Selections From Josephus

Selections From Josephus

Josephus, son of Matthias the priest, and on his mothers side claiming descent from the royal Hasmonan houseor Flavius Josephus, to give him the name which he adopted out of gratitude to his Imperial patronswas born in the first year of the Emperor Caligula, A.D. 37-38. St. Pauls conversion had probably taken place a few years earlier.[1] His life of upwards of sixty years falls into two nearly equal parts, spent respectively in Palestine and in Rome. The Palestinian portion, again, is sharply divided into the pre-war period (to A.D. 65), of which we know comparatively little, and the great four years war (A.D. 66-70), of which we know a great deal. Of his precocious youth, when, if we may believe him, Rabbis flocked to hear the wisdom of the boy of fourteen; how he himself two years later did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, making trial successively of the three sects of his nation, and ending his education by three years passed as an ascetic with a hermit in the wilderness; how on his return to Jerusalem at the age of nineteen he joined the popular and influential party of the Pharisees; of the one outstanding incident 10of his early manhood, his visit to Rome at the age of twenty-sixof all these things we may read in his own words.[2] Although he finally threw in his lot with the Pharisees, we may judge from the three years stay with Ban(n)us, the specially full account which he gives of the Essenes,[3] and other indications, that the tenets and communistic life of that order left a lasting impression. If we may again attempt a synchronism with events in the life of St. Paul, we may say that the Rabbis were listening to the boy about the time of the first Council of the Church at Jerusalem, he was receiving his schooling during the third missionary journey, and his return to Jerusalem nearly coincided with the arrest of the Apostle in that city. The journey to Rome (A.D. 63-4), like St. Pauls a few years earlier, began with a shipwreck. Its nominal purpose was to plead the cause of certain priests who had been sent by Felix to Italy for trial. Chronology[4] will hardly permit us to accept the suggestion of Edersheim[5] to connect St. Pauls liberation with the mission of Josephus; but he cannot have failed, during his stay in the city on the eve of the Neronian persecution, to become acquainted, if not with the work of the Apostle, at least with the existence of the Christian community. Through the influence of Poppa, the mistress and afterwards wife of Nero, who coquetted with Judaism (Josephuss words imply that she was a proselyte), he was successful in obtaining the release of the priests and returned to Juda laden with presents. Besides the expressed object, was there any ulterior motive in this visit to the capital? Edersheim suggests that, foreseeing the trend of events, Josephus was already fired with the 11ambition of becoming the intermediary between Rome and his nation. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 64837
Author: Josephus, Flavius
Release Date: Mar 16, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Thackeray, H. St. J. (Henry St. John), 1869?-1930