ich depend so large a
portion of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah--the marvellous
statement they contain is not referred to in any subsequent portion of
the two Gospels, and is tacitly but positively negatived by several
passages--it is never mentioned in the Acts or in the Epistles, and was
evidently unknown to all the Apostles--and, finally, the tone of the
narrative, especially in Luke, is poetical and legendary, and bears a
marked similarity to the stories contained in the Apocryphal Gospels."
(W. R. Greg: The Creed of Christendom, p. 229.)

[133:2] Luke, ii. 27.

[133:3] Luke, ii. 41-48.

[133:4] Matt. xiii. 55.

[133:5] Luke, iv. 22. John, i. 46; vi. 42. Luke, iii. 23.

[133:6] Luke, ii. 50.

[133:7] Matt. xiii. 57. Mark, vi. 4.

[133:8] Matt. xii. 48-50. Mark, iii. 33-35.

[133:9] Mark, iii. 21.

[133:10] Dr. Hooykaas.

[133:11] Acts, i. 14.

[133:12] Acts, xxi. 18. Gal. ii. 19-21.

[134:1] See The Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 57.

[134:2] Eusebius: Eccl. Hist., lib. 3, ch. xxiv.

[134:3] Mr. George Reber has thoroughly investigated this subject in his
"Christ of Paul," to which the reader is referred.

[134:4] See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. pp. 515-517.

[135:1] Gibbon's Rome, vol. iv. pp. 488, 489.

[135:2] See Lardner's Works, vol. viii. pp. 395, 396.

[135:3] Ibid. p. 306.

[135:4] Ibid. p. 571.

[136:1] Eusebius: Eccl. Hist., lib. 5, ch. xxv.

[136:2] Lardner: vol. viii. p. 404.

[136:3] Irenaeus: Against Heresies, bk. i. c. xxiv.

[137:1] See Gibbon's Rome, vol. iv. pp. 492-495.

[137:2] Not a _worldly Messiah_, as the Jews looked for, but an
_Angel-Messiah_, such an one as always came at the end of a _cycle_. We
shall treat of this subject anon, when we answer the question _why_
Jesus was believed to be an _Avatar_, by the Gentiles, and not by the
Jews; why, in fact, the doctrine of _Christ incarnate_ in Jesus
succeeded and prospered.

[137:3] "This strong expression might be justified by the language of
St. Paul (_God_ was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen
of angels, &c. I. Timothy, iii. 16), but we are deceived by our modern
Bibles. The word _which_ was altered to _God_ at Constantinople in the
beginning of the sixth century: the true meaning, which is visible in
the Latin and Syriac versions, still exists in the reasoning of the
Greek, as well as of the Latin fathers; and this fraud, with that of the
_three witnesses of St. John_ (I. John, v. 7),