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556 Review . —Ben David's Reply to Two Deisiical Works *
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difficulty ; that be speaks , in counmon , with the sacred writers , of the Logos , the son and Image of God ; that he describes a society of apostles or missionaries , under the name of Therapeutce , engaged in the reformation of the world ; that persecution was raised
In Egypt against these men > and that they were sold as slaves ; that their character , tried and proved by their sufferings , could be no other than that of the primitive Christians ; and that , according to Philo , they prevailed throughout the glpbe , sharing witli Greeks and Barbarians their own
consummate blessings . The author maintains that Josephus was a Christian because he Represents the law as consisting of moral principles ; because under the denomination of Jews he speaks of the
apostles , and describes their travels and labours ; because he speaks of a future and better life , which Dr . Jones pronounces ( we think unwarrantably ) to have been wholly unknown to the Jews before Christ ; because he relates in the tone of an advocate the
death of James , the brother of Christ ; and because his language explains the history of the apostles and primitive Christians , only hinted at by Luke in the Acts , at Antiocli . The silence of both Josephus and Philo as to our Lord ' s miracles and those of
his apostles , is explained by the prevalence of the belief in demons and consequently in prodigies , and the improper use which the Heathens , to whom Josephus addressed his writings , made of the Christian miracles ; and the reserve of these supposed
Christian apologists is pertinently compared with the caution recently observed by the Indian Christian Reformer , Rammohun Roy , who , judging his countrymen disqualified by their erroneous notions of God and the
laws of nature , for drawing the proper inference from the miracles of Christ , compiled for their use and in order to their conversion , a work , which , passing by miracles , points out the Precepts of Jesus as the Guide to Peace and Happiness .
Dr . Jones vindicates of course the genuineness of the disputed passage in Josephus relating to Christ , and as this is a very important subject we shall quote the passage , with our author ' s remarks upon it : such read-
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ers as wish to see the pro and con in this * dispute may refer to Lardner and to the appendix to Kippis ' s Life of him prefixed to the octavo edition of his Works .
< The same prejudice at Rome and in other places induced Josephus to give an account of ' Christy and" to bear testimony to his virtue , his wisdom and his works * * About this time existed Jesus , a wise man , if , indeed , he might be called a man : for he was the author of
wonderful works , and the teacher of such men as receive the truth with delight . He attached to himself many of the Jews and also many of the Greeks . This was the Christ : and though at the instigation of our leading men Pilate ' con * demned him to the cross , yet such a » loved him at first did not cease to love
him ; for he appeared to them after three days again alire , the divine prophets having foretold this and innumerable other marvellous things concerning him : and ther people who from him call themselves Christians have not fallen away / A . J . Lib . xviii . C . 3 , 3 .
" During a whole century this famous passage has been the subject of much dispute in every country throughout Christendom , till at length those , who agree in nothing else , came to agree in this , that the paragraph is the forgery of some
Christian in the third century : nor , perhaps , is there a man of any estimation in Europe who thinks it the production of Josephus . The arguments that led to this conclusion are principally the two following :
" This is the work of a Christian , which Josephus was not . ' The assumption is erroneous : Josephus was a believer in Christ , and his immortal works bear testimony to his being the historian and apologist of the Gospel . In his book against Apion he relates that a pure system of worship and morals , issuing from
Judea , had in his days pervaded the world ; that there was scarcely a family among Greeks or Barbarians into which this system had not forced its way ; that those who received it equalled , if not excelled , in zeal and attachment to it , the very people who taught it ; that the foundation of it was a future state
foretold by Moses and afterwards confirmed by a mighty proof given by God himself ; and , finally , that this doctrine supposed not the immortality of the human soul , but the renewal of being to mankind after
a revolution of ages . But the author does not say what was the nature 6 £ the strong proof which God gave of a future state , but only that k was foretold by Moses . In the above paragraph , however , he supplies this omission , and tells
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1824, page 556, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2528/page/44/
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