Section 86
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54 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. % from abroad. As to his origin, he was a descendant of the Ht, brews, inferior to none at Alexandria in point of dignity of family and birth. : '"As to the divine Scriptures, and the institutions of his country, how greatly and extensively he laboured, his work speaks for itself. And how well skilled in philosophy and the liberal studies of foreign countries, there is no necessity to say, since, as he was a zealous follower of the sect of Plato and Py thagoras, he is said to have surpassed all of his contemporaries. CHAPTER V. Philo was sent on an embassy to Caius, in behalf of the Jews. THIS author has given us an account of the sufferings of the Jews in the reign of Caius, in five books. He there also relates the madness of Caius, who called himself a god, and was guilty of innumerable oppressions in the exercise of his power. He men tions the miseries of the Jews under him, and the embassy which he himself performed when sent to the city of Rome, in behalf of his countrymen at Alexandria ; how that when he pleaded be fore Caius, for the laws and institutions of his ancestors, he re ceived nothing but laughter and derision in return, and had well nigh incurred the risk of his life. Josephus also mentions these things in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, in these words : " A sedition having also arisen between the Jews dwelling at Alexandria and the Greeks, three chosen deputies are sent from each of the factions, and these appeared before Caius. One of the Alexandrian deputies was Apion, who uttered many slanders against the Jews ; among other things, saying, that they treated the honours of Cesar with contempt, that whilst all others, as many as were subject to the Roman empire, erected altars and temples to Caius, and in other respects regarded him as a god, they alone considered it disgraceful to raise statues to his honour, and to swear by his name. Apion having thus uttered many and severe charges by which he hoped that Caius would be roused, as was very probable, Philo, the chief of the Jewish embassy, a man