Take first the circumstances of Christ's birth. It was expected that the Messiah was to be of the family of David, and born at Bethlehem Ephratah. Now, according to two of our authorities, he fulfilled both of these conditions. But, without at all discussing the point whether their statement is true, it is abundantly sufficient for the vindication of the Jews to observe, that they neither knew, nor could know, anything at all, either of his royal lineage or of his birth at Bethlehem. For he himself never stated either of the two capital facts of which Luke and Matthew make so much, nor does it appear that any of his disciples alluded to them during his life-time. He was habitually spoken about as Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew, in endeavoring to account for the name by misquoting a prophecy, bears witness to the fact that it expressed the general belief. Luke makes him speak of Nazareth as his own country. Nowhere does it appear that he repudiated the implication conveyed by his ordinary title. Still less did he ever maintain—what his over-busy biographers maintained for him—that he was of the seed of David. Quite the reverse. He contends against the Pharisees that the Messiah was not to be a descendant of David at all. The dialogue as given by Matthew runs thus: "'What is your opinion about the Christ? whose son is he?' They say to him, 'David's.' He says to them, 'How then does David in the spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my lord, Sit on my right hand until I place thine enemies under thy feet? If then David calls him lord, how is he his son?'" (Mt. xxii. 42-46). No answer was given by the Pharisees, nor was any explanation of the paradox ever granted them by Jesus. In the absence, then, of any further elucidation we can only put one interpretation upon his argument. It was clearly intended to show not only that the Messiah _need_ not, but that he _could_ not be of the house of David. David in that case would not have called him Lord. The Pharisees may have been but little impressed by the force of the argument, but of one thing they could scarcely entertain a doubt. Jesus wished it to be thought that he was the Messiah. He also wished it to be thought that the Messiah was not a son of David. He himself therefore was certainly not a son of David. But if anything more were needed to excuse the ignorance—supposing it such—of the Jewish rulers about the birthplace and family of Jesus, we find it even super-abundantly in the work of one of his own adherents—the fourth Evangelist. Not that this writer is to be taken as an authority on the facts, but he is an authority on the views that were current, at least in a portion of his own sect, and on that which he himself—writing long after the death of Christ—had received by tradition. Now, in the beginning of his Gospel he describes Philip the disciple as going to Nathanael, and saying, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and of whom the prophets wrote, Jesus _the