For my part, as I have said, I will not, nor, for the security of the principle laid down, need I to contend that the seventh day was ob- served as a sacred feast amongst them. It is enough that there were such notices of it in the world as could proceed from no other
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original but that pleaded for, which was common unto all. The Roman writers, poets and others, do speak of and contemn the Judaical sabbaths; under which name they comprehended all their sacred feasts and solemn abstinences. Hence they reproached them with their sabbatical fasts; of which number the seventh-day, hebdo- madal Sabbath was not. But they never endeavoured to come to any real acquaintance with their religious rites, but took up vulgar reports concerning them; as did their historians also, who in the affairs of other nations are supposed to have been curious and diligent.
22. Indeed, after the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, when the people of the Jews began to be known among the Romans, and to disperse themselves throughout their provinces, they began every day more and more to hate them, and to cast all manner of re- proaches on them, without regard to truth or honesty. And it may not be amiss here a little, by the way, to inquire into the reasons of it. The principal cause hereof, no doubt, was from the God they worshipped, and the manner of his worship observed amongst them; for finding them to acknowledge and adore one only (the true) God, and that without the use of any kind of images, they perceived their own idolatry and superstition to be condemned thereby. And this had been the condition of that people under the former empires, of the Chaldeans, Persians, and Grecians. God had appointed them to be his witnesses in the world that he was God, and that there was none other: Isa. xliv. 8, “ Ye are even my witnesses. Is therea God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” As also chap. xliii. 10-12, “ Ye are my witnesses,” that “ before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lorp; and beside me there is no saviour...... Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lorn, that I am God.” This greatly provoked, as other nations of old, so at length the Romans, as bidding defiance to all their gods and their worship of them, wherein they greatly boasted ; for they thought that it was merely by the help of their gods, and on the account of their religion, that they conquered all other na- tions. So Cicero, Orat. de Harusp. Respon., cap. ix.: “Quam volumus licet ipsi nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Poenos, nec artibus Greecos; sed pietate ac religione, atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum immortalium numine omnia regi, gubernarique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque supera- vimus;’—“ Let us love and please ourselves as we think meet, yet we outgo neither the Spaniards in number, nor the Gauls in strength, nor the Africans in craft, nor the Grecians in arts; but it is by our piety and religion, and this only wisdom, that we refer all to the government of the immortal gods, that we have overcome all countries and nations.” And Dionysius’ Halicarnasseus, Antiq. Rom. lib, ii,
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having given an account of their sacred rites and worship, adds that he did it iva rots dyvootor ray ‘Puywatay edotCeray, qv of dvdpes exerqdcvov, — fe wuphdocoy Qury ro rdvrag adrois rb xdAACTOV AaCEiy rods TOAE MOUS +éAoc,—* that those who knew not before the piety or religion of the Romans might not now think it strange that they should have such success in all their wars” To be judged and condemned in those things, by the contrary witness of the Jews, they could not bear. This made them reflect on God himself, as the God which they worshipped. They called him incertwm and ignotwm, aftirm- ing the rites of his worship to be absurd, and contrary to the common consent of mankind, as Tacitus expressly, Hist. lib. v. cap. iv. The best they could afford when they spake of him was, "O¢ ris wore ot ro¢ éoriy, “ Whoever he be.” And Tully will not allow that it was any respect to their God or their religion which caused Pompey to for- bear spoiling the temple when he took it by force. “Non credo,” saith he, “religionem et Judzeorum, et hostium, impedimento pres- - tantissimo imperatori fuisse (quod victor ex illo fano nihil attigerit),” Orat. pro Flacc., cap. xxviii.; whereunto he adds as high a reproach of them and their religion as he could devise: “Stantibus Hiero- solymis, pacatisque Judzeis, tamen istorum religio sacrorum a splen- dore hujus imperii, gravitate nominis nostri, majorum institutis, abhorrebat: nunc vero hoc magis, quod illa gens, quid de nostro imperio sentiret ostendit armis: quam cara diis immortalibus esset, docuit, quod victa est, quod elocata, quod servata.”—“ Whilst Jeru- salem stood” (that is, in its own power), “and the Jews were peace- able, yet their religion was unworthy the splendour of this empire, the gravity of our name, and abhorrent from the ordinances of our ancestors. How much more now, when that nation hath showed what esteem it hath of our empire by its arms, and how dear it is to the immortal gods, that it is conquered, and set out under tribute!” The like reflections, yea worse, may be seen in Trogus, Tacitus, Plu- tarch, Strabo, and Democritus in Suidas, with others.