Celsus, Porphyry and Julian Against the Christians 4 – Taylor · Verses Across
Freethought · Ancient critics
Celsus, Porphyry and Julian Against the Christians 4From Manetho Respecting the Israelites
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Freethought · Ancient critics
Celsus, Porphyry and Julian Against the Christians 4
From Manetho Respecting the Israelites
TaylorEnglish
"While such was the state of things in Ethiopia, the people of Jerusalem, having come down with the defiled of the Egyptians, treated the inhabitants in such an unholy manner, that those who witnessed
their impieties, believed that their joint sway was more execrable than that which the shepherds had formerly exercised. For they not only set fire to the cities and villages, but committed every kind of sacrilege, and destroyed the images of the gods, and roasted and fed upon those sacred animals that were worshipped; and having compelled the priests and prophets to kill and sacrifice them, they cast them naked out of the country. It is said also that the priest who ordained their polity and laws was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from Osons the god of Heliopolis; but that when he went over to these people, his name was changed, and he was called Moyses."
Manetho again says: "After this, Amenophis returned from Ethiopia with a great force, and Rampses also his son with other forces; and encountering the shepherds and defiled people, they defeated and slew multitudes of them, add pursued them to the bounds of Syria."--Joseph contn App. lib. i. cap. 26, & 27.
"Cherilus also, a still more ancient writer [than Herodotus], and a poet, makes mention of our nation, and informs us that it came to the assistance of king Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. For in his enumeration of all those nations, he last of
all inserts ours among the rest, when he says: "At the last, there passed over a people wonderful to behold; for they spake the Phoenician tongue, and dwelt in the Solymaean mountains, near a broad lake. Their heads were sooty; they had round rasures on them; their heads and faces were like nasty horse heads, also, that had been hardened in the smoke."--Whiston's Josephus, vol. iv. p. 299.
EXTRACTS FROM THE FIFTH BOOK OF TACITUS RESPECTING THE JEWS, AS TRANSLATED BY MURPHY.
"Being now to relate the progress of a siege that terminated in the destruction of that once celebrated city [Jerusalem], it may be proper to go back to its first foundation, and to trace the origin of the people. The Jews we are told were natives of the Isle of Crete. At the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the violence of Jupiter, they abandoned their habitations, and gained a settlement at the extremity of Libya. In support of this tradition, the etymology of their name is adduced as a proof. Mount Ida, well known to fame, stands in the Isle of Crete: the inhabitants are called Idaeans; and the word by a barbarous corruption was changed afterwards to that of Judaeans. According to others they were a colony from Egypt, when that country, during the reign of Isis,
overflowing with inhabitants poured forth its redundant numbers under the conduct of Hierosolymus and Juda. A third hypothesis makes them originally Ethiopians, compelled by the tyranny of Cepheus, the reigning monarch, to abandon their country. Some authors contend that they were a tribe of Assyrians, who for some time occupied a portion of Egypt, and afterwards transplanting themselves into Syria, acquired in their own right a number of cities, together with the territories of the Hebrews. There is still another tradition, which ascribes to the Jews a more illustrious origin, deriving them from the ancient Solymans, so highly celebrated in the poetry of Homer. By that people the city was built, and from its founder received the name of Hierosolyma.
"In this clash of opinions, one point seems to be universally admitted. A pestilential disease, disfiguring the race of man, and making the body an object of loathsome deformity, spread all over Egypt. Bocchoris, at that time the reigning monarch, consulted the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, and received for answer that the kingdom must be purified by exterminating the infected multitude as a race of men detested by the gods. After diligent search, the wretched sufferers were collected together, and in a wild and barren desert abandoned to their misery.
In that distress, while the vulgar herd was
sunk in deep despair, Moses, one of their number, reminded them, that by the wisdom of his counsels they had been already rescued out of impending danger. Deserted as they were by men and gods, he told them that if they did not repose their confidence in him, as their chief by divine commission, they had no resource left. His offer was accepted. Their march began they knew not whither. Want of water was their chief distress. Worn out with fatigue they lay stretched out on the bare earth, heart-broken, ready to expire; when a troop of wild asses, returning from pasture, went up the steep ascent of a rock covered with a grove of trees. The verdure of the herbage round the place, suggested the idea of springs near at hand. Moses traced the steps of the animals, and discovered a plentiful vein of water. By this relief the fainting multitude was raised from despair. They pursued their journey for six days without intermission. On the seventh they made a halt, and having expelled the natives took possession of the country, where they built their city and dedicated their temple.
"In order to draw the bond of union closer, and to establish his own authority, Moses gave a new form of worship, and a system of religious ceremonies, the reverse of every thing known to any other age or country. Whatever is held sacred by
the Romans, with the Jews is profane: and what in other nations is unlawful and impure, with them is fully established. The figure of the animal that guided them to refreshing springs is consecrated in the sanctuary of their temple*. In contempt of Jupiter Hammon they sacrifice a ram. The ox worshiped in Egypt for the god Apis is slain as a victim by the Jews. From the flesh of swine they abstain altogether. An animal subject to the same leprous disease that infected their whole nation, is not deemed proper food. The famine with which they were for a long time afflicted, is frequently commemorated by a solemn fast. Their bread, in memory of their having seized a quantity of grain to relieve their wants, is made without leaven. The seventh day is sacred to rest, for on that day their labours ended; and such is their natural propensity to sloth, that in consequence of it every seventh year is devoted to repose and sluggish inactivity. For this septennial custom some account in a
* Conformably to this, see what Diodorus Siculus says (in the extract given from him, p. 49.): Josephus denies that the figure of an ass was consecrated in the sanctuary of the Jewish temple. But this does not invalidate the testimony of Diodorus Siculus to the contrary. For Antiochus when he subdued the Jews might have found the image of this animal in their temple; but in the time of Josephus the ass might not have been consecrated by them.
different manner: they tell us that it is an institution in honour of Saturn; either because the Idaeans, expelled, as has been mentioned, from the Isle of Crete, transmitted to their posterity the principles of their religious creed; or because among the seven planets that govern the universe, Saturn moves in the highest orbit, and acts with the greatest energy. It may be added that the period in which the heavenly bodies perform their revolutions is regulated by the number seven.
"These rites and ceremonies, from whatever source derived, owe their chief support to their antiquity.
They have other institutions, in themselves corrupt, impure, and even abominable; but eagerly embraced, as if their very depravity were a recommendation. The scum and refuse of other nations, renouncing the religion of their country, flocked in crowds to Jerusalem, enriching the place with gifts and offerings. Hence the wealth and grandeur of the state. Connected amongst themselves by the most obstinate and inflexible faith, the Jews extend their charity to all of their own persuasion, while towards the rest of mankind they nourish a sullen and inveterate hatred. Strangers are excluded from their tables. Unsociable to all others, they eat and lodge with one another only; and though addicted to sensuality, they admit no intercourse with women
from other nations. Among themselves their passions are without restraint. Vice itself is lawful. That they may know each other by distinctive marks, they have established the practice of circumcision. All who embrace their faith, submit to the same operation. The first elements of their religion teach their proselytes to despise the gods, to abjure their country, and forget their parents, their brothers, and their children. With the Egyptians they agree in their belief of a future state; they have the same notion of departed spirits, the same solicitude, and the same doctrine. With regard to the Deity their creed is different. The Egyptians worship various animals, and also symbolical representations, which are the work of man: the Jews acknowledge one God only, and him they adore in contemplation; condemning as impious idolaters all who, with perishable materials wrought into the human form, attempt to give a representation of the Deity. Their priests made use of fifes and cymbals; they were crowned with wreaths of ivy, and a vine wrought in gold was seen in their temple. Hence some have inferred that Bacchus, the conqueror of the East, was the object of their adoration. But the Jewish forms of worship have no conformity to the rites of Bacchus. The latter have their festive days which are always celebrated with mirth and carousing banquets. Those of the Jews are a gloomy ceremony,
fall of absurd enthusiasm, rueful, mean, and sordid."
"Chaeremon *, professing to write the history of Egypt, says, that under Amenophis and his son Ramessis two hundred and fifty thousand leprous and polluted men were cast out of Egypt. Their leaders were Moses the scribe, and Josephus, who was also a sacred scribe. The Egyptian name of Moses was Tisithen, of Joseph Peteseph. These coming to Pelusium, and finding there 380,000 men left by Amenophis, which he would not admit into Egypt, making a league with them, they undertook an expedition against Egypt. Upon this Amenophis flies into Ethiopia, and his son Messenes drives out the Jews into Syria, in number about 200,000, and receives his father Amenophis out of Ethiopia. I know Lysimachus** assigns another king and another time in which Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and that was when Bocchoris reigned in Egypt; the nation of the Jews, being infected with leprosies and scabs and other diseases, betook themselves to the temples to beg their living, and many being tainted with the disease, there happened a dearth in Egypt. Whereupon Bocchoris consulting
* Joseph, lib. i. contra Apionem.
** Idem.
with the oracle of Ammon, received for answer that the leprous people were to be drowned in the sea, in sheets of lead, and the scabbed were to be carried into the wilderness; who choosing Moses for their leader, conquered that country which is now called Judaea."--Greaves Pyramidograpkia, p. 26.
EXTRACTS FROM THE WORKS OF THE EMPEROR JULIAN RELATIVE TO THE CHRISTIANS.
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Freethought · Ancient critics
Celsus, Porphyry and Julian Against the Christians 5
