s In Arabic, al Hawâriyûn; which word they derive from Hâra, to be white, and suppose the apostles were so called either from the candour and sincerity of their minds, or because they were princes and wore white garments, or else because they were by trade fullers.2 According to which last opinion, their vocation is thus related; that as Jesus passed by the seaside, he saw some fullers at work, and accosting them, said, Ye cleanse these clothes, but cleanse not your hearts; upon which they believed on him. But the true etymology seems to be from the Ethiopic verb Hawyra, to go; whence Hawârya signifies one that is sent, a messenger or apostle.3 t i.e., They laid a design to take away his life. u This stratagem of God's was the taking of Jesus up into heaven, and stamping his likeness on another person, who was apprehended and crucified in his stead. For it is the constant doctrine of the Mohammedans that it was not Jesus himself who underwent that ignominious death, but somebody else in his shape and resemblance.4 The person crucified some will have to be a spy that was sent to entrap him; others, that it was one Titian, who by the direction of Judas entered in at a window of the house where Jesus was, to kill him; and others that it was Judas himself, who agreed with the rulers of the Jews to betray him for thirty pieces of silver, and led those who were sent to take him. They add, that Jesus after his crucifixion in effigy, was sent down again to the earth, to comfort his mother and disciples and acquaint them how the Jews were deceived; and was then taken up a second time into heaven.5 It is supposed by several that this story was an original invention of Mohammed's; but they are certainly mistaken; for several sectaries held the same opinion, long before his time. The Basilidians,6 in the very beginning of Christianity, denied that Christ himself suffered, but that Simon the Cyrenean was crucified in his place. The Cerinthians before them, and the Carpocratians next (to name no more of those who affirmed Jesus to have been a mere man), did believe the same thing; that it was not himself, but one of his followers very like him that was crucified. Photius tells us, that he read a book entitled, "The Journeys of the Apostles," relating the acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul; and among other things contained therein, this was one, that Christ, was not crucified, but another in his stead, and that therefore he laughed at his crucifiers,7 or those who thought they had crucified him.8 I have in another place9 mentioned an apocryphal gospel of Barnabas, a forgery originally of some nominal Christians, but interpolated since by Mohammedans; which gives this part of the history of Jesus with circumstances too curious to be omitted. It is therein related, that the moment the Jews were going to apprehend Jesus in the garden, he was snatched up into the third