Besides the authorities whom he names in the Antiquities, Josephus, who devoted much attention to style, made a special study of the great masters. The use which he has made of his chief model forms an interesting study. Was it Dionysius of Halicarnassus (to whom, as we saw, he owed the title and arrangement of his Ant.) and his essays on the style of Thucydides that first introduced him to the historian of the Peloponnesian War? Or did he trace a likeness to himself in the great Athenian? Widely different as were the characters of the two men, there were points of similarity in their careers. Like Josephus, Thucydides combined the duties of general and historian of the great war; like him he failed as a military commander (IV. 104 ff.), and through his consequent exile was enabled to associate with the enemy and to view the war from the standpoint of both belligerents (V. 26).[[37]] However that may be (and it is to the credit of our author that he does not suggest the comparison), there is a marked imitation of the style of Thucydides in portions of the Antiquities, especially in Books XVII-XIX, which possess peculiarities of their own. The imitation is seen in the recurrent use of some striking phrase, and occasionally in the bold attempt to reproduce the difficult and involved style characteristic of parts of Thucydides. One instance of a borrowed phrase must suffice. In his account of the plague of Athens, Thucydides writes, “When they were afraid to visit one another, the sufferers died in their solitude ... or if they ventured they perished, especially those who aspired to heroism.”[[38]] The phrase in italics has taken the fancy of Josephus, who employs it repeatedly.[[39]] But imitation did not stop at the diction. The narrative of incidents in the history of Israel has been heightened, it seems, by touches from the account of the siege of Platæa and the Sicilian expedition; this last exploit in particular has aroused the emulation of our author.[[40]]
Beside this indebtedness to former historians, Josephus doubtless derived inspiration from the literary circle of living authors by whom he was surrounded in Rome. The account of the assassination of Caligula was, as stated, possibly derived from Cluvius Rufus; and it is interesting to reflect that our author must have known a writer just rising to fame, the historian of the Emperors, who has also left us a brief account of the Jewish War, Cornelius Tacitus.
The high literary standard attained by the historian, writing in a language which he acquired with difficulty, and the power of vivid and dramatic description, evident in many brilliant passages, are in the circumstances very remarkable.
Every allowance being made for our author’s defects, the importance of his work is unquestionable. His writings bridge the gulf between sacred and profane literature; they bring the Jewish nation out of its isolation into the main current of world history. The task which he set himself could only be accomplished by a Jew, and few Jews possessed the requisite qualifications of a wide outlook and an intimate knowledge of the world and of Greek literature. His detachment from his nation and other characteristics which may appear as deficiencies in the man are not without their advantages for the historian.
For the O.T. period we may consult him as a store-house of Rabbinical and Alexandrian lore, though his acquaintance with Palestinian tradition is considered by experts[[41]] to have been as superficial as, judged by his interpretation of proper names, was his knowledge of Hebrew. But it is only when we come down to about the last century before our era and to the N.T. period itself that his evidence acquires supreme importance. Here he gives us the background of Jewish and world history in the time of our Lord and the infant Church; without his labours such a work as Schürer’s Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ could not have been written. Some figures which in the N.T. are little more than names become clothed with life; side-lights are cast on others with which we are more familiar. We may follow in detail the story, told with all the moving pathos of Greek tragedy, of the rise of Herod the Great to the height of his fame and of the nemesis which blasted his domestic happiness. We have full and lifelike portraits of Roman governors and generals, comparable with the slighter sketches in the Gospels and Acts; on the one hand we may read of the causes of the unpopularity of Pilate[[42]] and of his successors, the last of the procurators, whose corrupt administration and shameless peculation precipitated the war,[[43]] on the other of high-minded governors like Petronius,[[44]] claiming kinship with similar noble characters in the N.T.
Among other such illustrations of the N.T. which will be found in the selected passages below the following may be noted. Herod’s dying provision to secure himself a national mourning exhibits the cruelty of the murderer of the innocents.[[45]] In illustration of St. Luke’s account of the infancy (ii. 1 ff.) we may read the full story of an enrolment under Quirinius;[[46]] also of the revolt of Judas to which it gave rise and of the later insurrection of Theudas, both of which are mentioned in Gamaliel’s speech in the Sanhedrin (Acts v. 36 f.).[[47]] In the full account of the succession of Archelaus we may discover the historical event which suggested our Lord’s parable of the nobleman travelling to a far country (Luke xix. 12 ff.).[[48]] We have independent narratives, partly inconsistent with those in the N.T., of the marriage of Herod the Tetrarch with Herodias[[49]] and of the death of Herod Agrippa I.[[50]] In a beautiful story we read of a royal lady who, like Paul and Barnabas, brought relief to famine-stricken Jerusalem in the days of Claudius.[[51]] The expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Tiberius forms a precedent for the similar action of Claudius (Acts xviii. 2).[[52]] With the later scenes in St. Paul’s life we may compare what is told us of Felix and Festus,[[53]] and again of Agrippa II and the marriage of Felix and Drusilla; while the account of the Cypriot magician and his influence over Felix strangely resembles that of Elymas and Sergius Paulus (Acts xiii. 6 ff.).[[54]] We may read, moreover, of the death of James “the Lord’s brother”;[[55]] of the use of the word “Corban” (Mark vii. 11) as an oath;[[56]] of the tenets of the Jewish sects (in more than one passage),[[57]] and how the Pharisees acquired their power a century before the time of Christ;[[58]] we have a detailed account of the Jewish treatment in the first century of a case of demoniacal possession;[[59]] and, last but not least, we find in the scenes from the Jewish War the fulfilment of our Lord’s predictions of the fate of Jerusalem.
Other alleged connexions between Josephus and the N.T. are open to serious question. Few will be inclined to follow Wellhausen, who finds in the murder of Zacharias son of Baris (or Bariscæus or Baruch)[[60]] the incident referred to in our Lord’s words about “the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar” (Matt. xxiii. 35). Many critics have maintained that there is a direct literary connexion between the Jewish historian and St. Luke, whose writings (not unnaturally, since he alone of the Evangelists composed a “second treatise”) furnish the majority of the parallels. There is very little probability in the suggestion[[61]] that Josephus, in his description of himself in boyhood being consulted by the Rabbis, was influenced by Luke ii. 46 f. There is more to be said for the theory that St. Luke had made a cursory perusal of parts of the Antiquities and had been thereby led, in at least one instance, into serious error; reasons for rejecting this view will be found elsewhere.[[62]]
Texts and Translations
The literature on Josephus is immense. It will suffice here to mention two standard editions of the Greek text and two English translations.