Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Josephus the Satirist? A Clue to the Original Form of the "Testimonium Flavianum"Author(s): Albert A. Bell, Jr.Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jul., 1976), pp. 16-22Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1454525 .Accessed: 27/09/2011 09:53

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JOSEPHUS THE SATIRIST? A CLUE TO THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE

TESTIMONIUM FLA VIANUM

By ALBERT A. BELL, Jr., Durham, North Carolina

'THERE ARE FEW PASSAGES extant in any ancient author, which have been more frequently, or perhaps with greater shew of reason, the subject of debate, than the account

suppos'd to be given of Christ by Josephus in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities." So wrote Nathaniel Forster in I749.1 The debate has hardly slackened in the intervening two centuries.2 The two extreme positions are that the entire

passage (Ant. XVIII, 63-64) is a fabrication, as R. Eisler,3 E. Norden,4 and others assert, or that it is genuine as it stands, as F. C. Burkitt,5 A. G. Harnack,6 and F. Dornseiff 7 argue.

1 A Dissertation upon the Account Suppos'd to have been given of Jesus Christ by Josephus, BeiTng an attempt to shew that this celebrated Passage, some slight corruptions only excepted, may reasonably be esteem'd genuine (Oxford, 1749), p. 7.

2 For bibliographies of the vast literature on the subject see L. H. Feldman, Studies in Judaica, I, Scholarship on Philo and Josephus (I937-r962) (New York, I963) and Appendix K of vol. IX of the Loeb Classical Library edition of the Antiquitates Judaicae, transl. by H. St. John Thackeray et al. (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). L. Wahleb, "Zum Testimonium Flavianum. Ein kritischer Bericht iiber den Stand der Frage," Revue Benedictine XLIV (1927), I-I9, is a useful survey of earlier literature. More recently S. Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications (Jerusalem, I97I) has contributed to the discussion.

3 "Flavius Josephus on Jesus Called the Christ," JQR XXI (1930), i-6o, esp. 21-30.

4 "Josephus und Tacitus fiber Jesus Christus und eine messianische Prophetie," Neue Jahrbich. f. d. klass. Altertum XXXI (I913), 637-666.

5 "Josephus and Christ," Theologisch Tijdschrift XLVII (I913), 135-I44.

6 "Der jiidische Geschichtsschreiber Josephus und Jesus Christus," Internat. Monatsschr. fiir Wiss. Kunst und Technik VII (I913), I037-1068.

7 "Zum Testimonium Flavianum," Zeitschrift f. d. neutest. Wiss. XLVI (I955), 245-250.

JOSEPHUS THE SATIRIST?-BELL

In true Hegelian fashion a synthesis also emerges in the position that Josephus made some unfavorable mention of Jesus at this point which a pious Christian scribe altered.8 Since Origen in the mid-third century says that Josephus did not think Jesus was the Christ,9 while Eusebius 10 and all subsequent Christian writers cite the passage in its present form, it is generally conceded that the Testimonium, whatever its original content, took the shape in which we know it in the late third or early fourth century. S. Zeitlin even identifies Eusebius himself as the author of the passage.1

The passage does have some Josephan stylistic character- istics and, if a fabrication, is one of the better ones of antiquity. But "the most probable view", as L. H. Feldman con- cludes,12 is that our text is basically Josephus' with Christian alterations. This raises the perplexing question of what Josephus had originally said that so offended some Christian scribe that he felt compelled to alter it. Most scholars re- construct the passage with a neutral tone, to this effect: "Jesus lived at about this time, a notable teacher who was reputed to have performed miracles. He was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate." As a devout Pharisee Josephus could have said something of this sort. But would the Christians have felt it necessary to tamper with it? Tacitus says nothing any more offensive about Jesus,13 and a Tes-

8 E. Bammel, "Zum Testimonium Flavianum," in Josephus- Studien: Untersuchungen zu Josephus, dem antiken Judentum und dem Neuen Testament. Otto Michel zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. by 0. Betz et al. (G6ttingen, 1974), pp. 9-22.

9 Comment. in Matt. XIII, 55; Contra Celsum I, 47. 10 Eccl. Hist. I, 11.7; Demonstr. Evang. III, 5.I05. 11 "The Christ Passage in Josephus," JQR, (I927-28), 231-255. In

Josephus on Jesus, with particular reference to the Slavonic Josephus and the Hebrew Josippon (Philadelphia, I93I), pp. 62 ff., he replies to criticisms of his argument, which is based on the fact that Eusebius is the only Christian author in the entire ante-Nicene corpus who uses the phrase T&v XpLcrLavov& T6 cpov, which is found in the Testimonium

12 Loeb Antiquities, IX, 5I, note b. 13 Annals XV, 44.

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timonium Cornelianum would have carried great weight in apologetic arguments in the first few centuries. Even Tacitus' statement that Jesus died per procuratorem Pilatum did not evoke the Nicene response et resurrexit tertia die which one might expect from Christians determined to embellish any and all references to Jesus. His inoffensive, though accurate, statement was allowed to stand, as was Suetonius' casual reference,14 while Josephus' was altered. The latter must therefore have been more anti-Christian than most of the

proposed emendations. A suggestion made some years ago by C. Pharr about the

original form of the Testimonium 15 has gone unnoticed, but it seems to me to have merit and I would like to bring it up again in order to cite some supporting evidence of which Pharr apparently was unaware.

Pharr notes that the context of the Testimonium as it now stands is almost as great a problem as its own content. It breaks into a chronological account of Pilate's ill-starred

procuratorship and is followed by the scandalous story of Paulina's seduction by the knight Mundus in Rome in A.D. 19. What possible connection, scholars have often asked, can there be between Jesus and this salacious episode? Since the Paulina/Mundus story deals with a woman tricked into having sexual relations with a man posing as a god, Pharr concluded that Josephus had originally made some derogatory reference to Jesus' alleged virgin birth which called this tale to mind and led him to insert it in order to ridicule the Christian claim.

This explanation has the advantage of letting Josephus remain a Jew in his attitude toward Jesus and of making his arrangement of material more logical. It has the decided disadvantage of being quite subjective. We must assume, on the basis of our own reactions, that the story of Paulina and Mundus appeared to Josephus as a parody of sorts of the

14 Claudius 25.4. 15 "The Testimony of Josephus to Christianity," American Journal

of Philology XLVIII (1927), I37-I47.

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JOSEPHUS THE SATIRIST?-BELL

Annunciation story and that he could depend on his readers to draw the same parallel. Lacking even a hint of literary evidence to support it, we are justifiably hesitant to accept this suggestion.

But it can be shown that at least one reader of Josephus did make just such an association. In the late fourth century a Christian known by the pseudonym Hegesippus wrote in Latin a work in five books on the fall of Jerusalem,16 adapted largely from Josephus' Bellum Judaicum. But he also incorporated other material, such as the Quo vadis story, for which he is one of our earliest extant sources. In II, I2.i he retells the story of Paulina and Mundus as an example of the ludibrium typical of the Rome which killed Christ. But he modifies the narrative in significant ways.

In Josephus' longer version Paulina first refuses a large sum of money for her favors. Then Mundus' maidservant Ida arranges to bribe the priests of Isis, to whose cult Paulina is devoted, to summon her to their temple on the pretext that the god Anubis desires her company. She goes gladly and with her husband's permission and spends an eventful night with the disguised Mundus. The next day she rushes out excitedly to tell her lady friends the glad tidings. When Mundus confronts her with the truth she is, of course, shamed. Her husband reports the incident to Tiberius, who crucifies the priests, casts their cult image into the Tiber, and burns their temple to the ground.'7

16 The title is uncertain. I prefer, with the editors of the Patrologia Latina (XV, 2o16 ff.), to call it De excidio Hievosolymitanae urbis, which is attested by a tenth century ms., the oldest complete copy now extant. (I am less certain than Migne about its Ambrosian author- ship.) Some scholars refer to it as De Bello Judaico, on the mistaken assumption that it is merely a loose translation of Josephus' work. V. Ussani hedged on the whole question, titling his edition of the text Hegesippi qui dicitur Historiae libri V (Vienna, I932; CSEL LXVI, pars i).

17 H. R. Moehring, "The Persecution of the Jews and the Adherents of the Isis Cult at Rome, A.D. I9," Novium Testamentum III (I958-59), 301, somehow concludes that all this was to the benefit of the cult, since it "finds itself richer to the amount of 50,ooo drachmae."

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THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Hegesippus sums up Ant. XVIII, 65-71 in only eight lines, omitting Mundus' original offer to Paulina and Ida's role. The priests are bribed at once and Paulina comes to the temple. The love-making scene takes on comic aspects: amplexum petenti non negat, refert tamen utrum deus possit homini misceri. Ille promit exempla quod et lovem summum deorum Alcmena susceperit et Leda eiusdem concubitu potita et plurimae aliae. Hegesippus then introduces the element of

pregnancy, which is altogether lacking in Josephus: de se

quoque et illa deum esse generandum persuadet mulieri. To the Christian audience for whom he was writing this must surely have suggested the Annunciation in Luke I. The words used to describe Paulina's reaction (illa deum credidit, beatam se

adserit), when compared to certain phrases in Luke's Gospel, heighten this impression. Elizabeth, for example, says to Mary, beata, quae credidisti (Luke I :44), and in the Magnificat Mary sings ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes ( :48). There is the additional similarity of Mary going to Elizabeth immedia-

tely after the visitation, just as we saw that Paulina had done. It would seem then that Hegesippus responded to the

Paulina/Mundus story as if it were a parody of the Annuncia- tion. It would strengthen this argument if he could be shown to have consciously engaged in parody at some other point in his work. And in at least one passage he certainly appears to have done so. In De excidio I, 1.8 he follows closely the

Josephan account (BJ I, 6I) of Hyrcanus bribing Antiochus VII Sidetes to raise his siege of Jerusalem. But he de- scribes the withdrawing Antiochus as pretio emptus, the very phrase used in I Corinthians 6:20 and 7:23 of the person "redeemed" from sin. One's suspicion of a literary joke is heightened when Hegesippus adds that reppulit Hyrcanus auro, quem ferro nequibat. Ennius had praised Manius, con- queror of the Samnites and Pyrrhus, in a strikingly similar clause: quem nemo ferro potuit superare nec auro.8 The use

18 J. Vahlen, Ennianae Poesis Reliquae (Leipzig, 1928; 3rd ed.), fragment 373. Hegesippus' knowledge of Ennius is also indicated by the reference to Fabius Maximus in IV, Ii.

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JOSEPHUS THE SATIRIST?-BELL

of both phrases, originally applied with very positive con- notations, in this shameful context of a bribe is almost certainly conscious parody.

So, for whatever reasons, Hegesippus occasionally indulges his literary sense of humor. The fact that the Paulina/Mundus tale reminded him so strongly of the Annunciation story that he wrenched it out of the Antiquities to insert it into his recasting of the Bellum Judaicum seems to offer strong support to Pharr's contention that the Testimonium Flavianum originally contained a derogatory reference to Jesus' virgin birth and was probably on the whole a negative statement about Jesus. As Bammel concludes (p. 22), "so stellt sich der Text in seiner Urfassung als die alteste erhaltene literarische Denunziation der Christen dar."

This interpretation of the passage may also shed some light on the next episode (XVIII, 81-84) about an av·7p 'Iou3aoto; who, having transgressed his nation's laws, fled to avoid punishment. Settling in Rome, he set himself up as one who could iyzayoet cL aocp6[ov v69p@v Trv Mwouaoc; and duped a

wealthy female proselyte named Fulvia into sending a large donation to the Temple at Jerusalem. But he and three cronies kept the gifts and lived off them themselves. The woman's husband informed Tiberius of the situation, and the emperor's investigation resulted in the banishment of the entire Jewish community from Rome.19

If, as has been seen to be likely, Josephus has just satirized the founder of Christianity, could not this passage, in light of its context, be understood as satirizing the new sect's foremost propagator, Paul? Several details suggest the com- parison. The apostle's converts included large numbers of women, such as Lydia, his first convert in Europe (Acts

19 The similarities between the incidents are probably fortuitous, as is the fact that both husbands are called Saturninus. But R. S. Rogers, "Fulvia Paulina C. Sentii Saturnini," American Journal of Philology LIII (I932), 252-256, argues that the same Saturninus is meant and that his wife was indeed named Fulvia Paulina,

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I6:II-I5), and Priscilla, who with her husband Aquila accompanied Paul on part of one of his journeys (Acts I8: I8). Women are prominently mentioned in the salutations to the letters to Colossae and Rome. Paul had a number of different co-workers at various times, but he writes from Rome in Col. 4:IO-II that three-Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Justus- are "the only men of the circumcision among my fellow- workers." And of course his collection of funds for the Jerusalem Christians was a major aspect of his third mission- ary journey. He talks about it in three of his letters (Rom. 15.25-29; I Cor. I6:I-4; II Cor. 8:I-9: I5). The rewards

promised for generosity in II Cor. 9 are of the sort that could easily be taken by a skeptic as the lures of a charlatan.

I offer this last interpretation as only a tentative solution to the knotty problem of how the Josephus passage fits into its present context. It admittedly rests entirely on the assump- tion that Pharr's original suggestion was correct. But I am confident that Hegesippus' treatment of the Paulina/Mundus story as a parody of the Annunciation lends considerable credence to Pharr's thesis that the Testimonium Flavianum originally contained a derogatory account of the manner of Jesus' birth. At about the time the church came into control of the Roman Empire the offending remarks were suppressed and Josephus became a witness for the prosecution.20 Hegesippus himself reveals how the Christians used Josephus: si nobis non credunt Iudaei, vel suis credant. Hoc dixit losephus (De excidio II, I2.I). It would not be surprising, considering his intimacy with Constantine, if Eusebius did in fact rewrite the passage as part of the imperial policy.

20 J. Parkes, "Jews and Christians in the Constantinian Empire," Studies in Church History I (I964), 69-79, discusses the church's need, "for its own theological and apologetic purposes," of appropriating the heritage of Judaism for itself.

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