Another griefe conceau’d I will recyte, Which made me with the _Senate_ discontent: From _Iudæa_ did[910] _Pontius Pilate_ write His letters how the _Iewes_, to malice bent, Had put to death one _Christ_ full innocent, The sonne of God, of might, of power no lesse, Which rose from death, as _Christians_ all confesse. Thus wise he wrote: Pontius Pilate to his Lorde Claudius wisheth health. [Sidenote: This letter is in _Flores historiarum_, but you may not thinke that I doe set it downe thereby to affirme that he wrate it. For I am perswaded he would not write so well, and yet it appears by Orosius and others that Claudius would haue made Christ to haue bene taken in Rome for a God, and that the Senate and he fell so at variance about the same matter.] Of late it chaunst, which I haue proued well, The _Iewes_ through wrath by cruell doome haue lost Themselues, and all their offspring that ensue. For when their fathers promise had that God Would send to them from heauen his holy one, That might deseruingly be namde their King, And [promist] by a virgine him to th’earth to sende, The same (I pronoste here) when th’_Hebrewes_[911] God was come, And they him saw restore the blind to sight, To cleanse the leapers, cure the palsies eke, To cast diuelles[912] out of men, and rayse the dead, Commaund the windes, on sea with dry feete walke, And many maruayles great beside to doe, When all the _Iewish_ people called[913] him the sonne of God, The Chiefe Priestes enuying him deliuered him to mee,[914] And bringing many forged fained faultes Namde him a wisarde, and against[915] their lawes to doe: And I beleeud it so to be, and whipt him[916] for the cause, [Deliuering him to them to vse as they thought best.] They crucifide him, buried him, [set keepers at] his tombe, Yet he, while as my souldiers kept his graue,[917] The third day rose againe, and came to life. But so their hatreds bent, they[918] bribde the souldiers all, And bad them say, that his disciples stale his corps away.[919] The souldiers yet, when they the money [taken] had, Could not the trueth keepe silent of the facte: For both they witnessed that he was risen againe, And of the _Iewes_, that [they so taken money had. I therefore here so write to you, lest any othervvise Some lye do bring, or thinke vve should beleeue of _Iewes_ the lyes.[920]] 13. These letters read, I did thereon conferre, Both with the fathers graue in high degree, And with the nobles of [the] _Senate_ were, That _Christ_ in _Rome_ as God might counted bee, To which they onely did not disagree, (Because the letters came not first to them) But by edicte [from _Rome_] did banish[921] Christen men.