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 prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning Him.  And the tribe of Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day.”

Now, on external grounds there seems little doubt of the genuineness of this passage.  It is in all copies of the historian’s work, and is quoted in full by Eusebius, though not alluded to by fathers previous to his day. [183:1] If it is an interpolation, it must have been by the hand of a Christian; and yet it is absolutely inconceivable that any Christian should have noticed the Christian Church in such words as “the tribe of Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day.”  It would have been absurd beyond measure to have described the Christians, so early as Justin’s time even, as “not extinct,” when they were filling the world with their doctrine, and their increase was a source of great perplexity and trouble to the Roman Government.  It is just what a Jew of Josephus’ time would have written who really believed that Jesus wrought miracles, but expected that nothing permanent would result from them.