Flavius Josephus, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Against Apion is my defense of the Jewish people against the slanders that had accumulated in the libraries of Alexandria and Rome — a forensic work, written late, after the Antiquities had already set down twenty volumes of our history, and addressed to those Greeks and Egyptians who found reasons, some frivolous and some malicious, to despise us.
The man Apion is the occasion rather than the whole subject. He was a grammarian of Alexandria who had made himself notorious by collecting every hostile tale about the Jews he could find — that we came out of Egypt as lepers, that we worship an ass's head in the temple, that we sacrifice Greeks and eat them in secret ritual. These charges I answer point by point, and the forensic pleasure of the work is that Apion so often destroys himself.
He laughs at circumcision, for instance, while the Egyptian priests he claims to honor are themselves circumcised and abstain from swine's flesh by their own ancient custom — so that in reproaching our laws he reproaches the laws of his own country, and was, as I note with some satisfaction, himself circumcised on account of an ulcer, and died of it in torment.12
The deeper argument concerns Alexandria specifically. Apion charges that the Jews of that city are not genuine citizens, that we stir up sedition, that our refusal to worship the Alexandrian gods disqualifies us from the privileges we hold.3 My answer is that Alexander himself settled us there and granted us privileges equal to the Macedonians, that the succeeding Ptolemaic kings confirmed those privileges, and that a pillar still standing in Alexandria records what Julius Caesar added to them.4
The charge of sedition I return directly: it was not the Jews but the Egyptians, swollen in number and carrying their ancient hatred of us, who broke the city's peace, while our people remained uncorrupted throughout.5 On the question of religious difference — why do Jews in Alexandria not worship as Alexandrians do — I put the counter-question to Apion directly: since you are Egyptians, why do you make implacable war upon one another over your own religion?6
A people that came to Alexandria with its own ancient laws, laws older than any Greek constitution, is not obliged to abandon them as the price of residence. That is translation, not concession. The work also vindicates the loyalty of Jews in Ptolemaic service. When Ptolemy Physco exposed Jewish men, women, and children to drunken elephants to be trampled, the elephants turned on Physco's own friends instead, and Physco himself saw a terrible vision that night and repented.7
Apion calls this episode a mark against us; I call it the opposite — it is precisely the kind of divine attestation that vindicates righteous conduct, and the Alexandrian Jews celebrate that day still for good reason.8 In short: the work is a prosecution of the prosecutors, conducted from documents rather than assertion, and its ultimate claim is that a people with records reaching back further than any Greek archive, governed by a law coherent where theirs are patchworks, and slandered by men who cannot agree among themselves, deserves rather more than contempt.
these priests are all circumcised, and abstain from swine's flesh; nor does any one of the other Egyptians assist them in slaying those sacrifices they offer to the gods.Against Apion
this Apion deserted his own laws, and told lies about ours...he was circumcised himself of necessity, on account of an ulcer in his privy member; and when he received no benefit by such circumcision, but his member became putrid, he died in great torment.Against Apion
Apion seems to broach this reproachful appellation against us, [that we were originally Egyptians,] in order to bestow it on the Alexandrians, as a reward for the privilege they had given him of being a fellow citizen with them.Against Apion
had this man now read the epistles of king Alexander, or those of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or met with the writings of the succeeding kings, or that pillar which is still standing at Alexandria, and contains the privileges which the great [Julius] Caesar bestowed upon the Jews.Against Apion
while it was Alexander who introduced us into this city at first, the kings augmented our privileges therein, and the Romans have been pleased to preserve them always inviolable.Against Apion
Since you are yourselves Egyptians, why do you fight it out one against another, and have implacable wars about your religion?Against Apion
these elephants left the Jews who were exposed to them, and fell violently upon Physco's friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after this Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting those men.Against Apion
it is well known that the Alexandrian Jews do with good reason celebrate this day, on the account that they had thereon been vouchsafed such an evident deliverance from God.Against Apion