Flavius Josephus Against
Apion
BOOK II
1. IN the former book, most honored Epaphroditus, I have demonstrated
our antiquity, and confirmed the truth of what I have said, from the writings
of the Phoenicians, and Chaldeans, and Egyptians. I have, moreover, produced
many of the Grecian writers as witnesses thereto. I have also made a refutation
of Manetho and Cheremon, and of certain others of our enemies. I shall
now (1)
therefore begin a confutation of the remaining authors who have written
any thing against us; although I confess I have had a doubt upon me about
Apion (2)
the grammarian, whether I ought to take the trouble of confuting him or
not; for some of his writings contain much the same accusations which the
others have laid against us, some things that he hath added are very frigid
and contemptible, and for the greatest part of what he says, it is very
scurrilous, and, to speak no more than the plain truth, it shows him to
be a very unlearned person, and what he lays together looks like the work
of a man of very bad morals, and of one no better in his whole life than
a mountebank. Yet, because there are a great many men so very foolish,
that they are rather caught by such orations than by what is written with
care, and take pleasure in reproaching other men, and cannot abide to hear
them commended, I thought it to be necessary not to let this man go off
without examination, who had written such an accusation against us, as
if he would bring us to make an answer in open court. For I also have observed,
that many men are very much delighted when they see a man who first began
to reproach another, to be himself exposed to contempt on account of the
vices he hath himself been guilty of. However, it is not a very easy thing
to go over this man's discourse, nor to know plainly what he means; yet
does he seem, amidst a great confusion and disorder in his falsehoods,
to produce, in the first place, such things as resemble what we have examined
already, and relate to the departure of our forefathers out of Egypt; and,
in the second place, he accuses those Jews that are inhabitants of Alexandria;
as, in the third place, he mixes with those things such accusations as
concern the sacred purifications, with the other legal rites used in the
temple.
2. Now although I cannot but think that I have already demonstrated,
and that abundantly more than was necessary, that our fathers were not
originally Egyptians, nor were thence expelled, either on account of bodily
diseases, or any other calamities of that sort; yet will I briefly take
notice of what Apion adds upon that subject; for in his third book, which
relates to the affairs of Egypt, he speaks thus: "I have heard of
the ancient men of Egypt, that Moses was of Heliopolis, and that he thought
himself obliged to follow the customs of his forefathers, and offered his
prayers in the open air, towards the city walls; but that he reduced them
all to be directed towards sun-rising, which was agreeable to the situation
of Heliopolis; that he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, (3)
under which was represented a cavity like that of a boat, and the shadow
that fell from their tops fell down upon that cavity, that it might go
round about the like course as the sun itself goes round in the other."
This is that wonderful relation which we have given us by this grammarian.
But that it is a false one is so plain, that it stands in need of few words
to prove it, but is manifest from the works of Moses; for when he erected
the first tabernacle to God, he did himself neither give order for any
such kind of representation to be made at it, nor ordain that those that
came after him should make such a one. Moreover, when in a future age Solomon
built his temple in Jerusalem, he avoided all such needless decorations
as Apion hath here devised. He says further, how he had "heard of
the ancient men, that Moses was of Hellopolis." To be sure that was,
because being a younger man himself, he believed those that by their elder
age were acquainted and conversed with him. Now this grammarian, as he
was, could not certainly tell which was the poet Homer's country, no more
than he could which was the country of Pythagoras, who lived comparatively
but a little while ago; yet does he thus easily determine the age of Moses,
who preceded them such a vast number of years, as depending on his ancient
men's relation, which shows how notorious a liar he was. But then as to
this chronological determination of the time when he says he brought the
leprous people, the blind, and the lame out of Egypt, see how well this
most accurate grammarian of ours agrees with those that have written before
him! Manetho says that the Jews departed out of Egypt, in the reign of
Tethmosis, three hundred ninety-three years before Danaus fled to Argos;
Lysimaehus says it was under king Bocchoris, that is, one thousand seven
hundred years ago; Molo and some others determined it as every one pleased:
but this Apion of ours, as deserving to be believed before them, hath determined
it exactly to have been in the seventh olympiad, and the first year of
that olympiad; the very same year in which he says that Carthage was built
by the Phoenicians. The reason why he added this building of Carthage was,
to be sure, in order, as he thought, to strengthen his assertion by so
evident a character of chronology. But he was not aware that this character
confutes his assertion; for if we may give credit to the Phoenician records
as to the time of the first coming of their colony to Carthage, they relate
that Hirom their king was above a hundred and fifty years earlier than
the building of Carthage; concerning whom I have formerly produced testimonials
out of those Phoenician records, as also that this Hirom was a friend of
Solomon when he was building the temple of Jerusalem, and gave him great
assistance in his building that temple; while still Solomon himself built
that temple six hundred and twelve years after the Jews came out of Egypt.
As for the number of those that were expelled out of Egypt, he hath contrived
to have the very same number with Lysimaehus, and says they were a hundred
and ten thousand. He then assigns a certain wonderful and plausible occasion
for the name of Sabbath; for he says that "when the Jews had traveled
a six days' journey, they had buboes in their groins; and that on this
account it was that they rested on the seventh day, as having got safely
to that country which is now called Judea; that then they preserved the
language of the Egyptians, and called that day the Sabbath, for that malady
of buboes on their groin was named Sabbatosis by the Egyptians." And
would not a man now laugh at this fellow's trifling, or rather hate his
impudence in writing thus? We must, it seems, fake it for granted that
all these hundred and ten thousand men must have these buboes. But, for
certain, if those men had been blind and lame, and had all sorts of distempers
upon them, as Apion says they had, they could not have gone one single
day's journey; but if they had been all able to travel over a large desert,
and, besides that, to fight and conquer those that opposed them, they had
not all of them had buboes on their groins after the sixth day was over;
for no such distemper comes naturally and of necessity upon those that
travel; but still, when there are many ten thousands in a camp together,
they constantly march a settled space [in a day]. Nor is it at all probable
that such a thing should happen by chance; this would be prodigiously absurd
to be supposed. However, our admirable author Apion hath before told us
that "they came to Judea in six days' time;" and again, that
"Moses went up to a mountain that lay between Egypt and Arabia, which
was called Sinai, and was concealed there forty days, and that when he
came down from thence he gave laws to the Jews." But, then, how was
it possible for them to tarry forty days in a desert place where there
was no water, and at the same time to pass all over the country between
that and Judea in the six days? And as for this grammatical translation
of the word Sabbath, it either contains an instance of his great impudence
or gross ignorance; for the words Sabbo and Sabbath are widely
different from one another; for the word Sabbath in the Jewish language
denotes rest from all sorts of work; but the word Sabbo, as he affirms,
denotes among the Egyptians the malady of a bubo in the groin.
3. This is that novel account which the Egyptian Apion gives us concerning
the Jews' departure out of Egypt, and is no better than a contrivance of
his own. But why should we wonder at the lies he tells about our forefathers,
when he affirms them to be of Egyptian original, when he lies also about
himself? for although he was born at Oasis in Egypt, he pretends to be,
as a man may say, the top man of all the Egyptians; yet does he forswear
his real country and progenitors, and by falsely pretending to be born
at Alexandria, cannot deny the (4)
pravity of his family; for you see how justly he calls those Egyptians
whom he hates, and endeavors to reproach; for had he not deemed Egyptians
to be a name of great reproach, he would not have avoided the name of an
Egyptian himself; as we know that those who brag of their own countries
value themselves upon the denomination they acquire thereby, and reprove
such as unjustly lay claim thereto. As for the Egyptians' claim to be of
our kindred, they do it on one of the following accounts; I mean, either
as they value themselves upon it, and pretend to bear that relation to
us; or else as they would draw us in to be partakers of their own infamy.
But this fine fellow Apion seems to broach this reproachful appellation
against us, [that we were originally Egyptians,] in order to bestow it
on the Alexandrians, as a reward for the privilege they had given him of
being a fellow citizen with them: he also is apprized of the ill-will the
Alexandrians bear to those Jews who are their fellow citizens, and so proposes
to himself to reproach them, although he must thereby include all the other
Egyptians also; while in both cases he is no better than an impudent liar.
4. But let us now see what those heavy and wicked crimes are which Apion
charges upon the Alexandrian Jews. "They came (says he) out of Syria,
and inhabited near the tempestuous sea, and were in the neighborhood of
the dashing of the waves." Now if the place of habitation includes
any thing that is reproached, this man reproaches not his own real country,
[Egypt,] but what he pretends to be his own country, Alexandria; for all
are agreed in this, that the part of that city which is near the sea is
the best part of all for habitation. Now if the Jews gained that part of
the city by force, and have kept it hitherto without impeachment, this
is a mark of their valor; but in reality it was Alexander himself that
gave them that place for their habitation, when they obtained equal privileges
there with the Macedonians. Nor call I devise what Apion would have said,
had their habitation been at Necropolis? and not been fixed hard by the
royal palace [as it is]; nor had their nation had the denomination of Macedonians
given them till this very day [as they have]. Had this man now read the
epistles of king Alexander, or those of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or met
with the writings of the succeeding kings, or that pillar which is still
standing at Alexandria, and contains the privileges which the great [Julius]
Caesar bestowed upon the Jews; had this man, I say, known these records,
and yet hath the impudence to write in contradiction to them, he hath shown
himself to be a wicked man; but if he knew nothing of these records, he
hath shown himself to be a man very ignorant: nay, when lie appears to
wonder how Jews could be called Alexandrians, this is another like instance
of his ignorance; for all such as are called out to be colonies, although
they be ever so far remote from one another in their original, receive
their names from those that bring them to their new habitations. And what
occasion is there to speak of others, when those of us Jews that dwell
at Antioch are named Antiochians, because Seleucns the founder of that
city gave them the privileges belonging thereto? After the like manner
do those Jews that inhabit Ephesus, and the other cities of Ionia, enjoy
the same name with those that were originally born there, by the grant
of the succeeding princes; nay, the kindness and humanity of the Romans
hath been so great, that it hath granted leave to almost all others to
take the same name of Romans upon them; I mean not particular men only,
but entire and large nations themselves also; for those anciently named
Iberi, and Tyrrheni, and Sabini, are now called Romani. And if Apion reject
this way of obtaining the privilege of a citizen of Alexandria, let him
abstain from calling himself an Alexandrian hereafter; for otherwise, how
can he who was born in the very heart of Egypt be an Alexandrian, if this
way of accepting such a privilege, of which he would have us deprived,
be once abrogated? although indeed these Romans, who are now the lords
of the habitable earth, have forbidden the Egyptians to have the privileges
of any city whatsoever; while this fine fellow, who is willing to partake
of such a privilege himself as he is forbidden to make use of, endeavors
by calumnies to deprive those of it that have justly received it; for Alexander
did not therefore get some of our nation to Alexandria, because he wanted
inhabitants for this his city, on whose building he had bestowed so much
pains; but this was given to our people as a reward, because he had, upon
a careful trial, found them all to have been men of virtue and fidelity
to him; for, as Hecateus says concerning us, "Alexander honored our
nation to such a degree, that, for the equity and the fidelity which the
Jews exhibited to him, he permitted them to hold the country of Samaria
free from tribute. Of the same mind also was Ptolemy the son of Lagus,
as to those Jews who dwelt at Alexandria." For he intrusted the fortresses
of Egypt into their hands, as believing they would keep them faithfully
and valiantly for him; and when he was desirous to secure the government
of Cyrene, and the other cities of Libya, to himself, he sent a party of
Jews to inhabit in them. And for his successor Ptolemy, who was called
Philadelphus, he did not only set all those of our nation free who were
captives under him, but did frequently give money [for their ransom]; and,
what was his greatest work of all, he had a great desire of knowing our
laws, and of obtaining the books of our sacred Scriptures; accordingly,
he desired that such men might be sent him as might interpret our law to
him; and, in order to have them well compiled, he committed that care to
no ordinary persons, but ordained that Demetrius Phalereus, and Andreas,
and Aristeas; the first, Demetrius, the most learned person of his age,
and the others, such as were intrusted with the guard of his body; should
take care of this matter: nor would he certainly have been so desirous
of learning our law, and the philosophy of our nation, had he despised
the men that made use of it, or had he not indeed had them in great admiration.
5. Now this Apion was unacquainted with almost all the kings of those
Macedonians whom he pretends to have been his progenitors, who were yet
very well affected towards us; for the third of those Ptolemies, who was
called Euergetes, when he had gotten possession of all Syria by force,
did not offer his thank-offerings to the Egyptian gods for his victory,
but came to Jerusalem, and according to our own laws offered many sacrifices
to God, and dedicated to him such gifts as were suitable to such a victory:
and as for Ptolemy Philometer and his wife Cleopatra, they committed their
whole kingdom to the Jews, when Onias and Dositheus, both Jews, whose names
are laughed at by Apion, were the generals of their whole army. But certainly,
instead of reproaching them, he ought to admire their actions, and return
them thanks for saving Alexandria, whose citizen he pretends to be; for
when these Alexandrians were making war with Cleopatra the queen, and were
in danger of being utterly ruined, these Jews brought them to terms of
agreement, and freed them from the miseries of a civil war. "But then
(says Apion) Onias brought a small army afterward upon the city at the
time when Thorruns the Roman ambassador was there present." Yes, do
I venture to say, and that he did rightly and very justly in so doing;
for that Ptolemy who was called Physco, upon the death of his brother Philometer,
came from Cyrene, and would have ejected Cleopatra as well as her sons
out of their kingdom, that he might obtain it for himself unjustly. (5)
For this cause then it was that Onias undertook a war against him on Cleopatra's
account; nor would he desert that trust the royal family had reposed in
him in their distress. Accordingly, God gave a remarkable attestation to
his righteous procedure; for when Ptolemy Physco (6)
had the presumption to fight against Onias's army, and had caught all the
Jews that were in the city [Alexandria], with their children and wives,
and exposed them naked and in bonds to his elephants, that they might be
trodden upon and destroyed, and when he had made those elephants drunk
for that purpose, the event proved contrary to his preparations; for these
elephants left the Jews who were exposed to them, and fell violently upon
Physco's friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after this Ptolemy
saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting those men; his very
concubine, whom he loved so well, (some call her Ithaca, and others Irene,)
making supplication to him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness.
So he complied with her request, and repented of what he either had already
done, or was about to do; whence it is well known that the Alexandrian
Jews do with good reason celebrate this day, on the account that they had
thereon been vouchsafed such an evident deliverance from God. However,
Apion, the common calumniator of men, hath the presumption to accuse the
Jews for making this war against Physco, when he ought to have commended
them for the same. This man also makes mention of Cleopatra, the last queen
of Alexandria, and abuses us, because she was ungrateful to us; whereas
he ought to have reproved her, who indulged herself in all kinds of injustice
and wicked practices, both with regard to her nearest relations and husbands
who had loved her, and, indeed, in general with regard to all the Romans,
and those emperors that were her benefactors; who also had her sister Arsinoe
slain in a temple, when she had done her no harm: moreover, she had her
brother slain by private treachery, and she destroyed the gods of her country
and the sepulchers of her progenitors; and while she had received her kingdom
from the first Caesar, she had the impudence to rebel against his son:
(7)
and successor; nay, she corrupted Antony with her love-tricks, and rendered
him an enemy to his country, and made him treacherous to his friends, and
[by his means] despoiled some of their royal authority, and forced others
in her madness to act wickedly. But what need I enlarge upon this head
any further, when she left Antony in his fight at sea, though he were her
husband, and the father of their common children, and compelled him to
resign up his government, with the army, and to follow her [into Egypt]?
nay, when last of all Caesar had taken Alexandria, she came to that pitch
of cruelty, that she declared she had some hope of preserving her affairs
still, in case she could kill the Jews, though it were with her own hand;
to such a degree of barbarity and perfidiousness had she arrived. And doth
any one think that we cannot boast ourselves of any thing, if, as Apion
says, this queen did not at a time of famine distribute wheat among us?
However, she at length met with the punishment she deserved. As for us
Jews, we appeal to the great Caesar what assistance we brought him, and
what fidelity we showed to him against the Egyptians; as also to the senate
and its decrees, and the epistles of Augustus Caesar, whereby our merits
[to the Romans] are justified. Apion ought to have looked upon those epistles,
and in particular to have examined the testimonies given on our behalf,
under Alexander and all the Ptolemies, and the decrees of the senate and
of the greatest Roman emperors. And if Germanicus was not able to make
a distribution of corn to all the inhabitants of Alexandria, that only
shows what a barren time it was, and how great a want there was then of
corn, but tends nothing to the accusation of the Jews; for what all the
emperors have thought of the Alexandrian Jews is well known, for this distribution
of wheat was no otherwise omitted with regard to the Jews, than it was
with regard to the other inhabitants of Alexandria. But they still were
desirous to preserve what the kings had formerly intrusted to their care,
I mean the custody of the river; nor did those kings think them unworthy
of having the entire custody thereof, upon all occasions.
6. But besides this, Apion objects to us thus: "If the Jews (says
he) be citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods with
the Alexandrians?" To which I give this answer: Since you are yourselves
Egyptians, why do you fight it out one against another, and have implacable
wars about your religion? At this rate we must not call you all Egyptians,
nor indeed in general men, because you breed up with great care beasts
of a nature quite contrary to that of men, although the nature of all men
seems to be one and the same. Now if there be such differences in opinion
among you Egyptians, why are you surprised that those who came to Alexandria
from another country, and had original laws of their own before, should
persevere in the observance of those laws? But still he charges us with
being the authors of sedition; which accusation, if it be a just one, why
is it not laid against us all, since we are known to be all of one mind.
Moreover, those that search into such matters will soon discover that the
authors of sedition have been such citizens of Alexandria as Apion is;
for while they were the Grecians and Macedonians who were ill possession
of this city, there was no sedition raised against us, and we were permitted
to observe our ancient solemnities; but when the number of the Egyptians
therein came to be considerable, the times grew confused, and then these
seditions brake out still more and more, while our people continued uncorrupted.
These Egyptians, therefore, were the authors of these troubles, who having
not the constancy of Macedonians, nor the prudence of Grecians, indulged
all of them the evil manners of the Egyptians, and continued their ancient
hatred against us; for what is here so presumptuously charged upon us,
is owing to the differences that are amongst themselves; while many of
them have not obtained the privileges of citizens in proper times, but
style those who are well known to have had that privilege extended to them
all no other than foreigners: for it does not appear that any of the kings
have ever formerly bestowed those privileges of citizens upon Egyptians,
no more than have the emperors done it more lately; while it was Alexander
who introduced us into this city at first, the kings augmented our privileges
therein, and the Romans have been pleased to preserve them always inviolable.
Moreover, Apion would lay a blot upon us, because we do not erect images
for our emperors; as if those emperors did not know this before, or stood
in need of Apion as their defender; whereas he ought rather to have admired
the magnanimity and modesty of the Romans, whereby they do not compel those
that are subject to them to transgress the laws of their countries, but
are willing to receive the honors due to them after such a manner as those
who are to pay them esteem consistent with piety and with their own laws;
for they do not thank people for conferring honors upon them, When they
are compelled by violence so to do. Accordingly, since the Grecians and
some other nations think it a right thing to make images, nay, when they
have painted the pictures of their parents, and wives, and children, they
exult for joy; and some there are who take pictures for themselves of such
persons as were no way related to them; nay, some take the pictures of
such servants as they were fond of; what wonder is it then if such as these
appear willing to pay the same respect to their princes and lords? But
then our legislator hath forbidden us to make images, not by way of denunciation
beforehand, that the Roman authority was not to be honored, but as despising
a thing that was neither necessary nor useful for either God or man; and
he forbade them, as we shall prove hereafter, to make these images for
any part of the animal creation, and much less for God himself, who is
no part of such animal creation. Yet hath our legislator no where forbidden
us to pay honors to worthy men, provided they be of another kind, and inferior
to those we pay to God; with which honors we willingly testify our respect
to our emperors, and to the people of Rome; we also offer perpetual sacrifices
for them; nor do we only offer them every day at the common expenses of
all the Jews, but although we offer no other such sacrifices out of our
common expenses, no, not for our own children, yet do we this as a peculiar
honor to the emperors, and to them alone, while we do the same to no other
person whomsoever. And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion,
as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews.
7. However, I cannot but admire those other authors who furnished this
man with such his materials; I mean Possidonius and Apollonius [the son
of] Molo, (8)
who, while they accuse us for not worshipping the same gods whom others
worship, they think themselves not guilty of impiety when they tell lies
of us, and frame absurd and reproachful stories about our temple; whereas
it is a most shameful thing for freemen to forge lies on any occasion,
and much more so to forge them about our temple, which was so famous over
all the world, and was preserved so sacred by us; for Apion hath the impudence
to pretend that" the Jews placed an ass's head in their holy place;"
and he affirms that this was discovered when Antiochus Epiphanes spoiled
our temple, and found that ass's head there made of gold, and worth a great
deal of money. To this my first answer shall be this, that had there been
any such thing among us, an Egyptian ought by no means to have thrown it
in our teeth, since an ass is not a more contemptible animal than - (9)
and goats, and other such creatures, which among them are gods. But besides
this answer, I say further, how comes it about that Apion does not understand
this to be no other than a palpable lie, and to be confuted by the thing
itself as utterly incredible? For we Jews are always governed by the same
laws, in which we constantly persevere; and although many misfortunes have
befallen our city, as the like have befallen others, and although Theos
[Epiphanes], and Pompey the Great, and Licinius Crassus, and last of all
Titus Caesar, have conquered us in war, and gotten possession of our temple;
yet have they none of them found any such thing there, nor indeed any thing
but what was agreeable to the strictest piety; although what they found
we are not at liberty to reveal to other nations. But for Antiochus [Epiphanes],
he had no just cause for that ravage in our temple that he made; he only
came to it when he wanted money, without declaring himself our enemy, and
attacked us while we were his associates and his friends; nor did he find
any thing there that was ridiculous. This is attested by many worthy writers;
Polybius of Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes,
Castor the chronotoger, and Apollodorus; (10)
who all say that it was out of Antiochus's want of money that he broke
his league with the Jews, and despoiled their temple when it was full of
gold and silver. Apion ought to have had a regard to these facts, unless
he had himself had either an ass's heart or a dog's impudence; of such
a dog I mean as they worship; for he had no other external reason for the
lies he tells of us. As for us Jews, we ascribe no honor or power to asses,
as do the Egyptians to crocodiles and asps, when they esteem such as are
seized upon by the former, or bitten by the latter, to be happy persons,
and persons worthy of God. Asses are the same with us which they are with
other wise men, viz. creatures that bear the burdens that we lay upon them;
but if they come to our thrashing-floors and eat our corn, or do not perform
what we impose upon them, we beat them with a great many stripes, because
it is their business to minister to us in our husbandry affairs. But this
Apion of ours was either perfectly unskillful in the composition of such
fallacious discourses, or however, when he begun [somewhat better], he
was not able to persevere in what he had undertaken, since he hath no manner
of success in those reproaches he casts upon us.
8. He adds another Grecian fable, in order to reproach us. In reply
to which, it would be enough to say, that they who presume to speak about
Divine worship ought not to be ignorant of this plain truth, that it is
a degree of less impurity to pass through temples, than to forge wicked
calumnies of its priests. Now such men as he are more zealous to justify
a sacrilegious king, than to write what is just and what is true about
us, and about our temple; for when they are desirous of gratifying Antiochus,
and of concealing that perfidiousness and sacrilege which he was guilty
of, with regard to our nation, when he wanted money, they endeavor to disgrace
us, and tell lies even relating to futurities. Apion becomes other men's
prophet upon this occasion, and says that "Antiochus found in our
temple a bed, and a man lying upon it, with a small table before him, full
of dainties, from the [fishes of the] sea, and the fowls of the dry land;
that this man was amazed at these dainties thus set before him; that he
immediately adored the king, upon his coming in, as hoping that he would
afford him all possible assistance; that he fell down upon his knees, and
stretched out to him his right hand, and begged to be released; and that
when the king bid him sit down, and tell him who he was, and why he dwelt
there, and what was the meaning of those various sorts of food that were
set before him the man made a lamentable complaint, and with sighs, and
tears in his eyes, gave him this account of the distress he was in; and
said that he was a Greek and that as he went over this province, in order
to get his living, he was seized upon by foreigners, on a sudden, and brought
to this temple, and shut up therein, and was seen by nobody, but was fattened
by these curious provisions thus set before him; and that truly at the
first such unexpected advantages seemed to him matter of great joy; that
after a while, they brought a suspicion him, and at length astonishment,
what their meaning should be; that at last he inquired of the servants
that came to him and was by them informed that it was in order to the fulfilling
a law of the Jews, which they must not tell him, that he was thus fed;
and that they did the same at a set time every year: that they used to
catch a Greek foreigner, and fat him thus up every year, and then lead
him to a certain wood, and kill him, and sacrifice with their accustomed
solemnities, and taste of his entrails, and take an oath upon this sacrificing
a Greek, that they would ever be at enmity with the Greeks; and that then
they threw the remaining parts of the miserable wretch into a certain pit."
Apion adds further, that" the man said there were but a few days to
come ere he was to be slain, and implored of Antiochus that, out of the
reverence he bore to the Grecian gods, he would disappoint the snares the
Jews laid for his blood, and would deliver him from the miseries with which
he was encompassed." Now this is such a most tragical fable as is
full of nothing but cruelty and impudence; yet does it not excuse Antiochus
of his sacrilegious attempt, as those who write it in his vindication are
willing to suppose; for he could not presume beforehand that he should
meet with any such thing in coming to the temple, but must have found it
unexpectedly. He was therefore still an impious person, that was given
to unlawful pleasures, and had no regard to God in his actions. But [as
for Apion], he hath done whatever his extravagant love of lying hath dictated
to him, as it is most easy to discover by a consideration of his writings;
for the difference of our laws is known not to regard the Grecians only,
but they are principally opposite to the Egyptians, and to some other nations
also for while it so falls out that men of all countries come sometimes
and sojourn among us, how comes it about that we take an oath, and conspire
only against the Grecians, and that by the effusion of their blood also?
Or how is it possible that all the Jews should get together to these sacrifices,
and the entrails of one man should be sufficient for so many thousands
to taste of them, as Apion pretends? Or why did not the king carry this
man, whosoever he was, and whatsoever was his name, (which is not set down
in Apion's book,) with great pomp back into his own country? when he might
thereby have been esteemed a religious person himself, and a mighty lover
of the Greeks, and might thereby have procured himself great assistance
from all men against that hatred the Jews bore to him. But I leave this
matter; for the proper way of confuting fools is not to use bare words,
but to appeal to the things themselves that make against them. Now, then,
all such as ever saw the construction of our temple, of what nature it
was, know well enough how the purity of it was never to be profaned; for
it had four several courts (11)
encompassed with cloisters round about, every one of which had by our law
a peculiar degree of separation from the rest. Into the first court every
body was allowed to go, even foreigners, and none but women, during their
courses, were prohibited to pass through it; all the Jews went into the
second court, as well as their wives, when they were free from all uncleanness;
into the third court went in the Jewish men, when they were clean and purified;
into the fourth went the priests, having on their sacerdotal garments;
but for the most sacred place, none went in but the high priests, clothed
in their peculiar garments. Now there is so great caution used about these
offices of religion, that the priests are appointed to go into the temple
but at certain hours; for in the morning, at the opening of the inner temple,
those that are to officiate receive the sacrifices, as they do again at
noon, till the doors are shut. Lastly, it is not so much as lawful to carry
any vessel into the holy house; nor is there any thing therein, but the
altar [of incense], the table [of shew-bread], the censer, and the candlestick,
which are all written in the law; for there is nothing further there, nor
are there any mysteries performed that may not be spoken of; nor is there
any feasting within the place. For what I have now said is publicly known,
and supported by the testimony of the whole people, and their operations
are very manifest; for although there be four courses of the priests, and
every one of them have above five thousand men in them, yet do they officiate
on certain days only; and when those days are over, other priests succeed
in the performance of their sacrifices, and assemble together at mid-day,
and receive the keys of the temple, and the vessels by tale, without any
thing relating to food or drink being carried into the temple; nay, we
are not allowed to offer such things at the altar, excepting what is prepared
for the sacrifices.
9. What then can we say of Apion, but that he examined nothing that
concerned these things, while still he uttered incredible words about them?
but it is a great shame for a grammarian not to be able to write true history.
Now if he knew the purity of our temple, he hath entirely omitted to take
notice of it; but he forges a story about the seizing of a Grecian, about
ineffable food, and the most delicious preparation of dainties; and pretends
that strangers could go into a place whereinto the noblest men among the
Jews are not allowed to enter, unless they be priests. This, therefore,
is the utmost degree of impiety, and a voluntary lie, in order to the delusion
of those who will not examine into the truth of matters; whereas such unspeakable
mischiefs as are above related have been occasioned by such calumnies that
are raised upon us.
10. Nay, this miracle or piety derides us further, and adds the following
pretended facts to his former fable; for be says that this man related
how, "while the Jews were once in a long war with the Idumeans, there
came a man out of one of the cities of the Idumeans, who there had worshipped
Apollo. This man, whose name is said to have been Zabidus, came to the
Jews, and promised that he would deliver Apollo, the god of Dora, into
their hands, and that he would come to our temple, if they would all come
up with him, and bring the whole multitude of the Jews with them; that
Zabidus made him a certain wooden instrument, and put it round about him,
and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after such a manner, that
he appeared to those that stood a great way off him to be a kind of star,
walking upon the earth; that the Jews were terribly affrighted at so surprising
an appearance, and stood very quiet at a distance; and that Zabidus, while
they continued so very quiet, went into the holy house, and carried off
that golden head of an ass, (for so facetiously does he write,) and then
went his way back again to Dora in great haste." And say you so, sir!
as I may reply; then does Apion load the ass, that is, himself, and lays
on him a burden of fooleries and lies; for he writes of places that have
no being, and not knowing the cities he speaks of, he changes their situation;
for Idumea borders upon our country, and is near to Gaza, in which there
is no such city as Dora; although there be, it is true, a city named Dora
in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel, but it is four days' journey from Idumea.
(12)
Now, then, why does this man accuse us, because we have not gods in common
with other nations, if our fathers were so easily prevailed upon to have
Apollo come to them, and thought they saw him walking upon the earth, and
the stars with him? for certainly those who have so many festivals, wherein
they light lamps, must yet, at this rate, have never seen a candlestick!
But still it seems that while Zabidus took his journey over the country,
where were so many ten thousands of people, nobody met him. He also, it
seems, even in a time of war, found the walls of Jerusalem destitute of
guards. I omit the rest. Now the doors of the holy house were seventy (13)
cubits high, and twenty cubits broad; they were all plated over with gold,
and almost of solid gold itself, and there were no fewer than twenty (14)
men required to shut them every day; nor was it lawful ever to leave them
open, though it seems this lamp-bearer of ours opened them easily, or thought
he opened them, as he thought he had the ass's head in his hand. Whether,
therefore, he returned it to us again, or whether Apion took it, and brought
it into the temple again, that Antiochus might find it, and afford a handle
for a second fable of Apion's, is uncertain.
11. Apion also tells a false story, when he mentions an oath of ours,
as if we "swore by God, the Maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea,
to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the
Greeks." Now this liar ought to have said directly that" we would
bear no good-will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Egyptians."
For then his story about the oath would have squared with the rest of his
original forgeries, in case our forefathers had been driven away by their
kinsmen, the Egyptians, not on account of any wickedness they had been
guilty of, but on account of the calamities they were under; for as to
the Grecians, we were rather remote from them in place, than different
from them in our institutions, insomuch that we have no enmity with them,
nor any jealousy of them. On the contrary, it hath so happened that many
of them have come over to our laws, and some of them have continued in
their observation, although others of them had not courage enough to persevere,
and so departed from them again; nor did any body ever hear this oath sworn
by us: Apion, it seems, was the only person that heard it, for he indeed
was the first composer of it.
12. However, Apion deserves to be admired for his great prudence, as
to what I am going to say, which is this," That there is a plain mark
among us, that we neither have just laws, nor worship God as we ought to
do, because we are not governors, but are rather in subjection to Gentiles,
sometimes to one nation, and sometimes to another; and that our city hath
been liable to several calamities, while their city [Alexandria] hath been
of old time an imperial city, and not used to be in subjection to the Romans."
But now this man had better leave off this bragging, for every body but
himself would think that Apion said what he hath said against himself;
for there are very few nations that have had the good fortune to continue
many generations in the principality, but still the mutations in human
affairs have put them into subjection under others; and most nations have
been often subdued, and brought into subjection by others. Now for the
Egyptians, perhaps they are the only nation that have had this extraordinary
privilege, to have never served any of those monarchs who subdued Asia
and Europe, and this on account, as they pretend, that the gods fled into
their country, and saved themselves by being changed into the shapes of
wild beasts! Whereas these Egyptians (15)
are the very people that appear to have never, in all the past ages, had
one day of freedom, no, not so much as from their own lords. For I will
not reproach them with relating the manner how the Persians used them,
and this not once only, but many times, when they laid their cities waste,
demolished their temples, and cut the throats of those animals whom they
esteemed to be gods; for it is not reasonable to imitate the clownish ignorance
of Apion, who hath no regard to the misfortunes of the Athenians, or of
the Lacedemonians, the latter of whom were styled by all men the most courageous,
and the former the most religious of the Grecians. I say nothing of such
kings as have been famous for piety, particularly of one of them, whose
name was Cresus, nor what calamities he met with in his life; I say nothing
of the citadel of Athens, of the temple at Ephesus, of that at Delphi,
nor of ten thousand others which have been burnt down, while nobody cast
reproaches on those that were the sufferers, but on those that were the
actors therein. But now we have met with Apion, an accuser of our nation,
though one that still forgets the miseries of his own people, the Egptians;
but it is that Sesostris who was once so celebrated a king of Egypt that
hath blinded him. Now we will not brag of our kings, David and Solomon,
though they conquered many nations; accordingly we will let them alone.
However, Apion is ignorant of what every body knows, that the Egyptians
were servants to the Persians, and afterwards to the Macedonians, when
they were lords of Asia, and were no better than slaves, while we have
enjoyed liberty formerly; nay, more than that, have had the dominion of
the cities that lie round about us, and this nearly for a hundred and twenty
years together, until Pompeius Magnus. And when all the kings every where
were conquered by the Romans, our ancestors were the only people who continued
to be esteemed their confederates and friends, on account of their fidelity
to them.(16)
13. "But," says Apion, "we Jews have not had any wonderful
men amongst us, not any inventors of arts, nor any eminent for wisdom."
He then enumerates Socrates, and Zeno, and Cleanthes, and some others of
the same sort; and, after all, he adds himself to them, which is the most
wonderful thing of all that he says, and pronounces Alexandria to be happy,
because it hath such a citizen as he is in it; for he was the fittest man
to be a witness to his own deserts, although he hath appeared to all others
no better than a wicked mountebank, of a corrupt life and ill discourses;
on which account one may justly pity Alexandria, if it should value itself
upon such a citizen as he is. But as to our own men, we have had those
who have been as deserving of commendation as any other whosoever, and
such as have perused our Antiquities cannot be ignorant of them.
14. As to the other things which he sets down as blameworthy, it may
perhaps be the best way to let them pass without apology, that he may be
allowed to be his own accuser, and the accuser of the rest of the Egyptians.
However, he accuses us for sacrificing animals, and for abstaining from
swine's flesh, and laughs at us for the circumcision of our privy members.
Now as for our slaughter of tame animals for sacrifices, it is common to
us and to all other men; but this Apion, by making it a crime to sacrifice
them, demonstrates himself to be an Egyptian; for had he been either a
Grecian or a Macedonian, [as he pretends to be,] he had not shown any uneasiness
at it; for those people glory in sacrificing whole hecatombs to the gods,
and make use of those sacrifices for feasting; and yet is not the world
thereby rendered destitute of cattle, as Apion was afraid would come to
pass. Yet if all men had followed the manners of the Egyptians, the world
had certainly been made desolate as to mankind, but had been filled full
of the wildest sort of brute beasts, which, because they suppose them to
be gods, they carefully nourish. However, if any one should ask Apion which
of the Egyptians he thinks to he the most wise and most pious of them all,
he would certainly acknowledge the priests to be so; for the histories
say that two things were originally committed to their care by their kings'
injunctions, the worship of the gods, and the support of wisdom and philosophy.
Accordingly, these priests are all circumcised, and abstain from swine's
flesh; nor does any one of the other Egyptians assist them in slaying those
sacrifices they offer to the gods. Apion was therefore quite blinded in
his mind, when, for the sake of the Egyptians, he contrived to reproach
us, and to accuse such others as not only make use of that conduct of life
which he so much abuses, but have also taught other men to be circumcised,
as says Herodotus; which makes me think that Apion is hereby justly punished
for his casting such reproaches on the laws of his own country; for he
was circumcised himself of necessity, on account of an ulcer in his privy
member; and when he received no benefit by such circumcision, but his member
became putrid, he died in great torment. Now men of good tempers ought
to observe their own laws concerning religion accurately, and to persevere
therein, but not presently to abuse the laws of other nations, while this
Apion deserted his own laws, and told lies about ours. And this was the
end of Apion's life, and this shall be the conclusion of our discourse
about him.
15. But now, since Apollonius Molo, and Lysimachus, and some others,
write treatises about our lawgiver Moses, and about our laws, which are
neither just nor true, and this partly out of ignorance, but chiefly out
of ill-will to us, while they calumniate Moses as an impostor and deceiver,
and pretend that our laws teach us wickedness, but nothing that is virtuous,
I have a mind to discourse briefly, according to my ability, about our
whole constitution of government, and about the particular branches of
it. For I suppose it will thence become evident, that the laws we have
given us are disposed after the best manner for the advancement of piety,
for mutual communion with one another, for a general love of mankind, as
also for justice, and for sustaining labors with fortitude, and for a contempt
of death. And I beg of those that shall peruse this writing of mine, to
read it without partiality; for it is not my purpose to write an encomium
upon ourselves, but I shall esteem this as a most just apology for us,
and taken from those our laws, according to which we lead our lives, against
the many and the lying objections that have been made against us. Moreover,
since this Apollonius does not do like Apion, and lay a continued accusation
against us, but does it only by starts, and up and clown his discourse,
while he sometimes reproaches us as atheists, and man-haters, and sometimes
hits us in the teeth with our want of courage, and yet sometimes, on the
contrary, accuses us of too great boldness and madness in our conduct;
nay, he says that we are the weakest of all the barbarians, and that this
is the reason why we are the only people who have made no improvements
in human life; now I think I shall have then sufficiently disproved all
these his allegations, when it shall appear that our laws enjoin the very
reverse of what he says, and that we very carefully observe those laws
ourselves. And if I he compelled to make mention of the laws of other nations,
that are contrary to ours, those ought deservedly to thank themselves for
it, who have pretended to depreciate our laws in comparison of their own;
nor will there, I think, be any room after that for them to pretend either
that we have no such laws ourselves, an epitome of which I will present
to the reader, or that we do not, above all men, continue in the observation
of them.
16. To begin then a good way backward, I would advance this, in the
first place, that those who have been admirers of good order, and of living
under common laws, and who began to introduce them, may well have this
testimony that they are better than other men, both for moderation and
such virtue as is agreeable to nature. Indeed their endeavor was to have
every thing they ordained believed to be very ancient, that they might
not be thought to imitate others, but might appear to have delivered a
regular way of living to others after them. Since then this is the case,
the excellency of a legislator is seen in providing for the people's living
after the best manner, and in prevailing with those that are to use the
laws he ordains for them, to have a good opinion of them, and in obliging
the multitude to persevere in them, and to make no changes in them, neither
in prosperity nor adversity. Now I venture to say, that our legislator
is the most ancient of all the legislators whom we have ally where heard
of; for as for the Lycurguses, and Solons, and Zaleucus Locrensis, and
all those legislators who are so admired by the Greeks, they seem to be
of yesterday, if compared with our legislator, insomuch as the very name
of a law was not so much as known in old times among the Grecians. Homer
is a witness to the truth of this observation, who never uses that term
in all his poems; for indeed there was then no such thing among them, but
the multitude was governed by wise maxims, and by the injunctions of their
king. It was also a long time that they continued in the use of these unwritten
customs, although they were always changing them upon several occasions.
But for our legislator, who was of so much greater antiquity than the rest,
(as even those that speak against us upon all occasions do always confess,)
he exhibited himself to the people as their best governor and counselor,
and included in his legislation the entire conduct of their lives, and
prevailed with them to receive it, and brought it so to pass, that those
that were made acquainted with his laws did most carefully observe them.
17. But let us consider his first and greatest work; for when it was
resolved on by our forefathers to leave Egypt, and return to their own
country, this Moses took the many tell thousands that were of the people,
and saved them out of many desperate distresses, and brought them home
in safety. And certainly it was here necessary to travel over a country
without water, and full of sand, to overcome their enemies, and, during
these battles, to preserve their children, and their wives, and their prey;
on all which occasions he became an excellent general of an army, and a
most prudent counselor, and one that took the truest care of them all;
he also so brought it about, that the whole multitude depended upon him.
And while he had them always obedient to what he enjoined, he made no manner
of use of his authority for his own private advantage, which is the usual
time when governors gain great powers to themselves, and pave the way for
tyranny, and accustom the multitude to live very dissolutely; whereas,
when our legislator was in so great authority, he, on the contrary, thought
he ought to have regard to piety, and to show his great good-will to the
people; and by this means he thought he might show the great degree of
virtue that was in him, and might procure the most lasting security to
those who had made him their governor. When he had therefore come to such
a good resolution, and had performed such wonderful exploits, we had just
reason to look upon ourselves as having him for a divine governor and counselor.
And when he had first persuaded himself (17)
that his actions and designs were agreeable to God's will, he thought it
his duty to impress, above all things, that notion upon the multitude;
for those who have once believed that God is the inspector of their lives,
will not permit themselves in any sin. And this is the character of our
legislator: he was no impostor, no deceiver, as his revilers say, though
unjustly, but such a one as they brag Minos (18)
to have been among the Greeks, and other legislators after him; for some
of them suppose that they had their laws from Jupiter, while Minos said
that the revelation of his laws was to be referred to Apollo, and his oracle
at Delphi, whether they really thought they were so derived, or supposed,
however, that they could persuade the people easily that so it was. But
which of these it was who made the best laws, and which had the greatest
reason to believe that God was their author, it will be easy, upon comparing
those laws themselves together, to determine; for it is time that we come
to that point. (19)
Now there are innumerable differences in the particular customs and laws
that are among all mankind, which a man may briefly reduce under the following
heads: Some legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies,
others put them under oligarchies, and others under a republican form;
but our legislator had no regard to any of these forms, but he ordained
our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy,
(20)
by ascribing the authority and the power to God, and by persuading all
the people to have a regard to him, as the author of all the good things
that were enjoyed either in common by all mankind, or by each one in particular,
and of all that they themselves obtained by praying to him in their greatest
difficulties. He informed them that it was impossible to escape God's observation,
even in any of our outward actions, or in any of our inward thoughts. Moreover,
he represented God as unbegotten, (21)
and immutable, through all eternity, superior to all mortal conceptions
in pulchritude; and, though known to us by his power, yet unknown to us
as to his essence. I do not now explain how these notions of God are the
sentiments of the wisest among the Grecians, and how they were taught them
upon the principles that he afforded them. However, they testify, with
great assurance, that these notions are just, and agreeable to the nature
of God, and to his majesty; for Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras, and Plato,
and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and almost all the rest,
are of the same sentiments, and had the same notions of the nature of God;
yet durst not these men disclose those true notions to more than a few,
because the body of the people were prejudiced with other opinions beforehand.
But our legislator, who made his actions agree to his laws, did not only
prevail with those that were his contemporaries to agree with these his
notions, but so firmly imprinted this faith in God upon all their posterity,
that it never could be removed. The reason why the constitution of this
legislation was ever better directed to the utility of all than other legislations
were, is this, that Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he
saw and he ordained other virtues to be parts of religion; I mean justice,
and fortitude, and temperance, and a universal agreement of the members
of the community with one another; for all our actions and studies, and
all our words, [in Moses's settlement,] have a reference to piety towards
God; for he hath left none of these in suspense, or undetermined. For there
are two ways of coining at any sort of learning and a moral conduct of
life; the one is by instruction in words, the other by practical exercises.
Now other lawgivers have separated these two ways in their opinions, and
choosing one of those ways of instruction, or that which best pleased every
one of them, neglected the other. Thus did the Lacedemonians and the Cretians
teach by practical exercises, but not by words; while the Athenians, and
almost all the other Grecians, made laws about what was to be done, or
left undone, but had no regard to the exercising them thereto in practice.
18. But for our legislator, he very carefully joined these two methods
of instruction together; for he neither left these practical exercises
to go on without verbal instruction, nor did he permit the hearing of the
law to proceed without the exercises for practice; but beginning immediately
from the earliest infancy, and the appointment of every one's diet, he
left nothing of the very smallest consequence to be done at the pleasure
and disposal of the person himself. Accordingly, he made a fixed rule of
law what sorts of food they should abstain from, and what sorts they should
make use of; as also, what communion they should have with others what
great diligence they should use in their occupations, and what times of
rest should be interposed, that, by living under that law as under a father
and a master, we might be guilty of no sin, neither voluntary nor out of
ignorance; for he did not suffer the guilt of ignorance to go on without
punishment, but demonstrated the law to be the best and the most necessary
instruction of all others, permitting the people to leave off their other
employments, and to assemble together for the hearing of the law, and learning
it exactly, and this not once or twice, or oftener, but every week; which
thing all the other legislators seem to have neglected.
19. And indeed the greatest part of mankind are so far from living according
to their own laws, that they hardly know them; but when they have sinned,
they learn from others that they have transgressed the law. Those also
who are in the highest and principal posts of the government, confess they
are not acquainted with those laws, and are obliged to take such persons
for their assessors in public administrations as profess to have skill
in those laws; but for our people, if any body do but ask any one of them
about our laws, he will more readily tell them all than he will tell his
own name, and this in consequence of our having learned them immediately
as soon as ever we became sensible of any thing, and of our having them
as it were engraven on our souls. Our transgressors of them are but few,
and it is impossible, when any do offend, to escape punishment.
20. And this very thing it is that principally creates such a wonderful
agreement of minds amongst us all; for this entire agreement of ours in
all our notions concerning God, and our having no difference in our course
of life and manners, procures among us the most excellent concord of these
our manners that is any where among mankind; for no other people but the
Jews have avoided all discourses about God that any way contradict one
another, which yet are frequent among other nations; and this is true not
only among ordinary persons, according as every one is affected, but some
of the philosophers have been insolent enough to indulge such contradictions,
while some of them have undertaken to use such words as entirely take away
the nature of God, as others of them have taken away his providence over
mankind. Nor can any one perceive amongst us any difference in the conduct
of our lives, but all our works are common to us all. We have one sort
of discourse concerning God, which is conformable to our law, and affirms
that he sees all things; as also we have but one way of speaking concerning
the conduct of our lives, that all other things ought to have piety for
their end; and this any body may hear from our women, and servants themselves.
21. And, indeed, hence hath arisen that accusation which some make against
us, that we have not produced men that have been the inventors of new operations,
or of new ways of speaking; for others think it a fine thing to persevere
in nothing that has been delivered down from their forefathers, and these
testify it to be an instance of the sharpest wisdom when these men venture
to transgress those traditions; whereas we, on the contrary, suppose it
to be our only wisdom and virtue to admit no actions nor supposals that
are contrary to our original laws; which procedure of ours is a just and
sure sign that our law is admirably constituted; for such laws as are not
thus well made are convicted upon trial to want amendment.
22. But while we are ourselves persuaded that our law was made agreeably
to the will of God, it would be impious for us not to observe the same;
for what is there in it that any body would change? and what can be invented
that is better? or what can we take out of other people's laws that will
exceed it? Perhaps some would have the entire settlement of our government
altered. And where shall we find a better or more righteous constitution
than ours, while this makes us esteem God to be the Governor of the universe,
and permits the priests in general to be the administrators of the principal
affairs, and withal intrusts the government over the other priests to the
chief high priest himself? which priests our legislator, at their first
appointment, did not advance to that dignity for their riches, or any abundance
of other possessions, or any plenty they had as the gifts of fortune; but
he intrusted the principal management of Divine worship to those that exceeded
others in an ability to persuade men, and in prudence of conduct. These
men had the main care of the law and of the other parts of the people's
conduct committed to them; for they were the priests who were ordained
to be the inspectors of all, and the judges in doubtful cases, and the
punishers of those that were condemned to suffer punishment.
23. What form of government then can be more holy than this? what more
worthy kind of worship can be paid to God than we pay, where the entire
body of the people are prepared for religion, where an extraordinary degree
of care is required in the priests, and where the whole polity is so ordered
as if it were a certain religious solemnity? For what things foreigners,
when they solemnize such festivals, are not able to observe for a few days'
time, and call them Mysteries and Sacred Ceremonies, we observe with great
pleasure and an unshaken resolution during our whole lives. What are the
things then that we are commanded or forbidden? They are simple, and easily
known. The first command is concerning God, and affirms that God contains
all things, and is a Being every way perfect and happy, self-sufficient,
and supplying all other beings; the beginning, the middle, and the end
of all things. He is manifest in his works and benefits, and more conspicuous
than any other being whatsoever; but as to his form and magnitude, he is
most obscure. All materials, let them be ever so costly, are unworthy to
compose an image for him, and all arts are unartful to express the notion
we ought to have of him. We can neither see nor think of any thing like
him, nor is it agreeable to piety to form a resemblance of him. We see
his works, the light, the heaven, the earth, the sun and the moon, the
waters, the generations of animals, the productions of fruits. These things
hath God made, not with hands, nor with labor, nor as wanting the assistance
of any to cooperate with him; but as his will resolved they should be made
and be good also, they were made and became good immediately. All men ought
to follow this Being, and to worship him in the exercise of virtue; for
this way of worship of God is the most holy of all others.
24. There ought also to be but one temple for one God; for likeness
is the constant foundation of agreement. This temple ought to be common
to all men, because he is the common God of all men. High priests are to
be continually about his worship, over whom he that is the first by his
birth is to be their ruler perpetually. His business must be to offer sacrifices
to God, together with those priests that are joined with him, to see that
the laws be observed, to determine controversies, and to punish those that
are convicted of injustice; while he that does not submit to him shall
be subject to the same punishment, as if he had been guilty of impiety
towards God himself. When we offer sacrifices to him, we do it not in order
to surfeit ourselves, or to be drunken; for such excesses are against the
will of God, and would be an occasion of injuries and of luxury; but by
keeping ourselves sober, orderly, and ready for our other occupations,
and being more temperate than others. And for our duty at the sacrifices
(22)
themselves, we ought, in the first place, to pray for the common welfare
of all, and after that for our own; for we are made for fellowship one
with another, and he who prefers the common good before what is peculiar
to himself is above all acceptable to God. And let our prayers and supplications
be made humbly to God, not [so much] that he would give us what is good,
(for he hath already given that of his own accord, and hath proposed the
same publicly to all,) as that we may duly receive it, and when we have
received it, may preserve it. Now the law has appointed several purifications
at our sacrifices, whereby we are cleansed after a funeral, after what
sometimes happens to us in bed, and after accompanying with our wives,
and upon many other occasions, which it would be too long now to set down.
And this is our doctrine concerning God and his worship, and is the same
that the law appoints for our practice.
25. But, then, what are our laws about marriage? That law owns no other
mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his
wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it
abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if any one do that, death
is its punishment. It commands us also, when we marry, not to have regard
to portion, nor to take a woman by violence, nor to persuade her deceitfully
and knavishly; but to demand her in marriage of him who hath power to dispose
of her, and is fit to give her away by the nearness of his kindred; for,
says the Scripture, "A woman is inferior to her husband in all things."
(23)
Let her, therefore, be obedient to him; not so that he should abuse her,
but that she may acknowledge her duty to her husband; for God hath given
the authority to the husband. A husband, therefore, is to lie only with
his wife whom he hath married; but to have to do with another man's wife
is a wicked thing, which, if any one ventures upon, death is inevitably
his punishment: no more can he avoid the same who forces a virgin betrothed
to another man, or entices another man's wife. The law, moreover, enjoins
us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of
what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears
to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living
creature, and diminishing human kind; if any one, therefore, proceeds to
such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean. Moreover, the law enjoins,
that after the man and wife have lain together in a regular way, they shall
bathe themselves; for there is a defilement contracted thereby, both in
soul and body, as if they had gone into another country; for indeed the
soul, by being united to the body, is subject to miseries, and is not freed
therefrom again but by death; on which account the law requires this purification
to be entirely performed.
26. Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the
births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess;
but it ordains that the very beginning of our education should be immediately
directed to sobriety. It also commands us to bring those children up in
learning, and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with
the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and
that they might be nourished up in the laws from their infancy, and might
neither transgress them, nor have any pretense for their ignorance of them.
27. Our law hath also taken care of the decent burial of the dead, but
without any extravagant expenses for their funerals, and without the erection
of any illustrious monuments for them; but hath ordered that their nearest
relations should perform their obsequies; and hath showed it to be regular,
that all who pass by when any one is buried should accompany the funeral,
and join in the lamentation. It also ordains that the house and its inhabitants
should be purified after the funeral is over, that every one may thence
learn to keep at a great distance from the thoughts of being pure, if he
hath been once guilty of murder.
28. The law ordains also, that parents should be honored immediately
after God himself, and delivers that son who does not requite them for
the benefits he hath received from them, but is deficient on any such occasion,
to be stoned. It also says that the young men should pay due respect to
every elder, since God is the eldest of all beings. It does not give leave
to conceal any thing from our friends, because that is not true friendship
which will not commit all things to their fidelity: it also forbids the
revelation of secrets, even though an enmity arise between them. If any
judge takes bribes, his punishment is death: he that overlooks one that
offers him a petition, and this when he is able to relieve him, he is a
guilty person. What is not by any one intrusted to another ought not to
be required back again. No one is to touch another's goods. He that lends
money must not demand usury for its loan. These, and many more of the like
sort, are the rules that unite us in the bands of society one with another.
29. It will be also worth our while to see what equity our legislator
would have us exercise in our intercourse with strangers; for it will thence
appear that he made the best provision he possibly could, both that we
should not dissolve our own constitution, nor show any envious mind towards
those that would cultivate a friendship with us. Accordingly, our legislator
admits all those that have a mind to observe our laws so to do; and this
after a friendly manner, as esteeming that a true union which not only
extends to our own stock, but to those that would live after the same manner
with us; yet does he not allow those that come to us by accident only to
be admitted into communion with us.
30. However, there are other things which our legislator ordained for
us beforehand, which of necessity we ought to do in common to all men;
as to afford fire, and water, and food to such as want it; to show them
the roads; not to let any one lie unburied. He also would have us treat
those that are esteemed our enemies with moderation; for he doth not allow
us to set their country on fire, nor permit us to cut down those trees
that bear fruit; nay, further, he forbids us to spoil those that have been
slain in war. He hath also provided for such as are taken captive, that
they may not be injured, and especially that the women may not be abused.
Indeed he hath taught us gentleness and humanity so effectually, that he
hath not despised the care of brute beasts, by permitting no other than
a regular use of them, and forbidding any other; and if any of them come
to our houses, like supplicants, we are forbidden to slay them; nor may
we kill the dams, together with their young ones; but we are obliged, even
in an enemy's country, to spare and not kill those creatures that labor
for mankind. Thus hath our lawgiver contrived to teach us an equitable
conduct every way, by using us to such laws as instruct us therein; while
at the same time he hath ordained that such as break these laws should
be punished, without the allowance of any excuse whatsoever.
31. Now the greatest part of offenses with us are capital; as if any
one be guilty of adultery; if any one force a virgin; if any one be so
impudent as to attempt sodomy with a male; or if, upon another's making
an attempt upon him, he submits to be so used. There is also a law for
slaves of the like nature, that can never be avoided. Moreover, if any
one cheats another in measures or weights, or makes a knavish bargain and
sale, in order to cheat another; if any one steals what belongs to another,
and takes what he never deposited; all these have punishments allotted
them; not such as are met with among other nations, but more severe ones.
And as for attempts of unjust behavior towards parents, or for impiety
against God, though they be not actually accomplished, the offenders are
destroyed immediately. However, the reward for such as live exactly according
to the laws is not silver or gold; it is not a garland of olive branches
or of small age, nor any such public sign of commendation; but every good
man hath his own conscience bearing witness to himself, and by virtue of
our legislator's prophetic spirit, and of the firm security God himself
affords such a one, he believes that God hath made this grant to those
that observe these laws, even though they be obliged readily to die for
them, that they shall come into being again, and at a certain revolution
of things shall receive a better life than they had enjoyed before. Nor
would I venture to write thus at this time, were it not well known to all
by our actions that many of our people have many a time bravely resolved
to endure any sufferings, rather than speak one word against our law.
32. Nay, indeed, in case it had so fallen out, that our nation had not
been so thoroughly known among all men as they are, and our voluntary submission
to our laws had not been so open and manifest as it is, but that somebody
had pretended to have written these laws himself, and had read them to
the Greeks, or had pretended that he had met with men out of the limits
of the known world, that had such reverent notions of God, and had continued
a long time in the firm observance of such laws as ours, I cannot but suppose
that all men would admire them on a reflection upon the frequent changes
they had therein been themselves subject to; and this while those that
have attempted to write somewhat of the same kind for politic government,
and for laws, are accused as composing monstrous things, and are said to
have undertaken an impossible task upon them. And here I will say nothing
of those other philosophers who have undertaken any thing of this nature
in their writings. But even Plato himself, who is so admired by the Greeks
on account of that gravity in his manners, and force in his words, and
that ability he had to persuade men beyond all other philosophers, is little
better than laughed at and exposed to ridicule on that account, by those
that pretend to sagacity in political affairs; although he that shall diligently
peruse his writings will find his precepts to be somewhat gentle, and pretty
near to the customs of the generality of mankind. Nay, Plato himself confesseth
that it is not safe to publish the true notion concerning God among the
ignorant multitude. Yet do some men look upon Plato's discourses as no
better than certain idle words set off with great artifice. However, they
admire Lycurgus as the principal lawgiver, and all men celebrate Sparta
for having continued in the firm observance of his laws for a very long
time. So far then we have gained, that it is to be confessed a mark of
virtue to submit to laws. (24)
But then let such as admire this in the Lacedemonians compare that duration
of theirs with more than two thousand years which our political government
hath continued; and let them further consider, that though the Lacedemonians
did seem to observe their laws exactly while they enjoyed their liberty,
yet that when they underwent a change of their fortune, they forgot almost
all those laws; while we, having been under ten thousand changes in our
fortune by the changes that happened among the kings of Asia, have never
betrayed our laws under the most pressing distresses we have been in; nor
have we neglected them either out of sloth or for a livelihood. (25)
if any one will consider it, the difficulties and labors laid upon us have
been greater than what appears to have been borne by the Lacedemonian fortitude,
while they neither ploughed their land, nor exercised any trades, but lived
in their own city, free from all such pains-taking, in the enjoyment of
plenty, and using such exercises as might improve their bodies, while they
made use of other men as their servants for all the necessaries of life,
and had their food prepared for them by the others; and these good and
humane actions they do for no other purpose but this, that by their actions
and their sufferings they may be able to conquer all those against whom
they make war. I need not add this, that they have not been fully able
to observe their laws; for not only a few single persons, but multitudes
of them, have in heaps neglected those laws, and have delivered themselves,
together with their arms, into the hands of their enemies.
33. Now as for ourselves, I venture to say that no one can tell of so
many; nay, not of more than one or two that have betrayed our laws, no,
not out of fear of death itself; I do not mean such an easy death as happens
in battles, but that which comes with bodily torments, and seems to be
the severest kind of death of all others. Now I think those that have conquered
us have put us to such deaths, not out of their hatred to us when they
had subdued us, but rather out of their desire of seeing a surprising sight,
which is this, whether there be such men in the world who believe that
no evil is to them so great as to be compelled to do or to speak any thing
contrary to their own laws. Nor ought men to wonder at us, if we are more
courageous in dying for our laws than all other men are; for other men
do not easily submit to the easier things in which we are instituted; I
mean working with our hands, and eating but little, and being contented
to eat and drink, not at random, or at every one's pleasure, or being under
inviolable rules in lying with our wives, in magnificent furniture, and
again in the observation of our times of rest; while those that can use
their swords in war, and can put their enemies to flight when they attack
them, cannot bear to submit to such laws about their way of living: whereas
our being accustomed willingly to submit to laws in these instances, renders
us fit to show our fortitude upon other occasions also.
34. Yet do the Lysimachi and the Molones, and some other writers, (unskillful
sophists as they are, and the deceivers of young men,) reproach us as the
vilest of all mankind. Now I have no mind to make an inquiry into the laws
of other nations; for the custom of our country is to keep our own laws,
but not to bring accusations against the laws of others. And indeed our
legislator hath expressly forbidden us to laugh at and revile those that
are esteemed gods by other people? on account of the very name of God ascribed
to them. But since our antagonists think to run us down upon the comparison
of their religion and ours, it is not possible to keep silence here, especially
while what I shall say to confute these men will not be now first said,
but hath been already said by many, and these of the highest reputation
also; for who is there among those that have been admired among the Greeks
for wisdom, who hath not greatly blamed both the most famous poets, and
most celebrated legislators, for spreading such notions originally among
the body of the people concerning the gods? such as these, that they may
be allowed to be as numerous as they have a mind to have them; that they
are begotten one by another, and that after all the kinds of generation
you can imagine. They also distinguish them in their places and ways of
living as they would distinguish several sorts of animals; as some to be
under the earth; as some to be in the sea; and the ancientest of them all
to be bound in hell; and for those to whom they have allotted heaven, they
have set over them one, who in title is their father, but in his actions
a tyrant and a lord; whence it came to pass that his wife, and brother,
and daughter (which daughter he brought forth from his own head) made a
conspiracy against him to seize upon him and confine hint, as he had himself
seized upon and confined his own father before.
35. And justly have the wisest men thought these notions deserved severe
rebukes; they also laugh at them for determining that we ought to believe
some of the gods to be beardless and young, and others of them to be old,
and to have beards accordingly; that some are set to trades; that one god
is a smith, and another goddess is a weaver; that one god is a warrior,
and fights with men; that some of them are harpers, or delight in archery;
and besides, that mutual seditions arise among them, and that they quarrel
about men, and this so far, that they not only lay hands upon one another,
but that they are wounded by men, and lament, and take on for such their
afflictions. But what is the grossest of all in point of lasciviousness,
are those unbounded lusts ascribed to almost all of them, and their amours;
which how can it be other than a most absurd supposal, especially when
it reaches to the male gods, and to the female goddesses also? Moreover,
the chief of all their gods, and their first father himself, overlooks
those goddesses whom he hath deluded and begotten with child, and suffers
them to be kept in prison, or drowned in the sea. He is also so bound up
by fate, that he cannot save his own offspring, nor can he bear their deaths
without shedding of tears. These are fine things indeed! as are the rest
that follow. Adulteries truly are so impudently looked on in heaven by
the gods, that some of them have confessed they envied those that were
found in the very act. And why should they not do so, when the eldest of
them, who is their king also, hath not been able to restrain himself in
the violence of his lust, from lying with his wife, so long as they might
get into their bedchamber? Now some of the gods are servants to men, and
will sometimes be builders for a reward, and sometimes will be shepherds;
while others of them, like malefactors, are bound in a prison of brass.
And what sober person is there who would not be provoked at such stories,
and rebuke those that forged them, and condemn the great silliness of those
that admit them for true? Nay, others there are that have advanced a certain
timorousness and fear, as also madness and fraud, and any other of the
vilest passions, into the nature and form of gods, and have persuaded whole
cities to offer sacrifices to the better sort of them; on which account
they have been absolutely forced to esteem some gods as the givers of good
things, and to call others of them averters of evil. They also endeavor
to move them, as they would the vilest of men, by gifts and presents, as
looking for nothing else than to receive some great mischief from them,
unless they pay them such wages.
36. Wherefore it deserves our inquiry what should be the occasion of
this unjust management, and of these scandals about the Deity. And truly
I suppose it to be derived from the imperfect knowledge the heathen legislators
had at first of the true nature of God; nor did they explain to the people
even so far as they did comprehend of it: nor did they compose the other
parts of their political settlements according to it, but omitted it as
a thing of very little consequence, and gave leave both to the poets to
introduce what gods they pleased, and those subject to all sorts of passions,
and to the orators to procure political decrees from the people for the
admission of such foreign gods as they thought proper. The painters also,
and statuaries of Greece, had herein great power, as each of them could
contrive a shape [proper for a god]; the one to be formed out of clay,
and the other by making a bare picture of such a one. But those workmen
that were principally admired, had the use of ivory and of gold as the
constant materials for their new statues [whereby it comes to pass that
some temples are quite deserted, while others are in great esteem, and
adorned with all the rites of all kinds of purification]. Besides this,
the first gods, who have long flourished in the honors done them, are now
grown old [while those that flourished after them are come in their room
as a second rank, that I may speak the most honorably of them I can]: nay,
certain other gods there are who are newly introduced, and newly worshipped
[as we, by way of digression, have said already, and yet have left their
places of worship desolate]; and for their temples, some of them are already
left desolate, and others are built anew, according to the pleasure of
men; whereas they ought to have their opinion about God, and that worship
which is due to him, always and immutably the same.
37. But now, this Apollonius Molo was one of these foolish and proud
men. However, nothing that I have said was unknown to those that were real
philosophers among the Greeks, nor were they unacquainted with those frigid
pretensions of allegories [which had been alleged for such things]; on
which account they justly despised them, but have still agreed with us
as to the true and becoming notions of God; whence it was that Plato would
not have political settlements admit to of any one of the other poets,
and dismisses even Homer himself, with a garland on his head, and with
ointment poured upon him, and this because he should not destroy the right
notions of God with his fables. Nay, Plato principally imitated our legislator
in this point, that he enjoined his citizens to have he main regard to
this precept, "That every one of them should learn their laws accurately."
He also ordained, that they should not admit of foreigners intermixing
with their own people at random; and provided that the commonwealth should
keep itself pure, and consist of such only as persevered in their own laws.
Apollonius Molo did no way consider this, when he made it one branch of
his accusation against us, that we do not admit of such as have different
notions about God, nor will we have fellowship with those that choose to
observe a way of living different from ourselves, yet is not this method
peculiar to us, but common to all other men; not among the ordinary Grecians
only, but among such of those Grecians as are of the greatest reputation
among them. Moreover, the Lacedemonians continued in their way of expelling
foreigners, and would not indeed give leave to their own people to travel
abroad, as suspecting that those two things would introduce a dissolution
of their own laws: and perhaps there may be some reason to blame the rigid
severity of the Lacedemonians, for they bestowed the privilege of their
city on no foreigners, nor indeed would give leave to them to stay among
them; whereas we, though we do not think fit to imitate other institutions,
yet do we willingly admit of those that desire to partake of ours, which,
I think, I may reckon to be a plain indication of our humanity, and at
the same time of our magnanimity also.
38. But I shall say no more of the Lacedemonians. As for the Athenians,
who glory in having made their city to be common to all men, what their
behavior was Apollonius did not know, while they punished those that did
but speak one word contrary to the laws about the gods, without any mercy;
for on what other account was it that Socrates was put to death by them?
For certainly he neither betrayed their city to its enemies, nor was he
guilty of any sacrilege with regard to any of their temples; but it was
on this account, that he swore certain new oaths (26)
and that he affirmed either in earnest, or, as some say, only in jest,
that a certain demon used to make signs to him [what he should not do].
For these reasons he was condemned to drink poison, and kill himself. His
accuser also complained that he corrupted the young men, by inducing them
to despise the political settlement and laws of their city: and thus was
Socrates, the citizen of Athens, punished. There was also Anaxagoras, who,
although he was of Clazomente, was within a few suffrages of being condemned
to die, because he said the sun, which the Athenians thought to be a god,
was a ball of fire. They also made this public proclamation," That
they would give a talent to any one who would kill Diagoras of Melos,"
because it was reported of him that he laughed at their mysteries. Protagoras
also, who was thought to have written somewhat that was not owned for truth
by the Athenians about the gods, had been seized upon, and put to death,
if he had not fled away immediately. Nor need we at all wonder that they
thus treated such considerable men, when they did not spare even women
also; for they very lately slew a certain priestess, because she was accused
by somebody that she initiated people into the worship of strange gods,
it having been forbidden so to do by one of their laws; and a capital punishment
had been decreed to such as introduced a strange god; it being manifest,
that they who make use of such a law do not believe those of other nations
to be really gods, otherwise they had not envied themselves the advantage
of more gods than they already had. And this was the happy administration
of the affairs of the Athenians! Now as to the Scythians, they take a pleasure
in killing men, and differ but little from brute beasts; yet do they think
it reasonable to have their institutions observed. They also slew Anacharsis,
a person greatly admired for his wisdom among the Greeks, when he returned
to them, because he appeared to come fraught with Grecian customs. One
may also find many to have been punished among the Persians, on the very
same account. And to be sure Apollonius was greatly pleased with the laws
of the Persians, and was an admirer of them, because the Greeks enjoyed
the advantage of their courage, and had the very same opinion about the
gods which they had. This last was exemplified in the temples which they
burnt, and their courage in coming, and almost entirely enslaving the Grecians.
However, Apollonius has imitated all the Persian institutions, and that
by his offering violence to other men's wives, and gelding his own sons.
Now, with us, it is a capital crime, if any one does thus abuse even a
brute beast; and as for us, neither hath the fear of our governors, nor
a desire of following what other nations have in so great esteem, been
able to withdraw us from our own laws; nor have we exerted our courage
in raising up wars to increase our wealth, but only for the observation
of our laws; and when we with patience bear other losses, yet when any
persons would compel us to break our laws, then it is that we choose to
go to war, though it be beyond our ability to pursue it, and bear the greatest
calamities to the last with much fortitude. And, indeed, what reason can
there be why we should desire to imitate the laws of other nations, while
we see they are not observed by their own legislators (27)
And why do not the Lacedemonians think of abolishing that form of their
government which suffers them not to associate with any others, as well
as their contempt of matrimony? And why do not the Eleans and Thebans abolish
that unnatural and impudent lust, which makes them lie with males? For
they will not show a sufficient sign of their repentance of what they of
old thought to be very excellent, and very advantageous in their practices,
unless they entirely avoid all such actions for the time to come: nay,
such things are inserted into the body of their laws, and had once such
a power among the Greeks, that they ascribed these sodomitical practices
to the gods themselves, as a part of their good character; and indeed it
was according to the same manner that the gods married their own sisters.
This the Greeks contrived as an apology for their own absurd and unnatural
pleasures.
39. I omit to speak concerning punishments, and how many ways of escaping
them the greatest part of the legislators have afforded malefactors, by
ordaining that, for adulteries, fines in money should be allowed, and for
corrupting (28)
[virgins] they need only marry them as also what excuses they may have
in denying the facts, if any one attempts to inquire into them; for amongst
most other nations it is a studied art how men may transgress their laws;
but no such thing is permitted amongst us; for though we be deprived of
our wealth, of our cities, or of the other advantages we have, our law
continues immortal; nor can any Jew go so far from his own country, nor
be so aftrighted at the severest lord, as not to be more aftrighted at
the law than at him. If, therefore, this be the disposition we are under,
with regard to the excellency of our laws, let our enemies make us this
concession, that our laws are most excellent; and if still they imagine,
that though we so firmly adhere to them, yet are they bad laws notwithstanding,
what penalties then do they deserve to undergo who do not observe their
own laws, which they esteem so far superior to them? Whereas, therefore,
length of time is esteemed to be the truest touchstone in all cases, I
would make that a testimonial of the excellency of our laws, and of that
belief thereby delivered to us concerning God. For as there hath been a
very long time for this comparison, if any one will but compare its duration
with the duration of the laws made by other legislators, he will find our
legislator to have been the ancientest of them all.
40. We have already demonstrated that our laws have been such as have
always inspired admiration and imitation into all other men; nay, the earliest
Grecian philosophers, though in appearance they observed the laws of their
own countries, yet did they, in their actions, and their philosophic doctrines,
follow our legislator, and instructed men to live sparingly, and to have
friendly communication one with another. Nay, further, the multitude of
mankind itself have had a great inclination of a long time to follow our
religious observances; for there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any
of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting
on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts and lighting up
lamps, and many of our prohibitions as to our food, are not observed; they
also endeavor to imitate our mutual concord with one another, and the charitable
distribution of our goods, and our diligence in our trades, and our fortitude
in undergoing the distresses we are in, on account of our laws; and, what
is here matter of the greatest admiration, our law hath no bait of pleasure
to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force; and as God himself
pervades all the world, so hath our law passed through all the world also.
So that if any one will but reflect on his own country, and his own family,
he will have reason to give credit to what I say. It is therefore but just,
either to condemn all mankind of indulging a wicked disposition, when they
have been so desirous of imitating laws that are to them foreign and evil
in themselves, rather than following laws of their own that are of a better
character, or else our accusers must leave off their spite against us.
Nor are we guilty of any envious behavior towards them, when we honor our
own legislator, and believe what he, by his prophetic authority, hath taught
us concerning God. For though we should not be able ourselves to understand
the excellency of our own laws, yet would the great multitude of those
that desire to imitate them, justify us, in greatly valuing ourselves upon
them.
41. But as for the [distinct] political laws by which we are governed,
I have delivered them accurately in my books of Antiquities; and have only
mentioned them now, so far as was necessary to my present purpose, without
proposing to myself either to blame the laws of other nations, or to make
an encomium upon our own; but in order to convict those that have written
about us unjustly, and in an impudent affectation of disguising the truth.
And now I think I have sufficiently completed what I proposed in writing
these books. For whereas our accusers have pretended that our nation are
a people of very late original, I have demonstrated that they are exceeding
ancient; for I have produced as witnesses thereto many ancient writers,
who have made mention of us in their books, while they had said that no
such writer had so done. Moreover, they had said that we were sprung from
the Egyptians, while I have proved that we came from another country into
Egypt: while they had told lies of us, as if we were expelled thence on
account of diseases on our bodies, it has appeared, on the contrary, that
we returned to our country by our own choice, and with sound and strong
bodies. Those accusers reproached our legislator as a vile fellow; whereas
God in old time bare witness to his virtuous conduct; and since that testimony
of God, time itself hath been discovered to have borne witness to the same
thing.
42. As to the laws themselves, more words are unnecessary, for they
are visible in their own nature, and appear to teach not impiety, but the
truest piety in the world. They do not make men hate one another, but encourage
people to communicate what they have to one another freely; they are enemies
to injustice, they take care of righteousness, they banish idleness and
expensive living, and instruct men to be content with what they have, and
to be laborious in their calling; they forbid men to make war from a desire
of getting more, but make men courageous in defending the laws; they are
inexorable in punishing malefactors; they admit no sophistry of words,
but are always established by actions themselves, which actions we ever
propose as surer demonstrations than what is contained in writing only:
on which account I am so bold as to say that we are become the teachers
of other men, in the greatest number of things, and those of the most excellent
nature only; for what is more excellent than inviolable piety? what is
more just than submission to laws? and what is more advantageous than mutual
love and concord? and this so far that we are to be neither divided by
calamities, nor to become injurious and seditious in prosperity; but to
contemn death when we are in war, and in peace to apply ourselves to our
mechanical occupations, or to our tillage of the ground; while we in all
things and all ways are satisfied that God is the inspector and governor
of our actions. If these precepts had either been written at first, or
more exactly kept by any others before us, we should have owed them thanks
as disciples owe to their masters; but if it be visible that we have made
use of them more than any other men, and if we have demonstrated that the
original invention of them is our own, let the Apions, and the Molons,
with all the rest of those that delight in lies and reproaches, stand confuted;
but let this and the foregoing book be dedicated to thee, Epaphroditus,
who art so great a lover of truth, and by thy means to those that have
been in like manner desirous to be acquainted with the affairs of our nation.
ENDNOTE
(1)
The former part of this second book is written against the calumnies of
Apion, and then, more briefly, against the like calumnies of Apollonius
Molo. But after that, Josephus leaves off any more particular reply to
those adversaries of the Jews, and gives us a large and excellent description
and vindication of that theocracy which was settled for the Jewish nation
by Moses, their great legislator.
(2)
Called by Tiberius Cymbalum Mundi, The drum of the world.
(3)
This seems to have been the first dial that had been made in Egypt, and
was a little before the time that Ahaz made his [first] dial in Judea,
and about anno 755, in the first year of the seventh olympiad, as we shall
see presently. See 2 Kings 20:11; Isaiah 38:8.
(4)
The burial-place for dead bodies, as I suppose.
(5)
Here begins a great defect in the Greek copy; but the old Latin version
fully supplies that defect.
(6)
What error is here generally believed to have been committed by our Josephus
in ascribing a deliverance of the Jews to the reign of Ptolemy Physco,
the seventh of those Ptolemus, which has been universally supposed to have
happened under Ptolemy Philopater, the fourth of them, is no better than
a gross error of the moderns, and not of Josephus, as I have fully proved
in the Authentic. Rec. Part I. p. 200-201, whither I refer the inquisitive
reader.
(7)
Sister's son, and adopted son.
(8)
Called more properly Molo, or Apollonius Molo, as hereafter; for Apollonins,
the son of Molo, was another person, as Strabo informs us, lib. xiv.
(9)
Furones in the Latin, which what animal it denotes does not now appear.
(10)
It is great pity that these six pagan authors, here mentioned to have described
the famous profanation of the Jewish temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, should
be all lost; I mean so far of their writings as contained that description;
though it is plain Josephus perused them all as extant in his time.
(11)
It is remarkable that Josephus here, and, I think, no where else, reckons
up four distinct courts of the temple; that of the Gentiles, that of the
women of Israel, that of the men of Israel, and that of the priests; as
also that the court of the women admitted of the men, (I suppose only of
the husbands of those wives that were therein,) while the court of the
men did not admit any women into it at all.
(12)
Judea, in the Greek, by a gross mistake of the transcribers.
(13)
Seven in the Greek, by a like gross mistake of the transcribers. See of
the War, B. V. ch. 5. sect. 4.
(14)
Two hundred in the Greek, contrary to the twenty in the War, B. VII. ch,
5. sect. 3.
(15)
This notorious disgrace belonging peculiarly to the people of Egypt, ever
since the times of the old prophets of the Jews, noted both sect. 4 already,
and here, may be confirmed by the testimony of Isidorus, an Egyptian of
Pelusium, Epist. lib. i. Ep. 489. And this is a remarkable completion of
the ancient prediction of God by Ezekiel 29:14, 15, that the Egyptians
should be a base kingdom, the basest of the kingdoms," and that "it
should not exalt itself any more above the nations."
(16)
The truth of which still further appears by the present observation of
Josephus, that these Egyptians had never, in all the past ages since Sesostris,
had one day of liberty, no, not so much as to have been free from despotic
power under any of the monarchies to that day. And all this bas been found
equally true in the latter ages, under the Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes,
and Turks, from the days of Josephus till the present ago also.
(17)
This language, that Moses, "persuaded himself" that what he did
was according to God's will, can mean no more, by Josephus's own constant
notions elsewhere, than that he was "firmly persuaded," that
he had "fully satisfied himself" that so it was, viz. by the
many revelations he had received from God, and the numerous miracles God
had enabled him to work, as he both in these very two books against Apion,
and in his Antiquities, most clearly and frequently assures us. This is
further evident from several passages lower, where he affirms that Moses
was no impostor nor deceiver, and where he assures that Moses's constitution
of government was no other than a theocracy; and where he says they are
to hope for deliverance out of their distresses by prayer to God, and that
withal it was owing in part to this prophetic spirit of Moses that the
Jews expected a resurrection from the dead. See almost as strange a use
of the like words, "to persuade God," Antiq. B. VI. ch. 5. sect.
6.
(18)
That is, Moses really was, what the heathen legislators pretended to be,
under a Divine direction; nor does it yet appear that these pretensions
to a supernatural conduct, either in these legislators or oracles, were
mere delusions of men without any demoniacal impressions, nor that Josephus
took them so to be; as the ancientest and contemporary authors did still
believe them to be supernatural.
(19)
This whole very large passage is corrected by Dr. Hudson from Eusebius's
citation of it, Prep. Evangel. viii. 8, which is here not a little different
from the present MSS. of Josephus.
(20)
This expression itself, that "Moses ordained the Jewish government
to be a theocracy," may be illustrated by that parallel expression
in the Antiquities, B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9, that "Moses left it to
God to be present at his sacrifices when he pleased; and when he pleased,
to be absent." Both ways of speaking sound harsh in the ears of Jews
and Christians, as do several others which Josephus uses to the heathens;
but still they were not very improper in him, when he all along thought
fit to accommodate himself, both in his Antiquities, and in these his books
against Apion, all written for the use of the Greeks and Romans, to their
notions and language, and this as far as ever truth would give him leave.
Though it be very observable withal, that he never uses such expressions
in his books of the War, written originally for the Jews beyond Euphrates,
and in their language, in all these cases. However, Josephus directly supposes
the Jewish settlement, under Moses, to be a Divine settlement, and indeed
no other than a real theocracy.
(21)
These excellent accounts of the Divine attributes, and that God is not
to be at all known in his essence, as also some other clear expressions
about the resurrection of the dead, and the state of departed souls, etc.,
in this late work of Josephus, look more like the exalted notions of the
Essens, or rather Ebionite Christians, than those of a mere Jew or Pharisee.
The following large accounts also of the laws of Moses, seem to me to show
a regard to the higher interpretations and improvements of Moses's laws,
derived from Jesus Christ, than to the bare letter of them in the Old Testament,
whence alone Josephus took them when he wrote his Antiquities; nor, as
I think, can some of these laws, though generally excellent in their kind,
be properly now found either in the copies of the Jewish Pentateuch, or
in Philo, or in Josephus himself, before he became a Nazarene or Ebionite
Christian; nor even all of them among the laws of catholic Christianity
themselves. I desire, therefore, the learned reader to consider, whether
some of these improvements or interpretations might not be peculiar to
the Essens among the Jews, or rather to the Nazarenes or Ebionites among
the Christians, though we have indeed but imperfect accounts of those Nazarenes
or Ebionite Christians transmitted down to us at this day.
(22)
We may here observe how known a thing it was among the Jews and heathens,
in this and many other instances, that sacrifices were still accompanied
with prayers; whence most probably came those phrases of "the sacrifice
of prayer, the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of thanksgiving."
However, those ancient forms used at sacrifices are now generally lost,
to the no small damage of true religion. It is here also exceeding remarkable,
that although the temple at Jerusalem was built as the only place where
the whole nation of the Jews were to offer their sacrifices, yet is there
no mention of the "sacrifices" themselves, but of "prayers"
only, in Solomon's long and famous form of devotion at its dedication,
1 Kings 8.; 2 Chronicles 6. See also many passages cited in the Apostolical
Constitutions, VII. 37, and Of the War, above, B. VII. ch. 5. sect. 6.
(23)
This text is no where in our present copies of the Old Testament.
(24)
It may not be amiss to set down here a very remarkable testimony of the
great philosopher Cicero, as to the preference of "laws to philosophy:
— I will," says he, "boldly declare my opinion, though the whole
world be offended at it. I prefer this little book of the Twelve Tables
alone to all the volumes of the philosophers. I find it to be not only
of more weight,' but also much more useful." — Oratore.
(25)
we have observed our times of rest, and sorts of food allowed us [during
our distresses].
(26)
See what those novel oaths were in Dr. Hudson's note, viz. to swear by
an oak, by a goat, and by a dog, as also by a gander, as say Philostratus
and others. This swearing strange oaths was also forbidden by the Tyrians,
B. I. sect. 22, as Spanheim here notes.
(27)
Why Josephus here should blame some heathen legislators, when they allowed
so easy a composition for simple fornication, as an obligation to marry
the virgin that was corrupted, is hard to say, seeing he had himself truly
informed us that it was a law of the Jews, Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 23,
as it is the law of Christianity also: see Horeb Covenant, p. 61. I am
almost ready to suspect that, for, we should here read, and that corrupting
wedlock, or other men's wives, is the crime for which these heathens wickedly
allowed this composition in money.
(28)
Or "for corrupting other men's wives the same allowance."
Antiquities of the Jews
War of the Jews
Autobiography
Hades
Against Apion