Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar Breac (1887) — translated from the Irish.

¹ The apostle Bartholomew went preaching into India. He went into a certain temple there; it was there that an idol stood which the people of the city worshipped — Astaroth was the idol’s name. Bartholomew stayed in that place like any other pilgrim. Now there was a demon there, who used to say that he would heal people of every sickness; but in truth it was the people who refrained from harming themselves that he healed — for those folk had the worship of the true God among them; and those false gods used to deceive the people, for the demon deceived by craft the folk who did not worship the true God: he would bring sickness and plagues upon them, and demand offerings for himself. Then it seemed to those savage people that it was he who gave them health; and he gave them no true health at all, but only left off harming them — and the people believed it was he who healed them, whenever he ceased tormenting them.

² Now while Bartholomew stayed there continually, Astaroth gave no answer and healed no one who harmed himself; so when the multitudes kept coming to Astaroth and offering sacrifices to him, and he gave them no answer and healed them not, they went to another city to worship the demon named Herith, and asked of him why it was that Astaroth gave them no answer. “There is a reason for it,” said Herith, “for he has been bound in fiery bonds so that he cannot speak, since the time that Bartholomew, the apostle of God, came into the city.” “Who is he?” they said. “A friend of almighty God,” said he; “and this is why he has come here — to cast down all your gods.” “Tell us what he looks like,” said they, “so that we may know him among all men.”

³ The demon said: “This is his appearance: black curly hair on him, a straight nose and shapely ears, and there is no baldness on him, a thick beard with a few grey hairs in it, a well-proportioned figure between tall and short, a shining garment about him, and crimson sandals; that garment has been on him twenty-six years, and it is no older or dirtier than any other [garment]; he has likewise had the same pair of shoes on him all that time, and they are no older than any other; a hundred genuflexions every night and a hundred genuflexions every day he makes; a sweet, tuneful voice he has; angels are ever in his company, and neither cold nor weariness nor hunger nor thirst is allowed to reach him. A gentle, meek man in mind and in countenance; fierce, eager, joyous and glad at all times; the knowledge of everything and of every tongue he has — for he knew everything on earth, angels telling him everything. If you go seeking him, if it please him you shall find him; if it please him not, you shall not find him. And I counsel you further — when you have found him, do not bring him to me, lest the angels who are with him do to me everything they have done to Astaroth.” When the demon had said that, he was silent thereafter.

⁴ Then when those people reached their home, they were looking for Bartholomew, but they did not find him. It befell then that there was a man possessed by a demon in the city, and he heard Bartholomew at prayer; he went to where Bartholomew was and said to him: “O apostle of God, O Bartholomew, your prayer is burning me.” Bartholomew understood that it was a demon that had driven the man into madness, and he said: “Be silent,” said Bartholomew to the demon, “and leave the place where you are.” Thereupon the man was delivered from the demon who had been possessing him for many years.

⁵ Then that man related the matter to the king of the city — Polycimius was his name; and the king had a daughter whom a demon had been possessing for many years. The king sent messengers to the apostle that he might come to deliver his daughter, as he had delivered Seustrim — the man who had been mad before him. The apostle went with the messengers and saw the woman bound in chains, for she used to strike and bite everyone who came near her, and no one dared touch her. The apostle bade her bonds be loosened. “Who will dare to go to her?” said the attendants. “The one who possessed her is bound by me,” said the apostle — “that is, the devil; go then and loose her, and make her bed, and bring her to me tomorrow.” They all did as the apostle said, and the demon dared not follow her from that time. On the next day the king came with a camel-load of gold and silver and carbuncle gems and various garments to give to the apostle, but they did not find him; so they were carried back to the royal palace again.

⁶ Now it befell the next day, at the beginning of the day, that the apostle and the king and Seustrim were in a house, the three of them together, and Bartholomew said to the king: “What would it profit me,” said Bartholomew, “to be given riches? For that benefit belongs to the folk who seek after worldly things. For my part, I ask no earthly or fleshly thing, but that you should understand that He who made heaven and earth and the sea with all that is in them was born of the womb of a virgin — Mary; and it was of a virgin, most wondrously, that the Son of God was born. For it was that Virgin who first offered her virginity to God of all virgins; for from the beginning of the world no woman had been found who gave her virginity to God save Mary — she resolved it in her mind, not to know the company of man. It befell her, while she was at prayer in her chamber, that the angel Gabriel came to her, and she was stricken with spiritual dread before him. The angel said to her: ‘Fear not, O virgin Mary, for you shall bear a son of whom heaven and earth shall be full.’ ‘How shall that be?’ said she, ‘for I know not, and have never known, man while I live.’ The angel said to her: ‘The Holy Spirit shall overshadow you, and therefore shall the one who is born of you be called holy.’ Now when the Son of God was born,” said Bartholomew, “it pleased Him to be tempted by the devil, that Christ might overcome by fasting in the wilderness him who had overcome Adam in Paradise through gluttony; for it was fitting that he who had overcome Adam — the son of the virgin, that is, the son of the holy earth — should be overcome by the Son of the Virgin, Christ. For the earth from which Adam was made was virgin, since it had never been soaked by rain nor by human blood, and it had not been opened for anyone’s burial at that time. Christ then,” said Bartholomew, “was tempted thrice by the devil, and He overcame the devil thrice — in greed, in pride, and in gluttony; and it is He who sent His apostles throughout the whole world to drive out the demons who lived in the idols in the temples. We, then, take no share of riches from anyone in the world, but we despise them; for better is it to be rich in the kingdom of heaven, where there shall be neither sickness nor sorrow nor death — where there shall be everlasting life and joy without end, and the reward of happiness.

⁷ “From the day I went into the temple,” [said Bartholomew], “your gods have been bound by angels — that is, the demon who used to give you answers from the idol. If you believe in Christ and are baptised,” said Bartholomew, “you shall see the devil, and shall know him for the evil one; and if you wish, to prove that what I say is true, let us all go into the temple, and I shall bid the demon speak to you from the idol; and this is what he will say — that he is bound by angels of the living God.” “I shall go tomorrow,” said the king, “to the priests to make sacrifice, so that we may see that wonder.”

⁸ On the next day the priests made their sacrifices, and thereafter the demon said to them: “Wretches,” said he, “make no sacrifices to me, lest it go worse with you than with me; for the angels of the Lord whom the Jews crucified have put bonds of fire upon me. The Jews thought they could hold Him from death; but He submitted to death, and bound in fiery bonds the author of death — our chief; and Christ arose the third day, victorious over death and the devil, and gave the sign of His cross to His apostles, and sent them throughout the world to sow belief; and it is one of them who is present in this city, and it is he who holds me bound. And beseech him for me, that he may let me go into another province, for Bartholomew’s prayer torments me here.” “Tell me, devil,” said Bartholomew, “who destroyed all those who lie in various sicknesses in the temples.” “Our chief [the devil] sent us to them,” said the demon; “it is he who bound them there, and it is he who sent us to the people that we might first afflict their bodies — for there is no power over their souls in us, save only when they make sacrifice to the gods. When they sacrifice to heal their bodies, we do no harm to their bodies at that time, for then we begin to have power over their souls; since when we cease to afflict their bodies, it seems to them that it is our own care and favour that is upon them then, and therefore they give the worship of God to us. And from the day the apostle of God came here, I have been bound in fiery bonds; and the reason I speak to you is that he has permitted me to speak — for none of us dare speak in his presence without his permission, and even my chief Lucifer himself would not dare, unless he permitted him.”

⁹ “Why is it that you are content that these people be brought to you for healing?” said Bartholomew. “It is easy,” said the demon; “when we afflict their bodies with troubles, and leave their bodies in those troubles without affliction of their souls.” “And how do you destroy the soul?” said Bartholomew. “It is easy,” said the demon; “when they believe that we are gods, and make sacrifices to us, the Lord Himself departs from them at that time, and we no longer put troubles on their bodies then, but we afflict their souls — for that is all we seek, the enslaving of the soul to us,” said he. Bartholomew said to the people: “It is not right for you to worship this thing from which you have taken the form of a god; for the true God is He who dwells neither in trees nor in stones. And if you will,” said he, “I will pray the Lord for you, that you may obtain health. And cast out this idol, and break it, and consecrate this temple to God, and I will baptise you in it.”

¹⁰ Then the people — after the king had spoken to them — set ropes and chains and cords to drag the idol out of its place; and they could not. The apostle said to the demon that was in the idol: “Unless you wish,” said he, “to be cast into the sea and the ocean for ever, break the idol yourself, and go into the desert, where no soul has dwelling.” The demon at once broke the idol with all the trestles that belonged to it in the temple. “He is the one almighty God,” said the people, “whom Bartholomew declares.”

¹¹ Then the apostle lifted his hands to heaven and said: “O God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, it is You who did send Your only-begotten Son to shed His blood for the sake of the men who had fallen in sin; it is He who gave us power to heal the blind and the lepers and the lame, and to raise the dead; it is He who said to us that whatever we should ask of the heavenly Father should be given us — for you are the one God, in heaven and on earth and in the sea. Give me Your name, that all may be healed in You today, and that everyone may know that you are the true almighty God.” “May God do so!” said the people. Then an angel of God came there, shining like the sun, with four wings upon him, and he flew through the four corners of the temple, and set the sign of the cross on the wall of the temple. Then the angel said: “God has told me,” said he, “that you shall all be healed of your infirmities; and God has cleansed the temple of every idol, and of the dwelling of the devil that was in it — he to whom the apostle bade go into the desert. And if you will,” said he, “I shall show him to you; and let not fear seize you at his sight, but put the sign of the cross upon your faces as I have set it on the temple wall, and every evil shall depart from you.” “We consent,” said they.

¹² Then the angel revealed to them a monstrous Ethiopian — his face black as coal, a long beard on him, tresses reaching to his heels, fiery eyes; fierce flame used to come from his throat and his nose, like the flame of a smith’s furnace, fouler than a dunghill was that flame, and it would burn the world; spiky wings like thorn-bushes upon him, and his hands bound behind his back in chains of fire. Then the angel said to the demon: “Since you did obedience to the apostle,” said he, “and cleansed the temple of the idols that were in it, go as the apostle bade you into the desert, where there shall be no human dwelling; and be there until the day of judgement.” Then his bonds were loosed from the devil, and he gave a heavy roar and a monstrous cry as he went from them, so that he filled the temple with his stench. Then the angel went up to heaven in the sight of all; and the king believed, and his queen, and all the people of the city, and the people of the neighbouring cities, and all the inhabitants who were under the king’s power — they all believed and were baptised. Then the king remained in the apostle’s company, and put off his royal crown.

¹³ Then all the priests of the temple assembled, and went to the other king — Astriages was his name, brother of king Polycimius, who had believed in Bartholomew. The priests said to king Astriages: “Your brother has believed,” said they, “in the druid who broke our idols, and has become his disciple.” Then wrath seized Astriages, and he sent a thousand armed men with the priests to seek Bartholomew and bring him to the king. And so it was done, and Bartholomew was brought to the king. Astriages said to him: “Was it you who turned my brother?” said he. “It was his turning from iniquity and his bringing to righteousness that I wrought,” said the apostle. The king said: “Was it you who broke the gods?” “I gave power to the demons that were in them to break them,” said the apostle, “to save the people from destruction and to bring them to the almighty God who is in heaven.” The king said again: “Was it you who caused my brother to forsake his own gods and believe in your God?” “It was so,” said the apostle. “Then I shall cause you,” said the king, “to forsake your own God and believe in my gods.” Bartholomew said: “I broke the god your brother used to worship, and I will break your own god, and all the gods you have; and if they can do anything to me, you shall believe in them afterwards — but if they cannot, do you believe in my God afterwards.” While the apostle was saying that, word was brought to the king that the idols had fallen and broken.

¹⁴ Then the king tore his purple robe, and bade his household first beat the apostle with rods and then flay him, and lastly behead him with the sword. Then the priests and the king’s household fell upon the apostle, and struck him with their fists and with venomous rods and iron rods, till all his flesh and skin rose in welts — and all the while he still preached to the people, even to those who were slaying him. Then they flayed him, and took his skin off as they do with every beast killed unlawfully, and sewed his skin back on him again with thorns and briars between. Some say they even carried his skin in procession round the city, to sell it for gain to themselves. Then one of them came to him with a naked sword in his hand, and struck Bartholomew across the throat, and so beheaded him. Then the people of the city who had believed in Christ through him came — and king Polycimius, who had left his kingdom and believed in God through Bartholomew’s teaching; they came together there and carried off the apostle’s body, and sang psalms around it and made precious lamentation for it; and sorrowfully they bore it away. And they built a great basilica for him there, and put his body in it.

¹⁵ Then king Astriages came, a month after Bartholomew’s burial, with all his priests — and demons possessing them, raving and mad — to Bartholomew’s tomb, and this is what they kept saying: “Through this apostle this ruin is being brought upon us,” said they. And there they fell down dead, lifeless; and their souls went with the demons into the everlasting dwelling of the pains of hell. Then great dread and monstrous fear fell upon all the unbelievers who saw that, and they believed in God, and were all baptised by the priests whom Bartholomew himself had ordained before them; for Bartholomew had revealed to the people that it was the king Polycimius who should be bishop over them after him.

¹⁶ Then Polycimius was in the bishopric twenty years thereafter, and worked wonders and countless miracles in the name of God and of the apostle Bartholomew thereafter. And the soul of Bartholomew was seen like the foam of the wave or the radiance of the sun, and angels bearing him up to heaven. Finit.

Here follows the Passion of James the Apostle.