Preface (1)(1) This preface of Josephus is excellent in its kind, and highly worthy the repeated perusal of the reader, before he set about the perusal of the work itself. - THOSE who undertake to write histories, do
not, I perceive, take that trouble on one and the same account, but
for many reasons, and those such as are very different one from
another. For some of them apply themselves to this part of learning
to show their skill in composition, and that they may therein
acquire a reputation for speaking finely: others of them there are,
who write histories in order to gratify those that happen to be
concerned in them, and on that account have spared no pains, but
rather gone beyond their own abilities in the performance: but
others there are, who, of necessity and by force, are driven to
write history, because they are concerned in the facts, and so
cannot excuse themselves from committing them to writing, for the
advantage of posterity; nay, there are not a few who are induced to
draw their historical facts out of darkness into light, and to
produce them for the benefit of the public, on account of the great
importance of the facts themselves with which they have been
concerned. Now of these several reasons for writing history, I must
profess the two last were my own reasons also; for since I was
myself interested in that war which we Jews had with the Romans, and
knew myself its particular actions, and what conclusion it had, I
was forced to give the history of it, because I saw that others
perverted the truth of those actions in their writings.
Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear
to all the Greeks (2) worthy of their study; for it will contain all
our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as
interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly
intend, when I wrote of the war, (3) to explain who the Jews
originally were, - what fortunes they had been subject to, - and by
what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise
of other virtues, - what wars also they had made in remote ages,
till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but
because this work would take up a great compass, I separated it into
a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own
conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as
undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a
large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a
foreign, and to us unaccustomed language. However, some persons
there were who desired to know our history, and so exhorted me to go
on with it; and, above all the rest, Epaphroditus, (4) a man who is
a lover of all kind of learning, but is principally delighted with
the knowledge of history, and this on account of his having been
himself concerned in great affairs, and many turns of fortune, and
having shown a wonderful rigour of an excellent nature, and an
immovable virtuous resolution in them all. I yielded to this man's
persuasions, who always excites such as have abilities in what is
useful and acceptable, to join their endeavors with his. I was also
ashamed myself to permit any laziness of disposition to have a
greater influence upon me, than the delight of taking pains in such
studies as were very useful: I thereupon stirred up myself, and went
on with my work more cheerfully. Besides the foregoing motives, I
had others which I greatly reflected on; and these were, that our
forefathers were willing to communicate such things to others; and
that some of the Greeks took considerable pains to know the affairs
of our nation.
(2) That is, all the Gentiles, both Greeks and
Romans.
(3) We may seasonably note here, that Josephus
wrote his Seven Books of the Jewish War long before he wrote these
his Antiquities. Those books of the War were published about A.D.
75, and these Antiquities, A. D. 93, about eighteen years later.
(4) This Epaphroditus was certainly alive in the
third year of Trajan, A.D. 100. See the note on the First Book
Against Apion, sect. 1. Who he was we do not know; for as to
Epaphroditus, the freedman of Nero, and afterwards Domitian's
secretary, who was put to death by Domitian in the 14th or 15th year
of his reign, he could not be alive in the third of Trajan.
I found,
therefore, that the second of the Ptolemies was a king who was
extraordinarily diligent in what concerned learning, and the
collection of books; that he was also peculiarly ambitious to
procure a translation of our law, and of the constitution of our
government therein contained, into the Greek tongue. Now Eleazar the
high priest, one not inferior to any other of that dignity among us,
did not envy the forenamed6 king the participation of that advantage,
which otherwise he would for certain have denied him, but that he
knew the custom of our nation was, to hinder nothing of what we
esteemed ourselves from being communicated to others. Accordingly, I
thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high
priest, and to suppose there might even now be many lovers of
learning like the king; for he did not obtain all our writings at
that time; but those who were sent to Alexandria as interpreters,
gave him only the books of the law, while there were a vast number
of other matters in our sacred books. They, indeed, contain in them
the history of five thousand years; in which time happened many
strange accidents, many chances of war, and great actions of the
commanders, and mutations of the form of our government. Upon the
whole, a man that will peruse this history, may principally learn
from it, that all events succeed well, even to an incredible degree,
and the reward of felicity is proposed by God; but then it is to
those that follow his will, and do not venture to break his
excellent laws: and that so far as men any way apostatize from the
accurate observation of them, what was practical before becomes
impracticable (5) and whatsoever they set about as a good thing, is
converted into an incurable calamity. And now I exhort all those
that peruse these books, to apply their minds to God; and to examine
the mind of our legislator, whether he hath not understood his
nature in a manner worthy of him; and hath not ever ascribed to him
such operations as become his power, and hath not preserved his
writings from those indecent fables which others have framed,
although, by the great distance of time when he lived, he might have
securely forged such lies; for he lived two thousand years ago; at
which vast distance of ages the poets themselves have not been so
hardy as to fix even the generations of their gods, much less the
actions of their men, or their own laws. As I proceed, therefore, I
shall accurately describe what is contained in our records, in the
order of time that belongs to them; for I have already promised so
to do throughout this undertaking; and this without adding any thing
to what is therein contained, or taking away any thing therefrom.
(5) Josephus here plainly alludes to the famous
Greek proverb, If God be with us, every thing that is impossible
becomes possible.
But because
almost all our constitution depends on the wisdom of Moses, our
legislator, I cannot avoid saying somewhat concerning him
beforehand, though I shall do it briefly; I mean, because otherwise
those that read my book may wonder how it comes to pass, that my
discourse, which promises an account of laws and historical facts,
contains so much of philosophy. The reader is therefore to know,
that Moses deemed it exceeding necessary, that he who would conduct
his own life well, and give laws to others, in the first place
should consider the Divine nature; and, upon the contemplation of
God's operations, should thereby imitate the best of all patterns,
so far as it is possible for human nature to do, and to endeavor to
follow after it: neither could the legislator himself have a right
mind without such a contemplation; nor would any thing he should
write tend to the promotion of virtue in his readers; I mean, unless
they be taught first of all, that God is the Father and Lord of all
things, and sees all things, and that thence he bestows a happy life
upon those that follow him; but plunges such as do not walk in the
paths of virtue into inevitable miseries. Now when Moses was
desirous to teach this lesson to his countrymen, he did not begin
the establishment of his laws after the same manner that other
legislators did; I mean, upon contracts and other rights between one
man and another, but by raising their minds upwards to regard God,
and his creation of the world; and by persuading them, that we men
are the most excellent of the creatures of God upon earth. Now when
once he had brought them to submit to religion, he easily persuaded
them to submit in all other things: for as to other legislators,
they followed fables, and by their discourses transferred the most
reproachful of human vices unto the gods, and afforded wicked men
the most plausible excuses for their crimes; but as for our
legislator, when he had once demonstrated that God was possessed of
perfect virtue, he supposed that men also ought to strive after the
participation of it; and on those who did not so think, and so
believe, he inflicted the severest punishments. I exhort, therefore,
my readers to examine this whole undertaking in that view; for
thereby it will appear to them, that there is nothing therein
disagreeable either to the majesty of God, or to his love to
mankind; for all things have here a reference to the nature of the
universe; while our legislator speaks some things wisely, but
enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still
explains such things as required a direct explication plainly and
expressly. However, those that have a mind to know the reasons of
every thing, may find here a very curious philosophical theory,
which I now indeed shall wave the explication of; but if God afford
me time for it, I will set about writing it (6) after I have
finished the present work. I shall now betake myself to the history
before me, after I have first mentioned what Moses says of the
creation of the world, which I find described in the sacred books
after the manner following.
(6) As to this intended work of Josephus concerning the reasons of many of the Jewish laws, and what philosophical or allegorical sense they would bear, the loss of which work is by some of the learned not much regretted, I am inclinable, in part, to Fabricius's opinion, ap. Havercamp, p. 63, 61, That "we need not doubt but that, among some vain and frigid conjectures derived from Jewish imaginations, Josephus would have taught us a greater number of excellent and useful things, which perhaps nobody, neither among the Jews, nor among the Christians, can now inform us of; so that I would give a great deal to find it still extant."
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