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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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pious sect , butt by their superior kitaw * ledg-e of the Scriptures , by greater purity of manners , and a more ardent zeal in the service of God . They constituted the sons of the prophets mentioned in the Book of Kings , of whom Elijah was one ; and here , even so late as the days of Josephus , the Pharisees and Sadducees finished their
education , and were qualified . to fill the highest offices in the church and in the state . At the head of this body was John the Baptist when our Lord appeared . By submitting to his baptism , Jesus became an Essene ; and
by the testimony which the Baptist bore to him , the Essenes became Christians , excepting a considerable portion of the higher order , who seceded , and , uniting with the Pharisees , formed the Gnostic school . It is well
known that the Essenes are not mentioned , nor alluded to , in the * New Testament , The reason is , that the writers of the Christian Scriptures were themselves of the number , and could not speak of the Essenes but under those names by which they speak of themselves . Josephus avail *
ed himself of these circumstances , and , in order to exclude the charge of being innovators and heretics brought against the followers of Jesus , he describes them as that body of people who from immemorial ages had been held in the highest veneration for their learning and probity .
6 . Josephus speaks of the Gnostics , the worst and most bitter enemies of the gospel , under the name of zealots . These men , uniting by means of their emissaries with the pagan priests and philosophers , were the chief agents in causing the corruption of Christianity
and the ruin of their country ; and Josephus holds them forth to the indignation of mankind , as the most depraved and wicked men that ever lived . It will be found an interesting fact , that the men thus described by the Jewish historian are the very same with those whose character is deline *
ated by Peter and Jude ; and that coincidence will prove the means of placing the genuineness of those Epistles beyond contradiction . 7- Josephus has , in the nineteenth hook of his Antiquities , given an account < of the death of James , the brother of our Lord ; and in that brief narrative he has contrived , with great
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skill , yet with great caution , to bring forward the principal men of Jerusalem as disapproving the cruel sentence passed upon him by Ananus , and bearing testimony % o the truth of the gospel .
8 . Soon sifter the resurrection of Jesus , the Gnostic imposture was taught in Rome . The authors were a Jew , guilty of every crime , and mentioned by Paul in Rom . ii ., and some Egyptian priests , with the famous Simon of Samaria . These pretended that Jesus was one of the
pagan gods miraculously conceived ; and they instigated Tiberius to propose his deification to the senate in order to place him in the Pantheon . Simon , at somewhat a later period , finding that there existed a statue in
honour of a Sabine divinity called Simo Sanca , pretended , from the similarity of his name , that he was that divinity . The senate , fronf malice towards Jesus , connived at the trick , and either erected a new statue to
Simon , or more exactly inscribed his name on the old . It was natural for the people of Rome to conclude that Jesus was himself a magician , similar in character to those who pretended to teach his religion in the capital . These circumstances induced
Josephus to take a decisive course . He takes Jesus from Judea , and Simon from Samaria , and places them together before the view of the Romans . On one hand , he bears testimony to the wisdom , the love of truth , and the works , which distinguished our blessed Lord : he fixes the time of
his appearance in opposition to the deceivers , who assigned an earlier period for his birth : he excludes from his real history the doctrines of his divinity and miraculous birth , and represents the men who endeavoured to impose these doctrines on the emperor and the Roman people , as villains to be held in execration . On the
other hand , he held forth Simon to public infamy , as a liar , an impostor , and a disturber of the public peace , though the senate , from hatred against the truth , had aflfected to raise him to divine honours . Such is the origin of the passage in Josephus respecting Christ which tilled all Europe with disputes for a hundred years . 9 * Our Lord predicted the fall of Jerusalem with a detail of particulars
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86 Dr . J . Jones e s further Proofs ofJteepius being 0 Christian Advocate .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 86, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/22/
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