could have derived no benefit from the offices of a Greek church.

Sulpitius says, that by this severity to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Adrian thought to destroy the christian faith. But to this you oppose the authority of Orosius, (calling it, however, p. 43, but a feather in the scale,) that when the Jews were excluded, the christians were allowed to remain. If your liberty of helping out a broken story may be exercised here, I should say that, in the idea even of this writer, the Greek christians might remain, but the Jewish not. If any regard is to be paid to Eusebius, the oldest historian, or to Sulpitius, who is much more circumstantial than Orosius, and on that account better entitled to credit, no Jews, christians or others, were allowed to remain in the place.

To make your account the more probable, you say, p. 44, "It is a notorious fact that Adrian was not unfavourable to the christians, and that the church in his reign obtained a respite from persecution." But how far did this favour to christians extend? You say,

"the fury of their persecutors was restrained by the imperial rescripts to the provincial governors, who were directed not to proceed against the christians, except by way of regular trial, upon the allegation of some certain crime, and, when nothing more was alleged than the bare name of christianity, to punish the informer as a sycophant." That is, as the history of those times enables us to interpret it, they were not to be punished as christians till they were proved to be so, which was the case in the reign of Trajan; but does not amount to a toleration of the Jews at Jerusalem, on condition of their embracing christianity.

Your favourite Mosheim says (Hist. vol. i. p. 128.) that what was done by Adrian (in whose reign the persecution of christians had raged with peculiar violence) was a solemn renewal of the law of Trajan. In the reign of Antoninus Pius, but not before, it was ordered, that a man being proved to be a christian should not be deemed sufficient for his condemnation, unless he was also proved to have been guilty of some crime against the state. There is, therefore, little reason to think that Adrian was so well disposed towards christianity, as to permit the rebellious Jews to remain in Jerusalem on condition of their embracing it.

I am, &c.

LETTER III.

Of the Testimony of Epiphanius to the Existence of a Church of Orthodox Jewish Christians at Jerusalem after the Time of Adrian.

REV. SIR,

AFTER the preliminary observations contained in the preceding letter, I shall now consider the testimony that you have produced from Epiphanius.

You say, p. 46, that "the fact (viz. of the return of the Jews from Pella to Jerusalem after the wars of Adrian) of which Dr. Priestley has done me the honour to make me the inventor, is asserted by Epiphanius.The confidence," you add," with which he mentions this as a fact forged by me, is only one instance out of

a great number of his own shameless intrepidity in assertion."

If, Sir, you wish to reclaim a person, you should never deprive him of all character, but should leave him a little, a small root, from which more may afterwards spring. Having now no character to lose, being capable of asserting any thing, true or false, that is likely to answer my purpose, I wili, "with the most shame. less intrepidity," assert that Epiphanius mentions no such fact as you so very confidently suppose him to have done.

After carefully examining the passage which you have produced, I do maintain that in it he makes no mention whatever of any return of christian Jews from Pella, besides that which took place after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and not at all of any return after the destruction by Adrian. This is most evident from attending to the very next sentence which follows the words that you have quoted. The whole passage is as follows:

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After mentioning Aquila, as appointed by Adrian the inspector of his works at Ælia, Epiphanius gives the following history of him :-" Aquila, living at Jerusalem, and seeing the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith, and working great miracles, especially of healing, (for they had returned from the city of Pella to Jerusalem, and taught there. For when the city was about to be taken by the Romans, all the disciples had been forewarned by an angel to leave the city, which was devoted to destruction. These, leaving it, went and dwelt in the above-mentioned Pella, beyond Jordan, one of those that were called Decapolis; but, returning after the desolation of

Jerusalem, as I have said, worked miracles.) Aquila therefore, being convinced, became a christian, and, after some time, requesting the seal of christianity [viz. baptism], obtained it*."

What can be more evident, than that the return of the Jewish christians from Pella, mentioned in this passage by Epiphanius, is that return which followed the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus? For he speaks of their having left that city, antecedent to this return to it, in consequence of being warned by an angel so to do; which was said to be the case before the destruction by Titus, but never before that by Adrian; and it was by the disciples of those who then returned that Aquila was converted to christianity; which was probably a considerable time before the destruction of the Jews by Adrian.

After the imperfect quotation of the passage of which I have given the entire translation, you have the assurance to add, "Whether this return of the christians of Jerusalem from Pella took place in the interval between the end of Titus's war and the commencement of Adrian's, or after the end of Adrian's, is a matter of no importance. It is sufficient for my pur

* Ο τοινυν Ακύλας, διαγων εν τη Ιερουσαλημ, και δρων τους μας θητας των μαθητων των αποστολων ανθούντας τη πιστεί, και σημεία μεγαλα εργαζόμενους, ιασεων και αλλων θαυμάτων. ησαν γαρ ὑποστρέψαντες από Πελλης της πόλεως εις Ιερουσαλημ, και διδάσκοντες, ἡνικα γαρ ημελλεν ἡ πόλις άλισκεσθαι ύπο των Ρωμαίων, προεχρησ ματίσθησαν ὑπὸ αγγελου, παντες οἱ μαθηται μεταστήναι από της πόλεως μελλούσης άρδην απολλυσθαι· οἱ τινες και μετανασται γενόμενοι, ᾤκησαν εν Πελλη τη προγεγραμμένη πόλει, πέραν του Ιορ δάνου, ήτις εκ Δεκαπόλεως λέγεται είναι. μετα δε την ερήμωσιν Ιερουσαλημ αποστρέψαντες, ὡς ἔφην, σημεία μεγαλα επετέλουν. Ο συν Ακύλας κατανύγεις την διάνοιαν, τῷ χριστιανισμό επίστευσεν. αιτήσας δε μετα χρόνον την εν Χριστῳ σφραγίδα, εκόμισατο. De Mensuris et Ponderibus, Epiphanii Opera, vol. ii. p. 171. Paris. 1622.

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pose that these returned christians were residing at Jerusalem, or more properly at Ælia, at the same time that Aquila was residing there as overseer of the emperor's works. Let not the public be abused by any cavils which ignorance or fraud may raise about the chronology of the return."

But certainly it must be of consequence to know, whether Aquila was residing at Jerusalem after the destruction of that city by Adrian; and this is more than Epiphanius says, or is at all probable in itself. For the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Adrian, in which Aquila was employed by him, was undertaken in the 18th year of his reign, a year before the revolt of the Jews; and it was not till the 18th of Adrian that they were entirely subdued.

According to Epiphanius, Aquila, after his conversion to christianity by the descendants of the Jewish christians who were returned from Pella, (retaining his former practices,) was excommunicated by them. After this he became a Jew, and, applying himself to the study of the scriptures, made a translation of them into Greek. This translation Cave supposes to have been made A. D. 128 or 129, the 11th or 12th of Adrian. His conversion to christianity, therefore, was probably prior to the reign of Adrian: and yet that is the only circumstance that proves any intercourse he ever had with Jewish christians returned from Pella. On which side then is the ignorance, I say nothing of the fraud, of which you suspect me in this business? You must, Sir, dig deeper than you have yet done, for the foundation of this favourite church. 1 am, &c.