son, who, in another place, is called by Josephus, Judas the Galilean, or Judas of Galilee) perfuaded not a few not to enroll themselves, when Cyrenius the cenfor was sent into Judea." XL. (p. 942.) Acts xxi. 38. "Art not thou that Egyptian which, before these days, madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers ?י Jof. de Bell. 1. ii. c. 13, fec. 5. " But the Egyptian false prophet brought a yet heavier disaster upon the Jews; for this impostor, coming into the country, and gaining the reputation of a prophet, gathered together thirty thousand men, who were deceived by him. Having brought them round out of the wilderness, up to the Mount of Olives, he intended from thence to make his attack upon Jerufalem; but Felix, coming suddenly upon him with the Roman soldiers, prevented the attack. A great number, or (as it should rather be rendered) the greatest part 1 ۱ part of those that were with him, were either flain, or taken prisoners.", In these two passages, the designation of the impoftor, an "Egyptian," without his proper name; "the wilderness;" his efcape, though his followers were destroyed; the time of the transaction, in the presidentship of Felix, which could not be any long time before the words in Luke are fuppofed: to have been spoken; are circumstances of close correfpondency. There is one, Hand only one, point of disagreement, and that is, in the number of his followers, which in the Acts are called four thousand, and by Josephus thirty thousand: but, beside that, the names of numbers, more than any other words, are liable to the errors of transcribers, we are, in the present instance, under the less concern to reconcile the evangelift with Josephus, as Jofephus is not, in this point, confiftent with himself. For whereas, in the passage here quoted, he calls the number thirty thousand, and tells us that the greatest part, or a great number (according as VOL. II. N his 1 his words are rendered) of those that were with him, were destroyed; in his Antiquities, he reprefents four hundred to have been killed upon this occafion, and two hundred taken prisoners*: which certainly was not the "greatest part," nor " a great part," nor " a great number," out of thirty thousand. It is probable also, that Lysias and Josephus spoke of the expedition in its different stages: Lysias, of those who followed the Egyptian out of Jerufalem; Josephus, of all who were collected about him afterwards, from different quarters. 1 XLI. (Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 21) Acts xvii. 22. "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and faid, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too fuperftitious; for, as I paffed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this infcription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." * Lib. xx. c. 7, fec. 6. Diogenes Diogenes Laërtius, who wrote about the year 210, in his history of Epimenides, who is supposed to have flourished nearly fix hundred years before Christ, relates of him the following story: that, being invited to Athens for the purpose, he delivered the city from a pestilence in this manner"Taking several sheep, fome black, others white, he had them up to the Areopagus, and then let them go where they would, and gave orders to those who followed them, wherever any of them should lie down, to facrifice it to the god to whom it belonged; and so the plague ceased. Hence," says the historian, " it has come to pass, that, to this present time, may be found in the boroughs of the Athenians ANONYMOUS altars: a memorial of the expiation then made *." These altars, it may be prefumed, were called anonymous, because there was not the name of any particular deity inscribed upon them. Paufanias, who wrote before the end of * In Epimenide, 1. i. fegm. 110. the second century, in his description of Athens, having mentioned an altar of Jupiter Olympius, adds, "And nigh unto it is an altar of unknown gods *." And, in another place, speaks " of altars of gods called unknown †." Philoftratus, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, records it as an obfervation of Apollonius Tyanæus, "That it was wife to speak well of all the gods, efpecially at Athens, where altars of unknown demons were erected." The author of the dialogue Philopatris, by many supposed to have been Lucian, who wrote about the year 170, by others some anonymous heathen writer of the fourth century, makes Critias swear by the unknown god of Athens; and, near the end of the dialogue, has these words, "But let us find out the unknown god at Athens, and, stretching * Pauf. I. v. p. 412. Philof. Apoll. Tyan. 1. vi. c. 3. our |