is sacrifices when he pleased; and when he pleased, to
be absent." Both ways of speaking sound harsh in the ears of Jews and
Christians, as do several others which Josephus uses to the heathens;
but still they were not very improper in him, when he all along thought
fit to accommodate himself, both in his Antiquities, and in these his
books against Apion, all written for the use of the Greeks and Romans,
to their notions and language, and this as far as ever truth would give
him leave. Though it be very observable withal, that he never uses such
expressions in his books of the War, written originally for the Jews
beyond Euphrates, and in their language, in all these cases. However,
Josephus directly supposes the Jewish settlement, under Moses, to be a
Divine settlement, and indeed no other than a real theocracy.

[21] These excellent accounts of the Divine attributes, and that God
is not to be at all known in his essence, as also some other clear
expressions about the resurrection of the dead, and the state of
departed souls, etc., in this late work of Josephus, look more like the
exalted notions of the Essens, or rather Ebionite Christians, than those
of a mere Jew or Pharisee. The following large accounts also of the laws
of Moses, seem to me to show a regard to the higher interpretations and
improvements of Moses's laws, derived from Jesus Christ, than to the
bare letter of them in the Old Testament, whence alone Josephus took
them when he wrote his Antiquities; nor, as I think, can some of these
laws, though generally excellent in their kind, be properly now found
either in the copies of the Jewish Pentateuch, or in Philo, or in
Josephus himself, before he became a Nazarene or Ebionite Christian; nor
even all of them among the laws of catholic Christianity themselves. I
desire, therefore, the learned reader to consider, whether some of these
improvements or interpretations might not be peculiar to the Essens
among the Jews, or rather to the Nazarenes or Ebionites among the
Christians, though we have indeed but imperfect accounts of those
Nazarenes or Ebionite Christians transmitted down to us at this day.

[22] We may here observe how known a thing it was among the Jews and
heathens, in this and many other instances, that sacrifices were still
accompanied with prayers; whence most probably came those phrases of
"the sacrifice of prayer, the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of
thanksgiving." However, those ancient