entitled to be pronounced the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the art, betrays the
_penchant_ of that delight in blood, and in descriptions of bloody
horrors, as peculiarly characteristic of the Christian disposition as it
was abhorrent to the mild and gentle mind, and highly cultivated taste
of Tacitus.

* * * * *

"It is falsified by the 'Apology of Tertullian,' and the far more
respectable testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who explicitly states
that the Christians, up to his time, the third century, had never been
victims of persecution; and that it was in provinces lying beyond the
boundaries of the Roman Empire, and not in Judæa, that Christianity
originated.

"Tacitus has, in no other part of his writings, made the least allusion
to Christ or Christians.

"The use of this passage as a part of the 'Evidences of the Christian
Religion,' is absolutely modern" ("Diegesis," pp. 374--376).

Judge Strange--writing on another point--gives us an argument against
the authenticity of this passage: "As Josephus made Rome his place of
abode from the year 70 to the end of the century, there inditing his
history of all that concerned the Jews, it is apparent that, had there
been a sect flourishing in the city who were proclaiming the risen Jesus
as the Messiah in his time, the circumstance was one this careful and
discerning writer could not have failed to notice and to comment on"
("Portraiture and Mission of Jesus," p. 15). It is, indeed, passing
strange that Josephus, who tells us so much about false Messiahs and