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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 Judaei 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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