CHAPTER XXIII.
JOSEPHUS AND HIS WORKS.
What literature did this sad period produce? There was neither heart nor leisure to turn to poetry or philosophy, or even to write a second "Lamentations." But in the prosaic field of history some important works were produced by one individual, who hardly deserves to be included in the fold of Israel—Josephus.
His Early Life.
He was born in Jerusalem in the year 38 C. E. under the regime of the procurators; so he never knew an independent Judea. Of studious bent, he was consulted (so he tells us) on points of law at the early age of fourteen. At the age of 26 he went to Rome like Philo, to intercede with the Emperor Nero for some of his brethren, falsely charged by the procurator, Felix. His persuasive address and political shrewdness won the day. He returned dazzled with the splendor and magnitude of the city on the Tiber. He realized now the impossibility of Israel undertaking a successful war against it. Therefore he never should have been chosen to command one of Judea's campaigns.
Josephus vs. Jeremiah.
After the war he sought and obtained the liberty of some of the captives. But he was satisfied to receive Roman citizenship from the hand of the emperor who had overthrown the Jewish State—Vespasian, and even appended the emperor's first name, Flavius, to his own. When we see him living at ease on a pension and a tax-free estate given by Rome while his brethren were working in the lead mines of Egypt or glutting the slave markets of Europe we cannot but contrast his character with that of Jeremiah who had been placed in similar circumstances some centuries earlier.
Flavius Josephus.
In the last days of the first nationality, when Babylonia was thundering against the gates of Jerusalem, Jeremiah had belonged to the Peace Party of his day, not for reasons of expediency, such as actuated Josephus, but from intense religious conviction. (See vol. iii, People of the Book, chap. xxviii.) Nebuchadrezzar, regarding this attitude as friendly toward Babylon, had offered to Jeremiah ease and liberty after Judah was laid in the dust. But he scorned to receive gifts from the enemies of his country or to enjoy benefits through their misfortune. Though Judah had rejected his advice and even persecuted him for it, he made their lot his own, miserable though it was. Like Moses, he died in the wilderness with the generation who had brought that fate upon themselves, because they lacked his faith.