On Josephus’ reference to Jesus
Jorma Jormakka
jorma.o.jormakka@gmail.com
The text in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 3 [1] on Jesus is generally considered a later Christian addition. The style of this paragraph does not sound like Josephus and had Josephus written this text, he would have been a Christian. However, Josephus must have written something of Jesus as he refers to James the Just as the Brother of Jesus without explaining who Jesus was. It is argued here that Paragraph 3 is an addition, but merely an explanation what Josephus means in his fairly obscure paragraphs 4 and 5.
Let us first look at Paragraph 3:
3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross;7 those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again, the third day:8 as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
As can be soon, it does not look especially authentic. There is an Arabic version of Josephus where the paragraph is not so Christian, but had there been any clear text about Jesus in the original version of Josephus, why should there have been the following two quite enigmatic paragraphs? Let us look at them and then try to decode what they are saying.
4. [A.D. 33.] About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder: and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis; and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina: one who on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation. She was also very rich. And although she were of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age; wherein women are the most gay; yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus: one that was every way answerable to her in an excellent character. Decius Mundus fell in love with this woman: who was a man very high in the equestrian order. And as she was of too great dignity to be caught by presents; and had already rejected them; though they had been sent in great abundance; he was still more inflamed with love to her. Insomuch that he promised to give her two hundred thousand Attick drachmæ for one nights lodging. And when this would not prevail upon her, and he was not able to bear this misfortune in his amours, he thought it the best way to famish himself to death, for want of food: on account of Paulina’s sad refusal. And he determined with himself to die after such a manner. And he went on with his purpose accordingly. Now Mundus had a freed woman, who had been made free by his father, whose name was Ide: one skilful in all sorts of mischief. This woman was very much grieved at the young man’s resolution to kill himself: (for he did not conceal his intentions to destroy himself from others:) and came to him, and encouraged him by her discourse, and made him to hope, by some promises she gave him, that he might obtain a night’s lodging with Paulina. And when he joyfully hearkened to her intreaty, she said, she wanted no more than fifty thousand drachmæ for the entrapping of the woman. So when she had encouraged the young man, and gotten as much money as she required, she did not take the same methods as had been taken before: because she perceived that the woman was by no means to be tempted by money. But as she knew that she was very much given to the worship of the goddess Isis, she devised the following stratagem. She went to some of Isis’s priests: and upon the strongest assurances [of concealment,] she persuaded them by words; but chiefly by the offer of money: of twenty five thousand drachmæ in hand; and as much more when the thing had taken effect: and told them the passion of the young man: and persuaded them to use all means possible to beguile the woman. So they were drawn in to promise so to do, by that large sum of gold they were to have. Accordingly the oldest of them went immediately to Paulina: and, upon his admittance, he desired to speak with her by her self. When that was granted him, he told her, that “He was sent by the God Anubis, who was fallen in love with her, and enjoined her to come to him.” Upon this she took the message very kindly; and valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis: and told her husband, that she had a message sent her, and was to sup and lie with Anubis. So he agreed to her acceptance of the offer: as fully satisfied with the chastity of his wife. Accordingly she went to the temple: and after she had supped there, and it was the hour to go to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple: when in the holy part of it the lights were also put out. Then did Mundus leap out: for he was hidden therein: and did not fail of enjoying her: who was at his service all the night long: as supposing he was the God. And when he was gone away; which was before those priests who knew nothing of this stratagem were stirring; Paulina came early to her husband, and told him how the God Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends also she declared how great a value she put upon this favour. Who partly disbelieved the thing, when they reflected on its nature: and partly were amazed at it; as having no pretence for not believing it, when they considered the modesty and the dignity of the person. But now on the third day after what had been done, Mundus met Paulina, and said, “Nay Paulina, thou hast saved me two hundred thousand drachmæ: which sum thou mightest have added to thy own family. Yet hast thou not failed to be at my service in the manner I invited thee. As for the reproaches thou hast laid upon Mundus, I value not the business of names: but I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took to myself the name of Anubis.” When he had said this, he went his way. But now she began to come to the sense of the grossness of what she had done: and rent her garments, and told her husband of the horrid nature of this wicked contrivance, and prayed him not to neglect to assist her in this case. So he discovered the fact to the Emperor. Whereupon Tiberius enquired into the matter thoroughly, by examining the priests about it: and ordered them to be crucified; as well as Ide, who was the occasion of their perdition; and who had contrived the whole matter, which was so injurious to the woman. He also demolished the temple of Isis: and gave order that her statue should be thrown into the river Tiber. While he only banished Mundus; but did no more to him, because he supposed that what crime he had committed was done out of the passion of love. And these were the circumstances which concerned the temple of Isis, and the injuries occasioned by her priests. I now return to the relation of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome; as I formerly told you I would.
5. There was a man who was a Jew; but had been driven away from his own countrey by an accusation laid against him for transgressing their laws, and by the fear he was under of punishment for the same: but in all respects a wicked man. He then living at Rome, professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses. He procured also three other men, intirely of the same character with himself, to be his partners. These men persuaded Fulvia, a woman of great dignity; and one that had embraced the Jewish religion, to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem. And when they had gotten them, they employed them for their own uses, and spent the money themselves: on which account it was that they at first required it of her. Whereupon Tiberius, who had been informed of the thing by Saturninus, the husband of Fulvia, who desired inquiry might be made about it; ordered all the Jews to be banished out of Rome. At which time the consuls listed four thousand men out of them, and sent them to the island Sardinia: but punished a greater number of them, who were unwilling to become soldiers: on account of keeping the laws of their forefathers. (8) Thus were these Jews banished out of the city by the wickedness of four men.
We start from Paragraph 5. Jews were expelled from Rome in the time of Tiberius in 19 AD. They were expelled because of missionary efforts and there were some scandals at that time [3], but other sources do not confirm Paragraph 5. The story in Paragraph 5 is taken on face value in the Jewish Encyclopedia [2], and also e.g. in [3]. The story could be true, there is no shortage of people with the name Saturninus in close circles to Tiberius, e.g. Lucius Volusius Saturninus, a cousin of Tiberius, or Gaius Sentius Saturninus, a Roman consul at the time of Tiberius, but none of the known people seem to have been married to Fulvia or Paulina. There is reason to doubt that Paragraph 5 tells a true story: it can only be found in Josephus and Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3 tells of events that took place around the time 33 AD. Therefore the expulsion of Jews in Paragraph 5 should logically be the one at the time of Claudius, some time between 41 and 54 AD, not 19 AD. Indeed, Josephus starts Paragraph 4 as: “About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder”, which must mean that the time of Paragraph 4 is around 33 AD, and finishes as: “I now return to the relation of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome,” meaning thatParagraph 5 also relates to events around 33 AD.
Suetonius in Divius Claudius 25 gives the reason why Jews were expelled in the time of Claudius as: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [the Emperor Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” Chrestus is usually understood as Christus and the reason for expelling Jews is religious fervor including missionary activity.Paragraph 5 tells that in the time of Tiberius i.e., before 37 AD, there came a Jew to Rome, lived in Rome and instructed Jews the laws of Moses, but he had left Palestine because he was accused of breaking the laws of Moses in some way. This, and the comment of Suetonius, suggests that this Jew was a sectarian and indeed a Christian. He procured three other men, which probaby means that he founded a congregation in Rome. These men persuaded Fulvia, a convert to Judaism, to send precious gifts to the temple at Jerusalem. These gifts did not go to the temple but the men used them for their own purposes. Probably this means that the gifts went to the Christian Church in Jerusalem, not to the temple. Fulvia found it out, told her husband Saturninus, who told Tiberius. After this matter was investigated, Jews were expelled from Rome to Sardinia, and from there elsewhere as Paul met some of these expelled Jews.
This story in Paragraph 5 seems initially quite realistic, but Paragraph 4 is given as an analogy of Paragraph 5. Paulina’s husband has the same name, Saturninus, as Fulvia’s husband, so Paragraph 4 is not a separate story. It is a more detailed but intentionally obscured version of the story in Paragraph 5. Thus, we can deduce that the Jewish men told to Fulvia that god had incarnated as a man and appeared in Jerusalem, as in Paragraph 4 god Anubis appears as a man to Paulina in the temple of Isis. Anubis was the god of the dead and in the 1st century AD connected with funeral rites and burial tombs, while the temple of Isis was connected with the Osiris cult of the death and resurrection of Osiris. We can deduce by analogy that the Jewish men told Fulvia that god had incarnated as a man, and that he had died and been resurrected. In Paragraph 4 Paulina meets Mundus after the events in the temple, from which we can conclude that the Jewish men told that they had met the god-man after resurrection.
There are more hints to what Josephus wants to say in Paragraph 4. Decius Mundus states strangely: I value not the business of names. We should value the business of names. Mundus means the world. Decius is known from three generations of Roman consuls with the same name Publius Decius Mus. They were legendary for dedicating themselves to the god of death, the two oldest sacrificed themselves for their country. The name Decius Mundus means a man who dedicates himself to death and sacrifices himself for the world. Decius Mundus makes this because of love, and because he did it out of passion for love, he is not punished more than by having to leave, like Jesus was not punished by death but rewarded resurrection because he did it for love of humanity or his people. But Jesus also left. It was worse with the temple. In Paragraph 4 Romans destroy the temple and the priests of Isis, like Romans destroyed the temple of Jerusalem and by so doing the class of Sadducee priests. The woman inventing the plot in Paragraph 4 has the name Ide. Ides is a Roman calendar term. Ides of March is the 15. of March, a day of strict religious observance and the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. Jesus was crucified in 15. Nisan, the preparation day of Passover. The name Paulina is the feminine version of Paulinus, a variant of Paulus. It could be a reference to Saint Paul, though just as well it could refer to Lollia Paulina, the wife of Caligula and empress for six months in 38 AD. After Caligula divorced Paulina, he took her sister Lollia Saturnina as a mistress. There were Paulinas, Fulvias and Saturninuses in Rome. It is not impossible that Paragraph 5 tells a real story, but Paragraph 4 makes is unlikely. It does seem to tell the same story as Paragraph 3, but Josephus suspects fraud and was not a secret Christian.
References:
[1] Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-18.html
[2] Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906). Fulvia.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6423-fulvia
[3] Robert Samuel Rogers, “Fulvia Paulina C. Sentii Saturnini”, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1932), pp. 252-256