Part 61 (1/2)

[4] Since the rest of the historians now extant give this Demetrius thirteen years, and Josephus only eleven years, Dean Prideaux does not amiss in ascribing to him the mean number twelve.

[5] It seems to me contrary to the opinion of Josephus, and of the moderns, both Jews and Christians, that this prophecy of Isaiah, 19:19, etc., ”In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,” etc., directly foretold the building of this temple of Onias in Egypt, and was a sufficient warrant to the Jews for building it, and for wors.h.i.+pping the true G.o.d, the G.o.d of Israel, therein. See Authent. Rec. 11. p. 755. That G.o.d seems to have soon better accepted of the sacrifices and prayers here offered him than those at Jerusalem, see the note on ch. 10. sect. 7. And truly the marks of Jewish corruption or interpolation in this text, in order to discourage their people from approving of the Wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d here, are very strong, and highly deserve our consideration and correction. The foregoing verse in Isaiah runs thus in our common copies, ”In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan,” [the Hebrew language; shall be full of Jews, whose sacred books were in Hebrew,] ”and swear to the Lord of hosts; one” [or the first] ”shall be called, The City of Destruction,” Isaiah 19:18. A strange-name, ”City of Destruction,” upon so joyful occasion, and a name never heard of in the land of Egypt, or perhaps in any other nation. The old reading was evidently the City of the Sun, or Heliopolis; and Unkelos, in effect, and Symmachus, with the Arabic version, entirely confess that to be the true reading. The Septuagint also, though they have the text disguised in the common copies, and call it Asedek, the City of Righteousness; yet in two or three other copies the Hebrew word itself for the Sun, Achares, or Thares, is preserved. And since Onias insists with the king and queen, that Isaiah's prophecy contained many other predictions relating to this place besides the words by him recited, it is highly probable that these were especially meant by him; and that one main reason why he applied this prediction to himself, and to his prefecture of Heliopolis, which Dean Prideaux well proves was in that part of Egypt, and why he chose to build in that prefecture of Heliopolis, though otherwise an improper place, was this, that the same authority that he had for building this temple in Egypt, the very same he had for building it in his own prefecture of Heliopolis also, which he desired to do, and which he did accordingly. Dean Prideaux has much ado to avoid seeing this corruption of the Hebrew; but it being in support of his own opinion about this temple, he durst not see it; and indeed he reasons here in the most injudicious manner possible. See him at the year 149.

[6] A very unfair disputation this! while the Jewish disputant, knowing that he could not properly prove out of the Pentateuch, that ”the place which the Lord their G.o.d shall choose to place his name there,” so often referred to in the Book of Deuteronomy, was Jerusalem any more than Gerizzim, that being not determined till the days of David, Antiq. B.

VII. ch. 13. sect. 4, proves only, what the Samaritans did not deny, that the temple at Jerusalem was much more ancient, and much more celebrated and honored, than that at Gerizzim, which was nothing to the present purpose. The whole evidence, by the very oaths of both parties, being, we see, obliged to be confined to the law of Moses, or to the Pentateuch alone. However, worldly policy and interest and the mult.i.tude prevailing, the court gave sentence, as usual, on the stronger side, and poor Sabbeus and Theodosius, the Samaritan disputants, were martyred, and this, so far as appears, without any direct hearing at all, which is like the usual practice of such political courts about matters of religion. Our copies say that the body of the Jews were in a great concern about those men [in the plural] who were to dispute for their temple at Jerusalem, whereas it seems here they had but one disputant, Andronicus by name. Perhaps more were prepared to speak on the Jews'

side; but the firstraying answered to his name, and overcome the Samaritans, there was necessity for any other defender of the Jerusalem temple.

[7] Of the several Apollonius about these ages, see Dean Prideaux at the year 148. This Apollonius Daus was, by his account, the son of that Apollonius who had been made governor of Celesyria and Phoenicia by Seleueus Philopater, and was himself a confidant of his son Demetrius the father, and restored to his father's government by him, but afterwards revolted from him to Alexander; but not to Demetrius the son, as he supposes.

[8] Dr. Hudson here observes, that the Phoenicians and Romans used to reward such as had deserved well of them, by presenting to them a golden b.u.t.ton. See ch. 5. sect. 4.

[9] This name, Demetrius Nicator, or Demetrius the conqueror, is so written on his coins still extant, as Hudson and Spanheim inform us; the latter of whom gives us here the entire inscription, ”King Demetrius the G.o.d, Philadelphus, Nicator.”

[10] This clause is otherwise rendered in the First Book of Maccabees, 12:9, ”For that we have the holy books of Scripture in our hands to comfort us.” The Hebrew original being lost, we cannot certainly judge which was the truest version only the coherence favors Josephus. But if this were the Jews' meaning, that they were satisfied out of their Bible that the Jews and Lacedemonians were of kin, that part of their Bible is now lost, for we find no such a.s.sertion in our present copies.

[11] Those that suppose Josephus to contradict himself in his three several accounts of the notions of the Pharisees, this here, and that earlier one, which is the largest, Of the War B. II. ch. 8. sect. 14, and that later, Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 1. sect. 3, as if he sometimes said they introduced an absolute fatality, and denied all freedom of human actions, is almost wholly groundless if he ever, as the very learned Casaubon here truly observes, a.s.serting, that the Pharisees were between the Essens and Sadducees, and did so far ascribe all to fate or Divine Providence as was consistent with the freedom of human actions. However, their perplexed way of talking about fate, or Providence, as overruling all things, made it commonly thought they were willing to excuse their sins by ascribing them to fate, as in the Apostolical Const.i.tutions, B. VI. ch. 6. Perhaps under the same general name some difference of opinions in this point might be propagated, as is very common in all parties, especially in points of metaphysical subtilty. However, our Josephus, who in his heart was a great admirer of the piety of the Essens, was yet in practice a Pharisee, as he himself informs us, in his own Life, sect. 2. And his account of this doctrine of the Pharisees is for certain agreeable to his own opinion, who ever both fully allowed the freedom of human actions, and yet strongly believed the powerful interposition of Divine Providence. See concerning this matter a remarkable clause, Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 11. sect. 7.

[12] This king, who was of the famous race of Arsaces, is bethused to call them; but by the elder author of the First Maccahere, and 1 Macc.

14:2, called by the family name Arsaces; was, the king of the Persians and Medes, according to the land but Appion says his proper name was Phraates. He is language of the Eastern nations. See Authent. Rec. Part II. also called by Josephus the king of the Parthians, as the Greeks p.

1108.

[13] There is some error in the copies here, when no more than four years are ascribed to the high priesthood of Jonathan. We know by Josephus's last Jewish chronology, Antiq. B. XX. ch. 10., that there was an interval of seven years between the death of Alcimus, or Jacimus, the last high priest, and the real high priesthood of Jonathan, to whom yet those seven years seem here to be ascribed, as a part of them were to Judas before, Antiq. B. XII. ch. 10. sect. 6. Now since, besides these seven years interregnum in the pontificate, we are told, Antiq. B. XX.

ch. 10., that Jonathan's real high priesthood lasted seven years more, these two seven years will make up fourteen years, which I suppose was Josephus's own number in this place, instead of the four in our present copies.

[14] These one hundred and seventy years of the a.s.syrians mean no more, as Josephus explains himself here, than from the sara of Seleucus, which as it is known to have began on the 312th year before the Christian sara, from its spring in the First Book of Maccabees, and from its autumn in the Second Book of Maccabees, so did it not begin at Babylon till the next spring, on the 311th year. See Prid. at the year 312. And it is truly observed by Dr. Hudson on this place, that the Syrians and a.s.syrians are sometimes confounded in ancient authors, according to the words of Justin, the epitomiser of Trogus-pompeius, who says that ”the a.s.syrians were afterward called Syrian.” B. I. ch. 11. See Of the War, B. V. ch. 9. sect. 4, where the Philistines themselves, at the very south limit of Syria, in its utmost extent, are called a.s.syrians by Josephus as Spanheim observes.

[15] It must here be diligently noted, that Josephus's copy of the First Book of Maccabees, which he had so carefully followed, and faithfully abridged, as far as the fiftieth verse of the thirteenth chapter, seems there to have ended. What few things there are afterward common to both, might probably be learned by him from some other more imperfect records.

However, we must exactly observe here, what the remaining part of that book of the Maccabees informs us of, and what Josephus would never have omitted, had his copy contained so much, that this Simon the Great, the Maccabee, made a league with Antiochus Soter, the son of Demetrius Soter, and brother of the other Demetrius, who was now a captive in Parthis: that upon his coming to the crown, about the 140th year before the Christian sets, he granted great privileges to the Jewish nation, and to Simon their high priest and ethnarch; which privileges Simon seems to have taken of his own accord about three years before. In particular, he gave him leave to coin money for his country with his own stamp; and as concerning Jerusalem and the sanctuary, that they should be free, or, as the vulgar Latin hath it, ”holy and free,” 1 Macc. 15:6, 7, which I take to be the truer reading, as being the very words of his father's concession offered to Jonathan several years before, ch. 10:31; and Antiq. B, XIII. ch. 2. sect. 3. Now what makes this date and these grants greatly remarkable, is the state of the remaining genuine shekels of the Jews with Samaritan characters, which seem to have been [most of them at least] coined in the first four years of this Simon the Asamonean, and having upon them these words on one side, ”Jerusalem the Holy;” and on the reverse, ”In the Year of Freedom,” 1, or 2, or 3, or 4; which shekels therefore are original monuments of these times, and undeniable marks of the truth of the history in these chapters, though it be in great measure omitted by Josephus. See Essay on the Old Test.

p. 157, 158. The reason why I rather suppose that his copy of the Maccabees wanted these chapters, than that his own copies are here imperfect, is this, that all their contents are not here omitted, though much the greatest part be.

[16] How Trypho killed this Antiochus the epitome of Livy informs us, ch. 53, viz. that he corrupted his physicians or surgeons, who falsely pretending to the people that he was peris.h.i.+ng with the stone, as they cut him for it, killed him, which exactly agrees with Josephus.

[17] That this Antiochus, the son of Alexander Balas, was called ”The G.o.d,” is evident from his coins, which Spanheim a.s.sures us bear this inscription, ”King Antiochus the G.o.d, Epiphanes the Victorious.”

[18] Here Josephus begins to follow and to abridge the next sacred Hebrew book, styled in the end of the First Book of Maccabees, ”The Chronicle of John [Hyrca.n.u.s's] high priesthood;” but in some of the Greek copies,” The Fourth Book of Maccabees.” A Greek version of this chronicle was extant not very long ago in the days of Sautes Pagninus, and Sixtus Senensis, at Lyons, though it seems to have been there burnt, and to be utterly lost. See Sixtus Senensis's account of it, of its many Hebraisms, and its great agreement with Josephus's abridgement, in the Authent. Rec. Part I. p. 206, 207, 208.

[19] Hence we learn, that in the days of this excellent high priest, John Hyrca.n.u.s, the observation of the Sabbatic year, as Josephus supposed, required a rest from war, as did that of the weekly sabbath from work; I mean this, unless in the case of necessity, when the Jews were attacked by their enemies, in which case indeed, and in which alone, they then allowed defensive fighting to be lawful, even on the sabbath day, as we see in several places of Josephus, Antlq. B. XII. ch.

6. sect. 2; B. XIII. ch. 1. sect. 2; Of the War, B. I. ch. 7. sect. 3.

But then it must be noted, that this rest from war no way appears in the First Book of Maccabees, ch. 16., but the direct contrary; though indeed the Jews, in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, did not venture upon fighting on the Sabbath day, even in the defense of their own lives, till the Asamoneans or Maccabees decreed so to do, 1 Macc. 2:32-41; Antiq. B. XII. ch. 6. sect. 2.

[20] Josephus's copies, both Greek and Latin, have here a gross mistake, when they say that this first year of John Hyrca.n.u.s, which we have just now seen to have been a Sabbatic year, was in the 162nd olympiad, whereas it was for certain the second year of the 161st. See the like before, B. XII. ch. 7. sect. 6.

[21] This heliacal setting of the Pleiades, or seven stars, was, in the days of Hyrca.n.u.s and Josephus, early in the spring, about February, the time of the latter rain in Judea; and this, so far as I remember, is the only astronomical character of time, besides one eclipse of the moon in the reign of Herod, that we meet with in all Josephus; the Jews being little accustomed to astronomical observations, any further than for the uses of their calendar, and utterly forbidden those astrological uses which the heathens commonly made of them.

[22] Dr. Hudson tells us here, that this custom of gilding the horns of those oxen that were to be sacrificed is a known thing both in the poets and orators.

[23] This account in Josephus, that the present Antiochus was persuaded, though in vain, not to make peace with the Jews, but to cut them off utterly, is fully confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, in Photiua's extracts out of his 34th Book.

[24] The Jews were not to march or journey on the sabbath, or on such a great festival as was equivalent to the sabbath, any farther than a sabbath day's journey, or two thousand cubits, see the note on Antiq. B.

XX. ch. 8. sect. 6.