of the sabbath by the
Jews. See Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 2. sect. 4, and ch. 6. sect. 2; the Life,
sect. 54; and War, B. IV. ch. 9. sect. 12.

[21] Not their law, but the superstitious interpretation of their
leaders which neither the Maccabees nor our blessed Savior did ever
approve of.

[22] In reading this and the remaining sections of this book, and some
parts of the next, one may easily perceive that our usually cool and
candid author, Josephus, was too highly offended with the impudent
calumnies of Manethe, and the other bitter enemies of the Jews, with
whom he had now to deal, and was thereby betrayed into a greater heat
and passion than ordinary, and that by consequence he does not hear
reason with his usual fairness and impartiality; he seems to depart
sometimes from the brevity and sincerity of a faithful historian, which
is his grand character, and indulges the prolixity and colors of a
pleader and a disputant: accordingly, I confess, I always read these
sections with less pleasure than I do the rest of his writings, though
I fully believe the reproaches cast on the Jews, which he here endeavors
to confute and expose, were wholly groundless and unreasonable.

[23] This is a very valuable testimony of Manetho, that the laws of
Osarsiph, or Moses, were not made in compliance with, but in opposition
to, the customs of the Egyptians. See the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8.
sect. 9.

[24] By way of irony, I suppose.

[25] Here we see that Josephus esteemed a generation between Joseph
and Moses to be about forty-two or forty-three years; which, if taken
between the earlier children, well agrees with the duration of human
life in those ages. See Antheat. Rec. Part II. pages 966, 1019, 1020.

[26] That is the meaning of Hierosyla in Greek, not in Hebrew.

BOOK II.

1. In the former book, most honored Epaphroditus, I have demonstrated
our antiquity, and confirmed the truth of what I have said, from the
writings of the Phoenicians, and Chaldeans, and Egyptians. I have,
moreover, produced many of the Grecian writers as witnesses thereto.
I have also made a refutation of Manetho and Cheremon, and of certain
others of our enemies. I shall now [1] therefore begin a confutation of
the remaining authors who have written any thing against us; although
I confess I have had a doubt upon me about Apion [2] the grammarian,
whether I ought to take the trouble of confuting him or not; for some
of his writings contain much