Josephus, the first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, takes on Apion's wild accusations in his work Against Apion, and it’s a doozy. Apion, in his eagerness to smear the Jewish people, concocts a tale so outrageous it’s almost comical. He claims that Antiochus, while raiding the Temple in Jerusalem, discovered a secret chamber. Inside, he found a Greek man living in luxury, surrounded by a table laden with delicacies.
The man, according to Apion, was being fattened up for a gruesome ritual: a yearly sacrifice where the Jews would kill a Greek, taste his entrails, and swear eternal enmity against all Greeks. Can you believe this? Apion even has the man begging Antiochus for rescue, pleading with him to thwart the Jews' bloodthirsty plot.
Now, Josephus isn't laughing. He's indignant. He points out the sheer implausibility of the story. First of all, Apion is more interested in defending a sacrilegious king than telling the truth. He's trying to excuse Antiochus's greed and perfidy, his desecration of the Temple for money. But even if such a thing were happening, would that excuse Antiochus's actions? Of course not!
Josephus asks, how could all the Jews possibly gather for such a sacrifice? And how could one man's entrails possibly feed them all? He also wonders why Antiochus wouldn't have paraded this rescued Greek hero through the streets, garnering praise and support from the Greek world. It makes absolutely no sense.
But more importantly, Josephus highlights the fundamental misunderstanding – or, more likely, deliberate misrepresentation – of Jewish Temple practices. He reminds us that the Temple was structured with a series of increasingly restricted courts. As Josephus says, there were four courts: one for everyone (even foreigners!), one for Jewish women, one for Jewish men, and the innermost court for the priests. Each had its own rules about who could enter and when. The holiest place, the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies, was only accessible to the High Priest, and only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
"All such as ever saw the construction of our temple, of what nature it was, know well enough how the purity of it was never to be profaned," Josephus declares.
He emphasizes the meticulous care taken to maintain ritual purity. Priests could only enter at specific times, and even then, only with the proper garments and for specific purposes. Nothing extraneous was allowed inside – only the altar of incense, the table of shewbread, the censer, and the candlestick, as prescribed by Jewish law.
As we find in Midrash Rabbah, the details of Temple service were meticulously planned and executed, leaving no room for secret, gruesome rituals. The Talmud, in Tractate Yoma, further elaborates on the High Priest's preparations and actions on Yom Kippur, underscoring the solemnity and transparency of the Temple service.
Josephus concludes by calling out Apion's blatant fabrication. He accuses him of inventing a preposterous tale about secret feasts and forbidden access to the Temple. It’s a “voluntary lie,” Josephus says, designed to mislead those who won't bother to investigate the truth. It’s a stark reminder of how easily prejudice and misinformation can spread, especially when fueled by malice.
Apion's story, though demonstrably false, reveals a deeper truth: the enduring power of prejudice and the importance of critical thinking. How often do we hear narratives that, upon closer inspection, crumble under the weight of their own absurdity? And what responsibility do we have to challenge those narratives and seek out the truth?