all the interlocutors, were Gentiles in principle and belief; efpecially when it is confidered, that, befides making one of Herod's fons perifh among these children, which Matthew does not, the maffacre is represented to have been enjoined through the whole province of Syria; while by the facred writer, and those who have followed him, it is said to have been confined to one town of that province and its environs? His teftimony, therefore, though fo remote in time, may be allowed to add weight to Matthew's account. As to Jofephus's omiffion of the atrocious deed, again, I confefs, it is at first sight more ftrange. Perhaps, indeed, he might not find any mention of it As Vettius Praetextatus, at whose house the conference here recited is reprefented to have been held for a fucceffion of days, and Symmachus, another speaker in the dialogue, are allowed to have been perfons of distinguished bigotry to Paganism by all who are acquainted with the tranfactions of those times, the other speakers appear to have been perfons of the fame complexion; in particular, Avienus, who relates this witty word of Auguftus. For in the beginning of the 17th chapter of the firft book, he is introduced acknowledging that he had frequently and long confidered with himself, why he and the rest worfhipped the fun, fometimes under the name of Apollo, fometimes under the name of Liber, fometimes under ftill different appellations, and applying to Vettius, who, by the divine will, was priest to all deities, for an explication of the reason of it. At the end, moreover, of Vettius's reply, Macrobius defcribes all whom he addreffed, by confequence, Avienus, who propofed the queftion, as filled with admiration at his fine difcourfe, and breaking forth in his praises, fome for his learning, fome for his memory, all for his religion, and faying, That he alone was acquainted with the fecret nature of the gods, that he alone • could comprehend in his mind and express these divine matters.' See chap. 24. of the fame book, at the beginning. But I must forbear to quote the original. in the hiftory of Nicolas of Damafcus, to which he was obliged for many articles in his account of Herod's reign. For we are affured, as he was Herod's friend, he fuppreffed fome actions which were dif graceful to him, as his violation of David's § fepulchre; while on the other hand, he attributed honours to him to which he had no title: for instance, that of being defcended from a principal Jewish family that returned from Babylon to Judea, when his father was in truth an Idumcan. Nevertheless, it is not reasonable to fuppofe that he could be ignorant of an action that would make so much noise, and raise so great displeasure against Herod as this, fince he was a native of the country, and a person of superior intelligence by his rank and education, (for he was of the facerdotal or prieftly race, and bred fuitably) and he wrote within lefs than 100 years after it should have happened. He must then have been acquainted with it, if fuch a massacre was executed, as with many other things recorded by him to Herod's difadvantage, either by fome earlier written relation, or fome verbal information; and, if he hath been altogether filent about it, as the objecS Antiq. 14. 1. 3. and 16. 7. I. * I exprefs myself thus, because fome learned men have fuppofed not only a reference to the cenfus or enrollment of the Jewish nation at Chrift's birth, in Jofephus's story of the whole peoples taking an oath to be faithful to Caefar, except 6000 Pharifees; but also a reference to this maffacre which followed that cenfus, after Herod heard that a king of the Jews was born from the wife men, and learned from the chief priests and fcribes, that the prophecies foretold his nativity in Bethlehem, in the account he gives of Herod's putting to death fome of the Pharifees, who had foretold that God had decreed to put an end to the government of Herod and his race, and to transfer the tion fuppofes, he must have been filent of intention or defign. But furely it does not follow, because he hath omitted this fact, which he is allowed to have heard of, that therefore it is falfe. Many reasons, different from a conviction of falfhood, may lead a hiftorian to be filent about a deed which hath come to his knowledge; fo that it would be rash to conclude it fabulous from his avoiding to mention it.-Nay, from that love of truth which is natural to men, and from that difpofition which we have to correct the mistakes and errors of others, to the difparagement and difgrace of their understanding, but to the credit and reputation of our own judgment, there even arises a presumption that a story is true, when a writer, in whofe time it is much spread and believed, does not contradict and confute it.-In the prefent cafe then, Jofephus's filence about this inhuman measure of Herod ought not to be confidered as an evidence of its being a fiction.-He may have forbore to record it from other principles than a fenfe of its being an idle and malicious tale; for inftance, from a tenderness † for Herod's reputation, t kingdom to Pheroras's family, together with Bagoas and Carus, and every one in his own family who adhered to the Pharifees in this matter: about which the reader may fee Jofeph. Antiq. 17. 2, 6. and De Bello, 1. 30. and confult Dr. Lardner's Credibility, vol. 2. book 2. chap. 1. page 628,-645 It is true, Jofephus hath related many wicked actions of Herod. But this is no foundation for imputing to him fo great enmity against Herod as would not fuffer him to fpare him here; for he attempts to vindicate him from blame on fome occafions, mentions fome of his wicked contrivances only in a flight manner, and intermixes many which he muft have been aware would be more hurt by an order to massacre a number of innocent and inoffensive babes, at least among the Jews and fuch Gentiles as did not permit to fathers the power of killing them at their pleasure, than by his other cruelties; from an unwillingness to provoke the displeafure of that prince's kinfmen or friends, and thereby bring inconveniences upon himself; from a delicacy' toward his readers, who, he might be apprehenfive, would be tired and disgusted by a recital of more heinous and foul crimes in his life, yea, tempted to fufpect him of loading him beyond the truth. But, perhaps, more than by any or all these motives, he may have been determined to fay nothing of this flaughter of the infants, from political and religious confiderations: that he might not, by fwelling his representation of his barbarities, render the uneafinefs and discontent of his countrymen under the Roman governors, whofe treatment of them was, in comparison, mild and gentle, more inexcufable; and that he might not afford, by his narrative of it, any advantage to the cause of Chriftians, who pretended that the maffacre owed its rife to the report of his birth whom they affirmed to be the Chrift, things to his honour and advantage, which otherwife must have been unknown. Antiq. 14. 9. 4. 15. 1. 1. 16. 7. 1. &c. Say fome, that he might remove any cause of uneasiness and disquietude to the Roman emperors, to one of whom, even Vespasian, he had applied the prophecy relating to Meffiah's reign, De Bello, 4. 10, 7. and 6. 5. 4. whofe anxiety was, after all, so great, as was alfo Domitian's afterwards, as to cause search out and kill all David's defcendents. Eufeb. Hift. 3. 12, and 19. To have mentioned this ftory would, at least, have weakened the credit of his own application of the oracle in their facred books. 6 and that it had been ineffectual to accomplish his death, though intended to make it fure. Indeed, ho v natural would it have been for us to have argued from his relation thus? There muft furely have been 'fome credible alarm, that a child was born at Bethlehem, concerning whom, there were great hopes ' and expectations that he would be king of the Jews, ' but fome uncertainty about the house where he was lodged; otherwise the ruler of the country would never have thought of fo horrid and shocking an expedient for preventing all mischief from that quarter, as to command a general murder of infants there. May he not, however, as our evangelift affures us, have escaped through the diligence of his keepers?' And how likely is it, that an averfion to give fuch ftrength to our faith, wrought with him in an eminent manner to observe filence, (if it be fuppofed that he has not spoken one word about Jefus or his followers throughout his whole work, as is done by our author and many others, who look upon the only paffage therein where he is mentioned, as fpurious,) when we reflect, that, within that period on the affairs of which he is most exact and minute, the Chriftians had their rife in Judea, and had thence spread into distant places, yea, into Rome itself, so as to create attention, and to be taken notice of by other coeval writers, particularly by Tacitus, as unconnected as he was with the Jewish nation, and as fuperficial and curfory as he is in his accounts of their affairs? Why then should any question the fact merely becaufe Jofephus hath omitted it, when fo good an explication may be given of his doing this? Upon the M m |