Martyr? Can we allege that the facts occurring in the presence of his own appointed governor, Pontius Pilate, and reported by him, were facts in his own possession, written in the official document made under his governor’s own knowledge and claim that they were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ? If we can we ought to do it, and if we cannot we ought that it had been stated by Christian writers that it ever was done. Who are these Christian writers? No less men that our Justin Martyr, our Tertullian, and our father of history in the Church, Eusebius. When did they do these things or report that they were done? In the year A. D. 138, Justin; about the year A. D. 200, Tertullian; and about A. D. 315, Eusebius.

These are the men. They are prominent and widely known. We have their writings. They were all scholars, learned men, cultured men, eminent for their learning. They knew of reports which Pilate made from Judea to his emperor, Tiberius Caesar, at Rome, concerning Jesus. They knew that they contained as to the wonderful occurrences at, before and after the crucifixion. They were not only acquainted with all this, but were bold (two of these at least, Justin and Tertullian) to tell the highest man in Rome that he could know these wonderful things about Jesus by simple reference to the papers drawn up under Pontius Pilate.

This is simply the history in brief of the Pilate papers as known to these three eminent men, Justin, Tertullian and Eusebius. Every Christian ought to know such an important scrap of history and, if possible, obtain the papers of Pilate, and to know that it is his duty to circulate such respectable testimony as they contain, as did the good and eminent men above named, bear it before the great Emperor and his Roman Senate and to the world around them.

The reader of these lines need not be in doubt as to the papers, or the testimony they bear, for the reason that he may fear that the papers have been lost or destroyed, as nearly resulted in A. D. 311, under Maxim’s reign. We adduce authority here which will allay any fear and cast out all doubt as to whether we have the Pilate papers. We adduce the remarks of Dr. Constantine Tischendorf as taken from Mr. William I. Gage’s translation, under the sanction of Dr. Tischendorf, and as found in his “Origin of the Four Gospels.”