1. Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy, 34.10-34.12 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 34.11. לְכָל־הָאֹתוֹת וְהַמּוֹפְתִים אֲשֶׁר שְׁלָחוֹ יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם לְפַרְעֹה וּלְכָל־עֲבָדָיו וּלְכָל־אַרְצוֹ׃ 34.12. וּלְכֹל הַיָּד הַחֲזָקָה וּלְכֹל הַמּוֹרָא הַגָּדוֹל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה לְעֵינֵי כָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ | 34.10. And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face;" 34.11. in all the signs and the wonders, which the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;" 34.12. and in all the mighty hand, and in all the great terror, which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel." |
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2. Hebrew Bible, Esther, 9.20-9.32 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 9.21. לְקַיֵּם עֲלֵיהֶם לִהְיוֹת עֹשִׂים אֵת יוֹם אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר לְחֹדֶשׁ אֲדָר וְאֵת יוֹם־חֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר בּוֹ בְּכָל־שָׁנָה וְשָׁנָה׃ 9.22. כַּיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר־נָחוּ בָהֶם הַיְּהוּדִים מֵאוֹיְבֵיהֶם וְהַחֹדֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר נֶהְפַּךְ לָהֶם מִיָּגוֹן לְשִׂמְחָה וּמֵאֵבֶל לְיוֹם טוֹב לַעֲשׂוֹת אוֹתָם יְמֵי מִשְׁתֶּה וְשִׂמְחָה וּמִשְׁלוֹחַ מָנוֹת אִישׁ לְרֵעֵהוּ וּמַתָּנוֹת לָאֶבְיוֹנִים׃ 9.23. וְקִבֵּל הַיְּהוּדִים אֵת אֲשֶׁר־הֵחֵלּוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר־כָּתַב מָרְדֳּכַי אֲלֵיהֶם׃ 9.24. כִּי הָמָן בֶּן־הַמְּדָתָא הָאֲגָגִי צֹרֵר כָּל־הַיְּהוּדִים חָשַׁב עַל־הַיְּהוּדִים לְאַבְּדָם וְהִפִּיל פּוּר הוּא הַגּוֹרָל לְהֻמָּם וּלְאַבְּדָם׃ 9.25. וּבְבֹאָהּ לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אָמַר עִם־הַסֵּפֶר יָשׁוּב מַחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר־חָשַׁב עַל־הַיְּהוּדִים עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ וְתָלוּ אֹתוֹ וְאֶת־בָּנָיו עַל־הָעֵץ׃ 9.26. עַל־כֵּן קָרְאוּ לַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה פוּרִים עַל־שֵׁם הַפּוּר עַל־כֵּן עַל־כָּל־דִּבְרֵי הָאִגֶּרֶת הַזֹּאת וּמָה־רָאוּ עַל־כָּכָה וּמָה הִגִּיעַ אֲלֵיהֶם׃ 9.27. קִיְּמוּ וקבל [וְקִבְּלוּ] הַיְּהוּדִים עֲלֵיהֶם וְעַל־זַרְעָם וְעַל כָּל־הַנִּלְוִים עֲלֵיהֶם וְלֹא יַעֲבוֹר לִהְיוֹת עֹשִׂים אֵת שְׁנֵי הַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה כִּכְתָבָם וְכִזְמַנָּם בְּכָל־שָׁנָה וְשָׁנָה׃ 9.28. וְהַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה נִזְכָּרִים וְנַעֲשִׂים בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר מִשְׁפָּחָה וּמִשְׁפָּחָה מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה וְעִיר וָעִיר וִימֵי הַפּוּרִים הָאֵלֶּה לֹא יַעַבְרוּ מִתּוֹךְ הַיְּהוּדִים וְזִכְרָם לֹא־יָסוּף מִזַּרְעָם׃ 9.29. וַתִּכְתֹּב אֶסְתֵּר הַמַּלְכָּה בַת־אֲבִיחַיִל וּמָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי אֶת־כָּל־תֹּקֶף לְקַיֵּם אֵת אִגֶּרֶת הַפּוּרִים הַזֹּאת הַשֵּׁנִית׃ 9.31. לְקַיֵּם אֵת־יְמֵי הַפֻּרִים הָאֵלֶּה בִּזְמַנֵּיהֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר קִיַּם עֲלֵיהֶם מָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי וְאֶסְתֵּר הַמַּלְכָּה וְכַאֲשֶׁר קִיְּמוּ עַל־נַפְשָׁם וְעַל־זַרְעָם דִּבְרֵי הַצֹּמוֹת וְזַעֲקָתָם׃ 9.32. וּמַאֲמַר אֶסְתֵּר קִיַּם דִּבְרֵי הַפֻּרִים הָאֵלֶּה וְנִכְתָּב בַּסֵּפֶר׃ | 9.20. And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far," 9.21. to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly," 9.22. the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor." 9.23. And the Jews took upon them to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them;" 9.24. because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast pur, that is, the lot, to discomfit them, and to destroy them;" 9.25. but when ashe came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he had devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head; and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows." 9.26. Wherefore they called these days Purim, after the name of pur. Therefore because of all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and that which had come unto them," 9.27. the Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to the writing thereof, and according to the appointed time thereof, every year;" 9.28. and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed." 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." 9.30. And he sent letters unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth," 9.31. to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had ordained for themselves and for their seed, the matters of the fastings and their cry." 9.32. And the commandment of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book." |
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3. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 1.28, 9.1 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 1.28. וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁהָ וּרְדוּ בִּדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת עַל־הָאָרֶץ׃ 9.1. וַיְבָרֶךְ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־נֹחַ וְאֶת־בָּנָיו וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ׃ 9.1. וְאֵת כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר אִתְּכֶם בָּעוֹף בַּבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל־חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ אִתְּכֶם מִכֹּל יֹצְאֵי הַתֵּבָה לְכֹל חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ׃ | 1.28. And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.’" 9.1. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." |
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4. Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, 2.3-2.4 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 2.3. וְהָלְכוּ עַמִּים רַבִּים וְאָמְרוּ לְכוּ וְנַעֲלֶה אֶל־הַר־יְהוָה אֶל־בֵּית אֱלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב וְיֹרֵנוּ מִדְּרָכָיו וְנֵלְכָה בְּאֹרְחֹתָיו כִּי מִצִּיּוֹן תֵּצֵא תוֹרָה וּדְבַר־יְהוָה מִירוּשָׁלִָם׃ 2.4. וְשָׁפַט בֵּין הַגּוֹיִם וְהוֹכִיחַ לְעַמִּים רַבִּים וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבוֹתָם לְאִתִּים וַחֲנִיתוֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת לֹא־יִשָּׂא גוֹי אֶל־גּוֹי חֶרֶב וְלֹא־יִלְמְדוּ עוֹד מִלְחָמָה׃ | 2.3. And many peoples shall go and say: ‘Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; And He will teach us of His ways, And we will walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem." 2.4. And He shall judge between the nations, And shall decide for many peoples; And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruninghooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more." |
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5. Aristobulus Cassandreus, Fragments, 4 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
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6. Anon., 1 Enoch, 38-71, 37 (3rd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 37. The second vision which he saw, the vision of wisdom -which Enoch the son of Jared, the son,of Mahalalel, the son of Cai, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, saw. And this is the beginning of the words of wisdom which I lifted up my voice to speak and say to those which dwell on earth: Hear, ye men of old time, and see, ye that come after, the words of the Holy,One which I will speak before the Lord of Spirits. It were better to declare (them only) to the men of old time, but even from those that come after we will not withhold the beginning of wisdom.,Till the present day such wisdom has never been given by the Lord of Spirits as I have received according to my insight, according to the good pleasure of the Lord of Spirits by whom the lot of,eternal life has been given to me. Now three Parables were imparted to me, and I lifted up my voice and recounted them to those that dwell on the earth. |
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7. Anon., Jubilees, 2.23 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 2.23. And on the sixth day He created all the animals of the earth, and all cattle, and everything that moves on the earth. |
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8. Septuagint, 1 Maccabees, 2.39-2.41, 4.52-4.59, 7.48-7.49 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 2.39. When Mattathias and his friends learned of it, they mourned for them deeply. 2.40. And each said to his neighbor: "If we all do as our brethren have done and refuse to fight with the Gentiles for our lives and for our ordices, they will quickly destroy us from the earth. 2.41. So they made this decision that day: "Let us fight against every man who comes to attack us on the sabbath day; let us not all die as our brethren died in their hiding places. 4.52. Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-eighth year 4.53. they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they had built. 4.54. At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals. 4.55. All the people fell on their faces and worshiped and blessed Heaven, who had prospered them. 4.56. So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. 4.57. They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and furnished them with doors. 4.58. There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed. 4.59. Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev. 7.48. The people rejoiced greatly and celebrated that day as a day of great gladness. 7.49. And they decreed that this day should be celebrated each year on the thirteenth day of Adar. |
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9. Septuagint, 2 Maccabees, 10.1-10.8, 15.1-15.16, 15.36 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 10.1. Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the temple and the city;' 10.2. and they tore down the altars which had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts.' 10.3. They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice; then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they burned incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence.' 10.4. And when they had done this, they fell prostrate and besought the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes, but that, if they should ever sin, they might be disciplined by him with forbearance and not be handed over to blasphemous and barbarous nations.' 10.5. It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Chislev.' 10.6. And they celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals.' 10.7. Therefore bearing ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place.' 10.8. They decreed by public ordice and vote that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year. 15.1. When Nicanor heard that Judas and his men were in the region of Samaria, he made plans to attack them with complete safety on the day of rest.' 15.2. And when the Jews who were compelled to follow him said, 'Do not destroy so savagely and barbarously, but show respect for the day which he who sees all things has honored and hallowed above other days,' 15.3. the thrice-accursed wretch asked if there were a sovereign in heaven who had commanded the keeping of the sabbath day. 15.4. And when they declared, 'It is the living Lord himself, the Sovereign in heaven, who ordered us to observe the seventh day,' 15.5. he replied, 'And I am a sovereign also, on earth, and I command you to take up arms and finish the king's business.'Nevertheless, he did not succeed in carrying out his abominable design.' 15.6. This Nicanor in his utter boastfulness and arrogance had determined to erect a public monument of victory over Judas and his men. 15.7. But Maccabeus did not cease to trust with all confidence that he would get help from the Lord. 15.8. And he exhorted his men not to fear the attack of the Gentiles, but to keep in mind the former times when help had come to them from heaven, and now to look for the victory which the Almighty would give them.' 15.9. Encouraging them from the law and the prophets, and reminding them also of the struggles they had won, he made them the more eager.' 15.10. And when he had aroused their courage, he gave his orders, at the same time pointing out the perfidy of the Gentiles and their violation of oaths.' 15.11. He armed each of them not so much with confidence in shields and spears as with the inspiration of brave words, and he cheered them all by relating a dream, a sort of vision, which was worthy of belief.' 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.' 15.13. Then likewise a man appeared, distinguished by his gray hair and dignity, and of marvelous majesty and authority.' 15.14. And Onias spoke, saying, 'This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah, the prophet of God.' 15.15. Jeremiah stretched out his right hand and gave to Judas a golden sword, and as he gave it he addressed him thus:' 15.16. Take this holy sword, a gift from God, with which you will strike down your adversaries.' 15.36. And they all decreed by public vote never to let this day go unobserved, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month -- which is called Adar in the Syrian language -- the day before Mordecai's day.' |
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10. Septuagint, Ecclesiasticus (Siracides), 34.1-34.5 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 34.1. A man of no understanding has vain and false hopes,and dreams give wings to fools. 34.1. He that is inexperienced knows few things,but he that has traveled acquires much cleverness. 34.2. As one who catches at a shadow and pursues the wind,so is he who gives heed to dreams. 34.2. Like one who kills a son before his fathers eyes is the man who offers a sacrifice from the property of the poor. 34.3. The vision of dreams is this against that,the likeness of a face confronting a face. 34.4. From an unclean thing what will be made clean?And from something false what will be true? 34.5. Divinations and omens and dreams are folly,and like a woman in travail the mind has fancies. |
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11. Philo of Alexandria, On The Eternity of The World, 19, 1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1. In every uncertain and important business it is proper to invoke God, because he is the good Creator of the world, and because nothing is uncertain with him who is possessed of the most accurate knowledge of all things. But of all times it is most necessary to invoke him when one is preparing to discuss the incorruptibility of the world; for neither among the things which are visible to the outward senses is there anything more admirably complete than the world, nor among things appreciable by the intellect is there anything more perfect than God. But the mind is at all times the governor of the outward sense, and that which is appreciable by the intellect is at all times superior to that which is visible to the outward senses, but those persons in whom there is implanted a vigorous and earnest love of truth willingly undergo the trouble of making inquiries relative to the subordinate things, from that which is superior to and the ruler over them. |
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12. Philo of Alexandria, On The Virtues, 65 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 65. For whatever advantages are derived from the most approved philosophy to its students, full as great are derived by the Jews from their laws and customs, inasmuch as through them they have rejected all errors about gods who have been created themselves; for there is no created being who is truly God, but such a one is so only in appearance and opinion, being destitute of that most indispensable quality in God, namely, eternity." XI. |
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13. Aristobulus Milesius, Fragments, 4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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14. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 1.17, 1.121, 1.155, 1.223-1.236, 3.81, 4.127-4.128, 4.304, 4.327-4.331, 8.148, 10.30, 10.35, 10.78-10.80, 10.82, 10.89, 10.102, 10.122-10.123, 10.141-10.142, 10.210, 10.266, 11.61, 11.291-11.296, 11.312, 11.340-11.341, 12.7-12.10, 12.276-12.277, 12.323-12.326, 12.412, 13.74-13.79, 13.291, 13.299, 13.372, 14.22, 14.58, 14.77, 14.91, 14.100, 14.120, 14.491, 15.373-15.379, 17.354, 18.14, 18.18, 18.85-18.87, 18.257-18.259, 20.97-20.99, 20.115, 20.160, 20.167-20.172, 20.224-20.236, 20.261 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.17. As I proceed, therefore, I shall accurately describe what is contained in our records, in the order of time that belongs to them; for I have already promised so to do throughout this undertaking; and this without adding any thing to what is therein contained, or taking away any thing therefrom. 1.17. and he took himself what the other left, which were the lower grounds at the foot of the mountains; and he himself dwelt in Hebron, which is a city seven years more ancient than Tanis of Egypt. But Lot possessed the land of the plain, and the river Jordan, not far from the city of Sodom, which was then a fine city, but is now destroyed, by the will and wrath of God, the cause of which I shall show in its proper place hereafter. 1.121. and some of those nations do still retain the denominations which were given them by their first founders; but some have lost them also, and some have only admitted certain changes in them, that they might be the more intelligible to the inhabitants. And they were the Greeks who became the authors of such mutations. For when in after-ages they grew potent, they claimed to themselves the glory of antiquity; giving names to the nations that sounded well [in Greek] that they might be better understood among themselves; and setting agreeable forms of government over them, as if they were a people derived from themselves. 1.155. for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened then to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, That there was but one God, the Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods], if they contributed any thing to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not by their own power. 1.223. Abraham also placed his own happiness in this prospect, that, when he should die, he should leave this his son in a safe and secure condition; which accordingly he obtained by the will of God: who being desirous to make an experiment of Abraham’s religious disposition towards himself, appeared to him, and enumerated all the blessings he had bestowed on him; 1.224. how he had made him superior to his enemies; and that his son Isaac, who was the principal part of his present happiness, was derived from him; and he said that he required this son of his as a sacrifice and holy oblation. Accordingly he commanded him to carry him to the mountain Moriah, and to build an altar, and offer him for a burnt-offering upon it for that this would best manifest his religious disposition towards him, if he preferred what was pleasing to God, before the preservation of his own son. 1.225. 2. Now Abraham thought that it was not right to disobey God in any thing, but that he was obliged to serve him in every circumstance of life, since all creatures that live enjoy their life by his providence, and the kindness he bestows on them. Accordingly he concealed this command of God, and his own intentions about the slaughter of his son, from his wife, as also from every one of his servants, otherwise he should have been hindered from his obedience to God; and he took Isaac, together with two of his servants, and laying what things were necessary for a sacrifice upon an ass, he went away to the mountain. 1.226. Now the two servants went along with him two days; but on the third day, as soon as he saw the mountain, he left those servants that were with him till then in the plain, and, having his son alone with him, he came to the mountain. It was that mountain upon which king David afterwards built the temple. 1.227. Now they had brought with them every thing necessary for a sacrifice, excepting the animal that was to be offered only. Now Isaac was twenty-five years old. And as he was building the altar, he asked his father what he was about to offer, since there was no animal there for an oblation:—to which it was answered, “That God would provide himself an oblation, he being able to make a plentiful provision for men out of what they have not, and to deprive others of what they already have, when they put too much trust therein; that therefore, if God pleased to be present and propitious at this sacrifice, he would provide himself an oblation.” 1.228. 3. As soon as the altar was prepared, and Abraham had laid on the wood, and all things were entirely ready, he said to his son, “O son, I poured out a vast number of prayers that I might have thee for my son; when thou wast come into the world, there was nothing that could contribute to thy support for which I was not greatly solicitous, nor any thing wherein I thought myself happier than to see thee grown up to man’s estate, and that I might leave thee at my death the successor to my dominion; 1.229. but since it was by God’s will that I became thy father, and it is now his will that I relinquish thee, bear this consecration to God with a generous mind; for I resign thee up to God who has thought fit now to require this testimony of honor to himself, on account of the favors he hath conferred on me, in being to me a supporter and defender. 1.231. but so that he will receive thy soul with prayers and holy offices of religion, and will place thee near to himself, and thou wilt there be to me a succorer and supporter in my old age; on which account I principally brought thee up, and thou wilt thereby procure me God for my Comforter instead of thyself.” 1.232. 4. Now Isaac was of such a generous disposition as became the son of such a father, and was pleased with this discourse; and said, “That he was not worthy to be born at first, if he should reject the determination of God and of his father, and should not resign himself up readily to both their pleasures; since it would have been unjust if he had not obeyed, even if his father alone had so resolved.” So he went immediately to the altar to be sacrificed. 1.233. And the deed had been done if God had not opposed it; for he called loudly to Abraham by his name, and forbade him to slay his son; and said, “It was not out of a desire of human blood that he was commanded to slay his son, nor was he willing that he should be taken away from him whom he had made his father, but to try the temper of his mind, whether he would be obedient to such a command. 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. 1.236. So Abraham and Isaac receiving each other unexpectedly, and having obtained the promises of such great blessings, embraced one another; and when they had sacrificed, they returned to Sarah, and lived happily together, God affording them his assistance in all things they desired. 3.81. Now, as to these matters, every one of my readers may think as he pleases; but I am under a necessity of relating this history as it is described in the sacred books. This sight, and the amazing sound that came to their ears, disturbed the Hebrews to a prodigious degree 4.127. and spake thus to them:—“O Balak, and you Midianites that are here present, (for I am obliged even without the will of God to gratify you,) it is true no entire destruction can seize upon the nation of the Hebrews, neither by war, nor by plague, nor by scarcity of the fruits of the earth, nor can any other unexpected accident be their entire ruin; 4.128. for the providence of God is concerned to preserve them from such a misfortune; nor will it permit any such calamity to come upon them whereby they may all perish; but some small misfortunes, and those for a short time, whereby they may appear to be brought low, may still befall them; but after that they will flourish again, to the terror of those that brought those mischiefs upon them. 4.304. Accordingly, he delivered these books to the priest, with the ark; into which he also put the ten commandments, written on two tables. He delivered to them the tabernacle also, and exhorted the people, that when they had conquered the land, and were settled in it, they should not forget the injuries of the Amalekites, but make war against them, and inflict punishment upon them for what mischief they did them when they were in the wilderness; 4.327. 49. Now Moses lived in all one hundred and twenty years; a third part of which time, abating one month, he was the people’s ruler; and he died on the last month of the year, which is called by the Macedonians Dystrus, but by us Adar, on the first day of the month. 4.328. He was one that exceeded all men that ever were in understanding, and made the best use of what that understanding suggested to him. He had a very graceful way of speaking and addressing himself to the multitude; and as to his other qualifications, he had such a full command of his passions 4.329. as if he hardly had any such in his soul, and only knew them by their names, as rather perceiving them in other men than in himself. He was also such a general of an army as is seldom seen, as well as such a prophet as was never known, and this to such a degree, that whatsoever he pronounced, you would think you heard the voice of God himself. 4.331. nor were those that had experienced his conduct the only persons that desired him, but those also that perused the laws he left behind him had a strong desire after him, and by them gathered the extraordinary virtue he was master of. And this shall suffice for the declaration of the manner of the death of Moses. 8.148. He says also, that Solomon, who was then king of Jerusalem, sent riddles to Hiram, and desired to receive the like from him, but that he who could not solve them should pay money to them that did solve them 10.35. Now as to this prophet [Isaiah], he was by the confession of all, a divine and wonderful man in speaking truth; and out of the assurance that he had never written what was false, he wrote down all his prophecies, and left them behind him in books, that their accomplishment might be judged of from the events by posterity: nor did this prophet do so alone, but the others, which were twelve in number, did the same. And whatsoever is done among us, Whether it be good, or whether it be bad, comes to pass according to their prophecies; but of every one of these we shall speak hereafter. 10.78. But all the people mourned greatly for him, lamenting and grieving on his account many days; and Jeremiah the prophet composed an elegy to lament him, which is extant till this time also. 10.79. Moreover, this prophet denounced beforehand the sad calamities that were coming upon the city. He also left behind him in writing a description of that destruction of our nation which has lately happened in our days, and the taking of Babylon; nor was he the only prophet who delivered such predictions beforehand to the multitude, but so did Ezekiel also, who was the first person that wrote, and left behind him in writing two books concerning these events. 10.82. but as the king of Egypt returned from the battle, he sent for Jehoahaz to come to him, to the city called Hamath which belongs to Syria; and when he was come, he put him in bands, and delivered the kingdom to a brother of his, by the father’s side, whose name was Eliakim, and changed his name to Jehoiakim and laid a tribute upon the land of a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold; 10.89. And indeed the prophet Jeremiah foretold every day, how vainly they relied on their hopes from Egypt, and how the city would be overthrown by the king of Babylon, and Jehoiakim the king would be subdued by him. 10.102. And when these were brought to him, he kept them in custody, and appointed Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, to be king; and made him take an oath, that he would certainly keep the kingdom for him, and make no innovation, nor have any league of friendship with the Egyptians. 10.122. but there was one of the king’s servants, who was in esteem with him, an Ethiopian by descent, who told the king what a state the prophet was in, and said that his friends and his rulers had done evil in putting the prophet into the mire, and by that means contriving against him that he should suffer a death more bitter than that by his bonds only. 10.123. When the king heard this, he repented of his having delivered up the prophet to the rulers, and bid the Ethiopian take thirty men of the king’s guards, and cords with them, and whatsoever else they understood to be necessary for the prophet’s preservation, and to draw him up immediately. So the Ethiopian took the men he was ordered to take, and drew up the prophet out of the mire, and left him at liberty [in the prison]. 10.141. And these things happened to him, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel had foretold to him, that he should be caught, and brought before the king of Babylon, and should speak to him face to face, and should see his eyes with his own eyes; and thus far did Jeremiah prophesy. But he was also made blind, and brought to Babylon, but did not see it, according to the prediction of Ezekiel. 10.142. 3. We have said thus much, because it was sufficient to show the nature of God to such as are ignorant of it, that it is various, and acts many different ways, and that all events happen after a regular manner, in their proper season, and that it foretells what must come to pass. It is also sufficient to show the ignorance and incredulity of men, whereby they are not permitted to foresee any thing that is future, and are, without any guard, exposed to calamities, so that it is impossible for them to avoid the experience of those calamities. 10.266. But it is fit to give an account of what this man did, which is most admirable to hear, for he was so happy as to have strange revelations made to him, and those as to one of the greatest of the prophets, insomuch, that while he was alive he had the esteem and applause both of the kings and of the multitude; and now he is dead, he retains a remembrance that will never fail 11.61. and he prohibited his deputies and governors to lay any king’s taxes upon the Jews; he also permitted that they should have all that land which they could possess themselves of without tributes. He also enjoined the Idumeans and Samaritans, and the inhabitants of Celesyria, to restore those villages which they had taken from the Jews; and that, besides all this, fifty talents should be given them for the building of the temple. 11.291. Now there were slain by the Jews that were in the country, and in the other cities, seventy-five thousand of their enemies, and these were slain on the thirteenth day of the month, and the next day they kept as a festival. 11.292. In like manner the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together, and feasted on the fourteenth day, and that which followed it; whence it is that even now all the Jews that are in the habitable earth keep these days festival, and send portions to one another. 11.293. Mordecai also wrote to the Jews that lived in the kingdom of Artaxerxes to observe these days, and celebrate them as festivals, and to deliver them down to posterity, that this festival might continue for all time to come, and that it might never be buried in oblivion; 11.294. for since they were about to be destroyed on these days by Haman, they would do a right thing, upon escaping the danger in them, and on them inflicting punishment on their enemies, to observe those days, and give thanks to God on them; 11.295. for which cause the Jews still keep the forementioned days, and call them days of Phurim (or Purim.) And Mordecai became a great and illustrious person with the king, and assisted him in the government of the people. He also lived with the queen; 11.296. o that the affairs of the Jews were, by their means, better than they could ever have hoped for. And this was the state of the Jews under the reign of Artaxerxes. 11.312. But there was now a great disturbance among the people of Jerusalem, because many of those priests and Levites were entangled in such matches; for they all revolted to Manasseh, and Sanballat afforded them money, and divided among them land for tillage, and habitations also, and all this in order every way to gratify his son-in-law. 11.341. for such is the disposition of the Samaritans, as we have already elsewhere declared, that when the Jews are in adversity, they deny that they are of kin to them, and then they confess the truth; but when they perceive that some good fortune hath befallen them, they immediately pretend to have communion with them, saying that they belong to them, and derive their genealogy from the posterity of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh. 12.7. This is what Agatharchides relates of our nation. But when Ptolemy had taken a great many captives, both from the mountainous parts of Judea, and from the places about Jerusalem and Samaria, and the places near Mount Gerizzim, he led them all into Egypt, and settled them there. 12.7. for there was made a plate of gold four fingers broad, through the entire breadth of the table, into which they inserted the feet, and then fastened them to the table by buttons and button-holes, at the place where the crown was situate, that so on what side soever of the table one should stand, it might exhibit the very same view of the exquisite workmanship, and of the vast expenses bestowed upon it: 12.8. And as he knew that the people of Jerusalem were most faithful in the observation of oaths and covets; and this from the answer they made to Alexander, when he sent an embassage to them, after he had beaten Darius in battle; so he distributed many of them into garrisons, and at Alexandria gave them equal privileges of citizens with the Macedonians themselves; and required of them to take their oaths, that they would keep their fidelity to the posterity of those who committed these places to their care. 12.8. while small shields, made of stones, beautiful in their kind, and of four fingers’ depth, filled up the middle parts. About the top of the basin were wreathed the leaves of lilies, and of the convolvulus, and the tendrils of vines in a circular manner. 12.9. Nay, there were not a few other Jews who, of their own accord, went into Egypt, as invited by the goodness of the soil, and by the liberality of Ptolemy. 12.9. and when they had taken off the covers wherein they were wrapt up, they showed him the membranes. So the king stood admiring the thinness of those membranes, and the exactness of the junctures, which could not be perceived; (so exactly were they connected one with another;) and this he did for a considerable time. He then said that he returned them thanks for coming to him, and still greater thanks to him that sent them; and, above all, to that God whose laws they appeared to be. 12.276. who taught them to fight, even on the Sabbath day; and told them that unless they would do so, they would become their own enemies, by observing the law [so rigorously], while their adversaries would still assault them on this day, and they would not then defend themselves, and that nothing could then hinder but they must all perish without fighting. 12.277. This speech persuaded them. And this rule continues among us to this day, that if there be a necessity, we may fight on Sabbath days. 12.323. 7. Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. 12.324. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs, when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship, that they made it a law for their posterity, that they should keep a festival, on account of the restoration of their temple worship, for eight days. 12.325. And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was, because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name given to that festival. 12.326. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, and reared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and set guards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura, that it might serve as a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies. 12.412. This victory happened to fall on the thirteenth day of that month which by the Jews is called Adar and by the Macedonians Dystrus; and the Jews thereon celebrate this victory every year, and esteem it as a festival day. After which the Jewish nation were, for a while, free from wars, and enjoyed peace; but afterward they returned into their former state of wars and hazards. 13.74. 4. Now it came to pass that the Alexandrian Jews, and those Samaritans who paid their worship to the temple that was built in the days of Alexander at Mount Gerizzim, did now make a sedition one against another, and disputed about their temples before Ptolemy himself; the Jews saying that, according to the laws of Moses, the temple was to be built at Jerusalem; and the Samaritans saying that it was to be built at Gerizzim. 13.75. They desired therefore the king to sit with his friends, and hear the debates about these matters, and punish those with death who were baffled. Now Sabbeus and Theodosius managed the argument for the Samaritans, and Andronicus, the son of Messalamus, for the people of Jerusalem; 13.76. and they took an oath by God and the king to make their demonstrations according to the law; and they desired of Ptolemy, that whomsoever he should find that transgressed what they had sworn to, he would put him to death. Accordingly, the king took several of his friends into the council, and sat down, in order to hear what the pleaders said. 13.77. Now the Jews that were at Alexandria were in great concern for those men, whose lot it was to contend for the temple at Jerusalem; for they took it very ill that any should take away the reputation of that temple, which was so ancient and so celebrated all over the habitable earth. 13.78. Now when Sabbeus and Tlteodosius had given leave to Andronicus to speak first, he began to demonstrate out of the law, and out of the successions of the high priests, how they every one in succession from his father had received that dignity, and ruled over the temple; and how all the kings of Asia had honored that temple with their donations, and with the most splendid gifts dedicated thereto. But as for that at Gerizzm, he made no account of it, and regarded it as if it had never had a being. 13.79. By this speech, and other arguments, Andronicus persuaded the king to determine that the temple at Jerusalem was built according to the laws of Moses, and to put Sabbeus and Theodosius to death. And these were the events that befell the Jews at Alexandria in the days of Ptolemy Philometor. 13.291. a man of an ill temper, and delighting in seditious practices. This man said, “Since thou desirest to know the truth, if thou wilt be righteous in earnest, lay down the high priesthood, and content thyself with the civil government of the people,” 13.299. 7. But when Hyrcanus had put an end to this sedition, he after that lived happily, and administered the government in the best manner for thirty-one years, and then died, leaving behind him five sons. He was esteemed by God worthy of the three privileges,—the government of his nation, the dignity of the high priesthood, and prophecy; 13.372. 5. As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere related. They also reviled him, as derived from a captive, and so unworthy of his dignity and of sacrificing. 14.22. There were present at the writing of this decree, Lucius Calpurnius Piso of the Menenian tribe, Servius Papinins Potitus of the Lemonian tribe, Caius Caninius Rebilius of the Terentine tribe, Publius Tidetius, Lucius Apulinus, the son of Lucius, of the Sergian tribe, Flavius, the son of Lucius, of the Lemonian tribe, Publius Platins, the son of Publius, of the Papyrian tribe, Marcus Acilius, the son of Marcus, of the Mecian tribe, Lucius Erucius, the son of Lucius, of the Stellatine tribe, Mareils Quintus Plancillus, the son of Marcus, of the Pollian tribe, and Publius Serius. 14.22. Now there was one, whose name was Onias, a righteous man he was, and beloved of God, who, in a certain drought, had prayed to God to put an end to the intense heat, and whose prayers God had heard, and had sent them rain. This man had hid himself, because he saw that this sedition would last a great while. However, they brought him to the Jewish camp, and desired, that as by his prayers he had once put an end to the drought, so he would in like manner make imprecations on Aristobulus and those of his faction. 14.58. 2. Now there was a sedition of the men that were within the city, who did not agree what was to be done in their present circumstances, while some thought it best to deliver up the city to Pompey; but Aristobulus’s party exhorted them to shut the gates, because he was kept in prison. Now these prevented the others, and seized upon the temple, and cut off the bridge which reached from it to the city, and prepared themselves to abide a siege; 14.77. 5. Now the occasions of this misery which came upon Jerusalem were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, by raising a sedition one against the other; for now we lost our liberty, and became subject to the Romans, and were deprived of that country which we had gained by our arms from the Syrians, and were compelled to restore it to the Syrians. 14.91. and when he had settled matters with her, he brought Hyrcanus to Jerusalem, and committed the care of the temple to him. And when he had ordained five councils, he distributed the nation into the same number of parts. So these councils governed the people; the first was at Jerusalem, the second at Gadara, the third at Amathus, the fourth at Jericho, and the fifth at Sepphoris in Galilee. So the Jews were now freed from monarchic authority, and were governed by an aristocracy. 14.491. but these men lost the government by their dissensions one with another, and it came to Herod, the son of Antipater, who was of no more than a vulgar family, and of no eminent extraction, but one that was subject to other kings. And this is what history tells us was the end of the Asamonean family. 15.373. 5. Now there was one of these Essenes, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; 15.374. but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said, “However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. 15.375. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one 15.376. for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them.” 15.377. Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. 15.378. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, “Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;” but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essenes. 15.379. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essenes have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of divine revelations. 17.354. So Archelaus’s country was laid to the province of Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people’s effects in Syria, and to sell the house of Archelaus. 18.14. They also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; 18.14. Alexander had a son of the same name with his brother Tigranes, and was sent to take possession of the kingdom of Armenia by Nero; he had a son, Alexander, who married Jotape, the daughter of Antiochus, the king of Commagena; Vespasian made him king of an island in Cilicia. 18.18. 5. The doctrine of the Essenes is this: That all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; 18.18. Now Antonia was greatly esteemed by Tiberius on all accounts, from the dignity of her relation to him, who had been his brother Drusus’s wife, and from her eminent chastity; for though she was still a young woman, she continued in her widowhood, and refused all other matches, although Augustus had enjoined her to be married to somebody else; yet did she all along preserve her reputation free from reproach. 18.85. 1. But the nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults. The man who excited them to it was one who thought lying a thing of little consequence, and who contrived every thing so that the multitude might be pleased; so he bid them to get together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the most holy of all mountains, and assured them, that when they were come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there. 18.86. So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got the rest together to them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together; 18.87. but Pilate prevented their going up, by seizing upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and foot-men, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain. 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; 18.258. for that while all who were subject to the Roman empire built altars and temples to Caius, and in other regards universally received him as they received the gods, these Jews alone thought it a dishonorable thing for them to erect statues in honor of him, as well as to swear by his name. 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; 20.97. 1. Now it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; 20.98. and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who, falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. 20.99. This was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspius Fadus’s government. 20.115. Now as this devastation was making, one of the soldiers seized the laws of Moses that lay in one of those villages, and brought them out before the eyes of all present, and tore them to pieces; and this was done with reproachful language, and much scurrility; 20.167. 6. These works, that were done by the robbers, filled the city with all sorts of impiety. And now these impostors and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness 20.168. and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs, that should be performed by the providence of God. And many that were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly; for Felix brought them back, and then punished them. 20.169. Moreover, there came out of Egypt about this time to Jerusalem one that said he was a prophet, and advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city, and at the distance of five furlongs. 20.171. Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. 20.172. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more. And again the robbers stirred up the people to make war with the Romans, and said they ought not to obey them at all; and when any persons would not comply with them, they set fire to their villages, and plundered them. 20.224. 1. And now I think it proper and agreeable to this history to give an account of our high priests; how they began, who those are which are capable of that dignity, and how many of them there had been at the end of the war. 20.225. In the first place, therefore, history informs us that Aaron, the brother of Moses, officiated to God as a high priest, and that, after his death, his sons succeeded him immediately; and that this dignity hath been continued down from them all to their posterity. 20.226. Whence it is a custom of our country, that no one should take the high priesthood of God but he who is of the blood of Aaron, while every one that is of another stock, though he were a king, can never obtain that high priesthood. 20.227. Accordingly, the number of all the high priests from Aaron, of whom we have spoken already, as of the first of them, until Phanas, who was made high priest during the war by the seditious, was eighty-three; 20.228. of whom thirteen officiated as high priests in the wilderness, from the days of Moses, while the tabernacle was standing, until the people came into Judea, when king Solomon erected the temple to God; 20.229. for at the first they held the high priesthood till the end of their life, although afterward they had successors while they were alive. Now these thirteen, who were the descendants of two of the sons of Aaron, received this dignity by succession, one after another; for their form of government was an aristocracy, and after that a monarchy, and in the third place the government was regal. 20.231. After those thirteen high priests, eighteen took the high priesthood at Jerusalem, one in succession to another, from the days of king Solomon, until Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made an expedition against that city, and burnt the temple, and removed our nation into Babylon, and then took Josadek, the high priest, captive; 20.232. the times of these high priests were four hundred and sixty-six years, six months, and ten days, while the Jews were still under the regal government. 20.233. But after the term of seventy years’ captivity under the Babylonians, Cyrus, king of Persia, sent the Jews from Babylon to their own land again, and gave them leave to rebuild their temple; 20.234. at which time Jesus, the son of Josadek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were returned home. Now he and his posterity, who were in all fifteen, until king Antiochus Eupator, were under a democratical government for four hundred and fourteen years; 20.235. and then the forementioned Antiochus, and Lysias the general of his army, deprived Onias, who was also called Menelaus, of the high priesthood, and slew him at Berea; and driving away the son [of Onias the third], put Jacimus into the place of the high priest, one that was indeed of the stock of Aaron, but not of the family of Onias. 20.236. On which account Onias, who was the nephew of Onias that was dead, and bore the same name with his father, came into Egypt, and got into the friendship of Ptolemy Philometor, and Cleopatra his wife, and persuaded them to make him the high priest of that temple which he built to God in the prefecture of Heliopolis, and this in imitation of that at Jerusalem; 20.261. I have attempted to enumerate those high priests that we have had during the interval of two thousand years; I have also carried down the succession of our kings, and related their actions, and political administration, without [considerable] errors, as also the power of our monarchs; and all according to what is written in our sacred books; for this it was that I promised to do in the beginning of this history. |
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15. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 1.3, 1.18, 1.68-1.69, 2.152-2.159, 2.163, 2.229-2.231, 2.261-2.265, 3.351-3.356, 3.405-3.408, 5.377, 5.415, 6.250, 6.285-6.315, 7.150 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.3. I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians; I, Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterward [am the author of this work]. 1.3. 12. I have comprehended all these things in seven books, and have left no occasion for complaint or accusation to such as have been acquainted with this war; and I have written it down for the sake of those that love truth, but not for those that please themselves [with fictitious relations]. And I will begin my account of these things with what I call my First Chapter. 1.3. When Antigonus heard of this, he sent some of his party with orders to hinder, and lay ambushes for these collectors of corn. This command was obeyed, and a great multitude of armed men were gathered together about Jericho, and lay upon the mountains, to watch those that brought the provisions. 1.18. But then, where the writers of these affairs and our prophets leave off, thence shall I take my rise and begin my history. Now, as to what concerns that war which happened in my own time, I will go over it very largely, and with all the diligence I am able; but for what preceded mine own age, that I shall run over briefly. 1.18. 9. But now Cassius, after Crassus, put a stop to the Parthians, who were marching in order to enter Syria. Cassius had fled into that province, and when he had taken possession of the same, he made a hasty march into Judea; and, upon his taking Taricheae, he carried thirty thousand Jews into slavery. He also slew Pitholaus, who had supported the seditious followers of Aristobulus; and it was Antipater who advised him so to do. 1.68. So John lived the rest of his life very happily, and administered the government after a most extraordinary manner, and this for thirty-three entire years together. He died, leaving five sons behind him. He was certainly a very happy man, and afforded no occasion to have any complaint made of fortune on his account. He it was who alone had three of the most desirable things in the world,—the government of his nation, and the high priesthood, and the gift of prophecy. 1.69. For the Deity conversed with him, and he was not ignorant of anything that was to come afterward; insomuch that he foresaw and foretold that his two eldest sons would not continue masters of the government; and it will highly deserve our narration to describe their catastrophe, and how far inferior these men were to their father in felicity. 2.152. and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; 2.153. but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again. 2.154. 11. For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue forever; and that they come out of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; 2.155. but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments. 2.156. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demigods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue, and dehortations from wickedness collected; 2.157. whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death. 2.158. These are the Divine doctrines of the Essenes about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy. 2.159. 12. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions. 2.163. and yet allow, that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men, although fate does cooperate in every action. They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies,—but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment. 2.229. Upon this Cumanus sent men to go round about to the neighboring villages, and to bring their inhabitants to him bound, as laying it to their charge that they had not pursued after the thieves, and caught them. Now here it was that a certain soldier, finding the sacred book of the law, tore it to pieces, and threw it into the fire. 2.231. Accordingly, he, perceiving that the multitude would not be quiet unless they had a comfortable answer from him, gave order that the soldier should be brought, and drawn through those that required to have him punished, to execution, which being done, the Jews went their ways. 2.261. 5. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; 2.262. these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him. 2.263. But Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the people assisted him in his attack upon them, insomuch that when it came to a battle, the Egyptian ran away, with a few others, while the greatest part of those that were with him were either destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the multitude were dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed themselves. 2.264. 6. Now, when these were quieted, it happened, as it does in a diseased body, that another part was subject to an inflammation; for a company of deceivers and robbers got together, and persuaded the Jews to revolt, and exhorted them to assert their liberty, inflicting death on those that continued in obedience to the Roman government, and saying, that such as willingly chose slavery ought to be forced from such their desired inclinations; 2.265. for they parted themselves into different bodies, and lay in wait up and down the country, and plundered the houses of the great men, and slew the men themselves, and set the villages on fire; and this till all Judea was filled with the effects of their madness. And thus the flame was every day more and more blown up, till it came to a direct war. 3.351. And now, as Nicanor lay hard at Josephus to comply, and he understood how the multitude of the enemies threatened him, he called to mind the dreams which he had dreamed in the nighttime, whereby God had signified to him beforehand both the future calamities of the Jews, and the events that concerned the Roman emperors. 3.352. Now Josephus was able to give shrewd conjectures about the interpretation of such dreams as have been ambiguously delivered by God. Moreover, he was not unacquainted with the prophecies contained in the sacred books, as being a priest himself, and of the posterity of priests: 3.353. and just then was he in an ecstasy; and setting before him the tremendous images of the dreams he had lately had, he put up a secret prayer to God 3.354. and said, “Since it pleaseth thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, to depress the same, and since all their good fortune is gone over to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of this soul of mine to foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly give them my hands, and am content to live. And I protest openly that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a minister from thee.” 3.355. 4. When he had said this, he complied with Nicanor’s invitation. But when those Jews who had fled with him understood that he yielded to those that invited him to come up, they came about him in a body, and cried out 3.356. “Nay, indeed, now may the laws of our forefathers, which God ordained himself, well groan to purpose; that God we mean who hath created the souls of the Jews of such a temper, that they despise death. 3.405. He also found Josephus to have spoken truth on other occasions; for one of those friends that were present at that secret conference said to Josephus, “I cannot but wonder how thou couldst not foretell to the people of Jotapata that they should be taken, nor couldst foretell this captivity which hath happened to thyself, unless what thou now sayest be a vain thing, in order to avoid the rage that is risen against thyself.” 3.406. To which Josephus replied, “I did foretell to the people of Jotapata that they would be taken on the forty-seventh day, and that I should be caught alive by the Romans.” 3.407. Now when Vespasian had inquired of the captives privately about these predictions, he found them to be true, and then he began to believe those that concerned himself. 3.408. Yet did he not set Josephus at liberty from his bands, but bestowed on him suits of clothes, and other precious gifts; he treated him also in a very obliging manner, and continued so to do, Titus still joining his interest in the honors that were done him. 5.377. and when was it that God, who is the Creator of the Jewish people, did not avenge them when they had been injured? Will not you turn again, and look back, and consider whence it is that you fight with such violence, and how great a Supporter you have profanely abused? Will not you recall to mind the prodigious things done for your forefathers and this holy place, and how great enemies of yours were by him subdued under you? 5.415. However, there is a place left for your preservation, if you be willing to accept of it; and God is easily reconciled to those that confess their faults, and repent of them. 6.285. A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. 6.286. Now, there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. 6.287. Now, a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for whensuch a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance. 6.288. 3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. 6.289. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. 6.291. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. 6.292. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. 6.293. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. 6.294. Now, those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. 6.295. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. 6.296. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar] 6.297. a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it 6.298. and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen 6.299. running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise 6.301. began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!” This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. 6.302. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say anything for himself, or anything peculiar to those that chastised him, but still he went on with the same words which he cried before. 6.303. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator 6.304. where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” 6.305. And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. 6.306. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” 6.307. Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. 6.308. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; 6.309. for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also!” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost. 6.311. for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple foursquare, while at the same time they had it written in their sacred oracles, “That then should their city be taken, as well as their holy house, when once their temple should become foursquare.” 6.312. But now, what did most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, “about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.” 6.313. The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. 6.314. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it beforehand. 6.315. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city and their own destruction. |
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16. Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 1.6-1.36, 1.38-1.59, 1.68-1.69, 1.71, 1.73-1.91, 1.93-1.106, 1.116, 1.129-1.130, 1.137-1.138, 1.144, 1.156, 1.159-1.171, 1.173, 1.175-1.218, 1.251, 2.145-2.286 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 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. 1.15. 3. How can it then be other than an absurd thing for the Greeks to be so proud, and to vaunt themselves to be the only people that are acquainted with antiquity, and that have delivered the true accounts of those early times after an accurate manner! Nay, who is there that cannot easily gather from the Greek writers themselves, that they knew but little on any good foundation when they set to write, but rather wrote their histories from their own conjectures! Accordingly, they confute one another in their own books to purpose, and are not ashamed to give us the most contradictory accounts of the same things; 1.15. but when he was come to the seventeenth year of his reign, Cyrus came out of Persia with a great army; and having already conquered all the rest of Asia, he came hastily to Babylonia. 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 1.17. nor could Timeus agree with Antiochus and Philistius, or with Callias, about the Sicilian History no more than do the several writers of the Atthidae follow one another about the Athenian affairs; nor do the historians the like, that wrote the Argolics, about the affairs of the Argives. 1.17. and as for those Syrians who live about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, and their neighbors the Macrones, they say they have lately learned it from the Colchians; for these are the only people that are circumcised among mankind, and appear to have done the very same thing with the Egyptians; but as for the Egyptians and Ethiopians themselves, I am not able to say which of them received it from the other.” 1.18. And now what need I say any more about particular cities and smaller places, while in the most approved writers of the expedition of the Persians, and of the actions which were therein performed, there are so great differences! Nay, Thucydides himself is accused by some as writing what is false, although he seems to have given us the exactest history of the affairs of his own time. /p 1.18. Now this man, when he was hospitably treated by a great many, came down from the upper country to the places near the sea, and became a Grecian, not only in his language, but in his soul also; 1.19. 4. As for the occasions of this so great disagreement of theirs, there may be assigned many that are very probable, if any have a mind to make an inquiry about them; but I ascribe these contradictions chiefly to two causes, which I will now mention, and still think what I shall mention in the first place, to be the principal of all; 1.19. Moreover, Hecateus declares again, “what regard we have for our laws, and that we resolve to endure any thing rather than transgress them, because we think it right for us to do so.” 1.21. for this original recording of such ancient transactions hath not only been neglected by the other states of Greece, but even among the Athenians themselves also, who pretend to be Aborigines, and to have applied themselves to learning, there are no such records extant; nay, they say themselves, that the laws of Draco concerning murders, which are now extant in writing, are the most ancient of their public records; which Draco yet lived but a little time before the tyrant Pisistratus. 1.21. Now it came to pass, that when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, came into this city with his army, these men, in observing this mad custom of theirs, instead of guarding the city, suffered their country to submit itself to a bitter lord; and their law was openly proved to have commanded a foolish practice. 1.22. For as to the Arcadians, who make such boasts of their antiquity, what need I speak of them in particular, since it was still later before they got their letters, and learned them, and that with difficulty also. /p 1.22. and that in general this self-contradiction hath happened to many other authors by reason of their ill will to some people, I conclude is not unknown to such as have read histories with sufficient care; for some of them have endeavored to disgrace the nobility of certain nations, and of some of the most glorious cities, and have cast reproaches upon certain forms of government. 1.23. 5. There must therefore naturally arise great differences among writers, when they had no original records to lay for their foundation, which might at once inform those who had an inclination to learn, and contradict those that would tell lies. 1.23. for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious king’s name, though on that account he durst not set down the number of years of his reign, which yet he had accurately done as to the other kings he mentions; he then ascribes certain fabulous stories to this king, as having in a manner forgotten how he had already related that the departure of the shepherds for Jerusalem had been five hundred and eighteen years before; 1.24. However, we are to suppose a second occasion besides the former of these contradictions; it is this: that those who were the most zealous to write history, were not solicitous for the discovery of truth, although it was very easy for them always to make such a profession; but their business was to demonstrate that they could write well, and make an impression upon mankind thereby; 1.24. When he had made such laws as these, and many more such as were mainly opposite to the customs of the Egyptians, he gave order that they should use the multitude of the hands they had in building walls about their city, and make themselves ready for a war with king Amenophis 1.25. and in what manner of writing they thought they were able to exceed others, to that did they apply themselves. Some of them betook themselves to the writing of fabulous narrations; some of them endeavored to please the cities or the kings, by writing in their commendation; others of them fell to finding faults with transactions, or with the writers of such transactions, and thought to make a great figure by so doing; 1.25. It was also reported that the priest, who ordained their polity and their laws, was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph from Osiris, who was the god of Heliopolis; but that when he was gone over to these people, his name was changed, and he was called Moses.” /p 1.26. and indeed these do what is of all things the most contrary to true history; for it is the great character of true history that all concerned therein both speak and write the same things; while these men, by writing differently about the same things, think they shall be believed to write with the greatest regard to truth. 1.26. But now let us see the silliest thing of all:—the king, although he had been informed of these things and terrified, with the fear of what was to come, yet did not he even then eject these maimed people out of his country, when it had been foretold him that he was to clear Egypt of them; but as Manetho says, “He then upon their request, gave them that city to inhabit, which had formerly belonged to the shepherds, and was called Avaris; 1.27. We therefore [who are Jews] must yield to the Grecian writers as to language and eloquence of composition; but then we shall give them no such preference as to the verity of ancient history; and least of all as to that part which concerns the affairs of our own several countries. /p 1.27. Yet are we beholden to Manetho, that he does not lay the principal charge of this horrid transgression upon those that came from Jerusalem, but says that the Egyptians themselves were the most guilty, and that they were their priests that contrived these things, and made the multitude take their oaths for doing so; 1.28. 6. As to the care of writing down the records from the earliest antiquity among the Egyptians and Babylonians; that the priests were intrusted therewith, and employed a philosophical concern about it; that they were the Chaldean priests that did so among the Babylonians; and that the Phoenicians, who were mingled among the Greeks, did especially make use of their letters, both for the common affairs of life, and for the delivering down the history of common transactions, I think I may omit any proof, because all men allow it so to be: 1.28. although it had been demonstrated out of their records, that he lived five hundred and eighteen years earlier, and then brought our forefathers out of Egypt into the country that is now inhabited by us. 1.29. but now, as to our forefathers, that they took no less care about writing such records (for I will not say they took greater care than the others I spoke of), and that they committed that matter to their high priests and to their prophets, and that these records have been written all along down to our own times with the utmost accuracy; nay, if it be not too bold for me to say it, our history will be so written hereafter;—I shall endeavor briefly to inform you. /p 1.29. That Amenophis accordingly chose out two hundred and fifty thousand of those that were thus diseased, and cast them out of the country: that Moses and Joseph were scribes, and Joseph was a sacred scribe; that their names were Egyptian originally; that of Moses had been Tisithen, and that of Joseph, Peteseph: 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 1.32. and this is our practice not only in Judea, but wheresoever any body of men of our nation do live; and even there, an exact catalogue of our priests’ marriages is kept; 1.32. But why should a man say any more to a person who tells such impudent lies! However, since this book is arisen to a competent length, I will make another beginning, and endeavor to add what still remains to perfect my design in the following book. 1.33. I mean at Egypt and at Babylon, or in any other place of the rest of the habitable earth, whithersoever our priests are scattered; for they send to Jerusalem the ancient names of their parents in writing, as well as those of their remoter ancestors, and signify who are the witnesses also; 1.34. but if any war falls out, such as have fallen out, a great many of them already, when Antiochus Epiphanes made an invasion upon our country, as also when Pompey the Great and Quintilius Varus did so also, and principally in the wars that have happened in our own times 1.35. those priests that survive them compose new tables of genealogy out of the old records, and examine the circumstances of the women that remain; for still they do not admit of those that have been captives, as suspecting that they had conversation with some foreigners; 1.36. but what is the strongest argument of our exact management in this matter is what I am now going to say, that we have the names of our high priests, from father to son, set down in our records, for the interval of two thousand years; and if any one of these have been transgressors of these rules, they are prohibited to present themselves at the altar, or to be partakers of any other of our purifications; 1.38. For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; 1.39. and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; 1.41. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; 1.42. and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. 1.43. For it is no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws and the records that contain them; 1.44. whereas there are none at all among the Greeks who would undergo the least harm on that account, no, nor in case all the writings that are among them were to be destroyed; 1.45. for they take them to be such discourses as are framed agreeably to the inclinations of those that write them; and they have justly the same opinion of the ancient writers, since they see some of the present generation bold enough to write about such affairs, wherein they were not present, nor had concern enough to inform themselves about them from those that knew them: 1.46. examples of which may be had in this late war of ours, where some persons have written histories, and published them, without having been in the places concerned, or having been near them when the actions were done; but these men put a few things together by hearsay, and insolently abuse the world, and call these writings by the name of Histories. /p 1.47. 9. As for myself, I have composed a true history of that whole war, and all the particulars that occurred therein, as having been concerned in all its transactions; 1.48. for I acted as general of those among us that are named Galileans, as long as it was possible for us to make any opposition. I was then seized on by the Romans, and became a captive. Vespasian also and Titus had me kept under a guard, and forced me to attend them continually. At the first I was put into bonds; but was set at liberty afterward, and sent to accompany Titus when he came from Alexandria to the siege of Jerusalem; 1.49. during which time there was nothing done which escaped my knowledge; for what happened in the Roman camp I saw, and wrote down carefully; and what informations the deserters brought [out of the city], I was the only man that understood them. 1.51. for to them I presented those books first of all, and after them to many of the Romans who had been in the war. I also sold them to many of our own men who understood the Greek philosophy; among whom were Julius Archelaus, Herod [king of Chalcis], a person of great gravity, and king Agrippa himself, a person that deserved the greatest admiration. 1.52. Now all these men bore their testimony to me, that I had the strictest regard to truth; who yet would not have dissembled the matter, nor been silent, if I, out of ignorance or out of favor to any side, either had given false colors to actions, or omitted any of them. /p 1.53. 10. There have been indeed some bad men who have attempted to calumniate my history, and took it to be a kind of scholastic performance for the exercise of young men. A strange sort of accusation and calumny this! since every one that undertakes to deliver the history of actions truly, ought to know them accurately himself in the first place, as either having been concerned in them himself, or been informed of them by such as knew them. 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; 1.55. and as for the History of the War, I wrote it as having been an actor myself in many of its transactions, an eyewitness in the greatest part of the rest, and was not unacquainted with any thing whatsoever that was either said or done in it. 1.56. How impudent then must those deserve to be esteemed, who undertake to contradict me about the true state of those affairs! who, although they pretend to have made use of both the emperors’ own memoirs, yet they could not be acquainted with our affairs who fought against them. /p 1.57. 11. This digression I have been obliged to make, out of necessity, as being desirous to expose the vanity of those that profess to write histories; 1.58. and I suppose I have sufficiently declared that this custom of transmitting down the histories of ancient times hath been better preserved by those nations which are called Barbarians, than by the Greeks themselves. I am now willing, in the next place, to say a few things to those who endeavor to prove that our constitution is but of late time, for this reason, as they pretend, that the Greek writers have said nothing about us; 1.59. after which I shall produce testimonies for our antiquity out of the writings of foreigners: I shall also demonstrate that such as cast reproaches upon our nation do it very unjustly. /p 1.68. and the reason why these writers did not know the truth of their affairs was this, that they had not any commerce together:—but the reason why they wrote such falsities was this, that they had a mind to appear to know things which others had not known. How can it then be any wonder, if our nation was no more known to many of the Greeks, nor had given them any occasion to mention them in their writings, while they were so remote from the sea, and had a conduct of life so peculiar to themselves? /p 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. 1.73. 14. I shall begin with the writings of the Egyptians; not indeed of those that have written in the Egyptian language, which it is impossible for me to do. But Manetho was a man who was by birth an Egyptian; yet had he made himself master of the Greek learning, as is very evident, for he wrote the history of his own country in the Greek tongue, by translating it, as he saith himself, out of their sacred records: he also finds great fault with Herodotus for his ignorance and false relations of Egyptian affairs. 1.74. Now, this Manetho, in the second book of his Egyptian History, writes concerning us in the following manner. I will set down his very words, as if I were to bring the very man himself into a court for a witness:— 1.75. “There was a king of ours, whose name was Timaus. Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us; and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them. 1.76. So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities, and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner; nay, some they slew, and led their children and their wives into slavery. 1.77. At length they made one of themselves king, whose name was Salatis; he also lived at Memphis, and made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places that were the most proper for them. He chiefly aimed to secure the eastern parts as foreseeing that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would be desirous of that kingdom and invade them; 1.78. and as he found in the Saite Nomos [Seth-roite] a city very proper for his purpose, and which lay upon the Bubastic channel, but with regard to a certain theologic notion was called Avaris, this he rebuilt, and made very strong by the walls he built about it, and by a most numerous garrison of two hundred and forty thousand armed men whom he put into it to keep it. 1.79. Thither Salatis came in summer-time, partly to gather his corn and pay his soldiers their wages, and partly to exercise his armed men, and thereby to terrify foreigners. 1.81. after all these reigned Assis forty-nine years and two months; and these six were the first rulers among them, who were all along making war with the Egyptians, and were very desirous gradually to destroy them to the very roots. 1.82. This whole nation was styled Hycsos—that is, shepherd-kings: for the first syllable, Hyc, according to the sacred dialect, denotes a king, as is Sos a shepherd, but this according to the ordinary dialect; and of these is compounded Hycsos. But some say that these people were Arabians.” 1.83. Now, in another copy it is said that this word does not denote Kings but, on the contrary, denotes Captive Shepherds, and this on account of the particle Hyc; for that Hyc, with the aspiration, in the Egyptian tongue again denotes Shepherds, and that expressly also: and this to me seems the more probable opinion, and more agreeable to ancient history. 1.84. [But Manetho goes on:] “These people, whom we have before named kings and called shepherds also, and their descendants,” as he says, “kept possession of Egypt five hundred and eleven years.” 1.85. After these, he says, “That the kings of Thebais and of the other parts of Egypt made an insurrection against the shepherds, and that there a terrible and long war was made between them.” 1.86. He says farther, “That under a king, whose name was Alisphragmuthosis, the shepherds were subdued by him, and were indeed driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were shut up in a place that contained ten thousand acres: this place was named Avaris.” 1.87. Manetho says, “That the shepherds built a wall round all this place, which was a large and strong wall, and this in order to keep all their possessions and their prey within a place of strength; 1.88. but that Thummosis, the son of Alisphragmuthosis, made an attempt to take them by force and by a siege, with four hundred and eighty thousand men to lie round about them; but that, upon his despair of taking the place by that siege, they came to a composition with them that they should leave Egypt, and go, without any harm to be done them, whithersoever they would; 1.89. and that, after this composition was made, they went away with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number than two hundred and forty thousand, and took their journey from Egypt, through the wilderness, for Syria; 1.91. Now Manetho, in another book of his, says, “That this nation, thus called Shepherds, were also called Captives, in their sacred books.” And this account of his is the truth: for feeding of sheep was the employment of our forefathers in the most ancient ages; and as they led such a wandering life in feeding sheep, they were called Shepherds. 1.93. 15. But now I shall produce the Egyptians as witnesses to the antiquity of our nation. I shall therefore here bring in Manetho again, and what he writes as to the order of the times in this case, and thus he speaks:— 1.94. “When this people or shepherds were gone out of Egypt to Jerusalem, Tethmosis the king of Egypt, who drove them out, reigned afterward twenty-five years and four months, and then died; after him his son Chebron took the kingdom for thirteen years; 1.95. after whom came Amenophis, for twenty years and seven months; then came his sister Amesses, for twenty-one years and nine months; after her came Memphres, for twelve years and nine months; after him was Mephramuthosis, for twenty-five years and ten months; 1.96. after him was Tethmosis, for nine years and eight months; after him came Amenophis, for thirty years and ten months; after him came Orus, for thirty-six years and five months; then came his daughter Acenchres, for twelve years and one month; then was her brother Rathotis, for nine years; 1.97. then was Acencheres, for twelve years and five months; then came another Acencheres, for twelve years and three months; after him Armais, for four years and one month; after him was Ramesses, for one year and four months; after him came Armesses Miammoun, for sixty-six years and two months; after him Amenophis, for nineteen years and six months; 1.98. after him came Sethosis and Ramesses, who had an army of horse and a naval force. This king appointed his brother Armais to be his deputy over Egypt.” [In another copy it stood thus:—After him came Sethosis and Ramesses, two brethren, the former of whom had a naval force, and in a hostile manner destroyed those that met him upon the sea; but as he slew Ramesses in no long time afterward, so he appointed another of his brethren to be his deputy over Egypt.] He also gave him all the other authority of a king, but with these only injunctions, that he should not wear the diadem, nor be injurious to the queen, the mother of his children; and that he should not meddle with the other concubines of the king; 1.99. while he made an expedition against Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and besides, against the Assyrians and the Medes. He then subdued them all, some by his arms, some without fighting, and some by the terror of his great army; and being puffed up by the great successes he had had, he went on still the more boldly, and overthrew the cities and countries that lay in the eastern parts; 1.101. but then, he who was set over the priests of Egypt, wrote letters to Sethosis, and informed him of all that had happened, and how his brother had set up to oppose him; he therefore returned back to Pelusium immediately, and recovered his kingdom again. 1.102. The country also was called from his name Egypt; for Manetho says that Sethosis himself was called Egyptus, as was his brother Armais, called Danaus.” /p 1.103. 16. This is Manetho’s account; and evident it is from the number of years by him set down belonging to this interval if they be summed up together, that these shepherds, as they are here called, who were no other than our forefathers, were delivered out of Egypt, and came thence, and inhabited this country three hundred and ninety-three years before Danaus came to Argos; although the Argives look upon him as their most ancient king. 1.104. Manetho, therefore, bears this testimony to two points of the greatest consequence to our purpose, and those from the Egyptian records themselves. In the first place, that we came out of another country into Egypt; and that withal our deliverance out of it was so ancient in time, as to have preceded the siege of Troy almost a thousand years; 1.105. but then, as to those things which Manetho adds, not from the Egyptian records, but, as he confesses himself, from some stories of an uncertain original, I will disprove them hereafter particularly, and shall demonstrate that they are no better than incredible fables. /p 1.106. 17. I will now, therefore, pass from these records, and come to those who belong to the Phoenicians, and concern our nation, and shall produce attestations to what I have said out of them. 1.116. 18. And now I shall add Meder the Ephesian, as an additional witness. This Meder wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians, under every one of the Tyrian kings; and had taken much pains to learn their history out of their own records. 1.129. Berosus shall be witness to what I say: he was by birth a Chaldean, well known by the learned, on account of his publication of the Chaldean books of astronomy and philosophy among the Greeks. 1.137. But as he understood, in a little time, that his father Nabolassar was dead, he set the affairs of Egypt and the other countries in order, and committed the captives he had taken from the Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and of the nations belonging to Egypt, to some of his friends, that they might conduct that part of the forces that had on heavy armor, with the rest of his baggage, to Babylonia; while he went in haste, having but a few with him, over the desert to Babylon; 1.138. whither when he was come, he found the public affairs had been managed by the Chaldeans, and that the principal persons among them had preserved the kingdom for him. Accordingly he now entirely obtained all his father’s dominions. He then came, and ordered the captives to be placed as colonies in the most proper places of Babylonia: 1.144. in which case Philostratus agrees with the others in that history which he composed, where he mentions the siege of Tyre; as does Megasthenes also, in the fourth book of his Indian History, wherein he pretends to prove that the forementioned king of the Babylonians was superior to Hercules in strength and the greatness of his exploits; for he says that he conquered a great part of Libya, and conquered Iberia also. 1.156. “Nabuchodonosor besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of Ithobal, their king; after him reigned Baal, ten years; 1.159. So that the whole interval is fifty-four years besides three months; for in the seventh year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar he began to besiege Tyre; and Cyrus the Persian took the kingdom in the fourteenth year of Hirom. 1.161. 22. But now it is proper to satisfy the inquiry of those that disbelieve the records of Barbarians, and think none but Greeks to be worthy of credit, and to produce many of these very Greeks who were acquainted with our nation, and to set before them such as upon occasion have made mention of us in their own writings. 1.162. Pythagoras, therefore, of Samos, lived in very ancient times, and was esteemed a person superior to all philosophers in wisdom and piety towards God. Now it is plain that he did not only know our doctrines, but was in very great measure a follower and admirer of them. 1.163. There is not, indeed, extant any writing that is owned for his; but many there are who have written his history, of whom Hermippus is the most celebrated, who was a person very inquisitive in all sorts of history. 1.164. Now this Hermippus, in his first book concerning Pythagoras, speaks thus:—“That Pythagoras, upon the death of one of his associates, whose name was Calliphon, a Crotoniate by birth, affirmed that this man’s soul conversed with him both night and day, and enjoined him not to pass over a place where an ass had fallen down; as also not to drink of such waters as caused thirst again; and to abstain from all sorts of reproaches.” 1.165. After which he adds thus:—“This he did and said in imitation of the doctrines of the Jews and Thracians, which he transferred into his own philosophy.” For it is very truly affirmed of this Pythagoras, that he took a great many of the laws of the Jews into his own philosophy. 1.166. Nor was our nation unknown of old to several of the Grecian cities, and indeed was thought worthy of imitation by some of them. 1.167. This is declared by Theophrastus, in his writings concerning laws; for he says that “the laws of the Tyrians forbid men to swear foreign oaths.” Among which he enumerates some others, and particularly that called Corban; which oath can only be found among the Jews, and declares what a man may call “A thing devoted to God.” 1.168. Nor indeed was Herodotus, of Halicarnassus, unacquainted with our nation, but mentions it after a way of his own, when he saith thus, in the second book concerning the Colchians. 1.169. His words are these:—“The only people who were circumcised in their privy members originally were the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians; but the Phoenicians and those Syrians that are in Palestine confess that they learned it from the Egyptians; 1.171. This, therefore, is what Herodotus, says, that “the Syrians that are in Palestine are circumcised.” But there are no inhabitants of Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Jews; and therefore it must be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much concerning them. 1.173. “At the last there passed over a people, wonderful to be beheld; for they spake the Phoenician tongue with their mouths: they dwelt in the Solymean mountains, near a broad lake: their heads were sooty; they had round rasures on them; their heads and faces were like nasty horseheads also, that had been hardened in the smoke.” 1.175. and thus does Cherilus make mention of us. But now that not only the lowest sort of the Grecians, but those that are held in the greatest admiration for their philosophic improvements among them, did not only know the Jews, but, when they lighted upon any of them, admired them also, it is easy for any one to know; 1.176. for Clearchus, who was the scholar of Aristotle, and inferior to no one of the Peripatetics whomsoever, in his first book concerning sleep, says that “Aristotle, his master, related what follows of a Jew,” and sets down Aristotle’s own discourse with him. The account is this, as written down by him: 1.177. “Now, for a great part of what this Jew said, it would be too long to recite it; but what includes in it both wonder and philosophy, it may not be amiss to discourse of. Now, that I may be plain with thee, Hyperochides, I shall herein seem to thee to relate wonders, and what will resemble dreams themselves. Hereupon Hyperochides answered modestly, and said, for that very reason it is that all of us are very desirous of hearing what thou art going to say. 1.178. Then replied Aristotle, For this cause it will be the best way to imitate that rule of the Rhetoricians which requires us first to give an account of the man, and of what nation he was, that so we may not contradict our master’s directions. Then said Hyperochides, Go on, if it so pleases thee. 1.179. This man, then [answered Aristotle], was by birth a Jew, and came from Celesyria: these Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calami, and by the Syrians Judaei, and took their name from the country they inhabit, which is called Judea; but for the name of their city it is a very awkward one, for they call it Jerusalem. 1.181. insomuch that when we ourselves happened to be in Asia about the same places whither he came, he conversed with us and with other philosophical persons, and made a trial of our skill in philosophy; and as he had lived with many learned men, he communicated to us more information than he received from us.” 1.182. This is Aristotle’s account of the matter, as given us by Clearchus; which Aristotle discoursed also particularly of the great and wonderful fortitude of this Jew in his diet and continent way of living, as those that please may learn more about him from Clearchus’s book itself; for I avoid setting down any more than is sufficient for my purpose. 1.183. Now Clearchus said this by way of digression, for his main design was of another nature; but for Hecateus of Abdera, who was both a philosopher and one very useful in an active life, he was contemporary with king Alexander in his youth, and afterward was with Ptolemy, the son of Lagus: he did not write about the Jewish affairs by the by only, but composed an entire book concerning the Jews themselves; out of which book I am willing to run over a few things, of which I have been treating, by way of epitome. 1.184. And, in the first place, I will demonstrate the time when this Hecateus lived; for he mentions the fight that was between Ptolemy and Demetrius about Gaza, which was fought in the eleventh year after the death of Alexander, and in the hundred and seventeenth olympiad, as Castor says in his history: 1.185. for when he had set down this olympiad, he says farther, that “on this olympiad Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, beat in battle Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, who was named Poliorcetes, at Gaza.” Now it is agreed by all that Alexander died in the hundred and fourteenth olympiad; it is therefore evident that our nation flourished in his time, and in the time of Alexander. 1.186. Again, Hecateus says to the same purpose, as follows:—“Ptolemy got possession of the places in Syria after the battle at Gaza; and many, when they heard of Ptolemy’s moderation and humanity, went along with him to Egypt, and were willing to assist him in his affairs; 1.187. one of whom (Hecateus says) was Hezekiah, the high priest of the Jews; a man of about sixty-six years of age, and in great dignity among his own people. He was a very sensible man, and could speak very movingly, and was very skilful in the management of affairs, if any other man ever were so; 1.188. although, as he says, all the priests of the Jews took tithes of the products of the earth, and managed public affairs, and were in number not above fifteen hundred at the most.” 1.189. Hecateus mentions this Hezekiah a second time, and says, that “as he was possessed of so great a dignity, and was become familiar with us, so did he take certain of those that were with him, and explained to them all the circumstances of their people: for he had all their habitations and polity down in writing.” 1.191. Whereupon he adds, that “although they are in a bad reputation among their neighbors, and among all those that come to them, and have been often treated injuriously by the kings and governors of Persia, yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think best; but that, when they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet them after a most extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers.” 1.192. Hecateus also produces demonstrations not a few of this their resolute tenaciousness of their laws when he speaks thus:—“Alexander was once at Babylon, and had an intention to rebuild the temple of Belus that was fallen to decay: and in order thereto, he commanded all his soldiers in general to bring earth thither. But the Jews, and they only, would not comply with that command; nay, they underwent stripes and great losses of what they had on this account, till the king forgave them, and permitted them to live in quiet.” 1.193. He adds farther, that “when the Macedonians came to them into that country, and demolished the [old] temples and the altars, they assisted them in demolishing them all; but [for not assisting them in rebuilding them] they either underwent losses, or sometimes obtained forgiveness.” He adds, farther, that “these men deserve to be admired on that account.” 1.194. He also speaks of the mighty populousness of our nation, and says that “the Persians formerly carried away many ten thousands of our people to Babylon; as also that not a few ten thousands were removed after Alexander’s death into Egypt and Phoenicia, by reason of the sedition that was arisen in Syria.” 1.195. The same person takes notice in his history, how large the country is which we inhabit, as well as of its excellent character; and says that “the land in which the Jews inhabit contains three millions of arourae, and is generally of a most excellent and most fruitful soil: nor is Judea of lesser dimensions.” 1.196. The same man describes our city Jerusalem also itself as of a most excellent structure, and very large, and inhabited from the most ancient times. He also discourses of the multitude of men in it, and of the construction of our temple, after the following manner:— 1.197. “There are many strong places and villages (says he) in the country of Judea: but one strong city there is, about fifty furlongs in circumference, which is inhabited by a hundred and twenty thousand men, or thereabouts: they call it Jerusalem. 1.198. There is about the middle of the city, a wall of stone, the length of which is five hundred feet, and the breadth a hundred cubits, with double cloisters; wherein there is a square altar, not made of hewn stone, but composed of white stones gathered together, having each side twenty cubits long, and its altitude ten cubits. Hard by it is a large edifice, wherein there is an altar and a candlestick, both of gold, and in weight two talents; 1.199. upon these there is a light that is never extinguished, neither by night nor by day. There is no image, nor any thing, nor any donations therein; nothing at all is there planted, neither grove, nor any thing of that sort. The priests abide therein both nights and days, performing certain purifications, and drinking not the least drop of wine while they are in the temple.” 1.201. “As I was myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who conducted us; he was a person of great courage, of a strong body, and by all allowed to be the most skilful archer that was either among the Greeks or barbarians. 1.202. Now this man, as people were in great numbers passing along the road, and a certain augur was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them all to stand still, inquired what they staid for. 1.203. Hereupon the augur showed him the bird from whence he took his augury, and told him that if the bird staid where he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if he got up, and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew backward, they must retire again. Mosollam made no reply, but drew his bow, and shot at the bird, and hit him, and killed him; 1.204. and as the augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations upon him, he answered them thus:—Why are you so mad as to take this most unhappy bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us any true information concerning our march, which could not foresee how to save himself? for had he been able to foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this place, but would have been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew would shoot at him, and kill him.” 1.205. But of Hecateus’s testimonies we have said enough; for as to such as desire to know more of them, they may easily obtain them from his book itself. However, I shall not think it too much for me to name Agatharchides, as having made mention of us Jews, though in way of derision at our simplicity, as he supposes it to be; 1.206. for when he was discoursing of the affairs of Stratonice, “how she came out of Macedonia into Syria, and left her husband Demetrius, while yet Seleucus would not marry her as she expected, but during the time of his raising an army at Babylon, stirred up a sedition about Antioch; 1.207. and how after that the king came back, and upon his taking of Antioch, she fled to Seleucia, and had it in her power to sail away immediately, yet did she comply with a dream which forbade her so to do, and so was caught and put to death.” 1.208. When Agatharchides had premised this story, and had jested upon Stratonice for her superstition, he gives a like example of what was reported concerning us, and writes thus:— 1.209. “There are a people called Jews, who dwell in a city the strongest of all other cities, which the inhabitants call Jerusalem, and are accustomed to rest on every seventh day; on which times they make no use of their arms, nor meddle with husbandry, nor take care of any affairs of life, but spread out their hands in their holy places, and pray till the evening. 1.211. This accident taught all other men but the Jews to disregard such dreams as these were, and not to follow the like idle suggestions delivered as a law, when, in such uncertainty of human reasonings, they are at a loss what they should do.” 1.213. 23. Now, that some writers have omitted to mention our nation, not because they knew nothing of us, but because they envied us, or for some other unjustifiable reasons, I think I can demonstrate by particular instances; for Hieronymus, who wrote the History of [Alexander’s] Successors, lived at the same time with Hecateus, and was a friend of king Antigonus, and president of Syria. 1.214. Now, it is plain that Hecateus wrote an entire book concerning us, while Hieronymus never mentions us in his history, although he was bred up very near to the places where we live. Thus different from one another are the inclinations of men; while the one thought we deserved to be carefully remembered, as some ill-disposed passion blinded the other’s mind so entirely, that he could not discern the truth. 1.215. And now certainly the foregoing records of the Egyptians, and Chaldeans, and Phoenicians, together with so many of the Greek writers, will be sufficient for the demonstration of our antiquity. 1.216. Moreover, besides those forementioned, Theophilus, and Theodotus, and Mnaseas, and Aristophanes, and Hermogenes, Euhemerus also, and Conon, and Zopyrion, and perhaps many others (for I have not lighted upon all the Greek books) have made distinct mention of us. 1.217. It is true, many of the men before mentioned have made great mistakes about the true accounts of our nation in the earliest times, because they had not perused our sacred books; yet have they all of them afforded their testimony to our antiquity, concerning which I am now treating. 1.251. 27. This is what the Egyptians relate about the Jews with much more, which I omit for the sake of brevity. But still Manetho goes on, that “After this, Amenophis returned from Ethiopia with a great army, as did his son Rhampses with another army also, and that both of them joined battle with the shepherds and the polluted people, and beat them and slew a great many of them, and pursued them to the bounds of Syria.” 2.145. 15. But now, since Apollonius Molo, and Lysimachus, and some others, write treatises about our lawgiver Moses, and about our laws, which are neither just nor true, and this partly out of ignorance, but chiefly out of ill will to us, while they calumniate Moses as an impostor and deceiver, and pretend that our laws teach us wickedness, but nothing that is virtuous, I have a mind to discourse briefly, according to my ability, about our whole constitution of government, and about the particular branches of it; 2.146. for I suppose it will thence become evident that the laws we have given us are disposed after the best manner for the advancement of piety, for mutual communion with one another, for a general love of mankind, as also for justice, and for sustaining labors with fortitude, and for a contempt of death; 2.147. and I beg of those that shall peruse this writing of mine, to read it without partiality; for it is not my purpose to write an encomium upon ourselves, but I shall esteem this as a most just apology for us, and taken from those our laws, according to which we lead our lives, against the many and the lying objections that have been made against us. 2.148. Moreover, since this Apollonius does not do like Apion, and lay a continued accusation against us, but does it only by starts, and up and down his discourse, while he sometimes reproaches us as atheists, and man-haters, and sometimes hits us in the teeth with our want of courage, and yet sometimes, on the contrary, accuses us of too great boldness, and madness in our conduct; nay, he says that we are the weakest of all the barbarians, and that this is the reason why we are the only people who have made no improvements in human life; 2.149. now I think I shall have then sufficiently disproved all these his allegations, when it shall appear that our laws enjoin the very reverse of what he says, and that we very carefully observe those laws ourselves; 2.151. 16. To begin then a good way backward, I would advance this, in the first place, that those who have been admirers of good order, and of living under common laws, and who began to introduce them, may well have this testimony that they are better than other men, both for moderation, and such virtue as is agreeable to nature. 2.152. Indeed, their endeavor was to have every thing they ordained believed to be very ancient, that they might not be thought to imitate others, but might appear to have delivered a regular way of living to others after them. 2.153. Since then this is the case, the excellency of a legislator is seen in providing for the people’s living after the best manner, and in prevailing with those that are to use the laws he ordains for them, to have a good opinion of them, and in obliging the multitude to persevere in them, and to make no changes in them, neither in prosperity nor adversity. 2.154. Now I venture to say, that our legislator is the most ancient of all the legislators whom we have any where heard of; for as for the Lycurguses, and Solons, and Zaleucus Locrensis, and all those legislators who are so admired by the Greeks, they seem to be of yesterday, if compared with our legislator, insomuch as the very name of a law was not so much as known in old times among the Grecians. 2.155. Homer is a witness to the truth of this observation, who never uses that term in all his poems; for indeed there was then no such thing among them, but the multitude was governed by wise maxims, and by the injunctions of their king. It was also a long time that they continued in the use of these unwritten customs, although they were always changing them upon several occasions; 2.156. but for our legislator, who was of so much greater antiquity than the rest (as even those that speak against us upon all occasions do always confess), he exhibited himself to the people as their best governor and counsellor, and included in his legislation the entire conduct of their lives, and prevailed with them to receive it, and brought it so to pass, that those that were made acquainted with his laws did most carefully observe them. /p 2.157. 17. But let us consider his first and greatest work: for when it was resolved on by our forefathers to leave Egypt and return to their own country, this Moses took the many ten thousands that were of the people, and saved them out of many desperate distresses, and brought them home in safety. And certainly it was here necessary to travel over a country without water, and full of sand, to overcome their enemies, and, during these battles, to preserve their children and their wives, and their prey; 2.158. on all which occasions he became an excellent general of an army, and a most prudent counsellor, and one that took the truest care of them all: he also so brought it about, that the whole multitude depended upon him; and while he had them always obedient to what he enjoined, he made no manner of use of his authority for his own private advantage, which is the usual time when governors gain great powers to themselves, and pave the way for tyranny, and accustom the multitude to live very dissolutely; 2.159. whereas, when our legislator was in so great authority, he on the contrary, thought he ought to have regard to piety, and to show his great good will to the people; and by this means he thought he might show the great degree of virtue that was in him, and might procure the most lasting security to those who had made him their governor. 2.161. and this is the character of our legislator; he was no impostor, no deceiver, as his revilers say, though unjustly, but such a one as they brag Minos to have been among the Greeks, and other legislators after him; 2.162. for some of them suppose that they had their laws from Jupiter, while Minos said that the revelation of his laws was to be referred to Apollo, and his oracle at Delphi, whether they really thought they were so derived, or supposed, however, that they could persuade the people easily that so it was; 2.163. but which of these it was who made the best laws, and which had the greatest reason to believe that God was their author, it will be easy, upon comparing those laws themselves together, to determine; for it is time that we come to that point. 2.164. Now there are innumerable differences in the particular customs and laws that are among all mankind, which a man may briefly reduce under the following heads:—Some legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies, others put them under oligarchies, and others under a republican form; 2.165. but our legislator had no regard to any of these forms, but he ordained our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy, by ascribing the authority and the power to God 2.166. and by persuading all the people to have a regard to him, as the author of all the good things that were enjoyed either in common by all mankind, or by each one in particular, and of all that they themselves obtained by praying to him in their greatest difficulties. He informed them that it was impossible to escape God’s observation, even in any of our outward actions, or in any of our inward thoughts. 2.167. Moreover, he represented God as unbegotten, and immutable, through all eternity, superior to all mortal conceptions in pulchritude; and, though known to us by his power, yet unknown to us as to his essence. 2.168. I do not now explain how these notions of God are the sentiments of the wisest among the Grecians, and how they were taught them upon the principles that he afforded them. However, they testify, with great assurance, that these notions are just, and agreeable to the nature of God, and to his majesty; for Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras, and Plato, and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and almost all the rest, are of the same sentiments, and had the same notions of the nature of God; 2.169. yet durst not these men disclose those true notions to more than a few, because the body of the people were prejudiced with other opinions beforehand. But our legislator, who made his actions agree to his laws, did not only prevail with those that were his contemporaries to agree with these his notions, but so firmly imprinted this faith in God upon all their posterity, that it never could be removed. 2.171. for all our actions and studies, and all our words [in Moses’s settlement] have a reference to piety towards God; for he hath left none of these in suspense, or undetermined; for there are two ways of coming at any sort of learning and a moral conduct of life; the one is by instruction in words, the other by practical exercises. 2.172. Now, other lawgivers have separated these two ways in their opinions, and choosing one of those ways of instruction, or that which best pleased every one of them, neglected the other. Thus did the Lacedemonians and the Cretans teach by practical exercises, but not by words: while the Athenians, and almost all the other Grecians, made laws about what was to be done, or left undone, but had no regard to the exercising them thereto in practice. /p 2.173. 18. But for our legislator, he very carefully joined these two methods of instruction together; for he neither left these practical exercises to go on without verbal instruction, nor did he permit the hearing of the law to proceed without the exercises for practice; but beginning immediately from the earliest infancy, and the appointment of every one’s diet, he left nothing of the very smallest consequence to be done at the pleasure and disposal of the person himself. 2.174. Accordingly, he made a fixed rule of law what sorts of food they should abstain from, and what sorts they should make use of; as also, what communion they should have with others, what great diligence they should use in their occupations, and what times of rest should be interposed, that, by living under that law as under a father and a master, we might be guilty of no sin, neither voluntary nor out of ignorance; 2.175. for he did not suffer the guilt of ignorance to go on without punishment, but demonstrated the law to be the best and the most necessary instruction of all others, permitting the people to leave off their other employments, and to assemble together for the hearing of the law, and learning it exactly, and this not once or twice, or oftener, but every week; which thing all the other legislators seem to have neglected. /p 2.176. 19. And indeed, the greatest part of mankind are so far from living according to their own laws, that they hardly know them; but when they have sinned they learn from others that they have transgressed the law. 2.177. Those also who are in the highest and principal posts of the government, confess they are not acquainted with those laws, and are obliged to take such persons for their assessors in public administrations as profess to have skill in those laws; 2.178. but for our people, if any body do but ask any one of them about our laws, he will more readily tell them all than he will tell his own name, and this in consequence of our having learned them immediately as soon as ever we became sensible of any thing, and of our having them, as it were engraven on our souls. Our transgressors of them are but few; and it is impossible, when any do offend, to escape punishment. /p 2.179. 20. And this very thing it is that principally creates such a wonderful agreement of minds amongst us all; for this entire agreement of ours in all our notions concerning God, and our having no difference in our course of life and manners, procures among us the most excellent concord of these our manners that is any where among mankind; 2.181. Nor can any one perceive amongst us any difference in the conduct of our lives; but all our works are common to us all. We have one sort of discourse concerning God, which is conformable to our law, and affirms that he sees all things; as also, we have but one way of speaking concerning the conduct of our lives, that all other things ought to have piety for their end; and this any body may hear from our women, and servants themselves. 2.182. 21. And indeed, hence hath arisen that accusation which some make against us, that we have not produced men that have been the inventors of new operations, or of new ways of speaking; for others think it a fine thing to persevere in nothing that has been delivered down from their forefathers, and these testify it to be an instance of the sharpest wisdom when these men venture to transgress those traditions; 2.183. whereas we, on the contrary, suppose it to be our only wisdom and virtue to admit no actions nor supposals that are contrary to our original laws; which procedure of ours is a just and sure sign that our law is admirably constituted; for such laws as are not thus well made, are convicted upon trial to want amendment. /p 2.184. 22. But while we are ourselves persuaded that our law was made agreeably to the will of God, it would be impious for us not to observe the same, for what is there in it that any body would change! and what can be invented that is better! or what can we take out of other people’s laws that will exceed it? Perhaps some would have the entire settlement of our government altered. 2.185. And where shall we find a better or more righteous constitution than ours, while this makes us esteem God to be the governor of the universe, and permits the priests in general to be the administrators of the principal affairs, and withal intrusts the government over the other priests to the chief high priest himself! 2.186. which priests our legislator, at their first appointment, did not advance to that dignity for their riches, or any abundance of other possessions, or any plenty they had as the gifts of fortune; but he intrusted the principal management of divine worship to those that exceeded others in an ability to persuade men, and in prudence of conduct. 2.187. These men had the main care of the law and of the other parts of the people’s conduct committed to them; for they were the priests who were ordained to be the inspectors of all, and the judges in doubtful cases, and the punishers of those that were condemned to suffer punishment. /p 2.188. 23. What form of government then can be more holy than this! what more worthy kind of worship can be paid to God than we pay, where the entire body of the people are prepared for religion, where an extraordinary degree of care is required in the priests, and where the whole polity is so ordered as if it were a certain religious solemnity! 2.189. For what things foreigners, when they solemnize such festivals, are not able to observe for a few days’ time, and call them Mysteries and Sacred Ceremonies, we observe with great pleasure and an unshaken resolution during our whole lives. 2.191. All materials, let them be ever so costly, are unworthy to compose an image for him; and all arts are unartful to express the notion we ought to have of him. We can neither see nor think of any thing like him, nor is it agreeable to piety to form a resemblance of him. 2.192. We see his works, the light, the heaven, the earth, the sun and the moon, the waters, the generations of animals, the productions of fruits. These things hath God made, not with hands, nor with labor, nor as wanting the assistance of any to cooperate with him; but as his will resolved they should be made and be good also, they were made, and became good immediately. All men ought to follow this Being, and to worship him in the exercise of virtue; for this way of worship of God is the most holy of all others. /p 2.193. 24. There ought also to be but one temple for one God; for likeness is the constant foundation of agreement. This temple ought to be common to all men, because he is the common God of all men. His priests are to be continually about his worship, over whom he that is the first by his birth is to be their ruler perpetually. 2.194. His business must be to offer sacrifices to God, together with those priests that are joined with him, to see that the laws be observed, to determine controversies, and to punish those that are convicted of injustice; while he that does not submit to him shall be subject to the same punishment, as if he had been guilty of impiety towards God himself. 2.195. When we offer sacrifices to him we do it not in order to surfeit ourselves, or to be drunken; for such excesses are against the will of God, and would be an occasion of injuries and of luxury: but by keeping ourselves sober, orderly, and ready for our other occupations, and being more temperate than others. 2.196. And for our duty at the sacrifices themselves, we ought in the first place to pray for the common welfare of all, and after that our own; for we are made for fellowship one with another; and he who prefers the common good before what is peculiar to himself, is above all acceptable to God. 2.197. And let our prayers and supplications be made humbly to God, not [so much] that he would give us what is good (for he hath already given that of his own accord, and hath proposed the same publicly to all), as that we may duly receive it, and when we have received it, may preserve it. 2.198. Now the law has appointed several purifications at our sacrifices, whereby we are cleansed after a funeral after what sometimes happens to us in bed, and after accompanying with our wives, and upon many other occasions, which it would be too long now to set down. And this is our doctrine concerning God and his worship, and is the same that the law appoints for our practice. /p 2.199. 25. But then, what are our laws about marriage? That law owns no other mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if any one do that, death is his punishment. 2.201. for (says the scripture) “A woman is inferior to her husband in all things.” Let her, therefore, be obedient to him; not so, that he should abuse her, but that she may acknowledge her duty to her husband; for God hath given the authority to the husband. A husband, therefore, is to lie only with his wife whom he hath married; but to have to do with another man’s wife is a wicked thing; which, if any one ventures upon, death is inevitably his punishment: no more can he avoid the same who forces a virgin betrothed to another man, or entices another man’s wife. 2.202. The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind: if any one, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean. 2.203. Moreover, the law enjoins, that after the man and wife have lain together in a regular way, they shall bathe themselves; for there is a defilement contracted thereby, both in soul and body, as if they had gone into another country; for indeed the soul, by being united to the body, is subject to miseries, and is not freed therefrom again but by death; on which account the law requires this purification to be entirely performed. 26. 2.204. Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess; but it ordains that the very beginning of our education should be immediately directed to sobriety. It also commands us to bring those children up in learning and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and that they might be nourished up in the laws from their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor have any pretense for their ignorance of them. /p 2.205. 27. Our law hath also taken care of the decent burial of the dead, but without any extravagant expenses for their funerals, and without the erection of any illustrious monuments for them; but hath ordered that their nearest relations should perform their obsequies; and hath shown it to be regular, that all who pass by when any one is buried, should accompany the funeral, and join in the lamentation. It also ordains, that the house and its inhabitants should be purified after the funeral is over, that every one may thence learn to keep at a great distance from the thoughts of being pure, if he hath been once guilty of murder. /p 2.206. 28. The law ordains also, that parents should be honored immediately after God himself, and delivers that son who does not requite them for the benefits he hath received from them, but is deficient on any such occasion, to be stoned. It also says, that the young men should pay due respect to every elder, since God is the eldest of all beings. 2.207. It does not give leave to conceal any thing from our friends, because that is not true friendship which will not commit all things to their fidelity: it also forbids the revelation of secrets even though an enmity arise between them. If any judge takes bribes, his punishment is death: he that overlooks one that offers him a petition, and this when he is able to relieve him, he is a guilty person. 2.208. What is not by any one intrusted to another, ought not to be required back again. No one is to touch another’s goods. He that lends money must not demand usury for its loan. These, and many more of the like sort, are the rules that unite us in the bands of society one with another. /p 2.209. 29. It will be also worth our while to see what equity our legislator would have us exercise in our intercourse with strangers; for it will thence appear that he made the best provision he possibly could, both that we should not dissolve our own constitution, nor show any envious mind towards those that would cultivate a friendship with us. 2.211. 30. However, there are other things which our legislator ordained for us beforehand, which of necessity we ought to do in common to all men; as to afford fire, and water, and food to such as want it; to show them the roads; nor to let any one lie unburied. He also would have us treat those that are esteemed our enemies with moderation: 2.212. for he doth not allow us to set their country on fire, nor permit us to cut down those trees that bear fruit: nay, farther, he forbids us to spoil those that have been slain in war. He hath also provided for such as are taken captive, that they may not be injured, and especially that the women may not be abused. 2.213. Indeed he hath taught us gentleness and humanity so effectually, that he hath not despised the care of brute beasts, by permitting no other than a regular use of them, and forbidding any other; and if any of them come to our houses, like supplicants, we are forbidden to slay them: nor may we kill the dams, together with their young ones; but we are obliged, even in an enemy’s country, to spare and not kill those creatures that labor for mankind. 2.214. Thus hath our lawgiver contrived to teach us an equitable conduct every way, by using us to such laws as instruct us therein; while at the same time he hath ordained, that such as break these laws should be punished, without the allowance of any excuse whatsoever. /p 2.215. 31. Now the greatest part of offenses with us are capital, as if any one be guilty of adultery; if any one force a virgin; if any one be so impudent as to attempt sodomy with a male; or if, upon another’s making an attempt upon him, he submits to be so used. There is also a law for slaves of the like nature that can never be avoided. 2.216. Moreover, if any one cheats another in measures or weights, or makes a knavish bargain and sale, in order to cheat another; if any one steals what belongs to another, and takes what he never deposited; all these have punishments allotted them, not such as are met with among other nations, but more severe ones. 2.217. And as for attempts of unjust behavior towards parents, or for impiety against God, though they be not actually accomplished, the offenders are destroyed immediately. However, the reward for such as live exactly according to the laws, is not silver or gold; it is not a garland of olive branches or of small age, nor any such public sign of commendation; 2.218. but every good man hath his own conscience bearing witness to himself, and by virtue of our legislator’s prophetic spirit, and of the firm security God himself affords such a one, he believes that God hath made this grant to those that observe these laws, even though they be obliged readily to die for them, that they shall come into being again, and at a certain revolution of things shall receive a better life than they had enjoyed before. 2.219. Nor would I venture to write thus at this time, were it not well known to all by our actions that many of our people have many a time bravely resolved to endure any sufferings, rather than speak one word against our law. /p 2.221. but that somebody had pretended to have written these laws himself, and had read them to the Greeks, or had pretended that he had met with men out of the limits of the known world, that had such reverent notions of God, and had continued a long time in the firm observance of such laws as ours, I cannot but suppose that all men would admire them on a reflection upon the frequent changes they had therein been themselves subject to; 2.222. and this while those that have attempted to write somewhat of the same kind for politic government, and for laws, are accused as composing monstrous things, and are said to have undertaken an impossible task upon them. And here I will say nothing of those other philosophers who have undertaken any thing of this nature in their writings. 2.223. But even Plato himself, who is so admired by the Greeks on account of that gravity in his manners, and force in his words, and that ability he had to persuade men beyond all other philosophers, is little better than laughed at and exposed to ridicule on that account, by those that pretend to sagacity in political affairs; 2.224. although he that shall diligently peruse his writings, will find his precepts to be somewhat gentle, and pretty near to the customs of the generality of mankind. Nay, Plato himself confesseth that it is not safe to publish the true notion concerning God among the ignorant multitude. 2.225. Yet do some men look upon Plato’s discourses as no better than certain idle words set off with great artifice. However, they admire Lycurgus as the principal lawgiver; and all men celebrate Sparta for having continued in the firm observance of his laws for a very long time. 2.226. So far then we have gained, that it is to be confessed a mark of virtue to submit to laws. But then let such as admire this in the Lacedemonians compare that duration of theirs with more than two thousand years which our political government hath continued; 2.227. and let them farther consider, that though the Lacedemonians did seem to observe their laws exactly while they enjoyed their liberty, yet that when they underwent a change of their fortune, they forgot almost all those laws; 2.228. while we, having been under ten thousand changes in our fortune by the changes that happened among the kings of Asia, have never betrayed our laws under the most pressing distresses we have been in; nor have we neglected them either out of sloth or for a livelihood. Nay, if any one will consider it, the difficulties and labors laid upon us have been greater than what appears to have been borne by the Lacedemonian fortitude 2.229. while they neither ploughed their land nor exercised any trades, but lived in their own city, free from all such painstaking, in the enjoyment of plenty, and using such exercises as might improve their bodies 2.231. I need not add this, that they have not been fully able to observe their laws; for not only a few single persons, but multitudes of them, have in heaps neglected those laws, and have delivered themselves, together with their arms, into the hands of their enemies. /p 2.232. 33. Now as for ourselves, I venture to say, that no one can tell of so many; nay, not of more than one or two that have betrayed our laws, no, not out of fear of death itself; I do not mean such an easy death as happens in battles, but that which comes with bodily torments, and seems to be the severest kind of death of all others. 2.233. Now I think, those that have conquered us have put us to such deaths, not out of their hatred to us when they had subdued us, but rather out of their desire of seeing a surprising sight, which is this, whether there be such men in the world who believe that no evil is to them so great as to be compelled to do or to speak any thing contrary to their own laws. 2.234. Nor ought men to wonder at us, if we are more courageous in dying for our laws than all other men are; for other men do not easily submit to the easier things in which we are instituted; I mean, working with our hands, and eating but little, and being contented to eat and drink, not at random, or at every one’s pleasure, or being under inviolable rules in lying with our wives, in magnificent furniture, and again in the observation of our times of rest; 2.235. while those that can use their swords in war, and can put their enemies to flight when they attack them, cannot bear to submit to such laws about their way of living: whereas our being accustomed willingly to submit to laws in these instances, renders us fit to show our fortitude upon other occasions also. /p 2.236. 34. Yet do the Lysimachi and the Molones, and some other writers (unskilful sophists as they are, and the deceivers of young men) reproach us as the vilest of all mankind. 2.237. Now I have no mind to make an inquiry into the laws of other nations; for the custom of our country is to keep our own laws, but not to bring accusations against the laws of others. And indeed, our legislator hath expressly forbidden us to laugh at and revile those that are esteemed gods by other people, on account of the very name of God ascribed to them. 2.238. But since our antagonists think to run us down upon the comparison of their religion and ours, it is not possible to keep silence here, especially while what I shall say to confute these men will not be now first said, but hath been already said by many, and these of the highest reputation also; 2.239. for who is there among those that have been admired among the Greeks for wisdom, who hath not greatly blamed both the most famous poets and most celebrated legislators, for spreading such notions originally among the body of the people concerning the gods? 2.241. and for those to whom they have allotted heaven, they have set over them one, who in title is their father, but in his actions a tyrant and a lord; whence it came to pass that his wife, and brother, and daughter (which daughter he brought forth from his own head), made a conspiracy against him to seize upon him and confine him, as he had himself seized upon and confined his own father before. /p 2.242. 35. And justly have the wisest men thought these notions deserved severe rebukes; they also laugh at them for determining that we ought to believe some of the gods to be beardless and young, and others of them to be old, and to have beards accordingly; that some are set to trades; that one god is a smith, and another goddess is a weaver; that one god is a warrior, and fights with men; 2.243. that some of them are harpers, or delight in archery; and besides, that mutual seditions arise among them, and that they quarrel about men, and this so far that they not only lay hands upon one another, but that they are wounded by men, and lament, and take on for such their afflictions; 2.244. but what is the grossest of all in point of lasciviousness, are those unbounded lusts ascribed to almost all of them, and their amours; which how can it be other than a most absurd supposal, especially when it reaches to the male gods, and to the female goddesses also? 2.245. Moreover, the chief of all their gods, and their first father himself, overlooks those goddesses whom he hath deluded and begotten with child, and suffers them to be kept in prison, or drowned in the sea. He is also so bound up by fate, that he cannot save his own offspring, nor can he bear their deaths without shedding of tears.— 2.246. These are fine things indeed! as are the rest that follow. Adulteries truly are so impudently looked on in heaven by the gods, that some of them have confessed they envied those that were found in the very act; and why should they not do so, when the eldest of them, who is their king also, hath not been able to restrain himself in the violence of his lust, from lying with his wife, so long as they might get into their bed-chamber? 2.247. Now, some of the gods are servants to men, and will sometimes be builders for a reward, and sometimes will be shepherds; while others of them, like malefactors, are bound in a prison of brass; and what sober person is there who would not be provoked at such stories, and rebuke those that forged them, and condemn the great silliness of those that admit them for true! 2.248. Nay, others there are that have advanced a certain timorousness and fear, as also madness and fraud, and any other of the vilest passions, into the nature and form of gods, and have persuaded whole cities to offer sacrifices to the better sort of them; 2.249. on which account they have been absolutely forced to esteem some gods as the givers of good things, and to call others of them averters of evil. They also endeavor to move them, as they would the vilest of men, by gifts and presents, as looking for nothing else than to receive some great mischief from them, unless they pay them such wages. /p 2.251. but omitted it as a thing of very little consequence, and gave leave both to the poets to introduce what gods they pleased, and those subject to all sorts of passions, and to the orators to procure political decrees from the people for the admission of such foreign gods as they thought proper. 2.252. The painters also, and statuaries of Greece, had herein great power, as each of them could contrive a shape [proper for a god]; the one to be formed out of clay, and the other by making a bare picture of such a one; but those workmen that were principally admired, had the use of ivory and of gold as the constant materials for their new statues; 2.253. [whereby it comes to pass that some temples are quite deserted, while others are in great esteem, and adorned with all the rites of all kinds of purification]. Besides this, the first gods, who have long flourished in the honors done them, are now grown old [while those that flourished after them are come in their room as a second rank, that I may speak the most honorably of them that I can]: 2.254. nay, certain other gods there are who are newly introduced, and newly worshipped [as we, by way of digression have said already, and yet have left their places of worship desolate]; and for their temples, some of them are already left desolate, and others are built anew, according to the pleasure of men; whereas they ought to have preserved their opinion about God, and that worship which is due to him, always and immutably the same. /p 2.255. 37. But now, this Apollonius Molo was one of these foolish and proud men. However, nothing that I have said was unknown to those that were real philosophers among the Greeks, nor were they unacquainted with those frigid pretenses of allegories [which had been alleged for such things]: on which account they justly despised them, but have still agreed with us as to the true and becoming notions of God; 2.256. whence it was that Plato would not have political settlements admit of any one of the other poets, and dismisses even Homer himself, with a garland on his head, and with ointment poured upon him, and this because he should not destroy the right notions of God with his fables. 2.257. Nay, Plato principally imitated our legislator in this point, that he enjoined his citizens to have the main regard to this precept, “That every one of them should learn their laws accurately.” He also ordained, that they should not admit of foreigners intermixing with their own people at random; and provided that the commonwealth should keep itself pure, and consist of such only as persevered in their own laws. 2.258. Apollonius Molo did no way consider this, when he made it one branch of his accusation against us, that we do not admit of such as have different notions about God, nor will we have fellowship with those that choose to observe a way of living different from ourselves; 2.259. yet is not this method peculiar to us, but common to all other men; not among the ordinary Grecians only, but among such of those Grecians as are of the greatest reputation among them. Moreover, the Lacedemonians continued in their way of expelling foreigners, and would not, indeed, give leave to their own people to travel abroad, as suspecting that those two things would introduce a dissolution of their own laws: 2.261. whereas we, though we do not think fit to imitate other institutions, yet do we willingly admit of those that desire to partake of ours, which I think I may reckon to be a plain indication of our humanity, and at the same time of our magimity also. /p 2.262. 38. But I shall say no more of the Lacedemonians. As for the Athenians, who glory in having made their city to be common to all men, what their behavior was, Apollonius did not know, while they punished those that did but speak one word contrary to their laws about the gods, without any mercy; 2.263. for on what other account was it that Socrates was put to death by them? For certainly, he neither betrayed their city to its enemies, nor was he guilty of any sacrilege with regard to any of their temples; but it was on this account, that he swore certain new oaths, and that he affirmed, either in earnest, or, as some say, only in jest, that a certain demon used to make signs to him [what he should not do]. For these reasons he was condemned to drink poison, and kill himself. 2.264. His accuser also complained that he corrupted the young men, by inducing them to despise the political settlement and laws of their city: and thus was Socrates, the citizen of Athens, punished. 2.265. There was also Anaxagoras, who although he was of Clazomenae, was within a few suffrages of being condemned to die, because he said the sun, which the Athenians thought to be a god, was a ball of fire. 2.266. They also made this public proclamation, that they would give a talent to any one who would kill Diagoras of Melos, because it was reported of him that he laughed at their mysteries. Portagoras also, who was thought to have written somewhat that was not owned for truth by the Athenians about the gods, had been seized upon, and put to death, if he had not fled immediately away. 2.267. Nor need we at all wonder that they thus treated such considerable men, when they did not spare even women also; for they very lately slew a certain priestess, because she was accused by somebody that she initiated people into the worship of strange gods, it having been forbidden so to do by one of their laws; and a capital punishment had been decreed to such as introduced a strange god; 2.268. it being manifest, that they who make use of such a law do not believe those of other nations to be really gods, otherwise they had not envied themselves the advantage of more gods than they already had; 2.269. and this was the happy administration of the affairs of the Athenians? Now, as to the Scythians, they take a pleasure in killing men, and differ little from brute beasts; yet do they think it reasonable to have their institutions observed. They also slew Anacharsis a person greatly admired for his wisdom among the Greeks, when he returned to them, because he appeared to come fraught with Grecian customs; One may also find many to have been punished among the Persians, on the very same account. 2.271. Now, with us, it is a capital crime, if any one does thus abuse even a brute beast; and as for us, neither hath the fear of our governors, nor a desire of following what other nations have in so great esteem, been able to withdraw us from our own laws; 2.272. nor have we exerted our courage in raising up wars to increase our wealth, but only for the observation of our laws; and when we with patience bear other losses, yet when any persons would compel us to break our laws, then it is that we choose to go to war, though it be beyond our ability to pursue it, and bear the greatest calamities to the last with much fortitude. 2.273. And, indeed, what reason can there be why we should desire to imitate the laws of other nations, while we see they are not observed by their own legislators? And why do not the Lacedemonians think of abolishing that form of their government which suffers them not to associate with any others, as well as their contempt of matrimony? And why do not the Eleans and Thebans abolish that unnatural and impudent lust, which makes them lie with males? 2.274. For they will not show a sufficient sign of their repentance of what they of old thought to be very excellent, and very advantageous in their practices, unless they entirely avoid all such actions for the time to come: 2.275. nay, such things are inserted into the body of their laws, and had once such a power among the Greeks, that they ascribed these sodomitical practices to the gods themselves, as a part of their good character; and indeed it was according to the same manner that the gods married their own sisters. This the Greeks contrived as an apology for their own absurd and unnatural pleasures. /p 2.276. 39. I omit to speak concerning punishments, and how many ways of escaping them the greatest part of the legislators have afforded malefactors, by ordaining that, for adulteries, fines in money should be allowed, and for corrupting [virgins] they need only marry them; as also what excuses they may have in denying the facts, if any one attempts to inquire into them; for amongst most other nations it is a studied art how men may transgress their laws; 2.277. but no such thing is permitted amongst us; for though we be deprived of our wealth, of our cities, or of the other advantages we have, our law continues immortal; nor can any Jew go so far from his own country, nor be so affrighted at the severest lord, as not to be more affrighted at the law than at him. 2.278. If, therefore, this be the disposition we are under, with regard to the excellency of our laws, let our enemies make us this concession, that our laws are most excellent; and if still they imagine that though we so firmly adhere to them, yet are they bad laws notwithstanding, what penalties then do they deserve to undergo who do not observe their own laws, which they esteem so far superior to them? 2.279. Whereas, therefore, length of time is esteemed to be the truest touchstone in all cases. I would make that a testimonial of the excellency of our laws, and of that belief thereby delivered to us concerning God; for as there hath been a very long time for this comparison, if any one will but compare its duration with the duration of the laws made by other legislators, he will find our legislator to have been the ancientest of them all. /p 2.281. nay, the earliest Grecian philosophers, though in appearance they observed the laws of their own countries, yet did they, in their actions and their philosophic doctrines, follow our legislator, and instructed men to live sparingly, and to have friendly communication one with another. 2.282. Nay, farther, the multitude of mankind itself have had a great inclination of a long time to follow our religious observances; for there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts and lighting up lamps, and many of our prohibitions as to our food, are not observed; 2.283. they also endeavor to imitate our mutual concord with one another, and the charitable distribution of our goods, and our diligence in our trades, and our fortitude in undergoing the distresses we are in, on account of our laws; 2.284. and, what is here matter of the greatest admiration, our law hath no bait of pleasure to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force; and as God himself pervades all the world, so hath our law passed through all the world also. So that if any one will but reflect on his own country, and his own family, he will have reason to give credit to what I say. 2.285. It is therefore but just, either to condemn all mankind of indulging a wicked disposition, when they have been so desirous of imitating laws that are to them foreign and evil in themselves, rather than following laws of their own that are of a better character, or else our accusers must leave off their spite against us; 2.286. nor are we guilty of any envious behavior towards them, when we honor our own legislator, and believe what he, by his prophetic authority, hath taught us concerning God; for though we should not be able ourselves to understand the excellency of our own laws, yet would the great multitude of those that desire to imitate them, justify us, in greatly valuing ourselves upon them. /p |
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17. Josephus Flavius, Life, 134, 2-4, 418, 5-6, 1 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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18. Mishnah, Avot, 5.21 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 5.21. He used to say: At five years of age the study of Scripture; At ten the study of Mishnah; At thirteen subject to the commandments; At fifteen the study of Talmud; At eighteen the bridal canopy; At twenty for pursuit [of livelihood]; At thirty the peak of strength; At forty wisdom; At fifty able to give counsel; At sixty old age; At seventy fullness of years; At eighty the age of “strength”; At ninety a bent body; At one hundred, as good as dead and gone completely out of the world." |
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19. Mishnah, Eduyot, 5.3 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 5.3. Rabbi Yishmael says: there are three instances of lenient rulings by Beth Shammai and strict rulings by Beth Hillel.The book of Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands, according to the opinion of Beth Shammai; But Beth Hillel say: it defiles the hands. Water of purification which has done its duty: Beth Shammai pronounces it pure, But Beth Hillel pronounces it impure. Black cumin: Beth Shammai pronounces it not liable to become impure, But Beth Hillel pronounces it liable to become impure. So, too, with regard to tithes." |
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20. Mishnah, Peah, 2.6 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 2.6. It happened that Rabbi Shimon of Mitzpah planted his field [with two different kinds] and came before Rabban Gamaliel. They both went up to the Chamber of Hewn Stone and asked [about the law]. Nahum the scribe said: I have a tradition from Rabbi Meyasha, who received it from Abba, who received it from the pairs [of sage], who received it from the prophets, a halakhah of Moses from Sinai, that one who plants his field with two species of wheat, if he makes up of it one threshing-floor, he gives only one peah, but if two threshing-floors, he gives two peahs." |
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21. Mishnah, Sanhedrin, 1.5, 10.1 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 1.5. A tribe, a false prophet, or the high priest may not be tried save by the court of seventy-one; They may not send forth the people to wage a battle of free choice save by the decision of the court of one and seventy; They may not add to the City [of Jerusalem], or the Courts of the Temple save by the decision of the court of seventy-one; They may not set up sanhedrins for the several tribes save by the decision of the court of one and seventy. And they may not proclaim [any city to be] an Apostate City (ir ha-niddahat) (Deut. 13:13–19] save by the decision of one and seventy. No city on the frontier may be proclaimed an Apostate City, nor three together, but only one or two." 10.1. All Israel have a portion in the world to come, for it says, “Your people, all of them righteous, shall possess the land for ever; They are the shoot that I planted, my handiwork in which I glory” (Isaiah 60:2. And these are the ones who have no portion in the world to come: He who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine, that the torah was not divinely revealed, and an epikoros. Rabbi Akiva says: “Even one who reads non-canonical books and one who whispers [a charm] over a wound and says, “I will not bring upon you any of the diseases whichbrought upon the Egyptians: for I the lord am you healer” (Exodus 15:26). Abba Shaul says: “Also one who pronounces the divine name as it is spelled.”" |
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22. Mishnah, Yadayim, 3.5, 4.6-4.8 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 3.5. A scroll on which the writing has become erased and eighty-five letters remain, as many as are in the section beginning, \"And it came to pass when the ark set forward\" (Numbers 11:35-36) defiles the hands. A single sheet on which there are written eighty-five letters, as many as are in the section beginning, \"And it came to pass when the ark set forward\", defiles the hands. All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands. The Song of Songs and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) defile the hands. Rabbi Judah says: the Song of Songs defiles the hands, but there is a dispute about Kohelet. Rabbi Yose says: Kohelet does not defile the hands, but there is a dispute about the Song of Songs. Rabbi Shimon says: [the ruling about] Kohelet is one of the leniencies of Bet Shammai and one of the stringencies of Bet Hillel. Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai said: I have received a tradition from the seventy-two elders on the day when they appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah head of the academy that the Song of Songs and Kohelet defile the hands. Rabbi Akiba said: Far be it! No man in Israel disputed that the Song of Songs [saying] that it does not defile the hands. For the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies. If they had a dispute, they had a dispute only about Kohelet. Rabbi Yoha ben Joshua the son of the father-in-law of Rabbi Akiva said in accordance with the words of Ben Azzai: so they disputed and so they reached a decision." 4.6. The Sadducees say: we complain against you, Pharisees, because you say that the Holy Scriptures defile the hands, but the books of Homer do not defile the hands. Rabban Yoha ben Zakkai said: Have we nothing against the Pharisees but this? Behold they say that the bones of a donkey are clean, yet the bones of Yoha the high priest are unclean. They said to him: according to the affection for them, so is their impurity, so that nobody should make spoons out of the bones of his father or mother. He said to them: so also are the Holy Scriptures according to the affection for them, so is their uncleanness. The books of Homer which are not precious do not defile the hands." 4.7. The Sadducees say: we complain against you, Pharisees, that you declare an uninterrupted flow of a liquid to be clean. The Pharisees say: we complain against you, Sadducees, that you declare a stream of water which flows from a burial-ground to be clean? The Sadducees say: we complain against you, Pharisees, that you say, my ox or donkey which has done injury is liable, yet my male or female slave who has done injury is not liable. Now if in the case of my ox or my donkey for which I am not responsible if they do not fulfill religious duties, yet I am responsible for their damages, in the case of my male or female slave for whom I am responsible to see that they fulfill mitzvot, how much more so that I should be responsible for their damages? They said to them: No, if you argue about my ox or my donkey which have no understanding, can you deduce from there anything concerning a male or female slave who do have understanding? So that if I were to anger either of them and they would go and burn another person's stack, should I be liable to make restitution?" 4.8. A Galilean min said: I complain against you Pharisees, that you write the name of the ruler and the name of Moses together on a divorce document. The Pharisees said: we complain against you, Galilean min, that you write the name of the ruler together with the divine name on a single page [of Torah]? And furthermore that you write the name of the ruler above and the divine name below? As it is said, \"And Pharoah said, Who is the Lord that I should hearken to his voice to let Israel go?\" (Exodus 5:2) But when he was smitten what did he say? \"The Lord is righteous\" (Exodus 9:27)." |
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23. New Testament, Acts, 13.15 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 13.15. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, "Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, speak. |
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24. Plutarch, On Isis And Osiris, 351d, 351e, 351c (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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25. Suetonius, Vespasianus, 4.5 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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26. Tacitus, Histories, 5.13 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 5.13. Prodigies had indeed occurred, but to avert them either by victims or by vows is held unlawful by a people which, though prone to superstition, is opposed to all propitiatory rites. Contending hosts were seen meeting in the skies, arms flashed, and suddenly the temple was illumined with fire from the clouds. of a sudden the doors of the shrine opened and a superhuman voice cried: "The gods are departing": at the same moment the mighty stir of their going was heard. Few interpreted these omens as fearful; the majority firmly believed that their ancient priestly writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judea should possess the world. This mysterious prophecy had in reality pointed to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, as is the way of human ambition, interpreted these great destinies in their own favour, and could not be turned to the truth even by adversity. We have heard that the total number of the besieged of every age and both sexes was six hundred thousand; there were arms for all who could use them, and the number ready to fight was larger than could have been anticipated from the total population. Both men and women showed the same determination; and if they were to be forced to change their home, they feared life more than death. Such was the city and people against which Titus Caesar now proceeded; since the nature of the ground did not allow him to assault or employ any sudden operations, he decided to use earthworks and mantlets; the legions were assigned to their several tasks, and there was a respite of fighting until they made ready every device for storming a town that the ancients had ever employed or modern ingenuity invented. |
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27. Tosefta, Sotah, 13.2-13.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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28. Tosefta, Yadayim, 2.14 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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29. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.1.4 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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30. Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 1.5.28 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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31. Palestinian Talmud, Yevamot, 8.1 (2nd cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
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32. Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah, 13a (3rd cent. CE - 6th cent. CE)
| 13a. בבתי גואי הא בבתי בראי ואמר רב אחא בר יעקב עוד רקיע אחד יש למעלה מראשי החיות דכתיב (יחזקאל א, כב) ודמות על ראשי החיה רקיע כעין הקרח הנורא,עד כאן יש לך רשות לדבר מכאן ואילך אין לך רשות לדבר שכן כתוב בספר בן סירא במופלא ממך אל תדרוש ובמכוסה ממך אל תחקור במה שהורשית התבונן אין לך עסק בנסתרות תניא אמר רבן יוחנן בן זכאי מה תשובה השיבתו בת קול לאותו רשע בשעה שאמר (ישעיהו יד, יד) אעלה על במתי עב אדמה לעליון יצתה בת קול ואמרה לו רשע בן רשע בן בנו של נמרוד הרשע שהמריד כל העולם כולו עליו במלכותו,כמה שנותיו של אדם שבעים שנה שנאמר (תהלים צ, י) ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגבורות שמונים שנה והלא מן הארץ עד לרקיע מהלך חמש מאות שנה ועוביו של רקיע מהלך חמש מאות שנה וכן בין כל רקיע ורקיע,למעלה מהן חיות הקדש רגלי החיות כנגד כולם קרסולי החיות כנגד כולן שוקי החיות כנגד כולן רכובי החיות כנגד כולן ירכי החיות כנגד כולן גופי החיות כנגד כולן צוארי החיות כנגד כולן ראשי החיות כנגד כולן קרני החיות כנגד כולן למעלה מהן כסא כבוד רגלי כסא הכבוד כנגד כולן כסא הכבוד כנגד כולן מלך אל חי וקים רם ונשא שוכן עליהם ואתה אמרת אעלה על במתי עב אדמה לעליון אך אל שאול תורד אל ירכתי בור:,ולא במרכבה ביחיד: תני רבי חייא אבל מוסרין לו ראשי פרקים אמר רבי זירא אין מוסרין ראשי פרקים אלא לאב ב"ד ולכל מי שלבו דואג בקרבו איכא דאמרי והוא שלבו דואג בקרבו,אמר רבי אמי אין מוסרין סתרי תורה אלא למי שיש בו חמשה דברים (ישעיהו ג, ג) שר חמשים ונשוא פנים ויועץ וחכם חרשים ונבון לחש ואמר רבי אמי אין מוסרין דברי תורה לעובד כוכבים שנאמר (תהלים קמז, כ) לא עשה כן לכל גוי ומשפטים בל ידעום,א"ל רבי יוחנן לרבי אלעזר תא אגמרך במעשה המרכבה א"ל לא קשאי כי קש נח נפשיה דרבי יוחנן א"ל ר' אסי תא ואגמרך במעשה מרכבה א"ל אי זכאי גמירתא מר' יוחנן רבך,רב יוסף הוה גמיר מעשה המרכבה סבי דפומבדיתא הוו תנו במעשה בראשית אמרו ליה ליגמור לן מר מעשה מרכבה אמר להו אגמרון לי מעשה בראשית בתר דאגמרון אמרו ליה ליגמרון מר במעשה מרכבה אמר להו תנינא בהו (שיר השירים ד, יא) דבש וחלב תחת לשונך דברים המתוקין מדבש וחלב יהו תחת לשונך,ר' אבהו אמר מהכא (משלי כז, כו) כבשים ללבושך דברים שהן כבשונו של עולם יהיו תחת לבושך אמרו ליה תנינן בהו עד (יחזקאל ב, א) ויאמר אלי בן אדם אמר להו הן הן מעשה המרכבה,מיתיבי עד היכן מעשה המרכבה רבי אומר עד (יחזקאל א, כז) וארא בתרא ר' יצחק אומר עד החשמל עד וארא מגמרינן מכאן ואילך מסרינן ראשי פרקים איכא דאמרי עד וארא מסרינן ראשי פרקים מכאן ואילך אם הוא חכם מבין מדעתו אין אי לא לא,ומי דרשינן בחשמל והא ההוא ינוקא דדרש בחשמל ונפקא נורא ואכלתיה שאני ינוקא דלאו מטי זימניה,אמר רב יהודה ברם זכור אותו האיש לטוב וחנניה בן חזקיה שמו אלמלא הוא נגנז ספר יחזקאל שהיו דבריו סותרין דברי תורה מה עשה העלו לו ג' מאות גרבי שמן וישב בעלייה ודרשו,ת"ר מעשה בתינוק אחד שהיה קורא בבית רבו בספר יחזקאל והיה מבין בחשמל ויצאה אש מחשמל ושרפתו וביקשו לגנוז ספר יחזקאל אמר להם חנניה בן חזקיה אם זה חכם הכל חכמים הן,מאי חשמל אמר רב יהודה | 13a. btothe binner houses,where there is only light; bthatsource, according to which He is surrounded by darkness, is referring btothe bouter houses. And Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: There is one more firmamentabove these, which is babove the heads of the divine creatures, as it is written: “And over the heads of the divine creatures there was the likeness of a firmament, like the color of the terrible ice”(Ezekiel 1:22).,The Gemara comments: bUntil here, you have permission to speak; from thispoint bforward you do not have permission to speak, as it is written in the book of Ben Sira: Seek not things concealed from you, nor search those hidden from you. Reflect on that which is permitted to you; you have no business with secret matters. It is taughtin a ibaraita /i: bRabban Yoḥa ben Zakkai said: What response did the Divine Voice provide to that wicked man,Nebuchadnezzar, bwhen he said: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High”(Isaiah 14:14), thereby intending to rise to heaven? bA Divine Voice came and said to him: Wicked man, son of a wicked man, descendant,i.e., follower of the ways, bof Nimrod the wicked, who caused the entire world to rebel against Him duringthe time of bhis reign. /b, bHow many are the years of man? Seventy years, as it is stated: “The span of our life is seventy years, or if we are strong, eighty years”(Psalms 90:10). bNow isthere bnot from the earth to the firmament a walkingdistance bof five hundred years, and the thickness of the firmamentitself is ba walkingdistance bof five hundred years, and a similardistance exists bbetween each and every one of the firmaments? /b,And babove them,above all the firmaments, bare the divine creatures. The feet of the divine creatures correspondin distance bto allthe firmaments; bthe ankles of the animals correspond to all of them, the shins of the animals correspond to all of them, the knees of the animals correspond to all of them, the thighs of the animals correspond to all of them, the bodies of the animals correspond to all of them, the necks of the animals correspond to all of them, the heads of the animals correspond to all of them,and bthe horns of the animals correspond to all of them. Above themis the bThrone of Glory: The feet of the Throne of Glory correspond to all of them, the Throne of Glory corresponds to all of them,and the bliving, almighty, lofty, exalted King dwells above them. And you,Nebuchadnezzar, bsay: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High”(Isaiah 14:15), but the next verse states: b“Yet you shall be brought down to the netherworld, to the uttermost parts of the pit”(Isaiah 14:15).,§ It is taught in the mishna, according to the Gemara’s explanation: bNormay one expound btheDesign of the Divine bChariot to an individual. Rabbi Ḥiyya taught: But one may transmit to him,an individual, bthe outlinesof this topic, leaving him to comprehend the rest on his own. bRabbi Zeira said: One may transmit the outlinesof the Design of the Divine Chariot bonly to the president of the court,who needs to know them due to his wisdom and meritorious deeds, band to anyone whose heart inside him is concerned,i.e., one who is concerned about his sins and desires to achieve full repentance. bThere arethose bwho saythat this does not refer to two separate individuals, but to the president of the court, bwhose heart inside him is concerned. /b, bRabbi Ami said: The secrets of the Torah may be transmitted only to one who possessesthe following bfive characteristics: “The captain of fifty, and the man of favor, and the counselor, and the cunning charmer, and the skillful enchanter”(Isaiah 3:3). bAnd Rabbi Ami saidfurther: bThe words of Torah may not be transmitted to a gentile, as it is stated: “He has not dealt so with any nation, and as for His ordices, they have not known them”(Psalms 147:20).,§ The Gemara relates: bRabbi Yoḥa said to Rabbi Elazar: Come and I will teach you the Design of theDivine bChariot.Rabbi Elazar bsaid to him:I have bnotyet bagedsufficiently, as one must be very settled in one’s mind for these studies. bWhen he grew old, Rabbi Yoḥa hadalready bpassed away. Rabbi Asi said to him: Come and I will teach you the Design of theDivine bChariot. He said to him: Had I merited, I would have learnedit bfrom Rabbi Yoḥa, your teacher.It therefore appears that I am unworthy of studying it.,The Gemara relates: bRav Yosef would study the Design of theDivine bChariotand was familiar with the subject, whereas bthe Elders of Pumbedita would study the act of Creation. They said toRav Yosef: bLet the Master teach us the Design of theDivine bChariot. He said to them:You bteach me the act of Creation. After they taught himthat subject, bthey said to him: Let the Master teach us the Design of theDivine bChariot. He said to them: We learned with regard to themthe secrets of the Torah: b“Honey and milk are under your tongue”(Song of Songs 4:11), meaning that bmatters that are sweeter than honey and milk should remain under your tongue.In other words, one should not speak of such matters, and anyone who is familiar with them may not reveal them to others., bRabbi Abbahu said:It is derived from bhere,from the following verse: b“The lambs[ikevasim/b] bwill be for your clothing”(Proverbs 27:26), which he expounds as though it were written with the letter ishin /i, ikevashim /i, meaning concealed matters: bThings that constitute the concealed matters of the world should be under your clothing;you should not reveal them. When the Elders of Pumbedita saw that Rav Yosef was not going to teach them, bthey said to him: We have learned them,the verses concerning the Design of the Divine Chariot written in the book of Ezekiel, bup tothe verse b“And He said to me, son of man”(Ezekiel 2:1). bHe said to them:If so, btheseverses barethe very essence of the bDesign of theDivine bChariot,as they provide the main details of the topic.,The Gemara braises an objectionto this from a ibaraita /i: bUntil where is the Design of theDivine bChariotrelated? bRabbiYehuda HaNasi bsays: Until the latter “And I saw”(Ezekiel 1:27), not including the last verse. bRabbi Yitzḥak says: Untilthe word b“the electrum”(Ezekiel 1:27). Neither of these opinions accord with Rav Yosef’s opinion that the Design of the Divine Chariot continues until the end of the chapter. The Gemara answers: bUntil “And I saw,” we teachthose worthy of it; bfrom thispoint bforward,we btransmitonly the boutlines. There arethose bwho say: Until “And I saw,” we transmit the outlines; from thispoint bforward, if he is wiseand bcan understand of his own accord, yes,we teach him. bIf not,we do bnotteach him even the outlines.,The Gemara poses a question: bAnd may one teach about the electrumof the Design of the Divine Chariot at all? bBut wasn’t there a certain youthwho bexpounded the electrum, and fire came out and consumed him,showing that such study is highly dangerous? The Gemara answers: That byouth was different, for his timeto study such matters bhad notyet barrived.Therefore, he was punished., bRav Yehuda said: Indeed, that man is remembered for good, and Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya was his name,because bwere it not for him, the book of Ezekiel would have been suppressed.Why did they wish to suppress it? Because they found bthat its words contradicted the words of Torah,as its later chapters contain many ihalakhotthat appear not to accord with those of the Torah. bWhat did he do? They brought up to him three hundred barrels of oil,for light and sustece, band he sat in an upper chamber and expounded it,to reconcile its teachings with those of the Torah., bThe Sages taught: An incidentoccurred binvolving a youth who was reading the book of Ezekiel in the house of his teacher, andhe bwasable to bcomprehend the electrum, and fire came out of the electrum and burned him. And they sought to suppress the book of Ezekieldue to the danger it posed. bḤaya ben Ḥizkiya said to them: If thisyouth happened to be bwise,are ballpeople bwiseenough to understand this book?,The Gemara asks: bWhat isthe belectrum? Rav Yehuda said: /b |
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33. Babylonian Talmud, Megillah, 7a (3rd cent. CE - 6th cent. CE)
| 7a. השנית ואיצטריך למיכתב בכל שנה ושנה דאי מבכל שנה ושנה הוה אמינא כי קושין קא משמע לן השנית ואי אשמועינן השנית הוה אמינא בתחילה בראשון ובשני קמ"ל בכל שנה ושנה,ורבי אליעזר בר' יוסי האי השנית מאי עביד ליה מיבעי ליה לכדרב שמואל בר יהודה דאמר רב שמואל בר יהודה בתחילה קבעוה בשושן ולבסוף בכל העולם כולו,אמר רב שמואל בר יהודה שלחה להם אסתר לחכמים קבעוני לדורות שלחו לה קנאה את מעוררת עלינו לבין האומות שלחה להם כבר כתובה אני על דברי הימים למלכי מדי ופרס,רב ורב חנינא ורבי יוחנן ורב חביבא מתנו בכוליה סדר מועד כל כי האי זוגא חלופי רבי יוחנן ומעייל רבי יונתן שלחה להם אסתר לחכמים כתבוני לדורות שלחו לה (משלי כב, כ) הלא כתבתי לך שלישים שלישים ולא רבעים,עד שמצאו לו מקרא כתוב בתורה (שמות יז, יד) כתב זאת זכרון בספר כתב זאת מה שכתוב כאן ובמשנה תורה זכרון מה שכתוב בנביאים בספר מה שכתוב במגלה,כתנאי כתב זאת מה שכתוב כאן זכרון מה שכתוב במשנה תורה בספר מה שכתוב בנביאים דברי רבי יהושע ר' אלעזר המודעי אומר כתב זאת מה שכתוב כאן ובמשנה תורה זכרון מה שכתוב בנביאים בספר מה שכתוב במגילה,אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל אסתר אינה מטמאה את הידים,למימרא דסבר שמואל אסתר לאו ברוח הקודש נאמרה והאמר שמואל אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה נאמרה לקרות ולא נאמרה ליכתוב,מיתיבי רבי מאיר אומר קהלת אינו מטמא את הידים ומחלוקת בשיר השירים ר' יוסי אומר שיר השירים מטמא את הידים ומחלוקת בקהלת ר' שמעון אומר קהלת מקולי ב"ש ומחומרי ב"ה אבל רות ושיר השירים ואסתר מטמאין את הידים הוא דאמר כר' יהושע,תניא ר' שמעון בן מנסיא אומר קהלת אינו מטמא את הידים מפני שחכמתו של שלמה היא אמרו לו וכי זו בלבד אמר והלא כבר נאמר (מלכים א ה, יב) וידבר שלשת אלפים משל ואומר (משלי ל, ו) אל תוסף על דבריו,מאי ואומר וכי תימא מימר טובא אמר דאי בעי איכתיב ודאי בעי לא איכתיב תא שמע אל תוסף על דבריו,תניא ר' אליעזר אומר אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה שנאמר (אסתר ו, ו) ויאמר המן בלבו ר' עקיבא אומר אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה שנאמר (אסתר ב, טו) ותהי אסתר נשאת חן בעיני כל רואיה,ר"מ אומר אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה שנאמר (אסתר ב, כב) ויודע הדבר למרדכי רבי יוסי בן דורמסקית אומר אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה שנאמר (אסתר ט, י) ובבזה לא שלחו את ידם,אמר שמואל אי הואי התם הוה אמינא מלתא דעדיפא מכולהו שנאמר קימו וקבלו קימו למעלה מה שקיבלו למטה,אמר רבא לכולהו אית להו פירכא לבר מדשמואל דלית ליה פירכא דרבי אליעזר סברא הוא דלא הוה איניש דחשיב למלכא כוותיה והאי כי קא מפיש טובא ואמר אדעתיה דנפשיה קאמר,דר"ע דלמא כר' אלעזר דאמר מלמד שכל אחד ואחד נדמתה לו כאומתו,והא דרבי מאיר דלמא כרבי חייא בר אבא דאמר בגתן ותרש שני טרשיים היו,והא דרבי יוסי בן דורמסקית דלמא פריסתקי שדור דשמואל ודאי לית ליה פירכא אמר רבינא היינו דאמרי אינשי טבא חדא פלפלתא חריפתא ממלי צני קרי,רב יוסף אמר מהכא (אסתר ט, כח) וימי הפורים האלה לא יעברו מתוך היהודים רב נחמן בר יצחק אומר מהכא וזכרם לא יסוף מזרעם:,ומתנות לאביונים: תני רב יוסף ומשלוח מנות איש לרעהו שתי מנות לאיש אחד ומתנות לאביונים שתי מתנות לשני בני אדם,רבי יהודה נשיאה שדר ליה לרבי אושעיא אטמא דעיגלא תלתא וגרבא דחמרא שלח ליה | 7a. the term: bThe second, and it wasalso bnecessary to writethe phrase: bIn each and every year;proof from one of the verses would have been insufficient. bAs, ifI had derived the ihalakhaonly bfromthe phrase: bIn each and every year, I would have saidmy conclusion baccording to our questionraised earlier: Why not celebrate Purim in the Adar adjacent to Shevat? bTherefore, it teaches ususing the term: bThe second. And had it taught usonly the term: bThe second, I would have saidthat Purim must be celebrated both bin the firstAdar band in the secondAdar, iab initio /i. Therefore, it teaches us: In each and every year,indicating that even in an intercalated year, just as in an ordinary year, Purim is to be celebrated only once.,The Gemara asks: bAnd Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Yosei, what does he do with thisterm: bThe second?Since he holds that the Megilla is read in the first Adar, what does he derive from the verse? The Gemara answers: bHe requiresthe term btoderive bthatstatement bof Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda, as Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda said: Initially, they establishedthe observance of Purim binthe city of bShushanalone, band ultimatelythey established it bthroughout the world,according to the second letter of Purim.,Apropos the statement of Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda with regard to the establishment of the holiday of Purim, the Gemara cites a related statement. bRav Shmuel bar Yehuda said: Esther sent to the Sages: Establish me forfuture bgenerations.Esther requested that the observance of Purim and the reading of the Megilla be instituted as an ordice for all generations. bThey sent to her: You willthereby barouse the wrath of the nations upon us,as the Megilla recounts the victory of the Jews over the gentiles, and it is best not to publicize that victory. bShe sentback bto them: I am already written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia,and so the Megilla will not publicize anything that is not already known worldwide.,It was related that bRav and Rabbi Ḥanina and Rabbi Yoḥa and Rav Ḥaviva taughtthe statement cited below. The Gemara comments: bThroughout the order of iMoed /i, wherever thislatter bpairof Sages is mentioned, bexchange Rabbi Yoḥa and insert Rabbi Yonatanin his place. They said: bEsther sent to the Sages: Write me forfuture bgenerationsand canonize my book as part of the Bible. bThey sent to herthat it is written: b“Have I not written for you three times”(Proverbs 22:20), indicating that Israel’s battle with Amalek is to be mentioned bthree timesin the Bible band not four times?Since it is already mentioned three times (Exodus 17:8–16; Deuteronomy 25:17–19; I Samuel 15), there is no need to add a fourth source.,The Sages did not accede to Esther’s request buntil they found a verse written in the Torah: “Write this for a memorial in the book,and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: That I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens” (Exodus 17:14). The Sages interpreted the verse: b“Write this,” that which is writtenin the Torah bherein Exodus, band in Deuteronomy; “a memorial,” that which is written in the Prophets,i.e., in I Samuel, on this matter; b“in the book,” that which is written in the Megilla.The Megilla is the third mention of Amalek and not the fourth, as both mentions in the Torah pertaining to Amalek are considered one; therefore, Esther would be the third, not the fourth source.,The Gemara comments: This matter is bparallelto a dispute between bthe itanna’im /i,as it was taught in a ibaraita /i: b“Write this,” that which is written here,in the book of Exodus; b“a memorial,” that which is written in Deuteronomy; “in the book,” that which is written in the Prophets;this is bthe statement of Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Elazar HaModa’idisagrees and bsays: “Write this,” that which is writtenin the Torah bherein Exodus, band in Deuteronomy; “a memorial,” that which is written in the Prophetson this matter; b“in the book,” that which is written in the Megilla.Here too, the itanna’imdisagreed whether or not the book of Esther has the same force and sanctity as that of the canonized books of the Bible., bRav Yehuda saidthat bShmuel said:The book of bEsther does not render the hands ritually impure.Although the Sages issued a decree that sacred scrolls render hands ritually impure, the book of Esther was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls.,The Gemara asks: bIs this to say that Shmuel maintainsthat the book of bEsther was not stated withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit? But didn’t Shmuelhimself bsayelsewhere that the book of bEsther was stated withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit?The Gemara answers: bIt was statedwith the Divine Spirit that it is bto be readin public; bhowever, it was not statedthat it is bto be written.Therefore, the text was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls., bThe Gemara raises an objectionfrom a ibaraita /i. bRabbi Meir says:The book of bEcclesiastes does not render the hands ritually impure,as it was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls; bhowever, there is a dispute with regard towhether or not bthe Song of Songsrenders the hands impure. bRabbi Yosei says: The Song of Songs renders the hands ritually impure, but there is a dispute with regard tothe book of bEcclesiastes. Rabbi Shimon says:The ruling with regard to bEcclesiastes is among the leniencies of Beit Shammai and among the stringencies of Beit Hillel,as according to Beit Hillel it renders the hands impure and according to Beit Shammai it does not. bHowever,everyone agrees that the books of bRuth, and the Song of Songs, and Esther render the hands ritually impure,contrary to the opinion of Shmuel. The Gemara answers: It was Shmuel bwho statedhis opinion bin accordance withthe opinion of bRabbi Yehoshuacited earlier that the book of Esther was not accorded the sanctity of sacred scrolls., bIt is taughtin a ibaraita /i: bRabbi Shimon ben Menasya says:The book of bEcclesiastes does not render the hands ritually impure because it is the wisdom of Solomon,and not divinely inspired. bThey said to him:It was certainly divinely inspired and that is the reason that the book of Ecclesiastes was added to the canon; bas was it this alone thatSolomon bsaid? Wasn’t it already stated: “And he spoke three thousand proverbs,and his poems were a thousand and five” (I Kings 5:12)? Solomon spoke many proverbs, but only a portion of them were canonized in the Bible. Apparently, what is unique about those in Ecclesiastes is that they were divinely inspired. bAnd it says: “Add you not unto his words”(Proverbs 30:6).,The Gemara asks: bWhatis added by the proof introduced with the phrase: bAnd it says?Why wasn’t the first proof sufficient? The Gemara answers: bAnd if you would saythat in terms of what bhe said, he said a great deal,with regard to bwhich, if heso bdesired, it was written, and if heso bdesired, it was not written;then that is why not all of his statements were preserved. Therefore, bcomeand bhear: Add you not unto his words.Apparently, the reason that it is prohibited to add to the proverbs is that the book of Ecclesiastes was divinely inspired., bIt is taughtin a ibaraitathat bRabbi Eliezer says:The book of bEsther was said withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit, as it is stated: “And Haman thought in his heart”(Esther 6:6). If the book of Esther was not divinely inspired, how was it known what Haman thought in his heart? bRabbi Akiva says:The book of bEsther was said withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit, as it is stated: “And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked upon her”(Esther 2:15); this could have been known only through divine inspiration., bRabbi Meir says:The book of bEsther was said withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit, as it is statedwith regard to the conspiracy of Bigtan and Teresh against Ahasuerus: b“And the thing became known to Mordecai”(Esther 2:22). This too could have been known only through divine inspiration. bRabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit says:The book of bEsther was said withthe inspiration of bthe Divine Spirit, as it is stated: “But they did not lay their hands on the plunder”(Esther 9:15). The only way that could have been stated with certainty is through divine inspiration., bShmuel said: Had I been thereamong the itanna’im /i, bI would have stated a matter that is superior to them all, as it is stated: “They confirmed, and took upon themselves”(Esther 9:27), which was interpreted to mean: bThey confirmed abovein heaven bwhat they took upon themselves belowon earth. Clearly, it is only through divine inspiration that this could have been ascertained., bRava said: There is a refutation for allof these proofs, bexcept forthe proof cited by bShmuel, for which there is no refutation.The Gemara elaborates. That bwhich Rabbi Eliezersaid with regard to knowledge of what Haman was thinking in his heart can be refuted, as bit isbased on blogical reasoningto conclude that this was his thinking. bThere was noother bperson as important to the king as hewas; bandthe fact is bthat when he elaborated extensively and said:“Let the royal apparel be brought” (Esther 6:8), bhe saidit bwith himself in mind. /b,That bwhich Rabbi Akivasaid with regard to the knowledge that Esther found favor in the eyes of all, bperhapsit can be understood and refuted bin accordance withthe opinion of bRabbi Elazar, who said:This bteaches that she appeared to each and every one asone of bhis nation,and they expressed that sentiment aloud., bAnd that which Rabbi Meirsaid, i.e., that the divine inspiration of the book of Esther is clear from the fact that Mordecai exposed the conspiracy against Ahasuerus, bperhapsthis can be explained and refuted bin accordance withthe opinion of bRabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba, who said: Bigtan and Teresh were bothmembers of the bTarsipeople and conversed in their own language. Mordecai, who was a member of the Sanhedrin and therefore fluent in many languages, understood what they were saying., bAnd that which Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskitsaid with regard to the knowledge that no spoils were taken, bperhapsthis can be explained and refuted by the fact that bthey dispatched messengerswho informed them of the situation. However, bwith regard to Shmuel’sproof from the fact that they confirmed above what they took upon themselves below, bthere is certainly no refutation. Ravina said: Thisexplains the folk saying bthat people say: One sharp pepper is better than a basketful of pumpkins,as the quality of the pepper’s taste is more significant than the quantity of the pumpkins., bRav Yosef said:Proof that the book of Esther was divinely inspired may be cited bfrom here: “And these days of Purim shall not cease from among the Jews”(Esther 9:28), an assertion that could have been made only with divine inspiration. bRav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak says:Proof may be cited bfrom here,at the end of that verse: b“Nor the memorial of them perish from their seed”(Esther 9:28).,The mishna mentions: bAnd giftsdistributed bto the poor. Rav Yosef taughta ibaraitathat the verse states: b“And of sending portions one to another”(Esther 9:22), indicating btwo portions to one person.The verse continues: b“And gifts to the poor”(Esther 9:22), indicating btwo gifts to two people. /b,The Gemara relates that, on Purim, bRabbi Yehuda Nesia sent to Rabbi Oshaya the leg of a third- /bborn bcalf and a jug of wine.Rabbi Oshaya bsent hima message of gratitude: |
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34. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat, 30b, 13b (3rd cent. CE - 6th cent. CE)
| 13b. ושימש תלמידי חכמים הרבה מפני מה מת בחצי ימיו ולא היה אדם מחזירה דבר פעם אחת נתארחתי אצלה והיתה מסיחה כל אותו מאורע ואמרתי לה בתי בימי נדותך מה הוא אצלך אמרה לי חס ושלום אפי' באצבע קטנה לא נגע [בי] בימי לבוניך מהו אצלך אכל עמי ושתה עמי וישן עמי בקירוב בשר ולא עלתה דעתו על דבר אחר ואמרתי לה ברוך המקום שהרגו שלא נשא פנים לתורה שהרי אמרה תורה (ויקרא יח, יט) ואל אשה בנדת טומאתה לא תקרב כי אתא רב דימי אמר מטה חדא הואי במערבא אמרי אמר רב יצחק בר יוסף סינר מפסיק בינו לבינה:, big strongמתני׳ /strong /big ואלו מן ההלכות שאמרו בעליית חנניה בן חזקיה בן גרון שעלו לבקרו נמנו ורבו ב"ש על ב"ה וי"ח דברים גזרו בו ביום:, big strongגמ׳ /strong /big א"ל אביי לרב יוסף אלו תנן או ואלו תנן ואלו תנן הני דאמרן או אלו תנן דבעינן למימר קמן תא שמע אין פולין לאור הנר ואין קורין לאור הנר ואלו מן ההלכות שאמרו בעליית חנניה בן חזקיה בן גרון ש"מ ואלו תנן ש"מ:,ת"ר מי כתב מגילת תענית אמרו חנניה בן חזקיה וסיעתו שהיו מחבבין את הצרות,אמר רשב"ג אף אנו מחבבין את הצרות אבל מה נעשה שאם באנו לכתוב אין אנו מספיקין,ד"א אין שוטה נפגע,ד"א אין בשר המת מרגיש באיזמל איני והאמר רב יצחק קשה רימה למת כמחט בבשר החי שנא' (איוב יד, כב) אך בשרו עליו יכאב ונפשו עליו תאבל אימא אין בשר המת שבחי מרגיש באיזמל,אמר רב יהודה אמר רב ברם זכור אותו האיש לטוב וחנניה בן חזקיה שמו שאלמלא הוא נגנז ספר יחזקאל שהיו דבריו סותרין דברי תורה מה עשה העלו לו ג' מאות גרבי שמן וישב בעלייה ודרשן:,ושמנה עשר דבר גזרו: מאי נינהו שמנה עשר דבר דתנן אלו פוסלין את התרומה האוכל אוכל ראשון והאוכל אוכל שני והשותה משקין טמאין והבא ראשו ורובו במים שאובין וטהור שנפלו על ראשו ורובו שלשה לוגין מים שאובין והספר והידים והטבול יום והאוכלים והכלים שנטמאו במשקין,מאן תנא האוכל אוכל ראשון והאוכל אוכל שני מפסל פסלי טמויי | 13b. band served Torah scholars extensively, why did he die at half his days?Where is the length of days promised him in the verse? bNo one would respond to herastonishment bat all.Eliyahu said: bOne time I was a guest in herhouse, band she was relating that entire eventwith regard to the death of her husband. bAnd I said to her: My daughter, during the period of your menstruation, howdid bheact btoward you? She said to me: Heaven forbid, he did not touch me even withhis blittle finger.And I asked her: bIn the days of your whitegarments, after the menstrual flow ended, and you were just counting clean days, bhow did he act toward youthen? She said to me: bHe ate with me, and drank with me, and slept with me with bodily contact and,however, bit did not enter his mind about something else,i.e., conjugal relations. bAnd I said to her: Blessed is the Omnipresent who killed himfor this sin, basyour husband bdid not show respect to the Torah. The Torah said: “And to a woman in the separation of her impurity you should not approach”(Leviticus 18:19), even mere affectionate contact is prohibited. The Gemara relates that bwhen Rav Dimi camefrom Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia, bhe said:That student did not actually sleep with her with bodily contact; rather, bit wasin bone bedthat they slept without contact. bIn the West,in Eretz Yisrael, bthey saythat bRav Yitzḥak bar Yosef said:When they would sleep together in one bed, she wore ba belt [ isinar /i]from the waist down that bwould separate between him and her.Nevertheless, since the matter is prohibited, that student was punished., strongMISHNA: /strong bAnd these are among the ihalakhotthatthe Sages, bwho went up to visit him, said in the upper story of Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya ben Garon.The precise nature of these ihalakhotwill be explained in the Gemara. These ihalakhotare considered one unit because they share a distinctive element. Since many Sages were there, among them most of the generation’s Torah scholars in Eretz Yisrael, they engaged in discussion of various ihalakhotof the Torah. It turned out that when the people expressing opinions bwere counted,the students of bBeit Shammai outnumberedthe students of bBeit Hillel, and they issued decreeswith regard to beighteen matters on that dayin accordance with the opinion of Beit Shammai., strongGEMARA: /strong With regard to the language that introduces our mishna, bAbaye said to Rav Yosef: Did we learnin our mishna: bThese areamong the ihalakhot /i, bor did we learnin our mishna: bAnd these areamong the ihalakhot /i? The difference is significant. bDid we learn: And these,and if so, the reference would be to bthose that we saidearlier, i.e., that those ihalakhotare included in the decrees? bOr did we learn: These,and if so the reference would be to bthose that we seek to mention below? Comeand bheara solution to this dilemma from the fact that these matters were taught together in a ibaraita /i: bOne may not shakegarments to rid them of lice bby the light of the lamp and one may not read by the light of the lamp; and these are among the ihalakhotthatthe Sages bsaid in the attic of Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya ben Garon. Conclude from thisthat bwe learned: And thesein the mishna, and the reference is to the decrees mentioned earlier., bThe Sages taughtin a ibaraitawith regard to iMegillat Ta’anit /i, which is a list of days of redemption that were established as celebrations for generations: bWho wrote iMegillat Ta’anit /i?This scroll was written by bḤaya ben Ḥizkiyaben Garon band his faction, who held dearthe memory of bthe troublesthat befell Israel and their salvation from them., bRabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: We also hold dearthe memory of bthe troublesfrom which Israel was saved, bbut what can we do? If we came to writeall the days of that kind, bwe would not manage todo so, as the troubles that Israel experienced in every generation and era are numerous, and on each day there is an event worthy of commemoration., bAlternatively:Why do we not record the days of salvation from troubles? Just as ba crazy person is not hurt,as he is not aware of the troubles that befall him, so too, we cannot appreciate the magnitude of the calamities that befall us., bAlternatively: The flesh of a dead person does not feel the scalpel[iizemel/b] cutting into him, and we, too, are in such a difficult situation that we no longer feel the pains and troubles. With regard to the last analogy, the Gemara asks: bIs that so? Didn’t Rav Yitzḥak say: Thegnawing of bmaggots is as excruciating to the dead asthe stab of ba needle is to the flesh of the living,as bit is statedwith regard to the dead: b“But his flesh shall hurt him, and his soul mourns over him”(Job 14:22)? Rather, bsayand explain the matter: bThe dead fleshin parts of the body bof the living personthat are insensitive to pain bdoes not feel the scalpelthat cuts him., bRav Yehuda saidthat bRav said: Truly, that man is remembered for the good, and his name is Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya, as if not for him, the book of Ezekiel would have been suppressed because its contents,in many details, bcontradict matters of Torah.The Sages sought to suppress the book and exclude it from the canon. bWhat did he,Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya, bdo? They brought him three hundred jugs of oil,for light and food, bupto his upper story, band he satisolated bin the upper storyand did not move from there until bhe homiletically interpretedall of those verses in the book of Ezekiel that seemed contradictory, and resolved the contradictions.,We learned in the mishna that when the Sages went up to the upper story of the house of Ḥaya ben Ḥizkiya ben Garon, they were counted band issued eighteen decreesin accordance with the opinion of Beit Shammai. The Gemara asks: bWhat are those eighteen matters?The Gemara answers: bAs we learnedin a mishna, a list of the decrees that the Sages issued with regard to items whose level of impurity is such that if they come into contact with iterumathey disqualify it. By means of that contact, the iterumaitself becomes impure, but it does not transmit impurity to other items. bThese disqualify iteruma /i: One who eats foodwith bfirstdegree ritual impurity status acquired as a result of contact with a primary source of ritual impurity, e.g., a creeping animal; band one who eats foodwith bseconddegree ritual impurity status acquired as a result of contact with an item with first degree ritual impurity status; band one who drinks impure liquidsof any degree of impurity; band one whose head and most of hisbody bcome into drawn waterafter he immersed himself in a ritual bath to purify himself; band a ritually pure person that three ilog /iof bdrawn water fell on his head and most of hisbody; band a Torah scroll; and the handsof any person who did not purify himself for the purpose of handling iteruma /i; bandone bwho immersed himself during the day,i.e., one who was impure and immersed himself, and until evening he is not considered completely pure; band foods and vessels that became impure bycoming into contact with impure bliquids.Contact with any of these disqualifies the iteruma /i. The Gemara seeks to clarify these matters.,The Gemara asks first: bWho is the itanna /iwho holds that bone who eats foodwith bfirstdegree ritual impurity status, band one who eats foodwith bseconddegree ritual impurity status, bdisqualifythe iteruma,but |
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35. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26.14 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
| 4.26.14. Accordingly when I went East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament, and send them to you as written below. Their names are as follows: of Moses, five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy; Jesus Nave, Judges, Ruth; of Kings, four books; of Chronicles, two; the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah; of the twelve prophets, one book ; Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras. From which also I have made the extracts, dividing them into six books. Such are the words of Melito. |
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36. Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine, 2.71 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
| 2.71. For as long as you continue to contend about these small and very insignificant questions, it is not fitting that so large a portion of God's people should be under the direction of your judgment, since you are thus divided between yourselves. I believe it indeed to be not merely unbecoming, but positively evil, that such should be the case. But I will refresh your minds by a little illustration, as follows. You know that philosophers, though they all adhere to one system, are yet frequently at issue on certain points, and differ, perhaps, in their degree of knowledge: yet they are recalled to harmony of sentiment by the uniting power of their common doctrines. If this be true, is it not far more reasonable that you, who are the ministers of the Supreme God, should be of one mind respecting the profession of the same religion? But let us still more thoughtfully and with closer attention examine what I have said, and see whether it be right that, on the ground of some trifling and foolish verbal difference between ourselves, brethren should assume towards each other the attitude of enemies, and the august meeting of the Synod be rent by profane disunion, because of you who wrangle together on points so trivial and altogether unessential? This is vulgar, and rather characteristic of childish ignorance, than consistent with the wisdom of priests and men of sense. Let us withdraw ourselves with a good will from these temptations of the devil. Our great God and common Saviour of all has granted the same light to us all. Permit me, who am his servant, to bring my task to a successful issue, under the direction of his Providence, that I may be enabled, through my exhortations, and diligence, and earnest admonition, to recall his people to communion and fellowship. For since you have, as I said, but one faith, and one sentiment respecting our religion, and since the Divine commandment in all its parts enjoins on us all the duty of maintaining a spirit of concord, let not the circumstance which has led to a slight difference between you, since it does not affect the validity of the whole, cause any division or schism among you. And this I say without in any way desiring to force you to entire unity of judgment in regard to this truly idle question, whatever its real nature may be. For the dignity of your synod may be preserved, and the communion of your whole body maintained unbroken, however wide a difference may exist among you as to unimportant matters. For we are not all of us like-minded on every subject, nor is there such a thing as one disposition and judgment common to all alike. As far, then, as regards the Divine Providence, let there be one faith, and one understanding among you, one united judgment in reference to God. But as to your subtle disputations on questions of little or no significance, though you may be unable to harmonize in sentiment, such differences should be consigned to the secret custody of your own minds and thoughts. And now, let the preciousness of common affection, let faith in the truth, let the honor due to God and to the observance of his law continue immovably among you. Resume, then, your mutual feelings of friendship, love, and regard: restore to the people their wonted embracings; and do ye yourselves, having purified your souls, as it were, once more acknowledge one another. For it often happens that when a reconciliation is effected by the removal of the causes of enmity, friendship becomes even sweeter than it was before. |
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37. Anon., 4 Ezra, 12.46, 14.22-14.48
| 12.46. Take courage, O Israel; and do not be sorrowful, O house of Jacob; 14.22. If then I have found favor before thee, send the Holy Spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things which were written in thy law, that men may be able to find the path, and that those who wish to live in the last days may live. 14.23. He answered me and said, "Go and gather the people, and tell them not to seek you for forty days. 14.24. But prepare for yourself many writing tablets, and take with you Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ethanus, and Asiel -- these five, because they are trained to write rapidly; 14.25. and you shall come here, and I will light in your heart the lamp of understanding, which shall not be put out until what you are about to write is finished. 14.26. And when you have finished, some things you shall make public, and some you shall deliver in secret to the wise; tomorrow at this hour you shall begin to write. 14.27. Then I went as he commanded me, and I gathered all the people together, and said 14.28. Hear these words, O Israel 14.29. At first our fathers dwelt as aliens in Egypt, and they were delivered from there 14.30. and received the law of life, which they did not keep, which you also have transgressed after them. 14.31. Then land was given to you for a possession in the land of Zion; but you and your fathers committed iniquity and did not keep the ways which the Most High commanded you. 14.32. And because he is a righteous judge, in due time he took from you what he had given. 14.33. And now you are here, and your brethren are farther in the interior. 14.34. If you, then, will rule over your minds and discipline your hearts, you shall be kept alive, and after death you shall obtain mercy. 14.35. For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again; and then the names of the righteous will become manifest, and the deeds of the ungodly will be disclosed. 14.36. But let no one come to me now, and let no one seek me for forty days. 14.37. So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we proceeded to the field, and remained there. 14.38. And on the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, "Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink. 14.39. Then I opened my mouth, and behold, a full cup was offered to me; it was full of something like water, but its color was like fire. 14.40. And I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory; 14.41. and my mouth was opened, and was no longer closed. 14.42. And the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and by turns they wrote what was dictated, in characters which they did not know. They sat forty days, and wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night. 14.43. As for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night. 14.44. So during the forty days ninety-four books were written. 14.45. And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; 14.46. but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. 14.47. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge. 14.48. And I did so. |
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38. Anon., Megillat Taanit (Lichtenstein), 13 adar
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39. Papyri, P.Murabba'T, 42
|
40. Papyri, P.Yadin, 52
|
