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[112]
Nay, this miracle or piety derides us further, and adds the following
pretended facts to his former fable; for be says that this man related
how, "while the Jews were once in a long war with the Idumeans, there
came a man out of one of the cities of the Idumeans, who there had worshipped
Apollo. This man, whose name is said to have been Zabidus, came to the
Jews, and promised that he would deliver Apollo, the god of Dora, into
their hands, and that he would come to our temple, if they would all come
up with him, and bring the whole multitude of the Jews with them; that
Zabidus made him a certain wooden instrument, and put it round about him,
and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after such a manner, that
he appeared to those that stood a great way off him to be a kind of star,
walking upon the earth; that the Jews were terribly affrighted at so surprising
an appearance, and stood very quiet at a distance; and that Zabidus, while
they continued so very quiet, went into the holy house, and carried off
that golden head of an ass, (for so facetiously does he write,) and then
went his way back again to Dora in great haste." And say you so, sir!
as I may reply; then does Apion load the ass, that is, himself, and lays
on him a burden of fooleries and lies; for he writes of places that have
no being, and not knowing the cities he speaks of, he changes their situation;
for Idumea borders upon our country, and is near to Gaza, in which there
is no such city as Dora; although there be, it is true, a city named Dora
in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel, but it is four days' journey from Idumea.
1
Now, then, why does this man accuse us, because we have not gods in common
with other nations, if our fathers were so easily prevailed upon to have
Apollo come to them, and thought they saw him walking upon the earth, and
the stars with him? for certainly those who have so many festivals, wherein
they light lamps, must yet, at this rate, have never seen a candlestick!
But still it seems that while Zabidus took his journey over the country,
where were so many ten thousands of people, nobody met him. He also, it
seems, even in a time of war, found the walls of Jerusalem destitute of
guards. I omit the rest. Now the doors of the holy house were seventy 2
cubits high, and twenty cubits broad; they were all plated over with gold,
and almost of solid gold itself, and there were no fewer than twenty 3
men required to shut them every day; nor was it lawful ever to leave them
open, though it seems this lamp-bearer of ours opened them easily, or thought
he opened them, as he thought he had the ass's head in his hand. Whether,
therefore, he returned it to us again, or whether Apion took it, and brought
it into the temple again, that Antiochus might find it, and afford a handle
for a second fable of Apion's, is uncertain.
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