stephan huller

We continue with our section by section comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus with Jewish War. The last post only referenced half of the original chapter for each. The remaining half of the section in Pseudo-Hegesippus reads:

Relying however upon the power itself of devotion and the indignation of good men they collect themselves together and make an attack upon the troublemakers. But the latter although they distrusted their cause and numbers, fleeing to the temple as if into a refuge like a certain fort for themselves they prepared to drive back the multitude of people rushing in. But first placed before the doors of the temple and in the forecourt itself they fought against the people. If anybody was wounded he sought the interior of the temple, pouring out his blood there at interior doors and wounded wiping off his bloody features on the pavement. Wounds and entrails of an open wound were stuffed with those garments which it was not permitted to them to touch. There was fighting within the city, fighting between citizens, fighting before the temple. Not only this but fearing the brigands, since they were insistently urged by the people, they took themselves back into the temple itself and closed there the doors of the temple. Which having been set in the way Ananus was recalled, who lest he should be seen to carry fighting into the temple and to break down the temple doors which had been consecrated by the devoutness of their ancestors, he turned back the attack of the common people and stationed six thousand men in the porticos, who in attendance armed with weapons pretended a careful guarding. Gradually however he softened the passion so that he considered peace with this aim especially that he not defile the temple with the blood of the citizens, that he should persuade also that a legation a negotiator of peace should be sent so that the intestine war would be put aside. Johannes is associated to accompany the legation a man of doubtful faith and inflamed by the desire to achieve power. An oath is sought, he did not decline lest he be exposed to a charge of perjury if he should have refused. In order to deceive he pretended that he favored the common people. What else? He continues, he sends ahead a few things about peace, he hides more for an incitement of war saying in the name of peace that war was involved, that treachery was hidden, that Ananus had prepared to surrender the city to the Romans by which the practices of the ancients would be abolished, the precepts of the law annulled, collecting everything from all directions and expressing envy against the leader of the priests of those things he himself was intending. Shrewdly even he stirred up those whom he knew of those who had been imprisoned to be chiefs and leaders of a faction with dread of a prepared death, claiming that especially for them Ananus had planned death, he himself had come to expose the deceit, by quickly seeking help before the punishment should be demanded of them. What more? In the midst of peace he kindles the war. They are selected who would crave the Idumaeans to battle, a fickle race, restless, arrogant, quick to dissension, rejoicing in the changing of things, heedless of danger, rushing into a fight. And so diverting their course they come without delay, twenty thousand men are assembled, as is natural attentive to no cultivation of the lands but prepared for brigandage. It was not possible to conceal from Ananus the arrival of the Idumaeans. Immediately he ordered the gates to be closed lest they should make entrance with disorder, but if it were possible to be done that they should learn the truth, that they should renounce war. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.6]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

And now the people could no longer bear the insolence of this procedure, but did all together run zealously, in order to overthrow that tyranny; and indeed they were Gorion the son of Josephus, and Symeon the son of Gamaliel, who encouraged them, by going up and down when they were assembled together in crowds, and as they saw them alone, to bear no longer, but to inflict punishment upon these pests and plagues of their freedom, and to purge the temple of these bloody polluters of it. The best esteemed also of the high priests, Jesus the son of Gamalas, and Ananus the son of Ananus when they were at their assemblies, bitterly reproached the people for their sloth, and excited them against the zealots; for that was the name they went by, as if they were zealous in good undertakings, and were not rather zealous in the worst actions, and extravagant in them beyond the example of others.

And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an assembly, and every one was in indignation at these men's seizing upon the sanctuary, at their rapine and murders, but had not yet begun their attacks upon them, (the reason of which was this, that they imagined it to be a difficult thing to suppress these zealots, as indeed the case was,) Ananus stood in the midst of them, and casting his eyes frequently at the temple, and having a flood of tears in his eyes, he said, "Certainly it had been good for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many abominations, or these sacred places, that ought not to be trodden upon at random, filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains; yet do I, who am clothed with the vestments of the high priesthood, and am called by that most venerable name [of high priest], still live, and am but too fond of living, and cannot endure to undergo a death which would be the glory of my old age; and if I were the only person concerned, and as it were in a desert, I would give up my life, and that alone for God's sake; for to what purpose is it to live among a people insensible of their calamities, and where there is no notion remaining of any remedy for the miseries that are upon them? for when you are seized upon, you bear it! and when you are beaten, you are silent! and when the people are murdered, nobody dare so much as send out a groan openly! O bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I complain of the tyrants? Was it not you, and your sufferance of them, that have nourished them? Was it not you that overlooked those that first of all got together, for they were then but a few, and by your silence made them grow to be many; and by conniving at them when they took arms, in effect armed them against yourselves? You ought to have then prevented their first attempts, when they fell a reproaching your relations; but by neglecting that care in time, you have encouraged these wretches to plunder men. When houses were pillaged, nobody said a word, which was the occasion why they carried off the owners of those houses; and when they were drawn through the midst of the city, nobody came to their assistance. They then proceeded to put those whom you have betrayed into their hands into bonds. I do not say how many and of what characters those men were whom they thus served; but certainly they were such as were accused by none, and condemned by none; and since nobody succored them when they were put into bonds, the consequence was, that you saw the same persons slain. We have seen this also; so that still the best of the herd of brute animals, as it were, have been still led to be sacrificed, when yet nobody said one word, or moved his right hand for their preservation. Will you bear, therefore, will you bear to see your sanctuary trampled on? and will you lay steps for these profane wretches, upon which they may mount to higher degrees of insolence? Will not you pluck them down from their exaltation? for even by this time they had proceeded to higher enormities, if they had been able to overthrow any thing greater than the sanctuary. They have seized upon the strongest place of the whole city; you may call it the temple, if you please, though it be like a citadel or fortress. Now, while you have tyranny in so great a degree walled in, and see your enemies over your heads, to what purpose is it to take counsel? and what have you to support your minds withal? Perhaps you wait for the Romans, that they may protect our holy places: are our matters then brought to that pass? and are we come to that degree of misery, that our enemies themselves are expected to pity us? O wretched creatures! will not you rise up and turn upon those that strike you? which you may observe in wild beasts themselves, that they will avenge themselves on those that strike them. Will you not call to mind, every one of you, the calamities you yourselves have suffered? nor lay before your eyes what afflictions you yourselves have undergone? and will not such things sharpen your souls to revenge? Is therefore that most honorable and most natural of our passions utterly lost, I mean the desire of liberty? Truly we are in love with slavery, and in love with those that lord it over us, as if we had received that principle of subjection from our ancestors; yet did they undergo many and great wars for the sake of liberty, nor were they so far overcome by the power of the Egyptians, or the Medes, but that still they did what they thought fit, notwithstanding their commands to the contrary. And what occasion is there now for a war with the Romans? (I meddle not with determining whether it be an advantageous and profitable war or not.) What pretense is there for it? Is it not that we may enjoy our liberty? Besides, shall we not bear the lords of the habitable earth to be lords over us, and yet bear tyrants of our own country? Although I must say that submission to foreigners may be borne, because fortune hath already doomed us to it, while submission to wicked people of our own nation is too unmanly, and brought upon us by our own consent. However, since I have had occasion to mention the Romans, I will not conceal a thing that, as I am speaking, comes into my mind, and affects me considerably; it is this, that though we should be taken by them, (God forbid the event should be so!) yet can we undergo nothing that will be harder to be borne than what these men have already brought upon us. How then can we avoid shedding of tears, when we see the Roman donations in our temple, while we withal see those of our own nation taking our spoils, and plundering our glorious metropolis, and slaughtering our men, from which enormities those Romans themselves would have abstained? to see those Romans never going beyond the bounds allotted to profane persons, nor venturing to break in upon any of our sacred customs; nay, having a horror on their minds when they view at a distance those sacred walls; while some that have been born in this very country, and brought up in our customs, and called Jews, do walk about in the midst of the holy places, at the very time when their hands are still warm with the slaughter of their own countrymen. Besides, can any one be afraid of a war abroad, and that with such as will have comparatively much greater moderation than our own people have? For truly, if we may suit our words to the things they represent, it is probable one may hereafter find the Romans to be the supporters of our laws, and those within ourselves the subverters of them. And now I am persuaded that every one of you here comes satisfied before I speak that these overthrowers of our liberties deserve to be destroyed, and that nobody can so much as devise a punishment that they have not deserved by what they have done, and that you are all provoked against them by those their wicked actions, whence you have suffered so greatly. But perhaps many of you are aftrighted at the multitude of those zealots, and at their audaciousness, as well as at the advantage they have over us in their being higher in place than we are; for these circumstances, as they have been occasioned by your negligence, so will they become still greater by being still longer neglected; for their multitude is every day augmented, by every ill man's running away to those that are like to themselves, and their audaciousness is therefore inflamed, because they meet with no obstruction to their designs. And for their higher place, they will make use of it for engines also, if we give them time to do so; but be assured of this, that if we go up to fight them, they will be made tamer by their own consciences, and what advantages they have in the height of their situation they will lose by the opposition of their reason; perhaps also God himself, who hath been affronted by them, will make what they throw at us return against themselves, and these impious wretches will be killed by their own darts: let us but make our appearance before them, and they will come to nothing. However, it is a right thing, if there should be any danger in the attempt, to die before these holy gates, and to spend our very lives, if not for the sake of our children and wives, yet for God's sake, and for the sake of his sanctuary. I will assist you both with my counsel and with my hand; nor shall any sagacity of ours be wanting for your support; nor shall you see that I will be sparing of my body neither."

By these motives Ananus encouraged the multitude to go against the zealots, although he knew how difficult it would be to disperse them, because of their multitude, and their youth, and the courage of their souls; but chiefly because of their consciousness of what they had done, since they would not yield, as not so much as hoping for pardon at the last for those their enormities. However, Ananus resolved to undergo whatever sufferings might come upon him, rather than overlook things, now they were in such great confusion. So the multitude cried out to him, to lead them on against those whom he had described in his exhortation to them, and every one of them was most readily disposed to run any hazard whatsoever on that account.

Now while Ananus was choosing out his men, and putting those that were proper for his purpose in array for fighting, the zealots got information of his undertaking, (for there were some who went to them, and told them all that the people were doing,) and were irritated at it, and leaping out of the temple in crowds, and by parties, spared none whom they met with. Upon this Ananus got the populace together on the sudden, who were more numerous indeed than the zealots, but inferior to them in arms, because they had not been regularly put into array for fighting; but the alacrity that every body showed supplied all their defects on both sides, the citizens taking up so great a passion as was stronger than arms, and deriving a degree of courage from the temple more forcible than any multitude whatsoever; and indeed these citizens thought it was not possible for them to dwell in the city, unless they could cut off the robbers that were in it. The zealots also thought that unless they prevailed, there would be no punishment so bad but it would be inflicted on them. So their conflicts were conducted by their passions; and at the first they only cast stones at each other in the city, and before the temple, and threw their javelins at a distance; but when either of them were too hard for the other, they made use of their swords; and great slaughter was made on both sides, and a great number were wounded. As for the dead bodies of the people, their relations carried them out to their own houses; but when any of the zealots were wounded, he went up into the temple, and defiled that sacred floor with his blood, insomuch that one may say it was their blood alone that polluted our sanctuary. Now in these conflicts the robbers always sallied out of the temple, and were too hard for their enemies; but the populace grew very angry, and became more and more numerous, and reproached those that gave back, and those behind would not afford room to those that were going off, but forced them on again, till at length they made their whole body to turn against their adversaries, and the robbers could no longer oppose them, but were forced gradually to retire into the temple; when Ananus and his party fell into it at the same time together with them. This horribly affrighted the robbers, because it deprived them of the first court; so they fled into the inner court immediately, and shut the gates. Now Ananus did not think fit to make any attack against the holy gates, although the other threw their stones and darts at them from above. He also deemed it unlawful to introduce the multitude into that court before they were purified; he therefore chose out of them all by lot six thousand armed men, and placed them as guards in the cloisters; so there was a succession of such guards one after another, and every one was forced to attend in his course; although many of the chief of the city were dismissed by those that then took on them the government, upon their hiring some of the poorer sort, and sending them to keep the guard in their stead.

Now it was John who, as we told you, ran away from Gischala, and was the occasion of all these being destroyed. He was a man of great craft, and bore about him in his soul a strong passion after tyranny, and at a distance was the adviser in these actions; and indeed at this time he pretended to be of the people's opinion, and went all about with Ananus when he consulted the great men every day, and in the night time also when he went round the watch; but he divulged their secrets to the zealots, and every thing that the people deliberated about was by his means known to their enemies, even before it had been well agreed upon by themselves. And by way of contrivance how he might not be brought into suspicion, he cultivated the greatest friendship possible with Ananus, and with the chief of the people; yet did this overdoing of his turn against him, for he flattered them so extravagantly, that he was but the more suspected; and his constant attendance every where, even when he was not invited to be present, made him strongly suspected of betraying their secrets to the enemy; for they plainly perceived that they understood all the resolutions taken against them at their consultations. Nor was there any one whom they had so much reason to suspect of that discovery as this John; yet was it not easy to get quit of him, so potent was he grown by his wicked practices. He was also supported by many of those eminent men, who were to be consulted upon all considerable affairs; it was therefore thought reasonable to oblige him to give them assurance of his good-will upon oath; accordingly John took such an oath readily, that he would be on the people's side, and would not betray any of their counsels or practices to their enemies, and would assist them in overthrowing those that attacked them, and that both by his hand and his advice. So Ananus and his party believed his oath, and did now receive him to their consultations without further suspicion; nay, so far did they believe him, that they sent him as their ambassador into the temple to the zealots, with proposals of accommodation; for they were very desirous to avoid the pollution of the temple as much as they possibly could, and that no one of their nation should be slain therein.

But now this John, as if his oath had been made to the zealots, and for confirmation of his good-will to them, and not against them, went into the temple, and stood in the midst of them, and spake as follows: That he had run many hazards o, their accounts, and in order to let them know of every thing that was secretly contrived against them by Ananus and his party; but that both he and they should be cast into the most imminent danger, unless some providential assistance were afforded them; for that Ananus made no longer delay, but had prevailed with the people to send ambassadors to Vespasian, to invite him to come presently and take the city; and that he had appointed a fast for the next day against them, that they might obtain admission into the temple on a religious account, or gain it by force, and fight with them there; that he did not see how long they could either endure a siege, or how they could fight against so many enemies. He added further, that it was by the providence of God he was himself sent as an ambassador to them for an accommodation; for that Artanus did therefore offer them such proposals, that he might come upon them when they were unarmed; that they ought to choose one of these two methods, either to intercede with those that guarded them, to save their lives, or to provide some foreign assistance for themselves; that if they fostered themselves with the hopes of pardon, in case they were subdued, they had forgotten what desperate things they had done, or could suppose, that as soon as the actors repented, those that had suffered by them must be presently reconciled to them; while those that have done injuries, though they pretend to repent of them, are frequently hated by the others for that sort of repentance; and that the sufferers, when they get the power into their hands, are usually still more severe upon the actors; that the friends and kindred of those that had been destroyed would always be laying plots against them; and that a large body of people were very angry on account of their gross breaches of their laws, and [illegal] judicatures, insomuch that although some part might commiserate them, those would be quite overborne by the majority. [Jewish War 4.3.11 - 14]

It is worth noting that both texts identify some sort of general uprising among the residents of Jerusalem owing to the aforementioned 'innovations' of the rebels. Yet notice how Jewish War deliberately attributes the 'good guys' are led by "Gorion the son of Josephus, and Symeon the son of Gamaliel." Of course these names are fictitious later additions, the first a scrambling of Josephus real name and the latter a well known figure from rabbinic literature.

Pseudo-Hegesippus has a strange story about the manner in which the rebels venerated the shedding of their own blood:

But first placed before the doors of the temple and in the forecourt itself they fought against the people. If anybody was wounded he sought the interior of the temple, pouring out his blood there at interior doors and wounded wiping off his bloody features on the pavement. Wounds and entrails of an open wound were stuffed with those garments which it was not permitted to them to touch.

The parallel section in Jewish War appears after a long speech by Ananus not found in the original narrative:

but when any of the zealots were wounded, he went up into the temple, and defiled that sacred floor with his blood, insomuch that one may say it was their blood alone that polluted our sanctuary.

There can be no doubt that this interest in the sacredness of blood is completely unhistorical. It is developed by the second century author to 'prove' that these rebels practiced a thoroughly abominable form of Judaism.

To this end, the entire speech attributed to the high priest Ananus is developed by a second century writer as part of the related theme that the Jews were infected by an irrational logos which caused them not to see the INHERENT superiority of the Romans as we read:

and what advantages they have in the height of their situation they will lose by the opposition of their reason; perhaps also God himself, who hath been affronted by them, will make what they throw at us return against themselves, and these impious wretches will be killed by their own darts: let us but make our appearance before them, and they will come to nothing. However, it is a right thing, if there should be any danger in the attempt, to die before these holy gates, and to spend our very lives, if not for the sake of our children and wives, yet for God's sake, and for the sake of his sanctuary. I will assist you both with my counsel and with my hand; nor shall any sagacity of ours be wanting for your support; nor shall you see that I will be sparing of my body neither

Notice the para-suicidal interest throughout the whole narrative. There is a right and wrong way to kill oneself distinguished by the examples of Saul and Moses. I think this argument again points to the author being Polycarp who had a documented interest in self-immolation but that's another line of inquiry for another time.

We have already mentioned the interest of the second century author to blame the continued rebellion on the instigation of John. Perhaps this was a way of removing blame from Josephus's brother Simon who - it is important to emphasize - was taken to be the REAL leader of the revolt.

stephan huller

We continue with our section by section comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus with the Jewish War. The next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus reads:

And so the leaders of the priests ascending the wall spoke to the Idumaeans from a tower, 'It to be a great wonder to them, that so quickly ensnared in a net of lies they were pursuing with arms causes with which they had not yet become acquainted, when it was proper for them first to be arbitrators of affairs rather than fighters of wars and for the future to learn the merits rather than take up arms, and arms against men of their own race, their own culture, their own solemnities. Upon none was more of injury inflicted than upon the Idumaeans, who were aroused into an association of such loathsome scoundrels. For what other was demanded from them except horrible crime against the citizens, sacrilege against the temple? It is not wont for different inclinations among themselves and different ways to come together. In fact the similarity of customs makes a fellowship of inclinations and and it binds to itself kindred inclinations. The most worthless men, who support themselves by brigandage, took to themselves that they should invite the Idumaeans to be associates to them, so greatly abhorring the proposal of those by whom they were asked, that they wage war against their country, you truly they implored to come as if to defend a foreign city. We who are not criminal have nothing in common with robbers, who are sober have nothing in common with drunkards. Would that that drunkenness was from wine and not from rage. Who when they addict themselves to disgraceful acts, by overthrowing proper successions, they steal the property of others and things evilly acquired they carelessly destroy, they throw away the worst. There is no limit to their thievery, because there are no bounds to their luxurious consumption. When they have filled themselves with wine and sated their drunkenness, they throw up the excessive drinking of affairs of state, and make themselves drunk again with our blood and mock the sacred religious duties, which have always been for us a reason for veneration and reverence. Drive off the parricidal assemblies and abandon sacrilegious ventures, forsake the assemblages of brigands. You have been summoned to a society of wickedness: you have come to the assistance of native land. We see a distinguished people whom it is fitting to come to ask in a public assembly that to the most outstanding city of the Jews, which is considered the mother-city of the entire race, it should be of assistance against the enemy. But if we fail in our aim, while we hope for peace and do not wish to quickly tire you, we who offered peace to the arousers of war, you however, who have come as if by divine judgment, take counsel avoiding both extremes and display judges of both sides. Inquire from whence arose the beginnings of the disorder, who sounded the trumpet call to a peaceful city, who poured out the blood of the most outstanding citizens, by what authorities was punishment exacted from uncondemned persons, who were a ruination to us before the Romans. Against the former we resolved on war and at the present time we suffer them as enemies. Whose friendship with the Romans is therefore an object of suspicion, those who championed the Romans or those who rejected the Romans? This is certainly more important to us than the strifes of the Romans. From the former we died on behalf of freedom, by the latter we are murdered as if for a crime. Crimes of treason against the innocent are pretended and after death calumnies are fabricated, although judicial judgment is accustomed to precede punishment, not punishment the judicial judgment. For what profits it the dead man to be absolved when already nothing is withheld of the judgment? For however we admit a lottery of this sort, that after death an inquiry is made about innocence and we also gladly conduct the case of our and the dead persons' innocence before you who are armed in the presence of the established adversaries. Thus no evidence is supplied the calumniators, so that they have also a more difficult case before you who so quickly believed them. For a good judge grieves that he was deceived with lies and is more disturbed by the deceiving than by having been courted, that he had been rashly urged to believe falsehoods he thought must be avenged. But let us therefore reserve the complete consideration for ourselves and collect the truth not from a putting together of disputations, but from an ordering of tasks. First of all why we might surrender our country to the Romans, whom we were able not to provoke, and perhaps it was necessary to be done, that we should not incite the conquerors of every people. But this is already not an item of deliberation of the present factions. It was a task of previous times to choose the path we should follow, now it is necessary to die in behalf of freedom. For it is best to die for one's country. It would have beat before the war to prefer peace to death, but because war is upon us, many of our brothers already captured, others killed, grief from those dead lamentations from those bound up, a voluntary death is more to elected than a life of servitude. Notwithstanding there is available to those about to die because of false charges the effacing of the infamy of the charge of treason. In your presence, the Idumaeans, we plead the cause: let them be brought forth, let the witnessing expounders be summoned into the midst of the witnesses. If they hold witnesses, let them be brought forth, if they do not hold witnesses, what complaints do they make and what empty suspicions do they bring as charges, which they themselves have composed for themselves. They ought not to make charges which they are not able to prove. But because they do not dare to make accusations they wish to spread accusations about among the multitude and thus they spring forth to war lest they be called into judgment. For in war there is a content of madness, in peace there is an examination of truth. Behold! we are first at hand, we of our own accord offer ourselves for punishment, if indeed an accuser comes forth. Or if ill-will is whirled about in the people's presence, diligently inquire what was the purpose in a public meeting. Is it not that troops drawn up are being prepared for war, so that every one may aid his country in behalf of freedom. Surely against the bandits themselves what had been considered except that peace should be concluded. The anguish of every individual had provoked the displeasure of the people, the blood of innocents, the lamentations of women, the duplicity about the laws of our fathers, made the groans of all men resound, because each feared similar things for himself. The sacerdotal offices were conferred upon the most unfit. They began to be sought by voice, they struck the people with stones, they killed with weapons. The publish anguish blazed out, they made a place of refuge for themselves in the temple of the bandits. And so a place of peace inspiring awe even for the tribes and the seat of sanctity was made the place of assembly of plunderers, and that place to which from all parts of the land it was flocked together for the honoring of a festal celebration, there are now certain stables of wild beasts flowing with human blood. It is permitted to you, or the armed men, to inquire after these things, without the stipulation of war however. There was generally a judicial investigation in the midst of arms and compassion set aside the instruments of war, the judgment of fairness held in check the war-trumpets. You are able to transform these weapons to the defence of the city, which you took up for its subversion. For it is permitted to enter without weapons, to hear and investigate everything. If you should discover anything negligent against the enemy, consider it treachery. But if you wish to present neither defenders nor witnesses, why do you wonder if the gates are not opened to armed men? They are not closed against kinsmen but against weapons. Put aside war and the gates will open.' [Pseudo-Hegesippus

The parallel passage in Jewish War reads:

Now, by this crafty speech, John made the zealots afraid; yet durst he not directly name what foreign assistance he meant, but in a covert way only intimated at the Idumeans. But now, that he might particularly irritate the leaders of the zealots, he calumniated Ananus, that he was about a piece of barbarity, and did in a special manner threaten them. These leaders were Eleazar, the son of Simon, who seemed the most plausible man of them all, both in considering what was fit to be done, and in the execution of what he had determined upon, and Zacharias, the son of Phalek; both of whom derived their families from the priests. Now when these two men had heard, not only the common threatenings which belonged to them all, but those peculiarly leveled against themselves; and besides, how Artanus and his party, in order to secure their own dominion, had invited the Romans to come to them, for that also was part of John's lie; they hesitated a great while what they should do, considering the shortness of the time by which they were straitened; because the people were prepared to attack them very soon, and because the suddenness of the plot laid against them had almost cut off all their hopes of getting any foreign assistance; for they might be under the height of their afflictions before any of their confederates could be informed of it. However, it was resolved to call in the Idumeans; so they wrote a short letter to this effect: That Ananus had imposed on the people, and was betraying their metropolis to the Romans; that they themselves had revolted from the rest, and were in custody in the temple, on account of the preservation of their liberty; that there was but a small time left wherein they might hope for their deliverance; and that unless they would come immediately to their assistance, they should themselves be soon in the power of Artanus, and the city would be in the power of the Romans. They also charged the messengers to tell many more circumstances to the rulers of the Idumeans. Now there were two active men proposed for the carrying this message, and such as were able to speak, and to persuade them that things were in this posture, and, what was a qualification still more necessary than the former, they were very swift of foot; for they knew well enough that these would immediately comply with their desires, as being ever a tumultuous and disorderly nation, always on the watch upon every motion, delighting in mutations; and upon your flattering them ever so little, and petitioning them, they soon take their arms, and put themselves into motion, and make haste to a battle, as if it were to a feast. There was indeed occasion for quick despatch in the carrying of this message, in which point the messengers were no way defective. Both their names were Ananias; and they soon came to the rulers of the Idumeans.

Now these rulers were greatly surprised at the contents of the letter, and at what those that came with it further told them; whereupon they ran about the nation like madmen, and made proclamation that the people should come to war; so a multitude was suddenly got together, sooner indeed than the time appointed in the proclamation, and every body caught up their arms, in order to maintain the liberty of their metropolis; and twenty thousand of them were put into battle-array, and came to Jerusalem, under four commanders, John, and Jacob the son of Sosas; and besides these were Simon, the son of Cathlas, and Phineas, the son of Clusothus.

Now this exit of the messengers was not known either to Ananus or to the guards, but the approach of the Idumeans was known to him; for as he knew of it before they came, he ordered the gates to be shut against them, and that the walls should be guarded. Yet did not he by any means think of fighting against them, but, before they came to blows, to try what persuasions would do. Accordingly, Jesus, the eldest of the high priests next to Artanus, stood upon the tower that was over against them, and said thus: "Many troubles indeed, and those of various kinds, have fallen upon this city, yet in none of them have I so much wondered at her fortune as now, when you are come to assist wicked men, and this after a manner very extraordinary; for I see that you are come to support the vilest of men against us, and this with so great alacrity, as you could hardly put on the like, in case our metropolis had called you to her assistance against barbarians. And if I had perceived that your army was composed of men like unto those who invited them, I had not deemed your attempt so absurd; for nothing does so much cement the minds of men together as the alliance there is between their manners. But now for these men who have invited you, if you were to examine them one by one, every one of them would be found to have deserved ten thousand deaths; for the very rascality and offscouring of the whole country, who have spent in debauchery their own substance, and, by way of trial beforehand, have madly plundered the neighboring villages and cities, in the upshot of all, have privately run together into this holy city. They are robbers, who by their prodigious wickedness have profaned this most sacred floor, and who are to be now seen drinking themselves drunk in the sanctuary, and expending the spoils of those whom they have slaughtered upon their unsatiable bellies. As for the multitude that is with you, one may see them so decently adorned in their armor, as it would become them to be had their metropolis called them to her assistance against foreigners. What can a man call this procedure of yours but the sport of fortune, when he sees a whole nation coming to protect a sink of wicked wretches? I have for a good while been in doubt what it could possibly be that should move you to do this so suddenly; because certainly you would not take on your armor on the behalf of robbers, and against a people of kin to you, without some very great cause for your so doing. But we have an item that the Romans are pretended, and that we are supposed to be going to betray this city to them; for some of your men have lately made a clamor about those matters, and have said they are come to set their metropolis free. Now we cannot but admire at these wretches in their devising such a lie as this against us; for they knew there was no other way to irritate against us men that were naturally desirous of liberty, and on that account the best disposed to fight against foreign enemies, but by framing a tale as if we were going to betray that most desirable thing, liberty. But you ought to consider what sort of people they are that raise this calumny, and against what sort of people that calumny is raised, and to gather the truth of things, not by fictitious speeches, but out of the actions of both parties; for what occasion is there for us to sell ourselves to the Romans, while it was in our power not to have revolted from them at the first, or when we had once revolted, to have returned under their dominion again, and this while the neighboring countries were not yet laid waste? whereas it is not an easy thing to be reconciled to the Romans, if we were desirous of it, now they have subdued Galilee, and are thereby become proud and insolent; and to endeavor to please them at the time when they are so near us, would bring such a reproach upon us as were worse than death. As for myself, indeed, I should have preferred peace with them before death; but now we have once made war upon them, and fought with them, I prefer death, with reputation, before living in captivity under them. But further, whether do they pretend that we, who are the rulers of the people, have sent thus privately to the Romans, or hath it been done by the common suffrages of the people? If it be ourselves only that have done it, let them name those friends of ours that have been sent, as our servants, to manage this treachery. Hath any one been caught as he went out on this errand, or seized upon as he came back? Are they in possession of our letters? How could we be concealed from such a vast number of our fellow citizens, among whom we are conversant every hour, while what is done privately in the country is, it seems, known by the zealots, who are but few in number, and under confinement also, and are not able to come out of the temple into the city. Is this the first time that they are become sensible how they ought to be punished for their insolent actions? For while these men were free from the fear they are now under, there was no suspicion raised that any of us were traitors. But if they lay this charge against the people, this must have been done at a public consultation, and not one of the people must have dissented from the rest of the assembly; in which case the public fame of this matter would have come to you sooner than any particular indication. But how could that be? Must there not then have been ambassadors sent to confirm the agreements? And let them tell us who this ambassador was that was ordained for that purpose. But this is no other than a pretense of such men as are loath to die, and are laboring to escape those punishments that hang over them; for if fate had determined that this city was to be betrayed into its enemies' hands, no other than these men that accuse us falsely could have the impudence to do it, there being no wickedness wanting to complete their impudent practices but this only, that they become traitors. And now you Idumeans are come hither already with your arms, it is your duty, in the first place, to be assisting to your metropolis, and to join with us in cutting off those tyrants that have infringed the rules of our regular tribunals, that have trampled upon our laws, and made their swords the arbitrators of right and wrong; for they have seized upon men of great eminence, and under no accusation, as they stood in the midst of the market-place, and tortured them with putting them into bonds, and, without bearing to hear what they had to say, or what supplications they made, they destroyed them. You may, if you please, come into the city, though not in the way of war, and take a view of the marks still remaining of what I now say, and may see the houses that have been depopulated by their rapacious hands, with those wives and families that are in black, mourning for their slaughtered relations; as also you may hear their groans and lamentations all the city over; for there is nobody but hath tasted of the incursions of these profane wretches, who have proceeded to that degree of madness, as not only to have transferred their impudent robberies out of the country, and the remote cities, into this city, the very face and head of the whole nation, but out of the city into the temple also; for that is now made their receptacle and refuge, and the fountain-head whence their preparations are made against us. And this place, which is adored by the habitable world, and honored by such as only know it by report, as far as the ends of the earth, is trampled upon by these wild beasts born among ourselves. They now triumph in the desperate condition they are already in, when they hear that one people is going to fight against another people, and one city against another city, and that your nation hath gotten an army together against its own bowels. Instead of which procedure, it were highly fit and reasonable, as I said before, for you to join with us in cutting off these wretches, and in particular to be revenged on them for putting this very cheat upon you; I mean, for having the impudence to invite you to assist them, of whom they ought to have stood in fear, as ready to punish them. But if you have some regard to these men's invitation of you, yet may you lay aside your arms, and come into the city under the notion of our kindred, and take upon you a middle name between that of auxiliaries and of enemies, and so become judges in this case. However, consider what these men will gain by being called into judgment before you, for such undeniable and such flagrant crimes, who would not vouchsafe to hear such as had no accusations laid against them to speak a word for themselves. However, let them gain this advantage by your coming. But still, if you will neither take our part in that indignation we have at these men, nor judge between us, the third thing I have to propose is this, that you let us both alone, and neither insult upon our calamities, nor abide with these plotters against their metropolis; for though you should have ever so great a suspicion that some of us have discoursed with the Romans, it is in your power to watch the passages into the city; and in case any thing that we have been accused of is brought to light, then to come and defend your metropolis, and to inflict punishment on those that are found guilty; for the enemy cannot prevent you who are so near to the city. But if, after all, none of these proposals seem acceptable and moderate, do not you wonder that the gates are shut against you, while you bear your arms about you." [Jewish War 4.4.1 - 3]

I can't figure out where the quote in Pseudo-Hegesippus begins but it really doesn't matter because it is quite evident how utterly false this 'history' really is. It is a marked change from the Galilean narrative. Beyond the question of how it is at all possible that any of these details made their way to Josephus, the motivation here for developing this absurd narrative is all too obvious. Ananus, Jesus and the priests become the 'good portion' of the Jews vainly struggling against those who wish to 'pervert' the ancestral religion. They want to surrender to the Romans but chaotic revolutionaries won't let them.

All of this is about as historical as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The only interesting nugget I can extract from Hegesippus is the continued interest of the second century editor in righteous 'para-suicidal behavior' - viz. "a voluntary death is more to elected than a life of servitude" and Jewish War clearly manifesting that it is a further 'polishing' of the original manuscript almost completely removing any historical reference to the REAL leader of the revolt Simon bar Giora. Indeed while Hegesippus simply references 'John' and 'Simon' Jewish War does its best to blame the war on a completely fictitious and unknown list of characters:

whereupon they ran about the nation like madmen, and made proclamation that the people should come to war; so a multitude was suddenly got together, sooner indeed than the time appointed in the proclamation, and every body caught up their arms, in order to maintain the liberty of their metropolis; and twenty thousand of them were put into battle-array, and came to Jerusalem, under four commanders, John, and Jacob the son of Sosas; and besides these were Simon, the son of Cathlas, and Phineas, the son of Clusothus.

stephan huller

We continue with our systematic comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus with Jewish War. Our next chapter in Pseudo-Hegesippus - which continues this disappointingly unhistorical description of the siege of Jerusalem - reads:

When the priests and most particularly Iesus who was older than the rest, less important than Ananus however, who was engaged in second place, had said these things to the Idumaeans who were most indignant because they had been straightway received by the city, Simon one of the leaders of the Idumaeans (spoke thusly): 'It is not in the least,' he said, ' to be wondered at if they rage against citizens and hold them shut up who have closed the gates to an allied tribe and do not allow their colleagues and comrades to enter, who speak to us from the wall and drive us back from the walls as if enemies, whom they consider friends. Who may doubt that they prepare to admit the Romans and perhaps to wreathe the gates while they are entering? What is the greater injury? Certainly that city is accustomed to be open to all men for the reason of reverence of the way of life, to us alone as if enemies is it shut off, we alone are rejected, we alone are driven off. They pretend to seek our judgment whom they consider worthy not even of the threshold of the city. Those things are hidden which they have done against them, we are the witnesses and judges of our hurt. We have noticed what those shut in are enduring, when we are ordered to put down our arms, and it is believable what their decision is anticipated to be, whose credibility is mistrusted? Let us hasten therefore to rescue those who are shut up, for whom the temple has been made a prison, lest they should be held up to the arrival of the Roman army and given up as captives to Vespasian. Let us take away the siege from the temple, let us drive away the offensive guards who allow no one to go out even for purging their bowels. If anyone wishes to carry in food for those shut up, it is prevented, if anyone wishes to go out, he is snatched away to death. The practice of religion has been made a crime.' [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.8]

The parallel passage in Jewish War reads:

Thus spake Jesus; yet did not the multitude of the Idumeans give any attention to what he said, but were in a rage, because they did not meet with a ready entrance into the city. The generals also had indignation at the offer of laying down their arms, and looked upon it as equal to a captivity, to throw them away at any man's injunction whomsoever. But Simon, the son of Cathlas, one of their commanders, with much ado quieted the tumult of his own men, and stood so that the high priests might hear him, and said as follows: "I can no longer wonder that the patrons of liberty are under custody in the temple, since there are those that shut the gates of our common city to their own nation, and at the same time are prepared to admit the Romans into it; nay, perhaps are disposed to crown the gates with garlands at their coming, while they speak to the Idumeans from their own towers, and enjoin them to throw down their arms which they have taken up for the preservation of its liberty. And while they will not intrust the guard of our metropolis to their kindred, profess to make them judges of the differences that are among them; nay, while they accuse some men of having slain others without a legal trial, they do themselves condemn a whole nation after an ignominious manner, and have now walled up that city from their own nation, which used to be open to even all foreigners that came to worship there. We have indeed come in great haste to you, and to a war against our own countrymen; and the reason why we have made such haste is this, that we may preserve that freedom which you are so unhappy as to betray. You have probably been guilty of the like crimes against those whom you keep in custody, and have, I suppose, collected together the like plausible pretenses against them also that you make use of against us; after which you have gotten the mastery of those within the temple, and keep them in custody, while they are only taking care of the public affairs. You have also shut the gates of the city in general against nations that are the most nearly related to you; and while you give such injurious commands to others, you complain that you have been tyrannized over by them, and fix the name of unjust governors upon such as are tyrannized over by yourselves. Who can bear this your abuse of words, while they have a regard to the contrariety of your actions, unless you mean this, that those Idumeans do now exclude you out of your metropolis, whom you exclude from the sacred offices of your own country? One may indeed justly complain of those that are besieged in the temple, that when they had courage enough to punish those tyrants whom you call eminent men, and free from any accusations, because of their being your companions in wickedness, they did not begin with you, and thereby cut off beforehand the most dangerous parts of this treason. But if these men have been more merciful than the public necessity required, we that are Idumeans will preserve this house of God, and will fight for our common country, and will oppose by war as well those that attack them from abroad, as those that betray them from within. Here will we abide before the walls in our armor, until either the Romans grow weary in waiting for you, or you become friends to liberty, and repent of what you have done against it." [Jewish War 4.4.4]

As I said in my last post, I have a hard time taking any of this seriously. It is an obvious contrivance. As Hegesippus himself at admits AT ITS BEST what is described here might be considered a shadow of the truth. I tend to view it as a diversion from Justus's narrative which unfortunately is no longer with us. The one thing that emerges from this discussion is Hegesippus's "Simon one of the leaders of the Idumaeans" becomes in Jewish War "Simon, the son of Cathlas, one of their [i.e. Idumaean] commanders." Kasher (Jews, Idumaeans, and ancient Arabs: relations of the Jews in Eretz-Israel p. 226) pulls back the falseness of this Hebrew name by noting "As for the names of the Idumaean commanders we see they all had Hebrew or Aramaic names, two of them being brothers. Reconstruction of the name Simon son of Cathlas from the root qatala (= murderer) is based on comparison of the passages mentioning the man in War, V 249, and probably in VI 148 and IV 271."

Clearly then Jewish War is inventing a name for Simon based on his role in the "murders" in Jerusalem. More importantly it is further removed from the original narrative common to both traditions.

stephan huller

We continue with our section by section comparative study of Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War. The next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus reads:

Hearing these things Jesus retired considering himself to be resisting to no purpose with the will of god opposed, and indeed hostile forces were resounding within and without, and the state was being attacked from two sides. The Idumaeans were complaining because they were shut out, those located in the temple were plotting how they should be joined with the Idumaeans. Fear tormented the latter that the Idumaeans might go away before the accomplishment (of their purpose), the shame the intention of withdrawing tortured the former. And already almost distrust had arisen when suddenly at night there arises a terrible windstorm, a black tempest. The winds howl, the sky begins to tremble, the violence of the heavy rains pours forth strongly, there are dreadful flashes of lightning, monstrous thunderings, such rumblings of the earth that the world is thought to be dissolving. Who would think that this would more injure those located within the city than those existing outside the city, since the first were protected by roofed structures, the latter were exposed to the pouring rains? But the fear of injury frightened more than the injury itself. Finally those who had no refuge of roofed structures covered themselves with shields remaining on duty and not dispersing. Those about their homes and those who scattered gave opportunity that the gates should be opened by those who were within the temple. The opinions of the people were wavering and diverse. Some thought that the great offended god had moved the storms against the Idumaeans because they had come armed against their fellows. Ananus and the more profound abilities of the elders conjectured that the Idumaeans by the insult of themselves were more aroused to the destruction of their allies. Finally more disturbed than other nights Ananus that night remissly not from fatigue of the body but more from despair of the mind yielded to the circumstances flowing against him and the storms fighting for his and the world's destruction, he thought that the watches need not be looked to, as if he gave permission to disperse wherever and to whomever there was the desire. Having gotten which opportunity those who had taken refuge in the temple rising up cut the bars of the city gates. The din of the heavens worked with them so that the sound of the saws was not heard and the noise of those going out. Next coming to the wall they opened the gate near the crowds of Idumaeans. It would have been the last day for the entire people if they had not thought to go straightway to the temple before a place of concealment in the city. But because those who were being held shut in within the temple fearing for themselves and, the entrance of the Idumaeans having been recognized, fearing that an attack of the surrounding people might be made against themselves, that those about to die might demand vengeance, they asked that they themselves be taken away first for execution, then afterwards themselves and kindred men having been set free that they be sent forth among the people, to turn aside to those who had sent delegates asking assistance of safety, as soon as the price of the unexpected breakin should be paid to its originators chiefly by this service. For when things proceeded in accordance with their wish, all having poured forth from the temple like from a certain fortress in an extended battle line, they killed in every street whomsoever they met with, some sleeping, some terrified. Nothing availed prayers, nothing tears, nothing the insignia of public office, tokens of no merits, all were indiscriminately slain. Finally seeing the monstrous bestiality in these follow-ups, because none were spared, they themselves ensnared themselves, by a more wretched means as it seems to me, than if they had been killed by an enemy, because the suicide will be ascribed to cruelty, the knot of the hideous noose is given even to the upright. But what is the place for deliberation, when the fear of executions was so great, when each feared not death but torture before death, to which death would be a remedy. Blood overflowed everywhere and especially around the temple, because there were collected those who were guarding those shut in. Finally there were found that day of the killed eight thousand five hundred men. Afterwards turning against the city they killed in this way like a certain herd of cattle whatever men they encountered in their path. It was a lamentable sight for war to be waged within the city that was previously reverenced by all, for ruin to be brought upon the poor and feeble. Indeed the young and stronger were shut into prison, who were considered suitable for the faction, but with great courage the majority preferred to undergo every suffering rather than associate themselves with the morally lost. Nor was there any limit or sense of decency, so raged the madness of the monstrousness. Later when these (things) were seen to be madness, with the progress of time they began to pretend to themselves reasons for those slain, that they had brought the guilty to justice, not that justice was sought for, but that cruelty was aroused. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.9]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

And now did the Idumeans make an acclamation to what Simon had said; but Jesus went away sorrowful, as seeing that the Idumeans were against all moderate counsels, and that the city was besieged on both sides. Nor indeed were the minds of the Idumeans at rest; for they were in a rage at the injury that had been offered them by their exclusion out of the city; and when they thought the zealots had been strong, but saw nothing of theirs to support them, they were in doubt about the matter, and many of them repented that they had come thither. But the shame that would attend them in case they returned without doing any thing at all, so far overcame that their repentance, that they lay all night before the wall, though in a very bad encampment; for there broke out a prodigious storm in the night, with the utmost violence, and very strong winds, with the largest showers of rain, with continued lightnings, terrible thunderings, and amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth, that was in an earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these wonders foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming.

Now the opinion of the Idumeans and of the citizens was one and the same. The Idumeans thought that God was angry at their taking arms, and that they would not escape punishment for their making war upon their metropolis. Ananus and his party thought that they had conquered without fighting, and that God acted as a general for them; but truly they proved both ill conjectures at what was to come, and made those events to be ominous to their enemies, while they were themselves to undergo the ill effects of them; for the Idumeans fenced one another by uniting their bodies into one band, and thereby kept themselves warm, and connecting their shields over their heads, were not so much hurt by the rain. But the zealots were more deeply concerned for the danger these men were in than they were for themselves, and got together, and looked about them to see whether they could devise any means of assisting them. The hotter sort of them thought it best to force their guards with their arms, and after that to fall into the midst of the city, and publicly open the gates to those that came to their assistance; as supposing the guards would be in disorder, and give way at such an unexpected attempt of theirs, especially as the greater part of them were unarmed and unskilled in the affairs of war; and that besides the multitude of the citizens would not be easily gathered together, but confined to their houses by the storm: and that if there were any hazard in their undertaking, it became them to suffer any thing whatsoever themselves, rather than to overlook so great a multitude as were miserably perishing on their account. But the more prudent part of them disapproved of this forcible method, because they saw not only the guards about them very numerous, but the walls of the city itself carefully watched, by reason of the Idumeans. They also supposed that Ananus would be every where, and visit the guards every hour; which indeed was done upon other nights, but was omitted that night, not by reason of any slothfulness of Ananus, but by the overbearing appointment of fate, that so both he might himself perish, and the multitude of the guards might perish with him; for truly, as the night was far gone, and the storm very terrible, Ananus gave the guards in the cloisters leave to go to sleep; while it came into the heads of the zealots to make use of the saws belonging to the temple, and to cut the bars of the gates to pieces. The noise of the wind, and that not inferior sound of the thunder, did here also conspire with their designs, that the noise of the saws was not heard by the others.

So they secretly went out of the temple to the wall of the city, and made use of their saws, and opened that gate which was over against the Idumeans. Now at first there came a fear upon the Idumeans themselves, which disturbed them, as imagining that Ananus and his party were coming to attack them, so that every one of them had his right hand upon his sword, in order to defend himself; but they soon came to know who they were that came to them, and were entered the city. And had the Idumeans then fallen upon the city, nothing could have hindered them from destroying the people every man of them, such was the rage they were in at that time; but as they first of all made haste to get the zealots out of custody, which those that brought them in earnestly desired them to do, and not to overlook those for whose sakes they were come, in the midst of their distresses, nor to bring them into a still greater danger; for that when they had once seized upon the guards, it would be easy for them to fall upon the city; but that if the city were once alarmed, they would not then be able to overcome those guards, because as soon as they should perceive they were there, they would put themselves in order to fight them, and would hinder their coming into the temple.

THIS advice pleased the Idumeans, and they ascended through the city to the temple. The zealots were also in great expectation of their coming, and earnestly waited for them. When therefore these were entering, they also came boldly out of the inner temple, and mixing themselves among the Idumeans, they attacked the guards; and some of those that were upon the watch, but were fallen asleep, they killed as they were asleep; but as those that were now awakened made a cry, the whole multitude arose, and in the amazement they were in caught hold of their arms immediately, and betook themselves to their own defense; and so long as they thought they were only the zealots who attacked them, they went on boldly, as hoping to overpower them by their numbers; but when they saw others pressing in upon them also, they perceived the Idumeans were got in; and the greatest part of them laid aside their arms, together with their courage, and betook themselves to lamentations. But some few of the younger sort covered themselves with their armor, and valiantly received the Idumeans, and for a while protected the multitude of old men. Others, indeed, gave a signal to those that were in the city of the calamities they were in; but when these were also made sensible that the Idumeans were come in, none of them durst come to their assistance, only they returned the terrible echo of wailing, and lamented their misfortunes. A great howling of the women was excited also, and every one of the guards were in danger of being killed. The zealots also joined in the shouts raised by the Idumeans; and the storm itself rendered the cry more terrible; nor did the Idumeans spare any body; for as they are naturally a most barbarous and bloody nation, and had been distressed by the tempest, they made use of their weapons against those that had shut the gates against them, and acted in the same manner as to those that supplicated for their lives, and to those that fought them, insomuch that they ran through those with their swords who desired them to remember the relation there was between them, and begged of them to have regard to their common temple. Now there was at present neither any place for flight, nor any hope of preservation; but as they were driven one upon another in heaps, so were they slain. Thus the greater part were driven together by force, as there was now no place of retirement, and the murderers were upon them; and, having no other way, threw themselves down headlong into the city; whereby, in my opinion, they underwent a more miserable destruction than that which they avoided, because that was a voluntary one. And now the outer temple was all of it overflowed with blood; and that day, as it came on, they saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies there.

But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these slaughters; but they now betook themselves to the city, and plundered every house, and slew every one they met; and for the other multitude, they esteemed it needless to go on with killing them, but they sought for the high priests, and the generality went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon as they caught them they slew them, and then standing upon their dead bodies, in way of jest, upbraided Ananus with his kindness to the people, and Jesus with his speech made to them from the wall. Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death of Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city, and that from this very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer of their preservation, slain in the midst of their city. He was on other accounts also a venerable, and a very just man; and besides the grandeur of that nobility, and dignity, and honor of which he was possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity, even with regard to the meanest of the people; he was a prodigious lover of liberty, and an admirer of a democracy in government; and did ever prefer the public welfare before his own advantage, and preferred peace above all things; for he was thoroughly sensible that the Romans were not to be conquered. He also foresaw that of necessity a war would follow, and that unless the Jews made up matters with them very dexterously, they would be destroyed; to say all in a word, if Ananus had survived, they had certainly compounded matters; for he was a shrewd man in speaking and persuading the people, and had already gotten the mastery of those that opposed his designs, or were for the war. And the Jews had then put abundance of delays in the way of the Romans, if they had had such a general as he was. Jesus was also joined with him; and although he was inferior to him upon the comparison, he was superior to the rest; and I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire, that he cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers, while those that a little before had worn the sacred garments, and had presided over the public worship; and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt on the whole habitable earth when they came into our city, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts. And I cannot but imagine that virtue itself groaned at these men's case, and lamented that she was here so terribly conquered by wickedness. And this at last was the end of Ananus and Jesus.

Now after these were slain, the zealots and the multitude of the Idumeans fell upon the people as upon a flock of profane animals, and cut their throats; and for the ordinary sort, they were destroyed in what place soever they caught them. But for the noblemen and the youth, they first caught them and bound them, and shut them up in prison, and put off their slaughter, in hopes that some of them would turn over to their party; but not one of them would comply with their desires, but all of them preferred death before being enrolled among such wicked wretches as acted against their own country. But this refusal of theirs brought upon them terrible torments; for they were so scourged and tortured, that their bodies were not able to sustain their torments, till at length, and with difficulty, they had the favor to be slain. Those whom they caught in the day time were slain in the night, and then their bodies were carried out and thrown away, that there might be room for other prisoners; and the terror that was upon the people was so great, that no one had courage enough either to weep openly for the dead man that was related to him, or to bury him; but those that were shut up in their own houses could only shed tears in secret, and durst not even groan without great caution, lest any of their enemies should hear them; for if they did, those that mourned for others soon underwent the same death with those whom they mourned for. Only in the night time they would take up a little dust, and throw it upon their bodies; and even some that were the most ready to expose themselves to danger would do it in the day time: and there were twelve thousand of the better sort who perished in this manner. [Jewish War 4.4.5 - 4.5.3]

Both Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War continue to present the 'good side' within the temple promoting the correct sublimation of the para-suicidal impulse - i.e. to voluntarily offer oneself up for one's fellow man:

fearing that an attack of the surrounding people might be made against themselves, that those about to die might demand vengeance, they asked that they themselves be taken away first for execution

The second century editor creates a scenario where Jerusalem is understood to fall owing to the irrational suicidal or parricidal impulse of the Jews - viz. "seeing the monstrous bestiality in these follow-ups, because none were spared, they themselves ensnared themselves, by a more wretched means as it seems to me, than if they had been killed by an enemy, because the suicide will be ascribed to cruelty, the knot of the hideous noose is given even to the upright."

Jewish War describes the death of Ananus here and makes it the very cause of the destruction of the temple (we know that the earlier copies of Hegesippus associated this with death of James the brother of Jesus. Pseudo-Hegesippus saves the discussion of the death of Ananus and Jesus for the beginning of Book 5 but the understanding is still the same - viz. "there lay dead in you unburied Ananus and Jesus the foremost of the priests, and they not long since clothed in the priestly garments, which were objects of veneration even to foreigners, they have lain with disfigured body, the food of birds and the devouring of dogs, dismembered and scattered over the entire city, so that the appearance of former sanctity was seen to lament such a great affront of the sacred name and the degradation of the public office. But you yourself made for yourself the beginning of this vileness, who killed the prophets in the middle of your bosom, who stoned the blessed ones of the lord. Zacharias lay lifeless before the temple, he lay unburied. Here therefore blood bathes him. But what cause of death was there for Ananus except that he upbraided your people, because it did not rise up in defense of the temple, because he complained about the surrendered freedom, the forsaken courage, the trampled relics of ancient religious rites, the polluted altars?" [Pseudo-Hegesippus 5.2]

stephan huller

This next section is particularly strong in making the case that Pseudo-Hegesippus is older than Jewish War.

stephan huller

We continue with our side by side comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War in the hope of determining which narrative is closer to the original second century manuscript known to Irenaeus, Clement, Origen and likely Eusebius and Epiphanius in a slightly different form). The next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus reads:

There was in the community of citizens Zacharias, who hated the wicked and would not mingle with the infamous, rich in property, whose abundance they thought would be effectual in disuniting his party or a rich booty for themselves. This they thought to acquire by a charge of betrayal. But he untouched by knowledge of this began to help himself with boldness, so that he not only countered the charges, but added those guilty of the greatest outrages. The matter was heard before seventy men. They set everyone free, because nothing was brought forward that was pertinent to the crime. But yet the former bursting in throw matters into disorder and drive away the judges not only with injury but with peril, so that by their example others in the future would beware to take steadfastness in making judgments if their will was opposed. On the contrary however lest anyone should be discharged, they themselves the executors of their wraths killed without judgment those whom they pleased. Gorgon a man pleasing and amiable was slain. Also Niger Peraites, who among the defenders of Iudaea had been chosen for watching over great matters, a fighting man, so that he even exhibited as signs of valor the scars of wounds, was seized for death and when he saw himself being led outside the city, he began to beg not for life but for burial. But he received a response of not even his so pitiable petition in accordance with mercifulness. False accusations were contrived: if anyone ransomed himself, he was innocent, whoever did not offer money was killed as if guilty. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.10]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

And now these zealots and Idumeans were quite weary of barely killing men, so they had the impudence of setting up fictitious tribunals and judicatures for that purpose; and as they intended to have Zacharias the son of Baruch, one of the most eminent of the citizens, slain, - so what provoked them against him was, that hatred of wickedness and love of libertywhich were so eminent in him: he was also a rich man, so that by taking him off, they did not only hope to seize his effects, but also to get rid of a mall that had great power to destroy them. So they called together, by a public proclamation, seventy of the principal men of the populace, for a show, as if they were real judges, while they had no proper authority. Before these was Zacharias accused of a design to betray their polity to the Romans, and having traitorously sent to Vespasian for that purpose. Now there appeared no proof or sign of what he was accused; but they affirmed themselves that they were well persuaded that so it was, and desired that such their affirmation might he taken for sufficient evidence. Now when Zacharias clearly saw that there was no way remaining for his escape from them, as having been treacherously called before them, and then put in prison, but not with any intention of a legal trial, he took great liberty of speech in that despair of his life he was under. Accordingly he stood up, and laughed at their pretended accusation, and in a few words confuted the crimes laid to his charge; after which he turned his speech to his accusers, and went over distinctly all their transgressions of the law, and made heavy lamentation upon the confusion they had brought public affairs to: in the mean time, the zealots grew tumultuous, and had much ado to abstain from drawing their swords, although they designed to preserve the appearance and show of judicature to the end. They were also desirous, on other accounts, to try the judges, whether they would be mindful of what was just at their own peril. Now the seventy judges brought in their verdict that the person accused was not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with him, than to have his death laid at their doors; hereupon there arose a great clamor of the zealots upon his acquittal, and they all had indignation at the judges for not understanding that the authority that was given them was but in jest. So two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple, and slew him; and as he fell down dead, they bantered him, and said, "Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more sure acquittal to thee than the other." They also threw him down from the temple immediately into the valley beneath it. Moreover, they struck the judges with the backs of their swords, by way of abuse, and thrust them out of the court of the temple, and spared their lives with no other design than that, when they were dispersed among the people in the city, they might become their messengers, to let them know they were no better than slaves.

But by this time the Idumeans repented of their coming, and were displeased at what had been done; and when they were assembled together by one of the zealots, who had come privately to them, he declared to them what a number of wicked pranks they had themselves done in conjunction with those that invited them, and gave a particular account of what mischiefs had been done against their metropolis. - He said that they had taken arms, as though the high priests were betraying their metropolis to the Romans, but had found no indication of any such treachery; but that they had succored those that had pretended to believe such a thing, while they did themselves the works of war and tyranny, after an insolent manner. It had been indeed their business to have hindered them from such their proceedings at the first, but seeing they had once been partners with them in shedding the blood of their own countrymen, it was high time to put a stop to such crimes, and not continue to afford any more assistance to such as are subverting the laws of their forefathers; for that if any had taken it ill that the gates had been shut against them, and they had not been permitted to come into the city, yet that those who had excluded them have been punished, and Ananus is dead, and that almost all those people had been destroyed in one night's time. That one may perceive many of themselves now repenting for what they had done, and might see the horrid barbarity of those that had invited them, and that they had no regard to such as had saved them; that they were so impudent as to perpetrate the vilest things, under the eyes of those that had supported them, and that their wicked actions would be laid to the charge of the Idumeans, and would be so laid to their charge till somebody obstructs their proceedings, or separates himself from the same wicked action; that they therefore ought to retire home, since the imputation of treason appears to be a Calumny, and that there was no expectation of the coming of the Romans at this time, and that the government of the city was secured by such walls as cannot easily be thrown down; and, by avoiding any further fellowship with these bad men, to make some excuse for themselves, as to what they had been so far deluded, as to have been partners with them hitherto.

The Idumeans complied with these persuasions; and, in the first place, they set those that were in the prisons at liberty, being about two thousand of the populace, who thereupon fled away immediately to Simon, one whom we shall speak of presently. After which these Idumeans retired from Jerusalem, and went home; which departure of theirs was a great surprise to both parties; for the people, not knowing of their repentance, pulled up their courage for a while, as eased of so many of their enemies, while the zealots grew more insolent not as deserted by their confederates, but as freed from such men as might hinder their designs, and plat some stop to their wickedness. Accordingly, they made no longer any delay, nor took any deliberation in their enormous practices, but made use of the shortest methods for all their executions and what they had once resolved upon, they put in practice sooner than any one could imagine. But their thirst was chiefly after the blood of valiant men, and men of good families; the one sort of which they destroyed out of envy, the other out of fear; for they thought their whole security lay in leaving no potent men alive; on which account they slew Gorion, a person eminent in dignity, and on account of his family also; he was also for democracy, and of as great boldness and freedom of spirit as were any of the Jews whosoever; the principal thing that ruined him, added to his other advantages, was his free speaking. Nor did Niger of Peres escape their hands; he had been a man of great valor in their war with the Romans, but was now drawn through the middle of the city, and, as he went, he frequently cried out, and showed the scars of his wounds; and when he was drawn out of the gates, and despaired of his preservation, he besought them to grant him a burial; but as they had threatened him beforehand not to grant him any spot of earth for a grave, which he chiefly desired of them, so did they slay him [without permitting him to be buried]. Now when they were slaying him, he made this imprecation upon them, that they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this war, and besides all that, they might come to the mutual slaughter of one another; all which imprecations God confirmed against these impious men, and was what came most justly upon them, when not long afterward. they tasted of their own madness in their mutual seditions one against another. So when this Niger was killed, their fears of being overturned were diminished; and indeed there was no part of the people but they found out some pretense to destroy them; for some were therefore slain, because they had had differences with some of them; and as to those that had not opposed them in times of peace, they watched seasonable opportunities to gain some accusation against them; and if any one did not come near them at all, he was under their suspicion as a proud man; if any one came with boldness, he was esteemed a contemner of them; and if any one came as aiming to oblige them, he was supposed to have some treacherous plot against them; while the only punishment of crimes, whether they were of the greatest or smallest sort, was death. Nor could any one escape, unless he were very inconsiderable, either on account of the meanness of his birth, or on account of his fortune. [Jewish War 4.5.4 - 4.6.1]

I don't know how anyone can look at this section and argue that Jewish War is more original than Pseudo-Hegesippus. Hegesippus begins by telling a story about a certain Zacharias WITHOUT mentioning that he was killed by the zealots. Jewish War by contrast claims that he was yet another martyr for the cause of truth and follows a monotonous pattern of attributing his death to an accusation that he was collaborating with the Romans (the later editor clearly had a limited imagination). Indeed in the course of this expansion this Zacharias becomes 'Zacharias the son of Barachias' of Matthew 23:25.

Whiston explains the story as follows:

some commentators are ready to suppose that this" Zacharias, the son of Baruch," here most unjustly slain by the Jews in the temple, was the very same person with "Zacharias, the son of Barachias," whom our Savior says the Jews "slew between the temple and the altar," Matthew 23:35. This is a somewhat strange exposition; since Zechariah the prophet was really "the son of Barachiah," and "grandson of Iddo, Zechariah 1:1; and how he died, we have no other account than that before us in St. Matthew: while this "Zacharias" was "the son of Baruch." Since the slaughter was past when our Savior spake these words, the Jews had then already slain him; whereas this slaughter of "Zacharias, the son of Baruch," in Josephus, was then about thirty-four years future. And since the slaughter was "between the temple and the altar," in the court of the priests, one of the most sacred and remote parts of the whole temple; while this was, in Josephus's own words, in the middle of the temple, and much the most probably in the court of Israel only (for we have had no intimation that the zealots had at this time profaned the court of the priests. See B. V. ch. 1. sect. 2). Nor do I believe that our Josephus, who always insists on the peculiar sacredness of the inmost court, and of the holy house that was in it, would have omitted so material an aggravation of this barbarous murder, as perpetrated in. a place so very holy, had that been the true place of it. See Antiq. B. XI. ch. 7. sect. 1, and the note here on B. V. ch. 1. sect. 2.

I don't know how to explain this obvious relationship between gospel and Josephus. On the one hand it makes no sense to think that whoever edited Matthew would think Jesus was referencing anyone other than a Zechariah who lived in the distant past. But then again Jesus would be acknowledged to have prophetic powers to know all things that would happen in the future. Is the only reasonable possibility that the mention of Zachariah son of Barachias in Josephus was a borrowing from Matthew. I really don't know but I think the one thing we can be sure of is that the tradition behind Pseudo-Hegesippus DID NOT include this material.

As such Jewish War is once again to be demonstrated as a later production when compared with Pseudo-Hegesippus.

The long section added to Jewish War with a zealot engaging in conversation with the Idumaeans follows a familiar pattern. We are told now that the chief priests were NOT conspiring to surrender the city to the Romans (something explicitly contradicted in the previous narrative). As Hegesippus does not contain Ananus's long speech nor his murder and those of his associates it is no wonder that this section is not present in Pseudo-Hegesippus. However as THAT extra material clear represents an addition made in Jewish War, the explicit denial here on the part of the zealot might well represent an additional layer of editing. In other words, Jewish War might well be two layers removed from Hegesippus.

Jewish War also adds something to the story of Niger of Peres. Hegesippus conceives the story of Niger as an example of the manner in which the rebels mistreated wounded veterans. Jewish War adds a 'curse' from Niger which re-re-emphasizes the para-suicidal theme. There is a tendency in Jewish War for supernatural explanations so we see added to the original material known to Hegesippus the idea that:

now when they were slaying him [Niger], he made this imprecation upon them, that they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this war, and besides all that, they might come to the mutual slaughter of one another; all which imprecations God confirmed against these impious men, and was what came most justly upon them, when not long afterward. they tasted of their own madness in their mutual seditions one against another.

I find this section particularly useful in arguing for Pseudo-Hegesippus being closer to the lost original second century υπομνηματα. It is in my mind impossible and utterly implausible to argue that Hegesippus shortened a text like our received Jewish War. It makes more sense again to make the case that Jewish War is an expansion of a common ancestor text to both.

stephan huller

The next section in our section by section comparison between Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War. The next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus reads:

While these things are being done in Jerusalem, Vespasian in the meantime was subduing other parts of the tribe of Judaea. It came to him what civil discord there was in Jerusalem, what slaughter they inflicted upon themselves in domestic battles, what sufferings of citizens was exacted by citizens. Many urged that he should hasten there, lest anything from the Roman triumph and of his glory should be detracted. But he a moderate and prudent man did not think that suitable which was judged so by the opinion of the crowd but thought to conduct matters by the higher consideration of the primary goal, he began to remind these things to those persuading that the state was not , who provoke the Romans. But if anyone claims anything of our glory to be detracted, let him learn that a solution with tranquility is always benefited by battles but generally even arms having been laid down praise is obtained and any debt of the country is dissolved. 'Of what interest is it how an enemy is overcome by our or his arms, unless that he is overcome by own arms without Roman unpopularity. For indeed they are not able to complain about us when they themselves have wounded themselves. At the same time they have promoted a true war against us they show, at the same time they do not spare themselves. This vindication to be seen from heaven, that they are inflicted with madness always regarded as superior to a battle with danger. Finally our Maximus conquered Hannibal more by delaying than by fighting. Although the Scipios subjugated Africa, however the victory of the wars was in common with many, to Maximus alone is given that he restored the Roman fortunes by delaying. It is more important to have preserved the Roman empire than to have enlarged it. Let us compare however the merits of the virtues. Indeed the thoughts of wisdom are not of less value in war itself than the marks of bravery. Let them perish therefore of their own arms, nothing is taken away from praise and much is added to our victory. They do not know theirs to be saved whom we spare. But what if we shall begin to threaten, perhaps they will come to their senses among themselves and will return to favor? -- which I do not fear, but I bring forward against your opinion -- but if the civil discord continues, let themselves be seen to have subdued themselves, the Roman army to have done nothing, our hands to have been idle, victory to have been obtained not by our valor but by the hostile slaughter between themselves? And so this more prudent counsel that in our absence they should rage to the point of destruction for themselves, let no one think them to have been engaged more by ours than by their own factions. Therefore we will approach better, when a victor shall be left who shall accede to our triumph. Certainly let those come to us who are fleeing their own, let them find among us the safety for themselves whom their own plague shall have harassed.' [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4:11]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

And now all the rest of the commanders of the Romans deemed this sedition among their enemies to be of great advantage to them, and were very earnest to march to the city, and they urged Vespasian, as their lord and general in all cases, to make haste, and said to him, that "the providence of God is on our side, by setting our enemies at variance against one another; that still the change in such cases may be sudden, and the Jews may quickly be at one again, either because they may be tired out with their civil miseries, or repent them of such doings." But Vespasian replied, that they were greatly mistaken in what they thought fit to be done, as those that, upon the theater, love to make a show of their hands, and of their weapons, but do it at their own hazard, without considering, what was for their advantage, and for their security; for that if they now go and attack the city immediately, they shall but occasion their enemies to unite together, and shall convert their force, now it is in its height, against themselves. But if they stay a while, they shall have fewer enemies, because they will be consumed in this sedition: that God acts as a general of the Romans better than he can do, and is giving the Jews up to them without any pains of their own, and granting their army a victory without any danger; that therefore it is their best way, while their enemies are destroying each other with their own hands, and falling into the greatest of misfortunes, which is that of sedition, to sit still as spectators of the dangers they run into, rather than to fight hand to hand with men that love murdering, and are mad one against another. But if any one imagines that the glory of victory, when it is gotten without fighting, will be more insipid, let him know this much, that a glorious success, quietly obtained, is more profitable than the dangers of a battle; for we ought to esteem these that do what is agreeable to temperance and prudence no less glorious than those that have gained great reputation by their actions in war: that he shall lead on his army with greater force when their enemies are diminished, and his own army refreshed after the continual labors they had undergone. However, that this is not a proper time to propose to ourselves the glory of victory; for that the Jews are not now employed in making of armor or building of walls, nor indeed in getting together auxiliaries, while the advantage will be on their side who give them such opportunity of delay; but that the Jews are vexed to pieces every day by their civil wars and dissensions, and are under greater miseries than, if they were once taken, could be inflicted on them by us. Whether therefore any one hath regard to what is for our safety, he ought to suffer these Jews to destroy one another; or whether he hath regard to the greater glory of the action, we ought by no means to meddle with those men, now they are afflicted with a distemper at home; for should we now conquer them, it would be said the conquest was not owing to our bravery, but to their sedition." [Jewish War 4.6.2]

It is unmistakable now once the narrative switched to the supposed events behind the walls of Jerusalem that Jewish War represents a complete working of the material preserved more faithfully in Pseudo-Hegesippus. There is a shared theme which bridges both textual traditions that the Jewish religion causes people to be para-suicidal lunatics. For instance Pseudo-Hegesippus has Vespasian proclaim:

they [the Jews] are not able to complain about us when they themselves have wounded themselves. At the same time they have promoted a true war against us they show, at the same time they do not spare themselves.

and again:

Let them perish therefore of their own arms, nothing is taken away from praise and much is added to our victory.

and yet again even more forcefully:

let themselves be seen to have subdued themselves, the Roman army to have done nothing, our hands to have been idle, victory to have been obtained not by our valor but by the hostile slaughter between themselves? And so this more prudent counsel that in our absence they should rage to the point of destruction for themselves, let no one think them to have been engaged more by ours than by their own factions

The original second century narrative is also preserved in Jewish War but there is an unmistakable theological interest layered on top of that. As we read Vespasian now announce:

the providence of God is on our side, by setting our enemies at variance against one another; that still the change in such cases may be sudden, and the Jews may quickly be at one again, either because they may be tired out with their civil miseries, or repent them of such doings.

and again:

that God acts as a general of the Romans better than he can do, and is giving the Jews up to them without any pains of their own, and granting their army a victory without any danger; that therefore it is their best way, while their enemies are destroying each other with their own hands, and falling into the greatest of misfortunes, which is that of sedition, to sit still as spectators of the dangers they run into, rather than to fight hand to hand with men that love murdering, and are mad one against another

The para-suicidal narrative is consistent throughout Jewish War also because it was at the core of the original second century narrative:

he ought to suffer these Jews to destroy one another; or whether he hath regard to the greater glory of the action, we ought by no means to meddle with those men, now they are afflicted with a distemper at home; for should we now conquer them, it would be said the conquest was not owing to our bravery, but to their sedition

How on earth does anyone argue that first century Josephus inserted the theological mumbo jumbo into Vespasian's mouth? As we have seen on more than one occasion, the only plausible answer is that it is a second century author with a clear agenda to 'make a point' to Jews and Jewish sympathizers i.e. learn to accept the God-given authority of the Roman Empire!

stephan huller

We continue our section by section comparison of two texts claiming to be 'Josephus's take on the Jewish War.' We have noted that there is an especially strong theological reworking of this original narrative in Jewish War. Nowhere is this more evident than in the section we are about to examine.

So without further ado here is the next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus:

Nor did his opinion fail Vespasian, for those who were able for a price to ransom themselves that they should be let go fled to the Romans. Every street of the roads was filled with those fleeing, every path. The rich were set free, and the poor, to whom money was lacking for ransoming, were killed. Many even outside the city greatly feared ambushes and high-way robbery and especially those without resources to whom attendants were lacking. And so equal danger was offered to them outdoors and at home, both places dangerous, to most therefore with the hope of burial in their country death among their own was considered most tolerable. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.12]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

And now the commanders joined in their approbation of what Vespasian had said, and it was soon discovered how wise an opinion he had given. And indeed many there were of the Jews that deserted every day, and fled away from the zealots, although their flight was very difficult, since they had guarded every passage out of the city, and slew every one that was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were going over to the Romans; yet did he who gave them money get clear off, while he only that gave them none was voted a traitor. So the upshot was this, that the rich purchased their flight by money, while none but the poor were slain. Along all the roads also vast numbers of dead bodies lay in heaps, and even many of those that were so zealous in deserting at length chose rather to perish within the city; for the hopes of burial made death in their own city appear of the two less terrible to them. But these zealots came at last to that degree of barbarity, as not to bestow a burial either on those slain in the city, or on those that lay along the roads; but as if they had made an agreement to cancel both the laws of their country and the laws of nature, and, at the same time that they defiled men with their wicked actions, they would pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies to putrefy under the sun; and the same punishment was allotted to such as buried any as to those that deserted, which was no other than death; while he that granted the favor of a grave to another would presently stand in need of a grave himself. To say all in a word, no other gentle passion was so entirely lost among them as mercy; for what were the greatest objects of pity did most of all irritate these wretches, and they transferred their rage from the living to those that had been slain, and from the dead to the living. Nay, the terror was so very great, that he who survived called them that were first dead happy, as being at rest already; as did those that were under torture in the prisons, declare, that, upon this comparison, those that lay unburied were the happiest. These men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots did not disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment. [Jewish War 4.6.3]

Where Pseudo-Hegesippus simply says that people were doing anything they could to get out of Jerusalem, Jewish War AS ALWAYS IN THIS SECTION adds a theological explanation. The first addition in this section just develops familiar themes - the rebels struggle against the laws of God and nature - but the second addition makes a statement that even catches Whiston's eye. He writes:

This prediction, that the city (Jerusalem) should then "be taken, and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade Jews, and their own hands should pollute that temple;" or, as it is B. VI. ch. 2. sect. 1, "when any one should begin to slay his countrymen in the city;" is wanting in our present copies of the Old Testament. See Essay on the Old Test. p. 104--112. But this prediction, as Josephus well remarks here, though, with the other predictions of the prophets, it was now laughed at by the seditious, was by their very means soon exactly fulfilled. However, I cannot but here take notice of Grotius's positive assertion upon Matthew 26:9, here quoted by Dr. Hudson, that "it ought to be taken for granted, as a certain truth, that many predictions of the Jewish prophets were preserved, not in writing, but by memory." Whereas, it seems to me so far from certain, that I think it has no evidence nor probability at all.

I would argue that the author is just loosely paraphrasing Daniel 9:24 - 27. Yet this demonstrates something I have always suspected about this part of the narrative - it is NOT history but rather a pseudo-historical narrative reshaped to 'fit' a unique interpretation of Daniel. The question of who first introduced the theological structure is unclear. I suspect it all goes back to Justus of Tiberias's lost chronicle. If this is accepted then I would argue that that original narrative has been reshaped by our second century editor.

stephan huller

We continue with our side by side comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus with Jewish War. The next section in Pseudo-Hegesippus is:

When the fear of the people, from the great destruction spread among all, made everything subject to the faction, Johannes not content to exercise power in common with the leaders of the faction, began to aspire to despotic rule, and was offended by an equal. Therefore he destroyed the resolutions of the others, nothing except what was pleasing to him had approval, and he gradually joined followers to himself, whom he a master wished to deceive by guile and fraud, to put under obligation with money, to frighten with power, with which practices he had joined many to himself. Again there were not lacking those who from a dangerous eagerness had refused servitude, although especially accustomed to tyranny, were unable to endure servitude. And so there contended in one city three sorts of destructive calamities, tyranny, war, civil discord, of which each had destroyed not one but many cities. Of the three however war was the mildest and a just enemy seemed more tolerable than tyranny or faction. A fourth type added to these, of assassins who seeing the city seized by tyrannical commotions or the disturbances of civil disorder laid waste the entire vicinity, they carried off everything, women and boys who were not able to endure the labor of the journey from the infirmity of either sex or age they gave to death. And so to the number seven hundred were killed. Grain was collected in fortresses. They invaded fields, cities, temples, they carried off booty, an opportunity of killings was not let pass, with the appearance of an army on the march more exercised highway-robbery than had the experience of highway-robbery. The violence of robbery aggravated the war without forgiveness accorded surrender or gentleness in taking a thing in hand. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.13]

The parallel section in Jewish War reads:

By this time John was beginning to tyrannize, and thought it beneath him to accept of barely the same honors that others had; and joining to himself by degrees a party of the wickedest of them all, he broke off from the rest of the faction. This was brought about by his still disagreeing with the opinions of others, and giving out injunctions of his own, in a very imperious manner; so that it was evident he was setting up a monarchical power. Now some submitted to him out of their fear of him, and others out of their good-will to him; for he was a shrewd man to entice men to him, both by deluding them and putting cheats upon them. Nay, many there were that thought they should be safer themselves, if the causes of their past insolent actions should now be reduced to one head, and not to a great many. His activity was so great, and that both in action and in counsel, that he had not a few guards about him; yet was there a great party of his antagonists that left him; among whom envy at him weighed a great deal, while they thought it a very heavy thing to be in subjection to one that was formerly their equal. But the main reason that moved men against him was the dread of monarchy, for they could not hope easily to put an end to his power, if he had once obtained it; and yet they knew that he would have this pretense always against them, that they had opposed him when he was first advanced; while every one chose rather to suffer any thing whatsoever in war, than that, when they had been in a voluntary slavery for some time, they should afterward perish. So the sedition was divided into two parts, and John reigned in opposition to his adversaries over one of them: but for their leaders, they watched one another, nor did they at all, or at least very little, meddle with arms in their quarrels; but they fought earnestly against the people, and contended one with another which of them should bring home the greatest prey. But because the city had to struggle with three of the greatest misfortunes, war, and tyranny, and sedition, it appeared, upon the comparison, that the war was the least troublesome to the populace of them all. Accordingly, they ran away from their own houses to foreigners, and obtained that preservation from the Romans which they despaired to obtain among their own people.

And now a fourth misfortune arose, in order to bring our nation to destruction. There was a fortress of very great strength not far from Jerusalem, which had been built by our ancient kings, both as a repository for their effects in the hazards of war, and for the preservation of their bodies at the same time. It was called Masada. Those that were called Sicarii had taken possession of it formerly, but at this time they overran the neighboring countries, aiming only to procure to themselves necessaries; for the fear they were then in prevented their further ravages. But when once they were informed that the Roman army lay still, and that the Jews were divided between sedition and tyranny, they boldly undertook greater matters; and at the feast of unleavened bread, which the Jews celebrate in memory of their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage, when they were sent back into the country of their forefathers, they came down by night, without being discovered by those that could have prevented them, and overran a certain small city called Engaddi:--in which expedition they prevented those citizens that could have stopped them, before they could arm themselves, and fight them. They also dispersed them, and cast them out of the city. As for such as could not run away, being women and children, they slew of them above seven hundred. Afterward, when they had carried every thing out of their houses, and had seized upon all the fruits that were in a flourishing condition, they brought them into Masada. And indeed these men laid all the villages that were about the fortress waste, and made the whole country desolate; while there came to them every day, from all parts, not a few men as corrupt as themselves. At that time all the other regions of Judea that had hitherto been at rest were in motion, by means of the robbers. Now as it is in a human body, if the principal part be inflamed, all the members are subject to the same distemper; so, by means of the sedition and disorder that was in the metropolis,. had the wicked men that were in the country opportunity to ravage the same. Accordingly, when every one of them had plundered their own villages, they then retired into the desert; yet were these men that now got together, and joined in the conspiracy by parties, too small for an army, and too many for a gang of thieves: and thus did they fall upon the holy places and the cities; yet did it now so happen that they were sometimes very ill treated by those upon whom they fell with such violence, and were taken by them as men are taken in war: but still they prevented any further punishment as do robbers, who, as soon as their ravages [are discovered], run their way. Nor was there now any part of Judea that was not in a miserable condition, as well as its most eminent city also. [Jewish War 4.7.1,2]

Here we have one of Pseudo-Hegesippus's rare mentions of John the rebel leader. Yet what is most interesting is the manner in which Jesus war after emphasizing Vespasian's connection with the divinity and the Jews irrational para-suicidal interpretation of the Jewish law goes on to introduce Masada which we have already noted is a completely fictitious story developed to embody the manner in which the Jews were deluded by Saul's false example (i.e. the nobility of suicide).

There can again be no doubt that Jewish War is a rewrite of older material known to Hegesippus. Notice how these words in Pseudo-Hegesippus:

A fourth type added to these, of assassins who seeing the city seized by tyrannical commotions or the disturbances of civil disorder laid waste the entire vicinity ...

get turned into the first reference to the concluding suicidal image that ends the Josephan narrative:

And now a fourth misfortune arose, in order to bring our nation to destruction. There was a fortress of very great strength not far from Jerusalem, which had been built by our ancient kings, both as a repository for their effects in the hazards of war, and for the preservation of their bodies at the same time. It was called Masada. Those that were called Sicarii had taken possession of it formerly

In the same way another innocuous reference in Pseudo-Hegesippus:

grain was collected in fortresses

is developed into the second Masada reference:

[they] seized upon all the fruits that were in a flourishing condition, they brought them into Masada

If there is anyone who can explain to me why it makes sense to assume that Hegesippus is 'condensing' a reference to Masada I'd love to here. I would think it far more likely that - as always - the author of Jewish War is expanding the significance Masada. In other words, after augmenting Vespasian's speech and including allusions to Jewish scripture the author has now brought out Chekhov's gun. He is reminding readers about the ultimate example of the irrational understanding of divine law promulgated by the Jews - i.e. the mass suicide at Masada.

If anyone argues that this reference to Masada is necessary to introduce the readers to Masada, I remind my readers that the narrative already introduces us to the location of this fortress in Book Two and with R. Eleazar no less, the religious authority who references the 'command of the Law' to commit suicide rather than surrender to an enemy.

Jewish War is an expansion of older material related to Pseudo-Hegesippus.

stephan huller

I am about halfway through my comparative analysis of Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War and see absolutely no reason why we should continue to talk about the former as a 'summary' of the latter text. It is only that the latter text appears in Greek and is more familiar to us. A friend of mine wrote an article recently that the Samaritan Book of Joshua contains a more ancient form of the original narrative than the familiar Jewish version of the same book even though it is now only preserved in Arabic. Our argument would be similar in form to this.

What has been buzzing around my head today is the title of the work as preserved by Eusebius - υπομνηματα. There is a sheep-like tendency among scholars to just 'accept' the familiar explanation of a given phenomena. So in this case 'Hegesippus' is a second century Jewish-Christian convert who wrote a 'memoir' about Christian history which is to be distinguished from Josephus even though we have a tradition of Josephan writings which ascribes a similarly named Hegesippus as its author.

I think my observation that Clement of Alexandria's 'Josephus the Jew' who wrote a chronology established in the year 147 CE (the tenth year of Antoninus Pius) MUST BE the 'Hegesippus the Jew' of Eusebius and Epiphanius is key to solving the ancient riddle of the composition of Jewish War. Already every scholar accepts that the Josephan Jewish Antiquities was modeled after Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Roman Antiquities. What does a parallel text called υπομνηματα undoubtedly also written under the inspiration of the same synergoi tell us about the Josephan corpus?

I can't get the example of Strabo's υπομνηματα ιστορικά out of my head. In other words, just as a work called 'Jewish Antiquities' was developed from older material associated loosely with Josephus after the historical template of Dionysius Halicarnassus by second century 'assistants' I think the same individual/individuals took the same original material - even an apologia related to Vita but much earlier - and developed a υπομνηματα ιστορικά related to the Jewish War using Strabo's text of the same name as a model.

If we look at a recent article on the subject - Johannes Engels, Augusteische Oikumenegeographie und Universalhistorie im Werk Strabons von Amaseia. Geographica Historica 12 Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1999. Pp. 464. ISBN 3-515-07459-7 - it is immediately obvious how Strabo's υπομνηματα ιστορικά might have served as a model for the second century editors Jewish υπομνηματα ιστορικά developed either in the name of Josephus or from his historical perspective (more on this later).

In a review of his original article (which I haven't read yet) Ralf Behrwald remarks that:

the word hypomnemata, "notes", a title Strabo also chose for his geography, to Engels betrays a concept of historical writing that has moved away from traditional history, historiai: to Engels, it is indicative of the compilatory character of these works. Therefore, according to E., Strabo sets himself against the rhetorical character of late Hellenistic historiai: his intention was, Engels assumes, to give a "comprehensive inventory of the humanities in Augustan times" (p. 73). Strabo thus followed a trend that had already started with Alexander Polyhistor, Artemidoros and, in Latin literature, Varro, and that led to the decline of late Hellenistic universal history (p. 75).

In other words, there had already been strong precedents to the idea of taking various previous historical works related to a given subject in order to develop them into a more comprehensive historical chronology.

A suspicion immediately leaps out of my thoughts that the second century author might have attempted to reconcile Josephus and Justus, the only two known accounts of the Jewish War according to a historical 'common ground' which is now difficult to define because paradoxically it is so familiar to us (i.e. it has become OUR way of looking at that period of history). I will leave this argument for the moment and merely remind my readers that Cohen and others have emphasized that the Josephus who lived in the first century undoubtedly originally only wrote a much shorter work - an apologia related in shape to Vita which essentially addressed contemporary charges from Justus of Tiberias work that he was guilty of a number of atrocities and war crimes as a result of his actions during the war. That original work IMO likely ended where Vita now ends - i.e. the period immediately before the siege of Jerusalem.

Indeed we had a major breakthrough in our research regarding the composition of the original lost second century 'grandfather text' behind Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War in an amazing admission on the part of the original author. In this 'confession' laid out just after the point where Vita ends and before the narrative of the siege of Jerusalem, 'Hegesippus' effectively acknowledges that he has stopped using Josephus as a source and moved onto other source or sources which he confesses is less reliable than Josephus:

Up to this point it has been permissible to wander about, while we occupy our pen with the contagion of the sacred temple founded by our ancestors and of the sacred law and with those fleeing around other cities. But already it is time that we take up those things that were done at Jerusalem relying not upon memory, but so that we do not seem to have denied the administration of the law of our fatherland, or of the pain of our ancient culture. There will be perhaps in these a shadow not truth, but however the shadow points out the track of the truth. For the shadow has the features of the picture, it does not have the brightness, nor is it carried out to perfection, but it portrays the future to those observing carefully. And thus the less the image charms, the more it attracts thanks. Whence it was decided by a witness of things to destroy the old things, to found new things so that they should follow the truth who did not follow the phantoms of faithlessness through difficulties. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 4.5]

This amazing bit of information has been overlooked by all previous attempts at a 'source criticism' of Josephus. It's implications are I think obvious especially when we compare what the second century author says here about his source and what Photius complains about the 'fictitious' or 'invented' character of Justus of Tiberius's account of the siege of Jerusalem.

Nevertheless I think when we place this comments in the context of this second century author composing a υπομνηματα ιστορικά of the Jews modeled after Strabo's original text of the same name (and paralleled by the effort to establish a Jewish Antiquities after the example of Dionysius of Halicarnassus original historical template) we can finally square how Eusebius's report about a υπομνηματα in the name of 'Hegesippus' might well have been a Josephan narrative which happened to continue down to 147 CE (the period where Clement and Eusebius report this υπομνηματα ιστορικά calculating dates and numbers - some related to Judaism and others relating to the history of the Church).

It all goes back to Engel's reconstruction of the methodology of Strabo's lost υπομνηματα ιστορικά. As Behrwald already noted the υπομνηματα ιστορικά necessarily represented the start of a trend in historical writings where an author merely appropriated already established sources and blended their testimony into a framework of his choosing. In particular these writers attempted to 'bring the history' of a previous period down to their own age. As Behrwald again writes "[g]iven the shadowy nature of the Historika Hypomnemata, Engel in his characterisation of Strabo's method must rely exclusively on his geography. In spite of the author's high esteem for Polybios, Strabo writes for a more ample, educated readership, and, far from restricting himself to information useful for political leaders, treats a wider choice of topics that are pleasing or easily memorized. Consequently, the criterion of political or military usefulness and the sober and precise exposition advocated by Polybios must suffer. On the other hand, as Engel shows, the larger readership addressed leads to a less sophisticated style in Strabo."

Now let's not forget that according to Photius, Justus of Tiberias "begins his history with Moses and carries it down to the death of the seventh Agrippa of the family of Herod and the last of the Kings of the Jews." Josephus's lost original Aramaic work undoubtedly only referenced his involvement in the Jewish War as a kind of apologia. The υπομνηματα ιστορικά of our second century author - and later attributed to 'Josephus the Jew' by Clement and 'Hegesippus the Jew' by Eusebius - writes a history of the Jewish uprising WITHIN THE GREATER CONTEXT of a chronology which - if this text is identified as the 'grandfather' of Pseudo-Hegesippus/Jewish War - begins with Antiochus Epiphanius and which originally concluded in the author's time i.e. 147 CE.

Now before my readership think that an incompatible difficulty has been spotted between Justus of Tiberias's Chronicle and our Jewish War tradition with the specific reference of the former's starting point with Moses, I remind my readers of the specific reference to (a) the original title of Justus's work and (b) Agrippa being emphasized as the 'seventh' king of the Jews. The full quote in Photius reads:

A Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews in the Form of a Genealogy, by Justus of Tiberias. He came from Tiberias in Galilee, from which he took his name. He begins his history with Moses and carries it down to the death of the seventh [king] Agrippa of the family of Herod and the last of the Kings of the Jews

If Justus's history went through an entire history of the Jewish people Photius wouldn't have emphasized Agrippa as the 'seventh.'

The Moses reference is just to emphasize that the idea of kingship among the Jews derives from Moses. This is idea is central to any messianic doctrine. The comparison with Moses was obviously intended to serve Agrippa or - as the later rabbinic texts note about the character of the Jews who served him in the period - it was intended to 'flatter' him. Justus was after all Agrippa's 'secretary' (τάζις ἐπιστολῶν). Nevertheless the specific counting of Agrippa as the seventh shows with absolute certainty that Justus's history was not like Jewish Antiquities, it was much closer - if not the very historical template - for the second century υπομνηματα ιστορικά later associated with a figure also named Josephus or 'Hegesippus' a deliberate corruption of that name.

I have no idea how this list of Hasmonaean and Herodian rulers were established to make Agrippa the seventh and last. The language of Photius's summary seems to make clear that Justus was the source of the rabbinic idea that there was only one Agrippa. Counting backwards then Herod must have been the sixth king, Antigonus the fifth, Aristobulus the fourth, Salome Alexander the third, Alexander Jannaeus the second and Aristobulus the first leaving out John Hyrcanus (I suspect that John was included as the first and Salome was dropped but that is another argument for another time).

The point however is that we can begin to see - once we really think about it - how the second century υπομνηματα ιστορικά which works its way down to 147 CE is already betraying its characteristic as a revision of Justus's praise of Agrippa. The reference to Moses is removed and thus the implicit argument that Moses was first and Agrippa last and moreover the messianic world ruler of Genesis 49:10. We can also begin to see how Origen's Jewish history which identifies Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel 9:26 has to be Justus's work. It would also seem that the version of the second century υπομνηματα ιστορικά known to Origen was the source of the idea that Herod was this figure (cf. Slavonic Josephus's two references to this effect).

In any event, I would suspect that the second century author of the υπομνηματα ιστορικά went out of his way to introduce Josephus into his heavily 'corrected' Chronology of Justus as a way of displacing Agrippa as the original focus of narrative. As we noted, there is still an uncanny interest in making historical events correspond to Daniel's prophesy of seventy weeks with Agrippa's rejection and being 'cut off' by his Jewish subjects in 66 CE the cause of the destruction. That underlying structure is still present in the work but it now is buried under a much more prominent theme - that of Josephus as the paradigm of a new Jewish identity which is entirely compatible with citizenship in the Roman Empire.

I am beginning to wonder whether the fabulous narrative regarding the Jews suffering from an 'infection' with the spiritual example of Saul is something which the second century author of the υπομνηματα ιστορικά invented or whether it was a carry over from Justus narrative. In any event the one thing we can be certain of is the fact that the fact that the story is told from the perspective of Josephus is quite deliberate. It diverts attention from Agrippa (who becomes little more than a background character) and emphasizes Josephus as the proper model or example for readers (who were likely Jews or Christians) to follow. We can also be certain that the frequent development of this or that event 'causing' the destruction of the temple (i.e.the death of James, the murder of the high priest Ananus, the curse of Niger etc) are all means of distracting us from Justus's original POLITICAL interest as Agrippa's secretary in emphasizing that the Jews rejection and 'cutting off' of their rightful ruler Agrippa was the cause of their downfall.

If the fabulous claims about the Jews being under a kind of demonic influence of the para-suicidal example of Saul goes back to Justus too then the implications are clearly that Agrippa is David, i.e. the true nagid of the community.

Finally, I suspect that the reason why Clement and Eusebius come to identify the author of the second century υπομνηματα ιστορικά as another Jew named Josephus is because Polycarp was its original author. In other words, Polycarp was the original author of this artificial fusion Justus and Josephus and then owing to serious questions being raised about Polycarp's counterfeiting efforts coming from both pagans and Christians the authorship of the work suddenly changed taking the name 'Joseph' because it was ready at hand.

Before the reader dismisses this is as yet another conspiracy theory one has to read my short article published over at Hermann Detering's site where I set out the idea that Polycarp's martyrdom was behind Lucian of Samosata's satirical portrait of Proteus Peregrinus (the 'many faced' stranger). http://www.radikalkritik.de/Huller_Peregrin.htm Once this connection is established Polycarp's authorship of this work written in 147 CE after the author came from Greece to Rome (exactly like Polycarp cf. his dispute with Anicetus in Irenaeus's fragmentary works) suddenly makes sense. Indeed the author's development of Justus's original CRITICISM of the Jewish para-suicidal impulse to a deliberate softening where Moses death as recorded in the Hegesippus tradition (and we may presume the disciple John too) VOLUNTARILY following God's command to die at a certain time dovetail perfectly with Polycarp's own para-suicidal example.

Yet this isn't all that there is to our theory that Polycarp is the author of the original material. There is Irenaeus's citation of the chronology of what is later identified as 'Hegesippus' in such a way that Polycarp was originally understood to be the author. Look again at the citation of Hegesippus which is universally connected with the Hegesippus material (see our post above )

Book Three of Against the Heresies begins with a clear reference that Irenaeus is using a chronology which sets out all the bishops of the churches in various urban centers exactly as Hegesippus's υπομνηματα is demonstrated by Eusebius to witness:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. [AH iii.1.1]

Every Patristic scholar in the world accepts as the starting point of their understanding of Irenaeus's 'anti-heretical bent' that he inherited it from his master Polycarp. Nevertheless AND CURIOUSLY he cites a chronology which demonstrates "those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and the succession of these men to our own times" - i.e. 147 CE in Rome. This chronology is later identified with an author named 'Josephus' or 'Hegesippus' but I would argue this is a deliberate obscuration, an obscuration paralleled by Eusebius failure to mention Irenaeus's parallel use of this Roman chronology when discussing Hegesippus and the Corinthian see AND Irenaeus's obscuration of THE NAME of his teacher throughout Against the Heresies (he is almost always the anonymous 'presbyter' save for this one section (AH iii chapter 1) which we are now citing (i.e. here he is 'Polycarp' itself a fake name with no precursor in the history of civilization and probably a literal rending of the Hebrew 'Ephraim').

So Irenaeus draws from υπομνηματα and its chronology of bishops down to his own times (i.e. 147 CE) to disprove a parallel 'gnostic' tradition which I have argued elsewhere was rooted in Alexandria based on a chronology of bishops from Mark (the υπομνηματα neither provides a chronology of bishops for Alexandria nor takes an interest in Mark). All of this is done again to attack a formulation very similar to what he read in To Theodore i.e. that the perfect gospel was established 'in secret' only after other imperfect texts were established in the name of various apostles

For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity. [But] since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere. [AH iii.1.2,3]

These words immediately follow the opening statement cited above and demonstrate without question that Irenaeus used the υπομνηματα to combat the 'gnostic' (see Clement's use of this term) Alexandrian tradition based on a single apostle - Mark - who is later deliberately relegated to an inferior status under the influence of this same Roman tradition (a point not lost on Copts of all ages down to its modern leadership).

The purpose of the second century υπομνηματα then being extended down to the year 147 CE is to demonstrate not only that Josephus's conversion to a new understanding of Judaism which conformed to government of Rome was a 'lesson' for all people connected to Israel but more importantly that a form of messianic Judaism (i.e. Christianity) was preserved from the very beginning and confirmed by a line of presbyters down to the modern age.

It doesn't matter to scholars that the line of the Jerusalem Church for instance - supposedly rooted in James - has no real existence beyond what is written in this υπομνηματα. Indeed many have noted that when the line of bishops is traced 'backwards' to its earliest recorded examples it is of a completely different character (i.e. a line of 'Gentiles' rather than a line of circumcised Jews). The point is that Irenaeus draws on all of various wholly fictitious episcopal lines to prove essentially that 'those of Mark' (i.e. in Alexandria) are effectively disproved by an overarching community of Christians 'in every place' which agree on the same doctrine, the same canon etc.)

Irenaeus proceeds to use the chronology of Roman bishops in the υπομνηματα to argue Rome rather than Alexandria is the true center of Christianity (a wholly unheard of proposition before the publication of the υπομνηματα). He makes specific reference to the author of the υπομνηματα witnessing "no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles" and which helps believers "understand that the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things." [AH iii.1.3]

This is not the place to take up this issue but the writings of Clement mentioned here CANNOT HAVE originally been written by the figure tradition claims they were written by (i.e. Flavius Clemens a Roman senator who allegedly embraced Judaism in the reign of Domitian when it was dangerous to do so). This Clement is now supposed to be a convert to a Christian message which is completely compatible with 'Roman ideals' - an agenda we see actively pursued by the second century editor of the aforementioned υπομνηματα employed by Irenaeus to disprove the tradition of St. Mark in Alexandria.