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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1811, Edition 1 of 1, Page 288

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

      ( 288 )

      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 Apostle James . In his Jewish Antiquities , ( lib .

      **• c , vni . 9 . ) Josephus writes thus : — The Sicarii ascending in great numbers to the feast , with

      weapons which they concealed , on mingling with the crowd , slew some who were their enemies , but whom they were hired by others to murder * These they killed , not only in other parts of the city , but some even in the

      temple . For though they had the audacity to massacre in that sacred place , they < Jid not think that they were committing impiety . But I am of opinion , that on this account , God who hates impiety

      has demolished our city ; and regarding the temple as no longer a pure habitation for himself , brought upon us the Romans , and exposed it and the city to purifying rare , and ourselves , with our

      wives and children to slavery , "wishing that we should learn virtue from our calamities . If Josephus considered the gospel as the soul and substance ,

      without the form , of Judaism , we might naturally conclude that the persons here represented as murdered by the Sicarii , were no other than such of the Jews as were

      advocates for the spiritual systeni * . The circumstances which favour thjs conclusion are the following . First , Josephus emphatically calls the sufferers enemies of the Sicarii . Now thejse were bands of robbers who infested and plundered the

      Untitled Article

      country , under certain impostors each of whom professed himself the Christ , 6 r a teacher under him . They were , therefore , nominal professors . But such persons were resisted and detested more by the peaceful and virtuous followers of

      Jesus than by the other Jews ; as they either opposed an impostor to the true Christ whom they pro . fessed , or brought the Christian profession into disgrace , by making it the cloak of fraud and

      villainy . The enemies of the believers were studious to class them with the Sicarii , the blessed Jesus himself having been crucified beWeen two of them : and Nero , some years after , for attempting to exterminate the Christians , was

      complimented for his efforts to clear the country of thieves and robbers . Secondly , The Sicarii were instigated by others to destroy the objects of their hatred and vengeance , arid even suborned to murder them . In this manner

      Stephen fell , and the cause was no other , than that the believers in Jesus were supposed to profane the law and the temple . 1 hv

      assassins , though they polluted the temple with the blood of the innocent , ' yet did riot tbink that they were guilty of impiety : and thus was fulfilled the solemn assurance

      which 6 ur Lord gave his discip les : u The timecometh that whosoever killeth you , will think that he docth God service . ' ' Thirdly , in the number of those who fell by the Sicarii' and their

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 288, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/32/