Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7236

Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 2.5-2.85

nan

for in his third book, which relates to the affairs of Egypt, he speaks thus:—“I have heard of the ancient men of Egypt, that Moses was of Heliopolis, and that he thought himself obliged to follow the customs of his forefathers, and offered his prayers in the open air, towards the city walls; but that he reduced them all to be directed towards the sun-rising, which was agreeable to the situation of Heliopolis;

ἀντὶ δὲ ὀβελῶν ἔστησε κίονας, ὑφ' οἷς ἦν ἐκτύπωμα σκάφη, σκιὰ δ' ἀνδρὸς ἐπ' αὐτὴν διακειμένη, ὡς ὅτι ἐν αἰθέρι τοῦτον ἀεὶ τὸν

that, he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, under which was represented a cavity like that of a boat, and the shadow that fell from their tops fell down upon that cavity, that it might go round about the like course as the sun itself goes round in the other.”

ετ σξιενς τεμπλι νοστρι πιετατεμ ηανξ θυιδεμ πραετερμισιτ, ηομινις αυτεμ γραεξι ξομπραεηενσιονεμ φινχιτ ετ παβυλυμ ινεφφαβιλε ετ ξιβορυμ οπυλεντισσιμαμ ξλαριτατεμ ετ σερυος ινγρεδιεντες υβι νεξ νοβιλισσιμος ιυδαεορυμ λιξετ ιντραρε, νισι φυεριντ σαξερδοτες.

δρόμον ἡλίῳ συμπεριπολεῖ.” τοιαύτη μέν τις ἡ θαυμαστὴ τοῦ γραμματικοῦ φράσις: τὸ δὲ ψεῦσμα λόγων οὐ δεόμενον, ἀλλ' ἐκ τῶν ἔργων περιφανές: οὔτε γὰρ αὐτὸς Μωσῆς, ὅτε τὴν πρώτην σκηνὴν τῷ θεῷ κατεσκεύασεν, οὐθὲν ἐκτύπωμα τοιοῦτον εἰς αὐτὴν ἐνέθηκεν οὐδὲ ποιεῖν τοῖς ἔπειτα προσέταξεν, ὅ τε μετὰ ταῦτα κατασκευάσας τὸν ναὸν τὸν ἐν ̔Ιεροσολύμοις Σολομὼν πάσης ἀπέσχετο τοιαύτης περιεργίας οἵαν συμπέπλεκεν ̓Απίων.

This is that wonderful relation which we have given us by this great grammarian. But that it is a false one is so plain, that it stands in need of few words to prove it, but is manifest from the works of Moses; for when he erected the first tabernacle to God, he did himself neither give order for any such kind of representation to be made at it, nor ordain that those who came after him should make such a one. Moreover, when in a future age Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem, he avoided all such needless decorations as Apion hath here devised.

ἡμέραν καὶ τὸ καταλιπεῖν ἠνοιγμένας ἦν ἀθέμιτον. ῥᾳδίως οὖν αὐτὰς ὁ λυχνοφόρος ἐκεῖνος ἀνοίξειν οἰόμενος καὶ τὴν τοῦ κάνθωνος ὡς ᾤετο κεφαλὴν ἔχων. πότερον οὖν αὐτὴν πάλιν ὡς ἡμᾶς ἀνέστρεψεν ἢ λαβὼν ἀπιὼν αὐτὴν εἰσεκόμισεν, ἵνα ̓Αντίοχος εὕρῃ

ἀκοῦσαι δέ φησι τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, ὅτι Μωσῆς ἦν ̔Ηλιοπολίτης, δῆλον ὅτι νεώτερος μὲν ὢν αὐτός, ἐκείνοις δὲ πιστεύσας τοῖς διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν

He says farther, “How he had heard of the ancient men, that Moses was of Heliopolis.” To be sure that was because, being a younger man himself, he believed those that by their elder age were acquainted and conversed with him.

νομιζομένους θεοὺς κατασφάζοντες, οὐκ ἂν ὀνειδίσαιμι: μιμεῖσθαι γὰρ οὐ προσῆκεν τὴν ̓Απίωνος ἀπαιδευσίαν, ὃς οὔτε τὰς ̓Αθηναίων τύχας οὔτε τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων ἐνενόησεν, ὧν τοὺς μὲν ἀνδρειοτάτους

ἐπισταμένοις αὐτὸν καὶ συγγενομένοις. καὶ περὶ μὲν ̔Ομήρου τοῦ ποιητοῦ γραμματικὸς ὢν αὐτὸς οὐκ ἂν ἔχοι, τίς αὐτοῦ πατρίς ἐστι, διαβεβαιωσάμενος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ περὶ Πυθαγόρου μόνον οὐκ ἐχθὲς καὶ πρῴην γεγονότος, περὶ δὲ Μωσέως τοσούτῳ πλήθει προάγοντος ἐκείνους ἐτῶν οὕτως ἀποφαίνεται ῥᾳδίως πιστεύων ἀκοῇ πρεσβυτέρων, ὡς δῆλός ἐστι καταψευσάμενος.

Now, this [man], grammarian as he was, could not certainly tell which was the poet Homer’s country, no more than he could which was the country of Pythagoras, who lived comparatively but a little while ago; yet does he thus easily determine the age of Moses, who preceded them such a vast number of years, as depending on his ancient men’s relation, which shows how notorious a liar he was.

καὶ μὴν εἴ τις αὐτὸν ἤρετο, τῶν πάντων Αἰγυπτίων τίνας εἶναι καὶ σοφωτάτους καὶ θεοσεβεῖς νομίζει, πάντως ἂν ὡμολόγησε

τὰ δὲ δὴ τῶν χρόνων, ἐν οἷς φησι τὸν Μωσῆν ἐξαγαγεῖν τοὺς λεπρῶντας καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ τὰς βάσεις πεπηρωμένους, σφόδρα δὴ τοῖς πρὸ αὐτοῦ συμπεφώνηκεν

But then as to this chronological determination of the time when he says he brought the leprous people, the blind, and the lame, out of Egypt, see how well this most accurate grammarian of ours agrees with those that have written before him.

εἰ δ' ἄρα βιασθείην μνησθῆναι τῶν παρ' ἑτέροις ὑπεναντίως νενομισμένων, τούτου δίκαιοι τὴν αἰτίαν ἔχειν εἰσὶν οἱ τὰ παρ' ἡμῖν ὡς χείρω παραβάλλειν ἀξιοῦντες: οἷς οὐδέτερον ἀπολειφθήσεσθαι νομίζω λέγειν, οὔθ' ὡς οὐχὶ τούτους ἔχομεν τοὺς νόμους, ὧν ἐγὼ παραθήσομαι τοὺς κεφαλαιωδεστάτους, οὔθ' ὡς οὐχὶ μάλιστα πάντων ἐμμένομεν τοῖς ἑαυτῶν νόμοις.

ὡς οἶμαι, ὁ γραμματικὸς ὁ ἀκριβής. Μανεθὼς μὲν γὰρ κατὰ τὴν Τεθμώσιος βασιλείαν ἀπαλλαγῆναί φησιν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου τοὺς ̓Ιουδαίους πρὸ ἐτῶν τριακοσίων ἐνενηκοντατριῶν τῆς εἰς ̓́Αργος Δαναοῦ φυγῆς, Λυσίμαχος δὲ κατὰ Βόκχοριν τὸν βασιλέα, τουτέστι πρὸ ἐτῶν χιλίων ἑπτακοσίων, Μόλων δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι τινὲς ὡς αὐτοῖς ἔδοξεν.

Manetho says that the Jews departed out of Egypt, in the reign of Tethmosis, three hundred and ninety-three years before Danaus fled to Argos; Lysimachus says it was under king Bocchoris, that is, one thousand seven hundred years ago;

καλῆς οὖν αὐτῷ προαιρέσεως καὶ πράξεων μεγάλων ἐπιτυγχανομένων εἰκότως ἐνόμιζεν ἡγεμόνα τε καὶ σύμβουλον θεὸν ἔχειν, καὶ πείσας πρότερον ἑαυτὸν ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ἐκείνου βούλησιν ἅπαντα πράττει καὶ διανοεῖται, ταύτην ᾤετο δεῖν πρὸ παντὸς ἐμποιῆσαι τὴν ὑπόληψιν τοῖς πλήθεσιν: οἱ γὰρ πιστεύσαντες ἐπισκοπεῖν θεὸν τοὺς ἑαυτῶν βίους

ὁ δέ γε πάντων πιστότατος ̓Απίων ὡρίσατο τὴν ἔξοδον ἀκριβῶς κατὰ τὴν ἑβδόμην ὀλυμπιάδα καὶ ταύτης ἔτος εἶναι πρῶτον, ἐν ᾧ, φησί, Καρχηδόνα Φοίνικες ἔκτισαν. τοῦτο δὲ πάντως προσέθηκε τὸ Καρχηδόνα τεκμήριον οἰόμενος αὑτῷ γενέσθαι τῆς ἀληθείας ἐναργέστατον, οὐ συνῆκε δὲ καθ' ἑαυτοῦ τὸν ἔλεγχον ἐπισπώμενος.

Molo and some others determined it as every one pleased; but this Apion of ours, as deserving to be believed before them, hath determined it exactly to have been in the seventh olympiad, and the first year of that olympiad; the very same year in which he says that Carthage was built by the Phoenicians. The reason why he added this building of Carthage was, to be sure, in order, as he thought, to strengthen his assertion by so evident a character of chronology. But he was not aware that this character confutes his assertion;

τὴν περὶ θεοῦ πίστιν ἐνέφυσεν ἀμετακίνητον. αἴτιον δ' ὅτι καὶ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς νομοθεσίας πρὸς τὸ χρήσιμον πάντων ἀεὶ πολὺ διήνεγκεν: οὐ γὰρ μέρος ἀρετῆς ἐποίησεν τὴν εὐσέβειαν, ἀλλὰ ταύτης μέρη τἆλλα, λέγω δὲ τὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν σωφροσύνην τὴν καρτερίαν τὴν τῶν πολιτῶν πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐν ἅπασι συμφωνίαν:

εἰ γὰρ περὶ τῆς ἀπιστίας πιστεύειν δεῖ ταῖς Φοινίκων ἀναγραφαῖς, ἐν ἐκείναις Εἴρωμος ὁ βασιλεὺς γέγραπται πρεσβύτερος τῆς Καρχηδόνος κτίσεως ἔτεσι πλείοσι πρὸς τοῖς πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατόν, περὶ οὗ τὰς πίστεις ἀνωτέρω παρέσχον ἐκ τῶν Φοινίκων

for if we may give credit to the Phoenician records as to the time of the first coming of their colony to Carthage, they relate that Hirom their king was above one hundred and fifty years earlier than the building of Carthage; concerning whom I have formerly produced testimonials out of those Phoenician records

παρ' ἡμῖν γὰρ μόνοις οὔτε περὶ θεοῦ λόγους ἀκούσεταί τις ἀλλήλοις ὑπεναντίους, ὁποῖα πολλὰ παρ' ἑτέροις οὐχ ὑπὸ τῶν τυχόντων μόνον κατὰ τὸ προσπεσὸν ἑκάστῳ λέγεται πάθος, ἀλλὰ καὶ παρά τισι τῶν φιλοσόφων ἀποτετόλμηται, τῶν μὲν τὴν ὅλην τοῦ θεοῦ φύσιν ἀναιρεῖν τοῖς λόγοις ἐπικεχειρηκότων, ἄλλων δὲ τὴν ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων αὐτὸν

ἀναγραφῶν, ὅτι Σολομῶνι τῷ τὸν ναὸν οἰκοδομησαμένῳ τὸν ἐν ̔Ιεροσολύμοις φίλος ἦν Εἴρωμος καὶ πολλὰ συνεβάλετο πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ναοῦ κατασκευήν. αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ Σολομὼν ᾠκοδόμησε τὸν ναὸν μετὰ τὸ ἐξελθεῖν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου τοὺς ̓Ιουδαίους δώδεκα καὶ ἑξακοσίοις ἔτεσιν ὕστερον.

as also that this Hirom was a friend of Solomon when he was building the temple of Jerusalem, and gave him great assistance in his building that temple, while still Solomon himself built that temple, six hundred and twelve years after the Jews came out of Egypt.

τίνες οὖν εἰσιν αἱ προρρήσεις καὶ ἀπαγορεύσεις; ἁπλαῖ τε καὶ γνώριμοι. πρώτη δ' ἡγεῖται ἡ περὶ θεοῦ λέγουσα, ὁ θεὸς ἔχει τὰ σύμπαντα παντελὴς καὶ μακάριος, αὐτὸς αὑτῷ καὶ πᾶσιν αὐτάρκης, ἀρχὴ καὶ μέσα καὶ τέλος οὗτος τῶν πάντων, ἔργοις μὲν καὶ χάρισιν ἐναργὴς καὶ παντὸς οὗτινος φανερώτερος, μορφὴν δὲ καὶ μέγεθος

nan	As for the number of those that were expelled out of Egypt, he hath contrived to have the very same number with Lysimachus, and says they were a hundred and ten thousand. He then assigns a certain wonderful and plausible occasion for the name of Sabbath;

“ὁδεύσαντες γάρ, φησίν, ἓξ ἡμερῶν ὁδὸν βουβῶνας ἔσχον καὶ διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀνεπαύσαντο σωθέντες εἰς τὴν χώραν τὴν νῦν ̓Ιουδαίαν λεγομένην καὶ ἐκάλεσαν τὴν ἡμέραν σάββατον σώζοντες τὴν Αἰγυπτίων γλῶτταν:

for he says, that “when the Jews had travelled a six days’ journey, they had buboes in their groins: and that on this account it was that they rested on the seventh day, as having got safely to that country which is now called Judea; that then they preserved the language of the Egyptians, and called that day the Sabbath, for that malady of buboes in their groin was named Sabbatosis by the Egyptians.”

ὅσοι μὲν γὰρ θέλουσιν ὑπὸ τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν νόμους ζῆν ὑπελθόντες δέχεται φιλοφρόνως, οὐ τῷ γένει μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῇ προαιρέσει τοῦ βίου νομίζων εἶναι τὴν οἰκειότητα. τοὺς δ' ἐκ παρέργου προσιόντας ἀναμίγνυσθαι τῇ συνηθείᾳ οὐκ ἠθέλησεν.

τὸ γὰρ βουβῶνος ἄλγος καλοῦσιν Αἰγύπτιοι σαββάτωσις.” οὐκ ἂν οὖν τις ἢ καταγελάσειε τῆς φλυαρίας ἢ τοὐναντίον μισήσειε τὴν ἐν τῷ τοιαῦτα γράφειν ἀναίδειαν; δῆλον γάρ, ὅτι πάντες ἐβουβωνίασαν ἕνδεκα μυριάδες ἀνθρώπων.

And would not a man now laugh at this fellow’s trifling, or rather hate his impudence in writing thus? We must, it seems, take it for granted, that all these hundred and ten thousand men must have these buboes!

[Κἂν τε τι μὴ συμβεβήκει γνώριμον ἡμῶν τὸ ἔθνος ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις ὑπάρχει κἀν φανερῷ κεῖσθαι τὴν ἐθελούσιον

ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν ἦσαν ἐκεῖνοι τυφλοὶ καὶ χωλοὶ καὶ πάντα τρόπον νοσοῦντες ὁποίους αὐτοὺς εἶναί φησιν ̓Απίων, οὐδ' ἂν μιᾶς ἡμέρας προελθεῖν ὁδὸν ἠδυνήθησαν: εἰ δ' οἷοι βαδίζειν διὰ πολλῆς ἐρημίας καὶ προσέτι νικᾶν τοὺς αὐτοῖς ἀνθισταμένους μαχόμενοι πάντες, οὐκ ἂν ἀθρόοι μετὰ τὴν ἕκτην

But, for certain, if those men had been blind and lame, and had all sorts of distempers upon them, as Apion says they had, they could not have gone one single day’s journey; but if they had been all able to travel over a large desert, and, besides that, to fight and conquer those that opposed them, they had not all of them had buboes in their groins after the sixth day was over;

πρὸς κάλλος ἀσκοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς πόλεως διῆγον, ἄλλοις ὑπηρέταις πρὸς ἅπαντα τὰ τοῦ βίου χρώμενοι καὶ τὴν τροφὴν ἑτοίμην παρ' ἐκείνων λαμβάνοντες, ἐφ ἣν δὴ τοῦτο μόνον τὸ καλὸν ἔργον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον ἅπαντα καὶ πράττειν καὶ πάσχειν ὑπομένοντες

ἡμέραν ἐβουβωνίασαν: οὔτε γὰρ φύσει πως γίνεται τὸ τοιοῦτον τοῖς βαδίζουσιν ἐξ ἀνάγκης, ἀλλὰ πολλαὶ μυριάδες στρατοπέδων ἐπὶ πολλὰς ἡμέρας τὸ σύμμετρον ἀεὶ βαδίζουσιν, οὔτε κατ' αὐτόματον

for no such distemper comes naturally and of necessity upon those that travel; but still, when there are many ten thousands in a camp together, they constantly march a settled space [in a day]. Nor is it at all probable that such a thing should happen by chance: this would be prodigiously absurd to be supposed.

ἐξ ἀρχῆς τοῖς πλήθεσιν ἐγκατέσπειραν, ἀριθμῷ μὲν ὁπόσους ἂν αὐτοὶ θελήσωσιν ἀποφαινόμενοι ἐξ ἀλλήλων δὲ γινομένους καὶ κατὰ παντοίους τρόπους γενέσεων, τούτους δὲ καὶ διαιροῦντες τόποις καὶ διαίταις, ὥσπερ τῶν ζῴων τὰ γένη, τοὺς μὲν ὑπὸ γῆν, τοὺς δὲ ἐν θαλάττῃ, τοὺς μέντοι πρεσβυτάτους αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ ταρτάρῳ δεδεμένους

εἰκὸς οὕτως συμβῆναι: πάντων γὰρ ἀλογώτατον. ὁ δὲ θαυμαστὸς ̓Απίων διὰ μὲν ἓξ ἡμερῶν αὐτοὺς ἐλθεῖν εἰς τὴν ̓Ιουδαίαν προείρηκε, πάλιν δὲ τὸν Μωσῆν εἰς τὸ μεταξὺ τῆς Αἰγύπτου καὶ τῆς ̓Αραβίας ὄρος, ὃ καλεῖται Σίναιον, ἀναβάντα φησὶν ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα κρυβῆναι κἀκεῖθεν καταβάντα δοῦναι τοῖς ̓Ιουδαίοις τοὺς νόμους. καίτοι πῶς οἷόν τε τοὺς αὐτοὺς καὶ τεσσαράκοντα μένειν ἡμέρας ἐν ἐρήμῳ καὶ ἀνύδρῳ τόπῳ καὶ τὴν μεταξὺ πᾶσαν

However, our admirable author Apion hath before told us, that “they came to Judea in six days’ time;” and again, that “Moses went up to a mountain that lay between Egypt and Arabia, which was called Sinai, and was concealed there forty days, and that when he came down from thence he gave laws to the Jews.” But then, how was it possible for them to tarry forty days in a desert place where there was no water, and at the same time to pass all over the country between that and Judea in the six days?

Τί τοίνυν τὸ αἴτιον τῆς τοσαύτης ἀνωμαλίας καὶ περὶ τὸ θεῖον πλημμελείας; ἐγὼ μὲν ὑπολαμβάνω τὸ μήτε τὴν ἀληθῆ τοῦ θεοῦ φύσιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς συνιδεῖν αὐτῶν τοὺς νομοθέτας μήθ' ὅσον καὶ λαβεῖν ἠδυνήθησαν ἀκριβῆ γνῶσιν διορίσαντας πρὸς τοῦτο

ἐν ἡμέραις ἓξ διελθεῖν; ἡ δὲ περὶ τὴν ὀνομασίαν τοῦ σαββάτου γραμματικὴ μετάθεσις ἀναίδειαν ἔχει πολλὴν ἢ δεινὴν ἀμαθίαν:

And as for this grammatical translation of the word Sabbath, it either contains an instance of his great impudence or gross ignorance;

ἀμφοῖν ὑφορώμενοι γενήσεσθαι περὶ τοὺς νόμους. ἐκείνοις μὲν οὖν τάχ' ἂν δυσκολίαν τις ὀνειδίσειεν εἰκότως: οὐδενὶ γὰρ οὔτε

And as for this grammatical translation of the word Sabbath, it either contains an instance of his great impudence or gross ignorance;

τὸ γὰρ σαββὼ καὶ σάββατον πλεῖστον ἀλλήλων διαφέρει: τὸ μὲν γὰρ σάββατον κατὰ τὴν ̓Ιουδαίων διάλεκτον ἀνάπαυσίς ἐστιν ἀπὸ παντὸς ἔργου, τὸ δὲ σαββώ, καθάπερ ἐκεῖνός φησι, δηλοῖ παρ' Αἰγυπτίοις τὸ βουβῶνος ἄλγος.

for the words

καὶ διὰ τὴν αὐτὴν αἰτίαν κεκολασμένους. ἀλλὰ δῆλον ὅτι τοῖς Περσῶν ἔχαιρε νόμοις ὁ ̓Απολλώνιος κἀκείνους ἐθαύμαζεν, ὅτι τῆς ἀνδρείας αὐτῶν ἀπέλαυσαν οἱ ̔́Ελληνες καὶ τῆς ὁμογνωμοσύνης ἧς εἶχον περὶ θεῶν, ταύτης μὲν [οὖν] ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς οἷς κατέπρησαν, τῆς ἀνδρείας δὲ δουλεῦσαι παρὰ μικρὸν ἐλθόντες, ἁπάντων δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων μιμητὴς ἐγένετο τῶν Περσικῶν γυναῖκας ἀλλοτρίας

for the words

Τοιαῦτα μέν τινα περὶ Μωσέως καὶ τῆς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου γενομένης τοῖς ̓Ιουδαίοις ἀπαλλαγῆς ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ̓Απίων ἐκαινοποίησεν παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐπινοήσας. καὶ τί γε δεῖ θαυμάζειν, εἰ περὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων ψεύδεται προγόνων λέγων αὐτοὺς εἶναι τὸ γένος Αἰγυπτίους;

3. This is that novel account which the Egyptian Apion gives us concerning the Jews’ departure out of Egypt, and is no better than a contrivance of his own. But why should we wonder at the lies he tells us about our forefathers, when he affirms them to be of Egyptian original, when he lies also about himself?

ὑφ' ἡμῶν τε διηλέγχθησαν οἱ νόμοι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν

αὐτὸς γὰρ περὶ αὐτοῦ τοὐναντίον ἐψεύδετο καὶ γεγενημένος ἐν ̓Οάσει τῆς Αἰγύπτου πάντων Αἰγυπτίων πρῶτος ὤν, ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις, τὴν μὲν ἀληθῆ πατρίδα καὶ τὸ γένος ἐξωμόσατο, ̓Αλεξανδρεὺς δὲ εἶναι καταψευδόμενος ὁμολογεῖ τὴν μοχθηρίαν τοῦ γένους.

for although he was born at Oasis in Egypt, he pretends to be, as a man may say, the top man of all the Egyptians; yet does he forswear his real country and progenitors, and by falsely pretending to be born at Alexandria, cannot deny the pravity of his family;

οἱ μὲν ὡς φαυλότατον ἡμῶν τὸν νομοθέτην ἐλοιδόρησαν: τῷ δὲ τῆς ἀρετῆς πάλαι μὲν ὁ θεός, μετ' ἐκεῖνον δὲ μάρτυς ὁ χρόνος εὕρηται γεγενημένος.

nan

for you see how justly he calls those Egyptians whom he hates, and endeavors to reproach; for had he not deemed Egyptians to be a name of great reproach, he would not have avoided the name of an Egyptian himself; as we know that those who brag of their own countries, value themselves upon the denomination they acquire thereby, and reprove such as unjustly lay claim thereto.

πρὸς ἡμᾶς δὲ δυοῖν θάτερον Αἰγύπτιοι πεπόνθασιν: ἢ γὰρ ὡς ἐπισεμνυνόμενοι προσποιοῦνται τὴν συγγένειαν ἢ κοινωνοὺς ἡμᾶς ἐπισπῶνται τῆς αὑτῶν κακοδοξίας.

As for the Egyptians’ claim to be of our kindred, they do it on one of the following accounts; I mean, either as they value themselves upon it, and pretend to bear that relation to us: or else as they would draw us in to be partakers of their own infamy.

ὁ δὲ γενναῖος ̓Απίων δοκεῖ μὲν τὴν βλασφημίαν τὴν καθ' ἡμῶν ὥσπερ τινὰ μισθὸν ἐθελῆσαι παρασχεῖν ̓Αλεξανδρεῦσι τῆς δοθείσης αὐτῷ πολιτείας, καὶ τὴν ἀπέχθειαν αὐτῶν ἐπιστάμενος τὴν πρὸς τοὺς συνοικοῦντας αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τῆς ̓Αλεξανδρείας ̓Ιουδαίους προτέθειται μὲν ἐκείνοις λοιδορεῖσθαι, συμπεριλαμβάνειν δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἅπαντας, ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ἀναισχύντως ψευδόμενος.

But this fine fellow Apion seems to broach this reproachful appellation against us [that we were originally Egyptians] in order to bestow it on the Alexandrians as a reward for the privilege they had given him of being a fellow citizen with them; he also is apprised of the ill will the Alexandrians bear to those Jews who are their fellow citizens, and so proposes to himself to reproach them, although he must thereby include all the other Egyptians also; while in both cases he is no better than an impudent liar.

Τίνα τοίνυν ἐστὶ τὰ δεινὰ καὶ σχέτλια τῶν ἐν ̓Αλεξανδρείᾳ κατοικούντων ̓Ιουδαίων, ἃ κατηγόρηκεν αὐτῶν, ἴδωμεν. “ἐλθόντες, φησίν, ἀπὸ Συρίας ᾤκησαν πρὸς ἀλίμενον θάλασσαν γειτνιάσαντες

4. But let us now see what those heavy and wicked crimes are which Apion charges upon the Alexandrian Jews. “They came (says he) out of Syria, and inhabited near the tempestuous sea, and were in the neighborhood of the dashing of the waves.”

ταῖς τῶν κυμάτων ἐκβολαῖς.” οὐκοῦν τόπος εἰ λοιδορίαν ἔχει, τὴν οὐ πατρίδα μὲν λεγομένην δὲ αὐτοῦ λοιδορεῖ τὴν ̓Αλεξάνδρειαν: ἐκείνης γὰρ καὶ τὸ παράλιόν ἐστι μέρος, ὡς πάντες ὁμολογοῦσιν

Now, if the place of habitation includes any thing that is reproachful, this man reproaches not his own real country [Egypt], but what he pretends to be his own country, Alexandria; for all are agreed in this, that the part of that city which is near the sea is the best part of all for habitation.

εἰς κατοίκησιν τὸ κάλλιστον. ̓Ιουδαῖοι δ' εἰ μὲν βιασάμενοι κατέσχον, ὡς μηδ' ὕστερον ἐκπεσεῖν, ἀνδρείας τεκμήριόν ἐστιν αὐτοῖς: εἰς κατοίκησιν δὲ αὐτοῖς ἔδωκεν τόπον ̓Αλέξανδρος καὶ ἴσης παρὰ τοῖς Μακεδόσι τιμῆς ἐπέτυχον.

Now, if the Jews gained that part of the city by force, and have kept it hitherto without impeachment, this is a mark of their valor: but in reality it was Alexander himself that gave them that place for their habitation, when they obtained equal privileges there with the Macedonians.

οὐκ οἶδα δέ, τί ποτ' ἂν ἔλεγεν ̓Απίων, εἰ πρὸς τῇ νεκροπόλει κατῴκουν καὶ μὴ πρὸς τοῖς βασιλικοῖς ἦσαν ἱδρυμένοι, καὶ μέχρι νῦν αὐτῶν ἡ φυλὴ τὴν προσηγορίαν εἶχεν Μακεδόνες.

Nor can I devise what Apion would have said, had their habitation been at Necropolis, and not been fixed hard by the royal palace [as it is]; nor had their nation had the denomination of Macedonians given them till this very day [as they have].

εἰ μὲν οὖν ἀναγνοὺς τὰς ἐπιστολὰς ̓Αλεξάνδρου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ τὰς Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Λάγου καὶ τῶν μετ' ἐκεῖνον τῆς Αἰγύπτου βασιλέων ἐντυχὼν τοῖς γράμμασι καὶ τὴν στήλην τὴν ἑστῶσαν ἐν ̓Αλεξανδρείᾳ καὶ τὰ δικαιώματα περιέχουσαν, ἃ Καῖσαρ ὁ μέγας τοῖς ̓Ιουδαίοις ἔδωκεν, εἰ μὲν οὖν ταῦτα, φημί, γιγνώσκων τἀναντία γράφειν ἐτόλμα, πονηρὸς ἦν, εἰ δὲ μηδὲν ἠπίστατο τούτων, ἀπαίδευτος.

Had this man now read the epistles of king Alexander, or those of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or met with the writings of the succeeding kings, or that pillar which is still standing at Alexandria, and contains the privileges which the great [Julius] Caesar bestowed upon the Jews; had this man, I say, known these records, and yet hath the impudence to write in contradiction to them, he hath shown himself to be a wicked man: but if he knew nothing of these records, he hath shown himself to be a man very ignorant;

τὸ δὲ δὴ θαυμάζειν, πῶς ̓Ιουδαῖοι ὄντες ̓Αλεξανδρεῖς ἐκλήθησαν, τῆς ὁμοίας ἀπαιδευσίας: πάντες γὰρ οἱ εἰς ἀποικίαν τινὰ κατακληθέντες, κἂν πλεῖστον ἀλλήλων τοῖς γένεσι διαφέρωσιν, ἀπὸ τῶν οἰκιστῶν τὴν προσηγορίαν λαμβάνουσιν.

nay, when he appears to wonder how Jews could be called Alexandrians, this is another like instance of his ignorance; for all such as are called out to be colonies, although they be ever so far remote from one another in their original, receive their names from those that bring them to their new habitations.

καὶ τί δεῖ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων λέγειν; αὐτῶν γὰρ ἡμῶν οἱ τὴν ̓Αντιόχειαν κατοικοῦντες ̓Αντιοχεῖς ὀνομάζονται: τὴν γὰρ πολιτείαν αὐτοῖς ἔδωκεν ὁ κτίστης Σέλευκος. ὁμοίως οἱ ἐν ̓Εφέσῳ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἄλλην ̓Ιωνίαν τοῖς αὐθιγενέσι πολίταις ὁμωνυμοῦσιν τοῦτο παρασχόντων αὐτοῖς τῶν διαδόχων.

And what occasion is there to speak of others, when those of us Jews that dwell at Antioch are named Antiochians, because Seleucus the founder of that city gave them the privileges belonging thereto? After the like manner do those Jews that inhabit Ephesus and the other cities of Ionia enjoy the same name with those that were originally born there, by the grant of the succeeding princes;

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nay, the kindness and humanity of the Romans hath been so great, that it hath granted leave to almost all others to take the same name of Romans upon them; I mean not particular men only, but entire and large nations themselves also; for those anciently named Iberi, and Tyrrheni, and Sabini, are now called Romani:

καὶ Τυρρηνοὶ καὶ Σαβῖνοι ̔Ρωμαῖοι καλοῦνται. εἰ δὲ τοῦτον ἀφαιρεῖται τὸν τρόπον τῆς πολιτείας ̓Απίων, παυσάσθω λέγων αὑτὸν ̓Αλεξανδρέα: γεννηθεὶς γάρ, ὡς προεῖπον, ἐν τῷ βαθυτάτῳ τῆς Αἰγύπτου πῶς ἂν ̓Αλεξανδρεὺς εἴη τῆς κατὰ δόσιν πολιτείας, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐφ' ἡμῶν ἠξίωκεν, ἀναιρουμένης; καίτοι μόνοις Αἰγυπτίοις οἱ κύριοι νῦν ̔Ρωμαῖοι τῆς οἰκουμένης μεταλαμβάνειν ἡστινοσοῦν πολιτείας ἀπειρήκασιν.

and if Apion reject this way of obtaining the privilege of a citizen of Alexandria, let him abstain from calling himself an Alexandrian hereafter; for otherwise, how can he who was born in the very heart of Egypt be an Alexandrian, if this way of accepting such a privilege, of which he would have us deprived, be once abrogated? Although indeed these Romans, who are now the lords of the habitable earth, have forbidden the Egyptians to have the privileges of any city whatsoever

ὁ δ' οὕτως ἐστὶ γενναῖος, ὡς μετέχειν ἀξιῶν αὐτὸς ὧν τυχεῖν ἐκωλύετο συκοφαντεῖν ἐπεχείρησε τοὺς δικαίως λαβόντας: οὐ γὰρ ἀπορίᾳ γε τῶν οἰκησόντων τὴν μετὰ σπουδῆς ὑπ' αὐτοῦ πόλιν κτιζομένην ̓Αλέξανδρος τῶν ἡμετέρων τινὰς ἐκεῖ συνήθροισεν, ἀλλὰ πάντας δοκιμάζων ἐπιμελῶς ἀρετῆς καὶ

while this fine fellow, who is willing to partake of such a privilege himself as he is forbidden to make use of, endeavors by calumnies to deprive those of it that have justly received it; for Alexander did not therefore get some of our nation to Alexandria, because he wanted inhabitants for this his city, on whose building he had bestowed so much pains; but this was given to our people as a reward; because he had, upon a careful trial, found them all to have been men of virtue and fidelity to him;

πίστεως τοῦτο τοῖς ἡμετέροις τὸ γέρας ἔδωκεν. ἐτίμα γὰρ ἡμῶν τὸ ἔθνος, ὡς καί φησιν ̔Εκαταῖος περὶ ἡμῶν, ὅτι διὰ τὴν ἐπιείκειαν καὶ πίστιν, ἣν αὐτῷ παρέσχον ̓Ιουδαῖοι, τὴν Σαμαρεῖτιν χώραν προσέθηκεν ἔχειν αὐτοῖς ἀφορολόγητον.

for, as Hecateus says concerning us, “Alexander honored our nation to such a degree that, for the equity and the fidelity which the Jews exhibited to him, he permitted them to hold the country of Samaria free from tribute.

ὅμοια δὲ ̓Αλεξάνδρῳ καὶ Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Λάγου περὶ τῶν ἐν ̓Αλεξανδρείᾳ κατοικούντων ἐφρόνησεν: καὶ γὰρ τὰ κατὰ τὴν Αἴγυπτον αὐτοῖς ἐνεχείρισε φρούρια πιστῶς ἅμα καὶ γενναίως φυλάξειν ὑπολαμβάνων, καὶ Κυρήνης ἐγκρατῶς ἄρχειν βουλόμενος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἐν τῇ Λιβύῃ πόλεων

Of the same mind also was Ptolemy the son of Lagus, as to those Jews who dwelt at Alexandria.” For he intrusted the fortresses of Egypt into their hands, as believing they would keep them faithfully and valiantly for him; and when he was desirous to secure the government of Cyrene, and the other cities of Libya to himself, he sent a party of Jews to inhabit them.

εἰς αὐτὰς μέρος ̓Ιουδαίων ἔπεμψε κατοικῆσον. ὁ δὲ μετ' αὐτὸν Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Φιλάδελφος ἐπικληθεὶς οὐ μόνον εἴ τινες ἦσαν αἰχμάλωτοι παρ' αὐτῷ τῶν ἡμετέρων πάντας ἀπέδωκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ χρήματα πολλάκις ἐδωρήσατο καὶ τὸ μέγιστον ἐπιθυμητὴς ἐγένετο τοῦ γνῶναι τοὺς ἡμετέρους νόμους καὶ ταῖς τῶν ἱερῶν γραφῶν βίβλοις ἐντυχεῖν.

And for his successor Ptolemy, who was called Philadelphus, he did not only set all those of our nation free, who were captives under him, but did frequently give money [for their ransom]; and, what was his greatest work of all, he had a great desire of knowing our laws, and of obtaining the books of our sacred scriptures:

ἔπεμψε γοῦν ἀξιῶν ἄνδρας ἀποσταλῆναι τοὺς ἑρμηνεύσοντας αὐτῷ τὸν νόμον καὶ τοῦ γραφῆναι ταῦτα καλῶς τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ἐπέταξεν οὐ τοῖς τυχοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ Δημήτριον τὸν Φαληρέα καὶ ̓Ανδρέαν καὶ ̓Αριστέα, τὸν μὲν παιδείᾳ τῶν καθ'

accordingly he desired that such men might be sent him as might interpret our law to him; and in order to have them well compiled, he committed that care to no ordinary persons, but ordained that Demetrius Phalereus, and Andreas, and Aristeas; the first, Demetrius, the most learned person of his age

ἑαυτὸν διαφέροντα Δημήτριον, τοὺς δὲ τὴν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ φυλακὴν ἐγκεχειρισμένους, ἐπὶ τῆς ἐπιμελείας ταύτης ἔταξεν, οὐκ ἂν δήπου τοὺς νόμους καὶ τὴν πάτριον ἡμῶν φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιθυμήσας ἐκμαθεῖν, εἰ τῶν χρωμένων αὐτοῖς ἀνδρῶν κατεφρόνει καὶ μὴ λίαν ἐθαύμαζεν.

and the others, such as were intrusted with the guard of his body, should take the care of this matter: nor would he certainly have been so desirous of learning our law and the philosophy of our nation had he despised the men that made use of it, or had he not indeed had them in great admiration.

̓Απίωνα δὲ σχεδὸν ἐφεξῆς πάντες ἔλαθον οἱ τῶν προγόνων αὐτοῦ Μακεδόνων βασιλεῖς οἰκειότατα πρὸς ἡμᾶς διατεθέντες: καὶ γὰρ τρίτος Πτολεμαῖος ὁ λεγόμενος Εὐεργέτης κατασχὼν ὅλην Συρίαν κατὰ κράτος οὐ τοῖς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ θεοῖς χαριστήρια τῆς νίκης ἔθυσεν, ἀλλὰ παραγενόμενος εἰς ̔Ιεροσόλυμα πολλὰς ὡς ἡμῖν νόμιμόν ἐστιν ἐπετέλεσε θυσίας τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἀνέθηκεν ἀναθήματα τῆς νίκης ἀξίως.

5. Now this Apion was unacquainted with almost all the kings of those Macedonians whom he pretends to have been his progenitors,—who were yet very well affected towards us; for the third of those Ptolemies, who was called Euergetes, when he had gotten possession of all Syria by force, did not offer his thank-offerings to the Egyptian gods for his victory, but came to Jerusalem, and, according to our own laws, offered many sacrifices to God, and dedicated to him such gifts as were suitable to such a victory:

ὁ δὲ Φιλομήτωρ Πτολεμαῖος καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ Κλεοπάτρα τὴν βασιλείαν ὅλην τὴν ἑαυτῶν ̓Ιουδαίοις ἐπίστευσαν, καὶ στρατηγοὶ πάσης τῆς δυνάμεως ἦσαν ̓Ονίας καὶ Δοσίθεος ̓Ιουδαῖοι, ὧν ̓Απίων σκώπτει τὰ ὀνόματα, δέον τὰ ἔργα θαυμάζειν καὶ μὴ λοιδορεῖν, ἀλλὰ χάριν αὐτοῖς ἔχειν, ὅτι διέσωσαν τὴν ̓Αλεξάνδρειαν, ἧς ὡς πολίτης ἀντιποιεῖται.

and as for Ptolemy Philometor and his wife Cleopatra, they committed their whole kingdom to Jews, when Onias and Dositheus, both Jews, whose names are laughed at by Apion, were the generals of their whole army; but certainly instead of reproaching them, he ought to admire their actions, and return them thanks for saving Alexandria, whose citizen he pretends to be;

καὶ γὰρ αὖ κἀκεῖνο τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὁρῶ παρακολουθοῦν, τὸ λίαν ἐφήδεσθαι ὅταν τις ἀρξάμενος βλασφημεῖν ἕτερον αὐτὸς ἐλέγχηται περὶ τῶν αὐτῷ προσόντων κακῶν.

For I also have observed, that many men are very much delighted when they see a man who first began to reproach another, to be himself exposed to contempt on account of the vices he hath himself been guilty of.

πολεμούντων γὰρ αὐτῶν τῇ βασιλίσσῃ Κλεοπάτρᾳ καὶ κινδυνευόντων ἀπολέσθαι κακῶς οὗτοι συμβάσεις ἐποίησαν καὶ τῶν ἐμφυλίων κακῶν ἀπήλλαξαν. ἀλλὰ “μετὰ ταῦτα, φησίν, ̓Ονίας ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν ἤγαγε στρατὸν ὀλίγον ὄντος ἐκεῖ Θέρμου

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for when these Alexandrians were making war with Cleopatra the queen, and were in danger of being utterly ruined, these Jews brought them to terms of agreement, and freed them from the miseries of a civil war. “But then (says Apion) Onias brought a small army afterward upon the city at the time when Thermus the Roman ambassador was there present.”

τοῦ παρὰ ̔Ρωμαίων πρεσβευτοῦ καὶ παρόντος.” ὀρθῶς δὲ ποιῶν φαίην ἂν καὶ μάλα δικαίως: ὁ γὰρ Φύσκων ἐπικληθεὶς Πτολεμαῖος ἀποθανόντος αὐτῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Φιλομήτορος ἀπὸ Κυρήνης ἐξῆλθε Κλεοπάτραν ἐκβαλεῖν βουλόμενος τῆς βασιλείας

Yes, do I venture to say, and that he did rightly and very justly in so doing; for that Ptolemy who was called Physco, upon the death of his brother Philometor, came from Cyrene, and would have ejected Cleopatra as well as her sons out of their kingdom

ετ φιλιος ρεγις, υτ ιπσε ρεγνυμ ινιυστε σιβιμετ αππλιξαρετ; προπτερ ηαεξ εργο ονιας αδυερσυς ευμ βελλυμ προ ξλεοπατρα συσξεπιτ ετ φιδεμ, θυαμ ηαβυιτ ξιρξα ρεγες, νεθυαθυαμ ιν νεξεσσιτατε δεσερυιτ.

that he might obtain it for himself unjustly. For this cause then it was that Onias undertook a war against him on Cleopatra’s account; nor would he desert that trust the royal family had reposed in him in their distress.

τεστις αυτεμ δευς ιυστιτιαε ειυς μανιφεστυς αππαρυιτ; ναμ φψσξον πτολομαευς ξυμ αδυερσυμ εχερξιτυμ θυιδεμ ονιαε πυγναρε πραεσυμερετ, ομνες υερο ιυδαεος ιν ξιυιτατε ποσιτος ξυμ φιλιις ετ υχοριβυς ξαπιενς νυδος ατθυε υινξτος ελεπηαντις συβιεξισσετ, υτ αβ εις ξονξυλξατι δεφιξερεντ, ετ αδ ηοξ ετιαμ βεστιας ιπσας δεβριασσετ, ιν ξοντραριυμ θυαε πραεπαραυερατ ευενερυντ.

Accordingly, God gave a remarkable attestation to his righteous procedure; for when Ptolemy Physco had the presumption to fight against Onias’s army, and had caught all the Jews that were in the city [Alexandria], with their children and wives, and exposed them naked and in bonds to his elephants, that they might be trodden upon and destroyed, and when he had made those elephants drunk for that purpose, the event proved contrary to his preparations;

ελεπηαντι ενιμ ρελινθυεντες σιβι απποσιτος ιυδαεος ιμπετυ φαξτο συπερ αμιξος ειυς μυλτος εχ ιπσις ιντερεμερυντ. ετ ποστ ηαεξ πτολομαευς θυιδεμ ασπεξτυμ τερριβιλεμ ξοντεμπλατυς εστ προηιβεντεμ σε, υτ ιλλις νοξερετ

for these elephants left the Jews who were exposed to them, and fell violently upon Physco’s friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after this, Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting those men;

ηομινιβυς, ξονξυβινα υερο συα ξαρισσιμα, θυαμ αλιι θυιδεμ ιτηαξαμ, αλιι υερο ηιρενεν δενομιναντ, συππλιξαντε νε τανταμ ιμπιετατεμ περαγερετ, ει ξονξεσσιτ ετ εχ ηις θυαε ιαμ εγερατ υελ αξτυρυς ερατ παενιτεντιαμ εγιτ. υνδε ρεξτε ηανξ διεμ ιυδαει αλεχανδρια ξονστιτυτι εο θυοδ απερτε α δεο σαλυτεμ προμερυερυντ ξελεβραρε νοσξυντυρ.

his very concubine, whom he loved so well (some call her Ithaca, and others Irene), making supplication to him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness. So he complied with her request, and repented of what he either had already done, or was about to do; whence it is well known that the Alexandrian Jews do with good reason celebrate this day, on the account that they had thereon been vouchsafed such an evident deliverance from God.

απιον αυτεμ ομνιυμ ξαλυμνιατορ ετιαμ προπτερ βελλυμ αδυερσυς φψσξονεμ γεστυμ ιυδαεος αξξυσαρε πραεσυμπσιτ, ξυμ εος λαυδαρε δεβυεριτ. ις αυτεμ ετιαμ υλτιμαε ξλεοπατραε αλεχανδρινορυμ ρεγιναε μεμινιτ υελυτι νοβις ιμπροπερανς, θυονιαμ ξιρξα νος φυιτ ινγρατα, ετ νον ποτιυς ιλλαμ ρεδαργυερε στυδυιτ;

However, Apion, the common calumniator of men, hath the presumption to accuse the Jews for making this war against Physco, when he ought to have commended them for the same. This man also makes mention of Cleopatra, the last queen of Alexandria, and abuses us, because she was ungrateful to us; whereas he ought to have reproved her

ξυι νιηιλ ομνινο ινιυστιτιαε ετ μαλορυμ οπερυμ δεφυιτ υελ ξιρξα γενερις νεξεσσαριος υελ ξιρξα μαριτος συος, θυι ετιαμ διλεχερυντ εαμ, υελ ιν ξομμυνι ξοντρα ρομανος ομνες ετ βενεφαξτορες συος ιμπερατορες, θυαε

who indulged herself in all kinds of injustice and wicked practices, both with regard to her nearest relations, and husbands who had loved her, and indeed in general with regard to all the Romans, and those emperors that were her benefactors; who also had her sister Arsinoe slain in a temple, when she had done her no harm:

ετιαμ σορορεμ αρσινοε̈ν οξξιδιτ ιν τεμπλο νιηιλ σιβι νοξεντεμ, περεμιτ αυτεμ ετ φρατρεμ ινσιδιις πατερνοσθυε δεος ετ σεπυλξρα προγενιτορυμ δεποπυλατα εστ, περξιπιενσθυε ρεγνυμ α πριμο ξαεσαρε ειυς φιλιο ετ συξξεσσορι ρεβελλαρε πραεσυμπσιτ, αντονιυμθυε ξορρυμπενς αματοριις ρεβυς ετ πατριαε ινιμιξυμ φεξιτ ετ ινφιδελεμ ξιρξα συος αμιξος ινστιτυιτ, αλιος θυιδεμ γενερε ρεγαλι σπολιανς, αλιος αυτεμ δεμενς ετ αδ μαλα γερενδα ξομπελλενς.

moreover, she had her brother slain by private treachery, and she destroyed the gods of her country and the sepulchres of her progenitors; and while she had received her kingdom from the first Caesar, she had the impudence to rebel against his son and successor; nay, she corrupted Antony with her love-tricks, and rendered him an enemy to his country, and made him treacherous to his friends, and [by his means] despoiled some of their royal authority, and forced others in her madness to act wickedly;

σεδ θυιδ οπορτετ αμπλιυς διξι, ξυμ ιλλυμ ιπσυμ ιν ναυαλι ξερταμινε ρελινθυενς, ιδ εστ μαριτυμ ετ παρεντεμ ξομμυνιυμ φιλιορυμ, τραδερε ευμ εχερξιτυμ

but what need I enlarge upon this head any farther, when she left Antony in his fight at sea, though he were her husband, and the father of their common children, and compelled him to resign up his government, with the army, and to follow her [into Egypt];

ἔστι μὲν οὖν οὐ ῥᾴδιον αὐτοῦ διελθεῖν τὸν λόγον οὐδὲ σαφῶς γνῶναι, τί λέγειν βούλεται, σχεδὸν δ' ὡς ἐν πολλῇ ταραχῇ καὶ ψευσμάτων συγχύσει τὰ μὲν εἰς τὴν ὁμοίαν ἰδέαν πίπτει τοῖς προεξητασμένοις περὶ τῆς ἐξ Αἰγύπτου τῶν ἡμετέρων

However, it is not a very easy thing to go over this man’s discourse, nor to know plainly what he means; yet does he seem, amidst a great confusion and disorder in his falsehoods, to produce, in the first place, such things as resemble what we have examined already, and relate to the departure of our forefathers out of Egypt;

ετ πρινξιπατυμ ετ σε σεθυι ξοε̈γιτ? νουισσιμε υερο αλεχανδρια α ξαεσαρε ξαπτα αδ ηοξ υσθυε περδυξτα εστ, υτ σαλυτεμ ηινξ σπεραρε σε ιυδιξαρετ, σι ποσσετ ιπσα μανυ συα ιυδαεος περιμερε, εο θυοδ ξιρξα ομνες ξρυδελις ετ ινφιδελις εχταρετ. πυτασνε γλοριανδυμ νοβις νον εσσε, σι θυεμαδμοδυμ διξιτ απιον φαμις τεμπορε ιυδαεις τριτιξυμ

nan

nay, when last of all Caesar had taken Alexandria, she came to that pitch of cruelty, that she declared she had some hope of preserving her affairs still, in case she could kill the Jews, though it were with her own hand; to such a degree of barbarity and perfidiousness had she arrived; and doth any one think that we cannot boast ourselves of any thing, if, as Apion says, this queen did not at a time of famine distribute wheat among us?

νον εστ μενσα? σεδ ιλλα θυιδεμ ποεναμ συβιιτ ξομπετεντεμ, νος αυτεμ μαχιμο ξαεσαρε υτιμυρ τεστε σολατιι ατθυε φιδει, θυαμ ξιρξα ευμ ξοντρα αεγψπτιος γεσσιμυς, νεξνον ετ σενατυ ειυσθυε δογματιβυς ετ επιστυλις ξαεσαρις αυγυστι, θυιβυς νοστρα μεριτα ξομπροβαντυρ.

However, she at length met with the punishment she deserved. As for us Jews, we appeal to the great Caesar what assistance we brought him, and what fidelity we showed to him against the Egyptians; as also to the senate and its decrees, and the epistles of Augustus Caesar, whereby our merits [to the Romans] are justified.

ηας λιττερας απιονεμ οπορτεβατ ινσπιξερε ετ σεξυνδυμ γενερα εχαμιναρε τεστιμονια συβ αλεχανδρο φαξτα ετ ομνιβυς πτολομαεις ετ θυαε α σενατυ ξονστιτυτα συντ νεξνον ετ α μαχιμις ρομανις ιμπερατοριβυς.

Apion ought to have looked upon those epistles, and in particular to have examined the testimonies given on our behalf, under Alexander and all the Ptolemies, and the decrees of the senate and of the greatest Roman emperors;

σι υερο γερμανιξυς φρυμεντα ξυνξτις ιν αλεχανδρια ξομμοραντιβυς μετιρι νον ποτυιτ, ηοξ ινδιξιυμ εστ στεριλιτατις αξ νεξεσσιτατις φρυμεντορυμ, νον αξξυσατιο ιυδαεορυμ. θυιδ ενιμ σαπιαντ ομνες ιμπερατορες δε ιυδαεις ιν αλεχανδρια ξομμοραντιβυς, παλαμ εστ;

and if Germanicus was not able to make a distribution of corn to all the inhabitants of Alexandria, that only shows what a barren time it was, and how great a want there was then of corn, but tends nothing to the accusation of the Jews; for what all the emperors have thought of the Alexandrian Jews is well known

ναμ αμμινιστρατιο τριτιξι νιηιλο μινυς αβ εις θυαμ αβ αλιις αλεχανδρινις τρανσλατα εστ, μαχιμαμ υερο εις φιδεμ ολιμ α ρεγιβυς δαταμ ξονσερυαυερυντ, ιδ εστ φλυμινις ξυστοδιαμ τοτιυσθυε ξυστοδιαε νεθυαθυαμ ηις ρεβυς ινδιγνος εσσε ιυδιξαντες.

for this distribution of wheat was no otherwise omitted with regard to the Jews, than it was with regard to the other inhabitants of Alexandria: but they still were desirous to preserve what the kings had formerly intrusted to their care, I mean the custody of the river: nor did those kings think them unworthy of having the entire custody thereof upon all occasions.

σεδ συπερ ηαεξ, θυομοδο εργο, ινθυιτ, σι συντ ξιυες, εοσδεμ δεος θυος αλεχανδρινι νον ξολυντ? ξυι ρεσπονδεο, θυομοδο ετιαμ, ξυμ υος σιτις αεγψπτιι, ιντερ αλτερυτρος προελιο μαγνο ετ σινε

6. But besides this, Apion objects to us thus:—“If the Jews (says he) be citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods with the Alexandrians?” To which I give this answer: Since you are yourselves Egyptians, why do you fight out one against another, and have implacable wars about your religion?

φοεδερε δε ρελιγιονε ξοντενδιτις? αν ξερτε προπτερεα νον υος ομνες διξιμυς αεγψπτιος ετ νεθυε ξομμυνιτερ ηομινες, θυονιαμ βεστιας αδυερσαντες νατυραε νοστραε ξολιτις μυλτα διλιγεντια νυτριεντες, ξυμ

At this rate we must not call you all Egyptians, nor indeed in general men, because you breed up with great care beasts of a nature quite contrary to that of men, although the nature of all men seems to be one and the same.

γενυς υτιθυε νοστρορυμ υνυμ ιταθυε ιδεμ εσσε υιδεατυρ? σι αυτεμ ιν υοβις αεγψπτιις τανταε διφφερεντιαε οπινιονυμ συντ, θυιδ μιραρις συπερ ηις, θυι αλιυνδε ιν αλεχανδριαμ αδυενερυντ, σι ιν λεγιβυς α

Now if there be such differences in opinion among you Egyptians, why are you surprised that those who came to Alexandria from another country, and had original laws of their own before, should persevere in the observance of those laws?

πρινξιπιο ξονστιτυτις ξιρξα ταλια περμανσερυντ? ις αυτεμ ετιαμ σεδιτιονις ξαυσας νοβις αππονιτ, θυι σι ξυμ υεριτατε οβ ηοξ αξξυσατ ιυδαεος ιν αλεχανδρια ξονστιτυτος, ξυρ ομνες νος ξυλπατ υβιθυε ποσιτος

But still he charges us with being the authors of sedition: which accusation, if it be a just one, why is it not laid against us all, since we are known to be all of one mind?

εο θυοδ νοσξαμυρ ηαβερε ξονξορδιαμ? πορρο ετιαμ σεδιτιονις αυξτορες θυιλιβετ ινυενιετ απιονι σιμιλες αλεχανδρινορυμ φυισσε ξιυες. δονεξ ενιμ γραεξι φυερυντ ετ μαξεδονες ηανξ ξιυιλιτατεμ ηαβεντες, νυλλαμ σεδιτιονεμ αδυερσυς νος γεσσερυντ, σεδ αντιθυις ξεσσερε σολλεμνιτατιβυς. ξυμ υερο μυλτιτυδο αεγψπτιορυμ ξρευισσετ ιντερ εος προπτερ ξονφυσιονες τεμπορυμ, ετιαμ ηοξ οπυς σεμπερ εστ αδδιτυμ. νοστρυμ υερο γενυς περμανσιτ πυρυμ.

Moreover, those that search into such matters will soon discover that the authors of sedition have been such citizens of Alexandria as Apion is; for while they were the Grecians and Macedonians who were in possession of this city, there was no sedition raised against us, and we were permitted to observe our ancient solemnities; but when the number of the Egyptians therein came to be considerable, the times grew confused, and then these seditions brake out still more and more, while our people continued uncorrupted.

προγόνων μεταναστάσεως, τὰ δ' ἐστὶ κατηγορία τῶν ἐν ̓Αλεξανδρείᾳ κατοικούντων ̓Ιουδαίων. τρίτον δ' ἐπὶ τούτοις μέμικται περὶ τῆς ἁγιστείας τῆς κατὰ τὸ ἱερὸν ἡμῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων νομίμων κατηγορία.

and, in the second place, he accuses those Jews that are inhabitants of Alexandria; as, in the third place, he mixes with these things such accusations as concern the sacred purifications, with the other legal rites used in the temple.

ιπσι ιγιτυρ μολεστιαε ηυιυς φυερε πρινξιπιυμ νεθυαθυαμ ποπυλο μαξεδονιξαμ ηαβεντε ξονσταντιαμ νεθυε πρυδεντιαμ γραεξαμ, σεδ ξυνξτις σξιλιξετ υτεντιβυς μαλις μοριβυς αεγψπτιορυμ ετ αντιθυας ινιμιξιτιας αδυερσυμ νος εχερξεντιβυς.

nan	These Egyptians therefore were the authors of these troubles, who not having the constancy of Macedonians, nor the prudence of Grecians, indulged all of them the evil manners of the Egyptians, and continued their ancient hatred against us;

ε διυερσο ναμθυε φαξτυμ εστ θυοδ νοβις ιμπροπεραρε πραεσυμυντ; ναμ ξυμ πλυριμι εορυμ νον οπορτυνε ιυς ειυς ξιυιλιτατις οπτινεαντ, περεγρινος υοξαντ εος, θυι ηοξ πριυιλεγιυμ αδ ομνες ιμπερασσε νοσξυντυρ.

for what is here so presumptuously charged upon us is owing to the differences that are amongst themselves; while many of them have not obtained the privileges of citizens in proper times, but style those who are well known to have had that privilege extended to them all, no other than foreigners;

ναμ αεγψπτιις νεθυε ρεγυμ θυισθυαμ υιδετυρ ιυς ξιυιλιτατις φυισσε λαργιτυς νεθυε νυνξ θυιλιβετ ιμπερατορυμ, νος αυτεμ αλεχανδερ θυιδεμ ιντροδυχιτ, ρεγες αυτεμ αυχερυντ, ρομανι υερο σεμπερ ξυστοδιρε διγνατι συντ.

for it does not appear that any of the kings have ever formerly bestowed those privileges of citizens upon Egyptians, no more than have the emperors done it more lately; while it was Alexander who introduced us into this city at first, the kings augmented our privileges therein, and the Romans have been pleased to preserve them always inviolable.

ιταθυε δερογαρε νοβις απιον ξονατυς εστ, θυια ιμπερατορυμ νον στατυαμυς ιμαγινες ταμθυαμ ιλλις ηοξ ιγνοραντιβυς αυτ δεφενσιονε απιονις ινδιγεντιβυς, ξυμ ποτιυς δεβυεριτ αμμιραρι μαγνανιμιτατεμ μεδιοξριτατεμθυε ρομανορυμ, θυονιαμ συβιεξτος νον ξογυντ πατρια ιυρα τρανσξενδερε, σεδ συσξιπιυντ ηονορες σιξυτ δαρε οφφερεντες πιυμ ατθυε λεγιτιμυμ εστ; νον ενιμ ηονοριβυς γρατιαμ ηαβεντ, θυι εχ νεξεσσιτατε ετ υιολεντια ξονφερυντυρ.

Moreover, Apion would lay a blot upon us, because we do not erect images to our emperors, as if those emperors did not know this before, or stood in need of Apion as their defender; whereas he ought rather to have admired the magnanimity and modesty of the Romans, whereby they do not compel those that are subject to them to transgress the laws of their countries, but are willing to receive the honors due to them after such a manner as those who are to pay them esteem consistent with piety and with their own laws; for they do not thank people for conferring honors upon them, when they are compelled by violence so to do.

γραεξις ιταθυε ετ αλιις θυιβυσδαμ βονυμ εσσε ξρεδιτυρ ιμαγινες ινστιτυερε, δενιθυε ετ πατρυμ ετ υχορυμ φιλιορυμθυε φιγυρας δεπινγεντες εχυλταντ, θυιδαμ υερο ετιαμ νιηιλ σιβι ξομπετεντιυμ συμυντ ιμαγινες, αλιι υερο ετ σερυος διλιγεντες ηοξ φαξιυντ. θυιδ εργο μιρυμ εστ, σι ετιαμ πρινξιπιβυς αξ δομινις ηυνξ

Accordingly, since the Grecians and some other nations think it a right thing to make images, nay, when they have painted the pictures of their parents, and wives, and children, they exult for joy; and some there are who take pictures for themselves of such persons as were no way related to them: nay, some take the pictures of such servants as they were fond of. What wonder is it then if such as these appear willing to pay the same respect to their princes and lords?

ηονορεμ πραεβερε υιδεαντυρ? πορρο νοστερ λεγισλατορ, νον θυασι προπηετανς ρομανορυμ ποτεντιαμ νον ηονορανδαμ, σεδ ταμθυαμ ξαυσαμ νεθυε δεο νεθυε ηομινιβυς υτιλεμ δεσπιξιενς, ετ θυονιαμ τοτιυς ανιματι, μυλτο μαγις δει ινανιματυ προβατυρ ινφεριυς ιντερδιχιτ ιμαγινες φαβριξαρι.

But then our legislator hath forbidden us to make images, not by way of denunciation beforehand, that the Roman authority was not to be honored, but as despising a thing that was neither necessary nor useful for either God or man; and he forbade them, as we shall prove hereafter, to make these images for any part of the animal creation

αλιις αυτεμ ηονοριβυς ποστ δευμ ξολενδος νον προηιβυιτ υιρος βονος, θυιβυς νος ετ ιμπερατορες ετ ποπυλυμ ρομανορυμ διγνιτατιβυς αμπλιαμυς.

and much less for God himself, who is no part of such animal creation. Yet hath our legislator no where forbidden us to pay honors to worthy men, provided they be of another kind, and inferior to those we pay to God; with which honors we willingly testify our respect to our emperors, and to the people of Rome;

φαξιμυς αυτεμ προ εις ξοντινυα σαξριφιξια ετ νον σολυμ ξοτιδιανις διεβυς εχ ιμπενσα ξομμυνι ομνιυμ ιυδαεορυμ ταλια ξελεβραμυς, υερυμ ξυμ νυλλας αλιας ηοστιας εχ ξομμυνι νεθυε προ φιλιις περαγαμυς, σολις ιμπερατοριβυς ηυνξ ηονορεμ πραεξιπυυμ παριτερ εχηιβεμυς, θυεμ ηομινυμ νυλλι περσολυιμυς.

we also offer perpetual sacrifices for them; nor do we only offer them every day at the common expenses of all the Jews, but although we offer no other such sacrifices out of our common expenses, no, not for our own children, yet do we this as a peculiar honor to the emperors, and to them alone, while we do the same to no other person whomsoever.

ηαεξ ιταθυε ξομμυνιτερ σατισφαξτιο ποσιτα σιτ αδυερσυς απιονεμ προ ηις, θυαε δε αλεχανδρια διξτα συντ.

And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews.

αμμιρορ αυτεμ ετιαμ εος, θυι ει ηυιυσμοδι φομιτεμ πραεβυερυντ ιδ εστ ποσιδονιυμ ετ απολλονιυμ μολονις, θυονιαμ αξξυσαντ θυιδεμ νος, θυαρε νος εοσδεμ δεος ξυμ αλιις νον ξολιμυς, μεντιεντες αυτεμ παριτερ ετ δε νοστρο τεμπλο βλασπηεμιας ξομπονεντες ινξονγρυας νον σε πυταντ ιμπιε αγερε, δυμ σιτ υαλδε τυρπισσιμυμ λιβερις θυαλιβετ ρατιονε μεντιρι μυλτο μαγις δε τεμπλο απυδ ξυνξτος ηομινες νομινατο ταντα σανξτιτατε πολλεντε.

7. However, I cannot but admire those other authors who furnished this man with such his materials; I mean Posidonius and Apollonius [the son of] Molo, who while they accuse us for not worshipping the same gods whom others worship, they think themselves not guilty of impiety when they tell lies of us, and frame absurd and reproachful stories about our temple; whereas it is a most shameful thing for freemen to forge lies on any occasion, and much more so to forge them about our temple, which was so famous over all the world, and was preserved so sacred by us;

̔́Οτι μὲν οὖν οὔτε Αἰγύπτιοι τὸ γένος ἦσαν ἡμῶν οἱ πατέρες οὔτε διὰ λύμην σωμάτων ἢ τοιαύτας ἄλλας συμφοράς τινας ἐκεῖθεν ἐξηλάθησαν, οὐ μετρίως μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πέρα τοῦ συμμέτρου προαποδεδεῖχθαι νομίζω.

2. Now, although I cannot but think that I have already demonstrated, and that abundantly, more than was necessary, that our fathers were not originally Egyptians, nor were thence expelled, either on account of bodily diseases, or any other calamities of that sort

ιν ηοξ ενιμ σαξραριο απιον πραεσυμπσιτ εδιξερε ασινι ξαπυτ ξολλοξασσε ιυδαεος ετ ευμ ξολερε αξ διγνυμ φαξερε ταντα ρελιγιονε, ετ ηοξ αφφιρματ φυισσε δεπαλατυμ, δυμ αντιοξηυς επιπηανες εχπολιασσετ τεμπλυμ ετ ιλλυδ ξαπυτ ινυεντυμ εχ αυρο ξομποσιτυμ μυλτις πεξυνιις διγνυμ.

nan	for Apion hath the impudence to pretend, that “the Jews placed an ass’s head in their holy place;” and he affirms that this was discovered when Antiochus Epiphanes spoiled our temple, and found that ass’s head there made of gold, and worth a great deal of money.

αδ ηαεξ ιγιτυρ πριυς εθυιδεμ διξο, θυονιαμ αεγψπτιυς, υελ σι αλιθυιδ ταλε απυδ νος φυισσετ, νεθυαθυαμ δεβυερατ ινξρεπαρε, ξυμ νον σιτ δετεριορ ασινυς φυρονιβυς ετ ηιρξις ετ αλιις, θυαε συντ απυδ εος διι.

To this my first answer shall be this, that had there been any such thing among us, an Egyptian ought by no means to have thrown it in our teeth, since an ass is not a more contemptible animal than [...] and goats, and other such creatures, which among them are gods.

δεινδε θυομοδο νον ιντελλεχιτ οπεριβυς ινξρεπατυς δε ινξρεδιβιλι συο μενδαξιο? λεγιβυς ναμθυε σεμπερ υτιμυρ ηισδεμ, ιν θυιβυς σινε φινε ξονσιστιμυς, ετ ξυμ υαριι ξασυς νοστραμ ξιυιτατεμ σιξυτ ετιαμ αλιορυμ υεχαυεριντ ετ πιυς αξ πομπειυς μαγνυς ετ λιξινιυς ξρασσυς ετ αδ νουισσιμυμ τιτυς ξαεσαρ βελλο υινξεντες οπτινυεριντ τεμπλυμ, νιηιλ ηυιυσμοδι ιλλιξ ινυενερυντ, σεδ πυρισσιμαμ πιετατεμ, δε θυα νιηιλ νοβις εστ απυδ αλιος εφφαβιλε.

But besides this answer, I say farther, how comes it about that Apion does not understand this to be no other than a palpable lie, and to be confuted by the thing itself as utterly incredible? For we Jews are always governed by the same laws, in which we constantly persevere; and although many misfortunes have befallen our city, as the like have befallen others, and although Theos [Epiphanes], and Pompey the Great, and Licinius Crassus, and last of all Titus Caesar, have conquered us in war, and gotten possession of our temple, yet have they none of them found any such thing there, nor indeed any thing but what was agreeable to the strictest piety; although what they found we are not at liberty to reveal to other nations.

θυια υερο αντιοξηυς νεθυε ιυσταμ φεξιτ τεμπλι δεπραεδατιονεμ, σεδ εγεστατε πεξυνιαρυμ αδ ηοξ αξξεσσιτ, ξυμ νον εσσετ ηοστις, ετ συπερ νος αυχιλιατορες συος ετ αμιξος αδγρεσσυς εστ νεξ αλιθυιδ διγνυμ δερισιονε ιλλιξ ινυενιτ

But for Antiochus [Epiphanes], he had no just cause for that ravage in our temple that he made; he only came to it when he wanted money, without declaring himself our enemy, and attacked us while we were his associates and his friends: nor did he find any thing there that was ridiculous.

μυλτι ετ διγνι ξονσξριπτορες συπερ ηοξ θυοθυε τεσταντυρ, πολψβιυς μεγαλοπολιτα στραβον ξαππαδοχ νιξολαυς δαμασξενυς τιμαγενις ετ ξαστορ τεμπορυμ ξονσξριπτορ ετ απολλοδορυς; ομνες διξυντ πεξυνιις ινδιγεντεμ αντιοξηυμ τρανσγρεσσυμ φοεδερα ιυδαεορυμ ετ σπολιασσε τεμπλυμ αυρο αργεντοθυε πλενυμ.

This is attested by many worthy writers; Polybius of Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes, Castor the chronologer, and Apollodorus, who all say that it was out of Antiochus’s want of money that he broke his league with the Jews, and despoiled their temple when it was full of gold and silver.

ηαεξ ιγιτυρ απιον δεβυιτ ρεσπιξερε, νισι ξορ ασινι ιπσε ποτιυς ηαβυισσετ ετ ιμπυδεντιαμ ξανις, θυι απυδ ιπσος ασσολετ ξολι; νεθυε ενιμ εχτρινσεξυς αλιθυα ρατιοξινατιονε μεντιτυς εστ.

Apion ought to have had a regard to these facts, unless he had himself had either an ass’s heart or a dog’s impudence; of such a dog I mean as they worship; for he had no other external reason for the lies he tells of us. As for us Jews, we ascribe no honor or power to asses, as do the Egyptians to crocodiles and asps, when they esteem such as are seized upon by the former, or bitten by the latter, to be happy persons, and persons worthy of God.

περὶ ὧν δὲ προστίθησιν ὁ ̓Απίων ἐπιμνησθήσομαι συντόμως.

yet will I briefly take notice of what Apion adds upon that subject;

ιστι υερο μαγις στυδυερυντ δεφενδερε σαξριλεγυμ ρεγεμ θυαμ ιυστα ετ υεραξια δε νοστρις ετ δε τεμπλο ξονσξριβερε; υολεντες ενιμ αντιοξηο πραεσταρε ετ ινφιδελιτατεμ αξ σαξριλεγιυμ ειυς τεγερε, θυο ξιρξα γεντεμ νοστραμ εστ υσυς προπτερ εγεστατεμ πεξυνιαρυμ, δετραηεντες νοβις ετιαμ θυαε ιν φυτυρο εσσεντ διξενδα μεντιτι συντ.

yet will I briefly take notice of what Apion adds upon that subject;

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

31 results

1. Herodotus, Histories, 2.73 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

2.73. There is another sacred bird, too, whose name is phoenix. I myself have never seen it, only pictures of it; for the bird seldom comes into Egypt : once in five hundred years, as the people of Heliopolis say. ,It is said that the phoenix comes when his father dies. If the picture truly shows his size and appearance, his plumage is partly golden and partly red. He is most like an eagle in shape and size. ,What they say this bird manages to do is incredible to me. Flying from Arabia to the temple of the sun, they say, he conveys his father encased in myrrh and buries him at the temple of the Sun. ,This is how he conveys him: he first molds an egg of myrrh as heavy as he can carry, then tries lifting it, and when he has tried it, he then hollows out the egg and puts his father into it, and plasters over with more myrrh the hollow of the egg into which he has put his father, which is the same in weight with his father lying in it, and he conveys him encased to the temple of the Sun in Egypt . This is what they say this bird does.

2. Anon., Jubilees, 40.10 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

40.10. and caused him to ride in the second chariot of Pharaoh. brAnd he clothed him with byssus garments, and he put a gold chain upon his neck, and (a herald) proclaimed before him "’Êl ’Êl wa’ Abîrĕr

3. Septuagint, 1 Maccabees, 1.11 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

1.11. In those days lawless men came forth from Israel, and misled many, saying, "Let us go and make a covet with the Gentiles round about us, for since we separated from them many evils have come upon us.

4. Septuagint, 3 Maccabees, 7.20 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

5. Cleomedes, On The Circular Motions of The Celestial Bodies, 2.1.91 (1st cent. BCE

6. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 40.3 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

7. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15.382-15.407 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.78 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1.78. And since the nation is the most numerous of all peoples, it follows naturally that the first fruits contributed by them must also be most abundant. Accordingly there is in almost every city a storehouse for the sacred things to which it is customary for the people to come and there to deposit their first fruits, and at certain seasons there are sacred ambassadors selected on account of their virtue, who convey the offerings to the temple. And the most eminent men of each tribe are elected to this office, that they may conduct the hopes of each individual safe to their destination; for in the lawful offering of the first fruits are the hopes of the pious.XV.

9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Contemplative Life, 31-33, 30 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

30. Therefore, during six days, each of these individuals, retiring into solitude by himself, philosophises by himself in one of the places called monasteries, never going outside the threshold of the outer court, and indeed never even looking out. But on the seventh day they all come together as if to meet in a sacred assembly, and they sit down in order according to their ages with all becoming gravity, keeping their hands inside their garments, having their right hand between their chest and their dress, and the left hand down by their side, close to their flank;

10. Philo of Alexandria, Hypothetica, 7.12-7.13 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

7.12. What then did he do on this sabbath day? he commanded all the people to assemble together in the same place, and sitting down with one another, to listen to the laws with order and reverence, in order that no one should be ignorant of anything that is contained in them; 7.13. and, in fact, they do constantly assemble together, and they do sit down one with another, the multitude in general in silence, except when it is customary to say any words of good omen, by way of assent to what is being read. And then some priest who is present, or some one of the elders, reads the sacred laws to them, and interprets each of them separately till eventide; and then when separate they depart, having gained some skill in the sacred laws, and having made great advancers towards piety.

11. Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, 20, 41, 17 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

17. But when a magistrate begins to despair of his power of exerting authority, it follows inevitably, that his subjects must quickly become disobedient, especially those who are naturally, at every trivial or common occurrence, inclined to show insubordination, and, among people of such a disposition, the Egyptian nation is pre-eminent, being constantly in the habit of exciting great seditions from very small sparks.

12. Philo of Alexandria, On The Embassy To Gaius, 155-157, 166, 312, 315, 355-367, 66-77, 139 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

139. And what would they not have done in the case of those whom they looked upon as men? a people who look upon dogs, and wolves, and lions, and crocodiles, and numerous other beasts, both terrestrial and aquatic, and numerous birds, as gods, and erect in their honour altars, and temples, and shrines, and consecrated precincts, throughout the whole of Egypt? XXI.

13. Strabo, Geography, 17.1.29 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

17.1.29. At Heliopolis we saw large buildings in which the priests lived. For it is said that anciently this was the principal residence of the priests, who studied philosophy and astronomy. But there are no longer either such a body of persons or such pursuits. No one was pointed out to us on the spot, as presiding over these studies, but only persons who performed sacred rites, and who explained to strangers [the peculiarities of] the temples.A person of the name of Chaeremon accompanied the governor, Aelius Gallus, in his journey from Alexandreia into Egypt, and pretended to some knowledge of this kind, but he was generally ridiculed for his boasting and ignorance. The houses of the priests, and the residences of Plato and of Eudoxus, were shown to us. Eudoxus came here with Plato, and, according to some writers, lived thirteen years in the society of the priests. For the latter were distinguished for their knowledge of the heavenly bodies, but were mysterious and uncommunicative, yet after a time were prevailed upon by courtesy to acquaint them with some of the principles of their science, but the barbarians concealed the greater part of them. They had, however, communicated the knowledge of the additional portions of the day and night, in the space of 365 days, necessary to complete the annual period; and, at that time, the length of the year was unknown to the Greeks, as were many other things, until later astronomers received them from the persons who translated the records of the priests into the Greek language, and even now derive knowledge from their writings and from those of the Chaldeans.

14. Cornutus, De Natura Deorum, 17 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

15. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 2.91, 12.6, 14.215-14.216, 14.235, 14.258, 14.260-14.261, 15.300, 16.43, 16.164, 16.167-16.168, 18.65-18.85, 18.257-18.260, 19.278-19.285, 19.300, 19.303, 20.195 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

2.91. 1. Joseph was now grown up to thirty years of age, and enjoyed great honors from the king, who called him Psothom Phanech, out of regard to his prodigious degree of wisdom; for that name denotes the revealer of secrets. He also married a wife of very high quality; for he married the daughter of Petephres, one of the priests of Heliopolis; she was a virgin, and her name was Asenath. 12.6. “There is a nation called the nation of the Jews, who inhabit a city strong and great, named Jerusalem. These men took no care, but let it come into the hands of Ptolemy, as not willing to take arms, and thereby they submitted to be under a hard master, by reason of their unseasonable superstition.” 12.6. 8. And first I will describe what belongs to the table. It was indeed in the king’s mind to make this table vastly large in its dimensions; but then he gave orders that they should learn what was the magnitude of the table which was already at Jerusalem, and how large it was, and whether there was a possibility of making one larger than it. 14.215. for even Caius Caesar, our imperator and consul, in that decree wherein he forbade the Bacchanal rioters to meet in the city, did yet permit these Jews, and these only, both to bring in their contributions, and to make their common suppers. 14.216. Accordingly, when I forbid other Bacchanal rioters, I permit these Jews to gather themselves together, according to the customs and laws of their forefathers, and to persist therein. It will be therefore good for you, that if you have made any decree against these our friends and confederates, to abrogate the same, by reason of their virtue and kind disposition towards us.” 14.235. 17. “Lucius Antonius, the son of Marcus, vice-quaestor, and vice-praetor, to the magistrates, senate, and people of the Sardians, sendeth greeting. Those Jews that are our fellowcitizens of Rome came to me, and demonstrated that they had an assembly of their own, according to the laws of their forefathers, and this from the beginning, as also a place of their own, wherein they determined their suits and controversies with one another. Upon their petition therefore to me, that these might be lawful for them, I gave order that these their privileges be preserved, and they be permitted to do accordingly.” 14.258. we have decreed, that as many men and women of the Jews as are willing so to do, may celebrate their Sabbaths, and perform their holy offices, according to the Jewish laws; and may make their proseuchae at the sea-side, according to the customs of their forefathers; and if any one, whether he be a magistrate or private person, hindereth them from so doing, he shall be liable to a fine, to be applied to the uses of the city.” 14.261. Now the senate and people have decreed to permit them to assemble together on the days formerly appointed, and to act according to their own laws; and that such a place be set apart for them by the praetors, for the building and inhabiting the same, as they shall esteem fit for that purpose; and that those that take care of the provision for the city, shall take care that such sorts of food as they esteem fit for their eating may be imported into the city.” 16.43. nor do we conceal those injunctions of ours by which we govern our lives, they being memorials of piety, and of a friendly conversation among men. And the seventh day we set apart from labor; it is dedicated to the learning of our customs and laws, we thinking it proper to reflect on them, as well as on any [good] thing else, in order to our avoiding of sin. 16.164. But if any one be caught stealing their holy books, or their sacred money, whether it be out of the synagogue or public school, he shall be deemed a sacrilegious person, and his goods shall be brought into the public treasury of the Romans. 16.167. 4. Agrippa also did himself write after the manner following, on behalf of the Jews: “Agrippa, to the magistrates, senate, and people of the Ephesians, sendeth greeting. I will that the care and custody of the sacred money that is carried to the temple at Jerusalem be left to the Jews of Asia, to do with it according to their ancient custom; 16.168. and that such as steal that sacred money of the Jews, and fly to a sanctuary, shall be taken thence and delivered to the Jews, by the same law that sacrilegious persons are taken thence. I have also written to Sylvanus the praetor, that no one compel the Jews to come before a judge on the Sabbath day.” 18.65. 4. About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. 18.66. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countece, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus, one that was every way answerable to her in an excellent character. 18.67. Decius Mundus fell in love with this woman, who was a man very high in the equestrian order; and as she was of too great dignity to be caught by presents, and had already rejected them, though they had been sent in great abundance, he was still more inflamed with love to her, insomuch that he promised to give her two hundred thousand Attic drachmae for one night’s lodging; 18.68. and when this would not prevail upon her, and he was not able to bear this misfortune in his amours, he thought it the best way to famish himself to death for want of food, on account of Paulina’s sad refusal; and he determined with himself to die after such a manner, and he went on with his purpose accordingly. 18.69. Now Mundus had a freed-woman, who had been made free by his father, whose name was Ide, one skillful in all sorts of mischief. This woman was very much grieved at the young man’s resolution to kill himself, (for he did not conceal his intentions to destroy himself from others,) and came to him, and encouraged him by her discourse, and made him to hope, by some promises she gave him, that he might obtain a night’s lodging with Paulina; 18.71. She went to some of Isis’s priests, and upon the strongest assurances [of concealment], she persuaded them by words, but chiefly by the offer of money, of twenty-five thousand drachmae in hand, and as much more when the thing had taken effect; and told them the passion of the young man, and persuaded them to use all means possible to beguile the woman. 18.72. So they were drawn in to promise so to do, by that large sum of gold they were to have. Accordingly, the oldest of them went immediately to Paulina; and upon his admittance, he desired to speak with her by herself. When that was granted him, he told her that he was sent by the god Anubis, who was fallen in love with her, and enjoined her to come to him. 18.73. Upon this she took the message very kindly, and valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis, and told her husband that she had a message sent her, and was to sup and lie with Anubis; so he agreed to her acceptance of the offer, as fully satisfied with the chastity of his wife. 18.74. Accordingly, she went to the temple, and after she had supped there, and it was the hour to go to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple, when, in the holy part of it, the lights were also put out. Then did Mundus leap out, (for he was hidden therein,) and did not fail of enjoying her, who was at his service all the night long, as supposing he was the god; 18.75. and when he was gone away, which was before those priests who knew nothing of this stratagem were stirring, Paulina came early to her husband, and told him how the god Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends, also, she declared how great a value she put upon this favor 18.76. who partly disbelieved the thing, when they reflected on its nature, and partly were amazed at it, as having no pretense for not believing it, when they considered the modesty and the dignity of the person. 18.77. But now, on the third day after what had been done, Mundus met Paulina, and said, “Nay, Paulina, thou hast saved me two hundred thousand drachmae, which sum thou sightest have added to thy own family; yet hast thou not failed to be at my service in the manner I invited thee. As for the reproaches thou hast laid upon Mundus, I value not the business of names; but I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took to myself the name of Anubis.” 18.78. When he had said this, he went his way. But now she began to come to the sense of the grossness of what she had done, and rent her garments, and told her husband of the horrid nature of this wicked contrivance, and prayed him not to neglect to assist her in this case. So he discovered the fact to the emperor; 18.79. whereupon Tiberius inquired into the matter thoroughly by examining the priests about it, and ordered them to be crucified, as well as Ide, who was the occasion of their perdition, and who had contrived the whole matter, which was so injurious to the woman. He also demolished the temple of Isis, and gave order that her statue should be thrown into the river Tiber; 18.81. 5. There was a man who was a Jew, but had been driven away from his own country by an accusation laid against him for transgressing their laws, and by the fear he was under of punishment for the same; but in all respects a wicked man. He, then living at Rome, professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses. 18.82. He procured also three other men, entirely of the same character with himself, to be his partners. These men persuaded Fulvia, a woman of great dignity, and one that had embraced the Jewish religion, to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem; and when they had gotten them, they employed them for their own uses, and spent the money themselves, on which account it was that they at first required it of her. 18.83. Whereupon Tiberius, who had been informed of the thing by Saturninus, the husband of Fulvia, who desired inquiry might be made about it, ordered all the Jews to be banished out of Rome; 18.84. at which time the consuls listed four thousand men out of them, and sent them to the island Sardinia; but punished a greater number of them, who were unwilling to become soldiers, on account of keeping the laws of their forefathers. Thus were these Jews banished out of the city by the wickedness of four men. 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. 18.257. 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; 19.278. 2. Now about this time there was a sedition between the Jews and the Greeks, at the city of Alexandria; for when Caius was dead, the nation of the Jews, which had been very much mortified under the reign of Caius, and reduced to very great distress by the people of Alexandria, recovered itself, and immediately took up their arms to fight for themselves. 19.279. So Claudius sent an order to the president of Egypt to quiet that tumult; he also sent an edict, at the requests of king Agrippa and king Herod, both to Alexandria and to Syria, whose contents were as follows: 19.281. Since I am assured that the Jews of Alexandria, called Alexandrians, have been joint inhabitants in the earliest times with the Alexandrians, and have obtained from their kings equal privileges with them, as is evident by the public records that are in their possession, and the edicts themselves; 19.282. and that after Alexandria had been subjected to our empire by Augustus, their rights and privileges have been preserved by those presidents who have at divers times been sent thither; and that no dispute had been raised about those rights and privileges 19.283. even when Aquila was governor of Alexandria; and that when the Jewish ethnarch was dead, Augustus did not prohibit the making such ethnarchs, as willing that all men should be so subject [to the Romans] as to continue in the observation of their own customs, and not be forced to transgress the ancient rules of their own country religion; 19.284. but that, in the time of Caius, the Alexandrians became insolent towards the Jews that were among them, which Caius, out of his great madness and want of understanding, reduced the nation of the Jews very low, because they would not transgress the religious worship of their country, and call him a god: 19.285. I will therefore that the nation of the Jews be not deprived of their rights and privileges, on account of the madness of Caius; but that those rights and privileges which they formerly enjoyed be preserved to them, and that they may continue in their own customs. And I charge both parties to take very great care that no troubles may arise after the promulgation of this edict.” 19.303. “Publius Petronius, the president under Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, to the magistrates of Doris, ordains as follows: 20.195. And when Nero had heard what they had to say, he not only forgave them what they had already done, but also gave them leave to let the wall they had built stand. This was granted them in order to gratify Poppea, Nero’s wife, who was a religious woman, and had requested these favors of Nero, and who gave order to the ten ambassadors to go their way home; but retained Helcias and Ismael as hostages with herself.

16. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 2.285-2.291, 7.44-7.45 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

2.285. Now the occasion of this war was by no means proportionable to those heavy calamities which it brought upon us. For the Jews that dwelt at Caesarea had a synagogue near the place, whose owner was a certain Cesarean Greek: the Jews had endeavored frequently to have purchased the possession of the place, and had offered many times its value for its price; 2.286. but as the owner overlooked their offers, so did he raise other buildings upon the place, in way of affront to them, and made workingshops of them, and left them but a narrow passage, and such as was very troublesome for them to go along to their synagogue. Whereupon the warmer part of the Jewish youth went hastily to the workmen, and forbade them to build there; 2.287. but as Florus would not permit them to use force, the great men of the Jews, with John the publican, being in the utmost distress what to do, persuaded Florus, with the offer of eight talents, to hinder the work. 2.288. He then, being intent upon nothing but getting money, promised he would do for them all they desired of him, and then went away from Caesarea to Sebaste, and left the sedition to take its full course, as if he had sold a license to the Jews to fight it out. 2.289. 5. Now on the next day, which was the seventh day of the week, when the Jews were crowding apace to their synagogue, a certain man of Caesarea, of a seditious temper, got an earthen vessel, and set it with the bottom upward, at the entrance of that synagogue, and sacrificed birds. This thing provoked the Jews to an incurable degree, because their laws were affronted, and the place was polluted. 2.291. Hereupon Jucundus, the master of the horse, who was ordered to prevent the fight, came thither, and took away the earthen vessel, and endeavored to put a stop to the sedition; but when he was overcome by the violence of the people of Caesarea, the Jews caught up their books of the law, and retired to Narbata, which was a place to them belonging, distant from Caesarea sixty furlongs. 7.44. for though Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid Jerusalem waste, and spoiled the temple, yet did those that succeeded him in the kingdom restore all the donations that were made of brass to the Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue, and granted them the enjoyment of equal privileges of citizens with the Greeks themselves; 7.44. So he sent out after him both horsemen and footmen, and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but some were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. 7.45. and as the succeeding kings treated them after the same manner, they both multiplied to a great number, and adorned their temple gloriously by fine ornaments, and with great magnificence, in the use of what had been given them. They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own body. 7.45. yet did Vespasian suspect the matter, and made an inquiry how far it was true. And when he understood that the accusation laid against the Jews was an unjust one, he cleared them of the crimes charged upon them, and this on account of Titus’s concern about the matter, and brought a deserved punishment upon Jonathan; for he was first tormented, and then burnt alive.

17. Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 1.1, 1.209, 1.238, 1.250, 1.265, 1.279, 1.289, 1.305-1.309, 2.1-2.3, 2.5-2.9, 2.11-2.144 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

1.1. 1. I suppose that, by my books of the Antiquities of the Jews, most excellent Epaphroditus, I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct subsistence of its own originally; as also I have therein declared how we came to inhabit this country wherein we now live. Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue. 1.1. but as for the place where the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand destructions have overtaken it, and blotted out the memory of former actions; so that they were ever beginning a new way of living, and supposed that every one of them was the origin of their new state. It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they now use; for those who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest antiquity pretend that they learned them from the Phoenicians and from Cadmus; 1.1. but after some considerable time, Armais, who was left in Egypt, did all those very things, by way of opposition, which his brother had forbidden him to do, without fear; for he used violence to the queen, and continued to make use of the rest of the concubines, without sparing any of them; nay, at the persuasion of his friends he put on the diadem, and set up to oppose his brother; 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. 1.238. But when these men were gotten into it, and found the place fit for a revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of Heliopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that they would be obedient to him in all things. 1.265. and for that priest who settled their polity and their laws,” he says “he was by birth of Heliopolis; and his name was Osarsiph, from Osiris, the god of Heliopolis, but that he changed his name, and called himself Moses.” 1.279. 31. It now remains that I debate with Manetho about Moses. Now the Egyptians acknowledge him to have been a wonderful, and a divine person; nay they would willingly lay claim to him themselves, though after a most abusive and incredible manner; and pretend that he was of Heliopolis, and one of the priests of that place, and was ejected out of it among the rest, on account of his leprosy; 1.305. His words are these:—“The people of the Jews being leprous and scabby, and subject to certain other kinds of distempers, in the days of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, they fled to the temples, and got their food there by begging; and as the numbers were very great that were fallen under these diseases, there arose a scarcity in Egypt. 1.306. Hereupon Bocchoris, the king of Egypt, sent some to consult the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon about this scarcity. The god’s answer was this, that he must purge his temples of impure and impious men, by expelling them out of those temples into desert places; but as to the scabby and leprous people, he must drown them, and purge his temples, the sun having an indignation at these men being suffered to live; and by this means the land will bring forth its fruits. 1.307. Upon Bocchoris’s having received these oracles, he called for their priests, and the attendants upon their altars, and ordered them to make a collection of the impure people, and to deliver them to the soldiers, to carry them away into the desert; but to take the leprous people, and wrap them in sheets of lead, and let them down into the sea. 1.308. Hereupon the scabby and leprous people were drowned, and the rest were gotten together, and sent into desert places, in order to be exposed to destruction. In this case they assembled themselves together, and took counsel what they should do; and determined, that, as the night was coming on, they should kindle fires and lamps, and keep watch; that they also should fast the next night, and propitiate the gods, in order to obtain deliverance from them. 1.309. That on the next day, there was one Moses, who advised them that they should venture upon a journey, and go along one road till they should come to places fit for habitation: that he charged them to have no kind regards for any man, nor give good counsel to any, but always to advise them for the worst; and to overturn all those temples and altars of the gods they should meet with: 2.1. 1. In the former book, most honored Epaphroditus, I have demonstrated our antiquity, and confirmed the truth of what I have said, from the writings of the Phoenicians, and Chaldeans, and Egyptians. I have, moreover, produced many of the Grecian writers, as witnesses thereto. I have also made a refutation of Manetho and Cheremon, and of certain others of our enemies. 2.1. for in his third book, which relates to the affairs of Egypt, he speaks thus:—“I have heard of the ancient men of Egypt, that Moses was of Heliopolis, and that he thought himself obliged to follow the customs of his forefathers, and offered his prayers in the open air, towards the city walls; but that he reduced them all to be directed towards the sun-rising, which was agreeable to the situation of Heliopolis; 2.1. Or how is it possible that all the Jews should get together to these sacrifices, and the entrails of one man should be sufficient for so many thousands to taste of them, as Apion pretends? Or why did not the king carry this man, whosoever he was, and whatsoever was his name (which is not set down in Apion’s book) 2.2. I shall now therefore begin a confutation of the remaining authors who have written any thing against us; although I confess I have had a doubt upon me about Apion the grammarian, whether I ought to take the trouble of confuting him or not; 2.2. As for the number of those that were expelled out of Egypt, he hath contrived to have the very same number with Lysimachus, and says they were a hundred and ten thousand. He then assigns a certain wonderful and plausible occasion for the name of Sabbath; 2.2. It commands us also, when we marry, not to have regard to portion, nor to take a woman by violence, nor to persuade her deceitfully and knavishly; but to demand her in marriage of him who hath power to dispose of her, and is fit to give her away by the nearness of his kindred; 2.5. For I also have observed, that many men are very much delighted when they see a man who first began to reproach another, to be himself exposed to contempt on account of the vices he hath himself been guilty of. 2.5. for when these Alexandrians were making war with Cleopatra the queen, and were in danger of being utterly ruined, these Jews brought them to terms of agreement, and freed them from the miseries of a civil war. “But then (says Apion) Onias brought a small army afterward upon the city at the time when Thermus the Roman ambassador was there present.” 2.6. However, it is not a very easy thing to go over this man’s discourse, nor to know plainly what he means; yet does he seem, amidst a great confusion and disorder in his falsehoods, to produce, in the first place, such things as resemble what we have examined already, and relate to the departure of our forefathers out of Egypt; 2.6. nay, when last of all Caesar had taken Alexandria, she came to that pitch of cruelty, that she declared she had some hope of preserving her affairs still, in case she could kill the Jews, though it were with her own hand; to such a degree of barbarity and perfidiousness had she arrived; and doth any one think that we cannot boast ourselves of any thing, if, as Apion says, this queen did not at a time of famine distribute wheat among us? 2.7. and, in the second place, he accuses those Jews that are inhabitants of Alexandria; as, in the third place, he mixes with these things such accusations as concern the sacred purifications, with the other legal rites used in the temple. /p 2.7. These Egyptians therefore were the authors of these troubles, who not having the constancy of Macedonians, nor the prudence of Grecians, indulged all of them the evil manners of the Egyptians, and continued their ancient hatred against us; 2.8. 2. Now, although I cannot but think that I have already demonstrated, and that abundantly, more than was necessary, that our fathers were not originally Egyptians, nor were thence expelled, either on account of bodily diseases, or any other calamities of that sort 2.8. for Apion hath the impudence to pretend, that “the Jews placed an ass’s head in their holy place;” and he affirms that this was discovered when Antiochus Epiphanes spoiled our temple, and found that ass’s head there made of gold, and worth a great deal of money. 2.9. yet will I briefly take notice of what Apion adds upon that subject; 2.9. Now, such men as he are more zealous to justify a sacrilegious king than to write what is just and what is true about us, and about our temple; for when they are desirous of gratifying Antiochus, and of concealing that perfidiousness and sacrilege which he was guilty of, with regard to our nation, when he wanted money, they endeavor to disgrace us, and tell lies even relating to futurities. 2.11. that, he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, under which was represented a cavity like that of a boat, and the shadow that fell from their tops fell down upon that cavity, that it might go round about the like course as the sun itself goes round in the other.” 2.11. Now, if he knew the purity of our temple, he hath entirely omitted to take notice of it; but he forges a story about the seizing of a Grecian, about ineffable food, and the most delicious preparation of dainties; and pretends that strangers could go into a place whereinto the noblest men among the Jews are not allowed to enter, unless they be priests. 2.12. This is that wonderful relation which we have given us by this great grammarian. But that it is a false one is so plain, that it stands in need of few words to prove it, but is manifest from the works of Moses; for when he erected the first tabernacle to God, he did himself neither give order for any such kind of representation to be made at it, nor ordain that those who came after him should make such a one. Moreover, when in a future age Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem, he avoided all such needless decorations as Apion hath here devised. 2.12. though it seems this lamp-bearer of ours opened them easily, or thought he opened them, as he thought he had the ass’s head in his hand. Whether, therefore, he returned it to us again, or whether Apion took it and brought it into the temple again, that Antiochus might find it, and afford a handle for a second fable of Apion’s, is uncertain. 2.13. He says farther, “How he had heard of the ancient men, that Moses was of Heliopolis.” To be sure that was because, being a younger man himself, he believed those that by their elder age were acquainted and conversed with him. 2.13. for it is not reasonable to imitate the clownish ignorance of Apion who hath no regard to the misfortunes of the Athenians, or of the Lacedemonians, the latter of whom were styled by all men the most courageous, and the former the most religious, of the Grecians. 2.14. Now, this [man], grammarian as he was, could not certainly tell which was the poet Homer’s country, no more than he could which was the country of Pythagoras, who lived comparatively but a little while ago; yet does he thus easily determine the age of Moses, who preceded them such a vast number of years, as depending on his ancient men’s relation, which shows how notorious a liar he was. 2.14. However, if any one should ask Apion which of the Egyptians he thinks to be the most wise, and most pious of them all, he would certainly acknowledge the priests to be so; 2.15. But then as to this chronological determination of the time when he says he brought the leprous people, the blind, and the lame, out of Egypt, see how well this most accurate grammarian of ours agrees with those that have written before him. 2.15. and if I be compelled to make mention of the laws of other nations, that are contrary to ours, those ought deservedly to thank themselves for it, who have pretended to depreciate our laws in comparison of their own; nor will there, I think, be any room after that for them to pretend, either that we have no such laws ourselves, an epitome of which I will present to the reader, or that we do not, above all men, continue in the observation of them. /p 2.16. Manetho says that the Jews departed out of Egypt, in the reign of Tethmosis, three hundred and ninety-three years before Danaus fled to Argos; Lysimachus says it was under king Bocchoris, that is, one thousand seven hundred years ago; 2.16. When he had therefore come to such a good resolution, and had performed such wonderful exploits, we had just reason to look upon ourselves as having him for a divine governor and counsellor; and when he had first persuaded himself that his actions and designs were agreeable to God’s will, he thought it his duty to impress, above all things, that notion upon the multitude; for those who have once believed that God is the inspector of their lives, will not permit themselves in any sin; 2.17. Molo and some others determined it as every one pleased; but this Apion of ours, as deserving to be believed before them, hath determined it exactly to have been in the seventh olympiad, and the first year of that olympiad; the very same year in which he says that Carthage was built by the Phoenicians. The reason why he added this building of Carthage was, to be sure, in order, as he thought, to strengthen his assertion by so evident a character of chronology. But he was not aware that this character confutes his assertion; 2.17. The reason why the constitution of this legislation was ever better directed to the utility of all than other legislations were, is this, that Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he saw and he ordained other virtues to be parts of religion; I mean justice, and fortitude, and temperance, and a universal agreement of the members of the community with one another; 2.18. for if we may give credit to the Phoenician records as to the time of the first coming of their colony to Carthage, they relate that Hirom their king was above one hundred and fifty years earlier than the building of Carthage; concerning whom I have formerly produced testimonials out of those Phoenician records 2.18. for no other people but we Jews have avoided all discourses about God that any way contradict one another, which yet are frequent among other nations; and this is true not only among ordinary persons, according as every one is affected, but some of the philosophers have been insolent enough to indulge such contradictions, while some of them have undertaken to use such words as entirely take away the nature of God, as others of them have taken away his providence over mankind. 2.19. as also that this Hirom was a friend of Solomon when he was building the temple of Jerusalem, and gave him great assistance in his building that temple, while still Solomon himself built that temple, six hundred and twelve years after the Jews came out of Egypt. 2.19. What are the things then that we are commanded or forbidden?—They are simply and easily known. The first command is concerning God, and affirms that God contains all things, and is a being every way perfect and happy, self-sufficient, and supplying all other beings; the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. He is manifest in his works and benefits, and more conspicuous than any other being whatsoever, but as to his form and magnitude, he is most obscure. 2.21. for he says, that “when the Jews had travelled a six days’ journey, they had buboes in their groins: and that on this account it was that they rested on the seventh day, as having got safely to that country which is now called Judea; that then they preserved the language of the Egyptians, and called that day the Sabbath, for that malady of buboes in their groin was named Sabbatosis by the Egyptians.” 2.21. Accordingly our legislator admits all those that have a mind to observe our laws, so to do; and this after a friendly manner, as esteeming that a true union, which not only extends to our own stock, but to those that would live after the same manner with us; yet does he not allow those that come to us by accident only to be admitted into communion with us. /p 2.22. And would not a man now laugh at this fellow’s trifling, or rather hate his impudence in writing thus? We must, it seems, take it for granted, that all these hundred and ten thousand men must have these buboes! 2.22. 32. Nay, indeed, in case it had so fallen out, that our nation had not been so thoroughly known among all men as they are, and our voluntary submission to our laws had not been so open and manifest as it is 2.23. But, for certain, if those men had been blind and lame, and had all sorts of distempers upon them, as Apion says they had, they could not have gone one single day’s journey; but if they had been all able to travel over a large desert, and, besides that, to fight and conquer those that opposed them, they had not all of them had buboes in their groins after the sixth day was over; 2.23. while they made use of other men as their servants for all the necessaries of life, and had their food prepared for them by the others: and these good and humane actions they do for no other purpose but this, that by their actions and their sufferings they may be able to conquer all those against whom they make war. 2.24. for no such distemper comes naturally and of necessity upon those that travel; but still, when there are many ten thousands in a camp together, they constantly march a settled space [in a day]. Nor is it at all probable that such a thing should happen by chance: this would be prodigiously absurd to be supposed. 2.24. uch as these, that they may be allowed to be as numerous as they have a mind to have them; that they are begotten one by another, and that after all the kinds of generation you can imagine. They also distinguish them in their places and ways of living, as they would distinguish several sorts of animals: as some to be under the earth; as some to be in the sea; and the ancientest of them all to be bound in hell; 2.25. However, our admirable author Apion hath before told us, that “they came to Judea in six days’ time;” and again, that “Moses went up to a mountain that lay between Egypt and Arabia, which was called Sinai, and was concealed there forty days, and that when he came down from thence he gave laws to the Jews.” But then, how was it possible for them to tarry forty days in a desert place where there was no water, and at the same time to pass all over the country between that and Judea in the six days? 2.25. 36. Wherefore it deserves our inquiry what should be the occasion of this unjust management, and of these scandals about the Deity. And truly I suppose it to be derived from the imperfect knowledge the heathen legislators had at first of the true nature of God; nor did they explain to the people even so far as they did comprehend of it: nor did they compose the other parts of their political settlements according to it 2.26. And as for this grammatical translation of the word Sabbath, it either contains an instance of his great impudence or gross ignorance; 2.26. and perhaps there may be some reason to blame the rigid severity of the Lacedemonians, for they bestowed the privilege of their city on no foreigners, nor indeed would give leave to them to stay among them; 2.27. for the words iSabboand iSabbathare widely different from one another; for the word Sabbath in the Jewish language denotes rest from all sorts of work; but the word Sabbo, as he affirms, denotes among the Egyptians the malady of a bubo in the groin. /p 2.27. And to be sure Apollonius was greatly pleased with the laws of the Persians, and was an admirer of them, because the Greeks enjoyed the advantage of their courage, and had the very same opinion about the gods which they had. This last was exemplified in the temples which they burnt, and their courage in coming, and almost entirely enslaving the Grecians. However, Apollonius has imitated all the Persian institutions, and that by his offering violence to other men’s wives, and castrating his own sons. 2.28. 3. This is that novel account which the Egyptian Apion gives us concerning the Jews’ departure out of Egypt, and is no better than a contrivance of his own. But why should we wonder at the lies he tells us about our forefathers, when he affirms them to be of Egyptian original, when he lies also about himself? 2.28. 40. We have already demonstrated that our laws have been such as have always inspired admiration and imitation into all other men; 2.29. for although he was born at Oasis in Egypt, he pretends to be, as a man may say, the top man of all the Egyptians; yet does he forswear his real country and progenitors, and by falsely pretending to be born at Alexandria, cannot deny the pravity of his family; 2.29. Those accusers reproached our legislator as a vile fellow; whereas God in old time bare witness to his virtuous conduct; and since that testimony of God, time itself hath been discovered to have borne witness to the same thing. /p 2.31. As for the Egyptians’ claim to be of our kindred, they do it on one of the following accounts; I mean, either as they value themselves upon it, and pretend to bear that relation to us: or else as they would draw us in to be partakers of their own infamy. 2.32. But this fine fellow Apion seems to broach this reproachful appellation against us [that we were originally Egyptians] in order to bestow it on the Alexandrians as a reward for the privilege they had given him of being a fellow citizen with them; he also is apprised of the ill will the Alexandrians bear to those Jews who are their fellow citizens, and so proposes to himself to reproach them, although he must thereby include all the other Egyptians also; while in both cases he is no better than an impudent liar. /p 2.33. 4. But let us now see what those heavy and wicked crimes are which Apion charges upon the Alexandrian Jews. “They came (says he) out of Syria, and inhabited near the tempestuous sea, and were in the neighborhood of the dashing of the waves.” 2.34. Now, if the place of habitation includes any thing that is reproachful, this man reproaches not his own real country [Egypt], but what he pretends to be his own country, Alexandria; for all are agreed in this, that the part of that city which is near the sea is the best part of all for habitation. 2.35. Now, if the Jews gained that part of the city by force, and have kept it hitherto without impeachment, this is a mark of their valor: but in reality it was Alexander himself that gave them that place for their habitation, when they obtained equal privileges there with the Macedonians. 2.36. Nor can I devise what Apion would have said, had their habitation been at Necropolis, and not been fixed hard by the royal palace [as it is]; nor had their nation had the denomination of Macedonians given them till this very day [as they have]. 2.37. Had this man now read the epistles of king Alexander, or those of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or met with the writings of the succeeding kings, or that pillar which is still standing at Alexandria, and contains the privileges which the great [Julius] Caesar bestowed upon the Jews; had this man, I say, known these records, and yet hath the impudence to write in contradiction to them, he hath shown himself to be a wicked man: but if he knew nothing of these records, he hath shown himself to be a man very ignorant; 2.38. nay, when he appears to wonder how Jews could be called Alexandrians, this is another like instance of his ignorance; for all such as are called out to be colonies, although they be ever so far remote from one another in their original, receive their names from those that bring them to their new habitations. 2.39. And what occasion is there to speak of others, when those of us Jews that dwell at Antioch are named Antiochians, because Seleucus the founder of that city gave them the privileges belonging thereto? After the like manner do those Jews that inhabit Ephesus and the other cities of Ionia enjoy the same name with those that were originally born there, by the grant of the succeeding princes; 2.41. and if Apion reject this way of obtaining the privilege of a citizen of Alexandria, let him abstain from calling himself an Alexandrian hereafter; for otherwise, how can he who was born in the very heart of Egypt be an Alexandrian, if this way of accepting such a privilege, of which he would have us deprived, be once abrogated? Although indeed these Romans, who are now the lords of the habitable earth, have forbidden the Egyptians to have the privileges of any city whatsoever 2.42. while this fine fellow, who is willing to partake of such a privilege himself as he is forbidden to make use of, endeavors by calumnies to deprive those of it that have justly received it; for Alexander did not therefore get some of our nation to Alexandria, because he wanted inhabitants for this his city, on whose building he had bestowed so much pains; but this was given to our people as a reward; because he had, upon a careful trial, found them all to have been men of virtue and fidelity to him; 2.43. for, as Hecateus says concerning us, “Alexander honored our nation to such a degree that, for the equity and the fidelity which the Jews exhibited to him, he permitted them to hold the country of Samaria free from tribute. 2.44. of the same mind also was Ptolemy the son of Lagus, as to those Jews who dwelt at Alexandria.” For he intrusted the fortresses of Egypt into their hands, as believing they would keep them faithfully and valiantly for him; and when he was desirous to secure the government of Cyrene, and the other cities of Libya to himself, he sent a party of Jews to inhabit them. 2.45. And for his successor Ptolemy, who was called Philadelphus, he did not only set all those of our nation free, who were captives under him, but did frequently give money [for their ransom]; and, what was his greatest work of all, he had a great desire of knowing our laws, and of obtaining the books of our sacred scriptures: 2.46. accordingly he desired that such men might be sent him as might interpret our law to him; and in order to have them well compiled, he committed that care to no ordinary persons, but ordained that Demetrius Phalereus, and Andreas, and Aristeas; the first, Demetrius, the most learned person of his age 2.47. and the others, such as were intrusted with the guard of his body, should take the care of this matter: nor would he certainly have been so desirous of learning our law and the philosophy of our nation had he despised the men that made use of it, or had he not indeed had them in great admiration. /p 2.48. 5. Now this Apion was unacquainted with almost all the kings of those Macedonians whom he pretends to have been his progenitors,—who were yet very well affected towards us; for the third of those Ptolemies, who was called Euergetes, when he had gotten possession of all Syria by force, did not offer his thank-offerings to the Egyptian gods for his victory, but came to Jerusalem, and, according to our own laws, offered many sacrifices to God, and dedicated to him such gifts as were suitable to such a victory: 2.49. and as for Ptolemy Philometor and his wife Cleopatra, they committed their whole kingdom to Jews, when Onias and Dositheus, both Jews, whose names are laughed at by Apion, were the generals of their whole army; but certainly instead of reproaching them, he ought to admire their actions, and return them thanks for saving Alexandria, whose citizen he pretends to be; 2.51. Yes, do I venture to say, and that he did rightly and very justly in so doing; for that Ptolemy who was called Physco, upon the death of his brother Philometor, came from Cyrene, and would have ejected Cleopatra as well as her sons out of their kingdom 2.52. that he might obtain it for himself unjustly. For this cause then it was that Onias undertook a war against him on Cleopatra’s account; nor would he desert that trust the royal family had reposed in him in their distress. 2.53. Accordingly, God gave a remarkable attestation to his righteous procedure; for when Ptolemy Physco had the presumption to fight against Onias’s army, and had caught all the Jews that were in the city [Alexandria], with their children and wives, and exposed them naked and in bonds to his elephants, that they might be trodden upon and destroyed, and when he had made those elephants drunk for that purpose, the event proved contrary to his preparations; 2.54. for these elephants left the Jews who were exposed to them, and fell violently upon Physco’s friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after this, Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting those men; 2.55. his very concubine, whom he loved so well (some call her Ithaca, and others Irene), making supplication to him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness. So he complied with her request, and repented of what he either had already done, or was about to do; whence it is well known that the Alexandrian Jews do with good reason celebrate this day, on the account that they had thereon been vouchsafed such an evident deliverance from God. 2.56. However, Apion, the common calumniator of men, hath the presumption to accuse the Jews for making this war against Physco, when he ought to have commended them for the same. This man also makes mention of Cleopatra, the last queen of Alexandria, and abuses us, because she was ungrateful to us; whereas he ought to have reproved her 2.57. who indulged herself in all kinds of injustice and wicked practices, both with regard to her nearest relations, and husbands who had loved her, and indeed in general with regard to all the Romans, and those emperors that were her benefactors; who also had her sister Arsinoe slain in a temple, when she had done her no harm: 2.58. moreover, she had her brother slain by private treachery, and she destroyed the gods of her country and the sepulchres of her progenitors; and while she had received her kingdom from the first Caesar, she had the impudence to rebel against his son and successor; nay, she corrupted Antony with her love-tricks, and rendered him an enemy to his country, and made him treacherous to his friends, and [by his means] despoiled some of their royal authority, and forced others in her madness to act wickedly; 2.59. but what need I enlarge upon this head any farther, when she left Antony in his fight at sea, though he were her husband, and the father of their common children, and compelled him to resign up his government, with the army, and to follow her [into Egypt]; 2.61. However, she at length met with the punishment she deserved. As for us Jews, we appeal to the great Caesar what assistance we brought him, and what fidelity we showed to him against the Egyptians; as also to the senate and its decrees, and the epistles of Augustus Caesar, whereby our merits [to the Romans] are justified. 2.62. Apion ought to have looked upon those epistles, and in particular to have examined the testimonies given on our behalf, under Alexander and all the Ptolemies, and the decrees of the senate and of the greatest Roman emperors; 2.63. and if Germanicus was not able to make a distribution of corn to all the inhabitants of Alexandria, that only shows what a barren time it was, and how great a want there was then of corn, but tends nothing to the accusation of the Jews; for what all the emperors have thought of the Alexandrian Jews is well known 2.64. for this distribution of wheat was no otherwise omitted with regard to the Jews, than it was with regard to the other inhabitants of Alexandria: but they still were desirous to preserve what the kings had formerly intrusted to their care, I mean the custody of the river: nor did those kings think them unworthy of having the entire custody thereof upon all occasions. /p 2.65. 6. But besides this, Apion objects to us thus:—“If the Jews (says he) be citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods with the Alexandrians?” To which I give this answer: Since you are yourselves Egyptians, why do you fight out one against another, and have implacable wars about your religion? 2.66. At this rate we must not call you all Egyptians, nor indeed in general men, because you breed up with great care beasts of a nature quite contrary to that of men, although the nature of all men seems to be one and the same. 2.67. Now if there be such differences in opinion among you Egyptians, why are you surprised that those who came to Alexandria from another country, and had original laws of their own before, should persevere in the observance of those laws? 2.68. But still he charges us with being the authors of sedition: which accusation, if it be a just one, why is it not laid against us all, since we are known to be all of one mind? 2.69. Moreover, those that search into such matters will soon discover that the authors of sedition have been such citizens of Alexandria as Apion is; for while they were the Grecians and Macedonians who were in possession of this city, there was no sedition raised against us, and we were permitted to observe our ancient solemnities; but when the number of the Egyptians therein came to be considerable, the times grew confused, and then these seditions brake out still more and more, while our people continued uncorrupted. 2.71. for what is here so presumptuously charged upon us is owing to the differences that are amongst themselves; while many of them have not obtained the privileges of citizens in proper times, but style those who are well known to have had that privilege extended to them all, no other than foreigners; 2.72. for it does not appear that any of the kings have ever formerly bestowed those privileges of citizens upon Egyptians, no more than have the emperors done it more lately; while it was Alexander who introduced us into this city at first, the kings augmented our privileges therein, and the Romans have been pleased to preserve them always inviolable. 2.73. Moreover, Apion would lay a blot upon us, because we do not erect images to our emperors, as if those emperors did not know this before, or stood in need of Apion as their defender; whereas he ought rather to have admired the magimity and modesty of the Romans, whereby they do not compel those that are subject to them to transgress the laws of their countries, but are willing to receive the honors due to them after such a manner as those who are to pay them esteem consistent with piety and with their own laws; for they do not thank people for conferring honors upon them, when they are compelled by violence so to do. 2.74. Accordingly, since the Grecians and some other nations think it a right thing to make images, nay, when they have painted the pictures of their parents, and wives, and children, they exult for joy; and some there are who take pictures for themselves of such persons as were no way related to them: nay, some take the pictures of such servants as they were fond of. What wonder is it then if such as these appear willing to pay the same respect to their princes and lords? 2.75. But then our legislator hath forbidden us to make images, not by way of denunciation beforehand, that the Roman authority was not to be honored, but as despising a thing that was neither necessary nor useful for either God or man; and he forbade them, as we shall prove hereafter, to make these images for any part of the animal creation 2.76. and much less for God himself, who is no part of such animal creation. Yet hath our legislator no where forbidden us to pay honors to worthy men, provided they be of another kind, and inferior to those we pay to God; with which honors we willingly testify our respect to our emperors, and to the people of Rome; 2.77. we also offer perpetual sacrifices for them; nor do we only offer them every day at the common expenses of all the Jews, but although we offer no other such sacrifices out of our common expenses, no, not for our own children, yet do we this as a peculiar honor to the emperors, and to them alone, while we do the same to no other person whomsoever. 2.78. And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews. /p 2.79. 7. However, I cannot but admire those other authors who furnished this man with such his materials; I mean Posidonius and Apollonius [the son of] Molo, who while they accuse us for not worshipping the same gods whom others worship, they think themselves not guilty of impiety when they tell lies of us, and frame absurd and reproachful stories about our temple; whereas it is a most shameful thing for freemen to forge lies on any occasion, and much more so to forge them about our temple, which was so famous over all the world, and was preserved so sacred by us; 2.81. To this my first answer shall be this, that had there been any such thing among us, an Egyptian ought by no means to have thrown it in our teeth, since an ass is not a more contemptible animal than [...] and goats, and other such creatures, which among them are gods. 2.82. But besides this answer, I say farther, how comes it about that Apion does not understand this to be no other than a palpable lie, and to be confuted by the thing itself as utterly incredible? For we Jews are always governed by the same laws, in which we constantly persevere; and although many misfortunes have befallen our city, as the like have befallen others, and although Theos [Epiphanes], and Pompey the Great, and Licinius Crassus, and last of all Titus Caesar, have conquered us in war, and gotten possession of our temple, yet have they none of them found any such thing there, nor indeed any thing but what was agreeable to the strictest piety; although what they found we are not at liberty to reveal to other nations. 2.83. But for Antiochus [Epiphanes], he had no just cause for that ravage in our temple that he made; he only came to it when he wanted money, without declaring himself our enemy, and attacked us while we were his associates and his friends: nor did he find any thing there that was ridiculous. 2.84. This is attested by many worthy writers; Polybius of Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes, Castor the chronologer, and Apollodorus, who all say that it was out of Antiochus’s want of money that he broke his league with the Jews, and despoiled their temple when it was full of gold and silver. 2.85. Apion ought to have had a regard to these facts, unless he had himself had either an ass’s heart or a dog’s impudence; of such a dog I mean as they worship; for he had no other external reason for the lies he tells of us. As for us Jews, we ascribe no honor or power to asses, as do the Egyptians to crocodiles and asps, when they esteem such as are seized upon by the former, or bitten by the latter, to be happy persons, and persons worthy of God. 2.86. Asses are the same with us which they are with other wise men, viz., creatures that bear the burdens that we lay upon them; 2.87. but if they come to our threshing floors and eat our corn, or do not perform what we impose upon them, we beat them with a great many stripes; because it is their business to minister to us in our husbandry affairs. 2.88. But this Apion of ours was either perfectly unskilful in the composition of such fallacious discourses, or however, when he began [somewhat better], he was not able to persevere in what he had undertaken, since he hath no manner of success in those reproaches he casts upon us. /p 2.89. 8. He adds another Grecian fable, in order to reproach us. In reply to which, it would be enough to say that they who presume to speak about divine worship, ought not to be ignorant of this plain truth, that it is a degree of less impurity to pass through temples than to forge wicked calumnies of its priests. 2.91. Apion becomes other men’s prophet upon this occasion, and says, that “Antiochus found in our temple a bed and a man lying upon it, with a small table before him, full of dainties, from the [fishes of the] sea, and the fowls of the dry land; that this man was amazed at these dainties thus set before him; 2.92. that he immediately adored the king, upon his coming in, as hoping that he would afford him all possible assistance; that he fell down upon his knees, and stretched out to him his right hand, and begged to be released: and that when the king bade him sit down, and tell him who he was, and why he dwelt there, and what was the meaning of those various sorts of food that were set before him, the man made a lamentable complaint, and with sighs, and tears in his eyes, gave him this account of the distress he was in: 2.93. and said that he was a Greek, and that as he went over this province, in order to get his living, he was seized upon by foreigners, on a sudden, and brought to this temple, and shut up therein, and was seen by nobody, but was fattened by these curious provisions thus set before him: 2.94. and that truly at the first such unexpected advantages seemed to him matter of great joy; that, after a while they brought a suspicion upon him, and at length astonishment, what their meaning should be; that at last he inquired of the servants that came to him, and was by them informed that it was in order to the fulfilling a law of the Jews, which they must not tell him, that he was thus fed; and that they did the same at a set time every year: 2.95. that they used to catch a Greek foreigner, and fat him thus up every year, and then lead him to a certain wood, and kill him, and sacrifice with their accustomed solemnities, and taste of his entrails, and take an oath upon this sacrificing a Greek, that they would ever be at enmity with the Greeks; and that then they threw the remaining parts of the miserable wretch into a certain pit.” 2.96. Apion adds farther, that “the man said there were but a few days to come ere he was to be slain, and implored Antiochus that, out of the reverence he bore to the Grecian gods, he would disappoint the snares the Jews laid for his blood, and would deliver him from the miseries with which he was encompassed.” 2.97. Now this is such a most tragical fable, as is full of nothing but cruelty and impudence; yet does it not excuse Antiochus of his sacrilegious attempts, as those who wrote it in his vindication are willing to suppose; 2.98. for he could not presume beforehand that he should meet with any such thing in coming to the temple, but must have found it unexpectedly. He was therefore still an impious person, that was given to unlawful pleasures, and had no regard to God in his actions. But [as for Apion] he hath done whatever his extravagant love of lying hath dictated to him, as it is most easy to discover by a consideration of his writings; 2.99. for the difference of our laws is known not to regard the Grecians only, but they are principally opposite to the Egyptians, and to some other nations also: for while it so falls out, that men of all countries come sometimes and sojourn among us, how comes it about that we take an oath, and conspire only against the Grecians, and that by the effusion of their blood also? 2.101. with great pomp back into his own country; when he might thereby have been esteemed a religious person himself, and a mighty lover of the Greeks, and might thereby have procured himself great assistance from all men against that hatred the Jews bore to him. 2.102. But I leave this matter; for the proper way of confuting fools is not to use bare words, but to appeal to the things themselves that make against them. Now then, all such as ever saw the construction of our temple, of what nature it was, know well enough how the purity of it was never to be profaned; 2.103. for it had four several courts, encompassed with cloisters round about, every one of which had by our law a peculiar degree of separation from the rest. Into the first court every body was allowed to go, even foreigners; and none but women, during their courses, were prohibited to pass through it; 2.104. all the Jews went into the second court, as well as their wives, when they were free from all uncleanness; into the third went the Jewish men when they were clean and purified; into the fourth went the priests, having on their sacerdotal garments; 2.105. but for the most sacred place, none went in but the high priests, clothed in their peculiar garments. Now there is so great caution used about these offices of religion, that the priests are appointed to go into the temple but at certain hours: for, in the morning, at the opening of the inner temple, those that are to officiate receive the sacrifices, as they do again at noon, till the doors are shut. 2.106. Lastly, it is not so much as lawful to carry any vessel into the holy house; nor is there any thing therein, but the altar [of incense], the table [of show-bread], the censer, and the candlestick, which are all written in the law: 2.107. for there is nothing farther there, nor are there any mysteries performed that may not be spoken of; nor is there any feasting within the place. For what I have now said is publicly known, and supported by the testimony of the whole people, and their operations are very manifest; 2.108. for although there be four courses of the priests, and every one of them have above five thousand men in them, yet do they officiate on certain days only; and when those days are over, other priests succeed in the performance of their sacrifices, and assemble together at mid-day, and receive the keys of the temple, and the vessels by tale, without any thing relating to food or drink being carried into the temple; 2.109. nay, we are not allowed to offer such things at the altar, excepting what is prepared for the sacrifices. /p9. What then can we say of Apion, but that he examined nothing that concerned these things, while still he uttered incredible words about them! But it is a great shame for a grammarian not to be able to write true history. 2.111. This, therefore, is the utmost degree of impiety, and a voluntary lie, in order to the delusion of those who will not examine into the truth of matters. Whereas, such unspeakable mischiefs as are above related, have been occasioned by such calumnies that are raised upon us. /p 2.112. 10. Nay, this miracle of piety derides us farther, and adds the following pretended facts to his former fable; for he says that this man related how, “while the Jews were once in a long war with the Idumeans, there came a man out of one of the cities of the Idumeans, who there had worshipped Apollo. This man, whose name is said to have been Zabidus, came to the Jews, and promised that he would deliver Apollo, the god of Dora into their hands, and that he would come to our temple, if they would all come up with him 2.113. and bring the whole multitude of the Jews with them; that Zabidus made him a certain wooden instrument, and put it round about him, and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after such a manner, that he appeared to those that stood a great way off him, to be a kind of star walking upon the earth: 2.114. that the Jews were terribly frightened at so surprising an appearance, and stood very quiet at a distance; and that Zabidus, while they continued so very quiet, went into the holy house, and carried off that golden head of an ass (for so facetiously does he write), and then went his way back again to Dora in great haste.” 2.116. for Idumea borders upon our country, and is near to Gaza, in which there is no such city as Dora, although there be, it is true, a city named Dora in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel, but it is four days’ journey from Idumea. 2.118. for certainly those who have so many festivals, wherein they light lamps, must yet, at this rate, have never seen a candlestick! But still it seems that while Zabidus took his journey over the country, where were so many ten thousands of people, nobody met him. He also, it seems, even in a time of war, found the walls of Jerusalem destitute of guards. I omit the rest. 2.119. Now the doors of the holy house were seventy cubits high, and twenty cubits broad, they were all plated over with gold, and almost of solid gold itself, and there were no fewer than twenty men required to shut them every day; nor was it lawful ever to leave them open 2.121. 11. Apion also tells a false story, when he mentions an oath of ours, as if we “swore by God, the maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea, to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Greeks.” 2.122. Now this liar ought to have said directly that “we would bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Egyptians.” For then his story about the oath would have squared with the rest of his original forgeries, in case our forefathers had been driven away by their kinsmen the Egyptians, not on account of any wickedness they had been guilty of, but on account of the calamities they were under; 2.123. for as to the Grecians, we are rather remote from them in place than different from them in our institutions, insomuch that we have no enmity with them, nor any jealousy of them. On the contrary, it hath so happened, that many of them have come over to our laws, and some of them have continued in their observation, although others of them had not courage enough to persevere, and so departed from them again; 2.124. nor did any body ever hear this oath sworn by us: Apion, it seems, was the only person that heard it, for he indeed was the first composer of it. /p 2.125. 12. However, Apion deserves to be admired for his great prudence, as to what I am going to say, which is this, “That there is a plain mark among us, that we neither have just laws, nor worship God as we ought to do, because we are not governors, but are rather in subjection to Gentiles, sometimes to one nation, and sometimes to another, and that our city hath been liable to several calamities, while their city [Alexandria] hath been of old time an imperial city, and not used to be in subjection to the Romans.” 2.128. Now for the Egyptians, perhaps they are the only nation that have had this extraordinary privilege, to have never served any of those monarchs who subdued Asia and Europe, and this on account, as they pretend, that the gods fled into their country and saved themselves, by being changed into the shapes of wild beasts. Whereas these Egyptians are the very people that appear to have never, in all the past ages, had one day of freedom, no, not so much as from their own lords. 2.132. But now we have met with Apion, an accuser of our nation, though one that still forgets the miseries of his own people, the Egyptians; but it is that Sesostris, who was once so celebrated a king of Egypt, that hath blinded him. Now we will not brag of our kings, David and Solomon, though they conquered many nations; 2.135. 13. “But,” says Apion, “we Jews have not had any wonderful men amongst us, not any inventors of arts, nor any eminent for wisdom.” He then enumerates Socrates, and Zeno, and Cleanthes, and some others of the same sort; and, after all, he adds himself to them, which is the most wonderful thing of all that he says, and pronounces Alexandria to be happy, because it hath such a citizen as he is in it; 2.136. for he was the fittest man to be a witness to his own deserts, although he hath appeared to all others no better than a wicked mountebank, of a corrupt life, and ill discourses; on which account one may justly pity Alexandria, if it should value itself upon such a citizen as he is. But as to our own men, we have had those who have been as deserving of commendation as any other whosoever; and such as have perused our Antiquities cannot be ignorant of them. /p 2.137. 14. As to the other things which he sets down as blameworthy, it may perhaps be the best way to let them pass without apology, that he may be allowed to be his own accuser, and the accuser of the rest of the Egyptians. However, he accuses us for sacrificing animals, and for abstaining from swine’s flesh, and laughs at us for the circumcision of our privy members. 2.138. Now, as for our slaughter of tame animals for sacrifices, it is common to us and to all other men; but this Apion, by making it a crime to sacrifice them, demonstrates himself to be an Egyptian; for had he been either a Grecian or a Macedonian [as he pretends to be], he had not shown any uneasiness at it; for those people glory in sacrificing whole hecatombs to the gods, and make use of those sacrifices for feasting; and yet is not the world thereby rendered destitute of cattle, as Apion was afraid would come to pass. 2.139. Yet, if all men had followed the manners of the Egyptians, the world had certainly been made desolate as to mankind, but had been filled full of the wildest sort of brute beasts, which, because they suppose them to be gods, they carefully nourish. 2.141. for the histories say that two things were originally committed to their care by their king’s injunctions, the worship of the gods, and the support of wisdom and philosophy. Accordingly, these priests are all circumcised, and abstain from swine’s flesh; nor does any one of the other Egyptians assist them in slaying those sacrifices they offer to the gods. 2.142. Apion was therefore quite blinded in his mind when, for the sake of the Egyptians, he contrived to reproach us, and to accuse such others as not only make use of that conduct of life which he so much abuses, but have also taught other men to be circumcised, as says Herodotus; 2.143. which makes me think that Apion is hereby justly punished for his casting such reproaches on the laws of his own country; for he was circumcised himself of necessity, on account of an ulcer in his privy member; and when he received no benefit by such circumcision, but his member became putrid, he died in great torment.

18. Josephus Flavius, Life, 277-282, 293, 276 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

19. Juvenal, Satires, 14.96-14.106 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

20. New Testament, 1 Timothy, 2.8 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

2.8. I desire therefore that the men in every place pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

21. New Testament, Acts, 16.14, 17.2, 17.12, 18.6-18.7 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

16.14. A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul. 17.2. Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures 17.12. Many of them therefore believed; also of the Greek women of honorable estate, and not a few men. 18.6. When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook out his clothing and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles! 18.7. He departed there, and went into the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.

22. New Testament, Romans, 4.1 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

4.1. What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?

23. New Testament, Matthew, 9.20-9.22 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

9.20. Behold, a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years came behind him, and touched the tassels of his garment; 9.21. for she said within herself, "If I just touch his garment, I will be made well. 9.22. But Jesus, turning around and seeing her, said, "Daughter, cheer up! Your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour.

24. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, None (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

25. Tacitus, Histories, 5.5.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

26. Gellius, Attic Nights, 5.14.1, 5.14.3 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

27. Tertullian, To The Heathen, 1.13 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

1.13. Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference to the preceding day as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For the Jewish feasts on the Sabbath and the Purification, and Jewish also are the ceremonies of the lamps, and the fasts of unleavened bread, and the littoral prayers, all which institutions and practices are of course foreign from your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this digression, you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of rest.

28. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 9.17.8, 9.27.2 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)

29. Jerome, Commentaria In Danielem, 11.14 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)

30. Epigraphy, Cij, 5

31. Papyri, Cpj, 2.153

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
aelian	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
alexander, tiberius julius	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
alexander polyhistor	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
alexandria, platonism and stoicism in, ancient/barbarian wisdom, development of interest in	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
alexandria	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
anti-jewish (judaism)	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
anti-judaism	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
apion, aigyptiaka	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
apion, his image of egpyt	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
apion	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51; Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139, 149, 154
apion (grammarian)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
apion the grammarian	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
apocalypticism/apocalyptic	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
arbel	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
architectural decorative elements and iconography	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 282
asklepios, dora	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
astrology	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
augustus	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
aulus gellius, on apion	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
aulus gellius	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
basilicas	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
boys-stones, g. r.	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
caesarea maritima	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
caligula gaius casaer	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
chaeremon	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287; Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139, 149
christians (byzantines, copts, nubians, syrian orthodox)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
churches	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
city/-ies (polis), city of onias	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
claudius, emperor	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
claudius, letter to the alexandrians	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
claudius	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
communal meals	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
continuity of practice, incubation rituals	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
continuity of practice	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
conversions linked to healing, healing sites, other	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
cornutus	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
delos	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
diaspora	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
dora	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
egyptians, roman perspectives	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
emperor cult l	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
eusebius	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
exodus, exodus, book of	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
exodus	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
exodus story, egyptian rewritings	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
gamla	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 282
gentile christians	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
graeco-egyptian	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
graeco-roman	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
greek	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
hecataeus	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
heliopolis	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
hellenism	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 275
hellenistic	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
hellenistic period	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
herodotus	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
iconography of	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275, 282
identity emergence, under roman rule	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
incubation	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
interest in	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
isidorus, as anti-jewish adviser	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
isidorus	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
italy, italian	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
italy/italians	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
jerusalem	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 282
jesus miracles, other healings	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
jewish-hellenistic literature	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
jewish christians	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
jews, jewish	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
jews and judaism, anti-semitism, classical	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
jews in alexandria, anti-jewish polemic	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149, 154
joseph & aseneth	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
josephus, on apion	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287; Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
josephus	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275, 282; Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
josephus (historian)	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
judean, judeans	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
kitos war/diaspora revolt	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
lysimachus	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
lysimachus (author)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
maccabees/maccabean	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
manetho	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51; Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
migration	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
military	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
moses, and priesthood of heliopolis	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
moses	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373
onias community	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
onias temple	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
osiris	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
palestine (eretz israel, holy land)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
paneas	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
paul	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
philo, as contemporary of apion	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
philo, as contemporary of chaeremon	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149
philo, of alexandria	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 282
philo, on the pogrom/riots of	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
phoenix	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
pilgrimage	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
plague, in exodus from egypt (exodus)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
plague, metaphor in letter of claudius to the alexandrians	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
plague, other biblical references to	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
plague	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
pliny the elder, on apion	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
pliny the elder	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
pompey the great	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
potters oracle	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 139
prayers	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275
priesthood'	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
ptolemaic	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
purpose-built communal structures	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275, 282
ritual healing	Nutzman, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (2022) 111
roman, period	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
roman	Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (2019) 298
sabbath, transfer of features of temple of jerusalem	Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh and other Essays in Jewish Hellenism (2010) 247
sabbath observance	Piovanelli, Burke, Pettipiece, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent: New Perspectives on Early Christian and Late Antique Apocryphal Textsand Traditions. De Gruyter: 2015 (2015) 373; Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275
sebomenoi	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
slaves, slavery	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
spatial theory	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 282
synagogues	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263, 275, 282
syria	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
tatian	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
tatian and celsus, ancient/barbarian wisdom, development of interest in	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
tatian and celsus	Ayres and Ward, The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual (2021) 51
temple of	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 275, 282
temple of herod, prayers offered under open sky	Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh and other Essays in Jewish Hellenism (2010) 247
theophrastus	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 154
tiberias	Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity: Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee (2024) 263
tiberius (emperor)	Salvesen et al., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (2020) 287
vegetables	Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (2003) 72
violence, inter-ethnic	Schliesser et al., Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World (2021) 149