an animal, and that the words spoken are the body, but the soul is the invisible sense involved in the words: which it is their religion itself which first began to exhibit distinctively, as in a glass, putting the beautiful results of the things understood under the indecencies of the

names.

39. What need is there to add to these things, their meetings together, and their residence, the men in one place, and the women in another?

40. And the exercises according to the custom this day continued among us, and which especially upon the festival of our Saviour's passion, we have been accustomed to observe, in fastings, in watchings, and in studying the divine discourses?

41. And which are kept to this day in the same manner only among us: as the same author hath shown most manifestly, and delivered in his own writing;

42. And especially relating the vigils of the great festival, and the exercises in them, and their hymns, which are the very same as those used to be said among us;

43. And how, as one of them sang the psalm in a pleasing voice, the others leisurely listening, took up the last stanza of the hymns; and how, on the afore-named days, lying on beds of straw upon the ground, they would taste no wine at all.

44. As he has in so many words written. Nor would they eat anything that had blood in it ;* that water only is their drink; and hyssop, bread, and salt, their food.

45. In addition to these circumstances, he describes the orders of preferment among those of them who aspire to ecclesiastical ministrations, the offices of the deacons, the humbler rank, and the supreme authority of their bishops.†

46. Whoever wishes a clear understanding of these matters, may acquire it from the afore-mentioned work of this author. "But that Philo wrote these things with reference to those who were the first preachers of the discipline which is according to the Gospel, and to the manners first handed down from the Apostles, must be manifest to every man."‡

* "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things: that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well."-Acts xv. 29.

....

; from

"For they that have used the office of a deacon well, purchase to themselves

`a good degree."-1 Tim. iii. 13.

* Ότι δε τις πρώτες κηρυκας της κατα το ευαγγελιον διδασκαλίας, τα τε αρχήθεν προς των αποστολων εθνη παραδεδομενα καταλαβών ο Φίλων ταντ' εγραφε, παντί τω δήλον.-Ibid.

This conclusion on the whole matter is so strong, that though I am confident a more faithful translation of the whole cannot be made by any man, I recommend a reference to the original, that the scholar may see at once that I have taken no liberty with my author; and have no occasion to conciliate his favour, or to deprecate his criticism. I offer him my own translation, not on the score of its being mine, but on the score of its being as good as the best that could possibly be made, and better than any that is not the best.

CHAPTER IX.

OF PHILO AND HIS TESTIMONY.

Or Philo, or as he is commonly called, Philo-Judæus-Philo the Jew, whom Eusebius thus, largely quotes, it becomes of supreme importance that we should be able to ascertain the age in which he wrote, and who and what he was; since his treatise on "the Contemplative Life," or Monkery, is a demonstration, than which history could not possibly have a stronger, that the monastic institution was in full reign at and before his time.

Philo-Judæus was a native of Alexandria, of a priest's family, and brother to the Alabarch, or chief Jewish magistrate in that city. He was sent at the head of an embassy from the Egyptian Jews, to the Emperor Caius Caligula, A. D. 39, and has left an interesting recital of it, usually printed in Josephus. He also wrote a defence of the Jews against Flaccus, then President of Egypt, yet extant. He was eminently versed in the Platonic philosophy, of which both his style and his opinions partake. His works consist chiefly of allegorical expositions of the Old Testament.

Eusebius places his time in the reign of Caius Claudius, the immediate successor of the Emperor Tiberius, and says of him, that he was a man not only superior to the most of our own religion, but by far the most renowned of all the followers of profane knowledge:* and that he was by lineal descent a Hebrew, and not inferior to any in rank at Alexandria; but by following the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy, he surpassed all the learned men of his time.

* Φίλων εγνωρίζετο πλείστοις ανήρ ε μόνον των ημετέρων αλλα δε των από της εξωθεν ορμωμένων παιδείας, επισημότατος.-Ecc. Hist. lib. 2, c. 4.

Eusebius is anxious to have it believed, that Philo was in such sense one of us" as to have been to all intents and purposes a Christian : and intimates that "it was reported that Philo had met and conversed with St. Peter, at Rome, in the reign of Claudius.*

But alas! Philo has been insensible, or ungrateful, for the honours with which he was so distinguished, and though he has so accurately described the discipline of a religious community, of which he was himself a member: 1. Having parishes; 2. Churches; 3. Bishops, priests, and deacons; 4. Observing the grand festivals of Christianity; 5. Pretending to have had apostolic founders; 6. Practising the very manners that distinguished the immediate apostles of Christ; 7. Using scriptures which they believed to be divinely inspired; 8. And which Eusebius himself believed to be none other than the substance, of our gospels; 9. And the selfsame allegorical method of interpreting those scriptures, which has since obtained among Christians; 10: And the selfsame manner and order of performing public worship; 11. And having missionary stations or colonies of their community established in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and Thessalonica; precisely such, and in such circumstances, as those addressed by St. Paul, in his respective epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians; and 12. Answering to every circumstance described of the state and discipline of the first community of Christians, to the very letter; 13. And all this, as nothing new in Philo's time, but of then long-established notoriety and venerable antiquity: Yet Philo, who wrote before Josephus, and gave this particular description of Egyptian monkery, when Jesus Christ, if such a person had ever existed, was not above ten years of age, and at least fifty years before the existence of any Christian writing whatever, has never once thrown out the remotest hint that he had ever heard of the existence of Christ, of Christianity, or of Christians.

CHAPTER. X.

COROLLARIES.

1. SHOULD it turn out, that the text of Philo, as it may have come down to our times, presents material discrepancies from the report which

* Ον και λογος εχει κατα Κλαυδιον επι της Ρώμης εις ομιλίαν ελθειν Πέτρω τους εκείσε τοτε κηρυττοντι, και εκ απεικος αν είη τέτογε.-Lib. 2, c. 15.

Eusebius has here made of it; that discovery would bring no relief to the cogency of the demonstration resulting from Eusebius's testimony merely; because it is with Eusebius alone that we are in this investigation concerned; and,

2. Because Christianity would be but little the gainer by overthrowing the credibility of Eusebius in this instance, at so dear an expense, as the necessary destruction of his credibility in all others. If we are not to give Eusebius credit for ability and integrity, to make a fair and accurate quotation, upon a matter that could have no room for mistake, or excuse for ignorance; if on such a matter he would knowingly and wilfully deceive us; and the variations of the text of Philo, from the quotations he has given us, be held a sufficient demonstration that he has done so there remains no alternative, but that his testimony must lose its claim on our confidence, in all other cases whatever with the credit of Eusebius must go, all that Eusebius's authority upheld, and the three first ages of Christianity will remain without an historian, or but as

But the evidences of the Christian religion are not yet in this distress. The testimony of Eusebius on this subject, is neither more nor less valid, for any confirmation or impeachment it might receive, from any extant copies of the writings of Philo.

3. Because, nothing is more likely, than that the text of Philo might have been altered purposely to produce such an appearance of discrepancy, and so to supply to Christians (what 'tis known they would stop at no means to come by) a caveat and evitation of the most unguarded and portentous giving-of-tongue that ever fell from so shrewd and able an historian; and,

4. Because, nothing is more certain, than that no writings have ever been safe from such interpolations; the text of the New Testament itself, at this day, presenting us with innumerable texts, which were not contained in its earlier copies, and being found deficient of many texts which were in those copies.*

5. We have certainly Eusebius's testimony in this chapter, and in such a state as that it may be depended on, as being bona fide his testimony, really and fairly exhibiting to us what his view and judg

* See chapter 16

ment of Christianity was, or-(the Christian is welcome to the alternative!)

6. And Eusebius's testimony is valid to the full effect for which we claim it, and that is to the proof of what the origin of the Christian scriptures was, AS IT APPEARED TO HIM.

7. And the validity of his testimony cannot be impeached in this particular instance, without overthrowing the authority of evidence, altogether opening the door to everlasting quibbling, turning history into romance, and making the admission of facts depend on the caprice or prejudice of a party.*

8. And if what Eusebius has delivered in this chapter, cannot be reconciled to what he may seem to have delivered in other parts of his writings, it will be for those who refuse to receive his testimony, here, to show how, or where he ever hath, or could have, delivered a contrary testimony more explicitly, intelligibly, and positively, than he has this.

9. Nor can they claim from us that we should respect his testimony in any other case, when they themselves refuse to respect it, where it stands in conflict with their own foregone conclusion.

10. And if what he may anywhere else have said be found utterly irreconcileable with what he hath here delivered, so as to convict him of being an author who cared not what he said, the Christian again is welcome to the conclusion on which his own argument will drive him, i. e. the total destruction of all evidence that rests on the veracity of Eusebius.

11. And if Eusebius be not competent testimony to what Christianity was in his day, as it appeared to him, we hold ourselves in readiness to receive and respect any other testimony of the same age, which those who shall bring it forward, shall be able to show to be superior to that of Eusebius.

12. But the conflict itself, which this most important passage has excited in the learned world, has thoroughly winnowed it from all the chaff of sophistication, and in the admissions of those who have contended most strenuously against its pregnant consequences, we possess the strongest species of evidence of which any historical document whatever is capable.

13. The learned Basnaget has been at the pains of examining, with

* In these Corollaries, be it observed, we respect the wide distinction between his testimony to miracles; in which he speaks as a divine, from whom therefore truth is not to be too rigidly expected; and his testimony as an historian, from whom nothing but truth is to be endured.

+ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. 1. 2. c. 20, et seq.