Whilst these things were going on in the Temple, the confusion and panic were not less in Jerusalem.  Dead persons were walking about, and many walls and buildings had been shaken by the earthquake, and parts of them fallen down.  The superstition of Pilate rendered him even more accessible to fear; he was perfectly paralysed and speechless with terror; his palace was shaken to the very foundation, and the earth quaked beneath his feet.  He ran wildly from room to room, and the dead constantly stood before him, reproaching him with the unjust sentence he had passed upon Jesus.  He thought that they were the gods of the Galilean, and took refuge in an inner room, where he offered incense, and made vows to his idols to invoke their assistance in his distress.  Herod was usually alarmed; but he shut himself up in his palace, out of the sight of everyone.

More than a hundred persons who had died at different epochs re-entered the bodies they had occupied when on earth, made their appearance in different parts of Jerusalem, and filled the inhabitants with inexpressible consternation.  Those souls which had been released by Jesus from Limbo uncovered their faces and wandered to and fro in the streets, and although their bodies were the same as those which they had animated when on earth, yet these bodies did not appear to touch the ground as they walked.  They entered the houses of their descendants, proclaimed the innocence of Jesus, and reproved those who had taken part in his death most severely.  I saw them passing through the principal streets; they were generally in couples, and appeared to me to glide through the airs without moving their feet.  The countenances of some were pale; others of a yellow tint; their beards were long, and their voices sounded strange and sepulchral.  Their grave-clothes were such as it was customary to use at the period of their decease.  When they reached the place where sentence of death was proclaimed on Jesus before the procession started for Calvary, they paused for a moment, and exclaimed in a loud voice:  ’Glory be to Jesus for ever and ever, and destruction to his enemies!’ Towards four o’clock all the dead returned to their graves.  The sacrifices in the Temple had been so interrupted, and the confusion caused by the different prodigies was so great, that very few persons ate the Paschal lamb on that evening.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The Request of Joseph of Arimathea to be allowed to have the Body of Jesus.

Scarcely had the commotion which the town had been thrown into begun to subside in a degree, when the Jews belonging to the Council sent to Pilate to request that the legs of the criminals might be broken, in order to put an end to their lives before the Sabbath-day dawned.  Pilate immediately dispatched executioners to Calvary to carry out their wishes.