pended[1] by the four corners, and I saw, as it were, a flash of light in my eyes. And being afraid, I fell to the ground. And some one took me by the hand, and removed me from the place where I had fallen, and a quantity of water was poured out (upon me) from my head to my feet; and a smell of myrrh came to my nostrils. And he wiped my face, and kissed me, and said to me, Fear not Joseph; open thy eyes, and see who it is that talketh with thee. And looking up, I saw Jesus. And being afraid, I thought it was an apparition, and said the commandments.[2] And he said them with me. And as ye know, if an apparition meeteth a man, and heareth the commandments, it taketh to flight. And seeing that he said them with me, I said to him, Rabbi Elias. And he said to me, I am not Elias. And I said to him, Who art thou, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus, whose body thou didst beg from Pilate; and thou didst wrap me in clean linen, and didst put a napkin upon my face, and didst lay me in thy new tomb, and didst roll a great stone to the door of the sepulchre. And I said to him that talked with me, Show me the place where I laid thee. And he took me, and showed me the place where I laid him: and the
- ↑ Comp. Acts x. 11; This idea reached its fullest development in the legend of the Virgin's house removed by angels from Nazareth to Loretto: a fiction of which we first read in the fifteenth century.
- ↑ Some formula was probably enjoined to be repeated on such occasions, as a kind of charm. Thilo thinks it was the Decalogue.
