en known throughout the city at the time, and to have
been productive of a series of results, miraculous and ordinary, which
were asserted to have commenced at the moment of its occurrence.

The writer of "Supernatural Religion" would disparage the accounts of
our Lord's supernatural works and Resurrection, because such accounts
are to be found only in the writings of "enthusiastic followers," not in
those of indifferent persons; but the nature of the case almost excludes
all other testimony: for the miracles of our Lord were wrought for an
evidential purpose,--to convince the Jews especially that He was the
Christ, the hope of their fathers, and, as such, was not only to be
believed in, but to be obeyed and followed. The only sign of real true
belief was that the man who professed to believe joined that society
which was instituted for the purpose of propagating and keeping alive
the truth of His Messiahship. If any one who professed to believe
stopped short of joining this society, his testimony to miracles would
have been valueless, for the miracles were wrought to convince him of
the truth of a matter in which, if he believed, he was bound to profess
his belief, and, if he did not, he laid himself open to the charge of
not really believing the testimony.

Now, of course, the reader is aware that we have a signal proof of the
validity of this argument in the well-known passage in Josephus which
relates to our Lord. Josephus was the historian, and the only historian,
of the period in which our Lord flourished. The eighteenth book of his
"Antiquities of the Jews" covers the whole period of our Lord's life. If
our Lord had merely attracted attention as a teacher of righteousness,
which it is allowed on all hands that He did, it was likely that He
would have been mentioned in this book along, with others whose teaching
produced far less results. Mention appears to be made of Him in the
following words:--

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to
call him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of
such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him
both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ.
And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us,
had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first
did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third
day; as the Divine pro