194 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[April 1, 1880. 



bwt they make the silence of Josephus elsewhere more 

 stupendously amazing. 



* * * 



The " deliberate dishonesty " theory one can understand : 

 though it may outrage pi-obability, it stands at any rate 

 four-square. But this, the only conceivable explanation of 

 Josephus's silence about events said to have liappened in the 

 very time about which he inquired most diligently, in the 

 city where his father and family had lived in high repute 

 and consideration, and to whose archives and records 

 he had freest access, is simply knocked on the head if we 

 accept as genuine tlie passages to which I have referred 

 as manifestly and admittedly interpolations. That a man 

 capaljle of dishonest silence throughout all tlie rest of his 

 voluminous works (about events said to have happened 

 witli such surprising circumstances that every one, poor 

 and rich, was moved by them) should have written, never- 

 theless, a paragraph stating that the Messiah expected by 

 the Jews at that very time had actually appeared and 

 wrought many marvellous works, is simply what no one not 

 lunatic, as De Quinccy puts it, can suppose wlien he thinks 

 of it. A through-thick-and-thin theologian, of course, has 

 nothing to do with thinking about such things, and may 

 consistently refrain ; but a sound theologian acts more wisely. 



* * * 



If we found a long account of a summer day's jaunt round 

 Hougoumont and Waterloo on June 18, 181.">, without any 

 reference to such a trifle as a battle thereabouts, we might 

 understand that there was a mistake somewhere ; but if 

 some one pointed out a passage before unnoticed, stating 

 that, "as we were sitting down to lunch, we observed tliat a 

 battle was in progress half a mile off during which many sur- 

 prising episodes occurred; the lunch al.so was excellent, and 

 when it was over we sauntered past Hougoumont, collecting 

 many prettyflowers by the way;" and so on, we slioidd hardly 

 find in that passing reference to the Battle of Waterloo an 

 explanation of the difficulty. Even a half-crazed historian 

 would hardly quote that letter as throwing any light on the 

 condition of the roads, or the weather, or the feelings of the 

 peasantry, on the day when the Fight of Giants was fought 

 out. 



* * * 



To any one who thinks for himself a little, the interpo- 

 lated passage in Josephus in which the coming of the 

 Messiah, which would be to a Jew the most important and 

 enthralling of all possilile events, is thrown in casually as a 

 mere detail in the midst of a hi.story whose whole colour 

 would have been altered if Josephus had had any inkling of 

 such an event, must seem as inconceivably out of place as a 

 mere passing reference to the Battle of Waterloo in a letter 

 supposed to describe events which took place on the field 

 and on the day of that great conflict. 



* * * 



A DELTBER.\TE determination to reject and deny what he 

 did not want to accept and announce is the only conceivable 

 explanation of Josephus's silence, if we take choice among 

 any of the dates to which the diverse narratives in the 

 Gospels necessarily point. Rejecting the interpolated pas 

 sage is not raising but avoiding a difliculty. But if we 

 accept that explanation, as Canon Farrar suggests that we 

 should (it is not an explanation / have suggested), we can 

 hardly e.scape the inference of further oflfence against honesty 

 involved in the passages which I quoted. We want no 

 confirmation from the author of " Supernatural Religion," 

 from Mr. Solomon (whom I only mentioned because it was 

 the reading of a part of his book which led me to read over 

 Josephus again), from Mr. Matthew Arnold, or from any 



one else. There are the passages in Josephus's book. Let 

 them be taken, if any will, as mere coincidences ; they are 

 then very curious of their kind, as is the mind (I fancy) 

 which can so regard them. But I had nothing to do with 

 making them. 



* * * 



Nor am I concerned by such objections as tliat Zechariah, 

 the son of Baruch, and Zechariah, the son of Barachiah (in 

 the Revised Old Testament we have Berechiah), cannot have 

 been one and the same person. Josephus knew all about 

 the prophet, and had probalily as keen a recognition of the 

 fact that the person slain in the temple was not the prophet 

 as has any theologian of the present time. [Whether a Jew 

 unlearned enough to mistake the Hebrew way of saying the 

 same thing more than once as saying two diflterent things, 

 and so inventing diverse fulfilments of the same prophecy 

 (as in supplying not only an ass, but " also and moi-eover " 

 a colt, the foal of an ass, and in not only dividing a vesture, 

 but having lots cast for a garment), would be equally sure 

 about the distinction, is a matter not so clear, and not being 

 at present a student of theology, I desire to express no 

 opinion on that point.] But I was picturing Josephus in 

 the fancy character of a plagiarist, and my argument has 

 nothing whatever to do with the question whether Baruch 

 and Barachiah, or Berechiah, can be the same person. 

 Josephus as a plagiarist would probably make them differ- 

 ent persons. Regarding him merely as a historian, which 

 is after all the safer plan, all we know for cei-tain is that, 

 according to his account, one Zechariah, son of Baiuch, was 

 killed within the temple, to the great horror of the Jews, 

 some forty years after the time when Matthew speaks of a 

 reference to the similar and similarly startling murder of 

 one Zechariah, son of Barachiah. 



* * * 



M. Pachmann's sudden loss of music- memory when, un- 

 fortunately, he was taking part in a concerted piece (so that 

 he could not pass over the gap by original composition) has 

 been much commented upon. He has been seriously blamed 

 for trusting, under such cii-cumstances, to memory. But it 

 may well be questioned whether the superior effects obtained 

 when a player tr\ists to memory rather than to book are 

 not cheaply purchased at the risk of occasional failure. A 

 player must either follow the book seriatim or not at all. 

 He cannot, as some of the mu.sical critics seriously advLsed, 

 have the book before him to put him right at any moment. 

 If Pachmann had the music before him, and was moved, 

 after playing a page or two, to throw all his fire into his 

 fingers, leaving the prmted notes alone, he would fail just 

 as completely, if memory deserted him for a moment, with 

 the book before him, even though it were open at the right 

 place and he knew the precise spot whei-e the slip occurred, 

 as though he had no book at all. Now, there can be no 

 doubt whatever that Pachmann playing a piece through 

 from the book, would be a different performer altogetlier 

 from Pachmann luxuriating in the rendering of the same 

 piece from memory. The very fiict that he plays in public 

 constantly from memory unfits him from playing before the 

 public from book. It was the same with Kelten. He 

 said to me on this very subject (I liad touched on the risk 

 of a sudden slip of memory), " I shall play from book and I 

 shall play from memory ; but when I play from memory I 

 am Henri Ketten, when I play in piiblic from book I shall 

 be some one else." 



-* * * 



Memory in sucli matters plays curious tricks. Dickens 

 found that those passages which he had recited oftenest were 

 precisely those which lie could least trust himself to recite 



