Ancient Historians · Part 21 · Philo and Josephus · B2–C1
Josephus IV: Against Apion
Part 21 of Ancient Historians: Josephus’s last book is an argument. He answers the Greek writers who said the Jews were a new people with shameful origins, above all Apion, an Alexandrian scholar who spread insulting stories about them, and who will one day face Philo before the emperor. Josephus argues that Greek history is young and contradicts itself, quotes Egyptian and Babylonian records, and defends the Jewish Law. But he exaggerates too, and some of his arguments are no more reliable than Apion’s. The language of refutation (on the contrary, far from, it is simply not true that, even if we accept that), rhetorical questions, and the language of prejudice and defence, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Philo, do you remember the Greek embassy that will stand against yours before the emperor Gaius? Its leader will be a man called Apion: a famous scholar of Homer, born in Egypt, who will teach here in Alexandria and write books full of insulting stories about your people.
I have heard his name already. He lectures in the city. People say he is very clever and very vain.
The emperor Tiberius will call him “the cymbal of the world”, Philo, because he makes so much noise. Sixty years after your embassy, Josephus will write a whole book to answer him. Tonight we learn the grammar of refutation: how to answer a false claim firmly, fairly and without becoming what you are fighting.
Rome, about 95–100 CE, answering writers from Alexandria
Against Apion is a short work in two books, dedicated to a patron called Epaphroditus. In the first book, Josephus answers those who say the Jews are a recent people because Greek historians hardly mention them. Greek history, he says, is itself young: the Greeks learned to write late, their historians contradict each other constantly, and the Egyptians, Babylonians and Phoenicians kept far older records. He quotes Manetho, Berossus and Phoenician archives to show that the Jews were ancient.
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