Is enim, in quinta historiarum suarum bellum Iudaicum exorsus ab origine gentis, etiam de ipsa tam origine quam de nomine et religione gentis quae voluit argumentatus Iudaeos refert Aegypto expeditos sive, ut putavit, extorres vastis Arabiae in locis aquarum egentissimis, cum siti macerarentur, onagris, qui forte de pastu potum petituri aestimabantur, indicibus fontis usos ob eam gratiam consimilis bestiae superficiem consecrasse.
For in the fifth book of his Historiesb he begins his account of the Jewish War with the origin of the race; and about that origin as about the name and religion of the race he discoursed as he pleased. He tells how the Jews, liberated from Egypt, or, as he thought, exiled, were in the wilderness of Arabia utterly barren of water; and how, dying of thirst, they saw wild asses, which chanced to be returning from their pasture (it was thought) to slake their thirst; how they used them as guides to a fountain, and out of gratitude consecrated the likeness of a beast of the kind.
final_alignments\Tertullian_Apology.json