Praeparatio evangelica

The pillars of the temple are to be of equal size, and each pillar is to be ten cubits in circumference. Set them up in the house, one on the right and one on the left. Also make ten golden lampstands, each weighing ten talents, taking as a model the one placed by Moses in the tent of the testimony. Set them up on each side of the sanctuary, those on the right and those on the left. Also make seventy golden lamps, so that seven may burn on each lampstand. Build the gates of the temple and adorn them with gold and silver. And roof them with cedar and cypress paneling. Also make a portico on the north side of the temple and support it with forty bronze pillars. Also construct a bronze laver, twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide, and five cubits high. Make a rim on it projecting one cubit outward from the base, so that the priests may step onto it to wash their feet and rinse their hands. Also make the bases of the laver, twelve in number, chased and cast, of man-height, and set them at the rear part under the laver, to the right of the altar. Also make a bronze base two cubits high for the laver, so that the king may stand upon it when he prays, in order to be seen by the people of the Jews. Build the altar twenty-five cubits by twenty cubits, and twelve cubits high. Also make two bronze rings with chains and set them on machines projecting twenty cubits above the height of the temple, and shade the whole temple from above.

and to hang from each net four hundred bronze bells of a talent weight; and to make all the nets so that the bells would sound and scare away the birds, so that they would not settle on the temple nor nest in the coffers of the gates and porticoes and defile the temple with their droppings. And to surround the city of Jerusalem with walls and towers and moats; and to build palaces for himself. And the palace was first called the Temple of Solomon, but later the city was corruptly named Jerusalem from the temple, and by the Greeks it is called Hierosolyma accordingly. And when he had completed the temple and walled the city, to go to Shiloh and offer a sacrifice of a thousand oxen to God as a whole burnt offering. And taking the tent and the altar and the vessels which Moses made, to bring them to Jerusalem and place them in the house. And also the ark and the golden altar and the lampstand and the table and the other vessels to deposit there, as the prophet commanded him. And to offer to God a sacrifice of ten thousand, two thousand sheep, three thousand five hundred calves. And the total gold used for the two pillars and the temple was 460,000 talents; and for the nails and the other fittings, 1,232 talents of silver; and for the columns and the laver and the portico, 18,050 talents of bronze. And Solomon sent away the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, each to their own land, giving each ten gold shekels.

The talent is a shekel. And to the king of Egypt, Ouaphres, he sent ten thousand measures of oil, a thousand artabas of dates, a hundred jars of honey, and spices. And to Souron in Tyre he sent the golden pillar, the one dedicated in Tyre in the temple of Zeus.

30. THEOPHILUS ON SOLOMON: "Theophilus says that Solomon sent the surplus gold to the king of the Tyrians; and that he made a life-sized image of his daughter, and placed the golden pillar as a sheath around the statue."

37. EUPOLEMUS ON SOLOMON: "Eupolemus says that Solomon also made a thousand golden shields, each of five hundred gold pieces. And that he lived fifty-two years, of which he reigned in peace for forty years."

38. TIMOCHARES ON JERUSALEM: "Timochares says in his work On Antiochus that Jerusalem has a perimeter of forty stades; and that it is difficult to capture, being enclosed on all sides by sheer ravines. The whole city is watered by streams, so that even the gardens are irrigated by the waters flowing from the city. The area between the city and up to forty stades is waterless, but from the forty stades onward it is again well-watered.

39. From the Syrian Schoinometer concerning Jerusalem: "The Syrian Schoinometer, having written a schoinometresis in the first book, says that Jerusalem lies on a high and rough place; that some parts of the wall are built of hewn stone, but the greater part of rubble; and that the city has a perimeter of twenty-seven stades, and that there is also a spring in the place that gushes forth abundant water."

40. From Philo concerning the waters in Jerusalem: "Philo says in his work On Jerusalem that there is a spring, and that this spring dries up in winter but fills in summer. He speaks thus in the first book: 'Swimming above, the most astonishing other spectacle: in harmony with the baths of the great lord, it fills a deep stream from the issuing current,' and so forth. To which he adds further on concerning the filling: 'For a high-shining stream, rushing in rainy snowstorms, joyful, turns under the neighboring towers, and shows the dry dust-covered ground of the spring's far-shining wonders to the peoples above,' and what follows these. Then again concerning the high priest's spring and the drainage he expounds thus: 'Steep pipes spew forth through the earth to the water-carriers,' and all else that follows these." So much then from Alexander Polyhistor. Concerning the waters in Jerusalem, Aristeas also in his book written On the Interpretation of the Law of the Jews records these things:

41. From Aristeas concerning the waters in Jerusalem: "The house faces east, and its rear faces west. The entire floor is laid with stone and has slopes toward the appropriate places for the sake of the flow of water, which occurs due to the washing away of the blood from the sacrifices; for many tens of thousands of cattle are brought on the days of the festivals. There is an inexhaustible supply of water, as if a copious spring were naturally flowing within, and also because of wonderful and indescribable reservoirs existing underground, as they revealed, extending five stades around the foundation of the temple, and from these countless channels, with the streams joining each other in every part; and all these are lined with lead on the floor and walls, and over these a great quantity of plaster has been spread, everything having been effectively constructed." In addition to these things, since Polyhistor has made mention of the prophecy of Jeremiah, it would be most unreasonable for us to pass over this in silence. Let this, then, also be set down.

42. From Eupolemus concerning Jeremiah the prophet, similarly: "Then Joiachim; during his reign Jeremiah the prophet prophesied. He was sent by God and found the Jews sacrificing to a golden idol, whose name was Baal. He revealed to them the coming misfortune. Joiachim attempted to burn him alive. But Jeremiah said that these logs would cook the Babylonians and that they would dig the canals of the Tigris and Euphrates when taken captive. When the king of the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar, heard what Jeremiah had foretold, he summoned Astibares, the king of the Medes, to campaign with him. Taking Babylonians and Medes and gathering eighteen thousand infantry, one hundred twenty thousand cavalry, and ten thousand chariots, he first subdued Samaria, Galilee, Scythopolis, and the Jews dwelling in Galaaditis; then he took Jerusalem and captured Joiachim, the king of the Jews alive. He collected the gold, silver, and bronze from the temple and sent them to Babylon, except for the ark and the tablets within it; Jeremiah kept these." It is necessary to add to these also the accounts concerning the captivity of the Jews that occurred under Nebuchadnezzar.

43. From Berossus concerning the captivity of the Jews under Nabouchodonosor: from the first book of Josephus's Archaeology: "Nabouchodonosor, having joined the rebel and drawn up for battle, gained possession of him and made the country subject to their rule from that point. And it happened that his father Nabopallasar, having fallen ill at this time, departed life in the city of the Babylonians, having reigned twenty-one years. And Nabouchodonosor, learning of his father's death not long after, having settled affairs in Egypt and the rest of the country, and having entrusted the captives of the Jews, Phoenicians, Syrians, and the nations in Egypt to some of his friends, went to Babylonia." And after other matters he says: "Nabouchodonosor, then, after beginning the aforementioned wall, having fallen into illness, departed life, having reigned forty-three years. And his son Evilmalourouchos became master of the kingdom. This man, having taken charge of affairs lawlessly and licentiously, was plotted against by Neriglisaros, who had his sister, and was killed, having reigned two years. And after this man was killed, Neriglisaros, who had plotted against him, succeeded to the rule and reigned four years. His son Labaessoarachos gained control of the kingdom, being a child, for nine months; and having been plotted against because he showed much evil character, he was beaten to death by his friends. And when this man had perished, those who had plotted against him came together and jointly placed the kingdom upon Nabonnedos, one of those from Babylon who was of the same conspiracy.

During his reign the walls of the city of Babylon along the river were adorned with baked brick and asphalt. In the seventeenth year of his reign, Cyrus came from Persia with a large force, subdued the whole remaining kingdom, and marched against Babylonia. Nabonidus, learning of his approach, met him with his army and drew up for battle, but was defeated in the engagement and fled with a few followers, shutting himself up in the city of Borsippa. Cyrus, having taken Babylon and ordered the outer walls of the city to be demolished, because the city seemed to him very strongly fortified and difficult to capture, marched against Borsippa to besiege Nabonidus. But Nabonidus, not enduring the siege, surrendered himself beforehand. Cyrus treated him humanely, gave him a dwelling place in Carmania, and sent him out of Babylonia. So Nabonidus, having passed the rest of his life in that land, ended his life. These things agree in truth with our scriptures. For it is written in them that Nebuchadnezzar in the eighteenth year of his reign laid waste our temple, and it lay desolate for fifty years. In the second year of the reign of Cyrus the foundations were laid, and in the tenth year of the reign of Darius it was completed. So says Josephus. I have also found in the work of Abydenus concerning the Assyrians the following about Nebuchadnezzar:

24. Abydenus on Nebuchadnezzar: "Megasthenes says that Nebuchadnezzar became mightier than Heracles and campaigned against Libya and Iberia. Having subdued these, he settled their tribute-payers on the right side of the Pontus. Afterwards it is said by the Chaldeans that, having ascended to the royal palace, he was possessed by some god, and spoke thus: 'I am this Nebuchadnezzar, O Babylonians, and I foretell the coming calamity for you, which neither Belus my ancestor nor Queen Beltis can avert by persuading Fate. A Persian mule will come, using your own gods as allies, and will bring slavery. A Mede will be the cause of this, the pride of Assyria. Would that, before betraying the citizens, some Charybdis or sea had swallowed him up root and branch, or that he had turned to other paths and been carried through the desert, where there are no cities nor any human track, but beasts have their pasture and birds wander, wandering alone among rocks and ravines; and that I, before I had conceived these things, had met with a better end.' Having prophesied, he immediately vanished. His son Amilmarudocus reigned. His son-in-law Iglysaris killed him and left a son Labassoarascus. When he died a violent death, they appointed Nabanedochus king, though he was no relation. Cyrus, having taken Babylon, gave him the governorship of Carmania." And concerning the building of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, the same author writes thus:

45. Of the same author, concerning the building of Babylon: "It is said that originally everything was water, called sea. Belus put a stop to this, assigning a region to each, and surrounded Babylon with a wall, but in the course of time it disappeared. Then Nebuchadnezzar again walled it, which remained until the rule of the Macedonians, being bronze-gated." And after other matters he adds: "Nebuchadnezzar, having succeeded to the rule, walled Babylon with a triple circuit in fifteen days, and diverted the river Armakale, which is a branch of the Euphrates, and also the Akrakanus. Above the city of the Sipparenians, having dug a reservoir with a perimeter of forty parasangs and a depth of twenty fathoms, he set gates, which when opened irrigated the plain; and they call them canal-regulators. He also walled off the flood of the Red Sea and founded the city of Teredon at the approaches of the Arabs; and he adorned the royal palaces with trees, naming them hanging gardens." And let these things be set down by me from the indicated writing because it is mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar, walking in the temple of his kingdom in Babylon, being greatly proud, spoke arrogantly, saying: "Is this not great Babylon, which I built as a house of the kingdom, in the strength of my power, for the honor of my glory?" While the word was still on his lips, the events of the subsequent destruction befell him. So much then is sufficient for us concerning these matters. Let there be added to all this also the words from Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, where, after citing verbatim the voices of countless writers, he adds these things:

40. Of Josephus, concerning those who have made mention of the Jewish nation: "Yet the records of the Syrians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians, together with so many Greek writers, and in addition to those mentioned, Theophilus, Theodotus, Mnaseas, Aristophanes, Hermogenes, Euhemerus, Comon, Zopyrion, and many others—for I have not, I suppose, come across all the books—have not made casual mention of us. Most of the men mentioned have missed the truth of the original events because they did not consult our sacred books; nevertheless, they have all commonly borne witness to our antiquity, which is what I now propose to discuss. Demetrius of Phalerum, however, and Philo the Elder, and Eupolemus did not stray far from the truth. They deserve pardon, for it was not possible for them to follow our writings with complete accuracy." So says Josephus. And if anyone wishes to consult the writings of this author concerning the antiquity of the Jews, he would find many testimonies in agreement with those set forth. And a great multitude of other witnesses, both ancient and recent writers, flows in, confirming the same verdict as those already presented. Their voices, with a view to the symmetry of the discourse, we leave for the studious to seek out and investigate, and we ourselves will proceed to the remaining promise.

10. The tenth book of the Preparation for the Gospel contains the following.

1. That the venerable branches of learning passed from the barbarians to the Greeks; and concerning the antiquity of the Hebrews. 2. Concerning the theft of the Greek writers; from Clement. 3. Porphyry on the Greeks being thieves. 4. That we have not without reason preferred the theology among the Hebrews to Greek philosophy. 5. That the Greeks have derived everything from the barbarians. 6. On the same subject; from the works of Clement. 7. Josephus on the same subject. 8. Diodorus, who compiled the libraries, on the same subject. 9. Concerning the antiquity of Moses and the prophets among the Hebrews. 10. Africanus on the same subject. 11. Tatian on the same subject. 12. Clement on the same subject. 13. Josephus on the same subject. 14. That the times of all the history among the Hebrews are more recent than those of the philosophers among the Greeks.

1. That the venerable branches of learning passed from the barbarians to the Greeks; and concerning the antiquity of the Hebrews. Having already set forth by what arguments we have preferred the philosophy of the Hebrews to that of the Greeks, and by what reasoning we have accepted the sacred books of those men, and then having shown that the Greeks themselves were not ignorant of these men, but mentioned them by name, were amazed at their life, and made great account of their royal metropolis and the rest of their history, let us now consider that they not only deemed their memory worthy of record, but also became emulators of their teaching and learning in some of the doctrines tending to the improvement of the soul.

How then the rest of the sciences were collected by the various wonderful Greeks from the barbarians, as they travelled around—geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy, medicine, even the first elements of grammar, and countless other technical and life-beneficial pursuits—I shall presently demonstrate. Just as the discourse has already shown that they derived from the barbarians the belief in many gods, the mysteries and initiations, and further the histories and mythical narratives about the gods, as well as the allegorized physical interpretations of the myths and the rest of superstitious error—at the time when we detected that the Greeks, having wandered over much land, not without toil, but from a collection of barbarian learning, established their own theology—so it will be shown before long that the doctrines concerning piety toward the one God over all, and those concerning the most sought-after teachings for the benefit of the soul, which would be the most essential of philosophical discourses, could have been procured from no other source than from the Hebrews alone. Or if someone should say that they arrived at these by being moved by natural conceptions, this too would be in our favor, if we have chosen to emulate not only what has been handed down from eternity by the theologian prophets among the Hebrews, but also what has been examined and approved by some—if not all—of those very Greeks who have great renown throughout Hellas, and in the schools of philosophers.

These you would find to be limited in number, because all noble things are said to be difficult, yet they are honored with the first prizes among the philosophers of the Greeks, so that through their great reputation they overshadow those like them in glory. Nor should you wonder if we say that it is possible for them to have fabricated even the doctrines of the Hebrews, since not only do they stand convicted of having plundered the Egyptians and Chaldeans and the other barbarian nations of the rest of the sciences, but even now they are caught depriving each other of their own ambitions in their writings. For each of them, having stealthily appropriated the words, thoughts, and entire compositions of their neighbors, has boasted of them as if they were his own labors. And do not suppose this to be my word; you will hear again from the all-wise themselves their mutual accusations of theft in words. And this very thing, since we have once set out, it is necessary first of all to examine for the refutation of the manner of the matters in question. Our Clement, then, in the sixth Stromateus, has directed the demonstration of this at length. Take this first from him and read the following words:

2. CLEMENT ON THE THEFT OF THE GREEK WRITERS: "Having set forth the illumination of Greek invention from the truth given to us through the scriptures, which was irradiated, in which sense we understand the theft of truth to have penetrated to them, if it is not burdensome to say, we have demonstrated it. Come, let us present the Greeks themselves as witnesses of the theft against themselves. For those who so openly steal from one another their own works confirm that they are thieves, yet they are shown to appropriate even unwittingly the truth from us and secretly convey it to their own people. For those who do not spare even themselves will hardly abstain from ours. And I will pass over in silence the doctrines concerning philosophy, since those who have divided the sects themselves admit in writing that they received the most important doctrines from Socrates, lest they be convicted of ingratitude. But using a few testimonies of men who are common and esteemed among the Greeks, I will expose their thievish nature, employing different periods, and then turn to what follows." Having said this as a preface, he then brings forward the proofs, using various demonstrations, and first he charges the poets with having stolen from their peers by juxtaposing their words. Then he adds these words: "And so that we may not overlook philosophy and history, nor even rhetoric, as being without a share of the same charge, it is reasonable to set forth a few of these as well." Then accordingly he cites Orpheus, Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagoras, Herodotus, Theopompus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Aeschines,

Lysias, Isocrates, and countless others he cites, whose words it is superfluous for me to enumerate, since the man's own writing lies before us, in which, after the refutations of what has been said, he again speaks thus: "Now then, the forms of the Greek theft of thought, as a clear example for one able to discern, being such, let them suffice. But they have been detected not only in stealing and paraphrasing the thoughts and expressions, as will be shown, but they have also taken the works of others entire and published them as their own, just as Eugrammon the Cyrenaean took from Musaeus the whole book On the Thesprotians." And again, after adding to these more proofs of the argument, he finally adds these words: "Life will fail me if I should attempt to go through each point, refuting the self-loving Greek theft and how they appropriate the discovery of the finest doctrines among them, which they have received from us. But now they are refuted not only for stealing the doctrines from the barbarians, but also for imitating the things among us, which from above, through divine power, by means of those who have lived holily, are paradoxically wrought for our conversion, and they embellish them with Greek mythology. And indeed we shall ask them whether these things they record are true or false. They would not say false; for they would not willingly pass upon themselves the greatest folly, that of writing falsehoods; but they would necessarily confess them to be true. And how then do the things miraculously exhibited through Moses and the other prophets still appear incredible to them?

For the all-ruling God, caring for all men, turns some to salvation by commandments, others by threats, some by portentous signs, and others by gentle promises. But the Greeks—when once a drought was long destroying Greece and a barrenness of crops prevailed—the survivors, they say, came as suppliants to Delphi because of the famine and asked the Pythia how they might be delivered from the calamity. She declared to them that the only deliverance from the disaster was if they made use of Aeacus' prayer. So Aeacus, persuaded by them, went up onto the Greek mountain, stretched his pure hands toward heaven, called God the common father, and prayed to take pity on him and on the afflicted Greece. And as he prayed, a violent thunder crashed, and all the surrounding air was filled with clouds; heavy and continuous rains burst forth and filled the whole land. From this, abundant and rich fruitfulness is produced, cultivated by the prayers of Aeacus. "And Samuel called upon the Lord," it says, "and the Lord gave thunder and rain on the day of harvest." You see that "the one who rains upon the just and the unjust" through the subordinate powers, and so forth. Having joined countless such examples, Clement convicted the Greeks of being thieves by irrefutable proofs. But if this man is not trustworthy to you—since he too, like us, preferred barbarian philosophy to Greek—let it be set aside, even though he directed his argument not with his own words but with those of the Greeks themselves. What would you say if you learned similar things from your own noble philosophers? Receive then also their testimonies:

3. Porphyry, On the Greeks Being Thieves: From the First Book of the Philological Lecture. "Longinus at Athens, feasting us with Platonic fare, invited many others, including Nicagoras the sophist, Maior, Apollonius the grammarian, Demetrius the geometer, Prosenes the Peripatetic, and Callietes the Stoic. With them, I myself reclined as the seventh. As the dinner progressed and some inquiry arose among the others concerning Ephorus, he said, 'Let us hear what the uproar about Ephorus is.' Those inquiring were Caystrius and Maximus; for the one preferred him even to Theopompus, while Caystrius called him a thief. 'And what is peculiar to Ephorus,' he said, 'when from Daimachus, Callisthenes, and Anaximenes he sometimes transfers entire three thousand lines verbatim?' To this Apollonius the grammarian said, 'Do you not know that Theopompus, whom you prefer, has also been seized by this affliction, in the eleventh book of his Philippica, transcribing from Isocrates' Areopagiticus in the very same words those passages, that "none of the good and evil things come to men by themselves," and so forth? And yet he looks down upon Isocrates and claims to have defeated his teacher in the contest over Mausolus. He has also made a removal of material, transferring what was said of some to others, so that he is caught being a liar in this way.'

Andron, in his Tripod, having recorded the things concerning the philosopher Pythagoras regarding his prophecies, and having said that once, when thirsty in Metapontum, he drew water from a well and drank, and foretold that on the third day there would be an earthquake, and having added some other things to these, then adds: "So then, Theopompus stole all these things that Andron recorded about Pythagoras. If he were speaking about Pythagoras, perhaps others also knew about him and said these things, and he himself said them. But now the theft has been made evident by the change of name. For he has used the same facts but has transferred a different name. He has made Pherecydes the Syrian foretell these things. Not only does he conceal the theft by this name, but also by a change of places. For what was said by Andron about the prophecy of the earthquake in Metapontum, Theopompus says was spoken in Syros; and concerning the ship, he says it was observed not from Megara in Sicily, but from Samos; and he transferred the capture of Sybaris to Messene. And in order to seem to say something extra, he has added the name of the stranger, saying he was called Perilaus." "And I," says Nicagoras, "coming across his Hellenica and those of Xenophon, have caught him many times transferring things from Xenophon, and the terrible thing is that it is for the worse.

Now concerning the meeting of Pharnabazus with Agesilaus through Apollophanes of Cyzicus, and their friendly conversations with one another, which Xenophon recorded in his fourth book very gracefully and appropriately to both, Theopompus, having transferred them into the eleventh book of his Hellenica, has made them sluggish, motionless, and ineffective. For, striving to insert and display the power of speech and elaboration even through theft, he appears slow, hesitant, and like one who delays, and he destroys the liveliness and energy of Xenophon." When Nicagoras had said this, Apollonius said: "And why do we wonder if the disease of theft has touched Theopompus and Ephorus, men so rather sluggish, when even Menander was filled with this weakness, whom Aristophanes the grammarian gently reproved, because of his excessive love for him, in his Parallels, selections from him and from those he stole from? And Latinus, in six books which he entitled On the Things Not Original to Menander, revealed the multitude of his thefts; just as Philostratus of Alexandria composed a treatise On the Theft of Sophocles. And Caecilius, as if he had discovered something great, says that Menander transcribed the entire play of Antiphanes, the Oionistes, from beginning to end into his Deisidaimon." "Since it seemed good to you, for some reason, to bring the thieves into the open," he says, "I myself also reveal that the noble Hyperides stole many things from Demosthenes, both in his speech Against Diondas and in his On the Gifts of Eubulus. And that one from the other

He made a clear transposition. And while they were contemporaries, 'It would be your task,' he says, 'O Apollonius, to track down the thief from the chronology. But I suspect that the one who has been filched is Hyperides. Since it is unclear which one, I praise Demosthenes if, having taken from Hyperides, he corrected it for the better; but I blame Hyperides if, having taken from Demosthenes, he distorted it for the worse.' And shortly after he says: 'And why should I tell you that the Barbarian customs of Hellanicus are compiled from those of Herodotus and Damastes? Or that Herodotus in his second book transferred many things from Hecataeus of Miletus verbatim from the *Periegesis*, altering them slightly, such as the matter of the phoenix bird, and about the river horse, and the hunting of crocodiles? Or that the things said about tortures by Isaeus in his *On the Estate of Cylon* and by Isocrates in his *Trapeziticus* are also found in Demosthenes in his *Against Onetor for Ejectment*, spoken almost in the same words? Or that Dinarchus in his first *Against Cleomedon for Assault* transferred many things with the same words from Demosthenes' *Against Conon for Assault*? Or that Hesiod's "For a man there is no better thing to take than a good woman, but of a bad woman there is nothing worse" — this thought Simonides in his eleventh book transferred, taking it thus: "A man takes no better thing than a good woman, and nothing worse than a bad one," and Euripides in his *Melanippe the Captive*: "There is nothing worse than a bad woman, and nothing better than a good one; the natures differ." And when Euripides said, "We women are the most wretched plant," Theodectes in his *Alcmaeon* says:

A clear saying is celebrated among mortals, that there is no plant more wretched than woman. This man not only took his idea from there, but also made use of the very same words. And he cunningly wanted it to be more proverbial and to be seen as using a phrase spoken by many, rather than to appear to have taken it from its author. Antimachus, while stealing from Homer, corrects him. For Homer said: "Idaeus, who was the mightiest of earth-born men," Antimachus says: "Idaeus, who was the mightiest of earth-born men." And Lycophron praises the transposition, as if through it the verse had been stabilized. For the line "and answering him, the lord Diomedes spoke" I pass over in silence, since Homer was mocked by Cratinus for overusing the phrase "and answering him." This, being so hackneyed, Antimachus did not hesitate to transpose. And the Homeric line "of the people over whom he ruled, and he was as gentle as a father," and again elsewhere the line "and they, from both sides, strengthened their phalanxes," Antimachus, by transposing the hemistichs, has made: "of the people over whom they ruled, they strengthened their phalanxes." But lest I myself, while accusing others of theft, be caught as a thief, I will indicate those who have treated these matters.

There is a work of Lysimachus, two books On the Theft from Ephorus, and Alcaeus, the poet of abusive iambics and epigrams, has parodied the thefts from Ephorus, exposing them. There is also a letter of Pollio to Soteridas On the Theft from Ctesias, and by the same author there is a book On the Theft from Herodotus, and in the work entitled The Trackers many things are said about Theopompus. There is also a treatise of Aretades On Coincidence, from which many such things can be learned. And after other matters: And Prosenes said, "You have detected the other thieves, but that this very hero Plato, whose eponymous festival we celebrate today, has made use of many of his predecessors—for I am ashamed to use the name of theft in his case—you have not yet apprehended." "What do you mean?" said Callietes. "I do not only say it," he replies, "but I also provide proof for the argument. The books of those before Plato are rare, since perhaps one would have detected more of the philosopher. I, however, as I have happened by chance upon a work of Protagoras, On Being

Reading a treatise against those who introduce the One Being, I find him using such responses; for I have taken care to record the statements in their exact words." And after saying this, he sets forth the proofs at greater length. But what the manner of the Greek writers is, and that they did not spare even themselves from refutation, I consider the things said sufficient from countless examples. Still further, for the preparation of the benefit that flowed from the Hebrew writings to the Greeks, it seems to me good and necessary to demonstrate in general that the whole vaunted Greek education and philosophy, their primary studies and the venerable parts of logical science, were gathered by them from barbarians, so that none of them might any longer reproach us for having preferred the piety and philosophy among barbarians to their own venerable things.

4. That we have not without reason preferred the theology among the Hebrews to Greek philosophy. That we have not without sound reason placed the philosophy of the Greeks second and preferred the theology among the Hebrews, you would know if you learned that even among the Greeks themselves, those who especially touched upon philosophy more correctly and conceived something more and greater than the common opinion about the gods, discovered no other true doctrines than those already established among the Hebrews. For some, being led away by various false opinions, were turned into a depth of idle talk, while those who used a somewhat well-disposed reasoning, in those matters where they attained a grasp of the truth, in these they appear as sharers of the Hebrew teaching.

It is likely, then, that they became learned, having investigated rather curiously the customs and teachings of the nations, and did not fail to understand the philosophy of the things indicated, being younger in time, so to speak, than all—not only Hebrews, nor even Phoenicians and Egyptians, but also the ancient Greeks themselves. To these, some things from Phoenicia, Cadmus son of Agenor, others from Egypt concerning the gods, or from elsewhere, mysteries and initiations, the setting up of wooden images, hymns, songs, and incantations—whether the Thracian Orpheus or some other Greek or barbarian, having become leaders of the error—established. For of these, the Greeks themselves would admit they know none older. First of all, they say Orpheus, then Linus, and then Musaeus, who lived around the Trojan times or a little before, flourished. But according to these, nothing more than the manifold theology of the Phoenicians and Egyptians was practiced among the Greeks. And indeed among the remaining nations, in all lands and cities, in temples and mysteries, these very things and those similar to them were preserved. So among all, the previously indicated account concerning the gods prevailed; beautiful temples, adorned with all kinds of statues and offerings, were built among all; and indeed wooden images of all kinds of material, skillfully fashioned into every form of mortal animals, were elaborately produced. Moreover, there was a very great and abundant supply of oracles among all.

A certain holy and great god was especially flourishing among the Greeks at that time, the Pythian and the Clarian and the Dodonaean, and then Amphiaraus and Amphilochus, and besides these a countless crowd of oracle-mongers rather than poets and rhapsodists flowing in. Philosophy, coming to the Greeks long afterwards in time, finding nothing among their ancestors that belonged to it, considered the holy and ancient theology that had come to them from their fathers, and those very things that were marvelous and celebrated by all, both divine and oracular, to be in fact superfluous and useless. Therefore it postponed these to second place, as being unable to contribute anything to the discovery of necessary and true things, and then, like a naked thing begging for its own words and teachings, it went about investigating foreign and barbarian things, procuring for itself useful things from everywhere, gathering and collecting whatever it might find among each of the nations. For the Greeks lacked not only the things of true theology, but also the most useful of the other arts and sciences. Indeed, the Greeks themselves agree that after Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus, who were the most ancient and first theologians to begin for them the polytheistic error, the seven men among them were admired for wisdom, whom they even named wise men. These flourished around the time of Cyrus, the king of the Persians.

This was the time when the very last of the prophets among the Hebrews were prophesying, more than six hundred years after the Trojan War, and not less than fifteen hundred years after the age of Moses. This will become clear to you when you go through the chronological records a little later. Around this time the seven sages, who were recent in time, are remembered for the improvement of the more ethical way of life, of whom nothing more than their celebrated sayings is remembered. Later, and somewhat more recent in time, the philosophers among the Greeks are remembered as having become eminent. Of these, Pythagoras was first, a pupil of Pherecydes, who discovered the name of philosophy; as some say, he was a Samian, but as others claim, he was a Tyrrhenian; and some say he was a Syrian or a Tyrian, so that you must acknowledge that the first of the philosophers, celebrated on the lips of all Greeks, was a barbarian, not a Greek. And Pherecydes is recorded as a Syrian, to whom Pythagoras is said to have been a disciple. Pythagoras is said not only to have associated with this man, but also to have spent time with the Magi of the Persians and to have been a disciple of the prophets of the Egyptians, at which time the Hebrews appear to have made their migration, some to Egypt, others to Babylon.

But indeed the man in question, diligently investigating the wisdom found among each people, went to Babylon and Egypt and the whole land of the Persians, being instructed by the Magi and the priests, and it is recorded that he also heard the Brahmans—these are philosophers of the Indians—and that from some he collected astronomy, from others geometry, from others arithmetic, from others music, and other things from still others, but from the wise men of the Greeks he obtained nothing, since they dwelt in poverty of wisdom and perplexity; on the contrary, he himself became the cause of learning for the Greeks from the things he had procured from abroad. Such then was Pythagoras. And from his succession was first established the philosophy called Italic, deemed worthy of its name from his sojourn in Italy; after it came the Ionian, named after Thales, one of the seven sages; and then the Eleatic, which claimed Xenophanes of Colophon as its founder. But Thales, as some relate, was a Phoenician, while others have supposed him a Milesian; and he too is said to have associated with the prophets of the Egyptians. And Solon, also one of the seven sages, who is said to have given laws to the Athenians, likewise, according to Plato, attended to the Egyptians at the time when the Hebrews were again dwelling in Egypt. At any rate, Plato introduces him in the Timaeus being instructed by the barbarian, in the words which the Egyptian says to him:

O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no old man among the Greeks, nor is there any learning that is hoary with time among you." And this Plato, having studied with the Pythagoreans in Italy, was not satisfied with only that school of theirs, but it is said that he set sail for Egypt and devoted a very great amount of time to their philosophy. Indeed, he himself bears witness to the barbarians in many places of his own writings, and in my opinion he does well, gratefully acknowledging that he imports the finest things for philosophy from the barbarians, without denying it. One may hear him in many places, but also in the Epinomis, where he mentions both Syrians and Egyptians in some such way: "The cause of this is the first one who observed these things, being a barbarian. For an ancient place nurtured the first who conceived of these things, because of the beauty of the summer season, which Egypt and Syria possess in sufficient measure. Whence it has spread everywhere and has come here, tested by time both myriad and infinite." And a little further on he adds: "Let us take it that whatever the Greeks receive from the barbarians, they bring it to a finer completion." So says Plato. And Democritus, even earlier, is said to have composed the ethical teachings of the Babylonians. And somewhere, boasting about himself, he says:

I, for my part, wandered over more land than any man of my time, investigating the greatest things, and I saw the most climates and lands and heard the most learned men, and no one surpassed me in the composition of writings with demonstration, neither the Egyptians called Harpedonaptae, among whom I spent eighty years in a foreign land. For he too went to Babylon and Persia and Egypt, studying with the Egyptians and their priests. And what if I were to recount to you Heraclitus and the other Greeks, through whom it is proved that the Greek polity, over a long age, has been impoverished and stripped of every branch of learning? It indeed prided itself on the sacred things of the gods, on statues and images, on oracles and oracular responses, and on the great arrogance of the deceiving demons, but it was utterly bereft of true wisdom and of learning beneficial to life. Nor did their useless oracles contribute anything to the discovery of good doctrines; nay, not even the admirable Pythian himself benefited them at all in philosophy, nor did any other of the gods assist them in the pursuit of anything necessary. But wandering here and there and running about their whole life, they adorned themselves with others' feathers, according to the fable, so that their entire philosophy was assembled from contributions. For they took geometry from the Egyptians, astrology from the Chaldeans, and again other things from others; but they found nothing among any others like the good thing among the Hebrews.

This, then, was the knowledge of the god of the universe and the condemnation of their own gods, which the argument, as it proceeds, will shortly demonstrate. For the present, however, it is indicated to those who encounter it that the ancient Greeks were deprived not only of true theology, but also of the studies beneficial to philosophy, and not only of these, but also of common and civic practices. And I think that this observation will contribute to the proof of my stated purpose, if indeed it is my purpose to render an account of why we have not unreasonably preferred the theology of the Hebrews and what they would call the barbarian philosophy over the Greek. For if they themselves should be seen to have long ago procured everything from barbarians, and to have derived no benefit at all from their own gods for philosophy, but rather to have justly reproached their gods, and some, because of this, to have preferred atheism to the worship of the gods, what need is there for us to be reproached, and not rather to be accepted and praised, because, having loved the better—or rather, having found and received the only true thing—we withdrew from falsehood, neither turning to an atheistic reasoning like the wise men of the Greeks, nor, like the marvelous philosophers, mixing together

having mixed the polytheistic error with the knowledge of the god over all, nor yet confounding falsehood with truth? But not yet these things; first go through those matters by which the Greeks are convicted of having stolen everything from the barbarians, not only the philosophical teachings, but also the common and useful discoveries.

5. HOW THE GREEKS HAVE BEEN BENEFITED IN ALL THINGS FROM THE BARBARIANS

First, then, Cadmus, who introduced the common letters, the very first elements of grammar, to the Greeks, was a Phoenician by race, whence some of the ancients have called the letters Phoenician. There are those who say that the Syrians were the first to devise letters. The Syrians would be also the Hebrews, who inhabit the region neighboring Phoenicia, which itself was anciently called Phoenicia, but later Judaea, and in our time Palestine; and the sound of the Greek letters appears especially not foreign to them. For each of the letters among them bears a name according to some significant meaning, which cannot be found among the Greeks; for this reason especially it is agreed that they are not the peculiar property of the Greeks. Now the total number of letters among the Hebrews is twenty-two, of which the first is Aleph, which, if translated into the Greek tongue, would be called "learning"; the second Beth, which is interpreted "of a house"; the third Gimel, which is "filling"; the fourth Daleth, which signifies "of tablets"; the fifth He, which is "this"; and all together complete some such meaning as this: "Learning of a house, filling of tablets this." Then after these is the sixth letter, called among them Waw, which is "in it"; then Zayin, which is "lives";

After which Heth, which is "the living"; so that the whole is "in her lives the living"; after these the ninth element Teth, which is "good"; then Ioth, which is interpreted "beginning"; together the two "good beginning"; in addition to these Khaph, which is "like"; then Labd, which is "learn"; the whole "like learn". After these the thirteenth element is Mem, which is "from them"; then Nun, which is "eternal"; then Samkh, which is interpreted "help"; so that the saying is "from them eternal help". In addition to these Ain, which when translated signifies "spring or eye"; then Phe, which is "mouth"; then next Sade, which is "righteousness"; the meaning of which is "spring or eye and mouth of righteousness". After these the element is Koph, which is interpreted "calling"; then Res, which is "head"; and after these Sen, which is "teeth"; and finally the twenty-second element is called by them Thau, which signifies "signs". The meaning would be "calling of head and signs of teeth". And among the Hebrews such is the translation and interpretation of the elements, completing a meaning of discourse appropriate to the learning and promise of the elements. But you would not find the like among the Greeks, whence, as I said, it is necessary to confess that they are not native to the Greeks, but manifestly fabricated from the barbarian language. And this is proven from the very name of each element. For what difference is there between Alpha and Aleph? Or between Beta and Beth? Or between Gamma and Gimel? Or between Delta and Daleth? Or between E and He? Or between Zeta and Zayin? Or between Theta and Teth? And so many similar things.

so that it is indisputable that such sounds are not native to the Greeks; they are therefore Hebrew, among whom each of them is shown to signify something. And beginning with these first, they passed on to others and indeed to the Greeks. Let this be said by me concerning the first elements. And Clement, touching upon the same subject as ours, listen to what he says:

ON THE SAME SUBJECT: FROM CLEMENT: "They record that Epis the Egyptian practiced medicine, and after him Asclepius advanced the art. Atlas the Libyan first built a ship and sailed the sea. And the Egyptians first brought astronomy to men, as did the Chaldeans. There are those who say that the Carians devised prognostication through the stars. The Phrygians first observed the flights of birds. The Tuscans, neighbors of Italy, perfected the art of sacrifice. The Isaurians and Arabs cultivated augury, just as the Telmissians did divination through dreams. The Tyrrhenians invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute; for Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians. The Egyptians first showed how to light lamps, divided the year into twelve months, and forbade women to have intercourse in temples, and legislated that women not enter temples unwashed. They also became the inventors of geometry. Celmis and Damnameneus, the Idaean Dactyls, first discovered iron in Cyprus. Another Idaean, Delas, discovered the mixing of copper, but according to Hesiod, a Scythian did. Indeed, the Thracians first invented the so-called harpe, which is a curved sword, and first used shields on horses.

Similarly, the Illyrians invented the so-called pelta. They also say that the Tuscans devised sculpture; and that Itanus, a Samnite, was the first to construct a shield. For Cadmus the Phoenician both discovered stone-cutting and devised the gold mines around Mount Pangaeum. Moreover, another people, the Cappadocians, were the first to find the instrument called the nabla, just as the Assyrians found the dichord. For the Carthaginians first constructed a quadrireme, and it was built by Bosporus, a native. And Medea, daughter of Aeëtes of Colchis, was the first to devise hair-dye. But also the Noropes, a Paeonian people, now called Noricans, worked bronze and were the first to purify iron. And Amycus, king of the Bebryces, found boxing-thongs. Concerning music, Olympus the Mysian artfully devised the Lydian harmony; and those called Troglodytes found the sambuca, a musical instrument. They say that Satyrus the Phrygian found the transverse flute; likewise, Agnis, also a Phrygian, found the trichord and the diatonic harmony; and Olympus, likewise the Phrygian, found rhythms, just as Marsyas, being from the same country as those mentioned, found the Phrygian, Mixo-Phrygian, and Mixo-Lydian harmonies; and that Thamyris the Thracian devised the Dorian harmony. We have heard that the Persians were the first to make a carriage, a couch, and a footstool, and that the Sidonians constructed a trireme. The Siceli, those near Italy, were the first to find the phorminx, not much inferior to the cithara, and devised castanets. And they record that linen garments were found under the reign of Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians.

and first to compose letters was Atossa, the queen of the Persians, says Hellanicus. Scammon of Mytilene and Theophrastus of Eresus, Cydippus of Mantinea, and also Antiphanes, Aristodemus, and Aristotle, and in addition Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic in his On Discoveries, have recorded these things. I have set forth a few of them to demonstrate the inventive and life-beneficial nature among the barbarians, from whom the Greeks have derived their practices. These are the very words of Clement in the Stromata. It seems to me fitting to add to what has been said also the following from the writing of Josephus the Hebrew, which he composed in two books On the Antiquity of the Jews, concerning the fact that the Greeks are recent and have been benefited by barbarians, and that they have written things contradictory to each other. These things will contribute to the accurate and firm confirmation of what has been said. Listen, then, to what this author writes verbatim.

7. JOSEPHUS ON THE SAME SUBJECT: "First of all, I am greatly amazed at those who think that in matters concerning the most ancient events one must attend only to the Greeks and learn the truth from them, while disbelieving us and all other men. For I see the very opposite to have happened, if indeed one must not follow vain opinions but derive the truth from the facts themselves. For all things among the Greeks are found to be recent and of yesterday, so to speak; I mean the foundations of cities, the inventions of arts, and the records of laws.

But among them the practice of writing history is almost the latest of all. As for the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians—I refrain now from including ourselves with them—they themselves, of course, admit that they have the most ancient and enduring tradition of memory. For they all inhabit regions least subject to the destructive forces of the environment, and they took great care to leave nothing that happened among them unrecorded, but to have it always consecrated in public records by their wisest men. The region of Greece, on the other hand, has been overtaken by countless disasters, obliterating the memory of events; and each generation, establishing new lives for itself, thought that it was beginning the whole world from its own time; and only late and with difficulty did they come to know the nature of letters. At any rate, those who claim that their use is most ancient boast of learning it from the Phoenicians and Cadmus. Yet not even from that time could one point to a surviving record either in temples or on public dedications; indeed, even concerning those who campaigned against Troy so many years later, there was much later great uncertainty and inquiry as to whether they used writing; and the truth prevails rather that those men were ignorant of the present use of letters. In general, among the Greeks no writing is found that is agreed to be older than the poetry of Homer; and he appears to have been later than the Trojan events. And they say that not even he left his own poetry in writing, but that it was later compiled from memory from the letters, and that for this reason it contains many discrepancies.

Those among them who attempted to write histories—I mean those like Cadmus of Miletus and Acusilaus of Argos, and after him any others who are said to have existed—were only a short time before the Persian expedition against Greece. Moreover, even those who first philosophized among the Greeks about heavenly and divine matters, such as Pherecydes of Syros, Pythagoras, and Thales, all agree that they were students of Egyptians and Chaldeans and wrote little; and these works are considered by the Greeks to be the most ancient of all, and they barely believe that they were written by those men. How then is it not unreasonable for the Greeks to be puffed up as if they alone knew the ancient things and accurately transmitted the truth about them? Or who would not easily learn from the writers themselves that they wrote knowing nothing for certain, but each conjectured about the matters as they saw fit? At any rate, through their books they refute each other and do not hesitate to say the most contradictory things about the same subjects. But I would be meddlesome in teaching those who know better than I how much Hellanicus disagrees with Acusilaus about the genealogies.

disagree, and how Acusilaus corrects Hesiod; or in what way Ephorus shows Hellanicus to be false in most things, and Timaeus shows Ephorus, and those who came after him show Timaeus, and everyone shows Herodotus. But not even concerning Sicilian affairs did Timaeus deign to agree with Antiochus, Philistus, or Callias, nor again concerning Attic affairs have those who wrote the Atthides, or those who record Argolic matters, followed one another. And why need I speak of the histories of cities and shorter works, when even concerning the Persian expedition and the events therein the most reputable writers disagree? Many things are also charged against Thucydides as false by some, although he is thought to have written the most accurate history of his own time. The causes of such disagreement are many, and perhaps others would appear to those who wish to investigate; but I attribute the greatest force to two causes which I shall set forth. And I will state first the one which seems to me more fundamental. For the fact that from the beginning public records of events as they occurred were not made a matter of concern among the Greeks—this especially provided both the error and the license to lie for those who later wished to write anything about ancient times. For not only among the other Greeks was the matter of records neglected, but not even among the Athenians themselves, whom they say are autochthonous and devoted to education, is anything of the sort found to have been done.

But they say that the most ancient of their public records are the laws concerning homicide written for them by Draco, who lived a little before the tyranny of Peisistratus. For what need is there to speak of the Arcadians, who boast of antiquity? For they were barely educated in letters even after these events. Since, then, there was no established written record that would both teach those wishing to learn and refute those lying, great disagreement arose among the historians with one another. And a second cause must be added to this: for those who set out to write did not strive for the truth—although this is always their ready profession—but they displayed the power of their words and adapted themselves in whatever way they thought they would outshine others in this, some turning to mythologizing, others praising cities or kings for favor; still others proceeded to accuse deeds or writers, thinking to gain repute in this. And altogether they do the very thing most contrary to history. For the proof of true history is if all say and write the same things about the same subjects; but they thought that if they did not write the same things as others, they themselves would appear the most truthful of all." So much from Josephus. And let the testimony of Diodorus be a seal upon what has been said, which I will set forth from the first book of his compiled Library, word for word as follows:

Concerning the same subject, from Diodorus: "Now that these matters have been clarified for us, we must speak of how many of those among the Greeks who were celebrated for their intelligence and education traveled to Egypt in ancient times, in order to partake of its laws and learning. For the priests of the Egyptians record from the writings in their sacred books that Orpheus and Musaeus and Melampus and Daedalus, and in addition to these, Homer the poet and Lycurgus the Spartan, and also Solon the Athenian and Plato the philosopher, came to them; and that Pythagoras the Samian and Eudoxus the mathematician, and also Democritus the Abderite and Oenopides the Chian, also came. And of all these they show signs, images of some, and for others names of places or constructions that bear their names. And they bring proofs from the education which each pursued, establishing that they imported from Egypt all the things through which they were admired among the Greeks. For Orpheus, they say, brought from the Egyptians most of the mystic rites and the orgiastic practices concerning his own wanderings and the myth-making about the punishments in Hades. For the rite of Osiris is the same as that of Dionysus; and that of Isis is most similar to that of Demeter, with only the names changed; and the punishments of the impious in Hades and the meadows of the pious and the popular images were introduced by him as fabrications, imitating the practices concerning burials in Egypt.

For the soul-guiding Hermes, according to the ancient custom among the Egyptians, after bringing up the body of Apis as far as a certain point, hands it over to the one wearing the forepart of Cerberus. And when Orpheus had introduced this among the Greeks, Homer accordingly set down in his poetry: "Hermes Cyllenius summoned the souls of the hero men, and held a staff in his hands." Then again, proceeding further, he adds: "They say that Melampus brought over from Egypt the rites considered to be celebrated for Dionysus among the Greeks, and the myths concerning Cronus, and those concerning the Titanomachy, and in general the history concerning the sufferings of the gods. And they say that Daedalus imitated the construction of the labyrinth, which remains until the present time, but was built, as some say, by Mendes, or as others say, by Marus the king, many years before the reign of Minos; and that the style of the ancient statues in Egypt is the same as those constructed by Daedalus among the Greeks. And that Daedalus was the architect of the finest propylaeum in Memphis of the Hephaesteum, and being admired, he obtained a wooden image in the aforementioned temple, crafted by his own hands; and finally, because of his natural talent, he was deemed worthy of great fame and, having made many further discoveries, received honors equal to those of the gods. For on one of the islands near Memphis there is even now a temple of Daedalus honored by the natives. And of Homer's presence they bring other signs, and especially the drug administered by Helen to Menelaus and Telemachus, and the forgetfulness of the evils that had occurred.

the grief-dispelling drug, which the poet says Helen received from the Egyptians from Polydamna, the wife of Thon, he appears to have examined accurately. For even now they say that the women in this land use the aforementioned power, and that only among the Diospolitans from ancient times a remedy for anger and grief has been discovered; and that Thebes and Diospolis are the same; and that Aphrodite is called golden among the natives from ancient tradition; and that there is a plain called the plain of golden Aphrodite around the place named Momemphis. And the myths concerning Zeus and Hera about their union and the journey to Ethiopia he transferred from there; for each year among the Egyptians the temple of Zeus is ferried across the river to Libya and after some days returns again, as if the god were present from Ethiopia; and the union of these gods occurs at the festivals when both are brought up to a mountain crowned with all kinds of flowers by the priests. And Lycurgus, Plato, and Solon incorporated many of the Egyptian customs into their own legislations, and Pythagoras incorporated the things concerning the Sacred Word, the theorems of geometry, and those concerning numbers, and further the

to learn about the transformation of the soul from the Egyptians. They also suppose that Democritus spent five years among them and was taught many things concerning astronomy, and that Oenopides similarly spent time with the priests and astrologers and learned, among other things, especially the solar cycle—that its course is oblique and that it moves in a direction opposite to the other stars. Likewise, Eudoxus, having studied astronomy among them and published many useful things for the Greeks, attained a reputation of note. And of all the ancient sculptors, the most renowned are said to have spent time among them—Telecles and Theodorus, the sons of Rhoecus, who made for the Samians the wooden statue of Apollo Pythius." So much from Diodorus. But let this account, as it has been demonstrated in some such way, now come to an end here. It is not, then, for us to be accused of irrationality, if indeed we have followed the teachers of the wise Greeks and even of their own philosophers—I mean the barbarians—out of a desire for true piety, since the Hebrews are barbarians.

It would be well to go through the times when Moses and the prophets after Moses flourished, since this too would be one of the things most essential to the present treatise—to determine beforehand, when about to take up the writings of these men, concerning their antiquity, so that, if those among the Greeks who hold the same opinions should appear to be in agreement with the Hebrew prophets and theologians, you may no longer be in doubt as to which it is likely took over from which—whether the older from the younger, the Hebrews from the Greeks and the barbarians from the philosophers, whose language they were not even likely to understand, or, what is more likely, the younger from the older, and the Greeks, who had traversed most of the nations, were not ignorant of the Hebrew writings, which had been translated into the Greek language from the beginning.

9. On the Antiquity of Moses and the Prophets among the Hebrews. Concerning Moses and the antiquity of the prophets after him, many others have with diligence set down the proof in their own writings, from which I will immediately add a few small points. And I myself, having taken a rather novel path compared to those mentioned, will employ this method.

the times of Augustus, emperor of the Romans, and the birth of our Savior, and the beginning of the evangelical teaching of Christ, which he made in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, are admittedly concurrent. If someone should wish to compute the number of years from this point, going back to earlier times up to Darius, king of the Persians, and the renewal of the temple in Jerusalem under him, which took place after the return of the Jewish people from Babylon, he would find from Tiberius to the second year of Darius 548 years. For the second year of Darius falls in the first year of the 65th Olympiad, and the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ reign as Roman emperor coincides with the 4th year of the 201st Olympiad. Thus the Olympiads between Darius the Persian and Tiberius the Roman king are 137, which amount to a period of 548 years, counting four years to each Olympiad. Since in the second year of Darius the 70th year of the desolation of the temple in Jerusalem had occurred, as the records of Hebrew history show, and from there again going back from the second year of Darius to the first Olympiad, 250 years would be gathered, that is, 62 Olympiads; and you would find the same number from the

of the last year of the desolation of the aforementioned temple, going back to the fiftieth year of Uzziah, king of the Jews, in which Isaiah and Hosea and all those who were their contemporaries prophesied, so that the first Olympiad according to the Greeks is concurrent with the prophet Isaiah and his contemporaries. And again, going back from the first Olympiad to earlier times as far as the capture of Troy, you will find the total number of years summed up as 478, as the Greek chronological records contain. And according to the Hebrews, going back from the fiftieth year of Uzziah, king of the Jews, to the third year of Labdon, who was a judge among the Hebrews, you will collect the same number of years, 478; so that the capture of Troy was in the time of Labdon the judge, seven years before Samson began to rule the Hebrews, who, they say, became invincible in bodily strength, resembling the Heracles celebrated among the Greeks. And from there, proceeding to earlier times and gathering for yourself a number of 500 years, you would find, according to the Hebrews, Moses, and according to the Greeks, Cecrops the earthborn. And the things marveled at among the Greeks are recorded as later than the times of Cecrops. For after Cecrops occur the flood of Deucalion, the conflagration of Phaethon, the birth of Erichthonius, the abduction of Kore, the mysteries of Demeter, the foundation of the Eleusinian rites, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the abduction of Europa by Zeus, the birth of Apollo, the arrival of Cadmus at Thebes, and still later than these, Dionysus, Minos, Perseus, Asclepius, the Dioscuri, Heracles. Moses is shown to be older than all these, having reached his prime in the time of Cecrops.

from Moses again, going back to the first year of Abraham’s life, you will find 505 years. And counting the earlier time from the indicated year of the reign of Cecrops, you will arrive at Ninus the Assyrian, who they say was the first to rule over all Asia except India; after whom the city of Ninus is named, which is called Nineveh by the Hebrews, and in whose time Zoroaster the Magus ruled over the Bactrians. Ninus’ wife and successor to the kingdom was Semiramis; so that Abraham lived in their time. These matters, then, we have demonstrated to be so in our Chronological Canons, which we have composed. But for the present, in addition to what has been said, I will use as a witness to the antiquity of Moses the most hostile and bitter enemy of both the Hebrews and us, I mean the philosopher who opposed us, who, having put forward his attack against us with an excess of hatred, subjected not only us, but also the Hebrews, and Moses himself and the prophets after him, to equal slanders. For I consider that the promise will be confirmed indisputably through the confession of enemies. So in the fourth book of his attack against us, Porphyry writes in these very words: “Sanchuniathon of Berytus, having received the records from Hierombalus the priest of the god Jeuo, who dedicated the history to Abibalus the king of the Berytians, and was accepted by him and the investigators of truth of his time, relates the most truthful things about the Jews, and the most consistent with their places and names. And the times of these men fall before the Trojan times and are nearly contemporary with those of Moses, as the successions of the kings of Phoenicia indicate.

Sanchuniathon, who in the Phoenician dialect truthfully gathered all ancient history from the city records and the sacred inscriptions and compiled it, lived in the time of Semiramis, the queen of the Assyrians. These are the words of Porphyry. Now the matters before us must be reasoned out somewhat as follows: if Sanchuniathon lived in the time of Semiramis, and she is agreed to be long before the Trojan War, then Sanchuniathon would also be older than the Trojan War. But he is said to have received the records from others older than himself in time; and these, being themselves more ancient than he, are said to approach nearly to the times of Moses, not being contemporaries of Moses but nearly approaching his times; so that Moses is older than Sanchuniathon by as much as the latter falls short of his own predecessors, who were agreed to approach Moses. By how many years it is likely that Moses exceeded those indicated is impossible to say; therefore I think I will pass over this point. But granting that Moses lived at the very time of Sanchuniathon and not earlier, I will proceed with the refutation as follows: if Sanchuniathon was known in the time of Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians, and let Moses be no earlier but flourishing at this time, then he too would have lived in the time of Semiramis. But our account indicates that Abraham lived in her time, while the philosopher’s account makes Moses older. And Semiramis is shown to have lived eight hundred full years before the Trojan War. Therefore Moses, according to the philosopher, will also precede the Trojan War by that many years.

First to rule the Argives was Inachus, at a time when the Athenians did not yet have either their city or their name. This first leader of the Argives lived in the time of the fifth Assyrian king after Semiramis, one hundred and fifty years later than both her and Moses, during which period no notable event is recorded among the Greeks. At this same time, the Judges held sway among the Hebrews. Then again, three hundred years later, when already more than four hundred full years had elapsed from Semiramis, Cecrops, celebrated among them as an autochthon, first reigned over the Athenians, while Triopas, who was the seventh after the first Argive Inachus, ruled Argos. Between these events are remembered the flood in the time of Ogyges, and Apis was first called a god in Egypt, and Io, daughter of Inachus, whom the Egyptians renamed Isis and worship, and Prometheus and Atlas became known. From Cecrops to the capture of Troy, nearly seven hundred years are reckoned, during which the marvelous tales among the Greeks are told: the flood in the time of Deucalion and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon, many destructions of the earth in various places having occurred, as is likely. Cecrops is said to have been the first to call the god Zeus, the name not having been so used among men before; then he was the first to set up an altar among the Athenians, and again the first to fashion a statue of Athena, as if these things did not exist from ancient times. After him, all the gods among the Greeks are genealogized. Among the Hebrews at this time, those from the line of David were reigning, and the prophets who shone after Moses were active.

so that the entire period from Moses to the capture of Troy amounts to more than eight hundred years, according to the testimony of the philosopher set forth. And the accounts concerning Homer and Hesiod and the rest are recorded as much later than the Trojan events. Only yesterday, so to speak, after these, around the fiftieth Olympiad, those around Pythagoras and Democritus and the philosophers after them were named, somewhere near seven hundred years after the Trojan events. Therefore, Moses and the Hebrew prophets after him are shown to be earlier than the philosophers among the Greeks by one thousand five hundred years, according to the admission of the aforementioned man. And these matters we have treated summarily. But it is now time to examine also the demonstrations of those before us concerning the same subject. There have indeed been among us learned men, second to none in education and not superficially conversant with divine matters, who, having thoroughly investigated the present subject, have established the antiquity among the Hebrews, employing a rich and varied construction of proof. For some have calculated the times from certain agreed-upon histories, while others have confirmed the testimony with more ancient readings. And some have used Greek sources, while others have also used those from

Phoenician, Chaldean, and Egyptian records they used together; and all of them, gathering together both Greek and barbarian accounts as well as those among the Hebrews themselves, and setting forth the histories from all sides, collating one with the other, examined what was done among all peoples at the same times. Then each, having constructed the proof of what was demonstrated by his own methods, contributed a demonstration that was consistent and agreed upon. Therefore I thought it especially necessary to yield the present discourse to their own words, so that the fathers of these accounts might not be deprived of their proper fruits, and that the establishment of the truth might receive indisputable confirmation through many witnesses, not through me alone.

10. FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF THE CHRONOGRAPHIES OF AFRICANUS: "Down to the Olympiads nothing accurate has been recorded by the Greeks, all things being confused and in no way agreeing among themselves about what came before; but the Olympiads have been accurately recorded by many, because the Greeks make their records of them not over a very long interval but every four years. For this reason, selecting the most famous and legendary histories, I will run through them down to the first Olympiad; and after that, joining each to the corresponding time, if any are notable, I will match the Hebrew accounts with the Greek ones, narrating the Hebrew matters in full, touching on the Greek, and fitting them together in this way: taking one Hebrew event contemporary with an event recorded by the Greeks, and holding to this, subtracting and adding, noting which Greek or Persian or anyone else was contemporary with the Hebrews, I might perhaps hit the mark.

The migration of the Hebrews was most notable: they were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and it extended for seventy years, as Jeremiah had prophesied. Now Berossus the Babylonian makes mention of this Nebuchadnezzar. After the seventy years of the captivity, Cyrus became king of the Persians, in which year the fifty-fifth Olympiad was held, as can be found from the Libraries of Diodorus and the histories of Thallus and Castor, and also from Polybius and Phlegon, and from others who concerned themselves with Olympiads; for the time agreed with all of them. So Cyrus, in the first year of his reign, which was the first year of the fifty-fifth Olympiad, through Zerubbabel, in whose time was Joshua son of Josedek, made the first and partial release of the people, when the seventy years were completed, as is recorded in Ezra among the Hebrews. Thus the histories concur concerning the reign of Cyrus and the end of the captivity, and the matters regarding the Olympiads will be found to have agreed with us in this way; for following these, we will also fit the remaining histories to one another according to the same principle. As for the times before these, when the Attic chronology is numbered in some such manner as this: from Ogygus, who was believed by them to be an autochthon, in whose time the great and first flood in Attica occurred, when Phoroneus was king of the Argives, as Acusilaus relates, down to the first Olympiad, from which the Greeks thought to reckon time accurately, the years amount to one thousand and twenty, as both agrees with what has been said before and will be shown in what follows.

For these things are recorded by those who write the history of the Athenians, both Hellanicus and Philochorus, who wrote the Atthides, and also Castor and Thallus, who wrote on Syrian matters, and Diodorus, who wrote the Libraries covering all subjects, and Alexander Polyhistor, and some who have mentioned our affairs more accurately than all the Attic writers. If, therefore, any notable history occurs within the thousand and twenty years, it will be selected according to its usefulness. And shortly after he adds: "We say, then, from this treatise that Ogygus, who became eponymous of the first flood, having been saved when many perished, occurred at the time of the exodus of the people from Egypt under Moses, in the following manner: from the first Olympiad previously mentioned to Ogygus, one thousand and twenty years will be shown; and from the first Olympiad to the first year of the fifty-fifth Olympiad, that is, to the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the end of the captivity, there are two hundred and seventeen years. From Ogygus, then, to Cyrus there are one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven years. But if one reckons back from the end of the captivity, one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven years, by analysis the same interval is found to the first year of the exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses, as from the fifty-fifth Olympiad to Ogygus, who founded Eleusis; whence it is more notable to grasp the Attic chronology." And after other things: "And such are the events before Ogygus. But in his times Moses departed from Egypt; and that these things are not improbable then, we show thus: from the exodus of Moses to Cyrus, who reigned after the captivity, there are one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven years; for the remaining years of Moses are forty; of Joshua, who led after him, twenty-five.

years of the elders, 30, after Jesus the Judges; the years contained in the book of the Judges, 400; the years of the priests Eli and Samuel, 40; the years of the subsequent Hebrew kings, 400; and the years of the captivity, 70, whose last year was the first year of the reign of Cyrus, as we have previously said. And from Moses to the first Olympiad, 1,020 years, if from the fifty-fifth year, the first year, it is 1,236 years, and the time coincides with the Greek records. After Ogygus, due to the great destruction from the flood, the present Attica remained without a king until Cecrops, 189 years. For Philochorus says that Actaeus after Ogygus, or the fabricated names, did not even exist. And again: "From Ogygus, then, to Cyrus, as many years as from Moses to the same time, 1,236 years. And some of the Greeks record that Moses lived at the same times: Polemon, in the first of his Greek histories, saying: 'In the time of Apis, son of Phoroneus, a portion of the Egyptian army was expelled from Egypt, and they settled in Palestine, called Syria, not far from Arabia,' these clearly being those with Moses; and Apion, son of Poseidonius, the most meticulous of grammarians, in his book against the Jews and in the fourth of his histories, says that in the time of Inachus, king of Argos, when Amosis was king of the Egyptians, the Jews revolted, led by Moses. And Herodotus also mentions this revolt and Amosis in his second book; and in a certain way, he also mentions the Jews themselves, counting them among those who are circumcised and calling them Assyrians in Palestine, perhaps because of Abraham.

Ptolemy of Mendes, in his ancient history of the Egyptians, agrees with all these, so that the variation in the chronology is not even notable. It should be noted that whatever exceptional thing the Greeks mythologize on account of antiquity is found to be after Moses—both floods and conflagrations, Prometheus, Io, Europa, the Spartoi, the abduction of Kore, mysteries, legislation, the deeds of Dionysus, Perseus, the labors of Heracles, the Argonauts, the Centaurs, the Minotaur, the events at Ilium, the return of the Heraclidae, the Ionian colonization, and the Olympiads. It seemed good to me to set forth the aforementioned time of the Attic kings, since I intend to compare the Greek histories with the Hebrew histories. For it will be possible for anyone who wishes, taking the beginning from me, to calculate the number just as I do. Therefore, of the one thousand and twenty years set forth from Moses and Ogygus down to the first Olympiad, in the first year occur the Passover and the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, while in Attica the flood under Ogygus takes place. And according to

account. For when the Egyptians were being scourged by the wrath of God with hailstorms and tempests, it was likely that certain parts of the earth suffered along with them, since it was also likely that the Athenians, being supposed to be colonists of the Egyptians, as others say and as Theopompus in his Tricaranus states, shared the same experiences. The intervening time has been omitted, during which nothing exceptional is recorded for the Greeks. After ninety-four years came Prometheus, as some say, who was fabled to have molded men; for being wise, he transformed them from excessive boorishness through education." So says Africanus. Let us now proceed to another.

11. FROM TATIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS: "Now I think it fitting to demonstrate that our philosophy is older than the institutions of the Greeks. We will set Moses and Homer as our boundaries. For since each of them is the most ancient, and the one is the oldest of poets and historians, and the other is the founder of all barbarian wisdom, let them now be taken by us for comparison. For we will find that our teachings are not only superior to Greek education, but even to the invention of letters. And I will not call upon witnesses from home, but rather I will use Greeks as helpers. For the former would be unreasonable, since it would not be accepted even by you; but the latter, if it can be demonstrated, will be marvelous, when through your own weapons I take up proofs against you that are unsuspected by you.

Concerning the poetry of Homer, his lineage, and the time at which he flourished, the earliest investigators were Theagenes of Rhegium, who lived in the time of Cambyses, and Stesimbrotus of Thasos, and Callimachus of Colophon, and Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and Dionysius of Olynthus; and after them, Ephorus of Cyme and Philochorus of Athens, and Megacleides and Chamaeleon the Peripatetics; and then the grammarians Zenodotus, Aristophanes, Callimachus, Crates, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Apollodorus. Of these, those around Crates say that he flourished before the return of the Heracleidae, within eighty years after the Trojan War; those around Eratosthenes say after the hundredth year from the capture of Ilium; those around Aristarchus say at the time of the Ionian colonization, which is one hundred and forty years after the Trojan War; Philochorus says forty years after the Ionian colonization, in the archonship of Arxippus at Athens, one hundred and eighty years after the Trojan War; those around Apollodorus say one hundred years after the Ionian colonization, which would be two hundred and forty years after the Trojan War; some said that he was born before the Olympiads, that is, four hundred years after the capture of Ilium; others brought the time down lower, saying that Homer was contemporary with Archilochus; and Archilochus flourished around the twenty-third Olympiad, in the time of Gyges the Lydian, five hundred years after the Trojan War.

And concerning the times of the aforementioned poet, I mean Homer, and the discord and disagreement among those who have spoken about him, let it be said sufficiently for us in summary for those able to examine accurately. For it is possible for anyone to declare false also the opinions concerning the accounts. For in those cases where the chronological record is incoherent, there the matters of history cannot be true. And shortly after: "But let Homer be considered not only later than the Trojan events, but let it be supposed that he lived at the very time of that war, and even that he campaigned with those around Agamemnon, and, if one wishes, that he lived before the invention of letters; for the aforementioned Moses will be shown to be older than the very capture of Troy itself by very many years, and far more ancient than the founding of Ilium that occurred, and than Tros and Dardanus. For the sake of proof I will use as witnesses Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians. And why should I say more? For one who promises to persuade must make the narratives concerning the matters briefer for the hearers. Berossus, a Babylonian man, a priest of their Belus, who lived in the time of Alexander, compiled the history of the Chaldeans in three books for Antiochus, the third after Seleucus, and in setting forth the matters concerning the kings he recounts one of them named Nebuchadnezzar, who campaigned against the Phoenicians and Jews, things which we know proclaimed through our prophets, events that occurred much later than the time of Moses, but seventy years before the Persian hegemony. And Berossus is a very capable man.

And a witness to this is Iobas, who, writing about the Assyrians, says he learned the history from Berossus; and there are by him two books on the Assyrians. After the Chaldaeans, the account of the Phoenicians runs thus: there were among them three men, Theodotus, Hypsicrates, and Mochus. Their books were translated into the Greek language by Laetus, who also accurately composed the Lives of the Philosophers. Now in the histories of the aforementioned men it is shown under which of the kings the abduction of Europa took place, the arrival of Menelaus in Phoenicia, and the matters concerning Eiramos, who gave his own daughter in marriage to Solomon, the king of the Jews, and donated timber of all kinds for the construction of the temple. And Menander of Pergamum also made a record of the same matters. The time of Eiramos already approaches the Trojan times; but Solomon, who lived in the time of Eiramos, is far later than the age of Moses. There are accurate records of the times of the Egyptians. And the interpreter of their writings is Ptolemy, not the king, but a priest of Mendes; this man, setting forth the deeds of the kings, says that the departure of the Jews from Egypt to whatever places they wished, under the leadership of Moses, occurred in the time of Amosis, king of Egypt. And he speaks thus: "Amosis lived in the time of Inachus the king.

After him, Apion the grammarian, a most esteemed man, in the fourth of his five books on Egyptian matters—for he has five writings—says many other things, and states: "Amosis razed Avaris, being contemporary with Inachus the Argive, as Ptolemy of Mendes recorded in his Chronologies." And the time from Inachus to the capture of Ilium comprises twenty generations. And the demonstration proceeds in this manner. The kings of the Argives were these: Inachus, Phoroneus, Apis, Argius, Criasus, Phorbas, Triopas, Crotopus, Sthenelaus, Danaus, Lynceus, Abas, Proetus, Acrisius, Perseus, Sthenelaus, Eurystheus, Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, in the eighteenth year of whose reign Ilium was taken. And the intelligent man must understand with all precision that, according to Greek tradition, there was no historical record among them. For Cadmus, who delivered the letters to those previously mentioned, set foot in Boeotia many generations later. And after Inachus, under Phoroneus, the savage and nomadic life was barely circumscribed, and men were reordered. Therefore, if Moses is shown to have lived in the time of Inachus, he is four hundred years older than the events of Ilium. And this is demonstrated to be so from the succession of the Attic kings, the Macedonian, the Ptolemaic, and also the Antiochian. Hence, if the most conspicuous deeds among the Greeks were written and are known after Inachus, it is clear that they are also after Moses. For in the time of Phoroneus, the successor of Inachus, Ogygus is remembered among the Athenians, in whose time the first flood occurred; and in the time of Phorbas, Actaeus, from whom Actaea

Attica; in the time of Triopas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, and the double-natured Cecrops, and Io; in the time of Crotopus, the conflagration at the time of Phaethon and the deluge at the time of Deucalion; in the time of Sthenelaus, the reign of Amphictyon, the arrival of Danaus in the Peloponnese, the foundation of Dardania by Dardanus, and the conveyance of Europa from Phoenicia to Crete; in the time of Lynceus, the abduction of Kore, the establishment of the precinct at Eleusis, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the arrival of Cadmus at Thebes, and the reign of Minos; in the time of Proetus, the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians; in the time of Acrisius, the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion at Athens, the second Cecrops, and the deeds of Perseus; in the reign of Agamemnon, Troy was captured. Therefore, Moses has been shown, from what has been said, to be the most ancient of heroes, cities, and deities. And one must trust the one who is older in age rather than the Greeks who drew from his source, not understanding his doctrines. For many among them are sophists who have employed artifice, who, whatever they learned from those following Moses and those philosophizing similarly to him, attempted to distort, first so that they might be thought to say something original, and second so that, by covering up with some fabricated rhetoric what they did not understand, they might corrupt the truth as mythology. Concerning our polity and the history according to our laws, and what the learned among the Greeks have said, and how many and who have mentioned these things, will be shown in the work against those who have declared their opinions about God.

Now, therefore, we must hasten to clarify with all precision that Moses is not only older than Homer, but also older than the writers before him: Linus, Philammon, Thamyris, Amphion, Orpheus, Musaeus, Demodocus, Phemius, the Sibyl, Epimenides the Cretan (who came to Sparta), Aristeas of Proconnesus, the author of the Arimaspea, Asbolus the Centaur, Isatis, Drymon, Eucleus of Cyprus, Horus of Samos, and Pronapides of Athens. For Linus was the teacher of Heracles, and Heracles is shown to be one generation earlier than the Trojan War. This is evident from his son Tlepolemus, who campaigned against Ilium. Orpheus lived at the same time as Heracles; moreover, the works attributed to him are said to have been composed by Onomacritus of Athens, who lived in the time of the Peisistratids, around the fiftieth Olympiad. Musaeus was a disciple of Orpheus. Amphion is two generations earlier than the Trojan War; but to compile more for the studious is prevented. Demodocus and Phemius lived during the Trojan War itself, for the one stayed among the suitors, the other among the Phaeacians. Thamyris and Philammon are not much older than these. Concerning the detailed account of each, their times and records, I think we have written for you with all accuracy. But to supply what is still lacking, I will also present the proof concerning those considered wise.

Minos, who was thought to excel in all wisdom, shrewdness, and legislation, lived in the time of Lynceus, who reigned after Danaus, in the eleventh generation after Inachus. Lycurgus, born long after the capture of Troy, legislated for the Lacedaemonians one hundred years before the Olympiads. Draco is found to have lived around the thirty-ninth Olympiad; Solon around the forty-sixth; Pythagoras in the sixty-second. And we have shown that the Olympiads occurred four hundred and seven years after the Trojan events. And with these matters thus briefly demonstrated, we will also record the age of the seven wise men. For Thales, the eldest of those mentioned, lived around the fiftieth Olympiad, and the matters concerning those after him have been briefly stated by us. These things, O Greek men, I, Tatian, who philosophize among the barbarians, have composed, born in the land of the Assyrians, educated first in your ways, and secondly in those which I now proclaim to preach. And knowing now what God is and what his creation is, I present myself ready to you for the examination of doctrines, with my polity according to God remaining unrenounced. So much from Tatian. Let us proceed also to Clement.

12. From the First of Clement's Stromata: "Now, these matters have been discussed accurately by Tatian in his Address to the Greeks, and also by Cassian in the first of his Exegetical Works. Nevertheless, the commentary requires us as well to run over what has been said on the subject. Apion the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonicus, in the fourth book of his Egyptian Histories, although he was ill-disposed toward the Hebrews, being an Egyptian by race, and even composed a book against the Jews, when mentioning Amosis, king of the Egyptians, and the events of his reign, cites as a witness Ptolemy of Mendes. And his words are as follows: 'Amosis destroyed Avaris, being contemporary with Inachus the Argive, as Ptolemy of Mendes recorded in his Chronologies.' This Ptolemy was a priest, and having set forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three whole books, says that under Amosis, king of Egypt, the exodus of the Jews from Egypt took place under the leadership of Moses, from which it is evident that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus. And Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Chronologies that the Argolic records, those from Inachus, I mean, are older than the Greek ones. Forty generations younger than these are the Attic records, those from 'Cecrops the double-natured' and autochthonous, as Tatian says verbatim; nine generations younger are the Arcadian records, those from Pelasgus, who is also said to be autochthonous; and two generations younger than these are the Phthiotic records, those from Deucalion.

As for the time of the Trojan events, from Inachus twenty generations or one more are counted, and years, so to speak, four hundred and beyond. But if Ctesias says that the Assyrian affairs are older by many years than the Greek, it will appear that in the four hundred and second year of the Assyrian rule, and in the thirty-second of the dynasty of Belouchus the eighth, the movement of Moses occurred in the time of Amosis the Egyptian and of Inachus the Argive from Egypt. And in Greece, in the time of Phoroneus after Inachus, there was the flood under Ogygus and the kingdom in Sicyon, first of Aegialeus, then of Europs, then of Telchin, and of Cres in Crete. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first of men; whence also the poet of the Phoronis said that he was the father of mortal men. Hence Plato in the Timaeus, following Acusilaus, writes: "And once wishing to lead them into discourse about ancient matters, to attempt to tell the most ancient things of this city, concerning Phoroneus who was said to be first, and Niobe, and the things after the flood." And in the time of Phorbas, Actaeus, from whom Actaea, Attica; and in the time of Triopas, Prometheus and Atlas and Epimetheus and the two-formed Cecrops and Io; and in the time of Crotopus, the conflagration under Phaethon and the deluge under Deucalion; and in the time of Sthenelus, the reign of Amphictyon and the arrival of Danaus in the Peloponnese.

and the founding of Dardania by Dardanus, whom Homer says was “first born of cloud-gathering Zeus,” and the return from Crete to Phoenicia; and in the time of Lynceus, the abduction of the maiden, the establishment of the precinct at Eleusis, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the arrival of Cadmus at Thebes, and the reign of Minos; and in the time of Proetus, the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians; and in the time of Acrisius, the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion at Athens, the second Cecrops, the deeds of Perseus and Dionysus, and Orpheus and Musaeus; and in the eighteenth year of the reign of Agamemnon, Ilium was taken, when Demophon son of Theseus was king at Athens in his first year, on the twelfth day of the month Thargelion, as Dionysius the Argive says; but Agis and Dercylus say in the third book, on the eighth day of the waning of the month Panemus; Hellanicus says on the twelfth of Thargelion, and some of those who wrote on Attic affairs say on the eighth of the waning, in the last year of the reign of Menestheus, at full moon; “it was night,” says the author of the Little Iliad, “at its midpoint, and the bright moon was rising”; others say on the same day of the month Scirophorion. Theseus, being an emulator of Heracles, is one generation older than the Trojan events; for Homer mentions Tlepolemus, who was a son of Heracles, as having campaigned against Ilium. Therefore Moses is shown to be prior to the deification of Dionysus by six hundred and four years, if indeed he was deified in the thirty-second year of the reign of Perseus, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles. And from Dionysus to Heracles and the heroes around Jason, who sailed on the Argo, sixty-three years are reckoned.

Asclepius and the Dioscuri sailed with them, as Apollonius of Rhodes attests in his Argonautica. From the reign of Heracles in Argos to the deification of Heracles himself and Asclepius, thirty-eight years are counted according to the chronographer Apollodorus. From there to the deification of Castor and Polydeuces, fifty-three years; somewhere in this period also falls the capture of Ilium. But if we must also believe Hesiod the poet, let us hear him: "To Zeus, then, Maia, daughter of Atlas, bore glorious Hermes, herald of the immortals, having entered the sacred bed. And Cadmeian Semele bore a splendid son, mingled in love, Dionysus full of joy." Cadmus, the father of Semele, comes to Thebes in the time of Lynceus and becomes the inventor of Greek letters. Triopas is contemporary with Isis in the seventh generation from Inachus; there are those who say that Isis is Io, because she wandered throughout the whole earth. But Ister, in his work On the Colony of the Egyptians, says she is the daughter of Prometheus. Prometheus is contemporary with Triopas, in the seventh generation after Moses; so that Moses is even before the origin of the Greeks. Leon, who wrote about the gods of Egypt, says that Isis is called Demeter by the Greeks, and she appears in the time of Lynceus, in the eleventh generation after Moses. Epis, king of Argos, founds Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of his Arcadica; but Aristeas the Argive says that he was named Sarapis, and that this is the one whom the Egyptians worship.

Nymphodorus of Amphipolis, in the third book of his Customs of Asia, says that Apis, the bull, after dying and being embalmed, was placed in a coffin in the temple of the honored deity, and from this he was called Sorapis and later Sarapis. Apis was the third from Inachus. Moreover, Leto was born in the time of Tityus; for Leto was the glorious consort of Zeus. Tityus was contemporary with Tantalus. Reasonably, then, Pindar of Boeotia writes: "In time Apollo was born." And it is no wonder, since he is found serving Admetus together with Heracles "for a great year." Zethus and Amphion, the inventors of music, lived around the time of Cadmus. And if someone tells us that Phemonoe was the first to deliver oracles to Acrisius, let him know that after Phemonoe, twenty-seven years later, came those around Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, the teacher of Heracles. Homer and Hesiod are much later than the Trojan War, and after them, much later are the lawgivers among the Greeks, Lycurgus and Solon, and the seven sages, and those around Pherecydes the Syrian and Pythagoras the Great, who lived somewhere around the time of the Olympiads, as we have shown. And thus Moses has been demonstrated to be older than most of the gods among the Greeks, not only than those called sages and poets. These things also Clement says. But since this treatise was studied before our times even by the children of the Hebrews, it would be well to consider their views as well. I will use the words of Flavius Josephus instead of all others.

13. From the first book of Flavius Josephus, On the Antiquity of the Jews: "I shall begin first with the writings of the Egyptians. It is not possible to set forth their actual texts. Manetho, then, an Egyptian by birth who had a share in Greek education, as is evident—for he wrote in the Greek language his native history, translating from the sacred records, as he himself says, and he also frequently refutes Herodotus for being deceived by ignorance in Egyptian matters—this Manetho, then, in the second book of his Aegyptiaca writes the following about us. I shall set down his very words, as if I were bringing him forward as a witness: ... 'There was a king named Timaeus. In his reign, for some reason, a god blew contrary, and unexpectedly from the regions of the east men of ignoble race, emboldened, marched against the country and easily, without a battle, took it by force.' And he adds shortly after: 'Their whole nation was called Hyksos, that is, shepherd kings. For "hyk" in the sacred language signifies "king," and "sos" in the common dialect is "shepherd" and "shepherds"; and thus combined it becomes Hyksos. Some say they are Arabs, and in another copy it is indicated that through the term "hyk" not kings are signified, but on the contrary, captive shepherds are meant. For "hyk" again in Egyptian, and "hak" aspirated, expressly indicates captives. And this seems to me more probable and in accordance with ancient history.'

These previously named kings and those called the Shepherds, and those born from them, held Egypt, he says, for five hundred and eleven years. After this, he says, there arose an uprising of the kings from the Thebaid and the rest of Egypt against the Shepherds, and a great and long-lasting war broke out. Under a king named Misphragmouthosis, he says the Shepherds were defeated, driven out of the rest of Egypt, and confined to a place having a perimeter of ten thousand arourae; the name of the place is Auaris. Manetho says that the Shepherds surrounded this entire place with a great and strong wall, so that they might hold all their possessions and their own plunder in a secure place. Thmothosis, the son of Misphragmouthosis, attempted to take them by force through a siege, having besieged the walls with four hundred and eighty thousand troops; but when he despaired of the siege, he made an agreement that they should leave Egypt and go wherever they wished, all unharmed. They, under the terms of the agreement, with their entire households and possessions, being no fewer than two hundred and forty thousand, departed from Egypt into the desert.

to travel to Syria; but fearing the Assyrian dominion—for at that time they held power over Asia—they built a city in what is now called Judaea, sufficient for so many tens of thousands of people, and named it Jerusalem.” After enumerating in order the succession of the kings of Egypt with the duration of their reigns, he adds: “These are the words of Manetho. It is clear, from the years of time calculated from what has been said, that those called the Shepherds, our ancestors, departed from Egypt three hundred and ninety-three years earlier than Danaus arrived at Argos; although the Argives consider him the most ancient. Thus Manetho has borne witness for us to two very important points from the Egyptian records: first, their arrival in Egypt from elsewhere, and second, their departure from there, so ancient in time that it preceded the Trojan War by nearly a thousand years.” These matters from Egyptian history are related at length by Josephus in this way. Then, using as witnesses those who wrote the Phoenician histories, he shows that the temple in Jerusalem was built by King Solomon one hundred and forty-three years and eight months earlier than the Tyrians founded Carthage. Then, moving on, he also presents testimonies from the history of the Chaldeans concerning the antiquity of the Hebrews.

14. That the times of all the philosophers among the Greeks are more recent than the entire history among the Hebrews. But why should I heap up a multitude of proofs, when the lover of truth, not the lover of contentiousness, is satisfied even with what has been said, which contains a varied demonstration of the matter at hand? Our purpose was to show that the writings of Moses and the prophets are older than those of the Greeks. Since, then, it has been demonstrated that Moses lived long before the Trojan War, let us also consider all those after him. That Moses was the last in time to appear in life among the truly ancient Hebrews—Heber and Abraham, from whom the name is derived for the men, and the rest of the godly and ancient men—is clear from the history concerning him. After Moses, then, Joshua took the lead of the Jewish nation, according to some, for thirty years; then, as the scripture says, foreigners held power for eight years. Then Othniel for fifty years. After him, Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years. After him, Ehud for eighty years. Then again foreigners for twenty years. Then Deborah and Barak for forty years. Then the Midianites for seven years. Then Gideon for forty years. Abimelech for three years. Tola for twenty-three years. Jair for twenty-two years. The Ammonites for eighteen years. Jephthah for six years. Ibzan for seven years. Elon for ten years. Abdon for eight years. Foreigners for forty years. Samson for twenty years. Then Eli the priest, according to the Hebrew, for forty years; around his time the capture of Ilium occurred. After Eli the priest, Samuel leads the people. After him, their first king, Saul, reigns for forty years. Then David for forty years. Then Solomon for forty years, who also first built the temple in Jerusalem.

After Solomon, Rehoboam reigned 17 years; Abijah 3 years; Asa 41 years; Jehoshaphat 25 years; Jehoram 8 years; Ahaziah 1 year; Athaliah 7 years; Joash 40 years; Amaziah 29 years; Uzziah 52 years, during whom Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and Jonah prophesied. After Uzziah, Jotham reigned 16 years; after him, Ahaz 16 years; during his reign the first Olympiad was held, in which Coroebus of Elis won the stadion. Hezekiah succeeded Ahaz for 29 years; during his reign Romulus founded Rome and reigned. After Hezekiah, Manasseh reigned 55 years; then Amon 2 years; then Josiah 31 years, during whom Jeremiah, Baruch, Huldah, and other prophets prophesied; then Jehoahaz 3 months; after him, Jehoiakim 11 years; after him, last of all, Zedekiah 12 years; during his reign, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrians and the temple suffered destruction by fire, the whole nation of the Jews was taken away to Babylon, and Daniel and Ezekiel prophesied there. After a count of 70 years, Cyrus reigned over the Persians, who released the captivity of the Jews, permitting those who wished to return to their own land and rebuild the temple; at that time Joshua son of Jozadak and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel went up, and foundations were laid, while Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi prophesied last of all, after whom no prophet arose among them. In the time of Cyrus, Solon the Athenian was known, and the so-called seven sages among the Greeks, of whom no philosopher older than them is recorded among them.

Of these seven, Thales of Miletus, the first natural philosopher among the Greeks, discoursed about the solstices, eclipse, illuminations of the moon, and equinox. This man became most distinguished among the Greeks. Anaximander, son of Praxiades, also a Milesian by birth, became a hearer of Thales. He first constructed gnomons for the determination of solstices, times, seasons, and equinox. Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, became a pupil of Anaximander; and Anaxagoras, son of Hegesibulus, a Clazomenian, became a pupil of him. This man first articulated the doctrine concerning principles. For he not only declared about the substance of all things, as his predecessors did, but also about the cause that moves it. "For all things were together, a mixture," he says, "and Mind entering, brought them from disorder into order." Three became pupils of Anaxagoras: Pericles, Archelaus, and Euripides. Pericles became first among the Athenians and excelled his contemporaries in both wealth and birth; Euripides, turning to poetry, was called by some a stage philosopher; and Archelaus succeeded to the school of Anaxagoras in Lampsacus, but moving to Athens he taught there and had many Athenian pupils, among them Socrates. At the same time as Anaxagoras, the natural philosophers Xenophanes and Pythagoras flourished. Pythagoras was succeeded by his wife Theano and his sons, Telauges and Mnesarchus. Empedocles became a hearer of Telauges, at which time Heraclitus the obscure was becoming known.

Xenophanes is said to have been succeeded by Parmenides, Parmenides by Melissus, and Melissus by Zeno of Elea. They say that Zeno, having formed a conspiracy against the tyrant of that time, was caught, and while being tortured by the tyrant to reveal the men who were with him, he did not yield to the tyrant's punishments, but bit off his tongue and spat it at him, and thus enduring the tortures, died. Leucippus became his student, and Democritus was the student of Leucippus, and Protagoras of Democritus, in whose time Socrates flourished. And there are others to be found scattered about who were natural philosophers before Socrates. But all, beginning from Thales, appear to have flourished later than Cyrus, the king of the Persians. And Cyrus is clearly known to have lived after the greater part of the captivity of the Jewish nation in Babylon, when the prophets among the Hebrews had already ceased and their sacred metropolis had been besieged. So that you must admit that the philosophy of the Greeks, and especially that according to Plato, is much later than Moses and the prophets after him. Plato, having first been a student of Socrates and then having associated with the Pythagoreans, surpassed all his predecessors in speech, understanding, and philosophical doctrines. Plato

around the end of the Persian empire, a little before Alexander of Macedon, and not much more than four hundred years before Augustus the Sebastos. If, therefore, it were shown that Plato and those after him philosophized in agreement with the Hebrews, it would be time to examine the time when he lived, and to compare the antiquity of the theologians and prophets among the Hebrews with the age of all the Greek philosophers. But when these things have been demonstrated, it is time, returning, to observe that the wise men of the Greeks became emulators of Hebrew doctrines, so that the slanderers may no longer reasonably reproach us, if indeed we too, having come to love the same things as their own philosophers, have resolved to honor the Hebrew scriptures.

11. The eleventh book of the Evangelical Preparation contains the following: 1. Introduction concerning the subject; 2. How the philosophy according to Plato followed that according to the Hebrews in the most essential points; 3. Concerning the tripartite division of the philosophy according to Plato, from Atticus; 4. From Aristocles concerning the philosophy according to Plato; 5. Concerning the ethical doctrines among the Hebrews; 6. Concerning the logical treatment among the Hebrews; 7. Concerning the correctness of names among the Hebrews; 8. Concerning physiology according to the Hebrews; 9. Concerning the physiology of intelligible things; 10. Concerning being, Moses and Plato; 11. From Numenius the Pythagorean on the same subject; 12. From Plutarch on the same subject; 13. That the divine is ineffable; 14. That God is one alone; 15. Concerning the second cause according to the Hebrews and Plato; 16. From Philo concerning the second cause; 17. From Plato concerning the second cause.

Plotinus on the same subject, 19. Numenius on the same subject, 20. Amelius on the theology of the Hebrew, 21. On the three principal hypostases, 22. On the substance of the Good, 23. Numenius on the Good, 24. On the ideas in Plato, 25. Philo on the ideas in Moses, 26. Clement on the same subject, 27. Hebrews and Plato on the opposing powers, 28. On the immortality of the soul among Hebrews and Plato, 29. Porphyry on the same subject, 30. On the world being generated, 31. On the heavenly luminaries, 32. That all the works of God are beautiful, 33. On the alteration and change of the world, 34. On the resurrection of the dead, 35. Again on the consummation of the world, 36. That Plato also records that the dead have been raised, similarly to the accounts of the Hebrews, 37. Plutarch on the same subject, 38. That Plato also expounds on the so-called supramundane earth similarly to the Hebrews, 39. That Plato also believes that judgment after death will occur similarly to the Hebrews, 40.

Book 11, Proemium on the Subject. Now the tenth volume of the Evangelical Preparation now in hand established by external testimonies, not by my own words, that it is not improbable that the Greeks, having brought from home no wisdom except only cleverness and eloquence in words, but having procured everything from barbarians, were not ignorant even of the oracles of the Hebrews, and in part touched upon them, because they did not keep their hands clean of theft in the ambition of their own writings. For the argument, not from us, as I said, but from themselves, represented them as thieves. Moreover, we recognized at the same time, through the comparison of the times, that they are very young both in understanding and in age, falling far short of Hebrew antiquity. These matters were in the preceding book; but the present one now hastens, as if discharging a debt, to fulfill the promised undertaking and to reveal the agreement, in certain, if not in all, dogmatic doctrines, of the philosophers among the Greeks with the oracles of the Hebrews. Passing over the inferior ones, it summons the chief of all, deeming it necessary to use Plato alone as the standard for the problem, since he alone seems to have surpassed all in opinion and to be sufficient for us for the establishment of the inquiry. But if anywhere it should be necessary, for the sake of clarity of the man's thought, I will also use as witnesses those who have emulated his philosophy, setting forth their own words for the confirmation of the subject.

Let it be observed by me that not everything has been said by the man with complete accuracy, even if most things have been uttered by him in accordance with truth. This very point we will demonstrate at the appropriate time, not for the sake of slandering him, but for our own defense, on account of which we affirm that the barbarian philosophy is prior to the Greek.

2. How the Philosophy according to Plato Followed That according to the Hebrews in the Most Essential Matters. Plato, having divided the entire account of philosophy into three parts—physical, ethical, logical—and then having further divided the physical into the contemplation of perceptible things and the understanding of incorporeal things, you would find that this threefold form of teaching also exists among the Hebrews, and that among them similar things had been philosophized before Plato. First, it is worthwhile to hear from Plato, and then in this way to examine the things of the Hebrews. I will set forth the doctrines pleasing to Plato from those who champion his views, among whom Atticus, a distinguished man of the Platonic philosophers, expounds the opinions of the man somewhere in these terms, in his work "Against Those Who Promise to Explain Plato through Aristotle.

3. Atticus, On the Tripartite Division of Philosophy According to Plato: "Since complete philosophy is divided into three parts—the so-called ethical domain, the physical, and further the logical—and the first of these makes each of us noble and good and corrects entire households for the best, and also adorns the whole populace with an excellent constitution and the most precise laws; the second extends to knowledge of divine matters, both of the first principles and causes and of all else that comes from them, which Plato has called the study of nature; and the third is employed for the discrimination and discovery of both of these: that Plato was the first and foremost to gather together all the parts of philosophy, previously scattered and torn apart like the limbs of Pentheus, as someone has said, and to make philosophy a single body and a complete living being, is clear to everyone who hears it. For neither those around Thales, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, nor all who were like them,

are unknown, having spent their time only on the study of the nature of beings. Nor indeed do Pittacus, Periander, Solon, Lycurgus, and those similar to them escape notice, having placed their own philosophy into statecraft. Zeno and the entire Eleatic school, too, are well known for having especially devoted themselves to the art of arguments. After these came Plato, a man naturally perfect and far superior, as if truly sent down from the gods, so that through him philosophy might appear complete; he omitted nothing and perfected each part, neither falling short of what is necessary nor being carried away into the useless. Since, then, we said that the Platonic philosopher partakes of all—both in studying nature, speaking about ethics, and in dialectic—come, let us examine each in turn." So says Atticus. And the Peripatetic Aristocles bears witness to the same things in the seventh book of his work On Philosophy, speaking verbatim as follows:

4. Aristocles, On the Philosophy According to Plato: "Plato philosophized, if anyone ever did, genuinely and completely. For those from Thales continued as natural philosophers, while those around Pythagoras concealed everything. Xenophanes and his followers, having stirred up eristic arguments, cast much dizziness among philosophers but provided no help. And not least, Socrates himself, as the saying goes, became fire upon fire, just as Plato himself said.

Being most naturally gifted and clever at raising aporiai about absolutely anything, he introduced both ethical and political inquiries, and also the study of the Forms, being the first to attempt definition. He stirred up every argument and investigated everything, but died before completing his work. Others, cutting off certain parts of these subjects, occupied themselves with them: some with medicine, others with the mathematical sciences, and some with poets and music. The majority, however, admired the powers of discourse, calling themselves either rhetoricians or dialecticians. Those who succeeded Socrates became quite diverse and opposed in their opinions. For some praised Cynicism, lack of pretension, and apathy, while others praised pleasures. Some boasted of knowing everything, others of knowing simply nothing. Moreover, some wallowed in the midst and in the sight of all, associating with the many, while others, on the contrary, remained inaccessible and unsociable. Plato, however, perceiving that there is a single science of divine and human things, first distinguished and declared that one branch of study concerns the nature of the universe, another concerns human affairs, and a third concerns discourse. He held that we cannot discern human affairs unless the divine things are first seen; just as physicians, when treating certain parts, first attend to the whole body, so too must one who intends to see things here below first know the nature of the whole. Man is a part of beings, and the good is twofold: one is our good, the other the good of the whole, the latter being more authoritative, for through it the former comes to be.

Aristoxenus the musician says that this account is from the Indians. For in Athens one of those men met Socrates and then asked him what he was doing in philosophizing; and when he said that he was inquiring about human life, the Indian laughed, saying that one cannot discern human matters while ignorant of divine matters. Now whether this is true, one could not insist on saying. But Plato divided philosophy into that concerning the whole, the political, and also the logical.

Such being the philosophy according to Plato, it is time to examine that of the Hebrews, who philosophized in a similar manner long before Plato was born. You would find among them also this threefold division into ethical, logical, and physical studies, established in this way:

5. ON THE ETHICAL DOCTRINES AMONG THE HEBREWS. The ethical matters, then, were most earnestly pursued among them first of all in deeds, as you might learn by examining the men long before the words, since they considered and pursued as the end of goods and the final definition of living blessedly piety and friendship toward God through the correction of morals, but not bodily pleasure according to Epicurus, nor again the threefold classification of goods according to Aristotle, which values bodily and external goods equally with goods of the soul, nor indeed the ultimate ignorance and lack of learning, which some have dignified with the name of suspension, nor again the virtue of the soul; for how great is this among men, and what would it contribute by itself without God to a painless life?

on account of which they have fastened all things to hope in God as to an unbreakable cable, and have declared that only the God-beloved man is blessed. For God, the steward of all good things, being the provider of life and the source of virtue itself and the supplier of all things bodily and external, would alone be sufficient for the blessed life for one who has cultivated friendship with him through true piety. Hence the all-wise Moses, first of all men to commit to writing the life of the God-beloved Hebrews before him, has set forth the political and practical mode of life through historical narrative. Beginning from universal principles, he made his teaching, positing God as the cause of all things and describing cosmogony and anthropogony. Then, proceeding in his account from universals to particulars and, through the mention of ancient men, urging his students to emulate their virtue and piety, and moreover being himself shown as the author of the pious laws established by him, he would in every respect be manifest as having made provision for the God-loving character through the care of morals, just as the argument has already made clear in what precedes. It would be lengthy to set down here also the subsequent prophets after Moses and their exhortatory words for virtue and dissuasive words from all vice. But what if I were to bring before you the ethical teachings of the most wise Solomon, to which he devoted a composition of his own words, entitling it Proverbs, comprising concise maxims resembling aphorisms under a single subject?

And the ethical mode the children of the Hebrews were taught from ancient times, before the Greeks had even learned their first letters, and they themselves were educated and generously shared the same education with those who approached them.

6. ON THE LOGICAL TREATISE AMONG THE HEBREWS. And the logical mode of Hebrew philosophy they thought should be pursued not, as is customary among the Greeks, by cleverness of sophisms and reasonings artificially contrived for deception, but by the apprehension of truth itself, which the divine-wise men among them, having their souls illuminated by divine light, discovered and were enlightened by. Sharpening those educated in their own studies toward this, they imparted to them from their earliest age proclamations of sacred words, narratives of venerable histories, metrical compositions of odes and incantations, and also problems and riddles, and certain wise and allegorical speculations, with beauty of eloquence and the fluent expression in their own tongue. Indeed, there were also among them certain "deuterotai," as they are accustomed to call the interpreters of their scriptures, who brought to light through interpretation and clarification what was obscured by riddles, if not to all, at least to those suited to hear these things.

Again, the most wise Solomon among them, taking his start from this, composed the beginning of the book of Proverbs, teaching that the cause of this writing was, in his own words, that every man must "know wisdom and education, and understand words of prudence, and accept turns of speech, and understand true justice, and direct judgment rightly, so that," he says, "I may give cunning to the innocent and perception and understanding to the young child. For hearing these things, the wise man will become wiser, and the intelligent man will acquire governance, and will understand a parable and a dark saying, and the sayings of the wise and riddles." And such were the promises of the work in question; but the particular propositions of what was said, and their solutions, and the logical treatment carried throughout all their prophetic writings in a manner befitting the wisdom and language of those men, whoever wishes, by taking the books of these writings in hand at leisure, will know. And if someone should become experienced in the language itself with a love of beauty, he would see what, among barbarians, most rational men, in no way inferior to sophists or rhetoricians in their own language, are like. They would also have metrical poems, such as the great Ode of Moses and the 118th Psalm of David, composed in what is called by the Greeks the heroic meter. They say, at any rate, that these are hexameters, made of sixteen syllables. And the rest of their stichic works are said to be composed in trimeters and tetrameters according to their own language.

And as for their verbal expression, it holds some measure of rational understanding, but as for the meaning, it is not even possible to compare it with humans; for oracles of God and of truth itself have been uttered through them, and they contain divine pronouncements and prophecies, as well as pious teachings and doctrines for the knowledge of beings. You might take evidence of the rational precision among these men from the correctness of the placement of names, concerning which even Plato, bearing witness to the opinion of the Hebrews, would be evident, and in this very matter being in agreement with the philosophy of these men, as it is easy to discern from these things.

7. ON THE CORRECTNESS OF NAMES AMONG THE HEBREWS. Moses first, long before the name of philosophy came to the Greeks, throughout his entire writing, treated extensively the placement of names, sometimes arranging the appellations of all things in his work most naturally, sometimes referring to God the judgment of the renaming of pious men, and teaching that names are placed according to things by nature, not by convention. Following him, Plato agrees with the same, not otherwise than by mentioning barbarians and stating that this manner is preserved among them, perhaps hinting at the Hebrews, since it is not easy to maintain such a theory among other barbarians. He says then in the Cratylus: "And this is not a name which some people, having agreed, call it, of their own speech

uttering a part, but that there is a certain correctness of names naturally existing, the same for both Greeks and barbarians." And proceeding further he says: "Therefore you will thus require that the lawgiver, both here and among the barbarians, as long as he renders the form of the name that is appropriate to each in whatever syllables, the lawgiver here is no worse than the one anywhere else." Then again next, having said that the one who knows the correctness of names is the dialectician, and the lawgiver, he speaks thus: "It is the work of a carpenter, then, to make a rudder under the supervision of a pilot, if the rudder is to be good. So it seems. And it is the work of a lawgiver, as it appears, to give a name, having a dialectician as his supervisor, if the name is to be well imposed. That is so. It is likely, then, Hermogenes, that the imposition of names is not a trivial matter, as you think, nor the work of trivial or ordinary men. And Cratylus speaks truly when he says that names exist by nature for things, and that not everyone is a craftsman of names, but only that one who looks to the name that is by nature for each thing and is able to place its form into letters and syllables." Having said so much, he again makes mention of barbarians after many things, and then confesses explicitly that many names came to Greeks from barbarians, saying in these very words: "I observe that the Greeks, especially those dwelling among the barbarians, have taken many names from the barbarians. What then? If one were to investigate these according to the Greek language as to whether they are plausibly set, but not according to that from which the name happens to be, you know that he would be at a loss.

Naturally." These are the words of Plato. But Moses, who is both a wise lawgiver and a dialectician, anticipates him. Listen to what he says: "And God formed from the earth all the wild beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called a living creature, that was its name." For by saying "that was its name," what else does he indicate but that the appellations are placed according to nature? For he says that what was just now named, this was also previously contained in nature, and that this name exists and pre-exists for each of the things named, which the man in question, divinely inspired by a superior power, has set in place. And the name Adam itself, being a Hebrew name, would become an epithet for the earth-born man in Moses, because among the Hebrews the earth is called Adam, whence the first earth-born man is aptly called Adam by Moses. This appellation could also have another meaning, when interpreted as "red" and indicating the nature of the body, but he signified the earthy, earthly, and earth-born man, or the corporeal and fleshly man, by the designation Adam. The children of the Hebrews also call man in another way, naming him Enos, which they say is the rational element in us, being different in nature from the earthy Adam. And Enos contains its own proper meaning, being interpreted in the Greek language as "forgetful." And such is the nature of the rational element in us because of its entanglement with the mortal and irrational.

For the completely pure, incorporeal, and divine rational being has encompassed not only the memory of past events but also the knowledge of future ones through the highest virtue of contemplation. But the one who is packed in flesh, fastened with bones and sinews, and burdened with a great and heavy mass of a body, the learned man among the Hebrews, seeing that it is full of much forgetfulness and ignorance, called it by a fitting name, naming it Enos, which signifies the forgetful one. Indeed, it is found in some prophet: "What is man, that he is remembered? Or the son of man, that he is visited?" Instead of which the Hebrew, in the first naming of man, includes Enos, as if to say more clearly: What is this forgetful one, that you, O God, remember him, even though he is forgetful? And "or the son of man, that he is visited" — "or the son of Adam" is found among those indicated, so that Adam and Enos are the same, with the fleshly being represented through Adam and the rational through Enos. And the Hebrew oracles thus somehow distinguish the etymology. But Plato says that man in the Greek language is named from the word "to contemplate," saying: "Man, at the same time he has seen, that is, he has beheld, and he contemplates and reasons about what he has beheld, so that he may be contemplating what he has beheld." Again, the Hebrews call the man ISH. And the name is derived by them from ESH, by which they signify fire, so that man is named from the hot and fiery nature of the male. And the woman, since it is said she was taken from the man, shares the appellation with the man. For ISHA is what the woman is called among them, just as ISH is the man.

Plato says that the man is named from the upward flow, and he adds: "The woman seems to me to wish to be called 'birth'." Again, Moses properly calls the heaven "firmament" in the Hebrew language, from its being the first solid and perceptible body after the incorporeal and intelligible substance of this cosmos. But Plato says that the name "heaven" is correctly given because it makes one look upward. Again, the Hebrews say that the highest and lordly name of God is unutterable and ineffable, and not even graspable by the imagination of the mind; and this very thing by which we name God, they call Eloeim, from "El," as it seems; and this they interpret as strength and power; so that the name of God among them is reasoned from the power and strength around him, through which he is conceived as all-powerful and all-strong, as having established all things. But Plato says that god and gods are named from "theein," which is "to run," the luminaries in the heaven being so called. Such are some things, so to speak in outline, that have been worked out among the Hebrews and among Plato concerning the correctness of names. And Plato says that the appellations among men have also been set with some thought, and he attempts to give the account, saying, I know not how, that Hector was so called from "to have" and "to hold," because he was king of the Trojans; and Agamemnon from "to remain exceedingly" and to persist vigorously and steadfastly in the opinions concerning the Trojans; and Orestes from the mountainous, wild, and bestial character of his disposition; and Atreus from his having become a certain "destructive" character.

Pelops he says is like one who does not see distant things but only what is near and close, and Tantalus he says signifies a most wretched man because of the misfortunes around him. These and countless other such things you would find said by Plato, who attempts to teach that names are given to the first things by nature, not by convention. But would you not say that the things in Moses are forced, nor are they made according to some sophistical invention, when you learn that Cain among the Hebrews is rendered "jealousy" among the Greeks, and that the one indicated was deemed worthy of this appellation because he was jealous of his brother Abel. And Abel is interpreted as "mourning," he himself having become the cause of such a passion to his parents, who by some divine providence placed these surnames upon their children when they were born. What if I should bring forward Abraham? This man was an astronomer and knowledgeable in the contemplation of the stars and the celestial sciences, formerly when he practiced Chaldean wisdom, and was called Abram; this in the Greek tongue signifies "lofty father." But God, leading him from these things to the invisible and beyond the visible, used a well-aimed metonymy, saying, "Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but Abraham shall be your name, because I have made you father of many nations." Of what meaning this is, a long

would be a discourse. It suffices even in this matter to cite Plato as a witness to the argument, who says that some names have been established by a more divine power. He speaks in these very words: "For here the setting of names must be especially studied; perhaps some of them were even produced by a more divine power than that of men." This very point is confirmed at greater length by the sacred scripture among the Hebrews. And Moses was the first of all, who taught that Abraham and his son Isaac and also Israel were named by a more divine power. Isaac is interpreted as "laughter," bringing the symbol of virtuous joy, which God has promised to give as a special reward to those who are dear to him. His son Israel was previously bearing the name Jacob, but instead of Jacob, God bestowed upon him the name Israel, transferring the ascetic and practical man to the contemplative. For Jacob is interpreted as "supplanter," as one who struggles in the contest of virtue; Israel is "one who sees God," such as would be the gnostic and contemplative mind in a human being. Why need I now unfold the correctness of the setting of proper names from the all-wise Moses or from the sacred words of the Hebrews through countless other examples, since the matters concerning this topic require a longer study? For instance, the Greeks could not give the etymologies of the first elements of grammar, nor would Plato himself be able to give the reason or rationale for vowels or consonants. But the children of the Hebrews could state the cause of Alpha, which among them is called Aleph, and this signifies "learning.

And Beta, which they are accustomed to call Beth, thus they name "house"; so that it reveals the meaning "learning of a house," as if it were more clearly said "some teaching and learning of economy." And Gamma is called by them Gimel; thus they name "fullness." Then, since they call tablets Delth, they named the fourth element thus, signifying together through the two elements that "written learning is the fullness of tablets." And if one goes through the remaining elements of the alphabet, with some cause and reasoning, one would find each named among them, since they say that the combination of the seven vowels into one contains the utterance of some ineffable name, which the children of the Hebrews, marking it with four elements, assign to the highest power of God, having received from father to son that this is something unspeakable and ineffable to the many. And among the wise of the Greeks, someone, having learned this from somewhere, hinted at it, saying somewhere in verses: "Seven vowel letters praise the great, imperishable god, the unwearied father of all. And I am the imperishable lyre of all, which harmonized the lyre-like songs of the heavenly revolution." You would also find, for each of the remaining elements among the Hebrews, their meanings, if you attend to each; and this has already been established by us in what was said before, when we demonstrated that the Greeks have benefited in everything from the barbarians. And one would learn much, if one investigates the Hebrew language, that correctness of names is borne among these men, since even the appellative name of the whole nation took its surname from Eber.

This signifies "the one who crosses over," since both "crossing" and "passing through" are called "Héber" in the Hebrew tongue. The account teaches to cross over and pass from things here to the divine, and by no means to remain and stand still in the contemplation of visible things, but from these to pass over to the invisible and unseen matters of theology concerning the maker and creator of all things. For this reason they called the first ones, who were devoted solely to the universal leader and cause of all things with pure and true piety, "Hebrews," designating such persons as "crossers" and "those who have passed over in thought."

Why should I now prolong further, gathering all things concerning the correctness and precision of Hebrew names, when the problem requires its own proper treatment? Nevertheless, to speak in outline, I consider that through what has been said I have provided a demonstration of the rational teaching among the Hebrews, if indeed, according to Plato, it was not the work of ordinary or chance men, but of some wise and dialectical lawgiver to discover a nature of names appropriate to things—such as Moses and the Hebrew oracles have been shown to be for us. What then follows after the logical matters but to examine the physical, how the children of the Hebrews fared in these as well?

8. On the Physiology of the Hebrews. And the third part of Hebrew philosophy—this being the physical part, divided among them into the contemplation of intelligible and incorporeal things and the physiology of sensible things—the prophets, who were perfect in every respect, knew and, when occasion called, intermingled with their discourses, not having learned by conjectures and the contrivance of mortal intellect, nor priding themselves on human teachers, but attributing their knowledge to divine inspiration and the inbreathing of a superior power and divine spirit. Hence countless things were prophesied by them concerning the future, countless things were physiologized concerning the constitution of the universe, and again countless things were treated concerning the nature of animals, and very many things concerning plants were set down in their respective prophecies. And Moses, being well acquainted with the powers of stones, not casually employed their contemplation in the vestment of the high priest. And again Solomon, if anyone else, is testified by divine scripture to have excelled in the physiology concerning these things, which contains thus: "And Solomon spoke three thousand parables, and his songs were five thousand, and he spoke concerning trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows through the wall. And he spoke concerning cattle and concerning birds and concerning reptiles and concerning fish, and all the peoples came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, as many as heard his wisdom." Starting from this, the one who attributed all-virtuous wisdom to his person said:

For he gave me true knowledge of beings, to know the constitution of the cosmos and the activity of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of times, the changes of solstices and the alterations of seasons, the cycles of the year and the positions of the stars, the natures of animals and the ferocities of beasts, the forces of winds and the reasonings of men, the differences of plants and the powers of roots—all that is hidden and unseen I have come to know. For the wisdom that is the artisan of all things taught me." And again the same Solomon, physiologizing the flowing substance of bodies in Ecclesiastes, says: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What surplus is there for a man in all his labor, which he labors under the sun?" And he adds: "What has happened? That which will happen; and what has been made? That which will be made. And there is nothing new under the sun." For these and such things had been physiologized by him concerning bodily substance. And you would find, if you go through them, that the other wise men of the Hebrews are not without a share of the same knowledge. For indeed, as I have already said earlier, countless things have been stated by them concerning plants and animals, both land and aquatic, and further concerning the nature of birds. And indeed also concerning the stars in the sky, since some mention, not a casual one, of the Bear and the Pleiades and Orion and Arcturus—whom the Greeks are fond of calling Arctophylax and Boötes—is carried in the writings of those indicated.

But also the matters concerning the constitution of the cosmos, and those concerning the change and alteration of the whole, and concerning the substance of the soul and the nature of all rational beings, both visible and invisible creation, and universal providence, and prior to these still, the matters concerning the first cause of all things, and the theology of the second, and the other things apprehensible only by the mind—these accounts and speculations they have encompassed very well and accurately, so that one could not err in saying that those among the Greeks who later investigated the nature of these things followed after them as younger men follow elders. So much then concerning the natural philosophy of the whole. And having distinguished their account of these things in a twofold manner, they thought that the account concerning perceptible things ought not to be brought out to the multitude to an extreme degree, nor to teach the common crowd the causes of the nature of beings, except insofar as it was necessary to know that the whole is not automatic nor does it subsist at random and by chance from irrational motion, but is led by the rein of the divine Word and is governed by the power of ineffable wisdom. Concerning intelligible things—that they exist, and what they are, and how they are arranged in order, power, and difference—this has been stated and deposited in the sacred books and transmitted for all to hear, insofar as it was necessary for those who claim piety to know for the assumption of a reverent and temperate life. But the deep and hidden account concerning these things they left to be sought and taught in secret to those who are fit to be initiated into such matters.

But it would be well, to speak summarily, to go through also the contemplation of these matters, and to show that Plato in this too held opinions friendly to what is being made clear.

9. ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE INTELLIGIBLE REALMS. Moreover, also in the education and contemplation of the intelligible and incorporeal, the admirable Plato is manifest to have followed the all-wise Moses and the prophets of the Hebrews, through his own words, whether he learned by hearing that came to him—since he is known to have spent his time among the Egyptians at that time when the Hebrews, having fallen from their own land for the second time, were sojourning among the Egyptians, while the Persians were dominant—or whether he applied himself to the nature of things by himself, or however he was deemed worthy of knowledge by God. "For God," it is said, "revealed to them. For his invisible things, understood from the creation of the world through his works, are beheld—both his eternal power and divinity—so that they are without excuse." You would understand what has been said by examining it in this way.