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FYI From Re: Tacitus on the origin of the Hebrews &
Fw: Blowing the Whistle on Gangsta Culture: Bob Herbert. New York Times.
Bcc: Sent: Sun, Dec 25, 2005 01:09 AM
Tacitus on the origin of the Hebrews
http://skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id2.html
THINKERS ON RELIGION
Tacitus, Latin history, born 56 CE. To read him is to want to write like him. The Egyptian account of the Hebrew origin, plus a poignant explanation of the religious practices of the Hebrews
HISTORY 5.2-5: THEORIES OF JEWISH ORIGINS
Moses Hadas, translation
Evidence of this is sought in the name [for the origin of the Hebrew people]. There is a
famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idi, came to be called
Judi by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of
Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged
itself into the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of
Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their
neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who,
not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of
their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders of Syria. Others,
again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, alleging that they were the
Solymi, a nation celebrated in the j poems of Homer, who called the city which they
founded Hierosolyma after their own name.
3. Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured
the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the
oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign
land this race detested by the gods. The people, who had been collected after diligent
search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief,
till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned them not to look for any relief from God
or man, forsaken as they were of both, but to trust to them selves, taking for their
heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present
misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance at random. Nothing, however,
distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in
all I directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their
pasture to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the appearance of
a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. This furnished relief. After a
continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country,
from which they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.
4. Moyses, wishing to secure for the future his authority over the nation, gave them a
novel form of worship, opposed to all that practised by other men. Things sacred with us,
with them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden. In their holy
place they have consecrated an image of the animal by whose guidance they found
deliverance from their long and thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram, seemingly in
derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis.
They abstain from swines flesh, in consideration of what they suffered when they were
infected by the leprosy to which this animal is liable. By their frequent fasts they
still bear witness to the long hunger of former days, and the Jewish bread, made without
leaven, is retained as a memorial of their hurried seizure of corn. We are told that the
rest of the seventh day was adopted, because this day brought with it a termination of
their toils; after a while the charm of indolence beguiled them into giving up the
seventh year also to inaction. But others say that it is an observance in honour of
Saturn, either from the primitive elements of their faith having been transmitted from
the Ideai, who are said to have shared the flight of that God, and to have founded the
race, or from the circumstance that of the seven stars which rule the destinies of men
Saturn moves in the highest orbit and with the mightiest power, and that many of the
heavenly bodies complete their revolutions and courses in multiples of seven.
5. This worship, however introduced~ is upheld by its antiquity; all their other customs,
which are at once perverse and disgusting, owe their strength to their very badness. The
most degraded out of other races, scorning their national beliefs, brought to them their
contributions and presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact,
that among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion,
though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at
meals, they sleep apart. and though, as a nation, they are singularly prone to lust, they
abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful.
Circumcision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come
over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson first instilled into
despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and
brethren. Still they provide for increase of their numbers. It is a crime among them any
newly-born infant. They hold that the souls of perish in battle or by the hands of the
executioner are mortal. Hence a passion for propagating their race and a contempt for
death. They are wont to bury rather burn their dead, following in this the Egyptian
custom, bestow the same care on the dead, and they hold the belief about the lower world.
Quite different is their about things divine. The Egyptians worship many animals and
images of monstrous form; the Jews have purely conceptions of Deity, as one in essence.
They call those profane who make representations of God in human shape of perishable
materials. They believe that Being to supreme and eternal, neither capable of
representation or decay. They therefore do not allow any images to their cities: much
less in their temples. This flattery paid to their kings, nor this honour to our
Emperors. From the fact, however, that their priests used to chant to music of flutes
and cymbals, and to wear garlands of and that a golden vine was found in the temple,
some thought that they worshipped Father Liber, the conqueror of the East, though their
institutions do not by any means harmonize with the theory; for Liber established a
festive and cheerful worship, while the Jewish religion is tasteless and mean.
6. Eastward the country is bounded by Arabia; to the south lies Egypt; on the west are
Phcenicia and the Mediterranean. Northward it commands an extensive prospect over Syria.
The inhabitants are healthy and able to bear fatigue. Rain is uncommon, but the soil is
fertile. Its products resemble our own. They have, besides, the balsam and the palm. The
palm-groves are tall and graceful. The balsam is a shrub; each branch, as it fills with
sap, may pierced with a fragment of stone or pottery. If steel is employed, the veins
shrink up. The sap is used by physicians. Libanus is the principal mountain, and has,
strange to say, amidst these burning heats, a summit shaded with trees and never deserted
by its snows. The same range supplies and sends forth the stream of the Jordan. This
river does not discharge itself into the sea, but flows entire through two lakes, and is
lost in the third. This is a lake of vast circumference; it resembles the sea, but is
more nauseous in taste; it breeds pestilence among those who live near by its noisome
odour; it cannot be moved by the wind, and it affords no home either to fish or
water-birds. These strange waters support what is thrown upon them, as on a solid
surface, and all persons, whether they can swim or no, are equally buoyed up by the
waves. At a certain season of the year the lake throws up bitumen, and the method of
collecting it has been taught by that experience which teaches all other arts. It is
naturally a fluid of dark colour; when vinegar is sprinkled upon it, it coagulates and
floats upon the surface. Those whose business it is take it with the hand, and draw it on
to the deck of the boat; it then continues of itself to flow in and lade the vessel till
the stream is cut off. Nor can this be done by any instrument of brass or iron. It
shrinks from blood or any cloth stained by the menstrual of women. Such is the account of
old authors; but those who know the country say that the bitumen moves m heaving masses
on the water, that it is drawn by hand to the shore, and that there, when dried by the
evaporation of the earth and the power of the sun, it is cut into pieces with axes and
wedges just as timber or stone would be.
7. Not far from this lake lies a plain, once fertile, they say, and the site of great
cities, but afterwards struck by lightning and consumed. Of this event, they declare,
traces still remain, for the soil, which is scorched in appearance, has lost its
productive power.
Edith Hamilton said of him that, "He was the 3rd best Latin writer" (after Cicero and Catullus). Most however, would place him first./ This Moses Hadas translation,shows how much better Tacitus is than the translator; for in the many OTHER published works of Moses, they lack the sparkle of his Tacitus./ His is the best, by far,translation.
Because histories were read to an educated audience, they were less scholarly and more entertaining than those of today. /Today's audience for their histories turn on the History Channel.
The advice of Tacitus, in a story about an architect, that histories are for all times, has been forgotten.
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