VI Josephan Afterlives

Extract

If the literary texts which survive from the Roman era are anything to go by, Josephus seems to have been little known among non-Jewish and non-Christian authors in antiquity. There is no clear indication that his younger contemporary Tacitus knew his works. The latter's account of the Jewish Revolt is somewhat confused. For instance, it mixes up the names of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, an error which is unlikely to have been made by someone who had carefully read the Jewish War. Similarly, his account of the exodus draws not from the Antiquities or the Against Apion, but appears to have been informed by precisely the kind of Judeophobic Greek scholarship which Josephus set out to refute in the latter work. Either Tacitus had not read Josephus’ discussions of Moses and the exodus, or he was unpersuaded by them. The same seems true of Josephus’ other great prose contemporary, Pliny the Elder. Josephus does not feature in the massive bibliography which comprises the opening of the Natural History and, although Pliny mentions two subjects of importance to Josephus, Masada and the Essenes, there is no indication that the Jewish War was the source of his information. In terms of later ‘pagan’ classical authors, the record is similarly exiguous. Both Suetonius and Dio mention Josephus, but not as a source or an author: they refer to him as a noble Jewish prisoner who prophesied Vespasian's accession. The philosopher Porphyry mentions the Essenes and cites Josephus as his source, but other than this the Josephan corpus leaves no trace in the later non-Christian classical tradition.