The Law Outlasts All Others

But I will say no more about the Spartans. As for the Athenians, who prided themselves on having made their city open to all, Apollonius did not know how they behaved in these matters: they punished without mercy even those who uttered a single word about the gods contrary to their laws. For what other reason did Socrates die? He did not betray the city to the enemy, nor did he rob any temple. It was because he swore by new oaths and claimed — in earnest or, as some say, in jest — that something divine gave him signs. For this he was condemned to die by drinking hemlock. His accuser also charged him with corrupting the young, because he led them to despise their ancestral constitution and laws. Such was the punishment that Socrates, a citizen of Athens, endured. Anaxagoras was from Clazomenae; yet because he said that the sun, which the Athenians held to be a god, was a red-hot mass, they condemned him to death by a margin of a few votes. They also proclaimed a reward of a talent to anyone who would kill Diagoras of Melos, because he was said to have mocked their mysteries. And Protagoras would have been seized and put to death had he not fled in time, because he was thought to have written something about the gods that did not agree with the views of the Athenians. Why should we be surprised that they treated men of such standing in this way, when they did not spare even women? Only recently they put the priestess to death because someone accused her of initiating people into the worship of foreign gods. This was forbidden among them by law, and death was the penalty fixed for anyone who brought in a foreign god. Those who have such a law plainly do not believe the gods of other peoples to be gods; otherwise they would not have begrudged themselves the benefit of more of them. So much, then, for the fine ways of the Athenians. The Scythians delight in killing men and differ little from wild beasts, yet even they think their own customs must be protected. They killed Anacharsis, whom the Greeks admired for his wisdom, when he came back to them, because he seemed to have returned full of Greek customs. One could also find many among the Persians who were punished for the same reason. But of course Apollonius was pleased with the laws of the Persians and admired them — no doubt because the Greeks enjoyed the benefit of their courage and of the unanimity they held about the gods! The Greeks tasted that unanimity in the temples the Persians burned, and that courage in coming close to being enslaved. Apollonius even imitated all the Persian practices, outraging other men’s wives and castrating boys. Among us, death is the penalty for anyone who wrongs even a dumb animal in this way. And neither fear of our conquerors nor the desire to copy what other peoples honor has been able to draw us away from these laws. We have not trained our courage for undertaking wars out of greed, but for keeping our laws. Other losses we bear patiently; but when anyone tries to force us to change our laws, then we take up wars even beyond our strength and hold out under disaster to the very end. And why should we want to copy the laws of others, when we see that they are not kept even by those who made them? How could the Spartans not come to condemn their unsociable constitution and their neglect of marriage, or the people of Elis and Thebes their unnatural and unrestrained intercourse with males? At any rate, the things they once thought finest and most advantageous to do, even if they have not entirely given them up in practice, they no longer admit to. They even disown on oath the laws about them — laws that once had such force among the Greeks that they ascribed intercourse with males to the gods, and on the same reasoning the marriages of full brothers and sisters, composing in this a defense for their own absurd and unnatural pleasures. [a]

I pass over now the matter of punishments: how many ways of escape most lawgivers have granted wrongdoers from the start, fixing money fines for adultery, and for seduction even marriage; and how many excuses for denial their laws contain in cases of impiety, if anyone even tries to look into them. For among most peoples it has by now become a matter of study how to break the laws. Not so among us. Even if we are robbed of wealth, of cities and of every other good, our law at least remains immortal. No Jew will ever go so far from his country, or so fear a harsh master, as not to fear the law more than him. If, then, it is for the excellence of our laws that we are so devoted to them, let our opponents grant that our laws are the best. But if they suppose it is to bad laws that we hold so firmly, what would they themselves not deserve to suffer for failing to keep better ones? Now since long time is believed to be the truest test of all things, I would make time the witness to the virtue of our lawgiver and of the account of God that he handed down. For an immense span of time has passed, and if anyone compares his age with that of the other lawgivers, he will find him the most ancient of them all. [h]

Our laws have been tested by us, and they have inspired in all other people an ever greater desire to follow them. The first Greeks who practiced philosophy kept their ancestral laws in appearance, but in their actions and their philosophy they followed him: they thought as he did about God, and they taught a simple life and fellowship with one another. More than that, the masses too have long shown great zeal for our religion. There is not one city of the Greeks, nor any barbarian city, nor a single nation, to which our custom of resting on the seventh day has not spread, and where our fasts, the lighting of lamps and many of our rules about food are not observed. They try to imitate our harmony with one another, our sharing of what we have, our industry in our crafts, and our endurance in the hardships we bear for the laws. And the most remarkable thing of all is this: without any lure of pleasure to draw men, the law has prevailed by its own strength, and as God pervades the whole world, so the law has made its way among all mankind. Anyone who looks at his own country and his own household will not doubt what I say. So either all mankind must be condemned for deliberate wickedness, for having wanted to follow foreign and bad laws rather than their own good ones, or our accusers must stop their spite against us. For we claim nothing that should arouse envy when we honor our own lawgiver and believe what he prophesied about God. Even if we did not understand the excellence of our laws ourselves, the great number of those who seek to follow them would have led us to take pride in them. [j]

As for our laws and constitution, I have given an accurate account of them in my Antiquities. I have mentioned them now only so far as was necessary, intending neither to find fault with the laws of others nor to sing the praises of our own, but to refute those who have written about us unjustly and have shamelessly set themselves against the truth itself. And now I think I have done well enough in these books what I undertook to do. Our accusers said that our nation is very recent; I have shown that it is very ancient. I have produced as witnesses many ancient writers who mention us in their works, while they insisted that no one had. They said that our ancestors were Egyptians; it has been shown that they came into Egypt from elsewhere. They lied that our ancestors were driven out because their bodies were diseased; it has become clear that they returned to their own land by their own choice and in the fullness of their strength. They reviled our lawgiver as utterly worthless; but God long ago, and after God time itself, has been found a witness to his virtue. [k]

About the laws themselves no more need be said. They have shown themselves for what they are: teaching not impiety but the truest piety; calling men not to hatred of mankind but to sharing what they have; enemies of injustice and guardians of righteousness; banishing idleness and extravagance; teaching people to be content with what they have and to love hard work; keeping them from wars waged out of greed, but making them brave in the laws’ defense; inexorable in punishment; not to be got around by clever arguments; and always confirmed by deeds — for deeds are what we offer, plainer than anything written. That is why I would boldly say that we have introduced to others a great many things, and the finest. For what is finer than unbroken piety? What is more just than obeying the laws? What is more advantageous than to live in harmony with one another; neither to fall apart in misfortune nor to grow insolent and fall into faction in prosperity; to despise death in war, and in peace to devote ourselves to our crafts or to farming; and to be convinced that God watches over and directs all things everywhere? If these precepts had been either written down first by others or kept more faithfully by them, we would owe them thanks as their disciples. But if it is plain that we follow them more than anyone else, and we have shown that their first discovery was our own, then let the Apions and the Molons, and all who delight in lies and abuse, stand refuted. To you, Epaphroditus, who love the truth above all, and through you to all who likewise wish to know about our nation, let this book and the one before it be dedicated.