The actual MSS containing these extraordinary passages are not earlier than the fifteenth century; the translation can be dated back to the thirteenth century at latest. The earlier history of the additions is lost in obscurity; they have left no trace in the extant Greek MSS. Berendts boldly maintains their authenticity, believing them to be fragments of the original Aramaic edition of the _Jewish War_ written for Syrian readers (§ 38), which were eliminated when the later Greek version, addressed to a wider and more critical circle, was produced. This daring theory has met with little support; but the origin of the passages remains a mystery, no final solution of which is possible pending the publication of a complete text from the Russian MSS. The remarkable facts about them are their _Jewish_ appearance, their independence (in part) of the Gospel narrative and the impression which they make of being derived from oral tradition. Parallels to a few of the statements (the bribery of Pilate, the healing “by a word”) occur in the Christian apocryphal _Epistle of Tiberius to Pilate_ (ed. M. R. James in _Texts and Studies_, vol. V. p. 78, 1899); compare also the apocryphal _Acts of Pilate_ (Tischendorf, _Evangelia Apocrypha_, Leipzig, 1853, p. 292), where Joseph of Arimathæa, addressing the body of Christ, uses the words “if it be right to call thee a man,” recalling the phrase common to the fourth Slavonic passage and the “testimony” in the _Antiquities_. III. Note on § (29). THE FIRST HUSBAND OF HERODIAS