1. Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy, 5.21, 11.13 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 5.21. וַתֹּאמְרוּ הֵן הֶרְאָנוּ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ אֶת־כְּבֹדוֹ וְאֶת־גָּדְלוֹ וְאֶת־קֹלוֹ שָׁמַעְנוּ מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה רָאִינוּ כִּי־יְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם וָחָי׃ 11.13. וְהָיָה אִם־שָׁמֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶל־מִצְוֺתַי אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם לְאַהֲבָה אֶת־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וּלְעָבְדוֹ בְּכָל־לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁכֶם׃ | 5.21. and ye said: ‘Behold, the LORD our God hath shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have seen this day that God doth speak with man, and he liveth." 11.13. And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto My commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul," |
|
2. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 17.1 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 17.1. זֹאת בְּרִיתִי אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְרוּ בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ אַחֲרֶיךָ הִמּוֹל לָכֶם כָּל־זָכָר׃ 17.1. וַיְהִי אַבְרָם בֶּן־תִּשְׁעִים שָׁנָה וְתֵשַׁע שָׁנִים וַיֵּרָא יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָם וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי־אֵל שַׁדַּי הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים׃ | 17.1. And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him: ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be thou wholehearted." |
|
3. Hebrew Bible, Psalms, 149 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
|
4. Hebrew Bible, Joshua, 17.11 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 17.11. וַיְהִי לִמְנַשֶּׁה בְּיִשָּׂשכָר וּבְאָשֵׁר בֵּית־שְׁאָן וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ וְיִבְלְעָם וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־יֹשְׁבֵי דֹאר וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ וְיֹשְׁבֵי עֵין־דֹּר וּבְנֹתֶיהָ וְיֹשְׁבֵי תַעְנַךְ וּבְנֹתֶיהָ וְיֹשְׁבֵי מְגִדּוֹ וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ שְׁלֹשֶׁת הַנָּפֶת׃ | 17.11. And Manasseh had in Issachar and in Asher Beth-shean and its towns, and Ibleam and its towns, and the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, and the inhabitants of En-dor and its towns, and the inhabitants of Taanach and its towns, and the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns, even the three regions." |
|
5. Hebrew Bible, Judges, 1.27 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.27. וְלֹא־הוֹרִישׁ מְנַשֶּׁה אֶת־בֵּית־שְׁאָן וְאֶת־בְּנוֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־תַּעְנַךְ וְאֶת־בְּנֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־ישב [יֹשְׁבֵי] דוֹר וְאֶת־בְּנוֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־יוֹשְׁבֵי יִבְלְעָם וְאֶת־בְּנֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־יוֹשְׁבֵי מְגִדּוֹ וְאֶת־בְּנוֹתֶיהָ וַיּוֹאֶל הַכְּנַעֲנִי לָשֶׁבֶת בָּאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת׃ | 1.27. Neither did Menashshe drive out the inhabitants of Bet-she᾽an and its hamlets, nor Ta῾nakh and its hamlets, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its hamlets, nor the inhabitants of Yivle῾am and its hamlets, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its hamlets: but the Kena῾ani persisted in dwelling in that land." |
|
6. Plato, Republic, 462c (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 462c. to the city and its inhabitants? of course. And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as mine and not mine, and similarly with regard to the word alien ? Precisely so. That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression mine and not mine of the same things in the same way. Much the best. And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man. For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for integration |
|
7. Dead Sea Scrolls, Damascus Covenant, 7.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
|
8. Dead Sea Scrolls, (Cairo Damascus Covenant) Cd-A, 3.14-3.16, 7.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
|
9. Dead Sea Scrolls, Community Rule, 6.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
|
10. Dead Sea Scrolls, Mmt, 0 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
|
11. Septuagint, 1 Maccabees, 2.42, 12.18-12.24 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 2.42. Then there united with them a company of Hasideans, mighty warriors of Israel, every one who offered himself willingly for the law. 12.18. And now please send us a reply to this. 12.19. This is a copy of the letter which they sent to Onias: 12.20. Arius, king of the Spartans, to Onias the high priest, greeting. 12.21. It has been found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews that they are brethren and are of the family of Abraham. 12.22. And now that we have learned this, please write us concerning your welfare; 12.23. we on our part write to you that your cattle and your property belong to us, and ours belong to you. We therefore command that our envoys report to you accordingly. 12.24. Now Jonathan heard that the commanders of Demetrius had returned, with a larger force than before, to wage war against him. |
|
12. Philo of Alexandria, On Husbandry, 24 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 24. For as fishermen let down their nets at times to the most extraordinary depths, comprehending a vast surface of the sea in their circle, in order to catch the greatest possible number of fish enclosed within their nets, like people shut up within the walls of a besieged city; so in the same manner the greatest part of men having extended their universal nets to take everything, as the poets somewhere say, not only over the parts of the sea, but also over the whole nature of earth, and air, and water, seek to catch everything from every quarter for the enjoyment and attainment of pleasure. |
|
13. Philo of Alexandria, On Flight And Finding, 40 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 40. And it is for this reason that she calls him "my child," while is a name of affection, and also one which indicates his tender age; for we look upon the disposition which is inclined to the practice of virtue, and which is young, as worthy of affection in comparison of the fullgrown man. But such a person is worthy to carry off the prizes which are proposed for children, but he is not yet able to win the prizes offered for the men. But the best contest for men to engage in is the service of the only God. Therefore if, even before we have been completely purified |
|
14. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 4.128 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 4.128. For a vast cloud being Raised{28}{#ex 16:13.} out of the sea showered down quails about the time of sunrise, and the camp and all the district around it for a day's journey for a well-girt active man was overshadowed all about with the Birds.{29}{#nu 11:31.} And the height of the flight of the birds was distant from the ground a height of about two cubits, in order that they might be easily caught. |
|
15. Philo of Alexandria, On The Contemplative Life, 15, 18, 2, 22, 3-9, 14 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 14. The Greeks celebrate Anaxagoras and Democritus, because they, being smitten with a desire for philosophy, allowed all their estates to be devoured by cattle. I myself admire the men who thus showed themselves superior to the attractions of money; but how much better were those who have not permitted cattle to devour their possessions, but have supplied the necessities of mankind, of their own relations and friends, and have made them rich though they were poor before? For surely that was inconsiderate conduct (that I may avoid saying that any action of men whom Greece has agreed to admire was a piece of insanity); but this is the act of sober men, and one which has been carefully elaborated by exceeding prudence. |
|
16. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 1.190, 2.216, 2.251 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.190. And the intellect too of those persons who have tasted of holiness has a similar nature; for it has learned to look upwards and to soar on high, and is continually keeping its eye fixed on sublime objects, and investigating divine things, and ridiculing, and scorning all earthly beauty, thinking the last only toys, and divine things the only real and proper objects worthy of its attention. 2.216. in accordance with which custom, even to this day, the Jews hold philosophical discussions on the seventh day, disputing about their national philosophy, and devoting that day to the knowledge and consideration of the subjects of natural philosophy; for as for their houses of prayer in the different cities, what are they, but schools of wisdom, and courage, and temperance, and justice, and piety, and holiness, and every virtue, by which human and divine things are appreciated, and placed upon a proper footing? 2.251. The fear is necessary, and the terror is inevitable, and the danger is great; in front of us is the widely open sea, there is no retreat to which we can flee, we have no vessels, behind are the phalanxes of the enemy ready to attack us, which march on and pursue us, never stopping to take breath. Where shall any one turn? Which way can any one look to escape? Every thing from every quarter has unexpectedly become hostile to us, the sea, the land, men, and the elements of nature. |
|
17. Philo of Alexandria, Hypothetica, 11.2-11.3, 11.5, 11.12, 11.14-11.17 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
|
18. Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, 5 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 5. Then when he had filled the whole city and country with his wise legislation, he proceeded in turn to regulate the military affairs of the land, issuing commands, arranging matters, training the troops of every kind, infantry, cavalry, and lightarmed, teaching the commanders not to deprive the soldiers of their pay, and so drive them to acts of piracy and rapine, and teaching each individual soldier not to proceed to any actions unauthorised by his military service, remembering that he was appointed with the especial object of preserving peace. II. |
|
19. Philo of Alexandria, On The Embassy To Gaius, 291 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 291. Agrippa, when he came to the temple, did honour to it, and he was thy grandfather; and so did Augustus, when by his letters he commanded all first fruits from all quarters to be sent thither; and by the continual sacrifice. And thy great grandmother ...( 292) "On which account, no one, whether Greek or barbarian, satrap, or king, or implacable enemy; no sedition, no war, no capture, no destruction, no occurrence that has ever taken place, has ever threatened this temple with such innovation as to place in it any image, or statue, or any work of any kind made with hands; |
|
20. Philo of Alexandria, That Every Good Person Is Free, 101-104, 108, 75-100 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 100. Again, do not you see this same virtuous man himself, that even when he is sold he does not appear to be a servant, but he strikes all who behold him with awe, as not being merely free, but as even being about to prove the master of him who has purchased him? |
|
21. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 1.18, 4.329, 13.171-13.172, 13.311-13.313, 15.370-15.379, 17.42, 17.346-17.348, 18.11, 18.17-18.22, 18.259-18.260 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.18. 4. But because almost all our constitution depends on the wisdom of Moses, our legislator, I cannot avoid saying somewhat concerning him beforehand, though I shall do it briefly; I mean, because otherwise those that read my book may wonder how it comes to pass, that my discourse, which promises an account of laws and historical facts, contains so much of philosophy. 1.18. where Melchisedec, king of the city Salem, received him. That name signifies, the righteous king: and such he was, without dispute, insomuch that, on this account, he was made the priest of God: however, they afterward called Salem Jerusalem. 4.329. as if he hardly had any such in his soul, and only knew them by their names, as rather perceiving them in other men than in himself. He was also such a general of an army as is seldom seen, as well as such a prophet as was never known, and this to such a degree, that whatsoever he pronounced, you would think you heard the voice of God himself. 13.171. 9. At this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other the sect of the Essenes. 13.172. Now for the Pharisees, they say that some actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not caused by fate. But the sect of the Essenes affirm, that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination. 13.311. But here one may take occasion to wonder at one Judas, who was of the sect of the Essenes, and who never missed the truth in his predictions; for this man, when he saw Antigonus passing by the temple, cried out to his companions and friends, who abode with him as his scholars, in order to learn the art of foretelling things to come? 13.312. “That it was good for him to die now, since he had spoken falsely about Antigonus, who is still alive, and I see him passing by, although he had foretold that he should die at the place called Strato’s Tower that very day, while yet the place is six hundred furlongs off, where he had foretold he should be slain; and still this day is a great part of it already past, so that he was in danger of proving a false prophet.” 13.313. As he was saying this, and that in a melancholy mood, the news came that Antigonus was slain in a place under ground, which itself was called also Strato’s Tower, or of the same name with that Caesarea which is seated at the sea. This event put the prophet into a great disorder. 15.371. The Essenes also, as we call a sect of ours, were excused from this imposition. These men live the same kind of life as do those whom the Greeks call Pythagoreans, concerning whom I shall discourse more fully elsewhere. 15.372. However, it is but fit to set down here the reasons wherefore Herod had these Essenes in such honor, and thought higher of them than their mortal nature required; nor will this account be unsuitable to the nature of this history, as it will show the opinion men had of these Essenes. 15.373. 5. Now there was one of these Essenes, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; 15.374. but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said, “However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. 15.375. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one 15.376. for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them.” 15.377. Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. 15.378. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, “Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;” but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essenes. 15.379. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essenes have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of divine revelations. 17.42. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good-will to Caesar, and to the king’s government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras’s wife paid their fine for them. 17.346. And when he was awake and gotten up, because the vision appeared to be of great importance to him, he sent for the diviners, whose study was employed about dreams. And while some were of one opinion, and some of another, (for all their interpretations did not agree,) Simon, a man of the sect of the Essenes, desired leave to speak his mind freely, and said that the vision denoted a change in the affairs of Archelaus, and that not for the better; 17.347. that oxen, because that animal takes uneasy pains in his labors, denoted afflictions, and indeed denoted, further, a change of affairs, because that land which is ploughed by oxen cannot remain in its former state; and that the ears of corn being ten, determined the like number of years, because an ear of corn grows in one year; and that the time of Archelaus’s government was over. And thus did this man expound the dream. 17.348. Now on the fifth day after this dream came first to Archelaus, the other Archelaus, that was sent to Judea by Caesar to call him away, came hither also. 18.11. 2. The Jews had for a great while had three sects of philosophy peculiar to themselves; the sect of the Essenes, and the sect of the Sadducees, and the third sort of opinions was that of those called Pharisees; of which sects, although I have already spoken in the second book of the Jewish War, yet will I a little touch upon them now. 18.11. However, he fell in love with Herodias, this last Herod’s wife, who was the daughter of Aristobulus their brother, and the sister of Agrippa the Great. This man ventured to talk to her about a marriage between them; which address, when she admitted, an agreement was made for her to change her habitation, and come to him as soon as he should return from Rome: one article of this marriage also was this, that he should divorce Aretas’s daughter. 18.17. but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them. 18.17. for he did not admit ambassadors quickly, and no successors were despatched away to governors or procurators of the provinces that had been formerly sent, unless they were dead; whence it was that he was so negligent in hearing the causes of prisoners; 18.18. 5. The doctrine of the Essenes is this: That all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; 18.18. Now Antonia was greatly esteemed by Tiberius on all accounts, from the dignity of her relation to him, who had been his brother Drusus’s wife, and from her eminent chastity; for though she was still a young woman, she continued in her widowhood, and refused all other matches, although Augustus had enjoined her to be married to somebody else; yet did she all along preserve her reputation free from reproach. 18.19. and when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. 18.19. But when Caesar had gone round the hippodrome, he found Agrippa standing: “For certain,” said he, “Macro, this is the man I meant to have bound;” and when he still asked, “Which of these is to be bound?” he said “Agrippa.” 18.21. and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust, and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. 18.21. that it turned greatly to the advantage of his son among all; and, among others, the soldiery were so peculiarly affected to him, that they reckoned it an eligible thing, if need were, to die themselves, if he might but attain to the government. 18.22. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the incomes of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men and priests, who are to get their corn and their food ready for them. They none of them differ from others of the Essenes in their way of living, but do the most resemble those Dacae who are called Polistae [dwellers in cities]. 18.22. and I desire thee never to be unmindful when thou comest to it, either of my kindness to thee, who set thee in so high a dignity 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; |
|
22. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 1.78-1.80, 2.113, 2.118-2.161, 2.567, 5.145, 6.124 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.78. 5. And truly anyone would be surprised at Judas upon this occasion. He was of the sect of the Essenes, and had never failed or deceived men in his predictions before. Now, this man saw Antigonus as he was passing along by the temple, and cried out to his acquaintance (they were not a few who attended upon him as his scholars) 1.79. “O strange!” said he, “it is good for me to die now, since truth is dead before me, and somewhat that I have foretold hath proved false; for this Antigonus is this day alive, who ought to have died this day; and the place where he ought to be slain, according to that fatal decree, was Strato’s Tower, which is at the distance of six hundred furlongs from this place; and yet four hours of this day are over already; which point of time renders the prediction impossible to be fulfilled.” 2.113. and when one of them had one interpretation, and another had another, Simon, one of the sect of Essenes, said that he thought the ears of corn denoted years, and the oxen denoted a mutation of things, because by their ploughing they made an alteration of the country. That therefore he should reign as many years as there were ears of corn; and after he had passed through various alterations of fortune, should die. Now five days after Archelaus had heard this interpretation he was called to his trial. 2.118. Under his administration it was that a certain Galilean, whose name was Judas, prevailed with his countrymen to revolt, and said they were cowards if they would endure to pay a tax to the Romans and would after God submit to mortal men as their lords. This man was a teacher of a peculiar sect of his own, and was not at all like the rest of those their leaders. 2.119. 2. For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes. These last are Jews by birth, and seem to have a greater affection for one another than the other sects have. 2.121. They do not absolutely deny the fitness of marriage, and the succession of mankind thereby continued; but they guard against the lascivious behavior of women, and are persuaded that none of them preserve their fidelity to one man. 2.122. 3. These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is there anyone to be found among them who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order,—insomuch that among them all there is no appearance of poverty, or excess of riches, but every one’s possessions are intermingled with every other’s possessions; and so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren. 2.123. They think that oil is a defilement; and if anyone of them be anointed without his own approbation, it is wiped off his body; for they think to be sweaty is a good thing, as they do also to be clothed in white garments. They also have stewards appointed to take care of their common affairs, who every one of them have no separate business for any, but what is for the use of them all. 2.124. 4. They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them. 2.125. For which reason they carry nothing at all with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves. Accordingly, there is, in every city where they live, one appointed particularly to take care of strangers, and to provide garments and other necessaries for them. 2.126. But the habit and management of their bodies is such as children use who are in fear of their masters. Nor do they allow of the change of garments, or of shoes, till they be first entirely torn to pieces or worn out by time. 2.127. Nor do they either buy or sell anything to one another; but every one of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it, and receives from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself; and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to take what they want of whomsoever they please. 2.128. 5. And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. 2.129. After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple 2.131. but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for anyone to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again till the evening; 2.132. then they return home to supper, after the same manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute their house, but they give every one leave to speak in their turn; 2.133. which silence thus kept in their house appears to foreigners like some tremendous mystery; the cause of which is that perpetual sobriety they exercise, and the same settled measure of meat and drink that is allotted to them, and that such as is abundantly sufficient for them. 2.134. 6. And truly, as for other things, they do nothing but according to the injunctions of their curators; only these two things are done among them at everyone’s own free will, which are to assist those that want it, and to show mercy; for they are permitted of their own accord to afford succor to such as deserve it, when they stand in need of it, and to bestow food on those that are in distress; but they cannot give any thing to their kindred without the curators. 2.135. They dispense their anger after a just manner, and restrain their passion. They are eminent for fidelity, and are the ministers of peace; whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury for they say that he who cannot be believed without [swearing by] God is already condemned. 2.136. They also take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients, and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body; and they inquire after such roots and medicinal stones as may cure their distempers. 2.137. 7. But now, if anyone hath a mind to come over to their sect, he is not immediately admitted, but he is prescribed the same method of living which they use, for a year, while he continues excluded; and they give him also a small hatchet, and the fore-mentioned girdle, and the white garment. 2.138. And when he hath given evidence, during that time, that he can observe their continence, he approaches nearer to their way of living, and is made a partaker of the waters of purification; yet is he not even now admitted to live with them; for after this demonstration of his fortitude, his temper is tried two more years; and if he appear to be worthy, they then admit him into their society. 2.139. And before he is allowed to touch their common food, he is obliged to take tremendous oaths, that, in the first place, he will exercise piety towards God, and then that he will observe justice towards men, and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked, and be assistant to the righteous; 2.141. that he will be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal anything from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to others, no, not though anyone should compel him so to do at the hazard of his life. 2.142. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves. 2.143. 8. But for those that are caught in any heinous sins, they cast them out of their society; and he who is thus separated from them does often die after a miserable manner; for as he is bound by the oath he hath taken, and by the customs he hath been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish; 2.144. for which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins they had been guilty of. 2.145. 9. But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom, if anyone blaspheme, he is punished capitally. 2.146. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. 2.147. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. 2.148. Nay, on theother days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit 2.149. after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them. 2.151. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They condemn the miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always; 2.152. and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; 2.153. but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again. 2.154. 11. For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue forever; and that they come out of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; 2.155. but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments. 2.156. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demigods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue, and dehortations from wickedness collected; 2.157. whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death. 2.158. These are the Divine doctrines of the Essenes about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy. 2.159. 12. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions. 2.161. However, they try their spouses for three years; and if they find that they have their natural purgations thrice, as trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they then actually marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity. Now the women go into the baths with some of their garments on, as the men do with somewhat girded about them. And these are the customs of this order of Essenes. 2.567. Nor did they neglect the care of other parts of the country; but Joseph the son of Simon was sent as general to Jericho, as was Manasseh to Perea, and John, the Essene, to the toparchy of Thamma; Lydda was also added to his portion, and Joppa, and Emmaus. 5.145. But if we go the other way westward, it began at the same place, and extended through a place called “Bethso,” to the gate of the Essenes; and after that it went southward, having its bending above the fountain Siloam, where it also bends again towards the east at Solomon’s pool, and reaches as far as a certain place which they called “Ophlas,” where it was joined to the eastern cloister of the temple. 6.124. 4. Now Titus was deeply affected with this state of things, and reproached John and his party, and said to them, “Have not you, vile wretches that you are, by our permission, put up this partition-wall before your sanctuary? |
|
23. Josephus Flavius, Life, 11-12, 10 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
|
24. Mishnah, Avot, 1 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
|
25. New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 7 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
|
26. New Testament, Acts, 2.27, 13.35 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 2.27. Because you will not leave my soul in Hades, Neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay. 13.35. Therefore he says also in another psalm, 'You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.' |
|
27. New Testament, Apocalypse, 14.4 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 14.4. These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. |
|
28. New Testament, Titus, 1.8 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.8. but given to hospitality, as a lover of good, sober-minded, fair, holy, self-controlled; |
|
29. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 5.73 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
|
30. Tosefta, Berachot, 6.19 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 6.19. [A person] who was walking to separate Terumah (heave-offering) and Maaserot (tithes) says [the following Beracha (blessing) before he arrived to do the separation]: Baruch [Ata Hashem Eloheinu Melech Haolam] Shehigiyanu Lazman Hazeh (Blessed are You Hashem, our God, King of the world, Who has brought us to this time). As he separates them he says [the following Beracha]: Baruch [Ata Hashem Eloheinu Melech Haolam] Asher Kideshanu Bemitzvotav Vetzivanu Lehafrish Terumah Umaasrot (Blessed are You Hashem, our God, King of the world, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us to separate Terumah and Maaserot). When does he say the Beracha on them (i.e. Terumah and Maaserot)? At the time that he separates them." |
|
31. Anon., Leviticus Rabba, 3.6 (2nd cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
| 3.6. וֶהֱבִיאָהּ אֶל בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן (ויקרא ב, ב), תָּנֵי רַבִּי חִיָּא וַאֲפִלּוּ רִבּוֹת, אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן (משלי יד, כח): בְּרָב עָם הַדְּרַת מֶלֶךְ. (ויקרא ב, ב): וְקָמַץ מִשָּׁם מְלֹא קֻמְצוֹ מִסָּלְתָּהּ וּמִשַּׁמְנָהּ, מִסַּלְתָּהּ וְלֹא כָּל סָלְתָּהּ, מִשַּׁמְנָהּ וְלֹא כָּל שַׁמְנָהּ, הֲרֵי שֶׁהֵבִיא מִנְחָתוֹ מִגּוֹלָה מֵאַסְפַּמְיָא וְרָאָה אֶת הַכֹּהֵן שֶׁהִקְמִיץ וְאָכַל אֶת הַשְּׁאָר, אָמַר אוֹי לִי, כָּל הַצַּעַר הַזֶּה שֶׁנִּצְטַעַרְתִּי בִּשְׁבִיל זֶה, וְהַכֹּל מְפַיְּסִין אוֹתוֹ וְאוֹמְרִים לוֹ וּמָה אִם זֶה שֶׁלֹּא נִצְטַעֵר אֶלָּא שְׁנֵי פְּסִיעוֹת בֵּין הָאוּלָם לַמִּזְבֵּחַ זָכָה לֶאֱכֹל, אַתָּה שֶׁנִּצְטַעַרְתָּ כָּל הַצַּעַר הַזֶּה, עַל אַחַת כַּמָּה וְכַמָּה. וְלֹא עוֹד אֶלָּא (ויקרא ב, ג): וְהַנּוֹתֶרֶת מִן הַמִּנְחָה לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו, רַבִּי חֲנִינָא בַּר אַבָּא אֲזַל לְחַד אֲתַר אַשְׁכָּחָא הָדֵין פְּסוּקָא רֹאשׁ סִדְרָא: וְהַנּוֹתֶרֶת מִן הַמִּנְחָה לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו, מַה פָּתַח עֲלָהּ (תהלים יז, יד): מִמְתִים יָדְךָ ה' מִמְתִים מֵחֶלֶד. מִמְתִים יָדְךָ ה', מַה גִּבּוֹרִים הֵם אֵלּוּ שֶׁנָּטְלוּ חֶלְקָן מִתַּחַת יָדְךָ ה', וְאֵיזֶה זֶה שִׁבְטוֹ שֶׁל לֵוִי. מִמְתִים מֵחֶלֶד, אֵלּוּ שֶׁלֹּא נָטְלוּ חֵלֶק בָּאָרֶץ. חֶלְקָם בַּחַיִּים, אֵלּוּ קָדְשֵׁי מִקְדָּשׁ. וּצְפוּנְךָ תְּמַלֵּא בִטְנָם, אֵלּוּ קָדְשֵׁי הַגְּבוּל. יִשְׂבְּעוּ בָנִים, (ויקרא ו, יא): כָּל זָכָר בִּבְנֵי אַהֲרֹן יֹאכְלֶנָּה. וְהִנִּיחוּ יִתְרָם לְעוֹלְלֵיהֶם, וְהַנּוֹתֶרֶת מִן הַמִּנְחָה לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו, אַהֲרֹן זָכָה לְבָנִים בֵּין כְּשֵׁרִים בֵּין פְּסוּלִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (מלאכי ב, ה): בְּרִיתִי הָיְתָה אִתּוֹ הַחַיִּים וְהַשָּׁלוֹם, שֶׁהָיָה רוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל. (מלאכי ב, ה): וָאֶתְּנֵם לוֹ מוֹרָא וַיִּירָאֵנִי, שֶׁקִּבֵּל עָלָיו דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה בְּאֵימָה וּבְיִרְאָה וּבִרְתֵת וּבְזִיעַ. מַה תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר (מלאכי ב, ה): מִפְּנֵי שְׁמִי נִחַת, אָמְרוּ בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁיָּצַק משֶׁה שֶׁמֶן הַמִּשְׁחָה עַל רֹאשׁ אַהֲרֹן, נִרְתַּע וְנָפַל לַאֲחוֹרָיו, וְאָמַר, אוֹי לִי שֶׁמָּא מָעַלְתִּי בְּשֶׁמֶן הַמִּשְׁחָה. הֵשִׁיבָה רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ וְאָמְרָה לוֹ (תהלים קלג, א ג): הִנֵּה מַה טּוֹב וּמַה נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם יָחַד כַּשֶּׁמֶן הַטּוֹב עַל הָרֹאשׁ וגו' כְּטַל חֶרְמוֹן שֶׁיּוֹרֵד וגו'. מַה הַטַּל אֵין בּוֹ מְעִילָה אַף הַשֶּׁמֶן אֵין בּוֹ מְעִילָה. כַּשֶּׁמֶן הַטּוֹב עַל הָרֹאשׁ יוֹרֵד עַל הַזָּקָן זְקַן אַהֲרֹן, וְכִי שְׁנֵי זְקָנִים הָיוּ לְאַהֲרֹן וְאַתְּ אֲמַרְתְּ הַזָּקָן זְקַן, אֶלָּא כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאָה משֶׁה אֶת הַשֶּׁמֶן יוֹרֵד עַל זְקַן אַהֲרֹן הָיָה שָׂמֵחַ כְּאִלּוּ עַל זְקָנוֹ יָרָד. (מלאכי ב, ו): תּוֹרַת אֱמֶת הָיְתָה בְּפִיהוּ, שֶׁלֹּא אָסַר אֶת הַמֻּתָּר וְלֹא הִתִּיר אֶת הָאָסוּר. בְּשָׁלוֹם וּבְמִישׁוֹר הָלַךְ אִתִּי, שֶׁלֹּא הִרְהֵר אַחַר דַּרְכֵי הַמָּקוֹם, כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁלֹּא הִרְהֵר אָבִינוּ אַבְרָהָם. וְרַבִּים הֵשִׁיב מֵעָוֹן, שֶׁהֵשִׁיב פּוֹשְׁעִים לְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה, וְכֵן הוּא אוֹמֵר (שיר השירים א, ד): מֵישָׁרִים אֲהֵבוּךָ, מַה כְּתִיב בּוֹ בַּסּוֹף (מלאכי ב, ז): כִּי שִׂפְתֵי כֹהֵן יִשְׁמְרוּ דַעַת וְתוֹרָה יְבַקְּשׁוּ מִפִּיהוּ וגו'. | |
|
32. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 9.25 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 9.25. Since, therefore, we have explained even the diversities among the Jews, it seems expedient likewise not to pass over in silence the system of their religion. The doctrine, therefore, among all Jews on the subject of religion is fourfold-theological, natural, moral, and ceremonial. And they affirm that there is one God, and that He is Creator and Lord of the universe: that He has formed all these glorious works which had no previous existence; and this, too, not out of any coeval substance that lay ready at hand, but His Will - the efficient cause- was to create, and He did create. And (they maintain) that there are angels, and that these have been brought into being for ministering unto the creation; but also that there is a sovereign Spirit that always continues beside God, for glory and praise. And that all things in the creation are endued with sensation, and that there is nothing iimate. And they earnestly aim at serious habits and a temperate life, as one may ascertain from their laws. Now these matters have long ago been strictly defined by those who in ancient times have received the divinely-appointed law; so that the reader will find himself astonished at the amount of temperance, and of diligence, lavished on customs legally enacted in reference to man. The ceremonial service, however, which has been adapted to divine worship in a manner befitting the dignity of religion, has been practised among them with the highest degree of elaboration. The superiority of their ritualism it is easy for those who wish it to ascertain, provided they read the book which furnishes information on these points. They will thus perceive how that with solemnity and sanctity the Jewish priests offer unto God the first-fruits of the gifts bestowed by Him for the rise and enjoyment of men; how they fulfil their ministrations with regularity and steadfastness, in obedience to His commandments. There are, however, some (liturgical usages adopted) by these, which the Sadducees refuse to recognise, for they are not disposed to acquiesce in the existence of angels or spirits. Still all parties alike expect Messiah, inasmuch as the Law certainly, and the prophets, preached beforehand that He was about to be present on earth. Inasmuch, however, as the Jews were not cognizant of the period of His advent, there remains the supposition that the declarations (of Scripture) concerning His coming have not been fulfilled. And so it is, that up to this day they continue in anticipation of the future coming of the Christ, - from the fact of their not discerning Him when He was present in the world. And (yet there can be little doubt but) that, on beholding the signs of the times of His having been already among us, the Jews are troubled; and that they are ashamed to confess that He has come, since they have with their own hands put Him to death, because they were stung with indignation in being convicted by Himself of not having obeyed the laws. And they affirm that He who was thus sent forth by God is not this Christ (whom they are looking for); but they confess that another Messiah will come, who as yet has no existence; and that he will usher in some of the signs which the law and the prophets have shown beforehand, whereas, regarding the rest (of these indications), they suppose that they have fallen into error. For they say that his generation will be from the stock of David, but not from a virgin and the Holy Spirit, but from a woman and a man, according as it is a rule for all to be procreated from seed. And they allege that this Messiah will be King over them - a warlike and powerful individual, who, after having gathered together the entire people of the Jews, and having done battle with all the nations, will restore for them Jerusalem the royal city. And into this city He will collect together the entire Hebrew race, and bring it back once more into the ancient customs, that it may fulfil the regal and sacerdotal functions, and dwell in confidence for periods of time of sufficient duration. After this repose, it is their opinion that war would next be waged against them after being thus congregated; that in this conflict Christ would fall by the edge of the sword; and that, after no long time, would next succeed the termination and conflagration of the universe; and that in this way their opinions concerning the resurrection would receive completion, and a recompense be rendered to each man according to his works. |
|
33. Palestinian Talmud, Berachot, 3.5, 6d (2nd cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
|
34. Philostratus The Athenian, Life of Apollonius, 6.1-6.27 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 6.1. Ethiopia covers the western wing of the entire earth under the sun, just as India does the eastern wing; and at Meroe it adjoins Egypt, and, after skirting a part of Libya Incognita, it ends at the sea which the poets call by the name of the Ocean, that being the name they applied to the mass of water which surrounds the earth. This country supplies Egypt with the river Nile, which takes its rise at the cataracts (Catadupi), and brings down from Ethiopia all Egypt, the soil of which in flood-time it inundates. Now in size this country is not worthy of comparison with India, not for that matter is any of the continents that are famous among men; and even if you put together all Egypt with Ethiopia, and we may regard the river as so combining the two, we should not compare the two together with India, so vast is the standard of comparison. However their respective rivers, theIndus and the Nile, resemble one another, if we consider their creatures. For they both spread their moisture over the land in the summer season, when the earth most wants it, and unlike all other rivers they produced the crocodile and the river-horse; and the religious rites celebrated over them correspond with one another, for many of the religious invocations of the Indians are repeated in the case of the Nile. We have a proof of the similarity of the two countries in the spices which are found in them, also in the fact that the lion and the elephant are captured and confined in both the one and the other. They are also the haunts of animals not found elsewhere, and of black men — a feature not found in other continents — and we meet in them with races of pigmies and of people who bark in various ways instead of talking, and other wonders of the kind. And the griffins of the Indians and the ants of the Ethiopians, though they are dissimilar in form, yet, from what we hear, play similar parts; for in each country they are the guardians of gold, and devoted to the gold reefs of the two countries. But we will not pursue these subjects; for we must resume the course of our history and follow in the sage's footsteps. 6.2. For when he arrived at the confines of Ethiopia and Egypt, and the name of the place is Sycaminus, he came across a quantity of uncoined gold and linen and an elephant and various roots and myrrh and spices, which are all lying without anyone to watch them at the crossways. I will explain the meaning of this, for the same custom still survives among ourselves. It was a market place to which the Ethiopians bring all the products of their country; and the Egyptians in their turn take them all away and bring to the same spot their own wares of equal value, so bartering what they have got for what they have not. Now the inhabitants of the marches are not yet fully black but are half-breeds in matter of color, for they are partly not so black as the Ethiopians, yet partly more so than the Egyptians. Apollonius, accordingly, when he realized the character of the market, remarked: Contrast our good Hellenes: they pretend they cannot live unless one penny begets another and unless they can force up the price of their goods by chaffering or holding them back; and one pretends that he has got a daughter whom it is time to marry, and another that he has got a son who has just reached manhood, and a third that he has to pay his subscription to his club, and a fourth that he is having a house built for him, and a fifth that he would be ashamed of being thought a worse man of business than his father was before him. What a splendid thing then it would be, if wealth were held in less honor and equality flourished a little more and “if the black iron were left to rust in the ground,” for all men would agree with one another, and the whole earth would be like one brotherhood. 6.3. With such conversations, the occasions providing as usual the topics he talked about, he turned his steps towards Memnon; an Egyptian showed them the way, of whom Damis gives the following account: Timasion was the name of this stripling, who was just emerging from boyhood, and was now in the prime of life and strength. He had a stepmother who had fallen in love with him; and when he rejected her overtures, she set upon him and by way of spiting him had poisoned his father's mind against him, condescending to a lower intrigue than ever Phaedra had done, for she accused him of being effeminate, and of finding his pleasure in pederasts rather than in women. He had accordingly abandoned Naucratis, for it was there that all this happened, and was living in the neighborhood of Memphis; and he had acquired and manned a boat of his own and was plying as a waterman on the Nile. He then, was going down the river when he saw Apollonius sailing up it; and he concluded that the crew consisted of wise men, because he judged them by the cloaks they wore and the books they were hard at work studying. So he asked them whether they would allow one who was so passionately fond of wisdom as himself to share their voyage; and Apollonius said: This youth is wise, my friends, so let him be granted his request. And he further related the story about his stepmother to those of his companions who were nearest to him in a low tone while the stripling was still sailing towards them. But when the ships were alongside of one another, Timasion stepped out of his boat, and after addressing a word or two to his pilot, about the cargo in his own boat, he greeted the company. Apollonius then ordered him to sit down under his eyes, and said: You stripling of Egypt, for you seem to be one of the natives, tell me what you have done of evil or what of good; for in the one case you shall be forgiven by me, in consideration of your youth; but in the other you shall reap my commendation and become a fellow-student of philosophy with me and with these gentlemen. Then noticing that Timasion blushed and checked his impulse to speak, and hesitated whether to say or not what he had been going to say, he pressed his question and repeated it, just as if he had no foreknowledge of the youth at his command. Then Timasion plucked up courage and said: O Heavens, how shall I describe myself? for I am not a bad boy, and yet I do not know whether I ought to be considered a good one, for there is no particular merit in having abstained from wrong. But Apollonius cried: Bravo, my boy, you answer me just as if you were a sage from India; for this was just the sentiment of the divine Iarchas. But tell me how you came to form these opinions, and how long ago; for it strikes me that you have been on your guard against some sin. The youth then began to tell them of his stepmother's infatuation for himself, and of how he had rejected her advances; and when he did so, there was a shout in recognition of the divine inspiration under which Apollonius had foretold these details. Timasion, however, caught them up and said: Most excellent people, what is the matter with you? for my story is one which calls as little for your admiration, I think, as for your ridicule. But Damis said: It was not that we were admiring, but something else which you don't know about yet. As for you, my boy, we praise you because you think that you did nothing very remarkable. And Apollonius said: Do you sacrifice to Aphrodite, my boy? And Timasion answered: Yes, by Zeus, every day; for I consider that this goddess has great influence in human and divine affairs. Thereat Apollonius was delighted beyond measure, and cried: Let us, gentlemen, vote a crown to him for his continence rather than to Hippolytus the son of Theseus, for the latter insulted Aphrodite; and that perhaps is why he never fell a victim to the tender passion, and why love never ran riot in his soul; but he was allotted an austere and unbending nature. But our friend here admits that he is devoted to the goddess, and yet did not respond to his stepmother's guilty overtures, but went away in terror of the goddess herself, in case he were not on his guard against another's evil passions; and the mere aversion to any one of the gods, such as Hippolytus entertained in regard to Aphrodite, I do not class as a form of sobriety; for it is a much greater proof of wisdom and sobriety to speak well of the gods, especially at Athens, where altars are set up in honor even of unknown gods. So great was the interest which he took in Timasion. Nevertheless he called him Hippolytus for the eyes with which he looked at his stepmother. It seemed also that he was a young man who was particular about his person and enhanced its charms by attention to athletic exercises. 6.4. Under his guidance, they say, they went on to the sacred enclosure of Memnon, of whom Damis gives the following account. He says that he was the son of the Dawn, and that he did not meet his death in Troy, where indeed he never went; but that he died in Ethiopia after ruling the land for five generations. But his countrymen being the longest lived of men, still mourn him as a mere youth and deplore his untimely death. But the place in which his statue is set up resembles, they tell us, an ancient market-place, such as remain in cities that were long ago inhabited, and where we come on broken stumps and fragments of columns, and find traces of walls as well as seats and jambs of doors, and images of Hermes, some destroyed by the hand of man, others by that of time. Now this statue, says Damis, was turned towards the sunrise, and was that of a youth still unbearded; and it was made of a black stone, and the two feet were joined together after the style in which statues were made in the time of Daedalus; and the arms of the figure were perpendicular to the seat pressing upon it, for though the figure was still sitting it was represented in the very act of rising up. We hear much of this attitude of the statue, and of the expression of its eyes, and of how the lips seem about to speak; but they say that they had no opportunity of admiring these effects until they saw them realized; for when the sun's rays fell upon the statue, and this happened exactly at dawn, they could not restrain their admiration; for the lips spoke immediately the sun's ray touched them, and the eyes seemed to stand out and gleam against the light as do those of men who love to bask in the sun. Then they say they understood that the figure was of one in the act of rising and making obeisance to the sun, in the way those do who worship the powers above standing erect. They accordingly offered a sacrifice to the Sun of Ethiopia and to Memnon of the Dawn, for this the priests recommended them to do, explaining that one name was derived from the words signifying to burn and be warm [ 1] and the other from his mother. Having done this they set out upon camels for the home of the naked philosophers. 6.5. On the way they met a man wearing the garb of the inhabitants of Memphis, but who was wandering about rather than wending his steps to a fixed point; so Damis asked him who he was and why he was roving about like that. But Timasion said: You had better ask me, and not him; for he will never tell you what is the matter with him, because he is ashamed of the plight in which he finds himself; but as for me, I know the poor man and pity him, and I will tell you all about him. For he has slain unwittingly a certain inhabitant of Memphis, and the laws of Memphis prescribe that a person exiled for an involuntary offense of this kind, — and the penalty is exile, — should remain with the naked philosophers until he has washed away the guilt of bloodshed, and then he may return home as soon as he is pure, though he must first go to the tomb of the slain man and sacrifice there some trifling victim. Now until he has been received by the naked philosophers, so long he must roam about these marches, until they take pity upon him as if he were a suppliant. Apollonius therefore put the question to Timasion: What do the naked philosophers think of this particular exile? And he answered: I do not know anything more than that this is the seventh month that he has remained here as a suppliant, and that he has not yet obtained redemption. Said Apollonius: You don't call men wise, who refuse to purify him, and are not aware that Philiscus whom he slew was a descendant of Thamus the Egyptian, who long ago laid waste the country of these naked philosophers. Thereat Timasion said in surprise: What do you mean? I mean, said the other, my good youth, what was actually the fact; for this Thamus once on a time was intriguing against the inhabitants of Memphis, and these philosophers detected his plot and prevented him; and he having failed in his enterprise retaliated by laying waste all the land upon which they live, for by his brigandage he tyrannized the country round Memphis. I perceive that Philiscus whom this man slew was the thirteenth in descent from this Thamus, and was obviously an object of execration to those whose country the latter so thoroughly ravaged at the time in question. Where then is their wisdom? Here is a man that they ought to crown, even if he had slain the other intentionally; and yet they refuse to purge him of a murder which he committed involuntarily on their behalf.. The youth then was astounded and said: Stranger, who are you? And Apollonius replied: He whom you shall find among these naked philosophers. But as it is not allowed me by my religion to address one who is stained with blood, I would ask you, my good boy, to encourage him, and tell him that he will at once be purged of guilt, if he will come to the place where I am lodging. And when the man in question came, Apollonius went through the rites over him which Empedocles and Pythagoras prescribe for the purification of such offenses, and told him to return home, for that he was now pure of guilt. 6.6. Thence they rode out at sunrise, and arrived before midday at the academy of the naked sages, who dwell, they relate, upon a moderate-sized hill a little way from the bank of the Nile; and in point of wisdom they fall short of the Indians rather more than they excel the Egyptians. And they wear next to no clothes in the same way as people do at Athens in the heat of summer. And in their district there are few trees, and a certain grove of no great size to which they resort when they meet for the transaction of common affairs; but they do not build their shrines in one and the same place, as Indian shrines are built, but one is in one part of the hill and another in another, all worthy of observation, according to the accounts of the Egyptians. The Nile is the chief object of their worship, for they regard this river as land and water at once. They have no need, however, of hut or dwelling, because they live in the open air directly under the heaven itself, but they have built an hospice to accommodate strangers, and it is a portico of no great size, about equal in length to those of Elis, beneath which the athletes await the sound of the midday trumpet. 6.7. At this place Damis records an action of Euphrates, which if we do not regard it as juvenile, was anyhow unworthy of the dignity of a philosopher. Euphrates had heard Apollonius often say that he wished to compare the wisdom of India with that of Egypt, so he sent up to the naked sages one Thrasybulus, a native of Naucratis, to take away our sage's character. Thrasybulus at the same time that he pretended to have come there in order to enjoy their society, told them that the sage of Tyana would presently arrive, and that they would have no little trouble with him, because he esteemed himself more highly than the sages of India did themselves, though he extolled the latter whenever he opened his mouth; and he added that Apollonius had contrived a thousand pitfalls for them, and that he would not allow any sort of influence either to the sun, or to the sky, or to the earth, but pretended to move and juggle and rearrange these forces for whatever end he chose. 6.8. Having concocted these stories the man of Naucratis went away; and they, imagining they were true, did not indeed decline to meet Apollonius when he arrived, but pretended that they were occupied with important business and were so intent upon it, that they could only arrange an interview with him if they had time, and if they were informed first of what he wanted and of what attracted him thither.And a messenger from the bade them stay and lodge in the portico, but Apollonius remarked: We do not want to hear about a house for ourselves, for the climate here is such that anyone can live naked, — an unkind reference this to them, as it implied that they went without clothes not to show their endurance, but because it was too to wear any. And he added: I am not surprised indeed at their nor yet knowing what I want, and what I am come here for, though the Indians never asked me these questions. 6.9. Accordingly Apollonius lay down under one of the trees, and let his companions who were there with him ask whatever question they pleased. Damis took Timasion apart and asked him the question in private: About these naked sages, my good fellow, as you have lived with them, and in all probability know, tell me what their wisdom comes to? It is, answered the other, manifold an profound. And yet, said Damis, their demeanor towards us does not evince any wisdom, my fine fellow; for when they refuse to converse about wisdom with so great a man as our master, and assume all sorts of airs against him, what can I say of them except that they are too vain and proud. Pride and vanity! said the other, I have already come among them twice, and I never saw any such thing about them; for they were always very modest and courteous towards those who came to visit them. At any rate a little time ago, perhaps a matter of fifty days, one Thrasybulus was staying here who achieved nothing remarkable in philosophy, and they received him with open arms merely because he said he was a disciple of Euphrates. Then Damis cried: What's that you say, my boy? Then you saw Thrasybulus of Naucratis in this academy of theirs? Yes, and what's more, answered the other, I conveyed him hence, when he went down the river, in my own boat. Now I have it, by Athena, cried Damis, in a loud tone of indignation. I warrant he has played us some dirty trick. Timasion then replied: Your master, when I asked him yesterday who he was, would not answer me at once, but kept his name a secret; but do you, unless this is a mystery, tell me who he is, for then I could probably help you to find what you seek. And when he heard from Damis, that it was the sage of Tyana, You have put the matter, he said, in a nutshell. For Thrasybulus, as he descended the Nile with me, in answer to my question what he had gone up there for, explained to me that his love for wisdom was not genuine, and said that he had filled these naked sages with suspicion of Apollonius, to the end that whenever he came here they might flout him; and what his quarrel is with him I know not, but anyhow, it is, I think, worthy of a woman or of a vulgar person to backbite him as he has done. But I will address myself to these people and ascertain their real disposition; for they are friendly to me. And about eventide Timasion returned, though without telling Apollonius any more than that he had interchanged words with them; however he told Damis in private that they meant to come the next morning primed with all that they had heard from Thrasybulus. 6.10. They spent that evening conversing about trifles which are not worth recording, and then they lay down to sleep on the spot where they had supped; but at daybreak Apollonius, after adoring the sun according to his custom, had set himself to meditate upon some problem, when Nilus, who was the youngest of the naked philosophers, running up to him, exclaimed: We are coming to you. Quite right, said Apollonius, for to get to you I have made this long journey from the sea all the way here. And with these words he followed Nilus. So after exchanging greetings with the sages, and they met him close to the portico. Where, said Apollonius, shall we hold our interview? Here, said Thespesion, pointing to the grove. Now Thespesion was the eldest of the sect, and led them in procession; and they followed him with an orderly and leisurely step, just as the jury of the athletic sports at Olympia follow the eldest of their number. And when they had sat down, which they did anyhow, and without the observing their previous order, they all fixed their eyes on Thespesion as the one who should regale them with a discourse, which he proceeded as follows: They say, Apollonius, that you have visited the Pythian and Olympian festivals; for this was reported of you here by Stratocles of Pharos, who says he met you there. Now those who come to the Pythian festival are, they say, escorted with the sound of pipe and song and lyre, and are honored with shows of comedies and tragedies; and then last of all they are presented with an exhibition of games and races run by naked athletes. At the Olympic festival, however, these superfluities are omitted as inappropriate and unworthy of the place; and those who go to the festival are only provided with the show of naked athletes originally instituted by Heracles. You may see the same contrast between the wisdom of the Indians and our own. For they, like those who invite others to the Pythian festival, appeal to the crowd with all sorts of charms and wizardry; but we, like the athletes of Olympia, go naked. Here earth strews for us no couches, nor does it yield us milk or wine as if we were bacchants, nor does the air uplift us and sustain us aloft. But the earth beneath us is our only couch, and we live by partaking of its natural fruits, which we would have it yield to us gladly and without being tortured against its will. But you shall see that we are not unable to work tricks if we like. Heigh! you tree yonder, he cried, pointing to an elm tree, the third in the row from that under which they were talking, just salute the wise Apollonius, will you? And forthwith the tree saluted him, as it was bidden to do, in accents which were articulate and like those of a woman. Now he wrought this sign to discredit the Indians, and in the belief that by doing so he would wean Apollonius of his excessive estimate of their powers; for he was always recounting to everybody what the Indians said and did.Then the Egyptian added these precepts: he said that it is sufficient for the sage to abstain from eating all flesh of living animals, and from the roving desires which mount up in the soul through the eyes, and from envy which ends by teaching injustice to hand and will, and that truth stands not in need of miracle-mongering and sinister arts. For look, he said, at the Apollo of Delphi, who keeps the center of Hellas for the utterance of his oracles. There then, as you probably know yourself, a person who desires a response, puts his question briefly, and Apollo tells what he knows without any miraculous display. And yet it would be just as easy for him to convulse the whole mountain of Parnassus, and to alter the springs of the Castalian fountain so that it should run with wine, and to check the river Cephisus and stay its stream; but he reveals the bare truth without any of this show of ostentation. Nor must we suppose that it is by his will, that so much gold and showy offerings enter his treasury, nor that he would care for his temple even if it were made twice as large as it already is. For once on a time this god Apollo dwelt in quite a humble habitation; and a little hut was constructed for him to which the bees are said to have contributed their honeycomb and wax, and the birds their feathers. For simplicity is the teacher of wisdom and the teacher of truth; and you must embrace it, if you would have men think you really wise, and forget all your legendary tales that you have acquired among the Indians. For what need is there to beat the drum over such simple matters as: “Do this, or do not do it,” or “I know it, or I do not know it,” or “It is this and not that'? What do you want with thunder, nay, I would say, What do you want to be thunder-struck for?You have seen in picture-books the representation of Heracles by Prodicus; in it Heracles is represented as a youth, who has not yet chosen the life he will lead; and vice and virtue stand in each side of him plucking his garments and trying to draw him to themselves. Vice is adorned with gold and necklaces and with purple raiment, and her cheeks are painted and her hair delicately plaited and her eyes underlined with henna; and she also wears golden slippers, for she is pictured strutting about in these; but virtue in the picture resembles a woman worn out with toil, with a pinched look; and she has chosen for her adornment rough squalor, and she goes without shoes and in the plainest of raiment, and she would have appeared naked if she had not too much regard for her feminine decency. Now figure yourself, Apollonius, as standing between Indian wisdom on one side, and our humble wisdom on the other; imagine that you hear the one telling you how she will strew flowers under you when you lie down to sleep, yes, and by Heaven, how she will regale you upon milk and nourish you on honey-comb, and how she will supply you with nectar and wings, whenever you want them; and how she will wheel in tripods, whenever you drink, and golden thrones; and you shall have no hard work to do, but everything will be flung unsought into your lap. But the other discipline insists that you must lie on the bare ground in squalor, and be seen to toil naked like ourselves; and that you must not find dear or sweet anything which you have not won by hard work; and that you must not be boastful, not hunt after vanities and pursue pride; and that you must be on your guard against all dreams and visions which lift you off the earth. If then you really make the choice of Heracles, and steel your will resolutely, neither to dishonor truth, nor to decline the simplicity of nature, then you may say that you have overcome many lions and have cut off the heads of many hydras and of monsters like Geryon and Nessus, and have accomplished all his other labors, but if you embrace the life of a strolling juggler, you will flatter men's eyes and ears, but they will think you no wiser than anybody else, and you will become the vanquished of any naked philosopher of Egypt. 6.11. When he ended, all turned their eyes upon Apollonius; his own followers knowing well that he would reply, while Thespesion's friends wondered what he could say in answer. But he, after praising the fluency and vigor of the Egyptian, merely said: Have you anything more to say? No, by Zeus, said the other, for I have said all I have to say. Then he asked afresh: And has not any one of the rest of the Egyptians anything to say? I am their spokesman, answered his antagonist, and you have heard them all. Apollonius accordingly paused for a minute and then, fixing his eyes, as it were, on the discourse he had heard, he spoke as follows: You have very well described and in a sound philosophic spirit the choice which Prodicus declares Heracles to have made as a young man; but, ye wise men of the Egyptians, it does not apply in the least to myself. For I am not come here to ask your advice about how to live, insomuch as I long ago made choice of the life which seemed best to myself; and as I am older than any of you, except Thespesion, I myself am better qualified, now I have got here, to advise you how to choose wisdom, if I did not find that you had already made the choice. Being, however, as old as I am, and so far advanced in wisdom as I am, I shall not hesitate as it were to make you the auditors of my life and motives, and teach you that I rightly chose this life of mine, than which no better one has ever suggested itself to me. For I discerned a certain sublimity in the discipline of Pythagoras, and how a certain secret wisdom enabled him to know, not only who he was himself, but also who he had been; and I saw that he approached the altars in purity, and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse; and that he was the first of mankind to restrain his tongue, inventing a discipline of silence described in the proverbial phrase, An ox sits upon it. I also saw that his philosophical system was in other respects oracular and true. So I ran to embrace his teachings, not choosing one form of wisdom rather than another of two presented me, as you, my excellent Thespesion, advise me to do. For philosophy marshaled before me her various points of view, investing them with the adornment proper to each and she commanded me to look upon them and make a sound choice. Now they were all possessed of an august and divine beauty; and some of them were of such dazzling brightness that you might well have closed your eyes. However I fixed my eyes firmly upon all of them, for they themselves encouraged me to do so by moving towards me, and telling me beforehand how much they would give me. Well, one of them professed that she would shower upon me a swarm of pleasures without any toil on my part and another that she would give me rest after toil; and a third that she would mingle mirth and merriment in my toil; and everywhere I had glimpses of pleasures and of unrestrained indulgence in the pleasures of the table; and it seemed that I had only to stretch out my hand to be rich, and that I needed not to set any bridle upon my eyes, but love and loose desire and such-like feelings were freely allowed me. One of them, however, boasted that she would restrain me from such things, but she was bold and abusive and in an unabashed manner elbowed all others aside; and I beheld the ineffable form of wisdom 6.12. Damis says that he breathed afresh when he heard this address; for that the Egyptians were so impressed by Apollonius' words, that Thespesion, in spite of the blackness of his complexion, visibly blushed, while the rest of them seemed in some way stunned by the vigorous and fluent discourse which they listened to; but the youngest of them, whose name was Nilus, leapt up from the ground, he says, in admiration, and passing over to Apollonius shook hands with him, and besought him to tell him about the interviews which he had had with the Indians. And Apollonius, he says, replied: I should not grudge you anything, for you are ready to listen, as I see, and are ready to welcome wisdom of every kind; but I should not care to pour out the teachings I gathered there upon Thespesion or on anyone else who regards the lore of the Indians as so much nonsense. Whereupon Thespesion said: But if you were a merchant or a seafarer, and you brought to us some cargo or other from over there, would you claim, merely because it came from India, to dispose of it untested and unexamined, refusing us either the liberty of looking at it or tasting it? But Apollonius repled as follows: I should furnish it to those who asked for it; but if the moment my ship had reached the harbor, someone came down the beach and began to run down my cargo and abuse myself, and say that I came from a country which produces nothing worth having, and if he reproached me for sailing with a cargo of shoddy goods, and tried to persuade the rest to think like himself, do you suppose that one would, after entering such a harbor, cast anchor or make his cables fast, and not rather hoist his sails and put to sea afresh, entrusting his goods more gladly to the winds than to such undiscerning and inhospitable people? Well, I anyhow, said Nilus, lay hold on your cables, and entreat you, my skipper, to let me share your goods that you bring hither; and I would gladly embark with you in your ship as a super-cargo and a clerk to check your merchandise. 6.13. Thespesion, however, was anxious to put a stop to such propositions, so he said: I am glad, Apollonius, that you are annoyed at what we said to you; for you can the more readily condone our annoyance at the misrepresentation you made of our local wisdom, long before you had gained any experience of its quality. Apollonius was for a moment astonished at these words, for he had heard nothing as yet of the intrigues of Thrasybulus and Euphrates; but as was his wont, he guessed the truth and said: The Indians, O Thespesion, would never have behaved as you have, nor have given ear to these insinuation dropped by Euphrates, for they have a gift of prescience. Now I never have had any quarrel of my own with Euphrates; I only tried to wean him of his passion for money and cure his propensity to value everything by what he could make out of it; but I found that my advice was not congenial to him, nor in his case practicable; nay he merely takes it as a tacit reproach, and never loses any opportunity of intriguing against me. But since you have found his attacks upon my character so plausible, I may as well tell you that it is you, rather than myself, that he has calumniated. For though, as is clear to me, the victims of calumny incur considerable dangers, since they are, I suppose, sure to be disliked without having done any wrong, yet neither are those who incline to listen to the calumnies free from danger; for in the first place they will be convicted of paying respect to lies and giving them as much attention as they would to the truth, and secondly they are convicted of levity and credulity, faults which it is disgraceful even for a stripling to fall into. And they will be thought envious, because they allow envy to teach them to listen to unjust tittle-tattle; and they expose themselves all the more to calumny, because they think it true of others. For man is by nature inclined to commit a fault which he does not discredit when he hears it related to others. Heaven forbid that a man of these inclinations should become a tyrant, or even president of a popular state; for in his hands even a democracy would become a tyranny; nor let him be made a judge, for surely he will not ever discern the truth. Nor let him be captain of a ship, for the crew would mutiny, nor general of an army, for that would bring luck to the adversary; nor let one of his disposition attempt philosophy, for he would not consider the truth in forming his opinions. But Euphrates has deprived you of even the quality of wisdom; for how can those on whom he has imposed with his falsehoods claim wisdom for themselves? have they not deserted from it to take sides with one who has persuaded them of improbabilities? Here Thespesion tried to calm him, and remarked: Enough of Euphrates and of his small-minded affairs; for we are quite ready even to reconcile you with him, since we consider it the proper work of a sage to be umpire in the disputes of other sages. But, said Apollonius, who shall reconcile me with you? For the victim of lies must surely be driven into hostility by the falsehood. ... Be it so, said Apollonius, and let us hold a conversation, for that will be the best way of reconciling us. 6.14. And Nilus, as he was passionately anxious to listen to Apollonius, said: And what's more, it behoves you to begin the conversation, and to tell us all about the journey which you made to the people of India, and about the conversations which you held there, I have no doubt, on the most brilliant topics. And I too, said Thespesion, long to hear about the wisdom of Phraotes, for you are said to have brought from India some examples of his arguments. Apollonius accordingly began by telling them about the events which occurred in Babylon, and told them everything, and they gladly listened to him, spellbound by his words. But when it was midday, they broke of the conversations, for at this time of day the naked sages, like others, attend to the ceremonies of religion. 6.15. Apollonius and his comrades were about to dine, when Nilus presented himself with vegetables and bread and dried fruits, some of which he carried himself, while his friends carried the rest; and very politely he said: The sages send these gifts of hospitality, not only to yourselves but to me; for I mean to share in your repast, not uninvited, as they say, but inviting myself. It is a delightful gift of hospitality, said Apollonius, which you bring to us, O youth, in the shape of yourself and your disposition, for you are evidently a philosopher without guile, and an enthusiastic lover of the doctrines of the Indians and of Pythagoras. So lie down here and eat with us. I will do so, said the other, but your dishes will not be ample enough to satisfy me. It seems to me, said the other, that you are a gourmand and an appalling eater. None like me, said the other, for although you have set before me so ample and so brilliant a repast, I am not sated; and after a little time I am come back again to eat afresh. What then can you call me but an insatiable cormorant? Eat your fill, said Apollonius, and as for topics of conversation, some you must yourself supply, and I will give you others. 6.16. So when they had dined, I, said Nilus, until now have been camping together with the naked sages, and joined my forces with them as with certain light armed troops or slingers. But now I intend to put on my heavy armor, and it is your shield that shall adorn me. But, said Apollonius, I think, my good Egyptian, that you will incur the censure of Thespesion and his society for two reasons; firstly, that after no further examination and testing of ourselves you have left them, and secondly that you give the preference to our manners and discipline with more precipitancy than is admissible where a man is making choice of how he shall live. I agree with you, said the young man, but if I am to blame for making this choice, I might also be to blame if I did not make it; and anyhow they will be most open to rebuke, if they make the same choice as myself. For it will be more justly reprehensible in them, as they are both older and wiser than myself, not to have made the choice long ago which I make now; for with all their advantages they will have failed to choose what in practice would so much redound to their advantage. A very generous sentiment indeed, my good youth, is this which you have expressed, said Apollonius; but beware lest the mere fact of their being so wise and aged should give them an appearance, at any rate, of being right in choosing as they have done, and of having good reason for rejecting my doctrine; and lest you should seem to take up a very bold position in setting them to rights rather than in following them. But the Egyptian turned short round upon Apollonius and countering his opinion said: So far as it was right for a young man to agree with his elders, I have been careful to do so; for so long as I thought that these gentlemen were possessed of a wisdom which belonged to no other set of men, I attached myself to them; and the motive which actuated me to do so was the following: My father once made a voyage on his own initiative to the Red Sea, for he was, I may tell you, captain of the ship which the Egyptians send to the Indies. And after he had had intercourse with the Indians of the seaboard, he brought home stories of the wise men of that region, closely similar to those which you have told us. And his account which I heard was somewhat as follows, namely that the Indians are the wisest of mankind, but that the Ethiopians are colonists sent from India, who follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom, and fix their eyes on the institutions of their home. Well, I, having reached my teens, surrendered my patrimony to those who wanted it more than myself, and frequented the society of these naked sages, naked myself as they, in the hope of picking up the teaching of the Indians, or at any rate teaching allied to theirs. And they certainly appeared to me to be wise, though not after the manner of India; but when I asked them point blank why they did not teach the philosophy of India, they plunged into abuse of the natives of that country very much as you have heard them do in their speeches this very day. Now I was still young, as you see, so they made me a member of their society, because I imagine they were afraid I might hastily quit them and undertake a voyage to the Red Sea, as my father did before me. And I should certainly have done so, yes, by Heaven, I would have pushed on until I reached the hill of the sages, unless someone of the gods had sent you hither to help me and enabled me without either making any voyage over the Red Sea or adventuring to the inhabitants of the Gulf, to taste the wisdom of India. It is not today therefore for the first time that I shall make my choice, but I made it long ago, though I did not obtain what I hoped to obtain. For what is there to wonder at if a man who has missed what he was looking for, returns to the search? And if I should convert my friends yonder to this point of view, and persuade them to adopt the convictions which I have adopted myself, should I, tell me, be guilty of any hardihood? For you must not reject the claim that youth makes, that in some way it assimilates an idea more easily than old age; and anyone who counsels another to adopt the wisdom and teaching which he himself has chosen, anyhow escapes the imputation of trying to persuade others of things he does not believe himself. And anyone who takes the blessings bestowed upon him by fortune into a corner and there enjoys them by himself, violates their character as blessings, for he prevents their sweetness from being enjoyed by as many as possible. 6.17. When Nilus had finished these arguments, and juvenile enough they were, Apollonius took him up and said: If you were in love with my wisdom, had you not better, before I begin, discuss with me the question of my reward? Let us discuss it, answered Nilus, and do you ask whatever you like. I ask you, he said, to be content with the choice you have made, and not to annoy the naked sages by giving them advice which they will not take. I consent, he said, and let this be agreed upon as your reward. This then was the substance of their conversation, and when Nilus at its close asked him how long a time he would stay among the naked sages he replied: So long as the quality of their wisdom justifies anyone in remaining in their company; and after that I shall take my way to the cataracts, in order to see the springs of the Nile, for it will be delightful not only to behold the sources of the Nile, but also to listen to the roar of its waterfalls. 6.18. After they had held this discussion and listened to some recollections of India, they lay down to sleep upon the grass; but at daybreak, having offered their accustomed prayers, they followed Nilus, who led them into the presence of Thespesion. They accordingly greeted one another, and sitting down together in the grove they began a conversation in which Apollonius led as follows: How important it is, said he, not to conceal wisdom, is proved by our conversation of yesterday; for because the Indians taught me as much of their wisdom as I thought it proper for me to know, I not only remember my teachers, but I go about instilling into others what I heard from them. And you too will be richly rewarded by me, if you send me away with a knowledge of your wisdom as well; for I shall not cease to go about and repeat your teachings to the Greeks, while to the Indians I shall write them. 6.19. Ask, they said, for you know question comes first and argument follows on it. It is about the gods that I would like to ask you a question first, namely, what induced you to impart, as your tradition, to the people of this country forms of the gods that are absurd and grotesque in all but a few cases? In a few cases, do I say? I would rather say that in very few are the gods' images fashioned in a wise and god-like manner, for the mass of your shrines seem to have been erected in honor rather of irrational and ignoble animals than of gods. Thespesion, resenting these remarks, said: And your own images in Greece, how are they fashioned? In the way, he replied, in which it is best and most reverent to construct images of the gods. I suppose you allude, said the other, to the statue of Zeus in Olympia, and to the image of Athena and to that of the Cnidian goddess and to that of the Argive goddess and to other images equally beautiful and full of charm? Not only to these, replied Apollonius, but without exception I maintain, that whereas in other lands statuary has scrupulously observed decency and fitness, you rather make ridicule of the gods than really believe in them. Your artists, then, like Phidias, said the other, and like Praxiteles, went up, I suppose, to heaven and took a copy of the forms of the gods, and then reproduced these by their art or was there any other influence which presided over and guided their molding? There was, said Apollonius, and an influence pregt with wisdom and genius. What was that? said the other, for I do not think you can adduce any except imitation. Imagination, said Apollonius, wrought these works, a wiser and subtler artist by far than imitation; for imitation can only create as its handiwork what it has seen, but imagination equally what it has not seen; for it will conceive of its ideal with reference to the reality, and imitation is often baffled by terror, but imagination by nothing; for it marches undismayed to the goal which it has itself laid down. When you entertain a notion of Zeus you must, I suppose, envisage him along with heaven and seasons and stars, as Phidias in his day endeavoured to do, and if you would fashion an image of Athena you must imagine in your mind armies and cunning, and handicrafts, and how she leapt out of Zeus himself. But if you make a hawk or an owl or a wolf or a dog, and put it in your temples instead of Hermes or Athena or Apollo, your animals and your birds may be esteemed and of much price as likenesses, but the gods will be very much lowered in their dignity. I think, said the other, that you criticize our religion very superficially; for if the Egyptians have any wisdom, they show it by their deep respect and reverence in the representation of the gods, and by the circumstance that they fashion their forms as symbols of a profound inner meaning, so as to enhance their solemnity and august character. Apollonius thereon merely laughed and said: My good friends, you have indeed greatly profited by the wisdom of Egypt and Ethiopia, if your dog and your ibis and your goat seem particularly august and god-like, for this is what I learn from Thespesion the sage.But what is there that is august or awe-inspiring in these images? Is it not likely that perjurers and temple-thieves and all the rabble of low jesters will despise such holy objects rather than dread them; and if they are to be held for the hidden meanings which they convey, surely the gods in Egypt would have met with much greater reverence, if no images of them had ever been set up at all, and if you had planned your theology along other lines wiser and more mysterious. For I imagine you might have built temples for them, and have fixed the altars and laid down rules about what to sacrifice and what not, and when and on what scale, and with what liturgies and rites, without introducing any image at all, but leaving it to those who frequented the temples to imagine the images of the gods; for the mind can more or less delineate and figure them to itself better than can any artist; but you have denied to the gods the privilege of beauty both of the outer eye and of an inner suggestion. Thespesion replied and said: There was a certain Athenian, called Socrates, a foolish old man like ourselves, who thought that the dog and the goose and the plane tree were gods and used to swear by them. He was not foolish, said Apollonius, but a divine and unfeignedly wise man; for he did not swear by these objects on the understanding that they were gods, but to save himself from swearing by the gods. 6.20. Thereupon Thespesion as if anxious to drop the subject, put some questions to Apollonius, about the scourging in Sparta, and asked if the Lacedaemonians were smitten with rods in public. Yes, answered the other, as hard, O Thespesion, as men can smite them; and it is especially men of noble birth among them that are so treated. Then what do they do to menials, he asked, when they do wrong? They do not kill them nowadays, said Apollonius, as Lycurgus formerly allowed, but the same whip is used to them too. And what judgment does Hellas pass upon the matter? They flock, he answered, to see the spectacle with pleasure and utmost enthusiasm, as if to the festival of Hyacinthus, or to that of the naked boys. Then these excellent Hellenes are not ashamed, either to behold those publicly whipped who erewhile governed them or to reflect that they were governed by men who are whipped by men who are whipped before the eyes of all? And how is it that you did not reform this abuse? For they say that you interested yourself in the affairs of the Lacedaemonians, as of other people. So far as anything could be reformed, I gave them my advice, and they readily adopted it; for they are the freest of the Hellenes; but at the same time they will only listen to one who gives them good advice. Now the custom of scourging is a ceremony in honor of the Scythian Artemis, so they say, and was prescribed by oracles, and to oppose the regulations of the gods is in my opinion utter madness. 'Tis a poor wisdom, Apollonius, he replied, which you attribute to the gods of the Hellenes, if they countece scourging as a part of the discipline of freedom. It's not the scourging, he said, but the sprinkling of the altar with human blood that is important, for the Scythians too held the altar to be worthy thereof; but the Lacedaemonians modified the ceremony of sacrifice because of its implacable cruelty, and turned it into a contest of endurance, undergone without any loss of life, and yet securing to the goddess as first fruits an offering of their own blood. Why then, said the other, do they not sacrifice strangers right out to Artemis, as the Scythians formerly considered right to do? Because, he answered, it is not congenial to any of the Greeks to adopt in full rigor the manners and customs of barbarians. And yet, said the other, it seems to me that it would be more humane to sacrifice one or two of them than to enforce as they do a policy of exclusion against all foreigners.Let us not assail, said the other, O Thespesion, the law-giver Lycurgus; but we must understand him, and then we shall see that his prohibition to strangers to settle in Sparta and live there was not inspired on his part by mere boorish exclusiveness, but by a desire to keep the institutions of Sparta in their original purity by preventing outsiders from mingling in her life. Well, said the other, I should allow the men of Sparta to be what they claim to be, if they had ever lived with strangers, and yet had faithfully adhered to their home principles; for it was not by keeping true to themselves in the absence of strangers, but by doing so in spite of their presence, that they needed to show their superiority. But they, although they enforced his policy of excluding strangers, corrupted their institutions, and were found doing exactly the same as did those of the Greeks whom they most detested. Anyhow, their subsequent naval program and policy of imposing tribute was modelled entirely upon that of Athens, and they themselves ended by committing acts which they had themselves regarded as a just casus belli against the Athenians, whom they had no sooner beaten in the field than they humbly adopted, as if they were the beaten party, their pet institution. And the very fact that the goddess was introduced from Taurus and Scythia was the action of men who embraced alien customs. But if an oracle prescribed this, what want was there of the scourge? What need to feign an endurance fit for slaves? Had they wanted to prove the disdain that Lacedaemonians felt for death, they had I think done better to sacrifice a youth of Sparta with his own consent upon the altar. For this would have been a real proof of the superior courage of the Spartans, and would have disinclined Hellas from ranging herself in the opposite camp to them. But you will say that they had to save their young men for the battlefield; well, in that case the law which prevails among the Scythians, and sentences all men of sixty years of age to death, would have been more suitably introduced and followed among the Lacedaemonians then among the Scythians, supposing that they embrace death in its grim reality and not as a mere parade. These remarks of mine are directed not so much against the Lacedaemonians, as against yourself, O Apollonius. For if ancient institutions, whose hoary age defies our understanding of their origins, are to be examined in an unsympathetic spirit, and the reason why they are pleasing to heaven subjected to cold criticism, such a line of speculation will produce a crop of odd conclusions; for we could attack the mystery rite of Eleusis in the same way and ask, why it is this and not that; and the same with the rites of the Samothracians, for in their ritual they avoid one thing and insist on another; and the same with the Dionysiac ceremonies and the phallic symbol, and the figure erected in Cyllene, and before we know where we are we shall be picking holes in everything. Let us choose, therefore, any other topic you like, but respect the sentiment of Pythagoras, which is also our own; for it is better, if we can't hold our tongues about everything, at any rate to preserve silence about such matters as these. Apollonius replied and said, If, O Thespesion, you had wished to discuss the topic seriously, you would have found that the Lacedaemonians have many excellent arguments to advance in favor of their institutions, proving that they are sound and superior to those of other Hellenes; but since you are so averse to continue the discussion, and even regard it as impious to talk about such things, let us proceed to another subject, of great importance, as I am convinced, for it is about justice that I shall now put a question. 6.21. Let us, said Thespesion, tackle the subject; for it is one very suitable to men, whether they are wise or not wise. But lest we should drag in the opinions of Indians, and so confuse our discussion, and go off without having formed any conclusions, do you first impart to us the views held by the Indians concerning justice, for you probably examined their views on the spot; and if their opinion is proved to be correct we will adopt it; but if we have something wiser to put in its place, you must adopt our view, for that too is plain justice. Said Apollonius: Your plan is excellent and most satisfactory to me; so do listen to the conversation which I held there. For I related to them how I had once been captain of a large ship, in the period when my soul was in command of another body, and how I thought myself extremely just because, when robbers offered me a reward, if I would betray my ship by running it into roads where they were going to lie in wait for it, in order to seize its cargo, I agreed and made the promise, just to save them from attacking us, but intending to slip by them and get beyond the place agreed upon. And, said Thespesion, did the Indians agree that this was justice? No, they laughed at the idea, he said, for they said that justice was something more than not being unjust. It was very sensible, said the other, of the Indians to reject such a view; for good sense is something more than not entertaining nonsense, just as courage is something more than not running away from the ranks; and so temperance is something more than the avoidance of adultery, and no one reserves his praise for a man who has simply shown himself to be not bad. For because a thing, no matter what, is equidistant between praise and punishment, it is not on that account to be reckoned off-hand to be virtue How then. O Thespesion, said Apollonius, are we to crown the just man and for what actions? Could you have discussed justice more completely and more opportunely, said the other, than when the sovereign of so large and flourishing a country intervened in your philosophic discussion of the art of kingship, a thing intimately connected with justice? If it had been Phraotes, said Apollonius, who turned up on that occasion, you might rightly blame me for not gravely discussing the subject of justice in his presence. But you from the account which I gave of him yesterday that the man is a drunkard and an enemy of all philosophy. What need therefore was there to inflict on him the trouble? Why should we try to win credit for ourselves in the presence of a sybarite who thinks of nothing but his own pleasures? But inasmuch as it is incumbent upon wise men like ourselves to explore and trace out justice, more so than on kings and generals, let us proceed to examine the absolutely just man. For though I thought myself just in the affair of the ship, and thought others just too because they do not practice injustice, you deny that this in itself constitutes them just or worthy of honor. And rightly so, said the other, for whoever heard of a decree drafted by Athenians or Lacedaemonians in favor of crowning so and so, because he is not a libertine, or of granting the freedom of the city to so and so, because the temples have not been robbed by him? Who then is the just man and what are is actions? For neither did I ever hear of anyone being crowned merely for his justice, nor of a decree being proposed over a just man to the effect that so and so shall be crowned, because such and such actions of his show him to be just. For anyone who considers the fate of Palamedes in Troy or Socrates in Athens, will discover that even justice is not sure of success among men, for assuredly these men suffered most unjustly being themselves most just. Still they at least were put to death on the score of acts of injustice imputed on them, and the verdict was a distortion of the truth; whereas in the case of Aristides the son of Lysimachus, it was very justice that was the undoing of him, for he in spite of his integrity was banished merely because of his reputation for this very virtue. And I am sure that justice will appear in a very ridiculous light; for having been appointed by Zeus and by the Fates to prevent men being unjust to one another, she has never been able to defend herself against injustice.And the history of Aristides is sufficient to me to show the difference between one who is nor unjust and one who is really just. For, tell me, is not this the same Aristides of whom your Hellenic compatriots when they come here tell us that he undertook a voyage to the islands to fix the tribute of the allies, and after settling it on a fair basis, returned again to his country still wearing the same cloak in which he left it? It is he, answered Apollonius, who made the love of poverty once to flourish. Now, said the other, let us suppose that there were at Athens two public orators passing an encomium upon Aristides, just after he had returned from the allies; one of the proposes that he shall be crowned, because he has come back again without enriching himself or amassing any fortune, but the poorest of the Athenians, poorer than he was before; and the other orator, we will suppose, drafts his motion somewhat as follows: “Whereas Aristides has fixed the tribute of the allies according to their ability to pay, and not in excess of the resources of their respective countries; and whereas he has endeavored to keep them loyal to the Athenians, and to see that they shall feel it no grievance to pay upon this scale, it is hereby resolved to crown him for justice.” Do you not suppose that Aristides himself would have opposed the first of these resolutions, as an indignity to his entire life, seeing that it only honored him for not doing injustice; whereas, he might perhaps have supported the other resolution as a fair attempt to express his intentions and policy? For I imagine it was with an eye to the interest of Athenians and subject states alike, that he took care to fix the tribute on a fair and moderate basis, and in fact his wisdom in this matter was conclusively proved after his death. For when the Athenians exceeded his valuations and imposed heavier tributes upon the islands, their naval supremacy at once went to pieces, though it more than anything else had made them formidable; on the other hand the prowess of the Lacedaemonians passed on to the sea itself; and nothing was left of Athenian supremacy, for the whole of the subject states rushed into revolution and made good their escape. It follows then, O Apollonius, that rightly judged, it is not the man who abstains from injustice that is just, but the man who himself does what is just, and also influences others not to be unjust; and from such justice as his there will spring up a crop of other virtues, especially those of the law-court and of the legislative chamber. For such a man as he will make a much fairer judge than people who take their oaths upon the dissected parts of victims, and his legislation will be similar to that of Solon and of Lycurgus; for assuredly these great legislators were inspired by justice to undertake their work. 6.22. Such, according to Damis, was the discussion held by them with regard to the just man, and Apollonius, he says, assented to their argument, for he always agreed with what was reasonably put. They also had a philosophic talk about the soul, proving its immortality, and about nature, along much the same lines which Plato follows in his Timaeus; and after some further remarks and discussions of the laws of the Hellenes, Apollonius said: For myself I have come all this way to see yourselves and visit the springs of the Nile; for a person who only comes as far as Egypt may be excused if he ignores the latter, but if he advances as far as Ethiopia, as I have done, he will be rightly reproached if he neglects to visit them, and to draw as it were from their well-springs some arguments of his own. Farewell then, said the other, and pray to the springs for whatever you desire, for they are divine. But I imagine you will take as your guide Timasion, who formerly lived at Naucratis, but is now of Memphis; for he is well acquainted with the springs of the Nile and he is not so impure as to stand in need of further lustrations. But as for you, O Nilus, we would like to have a talk to you by ourselves. The meaning of this sally was clear enough to Apollonius, for he well understood their annoyance at Nilus' preference for himself; but to give them an opportunity of speaking him apart, he left them to prepare and pack up for his journey, for he meant to start at daybreak. And after a little time Nilus returned, but did not tell them anything of what they had said to him, though he laughed a good deal to himself. And no one asked him what he was laughing about, but they respected his secret. 6.23. They then took their supper and after a discussion of certain trifles they laid them down to sleep where they were; but at daybreak they said goodbye to the naked sages, and started off along the road which leads to the mountains, keeping the Nile on their right hand, and they saw the following spectacles deserving of notice. The Catadupi [the first cataract] are mountains formed of good soil, about the same size as the hill of the Lydians called Tmolus; and from them the Nile flows rapidly down, washing with it the soil of which it creates Egypt; but the roar of the stream, as it breaks down in a cataract from the mountains and hurls itself into the Nile, is terrible and intolerable to the ears, and many of those have approached it too close have returned with the loss of their hearing. 6.24. Apollonius, however, and his party pushed on till they saw some round-shaped hills covered with trees, the leaves and bark and gum of which the Ethiopians regard as of great value; and they also saw lions close to the path, and leopards and other such wild animals; but they were not attracted by any of them, for they fled from them in haste as if they were scared at the sight of men. And they also saw stags and gazelles, and ostriches an asses, the latter in great numbers, and also many wild bulls and ox-goats, the former of these two animals being a mixture of the stag and the ox, that latter of the creatures from which its name is taken. They found moreover on the road the bones and half-eaten carcases of these; for the lions, when they have gorged themselves with fresh prey, care little for what is left over of it, because, I think, they feel sure of catching fresh quarry whenever they want it. 6.25. It is here that the nomad Ethiopians live in a sort of colony upon wagons, and not far from them the elephant-hunters, who cut up these animals and sell the flesh, and are accordingly called by a name which signifies the selling of elephants. And the Nasamones and the man-eaters and the pigmies and the shadow-footed people are also tribes of Ethiopia, and they extend as far as the Ethiopian ocean, which no mariners ever enter except castaways who do so against their will. 6.26. As our company were discussing these animals and talking learnedly about the food which nature supplies in their different cases, they heard a sound as of thunder; not a crashing sound, but of thunder as it is when it is still hollow and concealed in the cloud. And Timasion said: A cataract is at hand, gentlemen, the last for those who are descending the river, but the first to meet you on your way up. And after they had advanced about ten stades, he says that they saw a river discharging itself from the hill-side as big as the Marsyas and the Meander at their first confluence; and he says that after they had put up a prayer to the Nile, they went on till they no longer saw any animals at all; for the latter are naturally afraid of noise, and therefore live by calm waters rather than by those which rush headlong with a noise. And after fifteen stades they heard another cataract which this time was horrible and unbearable to the senses, for it was twice as loud as the first one and it fell from much higher mountains. And Damis relates that his own ears and those of one of his companions were so stunned by the noise, that he himself turned back and besought Apollonius not to go further; however he, along with Timasion and Nilus, boldly pressed on to the third cataract, of which he made the following report on their return. Peaks overhang the Nile, at the most eight stades in height; but the eminence faces the mountains, namely a beetling brow of rocks mysteriously cut away, as if in a quarry, and the fountains of the Nile cling to the edge of the mountain, till they overbalance and fall on to the rocky eminence, from which they pour into the Nile as an expanse of whitening billows. But the effect produced upon the senses by this cataract, which is many times greater than the earlier ones, and the echo which leaps up therefrom against the mountains render it impossible to hear what your companion tells you about the river [ 1]. But the further road which leads up to the first springs of the river was impracticable, they tell us, and impossible to think of; for they tell many stories of the demons which haunt it, stories similar to those which Pindar in his wisdom puts into verse about the demon whom he sets over these springs to preserve the due proportions of the Nile. 6.27. After passing the cataracts they halted in a village of the Ethiopians of no great size, and they were dining, towards the evening, mingling in their conversation the grave with the gay, when all on a sudden they heard the women of the village screaming and calling to one another to join in the pursuit and catch the thing; and they also summoned their husbands to help them in the matter. And the latter caught up sticks and stones and anything which came handy, and called upon one another to avenge the insult to their wives. And it appears that for ten months the ghost of a satyr had been haunting the village, who was mad after the women and was said to have killed two of them to whom he was supposed to be specially attached. The companions, then, of Apollonius were frightened out of their wits till Apollonius said: You need not be afraid, for it's only a satyr that is running amuck here. Yes, by Zeus, said Nilus, it's the one that we naked sages have found insulting us for a long time past and we could never stop his jumps and leaps. But, said Apollonius, I have a remedy against these hell-hounds, which Midas is said once to have employed; for Midas himself had some of the blood of satyrs in his veins, as was clear from the shape of his ears; and a satyr once, trespassing on his kinship with Midas, made merry at the expense of his ears, not only singing about them, but piping about them. Well, Midas, I understand, had heard from his mother that when a satyr is overcome by wine he falls asleep, and at such times comes to his senses and will make friends with you; so he mixed wine which he had in his palace in a fountain and let the satyr get at it, and the latter drank it up and was overcome. And to show that the story is true, let us go to the head man of the village, and if the villagers have any wine, we will mix it with water for the satyr and he will share the fate of Midas' satyr. They thought it a good plan, so he poured four Egyptian jars of wine into the trough out of which the village cattle drank, and then called the satyr by means of some secret rebuke or threat; and though as yet the latter was not visible, the wine sensibly diminished as if it was being drunk up. And when it was quite finished, Apollonius said: Let us make peace with the satyr, for he is fast asleep. And with these words he led the villagers to the cave of the nymphs, which was not quite a furlong away from the village; and he showed them a satyr lying fast asleep in it, but he told them not to hit him or abuse him, For, he said, his nonsense is stopped for ever. Such was this exploit of Apollonius, and, by heavens, we may call it not an incidental work in passing, but a masterwork of his passing by [ 1]; and if you read the sage's epistle, in which he wrote to an insolent young man that he had sobered even a satyr demon in Ethiopia, you will perforce call to mind the above story. But we must not disbelieve that satyrs both exist and are susceptible to the passion of love; for I knew a youth of my own age in Lemnos whose mother was said to be visited by a satyr, as he well might to judge by this story; for he was represented as wearing in his back a fawn-skin that exactly fitted him, the front paws of which were drawn around his neck and fastened over his chest. But I must not go further into this subject; but, anyhow, credit is due as much to experience of facts as it is to myself. |
|
35. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 99b (3rd cent. CE - 6th cent. CE)
| 99b. זמר בכל יום זמר בכל יום אמר רב יצחק בר אבודימי מאי קרא שנאמר (משלי טז, כו) נפש עמל עמלה לו כי אכף עליו פיהו הוא עמל במקום זה ותורתו עומלת לו במקום אחר,אמר רבי אלעזר כל אדם לעמל נברא שנאמר (איוב ה, ז) כי אדם לעמל יולד איני יודע אם לעמל פה נברא אם לעמל מלאכה נברא כשהוא אומר כי אכף עליו פיהו הוי אומר לעמל פה נברא ועדיין איני יודע אם לעמל תורה אם לעמל שיחה כשהוא אומר (יהושע א, ח) לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך הוי אומר לעמל תורה נברא והיינו דאמר רבא כולהו גופי דרופתקי נינהו טובי לדזכי דהוי דרופתקי דאורייתא,(משלי ו, לב) ונואף אשה חסר לב אמר ריש לקיש זה הלומד תורה לפרקים שנאמר (משלי כב, יח) כי נעים כי תשמרם בבטנך יכונו יחדיו על שפתיך,ת"ר (במדבר טו, ל) והנפש אשר תעשה ביד רמה זה מנשה בן חזקיה שהיה יושב ודורש בהגדות של דופי,אמר וכי לא היה לו למשה לכתוב אלא (בראשית לו, כב) ואחות לוטן תמנע ותמנע היתה פלגש לאליפז (בראשית ל, יד) וילך ראובן בימי קציר חטים וימצא דודאים בשדה יצאה ב"ק ואמרה לו (תהלים נ, כ-כא) תשב באחיך תדבר בבן אמך תתן דופי אלה עשית והחרשתי דמית היות אהיה כמוך אוכיחך ואערכה לעיניך,ועליו מפורש בקבלה (ישעיהו ה, יח) הוי מושכי העון בחבלי השוא וכעבות העגלה חטאה מאי כעבות העגלה א"ר אסי יצר הרע בתחלה דומה לחוט של כוביא ולבסוף דומה לעבות העגלה,דאתן עלה מיהת אחות לוטן תמנע מאי היא תמנע בת מלכים הואי דכתיב (בראשית לו, כט) אלוף לוטן אלוף תמנע וכל אלוף מלכותא בלא תאגא היא,בעיא לאיגיורי באתה אצל אברהם יצחק ויעקב ולא קבלוה הלכה והיתה פילגש לאליפז בן עשו אמרה מוטב תהא שפחה לאומה זו ולא תהא גבירה לאומה אחרת נפק מינה עמלק דצערינהו לישראל מאי טעמא דלא איבעי להו לרחקה,וילך ראובן בימי קציר חטים אמר רבא בר' יצחק אמר רב מכאן לצדיקים שאין פושטין ידיהן בגזל וימצא דודאים בשדה מאי דודאים אמר רב יברוחי לוי אמר סיגלי ר' יונתן אמר (סיבסוך) [סביסקי]:,א"ר אלכסנדרי כל העוסק בתורה לשמה משים שלום בפמליא של מעלה ובפמליא של מטה שנאמר (ישעיהו כז, ה) או יחזק במעוזי יעשה שלום לי שלום יעשה לי:,רב אמר כאילו בנה פלטרין של מעלה ושל מטה שנאמר (ישעיהו נא, טז) ואשים דברי בפיך ובצל ידי כסיתיך לנטוע שמים וליסד ארץ (אמר ריש לקיש) [רבי יוחנן אמר] אף מגין על כל העולם כולו שנאמר ובצל ידי כסיתיך ולוי אמר אף מקרב את הגאולה שנאמר (ישעיהו נא, טז) ולאמר לציון עמי אתה,אמר ריש לקיש כל המלמד את בן חבירו תורה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאו שנאמר (בראשית יב, ה) ואת הנפש אשר עשו בחרן ר' (אליעזר) אומר כאילו עשאן לדברי תורה שנאמר (דברים כט, ח) ושמרתם את דברי הברית הזאת ועשיתם אותם רבא אמר כאילו עשאו לעצמו שנאמר ועשיתם אותם אל תקרי אותם אלא אתם,אמר רבי אבהו כל המעשה את חבירו לדבר מצוה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאה שנאמר (שמות יז, ה) ומטך אשר הכית בו את היאר וכי משה הכהו והלא אהרן הכהו אלא לומר לך כל המעשה את חבירו לדבר מצוה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאה:,אפיקורוס: רב ור' חנינא אמרי תרוייהו זה המבזה ת"ח רבי יוחנן ור' יהושע בן לוי אמרי זה המבזה חבירו בפני ת"ח,בשלמא למ"ד המבזה חבירו בפני ת"ח אפיקורוס הוי מבזה תלמיד חכם עצמו מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה הוי אלא למ"ד מבזה תלמיד חכם עצמו אפיקורוס הוי מגלה פנים בתורה כגון מאי כגון מנשה בן חזקיה,ואיכא דמתני לה אסיפא מגלה פנים בתורה רב ור' חנינא אמרי זה המבזה ת"ח רבי יוחנן וריב"ל אמרי זה המבזה את חבירו בפני תלמיד חכם,בשלמא למ"ד המבזה תלמיד חכם עצמו מגלה פנים בתורה הוי מבזה חבירו בפני ת"ח אפיקורוס הוי אלא למ"ד מבזה חבירו בפני תלמיד חכם מגלה פנים בתורה הוי אפיקורוס כגון מאן אמר רב יוסף כגון הני דאמרי מאי אהנו לן רבנן לדידהו קרו לדידהו תנו,אמר ליה אביי האי מגלה פנים בתורה נמי הוא דכתיב (ירמיהו לג, כה) אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק מהכא נמי שמע מינה שנאמר (בראשית יח, כו) ונשאתי לכל המקום בעבורם,אלא כגון דיתיב קמיה רביה ונפלה ליה שמעתא בדוכתא אחריתי ואמר הכי אמרינן התם ולא אמר הכי אמר מר רבא אמר כגון הני דבי בנימין אסיא דאמרי מאי אהני לן רבנן מעולם | 99b. bSing every day, sing every day,i.e., review your studies like a song that one sings over and over. bRav Yitzḥak bar Avudimi says:From bwhat verseis this derived? It is bas it is stated: “The hunger of the laborer labors for him; for his mouth presses upon him”(Proverbs 16:26), i.e., he exhausts his mouth through constant review and study. bHe laborsin Torah bin this place,this world, band his Torah labors for him in another place,the World-to-Come., bRabbi Elazar says: Every man was created for labor, as it is stated: “Man is born for toil”(Job 5:7). Based on this verse, bI do not know whether he was created for toil of the mouth,speech, or bwhether he was created for the toil of labor. Whenthe verse bstates: “For his mouth presses upon him”(Proverbs 16:26), byou must saythat bhe was created for toil of the mouth. And still I do not knowwith regard to the toil of the mouth bwhether it is for the toil of Torah or for the toil of conversation. Whenthe verse bstates: “This Torah scroll shall not depart from your mouth”(Joshua 1:8), byou must saythat bhe was created for the toil of Torah. And that isthe meaning of bwhat Rava said: All bodies are like receptaclesto store items until use. bHappy is one who is privileged, who is a receptacle for Torah. /b,The verse states: b“He who commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding”(Proverbs 6:32). bReish Lakish says: This isa reference to bone who studies Torah intermittently,who is like an adulterer, who sins with the other woman intermittently, bas it is statedabout words of Torah: b“For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within your belly; let them be established on your lips”(Proverbs 22:18) and keep the Torah always available.,§ bThe Sages taughtin a ibaraitathat with regard to the verse: b“But the person who acts high-handedly,whether he is born in the land, or a stranger, that person blasphemes the Lord” (Numbers 15:30), bthisis a reference to bManasseh ben Hezekiah,king of Israel, bwho would sit and teach flawedinterpretations of Torah bnarratives. /b,Manasseh bsaid: But did Moses need to write onlyinsignificant matters that teach nothing, for example: b“And Lotan’s sister was Timna”(Genesis 36:22), or: b“And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz,son of Esau” (Genesis 36:12), or: b“And Reuben went in the days of the wheat harvest and found iduda’imin the field”(Genesis 30:14)? bA Divine Voice emerged and said to him: “You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and should I have kept silence, you would imagine that I was like you, but I will reprove you, and set the matter before your eyes”(Psalms 50:20–21). The verses in the Torah are not empty matters, with regard to which you can decide their import., bAnd aboutManasseh ben Hezekiah bit is stated explicitly in thetexts of btradition,the Prophets: b“Woe unto them who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with a cart rope”(Isaiah 5:18). bWhatis the meaning of the phrase b“as with a cart rope”? Rabbi Asi says:This is a reference to bthe evil inclination. Initially, it seems likea flimsy bspinning [ ikuveya /i] thread and ultimately it seems likea sturdy bcart rope. /b,Manasseh began by mocking a few verses and ultimately violated the entire Torah. The Gemara asks: With regard to that verse bthat we came todiscuss, bin any event, what isthe significance of the phrase in the verse b“And Lotan’s sister was Timna”?The Gemara explains: bTimna was the daughter of kings, as it is written: “The chief of Lotan”(Genesis 36:29), and: b“The chief of Timna”(Genesis 36:40), band each chief isa member of ba monarchy,albeit bwithout a crown.That is why they are called chief and not king.,Timna bsought to convert. She came before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they did not accept her. She went and became a concubine of Eliphaz, son of Esau, and said,referring to herself: bIt is preferable that she will be a maidservant for this nation, and she will not be a noblewoman for another nation.Ultimately, bAmalek,son of Eliphaz, bemerged from her,and that tribe bafflicted the Jewish people. What is the reasonthat the Jewish people were punished by suffering at the hand of Amalek? It is due to the fact bthat they should not have rejected herwhen she sought to convert. Therefore, the verse is significant., b“And Reuben went in the days of the wheat harvest”(Genesis 30:14). bRava, son of Rabbi Yitzḥak, saysthat bRav says: From hereit can be seen bthat the righteous do not extend their handsto engage bin robberyeven of small items, as rather than taking wheat, Reuben took only the ownerless iduda’im /i. The verse continues: b“And he found iduda’imin the field.”The Gemara asks: bWhat are iduda’im /i? Rav says:They are a plant called iyavruḥei /i. Levi says:They are bviolets. Rabbi Yonatan says:They are iseviskei /i. /b,§ Apropos the significance of Torah study, bRabbi Alexandri says: Anyone who engages inthe study of bTorah for its own sake introduces peace into theheavenly bentourage above and into theearthly bentourage below, as it is stated: “Or let him take hold of My stronghold [ ima’uzi /i], that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me”(Isaiah 27:5). One who observes the Torah, which is called ioz /i, introduces peace, even before the presence of God, as it were., bRav says:It is bas though he built a palace ofheaven babove and ofearth bbelow, as it is stated: “And I have placed My words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of My hand, to plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth,and say to Zion, you are My people” (Isaiah 51:16). One who has the word of God placed in his mouth through Torah study has established heaven and earth. bRabbi Yoḥa says:One who engages in Torah study balso protects the entire world, as it is stated: “And I have covered you in the shadow of My hand.” And Levi says: He also advancesthe coming of bthe redemption, as it is stated: “And say to Zion, you are My people.” /b, bReish Lakish said:With regard to banyone who teaches Torah to the son of another, the verse ascribes himcredit bas though he formedthat student, bas it is stated:“And Abram took Sarai his wife… band the souls that they formed in Haran”(Genesis 12:5). They are given credit for forming the students to whom they taught Torah. bRabbi Elazar says:It is bas though he fashioned [ iasa’an /i] the words of Torahthemselves, bas it is stated: “Observe the words of this covet, iva’asitem otam /i”(Deuteronomy 29:8), indicating that studying the Torah is like fashioning it. bRava says:It is bas though he fashioned himself, as it is stated: “ iVa’asitem otam /i.” Do not read“ iva’asitem botam/i b”as: And you shall fashion them; brather,read it as iva’asitem batem/i b,meaning: You shall fashion yourself., bRabbi Abbahu says:With regard to banyone who causes another toengage in ba matter of a mitzva, the verse ascribes himcredit bas though he performed ithimself, bas it is stated:“And the Lord said to Moses… band your rod, with which you struck the river,take in your hand and go” (Exodus 17:5). bAndwas it bMoseswho bstruckthe river? bBut isn’tit written explicitly (see Exodus 7:19–20) that bAaron struckthe river? bRather,that verse serves bto say to you: Anyone who causes another toengage in ba matter of a mitzva, the verse ascribes himcredit bas though he performed ithimself.,§ The mishna teaches that those who have no share in the World-to-Come include ban iepikoros /i. Rav and Rabbi Ḥanina both say: Thisis bone who treats a Torah scholar with contempt. Rabbi Yoḥa and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi say: Thisis bone who treats another with contempt before a Torah scholar. /b,The Gemara asks: bGranted, according to the one who saysthat bone who treats another with contempt before a Torah scholar isthe iepikoros /imentioned in the mishna, bone who treats a Torah scholar with contempt ischaracterized as one bwho interprets the Torah inappropriately,due to his lowering of the status of a Torah scholar. bBut according to the one who saysthat bone who treats a Torah scholar himself with contempt isthe iepikoros /imentioned in the mishna, how would he characterize one bwho interprets the Torah inappropriately? Like whatindividual does such a person conduct himself? He is blike Manasseh, son of Hezekiah,who would teach flawed interpretations of Torah narratives., bAnd there are those who teachthis dispute bwith regard to the latter clauseof the ibaraita /i: From here Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i said: bOne who interprets the Torahinappropriately has no share in the World-to-Come. bRav and Rabbi Ḥanina say: Thisis bone who treats a Torah scholar with contempt. Rabbi Yoḥa and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi say: Thisis bone who treats another with contempt before a Torah scholar. /b,The Gemara asks: bGranted, according to the one who saysthat bone who treats a Torah scholar himself with contempt isthe one mentioned in the ibaraitawho binterprets the Torahinappropriately, bone who treats another with contempt before a Torah scholar ischaracterized as the iepikoros /imentioned in the mishna. bBut according to the one who saysthat bone who treats another with contempt before a Torah scholar isthe one mentioned in the ibaraitawho binterprets the Torahinappropriately, how would he characterize the iepikoros /imentioned in the mishna? bLike whomdoes he conduct himself? bRav Yosef says:It is referring to one who conducts himself blike those who say:In bwhatmanner bhave the Sages benefited uswith all their Torah study? bThey readthe Bible bfor theirown benefit and bthey studythe Mishna bfor theirown benefit., bAbaye said to him: Thatperson who questions the benefit provided by Sages is balsoin the category of one bwho interprets the Torahinappropriately, since with that statement he repudiates the Torah itself, bas it is written: “If not for My covet, I would not have appointed day and night, the laws of heaven and earth”(Jeremiah 33:25). The eternal covet of the Torah is responsible for maintaining the existence of the entire world. bRav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak says: From here too concludethe same concept bfrom it, as it is stated:“If I find in Sodom fifty just men within the city, bthen I will spare the entire place for their sakes”(Genesis 18:26). The righteous protect the place where they reside., bRather,the iepikorosmentioned in the mishna is referring to one who conducts himself blike one who sits before his teacher and a ihalakha /ithat he learned bfrom another place happens to fallinto his consciousness bandthe student bsays: This is what we say there, and he does not saydeferentially: bThis is what the Master said,even if he did not learn that matter from his teacher. bRava said:The term iepikorosis referring to one who conducts himself blike those from the house of Binyamin the doctor, who say:In bwhatmanner bhave the Sages benefited uswith all their Torah study? bNever /b |
|
36. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 2.5.2-2.5.5 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
| 2.5.2. Josephus also makes mention of these things in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in the following words: A sedition having arisen in Alexandria between the Jews that dwell there and the Greeks, three deputies were chosen from each faction and went to Caius. 2.5.3. One of the Alexandrian deputies was Apion, who uttered many slanders against the Jews; among other things saying that they neglected the honors due to Caesar. For while all other subjects of Rome erected altars and temples to Caius, and in all other respects treated him just as they did the gods, they alone considered it disgraceful to honor him with statues and to swear by his name. 2.5.4. And when Apion had uttered many severe charges by which he hoped that Caius would be aroused, as indeed was likely, Philo, the chief of the Jewish embassy, a man celebrated in every respect, a brother of Alexander the Alabarch, and not unskilled in philosophy, was prepared to enter upon a defense in reply to his accusations. 2.5.5. But Caius prevented him and ordered him to leave, and being very angry, it was plain that he meditated some severe measure against them. And Philo departed covered with insult and told the Jews that were with him to be of good courage; for while Caius was raging against them he was in fact already contending with God. |
|
37. Porphyry, On Abstinence, 4.11-4.13 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
| 4.11. 11.But among those who are known by us, the Jews, before they first suffered the subversion of their legal institutes under Antiochus, and afterwards under the Romans, when also the temple in Jerusalem was captured, and became accessible to all men to whom, prior to this event, it was inaccessible, and the city itself was destroyed; - before this took place, the Jews always abstained from many animals, but peculiarly, which they even now do, from swine. At that period, therefore, there were three kinds of philosophers among them. And of one kind, |122 indeed, the Pharisees were the leaders, but of another, the Sadducees, and of the third, which appears to have been the most venerable, the Essenes. The mode of life, therefore, of these third was as follows, as Josephus frequently testifies in many of his writings. For in the second book of his Judaic History, which he has completed in seven books, and in the eighteenth of his Antiquities, which consists of twenty books, and likewise in the second of the two books which he wrote against the Greeks, he speaks of these Essenes, and says, that they are of the race of the Jews, and are in a greater degree than others friendly to one another. They are averse to pleasures, conceiving them to be vicious, but they are of opinion that continence and the not yielding to the passions, constitute virtue. And they despise, indeed, wedlock, but receiving the children of other persons, and instructing them in disciplines while they are yet of a tender age, they consider them as their kindred, and form them to their own manners. And they act in this manner, not for the purpose of subverting marriage, and the succession arising from it, but in order to avoid the lasciviousness of women. They are likewise, despisers of wealth, and the participation of external possessions among them in common is wonderful; nor is any one to be found among them who is richer than the rest. For it is a law with them, that those who wish to belong to their sect, must give up their property to it in common; so that among all of them, there is not to be seen either the abjectness of poverty, or the insolence of wealth; but the possessions of each being mingled with those of the rest, there was one property with all of them, as if they had been brothers. They likewise conceived oil to be a stain to the body, and that if any one, though unwillingly, was anointed, he should [immediately] wipe his body. For it was considered by them as beautiful to be squalid 13, and to be always clothed in white garments. But curators of the common property were elected by votes, indistinctly for the use of all. They have not, however, one city, but in each city many of them dwell together, and those who come among them from other places, if they are of their sect, equally partake with them of their possessions, as if they were their own. Those, likewise, who first perceive these strangers, behave to them as if they were their intimate acquaintance. Hence, when they travel, they take nothing with them for the sake of expenditure. But they neither |123 change their garments nor their shoes, till they are entirely torn, or destroyed by time. They neither buy nor sell anything, but each of them giving what he possesses to him that is in want, receives in return for it what will be useful to him. Nevertheless, each of them freely imparts to others of their sect what they may be in want of, without any remuneration. SPAN 4.12. 12.Moreover, they are peculiarly pious to divinity. For before the sun rises they speak nothing profane, but they pour forth certain prayers to him which they had received from their ancestors, as if beseeching him to rise. Afterwards, they are sent by their curators to the exercise of the several arts in which they are skilled, and having till the fifth hour strenuously laboured in these arts, they are afterwards collected together in one place; and there, being begirt with linen teguments, they wash their bodies with cold water. After this purification, they enter into their own proper habitation, into which no heterodox person is permitted to enter. But they being pure, betake themselves to the dining room, as into a certain sacred fane. In this place, when all of them are seated in silence, the baker places the bread in order, and the cook distributes to each of them one vessel containing one kind of eatables. Prior, however, to their taking the food which is pure and sacred, a priest prays, and it is unlawful for any one prior to the prayer to taste of the food. After dinner, likewise, the priest again prays; so that both when they begin, and when they cease to eat, they venerate divinity. Afterwards, divesting themselves of these garments as sacred, they again betake themselves to their work till the evening; and, returning from thence, they eat and drink in the same manner as before, strangers sitting with them, if they should happen at that time to be present. No clamour or tumult ever defiles the house in which they dwell; but their conversation with each other is performed in an orderly manner; and to those that are out of the house, the silence of those within it appears as if it was some terrific mystery. The cause, however, of this quietness is their constant sobriety, and that with them their meat and drink is measured by what is sufficient [to the wants of nature]. But those who are very desirous of belonging to their sect, are not immediately admitted into it, but they must remain out of it for a year, adopting the same diet, the Essenes giving them a rake, a girdle, and a white garment. And if, during that time, they have given a sufficient proof of their continence, they proceed to a still greater conformity to the institutes of the sect, and use purer water for the purpose of sanctity; though they are not yet permitted to live with the Essenes. For after this exhibition of endurance, their manners are tried for two years more, and he who |124 after this period appears to deserve to associate with them, is admitted into their society. SPAN 4.13. 13.Before, however, he who is admitted touches his common food, he takes a terrible oath, in the first place, that he will piously worship divinity; in the next place, that he will preserve justice towards men, and that he will neither designedly, nor when commanded, injure any one; in the third place; that he will always hate the unjust, but strenuously assist the just; and in the fourth place, that he will act faithfully towards all men, but especially towards the rulers of the land, since no one becomes a ruler without the permission of God; in the fifth place, that if he should be a ruler, he will never employ his power to insolently iniquitous purposes, nor will surpass those that are in subjection to him in his dress, or any other more splendid ornament; in the sixth place, that he will always love the truth, and be hostile to liars; in the seventh place, that he will preserve his hands from theft, and his soul pure from unholy gain 14; and, in the eighth place, that he will conceal nothing from those of his sect, nor divulge any thing to others pertaining to the sect, though some one, in order to compel him, should threaten him with death. In addition to these things, also, they swear, that they will not impart the dogmas of the sect to any one in any other way than that in which they received them; that they will likewise abstain from robbery 15, and preserve the books of their sect with the same care as the names of the angels. Such, therefore, are their oaths. But those among them that act criminally, and are ejected, perish by an evil destiny. For, being bound by their oaths and their customs, they are not capable of receiving food from others; but feeding on herbs, and having their body emaciated by hunger, they perish. Hence the Essenes, commiserating many of these unfortunate men, receive them in their last extremities into their society, thinking that they have suffered sufficiently for their offences in having been punished for them till they were on the brink of the grave. But they give a rake to those who intend to belong to their sect, in order that, when they sit for the purpose of exonerating the belly, they make a trench a foot in depth, and completely cover themselves by their garment, in order that they |125 may not act contumeliously towards the sun by polluting the rays of the God. And so great, indeed, is their simplicity and frugality with respect to diet, that they do not require evacuation till the seventh day after the assumption of food, which day they spend in singing hymns to God, and in resting from labour. But from this exercise they acquire the power of such great endurance, that even when tortured and burnt, and suffering every kind of excruciating pain, they cannot be induced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what they have not been accustomed to. And the truth of this was demonstrated in their war with the Romans. For then they neither flattered their tormentors, nor shed any tears, but smiled in the midst of their torments, and derided those that inflicted them, and cheerfully emitted their souls, as knowing that they should possess them again. For this opinion was firmly established among them, that their bodies were indeed corruptible, and that the matter of which they consisted was not stable, but that their souls were immortal, and would endure for ever, and that, proceeding from the most subtle ether, they were drawn down by a natural flux, and complicated with bodies; but that, when they are no longer detained by the bonds of the flesh, then, as if liberated from a long slavery, they will rejoice, and ascend to the celestial regions. But from this mode of living, and from being thus exercised in truth and piety, there were many among them, as it is reasonable to suppose there would be, who had aforeknowledge of future events, as being conversant from their youth with sacred books, different purifications, and the declarations of the prophets. And such is the order [or sect] of the Essenes among the Jews. SPAN |
|
38. Anon., Avot Derabbi Nathan A, 5 (6th cent. CE - 8th cent. CE)
|
