The Historical Jesus - Jewish Sources
Philo, who died after AD 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the Apostles. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, iv) indeed preserves a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in his work on the contemplative life he describes the life of the Christian Church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Essenes and Therapeutae. But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends.
The earliest non-pagan writer who refers to Christ is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus; born AD 37, he was a contemporary of the Apostles, and died in Rome AD 94. Two passages in his "Antiquities" which confirm two facts of the inspired Christian records are not disputed. In the one he reports the murder of "John called Baptist" by Herod (Ant.. XVIII, v, 2), describing also John's character and work; in the other (Ant., XX, ix, 1) he disapproves of the sentence pronounced by the high-priest Ananus against "James, brother of Jesus Who was called Christ". It is antecedently probable that a writer so well informed as Josephus, must have been well acquainted too with the doctrine and the history of Jesus Christ.
Seeing, also, that he records events of minor importance in the history of the Jews, it would be surprising if he were to keep silence about Jesus Christ. Consideration for the priests and Pharisees did not prevent him from mentioning the judicial murders of John the Baptist and the Apostle James; his endeavor to find the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies in Vespasian did not induce him to pass in silence over several Jewish sects, though their tenets appear to be inconsistent with the Vespasian claims. One naturally expects, therefore, a notice about Jesus Christ in Josephus.
Ant., XVIII, iii, 3, seems to satisfy this expectation:— "About this time", it reads, "appeared Jesus, a wise man (if indeed it is right to call Him man; for He was a worker of astonishing deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy), and He drew to Himself many Jews (and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ). And when Pilate, at the denunciation of those that are foremost among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did not abandon Him. (For He appeared to them alive again on the third day, the holy prophets having foretold this and countless other marvels about Him.) The tribe of Christians named after Him did not cease to this day."
A testimony so important as the foregoing could not escape the work of the critics. Their conclusions may be reduced to three headings: First, there are those who consider the whole passage as spurious. The principal reasons for this view appear to be the following; Josephus could not represent Jesus Christ as a simple moralist, and on the other hand he could not emphasize the Messianic prophecies and expectations without offending the Roman susceptibilities; again, the above cited passage from Josephus is said to be unknown to Origen and the earlier patristic writers; its very place in the Josephan text is uncertain, since Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, vi) must have found it before the notices concerning Pilate, while it now stands after them.
A second class of critics do not regard the whole of Josephus's testimony concerning Christ as spurious, but they maintain the interpolation of parts included in parenthesis. The reasons assigned for this opinion may be reduced to the following two: Josephus must have mentioned Jesus, but he cannot have recognized Him as the Christ; hence part of our present Josephan text must be genuine, part must be interpolated. Again, the same conclusion follows from the fact that Origen knew a Josephan text about Jesus, but was not acquainted with our present reading; for, according to the great Alexandrian doctor, Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
The third class of scholars believe that the whole passage concerning Jesus, as it is found to-day in Josephus, is genuine. The main arguments for the genuineness of the Josephan passage are the following: First, all codices or manuscripts of Josephus's work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, it must be supposed that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way. Second, it is true that neither Tertullian nor St. Justin makes use of Josephus's passage concerning Jesus; but this silence is probably due to the contempt with which the contemporary Jews regarded Josephus, and to the relatively little authority he had among the Roman readers. Writers of the age of Tertullian and Justin could appeal to living witnesses of the Apostolic tradition.
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