The reasons why the Talmudists concealed the true names of the parents of Jesus are evident; for by this means they more covered their malice in one respect, and gave more blasphemous vent unto it in another. They concealed it thus far, that every one might not perfectly understand whom they intended, unless he were a disciple of their own; and they gave it vent in the reflection they cast upon the evangelical story, as though it had not given us the true names
SECT. 6.] THE ONLY TRUE AND PROMISED MESSIAH. 373
of the parents of Jesus. And, moreover, they gave themselves liberty by this means to coin new lies at their pleasure, for they may say what they would of their Pandira and Stada, though all the world knew it to be false as to Joseph and Mary. x25, “ Pan- dira,” is a feigned name, insignificant, and invented by them for this only purpose. They sometimes write it with n in the midst, instead of 3; s7n3p, “ Panthira.’ So that Galatinus doth perfectly contra- dict himself in this matter; for whereas, lib. i. cap. vii, he contends that by Jesus the son of Pandira, mentioned in the Talmud, the Lord Jesus is not intended, lib. viii. cap. v., he asserts that Jesus the son of Panthira, in whose name James the Just healed the sick and wrought miracles, was the Lord Jesus; as indeed it was he whom they intend also in that story about James. But now Pandira and Panthira are the same; and so also was he whom they term his son. stpp, “Stada,” is also a name framed to the same end, and, as the learned Buxtorf supposeth, from 87 NOD, “one that went aside,” declined, or was. an adulteress; and they feign her to have been a plaiter of women’s hair, with other monstrous lies at their pleasure : but yet they expressly, in sundry places, confess that her true name was Mary; and as I suppose, from the imputations mentioned, do wilfully confound her with Mary Magdalene, as Mohammed did with Miriam the sister of Moses. These stories must be searched for in the Talmud printed at Venice, for they are left out in that printed at Basil. The exception is yet more impertinent, that the things which are ascribed unto Jesus the son of Pandira can by no means be accommodated unto Jesus Christ; as though the Talmudical rabbins had ever accustomed themselves to speak one true word concerning him, or as though they intended not bim im all those blasphemous lies wherewith they and their forefathers reproached him: which is all,one as if we should say that it was another and not the Lord Jesus whom they accused of sedition, blasphemies, and seducing the people, because indeed he was most remote from such things. But yet, also, there were sundry things which they ascribed unto this Jesus the son of Pandira and Stada, which make it very apparent who it was whom they intended ; for, first, they say that he learned magic in Egypt, which, upon his being carried thither in his infancy, they ascribe unto him. Again, they say he was a seducer of the people; which we know was the accusation that they managed against the Lord Jesus.
Again; they tell us a story concerning two men placed in a room near him to overhear his seducing, that so they might accuse him, This, they say, was their course to entrap seducers; and thereof they give this instance: ND|T Iya wd ND }2> Wy }31;—“ So they did to the son of Stada; and they hanged him on the eve of the pass- over.” The witnesses they speak of are no others but the false
374 JESUS OF NAZARETH [EXERC XVI.
witnesses mentioned Matt. xxvi. 60, 61. The kind of his death, hanged on a tree, with the time of it, the eve of the passover, do also fully make naked their intentions. The age only, or the time of his life, remains, from whence any difficulty is pretended. This Jesus the son of Pandira they affirm to have lived in the days of Alexander, and to have been crucified in the days of Aristo- bulus, an hundred or an hundred and ten years before the birth of Christ. But the mystery of this fiction also is discovered by Abra- ham Levita in his Cabbala Historiz. He tells us that the “ Chris- tians placed the death of their Christ under Pilate, that so they might show that the destruction of the city and temple fell out not long after his death; whereas,” he says, “it is apparent from the Mishnah and Talmud that he was crucified in the days of the Maccabees, an hundred years before.” And here we have unawares the sore dis- covered, and the true reason laid open why the Talmudists attempted to transfer the time of his death from the days of Herod the tetrarch to the rule of Aristobulus the Asmonzean,—namely, lest they should be compelled to acknowledge their utter ruin to have so suddenly ensued upon their rejection of him, as indeed it did. However, as to our present purpose, we have in general this confession of our ad- versaries themselves, that the Lord Jesus came before the destruc- tion of the city and temple; which was that we undertook to confirm.