Flavius Josephus, Against Apion (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Joseph. Ap.]. | ||
<<Joseph. Ap. 1.38 | Joseph. Ap. 1.60 (Greek) | >>Joseph. Ap. 1.73 |
There have been indeed some bad men, who have attempted to calumniate my history, and took it to be a kind of scholastic performance for the exercise of young men. A strange sort of accusation and calumny this! since every one that undertakes to deliver the history of actions truly ought to know them accurately himself in the first place, as either having been concerned in them himself, or been informed of them by such as knew them. Now both these methods of knowledge I may very properly pretend to in the composition of both my works; for, as I said, I have translated the Antiquities out of our sacred books; which I easily could do, since I was a priest by my birth, and have studied that philosophy which is contained in those writings: and for the History of the War, I wrote it as having been an actor myself in many of its transactions, an eye-witness in the greatest part of the rest, and was not unacquainted with any thing whatsoever that was either said or done in it. How impudent then must those deserve to be esteemed that undertake to contradict me about the true state of those affairs! who, although they pretend to have made use of both the emperors' own memoirs, yet could not they he acquainted with our affairs who fought against them.
1.57This digression I have been obliged to make out of necessity, as being desirous to expose the vanity of those that profess to write histories; and I suppose I have sufficiently declared that this custom of transmitting down the histories of ancient times hath been better preserved by those nations which are called Barbarians, than by the Greeks themselves. I am now willing, in the next place, to say a few things to those that endeavor to prove that our constitution is but of late time, for this reason, as they pretend, that the Greek writers have said nothing about us; after which I shall produce testimonies for our antiquity out of the writings of foreigners; I shall also demonstrate that such as cast reproaches upon our nation do it very unjustly.
1.60As for ourselves, therefore, we neither inhabit a maritime country,
nor do we delight in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other men
as arises from it; but the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea,
and having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating
that only. Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well;
and we think it to be the most necessary business of our whole life to
observe the laws that have been given us, and to keep those rules of piety
that have been delivered down to us. Since, therefore, besides what we
have already taken notice of, we have had a peculiar way of living of our
own, there was no occasion offered us in ancient ages for intermixing among
the Greeks, as they had for mixing among the Egyptians, by their intercourse
of exporting and importing their several goods; as they also mixed with
the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of their love of lucre
in trade and merchandise. Nor did our forefathers betake themselves, as
did some others, to robbery; nor did they, in order to gain more wealth,
fall into foreign wars, although our country contained many ten thousands
of men of courage sufficient for that purpose. For this reason it was that
the Phoenicians themselves came soon by trading and navigation to be known
to the Grecians, and by their means the Egyptians became known to the Grecians
also, as did all those people whence the Phoenicians in long voyages over
the seas carried wares to the Grecians. The Medes also and the Persians,
when they were lords of
Flavius Josephus, Against Apion (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Joseph. Ap.]. | ||
<<Joseph. Ap. 1.38 | Joseph. Ap. 1.60 (Greek) | >>Joseph. Ap. 1.73 |