Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/109

Rh (c.) The extract referred to Josephus is not literally quoted either from him or from the corresponding passage in Eusebius, but it is certain that the version of Eusebius was used. (Josephus, Antiq. xix. 8; Euseb. Hist. Eccles. ii. 10).

(4.) Pilate's Letter to the Roman Emperor. — This is addressed to Tiberius, and is as much intended to excuse Pilate for condemning Jesus, as to speak to the injustice of the Jews in demanding His condemnation. The writer was a Latin, and probably had before him the account which Tacitus gives of the persecution of the Christians by Nero (Annals, xv. 44). He mentions the Sibyls in the same breath with the prophets, speaks of Christ's disciples as still flourishing, and appeals to the Scriptures as proving that the Jews caused the suffering of Christ to their own destruction. The idea of Pilate's quoting the prophets and the Scriptures!

Under this head we have a document which pretends to be official, and addressed by Pilate to "Augustus Cæsar in Rome." Some copies represent it as addressed to "Tiberius Augustus." It was first