Flavius Josephus
Josephus against Apion 1
1. I Suppose that by my books of the Antiquity of the Jews, most excellent
Epaphroditus, have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation
is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct subsistence of its own originally;
as also, I have therein declared how we came to inhabit this country wherein we
now live.
Those Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are
taken out of our sacred books, but are translated by me into the Greek tongue.
However, since I observe a considerable number of people giving ear to the reproaches
that are laid against us by those who bear ill-will to us, and will not believe
what I have written concerning the antiquity of our nation, while they take it
for a plain sign that our nation is of a late date, because they are not so much
as vouchsafed a bare mention by the most famous historiographers among the Grecians.
I therefore have thought myself under an obligation to write somewhat briefly
about these subjects, in order to convict those that reproach us of spite and
voluntary falsehood, and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal to instruct
all those who are desirous of knowing the truth of what great antiquity we really
are. As for the witnesses whom I shall produce for the proof of what I say, they
shall be such as are esteemed to be of the greatest reputation for truth, and
the most skillful in the knowledge of all antiquity by the Greeks themselves.
I will also show, that those who have written so reproachfully and falsely about
us are to be convicted by what they have written themselves to the contrary. I
shall also endeavor to give an account of the reasons why it hath so happened,
that there have not been a great number of Greeks who have made mention of our
nation in their histories. I will, however, bring those Grecians to light who
have not omitted such our history, for the sake of those that either do not know
them, or pretend not to know them already.
2. And now, in the first place, I cannot but greatly wonder at those men, who
suppose that we must attend to none but Grecians, when we are inquiring about
the most ancient facts, and must inform ourselves of their truth from them only,
while we must not believe ourselves nor other men; for I am convinced that the
very reverse is the truth of the case. I mean this, - if we will not be led by
vain opinions, but will make inquiry after truth from facts themselves; for they
will find that almost all which concerns the Greeks happened not long ago; nay,
one may say, is of yesterday only. I speak of the building of their cities, the
inventions of their arts, and the description of their laws; and as for their
care about the writing down of their histories, it is very near the last thing
they set about.
However, they acknowledge themselves so far, that they were the
Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Phoenicians (for I will not now reckon ourselves
among them) that have preserved the memorials of the most ancient and most lasting
traditions of mankind; for almost all these nations inhabit such countries as
are least subject to destruction from the world about them; and these also have
taken especial care to have nothing omitted of what was [remarkably] done among
them; but their history was esteemed sacred, and put into public tables, as written
by men of the greatest wisdom they had among them.
But as for the place where
the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand destructions have overtaken it, and blotted
out the memory of former actions; so that they were ever beginning a new way of
living, and supposed that every one of them was the origin of their new state.
It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they
now use; for those who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest
antiquity pretend that they learned them from the Phoenicians and from Cadmus;
yet is nobody able to demonstrate that they have any writing preserved from that
time, neither in their temples, nor in any other public monuments.
This appears,
because the time when those lived who went to the Trojan war, so many years afterward,
is in great doubt, and great inquiry is made, whether the Greeks used their letters
at that time; and the most prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth, is,
that their present way of using those letters was unknown at that time.However,
there is not any writing which the Greeks agree to be genuine among them ancienter
than Homer's Poems, who must plainly he confessed later than the siege of Troy;
nay, the report goes, that even he did not leave his poems in writing, but that
their memory was preserved in songs, and they were put together afterward, and
that this is the reason of such a number of variations as are found in them.
As
for those who set themselves about writing their histories, I mean such as Cadmus
of Miletus, and Acusilaus of Argos, and any others that may be mentioned as succeeding
Acusilaus, they lived but a little while before the Persian expedition into Greece.
But then for those that first introduced philosophy, and the consideration of
things celestial and divine among them, such as Pherceydes the Syrian, and Pythagoras,
and Thales, all with one consent agree, that they learned what they knew of the
Egyptians and Chaldeans, and wrote but little and these are the things which are
supposed to be the oldest of all among the Greeks; and they have much ado to believe
that the writings ascribed to those men are genuine.
3. How can it then be other than an absurd thing, for the Greeks to be so proud,
and to vaunt themselves to be the only people that are acquainted with antiquity,
and that have delivered the true accounts of those early times after an accurate
manner? Nay, who is there that cannot easily gather from the Greek writers themselves,
that they knew but little on any good foundation when they set to write, but rather
wrote their histories from their own conjectures? Accordingly, they confute one
another in their own books to purpose, and are not ashamed to give us the most
contradictory accounts of the same things; and I should spend my time to little
purpose, if I should pretend to teach the Greeks that which they know better than
I already, what a great disagreement there is between Hellanicus and Acusilaus
about their genealogies; in how many eases Acusilaus corrects Hesiod: or after
what manner Ephorus demonstrates Hellanicus to have told lies in the greatest
part of his history; as does Timeus in like manner as to Ephorus, and the succeeding
writers do to Timeus, and all the later writers do to Herodotus nor could Timeus
agree with Antiochus and Philistius, or with Callias, about the Sicilian History,
no more than do the several writers of the Athide follow one another about the
Athenian affairs; nor do the historians the like, that wrote the Argolics, about
the affairs of the Argives.
And now what need I say any more about particular
cities and smaller places, while in the most approved writers of the expedition
of the Persians, and of the actions which were therein performed, there are so
great differences? Nay, Thucydides himself is accused of some as writing what
is false, although he seems to have given us the exactest history of the affairs
of his own time.
4. As for the occasions of so great disagreement of theirs, there may be assigned
many that are very probable, if any have a mind to make an inquiry about them;
but I ascribe these contradictions chiefly to two causes, which I will now mention,
and still think what I shall mention in the first place to be the principal of
all.
For if we remember that in the beginning the Greeks had taken no care to
have public records of their several transactions preserved, this must for certain
have afforded those that would afterward write about those ancient transactions
the opportunity of making mistakes, and the power of making lies also; for this
original recording of such ancient transactions hath not only been neglected by
the other states of Greece, but even among the Athenians themselves also, who
pretend to be Aborigines, and to have applied themselves to learning, there are
no such records extant; nay, they say themselves that the laws of Draco concerning
murders, which are now extant in writing, are the most ancient of their public
records; which Draco yet lived but a little before the tyrant Pisistratus. For
as to the Arcadians, who make such boasts of their antiquity, what need I speak
of them in particular, since it was still later before they got their letters,
and learned them, and that with difficulty also.
5. There must therefore naturally arise great differences among writers, when
they had no original records to lay for their foundation, which might at once
inform those who had an inclination to learn, and contradict those that would
tell lies.
However, we are to suppose a second occasion besides the former of
these contradictions; it is this: That those who were the most zealous to write
history were not solicitous for the discovery of truth, although it was very easy
for them always to make such a profession; but their business was to demonstrate
that they could write well, and make an impression upon mankind thereby; and in
what manner of writing they thought they were able to exceed others, to that did
they apply themselves, Some of them betook themselves to the writing of fabulous
narrations; some of them endeavored to please the cities or the kings, by writing
in their commendation; others of them fell to finding faults with transactions,
or with the writers of such transactions, and thought to make a great figure by
so doing.
And indeed these do what is of all things the most contrary to true
history; for it is the great character of true history that all concerned therein
both speak and write the same things; while these men, by writing differently
about the same things, think they shall be believed to write with the greatest
regard to truth. We therefore [who are Jews] must yield to the Grecian writers
as to language and eloquence of composition; but then we shall give them no such
preference as to the verity of ancient history, and least of all as to that part
which concerns the affairs of our own several countries.
6. As to the care of writing down the records from the earliest antiquity among
the Egyptians and Babylonians; that the priests were intrusted therewith, and
employed a philosophical concern about it; that they were the Chaldean priests
that did so among the Babylonians; and that the Phoenicians, who were mingled
among the Greeks, did especially make use of their letters, both for the common
affairs of life, and for the delivering down the history of common transactions, I think I may omit any proof, because all men allow it so to be.
But now as to
our forefathers, that they took no less care about writing such records, (for
I will not say they took greater care than the others I spoke of) and that they
committed that matter to their high priests and to their prophets, and that these
records have been written all along down to our own times with the utmost accuracy;
nay, if it be not too bold for me to say it, our history will be so written hereafter;
- I shall endeavor briefly to inform you.
7. For our forefathers did not only appoint the best of these priests, and
those that attended upon the Divine worship, for that design from the beginning,
but made provision that the stock of the priests should continue unmixed and pure;
for he who is partaker of the priesthood must propagate of a wife of the same
nation, without having any regard to money, or any other dignities; but he is
to make a scrutiny, and take his wife's genealogy from the ancient tables, and
procure many witnesses to it. And this is our practice not only in Judea, but
wheresoever any body of men of our nation do live; and even there an exact catalogue
of our priests' marriages is kept; I mean at Egypt and at Babylon, or in any other
place of the rest of the habitable earth, whithersoever our priests are scattered;
for they send to Jerusalem the ancient names of their parents in writing, as well
as those of their remoter ancestors, and signify who are the witnesses also.
But
if any war falls out, such as have fallen out a great many of them already, when
Antiochus Epiphanes made an invasion upon our country, as also when Pompey the
Great and Quintilius Varus did so also, and principally in the wars that have
happened in our own times, those priests that survive them compose new tables
of genealogy out of the old records, and examine the circumstances of the women
that remain; for still they do not admit of those that have been captives, as
suspecting that they had conversation with some foreigners.
But what is the strongest
argument of our exact management in this matter is what I am now going to say,
that we have the names of our high priests from father to son set down in our
records for the interval of two thousand years; and if any of these have been
transgressors of these rules, they are prohibited to present themselves at the
altar, or to be partakers of any other of our purifications; and this is justly,
or rather necessarily done, because every one is not permitted of his own accord
to be a writer, nor is there any disagreement in what is written; they being only
prophets that have written the original and earliest accounts of things as they
learned them of God himself by inspiration; and others have written what hath
happened in their own times, and that in a very distinct manner also.
8. For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing
from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two
books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed
to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the
traditions of the origin of mankind till his death.
This interval of time was
little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses
till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets,
who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books.
The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of
human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly,
but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers,
because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and
how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by
what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so
bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make
any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from
their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist
in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.
For it is no new thing
for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to
endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged
to say one word against our laws and the records that contain them; whereas there
are none at all among the Greeks who would undergo the least harm on that account,
no, nor in case all the writings that are among them were to be destroyed; for
they take them to be such discourses as are framed agreeably to the inclinations
of those that write them; and they have justly the same opinion of the ancient
writers, since they see some of the present generation bold enough to write about
such affairs, wherein they were not present, nor had concern enough to inform
themselves about them from those that knew them; examples of which may be had
in this late war of ours, where some persons have written histories, and published
them, without having been in the places concerned, or having been near them when
the actions were done; but these men put a few things together by hearsay, and
insolently abuse the world, and call these writings by the name of Histories.
9. As for myself, I have composed a true history of that whole war, and of
all the particulars that occurred therein, as having been concerned in all its
transactions; for I acted as general of those among us that are named Galileans,
as long as it was possible for us to make any opposition. I was then seized on
by the Romans, and became a captive. Vespasian also and Titus had me kept under
a guard, and forced me to attend them continually. At the first I was put into
bonds, but was set at liberty afterward, and sent to accompany Titus when he came
from Alexandria to the siege of Jerusalem; during which time there was nothing
done which escaped my knowledge; for what happened in the Roman camp I saw, and
wrote down carefully; and what informations the deserters brought [out of the
city], I was the only man that understood them.
Afterward I got leisure at Rome;
and when all my materials were prepared for that work, I made use of some persons
to assist me in learning the Greek tongue, and by these means I composed the history
of those transactions. And I was so well assured of the truth of what I related,
that I first of all appealed to those that had the supreme command in that war, Vespasian and Titus, as witnesses for me, for to them I presented those books
first of all, and after them to many of the Romans who had been in the war.
I
also sold them to many of our own men who understood the Greek philosophy; among
whom were Julius Archelaus, Herod [king of Chalcis], a person of great gravity,
and king Agrippa himself, a person that deserved the greatest admiration. Now
all these men bore their testimony to me, that I had the strictest regard to truth;
who yet would not have dissembled the matter, nor been silent, if I, out of ignorance,
or out of favor to any side, either had given false colors to actions, or omitted
any of them.
10. There have been indeed some bad men, who have attempted to calumniate my
history, and took it to be a kind of scholastic performance for the exercise of
young men. A strange sort of accusation and calumny this! since every one that
undertakes to deliver the history of actions truly ought to know them accurately
himself in the first place, as either having been concerned in them himself, or
been informed of them by such as knew them. Now both these methods of knowledge
I may very properly pretend to in the composition of both my works; for, as I
said, I have translated the Antiquities out of our sacred books; which I easily
could do, since I was a priest by my birth, and have studied that philosophy which
is contained in those writings: and for the History of the War, I wrote it as
having been an actor myself in many of its transactions, an eye-witness in the
greatest part of the rest, and was not unacquainted with any thing whatsoever
that was either said or done in it. How impudent then must those deserve to be
esteemed that undertake to contradict me about the true state of those affairs!
who, although they pretend to have made use of both the emperors' own memoirs,
yet could not they he acquainted with our affairs who fought against them.
11. This digression I have been obliged to make out of necessity, as being
desirous to expose the vanity of those that profess to write histories; and I
suppose I have sufficiently declared that this custom of transmitting down the
histories of ancient times hath been better preserved by those nations which are
called Barbarians, than by the Greeks themselves. I am now willing, in the next
place, to say a few things to those that endeavor to prove that our constitution
is but of late time, for this reason, as they pretend, that the Greek writers
have said nothing about us; after which I shall produce testimonies for our antiquity
out of the writings of foreigners; I shall also demonstrate that such as cast
reproaches upon our nation do it very unjustly.
12. As for ourselves, therefore, we neither inhabit a maritime country, nor
do we delight in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other men as arises from
it; but the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea, and having a fruitful
country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only. Our principal
care of all is this, to educate our children well; and we think it to be the most
necessary business of our whole life to observe the laws that have been given
us, and to keep those rules of piety that have been delivered down to us.
Since,
therefore, besides what we have already taken notice of, we have had a peculiar
way of living of our own, there was no occasion offered us in ancient ages for
intermixing among the Greeks, as they had for mixing among the Egyptians, by their
intercourse of exporting and importing their several goods; as they also mixed
with the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of their love of lucre
in trade and merchandise. Nor did our forefathers betake themselves, as did some
others, to robbery; nor did they, in order to gain more wealth, fall into foreign
wars, although our country contained many ten thousands of men of courage sufficient
for that purpose.
For this reason it was that the Phoenicians themselves came
soon by trading and navigation to be known to the Grecians, and by their means
the Egyptians became known to the Grecians also, as did all those people whence
the Phoenicians in long voyages over the seas carried wares to the Grecians. The
Medes also and the Persians, when they were lords of Asia, became well known to
them; and this was especially true of the Persians, who led their armies as far
as the other continent [Europe]. The Thracians were also known to them by the
nearness of their countries, and the Scythians by the means of those that sailed
to Pontus; for it was so in general that all maritime nations, and those that
inhabited near the eastern or western seas, became most known to those that were
desirous to be writers; but such as had their habitations further from the sea
were for the most part unknown to them which things appear to have happened as
to Europe also, where the city of Rome, that hath this long time been possessed
of so much power, and hath performed such great actions in war, is yet never mentioned
by Herodotus, nor by Thucydides, nor by any one of their contemporaries; and it
was very late, and with great difficulty, that the Romans became known to the
Greeks. Nay, those that were reckoned the most exact historians (and Ephorus for
one) were so very ignorant of the Gauls and the Spaniards, that he supposed the
Spaniards, who inhabit so great a part of the western regions of the earth, to
be no more than one city.
Those historians also have ventured to describe such
customs as were made use of by them, which they never had either done or said;
and the reason why these writers did not know the truth of their affairs was this,
that they had not any commerce together; but the reason why they wrote such falsities
was this, that they had a mind to appear to know things which others had not known.
How can it then be any wonder, if our nation was no more known to many of the
Greeks, nor had given them any occasion to mention them in their writings, while
they were so remote from the sea, and had a conduct of life so peculiar to themselves?
13. Let us now put the case, therefore, that we made use of this argument concerning
the Grecians, in order to prove that their nation was not ancient, because nothing
is said of them in our records: would not they laugh at us all, and probably give
the same reasons for our silence that I have now alleged, and would produce their
neighbor nations as witnesses to their own antiquity?
Now the very same thing
will I endeavor to do; for I will bring the Egyptians and the Phoeniciansas my
principal witnesses, because nobody can complain of their testimony as false,
on account that they are known to have borne the greatest ill-will towards us;
I mean this as to the Egyptiansin general all of them, while of the Phoenicians
it is known the Tyrians have been most of all in the same ill disposition towards
us: yet do I confess that I cannot say the same of the Chaldeans, since our first
leaders and ancestors were derived from them; and they do make mention of us Jews
in their records, on account of the kindred there is between us.
Now when I shall
have made my assertions good, so far as concerns the others, I will demonstrate
that some of the Greek writers have made mention of us Jews also, that those who
envy us may not have even this pretense for contradicting what I have said about
our nation.
14. I shall begin with the writings of the Egyptians; not indeed of those that
have written in the Egyptian language, which it is impossible for me to do. But
Manetho was a man who was by birth an Egyptian, yet had he made himself master
of the Greek learning, as is very evident; for he wrote the history of his own
country in the Greek tongue, by translating it, as he said himself, out of their
sacred records; he also finds great fault with Herodotus for his ignorance and
false relations of Egyptian affairs.
Manetho about the early Jews :
Now this Manetho, in the second book of his
Egyptian History, writes concerning us in the following manner. I will set down
his very words, as if I were to bring the very man himself into a court for a
witness: "There was a king of ours whose name was Timaus. Under him it came to
pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us, and there came, after a surprising
manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness enough
to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it by force, yet
without our hazarding a battle with them.
So when they had gotten those that governed
us under their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities, and demolished the
temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner;
nay, some they slew, and led their children and their wives into slavery.
At length
they made one of themselves king, whose name was Salatis; he also lived at Memphis,
and made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places
that were the most proper for them. He chiefly aimed to secure the eastern parts,
as fore-seeing that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would be desirous
of that kingdom, and invade them; and as he found in the Saite Nomos, [Sethroite,]
a city very proper for this purpose, and which lay upon the Bubastic channel,
but with regard to a certain theologic notion was called Avaris, this he rebuilt,
and made very strong by the walls he built about it, and by a most numerous garrison
of two hundred and forty thousand armed men whom he put into it to keep it.
Thither Salatis came in summer time, partly to gather his corn, and pay his soldiers their
wages, and partly to exercise his armed men, and thereby to terrify foreigners.
When this man had reigned thirteen years, after him reigned another, whose name
was Beon, for forty-four years; after him reigned another, called Apachnas, thirty-six
years and seven months; after him Apophis reigned sixty-one years, and then Janins
fifty years and one month; after all these reigned Assis forty-nine years and
two months. And these six were the first rulers among them, who were all along
making war with the Egyptians, and were very desirous gradually to destroy them
to the very roots.
This whole nation was styled Hycsos, that is, Shepherd-kings:
for the first syllable Hyc, according to the sacred dialect, denotes a king, as
is Sos a shepherd; but this according to the ordinary dialect; and of these is
compounded Hycsos: but some say that these people were Arabians." Now in another
copy it is said that this word does not denote Kings, but, on the contrary, denotes
Captive Shepherds, and this on account of the particle Hyc; for that Hyc, with
the aspiration, in the Egyptian tongue again denotes Shepherds, and that expressly
also; and this to me seems the more probable opinion, and more agreeable to ancient
history. [But Manetho goes on]: "These people, whom we have before named kings,
and called shepherds also, and their descendants," as he says, "kept possession
of Egypt five hundred and eleven years." After these, he says, "That the kings
of Thebais and the other parts of Egypt made an insurrection against the shepherds,
and that there a terrible and long war was made between them."
He says further,
"That under a king, whose name was Alisphragmuthosis, the shepherds were subdued
by him, and were indeed driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were shut up in
a place that contained ten thousand acres; this place was named Avaris." Manetho
says, "That the shepherds built a wall round all this place, which was a large
and a strong wall, and this in order to keep all their possessions and their prey
within a place of strength, but that Thummosis the son of Alisphragmuthosis made
an attempt to take them by force and by siege, with four hundred and eighty thousand
men to lie rotund about them, but that, upon his despair of taking the place by
that siege, they came to a composition with them, that they should leave Egypt,
and go, without any harm to be done to them, whithersoever they would; and that,
after this composition was made, they went away with their whole families and
effects, not fewer in number than two hundred and forty thousand, and took their
journey from Egypt, through the wilderness, for Syria; but that as they were in
fear of the Assyrians, who had then the dominion over Asia, they built a city
in that country which is now called Judea, and that large enough to contain this
great number of men, and called it Jerusalem.
Now Manetho, in another book of
his, says, "That this nation, thus called Shepherds, were also called Captives,
in their sacred books." And this account of his is the truth; for feeding of sheep
was the employment of our forefathers in the most ancient ages and as they led
such a wandering life in feeding sheep, they were called Shepherds. Nor was it
without reason that they were called Captives by the Egyptians, since one of our
ancestors, Joseph, told the king of Egypt that he was a captive, and afterward
sent for his brethren into Egypt by the king's permission. But as for these matters,
I shall make a more exact inquiry about them elsewhere.
15. But now I shall produce the Egyptians as witnesses to the antiquity of
our nation. I shall therefore here bring in Manetho again, and what he writes
as to the order of the times in this case; and thus he speaks: "When this people
or shepherds were gone out of Egypt to Jerusalem, Tethtoosis the king of Egypt,
who drove them out, reigned afterward twenty-five years and four months, and then
died; after him his son Chebron took the kingdom for thirteen years; after whom
came Amenophis, for twenty years and seven months; then came his sister Amesses,
for twenty-one years and nine months; after her came Mephres, for twelve years
and nine months; after him was Mephramuthosis, for twenty-five years and ten months;
after him was Thmosis, for nine years and eight months; after him came Amenophis,
for thirty years and ten months; after him came Orus, for thirty-six years and
five months; then came his daughter Acenchres, for twelve years and one month;
then was her brother Rathotis, for nine years; then was Acencheres, for twelve
years and five months; then came another Acencheres, for twelve years and three
months; after him Armais, for four years and one month; after him was Ramesses,
for one year and four months; after him came Armesses Miammoun, for sixty-six
years and two months; after him Amenophis, for nineteen years and six months;
after him came Sethosis, and Ramesses, who had an army of horse, and a naval force.
This king appointed his brother, Armais,, to be his deputy over Egypt." [In another
copy it stood thus: After him came Sethosis, and Ramesses, two brethren, the former
of whom had a naval force, and in a hostile manner destroyed those that met him
upon the sea; but as he slew Ramesses in no long time afterward, so he appointed
another of his brethren to be his deputy over Egypt.] He also gave him all the
other authority of a king, but with these only injunctions, that he should not
wear the diadem, nor be injurious to the queen, the mother of his children, and
that he should not meddle with the other concubines of the king; while he made
an expedition against Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and besides against the Assyrians
and the Medes.
He then subdued them all, some by his arms, some without fighting,
and some by the terror of his great army; and being puffed up by the great successes
he had had, he went on still the more boldly, and overthrew the cities and countries
that lay in the eastern parts. But after some considerable time, Armais, who was
left in Egypt, did all those very things, by way of opposition, which his brother
had forbid him to do, without fear; for he used violence to the queen, and continued
to make use of the rest of the concubines, without sparing any of them; nay, at
the persuasion of his friends he put on the diadem, and set up to oppose his brother.
But then he who was set over the priests of Egypt wrote letters to Sethosis, and
informed him of all that had happened, and how his brother had set up to oppose
him: he therefore returned back to Pelusium immediately, and recovered his kingdom
again. The country also was called from his name Egypt; for Manetho says, that
Sethosis was himself called Egyptus, as was his brother Armais called Danaus."
16. This is Manetho's account. And evident it is from the number of years by
him set down belonging to this interval, if they be summed up together, that these
shepherds, as they are here called, who were no other than our forefathers, were
delivered out of Egypt, and came thence, and inhabited this country, three hundred
and ninety-three years before Danaus came to Argos; although the Argives look
upon him as their most ancient king Manetho, therefore, hears this testimony to
two points of the greatest consequence to our purpose, and those from the Egyptian
records themselves.
In the first place, that we came out of another country into
Egypt; and that withal our deliverance out of it was so ancient in time as to
have preceded the siege of Troy almost a thousand years; but then, as to those
things which Manetho adds, not from the Egyptian records, but, as he confesses
himself, from some stories of an uncertain original, I will disprove them hereafter
particularly, and shall demonstrate that they are no better than incredible fables.
17. I will now, therefore, pass from these records, and come to those that
belong to the Phoenicians, and concern our nation, and shall produce attestations
to what I have said out of them.
There are then records among the Tyrians that
take in the history of many years, and these are public writings, and are kept
with great exactness, and include accounts of the facts done among them, and such
as concern their transactions with other nations also, those I mean which were
worth remembering.
Therein it was recorded that the temple was built by king Solomon
at Jerusalem, one hundred forty-three years and eight months before the Tyrians
built Carthage; and in their annals the building of our temple is related; for
Hirom, the king of Tyre, was the friend of Solomon our king, and had such friendship
transmitted down to him from his forefathers. He thereupon was ambitious to contribute
to the splendor of this edifice of Solomon, and made him a present of one hundred
and twenty talents of gold. He also cut down the most excellent timber out of
that mountain which is called Libanus, and sent it to him for adorning its roof.
Solomon also not only made him many other presents, by way of requital, but gave
him a country in Galilee also, that was called Chabulon. But there was another
passion, a philosophic inclination of theirs, which cemented the friendship that
was betwixt them; for they sent mutual problems to one another, with a desire
to have them unriddled by each other; wherein Solomon was superior to Hirom, as
he was wiser than he in other respects: and many of the epistles that passed between
them are still preserved among the Tyrians.
Now, that this may not depend on my
bare word, I will produce for a witness Dius, one that is believed to have written
the Phoenician History after an accurate manner. This Dius, therefore, writes
thus, in his Histories of the Phoenicians: "Upon the death of Abibalus, his son
Hirom took the kingdom. This king raised banks at the eastern parts of the city,
and enlarged it; he also joined the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which stood before
in an island by itself, to the city, by raising a causeway between them, and adorned
that temple with donations of gold. He moreover went up to Libanus, and had timber
cut down for the building of temples. They say further, that Solomon, when he
was king of Jerusalem, sent problems to Hirom to be solved, and desired he would
send others back for him to solve, and that he who could not solve the problems
proposed to him should pay money to him that solved them. And when Hirom had agreed
to the proposals, but was not able to solve the problems, he was obliged to pay
a great deal of money, as a penalty for the same. As also they relate, that one
Abdemon, a man of Tyre, did solve the problems, and propose others which Solomon
could not solve, upon which he was obliged to repay a great deal of money to Hirom."
These things are attested to by Dius, and confirm what we have said upon the same
subjects before.
18. And now I shall add Menander the Ephesian, as an additional witness. This
Menander wrote the Acts that were done both by the Greeks and Barbarians, under
every one of the Tyrian kings, and had taken much pains to learn their history
out of their own records. Now when he was writing about those kings that had reigned
at Tyre, he came to Hirom, and says thus: "Upon the death of Abibalus, his son
Hirom took the kingdom; he lived fifty-three years, and reigned thirty-four. He
raised a bank on that called the Broad Place, and dedicated that golden pillar
which is in Jupiter's temple; he also went and cut down timber from the mountain
called Libanus, and got timber of cedar for the roofs of the temples. He also
pulled down the old temples, and built new ones; besides this, he consecrated
the temples of Hercules and of Astarte. He first built Hercules's temple in the
month Peritus, and that of Astarte when he made his expedition against the Tityans,
who would not pay him their tribute; and when he had subdued them to himself,
he returned home.
Under this king there was a younger son of Abdemon, who mastered
the problems which Solomon king of Jerusalem had recommended to be solved." Now
the time from this king to the building of Carthage is thus calculated: "Upon
the death of Hirom, Baleazarus his son took the kingdom; he lived forty-three
years, and reigned seven years: after him succeeded his son Abdastartus; he lived
twenty-nine years, and reigned nine years. Now four sons of his nurse plotted
against him and slew him, the eldest of whom reigned twelve years: after them
came Astartus, the son of Deleastartus; he lived fifty-four years, and reigned
twelve years: after him came his brother Aserymus; he lived fifty-four years,
and reigned nine years: he was slain by his brother Pheles, who took the kingdom
and reigned but eight months, though he lived fifty years: he was slain by Ithobalus,
the priest of Astarte, who reigned thirty-two years, and lived sixty-eight years:
he was succeeded by his son Badezorus, who lived forty-five years, and reigned
six years: he was succeeded by Matgenus his son; he lived thirty-two years, and
reigned nine years: Pygmalion succeeded him; he lived fifty-six years, and reigned
forty-seven years. Now in the seventh year of his reign, his sister fled away
from him, and built the city Carthage in Libya." So the whole time from the reign
of Hirom, till the building of Carthage, amounts to the sum of one hundred fifty-five
years and eight months.
Since then the temple was built at Jerusalem in the twelfth
year of the reign of Hirom, there were from the building of the temple, until
the building of Carthage, one hundred forty-three years and eight months. Wherefore,
what occasion is there for alleging any more testimonies out of the Phoenician
histories [on the behalf of our nation], since what I have said is so thoroughly
confirmed already? and to be sure our ancestors came into this country long before
the building of the temple; for it was not till we had gotten possession of the
whole land by war that we built our temple. And this is the point that I have
clearly proved out of our sacred writings in my Antiquities.
19. I will now relate what hath been written concerning us in the Chaldean
histories, which records have a great agreement with our books in oilier things
also.
Berosus shall be witness to what I say: he was by birth a Chaldean, well
known by the learned, on account of his publication of the Chaldean books of astronomy
and philosophy among the Greeks. This Berosus, therefore, following the most ancient
records of that nation, gives us a history of the deluge of waters that then happened,
and of the destruction of mankind thereby, and agrees with Moses's narration thereof. He also gives us an account of that ark wherein Noah, the origin of our race,
was preserved, when it was brought to the highest part of the Armenian mountains;
after which he gives us a catalogue of the posterity of Noah, and adds the years
of their chronology, and at length comes down to Nabolassar, who was king of Babylon,
and of the Chaldeans.
And when he was relating the acts of this king, he describes
to us how he sent his son Nabuchodonosor against Egypt, and against our land,
with a great army, upon his being informed that they had revolted from him; and
how, by that means, he subdued them all, and set our temple that was at Jerusalem
on fire; nay, and removed our people entirely out of their own country, and transferred
them to Babylon; when it so happened that our city was desolate during the interval
of seventy years, until the days of Cyrus king of Persia. He then says, "That
this Babylonian king conquered Egypt, and Syria, and Phoenicia, and Arabia, and
exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldea."
A little after which Berosus subjoins what follows in his History of Ancient Times.
I will set down Berosus's own accounts, which are these: "When Nabolassar, father
of Nabuchodonosor, heard that the governor whom he had set over Egypt, and over
the parts of Celesyria and Phoenicia, had revolted from him, he was not able to
bear it any longer; but committing certain parts of his army to his son Nabuchodonosor,
who was then but young, he sent him against the rebel: Nabuchodonosor joined battle
with him, and conquered him, and reduced the country under his dominion again.
Now it so fell out that his father Nabolassar fell into a distemper at this time,
and died in the city of Babylon, after he had reigned twenty-nine years. But as
he understood, in a little time, that his father Nabolassar was dead, he set the
affairs of Egypt and the other countries in order, and committed the captives
he had taken from the Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and of the nations belonging
to Egypt, to some of his friends, that they might conduct that part of the forces
that had on heavy armor, with the rest of his baggage, to Babylonia; while he
went in haste, having but a few with him, over the desert to Babylon; whither,
when he was come, he found the public affairs had been managed by the Chaldeans,
and that the principal person among them had preserved the kingdom for him.
Accordingly,
he now entirely obtained all his father's dominions. He then came, and ordered
the captives to be placed as colonies in the most proper places of Babylonia;
but for himself, he adorned the temple of Belus, and the other temples, after
an elegant manner, out of the spoils he had taken in this war. He also rebuilt
the old city, and added another to it on the outside, and so far restored Babylon,
that none who should besiege it afterwards might have it in their power to divert
the river, so as to facilitate an entrance into it; and this he did by building
three walls about the inner city, and three about the outer. Some of these walls
he built of burnt brick and bitumen, and some of brick only. So when he had thus
fortified the city with walls, after an excellent manner, and had adorned the
gates magnificently, he added a new palace to that which his father had dwelt
in, and this close by it also, and that more eminent in its height, and in its
great splendor.
It would perhaps require too long a narration, if any one were
to describe it. However, as prodigiously large and as magnificent as it was, it
was finished in fifteen days. Now in this palace he erected very high walls, supported
by stone pillars, and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing
it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a
mountainous country. This he did to please his queen, because she had been brought
up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation."
20. This is what Berosus relates concerning the forementioned king, as he relates
many other things about him also in the third book of his Chaldean History; wherein
he complains of the Grecian writers for supposing, without any foundation, that
Babylon was built by Semiramis, queen of Assyria, and for her false pretense to
those wonderful edifices thereto buildings at Babylon, do no way contradict those
ancient and relating, as if they were her own workmanship; as indeed in these
affairs the Chaldean History cannot but be the most credible.
Moreover, we meet
with a confirmation of what Berosus says in the archives of the Phoenicians, concerning
this king Nabuchodonosor, that he conquered all Syria and Phoenicia; in which
case Philostratus agrees with the others in that history which he composed, where
he mentions the siege of Tyre; as does Megasthenes also, in the fourth book of
his Indian History, wherein he pretends to prove that the forementioned king of
the Babylonians was superior to Hercules in strength and the greatness of his
exploits; for he says that he conquered a great part of Libya, and conquered Iberia
also.
Now as to what I have said before about the temple at Jerusalem, that it
was fought against by the Babylonians, and burnt by them, but was opened again
when Cyrus had taken the kingdom of Asia, shall now be demonstrated from what Berosus adds further upon that head; for thus he says in his third book: "Nabuchodonosor,
after he had begun to build the forementioned wall, fell sick, and departed this
life, when he had reigned forty-three years; whereupon his son Evilmerodach obtained
the kingdom. He governed public affairs after an illegal and impure manner, and
had a plot laid against him by Neriglissoor, his sister's husband, and was slain
by him when he had reigned but two years. After he was slain, Neriglissoor, the
person who plotted against him, succeeded him in the kingdom, and reigned four
years; his son Laborosoarchod obtained the kingdom, though he was but a child,
and kept it nine mouths; but by reason of the very ill temper and ill practices
he exhibited to the world, a plot was laid against him also by his friends, and
he was tormented to death.
After his death, the conspirators got together, and
by common consent put the crown upon the head of Nabonnedus, a man of Babylon,
and one who belonged to that insurrection. In his reign it was that the walls
of the city of Babylon were curiously built with burnt brick and bitumen; but
when he was come to the seventeenth year of his reign, Cyrus came out of Persia
with a great army; and having already conquered all the rest of Asia, he came
hastily to Babylonia. When Nabonnedus perceived he was coming to attack him, he
met him with his forces, and joining battle with him was beaten, and fled away
with a few of his troops with him, and was shut up within the city Borsippus.
Hereupon Cyrus took Babylon, and gave order that the outer walls of the city should
be demolished, because the city had proved very troublesome to him, and cost him
a great deal of pains to take it. He then marched away to Borsippus, to besiege
Nabonnedus; but as Nabonnedus did not sustain the siege, but delivered himself
into his hands, he was at first kindly used by Cyrus, who gave him Carmania, as
a place for him to inhabit in, but sent him out of Babylonia. Accordingly Nabonnedus
spent the rest of his time in that country, and there died."
21. These accounts agree with the true histories in our books; for in them
it is written that Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our
temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but
that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it
was finished again in the second year of Darius.
I will now add the records of
the Phoenicians; for it will not be superfluous to give the reader demonstrations
more than enough on this occasion. In them we have this enumeration of the times
of their several kings: "Nabuchodonosor besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the
days of Ithobal, their king; after him reigned Baal, ten years; after him were
judges appointed, who judged the people: Ecnibalus, the son of Baslacus, two months;
Chelbes, the son of Abdeus, ten months; Abbar, the high priest, three months;
Mitgonus and Gerastratus, the sons of Abdelemus, were judges six years; after
whom Balatorus reigned one year; after his death they sent and fetched Merbalus
from Babylon, who reigned four years; after his death they sent for his brother
Hirom, who reigned twenty years.
Under his reign Cyrus became king of Persia."
So that the whole interval is fifty-four years besides three months; for in the
seventh year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar he began to besiege Tyre, and Cyrus
the Persian took the kingdom in the fourteenth year of Hirom. So that the records
of the Chaldeans and Tyrians agree with our writings about this temple; and the
testimonies here produced are an indisputable and undeniable attestation to the
antiquity of our nation. And I suppose that what I have already said may be sufficient
to such as are not very contentious.
22. But now it is proper to satisfy the inquiry of those that disbelieve the
records of barbarians, and think none but Greeks to be worthy of credit, and to
produce many of these very Greeks who were acquainted with our nation, and to
set before them such as upon occasion have made mention of us in their own writings.
Pythagoras, therefore, of Samos, lived in very ancient times, and was esteemed
a person superior to all philosophers in wisdom and piety towards God. Now it
is plain that he did not only know our doctrines, but was in very great measure
a follower and admirer of them. There is not indeed extant any writing that is
owned for his but many there are who have written his history, of whom Hermippus
is the most celebrated, who was a person very inquisitive into all sorts of history.
Now this Hermippus, in his first book concerning Pythagoras, speaks thus: "That
Pythagoras, upon the death of one of his associates, whose name was Calliphon,
a Crotonlate by birth, affirmed that this man's soul conversed with him both night
and day, and enjoined him not to pass over a place where an ass had fallen down;
as also not to drink of such waters as caused thirst again; and to abstain from
all sorts of reproaches." After which he adds thus: "This he did and said in imitation
of the doctrines of the Jews and Thracians, which he transferred into his own
philosophy." For it is very truly affirmed of this Pythagoras, that he took a
great many of the laws of the Jews into his own philosophy. Nor was our nation
unknown of old to several of the Grecian cities, and indeed was thought worthy
of imitation by some of them. This is declared by Theophrastus, in his writings
concerning laws; for he says that "the laws of the Tyrians forbid men to swear
foreign oaths." Among which he enumerates some others, and particularly that called
Corban: which oath can only be found among the Jews, and declares what a man may
call A thing devoted to God."
Nor indeed was Herodotus of Halicarnassus unacquainted
with our nation, but mentions it after a way of his own, when he saith thus, in
the second book concerning the Colchians. His words are these: "The only people
who were circumcised in their privy members originally, were the Colchians, the
Egyptians, and the Ethiopians; but the Phoenicians and those Syrians that are
in Palestine confess that they learned it from the Egyptians. And for those Syrians
who live about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, and their neighbors the Macrones,
they say they have lately learned it from the Colchians; for these are the only
people that are circumcised among mankind, and appear to have done the very same
thing with the Egyptians.
But as for the Egyptians and Ethiopians themselves,
I am not able to say which of them received it from the other." This therefore
is what Herodotus says, that "the Syrians that are in Palestine are circumcised."
But there are no inhabitants of Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Jews;
and therefore it must be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much
concerning them.
Cherilus also, a still ancienter writer, and a poet, makes mention
of our nation, and informs us that it came to the assistance of king Xerxes, in
his expedition against Greece. For in his enumeration of all those nations, he
last of all inserts ours among the rest, when he says," At the last there passed
over a people, wonderful to be beheld; for they spake the Phoenician tongue with
their mouths; they dwelt in the Solymean mountains, near a broad lake: their heads
were sooty; they had round rasures on them; their heads and faces were like nasty
horse-heads also, that had been hardened in the smoke."
I think, therefore, that
it is evident to every body that Cherilus means us, because the Solymean mountains
are in our country, wherein we inhabit, as is also the lake called Asphaltitis;
for this is a broader and larger lake than any other that is in Syria: and thus
does Cherilus make mention of us. But now that not only the lowest sort of the
Grecians, but those that are had in the greatest admiration for their philosophic
improvements among them, did not only know the Jews, but when they lighted upon
any of them, admired them also, it is easy for any one to know. For Clearchus,
who was the scholar of Aristotle, and inferior to no one of the Peripatetics whomsoever,
in his first book concerning sleep, says that "Aristotle his master related what
follows of a Jew," and sets down Aristotle's own discourse with him.
The account
is this, as written down by him: "Now, for a great part of what this Jew said,
it would be too long to recite it; but what includes in it both wonder and philosophy
it may not be amiss to discourse of. Now, that I may be plain with thee, Hyperochides,
I shall herein seem to thee to relate wonders, and what will resemble dreams themselves.
Hereupon Hyperochides answered modestly, and said, for that very reason it is
that all of us are very desirous of hearing what thou art going to say. Then replied
Aristotle, For this cause it will be the best way to imitate that rule of the
Rhetoricians, which requires us first to give an account of the man, and of what
nation he was, that so we may not contradict our master's directions. Then said Hyperochides,
go on, if it so pleases thee.
This man then, [answered Aristotle,]
was by birth a Jew, and came from Celesyria; these Jews are derived from the Indian
philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calami, and by the Syrians Judaei,
and took their name from the country they inhabit, which is called Judea; but
for the name of their city, it is a very awkward one, for they call it Jerusalem.
Now this man, when he was hospitably treated by a great many, came down from the
upper country to the places near the sea, and became a Grecian, not only in his
language, but in his soul also; insomuch that when we ourselves happened to be
in Asia about the same places whither he came, he conversed with us, and with
other philosophical persons, and made a trial of our skill in philosophy; and
as he had lived with many learned men, he communicated to us more information
than he received from us." This is Aristotle's account of the matter, as given
us by Clearchus; which Aristotle discoursed also particularly of the great and
wonderful fortitude of this Jew in his diet, and continent way of living, as those
that please may learn more about him from Clearchus's book itself; for I avoid
setting down any more than is sufficient for my purpose. Now Clearchus said this
by way of digression, for his main design was of another nature. But for Hecateus
of Abdera, who was both a philosopher, and one very useful ill an active life,
he was contemporary with king Alexander in his youth, and afterward was with Ptolemy,
the son of Lagus; he did not write about the Jewish affairs by the by only,
but composed an entire book concerning the Jews themselves; out of which book I
am willing to run over a few things, of which I have been treating by way of
epitome.
In the first place, I will demonstrate the time when this Hecateus lived;
for he mentions the fight that was between Ptolemy and Demetrius about Gaza, which
was fought in the eleventh year after the death of Alexander (314 BC), and in the hundred
and seventeenth Olympiad, as Castor says in his history. For when he had set down
this Olympiad, he says further, that "in this Olympiad Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,
beat in battle Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, who was named Poliorcetes, at
Gaza." Now, it is agreed by all, that Alexander died in the hundred and fourteenth
Olympiad; it is therefore evident that our nation flourished in his time, and
in the time of Alexander.
Again, Hecateus says to the same purpose, as follows:
"Ptolemy got possession of the places in Syria after that battle at Gaza; and
many, when they heard of Ptolemy's moderation and humanity, went along with him
to Egypt, and were willing to assist him in his affairs; one of whom (Hecateus
says) was Hezekiah the high priest of the Jews; a man of about sixty-six years
of age, and in great dignity among his own people. He was a very sensible man,
and could speak very movingly, and was very skillful in the management of affairs,
if any other man ever were so; although, as he says, all the priests of the Jews
took tithes of the products of the earth, and managed public affairs, and were
in number not above fifteen hundred at the most." Hecateus mentions this Hezekiah
a second time, and says, that "as he was possessed of so great a dignity, and
was become familiar with us, so did he take certain of those that were with him,
and explained to them all the circumstances of their people; for he had all their
habitations and polity down in writing." Moreover, Hecateus declares again, "what
regard we have for our laws, and that we resolve to endure any thing rather than
transgress them, because we think it right for us to do so." Whereupon he adds,
that "although they are in a bad reputation among their neighbors, and among all
those that come to them, and have been often treated injuriously by the kings
and governors of Persia, yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think
best; but that when they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted
upon them, and they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet
them after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce
the religion of their forefathers."
Hecateus also produces demonstrations not
a few of this their resolute tenaciousness of their laws, when he speaks thus:
"Alexander was once at Babylon, and had an intention to rebuild the temple of
Belus that was fallen to decay, and in order thereto, he commanded all his soldiers
in general to bring earth thither. But the Jews, and they only, would not comply
with that command; nay, they underwent stripes and great losses of what they had
on this account, till the king forgave them, and permitted them to live in quiet."
He adds further, that "when the Macedonians came to them into that country, and
demolished the [old] temples and the altars, they assisted them in demolishing
them all but [for not assisting them in rebuilding them] they either underwent
losses, or sometimes obtained forgiveness." He adds further, that "these men deserve
to be admired on that account.
He also speaks of the mighty populousness of our
nation, and says that "the Persians formerly carried away many ten thousands of
our people to Babylon, as also that not a few ten thousands were removed after
Alexander's death into Egypt and Phoenicia, by reason of the sedition that was
arisen in Syria." The same person takes notice in his history, how large the country
is which we inhabit, as well as of its excellent character, and says, that "the
land in which the Jews inhabit contains three millions of arourae, and is generally
of a most excellent and most fruitful soil; nor is Judea of lesser dimensions."
The same man describe our city Jerusalem also itself as of a most excellent structure,
and very large, and inhabited from the most ancient times.
He also discourses
of the multitude of men in it, and of the construction of our temple, after the
following manner: "There are many strong places and villages (says he) in the
country of Judea; but one strong city there is, about fifty furlongs in circumference,
which is inhabited by a hundred and twenty thousand men, or thereabouts; they
call it Jerusalem. There is about the middle of the city a wall of stone, whose
length is five hundred feet, and the breadth a hundred cubits, with double cloisters;
wherein there is a square altar, not made of hewn stone, but composed of white
stones gathered together, having each side twenty cubits long, and its altitude
ten cubits. Hard by it is a large edifice, wherein there is an altar and a candlestick,
both of gold, and in weight two talents: upon these there is a light that is never
extinguished, either by night or by day.
There is no image, nor any thing, nor
any donations therein; nothing at all is there planted, neither grove, nor any
thing of that sort. The priests abide therein both nights and days, performing
certain purifications, and drinking not the least drop of wine while they are
in the temple." Moreover, he attests that we Jews went as auxiliaries along with
king Alexander, and after him with his successors.
I will add further what he
says he learned when he was himself with the same army, concerning the actions
of a man that was a Jew. His words are these: "As I was myself going to the Red
Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish
horsemen who conducted us; he was a person of great courage, of a strong body,
and by all allowed to be the most skillful archer that was either among the Greeks
or barbarians. Now this man, as people were in great numbers passing along the
road, and a certain augur was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them
all to stand still, inquired what they staid for. Hereupon the augur showed him
the bird from whence he took his augury, and told him that if the bird staid where
he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if he got up, and flew onward,
they must go forward; but that if he flew backward, they must retire again. Mosollam
made no reply, but drew his bow, and shot at the bird, and hit him, and killed
him; and as the augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations
upon him, he answered them thus: Why are you so mad as to take this most unhappy
bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us any true information concerning
our march, who could not foresee how to save himself? for had he been able to
foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this place, but would have
been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew should shoot at him, and kill him."
But of Hecateus's
testimonies we have said enough; for as to such as desire to know more of them,
they may easily obtain them from his book itself. However, I shall not think it
too much for me to name Agatharchides, as having made mention of us Jews, though
in way of derision at our simplicity, as he supposes it to be; for when he was
discoursing of the affairs of Stratonice, "how she came out of Macedonia into
Syria, and left her husband Demetrius, while yet Seleueus would not marry her
as she expected, but during the time of his raising an army at Babylon, stirred
up a sedition about Antioch; and how, after that, the king came back, and upon
his taking of Antioch, she fled to Seleucia, and had it in her power to sail away
immediately yet did she comply with a dream which forbade her so to do, and so
was caught and put to death."
When Agatharchides had premised this story, and
had jested upon Stratonice for her superstition, he gives a like example of what
was reported concerning us, and writes thus: "There are a people called Jews,
and dwell in a city the strongest of all other cities, which the inhabitants call
Jerusalem, and are accustomed to rest on every seventh day on which times they
make no use of their arms, nor meddle with husbandry, nor take care of any affairs
of life, but spread out their hands in their holy places, and pray till the evening.
Now it came to pass, that when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, came into this city
with his army, that these men, in observing this mad custom of theirs, instead
of guarding the city, suffered their country to submit itself to a bitter lord;
and their law was openly proved to have commanded a foolish practice. This accident
taught all other men but the Jews to disregard such dreams as these were, and
not to follow the like idle suggestions delivered as a law, when, in such uncertainty
of human reasonings, they are at a loss what they should do." Now this our procedure
seems a ridiculous thing to Agatharehides, but will appear to such as consider
it without prejudice a great thing, and what deserved a great many encomiums;
I mean, when certain men constantly prefer the observation of their laws, and
their religion towards God, before the preservation of themselves and their country.
23. Now that some writers have omitted to mention our nation, not because they
knew nothing of us, but because they envied us, or for some other unjustifiable
reasons, I think I can demonstrate by particular instances; for Hieronymus, who
wrote the History of [Alexander's Successors, lived at the same time with Hecateus,
and was a friend of king Antigonus, and president of Syria. Now it is plain that
Hecateus wrote an entire book concerning us, while Hieronymus never mentions us
in his history, although he was bred up very near to the places where we live. Thus different from one another are the inclinations of men; while the one thought
we deserved to be carefully remembered, as some ill-disposed passion blinded the
other's mind so entirely, that he could not discern the truth.
And now certainly
the foregoing records of the Egyptians, and Chaldeans, and Phoenicians, together
with so many of the Greek writers, will be sufficient for the demonstration of
our antiquity. Moreover, besides those forementioned, Theophilus, and Theodotus,
and Mnaseas, and Aristophanes, and Hermogenes, Euhemerus also, and Conon, and
Zopyrion, and perhaps many others, (for I have not lighted upon all the Greek
books,) have made distinct mention of us. It is true, many of the men before mentioned
have made great mistakes about the true accounts of our nation in the earliest
times, because they had not perused our sacred books; yet have they all of them
afforded their testimony to our antiquity, concerning which I am now treating.
However, Demetrius Phalereus, and the elder Philo, with Eupolemus, have not greatly
missed the truth about our affairs; whose lesser mistakes ought therefore to be
forgiven them; for it was not in their power to understand our writings with the
utmost accuracy.
24. One particular there is still remaining behind of what I at first proposed
to speak to, and that is, to demonstrate that those calumnies and reproaches which
some have thrown upon our nation, are lies, and to make use of those writers'
own testimonies against themselves; and that in general this self-contradiction
hath happened to many other authors by reason of their ill-will to some people,
I conclude, is not unknown to such as have read histories with sufficient care; for
some of them have endeavored to disgrace the nobility of certain nations, and
of some of the most glorious cities, and have cast reproaches upon certain forms
of government.
Thus hath Theopompus abused the city of Athens, Polycrates that
of Lacedemon, as hath he hat wrote the Tripoliticus (for he is not Theopompus,
as is supposed by some) done by the city of Thebes. Timeils also hath greatly
abused the foregoing people and others also; and this ill-treatment they use chiefly
when they have a contest with men of the greatest reputation; some out of envy
and malice, and others as supposing that by this foolish talking of theirs they
may be thought worthy of being remembered themselves; and indeed they do by no
means fail of their hopes, with regard to the foolish part of mankind, but men
of sober judgment still condemn them of great malignity.
25. Now the Egyptians were the first that cast reproaches upon us; in order
to please which nation, some others undertook to pervert the truth, while they
would neither own that our forefathers came into Egypt from another country, as
the fact was, nor give a true account of our departure thence. And indeed the
Egyptians took many occasions to hate us and envy us: in the first place, because
our ancestors had had the dominion over their country and when they were delivered
from them, and gone to their own country again, they lived there in prosperity.
In the next place, the difference of our religion from theirs hath occasioned
great enmity between us, while our way of Divine worship did as much exceed that
which their laws appointed, as does the nature of God exceed that of brute beasts;
for so far they all agree through the whole country, to esteem such animals as
gods, although they differ one from another in the peculiar worship they severally
pay to them. And certainly men they are entirely of vain and foolish minds, who
have thus accustomed themselves from the beginning to have such bad notions concerning
their gods, and could not think of imitating that decent form of Divine worship
which we made use of, though, when they saw our institutions approved of by many
others, they could not but envy us on that account; for some of them have proceeded
to that degree of folly and meanness in their conduct, as not to scruple to contradict
their own ancient records, nay, to contradict themselves also in their writings,
and yet were so blinded by their passions as not to discern it.
26. And now I will turn my discourse to one of their principal writers, whom
I have a little before made use of as a witness to our antiquity; I mean Manetho.
He promised to interpret the Egyptian history out of their sacred writings, and
premised this: that "our people had come into Egypt, many ten thousands in number,
and subdued its inhabitants;" and when he had further confessed that "we went
out of that country afterward, and settled in that country which is now called
Judea, and there built Jerusalem and its temple." Now thus far he followed his
ancient records; but after this he permits himself, in order to appear to have
written what rumors and reports passed abroad about the Jews, and introduces incredible
narrations, as if he would have the Egyptian multitude, that had the leprosy and
other distempers, to have been mixed with us, as he says they were, and that they
were condemned to fly out of Egypt together; for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious
king's name, though on that account he durst not set down the number of years
of his reign, which yet he had accurately done as to the other kings he mentions;
he then ascribes certain fabulous stories to this king, as having in a manner
forgotten how he had already related that the departure of the shepherds for Jerusalem
had been five hundred and eighteen years before; for Tethmosis was king when they
went away. Now, from his days, the reigns of the intermediate kings, according
to Manetho, amounted to three hundred and ninety-three years, as he says himself,
till the two brothers Sethos and Hermeus; the one of whom, Sethos, was called
by that other name of Egyptus, and the other, Hermeus, by that of Danaus. He also
says that Sethos cast the other out of Egypt, and reigned fifty-nine years, as
did his eldest son Rhampses reign after him sixty-six years.
When Manetho therefore
had acknowledged that our forefathers were gone out of Egypt so many years ago,
he introduces his fictitious king Amenophis, and says thus: "This king was desirous
to become a spectator of the gods, as had Orus (Amenhotep IV ?), one of his predecessors in that
kingdom, desired the same before him; he also communicated that his desire to
his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis (Seti I), and one that seemed to partake
of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and the knowledge of futurities."
Manetho
adds, "how this namesake of his told him that he might see the gods, if he would
clear the whole country of the lepers and of the other impure people; that the
king was pleased with this injunction, and got together all that had any defect
in their bodies out of Egypt; and that their number was eighty thousand; whom
he sent to those quarries which are on the east side of the Nile, that they might
work in them, and might be separated from the rest of the Egyptians." He says
further, that "there were some of the learned priests that were polluted with
the leprosy; but that still this Amenophis, the wise man and the prophet, was
afraid that the gods would be angry at him and at the king, if there should appear
to have been violence offered them; who also added this further, [out of his sagacity
about futurities,] that certain people would come to the assistance of these polluted
wretches, and would conquer Egypt, and keep it in their possession thirteen years;
that, however, he durst not tell the king of these things, but that he left a
writing behind him about all those matters, and then slew himself, which made
the king disconsolate." After which he writes thus verbatim: "After those that
were sent to work in the quarries had continued in that miserable state for a
long while, the king was desired that he would set apart the city Avaris, which
was then left desolate of the shepherds, for their habitation and protection;
which desire he granted them.
Now this city, according to the ancient theology,
was Typho's city. But when these men were gotten into it, and found the place
fit for a revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of Hellopolis,
whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that they would be obedient
to him in all things. He then, in the first place, made this law for them, That
they should neither worship the Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from any one
of those sacred animals which they have in the highest esteem, but kill and destroy
them all; that they should join themselves to nobody but to those that were of
this confederacy. When he had made such laws as these, and many more such as were
mainly opposite to the customs of the Egyptians, he gave order that they should
use the multitude of the hands they had in building walls about their City, and
make themselves ready for a war with king Amenophis, while he did himself take
into his friendship the other priests, and those that were polluted with them,
and sent ambassadors to those shepherds who had been driven out of the land by
Tefilmosis to the city called Jerusalem; whereby he informed them of his own affairs,
and of the state of those others that had been treated after such an ignominious
manner, and desired that they would come with one consent to his assistance in
this war against Egypt.
He also promised that he would, in the first place, bring
them back to their ancient city and country Avaris, and provide a plentiful maintenance
for their multitude; that he would protect them and fight for them as occasion
should require, and would easily reduce the country under their dominion. These
shepherds were all very glad of this message, and came away with alacrity all
together, being in number two hundred thousand men; and in a little time they
came to Avaris.
And now Amenophis the king of Egypt, upon his being informed of
their invasion, was in great confusion, as calling to mind what Amenophis, the
son of Papis, had foretold him; and, in the first place, he assembled the multitude
of the Egyptians, and took counsel with their leaders, and sent for their sacred
animals to him, especially for those that were principally worshipped in their
temples, and gave a particular charge to the priests distinctly, that they should
hide the images of their gods with the utmost care he also sent his son Sethos,
who was also named Ramesses, from his father Rhampses, being but five years old,
to a friend of his. He then passed on with the rest of the Egyptians, being three
hundred thousand of the most warlike of them, against the enemy, who met them.
Yet did he not join battle with them; but thinking that would be to fight against
the gods, he returned back and came to Memphis, where he took Apis and the other
sacred animals which he had sent for to him, and presently marched into Ethiopia,
together with his whole army and multitude of Egyptians; for the king of Ethiopia
was under an obligation to him, on which account he received him, and took care
of all the multitude that was with him, while the country supplied all that was
necessary for the food of the men. He also allotted cities and villages for this
exile, that was to be from its beginning during those fatally determined thirteen
years. Moreover, he pitched a camp for his Ethiopian army, as a guard to king
Amenophis, upon the borders of Egypt.
And this was the state of things in Ethiopia.
But for the people of Jerusalem, when they came down together with the polluted
Egyptians, they treated the men in such a barbarous manner, that those who saw
how they subdued the forementioned country, and the horrid wickedness they were
guilty of, thought it a most dreadful thing; for they did not only set the cities
and villages on fire but were not satisfied till they had been guilty of sacrilege,
and destroyed the images of the gods, and used them in roasting those sacred animals
that used to be worshipped, and forced the priests and prophets to be the executioners
and murderers of those animals, and then ejected them naked out of the country.
It was also reported that the priest, who ordained their polity and their laws,
was by birth of Hellopolls, and his name Osarsiph, from Osyris, who was the god
of Hellopolls; but that when he was gone over to these people, his name was changed,
and he was called Moses."
27. This is what the Egyptians relate about the Jews, with much more, which
I omit for the sake of brevity. But still Manetho goes on, that "after this, Amenophis
returned back from Ethiopia with a great army, as did his son Ahampses with another
army also, and that both of them joined battle with the shepherds and the polluted
people, and beat them, and slew a great many of them, and pursued them to the
bounds of Syria." These and the like accounts are written by Manetho.
But I will
demonstrate that he trifles, and tells arrant lies, after I have made a distinction
which will relate to what I am going to say about him; for this Manetho had granted
and confessed that this nation was not originally Egyptian, but that they had
come from another country, and subdued Egypt, and then went away again out of
it. But that. those Egyptians who were thus diseased in their bodies were not
mingled with us afterward, and that Moses who brought the people out was not one
of that company, but lived many generations earlier, I shall endeavor to demonstrate
from Manetho's own accounts themselves.
28. Now, for the first occasion of this fiction, Manetho supposes what is no
better than a ridiculous thing; for he says that" king Amenophis desired to see
the gods." What gods, I pray, did he desire to see? If he meant the gods whom
their laws ordained to be worshipped, the ox, the goat, the crocodile, and the
baboon, he saw them already; but for the heavenly gods, how could he see them,
and what should occasion this his desire? To be sure? it was because another king
before him had already seen them (Amenhotep IV ?). He had then been informed what sort of gods
they were, and after what manner they had been seen, insomuch that he did not
stand in need of any new artifice for obtaining this sight. However, the prophet
by whose means the king thought to compass his design was a wise man.
If so, how
came he not to know that such his desire was impossible to be accomplished? for
the event did not succeed. And what pretense could there be to suppose that the
gods would not be seen by reason of the people's maims in their bodies, or leprosy?
for the gods are not angry at the imperfection of bodies, but at wicked practices;
and as to eighty thousand lepers, and those in an ill state also, how is it possible
to have them gathered together in one day? nay, how came the king not to comply
with the prophet? for his injunction was, that those that were maimed should be
expelled out of Egypt, while the king only sent them to work in the quarries,
as if he were rather in want of laborers, than intended to purge his country.
He says further, that" this prophet slew himself, as foreseeing the anger of the
gods, and those events which were to come upon Egypt afterward; and that he left
this prediction for the king in writing." Besides, how came it to pass that this
prophet did not foreknow his own death at the first? nay, how came he not to contradict
the king in his desire to see the gods immediately? how came that unreasonable
dread upon him of judgments that were not to happen in his lifetime? or what worse
thing could he suffer, out of the fear of which he made haste to kill himself?
But now let us see the silliest thing of all: - The king, although he had been
informed of these things, and terrified with the fear of what was to come, yet
did not he even then eject these maimed people out of his country, when it had
been foretold him that he was to clear Egypt of them; but, as Manetho says, "he
then, upon their request, gave them that city to inhabit, which had formerly belonged
to the shepherds, and was called Avaris; whither when they were gone in crowds,"
he says, "they chose one that had formerly been priest of Hellopolls; and that
this priest first ordained that they should neither worship the gods, nor abstain
from those animals that were worshipped by the Egyptians, but should kill and
eat them all, and should associate with nobody but those that had conspired with
them; and that he bound the multitude by oaths to be sure to continue in those
laws; and that when he had built a wall about Avaris, he made war against the
king."
Manetho adds also, that "this priest sent to Jerusalem to invite that people
to come to his assistance, and promised to give them Avaris; for that it had belonged
to the forefathers of those that were coming from Jerusalem, and that when they
were come, they made a war immediately against the king, and got possession of
all Egypt."
He says also that "the Egyptians came with an army of two hundred
thousand men, and that Amenophis, the king of Egypt, not thinking that he ought
to fight against the gods, ran away presently into Ethiopia, and committed Apis
and certain other of their sacred animals to the priests, and commanded them to
take care of preserving them." He says further, that" the people of Jerusalem
came accordingly upon the Egyptians, and overthrew their cities, and burnt their
temples, and slew their horsemen, and, in short, abstained from no sort of wickedness
nor barbarity; and for that priest who settled their polity and their laws," he
says," he was by birth of Hellopolis, and his name was Osarsiph, from Osyris the
god of Hellopolis, but that he changed his name, and called himself Moses." He
then says that "on the thirteenth year afterward, Amenophis, according to the
fatal time of the duration of his misfortunes, came upon them out of Ethiopia
with a great army, and joining battle with the shepherds and with the polluted
people, overcame them in battle, and slew a great many of them, and pursued them
as far as the bounds of Syria."
29. Now Manetho does not reflect upon the improbability of his lie; for the
leprous people, and the multitude that was with them, although they might formerly
have been angry at the king, and at those that had treated them so coarsely, and
this according to the prediction of the prophet; yet certainly, when they were
come out of the mines, and had received of the king a city, and a country, they
would have grown milder towards him. However, had they ever so much hated him
in particular, they might have laid a private plot against himself, but would
hardly have made war against all the Egyptians; I mean this on the account of
the great kindred they who were so numerous must have had among them. Nay still,
if they had resolved to fight with the men, they would not have had impudence
enough to fight with their gods; nor would they have ordained laws quite contrary
to those of their own country, and to those in which they had been bred up themselves.
Yet are we beholden to Manetho, that he does not lay the principal charge of this
horrid transgression upon those that came from Jerusalem, but says that the Egyptians
themselves were the most guilty, and that they were their priests that contrived
these things, and made the multitude take their oaths for doing so. But still
how absurd is it to suppose that none of these people's own relations or friends
should be prevailed with to revolt, nor to undergo the hazards of war with them,
while these polluted people were forced to send to Jerusalem, and bring their
auxiliaries from thence! What friendship, I pray, or what relation was there formerly
between them that required this assistance? On the contrary, these people were
enemies, and greatly differed from them in their customs. He says, indeed, that
they complied immediately, upon their praising them that they should conquer Egypt;
as if they did not themselves very well know that country out of which they had
been driven by force.
Now had these men been in want, or lived miserably, perhaps
they might have undertaken so hazardous an enterprise; but as they dwelt in a
happy city, and had a large country, and one better than Egypt itself, how came
it about that, for the sake of those that had of old been their enemies, of those
that were maimed in their bodies, and of those whom none of their own relations
would endure, they should run such hazards in assisting them? For they could not
foresee that the king would run away from them: on the contrary, he saith himself
that "Amenophis's son had three hundred thousand men with him, and met them at
Pelusium." Now, to be sure, those that came could not be ignorant of this; but
for the king's repentance and flight, how could they possibly guess at it? He
then says, that "those who came from Jerusalem, and made this invasion, got the
granaries of Egypt into their possession, and perpetrated many of the most horrid
actions there."
And thence he reproaches them, as though he had not himself introduced
them as enemies, or as though he might accuse such as were invited from another
place for so doing, when the natural Egyptians themselves had done the same things
before their coming, and had taken oaths so to do. However, "Amenophis, some time
afterward, came upon them, and conquered them in battle, and slew his enemies,
and drove them before him as far as Syria." As if Egypt were so easily taken by
people that came from any place whatsoever, and as if those that had conquered
it by war, when they were informed that Amenophis was alive, did neither fortify
the avenues out of Ethiopia into it, although they had great advantages for doing
it, nor did get their other forces ready for their defense! but that he followed
them over the sandy desert, and slew them as far as Syria; while yet it is rot
an easy thing for an army to pass over that country, even without fighting.
30. Our nation, therefore, according to Manetho, was not derived from Egypt,
nor were any of the Egyptians mingled with us. For it is to be supposed that many
of the leprous and distempered people were dead in the mines, since they had been
there a long time, and in so ill a condition; many others must be dead in the
battles that happened afterward, and more still in the last battle and flight
after it.
31. It now remains that I debate with Manetho about Moses.
Now the Egyptians
acknowledge him to have been a wonderful and a divine person; nay, they would
willingly lay claim to him themselves, though after a most abusive and incredible
manner, and pretend that he was of Heliopolis, and one of the priests of that
place, and was ejected out of it among the rest, on account of his leprosy; although
it had been demonstrated out of their records that he lived five hundred and eighteen
years earlier, and then brought our forefathers out of Egypt into the country
that is now inhabited by us. But now that he was not subject in his body to any
such calamity, is evident from what he himself tells us; for he forbade those
that had the leprosy either to continue in a city, or to inhabit in a village,
but commanded that they should go about by themselves with their clothes rent;
and declares that such as either touch them, or live under the same roof with
them, should be esteemed unclean; nay, more, if any one of their disease be healed,
and he recover his natural constitution again, he appointed them certain purifications,
and washings with spring water, and the shaving off all their hair, and enjoins
that they shall offer many sacrifices, and those of several kinds, and then at
length to be admitted into the holy city; although it were to be expected that,
on the contrary, if he had been under the same calamity, he should have taken
care of such persons beforehand, and have had them treated after a kinder manner,
as affected with a concern for those that were to be under the like misfortunes
with himself.
Nor ;was it only those leprous people for whose sake he made these
laws, but also for such as should be maimed in the smallest part of their body,
who yet are not permitted by him to officiate as priests; nay, although any priest,
already initiated, should have such a calamity fall upon him afterward, he ordered
him to be deprived of his honor of officiating. How can it then be supposed that
Moses should ordain such laws against himself, to his own reproach and damage
who so ordained them? Nor indeed is that other notion of Manetho at all probable,
wherein he relates the change of his name, and says that "he was formerly called
Osarsiph;" and this a name no way agreeable to the other, while his true name
was Mosses, and signifies a person who is preserved out of the water, for the
Egyptians call water Moil.
I think, therefore, I have made it sufficiently evident
that Manetho, while he followed his ancient records, did not much mistake the
truth of the history; but that when he had recourse to fabulous stories, without
any certain author, he either forged them himself, without any probability, or
else gave credit to some men who spake so out of their ill-will to us.
32. And now I have done with Manetho, I will inquire into what Cheremon says.
For he also, when he pretended to write the Egyptian history, sets down the same
name for this king that Manetho did, Amenophis, as also of his son Ramesses, and
then goes on thus: "The goddess Isis appeared to Amenophis in his sleep, and blamed
him that her temple had been demolished in the war. But that Phritiphantes, the
sacred scribe, said to him, that in case he would purge Egypt of the men that
had pollutions upon them, he should be no longer troubled. with such frightful
apparitions.
That Amenophis accordingly chose out two hundred and fifty thousand
of those that were thus diseased, and cast them out of the country: that Moses
and Joseph were scribes, and Joseph was a sacred scribe; that their names were
Egyptian originally; that of Moses had been Tisithen, and that of Joseph, Peteseph:
that these two came to Pelusium, and lighted upon three hundred and eighty thousand
that had been left there by Amenophis, he not being willing to carry them into
Egypt; that these scribes made a league of friendship with them, and made with
them an expedition against Egypt: that Amenophis could not sustain their attacks,
but fled into Ethiopia, and left his wife with child behind him, who lay concealed
in certain caverns, and there brought forth a son, whose name was Messene, and
who, when he was grown up to man's estate, pursued the Jews into Syria, being
about two hundred thousand, and then received his father Amenophis out of Ethiopia."
33. This is the account Cheremon gives us.
Now I take it for granted that what
I have said already hath plainly proved the falsity of both these narrations;
for had there been any real truth at the bottom, it was impossible they should
so greatly disagree about the particulars. But for those that invent lies, what
they write will easily give us very different accounts, while they forge what
they please out of their own heads.
Now Manetho says that the king's desire of
seeing the gods was the origin of the ejection of the polluted people; but Cheremon
feigns that it was a dream of his own, sent upon him by Isis, that was the occasion
of it. Manetho says that the person who foreshowed this purgation of Egypt to
the king was Amenophis; but this man says it was Phritiphantes. As to the numbers
of the multitude that were expelled, they agree exceedingly well the former reckoning
them eighty thousand, and the latter about two hundred and fifty thousand!
Now,
for Manetho, he describes those polluted persons as sent first to work in the
quarries, and says that the city Avaris was given them for their habitation. As
also he relates that it was not till after they had made war with the rest of
the Egyptians, that they invited the people of Jerusalem to come to their assistance;
while Cheremon says only that they were gone out of Egypt, and lighted upon three
hundred and eighty thousand men about Pelusium, who had been left there by Amenophis,
and so they invaded Egypt with them again; that thereupon Amenophis fled into
Ethiopia.
But then this Cheremon commits a most ridiculous blunder in not informing
us who this army of so many ten thousands were, or whence they came; whether they
were native Egyptians, or whether they came from a foreign country. Nor indeed
has this man, who forged a dream from Isis about the leprous people, assigned
the reason why the king would not bring them into Egypt. Moreover, Cheremon sets
down Joseph as driven away at the same time with Moses, who yet died four generations
before Moses, which four generations make almost one hundred and seventy years.
Besides all this, Ramesses, the son of Amenophis, by Manetho's account, was a
young man, and assisted his father in his war, and left the country at the same
time with him, and fled into Ethiopia. But Cheremon makes him to have been born
in a certain cave, after his father was dead, and that he then overcame the Jews
in battle, and drove them into Syria, being in number about two hundred thousand.
O the levity of the man! for he had neither told us who these three hundred and
eighty thousand were, nor how the four hundred and thirty thousand perished; whether
they fell in war, or went over to Ramesses.
And, what is the strangest of all,
it is not possible to learn out of him who they were whom he calls Jews, or to
which of these two parties he applies that denomination, whether to the two hundred
and fifty thousand leprous people, or to the three hundred and eighty thousand
that were about Pelusium. But perhaps it will be looked upon as a silly thing
in me to make any larger confutation of such writers as sufficiently confute themselves;
for had they been only confuted by other men, it had been more tolerable.
34. I shall now add to these accounts about Manetho and Cheremon somewhat about
Lysimachus, who hath taken the same topic of falsehood with those forementioned,
but hath gone far beyond them in the incredible nature of his forgeries; which
plainly demonstrates that he contrived them out of his virulent hatred of our
nation.
His words are these: "The people of the Jews being leprous and scabby,
and subject to certain other kinds of distempers, in the days of Bocchoris, king
of Egypt, they fled to the temples, and got their food there by begging: and as
the numbers were very great that were fallen under these diseases, there arose
a scarcity in Egypt. Hereupon Bocchoris, the king of Egypt, sent some to consult
the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon about his scarcity. The god's answer was this,
that he must purge his temples of impure and impious men, by expelling them out
of those temples into desert places; but as to the scabby and leprous people,
he must drown them, and purge his temples, the sun having an indignation at these
men being suffered to live; and by this means the land will bring forth its fruits.
Upon Bocchoris's having received these oracles, he called for their priests, and
the attendants upon their altars, and ordered them to make a collection of the
impure people, and to deliver them to the soldiers, to carry them away into the
desert; but to take the leprous people, and wrap them in sheets of lead, and let
them down into the sea. Hereupon the scabby and leprous people were drowned, and
the rest were gotten together, and sent into desert places, in order to be exposed
to destruction.
In this case they assembled themselves together, and took counsel
what they should do, and determined that, as the night was coming on, they should
kindle fires and lamps, and keep watch; that they also should fast the next night,
and propitiate the gods, in order to obtain deliverance from them. That on the
next day there was one Moses, who advised them that they should venture upon a
journey, and go along one road till they should come to places fit for habitation:
that he charged them to have no kind regards for any man, nor give good counsel
to any, but always to advise them for the worst; and to overturn all those temples
and altars of the gods they should meet with: that the rest commended what he
had said with one consent, and did what they had resolved on, and so traveled
over the desert. But that the difficulties of the journey being over, they came
to a country inhabited, and that there they abused the men, and plundered and
burnt their temples; and then came into that land which is called Judea, and there
they built a city, and dwelt therein, and that their city was named Hierosyla
(Jerusalem),
from this their robbing of the temples; but that still, upon the success they
had afterwards, they in time changed its denomination, that it might not be a
reproach to them, and called the city Hierosolyma, and themselves Hierosolymites."
35. Now this man did not discover and mention the same king with the others,
but feigned a newer name, and passing by the dream and the Egyptian prophet, he
brings him to [Jupiter] Hammon, in order to gain oracles about the scabby and
leprous people; for he says that the multitude of Jews were gathered together
at the temples. Now it is uncertain whether he ascribes this name to these lepers,
or to those that were subject to such diseases among the Jews only; for he describes
them as a people of the Jews.
What people does he mean? foreigners, or those of
that country? Why then' dost thou call them Jews, if they were Egyptians? But
if they were foreigners, why dost thou not tell us whence they came? And how could
it be that, after the king had drowned many of them in the sea, and ejected the
rest into desert places, there should be still so great a multitude remaining?
Or after what manner did they pass over the desert, and get the land which we
now dwell in, and build our city, and that temple which hath been so famous among
all mankind? And besides, he ought to have spoken more about our legislator than
by giving us his bare name; and to have informed us of what nation he was, and
what parents he was derived from; and to have assigned the reasons why he undertook
to make such laws concerning the gods, and concerning matters of injustice with
regard to men during that journey.
For in case the people were by birth Egyptians,
they would not on the sudden have so easily changed the customs of their country;
and in case they had been foreigners, they had for certain some laws or other
which had been kept by them from long custom. It is true, that with regard to
those who had ejected them, they might have sworn never to bear good-will to them,
and might have had a plausible reason for so doing. But if these men resolved
to wage an implacable war against all men, in case they had acted as wickedly
as he relates of them, and this while they wanted the assistance of all men, this
demonstrates a kind of mad conduct indeed; but not of the men themselves, but
very greatly so of him that tells such lies about them.
He hath also impudence
enough to say that a name, implying "Robbers of the temples," was given to their
city, and that this name was afterward changed. The reason of which is plain,
that the former name brought reproach and hatred upon them in the times of their
posterity, while, it seems, those that built the city thought they did honor to
the city by giving it such a name. So we see that this fine fellow had such an
unbounded inclination to reproach us, that he did not understand that robbery
of temples is not expressed by the same word and name among the Jews as it is
among the Greeks. But why should a man say any more to a person who tells such
impudent lies? However, since this book is arisen to a competent length, I will
make another beginning, and endeavor to add what still remains to perfect my design
in the following book.
