ynquirer

I deem it harder than you do to negotiate the thin line between evidence and judgment. Actually, I’ve always believed that good argument was to be based on evidence, and that even ultimate evidence as will shine on the Last Judgment Day will be upheld evidence through judgment. Accordingly, I’ll give you additional doses of both.

In Annals 2:4 Tacitus introduces a digression on Artavasdes, an Armenian story much older than Vonones’. The Church and Brodribb’s translation speaks of

And this how Whinston translates Antiquities of the Jews 15.4.3 - not 18.2.4, where Vonones’ story is:

That Josephus’ Artabazes is the same person as Tacitus’ Artavades is inferred from the Monumentum Ancyrarum (The Res Gestae of Augustus). The text is bilingual, Latin and Greek. In Mon. Anc. 5, 9 the Latin reads:

And the Greek reads

Likewise, Tacitus’ Tiberius Nero is the same person as Josephus’ Nero Caesar - future Emperor Tiberius. That Artaxias, Artavasdes' son, was killed by treacherous kinsmen is a personal theory by Tacitus, probably inferred from the intervention of Archelaus (whom Tacitus doesn’t mention). The only bits of info as afforded by Tacitus not clearly furnished by Josephus are a) that Antony seized Artavasdes “under the guise of friendship”, and b) that Artavasdes was murdered by Antony.

Interestingly enough, Plutarch gives more details on both. The Loeb edition of Life of Antony 50:4 says

Plutarch here says that Antony in Alexandria celebrated a triumph with Artavasdes in chains, and this implies that the prisoner was slain at the climax of the ceremony. Yet, this is again Plutarch’s personal inference from Josephus’ statement that Artabazes was sent "in bonds, with his children and procurators, to Egypt, and made a present of them, and of all the royal ornaments which he had taken out of that kingdom, to Cleopatra" - a statement that is quoted almost verbatim by Plutarch. Furthermore, Plutarch’s remark "This, however, took place at a later time," as written down exactly at the same moment of the narrative, is verbatim quotation of Josephus’ "but this happened a good while afterward." This quotation is evidence that Roman historians at the beginning of the second century, as a matter of course, used Josephus as a source for Augustus-dated news of Parthia.

It still might be thought that Tacitus quoted Plutarch, not Josephus. Yet, his mentioning Artaxias and Tiberius - neither whom does Plutarch mention - is proof that Plutarch read and quoted Josephus, then Tacitus read both Josephus and Plutarch and quoted the two of them. Everything other than what is mentioned by Josephus in this story, is decoration by either Plutarch or Tacitus.

Roger Pearse

I've not followed your argument generally, but just reading what you quote, I would read E differently:

1. People named Hierocles forged Acts of Pilate to smear the Christians.
2. Josephus himself contradicts these, never mind the Christians.
3. This shows that Hierocles and his gang had no shame, and would say anything if it served their ends.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

I think I clocked most of your meaning the first time, though this time you seem to have added the bit about trusting the apostles because they included the bad with the good.

That latter argument does not persuade me. You yourself say of the actual argument in question, that which urges the reader to trust the Jew Josephus:

Indeed. These arguments are two different things. The arguments that are similar are these, Eusebius first...:

And here it will not be inappropriate for me to make use of the evidence of the Hebrew Josephus....

Since an historian, who is one of the Hebrews themselves, has recorded in his work these things concerning John the baptist and our savior, what excuse is there left for not convicting them of being destitute of all shame who have forged the acts against them? But let this suffice here.

...and then pseudo-Hegesippus:

About which the Jews themselves bear witness, Josephus a writer of histories saying....

Josephus said this, whom they themselves think very great, but it is so that he was in his own self who spoke the truth otherwise in mind, so that he did not believe his own words. But he spoke because of loyalty to history, because he thought it a sin to deceive, he did not believe because of stubbornness of heart and the intention of treachery. He does not however prejudge the truth because he did not believe but he added more to his testimony, because although disbelieving and unwilling he did not refuse.

John the baptist a holy man, who never placed the truth of salvation in second place, had been killed before the death of Jesus.

First of all, you appear to place some weight upon the appearance of John the baptist in or near these mentions of what Josephus said about Jesus. But does not Origen do the same thing, connecting the mention of John with the mention of James and Jesus? Such a thing is too natural to be a fabulous coincidence. Indeed, modern authors do it all the time, and they require no help from Eusebius, Origen, pseudo-Hegesippus, Jerome, or any of the other fathers who do it.

Second, using Josephus precisely as a Jew to witness to (or against) the Jews, which is what both Eusebius and pseudo-Hegesippus certainly do, completely cancels out your argument about the apostles. Who needs to either affirm or deny the veracity of the apostles in order to affirm the veracity of Josephus? That, and only that, is the similarity, as your own summary indicates:

Notice that there is nothing corresponding to 1 and 2 in your number 4. 1 and 2 are red herrings.

Let us compare, then, numbers 3 and 4. Is this not a common trope (even one of their own has said this)? Refer to Titus 1.12, for example:

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

And Origen also insists that Josephus told the truth against his own will, as it were, in Against Celsus 1.47:

[Josephus] says, being unwillingly not far from the truth, that these things befell the Jews as vengeance for James the just, who was a brother of Jesus who is called Christ, since they killed him who was most just.

This is actually closer to what pseudo-Hegesippus says than Eusebius is. For pseudo-Hegesippus, too, insists that Josephus told the truth against his will:

But he spoke because of loyalty to history, because he thought it a sin to deceive, he did not believe because of stubbornness of heart and the intention of treachery.

Origen too, BTW, insists that Josephus did not believe:

But he himself, though not believing in Jesus as Christ....

Eusebius does not do this. I think pseudo-Hegesippus is actually closer to Origen than to Eusebius in all of this. That is not to say that he was borrowing Origen, though that is of course quite possible. (But he could not have gotten the Testimonium from Origen.) My point is that these tropes are too common to prove dependence.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Andrew Criddle discusses the independence of pseudo-Hegesippus and Josephus on an old thread.

I have to say that, even if pseudo-Hegesippus knows Eusebius (and I am not convinced as yet that he does), I think he knows a version of the Testimonium a little different than our received version as it is found in Eusebius. I have trouble believing, for example, that pseudo-Hegesippus found the line he was the Christ in his version of the Testimonium.

Ben.