place* one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. That Nomos was called the Nomos of Heliopolis, where Onias built a fortress and a temple not like to that at Jerusalem, but such as resembled a tower. He built it of large stones to the height of sixty cubits: he made the structure of the altar in imitation of that in our own country, and in like manner adorned with gifts, excepting the make of the candlestick; for he did not make a candlestick, but had a [single] lamp hammered out of a piece of gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and which he hung by a chain of gold; but the entire temple was encompassed with a wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of what things were necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at Jerusalem, and could not forget the indignation he had for being banished thence. Accordingly, he thought that, by building this temple, he should draw away a great number from them to himself. There had been also a certain ancient prediction made by [a prophet], whose name was Isaiah, about six hundred years before, that this temple should be built by a man that was a Jew in Egypt. And this is the history of the building of that temple.

4. And now Lupus, the governor of Alexandria, upon the receipt of Cæsar's letter, came to the temple, and carried out of it some of the donations dedicated thereto, and shut up the temple itself. And as Lupus died a little afterward, Paulinus succeeded him. This man left none of those donations there, and threatened the priests severely if they did not bring them all out; nor did he permit any who were desirous of worshiping God there so much as to come near the whole sacred place. But when he had shut up the gates, he made it entirely inaccessible, insomuch that there remained no longer the least footsteps of any divine worship that had been in that place. Now the duration of the time from the building of this temple till it was shut up again was three hundred and forty-three years.

Jerusalem, and here that it was not like it, but like a tower, sect. 3, there is some reason to suspect the reading here, and that either the negative particle is here to be blotted out, or the word entirely added.

* We must observe, that Josephus here speaks of Antiochus, who profaned the temple, as now alive, when Onias had leave given him by Philometer to build his temple; whereas it seems not to have been actually built till about fifteen years afterwards. Yet because it is said in the Antiquities, that Onias went to Philometer, B. xii. ch. ix. sect. 7, during the lifetime of that Antiochus, it is probable he petitioned, and, perhaps obtained his leave then, though it were not actually built or finished till fifteen years afterward.

Isa. xix. 18-23.

CHAP. XI.

Concerning Jonathan, one of the Sicarii, that stirred up a Sedition in Cyrene, and was a false Accuser [of the Innocent.]

§ 1. AND now did the madness of the Sicarii, like a disease, reach as far as the cities of Cyrene; for one Jonathan, a vile person, and by trade a weaver, came thither, and prevailed with no small number of the poorer sort to give ear to him: he also led them into the desert, upon promising them that he would show them signs and apparitions. And as for the other Jews of Cyrene, he concealed his knavery from them, and put tricks upon them; but those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his march into the deserts, and of the preparations he had made for it. So he sent out after him both horsemen and footmen, and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but some 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 search which was made all the country over for him, he was at last taken. And when he was brought to Catullus, he devised a way whereby he both escaped punishment himself, and afforded an occasion to Catullus of doing much mischief; for he falsely accused the richest men among the Jews, and said that they had put him upon what he did.

2. Now Catullus easily admitted of these his calumnies, and aggravated matters greatly, and made tragical exclamations, that he might also be supposed to have had a hand in the finishing of the Jewish war. But what was still harder, he did not only give a too easy belief to his stories, but he taught the Sicarii to accuse men falsely. He bid this Jonathan, therefore, to name one Alexander, a Jew (with whom he had formerly had a quarrel, and openly professed that he hated him); he also got him to name his wife Bernice as concerned with him. These two Catullus ordered to be slain in the first place; nay, after them he caused all the rich and wealthy Jews to be slain, being no fewer in all than three thousand. This he thought he might do safely, because he confiscated their effects, and added them to Cæsar's revenues.

3. Nay, indeed, lest any Jews that lived elsewhere should convict him of this villany, he extended his false accusations farther, and persuaded Jonathan and certain others that were caught with him, to bring an accusation of attempts for innovation against the Jews that were of the best character both at Alexandria and at Rome. One of these against whom this

treacherous accusation was laid was Josephus, the writer of these books. However, this plot, thus contrived by Catullus, did not succeed 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 inquisition made as to those lies that were forged under his government or by his means; yet did Vespasian suspect the matter, and make an inquiry how far it was true. And when he understood that the accusation 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 deserved punishment upon Jonathan; for he was first tormented and then burnt alive.

4. But as to Catullus, the emperors were so gentle to him, that he underwent no severer condemnation at this time: yet was it not long before he fell into a complicated and almost incurable distemper, and died miserably. He was not only afflicted in body, but the distemper in his mind was more heavy upon him than the other: for he was terribly disturbed, and continually cried out," That he saw the ghosts of those men whom he had slain standing before him." Whereupon he was not able to contain himself, but leaped out of his bed, as if both torments and fire were brought to him. This his distemper grew still a great deal worse and worse continually; and his very entrails were so corroded, that they fell out of his body, and in that condition he died. Thus he became as great an instance of divine providence as ever was, and demonstrated that God punishes wicked men.

5. And here we shall put an end to this our history; wherein we formerly promised to deliver the same, with all accuracy, to such as should be desirous of understanding after what manner this war of the Romans with the Jews was managed. Of which history how good the style is must be left to the determination of the readers: but as for its agreement with the facts, I shall not scruple to say, and that boldly, that truth hath been what I have alone aimed at through its entire composition.

ANTIQUITY OF THE JEWS.

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS AGAINST APION*.

BOOK I.

§ 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 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

This first book has a wrong title. It is not written against Apion, as is the first part of the second book, but against those Greeks in general who would not believe Josephus's former accounts of the very ancient state of the Jewish nation, in his XX Books of Antiquities; and in particular against Agatharchides, Manetho, Cheremon, and Lysimachus. 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 a Hebrew, who had been from his infancy instructed in sacred learning, should be able to produce such a number of testimonies out of profane authors, as if he had read over all the Grecian libraries." Epist. 84, ad magnum: And the learned Jew, Manasseh-ben-Israel, esteemed these two books so excellent, as to translate them into Hebrew: this we learn from his own catalogue of his works which I have seen. 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 some time after his Antiquities, or some time after A. D. 93, which, indeed, is too obvious at their entrance to be overlooked even by a careless peruser; they being directly intended against those that would not believe what he had advanced in those 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 confess, 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 third year of Trajan, or A. D. 100.

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+ Take Dr. Hudson's note here, which, as it justly contradicts the common opinion that Josephus either died under Domitian, or at least wrote nothing later than his days, so does it perfectly agree to my own determination, from Justus of Tiberias, 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 Flavius Josephus," says Dr. Hudson," wrote [or finished] his books of Antiquities on 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 last his two books against Apion, and yet dedicated all those writings to Epaphroditus, he can hardly be that Epaphroditus who was formerly secretary to Nero, and was slain on the 14th [or 15th] of Domitian, after he had been for a good while in banishment, but another Epaphroditus, a free man and procurator of Trajan, as says Grotius on Luke, i. 3."

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 skilful 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 endeavour 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 invention 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