retained the favour of a succession of imperial patrons. He was, it seems, a man of the world with a thoroughly secular disposition. What was his real _attitude to Judaism_? Though he devoted the latter part of his life to writing the history of his nation and a very able defence of their religion, we may doubt whether he was profoundly affected by their beliefs. Traill finds something “unnational” in the first act of his life, when he “looked around him upon the sects and factions of his times ... with a philosophic, supercilious independence.”[25] Though we need not, perhaps, go so far as this, nor blame him for what appears to have been a genuine quest of truth, we may allow that he was a cosmopolitan, alienated in many ways from his own nation, and that there was a lack of depth and sincerity in his adherence to Jewish dogmas. With this must be considered his _attitude to Christianity_. If we set aside the one brief “testimony” to Jesus Christ, which must be rejected as an interpolation,[26] we are left with the story of the death of James, “the brother of Jesus who was called Christ,”[27] and the reference to the murder of John the Baptist,[28] as the sole allusions to the Founder of Christianity and the movement which prepared the way for it. This glaring omission cannot be other than deliberate. Josephus had every opportunity of acquainting himself with the events of the life of Christ and of his followers; certainly he did not lack the curiosity to investigate the facts, and he must surely have watched with interest the fortunes and rapid spread of the rising sect which, even in St. Paul’s lifetime, had gained a footing in “Cæsar’s household.”[29] The Apostle’s words with reference to an intimate friend of Josephus might have been said of the historian himself: “I am persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him; for this hath not been done in a corner.”[30] Yet there is this silence. He does not attack Christianity; he simply ignores it. And, with our knowledge of the character of Josephus, the reason is not far to seek. He studiously avoids a topic to which, in the circumstances of the time, it would have been dangerous to allude. “Not only was he informed on these subjects; he was far too well informed of what the Christians had already and recently suffered ... not to be on his guard against the imprudence of giving any testimony in their favour which might implicate himself in their misfortunes.”[31]