Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER XX.

1 Christ de­liv­ers Adam to Michael the archangel. 3 They meet Enoch and Eli­jah in heav­en, 5 and al­so the blessed thief, who re­lates how he came to Par­adise.

THEN the Lord, hold­ing Adam by the hand, de­liv­ered him to Michael the archangel; and he led them in­to Par­adise, filled with mer­cy and glo­ry;

2 And two very an­cient men met them, and were asked by the saints, Who are ye, who have not yet been with us in hell, and have had your bod­ies placed in Par­adise?

3 One of them an­swer­ing, said, I am Enoch, who was trans­lat­ed by the word of God: and this man who is with me, is Eli­jah the Tish­bite, who was trans­lat­ed in a fiery char­iot.

4 Here we have hith­er­to been, and have not tast­ed death, but are now about to re­turn at the com­ing of An­tichrist, be­ing armed with di­vine signs and mir­acles, to en­gage with him in bat­tle, and to be slain by him at Jerusalem, and to be tak­en up alive again in­to the clouds, af­ter three days and a half.

5 And while the holy Enoch and Elias were re­lat­ing this, be­hold there came an­oth­er man in a mis­er­able fig­ure, car­ry­ing the sign of the cross up­on his shoul­ders.

6 And when all the saints saw him, they said to him, Who art thou? For thy coun­te­nance is like a thief’s; and why dost thou car­ry a cross up­on thy shoul­ders?

7 To which he an­swer­ing, said, Ye say right, for I was a thief, who com­mit­ted all sorts of wicked. ness up­on earth.

8 And the Jews cru­ci­fied me with Je­sus; and I ob­served the sur­pris­ing things which hap­pened in the cre­ation at the cru­ci­fix­ion of the Lord Je­sus.

9 And I be­lieved him to be the Cre­ator of all things, and the Almighty King; and I prayed to him, say­ing, Lord re­mem­ber me, when thou comest in­to thy king­dom.

10 He present­ly re­gard­ed my sup­pli­ca­tion, and said to me, Ver­ily I say un­to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Par­adise.

11 And he gave me this sign of the cross, say­ing, Car­ry this, and go to Par­adise; and if the an­gel who is the guard of Par­adise will not ad­mit thee, show him the sign of the cross, and say un­to him Je­sus Christ who is now cru­ci­fied, hath sent me hith­er to thee.

12 When I did this and told the an­gel who is the guard of Par­adise all these things, and he heard them, he present­ly opened the gates, in­tro­duced me, and placed me on the right hand in Par­adise,

13 Say­ing, Stay here a lit­tle time, till Adam, the fa­ther of all mankind, shall en­ter in, with all his sons, who are the holy and righ­teous ser­vants of Je­sus Christ, who was cru­ci­fied.

14 When they heard all this ac­count from the thief, all the pa­tri­archs said with one voice, Blessed be thou, O Almighty God, the Fa­ther of ev­er­last­ing good­ness, and the Fa­ther of mer­cies, who hast shown such favour to those who were sin­ners against him, and hast brought them to the mer­cy of Par­adise, and hast placed them amidst thy large and spir­itu­al pro­vi­sions, in a spir­itu­al and holy life. Amen.