would not believe that a doer of wonderful works must necessarily be more than man, since their own prophets were said to have performed miracles.  If Josephus believed Jesus to be Christ, he would assuredly have become a Christian; while, if he believed him to be God, he would have drawn full attention to so unique a fact as the incarnation of the Deity.  Finally, the concluding remark that the Christians were “not extinct” scarcely coincides with the idea that Josephus, at Rome, must have been cognisant of their increasing numbers, and of their persecution by Nero.  It is, however, scarcely pretended now-a-days, by any scholar of note, that the passage is authentic.  Sections 2 and 4 were manifestly written one after the other.  “There were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and thus an end was put to this sedition. About the same time another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder.”  The forged passage breaks the continuity of the history.  The oldest MSS. do not contain this section.  It is first quoted by Eusebius, who probably himself forged it; and its authenticity is given up by Lardner, Gibbon, Bishop Warburton, and many others.  Lardner well summarises the arguments against its authenticity:—­

“I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before Eusebius.

“Nor do I recollect that Josephus has any where mentioned the name or word Christ, in any of his works; except the testimony above mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord’s brother.

“It interrupts the narrative.

“The language is quite Christian.

“It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it, had it been then in the text.

“It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning Josephus.

“Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) expressly states that historian (Josephus) being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ.

“Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from Christian authors, nor Origen against Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony.

“But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first book of that work, Origen openly affirms, that Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ” (Answer to Dr. Chandler, as quoted in Taylor’s “Diegesis,” pp. 368, 369.  Ed. 1844).

Keim thinks that the remarks of Origen caused the forgery; after criticising the passage he winds up:  “For all these reasons, the passage cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the Catholic Church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the Fourth Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before Eusebius, and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may have given cause for it” ("Jesus of Nazara,” p. 25, English edition, 1873).