ooden instrument, and put it
round about him, and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after
such a manner, that he appeared to those that stood a great way off
him to be a kind of star, walking upon the earth; that the Jews were
terribly affrighted at so surprising an appearance, and stood very quiet
at a distance; and that Zabidus, while they continued so very quiet,
went into the holy house, and carried off that golden head of an ass,
[for so facetiously does he write,] and then went his way back again
to Dora in great haste." And say you so, sir! as I may reply; then
does Apion load the ass, that is, himself, and lays on him a burden of
fooleries and lies; for he writes of places that have no being, and not
knowing the cities he speaks of, he changes their situation; for Idumea
borders upon our country, and is near to Gaza, in which there is no
such city as Dora; although there be, it is true, a city named Dora in
Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel, but it is four days' journey from Idumea.
[12] Now, then, why does this man accuse us, because we have not gods in
common with other nations, if our fathers were so easily prevailed upon
to have Apollo come to them, and thought they saw him walking upon the
earth, and the stars with him? for certainly those who have so many
festivals, wherein they light lamps, must yet, at this rate, have never
seen a candlestick! But still it seems that while Zabidus took his
journey over the country, where were so many ten thousands of people,
nobody met him. He also, it seems, even in a time of war, found the
walls of Jerusalem destitute of guards. I omit the rest. Now the doors
of the holy house were seventy [13] cubits high, and twenty cubits
broad; they were all plated over with gold, and almost of solid gold
itself, and there were no fewer than twenty [14] men required to shut
them every day; nor was it lawful ever to leave them open, though it
seems this lamp-bearer of ours opened them easily, or thought he
opened them, as he thought he had the ass's head in his hand. Whether,
therefore, he returned it to us again, or whether Apion took it, and
brought it into the temple again, that Antiochus might find it, and
afford a handle for a second fable of Apion's, is uncertain.

11. Apion also tells a false story, when he mentions an oath of ours,
as if we "swore by God, the Maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea,
to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the