear to tell the truth. And they said: As the God of Israel liveth, we saw Jesus alive on the Mount of Olives, and going up into heaven.

Then Annas and Caiaphas took the three apart, one by one, and questioned them singly in private. They agreed with one another, therefore, and gave, even the three, one account. The chief priests answered, saying: Our Scripture says that every word shall be established by two or three witnesses.¹⁹²⁸

¹⁹²⁸ Deut. xix. 15; Matt. xviii. 16.
Joseph, then, has confessed that he, along with Nicodemus, attended to his body, and buried him, and how it is the truth that he has risen.¹⁹²⁹

¹⁹²⁹ This last clause would be better as a question: And how is it the truth that he has risen?

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