17 ([return])
[ The hire of public or secret harlots was given to Venus in Syria, as Lucian informs us, p. 878; and against some such vile practice of the old idolaters this law seems to have been made.]
18 ([return])
[ The Apostolical Constitutions, B. II. ch. 26. sect. 31, expound this law of Moses, Exodus 22. 28, "Thou shalt not revile or blaspheme the gods," or magistrates, which is a much more probable exposition than this of Josephus, of heathen gillis, as here, and against Apion, B. II. ch. 3. sect. 31. What book of the law was thus publicly read, see the note on Antiq. B. X. ch. 5. sect. 5, and 1 Esd. 9:8-55.]
19 ([return])
[ Whether these phylacteries, and other Jewish memorials of the law here mentioned by Josephus, and by Muses, [besides the fringes on the borders of their garments, Numbers 15:37,] were literally meant by God, I much question. That they have been long observed by the Pharisees and Rabbinical Jews is certain; however, the Karaites, who receive not the unwritten traditions of the elders, but keep close to the written law, with Jerome and Grotius, think they were not literally to be understood; as Bernard and Reland here take notice. Nor indeed do I remember that, either in the ancienter books of the Old Testament, or in the books we call Apocrypha, there are any signs of such literal observations appearing among the Jews, though their real or mystical signification, i.e. the constant remembrance and observation of the laws of God by Moses, be frequently inculcated in all the sacred writings.]
20 ([return])
[ Here, as well as elsewhere, sect. 38, of his Life, sect. 14, and of the War, B. II. ch. 20. sect. 5, are but seven judges appointed for small cities, instead of twenty-three in the modern Rabbins; which modern Rabbis are always but of very little authority in comparison of our Josephus.]
21 ([return])
[ I have never observed elsewhere, that in the Jewish government women were not admitted as legal witnesses in courts of justice. None of our copies of the Pentateuch say a word of it. It is very probable, however, that this was the exposition of the scribes and Pharisees, and the practice of the Jews in the days of Josephus.]