Hand-Book of Christian Evidences (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...written. Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Pliny, Trajan and Hadrian, writing in the century immediately following upon the death of Christ, declare these things to us, and establish them so firmly that no sceptic can profess to doubt the historical character of at least that primary 122 EXTERNAL EVIDENCE; TACITUS. groundwork whereon the Christian story, as related by the evangelists, rests as on an immovable basis." " They furnish, taken by themselves, no unimportant argument for the truth of the religion which they prove to have been propagated with such zeal, by persons of pure and holy lives, in spite of punishments and persecutions of the most fearful kind; and they form, in connection with the argument from the historical accuracy of the incidental allusions, an evidence in favor of the substantial truth of the New Testament narrative, which is amply sufficient to satisfiy any fair mind." See Rawlinsoii's Hist. Ev. Chap. vii. The lloman historian, Tacitus, in his annals, written about seventy years after Christ's death, gives a history of Nero's reign, and describes with great vividness the great fire which occurred in Rome about thirty years after Christ's death, namely, A.D. G4, and he says that the Eoman populace were suspicious that Nero was the cause of this fire, and that the emperor made great exertions to remove those suspicions; but, says Tacitus, " Neither these exertions, nor his largesses to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end, therefore, to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishments, upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, ...