Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/183

145 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

145

Peah i. 1, p. 15d; Gen. R. xxxv., end; in both places " Rabbi " is erroneously given in place of the original " Rab "). When Artaban died Rab exclaimed in sorrow, " The bond of friendship has been sundered! " ('Ab. Zarah (Persian ArlOfi. The text has pYlK; read (Yer.

pns

dewan); Kohut, Bibliography



"

Aruch Completum,"

them the

its idolatry.

Bibliography

Gutschmid, Gesch. Iran's,, pp. 154 et sea., Judenthums, ii. 139; Gratz, Gesch.

Historian-; lived in

Alexandria

writings of the church-fathers Eusebius (" Prasparatio Evangelica," ix. 18, 23) and Clement of Alexandria ("Stromata," i. 23, 154), as well as in those of some later authors. Freudenthal shows that both Alexander Polyhistor and Josephus made use of Artapanus' work. The fragments that have survived enable one to form an opinion not a very flattering one as to the merits of their author. Artapanus evidently belonged to that narrowminded circle of Hellenizing Jews that were unable to grasp what was truly great in Judaism, and, therefore, in their mistaken apologetic zeal for even in those early days Judaism had its opponents among the Hellenes set about glorifying Judaism to the outer world by inventing all manner of fables concerning the Jews. As an illustration of this method, the following account of Moses will serve. According to Artapanus (Eusebius, ibid. ix. 27), Moses is he whom the Greeks called Musseus he was, however, not (as in the Greek legend) the pupil, but the teacher, of Orpheus. Wherefore Moses is not only the inventor of many useful appliances and arts, such as navigation, architecture, military strategy, and of philosophy, but is also this is peculiar to Artapanus the real founder of the Greek -Egyptian worship. By the Egyptians, whose political system he organized, Moses was called Hermes Sia ryv tuv iepuv ypa/ifiaruv kpfirivEiav ("because he expounded the writings of the priests "). The departure from Egypt is then recounted, with many haggadic additions and embellishments. The astounding assertion, that Moses and the Patriarchs were the founders of the Egyptian religion, led Freudenthal to the assumption that "Artapanus" must be a pseudonym assumed by some Jewish writer who desired to be taken for an Egyptian priest, in order to give greater weight to his words. This supposition, however, as Schurer points out, is highly improbable, and fails to explain the remarkable phenomenon of a Jew ascribing a Jewish origin to the Egyptian pantheon. It is much more proba-

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—

—

—



—

Artapanus belonged to a syncretistic circle of philosophers that saw no such grave objection to a moderate idolatry as to prevent its being accepted Having adopted the Greek as of Jewish origin. fables that derived the Egyptian cult from Grecian heroes, and having identified these heroes with Biblical personages, he had no alternative but- to trace the idolatry of Egypt to a Jewish source. [Or, Artapanus' position may have been somewhat as follows: Thinking it necessary for the honor of the Jewish people that they should be regarded II.— 10 ble that

religion in spite of

felt in

connection with

t.]

Diihne, GescMchtl. Darstelluna,

t.

He wrote a history of in the second century B.C. the Jews, parts of which have been preserved in the

—

Egyptian

may have

ii.

200-203;

further references.

L. G.

g.

he

Freudenthal, Alexander Polyhistor, pp. 143-174, 215, 231 et seq.; Susemlhl, Gesch. der Griechischen Literatur, ii. 646 et seq.; Gratz, Gesch. der Juden, ill. 606; Willrich, Juden wild Griechen, p. 160; Schurer, Gesch. iii. 354-357, who gives

ed., iv. 281.

ART AP ANUS

origin of the

difficulties that

1888: Jost, Oesch. des

der Juden, 2d

I.

as the source of all religion, he chose to attribute to

280).

i.

Arta Artaxerxes

L.

G.

ARTAXERXES I. "

Long-Hand

in 465 b. c.

,

")



(surnamed Longimanus— King of Persia ascended the throne

and died

in 425 b. c.

In the Persian

name

Artakhshathra ("he whose empire is perfected ") the "thr" (written with a special sign in Persian) is pronounced with a hissing sound, and is therefore represented in other languages by a sibilant. Thus in Bab3 lonian, Artakshatsu, Artakhshassu, and numerous variations in Susie, Irtakshashsha Egyptian, Artakhr





shasha; Hebrew, NncwnmK and NnDtJTimN (that is, Artakhshasta) in Greek, Apraf effo^r (inscription in Tralles' " Corpus Inscriptionum Grajcarum," 2919), and by assimilation with the name Xerxes Aprafcpf *?c and ApTogepgrjc. According to the chronographic lists of the Babylonians and of the Ptolemaic Canon, Artaxerxes I. reigned forty-one 3'ears, which includes the short reign of his son Xerxes II., murdered after a reign of six weeks. Some Greek authorities give him only forty years thus Diodorus, xi. 69, Sources of xii. 64. (Concerning the chronology, '



'

'



compare Meyer, " Porschungen zur Alten Geschichte, " 1899, ii. 482. ) From this period many dated archives are extant, found throughout Babylonia, but particularly in Nippur, by the expedition of the University of Pennsylvania (published by Hilprecht and Clay, "The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania," vol. ix., 1898). But there are no archeological remains of the reign of Artaxerxes I. with the exception of a single inscription on a building in Susa and an alabaster vase in Paris which bears his name in Persian, Susian, Babylonian cuneiform, and All information concerning him is in hieroglyphs. derived from the accounts of Greek writers, especially the fragments of Ctesias, and from the statements of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Josephus wrongInfor-

mation.

fully claims that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) of the Book of Esther is this Artaxerxes I., and also that the Ar-

taxerxes of Ezra and Nehemiah is Xerxes. Artaxerxes was the second son of Xerxes, who was murdered in the summer of 465 by his all-powerful The murderer accused the king's vizir Artaban. eldest son Darius of the crime, with the result that Darius was slain by his younger brother Artaxerxes,

then mounted the throne. But Artaban sought the crown for himself, and therefore aimed at the life of the young king the latter, it is stated, warned by Megabyzus, his brother-in-law, rid himself of the murderer by slaying him, with all his household and party, in open combat (Ctesias, "Persica," 29; Dio-

who



dorus, xi. 69; Justin, iii. 1, according to Dinon; but Aristotle, "Politics," viii. 8, 14 has a different verThe murder of Xerxes is mentioned also by sion).

jElian (" Varise Historise," xiii. 3), and in an Egyptian inscription of the time of Ptolemy I., which ascribes the deed to the vengeance of an Egyptian god on the