The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

Extract from Suidas, in Howel's letters, P. 274. in a letter to Dr. Usher, Lord Primate of Ireland! Test. 6. book 2; letter 73.

In the reign of Justinian the Emperor, one Theodorus, a Jew, a man of great authority, lived in Jerusalem; with whom a rich goldsmith, who was a Christian, was much in favour, and very familiar. The goldsmith, in private discourse, told him one day that he wondered he, being a man of such great understanding, did not turn Christian, considering how he found all the prophecies of the law so evidently accomplished since. Theodorus answered, that it did not stand with his security and continuance in authority, to turn Christian; but he had a long time a good opinion of that religion, and he would discover a secret to him, which was not yet come to the knowledge of any Christian. It was, that when the Temple was founded in Jerusalem, there were twenty-two priests according to the number of the Hebrew letters, to officiate in the Temple; and when any was chosen, his name, with his father's and mother's, were used to be registered in a fair book. In the time of Christ a priest died and he was chosen in his place; but when his name was to be entered, his father Joseph being dead, his mother was sent for who being asked who was his father, she answered, "that she never knew man, but that she conceived by an Angel." So his name was registered in, these words. IESUS. CHRIST THE SON OF GOD. AND OF THE VIRGIN MARY. This record, at the destruction of the Temple, was preserved and is to be seen in Tiberias to this day.