SECT. XIV. An answer to the objection from external testimonies: where it is shewn that they make more for these books.

BUT I confidently affirm that there are no such things to be found; unless any one will reckon amongst these what is said by those who were born a long while after, and they such who professed themselves enemies to the name of Christ, and who therefore ought not to be looked upon as witnesses. Nay, on the contrary, though there is no need of them, we have many testimonies which confirm some parts of the history delivered in these books. Thus, that Jesus was crucified, that miracles were done by him and his disciples, both Hebrews and heathens relate. Most clear testimonies of Josephus, published a little more than forty years after Christ’s death, are now extant, concerning Herod, Pilate, Festus, Felix, John the baptist, Gamaliel, and the destruction of Jerusalem; which are exactly agreeable to what we find amongst the writers of the Talmud concerning those times: the cruelty of Nero towards the Christians is mentioned by Tacitus: and formerly there were extant books of private persons, such as Phlegon,⁴³⁹⁴³⁹   Book xiii. of his Chronicon or Olympiads, in these words, “In the fourth year of the CCIId Olympiad, there happened the greatest eclipse of the sun that ever was known; there was such a darkness of night at the sixth hour of the day, that the stars were seen in the heavens; and there was a great earthquake in Bithynia, which overturned a great part of Nicæa.” These words are to be seen in Eusebius’s and Jerom’s Chronicon. And Origen mentions the same thing, Tract xxxv. upon Matt. and in his second against Celsus. and the public acts, to which the Christians appealed;⁴⁴⁰⁴⁴⁰   See Tertullian’s apology, c. xxi. “This event which has befallen the world, you find related in your mystical books.” wherein they agreed about the star that appeared after the birth of Christ;⁴⁴¹⁴⁴¹   Chalcidius the Platonist, in his commentary on Timæus: “There is another more holy and more venerable history, which relates the appearance of a new star, not to foretel diseases and death, but the descent of a venerable God; who was to preserve mankind, and to shew favour to the affairs of mortals; which star the wise men of Chaldæa observing as they travelled in the night, and being very well skilled in viewing the heavenly bodies, they are said to have sought after the new birth of this God and having found that majesty in a child, they paid him worship, and made such vows as were agreeable to so great a God.” about the earthquake, and the preternatural 141eclipse of the sun at full moon, about the time that Christ was crucified.