ld do, but that all
peoples and languages should have an interest in his appearance.

Now, on the one hand, suppose this--I mean, suppose the Roman whisper to
be an authorized rumour utterly without root; in that case you would
have a clear intervention of Heaven. But, on the other hand, suppose,
which is to me the more probable idea, that it was not without a root;
that in fact it was the Judaean conception of a Messiah, translated into
Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand,
or with which the world could sympathize, viz., that _rerum
potiretur_. (The plural here indicates only the awful nature, its
indeterminateness.)

I have, in fact, little doubt that it _was_ a Romanized appropriation or
translation of the Judaean Messiah. One thing only I must warn you
against. You will naturally say: 'Since two writers among the very few
surviving have both refuted this prophecy, and Josephus besides, this
implies that many thousands did so. For if out of a bundle of newspapers
two only had survived quite disconnected, both talking of the same man,
we should argue a great popularity for that man.' And you will say: 'All
these Roman people, did they interpret?' You know already--by Vespasian.
Now whilst, on the one hand, I am far from believing that chance only
was the parent of the ancient [Greek: eustochia], their felicitous
guessing (for it was a higher science), yet, in this new matter, what
coincidence of Pagan prophecy, as doubtless a horrid mistrust in the
oracles, etc., made them 'sagacious from a fear' of the coming peril,
and, as often happens in Jewish prophecies--God when He puts forth His
hand the purposes attained roll one under the other sometimes three deep
even to our eyes.

_XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS._

Life, naturally the antagonism of Death, must have reacted upon Life
according to its own development. Christianity having so awfully
affected the [Greek: to] + of Death, this + must have reacted on Life.
Hence, therefore, a phenomenon existing broadly to the human sensibility
in these ages which for the Pagans had no existence whatever. If to a
modern spectator a very splendid specimen of animal power, suppose a
horse of three or four years old in the fulness of his energies, that
saith _ha_ to the trumpets and is unable to stand _loco_ if he hears any
exciting music, be brought for exhibition--not one of the spectators,
however dull, but