Book 2 — Sections 1–25
In the preceding book, my dear Epaphroditus, I demonstrated the antiquity of our people from the writings of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and people of Mitsrayim, and I brought forward many Greek authors as witnesses. I also answered …
Book 2 — Sections 26–51
Apion next attacks the Yehudim of Alexandria. He says they are foreigners without rightful civic standing and treats the disturbances between communities as proof. But Alexandria was from its foundation a city containing distinct …
Book 2 — Sections 52–75
Apion turns from Alexandria to the sacred service at Yerushalayim and tells a story so monstrous that its very construction reveals its purpose. He claims that when Antiochus entered the Miqdash he found upon a couch a Greek man being …
Book 2 — Sections 76–100
Apion then repeats another tale concerning an animal head supposedly worshiped in the Miqdash. Some accusers say a golden head of an ass was found there; others shift the story to different objects and different conquerors. The …
Book 2 — Sections 101–113
Apion's personal conduct makes his attack upon circumcision especially bitterly ironic. Though he mocked the practice, disease of the body eventually forced him to undergo an operation of the same part, and he died in distress. I do not …
Book 2 — Sections 114–145
Having answered Apion's particular slanders, I must address a broader accusation made not by him alone but by Apollonius Molon and others: that our law makes us antisocial, hostile to foreigners, cowardly in some circumstances and reckless …
Book 2 — Sections 146–175
What, then, does the law teach first? Reverence toward the One and justice toward human beings. Worship is not separated from conduct. A man cannot claim piety while defrauding his neighbor. Parents are to be honored. Marriage is …
Book 2 — Sections 176–205
Our treatment of foreigners is often lied about. The law distinguishes membership in the covenantal body from residence among us, as every constitution distinguishes citizen from noncitizen in some matters. Yet a foreigner who comes in …
Book 2 — Sections 206–235
Let us compare the theological stories told among our accusers. Greek poets have represented gods as fighting, committing adultery, deceiving one another, being chained, wounded, grieving, and subject to passions that would disgrace an …
Book 2 — Sections 236–265
Our critics sometimes turn this very continuity against us. If we do not quickly adopt foreign innovations, they call us stubborn. Yet the same men praise Sparta for preserving the institutions of Lycurgus and admire philosophical schools …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296
What, finally, is more just than obedience to laws that command reverence, truth, loyalty within households, restraint of appetite, honest judgment, courage in danger, and labor in peace? What is more useful than concord among fellow …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 1
The ass-head story belongs to the same literary family. Some nations ridicule the sacred animals of Mitsrayim; others accuse opponents of worshiping animals they consider contemptible. By giving the Yehudim an ass to worship, polemicists …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 2
protected in particular contexts. The purpose is to train habits in which power is not exercised merely because it can be. The dead must be buried. This requirement extends even beyond affection for one's own household. Hatred is not …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 3
applied to us that are applied to any other ancient nation. FURTHER TEXTUAL CONTINUITY - BOOK II The criticism of our law must also distinguish between what is written and what later outsiders imagine. A law is not refuted by …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 4
claim that the law commands hatred of every non-Yehudi. A law cannot coherently command fair treatment of the resident outsider while secretly requiring indiscriminate hostility toward the category to which he belongs. Polemicists solve …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 5
philosopher should not become barbarous merely because an Ivri lawgiver enacted them earlier. The spread of certain customs among neighboring peoples further shows their practical force. Observance resembling Shabbat, forms of fasting, …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 6
wished to tell even when they did not know when to place it. Lysimachus abandons much of the earlier chronology because by his time the insulting pattern itself was sufficient. Disease, famine, oracle, wilderness, hateful lawgiver, …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 7
pedagogy of restraint. A person accustomed to needless cruelty toward weaker creatures may carry the same habit into human relations. Law interrupts that habit before it becomes character. The treatment of land and harvest connects …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 8
story, yet late enough to fit the hostile expulsion traditions he inherits. He therefore moves between authorities without reconciling them. A historical Mosheh cannot occupy whatever century a polemic requires. The Alexandrian dispute …
Book 2 — Sections 266–296 — Continuation 9
A poor debtor, servant, resident foreigner, child, laboring animal, and even the body of a defeated enemy appear within the law's field of concern. Our critics prefer to define humanity as willingness to participate in every foreign …