De Mirabaud, M. Opinions des Anciens sur les Juifs [“Opinions of the Ancients Concerning the Jews.”]

The Author, entitled "Sécrétaire Perpétuel de l'Académie Françoise," dredges up from Josephus' work Contra Apion, some of the oldest anti-Semitic canards, going back to the ancient Egyptian historian Manetho. Beyond that, Mirabaud scours the entire Greco-Roman literature for any derogatory statements concerning the Jews. Thus the Count de Mirabaud establishes that the Jews are alien to European society and a danger to its future. This theme was carried forward in the next century and the one thereafter, to naturalize anti-Semitism in the rhetoric of both pre-Christian and post-Christian times