And since, in imitation of a rhetorician training a pupil, he introduces
a Jew, who enters into a personal discussion with Jesus, and speaks in a
very childish manner, altogether unworthy of the grey hairs of a
philosopher, let me endeavour, to the best of my ability, to examine his
statements, and show that he does not maintain, throughout the
discussion, the consistency due to the character of a Jew. For he
represents him disputing with Jesus, and confuting Him, as he thinks, on
many points; and in the first place, he accuses Him of having “invented
his birth from a virgin,” and upbraids Him with being “born in a certain
Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her
subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband,
a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after
being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she
disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having
hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and
having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians
greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on
account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.” Now,
as I cannot allow anything said by unbelievers to remain unexamined, but
must investigate everything from the beginning, I give it as my opinion
that all these things worthily harmonize with the predictions that Jesus
is the Son of God.