andrewcriddle

I'm trying to look up the less well known allusions to Josephus in Origen, partly to answer this question.
Hopefully I'll come back to this.

At the moment I think that Origen makes too much use of Josephus to be working from secondary sources.

Also, the works of Josephus were clearly in the church library at Caesarea in the time of Eusebius. It is probable that they were already there at the time of Origen.

Andrew Criddle

S.C.Carlson

OK, it's p. 15 in the second edition. It's close, but what really made your observation fascinating is the tie-in to AJ 20.218 (πάντα δ’ ἦν ἐναντία ταῦτα τοῖς πατρίοις νόμοις, ὧν παραβαθέντων οὐκ ἐνῆν μὴ οὐχὶ δίκας ὑποσχεῖν).

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

I wouldn't be surprised if Eusebius and Origen had used the very same copy of Josephus.

Stephen

Roger Pearse

I seem to remember reading a paper on Pausanias which suggested that there was no need to suppose that more than one copy of this large work had existed in a temple for most of antiquity. That felt extreme to me, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

S.C.Carlson

I'm not sure what you're saying. There is a close relationship between Origen's library and Eusebius's. I'm not making a generic statement about Josephus.

Stephen

ETA: For a discussion on whether Eusebius and Origen used the same copy of Josephus, see Andrew James Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (SVC 67; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 158-159.

Ben C Smith

Hardwick may help. Origen seems to know the two books against Apion.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

You are asking of the Testimonium, but why does it not apply to the Ananus passage?

Okay, this is a pretty good reason. But try this for the James passage:

But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

I doubt he thought his Roman readers would understand what a messiah was. A ruler from the east... that they understood perfectly.

As for Jesus, Josephus does not say that he is a messiah. He says that he was called Christ. Which is true. Jesus was indeed called Christ.

Your objection amounts to little more than a claim that Josephus could not have said what was actually the case.

The context to justify it is that the brother was more famous (in Rome, at least) than the man James himself. Same reason Josephus writes of Felix the brother of Pallas; Pallas was more famous.

The Greek syntax is unexceptional. The most unusual part, the parenthesis James was his name, is (ironically) a part you are willing to keep.

It was common enough to probably follow his usual practice of making distinctions.

We sure are. Just because you reject the notices about the Christians under Nero in Tacitus and Suetonius does not mean I do:

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.

KISS. Tacitus and Suetonius both hold that the Christians were known by that name in Rome under Nero. Latin speakers would know what that -ianus suffix meant. Reaganites and Reagan, Christians and Christ.

Come around? My position has not changed since last we met on the issue. I have consistently held that Josephus conflated Josephus and Hegesippus.

Agreed. When did I say otherwise?

What I said is that Josephus usually identifies people by some trait (familial relationship, occupation, point of origin; I even listed some of the traits out for you!). He also usually takes pains to keep different men by the same name distinct. Good thing our Christian scribe did not stop at brother of Jesus, or else the casual reader of Josephus might, in retrospect, confuse this Jesus with the other Jesus (son of Damneus) named just a few sentences later.

Question for you: A Christian scribe is reading along in Josephus and encounters a story about a man named James who is stoned by the Jews; our scribe remembers that Origen had written that Josephus had written about the stoning of James the just, and thinks this must be the same James. So he decides to place a little identifying note in the margin. Okay so far, but why did he make certain to get the phrasing of Origen exactly right? Granted that Origen was writing of James and Jesus, why not just say brother of the Lord, one of the brothers of the Lord, brother of our Lord, brother of Jesus, brother of Christ, brother of Jesus Christ, or any of a number of other options? What was at stake in the very wording of Origen?

Ben.

spin

But why the testimonium? Have you ever asked yourself that? What is it about the testimonium? Your approach avoids the whys and attempts to reduce the basic differences in the analyses.

Try what? The cohesion argument is based on cohesive linking used in the language.

He avoids using the term "christ" throughout his work. He doesn't even use it when dealing with the messianic prophecies applied to Vespasian. You beg the question a to why Josephus would applied the avoided word to, and only to, Jesus. Origen says straight out that Josephus didn't think Jesus was christ. This means that the current state of the text is not as it was written.

It's strange for me that you (and numerous others) find no problem in Josephus using the term "christ" at all and then for Jesus.

This seems ingenuous or facetious. Matt uses the same words: Jesus called christ. They have significance in Matt but not in Josephus of course. Josephus merely says that he was called christ (insert innocent smilie here), while Matt meant a totally different thingy, when it uses those words. This is a simplistic game, Ben C. I find it hard to believe that you believe it. Is it that you can truly maintain a double standard?

What was "actually the case"??

Try it for the east, not for Romans.

And why didn't Josephus write that Ananus brought before the sanhedrin "James, the brother of Jesus called christ, and certain others"?

Putting it all together:

1. it's difficult to conceive of Josephus using the term christ which he has elsewhere eschewed;
2. it's relatively rare to find Josephus using the sibling familial link, preferring the vastly more frequent father relationship;
3. it's rare to find that the familial link gets a qualification of its own (you've attempted to resolve this); and
4. it's hard to understand why the information about Jesus is placed before the topic of the sentence.

Each compounds the difficulty in accepting the phrase.

It's all about KISS. The name is essential, however it's presented. It doesn't mean that I accept the current structure of the sentence. It means that I want to cut down the speculative layer. Why do you try to push into what you cannot know? As I've already indicated, it's one thing to identify the disturbance; it's often much harder to reclaim what the prior state was.

If he knew, but then as I pointed out there are quite a few who don't get familial linkage.

Neither Tacitus nor Suetonius were contemporary to what we are talking about.

Umm, Origen conflated...?

If Origen, then who conflated James with Ananus?

So we should be back to my problem with Josephus: what did James actually do?

It's significant that the first use of "Jesus called christ" was conveniently in Origen's commentary on Matthew, where unstrangely we find the exact phrase (in genitive). Origen then copies this idea from his own commentary to CC adding the epithet "the Just" to James's name. Origen used the erroneously recorded account three times and a scribe aware of Origen's work -- and Origen was rather popular -- would recall how Origen had linked the Matthean phrase to Josephus's statement about James.


spin

Amaleq13

More "famous" in the sense that Christians were known to be named after some guy called "Christ"?

That would be consistent with our other early extra-biblical references (e.g. Pliny, Tacitus) who we never have using "Jesus" but using "Christ" (or a variation) as though it was a name.

Famous enough that no previous reference to Jesus called Christ is necessary?

yummyfur

One point that is kind of interesting, that might also help explain the general confusion amongst some early Christians, is that the Ananus whose death Josephus claims doomed the city, is killed purposefully by the Idumeans who just entered the city, One of the principle commanders of the Idumeans is named James. So you have an Ananus killed by James, and a James killed by an Ananus.

Also isn't it possible that Origen, or someone earlier, had decided to read into the section on Ananus, in War of the Jews, and read into it a Christian person, and therefore since he was old, and just, and a leader in Jerusalem, maybe infer this was James being called by another name. I've added some notes on how a section which I know is talking about Jesus of Gamala, could be read differently, especially if one had only this paragraph, or limited amounts of Josephus.

translations say "Jesus with his speech made to them from the wall", but it's not actually written as such, but the translator has inferred this from the context from an earlier paragraph, if someone had only this paragraph they might read this differently

continuing from Josephus

This might have piqued the curiosity of any Christian, especially since a Jesus was just mentioned.

continuing from Josephus

word here is δικαιότατος

continuing from Josephus
the last line can be read "and he was coupled/yoked with Jesus" and maybe some spiritual reference inferred.

continuing from Josephus
Also it has always puzzled me whether the Ananus killed, is the elder Ananus, or Ananus son of Ananus, because in Josephus' description he doesn't sound like a Sadducee and also he seems to think well of the elder Ananus in AJ, though it would seem to make him probably in his late 90's when he died if it was the elder. It would explain why Josephus thinks so much of his death, being so ancient, and made a high priest when the Romans first took over in 6 CE, and having also 5 sons as high priests, one can hardly think of a more sacred man.