The Life of Flavius Josephus

1 (return)
[ We may hence correct the error of the Latin copy of the second book Against Apion, sect. 8, [for the Greek is there lost,] which says, there were then only four tribes or courses of the priests, instead of twenty-four. Nor is this testimony to be disregarded, as if Josephus there contradicted what he had affirmed here; because even the account there given better agrees to twenty-four than to four courses, while he says that each of those courses contained above 5000 men, which, multiplied by only four, will make not more than 20,000 priests; whereas the number 120,000, as multiplied by 24, seems much the most probable, they being about one-tenth of the whole people, even after the captivity. See Ezra 2:36-39; Nehemiah 7:39-42; 1 Esdras 5:24, 25, with Ezra 2;64; Nehemiah 7:66; 1 Esdras 5:41. Nor will this common reading or notion of but four courses of priests, agree with Josephus's own further assertion elsewhere, Antiq. B. VII. ch. 14. sect. 7, that David's partition of the priests into twenty-four courses had continued to that day.]