116 



♦ KNO^A^LEDGE ♦ 



[March 1, 1887. 



was clear that the solution must be by a dodge of some sort. 

 I was far too busy to give any attention to the puzzle when 

 I threw it iu, just as it stood, with my Gossip. But the 

 moment one looks (anyone, it would seem, except Mr. 

 Garbett) for the solution, it is as obvious as that, without 

 the dodge, no solution would be possible. 



* * * 



As for the Josephus puzzle, the question of interpolation 

 has in reality very little to do with the matter. Nearly 

 every commentator nf repute has admitted that the passage 

 relating to Jesus is an obvious and a most clumsy forgery ; 

 and if the passage relating to John the Baptist is not a 

 forgery, then, since it is entirely inconsistent with the 

 Gospel narrative, we get a more difEcult puzzle by its 

 admission than when we reject it. As for the patronage 

 and command of an imperial Csesar (not a Christian), how 

 that would prevent interpolation centuries after that 

 imperial C'wsar was dead and turned to clay, Mr. Garbett 

 might find it diflio'ult to show. That interpolations and 

 forgeries of the most unscrupulous kind were rife in the 

 third, fourth, and following centuries, that as Eusebius, 

 prince of liars, proclaimed that it was held right to forge 

 and lie for the glory of Christianity, we know ; and we 

 know no reason why Josephus or Tacitus, or any non- 

 Christian writer of the critical first and second centuries, 

 should have escaped the process, no matter what imperial 

 Ca?sar had patronised them or commanded them to prepare 

 the treatises they wrote. 



* * * 



But the passages regarded by all competent ci'ilics as 

 interpolations in Josephus, and those regarded by many 

 competent critics as interpolations in Tacitus, would if 

 accepted prove nothing beyond what is tolerably well known 

 without them. It would indeed be preposterous to assert 

 on the strength of the doubtful passage about Jesus Christ 

 that Josephus regarded him as the Messiah, for Josephus 

 manifestly (fifty pages could be cited to show this) regarded 

 his countrymen's hopes about the coming of the Messiah at 

 that time as fallacious and dangerous. But if Josephus 

 really wrote and really believed it (which is absuid) that 

 would no more help to establish the belief ascribed to him 

 than Tacitus's description (supposing the passage not inter- 

 polated) of the Christians as malefactors would prove them 

 to have been such. 



* * * 



Some correspondents, by the way, have dwelt rather 

 strongly on Kenan's acceptance of the more than doubtful 

 passage in Josephus relating to Jesus. The fact that Kenan 

 does not refer to the question whether the passage is genuine 

 shows that he had not critically examined the matter. He 

 I'efers to the passage in such a wa}*, too, as to imply precisely 

 that view of the puzzle which I have indicated. His words 

 are: " Jose pit a, ne I'aii 37 et ccrivaut sur hi.fiiidusiecle, 

 inentionne son execution " {V execution, cest d, dire, de Jesus) 

 " en quelques liijnes, coiinne im, cvennmcnt d' importance 

 secondaire ." 



Uf course the real Josephus puzzle resides in the circum- 

 stance that many of the facts related by him as occurring 

 thirty or forty years after the alleged date of the crucifixion 

 seem to have been worked iato the narratives given in the 

 synoptic gospels. Tlie puzzle to be solved is to explain how 

 this may have happened through sheer coincidence, or, if 

 this is impossible, then to show whether Josephus, writing in 

 the first century, borrowed for his history events which liad 

 really happened thirty years before the time he assigns to 

 them, or whether the borrowing was the work of the 

 synoptical evangelists writing some half a century later. 



By the way, in the second paragraph, on the second 

 column of p. 60, there is a rather curious blending of state- 

 ments. After "a work with which Enoch had nothing to 

 do " there should have been a full stop. Then this " Matthew 

 appears to have left a record in writing of the teachings of 

 Christ, which are quoted — probably from Matthew's record 

 — in the gospel aecording to, certainly not 6//, Matthew. 

 This gospel appeared in all probability," <tc. This sets the 

 paragraph right, except that in the seventh line from the 

 end, " The Gospel '' should be " this gospel.'' 



* * * 



"A Square" sends a '-wail from Flatiand," or, in other 

 words, the well-known Tridimensional, whose romances of 

 Flatiand have touched many students of cjuadri-dimensional 

 mathematics, has sent a letter describing the anguish of 

 " A Square " imprisoned in such cells as Mr. Garbett foiled 

 to find escape from. We would puldish this piteous lamenta- 

 tion were more of our readers quadri-dimensional ; but the 

 number of such readers is so limited, that we must ask the 

 ingenious author to tbrgive us if we refrain. Will he kindly 

 regard his letter as printed in planes persistently perpen- 

 dicular to those of the pages of Knowledge. 



* * * 



W. E. H. sends some remarks on the Knight's Tour at 

 Chess. The subject has been, however, so exhaustively 

 treated already that we must not touch it. We are relinked 

 already for allowing those Fifteen ch.arming School girls to 

 disport themselves in our pages. 



* * * 



A MILITARY correspondent points out that the six lines 

 enclosing ten spaces, if set in the manner shown in fig. 6, 

 page (Knowledge for November), can be arranged so as 

 to give a symmetrical figure, by making the large outer 

 triangle and the centre triangle f quilateral. The figure thus 

 obtained does not fulfil any of the conditions of axial sym- 

 metry to which I referred. The symmetry is of the three- 

 legged Manx- arms description. My arrangement has this 

 kind of symmetry, plus tri-axial symmetry. 



* * * 



The same correspondent expresses a wish that the first 

 page of the cover of Knowledge should bear no advertise- 

 ments, but be wholly given to title and the contents. He 

 says, " none of the best periodicals have advertisements, to 

 my knowledge, on the front of the cover, but the contents 

 are printed in plain type, the articles and authors being 

 distinguished by a different type, so that one can see at a 

 glance what the magazine contains : this seems to me most 

 necessary." The cover of Knowledge is nearly the same in 

 the monthly form as it was in the weekly, and our corre- 

 spondent is aware that the AtJienaum and Acudemj/, to 

 mention no other weeklies of similar standing, have adver- 

 tisements on the firet page of cover. It did not seem worth 

 while to change, especially as on the stalls only a few inches 

 near the top of quarto publications are displayed. Any one 

 who has to take out the magazine to see the fi'ont page in 

 full can readily at the same time see the contents as at 

 present printed. The change lecommended would involve 

 a considerable yearly loss ; and already tLe exj)ense3 of 

 Knowledge run so close to the possible proceeds of its sale 

 (we did have it for a time so that the more copies were sold 

 the greater the loss) that a change of the kind is practically 

 impossible. Let Knowledge be compared, simply in quan- 

 tity of matter, with any periodical of the same character, 

 and it will be recognised how we are handicapped. 



* * * 



Mr. Alfred Brown has succeeded in trisecting the angle, 

 "and can give geometrical proof of the same." He desires 



