Praeparatio Evangelica 9 part 4/4

And concerning the necessary provisions for the workers sent to you, you will do well to write to the local governors, so that what is needed may be supplied.

And Solomon, passing through with his father's friends to Mount Lebanon, together with the Sidonians and Tyrians, transported by sea to Joppa the timber that had already been cut by his father, and from there on foot to Jerusalem. And he began to build the temple of God, being thirteen years old; and the aforementioned nations did the labor, and the twelve tribes of the Jews supplied all the necessary provisions to the hundred and sixty thousand workers, one tribe each month. And he laid the foundation of the temple of God, sixty cubits in length, sixty cubits in breadth, and the breadth of the building and of its foundations, ten cubits; for thus had Nathan, the prophet of God, instructed him.

And he built, alternating, a course of stone and a binding-course of cypress wood, joining the two courses together with bronze clamps weighing a talent each. And having built it thus, he covered it on the outside with cedar and cypress wood, so that the stone construction would not be visible. And he gilded the temple within, laying on golden plates five cubits square, and fastening them with silver nails weighing a talent, breast-shaped, four in number.

Thus he gilded it from the floor to the roof; and he made the ceiling out of golden coffered panels; and he made the roof of bronze, from bronze tiles, having smelted the bronze and cast it. And he made two bronze pillars, and overlaid them with pure gold, a finger's breadth in thickness.

And the pillars were equal in height to the temple, each pillar being ten cubits in circumference; and they stood by the house, one on the right, the other on the left. And he also made golden lampstands, each weighing ten talents, taking as a model the one that Moses had placed in the tabernacle of witness.

And he set them up on each side of the sanctuary, some on the right, some on the left. And he also made seventy golden lamps, so that seven might burn on each lampstand. And he also built the gates of the temple and adorned them with gold and silver, and roofed them over with panels of cedar and cypress.

And he also made, on the north side of the temple, a portico, and set up beneath it forty bronze pillars. And he also made a bronze laver, twenty cubits in length and twenty cubits in width, and five cubits in height. And he made upon it a rim projecting outward from the base by one cubit, so that the priests, standing upon it, might have their feet washed and might wash their hands. And he also made the bases of the laver -- twelve in number, wrought and cast, and of the height of a man -- and set them at the rear, beneath the laver, on the right side of the altar.

And he also made a bronze base, two cubits in height, near the laver, upon which the king would stand when he prayed, so that he might be seen by the people of the Jews. And he also built the altar, twenty-five cubits by twenty cubits, and twelve cubits in height.

And he also made two net-like bronze rings, and set them up on scaffolds rising twenty cubits above the height of the temple, so as to overshadow the whole sanctuary from above; and on each net he hung bronze bells weighing a talent, four hundred in number; and he made the entire nets so that the bells would make a noise and drive away the birds, so that they would not settle upon the temple, nor nest in the coffered ceilings of the gates and porticoes, nor defile the temple with their droppings.

And he also surrounded the city of Jerusalem with walls, towers, and moats; and he also built a royal palace for himself.

And the sanctuary was called, at first, the Temple of Solomon; but later, by a corruption of the name, the city was called Jerusalem after the temple, and by the Greeks, appropriately, it is called Hierosolyma.

And having completed the temple and fortified the city with walls, he went to Shiloh, and offered to God a whole burnt offering of a thousand oxen. And taking the tabernacle and the altar and the vessels that Moses had made, he brought them to Jerusalem and placed them in the house.

And the ark, and the golden altar, and the lampstand, and the table, and the other vessels, he deposited there, just as the prophet had instructed him.

And he offered to God a sacrifice beyond number: two thousand sheep, three thousand five hundred calves. And the total gold expended on the two pillars and the temple amounted to four hundred and six myriads of talents; and for the nails and the rest of the construction, one thousand two hundred and thirty-two talents of silver; and for the pillars, the laver, and the portico, eighteen thousand and fifty talents of bronze.

And Solomon sent away the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, each to their own land, giving to each ten gold shekels (a talent being reckoned as a shekel); and to Vaphres, king of Egypt, he sent ten thousand measures of oil, a thousand artabas of dates, a hundred vessels of honey, and spices.

And to Souron, in Tyre, he sent the golden pillar which is set up in Tyre, in the temple of Zeus.

And Theophilus says that Solomon sent the surplus gold to the king of the Tyrians; and that he had a full-length statue made in the likeness of his daughter, and placed the golden pillar as a covering around the statue.

And Eupolemus says that Solomon also made a thousand golden shields, each weighing five hundred gold pieces. And that he lived fifty-two years, of which he reigned in peace for forty years.

And Timochares, in his work On Antiochus, says that Jerusalem has a circumference of forty stadia, and that it is hard to capture, being enclosed on every side by sheer ravines. And that the whole city is watered by flowing streams, so that even its gardens are irrigated by the waters flowing out from the city. And that the region between the city and forty stadia away is without water, but that beyond the fortieth stadion it is again well-watered.

The one who wrote the measurement of Syria says in the first book that Jerusalem lies upon a lofty and rugged place; and that some parts of the wall were built of hewn stone, but most of it from rubble; and that the city has a circumference of twenty-seven stades, and that there is also a spring in the place gushing forth abundant water.

Philo, in his work On Jerusalem, says there is a spring, which dries up in winter but fills in summer. And he speaks thus in the first book: 'And swimming above, another most marvellous sight to behold, together with the song of the mighty ruler's ablutions, fills the deep flow, as the stream pours itself forth' -- and so on.

To these he again, going on further, adds concerning the filling of the spring: 'For a stream, gleaming on high, sped on by rainy snowfalls, full of great joy, wheels above the towering mountains, and upon the dry, dust-covered ground, it displays from afar the surpassing wonders of the spring to the peoples' -- and what follows in accord with these.

Then again, concerning the spring of the high priest and its drainage, he proceeds thus: 'For steep pipes, pouring forth water, spew it up through the earth' -- and whatever else follows upon these. So much, then, from the writings of Alexander Polyhistor.

Concerning the waters in Jerusalem, Aristeas too, in the book written by him, On the Translation of the Law of the Jews, records the following.

The house faces toward the east, and its rear parts toward the west. The whole floor is paved with stone, and it has slopes toward the appropriate places for the inflow of the waters, which occurs for the washing away of the blood from the sacrifices; for many tens of thousands of animals are brought forward on the days of the festivals.

There is a never-failing supply of water, inasmuch as a copiously-flowing spring naturally flows in from within, and moreover there are wondrous and indescribable reservoirs existing underground, as they showed, for five stades around the foundation of the sanctuary, and from these countless conduits, with the streams joining together at every point; and all these have been lined with lead both on the floor and on the walls, and upon these a great quantity of plaster has been poured, everything having been made with great effect.

In addition to these things, since Polyhistor has also made mention of the prophecy of Jeremiah, it would be most unreasonable of all for us to pass over this in silence. Let this too, then, be set down.

Then Jonachim; in his time Jeremiah the prophet prophesied. He, having been sent by God, came upon the Jews sacrificing to a golden idol, whose name was Baal.

And he revealed to them the misfortune that was about to come. And Jonachim attempted to burn him alive; but he said that with this very wood they would cook food for the Babylonians, and that, having been taken captive, they would dig the canals of the Tigris and Euphrates.

And when the king of the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar, heard the things foretold by Jeremiah, he invited Astibares, king of the Medes, to campaign together with him.

And having taken with him Babylonians and Medes, and having gathered together one hundred and eighty thousand infantry, one hundred and twenty thousand cavalry, and ten thousand chariots, he first overthrew Samaria and Galilee and Scythopolis and the Jews dwelling in Galaditis; then he took Jerusalem, and captured alive Jonachim, king of the Jews; and having selected the gold and silver and bronze in the temple, he sent them off to Babylon, except for the ark and the tablets within it; and Jeremiah kept possession of this.

To these it is necessary to add also the account of the captivity of the Jews that took place under Nebuchadnezzar. 'And Nebuchadnezzar, having engaged with the rebel and having arrayed his forces against him, gained mastery over him, and brought the country back again under his own kingdom.'

And it happened that his father Nabopolassar, having fallen ill at this time, departed this life in the city of the Babylonians, having reigned twenty-one years; and Nebuchadnezzar, having learned not long afterward of his father's death, having settled the affairs concerning Egypt and the rest of the country, and having assigned the captives of the Jews, the Phoenicians, and the Syrians -- the peoples belonging to Egypt -- to certain of his friends, came to Babylonia.

And after other things he says: 'Nebuchadnezzar, then, after having begun the aforementioned wall, fell into illness and departed this life, having reigned forty-three years; and his son Evil-Merodach became master of the kingdom.'

This man, having taken charge of affairs lawlessly and licentiously, was plotted against by Neriglissar, who had his sister in marriage, and was killed, having reigned two years.

After this man was killed, Neriglissar, who had plotted against him, succeeded to the rule and reigned four years. His son, Labashi-Marduk, took possession of the kingdom while still a child, for nine months; and having been plotted against, because he displayed many evil traits, he was clubbed to death by his friends.

And after he perished, those who had plotted against him came together and jointly conferred the kingdom upon a certain Nabonnedus, one of the Babylonians, who was from the same conspiracy.

In his time the walls along the river of the city of the Babylonians were adorned with baked brick and bitumen. And when his reign was in its seventeenth year, Cyrus came from Persia with a great force, and having subdued the whole of the rest of the kingdom, he set out against Babylonia.

And Nabonnedus, perceiving his approach, met him with his force and arrayed for battle, but having been defeated in the battle, and having fled with very few men, was shut up in the city of the Borsippenes.

And Cyrus, having taken Babylon, and having ordered the outer walls of the city to be demolished, because the city appeared to him to be exceedingly formidable and hard to capture, marched off against Borsippa, intending to besiege out Nabonnedus.

But Nabonnedus, not enduring the siege, but surrendering himself beforehand, Cyrus treated him kindly, and giving him Carmania as a dwelling-place, sent him out of Babylonia. Nabonnedus, then, having spent the remainder of his time in that country, ended his life.

These things agree in truth with our own books. For it is written in them that Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid waste our temple, and it was nonexistent for fifty years. And in the second year of the reign of Cyrus, the foundations were laid, and again in the tenth year of the reign of Darius it was completed. So says Josephus.

I found also in the work of Abydenus concerning the Assyrians the following things about Nebuchadnezzar: 'Megasthenes says that Nabukodrosoros, having become mightier than Heracles, campaigned against Libya and Iberia; and having subdued these, he settled a portion of them on the right side of the Pontus.'

And afterward, it is said by the Chaldeans, that, having gone up to the palace, he was seized by some god or other, and crying out he said: 'I, this Nabukodrosoros, O Babylonians, foretell to you the calamity that is about to come, which neither Belus my ancestor nor queen Beltis have the strength to persuade the Fates to avert.

A Persian mule will come, employing your own gods as his allies; and he will bring servitude upon you. Of this the Mede, the boast of Assyria, will be a joint cause. Would that, before he hands over the citizens, some Charybdis or the sea, sunk into a chasm, might utterly destroy him root and branch; or that, turned aside onto other paths, he might be carried through the desert, where there are neither cities nor the tread of men, but wild beasts have their pasture and birds wander, roaming alone amid rocks and ravines; and that I, before this comes into my mind, might obtain a better end.'

He who had uttered this prophecy immediately vanished; and his son Amilmarudochus reigned. Him his kinsman by marriage, Iglisares, killed, and left behind a son, Labassoaraskos. And when this one died a violent death, they appointed Nabannidochos king, a man in no way related to him. And Cyrus, having taken Babylon, bestowed upon him the governorship of Carmania as a gift.

And concerning the founding of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, the same author writes as follows: 'It is said that at first everything was water, called the sea. But Belus put a stop to this, assigning to each his own land, and enclosed Babylon with a wall; but in the course of time it disappeared.'

'But Nebuchadnezzar walled it again, with bronze gates, which remained until the rule of the Macedonians.' And after other things he adds:

Nebuchadnezzar, having succeeded to the rule, walled Babylon with a triple enclosure in fifteen days, and led out the river Armakale, which is a branch of the Euphrates, and the Akrakanos. And above the city of the Sipparenes he dug a reservoir, with a circumference of forty parasangs and a depth of twenty fathoms, and set up gates, which, when opened, they used to irrigate the plain; and they call them 'holders of the flow.'

He also built defenses against the flooding of the Red Sea, and founded the city of Teredon against the incursions of the Arabs; and he adorned the royal palace with trees, calling them the 'hanging paradises.'

Let these things too, then, be set down by me from the writing indicated, on account of the fact that it is recorded in the prophecy of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar, walking in the temple of his kingdom in Babylon, being greatly puffed up, spoke arrogantly, saying, 'Is this not Babylon the great, which I have built as a house of kingdom, by the might of my power, for the honor of my glory?' -- while the word was still on his mouth, the events of the catastrophe that then came upon him took place.

These things, then, are sufficient for us concerning this matter. But let there be added, over and above all, also the passage from the Antiquities of the Jews of Josephus, where, having set out verbatim the words of countless writers, he adds the following.

Nevertheless, the records of the Syrians and Chaldeans and Phoenicians suffice for the proof of our antiquity, and in addition to those, so many writers among the Greeks; and further, besides those already mentioned, Theophilus and Theodotus and Mnaseas and Aristophanes and Hermogenes, Euhemerus too and Conon and Zopyrion, and perhaps many others as well (for I myself have not come across all the books) -- these have not made mention of us in a merely incidental way.

Most of the men mentioned missed the truth of the original events, because they had not come across our sacred books; nevertheless, all have testified in common about our antiquity, which is what I have proposed to speak about now. Demetrius of Phalerum, however, and Philo the Elder, and Eupolemus did not miss the truth by much. It is right to forgive them, for it was not possible for them to follow our writings with complete accuracy.

These things too Josephus says. And whoever is inclined to peruse this man's discourses concerning the antiquity of the Jews will find very many testimonies agreeing with those set forth above. And a great further crowd of witnesses, both ancient and recent writers, flows in upon us, sealing with the same verdict as those already set down; whose words, out of concern for the due proportion of our discourse, we shall leave for those fond of learning to seek out and investigate, and shall ourselves pass on to the task that remains.