Book of the Bee

Historical scan page 129

OF THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD TO HE A VEN. ioi without food, and was not injured by hunger. Some say that after His resurrection our Lord ate food like unto that which the angels ate in the house of Abraham, and that the food was dissipated and consumed by the Divine Power, just as fire licks up oil without any of it entering into its substance. Our Lord remained upon the earth forty days, even as He had fasted forty days, and as Elijah fasted forty days, and as Moses fasted forty days at two several times, and as the rain continued for forty days during the flood, and as God admonished the Ninevites for forty days, and as the spies remained (absent) for forty days, and as the children of Israel wandered about in the wilderness for forty years, and like the child whose fashioning in the womb is completed in forty days. After forty days, our Lord took up [hd] His disciples to the Mount of Olives, and laid His hand upon them, and blessed them, and commanded them concerning the preaching and teaching of the nations. And it came to pass that while He was blessing them, He was separated from them, and went up to heaven ; and they worshipped Him. And there appeared to them angels, encouraging them and saying, ‘This Jesus, who has been taken up from you to heaven, is about to come again even as ye have seen Him go up to heaven.’ Then they returned to that upper chamber where they were, and stayed there ten days, until they received the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire. Simon Peter said to his fellow-disciples, ‘ It is right for us to put some one in the place of Judas to complete the number of twelve ; ’ and they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles h As concerning the manner in which our Lord entered heaven without cleaving it, some say that He went in as He did through the closed doors ; and as He came forth from the virgin womb, and Mary’s vir¬ ginity returned to its former state ; and like the sweat from the body ; and as water is taken up by the roots of the olive and other trees, and reaches in the twinkling of an eye the leaves, flowers and fruits, as if through certain ducts, without holes or channels being pierced in them. Thus by an infinite and ineffable miracle our Lord entered into heaven without cleaving it. And if the bodies of us who are accustomed [cruo ] A new chapter begins here in the Oxford MS., fol. 180 a. 1