tations in the reign of king Cepheus.* There are those who report they were Assyrians, who, wanting lands, got together, and obtained part of Egypt, and soon afterwards settled themselves in cities of their own, in the lands of the Hebrews, and the parts of Syria that lay nearest to them.f Others pretended their origin to be more eminent, and that the Solymi, a people celebrated in Homer's poems, were the founders of this nation, and give this their own name, Hierosolyma, to the city which they built there.

CHAP. III.] Many authors agree, that when once an in fectious distemper was arisen in Egypt, and made men's bodies impure, Bocchoris, their king, went to the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon, and begged he would grant him some relief against this evil, and that he was enjoined to purge his nation of them, and to banish this kind of men into other countries, as hateful to the gods. That when he had sought for, and gotten them all together, they were left in a vast desert; that hereupon the rest devoted themselves to weeping and inactivity; but one of those exiles, Moses by name, advised them to look for no assistance from any of the gods, or from any of mankind, since they had been abandoned by both but bade them believe in him, as in a celestial leader, by whose help they had already gotten clear of their present niseries. They agreed to it; and though they were unacquainted with every thing, they began their journey at random but nothing tired them so much as want of water; and now they laid themselves down on the ground to a great extent, as just ready to perish, when a herd of wild asses came from feeding, and went to a rock overshadowed by a grove of trees. Moses followed them, as conjecturing that there was [thereabouts] some grassy soil, and so opened large sources of water for them. That was an ease to them; and

* One would wonder how Tacitus, or any heathen, could suppose the African Ethiopians under Cepheus, who are known to be blacks, could be the parents of the Jews who are known to be whites.

+ This account comes nearest the truth; and this Tacitus might have from Josephus, only disguised by himself.

This Tacitus might have out of Josephus, Antiq. B. vii. c. iii. sec. 2. vol. ii.

Strange doctrines to Josephus! who truly observes on this occasion, that gods are angry not at hodily imperfections, but at wicked practices. Apion, B. i. sec. 28. vol. vi..

This believing in Moses as in a celestial leader, seems a blind confession of Tacitus, that Moses professed to have his laws from God.

This looks also like a plain confession of Tacitus, that Moses brought the Jews water out of a rock in great plenty, which he might have from Josephus. Antiq. B. iii. c. i. sec. 7.

when they had journeyed continually six entire days, on the seventh day drove out the inhabitants, and obtained those lands wherein their city and temple were dedicated.*

CHAP. IV. As for Moses, in order to secure the nation firmly to himself, he ordained new rites, and such as were contrary to those of other men. All things are with them profane which with us are sacred; and again, those practices are allowed among them which are by us esteemed most abominable.†

They place the image of that animal in their most holy place, by whose indication it was that they had escaped their wandering condition and their thirst.

They sacrifice rams by way of reproach, to [Jupiter] Hammon. An ox is also sacrificed, which the Egyptians worship under the name of Apis.§

They abstain from swine's flesh, as a memorial of that miserable destruction which the mange, to which that creature is liable, brought on them, and with which they had been defiled.l

That they had endured a long famine, they attest still by their frequent fastings. And that they stole the fruits of the earth, we have an argument from the bread of the Jews, which is unleavened.**

It is generally supposed they rest on the seventh day,tt because that day gave them [the first] rest from their labours.

* Strange indeed! that 600,000 men should travel above 200 miles over the deserts of Arabia in six days, and conquer Judea the seventh.

This is not true in general, but only so far, that the Israelites were, by circumcision and other rites, to be kept separate from the wicked and idolatrous nations about them.

This strange story contradicts what the same Tacitus will tell us presently, that when Pompey went into the holy of holies, he found no image there.

more.

These are only guesses of Tacitus or his heathen authors, but no

Such memorials of what must have been very reproachful, are strangers to the rest of mankind, and without any probability.

The Jews had but one solemn fast of old in the whole year, the great day of expiation.

**Unleavened bread was only used at the passover.

+ It is very strange that Tacitus should not know or confess that the Jews' seventh day and seventh year of rest were in the memory of the seventh or sabbath-day's rest, after the six days of creation. Every Jew, as well as every Christian, could have informed him of these mat

ters.

Besides which, they are idle every seventh year, as being pleased with a lazy life. Others say, that they do honour thereby to Saturn;t or perhaps the Idæi gave them this part of their religion, who (as we said above,) were expelled, together with Saturn, and who, as we have been informed, were the founders of this nation; or else it was because the star Saturn moves in the highest orb, and of the seven planets exerts the principal part of that energy whereby mankind are governed: and indeed the most of the heavenly bodies exert their power, and perform their courses according to the number seven.‡

CHAP. V.] These rites, by what manner soever they were first begun, are supported by their antiquity.§ The rest of their institutions are awkward, impure, and got ground by their pravity; for every vile fellow, despising the rites of his forefathers, brought thither their tribute and contributions, by which means the Jewish commonwealth was augmented. And because among themselves there is no unalterable fidelity and kindness always ready at hand, but bitter enmity toward all others, T they are a people separated from others in their food, and in their beds; though they be the lewdest nation upon earth,** yet will they not corrupt foreign women, though nothing be esteemed unlawful among themselves.tt

A strange hypothesis of the origin of the sabbatic year, and without all good foundation. Tacitus probably had never heard of the Jews' year of jubilee, so he says nothing of it.

+ As if the Jews, in the days of Moses, or long before, knew that the Greeks and Romans would long afterwards call the seventh day of the week Saturn's-day; which Dio observes was not so called of old time; and it is a question whether before the Jews fell into idolatry they ever heard of such a star or god as Saturn. Amos v. 25. Acts vii. 43.

That the sun, moon, and stars, rule over the affairs of mankind, was a heathen and not a Jewish notion: neither Jews nor Christians were permitted to deal in astrology, though Tacitus seems to have been deep

in it.

This acknowledgment of the antiquity of Moses, and of his Jewish settlement, was what the heathen cared not always to own.

What these pretended, awkward, and impure institutions were, Tacitus does not inform us.

Josephus shows the contrary, as to the laws of Moses, contr. Apion Book ii. sec. 22. vol. vi.

** An entirely false character, and contrary to their many laws against Incleanness. See Josephus' Antiq. B. iii. c. xi. sec. 12.

+ A high, and I doubt a false commendation of the Jews.

They have ordained circumcision of the part used in generation, that they may thereby be distinguished from other people; the proselytes to their religion have the same usage.*

They are taught nothing sooner than to despise the gods, to renounce their country, and to have their parents, children, and brethren in the utmost contempt;t but still they take care to increase and multiply, for it is esteemed utterly unlawful to kill any of their children.

They also look on the souls of those that die in battle, or are put to death for their crimes, as eternal. Hence comes their love of posterity, and contempt of death.

They derive their custom of burying, instead of burning, their dead from the Egyptians: they have also the same care of the dead with them, and the same persuasion about the invisible world below: but of the gods above, their opinion is contrary to theirs. The Egyptians worship abundance of animals, and images of various sorts.

The Jews have no notion of any thing more than one divine being, and that known only by the mind. They esteem such to be profane who frame images of gods out of perishable matter, and in the shape of men. That this being is supreme and eternal, immutable and imperishable, is their doctrine. Accordingly they have no image in their cities, much less in their temples: they never grant this piece of flattery to kings, or this kind of honour to emperors. But because their priests, when they play on the pipe and the timbrels, wear ivy round their heads, and a golden vine¶ has been found in their temple, some have thought that they

*The proselytes of justice only, not the proselytes of the gates.

How does this agree with that unalterable fidelity and kindness which Tacitus told us the Jews had toward one another? unless he only means that they preferred the divine command before their nearest relations, which is the highest degree of Jewish and Christian piety.

This custom is at least as old among the Hebrews as the days of Abraham, and the cave of Machpelah, long before the Israelites went into Egypt. Gen. xxiii. 1-20. xxv. 8-10.

These are valuable concessions which Tacitus here makes as to the unspotted piety of the Jewish nation, in the worship of one infinite, invisible God, and absolute rejection of all idolatry, and of all worship of images, nay, of the image of the emperor Caius himself, or of affording it a place in their temple.

AH these concessions were to be learned from Josephus, and almost only from him; out of whom, therefore, I concluded Tacitus took the finest part of his character of the Jews.

This particular fact, that there was a golden vine in the front of the Jewish temple, was in all probability taken by Tacitus out of Josephus; but as the Jewish priests were never adorned with ivy, the signal of Baccous, how Tacitus came to imagine this I cannot tell.

worshipped our father Bacchus, the conqueror of the East: whereas the ceremonies of the Jews do not at all agree with those of Bacchus, for he appointed rites that were of a jovial nature, and fit for festivals, while the practices of the Jews are absurd and sordid.

CHAP. VI.] The limits of Judea easterly are bounded by Arabia: Egypt lies on the south: on the west are Phoenicia and the [great] sea. They have a prospect of Syria on their north quarter, as at some distance from them.*

The bodies of the men are healthy, and such as will bear great labours.

They have not many showers of rain their soil is very fruitful: the produce of their land is like ours, in great plenty.†

They have also besides ours, two trees peculiar to themselves; the balsam tree, and the palm tree. Their groves of palms are tall and beautiful. The balsam tree is not very large. As soon as any branch is swelled, the veins quake as for fear, if you bring an iron knife to cut them. They are to be opened with a broken piece of stone, or with the shell of a fish. The juice is used in Physic.

Libanus is their principal mountain, and is very high, and yet, what is very strange to be related, it is always shadowed with trees, and never free from snow. The same mountain supplies the river Jordan with water, and affords it its fountains also. Nor is this Jordan carried into the sea; it passes through one and a second lake, undiminished, but it is stopped by the third.‡

This last lake is vastly great in circumference, as if it were a sea. It is of an ill taste, and is pernicious to the adjoining inhabitants by its strong smell. The wind raises no waves there, nor will it maintain either fishes, or such birds as use the water. The reason is uncertain; but the fact is this, that bodies cast into it are borne up, as by somewhat solid.

See the chorography, of Judea in Josephus, of the War, B. iii. sec. 3. vol. v. whence most probably Tacitus, framed this short abridgment of it. It comes in both authors naturally before Vespasian's first campaign.

The latter branch of this, Tacitus might have from Josephus, of the War, B. iii. c. iii. sec. 2, 3, 4. vol. v. The other is not in the present copies.

These accounts of Jordan, of its fountains derived from mount Li banus, and of the two lakes it runs through, and its stoppage by the third, are exactly agreeable to Josephus, of the War, B. iiì. c. x. sec. 7, 8. vol. v.

No less than 580 furlongs long, and 150 broad, in Josephus, of the War, B. iv. c. viii. sec. iv. vol. v.