| <pb n="19" /><head><hi rend="italic">Two Early Views: H. Paret and E. Gerlach</hi></head><p>It was in an 1856 article that the twin issues of Josephus's descriptions of, and relationship to, the Pharisees were first broached seriously. H. Paret wrote his "Über den Pharisäismus des Josephus" in order to show that Josephus was a Pharisee; this identification, he hoped, would enhance the value of Josephus's works for the historical background of Christianity.<note id="p1_c2_n2" place="foot">H. Paret, "Über den Pharisäismus des Josephus",<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Theologische Studien und Kritiken">TSK</span></hi>29 (1856), 809-844, esp. 809-811.</note>Paret advanced many arguments, but we are concerned here with his treatment of Josephus's descriptions of the Pharisees (and the other sects), which he takes up first.<note id="p1_c2_n3" place="foot">Ibid., 816-823. The other arguments, as indicated above, will be considered in Part IV of this study.</note></p><p>Remarkably, Paret did not think that Josephus's explicit comments on the Pharisees, taken by themselves, implied the author's Pharisaic allegiance: "Diese, rein für sich genommen, lässt freilich nicht vermuthen, dass ihr Schreiber ein Pharisäer, sondern weit eher, dass er ein Essener gewesen sei."<note id="p1_c2_n4" place="foot">Ibid., 816.</note>He conceded that Josephus's main passage on the sects (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:119-166), to which Josephus later refers as his definitive statement (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:173, 298; 18:11), portrays the Essenes with obvious<hi rend="italic">Vorliebe</hi>. Paret also allowed that Josephus's depiction of the Pharisees, by contrast, was at times unfavourable and even censorious (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-45).<note id="p1_c2_n5" place="foot">Ibid., 816-818.</note></p><p>In spite of these difficulties, Paret maintained that Josephus was a Pharisee, by arguing (a) that a Pharisee could have expressed such admiration for the Essenes because the two groups were so similar and (b) that the negative portrayal of the Pharisees in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-45 is outweighed by the good things said about them elsewhere—such as their concern for the exact interpretation of the Law (cf.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:166) and their close communion with God (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-42).<note id="p1_c2_n6" place="foot">Ibid., 819-820.</note>Paret further proposed that Josephus had been compelled to sacrifice some of his fellow-Pharisees in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>because of criticisms that had arisen over his attempt in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>to present his party as a<hi rend="italic">harmlose Philosophenschule</hi>. But these concessions are not to be taken as indications of Josephus's own antipathy toward the Pharisees.<note id="p1_c2_n7" place="foot">Ibid., 818.</note></p><p>Josephus most clearly revealed his Pharisaic viewpoint, according to Paret, in his consistently negative attitude toward the Sadducees.<note id="p1_c2_n8" place="foot">Ibid., 820-823.</note>A<pb n="20" />Pharisee could admire the Essenes, Paret suggested, but the Sadducees must have appeared to him as infidels. So Josephus presents them (probably falsely) as denying Providence altogether (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:173), as always unkind toward one another (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:166;<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>18:6), and as inhumane in punishment (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:294). Josephus's use of the Bible and his own theological emphases, Paret claimed, were calculated to challenge Sadducean views.</p><p>Soon after Paret's article came E. Gerlach's attempt (1863) to demonstrate the inauthenticity of the<hi rend="italic">testimonium flavianum</hi>.<note id="p1_c2_n9" place="foot">E. Gerlach,<hi rend="italic">Die Weissagungen des Alten Testaments in den Schriften des Flavius Josephus</hi>(Berlin: Hertz, 1863). The<hi rend="italic">testimonium</hi>is the paragraph<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>18:63-64, which speaks of Jesus as "the Messiah".</note>By Gerlach's time, the literary and textual arguments concerning the<hi rend="italic">testimonium</hi>were already well known.<note id="p1_c2_n10" place="foot">Ibid., 5.</note>Gerlach wanted to press another line of argument, namely, that with such views of prophecy and the messianic hope as he held, Josephus could not have penned the<hi rend="italic">testimonium</hi>.<note id="p1_c2_n11" place="foot">Ibid., 6, 85. Gerlach argues that Josephus's treatment of Daniel in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>reveals his expectation of an earthly, political Messiah, not of a quasi-divine figure.</note>As a preface to this study, Gerlach considered Josephus's religious ties and concluded that he was not a Pharisee but an Essene—a judgement based chiefly on Josephus's portrayals of the Jewish religious parties.<note id="p1_c2_n12" place="foot">Ibid., 6-19.</note></p><p>Gerlach began by calling into question the usual interpretation of<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>12, to the effect that Josephus ended his religious quest by opting for membership with the Pharisees. Gerlach contended that this interpretation is contradicted by (a) Josephus's conspicuous fondness for the Essenes and (b) the fact that Josephus's own outlook corresponds to that of the Essenes.</p><p>Like Paret, Gerlach noted the pro-Essene slant of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:119-166, which includes the comment that the Essenes "irresistibly attract all who have once tasted their philosophy".<note id="p1_c2_n13" place="foot">Ibid., 8.</note>He allowed that a Pharisee might have expressed some acknowledgement of Essene piety, but he denied (against Paret) that a Pharisee could have presented such a detailed and admiring portrayal of the Essenes while at the same time giving the Pharisees short shrift. He doubted, for example, that a Pharisee would have implicitly shamed his own party before Roman readers by mentioning the Essene oath to obey all earthly rulers.<note id="p1_c2_n14" place="foot">Cf.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:140.</note>Indeed, Josephus's own religious beliefs seemed to Gerlach to correspond<pb n="21" />closely to those that he attributes to the Essenes—for example, that the soul is alien to the body<note id="p1_c2_n15" place="foot">Cf.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:154; 7:344;<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Against Apion">Ag.Ap.</span></hi>2:203.</note>and that fate is supreme.<note id="p1_c2_n16" place="foot">Gerlach,<hi rend="italic">Weissagungen</hi>, 13-16.</note></p><p>On the other side, Gerlach was at a loss to find a single passage in Josephus in which the Pharisees were described favourably, without reservation.<note id="p1_c2_n17" place="foot">Ibid., 11 and n.</note>Against Paret, he denied that Josephus's references to the Pharisees' kindness to one another, love for the Law, and gifts of prophecy were indications of the historian's favour, for in all of these qualities the Pharisees appear to be matched, if not surpassed, by the Essenes. The brief notice about the Pharisees' concern for one another (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:166), said Gerlach, is contradicted by the many unfavourable references to the group.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>1:110-114, he believed, presents their corruptibility, vindictiveness, and hunger for power. In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:288-298, 398-407, he found their contempt for rulers and their provocation of the people to rebellion. Above all, Gerlach suggested,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-45 openly attacks the Pharisees' pretensions to superior piety.<note id="p1_c2_n18" place="foot">Ibid., 10.</note></p><p>What, then, is to be made of Josephus's self-described religious quest, which ends with the notice:<span class="greek">ἠρξάμην πολιτεύεσθαι τῇ Φαρισαίων αἱρέσειϰαταϰολουθῶν</span>? This signifies nothing more, Gerlach suggested, than that Josephus followed the Pharisees in the political sphere; for such an accommodation is set down by Josephus as a condition of success in public life (cf.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>18:15, 17).<note id="p1_c2_n19" place="foot">Ibid., 18f.</note>For Gerlach, therefore, Josephus was not a Pharisee and never claimed to be one. He was an Essene.</p> |
