Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER XVIII.

1 Beelze­bub, prince of hell, ve­he­ment­ly up­braids Sa­tan for per­se­cut­ing Christ and bring­ing him to hell. 14 Christ gives Beelze­bub do­min­ion over Sa­tan for­ev­er, as a rec­om­pence for tak­ing away Adam and his sons.

THEN the prince of hell took Sa­tan, and with great in­dig­na­tion said to him, O thou prince of de­struc­tion, au­thor of Beelze­bub’s de­feat and ban­ish­ment, the scorn of God’s an­gels and loathed by all righ­teous per­sons! What in­clined thee to act thus?

2 Thou wouldst cru­ci­fy the King of Glo­ry, and by his de­struc­tion, hast made us promis­es of very large ad­van­tages, but as a fool wert ig­no­rant of what thou wast about.

3 For be­hold now that Je­sus of Nazareth, with the bright­ness of his glo­ri­ous di­vin­ity, puts to flight all the hor­rid pow­ers of dark­ness and death;

4 He has broke down our pris­ons from top to bot­tom, dis­missed all the cap­tives, re­leased all who were bound, and all who were wont for­mer­ly to groan un­der the weight of their tor­ments, have now in­sult­ed us, and we are like to be de­feat­ed by their prayers.

5 Our im­pi­ous do­min­ions are sub­dued, and no part of mankind is now left in our sub­jec­tion, but on the oth­er hand, they all bold­ly de­fy us;

6 Though, be­fore, the dead nev­er durst be­have them­selves in­so­lent­ly to­wards us, nor be­ing pris­on­ers, could ev­er on any oc­ca­sion be mer­ry.

7 O Sa­tan, thou prince of all the wicked, fa­ther of the im­pi­ous and aban­doned, why wouldest thou at­tempt this ex­ploit, see­ing our pris­on­ers were hith­er­to al­ways with­out the least hope of sal­va­tion and life?

8 But now there is not one of them does ev­er groan, nor is there the least ap­pear­ance of a tear in any of their faces.

9 O prince Sa­tan, thou great keep­er of the in­fer­nal re­gions, all thy ad­van­tages which thou didst ac­quire by the for­bid­den tree, and the loss of Par­adise, thou hast now lost by the wood of the cross;

10 And thy hap­pi­ness all then ex­pired, when thou didst cru­ci­fy Je­sus Christ the King of Glo­ry.

11 Thou hast act­ed against thine own in­ter­est and mine, as thou wilt present­ly per­ceive by those large tor­ments and in­fi­nite pun­ish­ments which thou art about to suf­fer.

12 O Sa­tan, prince of all evil, au­thor of death, and source of all pride, thou shouldest first have in­quired in­to the evil crimes of Je­sus of Nazareth, and then thou wouldest have found that he was guilty of no fault wor­thy of death.

13 Why didst thou ven­ture, with­out ei­ther rea­son or jus­tice, to cru­ci­fy him, and hast brought down to our re­gions a per­son in­no­cent and righ­teous, and there­by hast lost all the sin­ners, im­pi­ous and un­righ­teous per­sons in the whole world?

14 While the prince of hell was thus speak­ing to Sa­tan, the King of Glo­ry said to Beelze­bub the prince of hell, Sa­tan the prince shall he sub­ject to thy do­min­ions for ev­er, in the room of Adam and his righ­teous sons, who are mine,