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Chapter 12.

When the Jews were made acquainted with these things done by Joseph and Nicodemus, they were greatly stirred up against them.  And the chief priests Annas and Caiaphas sent for Joseph, and said:  Why hast thou done this service to Jesus?  Joseph says:  I know that Jesus was a man just, and true, and good in all respects; and I know also that you, through hatred, managed to murder him:  and therefore I buried him.  Then the high priests were enraged, and laid hold of Joseph, and threw him into prison, and said to him:  If we had not to-morrow the feast of unleavened bread, tomorrow also should we have put thee, like him, to death; but being kept in the meantime, early in the morning of the Lord’s day19191919    Observe the anachronism. thou shalt be given up to death.  Thus they spoke, and affixed their seal to the prison, having secured it by fastenings of all sorts.

Thus, therefore, when the Preparation was ended, early on the Sabbath the Jews went away to Pilate, and said to him:  My lord, that deceiver said, that after three days he should rise again.  Lest, therefore, his disciples should steal him by night, and lead the people astray by such deceit, order his tomb to be guarded.  Pilate therefore, upon this, gave them five hundred soldiers, who also sat round the sepulchre so as to guard it, after having put seals upon the stone of the tomb.19201920    Matt. xxvii. 62–66.

The Lord’s day, then, having dawned, the chief priests, along with the Jews, called a council, and sent to take Joseph out of the prison, in order to put him to death.  But having opened it, they found him not.  And they were astonished at this—how, with the doors shut, and the bolts safe, and the seals unbroken, Joseph had disappeared.

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