Miscellanies 1.21.144–1.25.166

It is no harm, I think, to add to these the dates of the Roman emperors, to show the birth of the Savior. Augustus forty-three years, Tiberius twenty-two, Gaius four, Claudius fourteen, Nero fourteen, Galba one, Vespasian ten, Titus three, Domitian fifteen, Nerva one, Trajan nineteen, Hadrian twenty-one, Antoninus twenty-three, and again Antoninus and Commodus thirty-two. From Augustus to the death of Commodus comes to two hundred and twenty-two years in all, and from Adam to the death of Commodus five thousand seven hundred and eighty-four years, two months, and twelve days. Some, however, record the dates of the Roman emperors thus: Gaius Julius Caesar three years, four months, six days; after whom Augustus reigned forty-six years, four months, one day; then Tiberius twenty-six years, six months, nineteen days; Gaius Caesar succeeded him, three years, ten months, eight days; then Claudius thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Nero thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Galba seven months, six days; Otho five months, one day; Vitellius seven months, one day; Vespasian eleven years, eleven months, twenty-two days; Titus two years, two months; Domitian fifteen years, eight months, five days; Nerva one year, four months, ten days; Trajan nineteen years, seven months, fifteen days; Hadrian twenty years, ten months, twenty-eight days; Antoninus twenty-two years, three months, seven days; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus nineteen years, eleven days; Commodus twelve years, nine months, fourteen days. From Julius Caesar to the death of Commodus, then, are two hundred and thirty-six years and six months. And all the years from Romulus, the founder of Rome, to the death of Commodus come to … forty-three years and six months.

Our Lord was born in the twenty-eighth year, when they first ordered registrations to be made, in the time of Augustus. That this is true is written in the Gospel according to Luke thus: “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar the word of the Lord came to John the son of Zechariah.” And again in the same: “And Jesus was coming to the baptism about thirty years old.” And that he had to preach for only one year is also written thus: “He has sent me to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The prophet said this, and the gospel. Fifteen years of Tiberius, then, and fifteen of Augustus: so the thirty years are completed until he suffered. From his suffering to the destruction of Jerusalem there are forty-two years and three months; and from the destruction of Jerusalem to the death of Commodus, a hundred and twenty-two years, ten months, and thirteen days. From the birth of the Lord to the death of Commodus, then, there are a hundred and ninety-four years, one month, and thirteen days in all. And there are those who, more curiously, add to the Savior's birth not only the year but also the day, which they say was in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, on the twenty-fifth of Pachon.

The followers of Basilides celebrate the day of his baptism too, spending the preceding night in readings. They say that it was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the fifteenth of the month Tybi, or, as some say, the eleventh of the same month. And those of them who are exact about his passion put it, some in the sixteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the twenty-fifth of Phamenoth, others on the twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi; others say that the Savior suffered on the nineteenth of Pharmuthi. Some of them indeed say that he was born on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi. We must also add to the chronology the days, I mean, which Daniel hints at, from the desolation of Jerusalem, the seven years and eleven months of Vespasian. For the two years are added to the seventeen months and eight days of Otho, Galba, and Vitellius, and so it comes to three years and six months, which is half of the week, as Daniel the prophet said. For he said that two thousand three hundred days would pass from the time the abomination was set up by Nero in the holy city until its destruction. So the following passage shows: “How long will the vision stand, the sacrifice taken away and the sin of desolation given, and the power and the sanctuary be trampled? And he said to him, Until evening and morning, two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary will be cleansed.” These two thousand three hundred days make six years and four months, half of which Nero held as emperor, and it was half a week; and the other half Vespasian with Otho, Galba, and Vitellius. That is why Daniel says, “Blessed is he who comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” For until these days there was war, and after them it ceased.

This number is also shown from the following chapter, which runs thus: “And from the time of the change of the daily sacrifice, and the abomination of desolation being given, one thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he who waits and comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” Flavius Josephus the Jew, who composed the Jewish histories, bringing down the dates, says that from Moses to David there are five hundred and eighty-five years, and from David to the second year of Vespasian one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine; then from this to the tenth year of Antoninus seventy-seven years; so that from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus there are one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three years in all. Others, counting to the death of Commodus from Inachus and Moses, said there were one thousand eight hundred and forty-two years, and others …. And in the Gospel according to Matthew the genealogy from Abraham is carried down to Mary the mother of the Lord; for, it says, “from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ likewise another fourteen generations,” three mystic intervals completed in six sevens.

Let what has been recorded by many differently about the dates and set out by us stand thus. They say that the Scriptures, both of the law and the prophets, were translated from the language of the Hebrews into the Greek tongue under King Ptolemy son of Lagus, or, as some say, under the one surnamed Philadelphus, who brought the greatest zeal to this, Demetrius of Phalerum also carefully managing the work of translation. For while the Macedonians still held Asia, the king, ambitious to adorn with all writings the library he had founded at Alexandria, asked the people of Jerusalem too to translate their prophecies into the Greek language.

And they, since they were still subject to the Macedonians, chose seventy elders from among the most esteemed of their people, experienced in the Scriptures and skilled in the Greek language, and sent them to him with the divine books. When each separately had translated each prophecy, all the translations, compared together, agreed both in sense and in words; for it was the will of God, devised for Greek ears. Indeed it is not strange that by the inspiration of God, who had given the prophecy, the translation too should be produced as a kind of Greek prophecy; since also, when the Scriptures had been destroyed in the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Ezra the Levite, the priest, became inspired and prophesied all the ancient Scriptures again, restoring them.

Aristobulus, in the first book of his work addressed to Philometor, writes word for word: “Plato too followed our legislation, and he has clearly studied carefully each of the things said in it. It was translated by others before Demetrius, before the conquest of Alexander and the Persians: the account of the leading out of the Hebrews our fellow citizens from Egypt, the manifestation of all that happened to them, the conquest of the land, and the exposition of the whole legislation; so that it is plain that the philosopher just mentioned took many things (for he was very learned), as Pythagoras too transferred many of our things into his own system of doctrines.” And Numenius the Pythagorean philosopher writes outright: “For what is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?” This Moses was a theologian and prophet, and, as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. The Scriptures themselves, worthy of trust, proclaim his race, his deeds, and his life; yet we too must speak of them as briefly as possible.

Moses, then, was a Chaldean by ancestry, born in Egypt, his forefathers having migrated from Babylon to Egypt because of a long famine. Born in the seventh generation and reared royally, he met with the following circumstance. When the Hebrews had increased to a great multitude in Egypt, the king of the country, fearing a plot from their numbers, ordered them to rear the female children of the Hebrews (for a woman is weak for war), but to destroy the males, suspecting a strong youth. But his parents, since the child was of noble birth, hid him and reared him for three months in succession, natural affection conquering tyrannical cruelty; but fearing later that they would perish with the child, they made a vessel of the native papyrus, put the child in it, and exposed him beside the banks of the river, which was marshy; and the child's sister, standing far off, watched what would happen.

Then the king's daughter, who for a long time had not conceived but longed for children, came that day to the river to use its baths and ablutions; and hearing the child crying, she ordered it brought to her, and, taking pity, sought a nurse. Then the child's sister ran up and said that she had a Hebrew woman who had given birth not long before to present to her as a nurse, if she wished; and when she agreed and asked for it, she brought the child's mother to be his nurse, as if she were someone else, for a stated wage. Then the princess gave the child the name Moses, appropriately, because she had taken him out of the water (for the Egyptians call water mōu), into which he had been exposed to die. And indeed they call Moses the one who breathes his last in the water.

It is clear, then, that earlier, when the child was circumcised, his parents gave him a name, and he was called Joachim. He also had a third name in heaven after his assumption, as the initiated say: Melchi. When he came of age, he was taught arithmetic, geometry, rhythm, harmony, and further meter and music by the most distinguished of the Egyptians, and besides the philosophy expressed through symbols, which they display in hieroglyphic letters. The rest of the general education Greeks taught him in Egypt, as a royal child, as Philo says in the Life of Moses; and he also learned the letters of the Assyrians and the knowledge of heavenly things from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; hence in the Acts he is said to have been “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Eupolemus, in his work on the kings in Judea, says that Moses was the first wise man, and first handed on grammar to the Jews, that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians. When he reached manhood, he increased his prudence, zealous for the education of his kin and ancestors, even to striking and killing the Egyptian who was unjustly attacking the Hebrew.

The initiated say that he killed the Egyptian by a word alone, as indeed later Peter in the Acts is said to have killed by a word those who kept back part of the price of the field and lied. Artapanus, at any rate, in his work on the Jews, relates that Moses was shut up in prison by Chenephres, king of the Egyptians, for asking that the people be released from Egypt; and that at night, when the prison was opened by God's will, he went out, came into the palace, stood over the sleeping king, and woke him; and the king, astonished at what had happened, ordered Moses to tell the name of the God who had sent him; and he, bending down, said it into his ear; and the king, hearing it, fell speechless, but, held by Moses, came to life again.

About the upbringing of Moses, Ezekiel too, the poet of Jewish tragedies, will agree with us, in the drama entitled The Exodus, writing thus in the person of Moses: “For seeing our race greatly increased, King Pharaoh devised much guile against us, tormenting men with brickwork and heavy building, and fortifying cities by the labor of us wretched ones. Then he proclaimed to us, the Hebrew race, to throw the males into the deep-flowing river. Then the mother who bore me hid me three months, as she used to say; but, not escaping notice, she put me out, dressing me in fine clothes, by the edge of the river, into a thick, deep marsh. Miriam my sister watched nearby. And then the king's daughter came down with her maidens to refresh her young body in the bath. Seeing me, at once pitying, she took me up, and knew that I was a Hebrew. And Miriam my sister, running to the princess, says this: ‘Do you wish me to find you quickly a nurse for this child from among the Hebrews?’ And she urged the girl on. She went and told our mother, and quickly my mother herself came and took me in her arms. And the king's daughter said: ‘Woman, nurse this child, and I will pay you your wage.’ And she called me by the name Moses, because she took me up from the wet bank of the river. When my time as an infant had passed, my mother brought me to the princess's palace, having first told and explained everything to me, my ancestral race and God's gifts. So as long as we had the time of boyhood, with royal nurture and education she provided everything, as if from her own womb; but when the full circle of days had come, I went out from the royal house.”

Then, having told of the fight between the Hebrew and the Egyptian and the burial of the Egyptian in the sand, he says of the second fight: “Why do you strike one weaker than yourself? And he said: Who sent you as judge or ruler over us here? Will you not kill me as you did the man yesterday? And I, afraid, said: How did this become known?” He fled from there and tended sheep, being trained beforehand for leadership by shepherding; for shepherding is a preparation for kingship for one who is to rule the tamest flock, that of human beings, just as hunting is for those warlike by nature. From there God led him to the command of the Hebrews.

Then the Egyptians, often without understanding, were often warned; and the Hebrews were spectators of the evils that others suffered, learning the power of God without danger. And further the Egyptians, not accepting by hearing the effects of his power, disbelieving through folly, then, as it is said, “the fools knew it when it was done.” And afterward, when the Hebrews went out, they departed carrying off much booty from the Egyptians, not from love of money, as the accusers say (for God did not persuade them to desire what belonged to others), but first receiving a necessary wage for the service they had rendered the Egyptians throughout the whole time, and then in some way avenging themselves by grieving the money-loving Egyptians in return, by carrying off the booty, as they had grieved the Hebrews by enslaving them. Whether, then, one should say that this took place as in war, they thought it right to take the goods of their enemies by the law of the victors, as the stronger over the weaker (and the cause of the war was just: the Hebrews came as suppliants to the Egyptians because of famine, and they enslaved the strangers and forced them to serve them like captives, not even paying them a wage); or as in peace, they took the booty as a wage from those unwilling to pay, who had for a long time not paid it but defrauded them.

Moses, then, is for us a prophet, a lawgiver, a tactician, a general, a statesman, and a philosopher. How he was a prophet will be said later, when we discuss prophecy. The tactical would be part of the art of generalship, and generalship part of kingship; and again lawgiving would be part of kingship, as is judging. Of kingship, one part is divine, such as that according to God and his holy Son, from whom the good things of the earth, external goods, and perfect happiness are supplied; for “ask,” he says, “for great things, and the small will be added to you.” The second kind of kingship, after the pure rational and divine administration, is that which uses only the spirited part of the soul for rule, by which kind Heracles reigned over Argos and Alexander over the Macedonians. The third is that which aims at one thing only, to conquer and subdue (whether to win victory for evil or for good does not concern such a one); this the Persians used when they marched against Greece. For of spiritedness one part is merely contentious, having made its power for the sake of ruling itself, the other is noble, when the soul uses spiritedness for what is good.

The fourth and worst of all is the kingship ranked according to the desires, like that of Sardanapalus and of those who make it their end to gratify their desires as much as possible. For the kingly art, both that which conquers by virtue and that which conquers by force, the tactical art is an instrument, different according to different nature and material. In arms and fighting animals, the arranging power working through living and lifeless things is soul and mind; but in the passions of the soul, which we master by virtue, the arranging power is reason, setting its seal on self-control and temperance with holiness, and on good knowledge with truth, referring the end to the piety of God. For in those who use virtue, prudence is what arranges: wisdom arranges divine things, statesmanship human things, and kingship all things. The king, then, is the one who rules according to laws, who has the knowledge of ruling over the willing, such as the Lord is, who receives those who believe in him and through him. For God has handed over all things and subjected all things to Christ our King, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Strategy has three forms: the safe, the daring, and a mixture of these; and each of these is made up of three: by word, by deeds, or by both together. All these it will be possible to accomplish by persuading, or compelling, or wronging in self-defense, which includes acting justly, or lying, or telling the truth, or using some of these together at the same time. The Greeks benefited by taking all these, and how each should be used, from Moses. For the sake of illustration I will mention one or two examples of strategy. Moses, having led the people out, suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue, left the short and direct road and turned toward the desert, and for the most part traveled at night. For there was another plan, by which the Hebrews were trained through much desert and a long time, being accustomed through self-controlled endurance to believe only that God exists.

The strategy of Moses, at any rate, teaches that before dangers one must see what is useful and so act. Indeed what he suspected happened: the Egyptians pursued with horses and chariots, but perished quickly when the sea broke and flooded them with their horses and chariots, so that not even a remnant of them was left. After this a pillar of fire following (for it guided them in front) led the Hebrews at night through trackless country, training and bringing them to courage and endurance in labors and journeys, so that the good things of the land might appear good after the experience of apparent hardships, the land into which he conducted them out of the trackless country.

Indeed, he also routed and killed the enemies who occupied the land, attacking them from a desert and rough road (for such is the excellence of the general). For it was a work of experience and generalship to take the land of the enemy. Miltiades, the general of the Athenians, who conquered the Persians in the battle at Marathon, having understood this, imitated this method: he led the Athenians at night by a trackless way and deceived the barbarians who were watching him. For Hippias, the renegade from the Athenians, had brought the barbarians into Attica and, having seized the strategic places in advance, was guarding them because he knew the country. It was a task, then, to escape Hippias' notice; hence Miltiades, fittingly using a trackless way and night, attacked the Persians, whom Datis led, and won the contest with those he led.

And Thrasybulus too, when he was bringing back the exiles from Phyle and wished to escape notice, had a pillar as guide as he went through untrodden ways. For Thrasybulus, at night, when there was no moon and the weather was stormy, a fire was seen going before, which, having escorted them safely, disappeared near Munychia, where the altar of the Light-Bearer now stands. So let our accounts be credible to the Greeks from this at least, that it is possible for God Almighty to make a pillar of fire go before the Hebrews at night, which also guided them on the way. It is also said in an oracle, “A pillar to the Thebans is Dionysus of many joys,” from the history among the Hebrews. And Euripides too says in the Antiope, “Within the chambers of the herdsmen, a pillar of the Evian god, crowned with ivy.” The pillar signifies that God cannot be represented by an image; and the luminous pillar, besides signifying this, shows the stability and permanence of God and his unchanging and formless light.

Before the forms of statues were perfected, the ancients set up pillars and worshiped them as images of the god. At any rate the author of the Phoronis writes: “Callithoe, key-bearer of the Olympian queen, Argive Hera, who first adorned with garlands and tassels the tall pillar of the queen.” And the author of the Europia relates that the statue of Apollo at Delphi was a pillar, in these words: “that we might hang up the tithe and first-fruits to the god, from the sacred pegs and the high pillar.” Apollo, however, understood mystically by the negation of the many, is the one God. But that fire like a pillar and the fire through the bush are a symbol of the holy light that passes from earth and returns again to heaven through the wood, through which the power of seeing spiritually has been given to us.

Plato the philosopher, having benefited from the writings of Moses in legislation, criticized the constitutions of Minos and Lycurgus as looking only to courage, and praised as more venerable the one that speaks of one thing and always tends toward one doctrine; for he says it would befit us more to philosophize with strength, dignity, and prudence toward the dignity of heaven, using the same judgment about the same things without change. Does he not interpret the things of the law, looking toward one God and commanding just action? He speaks of two kinds of statesmanship, one legal, and the other called statesmanship by the same name. He hints that the Creator is the statesman properly speaking, in the book of that name; and he calls those who look to him and live actively and justly, together with contemplation, statesmen; and the statesmanship called equally legal he divides into worldly magnanimity and private arrangement, which they have called orderliness, harmony, and self-control, when rulers are fitting for those ruled, and those ruled become obedient to their rulers; which the work of Moses earnestly aims to bring about.

Further, Plato, having benefited from the teaching that the legal concerns generation and statesmanship concerns friendship and concord, joined to the Laws the philosopher of the Epinomis, who knows the course of all generation through the planets; and another philosopher, Timaeus, an astronomer and contemplator of their motion and of their sympathy and communion with one another, he joins in sequence to the Republic. For the end, I think, both of the statesman and of the one who lives by law is contemplation. To live as a citizen rightly is necessary, but to philosophize is best. For the one who has sense would live directing all his efforts to knowledge, guiding his life by good works, despising their opposites, and pursuing the studies that help toward truth. And law is not what is customary (for what is seen is not sight), nor every opinion (for not the evil one), but law is good opinion, and good opinion is true opinion, and true opinion is that which finds what is and attains it: “He who is has sent me,” says Moses. Consistently with this good opinion some have said that law is right reason, commanding what must be done and forbidding what must not be done.