The character of Josephus has been very differently delineated by different Avriters. From his own works, es- pecially his books against Apion, it is evident that, though he dealt rather treacherously with his people, he yet felt a pride in the antiquity of the nation and in its ancient glories ; and in the description of the misfortunes of the Jews he is by no means wanting in sympathy for them. Thus his account of the miserable fate of Jerusalem is altogether free from that tone of revolting coldness
wliich shocks us in Xenophon's account of the downfall of Athens {l/ell. ii, 2, § 3 sq.). Yet the mildest inter- pretation that his conduct can receive certainly is that he despaired (as earnest patriots never do) of his coun- try, and that he deserted his coimtrj'raen in their great- est extremity. Indeed, from the very beginning, he appears to have looked on the national cause as hope- less, and to have cherished the intention of making peace with Rome whenever he could. Thus he told some of the chief men of Tiberias that he was weU aware of the invincibility of the Romans, though he thought it safer to dissemble his conviction; and he advised them to do the same, and to wait for a con- venient season — Trtpifxivovai icaipov (Life, 35; compare Wa?; iii, 5) ; and we find him again, m his attack on Justus the historian (Life, 65), earnestly defending himself from the charge of having in any way caused the war with Rome. Had this feeling originated in a religious conviction that the Jewish nation had forfeited God's favor, the case, of course, would have Ijeen differ- ent ; but such a spirit of living, practical faith we do not discover in Josephus. Holding in the main the abstract doctrines of a Pharisee, but with the principles and temper of a Herodian, he strove to accommodate his religion to heathen tastes and prejudices; and this by actual commissions (Ottius, Prcetermissa a Josepho, appended to his Spicilegium), no less than by a ration- alistic system of modification (Smith, Diet. Greek and Rom. Biog. ii, 612). A more favorable opinion is some- times expressed of Josephus, as by a writer in the Evan- gelieal Quart. Rerieti; 1870, p. 420. Prof. F. W. Farrar (in Kitto, Cyelop. Bibl. Literature, s.v.) has perhaps best summed up the religious character of Josephus as that of " a strange mixtiure of the bigoted Pharisee and the time-serving Herodian," and as " mingling the national pride of the patriot with the apostasy of a traitor."
Very different is the opinion of all on the writings of Josephus. Even in his daj' he was greatly lauded for his literary abilities. Though a Jew by birth, he had so ably acquired the Greek that he coidd be counted among the classic writers in that language. St. Jerome designates him as the " Grtecus Livius" (Epist. ad Eu- stach.) ; and, to come nearer our own days, Niebuhr pronounces him a Greek -writer of singular purity {Anc. Hist, iii, 455). I?ut, withal, he is hardly deserving of the epithet (piKa\i)^i]Q, so often bestowed on him (Suid, s. V. ' Lixj(Tt]7rog ; Isidor Pelusiot. iv, Ep. 75 : " diligentis- simus et ^tXaXj^Sstrraroc," Jos. Scaliger, /)e Emend, Temp. Preef., etc.). It is true, he understood the duty and importance of veracity in the historian {Ant. xiv, 1, 1 ; War, i, 1 ; c. Apion, i, 19) ; nevertheless, "he is," saj'S Niebuhr {I^ect. Rom. Hist. 1. c), " often untrue, and his arcliajology abomids in distortions of historical facts, and in falsifications which arise "rom his inordinate national pride ; and wherever he deals in numbers, he sho^vs his Oriental love of exaggeration" (this charge is, in a meas- ure, refuted, however, in Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 48). But, even though Josephus may not in all things be implic- itly relied upon, his writings are to the theologian espe- cially invaluable, and we may well say, with Casaubon and Farrar, that it is by a singular providence that his works, which throw such a flood of light on Jewish af- fairs, have been preserved to us. They are of immense service in the entire Biblical department, as may be seen from the frequent references that have been made to his writings throughout this Cyclopedia, in the elucidation of the history, geography, and archaeology of Scripture. Yet by this it must by no means be inferred that we detract in the least from our former statement, that Jo- sephus was not a man who believed in the inspiration of the Biblical wTitings. " In spite of his constant as- sertions {Ant. X, 11)," says Farrar (in Kitto), "he can have had no real respect for the writings which he so largely illustrates. If he had felt, as a Jew, any deep or religious appreciation of the O.-T. history, which he professes to follow {ovEii' irpo^iig ovS' av TrapaXnrwv, Ant. i, procem.), he would not have tampered with it as
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he does, mixing it with pseudo-philosophical fancies (Apion, i, 10), witli groundless Jewish Ihiyadoth or tra- ditions (such as the tlirce years' war of Moses with the Ethi()[)ians, the love of Tharbis for him, etc.: Ant. ii, 10. ■>). and with quotations from heathen writers of rer«/ doubtful authority {Ant. viii, 5, 3, etc.; see Van Dale, De A rUled, p. 21 1). Tlie worst charge, however, against him is his constant attempt, by alterations and suppres- sions (and especiaUy by a rationalistic metliod of deal- ing witli miracles, which contrasts strangely with his credulous fancies), to make .Jewish history palatable to Greeks and Romans, to such an extent that J. Ludolfus calls him 'fabuiator stepius quam historicus' {Hist. Ethiop. p. 230). Tluis he omits all the most important jrcssianic prophecies ; he manipulates the book of Dan- iel in a most unsatisfactory manner {Ant. ix, 11); he speaks in a very loose way about INIoses and Abraham (.J nt. i, 8, 1 ; Ajdon, ii, 15) ; and, though he can swallow the romance of the pseudo-Aristeas, he rationaUzes the account of the Exodus and Jonah's whale {Ant.u, IG, 5; ix, 10, 2)." On the whole subject of his credibility as a writer, his omissions, his variations, and his panderings to Gentile taste, comp. J. A. Fabricius, De .Toaeph. et ejus Script II, in Hudson's ed.; Van Dale, Dr A/i^/ia, x, xi; Pe JiliilolatridjVu; Bunch, Kxamni lli.<l. liar. Josephi, in Havurcarap, ii, 309 sq.; Ottius, Sjiicih iiiidn ex Jose- pho ; Ittigius, Prolefjomena ; Usher, Eput. ad Lud. Cap- pellum, p. 42 ; AVhiston's Dissertations, etc.