Acta Joannis

Now when Aristodemus, who was chief priest of all those idols, saw this, filled with a wicked spirit, he stirred up sedition among the people, so that one people prepared themselves to fight against the other And John turned to him and said: Tell me, Aristodemus, what can I do to take away the anger from thy soul? And Aristodemus said: If thou wilt have me believe in thy God, I will give thee poison to drink, and if thou drink it, and die not, it will appear that thy God is true The apostle answered: If thou give me poison to drink, when I call on the name of my Lord, it will not be able to harm me Aristodemus said again: I will that thou first see others drink it and die straightway, that so thy heart may recoil from that cup And the blessed John said: I have told thee already that I am prepared to drink it, that thou mayest believe on the Lord Jesus Christ when thou seest me whole after the cup of poison Aristodemus therefore went to the proconsul and asked of him two men who were to undergo the sentence of death And when he had set them in the midst of the market-place before all the people, in the sight of the apostle he made them drink the poison: and as soon as they had drunk it, they gave up the ghost Then Aristodemus turned to John and said: Hearken to me and depart from thy teaching wherewith thou callest away the people from the worship of the gods; or take and drink this, that thou mayest show that thy God is almighty, if after thou hast drunk, thou canst remain whole Then the blessed John, as they lay dead which had drunk the poison, like a fearless and brave man took the cup, and making the sign of the cross, spake thus: My God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whose word the heavens were established, unto whom all things are subject, whom all creation serveth,

But Aristodemus even so believed not, though the people reproached him: but turned unto John and said: This one thing I lack — if thou in the name of thy God raise up these that have died by this poison, my mind will be cleansed of all doubt When he said that, the people rose against Aristodemus, saying: We will burn thee and thine house if thou goest on to trouble the apostle further with thy words John, therefore, seeing that there was a fierce sedition, asked for silence, and said in the hearing of all: The first of the virtues of God which we ought to imitate is patience, by which we are able to bear with the foolishness of unbelievers Wherefore if Aristodemus is still held by unbelief, let us loose the knots of his unbelief He shall be compelled, even though late, to acknowledge his creator; for I will not cease from this work until a remedy shall bring help to his wounds, and like physicians which have in their hands a sick man needing medicine, so also, if Aristodemus be not yet cured by that which hath now been done, he shall be cured by that which I will now do And he called Aristodemus to him, and gave him his coat, and he himself stood clad only in his mantle And Aristodemus said to him: Wherefore hast thou given me thy coat? John said to him: That thou mayest even so be put to shame and depart from thine unbelief And Aristodemus said: And how shall thy coat make me to depart from unbelief? The apostle answered: Go and cast it upon the bodies of the dead, and thou shalt say thus: The apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ hath sent me that

in his name ye may rise again, that all may know that life and death are servants of my Lord Jesus Christ Which when Aristodemus had done, and had seen them rise, he worshipped John, and ran quickly to the proconsul and began to say with a loud voice: Hear me, hear me, thou proconsul; I think thou rememberest that I have often stirred up thy wrath against John and devised many things against him daily, wherefore I fear lest I feel his wrath: for he is a god hidden in the form of a man, and hath drunk poison, and not only continueth whole, but them also which had died by the poison he hath recalled to life by my means, by the touch of his coat, and they have no mark of death upon them Which when the proconsul heard he said: And what wilt thou have me to do? Aristodemus answered: Let us go and fall at his feet and ask pardon, and whatever he commandeth us let us do Then they came together and cast themselves down and besought forgiveness: and he received them and offered prayer and thanksgiving to God, and he ordained them a fast of a week, and when it was fulfilled he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Almighty Father, and the Holy Ghost the illuminator [And when they were baptized, with all their house and their servants and their kindred, they brake all their idols and built a church in the name of Saint John: wherein he himself was taken up, in manner following:]
[*](This bracketed sentence, of late complexion, serves to introduce the last episode of the bookHere we may insert a notice of three detached fragments of the Actsa. The upper portion of a papyrus leaf of the fourth century, Oxyrhynchus papyri, no 850 (vol vi, 1908) The order of the two pages is doubted by the editors, who suggest that the recto should follow the verso)

Recto

1. departure
2. . . . . Andronicus and his wife . . . .
3. (this is the title of the following episode)
4. ll. 1, 2 And when a few days had passed, John went forth with many of the brethren to . . .
3. 3 . . . . to cross a bridge under which a deep river ran
4. 4 (and as John) went to the brethren
5. 5 (behold a man) came towards him clad in the manner of a soldier
6. 6 and standing before him said: John, into
7. 7 (my) hands thou shall shortly come And John (in wrath)
8. 8 (said): the Lord shall quench thy threatening and thy wrath and
9. 9 (thy trans) gression And lo he vanished away (When therefore)
10. 10 John was come to those to whom he went, and found
11. 11 (them) gathered together, he said: Rise up my breth
12. 12 (ren) let us bow our knees unto the Lord and
13. 12, 13 brought to nought the unseen working of the great enemy
14. 14 bowed his knees together with them . . . said
15. 15 . . . . God
[*](Here is the appearance of a demon disguised as a soldier who threatens John, perhaps predicting his arrest, and is routed John is about to pray with the brethren)

Verso

1. 1 for him
2. 2 groanings and
3. 3 but John
4. 4 to Zeuxis, having risen and taken up a (cup)
5. 5 . . . . who didst compel me with
6. 6, 7 thinking to strangle himself: that dost turn things despaired of unto thee: 7, 8 that makest known . . . . the things that
8. 8 are known to no man: that weepest for the afflicted
9. 9 that raisest up those that have been put to death
10. 10 of the helpless: Jesu the comforter of the
11. 11 we praise thee and worship and give thanks
12. 12 for all thy gifts: and for thy present dispensation
13. 13, 14 and ministry And unto Zeuxis only he gave of the eucharist, and afterward gave to them that would receive
15. 15 looking on him durst not: but the proconsul
16. 16 (? sending a) centurion in the midst of the assembly (church?) saith to John
17. 17 : Servant of the unnameable (God
18. 18 hath brought letters from Caesar
19. 19 (? in which is contained: Domitianus Caesar) and the sen (ate . . . .
[*](Zeuxis has tried to hang himself He has been delivered and a service of thanksgiving is held The proconsul is already there and has seen the miracle: he brings letters from the emperorThe editor questions whether there is room in the lower part of the recto to finish John’s prayer and introduce the episode of Zeuxis But the author, while often very prolix, can also get over much ground in few lines And it is equally difficult to see how the emperor’s letter should be dismissed and done with in half a page and a story about Andronicus follow immediatelyThe interest of the fragment for the general course of the story lies in this, that it confirms our belief that John was represented as coming under the notice of the emperor; and probably either exile or the caldron of oil, or both, were the sequels of the transaction: I doubt, however, whether the trial was laid at Romeb and c are quotations preserved in a barbarous Latin Apocryphon called the Epistle of Titus, mainly a declamation about virginity, which exists in one manuscript at Würzburg (eighth century) Dom Donatien de Bruyne printed them in the Revue Bénédictine for 1908 (pp 149 – 60))

b. Or is that outside the law which we are taught, how the very devils (when they ] confessed to Dyrus (read Verus) the deacon as to the coming of John: consider what they said: Many will come to us in the last times to turn us out of our vessels (i. e. the bodies possessed by them), saying that they are pure and clean from women and are not held by desire of them: whom (MS. while) if we desired, we (could) possess them also

[*](This should come from an early part of the book I take it to precede John’s first visit to Ephesus My rendering indicates the obscurity of the originalc is so confused (and wearisome) that it defies translation It is a diatribe of John’s against matrimony and begins thus:)

Receive therefore in thy heart the admonition of the blessed John, who, when he was bidden to a marriage, came not save for the sake of chastity, and consider what he said: Little children, while yet your flesh is pure and ye have your body untouched and not destroyed, and are not defiled by Satan, the great enemy and shameless (foe) of chastity: know therefore more fully the mystery of the nuptial union: it is the experiment of the serpent, the ignorance of teaching, injury of the seed, the gift of death, . . . (thirty-one (!) clauses follow, many of which are quite corrupt; the last are) the impediment which separateth from the Lord, the beginning of disobedience, the end of life, and death Hearing this, little children, join yourselves together in an inseparable marriage, holy and true, waiting for the one true incomparable bridegroom from heaven, even Christ, the everlasting bridegroom

If, then, the apostle severed a marriage, lest it should be an occasion of sin . . . etc

[*](This is the most avowedly Encratite passage in the Acts: true, John persuaded Andronicus and others to dissolve their marriage in all but name: but there is nowhere else such a wealth of abuse of the institution of marriage as such The speech belongs to an episode of which we know nothing; it cannot refer to Andronicus or Lycomedes, who were both married when first we hear of themA third quotation in the Epistle of Titus is taken from an extant part of the Acts, the last prayer of JohnThe last episode of these Acts (as is the case with several others of the Apocryphal Acts) was preserved separately for reading in church on the Saint’s day We have it in at least nine Greek manuscripts, and in many versions: Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Slavonic)

John therefore continued with the brethren, rejoicing in the Lord And on the morrow, being the Lord’s day, and all the brethren being gathered together, he began to say unto them: Brethren and fellow-servants and coheirs and partakers with me in the kingdom of the Lord, ye know the Lord, how

Let not then our good God be grieved, the compassionate, the merciful, the holy, the pure, the undefiled, the immaterial, the only, the one, the unchangeable, the simple, the guileless, the unwrathful, even our God Jesus Christ, who is above every name that we can utter or conceive, and more exalted Let him rejoice with us because we walk aright, let him be glad because we live purely, let him be refreshed because our conversation is sober Let him be without care because we live continently, let him be pleased because we communicate one with another, let him smile because we are chaste, let him be merry because we love him These things I now speak unto you, brethren, because I am hasting unto the work set before me, and already being perfected by the Lord For what else could I have to say unto you? Ye have the pledge of our God, ye have the earnest of ħis goodness, ye have his presence that cannot be shunned If, then, ye sin no more, he forgiveth you that ye did in ignorance: but if after that ye have known him and he hath had mercy on you, ye walk again in the like deeds, both the former will be laid to your charge, and also ye will not have a part nor mercy before him