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that the Jews made the Greeks whom they converted a part of themselves , Inculcating the same thing with Paul , Gal . iii , 27 , that a Jew and a Greek were become one in Christ .
If any one skull still doubt the justness of this reasoning , his scruple must be removed by the fact , that the conversion of the Greeks at Antioch , stated by Josephus , is recorded also in the book of the Acts xi . 19 , in nearly the same words . Those whom Josephus
calls ^ y £ ^ , Luke styles ' EX ^ wfa * : and voKvq apiOfAo g of the evangelist is varied by the Jewish historian into iroKv xzXvf&o ^ a great multitude : and the clause , " they attracted to their worship , " implying the allurements which the gospeL presented , and the miraculous power accompanying its preaching , is thus more explicitly related by Luke : " And the hand of the Lord was with them : and a great number , ^ having believed , turned unto the Lord /'
Jesus had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem , or , more generally , that . of Antichrist . The believers had no -doubt of the truth of this prediction before they saw it accomplished . But it appears that some of them
interpreted his language with an undue latitude , a-s implying destruction by fire not only of Jerusalem , but also of Rome and the other great cities of the empire . The mistaken hope of some among the believers seems to have led to the promulgation of this expectation at Antioch , and Josephus has
recorded the following horrible transaction apparently as the effect of it : * ' Then a certain man , named Antiochus , a ruler of the Jews , greatly esteemed for the virtues of his father , having assembled the people of Antioch in the Theatre , accused his father and the other Jews with an intention
to burn the city in one night : and he delivered up to them certain foreign Jews as confederates in this design . " These foreign Jews are said by Luke to have been men of Cyprus and Cyrene , who had come to Antioch to
preach the gospel . It is worthy of remark , that this cause was followed by a similar effect , a few years after this , in the city of Rome . The expectation that the Roman capital would be destroyed was universally known to be entertained by the Christians . Nero , to gratify his hatred towards them , set
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fire to the city , and imputed the flagitious act to the followers of Christ . The imputation seemed very probable , because no persons appeared so likel y to burn the city as the Christians , who wished and foretold its conflagration . From the incident recorded bv
Josephus , we learn that the Jews at Antioch were violently divided among themseives . A similar division and tumult prevailed in every city where Christ was preached . Antiochus , the
Governor of the Jews , apostatized from his own religion , and , calling upon the Antiocheans to persecute his countrymen , he accuses them , and , what is more atrocious , accuses his own honourable and innocent father with a
design of burning the city ; thus illustrating the declaration of Jesus , that he came to divide the son against the father , and the father against the son . I set out with saying , that Josephus speaks of the Christians as Jews , and of Christianity as the Jewish worship ; and have I not proved this to be a fact ? Is it not made out as clear and certain
as that the sun is in the meridian at noon-day ? But let us hear Dr . Smith : " It is a part of Dr . Jones ' s theory , that under the appellation of Jews and Judaism , which Philo and Josephus represent as embraced by an immense multitude of converts from
Heathenism , those writers intended to signify Christians and Christianity . If this were admitted , it would surely be a kind of conduct very different from that of the New-Testament disciples of Jesus : they were not ashamed or afraid to own that worthy name by
which they were called . " Pt . I . p . 450 . I am far from thinking that Y > r . Smith is capable of wilfully misleading his readers . This unfortunate argument , therefore , mu 3 t be founded on a total inattention to the fact . From the
New Testament , it appears beyond controversy , that all the Jewish converts considered Christianity and Judaism as the self-same religion ; the former being Judaism spiritualized and perfected by Christ . It is equally Christians
certain , that the name " was given the disciples by their enemies as a term of reproach , and that for this reason the apostles and the converts made by them declined the use of it : nor does it occur in the Christian Scriptures except in two or three places as the subject of discourse .
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354 Philo and Josephus proved to be Christian Writers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1821, page 354, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2501/page/30/
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