which it was based. He used this language: "They are forexamine, only believe, and thy faith Wisdom is a bad thing in life; fool

ever repeating, 'Do not will make thee blessed. ishness is to be preferred.'

It need not be disguised that in the time of Celsus there was a story or tradition, to some extent current, that Jesus was the result of an illicit intercourse between the wife of the carpenter Joseph and a Roman soldier named Panthera, who served in the fourteenth legion; and this is somewhat confirmed by the fact that the Christian writer St. Epiphanius, who wrote against heresies in the fourth century, refers to the tradition, and actually mentioned Jacob, called Panthera, in the pedigree of Jesus. (Adv. Hær, lib. iii; Hær, lviii, 7). This is conclusive that the stories of Panthera had made such an impression that Christian writers were forced to take notice. of them.

In connection it may be mentioned that Celsus is quoted by Origen as jeering at the ignorance of Christian teachers: "You may see weavers, tailors, fullers, and the most illiterate and rustic fellows, who dare not speak a word before wise men, when they can get a company of children and silly women together set up to teach strange paradoxes among them." The words ascribed to Jesus, "I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast concealed these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes," Celsus construed in this way: "This is one of their rules, Let no man that is learned, wise, or prudent come among us; but if be be unlearned, or a child, or an idiot, let him freely come. So they freely declare that none but the ignorant and those devoid of understanding, slaves, women, and children, are fit disciples for the God they worship."

The lesson we learn from the learned scholar and able unbeliever, Celsus, is that at his time there was but little known about the history of Jesus, and that what was in circulation were mythical legends and traditions as found in the gospels then in existence, not one of which, however, was admitted into the New Testament canon. It is certainly to be regretted that the origin and early history of a system of religion upon which we are solemnly assured the salvation of

the world depends should be shrouded in such a misty cloud of legends, traditions, doubt, and uncertainty.

JOSEPHUS AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY
WRITERS..

It is most unfortunate for the character and reliability of Christianity and its reputed founder that there is little or no corroborative evidence from the writers who flourished at the time Jesus is said to have made his advent into the world and

soon after. It is unfortunate that Philo, Josephus, and Justus should be so silent with regard to him. If it was true that Jesus existed in Palestine at the time he is said to have lived and taught there; if it is true that he performed such wonderful works as are related of him, and that he drew a large following of people after him, it is singular that such writers as those named should have known nothing of it all, or should have said nothing of it when writing the history of the events that transpired in that period. The Rev. S. BaringGould, in his "Lost and Hostile Gospels," takes a clear view of this want of corroborative proof. He thus expresses himself: "It is somewhat remarkable that no contemporary, or even early life of our Lord exists, except from the pens of Christian writers. That we have none by Greek or Roman writers is, perhaps, not to be wondered at; but it is singular that neither Philo, Josephus, nor Justus of Tiberias, should ever have alluded to Christ or to primitive Christianity. Philo was born at Alexandria about twenty years before Christ. In the year A. D. 40 he was sent by the Alexandrian Jews on a mission to Caligula to entreat the emperor not to put into force his order that his statue should be erected in the temple of Jerusalem and in all the synagogues of the Jews. Philo was a Pharisee. He traveled in Palestine, and speaks of the Essenes he saw there; but he says not a word about Jesus Christ and his followers. It is possible that he may have heard of the new sect, but he concluded it was but insignificant and consisted of the disciples, poor and ignorant, of a Galilean rabbi, whose doctrines he, perhaps, did not stay

to inquire into, and supposed they did not differ fundamentally from the traditional teaching of the rabbis of his day.

"Flavius Josephus was born A. D. 37, consequently only four years after the death of our Lord, at Jerusalem. Till the age of twenty-nine he lived in Jerusalem, and had, therefore, plenty of opportunity of learning about Christ and early Christianity. In 67 Josephus became governor of Galilee, on the occasion of the Jewish insurrection against the Roman domination. After the fall of Jerusalem he passed into the service of Titus, went to Rome, where he rose to honor in the house of Vespasian and of Titus, A. D. 81. The year of his death is not known. He was alive in A. D. 93, for his biography is carried down to that date. Josephus wrote at Roine his History of the Jewish War,' in seven books, in his own Aramaic language. This he finished in the year A. D. 75, and then translated it into Greek. On the completion of this work he wrote his 'Jewish Antiquities,' a history of the Jews, in twenty books, from the beginning of the world to the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, A. D. 66. He completed this work in the year A. D. 93, concluding it with a biography of himself. He also wrote a book against Apion on the antiquity of the Jewish people. A book in praise of the Maccabees has been attributed to him without justice. In the first of these works, the larger of the two, the 'History of the Jewish War,' he treats of the very period when our Lord lived, and in it he makes no mention of him. But in the shorter work, the 'Jewish Antiquities,' in which he goes over briefly the same period of time treated of at length in the other work, we find this passage:

"At this time lived Jesus, a wise man [if indeed he ought to be called a man], for he performed wonderful works [he was a teacher of men who received the truth with gladness]; and he drew to him many Jews and also many Greeks. [This was the Christ.] But when Pilate, at the instigation of our chiefs, had condemned him to crucifixion, they who at first loved him did not cease [for he appeared to them on the third day again, for the divine prophets had foretold this, together with many other wonderful things concerning him], and even

to this time the community of Christians called after him continues to exist.'

"That this passage is spurious has been almost universally acknowledged. One may be accused perhaps of killing dead birds, if one again examines and discredits the passage; but as the silence of Josephus on the subject which we are treating is a point on which it will be necessary to insist, we cannot omit as brief a discussion as possible of the celebrated passage.

"This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl. A. D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl. lib. i., c. xi.; Demonst. Evang. lib. iii.); but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl. A. D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl. A. D. 192), Tertullian (fl. A. D. 193), and Origen (fl. A. D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the arguments of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He indeed distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ (Contr. Cels., i).

"Again, the paragraph interrupts the chain of ideas in the original text. Before this passage comes an account of how Pilate, seeing there was a want of pure drinking water in Jerusalem, conducted a stream into the city from a spring two hundred stadia distant, and ordered that the cost should be defrayed out of the treasury of the Temple. This occa sioned a riot. Pilate disguised Roman soldiers as Jews, with swords under their cloaks, and sent them among the rabble, with orders to arrest the ringleaders. This was done. The Jews, finding themselves set upon by other Jews, fell into confusion. One Jew attacked another, and the whole company of rioters melted away. And in this manner,' says Josephus, was this insurrection suppressed.' Then follows the paragraph about Jesus, beginning, 'At this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man,' etc.; and the passage is immediately followed by, 'About

เ

this time another misfortune threw the Jews into disturbance, and in Rome an event happened in the temple of Isis which produced great scandal.' And then he tells an indelicate story of religious deception which need not be repeated here. The misfortune which befel the Jews was, as he afterward relates, that Tiberius drove them out of Rome. The reason of this was, he says, that a noble Roman lady, who had become a proselyte, had sent gold and purple to the temple at Jerusalem. But this reason is not sufficient. It is clear from what precedes-a story of a sacerdotal fraud-that there was some connection between the incidents in the mind of Josephus. Probably the Jews had been guilty of religious deceptions in Rome, and had made a business of performing cures and expelling demons with talismans and incantations, and for this had obtained rich payment.

"From the connection that exists between the passage about the 'other misfortune which befel the Jews,' and the former one about the riot suppressed by Pilate, it appears evident that the whole of the paragraph concerning our Lord is an interpolation. That Josephus could not have written the passage as it stands is clear enough, for only a Christian would speak of Jesus in the terms employed. Josephus was a Pharisee and a Jewish priest. He shows in all his writings that he believes in Judaism.

"It has been suggested that Josephus may have written about Christ as in the passage quoted, but that the portions within brackets are the interpolations of a Christian copyist. But when these portions within brackets are removed, the passage loses all its interest, and is dry statement, utterly unlike the sort of notice Josephus would have been likely to insert. He gives color to his narratives; his incidents are always sketched with vigor This account would be meagre beside those of the riot of the Jews and the rascality of the priests of Isis. Josephus asserts, moreover, that in his time there were four sects among the Jews-the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the sect of Judas of Gamala. He gives tolerably copious particulars about these sects and their teachings, but of the Christian sect he says not a word. Had he wished to write about it, he would have given full