FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS AND THE JEWISH SIBYL
Great national crises usually produce an historical literature. This is
more likely to happen with the nation that wins in a war than with the
nation that loses. Thus, in the Maccabean period, historical works
dealing with the glorious struggle and its triumphant termination were
written by Jews both in Hebrew and in Greek. After the terrible
misfortune which befell the Jews in the year 70, when Jerusalem sank
before the Roman arms never to rise again, little heart was there for
writing history. Jews sought solace in their existing literature rather
than in new productions, and the Bible and the oral traditions that were
to crystallize a century later into the Mishnah filled the national
heart and mind. Yet more than one Jew felt an impulse to write the
history of the dismal time. Thus the first complete books which appeared
in Jewish literature after the loss of nationality were historical works
written by two men, Justus and Josephus, both of whom bore an active
part in the most recent of the wars which they recorded. Justus of
Tiberias wrote in Greek a terse chronicle entitled, "History of the
Jewish Kings," and also a more detailed narrative of the "Jewish War"
with Rome. Both these books are known to us only from quotations. The
originals are entirely lost. A happier fate has preserved the works of
another Jewish historian of the same period, Flavius Josephus (38 to 95
C.E.), the literary and political opponent of Justus. He wrote three
histories: "Antiquities of the Jews"; an "Autobiography"; "The Wars of
the Jews"; together with a reply to the attacks of an Alexandrian critic
of Judaism, "Against Apion." The character of Josephus has been
variously estimated. Some regard him as a patriot, who yielded to Rome
only when convinced that Jewish destiny required such submission. But
the most probable view of his career is as follows. Josephus was a man
of taste and learning. He was a student of the Greek and Latin classics,
which he much admired, and was also a devoted and loyal lover of
Judaism. Unfortunately, circumstances thrust him into a political
position from which he could extricate himself only by treachery and
duplicity. As a young man he had visited Rome, and there acquired
enthusiastic admiration for the Romans. When he returned to Palestine,
he found his countrymen filled with fiery patriotism and about to hurl
themselves against the legions of the Caesars. To his dismay Josephus
saw himself drawn into the patriotic vortex. By a strange mishap an
important command was entrusted to him. He betrayed his country, and
saved himself by eager submission to the Romans. He became a personal
friend of Vespasian and the constant companion of his son Titus.
Traitor though he was to the national cause, Josephus was a steadfast
champion of the Jewish religion. All his works are animated with a
desire to present Judaism and the Jews in the best light. He was
indignant that heathen historians wrote with scorn of the vanquished
Jews, and resolved to describe the noble stand made by the Jewish armies
against Rome. He was moved to wrath by the Egyptian Manetho's distortion
of the ancient history of Israel, and he could not rest silent under the
insults of Apion. The works of Josephus are therefore works written with
a _tendency_ to glorify his people and his religion. But they are in the
main trustworthy, and are, indeed, one of the chief sources of
information for the history of the Jews in post-Biblical times. His
style is clear and attractive, and his power of grasping the events of
long periods is comparable with that of Polybius. He was no mere
chronicler; he possessed some faculty for explaining as well as
recording facts and some real insight into the meaning of events passing
under his own eyes.
He wrote for the most part in Greek, both because that language was
familiar to many cultured Jews of his day, and because his histories
thereby became accessible to the world of non-Jewish readers. Sometimes
he used both Aramaic and Greek. For instance, he produced his "Jewish
War" first in the one, subsequently in the other of these languages. The
Aramaic version has been lost, but the Greek has survived. His style is
often eloquent, especially in his book "Against Apion." This was an
historical and philosophical justification of Judaism. At the close of
this work Josephus says: "And so I make bold to say that we are become
the teachers of other men in the greatest number of things, and those
the most excellent." Josephus, like the Jewish Hellenists of an earlier
date, saw in Judaism a universal religion, which ought to be shared by
all the peoples of the earth. Judaism was to Josephus, as to Philo, not
a contrast or antithesis to Greek culture, but the perfection and
culmination of culture.
The most curious efforts to propagate Judaism were, however, those which
were clothed in a Sibylline disguise. In heathen antiquity, the Sibyl
was an inspired prophetess whose mysterious oracles concerned the
destinies of cities and nations. These oracles enjoyed high esteem among
the cultivated Greeks, and, in the second century B.C.E., some
Alexandrian Jews made use of them to recommend Judaism to the heathen
world. In the Jewish Sibylline books the religion of Israel is presented
as a hope and a threat; a menace to those who refuse to follow the
better life, a promise of salvation to those who repent. About the year
80 C.E., a book of this kind was composed. It is what is known as the
Fourth Book of the Sibylline Oracles. The language is Greek, the form
hexameter verse. In this poem, the Sibyl, in the guise of a prophetess,
tells of the doom of those who resist the will of the one true God,
praises the God of Israel, and holds out a beautiful prospect to the
faithful.
The book opens with an invocation:
Hear, people of proud Asia, Europe, too,
How many things by great, loud-sounding mouth,
All true and of my own, I prophesy.
No oracle of false Apollo this,
Whom vain men call a god, tho' he deceived;
But of the mighty God, whom human hands
Shaped not like speechless idols cut in stone.
The Sibyl speaks of the true God, to love whom brings blessing. The
ungodly triumph for a while, as Assyria, Media, Phrygia, Greece, and
Egypt had triumphed. Jerusalem will fall, and the Temple perish in
flames, but retribution will follow, the earth will be desolated by the
divine wrath, the race of men and cities and rivers will be reduced to
smoky dust, unless moral amendment comes betimes. Then the Sibyl's note
changes into a prophecy of Messianic judgment and bliss, and she ends
with a comforting message:
But when all things become an ashy pile,
God will put out the fire unspeakable
Which he once kindled, and the bones and ashes
Of men will God himself again transform,
And raise up mortals as they were before.
And then will be the judgment, God himself
Will sit as judge, and judge the world again.
As many as committed impious sins
Shall Stygian Gehenna's depths conceal
'Neath molten earth and dismal Tartarus.
But the pious shall again live on the earth,
And God will give them spirit, life, and means
Of nourishment, and all shall see themselves,
Beholding the sun's sweet and cheerful light.
O happiest men who at that time shall live!
The Jews found some consolation for present sorrows in the thought of
past deliverances. The short historical record known as the "Scroll of
Fasting" (_Megillath Taanith_) was perhaps begun before the destruction
of the Temple, but was completed after the death of Trajan in 118. This
scroll contained thirty-five brief paragraphs written in Aramaic. The
compilation, which is of great historical value, follows the order of
the Jewish Calendar, beginning with the month Nisan and ending with
Adar. The entries in the list relate to the days on which it was held
unlawful to fast, and many of these days were anniversaries of national
victories. The Megillath Taanith contains no jubilations over these
triumphs, but is a sober record of facts. It is a precious survival of
the historical works compiled by the Jews before their dispersion from
Palestine. Such works differ from those of Josephus and the Sibyl in
their motive. They were not designed to win foreign admiration for
Judaism, but to provide an accurate record for home use and inspire the
Jews with hope amid the threatening prospects of life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
JOSEPHUS.
Whiston's English Translation, revised by Shilleto (1889).
Graetz.--II, p. 276 [278].
SIBYLLINE ORACLES.
S.A. Hirsch.--_Jewish Sibylline Oracles_, _J.Q.R._, II, p. 406.