Perhaps he did not know how to represent the business, and
disposed of his difficulties by passing it over in silence. Eusebius
wrote the life of Constantine, yet omits entirely the most remarkable
circumstance in that life, the death of his son Crispus; undoubtedly for
the reason here given. The reserve of Josephus upon the subject of
Christianity appears also in his passing over the banishment of the Jews
by Claudius, which Suetonius, we have seen, has recorded with an express
reference to Christ. This is at least as remarkable as his silence about
the infants of Bethlehem.* Be, however, the fact, or the cause of the
omission in Josephus,+ what it may, no other or different history on the
subject has been given by him, or is pretended to have been given.
_________
* Michaelis has computed, and, as it should seem, fairly enough; that
probably not more than twenty children perished by this cruel
precaution. Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament, translated by
Marsh; vol. i. c. ii. sect. 11.
+ There is no notice taken of Christianity in the Mishna, a collection
of Jewish traditions compiled about the year 180; although it contains a
Tract "De cultu peregrino," of strange or idolatrous worship; yet it
cannot be disputed but that Christianity was perfectly well known in the
world at this time.
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