ney, without
declaring himself our enemy, and attacked us while we were his
associates and his friends; nor did he find any thing there that
was ridiculous. This is attested by many worthy writers; Polybius of
Megalopolis, Strabo of Cappadocia, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes,
Castor the chronotoger, and Apollodorus; [10] who all say that it was
out of Antiochus's want of money that he broke his league with the Jews,
and despoiled their temple when it was full of gold and silver. Apion
ought to have had a regard to these facts, unless he had himself had
either an ass's heart or a dog's impudence; of such a dog I mean as they
worship; for he had no other external reason for the lies he tells of
us. As for us Jews, we ascribe no honor or power to asses, as do the
Egyptians to crocodiles and asps, when they esteem such as are seized
upon by the former, or bitten by the latter, to be happy persons, and
persons worthy of God. Asses are the same with us which they are with
other wise men, viz. creatures that bear the burdens that we lay upon
them; but if they come to our thrashing-floors and eat our corn, or do
not perform what we impose upon them, we beat them with a great many
stripes, because it is their business to minister to us in our husbandry
affairs. But this Apion of ours was either perfectly unskillful in the
composition of such fallacious discourses, or however, when he
begun [somewhat better], he was not able to persevere in what he had
undertaken, since he hath no manner of success in those reproaches he
casts upon us.

8. He adds another Grecian fable, in order to reproach us. In reply to
which, it would be enough to say, that they who presume to speak about
Divine worship ought not to be ignorant of this plain truth, that it is
a degree of less impurity to pass through temples, than to forge wicked
calumnies of its priests. Now such men as he are more zealous to justify
a sacrilegious king, than to write what is just and what is true about
us, and about our temple; for when they are desirous of gratifying
Antiochus, and of concealing that perfidiousness and sacrilege which
he was guilty of, with regard to our nation, when he wanted money, they
endeavor to disgrace us, and tell lies even relating to futurities.
Apion becomes other men's prophet upon this occasion, and says that
"Antiochus found in our temple a bed, and a man lying upon it, with a
small table before him, full of dainties, from the [fishes of the