Chapter IX. On the Antiquity of Moses and the Hebrew Prophets

WITH regard to Moses and the antiquity of the prophets who came after him, very many others have carefully laid down the evidence in their own writings, from which I shall presently make some few quotations.

But I myself shall take a more novel course than the said authors, and shall adopt the following method. As there is an acknowledged agreement between the times of the Roman emperor Augustus and the birth of our Saviour, and as Christ began to teach the gospel in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, any one who may choose to count up the number of the years from this point proceeding to the earlier times, until Darius king of the Persians, and the restoration in his time of the temple in Jerusalem, which took place after the return of the Jewish nation from Babylon, will find that from Tiberius to the second year of Darius there are five hundred and forty-eight years.

For the second year of Darius coincides with the first year of the sixty-fifth Olympiad: and the fifteenth of the reign of Tiberius at Rome falls in with the fourth year of the two hundred and first Olympiad,

The Olympiads therefore between Darius the Persian and Tiberius the Roman emperor are a hundred and thirty-seven, which make up a period of five hundred and forty-eight years, four years being counted to the Olympiad.

But since the seventieth year of the desolation of the temple in Jerusalem was in the second year of Darius, as the records of Hebrew history show, if we run back from this point again, from the second year of Darius to the first Olympiad there would be made up two hundred and fifty-six years, sixty-four Olympiads: and the same you would find to be the number of years from the last year of the desolation of the said temple going back to the fiftieth year of Uzziah king of Judah, in whose time prophesied Isaiah and Hosea, and all who were contemporary with them. So that the first Olympiad of the Greeks falls in with the time of the prophet Isaiah and his contemporaries.

Again, going back from the first Olympiad to the previous times as far as the capture of Troy, you will find a sum of four hundred and eight years, as contained in the chronological records of the Greeks.

And according to the Hebrews, from the fiftieth year of Uzziah king of Judah going back to the third year of Labdon as judge of Israel, you will make up the same number of years, four hundred and eight; so that the capture of Troy was in the times of Labdon the judge, seven years before Samson ruled over the Hebrews, who is said to have been irresistible in strength of body, like the famous Hercules among the Greeks.

If from this point also you go back to the earlier generations, and count up to yourself four hundred years, you will find among the Hebrews Moses, and among the Greeks Cecrops the earthborn.

Now the history of the events so celebrated among the Greeks is later than the times of Cecrops. For after Cecrops comes the deluge in the time of Deucalion, and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon, and the birth of Erichthonius, and the rape of Persephone, and the mysteries of Demeter, the establishment of the Eleusinian mysteries, the husbandry of Triptolemus, the abduction of Europa by Zeus, the birth of Apollo, the arrival of Cadmus at Thebes, and, still later than these, Dionysus, Minos, Perseus, Asclepius, the Dioscuri, and Hercules.

Now Moses is proved to have been older than all these, as having been in the prime of life at the time of Cecrops. And going back again from Moses to the first year of the life of Abraham, you will find five hundred and five years. And counting up as many for the earlier time from the aforesaid year of the reign of Cecrops, you will come to Ninus the Assyrian, who is said to have been the first ruler of all Asia except India: after him was named the city Ninus, which among the Hebrews is called Nineve; and in his time Zoroastres the Magian reigned over the Bactrians. And the wife of Ninus and his successor in the kingdom was Semiramis; so Abraham was contemporary with these.

Now in the Canons of Chronology composed by us these events were proved to demonstration to be as I have said. But on the present occasion in addition to what has been stated I shall adduce as witness of the antiquity of Moses the very bitterest and fiercest enemy both of the Hebrews and of us Christians, I mean that philosopher of our time, who having in his excessive hatred published his compilation against us, subjected not us only, but also the Hebrews and Moses himself and the prophets after him, to the like slanders. For I believe that I shall thus confirm my promise beyond controversy by the confession of our enemies.

Well then in the fourth Book of his compilation against us Porphyry writes what follows, word for word:

[PORPHYRY] [1] ‘The truest history of the Jews, as being that which most perfectly accords with their localities and names, is that of Sanchuniathon of Berytus, who received their records from Hierombalus the priest of the God Jevo; he dedicated his history to Abelbalus king of Berytus, and was approved by him and by his examiners of truth. Now the times of these men fall before the date of the Trojan war, and approach closely to that of Moses, as is shown by the successions of the kings of Phoenicia. And Sanchuniathon, who with careful regard to truth made a collection of all ancient history from the records of each city and the registers of the temples, and wrote it in the language of the Phoenicians, lived in the time of Semiramis queen of Assyria.’

So says Porphyry. We must then calculate the proposed dates as follows. If Sanchuniathon lived in the time of Semiramis, and she is acknowledged to have been, long before the Trojan war, Sanchuniathon also must be older than the Trojan war.

But he is said to have received the records from others older in time than himself: and they being themselves older than he are said to have approached closely to the times of Moses, though not even themselves contemporary with Moses, but approaching closely to his times: so that Sanchuniathon was as much younger than Moses, as he was later than his own predecessors who were acknowledged to approach near to Moses.

It is difficult, however, to say by how many years Moses probably preceded those of whom I speak: for which reason I think it well to pass over this point. But granting that Moses lived in the very time of this Sanchuniathon, and no earlier, I shall follow up the proof in this way.

If Sanchuniathon was becoming well known in the time of Semiramis queen of Assyria, even granted that Moses was no earlier, but nourished in his time, then he too would be contemporary with Semiramis,

But whereas our calculation went to show that Abraham was in her time, our philosopher’s calculation proves that even Moses was older. Now Semiramis is shown to have been full eight hundred years before the Trojan war. Therefore Moses also will be as many years earlier than the Trojan war according to the philosopher.

Now the first king of Argos is Inachus, the Athenians at that time having as yet no city and no name. But the first ruler of the Argives is contemporary with the fifth king of Assyria after Semiramis, a hundred and fifty years after her and Moses, in which time nothing remarkable is recorded to have happened among the Greeks. But at this period of time the Judges were ruling among the Hebrews.

Then again more than three hundred years later, when more than four hundred were now completed from the time of Semiramis, the first king of the Athenians is Cecrops their celebrated Autochthon when Triopas was ruler of Argos, who was seventh from Inachus the first Argive king.

And in the interval between these the flood in the time of Ogyges is recorded, and Apis was the first to be called a god in Egypt, and Io the daughter of Inachus, who is worshipped by the. Egyptians under the altered name of Isis, became known, as also Prometheus and Atlas.

From Cecrops to the capture of Troy are reckoned little short of other four hundred years, in which fall the marvellous tales of Greek mythology, the flood in the time of Deucalion, and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon, there having been, probably, many catastrophes on the earth in various places.

Now Cecrops is said to have been the first to call God Zeus, He not having been previously so named among men: and next to have been the first to found an altar at Athens, and again the first to set up an image of Athena, as even these things were not existing of old.

After his time come the genealogies of all the gods among the Greeks. But among the Hebrews at this time the descendants of David were reigning, and the prophets who succeeded Moses were flourishing: so that according to the published testimony of the philosopher there are more than eight hundred years reckoned in all from Moses to the capture of Troy.

But far more recent still than the Trojan war are the traditional times of Homer and Hesiod and the rest. And after these, only yesterday as it were, about the fiftieth Olympiad, Pythagoras and Democritus and the subsequent philosophers gained a name, somewhere about five hundred years after the Trojan war.

Moses therefore and the Hebrew prophets who succeeded him are proved to be fifteen hundred years earlier than the philosophers of the Greeks, according to the confession of the aforesaid author.

Such, then is in brief my statement. But it is time to examine also the arguments upon the same subject of those who have preceded me. There have been then among us men of learning, second to none of the cultivated class, who have also devoted themselves with no little care to sacred literature, and who, after an accurate examination of the present subject, defended the antiquity of the Hebrews by the use of a rich and varied arrangement of proof.

For some of them computed the times from certain well acknowledged histories, and others confirmed their testimony by quotations of an earlier date. And some made use of Greek authors, and others of those who had recorded the history of the Phoenicians and of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. But all of them together, having collected the Greek and the Barbarian records and those of the Hebrews themselves, and having set all their histories side by side, and, as it were, shaken them together one against the other, have made a combined examination of the things done about the same periods in all those nations.

Then, after each had made his arrangement of the events to be proved by methods of his own, they brought forward their proof with common consent and agreement. And for this reason especially I thought it right to give place in the present discussion to their own words, in order that the authors of the arguments might not be deprived of their due rewards, and at the same time the maintenance of the truth might receive indisputable confirmation not by one witness but by many.