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his words are rendered) of those that were with him, were deftroyed; in his Antiquities, he reprefents four hundred to have been killed upon this occafion, and two hundred taken prisoners*: which certainly was not the "greatest part," nor "a great part,' nor a great number," out of thirty thoufand. It is probable alfo, that Lyfias and Jofephus fpoke of the expedition in its different ftages: Lyfias, of those who followed the Egyptian out of Jerufalem; Jofephus, of all who were collected about him afterwards, from different quarters.

XLI. (Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Teftimonies, vol. iii. p. 21.) Acts xvii. 22. "Then Paul ftood in the midft of Marshill, and faid, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; for, as I paffed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this infcription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

* Lib. xx. c. 7, sec. 6.

Diogenes

Diogenes Laërtius, who wrote about the year 210, in his hiftory of Epimenides, who is fuppofed to have flourished nearly fix hundred years before Chrift, relates of him the following ftory: that, being invited to Athens for the purpose, he delivered the city from a peftilence in this manner"Taking feveral fheep, fome black, others white, he had them up to the Areopagus, and then let them go where they would, and gave orders to those who followed them, wherever any of them should lie down, to facrifice it to the god to whom it belonged; and fo the plague ceafed. Hence," fays the hiftorian," it has come to pafs, that, to this prefent time, may be found in the boroughs of the Athenians ANONYMOUS altars: a memorial of the expiation then made *." These altars, it may be prefumed, were called 'anonymous, because there was not the name of any particular deity infcribed upon

them.

Paufanias, who wrote before the end of

*In Epimenide, 1. i. fegm. 110.
N 2

the

the fecond century, in his defcription of Athens, having mentioned an altar of Jupiter Olympius, adds, "And nigh unto it is an altar of unknown gods*." And, in another place, he speaks "of altars of gods called unknown t."

Philoftratus, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, records it as an obfervation of Apollonius Tyanæus, "That it was wife to speak well of all the gods, efpecially at Athens, where altars of unknown demons were erected‡."

The author of the dialogue Philopatris, by many supposed to have been Lucian, who wrote about the year 170, by others fome anonymous heathen writer of the fourth century, makes Critias fwear by the unknown god of Athens; and, near the end of the dialogue, has these words, "But let us find out the unknown god at Athens, and, ftretching

our hands to heaven, offer to him our praises and thanksgivings."

This is a very curious and a very important coincidence. It appears beyond controversy, that altars with this infcription were existing at Athens, at the time when St. Paul is alledged to have been there. It feems also, which is very worthy of obfervation, that this infcription was peculiar to the Athenians. There is no evidence that there were altars infcribed "to the unknown God" in any other country. Supposing the history of St. Paul to have been a fable, how is it poffible that fuch a writer as the author of the Acts of the Apoftles was, fhould hit upon a circumftance fo extraordinary, and introduce it by an allusion fo fuitable to St. Paul's office and character ?

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The examples here collected will be fufficient, I hope, to fatisfy us, that the writers

*Lucian. in Philop. tom. ii. Græv. p. 767. 780.

of the Christian history knew something of what they were writing about. The argument is alfo ftrengthened by the following confiderations:

I. That these agreements appear, not only in articles of public hiftory, but, fometimes, in minute, recondite, and very peculiar circumftances, in which, of all others, a forger is most likely to have been found tripping.

II. That the deftruction of Jerufalem, which took place forty years after the commencement of the Chriftian inftitution, produced fuch a change in the ftate of the country, and the condition of the Jews, that a writer who was unacquainted with the circumftances of the nation before that event, would find it difficult to avoid mistakes, in endeavouring to give detailed accounts of transactions connected with thofe circumftances, forafmuch as he could no longer have a living exemplar to copy from.

III. That there appears, in the writers of

the