And here emerges the hypothesis that he did disparage or denounce the Christian sect in some passage which has been deleted by Christian copyists, perhaps in the very place now filled by the spurious paragraph, where an account of Jesuism as a calamity to Judaism would have been relevant in the context. This suggestion is nearly as plausible as that of Chwolson, who would reckon the existing paragraph a description of a Jewish calamity, is absurd. And it is the possibility of this hypothesis that alone averts an absolute verdict of non-historicity against the gospel story in terms of the silence of Josephus. The biographical school may take refuge, at this point, in the claim that the Christian forger, whose passage was clearly unknown to Origen, perhaps eliminated by his fraud a historic testimony to the historicity of Jesus, and also an account of the sect of Nazaræans. But that is all that can be claimed. The fact remains that in the Life, telling of his youthful search for a satisfactory sect, Josephus says not a word of the existence of that of the crucified Jesus; that he nowhere breathes a word concerning the twelve apostles, or any of them, or of Paul; and that there is no hint in any of the Fathers of even a hostile account of Jesus by him in any of his works, though Origen makes much of the allusion to James the Just, [275]--also dismissible as an interpolation, like another to the same effect cited by Origen, but not now extant. [276] There is therefore a strong negative presumption to be set against even the forlorn hypothesis that the passage forged in Josephus by a Christian scribe ousted one which gave a hostile testimony. Over a generation ago, Mr. George Solomon of Kingston, Jamaica, noting the general incompatibility of Josephus with the gospel story and the unhistorical aspect of the latter, constructed an interesting theory, [277] of which I have seen no discussion, but which merits notice here. It may be summarized thus:-- 1. Banos is probably the historical original of the gospel figure of John the Baptist. 2. Josephus names and describes two Jesuses, who are blended in the figure of the gospel Jesus: (a) the Jesus (Wars, VI, v, 3) who predicts "woe to Jerusalem"; is flogged till his bones show, but never utters a cry; makes no reply when challenged; returns neither thanks for kindness nor railing for railing; and is finally killed by a stone projectile in the siege; and (b) Jesus the Galilean (Life, §§ 12, 27), son of Sapphias, who opposes Josephus, is associated with Simon and John, and has a following of "sailors and poor people," one of whom betrays him (§ 22), whereupon he is captured by a stratagem, his immediate followers forsaking him and flying. [278] Before this point, Josephus has taken seventy of the Galileans with him (§ 14) as hostages, and, making them his friends and companions on his journey, sets them "to judge causes." This is the hint for Luke's story of the seventy disciples.