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14 assistance of two learned men, Drs. McIntosh and Twyman, and went to the Vatican at Rome, and then to the Jewish Talmuds at Constantinople. As a result I have compiled this book, which will be found one of the most strange and interesting books ever read. It may appear fragmentary, but the reader must remember that it is the record of men made nearly two thousand years ago.

It was some time in March, 1856, that my mind was awakened on the subject of this book, almost incidentally, or it may be providentially, for He sometimes chooses the weakest things to confound the mighty. The reader is referred to the correspondence of H. C. Whydaman and myself, as found in this book. In God's providence sometimes very great effects are produced from very small causes. Mr. Whydaman told me he had spent five years in the Vatican at Rome, and in looking over the old manuscripts he came across the records of Pilate made to Cæsar, and in those records he saw where a man named Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed; he read it carefully and re-read it, and went back and read it again.

This was the beginning of my investigation, and this book is the product of that investigation. I ask the reader to follow me patiently and see how I came to get hold of the matter contained in this book.

I wondered how it was that such historians as Philo, Tacitus, Quintilian, and Josephus had told us nothing or so little about Jesus of Nazareth. I asked all the wise men and scholars I met, and they