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of the earth shall be blessed." We may obviously understand this by its fulfilment in us; for he indeed was justified by his faith in Christ, the word of God that appeared to him; and having renounced the superstition of his fathers and the former errors of his life, confessed the one supreme God, and served him by deeds of virtue, and not by the service subsequently enjoined in the law of Moses.

To him, then, being such, it was declared that all the tribes and all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him. But the course of piety which was pursued by Abraham, has appeared thus far cultivated only by Christians, and that too by works more efficacious than words. What then, should prevent us henceforth from acknowledging that there is one and the same principle of life and conduct, the same course of piety common to us who have come after Christ, with those pious men who lived in times long before? Whence it is evident that the religion delivered to us in the doctrine of Christ is not a new nor a strange doctrine; but if the truth must be spoken, it is the first and only true religion. Thus much may suffice on this point.

CHAPTER V.

THE TIMES OF OUR SAVIOUR'S MANIFESTATION AMONG MEN.

AFTER the necessary preliminary to the Ecclesiastical History which we have proposed to write, it now remains that we commence our course, invoking God, the Father of the word, and Jesus Christ himself, our revealed Saviour and Lord, the heavenly Word of God, as our aid and fellow-labourer in the narration of the truth. It was the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus, and the twenty-eighth from the subjugation of Egypt and the death of Antony and Cleopatra, which terminated the dynasty of the Ptolemies, when, according to prophetic prediction, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea; the same year, when the first

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census was taken, and Quirinius* was governor of Syria. -This census is mentioned by Flavius Josephus, the distinguished historian among the Hebrews, who also adds another account respecting the sect of the Galileans, which arose about the same time, of which also mention is made by our Luke in his book of Acts, in the following words: "After this man arose Judas of Galilee, in the days of the taxing (assessment), and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed." Acts v. 37. The aforesaid author agreeing with this statement in the 18th book of his Antiquities, adds the following: “But Quirinius, who belonged to the senate, and having held other offices, advanced through all the grades of office to the consulship, a man also of great dignity in other respects, by the appointment of Cesar, came to Syria, with a small force, and with judicial power over the people, to take a valuation of their property." A little after he says: "But Judas, the Gaulonite, sprung from the town called Gamala, together with Sadducus, a Pharisee, headed a revolt of the people, saying that the assessment had nothing else in view but manifest slavery; and they exhorted the people to assert their liberty." He also writes in the second book of the history of the Jewish War, concerning the same man: "About this time a certain Judas of Galilee stimulated the inhabitants to revolt, urging it as a reproach, that they endured paying tribute, and that they who had God for their master, suffered mortals to usurp the sovereignty over them." Thus far Josephus.

* Quirinius.-This Quirinius is the same Cyrenius mentioned by St. Luke.

CHAPTER VI.

ABOUT THE TIME OF OUR LORD, AGREEABLY TO PROPHECY, THOSE RULERS CEASED THAT HAD FORMERLY GOVERNED THE NATION OF THE JEWS BY REGULAR SUCCESSION, AND HEROD WAS THE FIRST FOREIGNER THAT REIGNED OVER THEM.

AT the time that Herod was king, who was the first foreigner that reigned over the Jewish people, the prophecy recorded by Moses received its fulfilment, viz. "That a prince should not fail of Judah, nor a ruler from his loins, until he should come for whom it is reserved: the expectation of nations." The prediction was evidently not accomplished as long as they were at liberty to have their own native rulers, which continued from the time of Moses down to the reign of Augustus. Under him Herod was the first foreigner that obtained the government of the Jews; since, as Josephus has written, he was an Idumean by the father's side, and an Arabian by the mother's. But, as Africanus, who is also no common writer, says, "they who have written more accurately respecting him, say that he was the son of Antipater, and that the latter was the son of a certain Herod of Ascalon, one of those called the ministers of the temple of Apollo, in that city. This Antipater, when a boy, having been taken prisoner by some Idumean robbers, lived with them, because his father, being a poor man, was unable to pay his ransom. Thus growing up in their practices, he was afterwards befriended by Hyrcanus the high priest of the Jews. His son was that Herod who flourished in the times of our Saviour. The government of the Jews, therefore, having devolved on such a man, the expectation of the nations was now at hand, according to prophecy, because with him terminated the regular succession of governors and princes, from the time of Moses. For before their captivity and their transfer

*This celebrated passage we here give after the Septuagint version, which Eusebius invariably quotes.

to Babylon, they were first governed by Saul and David as their kings; and before the kings, the government was administered by magistrates called judges, who came after Moses and his successor Joshua. After the return from the captivity of Babylon, they continued to retain the aristocratical form of government, together with an oligarchy. The high priests had then the direction of affairs, until Pompey, the proconsular general of the Romans, took Jerusalem by force of arms, and defiled the sacred places, entering the sanctuary of the temple. Aristobulus, who had been both king and high priest by regular succession until then, was sent with his children. in chains to Rome, and the priesthood was given to his brother Hyrcanus, whilst the whole nation of the Jews was made tributary to the Romans from that time.

But Hyrcanus, who was the last of the high priests by succession, having been soon after taken prisoner by the Parthians, Herod, as I said before, had the government of the Jews conferred upon him by the senate of Rome and the emperor Augustus. About this time, the advent of Christ being nigh at hand, the expected salvation of the nations received its fulfilment, and was followed by the calling of the Gentiles, according to prophetic declarations. From this time also, the princes and rulers of Judah, i.e. of the Jewish nation, ceasing, by a natural consequence, the priesthood, which had descended from a series of ancestors in the closest succession of kindred, was immediately thrown into confusion. Of this you have the evidence of Josephus; who shows that when Herod was appointed king by the Romans, he no longer nominated the chief priests from the ancient lineage, but conferred the honour upon certain obscure individuals. A course similar to that of Herod in the appointment of the high priest, was pursued by Archelaus, his son; and next by the Romans, who, after him, took the government of the Jews into their own hands. The same Josephus shows that Herod was the first that locked up the sacred vesture of the high priest, and having secured

it under his own private seal, no longer permitted the high priests to have it at their disposal. The same thing was done by Archelaus his successor, as also by the Romans. It may suffice then, to have said thus much, in proof of another prophecy, which has terminated in the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Most clearly indeed does the book of Daniel, expressly embracing a number of certain weeks, until the government of Christ, concerning which we have treated in another work, predict that after the termination of these, the sacred unction amongst the Jews should be totally abolished. And this is evidently proved to have been fulfilled at the time of our Saviour's birth. Let this be sufficient, however, as a necessary preliminary, to establish the truth in reference to the times.

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE DISCREPANCY WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO EXIST IN THE GOSPELS, RESPECTING THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST.

As the genealogy of Christ is differently given to us by Matthew and Luke, and they are supposed by the generality to disagree in their statements; and as every believer, for want of knowing the truth, has been led to apply some investigation to explain the passages, we may also subjoin the account which has come down to us. We refer to the history which has been handed down on these passages by Africanus, in an epistle to Aristides, respecting the harmony of the genealogy of the gospels. After having refuted the opinions of others as forced and fictitious, he sets forth the account that he had ascertained himself, in the following words. "It was customary in Israel to calculate the names of the generations, either according to nature, or according to the law; according to nature, by the succession of legitimate offspring; according to the law, when another raised children to the name of a brother who had died childless. For as the hope of a resurrection was not yet clearly given, they

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