"And to this very day" ([Greek: eis eti te nyn]). The phrase is foreign
to Jos., who commonly writes [Greek: eti kai nyn], occasionally [Greek: kai mechri
tou nyn] and the like, never [Greek: eis eti] (Norden).
Jos. is scrupulous in avoiding a harsh hiatus—the juxtaposition of unelided vowels at the end of one word and the beginning of the next. The interpolator writes [Greek: talêthê] correctly, but, as Norden notes, he has in these few lines introduced three glaring examples of hiatus: [Greek: Hellênikou epêgageto], [Greek: staurô epitetimêkotos], [Greek: Pilatou ouk].
(3) Contents.—Our decision must rest primarily upon
the arguments already adduced from context and style.
But the whole tone of the passage suggests a Christian
hand. It is the eulogy of a devotee masquerading under
the mantle of the Jewish historian, rather than what we
should expect, the bare chronicle, if not the bitter invective,
of the priestly historian himself. "If one should
call him a man"; "this was the Christ." Could Josephus
have so written? Even Jerome found this last
phrase incomprehensible on such lips and altered it in
his translation to "credebatur esse Christus" (De vir. ill.
13). Prof. Burkitt ventures to uphold the authenticity even
of these words. The passage, he argues, was penned at
a time when Christianity had not yet become a formidable
foe to Judaism, and was intended as an answer to Jewish
expostulations on the subject of the coming of Messiah.
This is how he paraphrases it: "Yes, the Christ was to
come and indeed did come. That very estimable person
who met with his death some time ago was the Christ.
As in the case of so many other personages in our
divinely chosen nation, there were some wonders and
prodigies told about him. Even now there are some
who revere him. They are good harmless folk like their
master. But they are quite unimportant and no danger
to the State; when you hear of 'Christ' it is no future
Hannibal or Spartacus, but a good man who is dead
and gone" (loc. cit. p. 140 f.). The reader must be
left to estimate the value of this interpretation of the
