1. Septuagint, 2 Maccabees, 4.10, 4.12, 11.24, 13.14 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 4.10. When the king assented and Jason came to office, he at once shifted his countrymen over to the Greek way of life.' 4.12. For with alacrity he founded a gymnasium right under the citadel, and he induced the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat.' 11.24. We have heard that the Jews do not consent to our father's change to Greek customs but prefer their own way of living and ask that their own customs be allowed them. 13.14. So, committing the decision to the Creator of the world and exhorting his men to fight nobly to the death for the laws, temple, city, country, and commonwealth, he pitched his camp near Modein.' |
|
2. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Abraham, 276 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 276. Such is the life of the first author and founder of our nation; a man according to the law, as some persons think, but, as my argument has shown, one who is himself the unwritten law and justice of God. |
|
3. Philo of Alexandria, On The Eternity of The World, 18 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 18. Now Chaos was conceived by Aristotle to be a place, because it is absolutely necessary that a place to receive them must be in existence before bodies. But some of the Stoics think that it is water, imagining that its name has been derived from Effusion. But however that may be, it is exceedingly plain that the world is spoken of by Hesiod as having been created: |
|
4. Philo of Alexandria, On The Decalogue, 136 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
|
5. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 4.149 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 4.149. There is also this commandment ordained which is of great common utility, that, "Thou shalt not move thy neighbours' landmarks which the former men have set Up."{35}{deuteronomy 19:14.} And this injunction is given, as it seems, not only with respect to inheritances, and to the boundaries of the land, in order to prohibit covetousness respecting them, but also as a guard to ancient customs; for customs are unwritten laws, being the doctrines of men of old, not engraved on pillars or written on paper which may be eaten by moths, but impressed in the souls of those living under the same constitution. |
|
6. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 2.13 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 2.13. if any one examines them by his reason, he will find to be put in motion in an innumerable multitude of pretexts, either because of wars, or of tyrannies, or of some other unexpected events which come upon nations through the various alterations and innovations of fortune; and very often luxury, abounding in all kind of superfluity and unbounded extravagance, has overturned laws, from the multitude not being able to bear unlimited prosperity, but having a tendency to become insolent through satiety, and insolence is in opposition to law. |
|
7. Philo of Alexandria, On The Embassy To Gaius, 115 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 115. for he regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion, as if they were the only persons who cherished wishes opposed to his, and who had been taught in a manner from their very swaddling-clothes by their parents, and teachers, and instructors, and even before that by their holy laws, and also by their unwritten maxims and customs, to believe that there was but one God, their Father and the Creator of the world; |
|
8. Philo of Alexandria, Who Is The Heir, 295 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 295. this is as it were the first age of the soul. The second is that which, after the age of infancy is passed, begins to live among evils, some of which it is also accustomed to generate from itself, and others it cheerfully receives from other sources, for the teachers of evil deeds are infinite in number: nurses, and tutors, and parents, and the laws in different states, whether written or unwritten, which make objects of admiration out of things which ought to be laughed at; and even without teachers nature itself is easily inclined to learn what is improper, so as to be continually weighed down by the abundance of its evils; |
|
9. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 13.296-13.297, 18.9, 20.216-20.218 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 13.296. that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees, and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people, and to punish those that observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude: 13.297. but of these matters we shall speak hereafter. What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. 18.9. Such were the consequences of this, that the customs of our fathers were altered, and such a change was made, as added a mighty weight toward bringing all to destruction, which these men occasioned by their thus conspiring together; for Judas and Sadduc, who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundations of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we were before unacquainted withal 18.9. 3. But Vitellius came into Judea, and went up to Jerusalem; it was at the time of that festival which is called the Passover. Vitellius was there magnificently received, and released the inhabitants of Jerusalem from all the taxes upon the fruits that were bought and sold, and gave them leave to have the care of the high priest’s vestments, with all their ornaments, and to have them under the custody of the priests in the temple, which power they used to have formerly 20.216. 6. Now as many of the Levites, which is a tribe of ours, as were singers of hymns, persuaded the king to assemble a sanhedrim, and to give them leave to wear linen garments, as well as the priests for they said that this would be a work worthy the times of his government, that he might have a memorial of such a novelty, as being his doing. 20.217. Nor did they fail of obtaining their desire; for the king, with the suffrages of those that came into the sanhedrim, granted the singers of hymns this privilege, that they might lay aside their former garments, and wear such a linen one as they desired; 20.218. and as a part of this tribe ministered in the temple, he also permitted them to learn those hymns as they had besought him for. Now all this was contrary to the laws of our country, which, whenever they have been transgressed, we have never been able to avoid the punishment of such transgressions. |
|
