tiq.
B. XIV. ch. 10. sect. 9,3; Acts 16:13. 16.

[11] The use of oil was much greater, and the donatives of it much more
valuable, in Judea, and the neighboring countries, than it is amongst
us. It was also, in the days of Josephus, thought unlawful for Jews to
make use of any oil that was prepared by heathens, perhaps on account
of some superstitions intermixed with its preparation by those heathens.
When therefore the heathens were to make them a donative of oil,: they
paid them money instead of it. See Of the War, B. II. ch. 21. sect. 2;
the Life of Josephus, sect. 13; and Hudson's note on the place before
us.

[12] This, and the like great and just characters, of the justice, and
equity, and generosity of the old Romans, both to the Jews and other
conquered nations, affords us a very good reason why Almighty God,
upon the rejection of the Jews for their wickedness, chose them for
his people, and first established Christianity in that empire; of which
matter see Josephus here, sect. 2; as also Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 10. sect.
22, 23; B. XVI. ch. 2. sect. 4.

[13] The name of this place, Phicol, is the very same with that of
the chief captain of Abimelech's host, in the days of Abraham, Genesis
21:22, and might possibly be the place of that Phicol's nativity or
abode, for it seems to have been in the south part of Palestine, as that
was.

[14] Whence it comes that these Lacedemonians declare themselves here
to be of kin to the Jews, as derived from the same ancestor, Abraham, I
cannot tell, unless, as Grotius supposes, they were derived from Dores,
that came of the Pelasgi. These are by Herodotus called Barbarians, and
perhaps were derived from the Syrians and Arabians, the posterity of
Abraham by Keturah. See Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 10. sect. 22; and Of the War,
B. I. ch. 26. sect. l; and Grot. on 1 Macc. 12:7. We may further observe
from the Recognitions of Clement, that Eliezer, of Damascus, the servant
of Abraham, Genesis 15:2; 24., was of old by some taken for his son.
So that if the Lacedemonians were sprung from him, they might think
themselves to be of the posterity of Abraham, as well as the Jews, who
were sprung from Isaac. And perhaps this Eliezer of Damascus is that
very Damascus whom Trogus Pompeius, as abridged by Justin, makes the
founder of the Jewish nation itself, though he afterwards blunders, and
makes Azelus, Adores, Abraham, and Israel kings of Judea, and successors
to this Damascus. It may not be im