562 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE 



[October 1, 1886. 



Here is an example of the more difficult sort : — • 

 There are sixteen whist players ; how may they sit down 

 to five different games so that no two may take part 

 together (either as partners or adversaries) in more than 

 one game ? 



#0 EJ 5 I p. 



By EiCHARD A. Proctor. 



A CORRESPONDENT asks whether in my article on a 

 "Dead World" the sentence beginning "Sulphurous acid 

 might be as innocent as rose water," i('c. (July number of 

 Knowledge, p. 283), " does not imply that sulphurous acid 

 and vitriol are the same substance " >. I should be grieved to 

 suppose so. Sulphurous acid and vitriol are distinct, but 

 sulphuric acid may be obtained chemically from sulphuious 

 acid, and as a matter of geological fact, sulphuric acid is 

 nowhere found in nature free, except in the neighbourhood 

 of volcanoes. It appears probable that this sulplnu-ic acid, 

 which is only found at active vents, is formed under such 

 conditions as exist in such spots from the sulphurous 

 acid which is more widely found. Or it may be liberated 

 from sulphides of the metals. If we consider the occui-- 

 rence of sulphuric acid in the rain falling in towns and 

 manufacturing districts, we shall see reason to believe that 

 during the times when the earth's volcanic activity was 

 very much greater than now, vitriolic rain fell in consider- 

 able quantities. 



* * * 



As to the effect of rains in which sulphuric acid is 

 present, we need only note that even the small quantities 

 present in the rains of our time cause the corrosion of 

 metallic surfaces, stones, mortar, and so forth. Angus 

 Smith remarks that the mortar of walls may often be 

 observed to be slowly swelling and dropping out, owing to 

 the conversion of the lime into sulphate. 



* * * 



Probably, in the sentence referred to, I intended to 

 write sulphuric acid ; but sulphurous acid need not have 

 been misunderstood, I think, since its presence implies con- 

 ditions under which sulphuric acid would certainly be 

 present also. Eoth, " Chemical Geology," p. 4.52, remarks 

 that sulphurous acid and sulphuretted hydrogen are some- 

 times oxidised into sulphuric acid, which remains free in 

 the water of springs. 



* * * 



The same correspondent writes as follows on another 

 subject : — 



" If occasion should offer itself for making any further reference 

 to .Tosephus's supposed testimony to Jesus Christ, I should be glad 

 if you would say whether the passages referring to James the Just 

 as the brother of Jesus, )r/w was caUcil Christ, are considered 

 genuine or not. The following passage I have seen quoted, but 

 have not succeeded in finding in the text: ' Tliese miseries befell the 

 Jews by way of revenge for James the Just, who was the brother of 

 Jesus that was called Christ, on account that they had slain him, 

 who was a most righteous person.' 



" The stoning of James is related in ' Antiq.' book xx., oh. ix., and 

 he is there referred to as ' the brother of Jesus, who was called 

 Christ.' I have seen no reference to these passages in anything 

 you have written about Josephus in Knowledge, and they have 

 only recently come under my notice, otherwise I should have 

 written to you about them before. Now, I fear, you will probably 

 not care to reopen the subject again." 



* * * 

 I KNOW of no such passage as our correspondent quotes. 

 It seems to me probably a quotation from memory (incom- 

 plete) of the passage relating to John the Baptist, where, 

 however, Herod's defeat (not Jewi.sh misery) was attributed 

 by the interpolator to the mnrder (quite impossibly altered 



in details of place and time) of John, not of James. " Some 

 of the Jews thought " Herod's defeat was " a punishment 

 for what he did against John — who was a good man," kc. 

 The stoning of " James, the brother of Jesus, who was called 

 Christ," is mentioned in the "Antiquities," book xx., 

 chap, ix., § 1. It is unfortunate that the interpolator, who 

 came a little late to his work, after the absence of a single 

 word in Josephus relating to Christ had been thoroughly 

 recognised by ChrLstian apologists, was not aware of the fact 

 that the James referred to was certainly mentioned else- 

 where as alive long after he was delivered to the sanhedrim 

 by Auanus to be stoned. Whiston, indeed, would have us 

 believe that the account as worded does not and cannot 

 signify that James actually was stoned. But Josephus 

 certainly would have told us if the sentence had not been 

 carried out. On the contrary, he says that the mo.st equit- 

 able of the citizens disliked what was done, and sent to 

 King Agi-ippa desiring him to send to Ananus that he 

 should do so no more. The interpolator of words by which 

 the actual James was stoned by order of Ananus or Ananias 

 was altered into another James, described as a brother of 

 Jesus (in turn altered by theologians into a " cousin 1 "), 

 should have added another line, explaining that James was 

 restored to life. 



* * * 



I 5IAY take the opportunity afforded by my correspond- 

 ent's request to note that, mysterious though the silence of 

 Josephus may seem in regard to events described as having 

 happened in the city of his birthplace, and a few years only 

 before his birth, the silence of Philo is more mysterious still. 

 He was about sixty years old, according to his own account 

 (written about a.d. 40), at the reputed date of the Cruci- 

 fixion. Unhappily, no follower of Eusebius (the first to 

 quote the interpolated passage about Christ in Josephus) 

 seems to have thought of applying that devout man's prin- 

 ciple that " it is lawful to lie and cheat for the cause of 

 Christianity " to the works of Philo the Jew. So that a 

 Christian ajiologist of our own days, the Rev. Dr. Giles, in 

 his " Hebrew and Christian Records," vol. ii., p. 61, is com- 

 pelled to write in the following melancholy strain : — 



Great is our disappointment at tinding nothing in the works of 

 Philo about the Christians, their doctrines, or their sacred books. . . . 

 His silence is the more remarkable, seeing that he was about sixty 

 years old at the time of the Crucifixion, and, living mostly in Alex- 

 andria, so closely connected with Jud;Ea and the Jews, could hardly 

 have failed to know something of the wonderful events that had 

 taken place in the city of Jerusalem, — 



assuming always that those events had really taken place 

 as described nearly a century later. 



* * * 



A scarcely less mysterious puzzle is the silence of Pliny 

 the Elder, Seneca, Diogenes Laertius, Pausanias, Tacitus, 

 Suetonius, Appian, Justin, -l<]lian, and others,'who might 

 have been expected to make some remarks about Chris- 

 tianity, had its beginnings been such as are commonly 

 described. 



* * * 



T.ACiTis, of course, is credited with a reference to Chris- 

 tians, " malefactors called after Christus, who, in the reign 

 of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal by the procurator 

 Pontius Pilate." Unfortunately this passage is not referred 

 to by any of the Christian fathers, though several of them 

 were readers of Tacitus, and some of them had specially 

 searched his works for just such support as the passage 

 would have supplied. Thus, Tertullian, who died about 

 A.D. 220, much needed such evidence (see his ' Apolog.' ch. 5) ; 

 but with all his study of Tacitus (not a very voluminous 

 writer), he knew of no passage relating to the Christians in 

 Tacitus's time (say a.d. .5.3 to a.d. 117). Neither did 



