The Avenging of
the Saviour.
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This version of the legend of Veronica is written
in very barbarous Latin, probably of the seventh or eighth
century. An Anglo-Saxon version, which Tischendorf concludes to
be derived from the Latin, was edited and translated for the Cambridge
Antiquarian Society, by C. W. Goodwin, in 1851. The Anglo-Saxon
text is from a ms. in the Cambridge Library, one of a number presented to the Cathedral of Exeter by Bishop Leofric in the beginning of the eleventh century.
The reader will observe that there are in this document
two distinct legends, somewhat clumsily joined together—that of
Nathan’s embassy, and that of Veronica.
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Here Beginneth the Avenging of the
Saviour.
In the days of the Emperor
Tiberius Cæsar, when Herod was tetrarch, Christ was delivered
under Pontius Pilate by the Jews, and revealed by Tiberius.
In those days Titus was a prince under Tiberius in the
region of Equitania, in a city of Libia which is called
Burgidalla. And Titus had a sore in his right nostril, on account
of a cancer, and he had his face torn even to the eye. There went
forth a certain man from Judæa, by name Nathan the son of Nahum; for he was an Ishmaelite who went from land to land, and from sea to sea, and in all the ends of the earth. Now Nathan was sent from Judæa to the Emperor Tiberius, to carry their treaty to the city of Rome. And Tiberius was ill, and full of ulcers and fevers, and had nine kinds of leprosy. And Nathan wished to go to the city of Rome. But the north wind blew and hindered his sailing, and carried him down to the harbour of a city of Libia. Now Titus, seeing the ship coming, knew that it was from Judæa; and they all wondered, and said that they had never seen any vessel so coming from that quarter. And Titus ordered the captain to come to him, and asked him who he was. And he said: I am Nathan the son of Nahum, of the race of the Ishmaelites, and I am a subject of Pontius Pilate in Judæa. And I have been sent to go to Tiberius the Roman emperor, to carry a treaty from Judæa. And a strong wind came down upon the sea, and has brought me to a country that I do not know.