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Nero, that he was obliged to reduce them into submission. Your learning ought to have informed you, that subdidit does not signify subdued," but substituted, or accused falsely. And agreeably to this, the words are rendered by Dr. Lardner, “Nero procured others to be accused;" and by Murphy, "He determined to transfer the guilt to others." Either of these renderings restores the sense of the passage, which is lost in the oration. But you inform us, even were this passage genuine, it does not pledge the separate testimony of its author to the origination of Christianity, but only to the accounts which Christians of the very worst of characters gave of it." Indeed! Where in the world is this to be found? ~ I should have been content if the words "I conjecture" had been inserted in the above quoted sentence. Be it then known, that there exists not in favour of this conjecture even the shadow of a proof. Strong presumptions against it, however, are most obvious. Do Christians call their religion a fatal or destructive superstition? Do high-minded historians, such as Tacitus, resort to the dregs of the populace (as were the Christians according to Mr. Taylor) for the materials of their relations? Would Tacitus rely on the unsupported assertions of the "very worst of characters?"

Every reasonable man will answer each of these questions in the negative, and with this I dismiss the conjecture for the present, intending to offer some other remarks on the same subject in my rejoinder to Mr. Carlile's" distinct reply." But it does not prove the resurrection of Christ, says Mr. Taylor. No-nobody ever said that it did prove that fact. Yet it affords no mean presumption of its truth; otherwise, how, without the certainty of this, or some other miraculous interposal to attest the truth of Christianity, would Tacitus have found so soon after the death of Christ, " a very great multitude" of Christians at Rome? I have not been a little surprised, by referring to a note to which Mr. Taylor in this part of his oration directs his readers. So that he informs them that the resurrection of Christ was not so much as pretended in the time of Tacitus; and that the epistle of Clemens contains the strongest possible evidence of this fact. In making such a statement, Mr. Taylor must certainly have reckoned largely upon the ignorance of his readers, for the following are most positive testimonies from the Epistle of Clemens against the correctness of his assertions. Chap. xxiv., "Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord does continually shew us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which he has made our Lord Jesus Christ the first fruits, raising him from the dead." -xxxvi., " By him (Jesus Christ) would God have us taste the knowledge of immortality, who being the brightness of his gory, is by so much greater than the angels, as he has by inheritance

* Clavis Ciceron. et Oberl. Lex. Ciceron. Facciol.

obtained a more excellent name than they."-" To the son, he (God) saith, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool"-xlii. The Apostles have preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ from God. Christ, therefore, was sent by God, the Apostles by Christ; so both were orderly sent, according to the will of God. For having received their command, and being thoroughly assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, they went abroad publishing that the Kingdom of God was at hand. And if "the resurrection of Christ was not so much as pretended to" in these early times, why should Celsus, in opposing Christianity, trouble himself to investigate the evidence on which the resurrection was grounded? These are his words, "Let us consider whether any one that has really died ever rose again in the same body."

However, let Mr. Carlile observe, that whatever the passage of Tacitus does not, it does give us an account of Christianity within the period that Jerusalem existed as a city with its temple."Christ," says Tacitus, "the author of that name or sect (Christians) had, by the procurator Pontius Pilate, been capitally punished in the reign of Tiberius,* and the fatal superstition for a while suppressed, again broke out not only through Judea, the origin of that evil, but in the city itself."

Mr. Taylor, however, will reply, that the passage is spurious, the words auctor nominis ejus Christus, &c. bearing evidently the character of a marginal note. And yet it is strange, if this be the case, that the discovery has been reserved for Mr. Taylor. Not a vestige of a suspicion does there exist of the spuriousness of the passage from any critic of acknowledged talent. Unbelievers and Christians, with all their perspicuity and ingenuousness, have never descried or hinted the least probability of an interpolation, although thousands of critical eyes, and some with an express view to detect errors,+ have pored over the passage almost to blindness. Unbelievers, have hitherto been content, with Mr. Carlile, to regard this as a difficulty. But there is nothing equal to a little hardihood. It astonishes, and astonishment will tend to blind, if not to convince. The passage is spurious, says the master, and the scholars wonder, then admire, then believe. "It must be so, it removes a difficulty so easily." All this, however, proves that the difficulty is of no small magnitude, and while it induces a suspicion that this new discovery is something like a last shift, seems to indicate that affairs in some quarter are almost desperate. A drowning man, they say, will catch at a straw; and it is universally known, that a critic never

But if the passage of Tacitus be genuine, as his writing, there remains the question to be settled, as to, at what time he wrote and whether his authority was any thing better than the rumour of the ignorant Christians.— R. C

+ Oberlia's Tacit. præf.

resorts to conjecture till his pet hypothesis is perishing for lack of support. Let it, then, be observed, that our author does not attempt to deprive us of all the celebrated passage of Tacitus. He allows the former and latter part to be genuine, and restricts the interpolation within moderate limits. It begins we are informed, with the words-Auctor nominis ejus Christus." The author of this name Christ," and terminates at celebrantur que, * and became famous." Mr. Taylor still permits us to remain in undisturbed possession of the existence of Christians, Mr.Carlile, in the reign of Nero (A. D, 68). Returning our best thanks to Mr. Taylor for that he did not conjecture away the whole, I shall endeavour to shew the abortiveness of the attempt that has been made. Mr. Taylor having lighted on the happy idea that the obnoxious sentence was spurious, sets himself to work to discover something that shall have the resemblance of proof. First then he informs his readers that it has 66 a parenthetical character, bearing evidently the character of a marginal note that had crept into the text and might with advantage to its construction be thrown out again," I deny that the passage evidently bears the character of a marginal note; I deny that it might with advantage to the construction be thrown out again. If" evidently," why is evidence not alleged. Notes are ready enough with Mr. Taylor on other occasions-why have we not one line explaining how the passage mars the construction? I ever take such words as "evidently,' manifestly, clearly, &c. when given in place of evidence as sure indications of the want of evidence. They are general terms, which while they have the effect of putting the matter past doubt with superficial readers, and give to the proposition the semblance of a self-evident truth, are the mere cloaks of a writer's inability to adduce any thing that has the form and fashion of real evidence. Here then I might rest; my negative is as good as Mr. Taylor's unsupported aflirmative. Nay, better, for it is ever considered the duty of one who affirms to support his affirmation by argument, and until this is done, a simple negative is regarded as a disproof. But a few words may be permitted me to vindicate the genuineness of the passage.

II. Tacitus, in the preceeding sentence, has mentioned the Christians, (Christianos). How natural to describe the persons he had just mentioned, persons comparatively unknown to the readers of history; how natural to state from whom and where they had derived their origin. I will suppose that an historian of these times should on the thread of his narrative have oceasion to mention-say the Sandemanians-of whom the greater part of his readers would perhaps be wholly ignorant. Would he not feel himself called upon to add that these derived their name from Mr. Sandeman, with whatever other particulars he might pos-sess or deem consistent with his object? That it was usual with Tacitus, as it is with every historian, to subjoin these descrip

tive clauses, is seen in the fourth book of his history, chap. 81. where having mentioned Serapis, (a God of the Egyptians) he adds, "Whom this people, (the Egyptians) addicted to superstition, venerate before all others."

III. One reason given by Mr. Taylor for rejecting the passage in Josephus is," the language is quite Christian." If then the language in Tacitus is quite Anti-Christian, an opposite inference is to be drawn. And the language is quite anti-christian, for it speaks of Christianity as an evil, a destructive superstition, and associates it with every thing atrocious and shameful. The lan guage in Josephus then is Christian, and therefore the passage is not genuine. The language in Tacitus is anti-Christian and therefore it is genuine. Upon Mr. Taylor's own principles then the passage of Tacitus is proved not to be an interpolation.

IV. There is no propriety in the word igitur, therefore, which commences the sentence immediately after the important passage, if that passage be ejected from the text, "Therefore to suppress (not extinguish a rumour) to suppress the rumour Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people who were held in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. Therefore they were at first apprehended who confessed," &c. No good and elegant writer would use two therefores, at the beginning of two consecutive sentences. It is true the two therefores in Tacitus are not as in English identical words. The one is ergo the other igitur, both meaning therefore. But I do not think that two consecutive sentences can be adduced from the writings of Tacitus, the first commencing with ergo, therefore, the second commencing with igitur, therefore, And I may

safely undertake to affirm that no two such sentences can be shown which bear the same relation to each other as those in question and this is the point which it is essential for Mr. Taylor to establish. Is it said that the word igitur is not an illative particle, a particle of inference, but merely a particle indicating transition. I will believe that Tacitus could have used a particle of transition, such as igitur, when a parallel instance is pointed out in his writings; but not before. For to what other subject is the transition made? To none, the subject is the same. The connective que or et, (and) would have been the proper word if nothing had intervened; and the propriety of the use of igitur arises solely from the fact that there is an interposed clause or clauses. These are my reasons for holding that the passage would suffer by the ejection of the intervening wordsd And if these reasons are substantial, the attempt of Mr. Taylor is abortive; the passage is genuine.

V. The style of the passage is the style of Tacitus and therefore it is genuine. It possesses all his characteristic brevity and compression.

But, says Mr. Taylor, the Christian fathers have not stumbled upon this. How know you that Mr. Taylor? They have not mentioned it. O! that is quite another matter. A man may stumble upon a passage without quoting it, I presume. And if they have not quoted, how many myriads of passages beside have they not quoted, yet who doubts their genuineness. But this was to their purpose. That I deny. There was no dispute in ancient times respecting the origin of Christianity. As far as we can learn, it was admitted on all sides to have arisen in Judea in the reign of Tiberius. No one when it was most easy to disprove this, ever moved a question about it. The Jews, Celsus and Porphyry, Hierocles and Julian, all concerned to overthrow Christianity, never denied its origination in Judea, and according to Tacitus, under the procuratorship of Pontius, Pilate. Nay, Celsus refers its rise to Judea and speaks of Jesus as the man of Nazareth, who had existed not long before his time, (A. D. 138.)

What propriety then could there be in these Christian Fathers adducing passages to prove what no one disputed? Nor is Mr. Taylor correct when he asserts, that Tertullian in his apology, chapter fifth, was anxious to enumerate all the facts that might recognize the origin of Christianity. It was not the object of the Christian apologists so much to defend their religion as to deprecate persecution. With this view it is that Tertullian is led in the apology to mention, not the facts that might recognize the origin of Christianity, but the instances of persecution that the Christians had met with at the hands of the Pagans. As far as it was necessary to secure this object, Tertullian does allude to the heathen authors, not as testimonies as they are now adduced to the origination of Christianity, but as proofs of undeserved cruelty, proofs which could not be questioned, because recorded by the Pagans themselves. Thus he says in his apology, cap. v. "Consult your histories, there you will find that Nero was the first to draw the bloody and imperial sword against this sect, then rising at Rome." What histories were there but those which we now have? Now none of these could teach the fact, that Christians were then rising at Rome, except it is the history by Tacitus.* From him, and from the very part that Mr. Taylor so boldly rejects, we learn the circumstance alluded to by Tertullian. Read the passage above quoted. It teaches you that Christianity had first appeared about thirty years before the period to which the narrative relates, that it was suppressed for awhile, and then having spread through Judea where it arose, it had reached the city, and gained a multitude of followers, as early as A. D. 68. As it had only arisen thirty years before, as it had been suppressed for awhile, as it had on its revival to pass over Judea before it came

Might not Tertullian have taken his information from Iræneus?-R. C.