Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7236

Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 1.1-1.4

̔Ικανῶς μὲν ὑπολαμβάνω καὶ διὰ τῆς περὶ τὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν συγγραφῆς, κράτιστε ἀνδρῶν ̓Επαφρόδιτε, τοῖς ἐντευξομένοις αὐτῇ πεποιηκέναι φανερὸν περὶ τοῦ γένους ἡμῶν τῶν ̓Ιουδαίων, ὅτι καὶ παλαιότατόν ἐστι καὶ τὴν πρώτην ὑπόστασιν ἔσχεν ἰδίαν, καὶ πῶς τὴν χώραν ἣν νῦν ἔχομεν κατῴκησε * πεντακισχιλίων ἐτῶν ἀριθμὸν ἱστορίαν περιέχουσαν ἐκ τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν ἱερῶν βίβλων διὰ τῆς ̔Ελληνικῆς φωνῆς συνεγραψάμην.

1. I suppose that, by my books of the Antiquities of the Jews, most excellent Epaphroditus, I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct subsistence of its own originally; as also I have therein declared how we came to inhabit this country wherein we now live. Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue.

ἀεὶ καθιεροῦσθαι. τὸν δὲ περὶ τὴν ̔Ελλάδα τόπον μυρίαι μὲν φθοραὶ κατέσχον ἐξαλείφουσαι τὴν μνήμην τῶν γεγονότων, ἀεὶ δὲ καινοὺς καθιστάμενοι βίους τοῦ παντὸς ἐνόμιζον ἄρχειν ἕκαστοι τῶν ἀφ' ἑαυτῶν, ὀψὲ δὲ καὶ μόλις ἔγνωσαν φύσιν γραμμάτων: οἱ γοῦν ἀρχαιοτάτην αὐτῶν τὴν χρῆσιν εἶναι θέλοντες παρὰ Φοινίκων

χρόνου τε ἱκανοῦ γεγονότος ̔́Αρμαϊς ὁ καταλειφθεὶς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ πάντα τἄμπαλιν οἷς ἀδελφὸς παρῄνει μὴ ποιεῖν ἀδεῶς ἔπραττεν: καὶ γὰρ τὴν βασιλίδα βιαίως ἔσχεν καὶ ταῖς ἄλλαις παλλακίσιν ἀφειδῶς διετέλει χρώμενος, πειθόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν φίλων

ἐπεὶ δὲ συχνοὺς ὁρῶ ταῖς ὑπὸ δυσμενείας ὑπό τινων εἰρημέναις προσέχοντας βλασφημίαις καὶ τοῖς περὶ τὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν ὑπ' ἐμοῦ γεγραμμένοις ἀπιστοῦντας τεκμήριόν τε ποιουμένους τοῦ νεώτερον εἶναι τὸ γένος ἡμῶν τὸ μηδεμιᾶς παρὰ τοῖς ἐπιφανέσι τῶν ̔Ελληνικῶν ἱστοριογράφων μνήμης ἠξιῶσθαι

However, since I observe a considerable number of people giving ear to the reproaches that are laid against us by those who bear ill will to us, and will not believe what I have written concerning the antiquity of our nation, while they take it for a plain sign that our nation is of a late date, because they are not so much as vouchsafed a bare mention by the most famous historiographers among the Grecians

τὴν κυριωτέραν εἶναί μοι δοκοῦσαν: τὸ γὰρ ἐξ ἀρχῆς μὴ σπουδασθῆναι παρὰ τοῖς ̔́Ελλησι δημοσίας γίνεσθαι περὶ τῶν ἑκάστοτε πραττομένων ἀναγραφὰς τοῦτο μάλιστα δὴ καὶ τὴν πλάνην καὶ τὴν ἐξουσίαν τοῦ ψεύδεσθαι τοῖς μετὰ ταῦτα βουληθεῖσι περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν τι γράφειν παρέσχεν.

τῷ ἱερῷ.” ἔτι γε μὴν ὅτι καὶ ̓Αλεξάνδρῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ συνεστρατεύσαντο καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα τοῖς διαδόχοις αὐτοῦ μεμαρτύρηκεν. οἷς δ' αὐτὸς παρατυχεῖν φησιν ὑπ' ἀνδρὸς ̓Ιουδαίου κατὰ τὴν στρατείαν γενομένοις, τοῦτο παραθήσομαι.

περὶ τούτων ἁπάντων ᾠήθην δεῖν γράψαι συντόμως τῶν μὲν λοιδορούντων τὴν δυσμένειαν καὶ τὴν ἑκούσιον ἐλέγξαι ψευδολογίαν, τῶν δὲ τὴν ἄγνοιαν ἐπανορθώσασθαι, διδάξαι δὲ πάντας, ὅσοι

I therefore have thought myself under an obligation to write somewhat briefly about these subjects, in order to convict those that reproach us of spite and voluntary falsehood, and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal to instruct all those who are desirous of knowing the truth of what great antiquity we really are.

Οὐ γὰρ μόνον ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐπὶ τούτων τοὺς ἀρίστους καὶ τῇ θεραπείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ προσεδρεύοντας κατέστησαν, ἀλλ' ὅπως τὸ γένος

ἐστιν ἔτη σχεδὸν ἑβδομήκοντα καὶ ἑκατόν. ἀλλὰ μὴν ὁ ̔Ραμέσσης ὁ τοῦ ̓Αμενώφιος υἱὸς κατὰ μὲν τὸν Μανεθὼν νεανίας συμπολεμεῖ τῷ πατρὶ καὶ συνεκπίπτει φυγὼν εἰς τὴν Αἰθιοπίαν, οὗτος δὲ πεποίηκεν αὐτὸν μετὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς τελευτὴν ἐν σπηλαίῳ τινὶ γεγενημένον καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα νικῶντα μάχῃ καὶ τοὺς ̓Ιουδαίους

τἀληθὲς εἰδέναι βούλονται, περὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας ἀρχαιότητος. χρήσομαι δὲ τῶν μὲν ὑπ' ἐμοῦ λεγομένων μάρτυσι τοῖς ἀξιοπιστοτάτοις εἶναι περὶ πάσης ἀρχαιολογίας ὑπὸ τῶν ̔Ελλήνων κεκριμένοις, τοὺς δὲ βλασφήμως περὶ ἡμῶν καὶ ψευδῶς γεγραφότας αὐτοὺς δι' ἑαυτῶν ἐλεγχομένους παρέξω.

As for the witnesses whom I shall produce for the proof of what I say, they shall be such as are esteemed to be of the greatest reputation for truth, and the most skilful in the knowledge of all antiquity, by the Greeks themselves. I will also show, that those who have written so reproachfully and falsely about us, are to be convicted by what they have written themselves to the contrary.

ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Μωυσέως τελευτῆς μέχρι τῆς ̓Αρταξέρξου τοῦ μετὰ Ξέρξην Περσῶν βασιλέως οἱ μετὰ Μωυσῆν προφῆται τὰ κατ' αὐτοὺς πραχθέντα συνέγραψαν ἐν τρισὶ καὶ δέκα βιβλίοις: αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ τέσσαρες ὕμνους εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὑποθήκας τοῦ βίου περιέχουσιν.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

21 results

1. Hebrew Bible, Esther, 1.1, 2.5, 8.17, 9.29 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)

1.1. בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי כְּטוֹב לֵב־הַמֶּלֶךְ בַּיָּיִן אָמַר לִמְהוּמָן בִּזְּתָא חַרְבוֹנָא בִּגְתָא וַאֲבַגְתָא זֵתַר וְכַרְכַּס שִׁבְעַת הַסָּרִיסִים הַמְשָׁרְתִים אֶת־פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ׃ 1.1. וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד־כּוּשׁ שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה׃ 2.5. אִישׁ יְהוּדִי הָיָה בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה וּשְׁמוֹ מָרְדֳּכַי בֶּן יָאִיר בֶּן־שִׁמְעִי בֶּן־קִישׁ אִישׁ יְמִינִי׃ 8.17. וּבְכָל־מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה וּבְכָל־עִיר וָעִיר מְקוֹם אֲשֶׁר דְּבַר־הַמֶּלֶךְ וְדָתוֹ מַגִּיעַ שִׂמְחָה וְשָׂשׂוֹן לַיְּהוּדִים מִשְׁתֶּה וְיוֹם טוֹב וְרַבִּים מֵעַמֵּי הָאָרֶץ מִתְיַהֲדִים כִּי־נָפַל פַּחַד־הַיְּהוּדִים עֲלֵיהֶם׃ 9.29. וַתִּכְתֹּב אֶסְתֵּר הַמַּלְכָּה בַת־אֲבִיחַיִל וּמָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי אֶת־כָּל־תֹּקֶף לְקַיֵּם אֵת אִגֶּרֶת הַפּוּרִים הַזֹּאת הַשֵּׁנִית׃

1.1. NOW IT came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus—this is Ahasuerus who reigned, from India to Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven and twenty provinces—" 2.5. There was a certain Jew in Shushan the castle, whose name was Mordecai the son of Jair the son of Shimei the son of Kish, a Benjamite," 8.17. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy, a feast and a good day. And many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them." 9.29. Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote down all the acts of power, to confirm this second letter of Purim."

2. Hebrew Bible, Exodus, 12.36 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)

12.36. וַיהוָה נָתַן אֶת־חֵן הָעָם בְּעֵינֵי מִצְרַיִם וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם וַיְנַצְּלוּ אֶת־מִצְרָיִם׃

12.36. And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And they despoiled the Egyptians."

3. Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, 19.17 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

19.17. וְהָיְתָה אַדְמַת יְהוּדָה לְמִצְרַיִם לְחָגָּא כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יַזְכִּיר אֹתָהּ אֵלָיו יִפְחָד מִפְּנֵי עֲצַת יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲשֶׁר־הוּא יוֹעֵץ עָלָיו׃

19.17. And the land of Judah shall become a terror unto Egypt, whensoever one maketh mention thereof to it; it shall be afraid, because of the purpose of the LORD of hosts, which He purposeth against it."

4. Hebrew Bible, Ezra, 5.1 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

5.1. וְאַף שְׁמָהָתְהֹם שְׁאֵלְנָא לְּהֹם לְהוֹדָעוּתָךְ דִּי נִכְתֻּב שֻׁם־גֻּבְרַיָּא דִּי בְרָאשֵׁיהֹם׃ 5.1. וְהִתְנַבִּי חַגַּי נביאה [נְבִיָּא] וּזְכַרְיָה בַר־עִדּוֹא נביאיא [נְבִיַּיָּא] עַל־יְהוּדָיֵא דִּי בִיהוּד וּבִירוּשְׁלֶם בְּשֻׁם אֱלָהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲלֵיהוֹן׃

5.1. Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem; in the name of the God of Israel prophesied they unto them."

5. Septuagint, 1 Maccabees, 2.23, 8.20, 12.3, 12.6, 12.47 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

2.23. When he had finished speaking these words, a Jew came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice upon the altar in Modein, according to the kings command. 8.20. Judas, who is also called Maccabeus, and his brothers and the people of the Jews have sent us to you to establish alliance and peace with you, that we may be enrolled as your allies and friends. 12.3. So they went to Rome and entered the senate chamber and said, "Jonathan the high priest and the Jewish nation have sent us to renew the former friendship and alliance with them. 12.6. Jonathan the high priest, the senate of the nation, the priests, and the rest of the Jewish people to their brethren the Spartans, greeting. 12.47. He kept with himself three thousand men, two thousand of whom he left in Galilee, while a thousand accompanied him.

6. Septuagint, 2 Maccabees, 1.1, 4.35, 5.23, 9.17, 11.27, 14.6, 15.12 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

1.1. The Jewish brethren in Jerusalem and those in the land of Judea, To their Jewish brethren in Egypt, Greeting, and good peace.' 4.35. For this reason not only Jews, but many also of other nations, were grieved and displeased at the unjust murder of the man.' 5.23. and at Gerizim, Andronicus; and besides these Menelaus, who lorded it over his fellow citizens worse than the others did. In his malice toward the Jewish citizens,' 9.17. and in addition to all this he also would become a Jew and would visit every inhabited place to proclaim the power of God. 11.27. To the nation the king's letter was as follows:'King Antiochus to the senate of the Jews and to the other Jews, greeting.' 14.6. Those of the Jews who are called Hasideans, whose leader is Judas Maccabeus, are keeping up war and stirring up sedition, and will not let the kingdom attain tranquillity.' 15.12. What he saw was this: Onias, who had been high priest, a noble and good man, of modest bearing and gentle manner, one who spoke fittingly and had been trained from childhood in all that belongs to excellence, was praying with outstretched hands for the whole body of the Jews.'

7. Septuagint, 3 Maccabees, 1.3, 2.27, 3.29 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

1.3. But Dositheus, known as the son of Drimylus, a Jew by birth who later changed his religion and apostatized from the ancestral traditions, had led the king away and arranged that a certain insignificant man should sleep in the tent; and so it turned out that this man incurred the vengeance meant for the king. 2.27. He proposed to inflict public disgrace upon the Jewish community, and he set up a stone on the tower in the courtyard with this inscription: 3.29. Every place detected sheltering a Jew is to be made unapproachable and burned with fire, and shall become useless for all time to any mortal creature.

8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Decalogue, 96 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.97, 2.166 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1.97. There is also a third symbol contained in this sacred dress, which it is important not to pass over in silence. For the priests of other deities are accustomed to offer up prayers and sacrifices solely for their own relations, and friends, and fellow citizens. But the high priest of the Jews offers them up not only on behalf of the whole race of mankind, but also on behalf of the different parts of nature, of the earth, of water, of air, and of fire; and pours forth his prayers and thanksgivings for them all, looking upon the world (as indeed it really i 2.166. Since they slipped in the most essential matter, the nation of the Jews--to speak most accurately--set aright the false step of others by having looked beyond everything which has come into existence through creation since it is generate and corruptible in nature, and chose only the service of the ungenerate and eternal. The first reason for this is because it is excellent; the second is because it is profitable to be dedicated and associated with the Older rather than those who are younger and with the Ruler rather than those who are ruled and with the Maker rather those things which come into existence.

10. Philo of Alexandria, On The Virtues, 212, 226, 108 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

108. And if any of them should be willing to forsake their old ways and to come over to the customs and constitutions of the Jews, they are not to be rejected and treated with hostility as the children of enemies, but to be received in such a manner that in the third generation they may be admitted into the assembly, and may have a share of the divine words read to them, being instructed in the will of God equally with the natives of the land, the descendants of God's chosen people. XXII.

11. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 1.7, 1.25 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1.7. And his father and mother were among the most excellent persons of their time, and though they were of the same time, still they were induced to unite themselves together more from an uimity of feeling than because they were related in blood; and Moses is the seventh generation in succession from the original settler in the country who was the founder of the whole race of the Jews. 1.25. And when he had passed the boundaries of the age of infancy he began to exercise his intellect; not, as some people do, letting his youthful passions roam at large without restraint, although in him they had ten thousand incentives by reason of the abundant means for the gratification of them which royal places supply; but he behaved with temperance and fortitude, as though he had bound them with reins, and thus he restrained their onward impetuosity by force.

12. Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, 170, 191, 80, 1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1. Flaccus Avillius succeeded Sejanus in his hatred of and hostile designs against the Jewish nation. He was not, indeed, able to injure the whole people by open and direct means as he had been, inasmuch as he had less power for such a purpose, but he inflicted the most intolerable evils on all who came within his reach. Moreover, though in appearance he only attacked a portion of the nation, in point of fact he directed his aims against all whom he could find anywhere, proceeding more by art than by force; for those men who, though of tyrannical natures and dispositions, have not strength enough to accomplish their designs openly, seek to compass them by manoeuvres.

13. Philo of Alexandria, On The Embassy To Gaius, 178, 194, 210, 226, 346, 350, 373, 155 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

155. How then did he look upon the great division of Rome which is on the other side of the river Tiber, which he was well aware was occupied and inhabited by the Jews? And they were mostly Roman citizens, having been emancipated; for, having been brought as captives into Italy, they were manumitted by those who had bought them for slaves, without ever having been compelled to alter any of their hereditary or national observances.

14. Philo of Alexandria, That Every Good Person Is Free, 75 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

75. Moreover Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which countries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits. There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number something more than four thousand in my opinion, who derive their name from their piety, though not according to any accurate form of the Grecian dialect, because they are above all men devoted to the service of God, not sacrificing living animals, but studying rather to preserve their own minds in a state of holiness and purity.

15. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 1.8, 1.192, 1.234-1.235, 4.115-4.116, 6.89, 9.291, 11.303, 11.323, 11.340, 12.224, 12.226, 12.261, 12.303, 12.357, 13.166, 13.214, 13.243, 13.353, 14.191, 14.194, 15.383, 16.56, 17.301, 17.324, 17.330, 18.123, 18.196, 18.257, 18.259, 19.278, 20.133, 20.173 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

1.8. However, some persons there were who desired to know our history, and so exhorted me to go on with it; and, above all the rest, Epaphroditus, a man who is a lover of all kind of learning, but is principally delighted with the knowledge of history, and this on account of his having been himself concerned in great affairs, and many turns of fortune, and having shown a wonderful vigor of an excellent nature, and an immovable virtuous resolution in them all. 1.8. 3. This calamity happened in the six hundredth year of Noah’s government, [age,] in the second month, called by the Macedonians Dius, but by the Hebrews Marchesuan: for so did they order their year in Egypt. 1.192. But he charged him, in order to keep his posterity unmixed with others, that they should be circumcised in the flesh of their foreskin, and that this should be done on the eighth day after they were born: the reason of which circumcision I will explain in another place. 1.234. Since therefore he now was satisfied as to that his alacrity, and the surprising readiness he showed in this his piety, he was delighted in having bestowed such blessings upon him; and that he would not be wanting in all sort of concern about him, and in bestowing other children upon him; and that his son should live to a very great age; that he should live a happy life, and bequeath a large principality to his children, who should be good and legitimate.” 1.235. He foretold also, that his family should increase into many nations and that those patriarchs should leave behind them an everlasting name; that they should obtain the possession of the land of Canaan, and be envied by all men. When God had said this, he produced to them a ram, which did not appear before, for the sacrifice. 4.115. You shall retain that land to which he hath sent you, and it shall ever be under the command of your children; and both all the earth, as well as the seas, shall be filled with your glory: and you shall be sufficiently numerous to supply the world in general, and every region of it in particular, with inhabitants out of your stock. 4.116. However, O blessed army! wonder that you are become so many from one father: and truly, the land of Canaan can now hold you, as being yet comparatively few; but know ye that the whole world is proposed to be your place of habitation for ever. The multitude of your posterity also shall live as well in the islands as on the continent, and that more in number than are the stars of heaven. And when you are become so many, God will not relinquish the care of you, but will afford you an abundance of all good things in times of peace, with victory and dominion in times of war. 6.89. It behooves you to remember that our grandfather Jacob came down into Egypt, by reason of a famine, with seventy souls only of our family, and that their posterity multiplied there to many ten thousands, whom the Egyptians brought into slavery and hard oppression; that God himself, upon the prayers of our fathers, sent Moses and Aaron, who were brethren, and gave them power to deliver the multitude out of their distress, and this without a king. These brought us into this very land which you now possess: 9.291. And when they see the Jews in prosperity, they pretend that they are changed, and allied to them, and call them kinsmen, as though they were derived from Joseph, and had by that means an original alliance with them; but when they see them falling into a low condition, they say they are no way related to them, and that the Jews have no right to expect any kindness or marks of kindred from them, but they declare that they are sojourners, that come from other countries. But of these we shall have a more seasonable opportunity to discourse hereafter. 11.303. This man knew that the city Jerusalem was a famous city, and that their kings had given a great deal of trouble to the Assyrians, and the people of Celesyria; so that he willingly gave his daughter, whose name was Nicaso, in marriage to Manasseh, as thinking this alliance by marriage would be a pledge and security that the nation of the Jews should continue their good-will to him. 11.323. that it would be for the king’s advantage to have the strength of the Jews divided into two parts, lest when the nation is of one mind, and united, upon any attempt for innovation, it prove troublesome to kings, as it had formerly proved to the kings of Assyria. 12.224. And [now] Hyrcanus’s father, Joseph, died. He was a good man, and of great magimity; and brought the Jews out of a state of poverty and meanness, to one that was more splendid. He retained the farm of the taxes of Syria, and Phoenicia, and Samaria twenty-two years. His uncle also, Onias, died [about this time], and left the high priesthood to his son Simeon. 12.226. “Areus, King of The Lacedemonians, To Onias, Sendeth Greeting. /p“We have met with a certain writing, whereby we have discovered that both the Jews and the Lacedemonians are of one stock, and are derived from the kindred of Abraham It is but just therefore that you, who are our brethren, should send to us about any of your concerns as you please. 12.261. We therefore beseech thee, our benefactor and Savior, to give order to Apollonius, the governor of this part of the country, and to Nicanor, the procurator of thy affairs, to give us no disturbance, nor to lay to our charge what the Jews are accused for, since we are aliens from their nation, and from their customs; but let our temple, which at present hath no name at all be named the Temple of Jupiter Hellenius. If this were once done, we should be no longer disturbed, but should be more intent on our own occupation with quietness, and so bring in a greater revenue to thee.” 12.303. o it proves to be to us much more desirable, by its affording us the liberty of worshipping God. Since therefore you are in such circumstances at present, you must either recover that liberty, and so regain a happy and blessed way of living, which is that according to our laws, and the customs of our country, or to submit to the most opprobrious sufferings; 12.357. When this concern about these affairs was added to the former, he was confounded, and by the anxiety he was in fell into a distemper, which, as it lasted a great while, and as his pains increased upon him, so he at length perceived he should die in a little time; so he called his friends to him, and told them that his distemper was severe upon him; and confessed withal, that this calamity was sent upon him for the miseries he had brought upon the Jewish nation, while he plundered their temple, and condemned their God; and when he had said this, he gave up the ghost. 13.166. a copy of which here follows: “Jonathan the high priest of the Jewish nation, and the senate, and body of the people of the Jews, to the ephori, and senate, and people of the Lacedemonians, send greeting. If you be well, and both your public and private affairs be agreeable to your mind, it is according to our wishes. We are well also. 13.214. Now the affection of the multitude towards Simon was so great, that in their contracts one with another, and in their public records, they wrote, “in the first year of Simon the benefactor and ethnarch of the Jews;” for under him they were very happy, and overcame the enemies that were round about them; 13.243. So those that were at the gates received the sacrifices from those that brought them, and led them to the temple, Antiochus the mean while feasting his army, which was a quite different conduct from Antiochus Epiphanes, who, when he had taken the city, offered swine upon the altar, and sprinkled the temple with the broth of their flesh, in order to violate the laws of the Jews, and the religion they derived from their forefathers; for which reason our nation made war with him, and would never be reconciled to him; 13.353. in which time Cleopatra took the garrison that was in Ptolemais by siege, as well as the city; and when Alexander came to her, he gave her presents, and such marks of respect as were but proper, since under the miseries he endured by Ptolemy he had no other refuge but her. Now there were some of her friends who persuaded her to seize Alexander, and to overrun and take possession of the country, and not to sit still and see such a multitude of brave Jews subject to one man. 14.191. I have sent you a copy of that decree, registered on the tables, which concerns Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, the high priest and ethnarch of the Jews, that it may be laid up among the public records; and I will that it be openly proposed in a table of brass, both in Greek and in Latin. 14.194. for these reasons I will that Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, and his children, be ethnarchs of the Jews, and have the high priesthood of the Jews for ever, according to the customs of their forefathers, and that he and his sons be our confederates; and that besides this, everyone of them be reckoned among our particular friends. 15.383. for I have neither been negligent in the most difficult times about what tended to ease your necessities, nor have the buildings. I have made been so proper to preserve me as yourselves from injuries; and I imagine that, with God’s assistance, I have advanced the nation of the Jews to a degree of happiness which they never had before; 16.56. We ought to esteem all these kind entertainments made both by our nation and to our city, to a man who is the ruler and manager of so much of the public affairs, as indications of that friendship which thou hast returned to the Jewish nation, and which hath been procured them by the family of Herod. 17.301. Hereupon Caesar assembled his friends, and the chief men among the Romans, in the temple of Apollo, which he had built at a vast charge; whither the ambassadors came, and a multitude of the Jews that were there already came with them, as did also Archelaus and his friends; 17.324. 1. When these affairs had been thus settled by Caesar, a certain young man, by birth a Jew, but brought up by a Roman freed-man in the city Sidon, ingrafted himself into the kindred of Herod, by the resemblance of his countece, which those that saw him attested to be that of Alexander, the son of Herod, whom he had slain; 18.123. and when he had been there, and been honorably entertained by the multitude of the Jews, he made a stay there for three days, within which time he deprived Jonathan of the high priesthood, and gave it to his brother Theophilus. 18.196. and when he was informed that his name was Agrippa, and that he was by nation a Jew, and one of the principal men of that nation, he asked leave of the soldier to whom he was bound, to let him come nearer to him, to speak with him; for that he had a mind to inquire of him about some things relating to his country; 18.257. 1. There was now a tumult arisen at Alexandria, between the Jewish inhabitants and the Greeks; and three ambassadors were chosen out of each party that were at variance, who came to Caius. Now one of these ambassadors from the people of Alexandria was Apion, who uttered many blasphemies against the Jews; and, among other things that he said, he charged them with neglecting the honors that belonged to Caesar; 18.259. Many of these severe things were said by Apion, by which he hoped to provoke Caius to anger at the Jews, as he was likely to be. But Philo, the principal of the Jewish embassage, a man eminent on all accounts, brother to Alexander the alabarch, and one not unskillful in philosophy, was ready to betake himself to make his defense against those accusations; 19.278. 2. Now about this time there was a sedition between the Jews and the Greeks, at the city of Alexandria; for when Caius was dead, the nation of the Jews, which had been very much mortified under the reign of Caius, and reduced to very great distress by the people of Alexandria, recovered itself, and immediately took up their arms to fight for themselves. 20.133. But he came again to the city of Jerusalem, out of his fear that the multitude of the Jews should attempt some innovations; but he found the city in a peaceable state, and celebrating one of the usual festivals of their country to God. So he believed that they would not attempt any innovations, and left them at the celebration of the festival, and returned to Antioch. 20.173. 7. And now it was that a great sedition arose between the Jews that inhabited Caesarea, and the Syrians who dwelt there also, concerning their equal right to the privileges belonging to citizens; for the Jews claimed the pre-eminence, because Herod their king was the builder of Caesarea, and because he was by birth a Jew. Now the Syrians did not deny what was alleged about Herod; but they said that Caesarea was formerly called Strato’s Tower, and that then there was not one Jewish inhabitant.

16. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 2.101, 2.119, 2.308, 5.379, 6.107, 7.44, 7.47, 7.49, 7.423 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

2.101. 1. In the meantime, there was a man, who was by birth a Jew, but brought up at Sidon with one of the Roman freedmen, who falsely pretended, on account of the resemblance of their counteces, that he was that Alexander who was slain by Herod. This man came to Rome, in hopes of not being detected. 2.119. 2. For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes. These last are Jews by birth, and seem to have a greater affection for one another than the other sects have. 2.308. And what made this calamity the heavier was this new method of Roman barbarity; for Florus ventured then to do what no one had done before, that is, to have men of the equestrian order whipped and nailed to the cross before his tribunal; who, although they were by birth Jews, yet were they of Roman dignity notwithstanding. 5.379. In old times there was one Necao, king of Egypt, who was also called Pharaoh; he came with a prodigious army of soldiers, and seized queen Sarah, the mother of our nation. 6.107. And take notice that I, who make this exhortation to thee, am one of thine own nation; I, who am a Jew, do make this promise to thee. And it will become thee to consider who I am that give thee this counsel, and whence I am derived; for while I am alive I shall never be in such slavery, as to forego my own kindred, or forget the laws of our forefathers. 7.44. for though Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid Jerusalem waste, and spoiled the temple, yet did those that succeeded him in the kingdom restore all the donations that were made of brass to the Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue, and granted them the enjoyment of equal privileges of citizens with the Greeks themselves; 7.44. So he sent out after him both horsemen and footmen, and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but some were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. 7.47. and all men had taken up a great hatred against the Jews, then it was that a certain person, whose name was Antiochus, being one of the Jewish nation, and greatly respected on account of his father, who was governor of the Jews at Antioch came upon the theater at a time when the people of Antioch were assembled together, and became an informer against his father, and accused both him and others that they had resolved to burn the whole city in one night;; he also delivered up to them some Jews that were foreigners, as partners in their resolutions. 7.49. They did also fall violently upon the multitude of the Jews, as supposing that by punishing them suddenly they should save their own city. 7.423. Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high priests, fled from Antiochus the king of Syria, when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received him very kindly, on account of his hatred to Antiochus, he assured him, that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance;

17. Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 1.2-1.14, 1.16, 1.31, 1.54, 1.69, 1.71, 1.130, 2.2-2.3, 2.8-2.144, 2.210, 2.287-2.288 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

1.2. However, since I observe a considerable number of people giving ear to the reproaches that are laid against us by those who bear ill will to us, and will not believe what I have written concerning the antiquity of our nation, while they take it for a plain sign that our nation is of a late date, because they are not so much as vouchsafed a bare mention by the most famous historiographers among the Grecians 1.2. for if we remember, that in the beginning the Greeks had taken no care to have public records of their several transactions preserved, this must for certain have afforded those that would afterward write about those ancient transactions, the opportunity of making mistakes, and the power of making lies also; 1.2. Moreover, he attests that we Jews, went as auxiliaries along with king Alexander, and after him with his successors. I will add farther what he says he learned when he was himself with the same army, concerning the actions of a man that was a Jew. His words are these:— 1.3. I therefore have thought myself under an obligation to write somewhat briefly about these subjects, in order to convict those that reproach us of spite and voluntary falsehood, and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal to instruct all those who are desirous of knowing the truth of what great antiquity we really are. 1.3. 7. For our forefathers did not only appoint the best of these priests, and those that attended upon the divine worship, for that design from the beginning, but made provision that the stock of the priests should continue unmixed and pure; 1.3. Besides all this, Ramesses, the son of Amenophis, by Manetho’s account, was a young man, and assisted his father in his war, and left the country at the same time with him, and fled into Ethiopia: but Cheremon makes him to have been born in a certain cave, after his father was dead, and that he then overcame the Jews in battle, and drove them into Syria, being in number about two hundred thousand. 1.4. As for the witnesses whom I shall produce for the proof of what I say, they shall be such as are esteemed to be of the greatest reputation for truth, and the most skilful in the knowledge of all antiquity, by the Greeks themselves. I will also show, that those who have written so reproachfully and falsely about us, are to be convicted by what they have written themselves to the contrary. 1.4. but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. 1.5. I shall also endeavor to give an account of the reasons why it hath so happened, that there hath not been a great number of Greeks who have made mention of our nation in their histories. I will, however, bring those Grecians to light who have not omitted such our history, for the sake of those that either do not know them, or pretend not to know them already. /p 1.5. Afterward I got leisure at Rome; and when all my materials were prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to assist me in learning the Greek tongue, and by these means I composed the history of those transactions; and I was so well assured of the truth of what I related, that I first of all appealed to those that had the supreme command in that war, Vespasian and Titus, as witnesses for me 1.6. 2. And now, in the first place, I cannot but greatly wonder at those men who suppose that we must attend to none but Grecians, when we are inquiring about the most ancient facts, and must inform ourselves of their truth from them only, while we must not believe ourselves nor other men; for I am convinced that the very reverse is the truth of the case. I mean this,—if we will not be led by vain opinions, but will make inquiry after truth from facts themselves; 1.6. 12. As for ourselves, therefore, we neither inhabit a maritime country, nor do we delight in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other men as arises from it; but the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea, and having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only. Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well; and we think it to be the most necessary business of our whole life to observe the laws that have been given us, and to keep those rules of piety that have been delivered down to us. 1.7. for they will find, that almost all which concerns the Greeks happened not long ago; nay, one may say, is of yesterday only. I speak of the building of their cities, the invention of their arts, and the description of their laws; and as for their care about the writing down of their histories, it is very near the last thing they set about. 1.7. Now, the very same thing will I endeavor to do; for I will bring the Egyptians and the Phoenicians as my principal witnesses, because nobody can complain of their testimony as false on account that they are known to have borne the greatest ill will towards us,—I mean this as to the Egyptians, in general all of them, while of the Phoenicians it is known the Tyrians have been most of all in the same ill disposition towards us: 1.8. However, they acknowledge themselves so far, that they were the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Phoenicians (for I will not now reckon ourselves among them) that have preserved the memorials of the most ancient and most lasting traditions of mankind; 1.8. When this man had reigned thirteen years, after him reigned another, whose name was Beon, for forty-four years; after him reigned another, called Apachnas, thirty-six years and seven months; after him Apophis reigned sixty-one years, and then Jonias fifty years and one month; 1.9. for almost all these nations inhabit such countries as are least subject to destruction from the world about them; and these also have taken especial care to have nothing omitted of what was [remarkably] done among them; but their history was esteemed sacred, and put into public tables, as written by men of the greatest wisdom they had among them; 1.9. but that, as they were in fear of the Assyrians, who had then the dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country which is now called Judea, and that large enough to contain this great number of men, and called it Jerusalem.” 1.11. yet is nobody able to demonstrate that they have any writing preserved from that time, neither in their temples, nor in any other public monuments. This appears, because the time when those lived who went to the Trojan war, so many years afterward, is in great doubt, and great inquiry is made whether the Greeks used their letters at that time; and the most prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth, is, that their present way of using those letters was unknown at that time. 1.11. He thereupon was ambitious to contribute to the splendor of this edifice of Solomon, and made him a present of one hundred and twenty talents of gold. He also cut down the most excellent timber out of that mountain which is so called Libanus, and sent it to him for adorning its roof. Solomon also not only made him many other presents, by way of requital, but gave him a country in Galilee also, that was called Chabulon; 1.12. However, there is not any writing which the Greeks agree to be genuine among them ancienter than Homer’s Poems, who must plainly be confessed later than the siege of Troy; nay, the report goes, that even he did not leave his poems in writing, but that their memory was preserved in songs, and they were put together afterward; and this is the reason of such a number of variations as are found in them. 1.12. Under this king there was a younger son of Abdemon, who mastered the problems which Solomon, king of Jerusalem, had recommended to be solved.” 1.13. As for those who set themselves about writing their histories, I mean such as Cadmus of Miletus, and Acusilaus of Argos, and any others that may be mentioned as succeeding Acusilaus, they lived but a little while before the Persian expedition into Greece. 1.13. This Berosus, therefore, following the most ancient records of that nation, gives us a history of the deluge of waters that then happened, and of the destruction of mankind thereby, and agrees with Moses’s narration thereof. He also gives us an account of that ark wherein Noah, the origin of our race, was preserved, when it was brought to the highest part of the Armenian mountains 1.14. But then for those that first introduced philosophy, and the consideration of things celestial and divine among them, such as Pherecydes the Syrian, and Pythagoras, and Thales, all with one consent agree, that they learned what they knew of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and wrote but little. And these are the things which are supposed to be the oldest of all among the Greeks; and they have much ado to believe that the writings ascribed to those men are genuine. /p 1.14. So when he had thus fortified the city with walls, after an excellent manner, and had adorned the gates magnificently, he added a new palace to that which his father had dwelt in, and this close by it also, and that more eminent in its height, and in its great splendor. It would perhaps require too long a narration, if any one were to describe it. However, as prodigiously large and magnificent as it was, it was finished in fifteen days. 1.16. and I should spend my time to little purpose, if I should pretend to teach the Greeks that which they know better than I already, what a great disagreement there is between Hellanicus and Acusilaus about their genealogies; in how many cases Acusilaus corrects Hesiod: or after what manner Ephorus demonstrates Hellanicus to have told lies in the greatest part of his history: as does Timeus in like manner as to Ephorus, and the succeeding writers do to Timeus, and all the later writers do to Herodotus; 1.16. So that the records of the Chaldeans and Tyrians agree with our writings about this temple; and the testimonies here produced are an indisputable and undeniable attestation to the antiquity of our nation; and I suppose that what I have already said may be sufficient to such as are not very contentious. /p 1.31. for he who is partaker of the priesthood must propagate of a wife of the same nation, without having any regard to money, or any other dignities; but he is to make a scrutiny, and take his wife’s genealogy from the ancient tables, and procure many witnesses to it; 1.31. that the rest commended what he had said with one consent, and did what they had resolved on, and so travelled over the desert. But that the difficulties of the journey being over, they came to a country inhabited, and that there they abused the men, and plundered and burnt their temples, and then came into that land which is called Judea, and there they built a city, and dwelt therein 1.54. Now, both these methods of knowledge I may very properly pretend to in the composition of both my works; for, as I said, I have translated the Antiquities out of our sacred books; which I easily could do, since I was a priest by my birth, and have studied that philosophy which is contained in those writings; 1.69. 13. Let us now put the case, therefore, that we made use of this argument concerning the Grecians, in order to prove that their nation was not ancient because nothing is said of them in our records; would not they laugh at us all, and probably give the same reasons for our silence that I have now alleged, and would produce their neighboring nations as witnesses to their own antiquity? 1.71. yet do I confess that I cannot say the same of the Chaldeans, since our first leaders and ancestors were derived from them; and they do make mention of us Jews in their records, on account of the kindred there is between us. 2.2. I shall now 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 the grammarian, whether I ought to take the trouble of confuting him or not; 2.2. As for the number of those that were expelled out of Egypt, he hath contrived to have the very same number with Lysimachus, and says they were a hundred and ten thousand. He then assigns a certain wonderful and plausible occasion for the name of Sabbath; 2.2. 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; 2.8. 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 2.8. 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. 2.9. yet will I briefly take notice of what Apion adds upon that subject; 2.9. 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. 2.11. that, he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, 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.” 2.11. 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. 2.12. This is that wonderful relation which we have given us by this great 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 who 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. 2.12. 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. 2.13. He says farther, “How he had heard of the ancient men, that Moses was of Heliopolis.” 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. 2.13. 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. 2.14. Now, this [man], 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. 2.14. However, if any one should ask Apion which of the Egyptians he thinks to be the most wise, and most pious of them all, he would certainly acknowledge the priests to be so; 2.15. 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. 2.15. and if I be 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. /p 2.16. Manetho says that the Jews departed out of Egypt, in the reign of Tethmosis, three hundred and ninety-three years before Danaus fled to Argos; Lysimachus says it was under king Bocchoris, that is, one thousand seven hundred years ago; 2.16. 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 counsellor; and when he had first persuaded himself 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; 2.17. 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; 2.17. 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; 2.18. 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 one hundred and fifty years earlier than the building of Carthage; concerning whom I have formerly produced testimonials out of those Phoenician records 2.18. for no other people but we 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. 2.19. 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. 2.19. What are the things then that we are commanded or forbidden?—They are simply 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. 2.21. for he says, that “when the Jews had travelled 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 in their groin was named Sabbatosis by the Egyptians.” 2.21. 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. /p 2.22. And would not a man now laugh at this fellow’s trifling, or rather hate his impudence in writing thus? We must, it seems, take it for granted, that all these hundred and ten thousand men must have these buboes! 2.22. 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 2.23. 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 in their groins after the sixth day was over; 2.23. 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. 2.24. 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. 2.24. uch 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; 2.25. 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? 2.25. 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 2.26. And as for this grammatical translation of the word Sabbath, it either contains an instance of his great impudence or gross ignorance; 2.26. 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; 2.27. for the words iSabboand iSabbathare 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. /p 2.27. 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 castrating his own sons. 2.28. 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 us about our forefathers, when he affirms them to be of Egyptian original, when he lies also about himself? 2.28. 40. We have already demonstrated that our laws have been such as have always inspired admiration and imitation into all other men; 2.29. 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 pravity of his family; 2.29. 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. /p 2.31. 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. 2.32. 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 apprised 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. /p 2.33. 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.” 2.34. Now, if the place of habitation includes any thing that is reproachful, 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. 2.35. 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. 2.36. Nor can 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]. 2.37. 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; 2.38. nay, when he 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. 2.39. And what occasion is there to speak of others, when those of us Jews that dwell at Antioch are named Antiochians, because Seleucus 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; 2.41. 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 2.42. 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; 2.43. 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. 2.44. 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 them. 2.45. 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: 2.46. 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 2.47. and the others, such as were intrusted with the guard of his body, should take the 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. /p 2.48. 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: 2.49. and as for Ptolemy Philometor and his wife Cleopatra, they committed their whole kingdom to 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; 2.51. 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 Philometor, came from Cyrene, and would have ejected Cleopatra as well as her sons out of their kingdom 2.52. that he might obtain it for himself unjustly. 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. 2.53. Accordingly, God gave a remarkable attestation to his righteous procedure; for when Ptolemy Physco 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; 2.54. 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; 2.55. 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. 2.56. 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 2.57. 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: 2.58. moreover, she had her brother slain by private treachery, and she destroyed the gods of her country and the sepulchres of her progenitors; and while she had received her kingdom from the first Caesar, she had the impudence to rebel against his son 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; 2.59. but what need I enlarge upon this head any farther, 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]; 2.61. 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. 2.62. 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; 2.63. 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 2.64. 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. /p 2.65. 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 out one against another, and have implacable wars about your religion? 2.66. 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. 2.67. 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? 2.68. 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? 2.69. 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 in 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. 2.71. 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; 2.72. 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. 2.73. Moreover, Apion would lay a blot upon us, because we do not erect images to 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 magimity 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. 2.74. 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? 2.75. 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 2.76. 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; 2.77. 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. 2.78. And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews. /p 2.79. 7. However, I cannot but admire those other authors who furnished this man with such his materials; I mean Posidonius and Apollonius [the son of] Molo, 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; 2.81. 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 [...] and goats, and other such creatures, which among them are gods. 2.82. But besides this answer, I say farther, 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. 2.83. 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. 2.84. This is attested by many worthy writers; Polybius of Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes, Castor the chronologer, and Apollodorus, 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. 2.85. 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. 2.86. Asses are the same with us which they are with other wise men, viz., creatures that bear the burdens that we lay upon them; 2.87. but if they come to our threshing 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. 2.88. But this Apion of ours was either perfectly unskilful in the composition of such fallacious discourses, or however, when he began [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. /p 2.89. 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. 2.91. 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; 2.92. 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 bade 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: 2.93. 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: 2.94. and that truly at the first such unexpected advantages seemed to him matter of great joy; that, after a while they brought a suspicion upon 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: 2.95. 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.” 2.96. Apion adds farther, that “the man said there were but a few days to come ere he was to be slain, and implored 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.” 2.97. 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 attempts, as those who wrote it in his vindication are willing to suppose; 2.98. 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; 2.99. 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? 2.101. 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. 2.102. 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; 2.103. for it had four several courts, 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; 2.104. all the Jews went into the second court, as well as their wives, when they were free from all uncleanness; into the third went the Jewish men when they were clean and purified; into the fourth went the priests, having on their sacerdotal garments; 2.105. 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. 2.106. 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 show-bread], the censer, and the candlestick, which are all written in the law: 2.107. for there is nothing farther 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; 2.108. 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; 2.109. nay, we are not allowed to offer such things at the altar, excepting what is prepared for the sacrifices. /p9. 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. 2.111. 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. /p 2.112. 10. Nay, this miracle of piety derides us farther, and adds the following pretended facts to his former fable; for he 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 2.113. 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: 2.114. that the Jews were terribly frightened 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.” 2.116. 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. 2.118. 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. 2.119. Now the doors of the holy house were seventy 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 men required to shut them every day; nor was it lawful ever to leave them open 2.121. 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.” 2.122. 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; 2.123. for as to the Grecians, we are 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; 2.124. 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. /p 2.125. 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.” 2.128. 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 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. 2.132. But now we have met with Apion, an accuser of our nation, though one that still forgets the miseries of his own people, the Egyptians; 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; 2.135. 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; 2.136. 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. /p 2.137. 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. 2.138. 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. 2.139. 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. 2.141. for the histories say that two things were originally committed to their care by their king’s 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. 2.142. 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; 2.143. 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. 2.287. 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:— 2.288. 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 no such writer had so done.

18. Josephus Flavius, Life, 198, 382, 430, 16 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

19. New Testament, Acts, 18.13 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

18.13. saying, "This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.

20. New Testament, Luke, 1.1-1.4 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

1.1. Since many have undertaken to set in order a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us 1.2. even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us 1.3. it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus; 1.4. that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed.

21. Anon., Letter of Aristeas, 11-12, 22, 307, 310, 35, 6, 107

107. are bound by the rules of purity, lest they should touch anything which is unlawful. It was not without reason that the original founders of the city built it in due proportions, for they possessed clear insight with regard to what was required. For the country is extensive and beautiful. Some parts of it are level, especially the districts which belong to Samaria, as it is called, and which border on the land of the Idumeans, other parts are mountainous, especially (those which are contiguous to the land of Judea). The people therefore are bound to devote themselves to agriculture and the cultivation of the soil that by this means they may have a plentiful supply of crops. In this way

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
abraham	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
against apion, defense by josephus against anti-semites	Feldman, Judaism and Hellenism Reconsidered (2006) 333
agrippa i (jewish king), in legatio	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
alexandria	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 42
anti-judaism	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
apion, in antiquities and jewish war compared	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
apion, in antiquities and legatio compared	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
apion, in contra apionem	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
apion, literary connections to haman	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
apion, of antiquities account of agrippa i	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
apion	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 74
apion the grammarian	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
apology, apologetic	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 74
augustus, autobiography of'	Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (2013) 143
bernal, m.	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66
claudius, roman emperor, expulsion of jews from rome by	Feldman, Judaism and Hellenism Reconsidered (2006) 333
collective memory	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
customs/traditions/practices as identity markers, among jews	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
egypt, in israels history	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 74
egypt, jews in	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 74
egypt	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
ethnicity	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66
genos/gene/gens/genus, in josephus	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
geography	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66
greeks/hellenes, and jews	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
hasmonean dynasty	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 42
holocaust	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
imagination, the imagined and the imaginary	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
isidorus	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
jacob	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
jesus, lukes story of	Esler, The Early Christian World (2000) 215
jews, graeco-roman views of	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66, 74
jews/judeans/ioudaioi, and ethnic vocabulary in josephus	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
josephus, titus flavius	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
josephus	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
kinship	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66
lineage and genealogy as identity marker, in josephus	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
memory	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
morley, neville	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
moses	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
noah	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
philo of alexandria, as source for josephus	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
philo of alexandria, on the alexandrian crisis and agrippa i	Edwards, In the Court of the Gentiles: Narrative, Exemplarity, and Scriptural Adaptation in the Court-Tales of Flavius Josephus (2023) 147
prefaces, in ancient literature	Esler, The Early Christian World (2000) 215
prefaces, lukes gospel	Esler, The Early Christian World (2000) 215
race, jews as	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 74
sabbath observance	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
sarah	Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 167
silencing	Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004) 66
trauma	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219
vidal-naque, pierre	Allen and Doedens, Turmoil, Trauma and Tenacity in Early Jewish Literature (2022) 219