A further illustration is found in the book en- titled Juhasin, by R. Abraham Zacuth (b. 1504). This is a sort of dictionary of biography for the period of the Talmud, but containing also refer- ences to other periods. On p. 15 (ed. Filippowski, London, 1857) is the following notice of Jesus :
And the truth (is this) that the Nazarene was born in the fourth year of the reign of Jannai ir., i.e. Alexander (Jannaeus); this is the year 263 from the building of the Temple, and the 51st year of the Hasmonseans, and the j'ear 3675 from the Crea- tion (B.C. 85). Although the Nazarenes say that he was born in the time of Herod, the slave of the Hasmonaeans, in the year
3760 (from the Creation), and that he was hung 35 years before the destruction (of the Temple), being 32 years old, to our shame and to declare to us that at once, speedily, 40 years in advance, the Temple was destroyed for the guilt of what we did to him. But this is not so ; for his birth was 89 years before the birth which they affirm. And the truth is that he was born in the year 3675, and in the year 299 (of the Temple) he was arrested (i.e. b.c. 49), and he was 36 years old in the third year of Aristobulus, the son of Jannai. And for this reason the sages of Israel, in the controversy which they have had with the Nazarenes, have written that in the Talmud there is no mention of the Nazarene whom they mean. Moreover, in the chronicles of the Nazarenes there is a dispute amongst them as to the .year in which he was born. ' There is a further reference in the same book, p. 86, where the writer deals with the assertion that Jesus was the contemporary of R. Akiba, his mother having been the vrife of Pappus b. Jehudah (see above, in § 1). The writer decides against this, and says : ' According to the know- ledge of the Nazarenes, the man who is known was in the time of R. Eliezer ; and thus it appears in ch. i. of Ahoda Zara that R. Eliezer talked with Jacob, a disciple of Jeshu the Nazarene.' A few lines farther down he quotes from Rashi the words, ' Ben Stada is the man who is known, the Nazarene' ; but they are not found in the passage to which he refers, nor are they men- tioned by Rabbinowicz.
It will be observed that the above passages deal only with the chronology of Jesus, and this is, with a few exceptions, the sole jjoint on which the medijeval Rabbis enlarge in their references to Him. The reason is, of course, their desire to ward off the charge made by the Christians, that the Talmud contains blasphemous allusions to Jesus. Tlie following references, which all deal with chronology, may serve to illustrate this side of the subject :
R. Abraham b. David in the Sepher ha-Kabbalah, 1195 (Neu- bauer, Med. Jew. Cfiron. ii. 53), R. Jehudah ha-Levi (Cusari, ed. Buxtorf, p. 240), R. David Gans in Zemah David, 1592 (edition of 1785, pt. ii. p. 12t'). The last comes nearer to the Christian date. He says : ' Jesus the Nazarene was born in Bethlehem, a "parsah" and a half from Jerusalem, in the year
3761 from the Creation, i.e. the year 42 of Augustus Csesar. Abarbanel {Maj. Jeshua, p. 67*, cited by Eisenmenger, Entd. Judenthum, i. 239) maintains strongly the Talmudic date, and ends thus: 'And the wise men of that time bore witness con- cerning him, his friends and companions' [i.e. the friends of R. Joshua b. Perahiah whose disciple Jesus was said to ha\e been], 'and how shall we believe the substitution of [another for] him, from the mouth of men who did not know him, and were not there ? . . . .\nd we will not depart from the truth and tradi- tion of our fathers, who did not tamper with the fact, and who related the facts as they took place without addition or omis- sion ; and all this shows that this [the Christian] theory is untrue.'
The fullest and most elaborate statements of the chronologi- cal argument, from the Jewish side, are those of R. Salman Zebi (cited in Eisenmenger, i. 231) and R. Abraham Perizzol (contained in the same work, pp. 250-253).
There are, however, one or two mediseval Jewish works which deal with more than the chrono- logical question. Wagenseil (in Tela Ignea Satance) published the Nizzahon (which he distinguishes as N. Vetus), composed by a writer in the 12th cent., as he supposes. Buxtorf, misled by the name,
attributed the work to R. Lipman in the 15th cent., the author of another book bearing the same title, and also published by Wagenseil. The author of the older work was acquainted Avith the Gospels, and he ranged over the whole field of Jewish Chris- tian controversy, refuting the Christians out of their own Scriptures. His arguments all tend to show that Jesus was not God ; but it is worthy of note that he very seldom speaks disrespectfully of Jesus Himself. His quarrel is with the Chris- tians, not with their Master.
Anotlier work of a similar character is the Hizzuk Emunah {Munimen Fidci) of R. Isaac Troki, a Karaite, written about 1575 (printed by Wagenseil in the Tela Ignea Satance). The author shows an even wider acquaintance with the NT than the writer of the Nizzahon possessed ; and he mentions the fact that he read the NT in the translation made by Budnseus in 1572. He lays stress on the fact that Jesus stood much nearer to Judaism than His followers did ; that He never claimed the title of God ; that He said, ' I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets ' ; that He enjoined the keeping of the Commandments on one who would obtain eternal life ; that He gave many precepts which His followers disregarded. He does not hesitate to admit a saying of Jesus as true, though he immediately turns it against the Christians. All through the book his arguments are directed against what Christians asserted about Jesus, hardly at all against what Jesus said of Himself. And he may perhaps be claimed as a forerunner of the later Jewish historians who have really tried to be fair in writing of Jesus, who have at least abandoned the attitude of cold neu- trality, and have scorned the wretched mockery of the ToVdoth.