years previous to the historic times of the Greeks-this proud and envious people were touched by it, and set themselves to refute it. The principal assailant of Josephus, and the only one to whom he makes a formal reply, was Apion.

Of Apion we know very little, and should have known less but for the notice taken of him by Josephus. He was a grammarian and teacher of rhetoric, born and educated at Alexandria, but a resident at Rome in the first century. The Emperor Tiberius used to call him Cymbalum Mundi, on account of his noisy loquacity and vanity.

He says that Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt in the same year that Carthage was built by the Phenicians. But Josephus shows that Carthage was built one hundred and fifty years after the reign of Hiram, King of Tyre, the same that assisted Solomon in building the temple; and that the temple was not commenced until the four hundred and eightieth year after the exode from Egypt. Hence the exode occurred five hundred and thirty years earlier than the time fixed upon by Apion.

Apion gives the following ridiculous account of the origin of the Jewish Sabbath. "The children of Israel," he says, "were all of them infected with leprosy, and other cutaneous diseases, for which cause they were driven out of Egypt. They had swellings in the joints, so that it was with difficulty they could walk at all. Yet this diseased, maimed multitude managed to get through the wilderness into the land of Judah in six days, and celebrated the seventh as a rest or Sabbath!" And, as though this absurdity was not enough, Apion says in another place that the people rested forty days at the foot of Sinai, while Moses went up into the mount. Josephus shows up these absurdities with great zest, and indignantly repels the statement that the Israelites were lepers when they came out of Egypt, and were driven out because of their diseases.

Apion pretends that the Jews had in their temple the image of an ass's head, made of gold, and that this was discovered by Antiochus Epiphanes, who carried it away when he plundered the temple. "But if this story be true," asks Josephus, "why was not the image seen before? and why has it not been heard of since, until this ass of an Apion made the discovery?"

Apion further says that Antiochus found in the temple an imprisoned Greek, whom the Jews were pampering and fattening for sacrifice, and that he rescued the prisoner from their hands. To this Josephus replies that the best way to confute fools is to appeal to facts. And he goes on to show, from the very structure of the temple, and from its hallowed and guarded purity, that such a thing was strictly impossible.

Apion has another story about the Jews of the same character with those above related. It seems that the ass's head had been replaced after the time of Antiochus, and that an Idumean, whose name was Zabidus, had had the address to get into the temple and carry it away. "And say you sọ, sir!" replies Josephus. "Then does Apion make an ass of himself, and lays on him a burden of fooleries and lies. For he speaks of places which have no existence, and of things of which there is no history or tradition in the world, save his own."

Apion reproaches the Jews with their long and frequent subjection to the Gentile nations--the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans-and affirms that they have bound themselves, by an awful oath, to be perpetual enemies to all foreigners, and especially to the Greeks. Josephus replies that the Egyptians, of whom Apion was one, had been as long and as often in bondage as the Jews; and that the story of the oath was a sheer fabrication, contradicted by the whole history of the Jewish nation.

Apion insists that the Jews have never had any such wise men among them as Socrates, Plato, and Zeno; whereas Greece and Egypt abound with such men, among whom he is proud to enroll himself! A good illustration, this, of Tiberius's name for him, Cymbalum Mundi, to ring out his own vanity and applause.

Apion charges the Jews with "sacrificing animals, abstaining from swine's flesh, and practicing circumcision;" to which Josephus returns his favorite argumentum ad hominem, "The Egyptian priests are all circumcised, and abstain from swine's flesh, and offer animals in sacrifice to their gods."

But the principal objection of Apion and other Greek writers to Josephus's history was, that it ascribes too high an antiquity to the Jews. "It is incredible that their origin should be so remote, since no mention is made of them in Gre

cian history until the time of Alexander." To this Josephus replies, first of all, that the Greeks have no reason to boast of their history, more especially of its antiquity, since it is of comparatively recent date. It is far exceeded, in this respect, by the histories of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Phenicians, and of several other ancient nations. He next proceeds to confirm his statements as to the antiquity of the Jews by extracts from heathen authors. He quotes Manetho to show that "the Israelites came out of another country into Egypt, and went up out of Egypt more than a thousand years previous to the siege of Troy." He quotes from Berosus, the Chaldean, "a history of the deluge, and of the destruction of mankind; also of the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark, agreeing almost entirely with the narration of Moses." He quotes from Menander, the Tyrian, his account of the building of the temple at Jerusalem, one hundred and fifty years previous to the founding of Carthage. He quotes Aristotle's description of a people called Jews, "who took their name from Judea, the country they inhabit." He quotes Hecateus, describing the removal of a colony of Jews to Alexandria soon after it was built, and the favor that was shown to them by the first of the Ptolemies. He quotes Agitharchides, a later writer, who gives the following description of the Jews: "They dwell in a city called Jerusalem, and rest every seventh day, making no use of their arms, nor caring for any of the affairs of life; but they spread out their hands in their holy places, and continue their worship until the evening." In short, Josephus had no difficulty in vindicating the high antiquity of the Jews and the truth of his own statements on the subject, and that, too, by the testimony of heathen authors.

Certain Greeks had found fault with the laws of Moses, and made invidious comparisons between them and the statutes of their own lawgivers. This led Josephus to go into an exposition and defense of the Mosaic enactment; and this we deem the most interesting part of his controversy with Apion and the Greeks. "I have a mind," he says, "to discourse briefly about our whole constitution of government, and the particular branches of it. It will thence appear that our laws are disposed after the best manner for the advancement of piety, for social intercourse one with another, and for a general love

of mankind; also for justice, for sustaining trials with fortitude, and for contempt of death."

Josephus begins by saying that "our legislator is more ancient than any of whom we have knowledge. As for Lycurgus and Solon and Seleucus, so much admired among the Greeks, they are but of yesterday compared with ours." "Some legislators have placed their governments under monarchies, others under oligarchies, and others under a republican form; but our lawgiver had no regard to any of these forms. He ordained our government to be a Theocracy, by ascribing all power and authority to God. He taught us to regard him as the author of all good things, for which we are to pray to him and to return him our thanks. He showed us that we are ever naked and open to the eye of God; that we cannot escape his notice in our most secret actions, or even in our thoughts.

"Moses did not make religion to be a part of virtue, but he ordained the virtues to be parts of religion; since all our words and actions have reference to God." "Such, indeed, are our laws, that if any one had given out that he had written them himself, or had found them in some distant country, and had come and read them to the Greeks, I cannot doubt that all men would have admired them.

"As to the character of our laws there is no need of many words. They teach not impiety, but the truest piety in the world. They do not lead men to hate one another, but encourage all acts of kindness and liberality. They enjoin righteousness and justice. They banish idleness and luxurious living. They teach men to be laborious in their callings, and to be content with what they have. They forbid aggressive wars, but make men courageous in defending the right. They are inexorable in punishing malefactors, and are established more by actions than by the sophistry of words."

But however eloquently Josephus may discourse respecting the laws of Moses, his own character did not conform entirely to them. He was a vain, ambitious man, fond of popularity, and ever seeking for it by flattering the Romans and consulting their wishes. There is too much evidence that his histories. are colored, and even modified, by this dangerous partiality.

As a writer, Josephus possesses many valuable qualities.

His diction is for the most part classical, and his narrative is so clear and vigorous as to have earned for him the title of the Greek Livy. He claims for himself the merit of entire faithfulness; but this must be conceded to him with some abatements. In narrating the facts of the Old Testament, to use the language of Echard, "he sometimes gives them such an artificial turn, and uses such disguising and mollifying strokes, as shows that he dares not follow the truth rigidly, but prefers to accommodate the most surprising passages to the humors and opinions of those for whom he wrote." Yet after all these imperfections, his Antiquities must be acknowledged to be a noble work, and was highly advantageous to the better sort of Gentiles, who might be induced to read this when they despised the Old Testament.

On several accounts the works of Josephus have ever been, and still are, of service to the Christian world. They help to vindicate, as we have seen, the antiquity of the Old Testament, the authenticity of its books, and the truth of its statements, even those which relate to miracles. In the first century after Christ, infidels had not learned to doubt the truth of miracles. Their own writings were full of them, to be accounted for either by magical arts or by the interposition of the heathen gods.

Josephus is also a help to us in settling the canon of the Old Testament. He gives us the number and a description of the books, and they are found to agree with our own. "We have not," he says," an innumerable multitude of books, as the Greeks have, disagreeing and contradicting one another; but we have only twenty-two books, which are justly believed to be divine. Of these, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. In the interval of time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, the prophets wrote down what was done in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life."*

The Rabbins, in the time of Josephus, had limited the number of their sacred books to twenty-two, that they might coincide with the number of Hebrew letters. To effect the necessary reduction they had joined together several of the

* Works, vol. vi, p. 173.