The Book of the Cave of Treasures 83

1And when the end of all the Law and the Prophets had come, and Christ was hanging on the Cross, Joseph, the brother of Nicodemus and Cleophas, went in to Pilate—now he was the bearer of the seal-ring of Pilate, and was a councillor, and had free intercourse with him— and asked for the body of our Redeemer; and Pilate commanded that it should be given to him. And when Joseph had taken His body, straightway Pilate commanded that the gardenalso in which the grave was situated should be given to him; it belonged to Joseph, and it had been given unto him as an inheritance by Phinehas, the Levite, the son of Joseph’s uncle. Now Joseph was from Jerusalem, but he had been made a councillor in Ramtha, and all the letters which had been written during the whole period of Pilate’s administration had been sealed with the seal which Joseph carried. And when Joseph had taken down the body of our Lord from the Cross, the Jews ran and took the Cross, and brought it into the Temple, because [the pieces of wood thereof] were the bearing poles of the Ark of the Covenant. And Nicodemus also embalmed the body of our Lord [and swathed it] in clean, new linen swathings, and Joseph made it ready for the grave and buried it in a new tomb which had been made for Joshua, the son of Non, to be buried in. And because he saw with the eye of the Spirit, and the way of the Dispensation of Christ had appeared to him, he took the stone which had travelled about with the children of Israel in the desert and placed it at the door of the tomb, and therefore he was not buried in it. And when Joseph, and Nicodemus, and Cleophas had buried Christ, they laid that stone before the door of the building of the tomb. And the high priests, and men of the house of Pilate, went out and set seals on the grave and on the stone.