CHAPTER XI
My Books tell the whole truth (Josephus)
In our last chapter we introduced our readers to the account which Josephus gives of the Galilean Jesus and his followers, and how, when our historian was in authority in the district, that impostor stirred up the people against him, and charged him, in his policy of submission to Rome, with betraying the law of Moses and subverting the theocratic government which he had sanctified the Israelites to set up. The machinations of this man and his coworkers caused Josephus no small trouble, and it was only by his own wit and energy he was able so to use the power he was invested with as to escape out of their hands.
By these means his enemies were outwitted and captured, and then released in a way to convince them of his own power and their impotence to resist. And all this is related by him in a manner such as to establish an identity between his narrative and a chapter in the traditional accounts.
At this time Josephus was a man of thirty, and the authority he held was a priestly one, subject to the Roman Government. To throw off the yoke of this last, the people had been stirred up, mainly by the philosophy of the sect founded by Judas of Galilee, and they were now led on by this Galilean Jesus, who proved himself to be the greatest of all innovators, a seditious person, appealing to the laws of Moses in justification of his action and advice.
This new philosophy of Judas of Galilee, which was in reality opposed to true Mosaic principles, had exercised a great influence over the younger people, who took it up enthusiastically, and, among the rest, this Jesus, who preached it forth prophetically, got multitudes to follow him, and essayed to propagate it by the sword, with such zeal that his name, and not Judas's, who was now dead, was handed down to posterity as that of the founder of the new faith. That Judas was the founder we know on the unimpeachable authority of Josephus, but it was perfectly natural his name should in the traditional reports be merged and lost in that of his zealous disciple, so that it is as easy to account for the change of name as for the chief error in the chronology, and the blending into one of this fiery enthusiast for the law and the meek martyr of Jerusalem.
The genesis of these errors, hence of Christianity as a new religion, may be easily traced by reference to the pages of Josephus, who has been proved to be the most reliable historian by men of the greatest learning and the soundest judgment, from the first publication of his work down to the present time. Josephus needs no tribute from us; his reputation for truth and accuracy is universally acknowledged, and the force of an appeal to his testimony is such as to defy all contradiction.
When he was governor of Galilee he must have met with many who were alive during the procuratorship of Pilate, whose recall took place just thirty years before; that is, therefore, at the time he himself was born. All those who were upwards of thirty years of age must have been witnesses of the wonderful events which are recorded in the Gospels as having in their day taken captive the Galilean world; and he must have heard of these events from them or their children, if they ever happened. If so, some of them must have shared in the multiplication of the loaves or witnessed the miraculous draught of fishes; as their contemporaries of Judea might have been able to testify of the raising of Lazarus. Many of them might have known, too, of the lame who had been made to walk and the blind who had been made to see. It is reasonable to presume there were multitudes who were acquainted with the relatives of Jesus. Or are we to believe that all these things were familiarly known by sense or hearsay to every native of the district, but kept hid from the intelligent governor, who was wide-awake all the while, taking notes too to "print" them?
Josephus fills his pages with the story of this fanatical Jesus and his feeble-minded crew, whom he treats so lightly as to set them at large again after their arrest, as of no great political account, yet knows nothing and says nothing, of that other, whom multitudes wandered after while he lived, and who was now worshipped as a god since his death, by zealous, fast-spreading communities. He carefully, conscientiously, and patiently traces the history of the nation from its roots, ransacks all records and examines all witnesses to get at the facts, reports with minute detail the events of his own day and of that of his father, is at pains to describe the religion of Judas of Galilee, with the fanaticism he inspired and the turmoil and trouble his followers caused in society, and condescends to notice the most insignificant personages and events, whose connection with the movement afoot was often only of the remotest character, supplying in regard to some of these particulars enough, if it were worth, to complete a rounded biography; he tells us, as we have seen, of the impostor of Samaria, who came to grief, both himself and his followers, and brought the procurator Pontius Pilate into disgrace with his superiors; he tells of the meek martyr who brought woe upon himself in denouncing woe upon the people; and he tells, finally, of him whose cause so collapsed that he and his band were glad to accept forgiveness at his own hands as governor; — and all this, not as the Evangelists, who blunder at every turn, but with the graphic power of an immediate witness; and all the while he says nothing of the Jesus who wrought such wonders and died on a cross under Pilate, to whose earthly life, notwithstanding, Christendom looks back with believing regard as the incarnation of deity.
Now let us hear what account Josephus himself gives of his historical labors. He says (Book xx. c. II, § 2:)— "I shall now, therefore, make an end here of my Antiquities; after the conclusion of which events, I began to write that account of the war; and these Antiquities contain what hath been delivered down to us from the original creation of man until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, as to what hath befallen the Jews, as well in Egypt as in Syria and in Palestine, and what we have suffered from the Assyrians and Babylonians, and what afflictions the Persians and Macedonians, and after them the Romans, have brought upon us; for I think I may say that I have composed this history with sufficient accuracy in all things. I have attempted to enumerate those high-priests that we have had during the interval of two thousand years. I have also carried down the succession of our kings, and related their actions and political administration without errors, as also the power of our monarchs; and all according to what is written in our sacred books; for this it was that I promised to do in the beginning of this history, and I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or a foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books. For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to the Jews. I have also taken a great deal of pains to attain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness, for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods, because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of freemen, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains."
In these books, while he makes mention of prophets true and false, he denies, writing fifty years after the recall of Pilate, that any new sect had arisen among the Jews except the sect of Judas of Galilee; and it is impossible to account for the reputation he had for historical fidelity if it be true that there existed another founded by Jesus of Nazareth. Nor is it any fault of his that the traditional accounts ignore Judas and speak only of Jesus. About this Jesus he is, as we have seen, explicit enough, and no one who had studied his account could have fallen into the post-historical blunder. Neither, could the Evangelists have confounded the victim of the Pontius Pilate policy with the Jesus of history, based on Josephus’ record. He was a Samaritan and not a Galilean; he lived in a period marked by no portent, prodigy, or miraculous sign; and not one fact is recorded of him, as of the other two, to identify him with the Jesus of tradition, except the fact of his having suffered under Pilate. Moreover, had the Evangelists consulted Josephus, they would have found that the Jesus whom they supposed to be one was really two, and they might have concluded from him, had they thought, that only in the light of this fact could the inconsistencies in the character be reconciled to reason.
As we read the traditional accounts, the conviction is forced upon us that the writers in their simplicity believed they were recording what had escaped the notice of the historians of the day, and that but for them the facts they relate would never have been reported in the ear of the world; as if this fact did not directly undermine the ground on which they stood and contradict their explicit assertions. But it is not true, as they assume, that they only are the witnesses of the facts related, for not only, as we have seen, does the historian of the day record events of vastly inferior importance, but he actually gives the lie direct to the assertions they make, that the transactions they relate happened under the procuratorship of Pilate, and that the founder of the new faith was Jesus of Nazareth, who, according to Luke's testimony, must have been only a very young man at the period of Pilate's recall. And who shall say what other contradictions to their historical witness-bearing his pages may yield when once these are studied more closely!
What the Greek writers have done in regard to real History amounts to this: they have referred events and incidents which occurred towards the fall of Jerusalem (70CE) to the days of Pilate (37CE) and though they make the Pontius Pilate prophet utter predictions in regard to his return, they not only take no note of the events amidst which his return was expected, but they write in utter unconsciousness of all that transpired; they do not know that the story they write respects two men of totally opposite character, who first made their appearance in this latter period.