and that the early
spread of Christianity is much exaggerated. But says Paley: "Be,
however, the fact, or the cause of the omission in Josephus, what it
may, no other or different history on the subject has been given by him
or is pretended to have been given" (Ibid, pp. 73, 74). Our contention
being that the supposed occurrences never took place at all, no history
of them is to be looked for in the pages of a writer who was relating
only facts. Josephus speaks of James, "the brother of Jesus, who was
called Christ" ("Antiquities," book xx., ch. ix., sect. 1), and this
passage shares the fate of the longer one, being likewise rejected
because of being an interpolation. The other supposed reference of
Josephus to Jesus is found in his discourse on Hades, wherein he says
that all men "shall be brought before God the Word; for to him hath the
Father committed all judgment; and he, in order to fulfil the will of
his Father, shall come as judge, whom we call Christ" ("Works of
Josephus," by Whiston, p. 661). Supposing that this passage were
genuine, it would simply convey the Jewish belief that the
Messiah--Christ--the Anointed, was the appointed judge, as in Dan. vii.,
9-14, and more largely in the Book of Enoch.

The silence of Jewish writers of this period is not confined to
Josephus, and this silence tells with tremendous weight against the
Christian story. Judge Strange writes: "Josephus knew nothing of these
wonderments, and he wrote up to the year 93, being familiar with all the
chief scenes of the alleged Christianity. Nicolaus of Damascus, who
preceded him and lived to the time of Herod's successor Archelaus, and
Justus of Tiberias, who was the contemporary and rival of Josephus in
Galilee, equally knew nothing of the movement. Philo-Judaeus, who
occupied the whole period ascribed to Jesus, and engaged himself deeply
in figuring out the Logos, had heard nothing of the being who was
realising at Jerusalem the image his fancy was creating" ("Portraiture
and Mission of Jesus," p. 27).

We propose now to go carefully through the alleged testimonies to
Christianity, as urged in Paley's "Evidences of Christianity," following
his presentment of the argument step by step, and offering objections to
each point as raised by him.

The next historian who is claimed as a witness to Christianity is
Tacitus (born A.D. 54 or 55, died A.D. 134 or 135), who writes, dealing
with the reign of Nero, that this Emperor "inflicted the