their followers, should omit--as he must have done if this passage of
Tacitus be authentic--all reference to this additional false Messiah,
whose followers in the very city where Josephus was living, underwent
such terrible tortures, either during his residence there, or
immediately before it. Burning men, used as torches, adherents of a
Jewish Messiah, ought surely to have been unusual enough to have
attracted his attention. We may add to these arguments that, supposing
such a passage were really written by Tacitus, the two lines regarding
Christus look much like an interpolation, as the remainder would run
more connectedly if they were omitted. But the whole passage is of more
than doubtful authenticity, being in itself incredible, if the Acts and
the Epistles of the New Testament be true; for this persecution is said
to have occurred during the reign of Nero, during which Paul abode in
Rome, teaching in peace, "no man forbidding him" (Acts xxviii. 31);
during which, also, he wrote to the Romans that they need not be afraid
of the government if they did right (Romans xii. 34); clearly, if these
passages are true, the account in Tacitus must be false; and as he
himself had no reason for composing such a tale, it must have been
forged by Christians to glorify their creed.

The extreme ease with which this passage might have been inserted in all
editions of Tacitus used in modern times arises from the fact that all
such editions are but copies of one single MS., which was in the
possession of one single individual; the solitary owner might make any
interpolations he pleased, and there was no second copy by which his
accuracy might be tested. "The first publication of any part of the
'Annals of Tacitus' was by Johannes de Spire, at Venice, in the year
1468--his imprint being made from a single MS., in his own power and
possession only, and purporting to have been written in the eighth
century.... from this all other MSS. and printed copies of the works of