Even those who did not profess to be followers of Jesus Christ refused to deny that He—Jesus—was unique in history.

The Jewish historian, Josephus, writing only fifty years after Christ’s death and resurrection said, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first did not forsake Him. For he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning Him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct to this day.”¹

In our own time, Sholem Ash wrote: “Jesus Christ is the outstanding personality of all time…No other teacher—Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Mohamedan—is still a teacher whose teaching is such a guidepost for the world we live in. Other teachers may have something basic for an Oriental, an Arab, or an Occidental; but every act and word of Jesus has value for all of us. He became the Light of the World. Why shouldn’t I, a Jew, be proud of that.”²

Even those antagonistic to religion wouldn’t hide their admiration of Jesus. Goethe, the great genius, viewing the march of history, confessed, “…if ever the Divine appeared on earth, it was in the Person of Christ…I esteem the gospels to be thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity, proceeding from the person of Jesus Christ, and of as Divine a kind as was ever manifested upon earth.”³

The French deist Rousseau adds, “Can the Person whose history the Gospels relate be Himself a man? What sweetness, what purity in His manners! What affecting goodness in His institutions! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind, what ingenuity of justice in His replies! Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of a God.”

¹ Works of Josephus, Vol. IV, p. 11

² The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Josh D. McDowell, p. 319

³ The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Josh D. McDowell, p. 318

⁴ The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Josh D. McDowell, p. 319

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras