C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Hebrew Faith, Worship, and Laws
By Josephus (37100)
W
There ought also to be but One Temple for One God: for likeness is the constant foundation of agreement. This temple ought to be common to all men, because he is the common God of all men. His priests are to be continually about his worship; over whom he that is the first by his birth is to be their ruler perpetually. His business must be to offer sacrifices to God, together with those priests that are joined with him; to see that the laws be observed; to determine controversies, and to punish those that are convicted of injustice: while he that does not submit to him shall be subject to the same punishment as if he had been guilty of impiety towards God himself….
But then, what are our laws about marriage? That law owns no other mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if any one do that, death is its punishment….
Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess; but it ordains that the very beginning of our education should be immediately directed to sobriety….
Our law hath also taken care of the decent burial of the dead; but without any extravagant expenses for the funerals, and without the erection of any illustrious monuments for them….
The law ordains also that parents should be honored immediately after God himself; and delivers that son who does not requite them for the benefits he hath received from them, but is deficient on any such occasion, to be stoned. It also says that the young man should pay due respect to every elder, since God is the eldest of all beings….
It will be also worth our while to see what equity our legislator would have us exercise in our intercourse with strangers…. Accordingly, our legislator admits all those that have a mind to observe our laws so to do, and this after a friendly manner, as esteeming that a true union which not only extends to our own stock, but to those that would live after the same manner with us; yet does he not allow those that come to us by accident only to be admitted into communion with us.
The greatest part of offenses with us are capital….
Now, as for ourselves, I venture to say that no one can tell of so many, nay, not more than one or two, that have betrayed our laws; no, not out of fear of death itself…. Now I think those that have conquered us have put us to such deaths, not out of their hatred to us when they had subdued us, but rather out of their desire to see a surprising sight, which is this, whether there be such men in the world who believe that no evil is to them so great as to be compelled to do or to speak anything contrary to their own laws!