Jesus; the anger of Herod; the flight into Egypt; and the massacre of the innocents? Either the relation of Luke is defective, or Matthew wished to deceive his readers with improbable tales. In whatever way we consider the matter, the Holy Spirit, who inspired these apostles, will be found to have committed a mistake.

There is another fact on which our two evangelists do not better agree. Matthew, as we have seen, makes the Magi come, guided by a star, to Bethlehem, from the extremity of the East, to adore the child Jesus, and offer him presents. Luke, less taken with the marvellous, makes this child adored by simple shepherds, who watched their flocks during night, and to whom an angel announced the great event of the birth of the Saviour of Israel. The latter evangelist speaks neither of the appearance of the star, of the coming of the Magi, por of the cruelty of Herod-circumstances, however, which ought to have been recorded by Luke, who informs us that he was so exactly informed of every thing concerning Jesus.

The parents of Jesus, either after their return from Egypt, or after his presentation in the temple, went to reside at Nazareth. Matthew, as usual, perceives in this the accomplishment of the prediction, he shall be called a Nazarene; but unfortunately for his purpose, this prophecy is not to be found in the Bible, nor can it be imagined by whom it was uttered. It is however certain, that Nazarene among the Jews signified a vagabond, a person excluded from the rest of the world; that Nazareth was a pitiful town, inhabited by beings so wretched that their poverty had become proverbial; and that beggars, vagrants, and people whom nobody would own, were called Nazarenes.

The first Christians were so styled. We find them also called Ebionites, derived from a Hebrew word which signifies a mendicant, a wretch, and a pauper. St. Francis and St. Dominic, who, in the 13th century, proposed to revive primitive Christianity, founded orders of mendicant monks,

destined to live solely on alms, to be true Nazarenes, and to levy contributions on the community, which these vagabonds have never ceased to oppress. Salmeron, in order to encourage these mendicant monks, has maintained that Jesus himself was a beggar, The name Nazarene was given to the apostles and Jews, who were first converted. The other Jews regarded them as heretics and excommunicated persons; and, according to Jerome, anathematised them in all their synagogues under the name of Nazarenes. The Jews even at present give the name of Nazarenes (Nozerim) to the Christians whom the Arabs and Persians call Nazari. The first converts of Jesus and his apostles, were only some reformed Jews: they preserved circumcision and other usages appointed by the law of Moses. In this they followed the example of Jesus, who being circumcised, and a Jew during his whole life, had often taught, that it was necessary to respect and observe the law. It is, therefore, surprising to see them afterwards treated as heretics. But we shall (in chap. 17) see the true cause of this change. It was owing to Paul, whose party prevailed over Peter's, the other apostles', and the Nazarenes or Judaising Christians. Paul corrected and reformed the system of Jesus, who had preached only a Judaism reformed. The apostle of the Gentiles succeeded in making his master, and his old comrades, be regarded as heretics, or bad Christians. Thus it is that theologists take the liberty of rectifying the religion of the Saviour they adore!

We have seen, in the course of this chapter, how little harmony exists between the two evangelists respecting the circumstances attending the birth of Jesus. Let us now examine what could have been the views of these two writers in relating these facts so differently. It is impossible that Jesus, as Luke relates, could constantly reside at Nazareth till he was twelve years of age if it be true that he was carried soon after his birth into Egypt, where Matthew makes him remain until the death of Herod. Even in the time that

Jesus lived, he was upbraided with his stay in Egypt. His enemies asserted that he there learned magic, to which they attributed the wonders, or cunning tricks, they saw him perform. Luke is silent as to the journey to Egypt, which made his hero suspected. He fixes him, therefore, at Nazareth, and makes him go every year with his parents to Jerusalem. But the precaution of that evangelist seems to have been useless. Matthew, who wrote before him, had established the journey and abode of Jesus in Egypt. pute with Celsus, does not deny it. Christian doctors did not doubt that Jesus had been in that country, notwithstanding the silence of Luke. Let us endeavor then to develope the motives of these two writers.

Origen, in his disHence we see, that the

The Jews were agreed in the expectation of a messiah ; but as the different orders of the state had their prophets, they also possessed different signs by which they were to know the deliverer. The great, the rich, and well informed persons, did not surely expect that the deliverer of Israel would be born in a stable, and spring from the dregs of the people. They, undoubtedly, anticipated their deliverance by a prince, a warrior, a man of power, able to make himself respected by the nations inimical to Judea, and to break in pieces their chains. The poor, on the contrary, who, as well as the great and the rich, have their portion of self-love, thought they might flatter themselves that the messiah would be born in their class. Their nation and their neighbors presented many examples of great men sprung from the bosom of poverty; and the oracles with which this nation was fed, were of such a nature that every family believed itself entitled to aspire to the honor of giving birth to a messiah; though the most general opinion was, that he was to come of the race of David. Shepherds, and people of the lowest order might readily believe that a wo-. man, delivered in a stable at Bethlehem, had brought Jesus into the world. It may likewise be presumed that Mary, with a view to render herself interesting, said to

those who visited her that she was descended from the blood of kings; a pretension well adapted to excite the commiseration and wonderment of the people. This secret, and the confused remembrance of some prophecies about Bethlehem, the native country of David, were sufficient to operate on the imaginations of these silly people, little scrupulous about proofs of what was told them.

Matthew, who reckoned on the credulity of his readers, had his head full of prophecies and popular notions. To fill up a blank of thirty years in his history of Jesus, he contrived to make him travel into Egypt, without foreseeing the objections that might be made on account of the neglect of the holy family to fulfil the ordinances of the law; such as the circumcision of the child, his presentation in the temple, the purification of his mother, and the celebration of the passover; ceremonies which only. could be performed at Jerusalem. Perhaps it is to justify the journey to Egypt, and those negligences, that Matthew introduces the prophecy of Hosea relative to the return from that place. It seems also to countenance the duration of Jesus's abode there that he relates the wrath of Herod, and the fable of the massacre of the innocents, which he makes that prince order, though his crimes had, in other respects, rendered him sufficiently odious to the Jews as well as to strangers. Mankind in general are disposed to believe every thing of a man who has become faous by his wickedness.

Luke, to elude the reproaches which might be thrown on Jesus on account of his residence and journey in Egypt, has not mentioned it at all; but his silence does not destroy its reality. It was necessary to free Jesus from the suspicion of magic, but he has not cleared him of accusations brought against his birth, which are quite as weighty.

Celsus, a celebrated physician, who lived in the second century of Christianity, and who had carefully collected all which had been published against Jesus, asserts that he was

the fruit of an illicit intercourse. Origen, in his works against Celsus, has preserved this accusation, but he has not transmitted the proofs on which it was founded. The incredulous, however, have endeavoured to supply them, and found the opinion of Celsus on what follows:

First. From the testimony of Matthew himself, it is most certain that Joseph was very much dissatisfied with the pregnancy of his wife, in which he had no part. He formed the design of quitting her secretly; a resolution from which he was diverted by an angel, or dream, or perhaps reflection, which always passes among Jews for the effect of an inspiration from on high. It appears, however, that this design of Joseph had transpired, and was afterwards turned into a matter of reproach against Jesus. But Luke, more prudent than Matthew, has not ventured to mention either the ill humor of Joseph, or the good-natured conduct he followed. Neither do we find, though he formed this reso¬ lution as to Mary, that this easy man again appeared on the stage from the time Jesus entered on it. We are no where informed of his death, and it is obvious that he never afterwards beheld his putative son with an eye of kindness.— When, at thirty years of age, Jesus and his mother went to the wedding at Cana, there is no mention of Joseph. If we admit with Luke, the history of Jesus's dispute with the doctors in the temple of Jerusalem, we shall find a new proof of the indifference which subsisted between the pretended father and supposed son: they met at the end of three days, and deigned not to interchange a word. Epiphanius (lib. i. 10.) assures us that Joseph was very old at the time of his marriage with the virgin, and adds that he was a widower and father of six children by his first wife. According to the proto-gospel, the good man had much difficulty in prevailing on himself to espouse Mary, whose age intimidated him; but the high-priest, finding that Joseph was the man most conformable to his own views, succeeded in removing his scruples.