This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[317]
But this man was admirable for his virtue, and powerful in making
men give credit to what he delivered, not only during the time of his natural
life, but even there is still no one of the Hebrews who does not act even
now as if Moses were present, and ready to punish him if he should do any
thing that is indecent; nay, there is no one but is obedient to what laws
he ordained, although they might be concealed in their transgressions.
There are also many other demonstrations that his power was more than human,
for still some there have been, who have come from the parts beyond Euphrates,
a journey of four months, through many dangers, and at great expenses,
in honor of our temple; and yet, when they had offered their oblations,
could not partake of their own sacrifices, because Moses had forbidden
it, by somewhat in the law that did not permit them, or somewhat that had
befallen them, which our ancient customs made inconsistent therewith; some
of these did not sacrifice at all, and others left their sacrifices in
an imperfect condition; many were not able, even at first, so much as to
enter the temple, but went their ways in this as preferring a submission
to the laws of Moses before the fulfilling of their own inclinations, they
had no fear upon them that anybody could convict them, but only out of
a reverence to their own conscience. Thus this legislation, which appeared
to be divine, made this man to be esteemed as one superior to his own nature.
Nay, further, a little before the beginning of this war, when Claudius
was emperor of the Romans, and Ismael was our high priest, and when so
great a famine 1
was come upon us, that one tenth deal [of wheat] was sold for four drachmae,
and when no less than seventy cori of flour were brought into the temple,
at the feast of unleavened bread, (these cori are thirty-one Sicilian,
but forty-one Athenian medimni,) not one of the priests was so hardy as
to eat one crumb of it, even while so great a distress was upon the land;
and this out of a dread of the law, and of that wrath which God retains
against acts of wickedness, even when no one can accuse the actors. Whence
we are not to wonder at what was then done, while to this very day the
writings left by Moses have so great a force, that even those that hate
us do confess, that he who established this settlement was God, and that
it was by the means of Moses, and of his virtue; but as to these matters,
let every one take them as he thinks fit.
1 See Antiq, B. XX. ch. 2. sect, 6. and Acts 11:28.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.