The Project Gutenberg EBook of Against Apion, by Flavius Josephus

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Title: Against Apion

Author: Flavius Josephus

Translator: William Whiston

Posting Date: December 6, 2008 [EBook #2849]
Release Date: October, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Reed

AGAINST APION.

[1]

By Flavius Josephus

Translated by William Whiston

BOOK 1.

1. I Suppose that by my books of the Antiquity of the Jews, most
excellent Epaphroditus, [2] have made it evident to those who peruse
them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a
distinct subsistence of its own originally; as also, I have therein
declared how we came to inhabit this country wherein we now live. Those
Antiquities contain the history of five thousand years, and are taken
out of our sacred books, but are translated by me into the Greek tongue.
However, since I observe a considerable number of people giving ear to
the reproaches that are laid against us by those who bear ill-will to
us, and will not believe what I have written concerning the antiquity of
our nation, while they take it for a plain sign that our nation is of a
late date, because they are not so much as vouchsafed a bare mention by
the most famous historiographers among the Grecians. I therefore have
thought myself under an obligation to write somewhat briefly about
these subjects, in order to convict those that reproach us of spite and
voluntary falsehood, and to correct the ignorance of others, and withal
to instruct all those who are desirous of knowing the truth of what
great antiquity we really are. As for the witnesses whom I shall produce
for the proof of what I say, they shall be such as are esteemed to be
of the greatest reputation for truth, and the most skillful in the
knowledge of all antiquity by the Greeks themselves. I will also show,
that those who have written so reproachfully and falsely about us are
to be convicted by what they have written themselves to the contrary.
I shall also endeavor to give an account of the reasons why it hath so
happened, that there have not been a great number