277 Chapter IX.—The antiquity of Moses proved by Greek writers. I will begin, then, with our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses; first explaining the times in which he lived, on authorities which among you are worthy of all credit. For I do not propose to prove these things only from our own divine histories, which as yet you are un- willing to credit on account of the inveterate error of your forefathers, but also from your own histories, and such, too, as have no reference to our worship, that you may know that, of all your teachers, whether sages, poets, historians, philosophers, or lawgivers, by far the oldest, as the Greek histories show us, was Moses, who was our first religious teacher.770 For in the times of Ogyges and Inachus, whom some of your poets suppose to have been earth-born,771 Moses is mentioned as the leader and ruler of the Jewish nation. For in this way he is mentioned both by Polemon in the first book of his Hellenics, and by Apion son of Posidonius in his book against the Jews, and in the fourth book of his history, where he says that during the reign of Inachus over Argos the Jews revolted from Amasis king of the Egyptians, and that Moses led them. And Ptolemæus the Mendesian, in relating the history of Egypt, concurs in all this. And those who write the Athenian history, Hellanicus and Philochorus (the author of The Attic History), Castor and Thallus, and Alexander Polyhistor, and also the very well informed writers on Jewish affairs, Philo and Josephus, have mentioned Moses as a very ancient and time-honoured prince of the Jews. Josephus, certainly, desiring to signify even by the title of his work the antiquity and age of the history, wrote thus at the commencement of the history: “The Jewish antiquities772 of Flavius Josephus,”—signifying the oldness of the history by the word “antiquities.” And your most renowned historian Diodorus, who employed thirty whole years in epitomizing the libraries, and who, as he himself wrote, travelled over both Asia and Europe for the sake of great accuracy, and thus became an eye-witness of very many things, wrote forty entire books of his own history. And he in the first book, having said that he had learned from the Egyptian priests that Moses was an ancient lawgiver, and even the first, wrote of him in these very words: “For subsequent to the ancient manner of living in Egypt which gods and heroes are fabled to have regulated, they say that Moses773 first persuaded the people to use written laws, and to live by them; and he is recorded to have been a man both great of soul and of great faculty in social matters.” Then, having proceeded a little further, and wishing to mention the ancient lawgivers, he mentions Moses first. For he spoke in these words: “Among the Jews they say that Moses ascribed his laws774 to that God who is called Jehovah, whether because they 770 The incongruity in this sentence is Justin’s. 771 [Autochthones]. That is, sprung from the soil; and hence the oldest inhabitants, the aborigines. 772 Literally, archæology. 773 Unfortunately, Justin here mistook Menes for Moses. [But he may have so read the name in his copy. See Grabe’s note on Diodorus, and the quotation following in another note.] 774 This sentence must be so completed from the context in Diodorus. See the note of Maranus. Chapter IX.—The antiquity of Moses proved by Greek writers. 738 Chapter IX.—The antiquity of Moses proved by Greek writers.