RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Joseph Josephus
to Rome to obtain the release of certain imprisoned priests. He had hardly returned to Palestine when the great insurrection against the Romans broke out (66 a.d.). In the beginning Josephus was without doubt opposed to the rebellion, but after the first victories of the Jews, he, too, joined it, more by force than by free will; he even became commander in Galilee. As such he organized in the winter of 66-67 the military forces of Galilee and made preparations for the campaign which began in the spring of 67 Activities centered around the fortress of Jotapata, which was for six weeks bravely and cleverly defended by Josephus against the army of Vespasian. After the capture of Jotapata he became a prisoner of the Romans; after the second year of his imprisonment he was released by Vespasian, who in 69 had become emperor. He then adopted the name of Flavius Josephus and devoted the remainder of his life to the interest of the Flavian emperors. He accompanied Vespasian to Alexandria, returned thence in the suite of Titus to Palestine and was in the army of the latter during the whole siege of Jerusalem in the year 70. After the capture of Jerusalem Titus took him to Rome, where he seems to have settled down to literary work. Vespasian gave him a dwelling-place in his own former residence, made him a Roman citizen, and presented him with an annual salary and a considerable tract of land in Judea. With the following emperors, Titus (79-81 a.d.) and Domitian (81-96 a.d.), Josephus enjoyed the same favor. It is not known how long he lived and in what relation he stood to the later emperors. He must have been living in the time of Trajan, since in his Vita he mentions King Agrippa II. as having already died (100 a.d.). II . Works : The works of Josephus were all composed in the Greek language, with the exception of his first draft of the " Jewish War," which was in Aramaic. His principal purpose was i. " Jewish to communicate to the Greco-Roman War " and world the knowledge of the history of " Antiq- his people, whom he defends and gloriuities." fies in every possible way. The " History of the Jewish War," in seven books, is his earliest and most carefully written work. The first and second books gave a survey of Jewish history from the time of the Maccabees to the outbreak of the insurrection against the Romans. The rest of the work is a detailed account of the war from the beginning in 66 to the complete suppression in 73. It was written late in the reign of Vespasian (69 to 79 a.d.; cf. War, preface, chap, i.; Ant., preface, chap. i.). It was presented to Vespasian, Titus, and Agrippa II., and the author received commendation for the accuracy of his account. The " Antiquities " (" Jewish Archeology ") is a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from the beginnings of Biblical history to the outbreak of the war in 66 a.d., in twenty books, after the model of the Romaike archaiologia of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It was completed in the thirteenth year of Domitian, 93-94 a.d. For the Biblical period (books I.-XI.) Josephus draws almost exclusively from the Bible in the Septuagint version, but he modifies the Biblical story and sup-
plements it by legends, following current traditions. Here and there he seems to have employed also Hellenistic compilations of Biblical history, especially those of Demetrius and Artapanus. Finally, he inserted notices from Greek writers of profane history when he dealt, for instance, with the flood, with primitive man, with Phenician history, and the like. The post-Biblical period of Jewish history is treated by Josephus without any due sense of proportion according to the condition of his sources. He has little to say on the period from Alexander the Great to the time of the Maccabees, filling the gap with an extensive extract from Pseudo-Aristeas (see Aeisteas) on the origin of the Greek translation of the Bible. For the history of the Maccabees (175-135 b.c.) he had an excellent source in I Maccabees (see Apocrypha, A, IV., 9), which he supplemented from the works of Polybius. The later history of the Hasmoneans seems to depend upon the more general works of Strabo and Nicolas of Damascus. The main source for the history of Herod (books XV -XVII.) was Nicolaus Damascenus, who, as an intimate councilor of Herod, was acquainted with the internal history of the court and described in great detail the history of his land. The history from the death of Herod to the outbreak of the war (books XVIII.-XX.) is treated quite meagerly. For the last decades Josephus was able to draw from oral information or from his own experience. He inserted a number of documents — decrees of the Roman senate, letters of Roman magistrates, decrees of cities of Asia Minor under Roman influence, and the like — the majority of these dating from the time of Caesar and Augustus and having high value. The genuineness of the passage on Jesus Christ (XVIII. , iii. 3) is generally given up.
The title affixed to the autobiography (Vita) of Josephus is misleading, since it recounts and justifies his activity in Galilee in the winter of 66-67 a.d. In this work Josephus attacks 2. Re- especially Justus of Tiberias, who, bemaining ing a man of conservative tendencies, Works, had, like Josephus, joined the insurrection more by force than by free will and had subsequently tried to exonerate himself for participation in the rebellion and to place the responsibility upon Josephus. The latter retaliated in his Vita by representing Justus as the chief agitator and himself as the real friend of the Romans. The work was written after the death of Agrippa II., therefore after 100 a.d. The Contra Apionem presents a well- written systematic apology for Judaism in reply to various attacks, especially in the literary world. The usual title Contra Apionem is misleading, since only a part of the work is occupied with the polemic against Apion. Porphyry (De abstinentia, iv. 11) quotes it under the title Pros tous Hellenas, the oldest Church Fathers under the title Peri tes ton Joudaion archaiotetos. Jerome was the first to use the title Contra Apionem. Since Josephus quotes in this work the " Antiquities " it must have been written later than 93 a.d. That IV Maccabees was wrongly ascribed by the Fathers to Josephus is now universally recognized. Similarly the work discussed in Photius,
Josephus Joshua