VII. The Second Toledoth Jeschu.
We will now analyze and give extracts from the second anti-evangel of the Jews, the Toledoth Jeschu of Huldrich.[121]
It begins thus: “In the reign of King Herod the Proselyte, there lived a man named Papus Ben Jehuda. To him was betrothed Mirjam, daughter of Kalphus; and her brother's name was Simeon. He was a Rabbi, the son of Kalphus. This Mirjam, before her betrothal, was a hair-dresser to women.... She was surpassing beautiful in form. She was of the tribe of Benjamin.”
On account of her extraordinary beauty, she was kept locked up in a house; but she escaped through a window, and fled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem with Joseph Pandira, of Nazareth.
As has been already said, Papus Ben Jehuda was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiba, and died about A.D. 140. In the Wagenseil Toledoth Jeschu, Mirjam is betrothed to a Jochanan. In the latter, Mary lives at Bethlehem; in the Toledoth of Huldrich, she resides at Jerusalem.
Many years after, the place of the retreat of Mirjam and Joseph Pandira having been made known to Herod, he sent to Bethlehem orders for their arrest, and for the massacre of the children; but Joseph, who had been forewarned by a kinsman in the court of Herod, fled in time with his wife and children into Egypt.
After many years a famine broke out in Egypt, and Joseph and Mirjam, with their son Jeschu and his brethren, returned to Canaan and settled at Nazareth.
“And Jeschu grew up, and went to Jerusalem to acquire knowledge, in the school of Joshua, the son of Perachia (B.C. 90); and he made there great advance, so that he learned the mystery of the chariot and the holy Name.[122]
“One day it fell out that Jeschu was playing ball with the sons of the priests, near the chamber Gasith, on the hill of the Temple. Then by accident the ball fell into the Fish-valley. And Jeschu was very grieved, and in his anger he plucked the hat from off his head, and cast it on the ground and burst into lamentations. Thereupon the boys warned him to put his hat on again, for it was not comely to be with uncovered head. Jeschu answered, Verily, Moses gave you not this law; it is but an addition of the lawyers, and therefore need not be observed.
“Now there sat there, Rabbi Eliezer and Joshua Ben Levi (A.D. 220), and the Rabbi Akiba (A.D. 135) hard by, in the school, and they heard the words that Jeschu had spoken.