stephan huller

I know I posted this originally in the John the Baptist thread that I started. However I can see that the conversation is evolving into a question of the authenticity and reliability of Josephus and I think I have discovered something of earth shattering significance which hasn't been noticed by anyone before.

I think I can prove that all the Alexandrian manuscripts of Josephus were of the 'Hegesippus' variety as such they were Christianized 'frauds' before being 'corrected' to look like an objective historical record.

Let me explain where the name 'Hegesippus' comes from. The form Hegesippus is an adaptation to the phonetics of Greek, to make the name sound Greek (not Latin). It is an artificial name made up by whoever edited this version of Josephus called Hegesippus. There are allegedly two different 'Hegesippus' figures in early Christianity. Hegesippus who lived in the second century who wrote about the Church and a Hegesippus whose name got attached to a Latin translation made in the fourth century.

I think I can prove that the first Hegesippus is still connected to the writings of Josephus. It's just that scholars can't think out the box. They can't imagine a situation where Church Fathers would mistakenly think that a 'Joseph' lived in the second century and wrote about events during the Jewish war.

A lot of people have noticed that Hegesippus's record of the destruction of the temple because of James the Just looks like the kind of historical record the Origen was citing was in his version of the Jewish Antiquities of 'Josephus.' But then a chorus of 'experts' came along and said that this Hegesippus wasn't the same as Josephus the author of the Jewish historical material because Josephus wrote in the late first century and Hegesippus wrote in the middle of the second century and was primarily concerned with a history of the Church.

Well I was trying to dissect this quote from Clement of Alexandria which references Josephus:

Flavius Josephus the Jew, who composed the history of the Jews, computing the periods, says that from Moses to David were five hundred and eighty-five years; from David to the second year of Vespasian, a thousand one hundred and seventy-nine; then from that to the tenth year of Antoninus, seventy-seven. So that from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus there are, in all, two thousand one hundred and thirty-three years.[Strom. 1.21]

Roger Pearse points out that "Hardwick says that this is a composite of Jewish War 6.435 ff. and Antiquities 8.61 ff; 7.389. Whealey agrees." I found the "from David to the second year of Vespasian, a thousand one hundred and seventy-nine" at the very end of Book Six of the Jewish War but the rest of the numbers don't appear in any source.

Anyway, I was going through every book of Josephus trying to find all these numbers so every minute or so the words of the original citation in Clement would get drilled in my head. Then something just hit me. Why is Josephus calculating the tenth year of Antoninus's reign? That's impossible. Josephus couldn't have known that an Emperor would come along named Antoninus. He died at the turn of the second century long before Antoninus.

So I went back to the original context in Clement just to make sure that Clement was saying that Josephus was saying that - in effect - "that from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus there are, in all, two thousand one hundred and thirty-three years."

Yes there is no mistake about it.

Now most people's minds would just shut off at this point and say 'it's impossible; Josephus can't be saying this.' I, on the other hand, had already noticed that the figure cited by Eusebius as Hegesippus already cites the report that Origen attributes to Josephus (Hegesippus is a corruption of Josephus in Greek). Then I thought, is it possible that Clement thought that Josephus lived during the reign of Antoninus Pius like Eusebius imagines Hegesippus to have done?

Well I opened up Eusebius's Church History to Book IV and noticed that 'Hegesippus' is portrayed as coming to Rome in the thirteenth year of Antoninus's reign (three years later) after being in Corinth where it may be presumed that he delivered his ὑπομνήματα:

And the Church of the Corinthians remained in the true Word until Primus was bishop in Corinth; I made their acquaintance during my journey to Rome, and remained with the Corinthians many days, in which we were refreshed with the true Word. And when I was in Rome, I made a succession up to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And in each succession, and in each city, all is according to the ordinances of the Law and the Prophets and the Lord. (Hegesippus in Euseb IV, 22)

Anicetus is traditionally understood to have begun his reign as Pope in the year 150 CE, three years after the ten year of Antoninus's reign the date Clement understands 'Josephus' (his namesake) to have made a calculation dating the distance of time that had elapsed since Moses.

When you take the material attributed to 'Josephus' from Clement and Origen together and compare them to what is preserved by Eusebius as belonging to 'Hegesippus' there can be absolutely no doubt - the Josephan corpus began its existence as a corrupt and highly Christianized text WITHIN THE CHURCH only to be 'corrected' and purified of its obvious corruptions in the fourth century by an author who want to make Christianity and the Church look like something other than a bunch of laughing stocks who used counterfeit historical texts.

I can't believe no one ever noticed this before. But like I said in the other post, I am tired. Maybe I am not seeing clearly. I can't even open my eyes.

stephan huller

Someone I respect very greatly and came to my blog and read this argument and put forward another possibility:

The emboldened words might then be Josephus's. The problem is the context of Clement's citation of 'Josephus' and in particular the first words that follow make clear that Clement cannot be argued to have any reason to mention the tenth year of Antoninus other than the fact that he is citing what 'Josephus' wrote:

These two thousand three hundred days, then, make six years four months, during the half of which Nero held sway, and it was half a week; and for a half, Vespasian with Otho, Galba, and Vitellius reigned. And on this account Daniel says, "Blessed is he that cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days." For up to these days was war, and after them it ceased. And this number is demonstrated from a subsequent chapter, which is as follows: "And from the time of the change of continuation, and of the giving of the abomination of desolation, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."

Flavius Josephus the Jew, who composed the history of the Jews, computing the periods, says that from Moses to David were five hundred and eighty-five years; from David to the second year of Vespasian, a thousand one hundred and seventy-nine; then from that to the tenth year of Antoninus, seventy-seven. So that from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus there are, in all, two thousand one hundred and thirty-three years.

Of others, counting from Inachus and Moses to the death of Commodus, some say there were three thousand one hundred and forty-two years; and others, two thousand eight hundred and thirty-one years.

If 'others' calculated from 'Inachus and Moses' to Commodus he must be citing 'Josephus' as calculating from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus

spamandham

Corrected later? Almost certainly.

I'm not sure that implies it started as a Christian forgery. The ancients didn't have any concept of copyright. Texts were freely edited and rewritten, sometimes passed off as works of the original author and other times claimed as works of the secondary author. So did Clement have access to a version of Josephus that someone had added to in the 2nd century, or was the original a later text subsequently edited to remove evidence of it's later date? How can we tell the difference?

aa5874

What you are claiming is COMPLETELY ERRONEOUS.

Ancients had a concept of FORGERY and even within the so-called Church.

Forgeries were COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE even within the so-called Church.

This is in "Against Marcion"1 under the name of Tertullian.

Again, a writer under the name of Tertullian in "On Baptism" 17
This is a writer under the name of Jerome in "Apology Against Rufinus III

Ancients had a concept of FORGERY. It was NOT TOLERATED in antiquity that works of writers were edited without their consent or that attribution of authorship be incorrectly assigned.

stephan huller

I think I am going to write an academic paper on this. It is amazing to see how this reference in Clement is explained away by scholars. Here are some typical examples. Some claim Clement made the mistake because he didn't have the exact text in front of him:

The earliest of the Patristic writers, Clement of Alexandria, quotes Josephus as to chronology, but it is fairly certain that he did not know the works at first hand, since the era he refers to runs from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus, i.e. till the better part of a century after the death of Josephus. [Norman De Mattos Bentwich, Josephus p. 242]

Most however assume that Clement is actually citing from a copy of the Antiquities but don't realize how strange the material he is citing actually is:

As to the silence of Clement of Alexandria, who cites the Antiquities of Josephus, but never cites any of the testimonies now before us, it is no strange thing at all, since be never cites Josephus but once, and that for a point of chronology only, to determine how many years had passed from the days of Moses to the days of Josephus ; so that his silence may almost as well be alleged against a hundred other remarkable passages in Josephus's works as against these before us. [Josephus, William Whiston, p. 997]

It is only natural to assume that Clement is citing exactly what he read in 'Josephus' as he read in his copies of the writings of Josephus. He is not adding the reference to tenth year of Antoninus. It must have appeared in 'Josephus' (note that the author alights upon the idea that 147 CE was '77 years' from the destruction of the Jerusalem temple a significance which would have lost its meaning in Clement's age).

There however some other interesting studies by scholars including C.H Turner's study The Early Episcopal Lists where he notes:

The existence of a chronographer of the tenth year of Antoninus Pius (AD 147-148) has been assumed in explanation of the curious coincidence that both Clement of Alexandria (once) and Epiphanius (once) employ this year as a term in chronological calculations. The latter interrupts his series of bishops of Jerusalem, after the twentieth bishop Julianus, with the note 'all these down to the tenth year of A. Pius,' Haer. lxvi 1. The former tells us that ' Josephus reckons from Moses to David to the second year of Vespasian 1179 years, and from that to the tenth of Antoninus seventy-two years,' Strom, i 21 147; and as the mention of this this last date cannot come either from Josephus, who wrote half a century before it, or from Clement himself, who wrote half a century after it, it is a reasonable supposition that it is borrowed from some other intermediate writer, who will also have been the source of Epiphanius. This lost writer is conjectured by Schlatter l, following von Gutschmid, to be identical with the Judas mentioned above ; but something more than mere conjecture is wanted before we can accuse Eusebius of mistaking the tenth year of of Severus for the tenth of A. Pius. With better judgement, Harnack suggests Cassianus was the author, we have seen that Eusebius knew nothing of him ; if Judas, we must conclude that Eusebius knew next to nothing of a book which ex hypothesi he dated fifty years too late.[Journal of Theological Studies 1900 p. 193 - 194]

So Turner notices that Clement's allusion to a 'tenth year of Antoninus' in Josephus is paralleled by a reference in Eusebius and Epiphanius to a list of bishops of Jerusalem that ends in the 'tenth year of Antoninus.' Turner deals with a number of possibilities here and in a follow up essay, that Cassianus is the likeliest candidate as Eusebius's and Epiphanius's original source (http://books.google.com/books?id=Dvg...hanius&f=false)

Of course the other possibility - the right possibility - that Turner doesn't even consider is that Clement and Origen were using a copy of Josephus's writings which were attributed to a 'Josephus the Jew' who in turn was mistakenly identified to have lived in the Antonine and later referenced by Eusebius as 'Hegesippus the Jew.'

Eusebius's other information about Hegesippus makes him a perfect candidate for the information about the list of bishops in Jerusalem. Eusebius earlier reports that Hegesippus's tells us about the bishops of Jerusalem at the time of Trajan as we read:

Some of these heretics, forsooth, laid an information against Symeon the son of Clopas, as being of the family of David, and a Christian. And on these charges he suffered martyrdom when he was 120 years old, in the reign of Trajan Caesar, when Atticus was consular legate in Syria. And it so happened, says the same writer, that, while inquiry was then being made for those belonging to the royal tribe of the Jews, the accusers themselves were convicted of belonging to it. With show of reason could it be said that Symeon was one of those who actually saw and heard the Lord, on the ground of his great age, and also because the Scripture of the Gospels makes mention of Mary the daughter of Clopas, who, as our narrative has shown already, was his father.

The same historian [Hegesippus] mentions others also, of the family of one of the reputed brothers of the Saviour, named Judas, as having survived until this same reign, after the testimony they bore for the faith of Christ in the time of Domitian, as already recorded.

He writes as follows: They came, then, and took the presidency of every church, as witnesses for Christ, and as being of the kindred of the Lord. And, after profound peace had been established in every church, they remained down to the reign of Trojan Caesar: that is, until the time when he who was sprung from an uncle of the Lord, the aforementioned Symeon son of Clopas, was informed against by the various heresies, and subjected to an accusation like the rest, and for the same cause, before the legate Atticus; and, while suffering outrage during many days, he bore testimony for Christ: so that all, including the legate himself, were astonished above measure that a man 120 years old should have been able to endure such torments. He was finally condemned to be crucified.

... Up to that period the Church had remained like a virgin pure and uncorrupted: for, if there were any persons who were disposed to tamper with the wholesome rule of the preaching of salvation, they still lurked in some dark place of concealment or other. But, when the sacred band of apostles had in various ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike Wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers, who, seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching of the truth by preaching "knowledge falsely so called."[Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History 3:32]

And in the passage cited by Eusebius Hegesippus makes absolutely clear that (a) he is very interested in assembling lists of espiscopal lines and (b) is Eusebius's main source of information about the bishops of Jerusalem:

"And the church of the Corinthians continued in the orthodox faith up to the time when Primus was bishop in Corinth. I had some intercourse with these brethren on my voyage to Rome, when I spent several days with the Corinthians, during which we were mutually refreshed by the orthodox faith.

On my arrival at Rome, I drew up a list of the succession of bishops down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. To Anicetus succeeded Soter, and after him came Eleutherus. But in the case of every succession, and in every city, the state of affairs is in accordance with the teaching of the Law and of the Prophets and of the Lord....

And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as had the Lord also and on the same account, again Symeon the son of Clopas, descended from the Lord's uncle, is made bishop, his election being promoted by all as being a kinsman of the Lord.

Therefore was the Church called a virgin, for she was not as yet corrupted by worthless teaching. Thebulis it was who, displeased because he was not made bishop, first began to corrupt her by stealth. He too was connected with the seven sects which existed among the people, like Simon, from whom come the Simoniani; and Cleobius, from whom come the Cleobiani; and Doritheus, from whom come the Dorithiani; and Gorthaeus, from whom come the Gortheani; Masbothaeus, from whom come the Masbothaei. From these men also come the Menandrianists, and the Marcianists, and the Carpocratians, and the Valentinians, and the Basilidians, and the Saturnilians. Each of these leaders in his own private and distinct capacity brought in his own private opinion. From these have come false Christs, false prophets, false apostles-men who have split up the one Church into parts through their corrupting doctrines, uttered in disparagement of God and of His Christ....

There were, moreover, various opinions in the matter of circumcision among the children of Israel, held by those who were opposed to the tribe of Judah and to Christ: such as the Essenes, the Galileans, the Hemerobaptists, the Masbothaei, the Samaritans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees."[Eusebius 4:22]

Clearly then we have seen that Hegesippus takes a strong interest in emphasizing the continuity of episcopal lines dating back to apostolic witnesses. His reference to Thebulis as one who tried to corrupt the 'true episcopal line' which went through a 120 year old Simeon the son of Clopas reinforces that he must be the source for Eusebius's information about the bishops of Jerusalem.

Of course scholarship rarely takes the most sensible road. Reuterdahl (De Fontibus Hist. eccles. Euseb., p. 55) conjectures that these “writings” were found in the church of Jerusalem itself, and compares a passage in the Dem. Evang. III. 5: “The first bishops that presided there [i.e. at Jerusalem] are said to have been Jews, and their names are preserved by the inhabitants of the country.” Many have argued that if Hegesippus or any other known author had been the source of his information, Eusebius would probably have mentioned his name. But this is a silly assumption and not even worth considering.

If we actually look at what Eusebius does tell us about the succession of bishops it is clear that he did have the same list as Epiphanius (i.e. the one which ended with Judas in the tenth year of Antoninus Pius) and that is because they used the same source - i.e. Hegesippus. So we read in Book Four Chapter Five:

The (complete) chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived. But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian, there were fifteen bishops in succession there, all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles.

But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon, the third, Justus , the fourth, Zacchæus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas. These are the bishops of Jerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision.[Eusebius Church History 4.5.1 - 4]

Epiphanius cites the exact same list with only minor variations but retains what must have been knowledge of the original context of the list - i.e. Hegesippus's statement that he was writing in the tenth year of Antoninus. Epiphanius's citation of the same list reads:

"I subjoin their successive episcopates one by one, beginning with the episcopate of James — < I mean the successive > bishops who were appointed in Jerusalem during each emperor's reign until the time of Aurelian and Probus, when this Mani, a Persian, became known, and produced this outlandish teaching. The list follows: 1 James, who was martyred in Jerusalem by beating with a cudgel. [He lived] until the time of Nero. 2. Symeon, was crucified under Trajan. 3. Judah 4. Zachariah 5. Tobiah 6. Benjamin 7. John, bringing us to the ninth [or] tenth year of Trajan 8. Matthias 9. Philip 10. Seneca 11. Justus, bringing us to Hadrian. 12. Levi 13. Vaphres 14. Jose 15. Judah, bringing us to the tenth (eleventh) year of Antoninus. The above were the circumcised bishops of Jerusalem. The following were gentiles ..."[Panarion, V. 19.9 - 20.15]

There can be absolutely no doubt that Epiphanius and Eusebius are using the same list. Williams simply notes that "the following list appears to be derived from a series of references in Eusebius' Chronicle."(p. 239) But the better explanation is that both Eusebius and Epiphanius are ultimately using Hegesippus as a source which explains the common reference to 'the tenth year of Antoninus' as the year the list was compiled.

There some minor variations in the list most of which can well be accounted for by assuming that Hegesippus wrote in Aramaic. Justus is called Judas by Epiphanius. Zacchæus is called Zacharias by Epiphanius. Eusebius's ᾽Εφρῆς. is identified as ᾽Ου€φρις by Epiphanius The Armenian version of the Chron. calls him Ephrem; Jerome’s version, Ephres. Syncellus calls him ᾽Εφραΐμ, which is the Hebrew form of the name. ᾽Ιωσήφ of Eusebius is called ᾽Ιωσίς by Epiphanius, and Joses by Jerome.

The point of course is that this represents a second line of proof to help prove beyond any doubt that Clement was using a copy of a text identified as having 'Hegesippus' as its author by Eusebius but that Clement himself knew it to be written by 'Josephus.' As I noted in my last post the specific form 'Hegesippus' is an adaptation to the phonetics of Greek, to make the name sound Greek (not Latin). It is an artificial name made up by whoever edited this version of Josephus called Hegesippus. Origen must have been using the same text to get his information about the temple being destroyed because of the Jews mistreatment of James the Just.

aa5874

Your proposal does not make much sense.

Which Church writer would write 20 books that essentially do NOT corroborate pseudo-Hegesippus and the NT Jesus story?

If the Greek version of "Antiquities of the Jews" was written by a Christian then it MUST be expected that it would be filled with events about Jesus, the disciples and Paul and that it would be compatible with pseudo-Hegesippus.

Only a COMPLETE IDIOT or CLOWN would write 20 books and mention Jesus Christ two times and James the brother of Jesus one single time.

What seems more realistic is that the Church writers were using BOGUS manipulated writings of Josephus, very likely pseudo-Hegesippus, in order to fabricate their history of the Church.

stephan huller

AA

I can't account for why someone decided to forge something. In the case of the Hitler diaries the motivation was money. Someone might forge a letter of reference to get a job or prove his authority on a certain matter. With religious texts there are obvious advantages to having an ancient authority endorse your cause.

It is now impossible to argue against the idea that Clement and Origen were using a text which they thought was written by Josephus which was latter attributed to 'Hegesippus' (a name which clearly derives from Josephus). Given that I have shown that Eusebius's Hegesippus is Clement and Origen's 'Josephus' that work concluded with a fabricated "history of the Church" as you suggest.

The work however clearly began with references to Jewish history. It might have originally identified as 'Jewish War' or 'Antiquities' and later changed to 'Memoirs' by Eusebius or someone else in the line of transmission. I don't know.

Spin has done a very creative job explaining one inconsistency in Origen as he writes in the other thread:

There are actually TWO references to this book which deals with the ancientness of the Jews. One says it is made up of TWO books the other says that it was TWENTY books long. There is a conflict here. Spin makes it seem as if they are references to two different books - one Jewish Antiquities, the other Against Apion. I have read this explanation before but I am not so sure it is correct.

Against Celsus has been heavily edited (read the preface). There seems to be a conflict between whether αρχαιοτητος was a two volume work or a twenty volume work. The only possible explanation was that the first two books or two books out of the twenty dealt with Moses. But that is not how αρχαιοτητος is now divided:

Book I -- From Creation to the Death of Isaac
Book II -- From the Death of Isaac to the Exodus out of Egypt
Book III -- From the Exodus out of Egypt to the Rejection of the Generation
Book IV -- From the Rejection of that Generation to the Death of Moses
Book V -- From the Death of Moses to the Death of Eli

Another point to consider is the fact that this work by Josephus the Jew seems to have been written nine years after the Bar Kochba revolt. Was the Jewish identity up for grabs? Hegesippus is described by Eusebius as a 'Jew' who came over to Christ. How did Hegesippus view himself and his tradition? Did he stop being a 'Jew'? Did he still understand his religion as a continuation of Judaism? Was he hoping to start a Judaism which embraced Jesus?

There are some clues in Eusebius's citation of his writings which I think point to a kind of Judaism that embraced Christ:

So, when many even of the ruling class believed, there was a commotion among the Jews, and scribes, and Pharisees, who said: "A little more, and we shall have all the people looking for Jesus as the Christ.

This man [James] was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ.

I haven't read the paper but W. Telfer marshals Eusebius' reasons for concluding that Hegesippus was a Jew in "Was Hegesippus a Jew?" The Harvard Theological Review 53.2 (April 1960:143-153). The idea that a second century Jew living in the aftermath of the great Jewish revolt against Rome would have no interest in writing a history of the Jews which ended with Jesus Christ being the fulfillment of Jewish history isn't so certain.

We simply know too little about the development of Christianity in the middle of the second century.

avi

For that matter, what does one know, really know, about the writings of Eusebius ?Were there any "interpolations" between the fourth and eleventh centuries? Any arguments? Schisms?

avi

aa5874

But, read what you wrote in an earlier post. You seem to be attempting to account for why there were forgeries of Josephus.

1. A writing cannot start as a forgery.

A forgery is AFTER the original.

2. A later writing cannot be a "corrected" and purified version of a writing that STARTED as a "forgery".

You have produced another convolution.

Now, there must be an original for there to have been a forgery.

The forgery is most likely pseudo-Hegesippus.

The Church writers used pseudo-Hegesippus since it was compatible with the NT which is also fundamentally non-historical.

We may know a lot more than you think.

We have writings of Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, "Octavius" by Minucius Felix, Tatian and Aristides.

These writings appear far more credible and consistent than those under the name of Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

Transient

Believing what anyone writes these days is hard enuf - the media slants stuff to suit its agendas and people write about experiences that, for all I know, they probably make up.
Believing what people wrote, changed, forged etc in the past is ridiculous in the extreme - of course there is a world mostly full of gullible people who will believe just about anything - I am not one of them.
If there is a god then he would have to appear in front of me with unmistakable details etc - I do not trust the writings of humans.