The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation
The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation
The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation
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this fact, to be sure, but devalues it by adjoining the assertion that he acquired the position<br />
through bribery (180); and instead, the thought from the War, which deals with the love that<br />
the people felt for Herod and with his gradual increase in power (War 213), is omitted.<br />
But here as well, the source of the Antiquities was not the War in the form that we have<br />
before us [today]; for [the War] itself was once again subjected to expansions under the<br />
influence of the Antiquities. We detect them immediately wherever the trial, the δίκη, is<br />
mentioned. <strong>The</strong> words κατ’ ὀργὴν τῆς περὶ τὴν δίκην ἀπειλῆς (214), however, are not to be<br />
identified as an addition only for this reason, but also because they proceed from the<br />
presupposition that Hyrcanus only threatened Herod, and then allowed him to run. But since<br />
this presupposition was made only on the basis of the Antiquities (cf. page 178 ff.), this group of<br />
words must therefore be abandoned. As a matter of fact, Herod’s revenge strike required no<br />
further motivation at all as long as <strong>Josephus</strong> did not enter upon the idea that Hyrcanus<br />
basically supported Herod against the Sanhedrin: this thought, however, is suited only to the<br />
Antiquities. Thus section 214 originally read: καὶ οὐ διήμαρτεν τῆς οἰήσεως· ὁ γὰρ Ἡρώδης //<br />
στρατιὰν ἀθροίσας ἐπὶ Ἱεροσολύμων ἦγεν καταλύσων τὸν Ὑρκανόν.<br />
A similar expansion in the transition from sections 214 to 215 is connected to the one<br />
[just] identified [above]; the summons before the court and the release secured by Hyrcanus<br />
are mentioned here as well, and this idea also pervades the subsequent remarks of Antipater,<br />
who in this [passage] thinks that Hyrcanus really “subjected” Herod only “to a shadow of a<br />
violation”. This is no longer [186] the Hyrcanus of the War, who stands in conflict to Herod,<br />
who summons his opponent before his tribunal and from whom Herod is able to escape only<br />
with the help of troops while Sextus Caesar covered for him – rather it is the weak pushover,<br />
Hyrcanus, who very well grants his acquiescence to the summons before the Sanhedrin, but<br />
immediately helps the [man] summoned in his flight; this is the Hyrcanus of the Antiquities.<br />
<strong>The</strong>refore the old text of the War, which, as we now know, constitutes the only [work] of value<br />
to source criticism, then reads as follows, subsequent to the segment that has just been<br />
rendered [above]: κἂν ἔφθη τοῦτο ποιήσας, εἰ μὴ προεξελθόντες ὅ τε πατὴρ καὶ ὁ ἀδελφὸς<br />
ἔκλασαν αὐτοῦ τὴν ὁρμὴν παρακαλοῦντες καὶ αὐτὸν ἀπειλῇ καὶ ἀνατάσει μόνῃ μετρῆσαι τὴν<br />
ἄμυναν, φείσασθαι δὲ τοὺ βασιλέως ὑφ’ οὗ μέχρι τοσαύτης δυνάμεως προῆλθεν· // πείθεται<br />
τούτοις Ἡρώδης ὑπολαβὼν εἰς τὰς ἐλπίδας αὔταρκες εἶναι καὶ τὸ τὴν ἰσχὺν ἐπιδείξασθαι τῷ<br />
ἔθνει.<br />
163