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15 Aug. 1815

Jug True or Not Paul

Ch. 3 Resources

§ Hardness of heart

Faith

Josephus

The other story is a story of Josephus. While Nero Wars of the Jews B. V. Ch. 12. L Estrange translation London 1702 Folio p. 909 was yet alive, and Vespasian, though in great force, had not as yet taken possession of the throne, Josephus who being was then a prisoner of his, obtained an audience, and saluted him by the title of Emperor. For this compliment, Vespasian when Emperor after upon coming to the throne set him at liberty: and presently he and his son Titus took into favour the discerning and ingenious prudent Jew.

In those days it was the fashion to believe in miracles prodigies. Tacitus, the most discerning of all the Roman historians— Tacitus with all his discernment, believed or at any rate pretended to believe in miracles. Josephus possessed or at any rate professed the same credence. In those days times and indeed at all times it was in that country the fashion to believe in miracles. Witness in this propensity, Vespasian having for a long time his eye to the throne, but and with no better other title than that which he derived from conceived the notion, saw that by every incident by which the notion of his being a favourite of the powers above could be produced implanted or confirmed, his chance of success would be improved. deleted textOf these miracles in which in one of which he was sole pretended actor and real relating to the other principal actor, he was probably in both instances the /a/ contriver. But from his being in one of these instances a reporter of a miracle in which he being if not the contriver of imposture at any rate privy to it it was impossible he should could not have been a believer, it follows not but that he may have been a believer in other miracles.