Antiquities of the Jews --
Preface
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
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 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,
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
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
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
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. Those books of the War were
published about A.D. 75, and these Antiquities, A. D. 93, about eighteen years
later.
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.
Josephus here plainly alludes to the famous Greek proverb, If God be with us,
every thing that is impossible becomes possible.
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."
