Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/205

 recent (to say nothing of future) history would be inappropriate. The son of Bariscæus was no prophet or priest and "as a layman would have no business in the part of the court between the temple and the altar" (Moore).

For the opposite view see Wellhausen Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, ed. 2 (1911), pp. 118 ff. His main points are that Chronicles was a learned, not a popular, book and not likely to have been known to or quoted by Christ (but Christ is apparently quoting at second hand from one of those apocryphal books which were essentially popular), and that the rabbinical legend is in its origin unconnected with the story in Chronicles and really an echo (Nachklang) of the episode in Josephus, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans having here, as elsewhere, been confused with the earlier destruction by the Babylonians.

VI. Note on § (50).

With this passage should be compared the following allusions in Roman writers:—

Tacitus Hist. V. 13. "Portents had occurred; but that nation, at once a prey to superstition and an enemy of religious rites, regards it wrong to avert such omens by sacrifices or votive offerings. There were visions of armies joining battle in the heavens with armour glowing red, and the Temple in an instant was all lit up with fire from the clouds. The doors of the sanctuary opened of a sudden and there was heard a voice of superhuman strength saying that the gods were departing, and at the same moment a mighty commotion of departing beings. Yet few saw a fearful meaning in these things. Many were firmly persuaded that their ancient priestly lore contained a prediction that at that very time the East