THE ANTIQUITIES
OF THE JEWS
PREFACE
1.
Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take that trouble
on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those such as are very
different one from another. For some of them apply themselves to this part of
learning to show their skill in composition, and that they may therein acquire
a reputation for speaking finely: others of them there are, who write histories
in order to gratify those that happen to be concerned in them, and on that account
have spared no pains, but rather gone beyond their own abilities in the performance:
but others there are, who, of necessity and by force, are driven to write history,
because they are concerned in the facts, and so cannot excuse themselves from
committing them to writing, for the advantage of posterity; nay, there are not
a few who are induced to draw their historical facts out of darkness into light,
and to produce them for the benefit of the public, on account of the great importance
of the facts themselves with which they have been concerned. Now of these several
reasons for writing history, I must profess the two last were my own reasons
also; for since I was myself interested in that war which we Jews had with the
Romans, and knew myself its particular actions, and what conclusion it had,
I was forced to give the history of it, because I saw that others perverted
the truth of those actions in their writings.
2. Now I have undertaken the present work,
as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks2 worthy
of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution
of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I
did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war,3 to
explain who the Jews originally were,—what fortunes they had been subject to,—and
by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other
virtues,—what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly
engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work would take up a
great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning
of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens
to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being
a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign,
and to us unaccustomed language. However, some persons there were who desired
to know our history, and so exhorted me to go on with it; and, above all the
rest, Epaphroditus,4 a man who is a lover of all kind
of learning, but is principally delighted with the knowledge of history, and
this on account of his having been himself concerned in great affairs, and many
turns of fortune, and having shown a wonderful rigor of an excellent nature,
and an immovable virtuous resolution in them all. I yielded to this man's persuasions,
who always excites such as have abilities in what is useful and acceptable,
to join their endeavors with his. I was also ashamed myself to permit any laziness
of disposition to have a greater influence upon me, than the delight of taking
pains in such studies as were very useful: I thereupon stirred up myself, and
went on with my work more cheerfully. Besides the foregoing motives, I had others
which I greatly reflected on; and these were, that our forefathers were willing
to communicate such things to others; and that some of the Greeks took considerable
pains to know the affairs of our nation.
3. I found, therefore, that the second of
the Ptolemies was a king who was extraordinarily diligent in what concerned
learning, and the collection of books; that he was also peculiarly ambitious
to procure a translation of our law, and of the constitution of our government
therein contained, into the Greek tongue. Now Eleazar the high priest, one not
inferior to any other of that dignity among us, did not envy the forenamed king
the participation of that advantage, which otherwise he would for certain have
denied him, but that he knew the custom of our nation was, to hinder nothing
of what we esteemed ourselves from being communicated to others. Accordingly,
I thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high priest, and
to suppose there might even now be many lovers of learning like the king; for
he did not obtain all our writings at that time; but those who were sent to
Alexandria as interpreters, gave him only the books of the law, while there
were a vast number of other matters in our sacred books. They, indeed, contain
in them the history of five thousand years; in which time happened many strange
accidents, many chances of war, and great actions of the commanders, and mutations
of the form of our government. Upon the whole, a man that will peruse this history,
may principally learn from it, that all events succeed well, even to an incredible
degree, and the reward of felicity is proposed by God; but then it is to those
that follow his will, and do not venture to break his excellent laws: and that
so far as men any way apostatize from the accurate observation of them, what
was practical before becomes impracticable;5 and whatsoever
they set about as a good thing, is converted into an incurable calamity. And
now I exhort all those that peruse these books, to apply their minds to God;
and to examine the mind of our legislator, whether he hath not understood his
nature in a manner worthy of him; and hath not ever ascribed to him such operations
as become his power, and hath not preserved his writings from those indecent
fables which others have framed, although, by the great distance of time when
he lived, he might have securely forged such lies; for he lived two thousand
years ago; at which vast distance of ages the poets themselves have not been
so hardy as to fix even the generations of their gods, much less the actions
of their men, or their own laws. As I proceed, therefore, I shall accurately
describe what is contained in our records, in the order of time that belongs
to them; for I have already promised so to do throughout this undertaking; and
this without adding any thing to what is therein contained, or taking away any
thing therefrom.
4. But because almost all our constitution
depends on the wisdom of Moses, our legislator, I cannot avoid saying somewhat
concerning him beforehand, though I shall do it briefly; I mean, because otherwise
those that read my book may wonder how it comes to pass, that my discourse,
which promises an account of laws and historical facts, contains so much of
philosophy. The reader is therefore to know, that Moses deemed it exceeding
necessary, that he who would conduct his own life well, and give laws to others,
in the first place should consider the Divine nature; and, upon the contemplation
of God's operations, should thereby imitate the best of all patterns, so far
as it is possible for human nature to do, and to endeavor to follow after it:
neither could the legislator himself have a right mind without such a contemplation;
nor would any thing he should write tend to the promotion of virtue in his readers;
I mean, unless they be taught first of all, that God is the Father and Lord
of all things, and sees all things, and that thence he bestows a happy life
upon those that follow him; but plunges such as do not walk in the paths of
virtue into inevitable miseries. Now when Moses was desirous to teach this lesson
to his countrymen, he did not begin the establishment of his laws after the
same manner that other legislators did; I mean, upon contracts and other rights
between one man and another, but by raising their minds upwards to regard God,
and his creation of the world; and by persuading them, that we men are the most
excellent of the creatures of God upon earth. Now when once he had brought them
to submit to religion, he easily persuaded them to submit in all other things:
for as to other legislators, they followed fables, and by their discourses transferred
the most reproachful of human vices unto the gods, and afforded wicked men the
most plausible excuses for their crimes; but as for our legislator, when he
had once demonstrated that God was possessed of perfect virtue, he supposed
that men also ought to strive after the participation of it; and on those who
did not so think, and so believe, he inflicted the severest punishments. I exhort,
therefore, my readers to examine this whole undertaking in that view; for thereby
it will appear to them, that there is nothing therein disagreeable either to
the majesty of God, or to his love to mankind; for all things have here a reference
to the nature of the universe; while our legislator speaks some things wisely,
but enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still explains such
things as required a direct explication plainly and expressly. However, those
that have a mind to know the reasons of every thing, may find here a very curious
philosophical theory, which I now indeed shall wave the explication of; but
if God afford me time for it, I will set about writing it after I have finished
the present work. I shall now betake myself to the history before me, after
I have first mentioned what Moses says of the creation of the world, which I
find described in the sacred books after the manner following.
____________________
1That
is, all the Gentiles, both Greeks and Romans.
2We may seasonably note here, that
Josephus wrote his Seven Books of the Jewish War long before he wrote these
his Antiquities. Those books of the War were published about A.D. 75, and these
Antiquities, A.D. 93, about eighteen years later.
3This Epaphroditus was certainly alive
in the third year of Trajan, A.D. 100. See the note on the First Book Against
Apion, sect. 1. Who he was we do not know; for as to Epaphroditus, the freedman
of Nero, and afterwards Domitian's secretary, who was put to death by Domitian
in the 14th or 15th year of his reign, he could not be alive in the third of
Trajan.
4Josephus here plainly alludes to the
famous Greek proverb, If God be with us, every thing that is impossible becomes
possible.
5"As to this intended work of Josephus
concerning the reasons of many of the Jewish laws, and what philosophical or
allegorical sense they would bear, the loss of which work is by some of the
learned not much regretted, I am inclinable, in part, to Fabricius's opinion,
ap. Havercamp, p. 63, 61, That "we need not doubt but that, among some vain
and frigid conjectures derived from Jewish imaginations, Josephus would have
taught us a greater number of excellent and useful things, which perhaps nobody,
neither among the Jews, nor among the Christians, can now inform us of; so that
I would give a great deal to find it still extant."
Main
Bible Code Page
