Philo

“ Not but what those of our fellow countrymen who are by nature most inclined to detest all wickedness, will accuse us of impiety, as if we, in the extremity of dangers, when our whole country was tossed about and threatened, were remembering some private interests of our own out of selfishness. For it is necessary that small things must yield to great ones, and that private objects must yield to the general interests; since, when they are destroyed, there is an end of the constitution and of the nation. ”

“ But when Tiberius was dead, and Gaius succeeded to the empire, he then, following a new master, who invited him to every description of relaxation and luxury, such as could delight every one of his outward senses, said to himself: "Rise up, O Helicon! now is your opportunity. You have now an auditor, and a spectator, who is of all men in the world the best calculated to receive the exhibition of your talents favourably. You are a man of very attractive natural talents. You are able to joke graceful, and to say witty, things beyond any one else. ”

“ Therefore Gaius was exasperated still more against our nation, and cherished a more furious anger against us than before, "For," said he, "if Agrippa, who is my most intimate and dearest friend, and one bound to me by so many benefits, is to completely under the influence of his national customs that he cannot bear even to hear a word against them, but faints away to such a degree as to be near dying, what must one expect will be the feelings of others who have no motive or influence to draw them the other way?" ”

“ Your loyal and excellent fellow citizens, the only nation of men upon the whole face of the earth by whom Gaius is not esteemed to be a god, appear now to be even desiring to plot my death in their obstinate disobedience, for when I commanded my statue in the character of Jupiter to be erected in their temple, they raised the whole of their people, and quitted the city and the whole country in a body, under pretence of addressing a petition to me, but in reality being determined to act in a manner contrary to the commands which I had imposed upon them. ”

“ We who were formerly very fortunate, have now advanced through many events to an exceeding old age that we might at last behold what no one of our ancestors ever saw. With what eyes can we endure to look upon these things? Let them rather be torn out, and let our miserable lives and our afflicted existence be put an end to, before we behold such an evil as this, such an intolerable spectacle which it is impious to hear of or to conceive. ”

“ If therefore you mingle with your jestings any little stimulus which is in the least unwelcome or painful, so as to excite not only laughter but any feelings of bitterness, on the part of one who is always ready to suspect evil, you will be deliberately alienating from yourself a master who is the very well inclined by nature to listen to any accusations which are brought before him in a joking manner; for his ears, as you well know, are always open, and are constantly on the watch to listen to all those who are in the habit of interweaving accusations of others with their sycophancy. ”

“ And yet if ever there was a man to whom it was proper that new and unprecedented honours should be voted, it was certainly fitting that such should be decreed to him, not only because he was as it were the origin and fountain of the family of Augustus, not because he was the first, and greatest, and universal benefactor, having, instead of the multitude of governors who existed before, entrusted the common vessel of the state to himself as one pilot of admirable skill in the science of government to steer and govern ”

“ And do you not think any one of the gods who are worshipped in that city or by our people worthy of any country or city or even of any small precinct which may have been consecrated to them in old time, and dedicated to them with oracles and sacred hymns, and are you intending to deprive them of that, that in all the vast circumference of the world there may be no visible trace or memorial to be found of any honour or pious worship paid to the true real living God? ”

“ And while he was triumphing in these super-human appellations, the sycophant Isidorus, seeing the temper in which he was, said, "O master, you will hate with still juster vehemence these men whom you see before you and their fellow countrymen, if you are made acquainted with their disaffection and disloyalty towards yourself; for when all other men were offering up sacrifices of thanksgiving for your safety, these men alone refused to offer any sacrifice at all; and when I say, 'these men,' I comprehend all the rest of the Jews." ”

“ For what can possibly be a more desirable blessing for a subject nation than the good will of its sovereign? It was at Jerusalem, O emperor! that your most desirable succession to the empire was first announced; and the news of your advancement spread from the holy city all over the continent on each side, and was received with great gladness. And on this account that city deserves to meet with favour at your hands ”

“ Who, of all the men who flourished in his time, was either more prudent or more eloquent? Or in his age? What king or emperor ever lived to more prosperous old age than he? Moreover, he, even while he was still a young man, was called the old man as a mark of respect because of his exceeding wisdom. ”

“ No one is so mad as, when he is a slave, to oppose his master. We willingly and readily submit ourselves to be put to death; let your troops slay us, let them sacrifice us, let them cut us to pieces unresisting and uncontending, let them treat us with every species of cruelty that conquerers can possibly practise, (234) but what need is there of any army? ”

“ These men hearing from travellers who visit the city how exceedingly eager and earnest Gaius is about his own deification, and how disposed he is to look unfavourably upon the whole race of Judaea, thinking that they have now an admirable opportunity for attacking them themselves, have erected an extemporaneous altar of the most contemptible materials, having made clay into bricks for the sole purpose of plotting against their fellow citizens; for they knew well that they would never endure to see their customs transgressed ”

“ It would be a result of very formidable danger and difficulty, besides the fact that the inhabitants of Judaea are infinite in numbers, and a nation of great stature and personal strength, and of great courage and spirit, and men who are willing to die in defence of their national customs and laws with unshrinking bravery, so that some of those who calumniate them say that their courage (as indeed is perfectly true) is beyond that of any barbarian nation, being the spirit of free and nobly born men. ”

“ Continue your favour, O master, that your Agrippa may not be driven wholly to forsake life; for I shall appear (if you do not do so) to have been released from bondage, not for the purpose of being saved, but for that of being made to perish in a more conspicuous manner. (326) "You have given me the greatest and most glorious inheritance among mankind, the rank and power of a king, at first over one district, then over another and a more important one, adding to my kingdom the district called Trachonitis and Galilee. ”

“ Have you imitated Bacchus in any respect? Have you been an inventor of any new blessings to mankind? Have you filled the whole of the habitable world with joy as he did? Are all Asia and Europe inadequate to contain the gifts which have been showered upon mankind by you? ”

“ But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate) , they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. ”

“ But when our pleadings on behalf of justice were thus broken up, and cut short, and interrupted, and crushed as one may almost say, we, being wearied and exhausted, and having no strength left in us, but being in continual expectation of nothing else than death, could not longer keep our hearts as they had been, but in our agony we took refuge in supplications to the one true God, praying him to check the wrath of this falsely called god. ”

“ How then did he look upon the great division of Rome which is on the other side of the river Tiber, which he was well aware was occupied and inhabited by the Jews? And they were mostly Roman citizens, having been emancipated; for, having been brought as captives into Italy, they were manumitted by those who had bought them for slaves, without ever having been compelled to alter any of their hereditary or national observances. ”

“ For in all the particulars in which men are enjoined by the laws, and in which they have it in their power to show their piety and loyalty, my nation is inferior to none whatever in Asia or in Europe, whether it be in respect of prayers, or of the supply of sacred offerings, or in the abundance of its sacrifices, not merely of such as are offered on occasions of the public festivals, but in those which are continually offered day after day ”

“ For how can it be holy or lawful for us to struggle in any other manner, pointing out that we are citizens of Alexandria, over whom a danger is now impending, that namely, of the utter destruction of the general constitution of the Jewish nation; for in the destruction of the temple there is reason to fear that this man, so fond of innovation and willing to dare the most audacious actions, will also order the general name of our whole nation to be abolished. ”

“ We only ask one thing instead of and to counterbalance all of them, namely, that no innovations may take place in respect of our temple, but that it may be kept such as we have received it from our fathers and our forefathers. (233) And if we cannot prevail with you in this, then we offer up ourselves for destruction, that we may not live to behold a calamity more terrible and grievous than death. We hear that great forces of infantry and cavalry are being prepared by you against us, if we oppose the erection and dedication of this statue. ”

“ We have brought unto you our wives, and our children, and our whole families, and in your person we will prostrate ourselves before Gaius, having left not one single person at home, that you may either preserve us all, or destroy us all together by one general and complete destruction. Petronius, we are a peaceful nation, both by our natural disposition and by our determined intentions, and the education which has been industriously and carefully instilled into us has taught us this lesson from our very earliest infancy. ”

“ And when we are dead, let this commandment be inscribed over us as an epitaph, 'Let not even God blame us, who have had a due regard to both considerations, pious loyalty towards the emperor and the reverential preservation of our established holy laws.' "And this will be what will be deservedly said of us if we give up our miserable life, holding it in proper contempt. ”

“ Gaius is not here. You have now had a sufficient tranquil sleep, but now turn and raise yourself, and rest upon your elbow, and recognise those who are about you; they are all your own people, those of your friends, and freedmen, and domestics, who honour you above all others, and who are honoured by you in return. ”

“ And your grandmother, Julia Augusta, following the example of so great a guide in the paths of piety, did also adorn the temple with some golden vials and censers, and with a great number of other offerings, of the most costly and magnificent description; and what was her object in doing this, when there is no statue erected within the temple? for the minds of women are, in some degree, weaker than those of men, and are not so well able to comprehend a thing which is appreciable only by the intellect, without any aid of objects addressed to the outward senses ”

“ For your house has discovered and brought to light everything that is good, even in the midst of evils, and has banished all evils to the extremities of the earth, and beyond its borders to the very depths of Tartarus, and has brought back, from the most distant borders of the earth and sea, those profitable and beneficial things which were in a manner banished into the habitable world around us ”

“ Up to the present time it seems to me that you have no notion of acknowledging that you know, even by hearsay, that Gaius is emperor, but you shall very speedily find it out by your own experience, (256) for you are careful about the laws of the Jews, a nation which I hate above every other, and you are indifferent about the imperial commands of your sovereign. You fear the multitude. ”

“ And what is better than peace? and peace is caused by good government on sound principles. And no government can be good but that which is free from all contentions and from all disputes, and then everything else is made right by it. ”