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
Greeks
(2) 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
(6) 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.
ENDNOTES
(1) This preface of Josephus is excellent
in its kind, and highly worthy the repeated
perusal of the reader, before he set about
the perusal of the work itself.
(2)That is, all the Gentiles, both Greeks
and Romans.
(3) We 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.
(4) This 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.
(5) Josephus here plainly alludes to the
famous Greek proverb, If God be with us,
every thing that is impossible becomes possible.
(6) 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."
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