defamed them. In each of these works, he did great honour to his nation; yet no writer was ever so detested as Josephus has been by the Jews who came after him. Whence could this disaffection arise, but from his too favorable testimony about our Saviour? This is what has leavened the whole which he wrote; and all the honour which he otherwise conferred could not compensate for it. This, says Mr. Whiston, (Dissertation i. p. 69,) "bears so hard upon the unbelieving Jewish nation, as that it could never be endured by them. It seems to me to be the principal cause of their rejecting this excellent author." (They repudiated the genuine history, and in its room substituted an idle detail, supposed to have been written by Josephus Ben-Gorion.) This abhorrence has providentially been the cause that this passage has not been obliterated in many copies of the history for if the Jews in after times could in any degree have admitted the Historian, they would have found means to have either erased or omitted this account in their manuscripts. But we are assured that no such deficiency is any where to be observed. Thus we find that the hatred of this people has been an advantage to the Historian; and affords us strong evidence, that the history in question was ever to be found where it stands. Had it been away, no offence would have been taken by those of his nation. In short, it was never presumed that any external proof existed in opposition to this memorable passage. For the space of near fifteen hundred years it was transmitted unimpeached; and so far were writers from imagining that there was any deceit, that they esteemed it of the greatest consequence. From the time of Eusebius to that of Platina and Trithemius, it was quoted at large, and justly valued-(it has been quoted at large by Eusebius twice; by Hegesippus de Excid. Urbis Hierosol; by Rufinus in Hist. Ecclesiast.; by Hierom. de Viris illust. in Josepho; also in the Greek version of Sophronius; by Isidorus Pelusiota; by Sozomen, but partially; by Epiphanius Scholasticus, at large; by Freculphus Lexoviensis; by Macarius; by Cedrenus; by Zonoras.-See Daubuz and Whiston. Also Fabricii Bibliothec. Gr. L. 4, c. 6, p. 237. No extract from any history was ever more faithfully copied, or more repeatedly quoted by writers in a long succession; and to this list other authors might be added, were it necessary, quite down to the fifteenth Century); nor was there a single writer in all that space, from the year 324 to 1480, or before, who afforded the least hint to its disadvantage. And when people began in the 16th century to entertain suspicions, these were not warranted by any real evidence, but proceeded merely upon doubts and surmises, which were unjustly entertained. They raised imaginary difficulties, and suffered themselves to be too easily disgusted. They presumed that the whole was an interpolation, and founded their notion on the internal evidence; it being inconceivable to them, that a Jewish writer could afford a testimony in favour of Christianity. This internal evidence has been carefully examined; and it appears manifest to me, that thousands of the Jews at that time believed every thing which is there said, and would have afforded the same evidence if required. In consequence of this, I am persuaded, that our hesitation and diffidence arise from prejudice; and that we have formed wrong ideas both of the people and of the times;-we do not seem to admit of any medium between a zealous disciple, and a determined adversary. But in this we do not make a just estimate of persons and things, and dwell too much on extremes. There was doubtless an interval of many degrees, in which might be perceived a gradual descent from full conviction to a partial and limited belief, thence to a state of suspended wonder and admiration, and so on to doubt, indifference, and coldness, and finally to disaffection, bitterness, and obdurate hatred. I do not mean disbelief of the miracles, for that could not in those times have happened. They were allowed long after by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. These therefore who saw them must have believed them, and must have attested what they knew, though their inferences may have been very different. In consequence of this, we may allow the truth sometimes to be witnessed by people who are not perfectly attached to it. We are told that "the very Devils believe and tremble." We must not therefore expect even infidelity to be uniform, nor apostacy consistent. We find that scoffers have their scruples. Rousseau reveres the Mass; and Voltaire has his Confessor-(under the character of the vicar of Savoy, Rousseau mentions "the grandeur of the Sacrament, and speaks of it as a real and incomprehensible mystery." At the consecration of the host, he says, "I try to annihilate my understanding before the supreme intelligence.-With awful reverence I pronounce the words of consecration; and I join to it all the faith dependent on my will to render them of due effect.”—(Emilius, vol. 2, p. 90.) I suppose "all the faith," he at least means some faith, or his words amount to nothing. Who would suppose that this could have been said by a person who had before esteemed the Gospel as no better than the Alcoran.) Thus have I endeavoured to redeem the credit of this inestimable J piece of history, and in as concise a manner as I could, to obviate the objections which prejudice has raised against it. I hope that I have laboured to some good purpose.* The very words of Origen, wherein he intimates, "That Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Christ," shew clearly that the Historian did in some degree believe, and that he had afforded evidence of his belief. This is manifestly past all dispute. We may then be assured that Josephus had given an history of this divine person; and Origen had seen it, as is plain, for otherwise he never would have blamed the Historian for mentioning Christ, as the cause of these calamities, but for not mentioning him at all. The first was only a wrong inference, not so much of Josephus, as of his countrymen, and of little consequence; but the latter, had it been true, would have been a fatal omission, an unpardonable defect; for he who knew so much of the Disciple (James the Just), could not well be ignorant of the master; and should have taken proper notice of his character, all which in reality we find done. Origen therefore was acquainted with this passage, and as he tells us more than once that Josephus never admitted Jesus to have been the Saviour of the world, he shews plainly how he interpreted the words, 'o xpicos duros nv (See Origen, Contr. Cels. Edit. Cantab. See Daubuz, p. 15.) We find there, that Origen seems to blame Josephus for not attributing the evils which the Jews experienced to Christ, rather than to James; for he was a person of more consequence, and their outrage to him more heinous. But how could he have expected any such thing from the Historian, if he had never shewn, that he was at all acquainted with Christ, but only had mentioned his name incidentally? Origen thinks the behaviour of Josephus upon this occasion still more strange, as Christ had been foretold by the Prophets. But the Historian must have shewn that he was acquainted with our Saviour's character, or how could he have known that it was conformable with the Prophecies? * Should the reader feel any interest to be acquainted with the different opinions given on "Josephus," we refer him to three chapters" On the Essenes," in the Nos. ccxcI., ccxciv., and ccxcv., of Blackwood's Magazine Vol. XLVII.-January to June, 1840. APPENDIX II. ON THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. REV. SIR, TO THE REV. CHARLES LE BLANC. As for the Books of the New Testament, what use can Unitarians make of them? Yes, very great, saith the Socinian. If the Books of the New Testament were reformed, and those patches entirely taken from them which were never written by the Apostles, though under their names,—such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was brought in after the year 140 of Christ, and stuffed with doctrines of a Trinity and Christ's Divinity, contrary to the faith of Jesus Christ, and of his Apostles and the primitive Christians,-then we might hope to have success in the conversion of the Jews. But in truth, they are not likely to succeed with their reformed Socinian Gospel so well as they would have us believe; for is it not reasonable to think, that every Jew of common sense would retort the book on themselves, and tell them frankly, This is not the Christian Gospel by which you propose to convince me; this is a book of no authority, but an imposture, of which you are the Father. We Jews, who are spread throughout all parts of the world, and intermingled among Christians of all persuasions, never yet met with these books, such as you now produce, to shew that Jesus is the Messiah. You tell us that they were corrupted by the Christians of the second age; produce copies more ancient as vouchers of this truth. The books which you assert were falsified, are of no authority. What other books have you besides these falsified books, to prove there ever was such a man as Jesus Christ, who died and suffered what you tell us of? Since you accuse these books of additions and defalcations, and all sorts of corruptions, you have no solid proof for the matters contained in them, which you say are true. They who thus falsified the Scriptures, by adding or subtracting what they pleased, or rather you yourselves by advancing this position, have ruined the entire use which might be made of these books in points controverted between us. Thus much it is natural for a Jew of but ordinary capacity to say, and to quote his Tanchuma, and all the Rabbins who have disputed ever since there were Christians, against the Gospel, on the score of their attributing Divinity to Jesus Christ. Tanchuma is a famous book among the Jews, and has a passage in it-the Parascha va-elle Massahe-which the Italian Inquisitors expunged from all these books which the Jews printed by Bomberg at Venice; but this passage is still preserved, and is to this effect-that Jesus Christ, whom they call wicked Balaam, taught that he was God; and on the contrary, R. Tanchuma argues that he was a mere man. But should we call into the dispute a learned Jew, who understands the original and the meaning of his prayers, he would laugh in the face of a Socinian that should endeavour to persuade him, that Jesus Christ is not represented in the Gospels as God, or that the Christians were not of this belief till after the year of Christ 140. And he has every reason for it: the learned Jews know well, that the prayer which in the Christian countries is called the prayer against the Sadducees, and in other countries the prayer against Minnim, the Heretics and Apostates, was truly and originally written against the Christians, for being teachers of a Trinity and of Christ's Divinity, and so, as they judged, destroyers of the Unity of the Godhead. And this is R. Solomon's sense of that prayer in his notes on the Talmud. The Jews moreover knew that this prayer was composed under R. Gamaliel, who died Anno Domini 52, i. e. eighteen years before the destruction of the Temple. That this is no fable of the Talmud, which in more than one place (Talm. tr. Berac. ch. 5, and Bath. Isr. sect. 69) relates it, they may evidently prove from Justin Martyr's Dialogue (written A.D. 139), who mentions this prayer, or rather curse against the Christians, as already spread and received throughout all the synagogues of the world. A learned Jew deriding these Socinians, would represent to them that he knew not how they could refuse Jesus Christ that worship which the Christians ever since the first preaching of the Gospel throughout the world have paid him, on supposition of his being the true God. He reads how his ancestors saw him adored by the Christians in the first century, and he proves it to the Socinian from the Talmud, (Sanhedr. ch. 4, in Gem.) wherein are divers relations of R. Eliezer, |