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thenes 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 be now demonstrated from what Berosus adds farther upon that head; for thus he says, in his third book: "Nebuchodonosor, 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 Evilmeroduch obtained the kingdom. He gov"erned public affairs after an illegal and impure manner, " and had a plot laid against him by Neriglissoor, his sis"ter'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 king"dom, and reigned four years; his son Laborosoarchod “obtained the kingdom, though he were but a child, and "kept it nine months; but, by reason of the very ill tem"per and ill practices he exhibited to the world, a plot was "laid against him also by his friends, and he was torment"ed to death. After his death, the conspirators got together, and, by common consent, put the crown on the head "of Nabonnedus, a man of Babylon, and one who belong"ed 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 Nabonne"dus did not sustain the siege, but delivered himself into

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"his hands, he was at first kindly used by Cyrus, who "gave him Cormania, as a place for him to inhabit in, but sent him out of Babylonia, Accordingly, Nabonne"dus spent the rest of his time in that country, and there "died."

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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 Phenicans; for it will not be superfluous to give the reader demonstrations more than enow on this occasion. In them we have this enumeration of the times of their several kings: "Nabu"chudonosor 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 on the seventh year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar he began to besiege Tyre, and Cyrus the Persian took the kingdom on 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

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*This number in Josephus, that Nebuchadnezzer destroyed the temple in the 18th year of his reign, is a mistake in the nicety of chronology; for it was in the 19th.

The true number here for the year of Darius, on which the second tem. ple was finished, whether the 2d with our present copies, or the 6th, with that of Syncellus, or the 10th, with that of Eusebius, is very uncertain; so we had best follow Josephus's own account elsewhere, Antiq. B. xi. ch. iii. 4. vol. ii. which shews us that, according to his copy of the old Testament, after the 2d of Cyrus, that work was interrupted fill the 2d of Darius, when in seven years it was finished, on the 9th of Darius.

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 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 sort 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, 66 a Crotoniate by birth, affirmed that this man's soul con"versed 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 such waters as caused thirst again, and "not 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

*This is a thing well known by the learned, that we are not secure that we have any genuine writings of Pythagoras; those Golden Verses which are his best remains, being generally supposed to have been written not by himself, but by some of his scholars only, in agreement with what Josephus here affirms of him.

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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 Phenicians, and those Syrians that are in Pales tine, confess that they learned it from the Egyptians, "And for those Syrians who live about the rivers Ther"modon and Parthenius and their neighbours the Ma"crones, they say they have lately learned it from the Col"chians; for these are the only people that are circumci"sed among mankind, and appear to have done the very same thing with the Egyptians. But as for the Egyp "tians 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 inhabi tants of Palestine that are circumcised axcepting the Jews and therefore it must be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much concerning them. Cherilus also,

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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

* Whether these verses of Cherilus, the heathen poet, in the days of Xerxes, belong to the Solymi in Pisidia, that were near a small lake, or to the Jews that dwelt. on the Solymean of Jerusalem mountains, near the great and broad take Asphaltitis, that were a strange people, and spake the Phenician tongue, is not agreed on by the learned. It is yet certain that Josephus here, and Eusebius, Praep. ix. 9. p. 412. took them to be Jews; and I confess I cannot but incline very much to the same opinion. The other Solymi were not a strange people, but heathen idolaters, like the other parts of Xerxes's army; and that these spake the Phenician tongue is next to impossible, as the Jews certainly did; nor is there the least evidence for it else where. Nor was the ake adjoining to the mountains of the Solymi at all large or broad in comparison of the Jewish lake Asphaltitis; nor indeed were these so considerable a people as the Jews, nor so likely to be desired by Xerxes for his army as the Jews, to whom he was always very favourable. As for the rest of Cherilus's description, That their heads were sooty; that they had round rasures on their heads; that their heads and faces were like nasty horse heads which had been hardened in the smoke; these awkward characters probably fitted the Solymi of Pisidia no better than they did the Jews in Judea. And indeed this reproachful language here given these people, is to me a strong indication that they were the poor despicable Jews, and not the Pisidian Solymi celebrated in Homer, whom Cherilus here describes; nor are we to expect that either Cherilus or Hecateus, or any other Pagan writers, cited by Josephus and Eusebius, made no mistakes in the Jewish history. If, by comparing their testimonies with the more authentic records of that nation, we find them, for the main, to confirm the same, as we almost always do, we ought to be satisfied, and not expect that they ever had an exact knowledge of all the circumstances of the Jewish affairs, which indeed it was almost always impossible for them to have. See § 28.

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 Phenician 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."

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I think, therefore, that it is evident to every body, that Cherilus means us, because the Soly mean mountains are in our county, 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 ac count 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 names from the country they inhabit, "which is called Judea; but for the name of their city, it

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