scantiness, but that, in reality, the testimony of Tacitus, which to him is sufficient evidence of the existence of Jesus, proved nothing more than the existence at a certain period after the supposed death of Christ in Rome, and other places, a number of people calling. themselves Christians. If this is all the proof that can be furnished in favor of the actuality of the man Jesus, it is scanty indeed! and has been so completely torn to shreds in this work, that we are convinced, when it is generally read, all will at once acknowledge how glaring is this error, which evidently has hitherto maintained its ground from paucity of information, and a misunderstanding of the passage in question. But, in fact, Mr. Owen's own reply to himself renders superfluous any further remark on our part with respect to the evidence furnished by Tacitus, Suetonius, and the rest; for in the very next page in which he says "he is surprised to find the proofs so scanty, but that the famous passage in Tacitus is however, sufficient evidence for him of the actual existence of Jesus, he adds, "Now what does all this amount to? Simply to this—that in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, a sect existed called Christians. Who denies this? Not I for one." Nor do we deny it; we do not deny that a sect called Christians existed in Rome under Claudius, Nero, or Tiberius; which, in good truth, is all the evidence amounts to. Then how, in the name of wonder, can evidence that only proves the existence of the Christian sect, be sufficient evidence for a first-rate sceptic of the existence of the man Jesus? Shade of Aristotle, hover o'er and enlighten us! for this kind of reasoning passeth our understanding! Here then is the thread, of hair like tenuity, by which the sword of reason is suspended over the neck of folly; here are all the immense heaps of proof of which theologians so loudly boast, dwindled down to the scanty passage in Tacitus, which is left alone in its glory to bear the brunt of the battle; when, lo! and behold! upon a little investigation, this renowned Christian pivot, the point cardinal, on which hinged the existence of Jesus, and left first-rate scepticism dumbfoundered, is discovered to be a pointe mathematique, having neither length, breadth, nor thickness-a shadowy unreal mockery of proof, ending in a demonstration, not that Jesus Christ, spoken of in the gospels, was a bona fide individual, or even had more than an ideal oṛ imaginary existence; but that one Christ, or a certain Christ, lived somewhere no one knows where; did-no one seems to know what; said—what no one seems to have taken the slightest pains either to hear, collect, or understand. All the proof amounting simply to this, that in the reigns of Claudius and Nero existed a sect called Christians, &c. This is all the much lauded evidence proves, and it is almost needless for us to reiterate that the external evidence of such writers is miserably defective, nay, the two unique on whom all Christians mainly rely, Suetonius and Tacitus, balance each other, as our readers cannot have forgotten that Suetonius speaks of a certain Christ practising sedition at Rome during the reign of Claudiuswhile Tacitus writes of one Christ, put to death during the reign of Tiberius, by Pontius Pilate the Procurator. We may believe one of these accounts, both, or neither; the latter will be by far the easiest, and certainly the safest course-though it is exceedingly possible, that there being so many men calling themselves the Christ during these and succeeding reigns, Suetonius wrote about one, Tacitus another, and somebody else a third, and so on; but here it may be useful to mention, that the account in Tacitus is preferred by the Christians, as it harmonizes with the legend-which legend, as shewn in the early numbers of this work, is a solar fable. So much for the external evidence furnished by Tacitus, Suetonius, Plinius, et hoe genus omne. Those who still maintain the existence of Jesus, thus beaten off Pagan, must take refuge on Christian ground, cling to the gospel history, and the writings of the saints; the hollowness of the latter have been sufficiently exposed to prevent any reasoning mind from reposing confidence in them, except when their relations do not outrage probability, or are in harmony with other external evidences, and the general operations or modes of nature; for the scandalous manner in which the early Christians endeavoured to crush all opposition, by persecution and bare-faced fraud, must render very suspicious and of doubtful value any gospels they judged to be true. Bishop Watson complains that Islamism was established by the sword, as though he forgot, or never knew, that it was the sword established and maintained the authority of the early Christian Church. The famous edict of the emperor Constantine issued against the Heretics (it has been remarked by a modern author) was in the same century in which the books of the New Testament were declared canonical. If the council which so declared them shared the common character of the age, it was composed of bishops, who exhibited to their flocks the contagious example of arrogance, luxury, effeminacy, animosity, strife, with other vices too numerous to mention. A fine assemblage of holy men, truly !—admirably qualified to choose the true gospels, and carefully separate them from heaps of spurious trash and apocryphal books with which the age abounded. Mosheim observes that in the fourth century, "the monstrous error was almost universally adopted; that errors in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper admonition, were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures: multitudes (says the same historian) were drawn into the profession of Christianity, not by the power of conviction and argument, but by the prospect of gain, and the fear of punishment." Again, had the Saracens been infected with the same odious spirit of persecution that possessed the Crusaders, there would not, perhaps, have remained a single Christian in that part of the world (Asia). But, though these Infidels were chargeable with various crimes, and had frequently treated the Christians in a rigorous and injurious manner, yet they looked with horror on those scenes of persecution which the Latins exhibited as the exploits of heroic piety, and considered it as the highest and most atrocious mark of cruelty and injustice, to force unhappy men, by fire and sword, to abandon their religious principles—or to put them to death, merely because they refused to change their opinions. We ask, is it to such monsters in human shape as these early Christians, we are to look for authentic history?-men more cruel and lustful of blood than the Infidels and uncultivated Saracens, who looked with carnage and horror on scenes of persecution which the cruelly vindictive fanaticism of Christians had given birth to, when, like hungry Tigers in their fierce rage, they covered the fertile fields of Asia with the blood and bones of millions; and oh! diabolical superstition! when Earth trembled as the smoke Of thy revenge ascended up to heaven, Sworn in the name of Christ, rung through the land, London: H. Hetherington; A. Heywood, Manchester; and all Booksellers. EXISTENCE OF CHRIST AS A HUMAN BEING, DISPROVED! BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, FROM A GERMAN JEW, ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS. LETTER 28. WEEKLY. ONE PENNY. "I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11. CHRISTIANS, A careful and unprejudiced reading of Biblical history, together with the Talmudic, or traditional writings of the Jews, would speedily disabuse all minds, capable of grasping the true meaning of the texts, of those pernicious errors which now prevail, as to the real character of those books, and as to the sources and support of the. opinions, religious and political, held by the Jews themselves, before and since the captivity; errors pregnant with mischief, which check the free current of thought, choking up by an unreasoning bigotry the source of truth, and by the weight of an odious moral tyranny, deprive the human mind of that elastic spring which is its best preservative against religious and political corruption. The researches of Schoettgenius are of great value, and may be recommended as containing the most complete account of the texts which have been interpreted by the ancient Rabbis, or Jewish doctors, concerning the Messiah (the anointed), who was so long and ardently expected to appear on earth, and restore to even more than their pristine splendour, the fallen glories of the Children of Israel; when that state of things, called in popular language, Christ's Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, would be established, and righteousness rule over all the earth. There is no people of whom we have any records, who have suffered so much for conscience sake as the Jewish; no people whose religious opinions have been so foully abused, without being understood; none who have so completely earned by a stubborn adherence to the faith and the law of their fathers—the hate and opprobium of frantic bigotry. Literally they have had " coals of fire heaped upon their heads ;" and there are not a few Christians of the nineteenth century, who would willingly, to use Miltonic phraseology, rekindle the torch of persecution, by the almost expiring embers of fanaticism. The excessive ignorance that prevailed, and still prevails, as to Jewish character, habits, and opinions-their modes of feeling and modes of writing, so peculiar and so strictly national-their historic records, which stand out or apart from all others as the reflex of the mind of a people who were and are an isolation amid the crowd of humanity, is at the root of such senseless injustice. It may seem strange, but it is unquestionably true, that little as is known of Egyptian or Indian polity and religious character-still less is really understood of the polity and religious conceptions, hopes, and aspirations of the chosen people of God (as they delight to style themselves); nay, among the many who rail against the Jews, as a stiffnecked race, obstinate unbelievers, and crucifiers of the living God (!)-few, indeed, have the most distant idea why the Jews refused at first to believe that one Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, or anointed king, promised by God himself, through the mouths of the prophets, to the descendants of Israel; or why it is, after all that has been written for their conversion-after all the cruel persecutions which the Christian world, to its shame, has for ages inflicted upon that unhappy race-they still strenuously resist the Jesus of the gospels, and still deny that such a man (even though his actuality be admitted) was the promised Messiah, who should be (Zech. 14, v. 9) " the Lord and king over all the earth; in that day when there shall be one Lord, and his name one." Who should "bring them (chap. 8, v. 8), and they should dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they should be his people, and he their God, in truth and in righteousness." The bigot nation, as the bigot individual, is either the crouching slave, or the intolerable tyrant!-enduring, nay kissing, the rod that chastiseth, or inflicting stripes: in both conditions bigotry is the frantic hater of all it will not or cannot comprehend. Let the bigot stand in all his native nakedness-he is the cur licking the hand of its punisher. Arm him to the teeth in authority-there is |