DCHindley

Hi Emma,

It seems that the Ascension is mainly about heavenly "raiment" (the glorious bodies God has stored up in the seventh heaven for the saints) which Isaiah sees after his own ascent to the 7th heaven. Then he sees the Beloved One descend secretly through the heavens to earth, and ignoring for the moment the account of his earthly life, immediately starts to ascend through the heavens in all his glory to the utter amazement of all the angels and other supernatural beings of the heavens.

In S/L2, there is nothing at all about what the Beloved did here on earth between his descent and ascent back to heaven, other than the single sentence "And they did not know who he was." In Ethiopic and L1, there is this account:

11:2. [And I indeed saw a woman of the family of David the prophet, named Mary, and Virgin, and she was espoused to a man named Joseph, a carpenter, and he also was of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem Judah.] 3. [And he came into his lot. And when she was espoused, she was found with child, and Joseph the carpenter was desirous to put her away.] 4. [But the angel of the Spirit appeared in this world, and after that Joseph did not put her away, but kept Mary and did not reveal this matter to any one.] 5. [And he did not approach Mary, but kept her as a holy virgin, though with child.] 6. [And he did not live with her for two months.] 7. [And after two months of days while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone.] 8. [It came to pass that when they were alone that Mary straight-way looked with her eyes and saw a small babe, and she was astonished.] 9. [And after she had been astonished, her womb was found as formerly before she had conceived.] 10. [And when her husband Joseph said unto her: "What has astonished thee?" his eyes were opened and he saw the infant and praised God, because into his portion God had come.] 11. [And a voice came to them: "Tell this vision to no one."] 12. [And the story regarding the infant was noised broad in Bethlehem.] 13. [Some said: "The Virgin Mary hath borne a child, before she was married two months."] 14. [And many said: "She has not borne a child, nor has a midwife gone up (to her), nor have we heard the cries of (labour) pains." And they were all blinded respecting Him and they all knew regarding Him, though they knew not whence He was.] 15. [And they took Him, and went to Nazareth (in Galilee).] ('Galilee' is omitted by Eth ms b) 16. [And I saw, O Hezekiah and Josab my son, and I declare to the other prophets also who are standing by, that (this) hath escaped all the heavens and all the princes and all the gods of this world.] 17. [And I saw: In Nazareth He sucked the breast as a babe and as is customary in order that He might not be recognized.] 18. [And when He had grown up he worked great signs and wonders in the land of Israel and of Jerusalem.] 19a. [And after this the adversary envied Him and roused the children of Israel against Him,] 19b not knowing who He was, 19c. [and they delivered Him to the king, and crucified Him, and He descended to the angel (of Sheol)]. 20. [In Jerusalem indeed I saw Him being crucified on a tree:] 21. [And likewise after the third day rise again and remain days.] 22. [And the angel who conducted me said: "Understand, Isaiah": and I saw when He sent out the Twelve Apostles and ascended].

But why did the editor of S/L2 decide not to place any story in the place of this one above?

I think it may be because a story about what the Beloved came down to do had already been given in a section of the martyrdom of Isaiah commonly called "The testament of Hezekiah" (3:13b-31):

3:13b … and because of the exposure wherewith he [Isaiah] had exposed Sammael, and because through him the going forth of the Beloved from the seventh heaven had been made known, and His transformation and His descent and the likeness into which He should be transformed (that is) the likeness of man, and the persecution wherewith He should be persecuted, and the tortures wherewith the children of Israel should torture Him, and the coming of His twelve disciples, and the teaching, and that He should [before the Sabbath be crucified upon the tree, and should] be crucified together with wicked men, and that He should be buried in the sepulchre,
14. And the twelve who were with Him should be offended because of Him: and /the watchers (were) also watching / those who watched the sepulchre:
15. And the descent of the angel of the [Christian] Church (not: the Ethiopic word for "church" always refers to Christian churches), which is in the heavens, whom He will summon (or, 'who will summon') in the last days.
16. And that (Gabriel) (name is proposed by Charles following Grenfell & Hunt) the angel of the Holy Spirit, and Michael, the chief of the holy angels, on the third day will open the sepulchre:
17. And /that Beloved/ sitting on their shoulders will come forth and send out His twelve disciples:
18. And they will teach all the nations and every tongue of the resurrection of the Beloved, and those who believe in His cross will be saved, and in His /resurrection/ into the seventh heaven whence He came :
19. And that many who believe in Him will speak through the Holy Spirit :
20. And many signs and wonders will be wrought in those days.
21. And [afterwards], on the eve of His approach, His disciples will forsake the /teaching/ of the Twelve Apostles, and /their faith/, and their love and their purity,
22. And there will be /much contention/ on the eve of [His advent and] (Charles thinks this is a duplication of 'eve of his approach') His approach.
23. And in those days many will love office, though devoid of wisdom.
24. And there will be many lawless elders, and shepherds dealing wrongly by their own sheep, and /they will ravage (them) owing to their not (having) (Charles' emendation to fix a gibberish word in the Ethiopic) holy shepherds/.
25. And many will change the honour of the garments of the saints for the garments of the covetous, and there will be much respect of persons in those days and lovers of the honour of this world.
26. And there will be much slander and vainglory at the approach of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will withdraw from many.
27. And there will not be in those days many prophets, nor those who speak trustworthy words, save one here and there in divers places,
28. On account of the spirit of error and fornication and of vainglory, and of covetousness, which shall be in those, who will be called servants of that One and in those who will receive that One.
29. And there will be great hatred in the shepherds and elders towards each other.
30. For there will be great jealousy in the last days; for every one will say what is pleasing in his own eyes. 31. And they will make of none effect the prophecy of the prophets which were before me, and (these) my visions also will they make of none effect, in order to speak after the impulse of their own heart.

The Testament of Hezekiah is a Christian work that was inserted in the latter half of the Martyrdom of Isaiah (ch 1-5), which is itself a Jewish work. It survives in Ethiopic, partly in a Greek fragment, and partly in ms L1. But this bolded text just seems to be an extension of 11:2-22 as found in mss E/L1 of the Ascension. As manuscripts S/L2 does not include the Martyrdom of Isaiah or the Testament of Hezekiah, we don't know whether the bolded section was taken from some third document that also included the section from 11:2-22 in E/L1.

But I think the missing text of 11:2-22 in mss S/L2 is probably closer in theme to the second half of the Testament of Hezekiah, ch 4:1-18:

4. 1. And now [Hezekiah and Josab my son], (bracketed by Charles as an editorial addition) (these) are the days of the (completion) of the world,
2. After it is consummated, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being ; yea, he will descend from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: /who himself (is) the king of this world/
3. /and he will persecute the plant/ (so Ethiopic ms b) which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. /Out of/ the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands.
4. This ruler (Beliar) (so Eth mss a & b against c, which does not add a name) in the form of that king will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will hearken unto him in all that he desires.
5. And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon to appear at the sixth hour.
6. And all that he hath desired he will do in the world : he will do and speak like the Beloved (so a & c, while b has 'He will make himself like to the Beloved') and he will say: 'I am God and before me there has been none.'
7. And all the people in the world will believe in him.
8. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: ' This is God and beside him there is no other.'
9. And the greater number of those who shall have been associated together in order to receive the Beloved, he will turn aside after him.
10. And there will be the power of his miracles in every city and region.
11. And he will set up his image before him in every city.
12. And he shall bear sway three years and seven months and twenty-seven days. (this is 1,335 days per Julian reckoning = Dan 12:12, or 3 & 1/2 years)
13. And many believers and saints having seen Him for whom they were hoping, who was crucified, Jesus the Lord Christ, [after that I, Isaiah, had seen Him who was crucified and ascended] and those also who were believers in Him—of these few in those days will be left as His servants, while they flee from desert to desert, awaiting the coming of the Beloved.
14. And after (one thousand) three hundred and thirty-two days the Lord will come with His angels and with the armies of the holy ones from the seventh heaven with the glory of the seventh heaven, and He will drag Beliar into Gehenna and also his armies.
15. And He will give rest to the godly whom He shall find in the body in this world, [and the sun will be ashamed] (an interpolation in G1 from Lxx variants) :
16. And to all who because of (their) faith in Him have execrated Beliar and his kings. But the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are (now) stored up on high in the seventh heaven: with the Lord they will come, whose spirits are clothed, they will descend and be present in the world, and He will strengthen those, who have been found in the body, together with the saints, in the garments of the saints, and the Lord will minister to those who have kept watch in this world.
17. And afterwards they will turn themselves upward in their garments, and their body will be left in the world.
18. Then the voice of the Beloved will in wrath rebuke the things of heaven and the things of earth and the mountains and the hills and the cities and the desert and the forests and the angel of the sun and that of the moon, and all things wherein Beliar manifested himself and acted openly in this world, and there will be [a resurrection and] a judgement in their midst in those days, and the Beloved will cause fire to go forth from Him, and it will consume all the godless, and they will be as though they had not been created.

In this segment, the Antichrist is obviously supposed to be Nero redivivus (back from the dead). There are a lot of agreements with the Ascension in terminology (especially those glorious garments waiting for the saints in the 7th heaven). Charles thinks this section has strong relation to a complex of Antichrist traditions.

Gotta go to bed ...

DCH

mountainman

This heavenly "raiment" is quite specifically paralleled in The Hymn of the Pearl aka The Hymn of the Soul aka The Robe of Glory , a tract which was purposefully placed into the mouth of the apostle Thomas who was at the time in an Indian jail (See the "Acts of Thomas")