(24) By way of irony, I suppose.

(25) Here we see that Josephus esteemed a generation between
Joseph and Moses to be about forty-two or forty-three years;
which, if taken between the earlier children, well agrees with
the duration of human life in those ages. See Antheat. Rec. Part
II. pages 966, 1019, 1020.

(26) That is the meaning of Hierosyla in Greek, not in Hebrew.

BOOK II.

1. In the former book, most honored Epaphroditus, I have
demonstrated our antiquity, and confirmed the truth of what
I have said, from the writings of the Phoenicians, and
Chaldeans, and Egyptians. I have, moreover, produced many
of the Grecian writers as witnesses thereto. I have also made
a refutation of Manetho and Cheremon, and of certain others
of our enemies. I shall now (1) therefore begin a confutation
of the remaining authors who have written any thing against
us; although I confess I have had a doubt upon me about
Apion (2) the grammarian, whether I ought to take the
trouble of confuting him or not; for some of his writings
contain much the same accusations which the others have laid
against us, some things that he hath added are very frigid and
contemptible, and for the greatest part of what he says, it is
very scurrilous, and, to speak no more than the plain truth, it
shows him to be a very unlearned person, and what he lays
together looks like the work of a man of very bad morals,