The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

Accordingly we can also determine in the following [20] passage that Josephus
concedes superiority in rhetorical power to the historian whom he censured for his attitude to
his predecessors, but in contrast he claims for himself the advantage of being truthful (27):
exactly so was he, as opposed to Justus; because in Life 40 Josephus explains that Justus had
acquired a Greek education which he had relied upon to write history ὡς τῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ
περιεσόμενος τῆς ἀληθείας. That Justus’ name is not mentioned here must be attributed to the
same reason as that found for the parallel train of thought in C. Ap. 1.46 ff.: here also Josephus
is basically dealing only with the Greek historians, but his passionate hatred for his competitor
forced him repeatedly to digress from his relatively clear thought processes in order to
grapple with his opponent. Only he could not name him in the context of Greek historians, of
course.
The realization that the opponent in Contra Apionem 1.24 ff. and 1.46 ff. is none other
than Justus facilitates our interpretation of the details as well as our understanding as a whole.
If Josephus demonstrates (Life 358) that Justus could not have read the emperor’s reports
because his presentation contradicts that of the emperor (cf. 342), we now learn that this
accusation is especially stinging because Justus had claimed that he had read the reports (C. Ap.
1.56). Conversely, this λέγωσιν does not acquire its specific nuance until we set it in
connection with the evidence from the Life; because after the context of 56 we would expect
ἐντυγχάνωσιν instead of ἐντυχεῖν λέγωσιν, whereas now this λέγωσιν should indicate: to
claim wrongly. Particularly sweet and meaningful for education research is the comparison of
Life 338 with C. Ap. 1.53: there it states that Justus had maligned Josephus in order to obtain the
prize for φιλοπονία just as if at school. How sharply this is stated, is not truly learned until C.
Ap. 1.53: the unnamed person, i.e. Justus, as becomes obvious time after time again, has
maligned Josephus just as if he had been assigned an exercise theme at school: κατηγορία
παράδοξος καὶ διαβολή, i.e. to demonstrate his skill in the ability to malign against all reason. It
is in this that Justus had wished to establish his renown (C. Ap. 1.25 ff.)
[21] It appears to me most important, however, that the comparison of the Life with C. Ap.
fully confirms once again our conclusion above that the antagonism between Josephus and
Justus was based upon their literary activities. Justus also had not attacked Josephus as
statesman but as author; he paid back in the same coin. Moreover, we can now learn why this
conflict took on such an intense personal bitterness. That is to say, when Josephus announces
22