tutes of Mofes, and from the Care he took to prevent that Disease from spreading and encreafing among the Jews; by confining Lepers to retired and separate Places, forbidding 'em to come into Towns and Villages, and declaring all impure that should touch them, or any Thing that belonged to them, or had the leaft Commerce and Communication with them; and by enjoining to those that were recovered from it, many Wafhings, Cleanfings, Shavings, Purifications, and Sacrifices, before they could be admitted into the Holy City again. And can it be reasonably fuppofed that one who had laboured under that Distemper himself, would have fhewn fuch extreme Severity to thofe infected People, and enacted fuch hard Laws, which could fo eafily have been retorted upon him, and must needs have covered him with Shame and * Confufion? This is the Subftance of Jofephus's Answer to this Slander of Manetho, which feems to be very folid and juft. But I wish he had proceeded farther, traced it to its Original, and fhewn us what it was that firft gave Rife to that Calumny; which I the more wonder he did not, fince it was fo plain and obvious, and might be fo eafily accounted for, from the Writings of Mofes. I mean from the Plague of Boils and Blains, which the Egyptians were vifited with upon the Account of the Jews, and which, together with other Plagues and Judgments, prevailed at last upon their har

* Τοῖς γὰρ λεπρῶσιν ἀπείρηκε, μήτε μένειν ἐν Πόλεις, μήτ' ἐν κώμη κατοικεῖν, ἀλλὰ μόνες περιπατεῖν καλεχισμένες τα ἱμάτια, καὶ τὸν αψάμενον αυτῶν ἢ ὁμώροφον γενόμενον, ο καθα εὸν ἡγεῖται. Καὶ μὴν κἂν θεραπευθῆ τὸ νόσημα, καὶ τὴν αὐτῇ φύσιν ἀπολάβη, προείρηκε τινας ἁγνείας, καθαρμές πηγαίων ὑδάτων λετροῖς, και ξυρήσεις πάσης τριχός, πολλάς τε κελέυει και σα τοίας επιτελέσαντα θυσίας, τότε παρελθεν εἰς τὴν ἱερὸν πολιν. Κάιτοι τεναντίον εἰκὸς ἦν προνοίᾳ τινὶ καὶ φιλανθρωπία χρήσασθαι τὸν ἐν τῇ συμφορᾷ ταύτῃ γεγονότα προς Tès quoios dule Jusuxhoarlas. Jofeph. contra Appion. Aurel. Allobrog, p. 1046.

B 4

den'd

den'd and unrelenting King to fuffer them to depart out of Egypt, and to go as they desired, to facrifice to God in the Wilderness. This, I make no doubt but the Egyptians in Process of Time were willing to. forget, to fhift off the Scandal from their own Nation, and to fix that upon the Jews which in reality had happened to themselves. This, if it wants any Proof, feems to be confirm ed by the Account which Justin has given of the Jews, which, tho' falfe and fabulous in the main, yet fets this very Matter in a clear and proper Light. When the Egyptians, * fays he, fuffered Scabs and fcurfey Sores, Scabiem & vitiliginem, they confulted their Gods, who advised 'em, by all Means, to get rid of the Jews, and drive them out of their Country, left the Plague and Infection fhould fpread and increase among them; that the Jews departing out of their Coafts, under the Conduct of Mofes, ftole away the Sacra, or facred Veffels of the Egyptians; that these pursued after them, but by Storms and Tempests were baffled in their Defign, and obliged to return home. Who does not fee fome bright Gleams of Light break thro' this Narrative of Juftin, which feems to be only a Repetition of the Account which Mofes has given of these Facts? Here the Egyptians are faid exprefly to have been vifited with Boils, Leprofy, and Scabs, and advised by the Gods to drive the Jews out of their Land; that they robbed and fpoiled the Egyptians, who pursuing after them, were obliged, not by Force, Battle, or open Violence, but by the vifible Interpofition of

Sed Egyptii cum fcabiem & vitiliginem (which laft Word, in Arnobius, fignifies Leprofy) paterentur refponfo moniti eum (Mofem) ne peftis ad plures ferperet, terminis Ægypti pellunt; dux igitur exfulum factus facra Ægyptiorum furto abftulit, quæ repetentes Ægyptii domum redire tempeftatibus compulfi funt, Tuit. lib. xxxvi. cap. 2.

Pro

3

Providence, and by Storms and Tempefts, (which directly points out their Destruction in the RedSea) to return without Success to their Country + again. So that, upon the whole, the Account of the Roman Writer, like Telephus's Spear, carries its own Balm and Cure along with it; inftead of fhaking the Credit of the Hiftory of Mofes, confirms and strengthens it, and effectually confutes this Calumny, which Dio, Tacitus, and other Authors have copied from this Egyptian Writer. The next Author I fhall examine, who has fhewn his Spite and Ill-will against the Jews, is Appion the Grammarian, or, as fome write his Name, * Apion, with a fingle p, which, 'tis faid, he affumed by reafon of its Resemblance with Apis, one of the Deities which the Egyptians worshipped under the Figure of an Ox. But the Jews have no Reason to be concerned at the Slanders of fuch a noify, vain, and empty Writer; who was fo puffed up with Pride, that he used to promife immortal Fame to those to whom he dedicated his Works, and whom he celebrated in his Writings. For his Noife, Emptinefs, and Vanity, the Emperor Tiberius used to call him Cymbalum Mundi, the Drum or Cymbal of the World; tho' Pliny faith, he ought rather to have been called the Cymbal of Fame, from the harsh and difagreeable Sound he gave.

See Shuckford's 3d Vol.

α

* This Name, and its Resemblance with the Greek Participle v, drew a late very celebrated Critick, the famous Father Rapin, into a very ridiculous Miftake, who quoting a Paffage of Euftathius upon Homer, who faith, that a certain Painter went to Athens, to confult that Poet's fine Defcription of Jupiter, in order to draw the Figure of that God after it, adds av tysafs i. e. going home, he drew his Picture; which that learned Man very unluckily thus tranflates, "as is related by Apion." Whereas Apian is entirely out of the Queftion here; the Words implying no more than that the Painter, div, going home, drew his Image of Jupiter by the Idea he had received from that Paffage in Homer.

But

But he was for nothing more remarkable than for his inveterate Hatred to the Jews, which put him upon a Project that, without a particular Interpofition of Providence, must have ended in their utter Deftruction. What I mean was, a Journey he undertook to Rome, to complain to the Emperor Caligula, that the Jews at Alexandria refufed to admit his Statues and Images in their Temple. * * This was touching that Prince to the Quick, and wounding in the tender Part one who had declar'd himfelf a God, and expected to be worfhipped as fuch by his Subjects. On this cruel and fpiteful Errand Appion was fent by the People of Alexandria, who were mortal Enemies to the Jews, of whom there were very great Numbers in that City. For, befides the old Grudge between the Egyptians and the Hebrews in the Time of Mofes, they had continual Jars and Heart-burnings among them, occafioned partly by the Difference of their Religions, and partly by the Zeal and Indifcretion of the Jews, who lived among them,

*The fame Complaint was made afterwards of the Jews at Jerufalem, to that Prince, who, incenfed at the Disrespect they fhewed to his Statues, fent Orders to Petronius, the Governor there, to deftroy without Mercy, every one that made the leaft Oppofition to his Will: But that merciful Commander, when he faw the Obstinacy of the Jews, and that every Soul of them would be cut off rather than fuffer fuch a Profanation of the Temple, unwilling to destroy so many innocent People, that acted out of a Principle of Confcience, wrote to the Emperor, and begged of him to foften and mitigate the Sentence; but the cruel and unrelenting Prince was fo far from complying with this Re-' monftrance, that he fent an Express to the other Officers of the Army to execute the Sentence with the utmost Rigour, and to cut off the Governor himself, who had prefumed to delay the Execution of his Orders. In these fad and melancholy Circumftances, when every Thing threatened the Ruin of the Jews, Prefentemque viris intentant omnia Mortem--- the News came of the Murder of Caligula himself, which sheltered them from the Storm that was just ready to break in upon them, and faved them for that Time from Ruin and Destruction.

and

and who, fhocked at the grofs Acts of Idolatry which they faw practifed in that City, where they worshipped Bulls, Dogs, and other of the vileft Animals, could not help infulting and reproaching them for fo fhameful and fcandalous a Worship; which made those, to be even with them, invent all Manner of Calumnies and fpiteful Stories of the Jews, and this ridiculous one among the reft, of their worshipping the Head of an Afs in their Temple. This was firft publifhed by Appion, who writes, that when Antiochus Epiphanes broke into the Temple and plundered it, he found an Afs's Head of folid Gold, richly adorned, to which they paid divine Honours, and worshipped as a God. That this filly and improbable Story was invented by the Egyptians, out of Revenge for the Reproaches the Jews had caft upon their Worship, feems plain from Jofephus's Anfwer, and the Manner he retorts it upon Appion: Of all Men in the World (faith he) the Egyptians have the leaft Reafon to object this to our Nation, fince the worfhipping an Afs, was the Charge true, is not worse than that of Ferrets, Goats, and other vile Animals, which they themselves adore as their Gods. If Appion had not the Ignorance and Stupidity of an Afs, with the Impudence of a Dog, which the Egyptians worship, he would never have laid this to our Charge. We do not give that Honour and Worship to this vile Animal, which they pay to Afps, Crocodiles, and Vipers, efteeming those happy, and Favourites of God, who are ftung or deftroyed by them.

We

put our Affes to the fame Ufe as all other wife and fenfible Nations do; we employ them in carrying our Burdens, in our Works, Labours, and our Agriculture, and punish and correct them when they are lazy and fluggish, and do not perform