XL. [p. 942.] Acts xxi. 38.  “Art not thou that Egyptian which, before these days, madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?”

Joseph. de Bell. 1. ii. c. 13, sect. 5.  “But the Egyptian false prophet brought a yet heavier disaster upon the Jews; for this impostor, coming into the country, and gaining the reputation of a prophet, gathered together thirty thousand men, who were deceived by him.  Having brought them round out of the wilderness, up to the mount of Olives, he intended from thence to make his attack upon Jerusalem; but Felix, coming suddenly upon him with the Roman soldiers, prevented the attack.—­A great number, or (as it should rather be rendered) the greatest part, of those that were with him were either slain or taken prisoners.”

In these two passages, the designation of this impostor, an “Egyptian,” without the proper name, “the wilderness ;” his escape, though his followers were destroyed; the time of the transaction, in the presidentship of Felix, which could not be any long time before the words in Luke are supposed to have been spoken; are circumstances of close correspondency.  There is one, and only one, point of disagreement, and that is, in the number of his followers, which in the Acts are called four thousand, and by Josephus thirty thousand:  but, beside that the names of numbers, more than any other words, are liable to the errors of transcribers, we are in the present instance under the less concern to reconcile the evangelist with Josephus, as Josephus is not, in this point, consistent with himself.  For whereas, in the passage here quoted, he calls the number thirty thousand, and tells us that the greatest part, or a great number (according as his words are rendered) of those that were with him were destroyed; in his Antiquities he represents four hundred to have been killed upon this occasion, and two hundred taken prisoners:(Lib. xx. c. 7, sect. 6.) which certainly was not the “greatest part,” nor “a great part,” nor “a great number,” out of thirty thousand.  It is probable, also, that Lysias and Josephus spoke of the expedition in its different stages:  Lysias, of those who followed the Egyptian out of Jerusalem; Josephus, of all who were collected about him afterwards, from different quarters.

XLI. (Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii p. 21.) Acts xvii. 22.  “Then Paul stood in the midst of Marshill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; for, as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown god.  Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”