Q. Wat not Josephus living in our Saviour's days?
A. He was not then born in our Saviour's days, but was born five years after Christ's passion, and was thirty-five years old at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Q. Was Herod of the seed or blood royal of the tribe of Judah ?
A. Herod was a man of Idumea, and being rich, politic, and ambitious, and very comely, every way qualified for a courtier, that Hyrcannus, king of Juden, of the house of David, gave to him his daughter in marriage, and made him governor in Galilee; and when Hyrcannus was taken prisoner by the Parthians and carried to that country, Herod fled to Rome, and there by the favour of Mark Anthony obtained the kingdom of Judea, though his father-in-law was still alive in Parthia. No sooner had he taken possession of the kingdom of Judea, than he caused all the blood royal to be put to death, as likewise his wife Marianne, with forty of the principal men of Judea, and all the Sanhedrim, of seventy two senators, that ruled the people, and burnt all the chronicles, and genealogies of all the kings and princes of Judea, causing Nicholas Damascens to draw out his pedigree, and to affirm that he ascended from the ancient kings of that country: yet when all this was done, Jesus of the same house and line of David, was born in Bethlehem, and then was exactly fulfilled the prophecy of old Jacob, that the sceptre, &c.
Q. Were there not several impostors that took the advantage, and declared themselves to be Christ?
A. As all the traditions of the ancient Jews pointed at the coming of the Messias, in the reign of Augustus, and all the people had such
