The Ascension of the Virgin

Here we have an early Latin text which tells an unorthodox version of the origins of Christianity. It's inspired by Richard Carrier's mythicist theory, as well as cryptic references from one of St. Paul's epistles and from the apocrypha regarding multiple heavens and visitations thereto.

When the first among angels appeared to the Holy Virgin, he did not know her like the angels of old, but he filled her with the mysteries.

It came to pass, when she was drawing water from a well, that she heard a voice from within it, and she began to prophesy. Her parents, fearing she may be possessed, called upon those who drive out evil spirits.

They attended the Virgin for three days. They recited the Psalm and blew the ram's horn, according to their rites.

On the third day, she lay near death. Then the men beheld the first among the Sons of Heaven, and the Virgin was roused. Thus they knew that it was

divine light which had filled her.

The Virgin said : I have ascended to the third heaven, and seen the faces of those who guard the high places, and am returned unto you. Of the second heaven I may not speak, for none may go there even in spirit, unless he be born of it, save for Enoch.

The men confessed that she spoke true, and she told them to baptize each other and become apostles of the Righteous One.