VII. Since therefore Tacitus, soon after the publication of Josephus' Antiquities, and in contradiction to them, was determined to produce such idle stories about the Jews, and since one of those idle stories is much the same with that published in Josephus against Apion, from Manetho and Lysimachus, and nowhere else met with so fully in all Antiquity, it is most probable that these Antiquities of Josephus were the very occasion of Tacitus giving us these stories, as we know from Josephus himself, contr. Apion, B. i. sec. 1. that the same Antiquities were the very occasion of Apion's publication of his equally scandalous stories about them, and which Josephus so thoroughly confuted in his two books written against them. And if Tacitus, as I suppose, had also read these two books, his procedure in publishing such stories, after he had seen so thorough a confutation of them, was still more highly criminal. Nor will Tacitus' fault be much less, though we suppose he neither saw the Antiquities, nor the books against Apion, because it was so very easy for him, then at Rome, to have had more authentic accounts of the origin of the Jewish nation, and of the nature of the Jewish and Christian religions, from the Jews and Christians themselves, which he owns were very numerous there in his days so that his publication of such idle stories is still utterly inexcusable. VIII. It is therefore very plain, after all, that notwitstanding the encomiums of several of our learned critics upon Tacitus, and hard suspicions upon Josephus, that all the [involuntary] mistakes of Josephus, in all his large works put together, their quality as well as quantity, considered, do not amount to near so great a sum, as do these gross errors and misrepresentations of Tacitus about the Jews amount to in a few pages, so little reason have some of our later and lesser critics to prefer the Greek and Roman profane historians and writers to the Jewish, and particularly to Josephus. Such later and lesser critics should have learned more judgment and modesty from their great father Joseph Scaliger, when, as we have seen, after all his deeper inquiries, he solemnly pronounces, De Emend. Temp. Prolegom. p. 17, That "Josephus was the most diligent and the greatest lover of truth of all writers ;" and is not afraid to affirm, that " it is more safe to believe him, not only as to the affairs of the Jews, but also as to those that are foreign to them, than all the Greek and Latin writers, and this because his fidelity and compass of learning are every where conspicuous." Of the Jewish Weights and Measures, particularly of those mentioned in Josephus' works. Of the Jewish Measures of Length Inches. Feet. Inches. Stater, siclus, or shekel of the sanctuary, the standard, Tyrian Coin, equal to the shekel, Bekah, half of the shekel, Drachma, Attica, one fourth, Drachma Alexandrina, or drachmon, or adrachmon, one half, 0 Gerah, or obolus, one twentieth, Maneh, or Mna-100 slrekels in weight-21900 grains Troy, Maneh, Mna, or Mina, as a coin,-60 shekels, Talent of silver,-3000 shekels, Drachma of gold not more than 71-2 11-2 001440 60 48 375 0 Talent of gold not more than Table of the Jewish Months in Josephus and others, with the names of the Sy romacedonian names Josephus gives them, and of the Julian or Roman months corresponding to them. Hebrew Names. Syromacedonian Names. Roman Names. April and May. May and June. Daesius Panemus Lous Gorpiaeus Hyperberetaeus Dius Apellaeus Audinaeus Peritius Dystrus June and July. August and September. February and March. ? PREFACE.* 1. THOSE who undertake to write histories, do not, 1 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 great 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 were concerned in the facts, and so cannot excuse themselves for 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† 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, to explain who the Jews originally were; what fortunes they had been subject to; and by what legislator 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 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. + That is, all the Gentiles, both Greeks and Romans. We may seasonably note here, that Josephus wrote his seven books of the Jewish War long before he wrote these his Antiquities. These books of the War were published about A. D. 75, and these Antiquities A. D. 93, about eighteen years later. |