The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

Polybius had half a library resting on his writing table before himself while he was recounting
Hannibal’s War, then this is fundamentally wrong; at first he probably always based the
individual parts on one source alone, however, new sources and new insights likely continued
to pour in for him afterwards. His work, no less than that of Josephus, did not arise by means of
a simultaneous interspersion of various sources, but rather by means of taking one source as a
basis and subsequently inserting new sources and a new view, respectively. And if today I have
outgrown my Polybius in one respect, then this did not happen in the direction that my critics
were hoping, rather I have, to the contrary, perhaps not considered the origination of the text
with sufficient fluidity there. Our task is therefore not systematic [analysis] but historical
stratification [Zergliederung] of the texts and the path to this, wherever external aids [can]not
intervene, is the internal analysis of the text starting from the sole [242] premise that the
writer was a rational being.
Due to the condition and manner of ancient tradition such external aids must
necessarily be lacking; in this respect medieval source criticism is in a much more favourable
[position] since it has at its disposal manuscripts, which stand directly in contact with the
authors. Therefore from here one could expect a clarification of the problem that is occupying
us, and this hope was not to be deceived. My colleague Vigener most kindly showed me the
world chronicle by Ekkehard of Aura, the various versions of which provide such an
astonishing exemplification of what I maintain in my Polybius and Josephus that I [shall] briefly
assemble the main facts in the conviction that everyone who is engaged in historical works
and their origination can draw the greatest benefit from this.
When in the year 1106 Ekkehard of Aura decided to compose a world chronicle up to
that year, he based it upon the Chronicle by Frutolf of Michelsberg (Breslau, Neues Archiv 21,
page 197), [which was] written in a spirit [that was] absolutely loyal to the emperor. This
Chronicle had continued up to the year 1101, yet Ekkehard adopted his source only up to the
year 1099, and enriched it with a supplement encompassing the years 1099 - 1106. In contrast
to Frutolf, Ekkehard took the side of Henry IV’s sons and the papacy. He lent distinct
expression to this attitude of his in the supplement that he created, whereas in the parts that
were dependent on Frutolf he subscribed to [Frutolf’s] political view and changed these [parts]
only in a few points (cf. Karl Gold, Dissertation, Greifswald, 1916, page 41). Thus it could happen
the authorities in Jerusalem.
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