The next difficulty presented is in the discourse of Gamaliel, Acts 5. (Phases, p. 108.) Theudas, it is said, was after Gamaliel's time, instead of before Judas's; and appeal is made to Josephus, whose testimony is considered infallible and complete, because it is not inspired. Valuable and important as the information afforded by Josephus is, the accuracy of this servile worshipper of Vespasian as the Messiah of an apostate heart is not so absolute as the author would lead people to suppose. But I do not see reason to call in question his account of Theudas. It happened (according to his account), as we learn by comparing the dates, in his childhood; and he mentions Cuspius Fadus as the governor under whom it happened; so that there is no reason to suppose that he was not well informed. But Luke is also an historian of extreme and undoubted accuracy. Few give such proofs of it by reference or allusions to a multiplicity of historical and geographical details or customs, in which a stranger would betray himself.
Now Josephus mentions a Theudas who rose up after Gamaliel's time; Luke, one who rose up before it.
Mr. N. assumes that they are the same, and that it is Luke's mistake. He says, "Of both the insurgents we have a clear and unimpeached historical account in Josephus." (Ib. pp. 108, 109.) The reader might suppose that there were two insurgents only in those days. The fact is, they hardly ever ceased for forty or fifty years. There were a multitude of them.
It has been shown that, between the death of the first Herod and the destruction of Jerusalem, there were three Judases and five Simons. Lardner makes, I think, four Simons in forty years, and three Judases in ten; one of whom, Usher is decidedly of opinion, is the Theudas mentioned by Luke, as to which I do not pretend to offer an opinion. Usher thinks the name the same. At any rate the name of Theudas was so very common, as well as the change and assumption of names, that an insurgent Theudas is the most easy thing to credit that possibly can be. A statement of "both the insurgents," as if there were only two, and the two Theudases the same, is, to say the very least, as unfounded a one as possibly can be made.
Remark further, that Luke, in his account of Judas, is thoroughly accurate. Though generally called Judas Gaulonitis, he was a Galilean; for so Josephus also calls him. It is supposed, that having the means of being thus accurate as to one, he is wholly inaccurate as to another fact, drawn from the same sources. When the whole difficulty is this, which is really none, that in a multitude of abortive efforts of the Jews against Roman power, Josephus has omitted one which Gamaliel mentions, we knowing that he omits many others, the name being a very common one indeed, as Wetstein has shown, and the fact being ascertained that there were five such efforts of persons having or assuming the same name of Simon, and three more assuming another within ten years; so that a second of the same name, and that a very common one, in fifty years, has not the smallest improbability whatever.
Further, the only circumstance to prove them the same is the death of the leader, and the dispersion of his followers; an event which probably occurred in every case in these vain and desultory efforts of partial rebellion. One point in which detail is given may be noticed, to show they are not the same; for Luke gives the number of Theudas's adherents as about four hundred; whereas Josephus says they were "a great multitude," τὸν πλεῖστον ὄχλον. Indeed, though much cannot be rested upon the word, the result was somewhat different; for in Luke they were "scattered," διελύθησαν, and brought to naught. Of those under the Theudas against whom Cuspius Fadus sent a troop of horse, many were slain and many taken prisoners, among whom was Theudas, who was beheaded. Now, though, as a general result, dispersion and coming to nothing might be stated, on the whole, the impression is different. And remark, that Luke has evidently accurate information here, for he is able to tell the number of his Theudas's followers as about four hundred. Yet he is an historian who is remarkably exempt from all appearance of pretension or exaggeration.
And here note, that I am not called upon to prove that Luke is right, but that the objection is an unfounded one. And I judge that what we have seen proves it not only to be unfounded, but unreasonable; and that the expression, "both the insurgents," is an unwarrantable assertion, to say the least.
The truth of the history rests on the general credibility of the historian; for I am not to suppose inspiration here, though the abundant independent proofs of that preclude all these questions altogether. The effort to show it improbable entirely fails. Perhaps the reader may suppose that this is an answer invented now to meet the case. Alas! all these objections have been made centuries ago. This one in particular by Celsus, some sixteen hundred years ago or more; and the Christianity these philosophical heathens tried to subvert then, as the philosophical deists, boasting of their greater spirituality, do now (borrowing their objections from the heathens, and their spirituality from the Christianity they seek to subvert)-this Christianity, I say, has subsisted after all their efforts, and saved millions of souls taught by it, as Mr. N. has admitted, the sympathy of the pure and perfect God with the sincere worshipper, in spite of the opposition, and in spite of the still more dangerous corruptions which have for the most part disfigured it. It has subsisted and produced an energy of love which "philosophical faith" never thinks of, not only because it is the truth of God, but because the God of truth Himself is in and with it, and has proved it in revealing Himself to the hearts of poor sinners saved and made happy by it. What has Mr. N. that he has not borrowed from it? He must not be surprised that we claim the feathers he has decked himself in. He may be assured that my heart would earnestly wish them to be livingly his own. Nor would I, if stripping him of what is borrowed, peck at himself. I would not spare his work, seeking as it does to deprive souls of what alone is blessing and life. I feel my feebleness in commenting on it. What I can I will do to show it groundless and unreasonable. But I add the proof how ancient this account of Theudas which I have given is.
Origen, who had read Josephus, and gives him the character of truthfulness of research, says, in reply to Celsus, "We say that there was a certain Theudas among the Jews, before the birth of Jesus, alleging himself to be some great one;" and again, "Judas the Galilean, as Luke has written in the Acts of the Apostles, chose to say he was some great one, and before him, Theudas." Elsewhere he says the same thing. Hence learned men have remarked, that the fathers here constantly refer to these two as the thieves and robbers who came before Christ, showing that they supposed Theudas did so. This merely shows that they accepted Luke's account as certain, in spite of Celsus's objection already cited.
Eusebius, overlooking all difficulty of date, takes for granted Josephus's Theudas and Luke's to be the same; he places him in the reign of Claudius, that is, seven or ten years after Gamaliel's speech, which must have been before the death of Tiberius, or in the beginning of Caligula's reign.