Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:56 pmShe also argues on page 209 that Eusebius, had he composed the passage, would have attached it to the Wars, not to the Antiquities. (Still thinking about this one.) And she points out on page 210 that Josephus saying that "he was the Christ" directly contradicts Origen, so she doubts that Eusebius would have composed that part. (This one feels like something to be responded to, at the very least.)
Ken Olson wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:44 amOn the first point, I think Inowlocki is simply confused about what the argument to be made is. She cites this argument to Nodet and Bardet, but what they actually say is that Eusebius cites the Jewish War rather than the Antiquities because he claims that the misfortunes of the Jews under Pilate *began* with the crucifixion of Jesus, whereas in the Antiquities, some are narrated before the crucifixion of Jesus. So Nodet (and Bardet, explicitly following him) argue that Eusebius cites the War, which doesn’t mention Jesus at all and therefore causes no problems for his chronology. There is an argument that, if Eusebius could insert the Testimonium into the Antiquities, he would have re-arranged the narrative of Pilate’s administration so that the crucifixion came before the stories about Pilate bringing the Roman standards into Jerusalem and using the temple funds to build an aqueduct, which has already been discussed on this forum (I could come up with the a link if necessary). But I think there really isn’t an argument to be made for which work the Testimonium would have been inserted into; it’s about where it would have been inserted into the account of Pilate’s governorship (in either work).
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:14 amI agree with this critique; it is not a matter of which work, but of where in that work the Testimonium ought to go. As to that issue, I can tell you that, if I myself had wished to insert the Testimonium into the Antiquities and simultaneously to preserve the idea that Jesus' execution was the cause of the woes under Pilate, I would have chosen a spot after Antiquities 18.2.2 §35, in which Gratus is ushered off the scene and Pilate brought in as his successor, but before 18.3.1 §55, which is where the troubles under Pilate begin, with the standards incident. The death of Phraates is narrated in 18.2.4 §39 as having occurred "at this time" (κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον), the same phrase used in the Testimonium to introduce Jesus' execution. So somewhere in the vicinity of Phraates' death would seem ideal, would it not? That section is a grab bag of historical events; the Testimonium would fit right in, unless I am missing something.
All of this was, to my mind, about Eusebius adding the Testimonium to the pages of Josephus himself (or at least being responsible for its position in the text). If some anonymous scribe added it, then I have no way of knowing whether that scribe would be interested in preserving the conflicts under Pilate as a consequence of the crucifixion of Jesus. If Eusebius added it, however, I do have evidence to evaluate in that area. So this whole line of reasoning is, for me, all about Eusebius (and I was deliberately pretending to be Eusebius when I wrote both of inserting the Testimonium into the Antiquities and of simultaneously preserving the idea that Jesus' execution was the cause of the woes under Pilate). And you already have a way out of it, even at worst: you think that the Demonstration preceded the the History of the Church, so sure, it is quite possible in that case that Eusebius was kicking himself later (while writing the History) for his earlier nonchalance about where to place the pericope within Pilate's tenure in the Antiquities. Nothing prevents that sequence of events.Ken Olson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 4:58 amIt's possible that, if Eusebius or an ancient scribe inserted the Testimonium into the text of the Antiquities, he would have behaved as you would have, but I think it's very far from being so established that that's so likely as to exclude other possibilities.
If, on the other hand, the History preceded the Demonstration (and I currently have no firm opinion on that in either direction), then I do think that my proposed placement of the Testimonium is more sound, as will become clear (I hope).
This admirably anticipates my objection, but note that, in keeping with the above, my objection would have to do only with Eusebius himself, not with some anonymous scribe. This, then, is your response to that objection:Now, one could argue that when Eusebius and Ps-H do not place the crucifixion and the punishment of the Jews in chronological order, they use language that clarifies the causal relationship, and therefore, if a Christian interpolated the TF into the Antiquities, he would either have placed it before the other incidents about Pilate or introduced the TF with language that implied it was a result of the earlier incidents.
I agree with this when it comes to "the interpolator," provided s/he is not Eusebius. If it was Eusebius, though, then I think a bit more care might have been forthcoming on his part, seeing as he does, as you mention, keep the chronology straight in his commentary on the events. To botch the placement would be a pretty clumsy move for a forgery which is pretty careful in other respects, and I would accept that option only with reluctance. (Again, all of this is moot if the Demonstration preceded any relevant edition of the History.)I think that contention goes beyond the evidence. It requires the interpolator to have foreseen the possibility that his Christian readers would have taken the narrative order to be the chronological order and seen it as therefore contradicting the idea that Pilate's acts against the Jews were the result of the Jews crimes against Jesus. I do not believe anyone ever made such a connection prior to the time the authenticity of the Testimonium was put into question in the Reformation. I think it far more likely that the interpolator did not consider or at least was not concerned about such a possibility. Christian readers could very well supply the obvious causal connection themselves.
This is where you lose me fairly completely. You say that you are going to look at Josephus' own placement of the Testimonium, and you do that; but you also say that you are going to examine why the interpolator may have inserted the Testimonium where he did, but your only comment on that is that you are sticking to the reason from the linked post. Yet there, in that post, your only argument against my suggested placement is:Third, I think a location between 18.35 and 18.55 would not be a likely location for a Christian interpolator to insert the Testimonium. Let me break this down into why I think Josephus ordered his text the way he did and then examine why the Christian interpolator may have inserted the Testimonium where he did. The narrative of this section of the Antiquities is both chronological and topical. While Pilate is introduced as the
replacement of Gratus in 18.35, the account of Pilate's governorship does not begin until 18.55. While it might be accurate to call 18.36-18.54 an historical grab bag, they are unified in not being about Pilate and most don't take place in Judea. They constitute a topical grouping, not a chronological one. Their placement is not meant to suggest that they took place after Gratus's governorship and before Pilate's, but that they are not topically part of those governorships. Similarly, the placement of the Paulina and Fulvia stories in 18.65-18.84 in the midst of the account of Pilate's governorship in 18.55-18.62 and 18.85-18.89, was done primarily for for topical, not chronological reasons. (Parenthetically, this is one of the reasons that I have not found the arguments to redate Pilate's governorship compelling). Josephus wanted to group the Fulvia story with the accounts of the other incidents that threw the Jews into disorder. I think the Paulina story was included as well because it came from the same source as the Fulvia story and Josephus though it was too interesting to pass up.
So I'm sticking with the reason i gave in the post linked above. The interpolator wanted to place it within the account of Pilate's governorship of Judea and placed it at the earliest point within the account that made sense.
But this completely ignores Pilate's actual introduction earlier in the sequence, at Gratus' exit from the stage. If your argument for an interpolator's decision was supposed to be deduced from your discussion of Josephus' structuring of his section about Pilate, then I suspect that argument fails your own standards of evidence elsewhere. For example:Given that the times of Pilate is the most likely place to put the passage about Jesus, why put it between 18.62 and 18.65 rather than at some other point in Josephus's account of Pilate's tenure as governor in Ant. 18.55-89? Because 18.63 is the earliest point at which the passage could reasonably be introduced. Pilate is introduced as a new character and identified as the governor of Judea in 18.55, so the Testimonium would have to be inserted after that.
You easily see how we should not expect a Christian author or scribe to be clairvoyant enough to stave off objections which have not yet been raised, but, by the same token, we also should not expect a Christian author or scribe to be either clairvoyant enough or scholarly enough in the modern sense both to care about and to perceive the niceties of Josephus' narrative structure. For Eusebius (who, again, is the only potential interpolator who matters to me in this case), I think it is much more reasonable to think that he might get the chronology right, since he makes an issue of it, than to think that he might notice or care about which parts of Josephus' text after Pilate's introduction ought to be reserved only for "grab bag" incidents outside of Judea.The two further objections to the location of the Testimonium that (1) it occurs amidst stories of scandal, fraud, turmoil and Roman violence and (2) that it should have come before the stories of the Jewish misfortunes in 18.55-18.62 rather than after them to reflect the idea that the misfortunes of the Jews were a result of their crimes against Christ, seem to presuppose that early Christian authors and scribes were much more foresighted than they actually were and that they should have seen how the context in the Antiquities might be used to undermine their Christian message.
I reiterate, however, that none of this really matters if Eusebius forged the passage and inserted it into Josephus' text before he came to write the History. You still have a clear path in that case, so far as I can tell. (Not that it is impossible that Eusebius may have acted as you suggest even if the History came first, but I would not feel nearly as secure in accepting it.)
Might you expand on this and let me know what your thinking is here? The idea of Christians being named after Christ is both obvious and far more ancient than Eusebius, and the idea of Christians being a third (or fourth) race is more ancient than Eusebius, as well, so what is it exactly that you think pseudo-Hegesippus drew from Eusebius that he could not have from any other source, or just from common sense? Besides, is it not the case that pseudo-Hegesippus merely calls Christians a congregatio in this passage, not a race? He says that Christians have penetrated every human genus, but is that not simply obvious in his day? I guess I am not sure which element of all of this is supposed to have come from Eusebius and likely not from anyone else or from pseudo-Hegesippus' own experiences, interests, or observations.Ken Olson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:53 amDid Eusebius compose the Testimonium? The discussion of Jews and Hellenes and the emergence of Christians as a third distinct race/religion named after Christ, but drawn from the other two races/religions is very relevant to the question of whether Eusebius composed the Testimonium.
Okay, I understand this.Ken Olson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:53 amApart from his use of the Testimonium, is there evidence that Ps-H knew Eusebius? I think there is, but I don't think the continuation of the statement about the congregation of Christians expanding so that no nation in the Roman world in which it not found has a great deal of impact on it. It has some, but not very weighty, and cannot stand by itself. I say "some" because, if there is already good reason to think Ps-H may have used Eusebius HE, this would add to the bulk of the evidence (i.e., if we find an author sharing six points of evidence with a given possible source and the same six points also found in six different sources, we would favor the theory that the author used the single source rather than the six others unless we had good reason to believe he did not use the single source).
To be clear, you are arguing that it is the combination of these motifs that comprises evidence of pseudo-Hegesippus having read Eusebius, correct? The idea that Jerusalem fell because of what the Jews did to Jesus is as old as the New Testament, so what Eusebius introduced, and what pseudo-Hegesippus copied from Eusebius, is the use of Josephus' Wars to demonstrate this idea. Is that your argument?Ken Olson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:53 amWhile I don't think the part about the spread of the Christian congregation is itself weighty evidence of Ps-H's use of Eusebius, I have provided evidence I consider more weighty in the Pseudo-hegesippus thread.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2273&p=59067=eusebi ... mes#p59067
To summarize: Pseudo-Hegesippus is writing a Christian history with the explicit thesis that the misfortunes of the Jews were God's punishment or their crimes against Christ and his disciples and using Josephus's Jewish War as a source to show this. I do not believe he had any predecessors in this other than Eusebius.
It appears to me that the motif of Jews dying during the standards incident could have even more easily come from Origen's commentary on Matthew (this is the same link that Andrew gave before). Pseudo-Hegesippus says that the people "resisted" (resisteret) and that Pilate therefore forced many "into death" (in mortem). Origen quotes Sirach to the effect that one ought to strive for the truth "unto death" (ἕως θανάτου, Wisdom of Sirach 4.28) before immediately suggesting that the Jews have "often" (πολλάκις) risked great danger by "resisting" (ἀνθιστάμενοι) the Romans whenever they wished to bring statues of Caesar into the temple; his first example of this sort of event is Pilate's venture, and Origen, too, fails to narrate the happy ending that Josephus offers. This is the better context for turning Josephus' peaceful outcome into bloodshed; Eusebius merely omits the ending, while Origen both omits the ending and places the whole incident in a context of striving "unto death."Ken Olson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:53 amOn more detailed points, there's the point about Pilate actually bringing the images into the temple (which is found in Origen's commentary on Matt), that the misfortunes of the Jews *began* with the governorship of Pilate, and the claim that Pilate forced many into death in the incident of the standards (which could not have come from Josephus Jewish War, but could be based on Eusebius' summary of the standards story which omits the peaceful resolution of the incident).
Origen goes on to say that Gaius (Caligula) attempted something similar, but he suggests that, so long as the (Jewish) people had observed and been surrounded by what the prophets had spoken, "nothing that drastic" (οὐδὲν τηλικοῦτον) had happened, at which point he mentions the coincidence that Pilate "himself" (αὐτὸς), and not Caligula, was both the "first" (πρῶτος) under which this kind of event had happened (in agreement with Josephus' similar wording on the matter) and also the very person "to whom they" (= the Jews) "had handed Jesus over" (ᾧ παρέδωκαν τὸν Ἰησοῦν). The evident implication is that the Jewish troubles began when they lost their way under Pilate and turned Jesus over to the Romans, thus plausibly explaining your point about the misfortunes of the Jews.
Both of these more detailed points seem to me to point to Origen as much as, if not more than, to Eusebius.