governor of Syria" being used after the name of Cyrenius as his addition or title. And this title belonging to him at the time of writing the account, was naturally enough subjoined to his name, though acquired after the transaction which the account describes. A modern writer who was not very exact in the choice of his expressions, in relating the affairs of the East Indies, might easily say, that such thing was done by Governor Hastings; though, in truth, the thing had been done by him before his advancement to the station from which he received the name of governor. And this, as we contend, is precisely the inaccuracy which has produced the difficulty in Saint Luke.

At any rate, it appears from the form of the expression, that he had two taxings or enrolments in contemplation. And if Cyrenius had been sent upon this business into Judea, before he became governor of Syria (against which supposition there is no proof, but rather external evidence of an enrolment going on about this time under some person or other,) then the census, on all hands acknowledged to have been made by him in the beginning of his government, would form a second, so as to occasion the other to be called the first.

III. Acts v. 36. "For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to nought."

Josephus has preserved the account of an impostor of the name of Theudas, who created some disturbances, and was slain; but according to the date assigned to this man's appearance (in which, however, it is very possible that Josephus may have been mistaken, *) it must have been, at least, seven years after Gamaliel's speech, of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection, † that there might be two impostors of this name: and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the same thing appears to have happened in other instances of the same kind. It is proved from Josephus, that there were not fewer than four persons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten years, who were all leaders of insurrections: and it is likewise recorded by the historian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great, (which agrees very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time, "before these days,") there were innumerable disturbances in Judea. Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that one of the three Judases above-mentioned was Gamaliel's Theudas; § and that with a less variation of the

II. Another chronological objection arises upon a date assigned in the beginning of the third chapter of Saint Luke.t "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar,"-Jesus began to be about thirty years of age: for, supposing Jesus to have been born, as Saint Mat-name than we actually find in the Gospels, where thew, and Saint Luke also himself, relate, in the time of Herod, he must, according to the dates given in Josephus and by the Roman historians, have been at least thirty-one years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. If he was born, as Saint Matthew's narrative intimates, one or two years before Herod's death, he would have been thirty-two or thirty-three years old at that time.

This is the difficulty: the solution turns upon an alteration in the construction of the Greek. Saint Luke's words in the original are allowed, by the general opinion of learned men, to signify, not "that Jesus began to be about thirty years of age," but "that he was about thirty years of age when he began his ministry." This construction being admitted, the adverb "about" gives us all the latitude we want, and more, especially when applied, as it is in the present instance, to a decimal number; for such numbers, even without this qualifying addition, are often used in a laxer sense, than is here contended for.

"before," which it has been strongly contended that the Greek idiom allows of, the whole difficulty va nishes for then the passage would be,-" Now this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor of Syria:" which corresponds with the chronology. But I rather choose to argue, that however the word "first" be rendered, to give it a meaning at all, it militates with the objection. In this I think there can be no mistake.

Josephus (Antiq. xvii. c. 2. sect. 6.) has this remarkable passage: "When therefore the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Cæsar, and the interests of the king." This transaction corresponds in the course of the history with the time of Christ's birth. What is called a census, and which we render taxing, was delivering upon oath an account of their property. This might be accompanied with an oath of fidelity, or might be mistaken by Josephus for it. † Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 768.

Livy, speaking of the peace which the conduct of Romulus had procured to the state, during the whole 2 Y

one of the twelve apostles is called, by Luke, Judas; and by Mark, Thaddeus. Origen, however he came at his information, appears to have believed that there was an impostor of the name of Theudas before the nativity of Christ. ¶

IV. Matt. xxiii. 34. "Wherefore, behold I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, sor of Burachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar."

There is a Zacharias, whose death is related in the second book of Chronicles,** in a manner which perfectly supports our Saviour's allusion. But this Zacharias was the son of Jehoiada.

There is also Zacharias the prophet; who was

reign of his successor (Numa), has these words;††—“ Ab illo enim profectis viribus datis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem haberet :" yet afterward, in the same chapter, "Romulus (he says) septem et triginta regnavit annos. Numa tres et quadraginta."

* Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh's Translation,) vol. i. p. 61. † Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 922. Antiq. I. xvii. c. 12. sect. 4. Luke vi. 16. Mark iii. 18. Orig. cont. Cels. p. 44.

§ Annals, p. 797.

**"And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them. Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones, at the commandment of the king, in the court of the house of the Lord!—2 Chron xxiv. 20, 21.

Liv. Hist. c. 1. sect. 16.
30*

the son of Barachiah, and is so described in the superscription of his prophecy, but of whose death we have no account.

I have little doubt, but that the first Zacharias was the person spoken of by our Saviour; and that the name of the father has been since added, or changed, by some one, who took it from the title of the prophecy, which happened to be better known to him than the history in the Chronicles.

There is likewise a Zacharias, the son of Baruch, related by Josephus to have been slain in the temple a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem. It has been insinuated, that the words put into our Saviour's mouth contain a reference to this transaction, and were composed by some writer, who either confounded the time of the transaction with our Saviour's age, or inadvertently overlooked the anachronism.

Now suppose it to have been so; suppose these words to have been suggested by the transaction related in Josephus, and to have been falsely as cribed to Christ; and observe what extraordinary coincidences (accidentally, as it must in that case have been) attend the forger's mistake.

First, that we have a Zacharias in the book of Chronicles, whose death, and the manner of it, corresponds with the allusion.

Secondly, that although the name of this person's father be erroneously put down in the Gospel, yet we have a way of accounting for the error, by showing another Zacharias in the Jewish Scriptures, much better known than the former, whose patronymic was actually that which appears in the text.

Every one who thinks upon this subject, will find these to be circumstances which could not have met together in a mistake, which did not proceed from the circumstances themselves.

I have noticed, I think, all the difficulties of this kind. They are few: some of them admit of a clear, others of a probable solution. The reader will compare them with the number, the variety, the closeness, and the satisfactoriness, of the instances which are to be set against them; and he will remember the scantiness, in many cases, of our intelligence, and that difficulties always attend imperfect information.

CHAPTER VII.

Undesigned Coincidences.

are too close and numerous to be accounted for by accidental concurrences of fiction, must necessarily have truth for their foundation.

This argument appeared to my mind of so much value (especially for its assuming nothing beside the existence of the books,) that I have pursued it through Saint Paul's thirteen epistles, in a work published by me four years ago, under the title of Hore Pauline. I am sensible how feebly any argument which depends upon an induction of particulars, is represented without examples. On which account, I wished to have abridged my own volume, in the manner in which I have treated Dr. Lardner's in the preceding chapter. But, upon making the attempt, I did not find it in my power to render the articles intelligible by fewer words than I have there used. I must be content, therefore, to refer the reader to the work itself. And I would particularly invite his attention to the observations which are made in it upon the first three epistles. I persuade myself that he will find the proofs, both of agreement and undesignedness, supplied by these epis tles, sufficient to support the conclusion which is there maintained, in favour both of the genuineness of the writings and the truth of the narra tive.

It remains only, in this place, to point out how the argument bears upon the general question of the Christian history.

First, Saint Paul in these letters affirms in unequivocal terms, his own performance of miracles, and, what ought particularly to be remembered, "That miracles were the signs of an apostle." If this testimony come from Saint Paul's own hand, it is invaluable. And that it does so, the argument before us fixes in my mind a firm assurance.

Secondly, it shows that the series of action represented in the epistles of Saint Paul, was real; which alone lays a foundation for the proposition which forms the subject of the first part of our present work, viz. that the original witnesses of the Christian history devoted themselves to lives of toil, suffering, and danger, in consequence of their belief of the truth of that history, and for the sake of communicating the knowledge of it to others.

Thirdly, it proves that Luke, or whoever was the author of the Acts of the Apostles (for the argument does not depend upon the name of the author, though I know no reason for questioning it,) was well acquainted with Saint Paul's history; and that he probably was, what he professes himself to be, a companion of Saint Paul's travels; which, if true, establishes, in a considerable deBETWEEN the letters which bear the name of gree, the credit even of his Gospel, because it Saint Paul in our collection, and his history in shows, that the writer, from his time, situation, 'the Acts of the Apostles, there exist many notes and connexions, possessed opportunities of inof correspondency. The simple perusal of the forming himself truly concerning the transactions writings is sufficient to prove, that neither the his- which he relates. I have little difficulty in aptory was taken from the letters, nor the letters plying to the Gospel of Saint Luke what is from the history. And the undesignedness of proved concerning the Acts of the Apostles, conthe agreements (which undesignedness is gather-sidering them as two parts of the same history; ed from their latency, their minuteness, their obliquity, the suitableness of the circumstances in which they consist, to the places in which those circumstances occur, and the circuitous references by which they are traced out) demonstrates that they have not been produced by meditation, or by any fraudulent contrivance. But coincidences, from which these causes are excluded, and which |

for, though there are instances of second parts being forgeries, I know none where the second part is genuine, and the first not so.

I will only observe, as a sequel of the argument, though not noticed in my work, the remarkable similitude between the style of Saint John's Gos

* Rom. xv. 18, 19. 2 Cor. xii. 18.

who perceives not the value of an account, delivered by a writer so well informed as this?

CHAPTER VIII.

pel, and of Saint John's Epistle. The style of the resurrection, no such discussion is necessary, Saint John's is not at all the style of Saint Paul's because no such doubt can be entertained. The Epistles, though both are very singular; nor is it only points which can enter into our consideration the style of Saint James's or of Saint Peter's are, whether the apostles knowingly published a Epistle but it bears a resemblance to the style of falsehood, or whether they were themselves dethe Gospel inscribed with Saint John's name, so ceived; whether either of these suppositions be far as that resemblance can be expected to appear, possible. The first, I think, is pretty generally which is not in simple narrative, so much as in given up. The nature of the undertaking, and of reflections, and in the representation of discourses. the men; the extreme unlikelihood that such men Writings, so circumstanced, prove themselves, should engage in such a measure as a scheme; and one another, to be genuine. This corres- their personal toils, and dangers, and sufferings, pondency is the more valuable, as the epistle in the cause; their appropriation of their whole itself asserts, in Saint John's manner indeed, but time to the object; the warm, and seemingly unin terms sufficiently explicit, the writer's personal affected, zeal and earnestness with which they knowledge of Christ's history; "That which was profess their sincerity; exempt their memory from from the beginning, which we have heard, which the suspicion of imposture. The solution more we have seen with our eyes, which we have look- deserving of notice, is that which would resolve ed upon, and our hands have handled, of the word the conduct of the apostles into enthusiasm; of life; that which we have seen and heard, de- which would class the evidence of Christ's resurclare we unto you." Who would not desire-rection with the numerous stories that are extant of the apparitions of dead men. There are circumstances in the narrative, as it is preserved in our histories, which destroy this comparison entirely. It was not one person, but many, who saw him; they saw him not only separately but together, not only by night but by day, not at a distance but near, not once but several times; they not only saw him, but touched him, conversed with him, ate with him, examined his person to satisfy their doubts. These particulars are decisive: but they stand, I do admit, upon the credit of our records. I would answer, therefore, the insinuation of enthusiasm, by a circumstance which arises out of the nature of the thing; and the reality of which must be confessed by all who allow, what I believe is not denied, that the resurrection of Christ, whether true or false, was asserted by his disciples from the beginning; and that circumstance is, the non-production of the dead body. It is related in the history, what indeed the story of the resurrection necessarily implies, that the corpse was missing out of the sepulchre: it is related also in the history, that the Jews reported that the followers of Christ had stolen it away. And this account, though loaded with great improbabilities, such as the situation of the disciples, their fears for their own safety at the time, the unlikelihood of their expecting to succeed, the difficulty of actual success, and the inevitable consequence of detection and failure, was, nevertheless, the most credible account that could be given of the matter. But it proceeds entirely upon the supposition of fraud, as all the old objections did. What account can be given of the body, upon the supposition of enthusiasm? It is impossible our Lord's followers could believe that he was risen from the dead, if his corpse

Of the History of the Resurrection. THE history of the resurrection of Christ is a part of the evidence of Christianity: but I do not know, whether the proper strength of this passage of the Christian history, or wherein its peculiar value, as a head of evidence, consists, be generally understood. It is not that, as a miracle, the resurrection ought to be accounted a more decisive proof of supernatural agency than other miracles are; it is not that, as it stands in the Gospels, it is better attested than some others; it is not, for either of these reasons, that more weight belongs to it than to other miracles, but for the following, viz. That it is completely certain that the apostles of Christ, and the first teachers of Christianity, asserted the fact. And this would have been certain, if the four Gospels had been lost, or never written. Every piece of Scripture recognises the resurrection. Every epistle of every apostle, every author contemporary with the apostles, of the age immediately succeeding the apostles, every writing from that age to the present, genuine or spurious, on the side of Christianity or against it, concur in representing the resurrection of Christ as an article of his history, received without doubt or disagreement by all who call themselves Christians, as alleged from the beginning by the propagators of the institution, and alleged as the centre of their testimony. Nothing, I apprehend, which a man does not himself see or hear, can be more certain to him than this point. I do not mean, that nothing can be more certain than that Christ rose from the dead; but that nothing can be more certain, than that his apostles, and the first teachers of Christianity, gave out that he did so. In the other parts of the gospel narrative, It has been rightly, I think, observed by Dr. Townsa question may be made, whether the things re-hend, (Dis. upon the Res. p. 126,) that the story of the lated of Christ be the very things which the apos- guards carried collusion upon the face of it :-"His distles and first teachers of the religion delivered con- ciples came by night and stole him away, while we slept." Men in their circumstances would not have made cerning him? And this question depends a good such an acknowledgment of their negligence, without deal upon the evidence we possess of the genuine- previous assurances of protection and impunity. ness, or rather, perhaps, of the antiquity, credit, and reception, of the books. On the subject of

Chap. i. ver. 1-3.

"And this saying (Saint Matthew writes) is commonly reported amongst the Jews until this day," chap. xxviii. 15. The evangelist may be thought good authority as to this point, even by those who do not admit his evidence in every other point: and this point is sufficient to prove that the body was missing.

"Especially at the full moon, the city full of people,

many probably passing the whole night, as Jesus and

his disciples had done, in the open air, the sepulchre so near the city as to be now enclosed within the walls." -Priestley on the Resurr. p. 24.

was lying before them. No enthusiasm ever reached to such a pitch of extravagancy as that: a spirit may be an illusion; a body is a real thing, an object of sense, in which there can be no mistake. All accounts of spectres leave the body in the grave. And, although the body of Christ might be removed by fraud, and for the purposes of fraud, yet, without any such intention, and by sincere but deluded men (which is the representation of the apostolic character we are now examining,) no such attempt could be made. The presence and the absence of the dead body are alike inconsistent with the hypothesis of enthusiasm; for, if present, it must have cured their enthusiasm at once; if absent, fraud, not enthusiasm, must have carried it away.

into any order; that it was at this time even understood that a new religion (in the sense which that term conveys to us) was to be set up in the world, or how the professors of that religion were to be distinguished from the rest of mankind. The death of Christ had left, we may suppose, the generality of his disciples in great doubt, both as to what they were to do, and concerning what was to follow.

This meeting was holden, as we have already said, a few days after Christ's ascension: for, ten days after that event was the day of Pentecost, when, as our history relates,* upon a signal display of Divine agency attending the persons of the apostles, there were added to the society "about three thousand souls."+ But here, it is not, 1 think, to be taken, that these three thousand were all converted by this single miracle; but rather that many, who before were believers in Christ, became now professors of Christianity; that is to say, when they found that a religion was to be established, a society formed and set up in the name of Christ, governed by his laws, avowing their belief in his mission, united amongst themselves, and separated from the rest of the world by visible distinctions; in pursuance of their former conviction, and by virtue of what they had heard and seen and known of Christ's history, they publicly became members of it.

But farther, if we admit, upon the concurrent testimony of all the histories, so much of the account as states that the religion of Jesus was set up at Jerusalem, and set up with asserting, in the very place in which he had been buried, and a few days after he had been buried, his resurrection out of the grave, it is evident that, if his body could have been found, the Jews would have produced it, as the shortest and completest answer possible to the whole story. The attempt of the apostles could not have survived this refutation a moment. If we also admit, upon the authority of Saint Matthew, that the Jews were advertised of the expectation of Christ's followers, and that they had taken due precaution We read in the fourth chapter of the Acts, in consequence of this notice, and that the body that, soon after this, "the number of the men," was in marked and public custody, the observa- i. e. the society openly professing their belief in tion receives more force still. For, notwithstand-Christ, was about five thousand." So that here ing their precaution, and although, thus prepared is an increase of two thousand within a very short and forewarned; when the story of the resurrec- time. And it is probable that there were many, tion of Christ came forth, as it immediately did; both now and afterward, who, although they be when it was publicly asserted by his disciples, and lieved in Christ, did not think it necessary to made the ground and basis of their preaching in join themselves to this society; or who waited to his name, and collecting followers to his religion, see what was likely to become of it. Gamaliel, the Jews had not the body to produce: but were whose advice to the Jewish council is recorded obliged to meet the testimony of the apostles by an Acts v. 34, appears to have been of this descripanswer, not containing indeed any impossibility tion; perhaps Nicodemus, and perhaps also Join itself, but absolutely inconsistent with the sup- seph of Arimathea. This class of men, their position of their integrity; that is, in other words, character and their rank, are likewise pointed out inconsistent with the supposition which would re- by Saint John, in the twelfth chapter of his Gossolve their conduct into enthusiasm. pel: "Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, many believed on him: but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Persons, such as these, might admit the miracles of Christ, without being immediately convinced that they were under obligation to make a public profession of Christianity, at the risk of all that was dear to them in life, and even of life itself.§

CHAPTER IX.

The Propagation of Christianity.

↑ Ver. 4.

IN this argument, the first consideration is the fact; in what degree, within what time, and to what extent, Christianity was actually propagated. The accounts of the matter, which can be col*Acts ii. 1. † Acts ii. 41. lected from our books, are as follow: A few days ed and opposed, Christianity, there were, in all proba "Beside those who professed, and those who rejectafter Christ's disappearance out of the world, bility, multitudes between both, neither perfect Chris we find an assembly of disciples at Jerusalem, to tians, nor yet unbelievers. They had a favourable the number of " about one hundred and twenty ;' "opinion of the Gospel, but worldly considerations made which hundred and twenty were, probably, a lit-them unwilling to own it. There were many circumtle association of believers, met together, not merely as believers in Christ, but as personally connected with the apostles, and with one another. Whatever was the number of believers then in Jerusalem, we have no reason to be surprised that so small a company should assemble: for there is no proof, that the followers of Christ were yet formed into a society; that the society was reduced

*Acts i. 15.

stances which inclined them to think that Christianity was a Divine revelation, but there were many inconveniences which attended the open profession of it: and they could not find in themselves courage enough to their fortunes, to lose their reputation, their liberty, and bear them, to disoblige their friends and family, to ruin their life, for the sake of the new religion. Therefore they were willing to hope, that if they endeavoured to observe the great principles of morality, which Christ had represented as the principal part, the sum and substance, of religion; if they thought honourably of the gospel, if they offered no injury to the Christians, if they did them all the services that they could safely