CHAPTER XIV
In Conclusion
After the destruction of Jerusalem much respect was shown to Josephus by Vespasian and his son Titus, who both listened to his counsels and acceded to his requests. And this is what Josephus relates in his Life, chap. 67: — "When I. was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealius and a thousand horsemen to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered.”
Now we do not say that this is the original of Luke’s account, but certainly the coincidences are very remarkable. There is a Joseph, a counsellor, a rich man and a just, in both texts, with three men under crucifixion, of whom two die, and one is as good as restored to life again (Luke 23: 49-52): "And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off beholding these things. And behold there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor, and he was a good man, and a just. The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them. He was of Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus." (KJV)
No other person referred to by the four Greek writers is designated, as here, by the name of a "counselor” the position of Josephus towards the Roman authorities, while the description of the traditional writer, "a good man and a just," with equal truth applies to him; neither had he “consented to the counsel and deed of them," so far, at any rate, as concerned the continuance of the war. The Messianic enthusiasm hailed chiefly from Galilee, and was the source of great crimes and much evil to the state. A passage from Gibbon will at this stage be appropriate: — “At the distance of sixty years, it was the duty of the annalist [He is referring to Cornelius Tacitus] to adopt the narratives of contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge himself in a description of the origin, the progress, and the character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge or the prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas which, in his extreme conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may, therefore, presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity as well as innocence should have shielded them from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were numerous in the capital [There were about 8,000] and oppressed in their own country, were a much fitter object for the suspicions of the Emperor and of the people; nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant, his wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppaea, and a favourite player of the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new and pernicious sect of Galileans, which was capable of the most horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galileans two distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in their manner and principles — the disciples who had embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, and the zealots who had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the latter were the enemies of humankind, and the only resemblance between them consisted in the same inflexible constancy, which in the defense of their cause rendered them insensible of death and tortures" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol I. chap. 16)
This testimony is of great weight, justifying, as it does, the condemnatory judgment we have pronounced on the Galilean Jesus and his associates, whose character and principles were so diametrically opposed to those of the meek Jesus and his followers. The former were the enemies of mankind, and the latter were the friends, and the friendly and unfriendly principles of both are sought to be united into one by the four Greek writers. And the incongruity of the amalgam must be as obvious to the philosopher as to the historian. The friendship exemplified was of a beautiful type, full of self- abnegation and charity, and the meekness evinced a piety and devotion the very opposite of what proceeds from enmity.
Our readers will certainly recall the denunciation of the meek historical Jesus; we need not, therefore, repeat his utterances, but it is necessary to quote his principal one, in order to prove that John, the writer of the Revelation of Jesus the Christ not only painted his “New Jerusalem” after the similar description of the Old Jerusalem by Josephus (compare Wars, book V, chap. 5§§ 7,8 with Revelation 21:9-23) but also used the historian’s reference to the words of the historical Jesus: "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people." (Book of the Wars, book VI.) John had obviously before this text when he wrote Rev. 7:1-3, "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." (KJV)
To conclude, we would quote from the alleged words of the traditional Jesus himself, as reported by the Greek writer, under the name of Matthew: “Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in you synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.” (NRSV) Barachiah is the transliteration of Baruch and this Zechariah was indeed killed during the siege of Jerusalem just before 70CE. He was a contemporary of the historical Jesus and not of Pontius Pilate.
We think we have shown that the only authentic history of the period in question is that recorded by Josephus, and that the study of his pages fully warrants the conclusion that Christianity was invented by Greek writers after the destruction of Jerusalem, from several unrelated accounts concerning historical prototypes of the traditional Jesus. From this, as well as internal evidence, we have felt entitled to argue that these Evangelical accounts are largely fiction.