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On Josephus's Statement of the Pharisees' Doctrine of Fate (Antiq. xviii. 1, 3)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

H. St. John Thackeray
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Extract

[The following note by Dr. H. St. John Thackeray was found among the papers of Professor George F. Moore. It relates to a sentence from Josephus, Antiq. xviii. 1, 3, discussed by Moore in his Judaism, I, pp. 457 f.; III, pp. 139 f., and in an article in this Review for October 1929, and it is here published by the kind permission of Mrs. Thackeray.

Type
Notes
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 1932 , pp. 93
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1932

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References

1 κρᾶσιν. “Transcriptional probability” (Hort's phrase) confirms this reading: κρίσιν would not have been altered to κρᾶσιν. But I find no other example of κρᾶσιν in Josephus. I take it to mean a ‘blending’ or ‘fusion,’ perhaps ‘copartnership.’ The following καί‥ καί‥ means (I think) ‘both‥ and‥’ (not ‘‥, and‥ and‥’): there is a coming together open to both parties (Fate and man).

2 βουλετήριον in Josephus = (1) Council-chamber, of the Roman senate-house Ant. xiv. 270, xix. 60, of meeting-place of the Sanhedrin, B. J. vi. 354; (2) Council or meeting of council, Ant. xvii. 38 (||συνόδους), 280 β. ήγεν ἐπὶ τοῖς ποιητἐοις, xviii. 13, B. J. iv. 243. I translate ‘council-chamber’ above, strictly ‘meeting of council.’

3 “choose to join it (fall into line with it, or enter its council-chamber) actuated by virtue or vice.” προσΞωρεῖν πρὸς‥) cannot (like προσΞωρεῖν μετὰ‥) mean “take the side of virtue or of vice,” as I once erroneously translated it. [A remote parallel occurs in Herodotus viii. 60 fin. μὴ δὲ οίκότα βουλευομένοισι, ούκ ἐθέλει οὐδἑ Δ θεὸς προσξωρέειν πρὸ;ς τὰς άνθρωπηίμ λνώμας, ‘But when (men) in their counsels reject reason, God does not choose to follow the wanderings of human fancies,’ Rawlinson.]

If man comes in μετὰ κακίας κακιας, Fate will not interfere but will let his destiny have its course: if μετ’ άρετῆς, Fate goes half way to meet him.