(c) Minor ivorJcs ; projected tvorJcs ; pseudonijmous wor^s.— Josephus hoped to supplement his Anti- qtdties by a narrative bringing down the history to the reign of Domitian— i.e. by an abridgment and continuation of the BJ (Ant. xx. xi. 3 [267]),* and he also projected an account of the Jewish faith and the Jewish Law in four books (ib. [268]). Neither of these works, if ever written, has come down to us. The Antiquities, however, is followed by an autobiography ( Vita), written after A.D. 100, and here Josephus endeavours to meet the charges with which Justus of Tiberias assailed his conduct during the war in Galilee in A.D. 66-67. Tlie apology for Judaism in tAvo books, in Avhich Josephus replies to the attacks of Apion, an Alexandrian litterateur [contra Apionem), may be regarded as in some degree a compensation for the second of the projected works, and Avas com- posed subsequently to the Antiquities. The two works entitled Of self-governincf Reason {irepi avro- Kparopos Xoyiff/xov — the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees) and Of the All {vepi rod Travros), ascribed to Josephus by Eusebius and Photius respectively, are certainly not his. The former Avas probably Avritten by an Alexandrian Jew ; the latter, Avhicli survives only in a small fragment, is in all likeli- hood the Avork of Hippolytus.
3. Literary methods. — The manner in which Josephus seeks to present Judaism to the Greek mind ranks him among the Alexandrian apologists of that faith, though he claims to Avrite merely as a historian ; and, as a matter of fact, he owes n'lore to the tradition of Palestinian Rabbinism than
* The divisions follow Whiston's Eng. translation, with thi numbering of Niese's Gr. text in square brackets.
JUSEPHUIS
josp:phus
651
to that of Alexandria. His hellenizing tendency manifests itself strikingly in his reproduction of biblical history ; unlike Philo, he gives the biblical names in a Greek form, writing Adamos, Abelos, Abramos, Isakos, lakobos, Esauos, losepos, etc. ; and, what is more, he hellenizes even the ideas, especially in the speeches and prayers of the Patriarchs, which he introduces quite in the style of contemporary historical composition, as e.g. in Ant. I. xviii. 6[272f.]; other instances are Solomon's prayers at the dedication of the Temple (vili. iv. 2 f. [107 fi'.]), and his correspondence with Hiram of Tyre (vlll. ii. 6, 7 [51-54]). A genuinely apologetic idea lies in the statement that the Egyptians owed their far-famed proficiency in mathematics and astrology to Abraliam (I. viii. 2 [167]). Josephus tells us, further, that Moses composed in hexa- meters (II. xvi. 4 [346]), and David in trimeters and pentameters (vil. xii. 3 [305]). He devotes considerable space to the traditions — taken from the Epistle of Aristeas — regarding the Greek version of the Mosaic Law executed at the court of Ptolemy II., by seventy-two wise men from Jerusalem (Xll. ii. [11-118]). But perhaps the most characteristic instance of his hellenizing tendency is his description of the Jewish sects (XIII. T. 9 [171-173], BJ II. viii. 2-14 [119-166]), which he seeks to divest of all political signiKcance, and to represent as the exact counterparts of the philosophic schools of Greece (Pharisees = Stoics ; Sadducees = Epicureans; and Essenes = Pytha- goreans) : an affinity which he tries to establish by introducing quite irrelevant considerations, such as their attitude to the problems of free-will and fate — thus misleading even modern investiga- tors— while, as a matter of fact, the unphilosophical and non-Hellenic character of the sects reveals itself at every point. Thus Josephus, in spite of his Hellenic guise, is in all things a genuine Jew, a Palestinian Kabbi : witness, for instance — as com- pared with the tractates of Philo — his version of the story of Moses, where he not only gives us the name of Pharaoh's daughter (Thermuthis), but also relates how Moses as a child was presented to Pharaoh, and how, when the king put his diadem on the child's head, the latter threw it upon the ground ; and again, how, when Moses had grown to manhood, and was in command of an Egyptian army in a war against Ethiopia, he broke a way into that all but inaccessible country by making use of ibises to destroy the serpents ^^ hich obstructed the march, and further, how he captured the im- pregnable city of Saba (or Meroe ; Philte, an island in the Nile?) by gaining the love of Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian king (Ant. II. ix. 5, 7 [224-227, 232-237], x. 2 [243-253]). This is pure Rabbinical Haggada. Of the same character are the fabulous embellishments of the story of Joseph (II. iv. [39-59]), as also the many references to superstitions Avhich the Jews of the day had in common with the Greeks, as e.g. in the stories about Solomon (VIII. ii. 5[42ff.]j: here Josephus states that he had personally witnessed an exorcism which a Jew named Eleazar performed before Ves- pasian and his officers by means of a ring, a root, and certain incantations, all associated with Solomon. How little the horizon of Josephus extended beyond Palestine is shown also by the brevity with which he treats of the persecutions of the Jews in Alexandria, and of the famous embassy of Philo to the court of Gains Caligula (XVIII. viii. 1 [257 ffi]).
4. Sources.— Josephus is throughout very depend- ent on his sources. Where the biblical narrative fails him, a constraint falls upon his language. Of the period between Cyrus and Alexander the Great he has nothing to record, and he lures the reader across the gap by a long extract from the