It’s a question worth asking, because the answer might surprise you. : those who create systems of order, who value living under laws, they're often seen as better, more virtuous people. Their goal? To make sure everyone believes these laws are ancient and timeless, not just some trendy new idea. They want to be seen as the originators, the ones who set the standard.
So, what makes a truly great lawgiver? Well, according to our source, it’s all about creating the best possible life for the people, convincing them to embrace those laws, and ensuring they stick to them, no matter what—through thick and thin.
Now, here's where it gets really interesting. The writer Flavius Josephus, in his work Against Apion, makes a pretty bold claim. He argues that our lawgiver—referring to Moses, of course—is the most ancient of them all. He says that figures like Lycurgus (Sparta), Solon (Athens), and Zaleucus (Locri), all these Greek legislators admired for their wisdom, are practically newborns compared to Moses. Josephus points out that even the concept of law was foreign to the ancient Greeks. He uses Homer as an example. The writer of the Iliad and the Odyssey never uses the word "law" in his epics. Back then, society was guided by wise sayings and the commands of the king, a system of unwritten customs that were constantly shifting and changing.
But Moses? According to Josephus, he presented himself as the ultimate guide and counselor, shaping every aspect of their lives through his legislation. And, crucially, he convinced the people to accept it, to internalize it, to live it. Even those who criticize the Jewish people, Josephus notes, acknowledge the antiquity of Moses.
He didn't just give them rules; he gave them a way of life, a comprehensive system that aimed to create a just and righteous society. That’s a legacy that continues to resonate today, isn't it? It makes you wonder, what is it about these ancient laws that has allowed them to endure for so long? And what can we learn from them about creating a more just and equitable world today?
15. But now, since Apollonius Molo, and Lysimachus, and some others, write treatises about our lawgiver Moses, and about our laws, which are neither just nor true, and this partly out of ignorance, but chiefly out of ill-will to us, while they calumniate Moses as an impostor and deceiver, and pretend that our laws teach us wickedness, but nothing that is virtuous, I have a mind to discourse briefly, according to my ability, about our whole constitution of government, and about the particular branches of it. For I suppose it will thence become evident, that the laws we have given us are disposed after the best manner for the advancement of piety, for mutual communion with one another, for a general love of mankind, as also for justice, and for sustaining labors with fortitude, and for a contempt of death. And I beg of those that shall peruse this writing of mine, to read it without partiality; for it is not my purpose to write an encomium upon ourselves, but I shall esteem this as a most just apology for us, and taken from those our laws, according to which we lead our lives, against the many and the lying objections that have been made against us. Moreover, since this
Apollonius does not do like Apion, and lay a continued accusation against us, but does it only by starts, and up and clown his discourse, while he sometimes reproaches us as atheists, and man-haters, and sometimes hits us in the teeth with our want of courage, and yet sometimes, on the contrary, accuses us of too great boldness and madness in our conduct; nay, he says that we are the weakest of all the barbarians, and that this is the reason why we are the only people who have made no improvements in human life; now I think I shall have then sufficiently disproved all these his allegations, when it shall appear that our laws enjoin the very reverse of what he says, and that we very carefully observe those laws ourselves. And if I he compelled to make mention of the laws of other nations, that are contrary to ours, those ought deservedly to thank themselves for it, who have pretended to depreciate our laws in comparison of their own; nor will there, I think, be any room after that for them to pretend either that we have no such laws ourselves, an epitome of which I will present to the reader, or that we do not, above all men, continue in the observation of them.
