losing remark of Tacitus seems to
indicate that, at least, he did not entirely discredit the account; and
as for Suetonius, his pages are as full of prodigies of all descriptions,
related apparently in all good faith, as a monkish chronicle of the
Middle Ages.

The story has the more interest, as it is one of the examples of
successful imposture, selected by Hume in his Essay on Miracles; with the
reply to which by Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, most readers
are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in
considering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the
patients, and, probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the
reader as most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with
the accounts given of several of the miracles of Christ; whence it has
been supposed, that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did
not fall within the scope of Dr. Paley's argument to advert to this; and
our own brief illustration must be strictly confined within the limits of
historical disquisition. Adhering to this principle, we may point out
that if the idea of plagiarism be accepted, it receives some confirmation
from the incident related by our author in a preceding paragraph,
forming, it may be considered, another scene of the same drama, where we
find Basilides appearing to Vespasian in the temple of Serapis, under
circumstances which cannot fail to remind us of Christ's suddenly
standing in the midst of his disciples, "when the doors were shut." This
incident, also, has very much the appearance of a parody on the
evangelical history. But if the striking similarity of the two
narratives be thus accounted for, it is remarkable that while the priests
of Alexandria, or, perhaps, Vespasian himself from his residence in
Judaea, were in possession of such exact details of two of Christ's
miracles--if not of a third striking incident in his history--we should
find not the most distant allusion in the works of such cotemporary
writers as Tacitus and Suetonius, to any one of the still more stupendous
occurrences which had recently taken place in a part of the world with
which the Romans had now very intimate relations. The character of these
authors induces us to hesitate in adopting the notion, that either
contempt or disbelief would have led them to pass over such events, as
altogether unworthy of notice; and the only other inference from their
silence is, that they