Hebrew literature -- History and criticism; Jewish literature -- History and criticism; Jews in literature
This fact, however, does not carry with it the conclusion that
Josephus rendered his people an ill-service. There are two orders of
Apologetics--the destructive and the constructive. _Apologia_ was
originally a legal term which denoted the speech of the defendant
against the plaintiff’s charges. As we know abundantly well from the
forensic giants of the classical oratory--such as Demosthenes and
Cicero--these defences were largely made up of abuse of the other side.
Josephus was an apt pupil of these masters. His abuse of Apion leaves
nothing to the imagination; everything is formulated, and with scathing
particularity. Josephus, it is true, does not seem to have been unjust.
Rarely, if ever, has an out-and-out anti-Semite possessed a pleasing
personality. Apion was a grammarian of note, but there is much evidence
as to his unamiable characteristics. The emperor Tiberius, who knew a
braggart when he saw one, called Apion “cymbalum mundi”--a world-drum,
making the universe ring with his ostentatious garrulity. Aulus Gellius
records his vanity; Pliny accuses him of falsehood and charlatanism.
Josephus was, therefore, not going beyond the facts when he describes
him as a scurrilous mountebank. It cannot be denied, moreover, that
Josephus scores heavily against his opponent, in solid argument as well
as in verbal invective. If the Jewish historian made Apion immortal, it
was a deathless infamy that he secured for him.
Certainly, too, Josephus successfully rebuts Apion’s specific libels:
the most silly of them, however, antedated Apion and survived him.
Tacitus, indeed, seems to have gathered his own weapons out of
Apion’s armory, and the Roman repeats the Alexandrian’s libel that in
Jerusalem an ass was adored. Those who are interested in this legend
of ass-worship may turn to a learned article by Dr. S. Krauss in
the _Jewish Encyclopedia_ (vol. ii, p. 222). It has been suggested
that the charge arose from a confusion between the Jews and certain
Egyptian or Dionysian sects. Others believe that at bottom there lies
a misunderstanding of the “foundation-stone,” which, according to
talmudic tradition, was placed in the ark during the second temple.
The upper millstone was called by the Greeks “the ass,” for its
tedious turning resembled an ass’s burdensome activity. But, be the
explanation what it may, the ignorance of a professed expert such as
Apion was inexcusable. Yet, most grimly amusing of all Apion’s charges
is his repetition of the ever-recurrent libel that the Jews were haters
of their fellow-men. Never was there a more perfect illustration of
Æsop’s fable of the wolf and the lamb: the hated transformed into the
haters! Apion was a fine type of lover. Off to Rome went he, leading
the Alexandrian deputation against the Jews (who were championed by
Philo), denouncing them to the Cæsar, and using every artifice to
incite the imperial animosity. With a heart bitter with hostility,
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