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Updated: May 1, 2025
The war of words translated itself from time to time into the breaking of heads. Philo, indeed, never mentions Apion by name, but he refers covertly in many places to his insolence and unscrupulousness.
Celsus, Numenius, and Dion Cassius, three of the most notable authors of the second century, speak of the Jewish people and Jewish Scriptures in a very different tone from that of a Tacitus and an Apion. And as it has been said, "Who shall know how many cultured pagans were led by the books of Josephus to read the Bible and to look on Judaism with other eyes?"
And let this suffice for an answer in general to Apion, as to what he says with relation to the Alexandrian Jews. To this my first answer shall be this, that had there been any such thing among us, an Egyptian ought by no means to have thrown it in our teeth, since an ass is not a more contemptible animal than and goats, and other such creatures, which among them are gods.
It was said that the deity worshiped at Jerusalem was the head of an ass, to which human sacrifices were offered, and that the Jews took an oath to do no service for any Gentile. Apion, a man of some repute, was the head of the Alexandrian Stoic school, and called "the toiler," because of his industry.
Apion adds further, that, "the man said there were but a few days to come ere he was to be slain, and implored of Antiochus that, out of the reverence he bore to the Grecian gods, he would disappoint the snares the Jews laid for his blood, and would deliver him from the miseries with which he was encompassed."
She then sent an army against Cyprus; and Lathyrus was beaten and forced to fly from the island. In the middle of this reign died Ptolemy Apion, King of Cyrene. He was the half-brother of Lathyrus and Alexander, and, having been made King of Cyrene by his father Euergetes II., he had there reigned quietly for twenty years.
But besides this answer, I say further, how comes it about that Apion does not understand this to be no other than a palpable lie, and to be confuted by the thing itself as utterly incredible?
Apion also tells a false story, when he mentions an oath of ours, as if we "swore by God, the Maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea, to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Greeks." Now this liar ought to have said directly that, "we would bear no good-will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Egyptians."
Apion. ii. Section 36; Cic. De Fin. v. 25; Clem. Alex. Strom, 1, xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; Prof. Evang. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. Inst. There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be something very touching, there is also something very encouraging.
However, if any one should ask Apion which of the Egyptians he thinks to be the most wise and most pious of them all, he would certainly acknowledge the priests to be so; for the histories say that two things were originally committed to their care by their kings' injunctions, the worship of the gods, and the support of wisdom and philosophy.
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