78 THIRD TEKIOD. A.V. 311-590.
Christians, lie l>:is borne a valuable testimony to tbe history and to the books of the Xew Testament, as all must acknowledge who have read the extracts just made from his work. He allows that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, at the time of the taxing made in Judea by Cyrenius : that the Christian religion had its rise and began to be propagated in the times of the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. He bears witness to the genuineness and authenticity of the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Acts of the Apostles: and he 60 quotes them, as to intimate, that these were the only historical books received by Christians as of authority, and the only authentic memoirs of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and the doctrine preached by them. He allows their early date, and even argues for it. He also quotes, or })lainly refers to the Acta of the Apostles, to St. Paul's E])istlcs to the Eomans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. He docs not deny the miracles of Jesus Christ, but allows him to have 'healed the blind, and the lame, and demoniacs,' and 'to have rebuked the winds, and walked upon the waves of the sea.' He endeavors indeed to diminish these works ; but in vain. The consequence is undeniable : such works are good proofs of a divine mission. He endeavors also to lessen the number of the early believers in Jesus, and yet he acknowledgeth, that there were ' multitudes of such men in Greece and Italy,' before St. John wrote his gospel. He likewise affects to diminish the quality of the early believers ; and yet acknowledgeth, that beside ' menservants, and maidservants,' Cornelius, a Roman centurion at Csesarea, and Sergius Paulus, ]u-oconsul of Cypi'us, were converted to the faith of Jesus before the end of the reign of Claudius. And he often speaks with great indignation of Peter and Paul, those two great apostles of Jesus, and sucessful preachers of his gospel. So that, upon the whole, he has undesignedly borne witness to the truth of many things recorded in the books of the New Testament : he aimed to overthrow the Christian religion, but has coniirmed it : his arguments against it are perfectly 1 armless, and insufficient to unsettle the weakest Christian. He justly excepts to eomc things introduced into the Christian profession by the late prC'
§ 9. Julian's attack upoii Christianity. TO
lessors of it, in liis own time, or sooner ; but lias not made one objection of moment against the Christian religion, as contained iu the genuine and authentic books of the 'New Testament." '
The other works against Christianity are far less important.
The dialogue Philopatkis, or The Patriot, is ascribed indeed to the ready scoffer and satirist Lucian (died about 200), and joined to his works; but it is vastly inferior in style and probably belongs to the reign of Julian, or a still later period ; ' since it combats the church doctrine of the Trinity and of the procession of the Spirit from the Father, though not by argument, but only by ridicule. It is a frivolous derision of the character and doctrines of the Christians in the form of a dialogue between Critias, a professed heathen, and Triephon, an Epicurean, personating a Christian. It represents the Cliristians as disaffected to the government, dangerous to civil society, and delighting in public calamities. It calls St. Paul a half bald, long-nosed Galilean, who travelled through the air to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12, 1-4).
The last renowned representative of I^eo-Platonism, Pko- CLUS of Athens (died 487), defended the Platonic doctrine of the eternity of the world, and, without mentioning Christianity, contested the biblical doctrine of the creation and the end of the world in eighteen arguments, which the Christian philosopher, John Philoponus, refuted in the seventh century.
The last heathen historians, Eunapius and Zosimus, of the first half of the fifth century, indirectly assailed Christianity by a one-sided representation of the history of the Roman empire from the time of Constantino, and by tracing its decline to the Christian religion ; while, on the contrary, Ammianub Makcellinus (died about 390) presents with honorable im-
' Dr. Nathaniel Lardner's Works, ed. by Dr. Kippis in ten vols. Vol. vii. pp. 638 and 639. As against the mythical theory of Strauss and Renan the extract from Lardner has considerable force, as well as his whole work on the Oredibility of the Gospel History.
' According to Niebuhr's view it must have been composed under the emperor Phocas, 968 or 969. Moyle places it in the year 302, Dodwell in tl e j".ar 261 others in the year 272.