Page images
PDF
EPUB

Lybian Pentapolis, of his march into the defert, and of the pre. parations he had made for it. So he fent out after him both horfemen and footmen and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men ; of thefe many were flain in the fight, but fome were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. As for Jonathan, the head of this plot, he fled away at that time, but upon a great and very diligent fearch which was made all the country over for him, he was at laft taken. And when he was brought to Catullus he devifed a way whereby he both escaped punishment himfelt, and afforded an occafion to Catullus of doing much mitchief; for he falfely accufed the richest men among the Jews, and faid, that they had put him upon what he did.

2. Now Catullus eafily admitted of thefe his calumnies, and aggravated matters greatly, and made tragical exclamations, that he might alfo be fuppofed to have had an hand in the finifhing of the Jewish war. But what was ftill harder, he did not only give a too eafy belief to his ftories, but he taught the Sicarii to accufe men falfely. He bid this Jonathan, therefore, to name one Alexander, a Jew, (with whom he had formerly had a quarrel, and openly profefled that he hated him); he al fo got him to name his wile Bernice, as concerned with him. Thele two Catullus ordered to be flain in the first place; nay, after them he caused all the rich and wealthy Jews to be flain, being no fewer in all than three thoufand. This he thought he might do fately, becaule he confifcated their effects, and added them to Cæfar's revenues.

3. Nay, indeed, left any Jews that lived elsewhere fhould convict him of his villany, he extended his falfe accusations farther, and perfuaded Jonathan, and certain others that were caught with him, to bring an accufation of attempts for innovation against the Jews that were of the best character, both at Alexandria, and at Rome. One of thefe, against whom this treacherous accufation was laid, was Jofephus, the writer of thefe books. However this plot, thus contrived by Catullus, did not fucceed according to his hopes; for though he came himself to Rome, and brought Jonathan and his companions along with him in bonds, and thought he should have had no farther inquifition made as to thofe lies that were forged under his government, or by his means; yet did Vefpafian fufpect the matter, and make an inquiry how far it was true. And when he understood that the accufation laid against the Jews was an unjust one, he cleared them of the crimes charged upon them, and this on account of Titus's concern about the matter, and brought a deferved punishment upon Jonathan; for he was firit tormented, and then burnt alive.

4. But as to Catullus, the emperors were 13 gentle to him, that he underwent no feverer condemnation at this time: Yet was it not long before he fell into a complicated and almoft incurable diftemper, and died miferably. He was not only af

flicted in body, but the diftemper in his mind was more heavy upon him than the other; for he was terribly disturbed, and continually cried out, "That he faw the ghofts of those whom he had fain ftanding before him." Whereupon he was not able to contain himfelt, but leaped out of his bed, as if both torments and fire were brought to him. This his diftemper grew fill a great deal worfe and worfe continually, and his very entrails were fo corroded, that they fell out of his body, and in that condition he died. Thus he became as great an inAtance of divine Providence as ever was, and demonstrated that God punishes wicked men.

5. And here we shall put an end to this our hiftory; wherein we formerly promised to deliver the fame with all accura cy, to fuch as fhould be defirous of understanding after what manner this war of the Romans with the Jews was managed. Of which history, how good the ftyle is, must be left to the determination of the readers: But as for the agreement with the facts, I fhall not fcruple to say, and that boldly, that truth hath been what I have alone aimed at through its entire com pofition

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

1. I SUPPOSE that by my books of the Antiquity of the Jews, most excellent Epaphroditus †, I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct fubfiftence of its own

This first book has a wrong title. It is not written against Apion, as is the Arft part of the second book, but against thofe Greeks in general who would not believe Jofephus's former accounts of the very ancient ftate of the Jewish nation, in his XX Books of Antiquities; and in particular against Agatharchides, Manetho, Cheremon, and Lyfimachus. It is one of the most learned, excellent, and useful books of all Antiquity; and upon Jerom's perusal of this, and the following books, he declares, That it seems to him a miraculous thing, how one that was an Hebrew, who had been from his infancy inftructed in facred learning, should be able to produce fuch a number of teftamonies out of profane authors, as if he had read over the Grecian libraries." Epift. 84. and Magnum; and the learned Jew, Manassch ben Ifrael, esteemed these two books fo excellent, as to tranflate them into Hebrew: This we learn from his own catalogue of his works, which I have feen. As to the time and place, when and where these two books were written, the learned have not hitherto been able to determine them, any farther than that they were written fome time after his Antiquities, or fome time after A. D. 93. which indeed is too obvious at their entrance to be overlooked by even a careless perufer; they being directly intended against those that would not believe what he had advanced ia shole books concerning the great antiquity of the Jewish nation. As to the place, they all imagine that these two books were written where the former were, I mean at Rome; and I confefs, that I myself believed both those determinations, till I came to finish my notes upon these books, when I met with plain indications that they were written not at Rome, but in Judea, and this after the 3d of Trajan, or A. D. 100.

66

+ Take Dr. Hudfon's note here, which as it justly contradicts the common opinion, that Jofephus either died under Domitian, or at least wrote nothing later thas his days, fo does it perfectly agree to my own determination, from Juftus of Tibe rias, that he wrote or finished his own life after the 3d of Trajan, or A. D 100. To which Noldius also agrees, de Herod, No. 383. [Epaphroditus]. Since Flavi us Jofephus," fays Dr. Hudson, "wrote [or finished ] his books of Antiquities oa the 13th of Domitian, [A. D. 93 ] and after that wrote the Memoirs of his own Life, as an Appendix to the books of Antiquities, and at aft his two books against Apion, and yet dedicated all those writings to Epaphroditus, he can hardly be that Epaphroditus who was formerly fecretary to Nero, and was flain on the 14th [or 5th] of Domitian, after he had been for a good while in banishment, but another Epaphroditus, a freed.man, and procurator of Trajan, as fays Grotius on Luke 1. 3.”

originally, as also, I have therein declared, how we came to inhabit this country wherein we now live. Thofe antiquities contain the hiftory of five thousand years, and are taken out of our facred books, but are tranflated by me into the Greek tongue. However, fince I obferve a confiderable number of people giving ear to the reproaches that are laid against us by thofe 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 fign that our nation is of a late date, because they are not lo much as vouchfafed a bare mention by the most famous hiftoriographers among the Grecians, I therefore have thought myself under an obligation to write fomewhat briefly about thefe fubjects, in order to convict thofe that reproach us of fpite and voluntary falfehood, and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal to inftruct all thofe who are defirous of knowing the truth, of what great an iquity we really are. As for the witneffes whom I fhall produce for the proof of what I fay, they fhall be fuch as are esteemed to be of the greatest reputation for truth, and the most skilful in the knowledge of all antiquity by the Greeks themfelves. I will allo fhew, that those who have written fo reproachfully and falfely about us, are to be convicted by what they have written themfelves to the contrary, I fhall alfo endeavour to give an account of the reafons why it hath fo happened, that there have not been a great number of Greeks who have made mention of our nation in their hiftories; I will however, bring those Grecians to light, who have not omitted fuch our hiftory, for the fake of thofe 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 fuppofe 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 cale. I mean this, it 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 fay, is of yesterday only. I fpeak of the building of their cities, the inventions of their arts, and the defcription of their laws; and as for their care about the writing down of their hiftories, it is very near the last thing they fet about. However, they acknowledged themselves fo far, that they were the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Phenicians, (for I will not now reckon ourfelves among them), that have preserved the memorials of the most ancient and moft lafting traditions of mankind; for almost all these nations inhabit fuch countries as are leaft fubject to deftruction from the world about them; and thefe alfo have taken efpecial care to have nothing omitted of what was [remarkably] done aVOL. III.

13

mong them; but their hiftory was efteemed facred, and put into public tables, as written by men of the greatest wifdom they had among them. But as for the place where the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand deftructions have overtaken it, and blotted out the memory of former actions; fo that they were ever beginning a new way of living, and fuppofed that every one of them was the origin of their new flate. It was alfo late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they now ufe; for thofe who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest antiquity, pretend that they learned them from the Phenicians and from Cadmus ; yet is nobody able to demonftrate, 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 thofe lived wito went to the Trojan war, fo many years afterward, is in great doubt, and great inquiry is made, whether the Greeks ufed their letters at that time; and the fhoft prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth is, that their prefent way of ufing thofe 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 be conteffed later than the fiege of Troy; nay, the report goes, that even he did not leave the poems in writing, but that their memory was preferved in fongs, and they were put together afterward, and that this is the reafon of fuch a number of variations as are found in them. As for those who fet thettilelves about writing their hiftories, I mean fuch as Cadmus of Miletus, and Acufilaus of Argos, and any others that may be mention ed as fucceeding Acufilaus, they lived but a little while before the Perfian expedition into Greece. But then for those that first introduced philofophy, and the confideration of thingsceleftial and divine among them, fuch as Pherecy des the Syri an, and Pythagoras, and Thales, all with one confent agree, that they learned what they knew of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and wrote but little. And these are the things which are fuppofed to be the oldest of all among the Greeks, and they have much ado to believe that the writings aftribed to thofe men are genuine.

3. How can it then be other than an abfurd thing for the Greeks to be so proud, and to vaunt themfelves 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

*This prefervation of Homer's poems by memory, and not by his own writing then down, and that thence they were styled rhapsodies, as lung by him, like ballads, by parts, and not compoled and connected together in complete works, are opinions well known from the ancient commentators; though fuch fuppofal feems to mytelf, as well as to Fabricius Biblioth. Græc. I p 269, and to others, highly improbable Nor does Jofephus fay there were no ancienter writings among the Greeks than Homer's poems, but that they did not fully own any ancienter writ-ings pretending to such antiquity, which is true.

« PreviousContinue »