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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Feb. 1, 1886. 



But the dishonesty of this renegade from Christianity, 

 (this sycophantic " Hellenising courtier " who was in 

 favour both with Vespasian and with Titus, and was 

 even suspected of being able to obtain favours for his 

 countrvmen from both emperors, father and son) so soon 

 as it is admitted in interpretation of this remarkable 

 historical puzzle, mar perhaps explain other singular 

 features of Josephus's writings. He seems to have been 

 not only dishonest, a renegade, and a sycophant, but a 

 singularly bold yet crafty plagiarist. Unless we admit 

 the occurrence of a series of accidental coincidences, 

 highly improbable as such, we shall find that Josephus 

 adorned his narrative (which he pretended to advance as 

 " neither hiding nor adding to the known facts," and 

 which he challenged all men living in his day to con- 

 tradict if untrue in any particular) with events, cha- 

 racters, and descriptive passages manifestly stolen from 

 the gospels, or from some earlier Christian gospel, known 

 to him, but which has not descended to our time. 



It need hardly be noted, except as belonging to the 

 evidence of Josephus's guilt, that he ascribes to a reli- 

 gious sect among the Jews, already numbering, he says, 

 4,000 persons, the doctrines which were actually taught 

 by Christ and his apostles — for this of course is well- 

 known. De Quincey, indeed, strove to show that the 

 members of that sect were in reality early Christians. 

 But it is far easier to suppose that Josephus found in 

 Christian doctrines materials for an interesting para- 

 graph, while, by avoiding all mention of the author of 

 those doctrines, he helped to carry out the deliberate and 

 dishonest purpose attributed to him by Canon Farrar. 



Josephus referred to a Galilean (and Christ we know 

 was regarded as a Galilean) who taught new doctrines, 

 insomuch that his followers " did not value dying any 

 kind of death, nor indeed did they heed the deaths of 

 their relations and friends, nor could any such fear make 

 them call any man lord." — " Nor am 1 afraid," he pro- 

 ceeds, " that anything I have said of them should be 

 disbelieved, but rather fear that what I have said is 

 beneath the resolution they show when they undergo 

 pain." He calls the founder of this sect Judas ; but 

 natur.illy his dishonesty would lead him to alter the 

 nime. 



Josephus describes how a certain man promised great 

 things to the Samaritans, insomuch that they followed 

 him to Mount Gerizzim in great multitudes, — but Pontius 

 Pilate, he says, prevented their going up, and ordered the 

 death of their leader. For this, he says, Pilate was pre- 

 sently blamed, and had to go to Rome to defend himself 

 before Tiberius — but Tiberius was dead when he reached 

 that city. He doubtless put this story into his narrative 

 to give another aspect to what he miist have known was 

 the real murder for which Pilate, in the last year of the 

 reign of Tiberius, fell into trouble. 



Josephus describes one named Jesus, who long after 

 the events recorded in the Gospels, displayed some of the 

 most marked characteristics ascribed by the evangelists 

 to Christ. This man proclaimed woe to Jerusalem, sorrow- 

 fully yet steadfastly, for several years. This Jesus, " a 

 plebeian,'' says the historian, " four years before the war 

 began, and at a time when the city was in great peace 

 and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our 

 custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the 

 Temple, and began on a sudden to cvj aloud, ' A voice 

 from the cast, a voice from the west, a voice from the 

 four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, 

 a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a 

 voice against this whole people.' " When the most eminent 

 conceived great indignation against him, and gave him 



many stripes, " yet did not he either say anything for 

 himself, or anything special to them that chastised him, 

 but still went on with the same words as before." 

 Hereon the rulers of the Jews brought him before the 

 Roman procurator, as " a man possessed with a divine 

 fury"; whereon "he was whipped till the bones were 

 laid bare ; yet did he not make any supplication for 

 himself, nor shed any tears," but cried only " "Wo, wo, 

 to Jerusalem." Thereafter till the end came (when with 

 a loud cry, " Wo, wo to myself also," he met his death), 

 " he did not give ill words to any of those that beat 

 him every day " — but his replj- to all men was the same 

 lamentable cry, " a melancholy presage," says Josephxis, 

 " of what was to come." 



That Josephus dishonestly transferred — with such 

 change as to partly hide his offence — events which really 

 occurred earlier, to the time of the siege of Jerusalem, 

 becomes clearer yet when we note further, that hi- tells 

 us how, at the same sad time for Jerusalem — 1, a heifer 

 miraculously brought forth a lamb, " as she was being 

 led by the high priest to be sacrificed " : 2, at the same 

 time (the Feast of the Passover) a light shone rottnd the 

 altar and the holy house, so great that it appeared to be 

 bright day-time ; and 3, a star resembling a sword stood 

 over the city. All these prodigies were manifestly 

 suggested to him by the Gospel narrative. He also says 

 that shortly before this time (about thirty-four years 

 after the close of Christ's ministry) Zachariah the son of 

 Baruch was murdered by the people in the very temple 

 itself — as if with the manifest intention of casting doubt 

 on Matthew's account of Christ speaking to the Jews of 

 " Zachariah son of Barachiah," as one " whom ye slew 

 between the temple and the altar." The evidence of 

 deliberate purpose here is too obvious to be overlooked. 

 It is singular, too, that in the account of the prodigies 

 before mentioned, Josephus includes an event manifestly 

 borrowed from what is recorded of Peter in Acts, chap, 

 xii., when the iron gate opened of its own accord : for he 

 tells us that the eastern gate of the temple, " which had 

 with difficulty been shut by twenty men, and rested upon 

 a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened verj- deep 

 into the firm floor, which was then made of an entire 

 stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the 

 sixth hour of the night." "Now thosci" he proceeds, 

 " that kept watch in the temple came liereupon running 

 to the captain of the temple and told him of it ; who then 

 came up thither and not without great difficult}- was able 

 to shut the gate again." From Acts also, Josephus has 

 manifestly borrowed the following : " Moreover, at that 

 feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going 

 by night into the inner temple, as their custom was, to 

 perform their sacred ministrations, they said that in the 

 first place they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, 

 and after that they heard the sound as of a great multi- 

 tude, saying, ' Let us remove hence.' " 



I could point to many other features which Josephus 

 has but too obviously plagiarised (hiding the theft with 

 greater or less craft and skill) from accounts which must 

 have reached him re.specting Christ and His apostles. 

 In particular, his account of Banns (a Baptist as the 

 name implies) is manifestly borrowed from the account 

 of John the Baptist. He describes further a man named 

 Jesus, (not the Jesus who proclaimed woe to Jerusalem) 

 who had friends called John and Simon, and followers who 

 were chiefly fishermen and poor people. This Jesus, 

 according to his account was betrayed by one of his 

 followers, and deserted by the rest. Seventy followers 

 he had, Josephus says, who went with him from city to 

 city, while he hpard cases and delivered judgments. 



