Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER III.

1 The wise men vis­it Christ. Mary gives them one of his swad­dling clothes. 3 An an­gel ap­pears to them in the form of a star. 4 They re­turn and make a fire, and wor­ship the swad­dling cloth, and put it in the fire where it re­mains un­con­sumed.

AND it came to pass, when the Lord Je­sus was born at Beth­le­hem, a city of Ju­daea, in the time of Herod the King;–the wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, ac­cord­ing to the prophe­cy of Zo­radascht,[Zoroast­er] and brought with them of­fer­ings: name­ly, gold, frank­in­cense, and myrrh, and wor­shipped him, and of­fered to him their gifts.

2 Then the La­dy Mary took one of his swad­dling clothes in which the in­fant was wrapped, and gave it to them in­stead of a bless­ing, which they re­ceived from her as a most no­ble present.

3 And at the same time there ap­peared to them an an­gel in the form of that star which had be­fore been their guide in their jour­ney; the light of which they fol­lowed till they re­turned in­to their own coun­try.

4 On their re­turn their kings and princes came to them in­quir­ing, whom they had seen and done? What sort of jour­ney and re­turn they had? What Com­pa­ny they had on the road?

5 But they pro­duced the swad­dling cloth which St. Mary had giv­en them, on ac­count where­of they kept a feast.

6 And hav­ing, ac­cord­ing to the cus­tom of their coun­try, made a fire, they wor­shipped it.

7 And cast­ing the swad­dling cloth in­to it, the fire took it and kept it.

8 And when the fire was put out, they took forth the swad­dling cloth un­hurt, as much as if the fire had not touched it.

9 Then they be­gan to kiss it, and put it up­on their heads and their eyes say­ing, This is cer­tain­ly an un­doubt­ed truth, and it is re­al­ly sur­pris­ing that the fire could not burn it, and con­sume it.

10 Then they took it, and with the great­est re­spect laid it up among their trea­sures.