hey should not be
credited when they wrote of affairs they were little
acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of the
apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their
companions, asserting that what they had written themselves,
was written according to these persons to whom they ascribed
it."[460:3]

Again he says:

"Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the
speeches of our Lord, which, though put forth under his name,
agree not with his faith; especially since--_as already it has
been often proved_--these things were not written by Christ,
nor his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by
I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with
themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions
merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the
apostles of the Lord, or on those who were supposed to follow
the apostles, they mendaciously pretended that they had
written their lies and conceits according to them."[460:4]

What had been said to have been done in _India_, was said by these
"half-Jews" to have been done in _Palestine_; the change of names and
places, with the mixing up of various sketches of the Egyptian, Persian,
Phenician, Greek and Roman mythology, was all that was necessary. They
had an abundance of material, and with it they built. The foundation
upon which they built was undoubtedly the "_Scriptures_," or Diegesis,
of the Essenes in Alexandria in Egypt, which fact led Eusebius, the
ecclesiastical historian--"without whom," says Tillemont, "we should
scarce have had any knowledge of the history of the first ages of
Christianity, or of the authors who wrote in that time"--to say that the
sacred writings used by this sect were none other than "_Our Gospels_."

We offer below a few of the many proofs showing the Gospels to have
been written a long time after the events narrated are said to have
occurred, and by persons unacquainted with the country of which they
wrote.

"He (Jesus) came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the
coasts of Decapolis," is an assertion made by the Mark narrator (vii.
31), when there were no coasts of Decapolis, nor was the name so much as
known before the reign of the emperor Nero.

Again, "He (Jesus) departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of
Judea, beyond Jordan," is an assertion made by the Matthew narra