No direct admission of Celsus, relating to Jewish prophecy, is to be found. There are however many observations, which prove the coming of Christ to have been expected by the Jews, and this expectation must have been the result of prophecy. The remarks of Celsus, with regard to this topic, are of this kind. That the “Jews {8a} and Christians believe, that the Spirit of God had promised there would come a Saviour; but they could not agree, whether or no, he had already come;” {8b} that “the prophecies which the Christians apply to Christ refer equally to other persons;” {8c} that “others had lived who had applied the prophecies of Christ to themselves,” &c. &c. Thus he plainly admits prophecies to have existed of some great person, who was to come; and that Jews and Christians believed in them, but that it was uncertain whether they were accomplished. The inferences to be collected from the preceding observations, are as follows. First, The Jewish Scriptures are of older date, than the birth of Christ. For if these writings had been compiled since that time, some rumours of such an event must have reached Celsus; and this fact which would have ruined all the pretensions of Jewish antiquity, would have been urged by the heathens as a primary objection to their claims. The Jews themselves moreover could not have been deceived, if this had been a cunningly devised fable; for they were a widely extended people, and in so short a space of time, it would have been impossible to make them the dupes of such an imposture. Secondly, It may be inferred from the admission of Celsus, that the prophecies were found in the Jewish Scriptures _in his time_; and _since_ then no alteration has been made in them by the Jews. But if so, this is the strongest presumption, that the Jews had never altered them _before_. For, if, when by the fulfilment of the prophecies, in the person of Christ, they were most tempted to erase predictions, so hostile to their own creed, they made no change, much less, would they do it, when the temptation was diminished. Thirdly, If little is to be collected from the writings of Celsus, in favour of those prophecies which he has attacked, something may be inferred in favour of those which he has failed to attack. Their existence is admitted, and his spirit of hostility is such, that we must attribute his silence not to his forbearance, but to his disingenuousness. Fourthly, The admission that some important character was expected, not only by the Jews, but by the heathens, at the era of Christ’s advent, is very important to religion. Where could the expectation originate, except in the Jewish Scriptures? The sages, poets, and historians of antiquity, appear to have drunk at this sacred source. The Arabians {10a} came from a far country to greet it; Herod destroyed {10b} the Jewish genealogies that the family of David might not be known, {10c} undertook the building of