Note 193 — Chapter XIII · THE OPPOSITION IN ITS SOCIAL ASPECT
Reading edition
Cf. above, ch. VII., n. 2.
The letter of Dolabella to the Ephesians, cited in Josephus, Ant. XIV. x. 12, makes it perfectly clear that if the Sabbath restriction had actually been enforced in the sense indicated, Jews would have been wholly useless for the army. But we have seen that they not merely fought their own battles, but engaged freely as mercenaries. We can therefore understand the passage in Josephus only in the sense of an attempt to escape conscription with the other Ephesians, by alleging an extreme application of the Sabbath principle.
The other passage in Josephus (XVIII. iii.) is in direct contradiction with other sources, and will be discussed later.