profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, under a form which would be
intelligible to Greeks and Romans. I believe the passage respecting
Jesus[1] to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus,
and if this historian has made mention of Jesus, it is thus that he
must have spoken of him. We feel only that a Christian hand has
retouched the passage, has added a few words--without which it would
almost have been blasphemous[2]--has perhaps retrenched or modified
some expressions.[3] It must be recollected that the literary fortune
of Josephus was made by the Christians, who adopted his writings as
essential documents of their sacred history. They made, probably in
the second century, an edition corrected according to Christian
ideas.[4] At all events, that which constitutes the immense interest
of Josephus on the subject which occupies us, is the clear light which
he throws upon the period. Thanks to him, Herod, Herodias, Antipas,
Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom we can touch
with the finger, and whom we see living before us with a striking
reality.

[Footnote 1: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]

[Footnote 2: "If it be lawful to call him a man."]

[Footnote 3: In place of [Greek: christos outos ên], he certainly had
these [Greek: christos outos elegeto].--Cf. _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, i. 11, and _Demonstr. Evang._,
iii. 5) cites the passage respecting Jesus as we now read it in
Josephus. Origen (_Contra Celsus_, i. 47; ii. 13) and Eusebius (_Hist.
Eccl._, ii. 23) cite another Christian interpolation, which is not
found in any of the manuscripts of Josephus which have come down to