1Jeremiah
2He was of Anathoth, and he died in Taphnes in Egypt, stoned to death by the Jews.
3He is buried in the place where Pharaoh's palace stood; for the Egyptians held him in honor, because of the benefit which they had received through him.
4For at his prayer, the serpents which the Egyptians call ephoth departed from them;
5and even at the present day the faithful servants of God pray on that spot, and taking of the dust of the place they heal the bites of serpents.
6We have been told by the children of Antigonus and Ptolemy, aged men, that Alexander the Macedonian, when he stood at the place where the prophet was buried, and learned of the wonders which he had wrought.
7Alexandria, placing them round about with due ceremony; whereupon the whole race of poisonous serpents was driven out of the land. With like purpose he (the prophet) had introduced into Egypt the so-called argolai (that is, "snake-fighters").
8Jeremiah also gave a sign to the priests of Egypt, that their idols would be shaken and their gods made with hands would all collapse, when there should arrive in Egypt a virgin bearing a child of divine appearance.
9Wherefore even to the present time they honor a virgin mother, and placing a babe in a manger they bow down to it. When Ptolemy the king sought the reason for this, they said to him: "It is a mystery handed down from our fathers, a sign delivered to them by a holy prophet, and we are awaiting its fulfilment."
10This prophet, before the destruction of the temple, took possession of the ark of the law and the things within it, and caused them to be swallowed up in a rocky cliff, and he said to those who were present:
11"The Lord departed from Sinai into heaven, and he will again come with might; and this shall be for you the sign of his appearance, when all the Gentiles worship a piece of wood."
12He said also: "No one shall bring forth this ark but Aaron, and the tables within it no one of the priests or prophets shall unfold but Moses the elect of God."
13And in the resurrection the ark will rise first, and come forth from the rock, and will be placed on Mount Sinai; and all the saints will be assembled to it there, awaiting the Lord and fleeing from the enemy wishing to destroy them.
14He sealed in the rock with his finger the name of God, and the writing was as though carved with iron. A cloud then covered the name; and no one knows the place, nor can the writing be read, to the present day and even to the end.
15The rock is in the wilderness where the ark was at first, between the two mountains on which Moses and Aaron are buried, and by night there is a cloud as it were of fire, according to the primal ordinance that the glory of God should never cease from his law.
16And God gave to Jeremiah the favor of completing this wonder, so that he might be the associate of Moses, and they are together to this day.