SECT. 4, 5.] THE ONLY TRUE AND PROMISED MESSIAH. 371
done) provided any relief against. This, then, stands upon equal evidence with the whole authority of the Old Testament,—namely, that the promised Messiah was to come within the time prefixed for his coming, and foretold.
We ask them, then, If Jesus of Nazareth be not the Messiah, where is he? or who is he that came in answer to the prophecies insisted on? Two things then remain to be proved:—First, That our Lord Jesus Christ came, lived, and died, within the time limited for the coming of the Messiah. Secondly, That no other came within that season that either pretended with any colour of proba- bility unto that dignity, or was ever as such owned or esteemed by the Jews themselves.
4, First, then, that Jesus came and lived in the time limited unto the coming of the Messiah, some short space of time before the de- parture of sceptre and scribe from Judah, the ceasing of the daily sacrifice, and final desolation of the second temple, we have all the evidence that a matter of fact so long past is capable of,—as good as that the world was of old by God created. The stories of the chureh are express that he was born during the empire of Augustus Cesar, in the latter end of the reign of Herod over Judea, when Cyrenius was governor over Syria; that he lived unto the time wherein Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea under Tiberius, about thirty-six or thirty-seven years before the destruction of the nation, city, and temple, by Titus. This the stories written by devine inspi- ration, and committed unto the care of the church, expressly affirm, neither have the Jews any thing to object against the truth of the relation, whatever thoughts they have of his person, who he was, or what hedid. That he lived and died then and there, is left testified on records beyond control [%.¢., contradiction.] And if they should deny it, what is the bare negation of a few interested, blinded persons, without testimony or evidence from any one circumstance of times, persons, or actions, to be laid in the balance against the catholic tradition of all the world, whether believing in Jesus or re- jecting him? for they all always consented in this, that he lived and died at the time mentioned in the sacred stories.
And this was still one part of the charge managed against his followers in the very next age after, that they believed in a person whom they knew to have lived at such a season, and in a mean con- dition; neither did the most malicious and fierce impugners of the religion taught by him, such as Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, ever once attempt to attack the truth of the story as to his real ex- istence and the time of it. So that herein we have as concurrent a suffrage as the whole world in any case is able to afford.
5. The best of the historians of the nations who lived near those times give their testimony unto what is recorded in our Gospels. The
372 JESUS OF NAZARETH [EXERC. XVII.
words of one of them, a person of unquestionable credit in things that he could attain the knowledge of, and, as it will appear by them, far enough from any compliance with the followers of Jesus, may suffice for an instance. This is Cornelius Tacitus, in the 15th of his Annals, cap. xliv. “Abolendo,” saith he, “rumori” (he speaks of Nero and his firing of Rome) “subdidit reos, et queesitissimis peenis affecit, quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per Procuratorem Pon- tium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat.” He expressly assigns the time of the death of Christ unto the reign of Tiberius and government of Pilate. The same also is confirmed by the Jews’ own historian, Flavius Josephus, in the fifth chapter of the 18th book of their Antiquities; unto which season also he assigns the death of John the Baptist, who was his contemporary, according to the evangelical story.
6. Further; we have that testimony in this matter which, though in itself it be of little or no moment, yet, as unto them with whom we have to do, is cogent above all others, and this is their own con- fession. They acknowledge in the Talmud that he lived before the desolation of the second temple, for they tell us, cap. Chelek, and ry, cap. 11, that he was the son of Pandira and Stada, and that he lived in the days of the Maccabees, Alexander, Hyrcanus, and Aris- tobulus, under whom he was crucified. I confess, Galatinus, Reuch- linus, and of late the learned Schickard, with some others, do contend that it is not Jesus Christ whom they intend in the wicked story which they tell of that Jesus the son of Pandira. But the reasons they insist on are of no cogency to procure the assent of any one acquainted with their writings, no, though the later Jews them- selves (ashamed of the prodigious lies of their forefathers, and afraid to own their blasphemies, for fear of provoking the Christians against them) do faintly, some of them, deny him to be the person in- tended. The names of their parents, say they, agree not. The Lord Jesus was the reputed son of Joseph, the true son of Mary; this Jesus of the Talmud was the son of Pandira and Stada. I shall not reply that Damascenus, lib. iv., placeth a Panther and Bar- panther on the genealogy of Christ, making the latter grandfather to the blessed Virgin, seeing it is evident that he borrowed that part of his genealogy from some corrupt traditions of the Jews.