ion by Nero. It is, however, scarcely pretended now-a-days, by
any scholar of note, that the passage is authentic. Sections 2 and 4
were manifestly written one after the other. "There were a great number
of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and
thus an end was put to this sedition. _About the same time another sad
calamity put the Jews into disorder_." The forged passage breaks the
continuity of the history. The oldest MSS. do not contain this section.
It is first quoted by Eusebius, who probably himself forged it; and its
authenticity is given up by Lardner, Gibbon, Bishop Warburton, and many
others. Lardner well summarises the arguments against its
authenticity:--

"I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus,
which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before
Eusebius.

"Nor do I recollect that Josephus has any where mentioned the name or
word _Christ_, in any of his works; except the testimony above
mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord's brother.

"It interrupts the narrative.

"The language is quite Christian.

"It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and
could not have omitted quoting it, had it been then in the text.

"It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning
Josephus.

"Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) expressly
states that historian (Josephus) being a Jew, has not taken the least
notice of Christ.

"Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens
Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from Christian authors, nor
Origen against Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony.

"But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first book of that work,
Origen openly affirms, that Josephus, who had mentioned John the
Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ" (Answer to Dr. Chandler, as quoted
in Taylor's "Diegesis," pp. 368, 369. Ed. 1844).

Keim thinks that the remarks of Origen caused the forgery; after
criticising the passage he winds up: "For all these reasons, the passage
cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the Catholic
Church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the Fourth
Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before Eusebius,
and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may have given
cause for it" ("Jesus of Nazara," p. 25, English edition, 1873).

"Those who a