Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER XIX.

1 Christ takes Adam by the hand, the rest of the saints join hands, and they all as­cend with him to Par­adise.

THEN Je­sus stretched forth his hand, and said, Come to me, all ye my saints, who were cre­at­ed in my im­age, who were con­demned by the tree of the for­bid­den fruit, and by the dev­il and death;

2 Live now by the wood of my cross; the dev­il, the prince of this world, is over­come, and death is con­quered,

3 Then present­ly all the saints were joined to­geth­er un­der the hand of the most high God; and the Lord Je­sus laid hold on Adam’s hand, and said to him, Peace be to thee, and all thy righ­teous pos­ter­ity, which is mine.

4 Then Adam, cast­ing him­self at the feet of Je­sus, ad­dressed him­self to him with tears, in hum­ble lan­guage, and a loud voice, say­ing,

5 “I will ex­tol thee, O Lord, for thou halt lift­ed me up, and hast not made my foes to re­joice over me. O Lord my God, I cried un­to thee, and thou hast healed me.”

6 “O Lord thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.”

7 “Sing un­to the Lord, all ye saints of his, and give thanks at the re­mem­brance of his ho­li­ness, for his anger en­dureth but for a mo­ment; in his favour is life.”

8 In like man­ner all the saints, pros­trate at the feet of Je­sus, said with one voice, Thou art come, O Re­deemer of the world, and hast ac­tu­al­ly ac­com­plished all things, which thou didst fore­tell by the law and thy holy prophets.

9 Thou hast re­deemed the liv­ing by thy cross, and art come down to us, that by the death of the cross thou might­est de­liv­er us from hell, and by thy pow­er from death.

10 O Lord, as thou hast put the en­signs of thy glo­ry in heav­en, and hast set up the sign of thy re­demp­tion, even thy cross on earth; so, Lord, set the sign of the vic­to­ry of thy cross in hell, that death may have do­min­ion no longer.

11 Then the Lord stretch­ing forth his hand, made the sign of the cross up­on Adam, and up­on all his saints.

12 And tak­ing hold of Adam by his right hand, he as­cend­ed from hell, and all the saints of God fol­lowed him.

13 Then the roy­al prophet, David, bold­ly cried, and said, O sing un­to the Lord a new song, for he hath done mar­vel­lous things; his right hand and his holy arm have got­ten him the vic­to­ry.

14 The Lord hath made known his sal­va­tion, his righ­teous­ness hath he open­ly shewn in the sight of the hea­then.

15 And the whole mul­ti­tude of saints an­swered, say­ing, This hon­our have all his saints, Amen, Praise ye the Lord.

16 Af­ter­wards, the prophet Hab­bakuk cried out, and said, Thou wen­test forth for the sal­va­tion of thy peo­ple, even for sal­va­tion with thine anoint­ed.

17 And all the saints said, Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord; for the Lord hath en­light­ened us. This is our God for ev­er and ev­er; he shall reign over us to ev­er­last­ing ages. Amen.

18 In like man­ner all the prophets spake the sa­cred things of his praise, and fol­lowed the Lord.