Ess. II.]

Traits of Character.

27

In him, who walked forth on the surface of the stormy sea to meet his Lord, and then, from want of courage and faith, sank in the waves, how plainly do we recognize the individual who so rashly made use of the sword in defence of Jesus, and immediately afterwards forsook him and fled; who was the foremost in a profession of belief in the Son of God, and in the hour of personal danger denied him thrice; who was the first to promulgate the Gospel to the Gentiles, and was afterwards afraid to eat with them, in the presence of the Jews!

In the once zealous and determined advocate of the Jewish law, and eager persecutor of the unoffending Nazarines, we cannot fail to trace the characteristic temperament of that great apostle who, under the transforming power of divine grace, became the most ardent, resolute, and indefatigable, of the servants of Christ.

But, of all the characters thus naturally depicted in the New Testament, by far the most singular and, at the same time, the most particularized, is that of Jesus himself. His lowliness and meekness, the tenderness of his compassion, the firmness with which he resisted temptation, his forbearance, his mercy towards his enemies, his subjection to the will of the Father, his devotional spirit, his unwillingnes to be made public, his boldness in reproving hypocrisy, his patience and fortitude, his custom of converting every occurring eircumstance into a channel for doctrine and instruction, his paternal love for his disciples, his perfect gentleness, yet irresistible authority, with many other traits of grace and virtue, constitute, as a whole, a character which has no parallel-original and perfect.

Now, in a circumstantial statement of the conduct and behaviour of a fictitious personage, it would be very difficult for a single author to sustain the de

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Correct Allusions

[Ess. II. scription of such a character in all its peculiarity and in all its perfection. But, when we see a character, thus peculiar and thus perfect, unfolded with the most beautiful precision, and presented to us in all its parts without any real deviation or inconsistency, by four distinct and independent writers, we are compelled to confess that, for such a result, nothing whatever can account, but actual and unvarnished truth.

V. The numerous correct allusions made in the New Testament to the manners and customs prevailing among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, at the time when the books contained in it were written, have already been adduced in evidence of the genuineness of those books. Such allusions may also be fairly pleaded in proof of the authenticity of the narrative -of the veracity and accuracy of the narrators. Very important, in the same point of view, are the confirmations of various parts of the Gospel history, derived from the pages of Jewish, Greek, and Roman historians. That Christ was not an imaginary person, that he really lived, and that he was the founder of the Christian religion, are facts, as has been already hinted, which rest on the testimony, not only of the evangelists and apostles, but of heathen authors; more particularly of Lucian, Suetonius, and Tacitus. By the last of these writers are expressly, though incidentally, recorded, the country of Jesus, the era in which he lived, the government to which he was subject, the extensive diffusion of the principles which he promulgated, and his ignominious and violent death: Annal. lib. xv, cap. 44. There are other circum

7" Ergo abolendo rumore Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis pœnis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Repressaque in præsens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non modo per Judæam originem ejus mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuneta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt.”

Ess. II.]

to History, &c.

29

stances, of minor importance, in which an exact coincidence has been observed between the New Testament and the records of profane history. To mention a single instance--the address of the apostle Paul to the Athenians was occasioned, as we read in the book of Acts, by his having observed in their city an altar inscribed to the unknown God. Now, the existence of altars at Athens, dedicated to unknown Gods, is expressly mentioned by Pausanias and Philostratus. A curious story is moreover related by Diogenes Laertius respecting the lustration of the city by Epimenides, on the occasion of a great pestilence which occurred some hundred years before the Christian era. Victims were then slain in various parts of the Areopagus; and, over the same places, anonymous altars were erected to the several propitious, but unknown, deities, by whom the plague was stayed: In Epimenide, lib. 1, cap. x, § 3.

Between Luke, the largest writer of narrative in the New Testament, and Josephus, the great historian of the Jews, who wrote during the first century, there have been discovered two or three apparent discrepancies of statement, which, were they irreconcilable, might be accounted for by the supposition of a slight degree of inaccuracy on the part of either historian; but which the indefatigable Lardner has, in fact, succeded in reconciling. On the other hand, the accordances between the history of Josephus and those of Luke and the other evangelists, in relation more

"For the purpose, therefore, of putting an end to the report (of his having caused the conflagration of Rome,) Nero falsely accused, and most cruelly punished, a class of persons hated for their crimes, who were commonly called Christians. Christ, the author of that name, was put to death as a malefactor by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, during the reign of Tiberius. But this injurious superstition, although repressed for a short time, again broke out, not only in Judea, where the evil originated, but also in Rome, whither there is a conflux, from every part of the world, of all atrocious or shameful things."

30.

Heathen and Jewish Testimonies

[Ess. II. especially to the various Jewish and Roman governors, whether princes, priests, or procurators, who lived in Palestine during the age of Christ and his apostles, are (as we have already observed) numerous, peculiar, and precise: see Lardner's Credibility, vol. I, part i.

If it be urged that the circumstances related in the Gospel history, which have thus received confirmation from Jewish and heathen authors, were not the miracles of Christ and his apostles-it ought to be observed, that the accounts of those miracles in the New Testament are in so perfectly natural a manner wrought up with the rest of the narrative, and the events, miraculous and not miraculous, so intimately interwoven, that on receiving a sufficient evidence of the truth of one part of the history, we cannot easily refuse to allow the authenticity of the whole.

The collateral testimonies of Jews and Gentiles to the miracles of Christianity are, however, neither scanty nor obscure. Josephus, in a passage of his Jewish Antiquities, of which the genuineness, although doubted by some persons, is supported by numerous critical evidences, has expressly mentioned the miracles and resurrection, as well as the life and death of Jesus: lib. XVIII, ch. iii, § 3.8 Pontius Pilate recorded

8 Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ιησοῦς, σοφὸς ἀνὴς, εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή· ἦν γὰρ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητὴς, διδάσε καλος ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ δεχομένων· καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ιουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ελληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο. ὁ Χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν. καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξει τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ' ἡμῖν, σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου, οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο οἵ γε πρῶτον αὐτὸν ἀγαπή σαντες. ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν, τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μυρία θαυμάσια περὶ αὐτοῦ εἰρηκότων. εἷς ἔτι νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένων οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φύλον. "At that time there arose Jesus, a wise man, if, indeed, he ought to be called a man; for he was a worker of miracles, and a teacher of

Ess. 11.]

to the Christian Miracles.

31

the miracles of Christ in that journal of his government which, in conformity with a well-known practice of the Romans, he appears to have transmitted to the metropolis, to be enrolled in the archives of the empire. These Acta Pilati are mentioned by Tertul. lian and Eusebius, and were expressly appealed to, as affording a proof of the truth of the Christian miracles, by Justin Martyr, in his public apology, addressed to the emperor Antoninus and his senate: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii, cap. 2. Tertull. Apol. cap. 21. Justin. Apol. i, pp. 65, 72, Ed. Ben. That the miracles of Christ and his apostles actually took place was, also, more or less directly allowed. by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, who, unable to refute the evidences of their reality, contented themselves with attributing these wonderful works to the power of magic; and a somewhat similar admission is made by those Jewish enemies of Christianity-the authors of the Talmud: see Lardner, 4to edit., vol. iii, 557, vol. iv, 113–149, 209-250, 311-348.

VI. In the preceding sections, our attention has been almost exclusively directed to the credibility of the four historical writers of the New Testament— Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These writers,

those persons who gave a willing ear to the truth; and he was followed by many persons, both Jews and Greeks. He was (or was called) Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of our leading men, had caused his crucifixion, those who had formerly loved him still persevered in their attachment. For, on the third day, he again appeared to them, alive— the inspired prophets having declared these and a multitude of other wonderful things respecting him. Up to the present day, the people who from him have derived the name of Christians continue to subsist." This passage is found in all the copies of the works of Josephus now extant, whether printed or manuscript, and also in certain ancient translations of them: and it is quoted by Eusebius and many other fathers, in the fourth century. The objections to its genuineness are ably answered in Horne's Introd., vol. II. p. i, chap. 7.