of the conspiracy of Pheroras (a brother of Herod's) gives the mould of the gospel narrative in all its parts. Pheroras and Herod's son Antipater, the historian tells us, plotted against Herod. There were Jews of the sect of Pharisees who were hostile to the king, whom the wife of Pheroras gained over by paying a fine that had been imposed upon them as recusants to his authority. They professed to be able to predict future events, and were induced by her to foretell "how God had decreed that Herod's government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children." The matter reaching the ears of Herod, he "slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused," and "also all those of his own family who had consented to what the Pharisees foretold." Pheroras was required to put away his wife, which he refused to do. Thereupon " Herod commanded Pheroras that, since he was so obstinate in his affection for his wife, he should retire into his own tetrarchy; which he did very willingly, and sware many oaths that he would not come again till he heard that Herod was dead" (Ant. XVII. iii. 1, 3). Here we have a prediction of the overthrow of Herod's line in favour of another, a consequent slaughtering by Herod, the withdrawal of the rival pretender to another place, and his retreat thither till the death of Herod. It is not likely that the same chain of events should occur twice in the

instance of the same person. The gospel writer, attracted by the details in the history of Herod, seems to have deliberately perverted them, and woven them into a tale which he has invented in illustration of the life of his hero, Jesus.

While Jesus is described as really of Bethlehem, he is always spoken of as of Nazareth. The writer thinks to fortify himself by saying that the appellation of Nazarene was given him in fulfilment of a prophecy. He does not point to the particular prophecy, and there is none such. The word, as it occurs in the Greek, is NaZapatos. It appears again in Luke xviii. 37, John xix. 19, and Acts ii. 22; iii. 6; xxiv. 5. It is given in the Septuagint translation of Judges xiii. 5, 7, and xvi. 17 as Nanpatos, where its signification is one who is devoted to the service of God as a Nazarite,—a derivative from the Hebrew word ", consecration. It is in this sense, there

fore, that Jesus probably has been said to have been a Nazarene; or, as it should more properly have been rendered,—a Nazarite. Such a place as Nazareth was apparently unknown to Josephus. Eusebius (Ec. Hist. i. 7) speaks of a village called Nazara, but he places it in Judea. The connection with Galilee is thus not apparent, and a Nazareth in Galilee, from which to derive Jesus, rests upon the unsupported and questionable authority of the Christian scriptures. The idea of the locality, in the time alleged, appears really to be due to a play on words, and ever greedy of supporting fact with prophecy, Matthew here imagines also the prophecy.

We have a voice from heaven proclaiming Jesus to be the Son of God. The words are obviously taken from the second Psalm, where the phrase is, "Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee.” The representation brings before us the great question when, and how, the Messiah was to be made the son of God. The Psalmist says it is to be when God should be able to say, "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Then it was that "the decree was to go forth. The event announced is one still unaccomplished. The Christian scripture writers adapt it to the life of Jesus they had actually in hand, but are perplexed to decide upon the particular passage of his history to which to apply the important saying. Matthew gives it as an announcement made at his baptism, and again at his transfiguration; but he sees it necessary to alter the language used, and in lieu of "this day have I begotten thee," substitutes "in whom I am well pleased." Is this an honest adaptation? Is it not evident, whoever had the manipulation of the gospel narrative here, that it was felt that with a divine birth occurring to Jesus at his nativity, he could not be said to have received the endowment thirty years later at his baptism, or still further on at his transfiguration? The book of Acts (xiii. 33) gives the passage in its integrity; but refers it to another period. This writer knows nothing of the nativity, and therefore boldly makes Jesus to be adopted as the Son of God at his resurrection from the dead. The epistle to the Romans (i. 4) has a consonant statement, to the effect that he was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." We

have thus five several periods when there occurs that particular day" when Jesus had to be made the Son of God. It was

at his birth, at his baptism, at his transfiguration, at his resurrection; or it has still to be effected (as the Psalmist himself declares) at his final advent when he is installed on his throne in Zion. The epistle to the Hebrews (i. 5 ; v. 5) twice gives the passage in its integrity, but does not attempt to define the period in Christ's career when it becomes applicable.

The ailegation that the healing of the sick by Jesus was the realization of the description by Isaiah of one "smitten of God," who took on him the "griefs" and "sorrows" of others, is an example of misapplication of prophecy to fact which none but one bent upon so parading his subject could have been guilty of. Every other eye should see that the two things spoken of are entirely dissimilar. It is just such a misapplication to say that when Jesus charged the people whom he healed not to make him known, he was carrying out that saying of Isaiah respecting one who was not to "cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street." A process of adaptation must be distrusted when found in the hands of one determined at all hazards to surround his subject with prophetic fulfilments.

We have another remarkable attempt at straining prophecy to fit it to the narrative in the presentation of John as the precursor of the Messiah spoken of by Malachi. The terms of the prediction are, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. The personage announced is the well-known prophet Elijah. He was one who had not died as ordinary mortals die, but had been translated bodily when in life to heaven. Admitting such a fact, it was allowable to raise the expectation of his return. But it is quite another thing to clothe John in the rough garment of the Tishbite, and then to say with Matthew, "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come." The Evangelist must have been well aware that he was advancing what was untenable, and he does it with the hesitation of one con

scious that he was going beyond the limits of an admissible statement. Moreover, the day of Jesus, and the day to which Malachi pointed, were altogether different. Jesus came in humility, as a servant, seeking out the sinner to save him. The Messiah of Malachi comes with all the powers and terrors of judgment.

We have had instances of prophecy adapted to events, and we have one now of the coinage of fact to fulfil a supposed prophecy. Zechariah had said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.' The Evangelist, ignorant of the spirit of the Hebrew, imagined that two animals were here spoken of, namely, the ass and its foal, and forthwith introduces two upon the field; whereas the phrase meant no more than to designate emphatically the animal to be used as an ass, even the foal of an ass. Mark and Luke keep within bounds by alleging but one ass employed on the occasion, but what are we to think of the integrity of Matthew, who, to suit his view of the prophecy, produces two? Can we be safe in following one who can thus deal with us in obtaining his facts? Moreover, the exhibition of Jesus in the manner made amounts to no more than an ideal display, ill fulfilling the exigencies of the prophecy. We require a real king, endowed with substantial attributes, capable of introducing material prosperity and glory to his expectant people, and exciting them to true well warrantable rejoicings; but in Jesus we have one merely borrowing the kingly title for the moment and occasion, effecting nothing for the people greeting him, and then removed to perish miserably and helplessly.

The last of these adaptations in Matthew, which I will here notice, is the assumed prophecy relating to the treachery of Judas. The account of the manner in which Judas came by his death, as given by Matthew, and in the Acts, is so discordant, that the presumption is, there was no such event.* This is strengthened by the circumstance that the writer of the Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xv. 5) apprehends all the twelve apostles to have survived Jesus. The evangelist him"The Bible; is it the Word of God?" p. 320.

self has it that they were all twelve to be supplied with thrones whereon to rule in glory in the hereafter. The representations in Zechariah, whom Matthew, to his discredit as an inspired writer, confounds with Jeremiah, would seem to have suggested the whole incident of the potter and the money paid down. But the facts are all variously arranged. In Jeremiah, the person priced at thirty pieces of silver himself has the money, and is told to "cast it unto the potter," which he does "in the house of the Lord;" whereas, in Matthew, Jesus has nothing to do with the money, it is the price of blood, of which Zechariah says nothing, and it is another than the person priced who gets the money and casts it down before the priests in the temple, and they buy a potter's field with it, which is all the connection there is with any potter. A discriminator of actual facts could not have garbled his representations in this way.

I need not pursue this branch of investigation any further, though similar examples of perverted statements might readily be gathered out of the narratives of the other evangelists. Matthew is the prime operator in the endeavour to combine fact with prophecy in depicting the history of Jesus, and we see with what entire want of scrupulosity he has proceeded to his work. Mark and Luke are so associated with him in their task, all travelling over the same ground in similar manner, and with use of the like materials, that the three stand or fall together. John has been projected on another footing, and he raises such a mass of violent contradictions of the other evangelists in delineating the attitude of Jesus, and describing his sayings and doings, as to deepen the confusion, and still more to subvert the credibility of the testimony. All this I have carefully examined in a previous work to which I must refer the inquiring reader.*

I have traced the passage of Christianity out of a form consistent with, and associated with Judaism, into one of positive Gentilism, and desire now to show how the movement was advanced through the channel of the Christian scriptures. It will introduce us to further phases of schemed and distorted

statement.

The first difficulty that presented itself was, that whereas "The Bible; is it the Word of God?" sec. vii.