“The Jew brought forward by Celsus goes on to say, ‘I could relate many things more concerning Jesus, all which are true, but which have quite a different character from what his disciples relate touching him; but, I will not now bring these forward.’ And what are these facts,” answers Origen, “which are not in agreement with the narratives of the Evangelists, and which the Jew refrains from mentioning? Unquestionably, he is using only a rhetorical expression; he pretends that he has in his store abundance of munitions of war to discharge against Jesus and his doctrine, but in fact he knows nothing which can deceive the hearer with the appearance of truth, _except those particulars which he has culled from the the Gospels themselves_.”(78) This is most important evidence of the utter ignorance of the Jews in the second century of all that related to the history of our Lord. Justus and Josephus had been silent. There was no written narrative to which the Jew might turn for information; his traditions were silent. The fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews had broken the thread of their recollections. It is very necessary to bear this in mind, in order to appreciate the utter worthlessness of the stories told of our Saviour in the Talmud and the Toledoth Jeschu. An attempt has been made to bolster up these late fables, and show that they are deserving of a certain amount of confidence.(79) But it is clear that the religious movement which our Lord originated in Palestine attracted much less attention at the time than has been usually supposed. The Sanhedrim at first regarded his teaching with the contempt with which, in after times, Leo X. heard of the preaching of Luther. “It is a schoolman’s proposition,” said the Pope. “A new rabbinical tradition,” the elders probably said. Only when their interests and fears were alarmed, did they interfere to procure the condemnation of Christ. And then they thought no more of their victim and his history than they did later of the history of James, the Lord’s brother. The preaching and death of Jesus led to no tumultuous outbreak against the Roman government, and therefore excited little interest. The position of Christ as the God‐ man was not forced on them by the Nazarenes. The Jews noticed the virtues of these men, but ignored their peculiar tenets, till traditions were lost; and when the majesty of Christ, incarnate God, shone out on the world which turned to acknowledge him, they found that they had preserved no records, no recollections of the events in the history of Jesus. That he was said by Christians to have been born of a Virgin, driven into Egypt by King Herod—that he wrought miracles, gathered disciples, died on the cross and rose again—they heard from the Christians; and these facts they made use of to pervert them into fantastic fables, to colour them with malignant inventions. The only trace of independent tradition is in the