The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
Christian Religion.
By the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
[LN., important characters that appear in this part of the text. St Paul (previously Saul of Tarsus). King Herod, The Testimonies of Lucian, Longinus Dionysius Cassius, Demosthenes, Lysias, Aeschines, Aristides, Eusebius, Horace, Josephus the Jewish Romano historian, Pliny the younger, Phlegon, Macrobius, the Emperors, Augustus, Trajan, Chrishna [Krishna]. Dr Clarke, Mr. Gibbon, Henry, 1737 to 1794, member of Parliament, English historian. Books mentioned in this text. Acts of the Apostles, Epistles of Paul, St. Matthew's Gospel, Reverend Edward Evanson's Dissonance of the Gospels. Ed Ipswich 1792, Eusebius. Eccles. Hist. lib.]
Contents: Testimony of Lucian. Testimony of Longinus. The testimony of Phlegon. The Passage of Macrobius. Publius Lentulus. The Veronica Handkerchief. The Prayer to Veronica.]
Paley, in his 'Horae Paulinae,' with that consummate ingenuity which might be expected from a clergyman who could not afford to have a conscience, has contrived to substitute a very plausible and indeed convincing evidence of the existence and character of Paul of Tarsus, for a presumptive evidence of the truth of Christianity. The instances of evidently-un-designed coincidence between the Epistles of Paul, and the history of him contained in the Acts of the Apostles, are indeed irrefragable: and make out the conclusion to the satisfaction of every fair inquirer, that neither those epistles, nor that part of the Acts of the Apostles are suppositious. The hero of the one is unquestionably the epistoler of the other; both writings are therefore genuine to the full extent of everything that they purport to be, neither are the Epistles forged, nor is the history, as far as it relates to St. Paul, other than a faithful and a fair account of a person who really existed, and acted the part therein ascribed to him. [LN., Paley, William 1743 to 1805, Christian Apologist, philosopher and Utilitarian. Best known for his work 'Natural Theology or evidences of the existence and attributes of the Deity.']
Testimony of Lucian
Lucian, in his dialogue entitled Philopatris, speaks of a Galilean with a bald forehead and a long nose, who was carried, (or rather pretended that he had been carried) to the third heaven, and speaks of his hearers as a set of tatterdemalions almost naked, with fierce looks, and the gait of madmen, who moan and make contortions; swearing by the son who was begotten by the father; predicting a thousand misfortunes to the empire, and cursing the Emperor. I have far greater pleasure in quoting the unexceptionable. [LN., Lucian of Samosta, around 125 to 180AD. He was a Hellenized Syrian satirist and rhetorician.]
Testimony of Longinus
Longinus Dionysius Cassius, who had been Secretary to Zenobia Queen of Palmyra, and died AD. 273, in his enumeration of the most distinguished characters of Greece; after naming Demosthenes, Lysias, Aeschines, Aristides, and others, concludes, and "add to these Paul of Tarsus, whom I consider to be the first setter-forth, of an unproved doctrine."
This testimony is, indeed, very late in time, and extends a very little way; but let it avail as much as it may avail, there can be no doubt (whether Christianity be received or rejected) that Paul was a most distinguished and conspicuous metaphysician, who lived and wrote about the time usually assigned, and that those Epistles which go under his name in the New Testament, are in good faith, (and even with less alteration than many other writings of equal antiquity have undergone) such as he either penned or dictated. Should any sincere and upright believer in the Christian religion, instead of reviling and insulting the author of this work, or going about to increase and extend the horrors of that unjust imprisonment, of which this work has been the chief solace - set himself ably and conscientiously to the business of showing that from an admission of the genuineness and authenticity of St. Paul's Epistles, and of the reality of the character and part ascribed to him in the Acts of the Apostles, (always excepting the miraculous) the existence of Jesus Christ as a man, and the general credibility of the gospel history would follow; he would deserve well of the Christian community, and of all men who wish to see truth triumphant over prejudice, ignorance, and error.
The testimony of Phlegon
This has long ago been given up as. an egregious monkish forgery, no longer tenable; nor indeed is it ever adduced by our more modern and rational divines. Mr. Gibbon, in his caustic and expressive style, says, "the celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely abandoned;" [Decline and Fall, chap. 15, ad calcem.] but as he has not quoted it, and I find it, standing its ground in the celebrated Dr Clarke's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, I have thought it worthy of transcription in this place. This it is,
"In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, there was an eclipse of the sun greater than any ever known before; and it was night at the sixth hour of the day, so that even the stars appeared, and there was a great earthquake in Bithynia, that overthrew several houses in Nice." [LN., Clarke, Samuel, 1675 to 1729, he was an English Anglican clergyman and a philosopher.]
The Passage of Macrobius
"When Augustus had heard that among the children in Syria, whom Herod, King of the Jews, had ordered to be slain under two years of age, his own son was also killed, he remarked that it was better to be Herod's hog than his son." [Cum audisset (Augustus,) inter pueros quos in Syria, Herodes rex Judseorum intra bimatum jussit interfici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait, "Melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium." - Macrobius, lib. 2. c. 4. - Clarke 355.]
There is no occasion to be prolix in comment upon a passage, which though urged by Dr Clarke, and some of our earlier Christian evidence writers, is regarded generally by Christians themselves as somewhat below the line of respectability. It is not adduced by Eusebius who is ridiculously diffuse on the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem, [Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, c. 9.] and who would have made much of it, had it been known to him. The probability is, that Macrobius might have recorded, such a saying of Augustus, with respect to some unnatural father, or even of Herod himself, whose cruelty to his own family was but little inferior to that of the evangelical Constantine; and some of the Monkish Radiurgs, or dexterously-forging scribes, might have thought it a good exploit, to fit it with the occasion.
The whole passage of St. Matthew's Gospel, which relates the story of the slaughter of the innocents, is marked in the improved version of the New Testament, as of doubtful authority; and is included among some of the facts, of which the Unitarian editors of that version, say in their note, that they have a fabulous appearance.
I cannot possibly treat this delicate subject with greater delicacy, than, by possessing my readers of the judgment which a learned, intelligent, and sincere believer in the Christian religion, has passed upon it.
"Josephus and the Roman historians give us particular accounts of the character of this Jewish king, who received his sovereign authority from the Roman Emperor, and inform us of other acts of cruelty which he was guilty of in his own family; but of this infamous inhuman butchery, which to this day remains unparalleled in the annals of tyranny, they are entirely silent. Under such circumstances, if my eternal happiness depended upon it, I could not believe it true. But though I readily exclaim with Horace, non-ego, [Not I!] I cannot add, as he does, credat Judazus Apella; [Let the Jew Apelles believe!] for I am confident, there is no Jew that reads this chapter, who does not laugh at the ignorant credulity of those professed Christians, [Surely this professed Christian had not the fear of Oakham before his eyes.] who receive such gross, palpable falsehoods for the inspired word of God, and lay the foundation of their religion upon such incredible fictions as these." [Reverend Edward Evanson's Dissonance of the Gospels. Ed Ipswich 1792, p. 126.] [LN., Evanson, 1731 to 1805, he was a controversial English clergyman.]
Publius Lentulus
It was a known custom of government, that whatever of moment occurred in any province of the empire, should be transmitted in due report from the provincial authorities to the knowledge of the Roman Emperor and the Senate. Of this, the correspondence of the younger Pliny and the emperor Trajan, as well as the natural and obvious necessity of the thing, is proof unquestionable.
Upon the notoriety of this custom, and the self-evident inference, that it was impossible that the Procurator or representative of the Roman authority in Judea, should have omitted to make a report of the existence and miracles of Jesus Christ; a few years ago, the great libraries of England, France, Italy, and Germany, pretended to possess their several authentic copies of the epistle, in which Publius Lentulus, the supposed predecessor of Pontius Pilate in the Province of Judea, was believed to have written to the Roman Senate a most particular description of the person of Jesus Christ.
[All our pictures of the handsome Jew, present the closest family likeness to the Indian Chrishna, and the Greek and Roman Apollo. Had the Jewish text been respected, he would rather have been exhibited as hideously ugly: "his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men." - Isaiah 52-14 [see LN, below]. But this would have spoiled the ornaments of the church as well as of the theatre and been fatal to the faith of the fair sex. - Who could have believed in an ugly son of God?]
It was first found in the History of Christ, as written in Persic by Jeremy or Hieronymus Xavier.
In front of certain parchment manuscripts of the gospels, written three hundred and twenty-five years ago, preserved in the library at Jena, there is still preserved, the following inscription:
"In the time of Octavius Caesar, Publius Lentulus, proconsul in the parts of Judaea and (the territory) of Herod the King, is said to have written this epistle to the Roman Senators, which was afterwards found by Eutropius in the annals of the Romans." [Temporibus Octaviani Caesaris, Publius Lentulus Procos. in partibus Judaea, et Herodis Regis, Senatoribus Romanis, hanc epistolam scripsisse fertur, quae postea ab Eutropio reperta est in annalibus Romanorum. -Fabricii Cod. Jlpoc. torn. 1, p. 302.] This commentitious epistle was formerly edited among orthodox writings, under the title, -
" Lentulus, Prefect of Jerusalem, to the Senate and people of Rome, greeting;
["Hoc tempore vir apparuit, et adhuc vivit vir praeditus potentia magna, nomen ejus Jesus Christus: Homines eum prophetam potentem dicunt, discipuli ejus, filium Dei vocant. Mortuos vivificat, et aegros ab omnis generis aegritudinibus et morbis sanat. Vir est attas staturae proportionate, et conspectus vultus ejus cum severitate, et plenus efficacia, ut spectatores amare eurn possint et rursus timere. Pili capitis ejus, vinei coloris usque ad fundamentum aurium, sine radiatione et erecti, et a fundamento aurium usque ad humeros contorti, ac lucidi, et ab humeris deorsum pendentes, bifido vertice dispositi in morem Nazaraeorum. Frons plana et pura, facies ejus sine macula quam rubor quidarn temperatus ornat. Aspectus ejus ingenuus et gratus. Nasus et os ejus nullo niodo reprehensibilia. Barba ejus multa, et colore pilorum capitis bifurcata: Oculi ejus caerulei et extreme lucidi. In reprehendendo et objurgando formic dibilis, in docendo et exhortando blandae linguae et amabilis. Gratia miranda vultus, cum gravitate. Vel semel eurn ridentem nemo vidit, sed flentem imo. Pretracta statura corporis, manus ejus rectae, et erectae, brachia ejus delectabilia. In loquendo ponderans et gravis, et parcus loquela. Pulcherrimus vultu inter homimossatos."]
"At this time, there hath appeared, and still lives, a man endued with great powers, whose name is Jesus Christ. Men say that he is a mighty prophet; his disciples call him the Son of God. He restores the dead to life and heals the sick from all sorts of ailments and diseases. He is a man of stature, proportionably tall, and his cast of countenance has a certain severity in it, so full of effect, as to induce beholders to love, and yet still to fear him. His hair is of the colour of wine, as far as to the bottom of his ears, without radiation, and straight; and from the lower part of his ears, it is curled, down to his shoulders, and bright, and hangs downwards from his shoulders; at the top of his head it is parted after the fashion of the Nazarenes. His forehead is smooth and clean, and his face without a pimple, adorned by a certain temperate redness; his countenance gentlemanlike and agreeable, his nose and mouth nothing amiss; his beard thick, and divided into two bunches, of the same colour as his hair; his eyes blue, and uncommonly bright. In reproving and rebuking he is formidable; in teaching and exhorting, of a bland and agreeable tongue. He has a wonderful grace of person united with seriousness. No one hath ever seen him smile but weeping indeed they have. He hath a lengthened stature of body; his hands are straight and turned up, his arms are delectable; in speaking, deliberate and slow, and sparing of his conversation; - the most beautiful of countenance among the sons of men." [LN., This Lentulus is without doubt an imaginary person, there no such named Roman consul prior to Pontius Pilate, there is a great misunderstanding of the words in Isaiah 52-14 and 53-2, part of;
Authorised version, 52-14 NIV, Study Bible Oxford Bible
As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: so, shall he sprinkle many nations; and kings shall shut their mouths at him Just as there were many who appalled at him - his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness - so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him Time was when many were aghast at you, my people; so now many nations recoil at the sight of him, and kings curl their lips in disgust
Isaiah 53-2part
He hath no form of comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him He had no beauty, no majesty to draw our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him his form, disfigured, lost all the likeness of a man, his beauty changed beyond all human semblance
The words of Isaiah, do not describe a man anything like the picture painted by Lentulus; indeed, I am persuaded to think that Isaiah is talking about the man Israel, and thus the nation of Israel, the Jews?
The Veronica Handkerchief
Would not deserve a consideration among the external evidences of Christianity, had it not been consecrated by the serious belief and earnest devotion of the largest body and most ancient sect of professed Christians. I make no remark on the story, but copy it as I find it, in a note of the editor on the text of Eusebius, where he relates the story of the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus. [Eusebius. Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, c. 14.] "How that Abgarus, governor of Edessa, sent his letter unto Jesus, and withal a certain painter, who might view him well, and bring unto him back again the lively picture of Jesus. But the painter not being able, for the glorious brightness of his gracious countenance, to look at him so steadily as to catch his likeness, our Saviour himself took a handkerchief, and laid it on his divine and lovely face, and by wiping of his face, his picture became impressed on the handkerchief, the which he sent to Abgarus."
This story the translator gives with severe censure from the historian Nicephorus, and perhaps it might deserve no less; but that the impartial principle of this Diegesis, forbids our treating any subject with levity or indifference, that has had power to engage the impassioned affections and earnest devotions of so numerous and respectable a portion of the Christian community.
I copy from Blount's Philostratus, the annexed prayer, extracted from a Roman Catholic Liturgy, or manual of true piety:
The Prayer to Veronica
"Hail Holy Face impressed on cloth! Purge us from every spot of vice, and joki us to the society of the blessed; blessed Figure!"
'Sourd comme vn tapis'.
As deaf as an image in painted cloth;
[Turin Shroud] Cotgrave.
[The name Veronica, occurs in the Gospel of Nicodemus, as that of the lady who came behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment. "Veronica, ista videter Uteris transposes, nata ex vocabulis duobus, vera icon. Certum est, imaginem ipsam Christi, a scriptoribus non paucis, dici Veronicam." Fab tom. l, p 252.]
-o0o-
Next Chapter XLV part 2.
Contents part two. The Testimony of Pilate. A coincident Passage from Arnobius. Josephus, AD. 93. The Celebrated Inscription to Nero.