t ten, twenty, and thirty. "Some
of" those raised cannot be less than two out of the three; we will say
the two youngest. Then they were alive at the respectable ages of from
95-116, and from 105-126. The first may be taken as just within the
limits of possibility; the second as beyond them; but Quadratus talks in
a wholesale fashion, which quite destroys his credibility, and we can
lay but little stress on the carefulness or trustworthiness of a
historian who speaks in such reckless words. Added to this, we find no
trace of this passage until Eusebius writes it in the fourth century,
and it is well known that Eusebius was not too particular in his
quotations, thinking that his duty was only to make out the best case he
could. He frankly says: "We are totally unable to find even the bare
vestiges of those who may have travelled the way before us; unless,
perhaps, what is only presented in the slight intimations, which some in
different ways have transmitted to us in certain partial narratives of
the times in which they lived.... _Whatsoever_, therefore, _we deem
likely to be advantageous to_ the proposed subject we shall endeavour to
reduce to a compact body" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. i., chap. i).
Accordingly, he produces a full Church History out of materials which
are only "slight intimations," and carefully draws out in detail a path
of which not "even the bare vestiges" are left. Little wonder that he
had to rely so much upon his imagination, when he had to build a church,
and had no straws for his bricks.

Paley brings Justin Martyr (born about A.D. 103, died about A.D. 167) as
his last authority--as after his time the story may be taken as
established--and says: "From Justin's works, which are still extant,
might be collected a tolerably complete account of Christ's life, in all
points agreeing with that which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken,
indeed, in a great measure, from those Scriptures, but still proving
that this account, and no other, was the account known and extant in
that age" ("Evidences," p. 77). If "no other" account was extant, Justin
must have largely drawn on his own imagination when he pretends to be
quoting. Jesus, according to Justin, is conceived "of the Word"
("Apol.," i. 33), not of the Holy Ghost, the third person, the Holy
Ghost being said to be identical with the Word; and he is thus conceived
by himself. He is born, not in Bethlehem in a stable, but in a "cave
near the village," becau