Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/196

 description of Christ, beginning in the same way as our passage, "At that time there arose a man, if it is right to call him a man," but with much greater detail: his miracles wrought by a mere word (this is twice repeated); the current belief that he was "the first lawgiver risen from the dead"; his resort to the Mount of Olives; his 150 disciples (Knechten); and how Pilate, whose dying wife he had healed, released him upon the first hearing, but was subsequently induced by a bribe of thirty talents from the Jews (a curious distortion of the Gospel story!) to deliver him to them for crucifixion. No. (5) tells of the persecution and dispersion of the early Christians, who were drawn from the lower classes, shoemakers and labourers; (6) of an additional inscription round the outer wall of the Holy Place (cp. B.J. V. 5. 2 [193 f.]), "Jesus did not reign as King; he was crucified by the Jews because he announced the destruction of the city and the desolation of the Temple"; (7) of the rending of the veil of the Temple and current views upon Christ's resurrection, "Some report that he rose from the dead, others that he was stolen by his friends. I know not which are right "; (8) of the oracle concerning the world-ruler who was to come from Judæa (see § 50 in the translations), "Some understood that it referred to Herod, others to the crucified wonder-worker Jesus, others to Vespasian."

The actual MSS containing these extraordinary passages are not earlier than the fifteenth century; the translation can be dated back to the thirteenth century at latest. The earlier history of the additions is lost in obscurity; they have left no trace in the extant Greek MSS. Berendts boldly maintains their authenticity, believing them to be fragments of the original Aramaic edition of the Jewish War written for Syrian readers (§ 38), which were eliminated when the later Greek