Moses Older Than Homer

These were the kings of the Argives: Inachus, Phoroneus, Apis, Criasis, Triopas, Argeius, Phorbas, Crotopas, Sthenelaus, Danaus, Lynceus, Proetus, Abas, Acrisius, Perseus, Sthenelaus, Eurystheus, Atreus, Thyestes, and Agamemnon — in the eighteenth year of whose reign Troy was taken. [a]

Anyone with sense ought to notice carefully, and exactly, that by the Greeks’ own tradition they had no written history at all. Cadmus, who handed them the letters of the alphabet, did not set foot in Boeotia until many generations later. It was after Inachus, in the time of Phoroneus, that their wild, wandering way of living was with difficulty brought to an end and people were brought into a new order. So if Moses is shown to have lived in the days of Inachus, he is four hundred years older than the Trojan war. This is proved from the succession of the kings of Attica — and of Macedonia, and of the Ptolemies, and of Antioch as well. And if the more famous Greek exploits were only written down and made known after Inachus, then plainly they came after Moses too.

In the time of Phoroneus, who came after Inachus, the Athenians remember Ogygus, in whose day the first flood came. In the time of Phorbas there was Actaeus, from whom Attica was called Actaea. In the time of Triopas there were Prometheus and Epimetheus and Atlas, and Cecrops of the double nature, and Io. In the time of Crotopas came the world-fire under Phaethon and the great rains under Deucalion. In the time of Sthenelus came the reign of Amphictyon, the arrival of Danaus in the Peloponnese, the founding of Dardania by Dardanus, and the bringing of Europa back from Phoenicia to Crete. In the time of Lynceus came the carrying off of Kore, the founding of the sanctuary at Eleusis, the farming of Triptolemus, the arrival of Cadmus at Thebes, and the reign of Minos. In the time of Proetus came the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians. In the time of Acrisius came the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion at Athens, the second Cecrops, the exploits of Perseus and Dionysus, and Musaeus the pupil of Orpheus. And in the reign of Agamemnon, Troy was taken.

So, from what has been said, it is plain that Moses is older than the ancient heroes, older than the wars, older than the demons. And the man who stands before them in age is the one we ought to believe, rather than Greeks who drew his teachings out of the spring without any real grasp of what they were taking. Many of their sophists, driven by restless curiosity, tried to pass off as their own coin whatever they had learned from Moses’ people and from others who thought as he did — first, so that they might be credited with something of their own; and second, so that by covering over with a certain manufactured eloquence the things they did not understand, they might misreport the truth as though it were a myth. [d]

As for our own way of life, and the history behind our laws — what the learned among the Greeks have said about them, how many of them there were, and who they were — all of that will be set out in my book against the men who have made pronouncements about God.

But the crucial point must be pressed, and made clear with all exactness: Moses is older not only than Homer, but than all the writers before Homer — than Linus, Philammon, Thamyris, Amphion, Musaeus, Orpheus, Demodocus, Phemius, the Sibyl, Epimenides the Cretan (the one who came to Sparta), Aristaeus of Proconnesus (who wrote the Arimaspia), Asbolus the Centaur, Isatis, Drymon, Euclus of Cyprus, Horus of Samos, and Pronapides of Athens. [i]

Linus was Heracles’ teacher, and Heracles is shown to come one generation before the Trojan war — which is clear from his son Tlepolemus, who served in the army against Troy. Orpheus lived at the same time as Heracles; and in any case people say that the poems that go under his name were put together by Onomacritus of Athens, who lived under the rule of the Pisistratids, around the fiftieth Olympiad. Musaeus was Orpheus’ pupil. Amphion comes two generations before the Trojan war, and that fact by itself spares me from setting down anything more about him for readers who want the details. Demodocus and Phemius lived at the very time of the Trojan war: Phemius stayed with the suitors, Demodocus with the Phaeacians. Thamyris and Philammon are not much older than these.

So much, then, for what each of these men produced, for their dates, and for the record of them; I have written it out for you very fully, and, I think, with complete accuracy. But to fill up what is still missing, I will give my account of the men who are reckoned wise as well. Minos, who was thought to surpass everyone in wisdom, in quickness of mind, and in lawgiving, lived in the time of Lynceus, who reigned after Danaus, in the eleventh generation after Inachus. Lycurgus was born long after the taking of Troy, and gave the Spartans their laws a hundred years before the Olympiads began. Draco turns out to have lived around the thirty-ninth Olympiad, Solon around the forty-sixth, and Pythagoras around the sixty-second. And I have already shown that the Olympiads began four hundred and seven years after the taking of Troy.

Now that this much is proved, I will add a short word about the age of the seven wise men. The oldest of them, Thales, lived around the fiftieth Olympiad — and I have already spoken briefly of those who came after him.

This, men of Greece, is what I — Tatian, who does his philosophy the barbarians’ way — have put together for you. I was born in the land of the Assyrians. I was educated first in your learning, and afterward in the things I now undertake to proclaim. From here on, knowing who God is and what his work of creation is, I present myself to you ready to be examined about my teachings; and my way of life before God stands as it is, something I will never deny. [n]