Isis, and that the Egyptians got free from that burden by sending them into the adjoining countries, under their captains Hierosolymus and Judas. The greatest part say, they were those Ethiopians, whom fear and hatred obliged to change their habitations in the reign of King Cepheus *. There are those which report they were Assyrians, who, wanting lands, got together, and obtained part of Egypt, and soon afterwards settled themselves in cities of their own, in the lands of the Hebrews, and the parts of Syria that lay nearest to them. Others pretend their origin to be more eminent, and that the Solymi, a people celebrated in Homer's poems, were the founders of this nation, and gave this their own name Hierosolyma to the city, which they built there.

CHAP. III.] Many authors agree, that when once an infectious distemper was arisen in Egypt, and made men's bodies impure, Bocchoris their king went to the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon, and begged he would grant him some relief against this evil, and that he was enjoined to purge his nation of them, and to banish this kind of men into other countries, as hateful to the gods that when he had sought for, and gotten them altogether, they were left in a vast desert; that hereupon the rest devoted themselves to weeping and inactivity; but one of those exiles, Moses by name, advised them to look for no assistance from any of the gods, or from any of mankind, since they had been abandoned by both, but bade them believe in him, as in a celestial leader, by whose help they had already gotten clear of their present miseries. They agreed to it; and though they were unacquainted with every thing, they began their journey at random: but nothing tired them so much as want of water; and now they laid themselves down on the ground to a great extent, as just ready to perish, when a herd of wild asses came from feeding, and went to a rock overshadowed by a grove of trees. Moses followed them, as conjecturing that there was [thereabouts] some grassy soil, and so he opened large sources of water for them. That was an ease to them; and when they had

* One would wonder how Tacitus or any heathens could suppose the African Ethiopians under Cepheus, who are known to be blacks, could be the parents of the Jews, who are known to be whites.

+ This account comes nearest the truth; and this Tacitus might have from Josephus, only disguised by himself.

This Tacitus might have out of Josephus, Antiq. B. vii. ch. iii. sect. 2. Strange doctrine to Josephus! who truly observes on this occasion, that the gods are angry not at bodily imperfections, but at wicked practices. Apion, B. i. sect. 28.

This believing in Moses as in a celestial leader, seems a blind confession of Tacitus that Moses professed to have his laws from God.

I This looks also like a plain confession of Tacitus, that Moses brought the Jews water out of a rock in great plenty, which he might have from Josephus, Antiq. B. iii, ch. i. sect. 7.

journeyed continually six entire days *, on the seventh they drove out the inhabitants, and obtained those lands wherein their city and temple were dedicated.

CHAP. IV.] As for Moses, in order to secure the nation firmly to himself, he ordained new rites, and such as were contrary to those of other men. All things are with them profane which with us are sacred; and again, those practices are allowed among them which are by us esteemed most abominable †.

They place the image of that animal in their most holy place, by whose indication it was that they had escaped their wandering condition and their thirst.

They sacrifice rams, by way of reproach, to [Jupiter Hammon.] An ox is also sacrificed, which the Egyptians worship under the name of Apis §.

They abstain from swine's flesh, as a memorial of that miserable destruction which the mange, to which that creature is liable, brought on them, and with which they had been defiled ||.

That they had endured a long famine, they attest still by their frequent fastings¶. And that they stole the fruits of the earth, we have an argument from the bread of the Jews, which is unleavened**.

It is generally supposed they rest on the seventh day tt, because that day gave them [the first] rest from their labours. Besides, which, they are idle on every seventh year, as being pleased with a lazy life. Others say, that they do honour thereby to Saturn SS; or, perhaps, the Idæi gave them this part of their religion, who [as we said above] were expelled together with Saturn,

* Strange indeed! that 600,000 men should travel above 200 miles over the deserts of Arabia in six days, and conquer Judea the seventh.

+ This is not true in general, but only so far, that the Israelites were by circumcision and other rites to be kept separate from the wicked and idolatrous nations about them.

This strange story contradicts what the same Tacitus will tell us presently, that when Pompey went into the holy of holies he found no image there.

These are only guesses of Tacitus or his heathen authors, but no more. Such memorials of what must have been very reproachful, are strangers to the rest of mankind, and without any probability.

I The Jews had but one solemn fast of old in the whole year, the great day of expiation.

*** Unleavened bread was only used at the passover.

++ It is very strange that Tacitus should not know or confess that the Jews' seventh day, and seventh year of rest, were in memory of the seventh, or Sabbathday's rest, after the six days of creation. Every Jew, as well as every Christian, could have informed him of those matters.

A strange hypothesis of the origin of the sabbatic year, and without all good foundation. Tacitus probably had never heard of the Jews' year of jubilee, so he says nothing of it.

§§ As if the Jews, in the days of Moses, or long before, knew that the Greeks and Romans would long afterward call the seventh day of the week Saturn's day; which Dio observes was not so called of old time; and it is a question whether before the Jews fell into idolatry, they ever heard of such a star or god as Saturn. Amos, v. 25: Acts, vii. 43.

and who, as we have been informed, were the founders of this nation; or else it was because the star Saturn moves in the highest orb, and of the seven planets exerts the principal part of that energy whereby mankind are governed: and, indeed, that most of the heavenly bodies exert their power, and perform their courses, according to the number seven*.

CHAP. V.] These rites, by what manner soever they were first begun, are supported by their antiquity +. The rest of their institutions are awkward, impure, and got ground by their pravity: for every vile fellow, despising the rites of his forefathers, brought thither their tribute and contributions, by which means the Jewish commonwealth was augmented. And because among themselves there is an unalterable fidelity and kindness always ready at hand, but bitter enmity towards all others §, they are a people separated from others in their food, and in their beds; though they be the lewdest nation upon earth, yet will they not corrupt foreign women||, though nothing be esteemed unlawful among themselves T.

They have ordained circumcision of the parts used in generation, that they may thereby be distinguished from other people: the proselytes** to their religion have the same usage.

They are taught nothing sooner than to despise the gods, to renounce their country, and to have their parents, children, and brethren, in the utmost contempt: but still they take care to increase and multiply, for it is esteemed utterly unlawful to kill any of their children.

They also look on the souls of those that die in battle, or are put to death for their crimes, as eternal. Hence comes their love of posterity and contempt of death.

They derive their custom of burying, instead of burning, their dead, from the Egyptians++: they have also the same care of the

That the sun, moon, and stars, rule over the affairs of mankind, was a heathen and not a Jewish notion: neither Jews nor Christians were permitted to deal in astrology, though Tacitus seems to have been deep in it.

+ This acknowledgment of the antiquity of Moses, and of his Jewish settlement, was what the heathen cared not always to own.

What these pretended awkward and impure institutions were, Tacitus does not inform us.

§ Josephus shows the contrary, as to the laws of Moses, contr. Apion, book ii. sect. 28.

A high, and, I doubt, a false commendation of the Jews.

An entirely false character, and contrary to their many laws against uncleanness. See Josephus, Antiq. b. iii. chap. xi. sect. 12.

**The proselytes of justice only, not the proselytes of the gates.

++ How does this agree with that unalterable fidelity and kindness which Tacitus told us the Jews had towards one another? unless he only means that they preferred the divine commands before their nearest relations, which is the highest degree of Jewish and Christian piety.

Gen.

This custom is at least as old among the Hebrews as the days of Abraham, and the cave of Machpelah, long before the Israelites went into Egypt. xxiii. 1-20; xxv. 8-10.

dead with them, and the same persuasion about the invisible world below: but of the gods above their opinion is contrary to theirs. The Egyptians worship abundance of animals, and images of various sorts.

The Jews have no notion of any more than one divine being*, and that known only by the mind. They esteem such to be profane who frame images of gods, out of perishable matter, and in the shape of men. That this being is supreme, and eternal, immutable, and unperishable is their doctrine. Accordingly, they have no images in their cities, much less in their temples: they never grant this piece of flattery to kings, or this kind of honour to emperorst. But because their priests, when they play on the pipe and the timbrels, wear ivy round their head, and a golden vine has been found in their temple, some have thought that they worshiped our father Bacchus, the conqueror of the East; whereas the ceremonies of the Jews do not at all agree with those of Bacchus; for he appointed rites that were of a jovial nature, and fit for festivals, while the practices of the Jews are absurd and sordid.

CHAP. VI.] The limits of Judea easterly are bounded by Arabia: Egypt lies on the south: on the west are Phoenicia and the [great] sea. They have a prospect of Syria on their north quarter, as at some distance from them §.

The bodies of the men are healthy, and such as will bear great labours.

They have not many showers of rain: their soil is very fruitful: the produce of their land is, like ours, in great plenty ||.

They have also, besides ours, two trees peculiar to themselves, the balsam tree and the palm tree. Their groves of palms are tall and beautiful. The balsam tree is not very large. As soon as any branch is swelled, the veins quake as for fear, if you bring an iron knife to cut them. They are to be opened with the broken piece of a stone, or with the shell of a fish. The juice is useful in physic.

* These are valuable concessions, which Tacitus here makes, as to the unspotted piety of the Jewish nation, in the worship of one infinite, invisible God, and absolute rejection of all idolatry, and of all worship of images, nay, of the image of the emperor Caius himself, or of affording it a place in their temple.

+ All these concessions were to be learned from Josephus, and almost only from him; out of whom, therefore, I conclude Tacitus took the finest part of his character of the Jews.

This particular fact, that there was a golden vine in the front of the Jewish temple, was in all probability taken by Tacitus out of Josephus: but as the Jewish priests were never adorned with ivy, the signal of Bacchus, how Tacitus came to imagine this, I cannot tell.

§ See the chorography of Judea in Josephus, Of the War, B. iii. sect. 3; whence most probably Tacitus framed this short abridgment of it. It comes in both authors naturally before Vespasian's first campaign.

The latter branch of this Tacitus might have from Josephus, Of the War, B. iii. ch. iii. sect. 2, 3, 4. The other is not in the present copies.

VOL. IV.

CC

Libanus is their principal mountain, and is very high, and yet, what is very strange to be related, it is always shadowed with trees, and never free from snow. The same mountain supplies the river Jordan with water, and affords it its fountains also. Nor is this Jordan carried into the sea; it passes through one and a second lake undiminished, but it is stopped by the third*.

This third lake is vastly great in circumference, as if it were a seat. It is of an ill taste, and is pernicious to the adjoining inhabitants by its strong smell. The wind raises no waves there, nor will it maintain either fishes, or such birds as use the water. The reason is uncertain, but the fact is thus, that bodies cast into it are borne up, as by somewhat solid. Those who can and those who cannot swim are equally borne up by it. At a certain time of the years it casts out bitumen: the manner of gathering it, like other arts, has been taught by experience. The liquor is of its own nature of a black colour; and if you pour vinegar upon it, it clings together, and swims on the top. Those whose business it is take it in their hands, and pull it into the upper parts of the ship, after which it follows, without farther attraction, and fills the ship full, till you cut it off: nor can you cut it off either with a brass or an iron instrument; but it cannot bear the touch of blood, or of a cloth wet with the menstrual purgations of women, as the ancient authors say. But those that are acquainted with the place assure us, that these waves of bitumen are driven along, and by the hand drawn to the shore; and that when they are dried by the warm steams from the earth and the force of the sun, they are cut in pieces with axes and wedges, as timber and stones are cut in pieces.

CHAP. VII.] Not far from this lake are those plains, which are related to have been of old fertile, and to have had many || cities full of people, but to have been burnt up by a stroke of lightning: it is also said, that the footsteps of that destruction still remain, and that the earth itself appears as burnt earth, and has lost its natural fertility: and that as an argument thereof, all the plants that grow of their own accord, or are planted by the hand, whether they arrive at the degree of a herb, or of a flower,

* These accounts of Jordan, of its fountains derived from Mount Libanus, and of the two lakes it runs through, and its stoppage by the third, are exactly agreeable to Josephus, Of the War, B. iii. ch. x. sect. 7, 8.

No less than 580 furlongs long and 150 broad, in Josephus, Of the War, B. iv. ch. viii. sect. 4.

Strabo says, that a man could not sink into the water of this lake so deep as the navel.

§ Josephus never says that this bitumen was cast out at a certain time of the year only, and Strabo says the direct contrary, but Pliny agrees with Tacitus.

This is exactly according to Josephus, and must have been taken from him in the place forecited, and that particularly because it is peculiar to him, so far as I know, in all antiquity. The rest thought the cities were in the very same place where now the lake is, but Josephus and Tacitus say they were in its neighbourhood only, which is Mr. Reland's opinion also.