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[110]
And let no one wonder that there was so much wealth in our temple,
since all the Jews throughout the habitable earth, and those that worshipped
God, nay, even those of Asia and Europe, sent their contributions to it,
and this from very ancient times. Nor is the largeness of these sums without
its attestation; nor is that greatness owing to our vanity, as raising
it without ground to so great a height; but there are many witnesses to
it, and particularly Strabo of Cappadocia, who says thus: "Mithridates
sent to Cos, and took the money which queen Cleopatra had deposited there,
as also eight hundred talents belonging to the Jews." Now we have
no public money but only what appertains to God; and it is evident that
the Asian Jews removed this money out of fear of Mithridates; for it is
not probable that those of Judea, who had a strong city and temple, should
send their money to Cos; nor is it likely that the Jews who are inhabitants
of Alexandria should do so neither, since they were ill no fear of Mithridates.
And Strabo himself bears witness to the same thing in another place, that
at the same time that Sylla passed over into Greece, in order to fight
against Mithridates, he sent Lucullus to put an end to a sedition that
our nation, of whom the habitable earth is full, had raised in Cyrene;
where he speaks thus: "There were four classes of men among those
of Cyrene; that of citizens, that of husbandmen, the third of strangers,
and the fourth of Jews. Now these Jews are already gotten into all cities;
and it is hard to find a place in the habitable earth that hath not admitted
this tribe of men, and is not possessed by them; and it hath come to pass
that Egypt and Cyrene, as having the same governors, and a great number
of other nations, imitate their way of living, and maintain great bodies
of these Jews in a peculiar manner, and grow up to greater prosperity with
them, and make use of the same laws with that nation also. Accordingly,
the Jews have places assigned them in Egypt, wherein they inhabit, besides
what is peculiarly allotted to this nation at Alexandria, which is a large
part of that city. There is also an ethnarch allowed them, who governs
the nation, and distributes justice to them, and takes care of their contracts,
and of the laws to them belonging, as if he were the ruler of a free republic.
In Egypt, therefore, this nation is powerful, because the Jews were originally
Egyptians, and because the land wherein they inhabit, since they went thence,
is near to Egypt. They also removed into Cyrene, because that this land
adjoined to the government of Egypt, as well as does Judea, or rather was
formerly under the same government." And this is what Strabo says.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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References (4 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(2):
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ALEXANDREIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CYRENA´ICA
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(2):
- LSJ, περισσο-λογία
- LSJ, σέβομαι
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