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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1811, Edition 1 of 1, Page 231, Untitled Article

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    • BIBLICAL CRITICISM, AND INQUIRIES AND DISQUISITIONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY ^
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      Untitled Article

      ( 231 )

      Biblical Criticism, And Inquiries And Disquisitions On Ecclesiastical History ^

      BIBLICAL CRITICISM , AND INQUIRIES AND DISQUISITIONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY ^

      Untitled Article

      Josephus ^ s Testimony to the Divine Mission of John the Bap ~ tut . March 21 , 1811 .

      Josephus not only speaks of the heathen converts to Christianity , as converts to Judaism , but he is the historian and apologist of the Jewish believers , under the name © f Essenes . By this name he chose to designate the followers of

      Jesus , as less obnoxious than that of Razarenes , or Galileans , or Christians ^ and better calculated to protect them from the charge of innovation , so often alleged by

      their enemies . This subject , though perfectly understood by the ancient fathers , has been concealed by the thickest veil of prejudice and error from the eyes of all modern critics . The history of the first Jewish believers has been long a melancholy desideratum in the records of Christianity , and Philo and Josephus are the honoured names who will supply it . The developement of this interesting

      question I will , however , defer at present , and proceed to what Josephus says of John the Baptist , of James , the brother of Jesus , and of Jesus himself , as more intimately connected with the object I have in view . In his Jewish

      Antiquities , b . 17 , ch . v . 2 , he thus speaks of the Baptist : — « To sonae of the Jews it appeared that J he army of Herod was destroyed by God in just vengeance for the njurder of John , named Baptist . * or Herod slew him , though he W | 3 a just man , and encouraged

      Untitled Article

      the Jews to come to his baptism in the practice of virtue , in the exercise of justice to one another , and piety towards God ; assuring them that thus baptism is accept table in his sight , and not by using it as the means of averting sins , but of cleansing the body , as Xhe mind is purified by righteousness . Herod , seeing his communication with others , and all his hearers much elatecj with his discourses , feared lest his power of persuasion should induce the people to rebel ; for they seemed eager to act in conformity to his advice . He therefore thought it better to anticipate a revoVution by killing him , than repent after a change should involve him in difficulties . ?'

      At the time in which Josephus wrote his history , the great facts contained in the evangelical records were known in every part of the Roman empire , and the object of the Jewish historian was * with .

      out mentioning them , to enforce their truth by well-attested facts founded upon them . Thus it was known that John pointed to Jesus as the Messiah , and announced the kingdom of heaven to be at hand , which ^ as then understood to be of a temporal nature , would

      soon set aside the power of Herod , The apprehension of this necessarily awakened his jealousy . And Josephus unequivocally declares , that a jealousy of this kind waft his real motive in putting the Baptist to death . This base motive Herod must have been desirous to conceal from the public , and

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1811, page 231, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2415/page/39/