lation, the misfortune is, that it acknowledges not a particle of the circumstance on which our author's deduction is built! But we may proceed even farther, and as our author has undertaken to trace the contested chapters to their origin, we will venture to point out the source of the spurious testimonies, by which their credit is subverted. With respect to the testimony adduced from Josephus, it is as certain that it was wanting in the copy of Origen, as that it was extant in that of Eusebius *. It is thus obvious that a manuscript in which it was inserted must have made its way into the library of Cesarea, in the period which intervenes between the times when they respectively lived. And thus, it is not improbable, that a copy directly passed from the Ebionites into the possession of Pamphilus, who was a great benefactor to the Cesarean library, and a curious collector of books †. And as it cannot be doubted that this tes- · timony was wanting to render Josephus a favourite with those heretics, who must have been strongly prejudiced in favour of his works; it is unquestionable that some of their sophisticated books were deposited in that library previously to Eusebius's age ‡. Let the reader weigh these considerations, together with the internal and external evidence produced against the contested passage; let him then make his choice between the following probabilities; whether it was suppressed in the copy possessed by Origen, or inserted in that which was consulted by Eusebius? The answer to this question decides the difficulty before us. With respect to the learned Epistle which has been foisted into St. Jerome, we must probably consult the annals of our monastic antiquities, in order to obtain an attested certificate of its birth. Robert Grossetest, Bishop of Lincoln, no unlearned clerk for the age in which he lived, seems to have been won derfully tickled with the ambition of being thought a translator from the Greek; though rather unfortunate in his choice of a subject. For the purpose of displaying his rare talent at the work, he made choice of the Apocryphal Scriptures, the hidden treasures of which, as locked up in a tongue unknown to the translator, were opened to him by a native Greek, who seems Ib. p. 933. c." et juxta Mathiam, et alia plura legimus, ne quid ignorare videremur propter eos qui se putant aliquid scire, si ista cognoverint. Sed in his omnibus nihil aliud probamus nisi quod ecclesia, id est, quatuor tantum evangelia recipienda." I. * Comp. Orig. ubi. supr. p. 349. n. †. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Lib. cap. xi. p. 34. 1.36. + S. Hier. Cat. Script. Eccl. in Mat. Tom. I. p. 120. + Id. ibid. to have been retained in his service for this purpose. And we accordingly possess *, at this day, the "Testament of the XII Patriarchs" done into Latin by his reverence, and ushered into the world with a suitable preface, proclaiming the divine autho rity of the original +. That the Gospels of Mary and the Infancy, together with the Introductory Epistles, have proceeded from the same source, we do not take upon us to affirm, We however retain our suspicions of the fact, and beg leave to suggest, in justification of what we suspect, that they are of the same spurious race, speak the same barbarous language, and were suited to the gross credulity of the same period. But we retain no doubt of the cause which procured St. Jerome the honor of being reputed their father: and there is nothing further in the matter at issue, which is worth contesting. A professing to come from the Hebrew, they required his sanc tion to authenticate their contents, and account for their appearance in Latin; no other member of the Western Church having been versed in the Hebrew: his name was accordingly borrowed, and an epistle framed, to answer the exigency of the translator. On the testimony of Origen a very few words will suffice, It is one of these blunders which an unskilful or ignorant translator is in all ages liable to make, who not certain of the sense of his author, expresses the best meaning which he can extract from his words in a long unmeaning periphrasis. Let us now briefly run over the muster-roll of witnesɛes opposed to the concurring testimony of the whole Catholic Church, headed by the Holy Evangelists. Josephus and Philo, two masked Jews, in the character of primitive Christians: Josippon Ben Gorion, and the author of "Toldoth Jesu," two barefaced and blasphemous Hebrews, who have de, rided our holy religion: two spurious Gospels, of Mary and the Infancy, one of which is confessedly a burlesque on the evangelical history: three spurious passages in St. Jerome, Josephus, and Origen, which require much twisting and torturing to bring them to bear upon the matter at issue: the Ebionites, a set of heretics, who were so grossly ignorant of the religion which they professed, that they conceived themselves grafted into Christianity, by the knife that circumcised them: and the Therapeutæ, or contemplative Essenes, a sect of fanatical Jews, distinguished by some practices deemed purifications, the *Test. xii. Patriarch. preserved in the British Museum, Kings MSS. 4. D. vii. 4. 5. + Ibidem. decency decency of which would require the pen of Swift to do them justice. Now were we not disgusted with the impudence displayed in this catalogue of authorities, the absurdity of the crazy system raised on such a foundation, would surely have its full ef fect on our risible faculties. In order to maintain the sapient hypothesis, supported by these vouchers, the great body of professed Christians, from Justin to Photius, are represented as combined in a plot, for the purpose of concealing those important facts which our profound researcher has recovered from the obscurity in which they have lurked for centuries. Justin Martyr and St. Irenæus are convicted of prevarication; Origen and St. Epiphanius of calumny; and the whole body of martyrs and confessors, are represented as united in carrying on the farce of Christianity, while they deemed it an imposture. We are greatly apprehensive the patience of our readers is already more than exhausted, by the ideotic absurdities which compose the major part of our exposure. The first part, however, of the work before us presents little more which requires to be exposed or refuted. Some stale objections to the internal evidence of St. Luke's introductory chapters, which have been a thousand times answered, are again restated*; and some *The author confounding the enrolment, which St. Luke ii. 1. declares was made at the time of the nativity; with the assessment which Josephus declares was made two years after the death of Herod; thence convicts the Evangelists of a contradiction, and infers that our Lord was born not before Herod's death, but ten years after that event happened, p. 141. sqq. The following distinctions will enable any person to solve the difficulties in which these chronological points are embarrassed by our author. Two assessments were made of Judæa, one of which happened under Herod, according to Josephus; Lard. Cred. of Gosp. Hist. Vol. I: p. 279. The first constitutes the census which Augustus took of his subjects and allies, and must have happened at the time of our Saviour's birth: Prid. Connex. P. II. p. 650. 652. ed. 1718. The second forms the taxation of Judea, which was carried into effect by Quirinus, on the banishment of Archelaus, when Judea was reduced into a Roman province; Pagi Appar. Chron. ad Annal. Baron. n. cxxvii. p. 31. That Josephus alludes to the latter in the passage cited by our author is no where disputed. That St. Luke alludes to the former is equally incontrovertible. (1) He expressly declares it to be "the first enrolment;" arayeaon rewrn: vid. Heb. xii. 23. conf. Raphel. Observ. in N. T. Tom. II. p. 723. Elsn. Observ. Sacr. p. 183. (2) He represents it as extending, not merely to Judæa, but to "the whole Roman Empire,” „ãσas A a VOL. IV. OCTOBER, 1815, τὴν some perfectly original objections suggested to the introductory chapters of St. Matthew: the latter alone are deserving of particular notice. Our author lighting on the terms Magian and star, gets. the notion of astrology into his wise head, and from the delusiveness of that art, the depravity of astrologers, and the condemination passed on them by Moses, takes occasion to rail against St. Matthew's account of the adoration of the wise men, as an absurd and superstitious fiction (p. 119. sqq.). The readers of Dr. Bentley will not easily forget the blunder of Anthony Collins, who discovered that the Roman augurs, and Etruscan soothsayers were identical; but what a fool was he when compared to our researcher, who has not only found out that the Magian priests were identical with the Chaldean astrologers, but has blundered upon the discovery fifteen cen turies after it has been exposed, as a gross error by Origen *, The term Magian is not unknown to the Persees, a religious sect, which prevails at Surat, in the Deccan, in India; Magoe signifying a priest, in the Pehlvit; a language in which many of the sacred books of that antient sect are written. The re ligious opinions of this sect, which originally migrated from Persia, are immediately derived from Zoroaster; but by the ge neral consent of the orientalists, they are ultimately referred to the Patriarch Abraham §. When it is known that their sacred books contain prophecies relative to the advent of a great prophet, who was to be born of a Virgin; it will not be thought extraordinary that they should be deemed worthy of notice in the Evangelical history; it will not be conceived improbable that they are the identical Magi to whom St. Matthew refers in his Gospel. volné, as this phrase properly signifies: vid. Raphel. ib: p. 723. Elsn. ib. p. 173. (3) He accordingly marks the event, not by the reign of Herod, whose kingdom was not then taxed, as in alliance with the Romans; but by the Presidency of Quiri nus, by whom, as Augustus's officer, all the subjects and allies of the Emperor, were enrolled as well in Judæa as Syria; vid. Pag. ubi supr. The reader who wishes for edification may now turn to our author; who extracts from these several circumstances, his proofs, that Judæa was not assessed under Herod, Orig. Contr. Cels. Lib. I. cap. lviii. p. 373. b. d. +Voy. Anquet. du Perron, Zendavest. Tom, II. p. 516. Vo cab. au mot, Magoe. conf. Diog. Laert. in Procem, Tom. I. p. 6 ed. 1692. Anquet, du Perr. ibid. Tom. I. P. II. p. 1. sqq. Even Even this brief observation had been a sufficient answer to the futile objections of our author. We cannot however refrain from adverting to the ingenious and beautiful illustration which the incidents, recorded by the Evangelist, Matt. ii. 1. 2. 9. have received from Dr. Henley; who explains the appearance of the star, and its directing the wise-men, by the heliacal rising of Sirius or Seth, and its culminating over Judea this phenomenon having been pointed out, by the prophecy of Balaam, which foretold the coming of the Messiah. Num. xxiv. 17. Though we have no warrant from the authority through which this curious exposition has reached us, for ascribing more than this to its learned author; we cannot for a moment doubt, that he has connected the periods of sacred history thus taken to illustrate each other, by the Sothiacal period, or Great Canicular year of 1460 years; which arises from the retrocession of the first day of the year, in consequence of the neglect of the intercalation. It is a most extraordinary fact, that this period, which the Egyptians reckoned from the heliacal rising of Sirius on the first day of their first month Thoth, is to this hour observed by the Magians or Persees*; and that when added to the year of the world 2490, in which it appears the prophecy of Balaam was delivered, about two years previous to the death of Moses, it brings us down to the year 3950, the vulgar Dionysian ærá in which Christ was born t. We believe there exists a possibility of carrying this calculation to a greater nicety; if not by the assistance of a learned person who has undertaken to fix the commencement of the Sothiacal year from Censorinus, yet by the aid of the Persees, who religiously adhere to their antient methods of calculation S. Such is the extraordinary confirmation of the truth of the Evangelist's narrative, in which our author's profound objection terminates, which is deduced from the phrase, Matt. ii., 2. εἴδομεν γὰρ αὐτό τὸν ἀγέρα ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ : from which he has contrived to demonstrate, by deciding that the Magians must have come out of the West, that his knowledge of Greek is at least equal to his skill in astronomy. Whereas this phrase, as Dr. Henley's exposition presupposes, and the context of the Evangelist evinces, literally signifies "we have seen his star in its rising :” εἴδομεν ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, ver. 2. being opposed to ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν παρεγένοντο, ver. 1. and explained by τὸν χρόνον τῶ * Id. ibid. cap. xv. p. 190. conf. infr. n. §. + Conf. Helvic. Chronolog. ad Ann. Mund. 2490. 3950. Bianchini, Istor. Univ. cap. v. p. 147. ed. Rom. 1697. Anquet du Perr. Ibid. Tom. I. P. I. p. 327. P. II. p. xxxiii A a 2 φαινομένω |