Stromateis 1 part 6/42

In this captivity arise Esther and Mordecai, of whom a book is extant, as also that of the Maccabees.

During this captivity, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah, refusing to worship the image, were cast into the furnace of fire, and were saved through the appearance of an angel.

Then, on account of the dragon, Daniel was cast into the den of lions, and, fed by Habakkuk through the providence of God, was brought out alive on the seventh day.

Here too occurred the sign of Jonah; and Tobias, through the angel Raphael, takes Sarah as his wife, after her demon had slain her seven previous suitors; and after the marriage of Tobias, his father Tobit regains his sight.

Here Zerubbabel, having overcome his rivals by wisdom, obtains from Darius, as a granted favor, the renewal of Jerusalem, and together with Ezra returns to his ancestral land;

through whom comes about the redemption of the people, and the recognition and renewal of the divinely inspired oracles, and the saving Passover is kept, and the dissolution of foreign intermarriages.

Cyrus had already proclaimed beforehand the restoration of the Hebrews; and when the promise was fulfilled under Darius, the feast of dedication was kept, just as it had also been at the tabernacle.

And the total number of years, together with those of the captivity, up to the restoration of the people, are: from the birth of Moses, one thousand one hundred fifty-five years, six months, and ten days; and from the reign of David, according to some, five hundred fifty-two years; but more precisely, five hundred seventy-two years, six months, and ten days.

There has therefore been fulfilled, reckoning from the captivity that took place in the time of the prophet Jeremiah into Babylon, that which was spoken by the prophet Daniel, which reads as follows:

'...and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.'

'And you shall know and understand: from the going forth of the word to give answer and to build Jerusalem, until an anointed leader, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; and it shall be restored, and a street and a wall shall be built, and the times shall be brought to an end.'

'And after the sixty-two weeks the anointed one shall be utterly destroyed, and there is no judgment for him.'

'And the city and the sanctuary shall he destroy, together with the leader who is to come.'

'They shall be cut off in a flood.'

And unto the end of the war that has been decreed... with desolations.

And he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week:

and in the middle of the week my sacrifice and drink offering shall be taken away:

and upon the temple shall be the abomination of desolations, and even until the consummation of the time a full end...shall be given over unto the desolation.

and in the half of the week he shall cause the incense of sacrifice to cease, and upon the pinnacle shall be the abomination of desolation, until the consummation, and with haste the order of desolation shall be accomplished.

That the temple, then, was built in seven weeks is evident:

For indeed it is written in Ezra that thus there arose an anointed ruler, a king of the Jews, when the seven weeks were completed in Jerusalem; and in the sixty-two weeks all Judea was at peace and existed without wars; and our Lord Christ, the Holy of Holies, having come and fulfilled the vision and the prophet, was anointed in the flesh by the Spirit of his Father within these same sixty-two weeks, just as the prophet said.

And in the one week — the half of which week Nero occupied while reigning, and in the holy city Jerusalem set up the abomination — and in the other half of the week he himself was destroyed, and Otho, and Galba, and Vitellius; but Vespasian prevailed, and tore down Jerusalem, and made the holy place desolate.

And that these things are so is clear, to one who is able to understand, from what the prophet has also said.

When, then, the eleventh year was completed, at the beginning of the following year, while Jehoiakim was reigning, the captivity into Babylon took place under king Nebuchadnezzar, in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians — while Wahibre was reigning over the Egyptians in his second year, and Philip was archon at Athens in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad — and the captivity lasted seventy years, ending in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians and Assyrians and Egyptians; in whose reign, as I said before, Haggai and Zechariah and the Angel from among the Twelve prophesied, and the high priest was Jesus the son of Jehozadak.

And in the second year of the reign of Darius — the one whom Herodotus says put an end to the rule of the Magi — Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel was sent to raise up and adorn the temple in Jerusalem.

The times of the Persians, then, are reckoned together as follows:

Cyrus, thirty years; Cambyses, nineteen; Darius, forty-six; Xerxes, twenty-six; Artaxerxes, forty-one; Darius, eight;... Artaxerxes, forty-two; Ochus, eight; Arses, three.

The sum total of the Persian years comes to two hundred thirty-five.

And having overthrown this Darius, Alexander the Macedonian begins to reign in the years next following.

Likewise, then, the times of the Macedonian kings are reckoned as follows:

Alexander, eighteen years; Ptolemy son of Lagus, forty years; Ptolemy Philadelphus, twenty-seven years; then Euergetes, twenty-five years; then Philopator, seventeen years; after him Epiphanes, twenty-four years:

Philometor succeeds him and reigns thirty-five years; after him Physcon, twenty-nine years; then Lathyrus, thirty-six years; then the one surnamed Dionysus, twenty-nine years.

After all these, Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years, after whom the reign of Cleopatra's children lasted eighteen days.

The times of the kings: three hundred twelve years, eighteen days.

It is shown, then, that Haggai and Zechariah and the Angel from among the Twelve, who prophesied under Darius son of Hystaspes in the second year of his reign — that is, in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad — were older than Pythagoras, who is dated to the sixty-second Olympiad, and older even than Thales, the eldest of the sages among the Greeks, who flourished around the fiftieth Olympiad.

And the sages who are listed together with Thales were contemporaries of his, as Andron says in his Tripod.

For Heraclitus, although later than Pythagoras, mentions him in his treatise.

Whence, beyond dispute, the first Olympiad would be earlier than the age of the aforementioned prophets together with the so-called seven sages — a first Olympiad which is also shown to be four hundred seven years after the fall of Troy.

It is easy, then, to see that Solomon, who lived in the time of Menelaus (and Menelaus lived at the time of the Trojan War), was many years older than the sages among the Greeks.

And by how many years Moses in turn preceded him has been shown by us above.

Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor, in his treatise Concerning the Jews, recorded certain letters of Solomon — both to Wahibre, king of Egypt, and to the king of the Tyrians of Phoenicia — and their letters to Solomon in return; from which it is shown that Wahibre sent him eighty thousand Egyptian men for the building of the temple, while the other sent an equal number together with a Tyrian architect, on his mother's side a Jew of the tribe of David, named Hyperon, as is written there.

Indeed, Onomacritus the Athenian, whose poems are said to be those circulated under the name of Orpheus, is found to have lived during the rule of the sons of Pisistratus, around the fiftieth Olympiad; while Orpheus, who sailed together with Heracles, was the teacher of Musaeus.

For Amphion precedes the Trojan War by two generations, while Demodocus and Phemius flourished after the fall of Troy (the one being renowned among the Phaeacians, the other among the suitors) for their skill at playing the lyre.

And they say that the oracles attributed to Musaeus are the work of Onomacritus, and that the 'Krater' attributed to Orpheus is by Zopyrus of Heraclea, and the 'Descent into Hades' is by Prodicus of Samos.

And Ion of Chios, in his Triagmoi, relates that Pythagoras too attributed certain writings to Orpheus.

And Epigenes, in his work Concerning the Poetry Attributed to Orpheus, says that the 'Descent into Hades' and the 'Sacred Discourse' are by Cercops the Pythagorean, and that the 'Robe' and the 'Physics' are by Brontinus.

Indeed, some also reckon Terpander among the archaic figures:

Hellanicus, at any rate, relates that he lived in the time of Midas; while Phanias, placing Lesches of Lesbos before Terpander, makes Terpander younger than Archilochus, and says that Lesches contended with Arctinus and won.

And Xanthus the Lydian says that Thasos was founded around the eighteenth Olympiad (but according to Dionysius, around the fifteenth), so that it is quite clear that Archilochus was already known only after the twentieth Olympiad.

At any rate, he also mentions the destruction of the Magnesians as having occurred recently.

Simonides, then, is dated to the time of Archilochus, while Callinus is somewhat older, though not by much:

for Archilochus mentions the Magnesians as already destroyed, whereas the other mentions them as still flourishing:

And Eumelus the Corinthian, being older, overlapped in time with Archias, the founder of Syracuse.

And we have been led to say these things because it is chiefly among the very ancients that people place the poets of the Cycle.

Now, among the Greeks also, many oracle-mongers are said to have arisen, such as the Bacides (one being Boeotian, the other Arcadian), who foretold many things to many people.

And by the counsel of Amphilytus the Athenian, Pisistratus also strengthened his tyranny, since Amphilytus revealed to him the right moment for the attack.

Nicias of Carystus, Ariston the Thessalian, Dionysius the Carthaginian, Cleophon the Corinthian, and Hippo the daughter of Chiron, and Boeo, and Manto, and the whole multitude of the Sibyls — the Samian, the Colophonian, the Cumaean, the Erythraean, Phyto, Taraxandra, the Macedonian, the Thessalian, the Thesprotian; and again Calchas and Mopsus, who lived at the time of the Trojan War, Mopsus being the elder, inasmuch as he had sailed with the Argonauts.

And they say that Battus the Cyrenean composed the work called the 'Mantic Art of Mopsus'; and Dorotheus, in the first book of his Pandect, relates that Mopsus understood the cries of the halcyon and the crow.

And to foreknowledge Pythagoras the Great also always devoted himself, as did Abaris the Hyperborean, and Aristeas of Proconnesus, and Epimenides the Cretan, who came to Sparta, and Zoroaster the Mede, and Empedocles of Acragas, and Phormio the Laconian; indeed also Polyaratus of Thasos, and Empedotimus of Syracuse; and besides these, above all Socrates the Athenian:

"For I have," he says in the Theages, "a divine sign that has come to me by divine allotment from childhood on; and this is a voice, which, whenever it occurs, restrains me from that which I am about to do, but never urges me forward."

And Execestus, the tyrant of the Phocians, wearing two enchanted rings, could discern the right moments for his actions by the sound they made when struck against one another; nevertheless he died, murdered by treachery, even though the sound had given him warning beforehand, as Aristotle says in his Constitution of the Phocians.

But also among those who were once men among the Egyptians, yet by human opinion became gods: Hermes the Theban and Asclepius the Memphite; and again Tiresias and Manto at Thebes, as Euripides says; and already Helenus and Laocoon and Oenone and Cebren at Ilium:

For Crenus, one of the Heraclidae, is renowned as a seer; and another, Iamus, in Elis, from whom the Iamidae take their name; and Polyidus, at Argos and at Megara, whom tragedy also mentions.

Why should I list Telemus for you, who, being a seer of the Cyclopes, prophesied to Polyphemus the things concerning the wanderings of Odysseus; or Onomacritus at Athens; or Amphiaraus, who together with the Seven who marched against Thebes is reckoned one generation older than the fall of Troy; or Theoclymenus in Cephallenia; or Telmessus in Caria; or Galeotes in Sicily? There would be yet others besides these — Idmon, who sailed with the Argonauts; Phemonoe of Delphi; Mopsus, son of Apollo and Manto, in Pamphylia and Cilicia; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, in Cilicia; Alcmaeon among the Acarnanians; Anius in Delos; and Aristander of Telmessus, who accompanied Alexander.

And Philochorus, in the first book of his On Divination, already relates that Orpheus too was a seer.

And Theopompus and Ephorus and Timaeus record a certain Orthagoras as a seer, just as Pythocles the Samian, in the fourth book of his Italian History, records Gaius Julius Nepos.

But all these are "thieves and robbers," as Scripture says, having foretold most things from observation and from probability, just like physicians and diviners who practice physiognomy; while others were moved by demons, or thrown into disorder by waters and vapors and a certain quality of air.

But among the Hebrews the prophets prophesied by the power of God and by divine inspiration: before the Law, Adam foretold beforehand concerning the woman and concerning the naming of the animals, and Noah preached repentance, and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob openly foretold not a few things, both of what was to come and of what was already present.

And along with the Law, Moses and Aaron; after whom prophesied Joshua the son of Nun, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Ahijah, Shemaiah, Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, Obadiah, Elisha, Abdadonai, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Buzi, Ezekiel, Uriah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Daniel, Mishael — he of the interpretations — Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel among the Twelve.

And the prophets in all number thirty-five.

Of women (for these too prophesied): Sarah, and Rebecca, and Miriam, and Deborah, and Huldah.

Then, around the same times, John prophesied until the baptism of salvation; and after the birth of Christ, Anna and Simeon prophesied:

John's father is also said in the Gospels to have prophesied even before the birth of the child.

Let us, then, gather together the chronography according to the Greeks, from the very beginning, starting from Moses:

From the birth of Moses to the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, eighty years; and to his death, another forty years:

The exodus occurs in the time of Inachus, three hundred forty-five years before the Sothic period, Moses having gone out from Egypt that many years earlier.

And from the leadership of Moses and of Inachus to the flood of Deucalion — I mean the second great rainfall — and to the conflagration of Phaethon, which indeed occurred in the time of Crotopus, forty generations are reckoned:

In years, three generations are additionally reckoned.

And from the flood to the burning of Ida and the discovery of iron and the Idaean Dactyls, seventy-three years, as Thrasyllus says.

And from the burning of Ida to the rape of Ganymede, sixty-five years.

And from there to the expedition of Perseus, when Glaucus also instituted the Isthmian Games in honor of Melicertes, fifteen years.

And from the expedition of Perseus to the founding of Ilium, thirty-four years.

From there to the sailing forth of the Argo, sixty-four years.

From this to Theseus and the Minotaur, thirty-two years; then to the Seven against Thebes, ten years; and to the contest at Olympia, which Heracles instituted in honor of Pelops, three years; and to the expedition of the Amazons against Athens and the rape of Helen by Theseus, nine years.

From this point to the deification of Heracles, eleven years; then to the abduction of Helen by Alexander (Paris), four years.

<Then to the capture of Troy, twenty years.> From the capture of Troy to the descent of Aeneas and the founding of Lavinium, ten years; to the rule of Ascanius, eight years; to the return of the Heraclidae, sixty-one years; and to the Olympiad of Iphitus, three hundred and thirty-eight years.

But Eratosthenes records the times as follows:

From the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae, eighty years;

from this point to the founding of Ionia, sixty years;

and next after these, to the ... guardianship of Lycurgus, a hundred and fifty-nine years;

and to the year before the first Olympiad, a hundred and eight years;

from that Olympiad to the crossing of Xerxes, two hundred and ninety-seven years;

from that to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, forty-eight years;

and to its ending and the defeat of the Athenians, twenty-seven years;

and to the battle of Leuctra, thirty-four years;

after which, to the death of Philip, thirty-five years;

and after these, to the passing of Alexander, twelve years.

Again, some say that from the first Olympiad to the founding of Rome, twenty-four years are reckoned.

From this point to the abolition of the kings, <when> consuls came into being, two hundred and forty-three years; and from the abolition of the kings to the death of Alexander, a hundred and eighty-six years.

From this point to the victory of Augustus, when Antony slew himself in Alexandria, two hundred and ninety-four years, <when> Augustus was consul for the fourth time.

From that time to the games which Domitian instituted at Rome, a hundred and fourteen years; and from the first celebration of the games to the death of Commodus, a hundred and eleven years.

There are some who reckon from Cecrops to Alexander the Macedonian a thousand †eight hundred and twenty-eight years, and from Demophon a thousand two hundred and fifty years, and from the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae, a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and eighty, years.

From this to the archonship of Euaenetus, under whom they say Alexander crossed into Asia: according to Phanias, seven hundred and fifteen years; according to Ephorus, seven hundred and thirty-five; according to Timaeus and Cleitarchus, eight hundred and twenty; according to Eratosthenes, seven hundred and seventy-four; and according to Duris, from the capture of Troy to Alexander's crossing into Asia, a thousand years.

...the archon under whom Alexander died, eleven years.

From this point to the rule of Germanicus Claudius Caesar, three hundred and sixty-five years, from which time the years up to the death of Commodus also become clear;

After the Greek chronology, we must also set forth, according to the greatest intervals, the times reckoned among the barbarians.

From Adam to the Flood is reckoned two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years and four days; from Shem to Abraham, one thousand two hundred and fifty years; and from Isaac to the allotment of the inheritance, six hundred and sixteen years.

then from the Judges to Samuel, four hundred and sixty-three years and seven months;

and after the Judges, of the kingdoms, five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, ten days;

after which times, of the Persian kingdom, two hundred and thirty-five years; then of the Macedonian, until the death of Antony, three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days;

after which time the empire of the Romans, until the death of Commodus, two hundred and twenty-two years;

again, from the seventy years' captivity and the restoration of the people to their ancestral land, to the captivity under Vespasian, four hundred and ten years are reckoned; and finally, from Vespasian to the death of Commodus, it is found to be a hundred and twenty-one years, six months, twenty-four days.

Demetrius, in his work On the Kings in Judaea, says that the tribe of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi were not taken captive by Sennacherib, but that from that captivity to the last, which Nebuchadnezzar made from Jerusalem, there were a hundred and twenty-eight years and six months.

And from the time the ten tribes were taken captive from Samaria until Ptolemy the Fourth, five hundred and seventy-three years and nine months; and from the captivity from Jerusalem, three hundred and thirty-eight years and three months.

Philo himself also recorded the kings of the Jews, at variance with Demetrius.

Moreover Eupolemus also, in a similar treatise, says that the total years from Adam to the fifth year of Demetrius, in the twelfth year of Ptolemy's reign over Egypt, amount to five thousand one hundred and forty-nine years.

And from the time Moses led the Jews out of Egypt to the aforementioned terminus, two thousand five hundred and eighty years are reckoned.

And from this time until the consuls at Rome Gnaeus Domitius and Asinius, a hundred and twenty years are totalled.

Ephorus and many other historians say that there are seventy-five nations and languages, having heard the word of Moses, which says:

'And all the souls of Jacob's line who went down into Egypt were seventy-five.'

And according to the true account, the primary and generic dialects appear to be seventy-two, as our own Scriptures hand down; while the many other tongues arise from a mixture of two, three, or even more dialects.

A dialect is speech that displays a character peculiar to a place, or speech that displays a character peculiar to, or common among, a nation.

The Greeks say that among themselves there are five dialects: Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and fifth the Common; but they say that the tongues of the barbarians, being unclassifiable, are not called dialects at all, but languages.

Plato even assigns a certain dialect to the gods, inferring this chiefly from dreams and oracles, and otherwise also from those possessed by demons, who utter not their own voice or dialect, but that of the demons entering into them.

And he thinks that even irrational animals have dialects, which those of the same kind understand.

For instance, when an elephant fell into a mire and cried out, another elephant that was present, having observed what had happened, turned back, and after a short while brought with him a herd of elephants and rescued the one that had fallen in.

...when setting about the undertaking, the irrational animals surely not making use of some invisible sign, nor indeed indicating it to one another by gesture, but, I think, by their own proper dialect.

And some others also say that if a fish, while being hauled up, escapes when the line breaks, no fish of the same kind will be found in that same spot for the rest of that day.

The primary and generic dialects, though barbarian, have names that exist by nature, since men also acknowledge that prayers spoken in a barbarian tongue are more powerful.

And Plato too, in the Cratylus, wishing to explain the word 'fire', says that the name is barbarian.

At any rate, he testifies that the Phrygians call it thus,

...naming it so, with only a slight alteration.

And I think it no worse, in addition to these things, also to set forth the times of the Roman emperors, for the demonstration of the birth of the Savior:

Augustus, forty-three years; Tiberius, twenty-two years; Gaius, four years; Claudius, fourteen years; Nero, fourteen years; Galba, one year; Vespasian, ten years; Titus, three years; Domitian, fifteen years; Nerva, one year; Trajan, nineteen years; Hadrian, twenty-one years; Antoninus, twenty-three years; and likewise again, Antoninus and Commodus, thirty-two years.

The total from Augustus to the <death> of Commodus is two hundred and twenty-two years, and the total from Adam to the death of Commodus is five thousand seven hundred and eighty-four years, two months, twelve days.

Some, however, record the times of the Roman emperors as follows:

Gaius Julius Caesar, three years, four months, [x] days; after whom Augustus reigned forty years, four months, one day; then Tiberius, twenty years, [x] months, nineteen days; whom Gaius Caesar succeeded, three years, ten months, eight days;

him Claudius succeeded, thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Nero, thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Galba, seven months, [x] 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, then, to the death of Commodus, there are two hundred and thirty years and [x] months.

And the total from Romulus, the founder of Rome, to the death of Commodus is reckoned at forty-three years and [x] months.

Our Lord was born in the twenty-eighth year, when they first ordered the census to be taken under Augustus.

And that this is true is written thus in the Gospel according to Luke:

'Now in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, the word of the Lord came upon John, the son of Zechariah.'

'And Jesus, coming to be baptized, was about thirty years old.'

And that he had to preach for only one year, this too is written thus:

'He has sent me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'

This the prophet also said... and so does the Gospel.

Fifteen years, then, of Tiberius, and fifteen of Augustus: thus the thirty years are completed, until the time he suffered.

From the time he suffered 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, thirteen days.

So the total number of years from when the Lord was born until the death of Commodus comes to a hundred and four years, one month, thirteen days.

There are some who, with greater precision, add to the birth of our Savior not only the year but also the day, which they say fell in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, on the twenty-fifth of Pachon.

And the followers of Basilides also celebrate the day of his baptism, keeping vigil beforehand through the night in readings.

They say that the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar fell on the fifteenth of the month of Tybi; but others again say the eleventh of the same month.

And as for his Passion, those who are precise about it put it, some in the sixteenth year of Tiberius Caesar on Phamenoth 25, others on Pharmuthi 25.

But others ... say that the Savior suffered on the nineteenth of Pharmouthi.

Moreover, we must add to the chronology this also—I mean the days which Daniel enigmatically indicates, reckoned 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 thus there come to be three years and six months, which is half of the week, as Daniel the prophet has said.

And he has said that 2,300 days came to pass from when the abomination was set up by Nero in the holy city until its overthrow.

For thus the passage set out below shows:

'How long shall the vision stand—the sacrifice that was taken away, and the sin of desolation that was given, and the host and the sanctuary trodden underfoot?' And he said to him, 'Until evening and morning, two thousand three hundred days ... and the sanctuary shall be taken away.'

These 2,300 days, then, come to six years and four months, half of which Nero occupied while reigning, and it became half of the week.

And the other half belongs to Vespasian, together with Otho, Galba, ... and Vitellius.

And for this reason Daniel says:

'Blessed is he who attains to the 1,335 days.'

For up to these days the war continued, but after these it ceased.

And this number too is demonstrated from the chapter set out below, which reads thus:

'And from the time of the removal of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomination of desolation, there shall be 1,290 days ... Blessed is he who endures and attains to the 1,335 days.'

But Flavius Josephus the Jew, who composed the histories of the Jews, having reckoned the chronology, says that from Moses to David there come to be 585 years, and from David to the second year of Vespasian, 1,179 years.

Then from that point to the tenth year of Antoninus, 77 years, so that the years from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus amount in all to 1,833 years.