Volume 1

The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor.

Date:: 1901-1906

Credit: The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

725/752 (page 667)

$Apion present the formal charge of dislo3'alty against the Jews of Alexandria. It was a foregone conclusion that he would defeat Philo (the philoso- His Polit- pher), the head of the Jewish delega- ical tion (Josephus, “Ant.” xviii. 8, § 1). Activity. After this he seems to have settled down in Rome, and opened a school there, numheriug Pliny among his disciples. He probably died there, suffering, as Josephus narrates, from an uglj- disease to reniedj’ which he vainl}' resorted to circumcision, the operation he had so often derided in his writings (Josephus, “Contra Ap.” ii. 14). Apion was a man of great versatility of intellect, superlicialh familiar with all branches of knowledge (TrepiepyoTa-oc ypnp/iariKuv, Julius Africanus). He lec- tured on the Pyramids and on Pj'thagoras, on the virtues and vices of Sappho and Anacreon, on the birthplace of Homer as well as on Lais, the noted courtezan. He loved to dwell on the miraculous things in natural science, whereof he eagerlj accu- mulated facts to illustrate all sorts of mythological and superstitious views. He was also a magnetic orator who knew hov/ to appeal to the imagination of the people. Of Jus extreme vanity both Josei)hus and Pliny the Elder give ample proofs. He held out the promise of glorious immortality to any one to whom he should inscribe a work of his. “Thus,” sa.ys Pliny, “speaks one who is the trumpet of his own fame rather than that of the world, as Tiberius called him ” (Plinj^, preface 25). Again, after enu- merating the remarkable men the Greeks produced, he proclaims Alexandria happy in ])ossessing a citizen like himself (.losephus, “Contra Ap.” ii. 13). IVIore serious is that trait of his character for which he was called a “ Cretan,” as synonyunous with impostor (see Von Gutschmid, “Kleinere Schriften,” iv. 357). He pretended (Pliny% “ Historia Naturalis,” xxx. 6) to have raised up Homer’s shade from the dead by' the help of some magic plant, and to have received from it information about the poet’s jrlace of birth and parentage, which he was not pei'initted to disclose; to have received from Kteson, an inhabitant of Ithaca, during his stay' there, an exact description of Penel- ope’s suitors’ game of draughts (Athenanis, i. 16); to have heard from Egy’ptian .sages the true account of lMo.ses and the Exodus, au account which he sim- ply copied from Manetho (Josei)hus, Claim of i!>. ii. 2); to have been an ey'e-witness Universal of the scene at the Circus Dlaximus Knowl- when the lion recognized Audroclus edge. as his benefactor (Gellius, Lc. vi. 4); and of the scene at Puteoli when the dolphin display'ed love for a y'outh (Gellius, l.c. vii. 8). It is almost inconceivable how Von Gutschmid {l.c. p. 360) can defend Apion against the charges of charlatanism made by' Lehrs. Trustworthy con- temporaries like Pliny' the Elder, Seneca. Gellius, and Athenaeus represent him exactly as does Jose- phus, as a man u])ou whose statements little reliance can be placed. In the “ Clementine Homilies ” (iv. 8 etseq., v. 5 et seq.)he is introduced both as a believer in magic—if not a fraudulent practitioner of the art —and a defender of Greek my'thology'. Apion was a voluminous writer, but fe%v of his wri- tings have been preserved except what is found in the quotations of Josephus, his adversary'. He wrote a treatise on the Latin language, and was one of the first to compose a glossary' on Homer, probably', as Von Gutschmid say's, embodied in the “Lexicon Homer- icon ” of his disciple Apollonius, and hence in the “Ety'mologicon.” He wrote a eulogy' on Alexander the Great, as Gutschmid supposes, in recognition of the honor of citizenship conferred upon him by' the Alexandrians. Another book of his bore the title “ On Homer as a Magician, ” wherein he treated of the superstitious side of Homeric life, such as the magic plant /i(o/.v. Circe and Hades, in a manner in keeping with the taste of his age. Apion was the author of “comments” on Homer and on Aristophanes, and also wrote a discourse on Apicius, the gourmet. But his chief work was on Egy'ptian history', written in close imitation of Dlanetho’s work of the same title, “ Higyptiaca, ” and embodying the con- His tents of jManctho’s other works, the Egyptian one on the ancient life and worship of History, the Egyptians, and the other on their theology. It was divided into five books, tlie first three corresponding with the three of Manetho’s books, the other two books with two other works of Manetho, and presented in popular style whatever seemed to be marvelous and interesting' to a credulous age. While collecting his stories thus from the most dubious sources in Egyj)tian history', he asstimes to speak with the authority of one who has made personal researches regarding the things which he relates, and on the very spot where they occurred. It appears that he made it his especial object to explain animal-worship and other religious practi.ses of the Egy'jffians by' observations of the marvels of nature, and so he wrote a special work on the study' of nature and its forms, wherein he also follows Manetho’s example and adopts his pan- theistic view. As has been clearly shown by Schurer (“Gesch.d. Judischen Volkes,” ii'i. 408), it was in the third book of his “ .lEgyptiaca” (and not in a special book against the .Tews, as was erroneously' assumed by the Church fathers, and asserted ever since) that those slanders were made by'Apion against the Jews which found their way to Tacitus (“History,” v. 1-5) and many other writers in Rome, and against which Josephus wrote the second part of his splen- did apologetic work, known by' the title “Contra Apionem.” In the imlemical portion of his book, Apion repeated whatever DIanetho, Apollonius DIolo, Posidonius, Chaeremon, and Ly'simachus had ever written against the Jews. He first attacks them from the point of view of an Egyptian. He reiter- ates with considerable embellishment the slanderous tale told by' Manetho, of the .Tewish people hav- ing been led out of Egy'pt, a horde of Type of lepers, blind and lame. He pretends an Anti- to have heard from the ancient men of Semitic. Egypt that Moses was of the city of Heliopolis, the city' of the sun, and that is why he taught his people to offer pray'ers toward the rising sun. To account for the origin of the Sabbath, he tells a story current among the people of the time (if not invented by him) as fol- lows; When the 110,000 lepers (this is the number also given by Ly'simachus), expelled from Egypt, had trayeled for six days, they deyeloped buboes in their groins, and so they' rested on the seyenth day' for their recuperation. The name for this malady' being Sabbo in the Egy'ptian language, they' called the day' of rest Sabbath (Josephus, “Contra Ap.” ii. 2-3). Apion next assails the .Tews from the point of yiew of an Alexandrian. He asks how these Jews, coming from Sy'ria, could claim the name and title of Alex- andrian citizens, and he upbraids them for not wor- shiping the same gods as the Egy'ptians, and spe- cifically for not erecting images to the emperors as all the rest were content to do. Finally, he derides the religion of the Jews by re- iterating all sorts of ridiculous slanders concerning the Temjde of Jerusalem. Thus he writes that when Antiochus Epiphanes entered the holy' place, he found there an ass’s head, made of gold and worth a$