Dr. Gregory Sharpe * and Dr. Samuel Chandler +.. Nevertheless, I do not infift on it; it seems to me, indeed, it ought rather to be utterly rejected. For it hath not been quoted by any of the various Chriftian writers we are acquainted with, till the 4th cen tury, when it first appears in Eufebius, whatever natural occafions they had to introduce it or to appeal to it. It has not fo eafy a connection in the narrative where it ftands as might have been expected from fo exact a writer as Jofephus. Photius, in the ninth century, feems not to have read it in his copies of Jofephus; for he takes no notice of it, as he does of his honourable teftimony to John the Bap tist, although he had a good opportunity of it in three different articles which he allows this writer. Nay, in speaking of Juftus of Tiberias, a contempo→ fo that he fhould only fay, Both their own prophets or preachers re'ported these, and numberless other wonderful things concerning him.'

* See his argument from the conceffions of the most antient adverfaries, where, p. 39. he pardons Origen for his omiffion of Jofephus's famous paffage concerning Jefus, by fuppofing it may have been wanting in his copy, though it were extant in the original one of Jofephus.

It appears from Dr. Lardner's life, that Dr. Chandler addreffed a letter to him on his publication of the first volume of his Teftimonies, wherein he says he had been always inclined to think the paragraph as to the greatest part genuine, propofed two or three obfervations in fupport of it, which are the obfervations of a learned friend, that Dr. Lardner confiders in the preface to the 2d volume, and thinks the whole clause from asannoarres to es tri, &c. an interpolation of Eufebius or fome other Christian.

Demonftr. Evangel. Lib. 3. cap. 5. p. 124. It is true, a testimony to it and quotation of it by Macarius, who lived fooner than Eufebius, was produced by Tenzelius in his Colloq. Menstr. an. 1697. but these acts of faints where it occurs, are, if not fpurious, much interpolated. Fabric. Bibl. Gr. 4. 6. 5. p. 237.

rary Jewish writer, he intimates, it was common to all the Jews not to make the leaft mention of Chrift or his miracles. It is altogether unfuitable, in the only proper fenfe of the expreffions, to this hiftorian's character, as a Jew, and enemy of our religion, inftead of a profeffed Christian. And if, to get rid of this objection, we once admit of vitiations and corruptions without any authority of MSS. or antient fathers, as fome of the latest and most able advocates for its authenticity in the main have done, whatever is left must be very uncertain and infignificant §.

But, though I thus give up the little place in Jofephus, and therefore admit that he hath not mentioned Jefus's miracles, I am not equally satisfied that I ought to grant Pilate neglected to fend any account of the prodigies or extraordinary occurrences about Jefus to Tiberius the Roman emperor, because no Roman historian hath taken notice of them. For Justin Martyr, in his apology for the Christian religion to Antoninus Pius and the fenate of Rome, about the year 140, having fpoken of Jefus's healing all difeafes, and restoring the dead to life, according to Ifaiah's prophecy of him, that at his coming, the Jame men would leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb (or ftammerer) be eloquent, the blind recover their fight, the lepers be cleansed, and the dead

That it fhould be rejected hath alfo been the opinion of many learned men, as Blondel, Ittigius, Faber, and Vitringa, who is pofitive the paffage did not come from Jofephus's hand as it now stands, and even, after erafing fome claufes, thinks there is an infurmountable argument against it, from its interruption of the thread of the hiftory; fo argues likewife Dr. Lardner, who obferves that pa pada is miraculous works in Jofephus, not merely frange unusual things, as Forfter translates it.

rife and walk, adds, ' And that he did these things, ye may learn from the acts made under Pontius Pi'late ;' even as in a former paffage of it, which I quote below, he appeals † to the fame acts about his crucifixion, and fome circumftances then in the behaviour of his enemies toward him. Tertullian, again, in his apology, about the year 200, writes thus, after mentioning Chrift's difmiffion of his fpirit upon the crofs, At the fame moment the day was withdrawn when the fun was in his meridian height. They thought it indeed an eclipfe, who did not know it was alfo foretold concerning Chrift. The reafon

* It is in his first Apology, called in the Paris edition of his works, anno 1615, the 2d Apology, p. 84. c. and runs there indeed, "T! τε ταύτα εποίησεν εκ των επι Ποντιο Πιλατε γενομένων αυτώ μα θειν δυνασθε: but inftead of αυτω, it fhould have been ακτων. Accordingly it is fo in later editions; and the Latin tranflator, Langus, turns the text in that very edition as if it had been anтw there. 'Et quod ita fuerit ex iis qui fub Pontio Pilato confcripti funt com⚫mentariis cognofcere poteftis.' It alfo occurs in that fame edition, as in next note.

+ Ibid. p. 76. B. C. Having mentioned our Saviour's crucifixion, with the perforation of his hands and feet, and partition of his garments by lot, among them who took care of the execution of the sentence pronounced againft him, he fubjoins, Και ταυτα ότι γερονε δυνασθε μαθειν εκ των επι Ποντιο Πιλατε Γενομενων ακτών.

As the paffage is long, I do not quote the whole in the original, but the most material parts. Eodem momento dies medium orbeni fig⚫nante fole fubducta eft; deliquium utique putaverunt, qui id quoque fuper Chrifto praedicatum non fcierunt: ratione non deprehenfa, negaverunt; et tamen eum mundi cafum relatum in arcanis veftris (in archivis veftris, Rigaltius) habetis Dehinc ordinatis eis ad offici 'um praedicandi per orbem, circumfufa nube in coelum ereptus est, multo melius quam apud vos affeverare de Romulis Proculi folent. Ea omnia fuper Christo Pilatus, et ipfe jam pro fua confcientia Chriftianus, Caefari tunc Tiberio nuntiavit.'

'not having been found, they denied it; and yet C ye have that calamity of the world in your fecret 'books [or archives.] Him the Jews, when he was taken down and buried, furrounded carefully with ' a military guard, because he had foretold he would rife again on the third day from his death, left his difciples fhould remove the body, and impofe upon the people. But, behold, on the third day, the earth being fhaken fuddenly, and the mass which shut up the fepulchre being rolled back, and the guard dispersed through terror, without any appearance of difciples, nothing was found in the < fepulchre, except the spoils of the fepulchre, (i. e. the grave-cloaths.) Nevertheless, the chief mer, 'whose interest it was, both to publish the crime, and to hinder the people fubject to them from believing ' in him, spread abroad, that he had been stolen by the disciples; for neither did he fhew himself to the generality, left wicked men fhould be freed from 'their mistake, and left all difficulty of faith should ceafe, which was deftined to receive an extraordinary reward. But he spent forty days with fome difciples in Galilee, a tract of Judea. Thereafter, having appointed them to the office of preaching ' through the world, he was taken away into heaven in a furrounding cloud; much better than the • Proculi among you use to aver § about the Romu

§ He refers to the ftory of Julius Proculus's affuring the curiae by oath, that Romulus, whom they suspected, as was the truth, to have been flain by the fenators, though they gave out he had been on a fudden furrounded by a flame, and fnatched up into heaven, had appeared to him, and enjoined him to acquaint his people, that it had pleased the gods he should return to heaven from which he originally came;

*

lus's. All these things concerning Chrift, Pilate, ' already a Chriftian, according to his own confci< ence, tranfmitted an account of to Caefar, who was at that time Tiberius.' And he hath been fuppofed to hint the fame communication from Pilate before, when, having mentioned Tiberius's proposal to the fenate, that Chrift fhould be placed among the gods, he fays †, he did this, having received from Palestine in Syria, an account of fuch things as difcovered the truth of his divinity. Eufebius also, in his Ecclefiaftical History, tells us, when Chrift's refurrection and afcenfion to heaven were in the mouths of all men, or much talked of through all Palestine, Pilate informed the emperor thereof, as likewise of his miracles, which he had heard of, and that, being raised up after he had been put to death, he was already believed by many to be a god. And, thereafter, he quotes a Greek verfion of the paffage in Tertullian laft produced, with some periods before and after it, relative to the emperor's motion and the fenate's refufal of it. Orofius, finally, of the 5th century, not to instance in later writers, speaks § of Pilate's having fent an account to Tiberius of Chrift's paffion and refurrection, and of the following wonders which were done publickly by himself, or by

whereon, because he was efteemed a fenator of great probity, and had always been believed a friend to Romulus, they acquiefced, and decreed divine honours to him.

* Alluding to the opinion he fhewed of Jefus's innocence at his trial, and his averfion to condemn him.

† Apolog. cap. 5.—————' Annuntiata fibi ex Syria Palaeftina, quag illic veritatem iftius divinitatis revelarent.'

Lib. 2. cap. 2.

§ Lib. 7. cap. 4.