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Nicodemus
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| Text name: | Nicodemus |
| Alternative names: | Betide the time Tiberius; The Gospel of Nicodemus; The Strophic Version of Nicodemus; The Strophic Gospel of Nicodemus; Evangelium Nicodemi |
| Content: | The text The Gospel of Nicodemus is an apocryphal gospel that enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages. The Middle English Nicodemus is a rhymed rendition of the same text. The following is a summary of its content: Introduction. Nicodemus wrote this narrative during the time of Emperor Titus. It is now translated by a "clerk of ingland" (l. 11) (stanza 1). Acts of Pilate. The story starts at a point where the accused Jesus has been brought before Pilate for examination. The Jews denounce Jesus to Pilate and demand that Jesus be killed (stanzas 2-5). A herald places a wreath crown on Jesus' head and defends him before the masses (stanzas 6-10). Jesus' trial starts. The standard bearer's banners magically bow to Jesus and Pilate, awestruck, intercedes on behalf of Jesus (stanzas 11-17). The Jews reject Pilate's plea. Jesus' accusers and defenders speak back and forth. The Jews want Pilate to kill Jesus, but Pilate, believing him to be a king, refuses to do so (stanzas 18-28). Jesus gives Pilate cryptic statements about his kingdom and judgment, which leave Pilate stupefied (stanzas 29-36). Nicodemus, a supporter of Jesus, defends Jesus (stanzas 37-41). Pilate does not understand why the Jews want to kill such a compassionate man, "and said: 'whi will ȝe spill // þe man þat helpis in nede // all þat will call him till?'" (ll. 502-4) (stanzas 42-43). In accordance with Jewish Passover tradition, the Jews get the choice of saving one prisoner: either Barabbas or Jesus. The mob decides that guilty Barabbas should go free whereas innocent Jesus should be killed. The Jews also intimidate Pilate by claiming he will not be the friend of Caesar, and by reminding him that Herod had all the babies in Bethlehem killed. Under this pressure, Pilate finally gives in. He washes his hands as a sign of innocence and hands Jesus over to the Jews to let them beat and crucify him (stanzas 44-50). Jesus is brutalized and put on the Cross. As Jesus dies, many strange events, disregarded by the Jews, come to pass - earthquakes, temple veils bursting, an eclipse, and the appearance of an angel (stanzas 51-59). Joseph of Arimathea. A follower of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, shrouds and buries Jesus properly. The Jews find this offensive. They imprison him. They decide to kill Joseph. However, when they come to the prison to fetch him, he has miraculously disappeared. "þis es a wonder thing, // how might he win oway // þus in oure awin kepying?" (ll. 790-2) (stanzas 60-66). Some knights announce that Jesus has risen from the dead. They try to negotiate with the Jews for Joseph's acquittal in return for information on Jesus' next apparition. However, the Jews bribe the knights instead and they now falsely claim that Jesus' body was stolen (stanzas 67-72). Three Jewish priests attest to having seen Jesus alive preaching to his followers on the Mount of Olives. Having sworn an oath, they are taken seriously by the Jews. Nicodemus suggests that scouts should look for Jesus all over Israel. While Jesus is nowhere to be found, the scouts do discover Joseph alive and well in his house in Arimathea (stanzas 73-81). The Jews decide to drop their misgivings against Joseph, vouchsafe for his safety and invite him to their council. Joseph accepts the invitation. The Jews ask him how he escaped from prison. He answers that Jesus, having risen from the dead, lifted the prison into the air and freed him. The Jews remain skeptical and do not accept that Jesus is still alive (stanzas 82-91). Joseph attempts to convince the Jews. He says that Jesus has resurrected two Jews, Carin and Lentin, from their graves. The Jews find that their graves are indeed empty and later, Carin and Lentin are actually found alive. When asked what has transpired, they swear to recount the truth, ask for parchment and pen, and start writing down a lengthy report of their experience with Jesus (stanzas 92-97). Harrowing of Hell. Carin and Lentin state in their written account that, as the offspring of Adam, they were banished in hell. After long anticipation, Jesus, the son of God, finally arrived to redeem all innocent souls. They narrate Satan's initially naive reaction to Jesus' arrival, Jesus' entering, "þan ihesus strake so fast, // þe ȝates in sunder ȝede // and Iren bandes al brast" (ll. 1402-4), and the devils' horror as he harrows hell – "þe sawles þat vs war sent // has þou won heþin oway, // þou has vs schamly schent // and priued vs of oure pray" (ll. 1337-40). They also recount utterances by several inhabitants of Hell, such as Isiah, John the Baptist, Adam, Seth, David, Enoch and Elias. Eventually, the innocent souls were led into Paradise and everybody praised Jesus. Carin and Lentin conclude by saying that the archangel Michael told them to write down their testimony so that the Jews may hear the truth and repent (stanzas 98-136). End. The Jews accept the testimony and disperse. Pilate, having become fearful, consults the Jewish high priests. They find that their prophecies predict that Christ should arrive 5,500 years after Adam and that, on counting up the years, this is indeed exactly the amount of time that has passed. Gloomily, Pilate says, "oure werk, I wene, be all in waste" (l. 1758). Everybody leaves (stanzas 137-147). |
| Genre/subjects: | apocryphal gospel, life of Christ, harrowing of hell, bible paraphrase, legend |
| Dialect of original composition: | Northern The available evidence points clearly to an authorial dialect in the north. (i) Old English ā changed to ō in the South and Midlands at the beginning of the thirteenth century, allowing for rhymes of words with inherited and new ō in those regions (e.g. two : to from Old English twa : to). However, ā remained in the North until the fifteenth century. The text includes numerous examples of ā in rhymes (e.g. procula : fra : swa : ga, stanza 17) but not a single instance of a rhyme of inherited and new ō. This points towards a northern origin. (ii) The second and third person singular present indicative ending -(e)s indicates a northerly dialect. Some such examples are attested in rhymes, where they are likely to have been used by the author (e.g. angels : felles '[you] fell, strike down' : telles '[you] tell' : dwelles, stanza 122). (iii) Some typically northern vocabulary is found in rhymes (e.g. gate, call, stanza 24). (iv) There are about 30 examples of verb-second orders with subject pronouns. Such alignments are typical of northern rather than southern Middle English texts (Kroch & Taylor 1997). 'All children, he ordered to be slain' (stanza 48, line 574) |
| Date of original composition: | 1300-1350 "[T]he poetical Gospel of Nicodemus was in existence as early as the first quarter of the fourteenth century" (Hulme 1907: xix). The chief piece of evidence for that date concerns certain passages form the Gospel of Nicodemus, which were borrowed into, and must therefore be older than, the York Plays of the mid-fourteenth century (for details, see ibid.: xix-xxi, Craigie 1901). "[I]n all probability it belongs to the first half of the fourteenth century" (Craigie 1901: 61). The online version of the Middle English Dictionary gives the date of the original as "?a1350." |
| Suggested date: | 1340 |
| PCMEP period: | 2b (1300-1350) |
| Versification: | 147 stanzas of twelve lines with an alternate rhyming scheme indicating a separate octet and quatrain, abababab-cdcd. The a lines usually have four stresses, the others three. For comments on the metre and differences between the manuscripts, see Hulme (1907: xvi-xvii). |
| Index of ME Verse: | 512 (IMEV), 512 (NIMEV) |
| Digital Index of ME Verse: | 833 |
| Wells: | 5.73 |
| MEC HyperBibliography: | Nicod.(1) |
About the edition and manuscript base:
| Edition: | Hulme, William H. 1907. The Harrowing of Hell and Gospel of Nicodemus. EETS e.s. 100. Berlin: Asher & Co. 22-134. (Manuscript used for parsed file printed in left column of even page numbers) |
| Manuscript used for edition: | London, British Library, Cotton Galba E.9, ff. 57v-66v |
| Online manuscript description: | British Library, Explore Archives and Manuscripts Archives de littérature du moyen âge (item 11) |
| Manuscript dialect: | Northern The manuscript "is written in the Northern dialect" (Hulme 1907: xv). "The dialect in which [the poem is] here written is northern, but this would only prove that the scribe who copied it, and not the original author, was a north-country man" (Wright 1859: 58, footnote). |
| Manuscript date: | s. xv-in "The manuscript […] belongs to the earlier part of the fifteenth century, probably to the reign of Henry V [1413-1422]" (Wright 1859: 58, footnote). "The MS. is written in a fine large hand (or hands) of the first half of the fifteenth century" (Hulme 1907: xxii). "[T]he best recent scholarly opinion would place the date of Galba E IX in the early years of the fifteenth century" (Hulme 1907: xxiii). Hulme (ibid.: xxiii-xxiv) proceeds to cite various authorities on the date of the manuscript. Of those, Hall deserves special mention because he offers a very precise date of manuscript production of not long after 1407 based on historical dates of battles found in the manuscript. The online version of the Middle English Dictionary presents the date of the manuscript as "a1425." |
About the file:
| File name: | M2b.Nicodemus |
| ID: | Nicodemus,w.[Stanza_x].y.z: w=page, x=stanza {1-147}, y=line, z=token |
| Word count: | 10,397 |
| Token count: | 936 |
| Line count: | 1,753 (plus final line A-M-E-N) |
Other:
| General notes: | The Middle English poem Gospel of Nicodemus is preserved in four manuscripts of the fifteenth century. They are listed below: London, British Library, Additional 32578, ff. 116v-140v (a1425, has an additional 4 stanzas) London, British Library, Harley 4196, f. 206r-215r (a1425) London, Lambeth Palace Library, Sion College Arc. L.40.2/E.25, ff. 13r-38v (?c1450) Nicodemus inspired several passages in the York Plays (Craigie 1901). For comments on the parallels between the two texts, see Hulme (1907: xix-xxi). |
| Remarks on parses: | The line breaks follow Hulme's (1907: 22-134) edition. The parses are generally unproblematic. |
References
Craigie, William A. 1901. 'The Gospel of Nicodemus and the York Mystery. Plays. ' In: Ker, William Paton, Napier, Arthur S. & Skeat, Walter W. (eds.) An English Miscellany: Presented to Dr. Furnivall in Honor of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 52-61. (available online)
Fein, Susanna G. 1997. 'Twelve-Line Stanza Forms in Middle English and the Date of Pearl.' Speculum 72.22. 367-98. (available online)
Hulme, William H. 1907. The Middle English Harrowing of Hell and Gospel of Nicodemus. EETS e.s. 100. Berlin: Asher & Co. (available online)
Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann. 1997. 'Verb Movement in Old and Middle English: Dialect Variation and Language Contact.' In: Kemenade, Ans van & Vincent, Nigel (eds.) Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 45-68.
Wells, John E. 1916. Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400. New Haven, CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. (available online)
Wright, Thomas. 1859. Political Poems and Songs relating to English History: Composed during the Period from the Accession of Edward III to that of Richard III. Volume 1. London: Longman, Green Longman, and Roberts. (available online)