Images and the Ass's Head

Besides this, Apion raises an objection against us: If they are citizens, why do they not worship the same gods as the Alexandrians? To this I answer: since you yourselves are Egyptians, how is it that you fight one another in great and implacable wars over religion? Or is it for this reason that we do not call you all Egyptians, nor even men in general — because you worship beasts that are hostile to our nature and rear them with great care, though the nature of all of us is plainly one and the same? If there are such differences of opinion among you Egyptians, why are you surprised that those who came to Alexandria from another country have held fast, in such matters, to the laws laid down for them from the beginning? [a]

He also charges us with causing sedition. If he is right to accuse the Jews of Alexandria of this, why does he blame all of us, wherever we live, when we are known for being of one mind? Besides, anyone who looks into it will find that the authors of sedition have been citizens of Alexandria like Apion. As long as the Greeks and Macedonians held the citizenship of this city, they raised no sedition against us and left us free to keep our ancient festivals. But when the number of Egyptians among them grew, through the confusion of the times, this trouble was continually added as well, while our people remained pure. It was they, then, who began this trouble: a populace with neither the steadiness of the Macedonians nor the good sense of the Greeks, but with all the evil habits of the Egyptians, keeping up their ancient hostility toward us. In fact the very charge they presume to bring against us belongs to them. Most of them hold their citizenship improperly, and yet they call foreigners those who are known to have obtained this privilege for their whole community. For it does not appear that any of the kings ever granted citizenship to Egyptians, nor has any emperor since. But it was Alexander who brought us into the city, the kings who increased our rights, and the Romans who have always been pleased to preserve them.

Apion also tries to discredit us because we do not set up images of the emperors — as if the emperors did not know this, or needed Apion to defend them! He ought rather to have admired the magnanimity and moderation of the Romans. They do not force their subjects to break the laws of their fathers, but accept such honors as the givers think it pious and lawful to offer; for they take no pleasure in honors bestowed under compulsion and force. The Greeks and some others think it a good thing to set up images. They delight in painting likenesses of their fathers, their wives and their children; some even take images of people in no way related to them, and others do so for slaves they are fond of. What wonder, then, if they are seen to pay the same honor to their rulers and masters? But our lawgiver forbade the making of images — not as though foretelling that the power of the Romans was not to be honored, but despising a thing useful neither to God nor to men, and because a lifeless thing is shown to be inferior to every living creature, and much more to God. He did not forbid us to honor good men with other honors, below those we give to God; and with such honors we exalt both the emperors and the people of Rome. We also offer continual sacrifices for them. We do this not only every day, at the common expense of all the Jews; but though we offer no other victims at the common expense, not even for our own children, we pay this special honor to the emperors alone, an honor we pay to no other man. Let this serve as a general answer to Apion on what he says about Alexandria.

I am astonished, too, at the men who supplied him with this kind of fuel: Posidonius and Apollonius Molon. They accuse us of not worshiping the same gods as others, yet they do not think themselves impious when they tell lies and make up absurd slanders about our temple — though it is a most shameful thing for free men to lie on any account, and much more about a temple renowned among all mankind and so strong in holiness. For Apion presumes to declare that in this sanctuary the Jews set up the head of an ass, worshiped it, and counted it worthy of the deepest reverence. He claims this came to light when Antiochus Epiphanes plundered the temple and found the head there, made of gold and worth a great deal of money. [e]

My first answer is this: even if there had been any such thing among us, an Egyptian had no business throwing it in our faces, since an ass is no worse than the ferrets and goats and other creatures that are gods among them. Next, how did he fail to see that the facts themselves convict him of an incredible lie? We always live under the same laws, and we hold to them without end. Our city, like others, has suffered various disasters: Antiochus the Pious, Pompey the Great, Licinius Crassus and, last of all, Titus Caesar conquered us in war and took possession of the temple. None of them found any such thing there, but only the purest piety — of which we may tell nothing to outsiders. Antiochus had no just cause for plundering the temple. He came to it in want of money, when he was not our enemy, and attacked us, his allies and friends; nor did he find anything there worth laughing at. Many reputable writers bear witness to this: Polybius of Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes, Castor the chronicler and Apollodorus. All of them say that Antiochus, being short of money, broke his treaty with the Jews and plundered the temple when it was full of gold and silver.

Apion ought to have taken this into account, unless he himself had the heart of an ass and the shamelessness of a dog — the kind of dog they worship in his country; for he had no reasoning from outside on which to base his lie. We give asses no honor or power, as the Egyptians do to crocodiles and asps, when they count those bitten by asps or seized by crocodiles happy and worthy of God. With us, as with other sensible men, asses are beasts that carry the loads laid on them. If they go up to the threshing floors and eat, or fail to finish the road set for them, they get a great many blows, since their work is to serve us in our labors and in the necessities of farming. Either Apion was the clumsiest of all men at putting lies together, or else, though he took his start from facts, he could not carry the story through, since no slander against us can succeed.