116 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



Horace. Ovid. Strabo. Apion. Persius. Seneca. 



he is cited by Josephus, as writing thus : '* The people called 

 Jeies, inhabit an exceedinglj strong city, which it appears they 

 call Jerusalem. They are accustomed to rest on every seventh 

 day, on which times they will neither bear arms nor engage 

 in husbandry, nor attend to any worldly afFairs.^' (^Contra 

 Apion, lib. i. sect. 22.) 



If the Roman poet Horace (b. c. 25) makes mention of 

 the word " Sahhata," he at once associates it with the "curtis 

 Judæis." (^Satu: lib. i. sat. ix. 69.) 



Does Ovid (b. c. 10) allude to this institution, it is as " the 

 seventh day kept holy by the Jews" (^Ars Amat. lib. i. 76) : 

 or again, it is spoken of as "a. festival observed in Palestine'' 

 {lb. lib. i. 416) : and in another work, he uses the expressive 

 phrase — ''foreign Sabbaths!" (Remed. Amor. lib. i. 220.) 



Strabo, the indefatigable voyager and close observer, 

 (a. d. 10), in making an historical reference to the Sabbath, 

 calls it ''the day of abstinence — on which the Jews refrain 

 from all work.'^ ( Geograph. lib. xvi. St/ria.^ 



Apton, the Egyptian grammarian (a. d. 30), in his igno- 

 rance of the early history of the Jews, suggests a most ridicu- 

 lous origin for their Sabbath, sa3'ing that "After they had 

 travelled a six days' journey, they were afflicted with huhoeSj 

 and for this reason they rested on the seventh day ; and having 

 arrived at the country now called Judea, they named the 

 seventh day ' Sahhaton,' after the Egyptian word ' Sahhatosis' 

 — the name by which the disease huho is known among the 

 Eg3'ptians !" (cited by Josephus, Contra Apion, lib. ii. sect. 

 2.) 



The satirical Persius (a. d. 50) has a sneer at " the Sab- 

 baths kept by the Circumcised" (Sat. v. 184), — "recutita 

 sabbata ;" — an expression equally remarkable for conciseness 

 and significance. 



The Roman philosopher Seneca (a. d. 60) severely censures 

 the Jews for their religions infatuation; sayingthat " by their 

 Sabbaths interposed, they waste the seventh part of their life 



