The Toledoth Jeschu comes before us with a flourish of trumpets from Voltaire. “Le Toledos Jeschu,” says he, “est le plus ancien écrit Juif, qui nous ait été transmis contre notre religion. C’est une vie de Jesus Christ, toute contraire à nos Saints Evangiles: elle parait être du premier siècle, et même écrite avant les evangiles.”(102) A fair specimen of reckless judgment on a matter of importance, without having taken the trouble to examine the grounds on which it was made! Luther knew more of it than did Voltaire, and put it in a very different place:— “The proud evil spirit carries on all sorts of mockery in this book. First he mocks God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ, as you may see for yourself, if you believe as a Christian that Christ is the Son of God. Next he mocks us, all Christendom, in that we believe in such a Son of God. Thirdly, he mocks his own fellow Jews, telling them such disgraceful, foolish, senseless affairs, as of brazen dogs and cabbage‐stalks and such like, enough to make all dogs bark themselves to death, if they could understand it, at such a pack of idiotic, blustering, raging, nonsensical fools. Is not that a masterpiece of mockery which can thus mock all three at once? The fourth mockery is this, that whoever wrote it has made a fool of himself, as we, thank God, may see any day.” Luther knew the book, and, translated it, or rather condensed it, in his “Schem Hamphoras.”(103) There are two versions of the Toledoth Jeschu, differing widely from one another. The first was published by Wagenseil, of Altdorf, in 1681. The second by Huldrich at Leyden in 1705. Neither can boast of an antiquity greater than, at the outside, the twelfth century. It is difficult to say with certainty which is the earlier of the two. Probably both came into use about the same time; the second certainly in Germany, for it speaks of Worms in the German empire. According to the first, Jeschu (Jesus) was born in the year of the world 4671 (B.C. 910), in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (B.C. 106‐79)! He was the son of Joseph Pandira and Mary, a widow’s daughter, the sister of Jehoshua, who was affianced to Jochanan, disciple of Simeon Ben Schetah; and Jeschu became the pupil of the Rabbi Elchanan. Mary is of the tribe of Juda. According to the second, Jeschu was born in the reign of Herod the Proselyte, and was the son of Mary, daughter of Calpus, and sister of Simeon, son of Calpus, by Joseph Pandira, who carried her off from her husband, Papus, son of Jehuda. Jeschu was brought up by Joshua, son of Perachia, in the days of the illustrious Rabbi Akiba! Mary is of the tribe of Benjamin. The anachronisms of both accounts are so gross as to prove that they were drawn up at a very late date, and by Jews singularly ignorant of the chronology of their history.