he Egyptians. But as for the Egyptians and Ethiopians
themselves, I am not able to say which of them received it from the
other." This therefore is what Herodotus says, that "the Syrians that
are in Palestine are circumcised." But there are no inhabitants of
Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Jews; and therefore it must
be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much concerning
them. Cherilus also, a still ancienter writer, and a poet, [16] makes
mention of our nation, and informs us that it came to the assistance of
king Xerxes, in his expedition against Greece. For in his enumeration of
all those nations, he last of all inserts ours among the rest, when he
says, "At the last there passed over a people, wonderful to be beheld;
for they spake the Phoenician tongue with their mouths; they dwelt in
the Solymean mountains, near a broad lake: their heads were sooty;
they had round rasures on them; their heads and faces were like nasty
horse-heads also, that had been hardened in the smoke." I think,
therefore, that it is evident to every body that Cherilus means us,
because the Solymean mountains are in our country, wherein we inhabit,
as is also the lake called Asphaltitis; for this is a broader and
larger lake than any other that is in Syria: and thus does Cherilus make
mention of us. But now that not only the lowest sort of the Grecians,
but those that are had in the greatest admiration for their philosophic
improvements among them, did not only know the Jews, but when they
lighted upon any of them, admired them also, it is easy for any one to
know. For Clearchus, who was the scholar of Aristotle, and inferior
to no one of the Peripatetics whomsoever, in his first book concerning
sleep, says that "Aristotle his master related what follows of a Jew,"
and sets down Aristotle's own discourse with him. The account is this,
as written down by him: "Now, for a great part of what this Jew said, it
would be too long to recite it; but what includes in it both wonder and
philosophy it may not be amiss to discourse of. Now, that I may be plain
with thee, Hyperochides, I shall herein seem to thee to relate wonders,
and what will resemble dreams themselves. Hereupon Hyperochides answered
modestly, and said, For that very reason it is that all of us are very
desirous of hearing what thou art going to say. Then replied Aristotle,
For this cause it will be the best way to imitate that rule of the
Rhetoricians, which re