Taylor: "This passage, which would have served the purpose of Christian
quotation better than any other in all the writings of Tacitus, or of
any Pagan writer whatever, is not quoted by any of the Christian
Fathers.

"It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he had read and largely quotes
the works of Tacitus: and though his argument immediately called for the
use of this quotation with so loud a voice, that his omission of it, if
it had really existed, amounts to a violent improbability.

"This Father has spoken of Tacitus in a way that it is absolutely
impossible that he should have spoken of him had his writings contained
such a passage.

"It is not quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, who set himself entirely to
the work of adducing and bringing together all the admissions and
recognitions which Pagan authors had made of the existence of Christ or
Christians before his time.

"It has nowhere been stumbled on by the laborious and all-seeking
Eusebius, who could by no possibility have missed of it....

"There is no vestige nor trace of its existence anywhere in the world
before the fifteenth century.

"It rests then entirely upon the fidelity of a single individual. And
he, having the ability, the opportunity, and the strongest possible
incitement of interest to induce him to introduce the interpolation.

"The passage itself, though unquestionably the work of a master, and