power among the Greeks, that they ascribed these Sodomitical practices to the gods themselves, as a part of their good character and indeed it was according to the same manner that the gods married their own sisters. This the Greeks contrived as an apology for their own absurd and unnatural pleasures.

39. I omit to speak concerning punishments, and how many ways of escaping them the greatest part of the legislators have afforded malefactors, by ordaining that for adulteries, fines in money should be allowed, and for corrupting* [virgins] they need only marry them : as also what excuses they may have in denying the facts, if any one attempts to inquire into them; for amongst most other nations it is a studied art how men may transgress their laws. But no such thing is permitted amongst us; for though we be deprived of our wealth, of our other cities, or of the other advantages we have, our law continues immortal: nor can any Jew go so far from his own country, nor be so affrighted at the severest lord, as not to be more affrighted at the law than at him. If, therefore, this be the disposition we are under, with regard to the excellency of our laws, let our enemies make us this concession, that our laws are most excellent and if still they imagine, that though we so urmly adhere to them, yet are they bad laws notwithstanding; what penalties then do they deserve to undergo, who do not observe their own laws, which they esteem so far superior to them? Whereas, therefore, length of time is esteemed to be the truest touchstone in all cases, I would make that a testimonial of the excellency of laws, and of that belief thereby delivered to us concerning God. For as there hath been a very long time for this comparison, if any one will but compare its duration with the duration of the laws made by other legislators, he will find our legislator to have been the ancientest of them all.

:

40. We have already demonstrated, that our laws have been such as have always inspired admiration and imitation in all other men; nay, the earliest Grecian philosophers, though in appearance they observed the laws of their own

*Why Josephus here shall blame some heathen legislators, when they allowed so easy a composition for simple fornication, as an obligation to marry the virgin that was corrupted, is hard to say, seeing he had himself truly informed us, that it was a law of the Jews, Antiq. b. iv. c. viii. 23. vol. vi. as it is the law of Christianity also; see Horeb Covenant, page 61. I am almost ready to suspect, that for yauss, we should read yauar, and that corrupting wedlock, or other men's wives, is the crime for which these heathens wickedly allowed this composition in money.

Or for corrupting other men's wives the same allowance.

countries, yet did they, in their actions, and their philosophic doctrines, follow our legislator, and instructed men to live sparingly, and to have friendly communication one with another. Nay, farther, the multitude of mankind itself have had a great inclination of a long time to follow our religious obsérvances; for there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the Barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts, and lighting up lamps, and many of our prohibitions as to food, are not observed; they also endeavour to imitate our mutual concord with one another, and the charitable distribution of our goods, and our diligence in our trades, and our fortitude in undergoing the distresses we are in, on account of our laws; and, what is here matter of the greatest admiration, our law hath no bait of pleasure to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force; and as God himself pervades all the world, so hath our law passed through all the world also. So that if any one will but reflect on his own country, and his own family, he will have reason to give credit to what I say. It is therefore but just, either to condemn all mankind of indulging a wicked disposition, when they have been so desirous of imitating laws that are to them foreign and evil in themselves, rather than following laws of their own that are of a better character, or else our accusers must leave off their spite against us. Nor are we guilty of any envious behaviour towards them, when we honour our own legislator, and believe what he, by his prophetic authority, hath taught us concerning God. For though we should not be able ourselves to understand the excellency of our own laws, yet would the great multitude of those that desire to imitate them justify us, in greatly valuing ourselves upon them.

41. But as for the [distinct] political laws by which we are governed, I have delivered them accurately in my books of Antiquities and have only mentioned them now so far as was necessary to my present purpose, without proposing to myself, either to blame the laws of other nations, or to make an encomium upon our own; but in order to convict those that have written about us unjustly, and in an impudent affectation of disguising the truth. And now I think I have sufficiently completed what I proposed in writing these books. For whereas our accusers have pretended, that our nation are a people of a very late original, I have demonstrated that they are exceeding ancient; for I have produced as witness. thereto many ancient writers, who have made mention of us in their books, while they said that no such writer had so done. Moreover, they had said, that we were sprung from

the Egyptians, while I have proved, that we came from another country into Egypt; while they had told lies of us, as if we were expelled thence on account of diseases on our bodies, it has appeared on the contrary, that we returned to our own country, by our own choice, and with sound and strong bodies. Those accusers reproached our legislator, as a vile fellow; whereas God in old time bare witness to his virtuous conduct; and since that testimony of God, time itself hath been discovered to have borne witness to the same thing.

42. As to the laws themselves, more words are unnecessary, for they are visible in their own nature, and appear to teach not impiety, but the truest piety in the world. They do not make men hate one another, but encourage people to communicate what they have to one another freely; they are enemies to injustice, they take care of righteousness, they banish idleness and expensive living, and instruct men to be content with what they have, and to be laborious in their callings; they forbid men to make war from a desire of getting more, but make men courageous in defending the laws : they are inexorable in punishing malefactors: they admit no sophistry of words, but are always established by actions themselves, which actions we ever propose as surer demonstrations than what is contained in writing only; on which account I am so bold as to say,that we are become the teachers of other men, in the greatest number of things, and those of the most excellent nature only for what is more excellent than inviolable piety? what is more just than submission to laws? and what is more advantageous than mutual love and concord? And this is so far, that we are to be neither divided by calamities, nor to become injurious and seditious in prosperity, but to contemn death when we are in war, and in peace to apply ourselves to our mechanical occupations, or to our tillage of the ground; while we in all things and always are satisfied that God is the inspector and governor of our actions. If these precepts had either been written at first, or more exactly kept by any others before us, we should have owed them thanks as disciples owe to their masters; but if it be visible that we have made use of them more than any other men, and if we have demonstrated that the original invention of them is our own, let the Apions, and the Molons, with all the rest of those that delight in lies and reproaches, stand confuted; but let this and the foregoing book be dedicated to thee, Epaphroditus, who art so great a lover of truth, and by thy means to those that have been in like manner desirous to be acquainted with the affairs of our nation...

JOSEPHUS'S

DISCOURSE TO THE GREEKS,

CONCERNING

HADES.

it.

1. Now as to Hades, wherein the souls of the righte ous and unrighteous are detained, it is necessary to speak of Hades is a place in the world not regularly finished; a subterraneous region, wherein the light of this world does not shine; from which circumstance, that in this region, the light does not shine, it cannot be but there must be in it perpetual darkness. This region is allotted as a place of custo dy for souls, in which angels are appointed as guardians to them, who distribute to them temporary punishments, agreeable to every one's behaviour and manners.

2. In this region there is a certain place set apart, as a lake of unquenchable fire: whereinto we suppose no one hath hitherto been cast, but it is prepared for a day afore determined by God, in which one righteous sentence shall deservedly be passed upon all men; when the unjust, and those that have been disobedient to God, and have given honour to such idols as have been the vain operations of the hands of men as to God himself, shall be adjudged to this everlasting punishment, as having been the causes of defilement; while the just shall obtain an incorruptible and never-fading kingdom. These are now indeed confined in Hades, but not in the same place wherein the unjust are confined.

3. For there is one descent into this region, at whose gate we believe there stands an archangel with an host; which gate, when those pass through that are conducted down by the angels appointed over souls, they do not go the same way, but the just are guided to the right hand, and are led with hymns, sung by the angels appointed over that place, unto a region of light, in which the just have dwelt from the

VOL. VI.

Y

beginning of the world; not constrained by necessity, but ever enjoying the prospect of the good things they see, and rejoicing in the expectation of those new enjoyments which will be peculiar to every one of them, and esteeming those things beyond what we have here: with whom there is no place of toil, no burning heat, no piercing cold, nor are any briers there; but the countenance of the fathers and of the just, which they see, always smiles upon them, while they wait for that rest and eternal new life in heaven which is to succeed this region. This place we call the bosom of Abraham.

4. But as to the unjust, they are dragged by force to the left hand by the angels allotted for punishment, no longer going with a good will, but as prisoners driven by violence; to whom are sent the angels appointed over them to reproach them and threaten them with their terrible looks, and to thrust them still downward. Now those angels that are set over these souls, drag them into the neighbourhood of hell it. self; who, when they are hard by it continually hear the noise of it, and do not stand clear of the hot vapour itself f; but when they have a near view of this spectacle, as of a terrible and exceeding great prospect of fire, they are struck with a fearful expectation of a future judgment, and in effect punished thereby; and not only so, but where they see the place [or choir] of the fathers and of the just, even hereby are they punished; for a chaos deep and large is fixed between them; insomuch that a just man that hath compassion upon them cannot be admitted, nor can one that is unjust, if he were bold enough to attempt it, pass over it.

5. This is the discourse concerning Hades, wherein the souls of all men are confined until a proper season, which God hath determined, when he will make a resurrection of all men from the dead; not procuring a transmigration of souls from one body to another, but raising again those very bodies, which you Greeks seeing to be dissolved, do not believe, [their resurrection.] But learn not to disbelieve it ; for while you believe that the soul is created and yet is made immortal by God, according to the doctrine of Plato, and this in time, be not incredulous, but believe that God is able, when he hath raised to life that body which was made as a compound of the same elements, to make it immortal; for it must never be said of God, that he is able to do some things, and unable to do others. We have therefore believed, that the body will be raised again for although it be dissolved, it is not perished; for the earth receives its remains, and preserves them; and while they are like seed, and are mixed