[Footnote 1:  Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following; John i. 45-46.]

[Footnote 2:  It is neither named in the writings of the Old Testament, nor in Josephus, nor in the Talmud.]

[Footnote 3:  Mark i. 24; Luke xviii. 37; John xix. 19; Acts ii. 22, iii. 6.  Hence the name of Nazarenes for a long time applied to Christians, and which still designates them in all Mohammedan countries.]

[Footnote 4:  The census effected by Quirinus, to which legend attributes the journey from Bethlehem, is at least ten years later than the year in which, according to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born.  The two evangelists in effect make Jesus to be born under the reign of Herod (Matt. ii. 1, 19, 22; Luke i. 5).  Now, the census of Quirinus did not take place until after the deposition of Archelaus, i.e., ten years after the death of Herod, the 37th year from the era of Actium (Josephus, Ant., XVII. xiii. 5, XVIII. i. 1, ii. 1).  The inscription by which it was formerly pretended to establish that Quirinus had levied two censuses is recognized as false (see Orelli, Inscr.  Lat., No. 623, and the supplement of Henzen in this number; Borghesi, Fastes Consulaires [yet unpublished], in the year 742).  The census in any case would only be applied to the parts reduced to Roman provinces, and not to the tetrarchies.  The texts by which it is sought to prove that some of the operations for statistics and tribute commanded by Augustus ought to extend to the dominion of the Herods, either do not mean what they have been made to say, or are from Christian authors who have borrowed this statement from the Gospel of Luke.  That which proves, besides, that the journey of the family of Jesus to Bethlehem is not historical, is the motive attributed to it.  Jesus was not of the family of David (see Chap.  XV.), and if he had been, we should still not imagine that his parents should have been forced, for an operation purely registrative and financial, to come to enrol themselves in the place whence their ancestors had proceeded a thousand years before.  In imposing such an obligation, the Roman authority would have sanctioned pretensions threatening her safety.]

[Footnote 5:  Chap.  XIV.]

[Footnote 6:  Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.  The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages, Matt. xiii. 54, and Mark vi. 1, where Nazareth figures as the “country” of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent from the primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present Gospels of Matthew and Mark.  It was to meet oft-repeated objections that there were added to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages which had at first been written from quite another point of view.  Luke, on the contrary (chap. iv. 16), writing more carefully, has employed, in order to be consistent, a more softened expression.  As to John, he knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is merely “of Nazareth” or “Galilean,” in two circumstances in which it would have been of the highest importance to recall his birth at Bethlehem (chap. i. 45, 46, vi. 41, 42).]