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HISTORY 5.2-5: THEORIES OF JEWISH ORIGINS
Moses Hadas, translation
Evidence of this is sought in the name [for the origin of the Hebrew people]. There is a famous mountain in Crete
called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idi, came to be called Judi by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others
assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into
the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were
driven by fear and hatred of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who,
not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew
country, lying on the borders of Syria. Others, again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, alleging that they
were the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the j poems of Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma after their
own name.
3. Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke
out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm,
and to convey into some foreign land this race detested by the gods. The people, who had been collected after diligent search,
finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned
them not to look for any relief from God or man, forsaken as they were of both, but to trust to them selves, taking for their
heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance
began to advance at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to
perish in all I directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded
by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. This
furnished relief. After a continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country, from which
they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.
4. Moyses, wishing to secure for the
future his authority over the nation, gave them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that practised by other men. Things
sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden. In their holy place they have consecrated
an image of the animal by whose guidance they found deliverance from their long and thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram,
seemingly in derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis. They abstain from swines
flesh, in consideration of what they suffered when they were infected by the leprosy to which this animal is liable. By their
frequent fasts they still bear witness to the long hunger of former days, and the Jewish bread, made without leaven, is retained
as a memorial of their hurried seizure of corn. We are told that the rest of the seventh day was adopted, because this day
brought with it a termination of their toils; after a while the charm of indolence beguiled them into giving up the seventh
year also to inaction. But others say that it is an observance in honour of Saturn, either from the primitive elements of
their faith having been transmitted from the Ideai, who are said to have shared the flight of that God, and to have founded
the race, or from the circumstance that of the seven stars which rule the destinies of men Saturn moves in the highest orbit
and with the mightiest power, and that many of the heavenly bodies complete their revolutions and courses in multiples of
seven.
5. This worship, however introduced~ is upheld by its antiquity; all their other customs, which are at once
perverse and disgusting, owe their strength to their very badness. The most degraded out of other races, scorning their national
beliefs, brought to them their contributions and presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact, that
among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with
all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart. and though, as a nation, they are singularly prone to
lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful. Circumcision was adopted by
them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson
first instilled into despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren. Still they
provide for increase of their numbers. It is a crime among them any newly-born infant. They hold that the souls of perish
in battle or by the hands of the executioner are mortal. Hence a passion for propagating their race and a contempt for death.
They are wont to bury rather burn their dead, following in this the Egyptian custom, bestow the same care on the dead, and
they hold the belief about the lower world. Quite different is their about things divine. The Egyptians worship many animals
and images of monstrous form; the Jews have purely conceptions of Deity, as one in essence. They call those profane who make
representations of God in human shape of perishable materials. They believe that Being to supreme and eternal, neither capable
of representation or decay. They therefore do not allow any images to their cities: much less in their temples. This flattery
paid to their kings, nor this honour to our Emperors. From the fact, however, that their priests used to chant to music of
flutes and cymbals, and to wear garlands of and that a golden vine was found in the temple, some thought that they worshipped
Father Liber, the conqueror of the East, though their institutions do not by any means harmonize with the theory; for Liber
established a festive and cheerful worship, while the Jewish religion is tasteless and mean.
6. Eastward the country
is bounded by Arabia; to the south lies Egypt; on the west are Phcenicia and the Mediterranean. Northward it commands an extensive
prospect over Syria. The inhabitants are healthy and able to bear fatigue. Rain is uncommon, but the soil is fertile. Its
products resemble our own. They have, besides, the balsam and the palm. The palm-groves are tall and graceful. The balsam
is a shrub; each branch, as it fills with sap, may pierced with a fragment of stone or pottery. If steel is employed, the
veins shrink up. The sap is used by physicians. Libanus is the principal mountain, and has, strange to say, amidst these burning
heats, a summit shaded with trees and never deserted by its snows. The same range supplies and sends forth the stream of the
Jordan. This river does not discharge itself into the sea, but flows entire through two lakes, and is lost in the third. This
is a lake of vast circumference; it resembles the sea, but is more nauseous in taste; it breeds pestilence among those who
live near by its noisome odour; it cannot be moved by the wind, and it affords no home either to fish or water-birds. These
strange waters support what is thrown upon them, as on a solid surface, and all persons, whether they can swim or no, are
equally buoyed up by the waves. At a certain season of the year the lake throws up bitumen, and the method of collecting it
has been taught by that experience which teaches all other arts. It is naturally a fluid of dark colour; when vinegar is sprinkled
upon it, it coagulates and floats upon the surface. Those whose business it is take it with the hand, and draw it on to the
deck of the boat; it then continues of itself to flow in and lade the vessel till the stream is cut off. Nor can this be done
by any instrument of brass or iron. It shrinks from blood or any cloth stained by the menstrual of women. Such is the account
of old authors; but those who know the country say that the bitumen moves m heaving masses on the water, that it is drawn
by hand to the shore, and that there, when dried by the evaporation of the earth and the power of the sun, it is cut into
pieces with axes and wedges just as timber or stone would be.
7. Not far from this lake lies a plain, once fertile,
they say, and the site of great cities, but afterwards struck by lightning and consumed. Of this event, they declare, traces
still remain, for the soil, which is scorched in appearance, has lost its productive power.
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