| <head>II.<hi rend="italic">Josephus's Literary Assistants</hi></head><p>It was H. St. John Thackeray, in a 1926 lecture, who proposed that Josephus had employed literary assistants for the writing of both<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>and<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>15-19.<note id="p1_excur_n15" place="foot">Thackeray, Josephus , 100-124.</note>Thackeray drew on the following evidence.</p><p>A. Josephus's Palestinian background would have prevented him from mastering Greek; he must have learned his Greek only in Rome. Yet the style of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>"is an excellent specimen of the Atticistic Greek of the first century", and therefore unimaginable from a writer who had previously written only in Aramaic.<note id="p1_excur_n16" place="foot">Ibid., 101f.</note></p><p>B. In<hi rend="italic">Ag. Ap</hi>. 1:50, Josephus reports that in writing<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>he had benefited from "certain collaborators for the sake of the Greek" (<span class="greek">τισι πρὸς τὴν</span><span class="greek">Έλληνίδα φωνὴν συνεργοῖς</span>). Although Thackeray had first thought of these<span class="greek" />as nothing more than Josephus's "literary friends in Rome", he came to regard them as slaves, retained by Josephus for their literary skill.<note id="p1_excur_n17" place="foot">Ibid., 105.</note></p><p>C. In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>, Thackeray finds evidence of Josephus's weariness at the end of book 14, for the account in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>is repeated almost verbatim. With book 15, however, a new style and rearrangement of material<hi rend="italic">vis-à;-vis War</hi>take over. Moreover,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>15-16 and 17-19, seen as two blocks, possess distinctive stylistic features that bear affinities to particular classes of Greek literature.<note id="p1_excur_n18" place="foot">Ibid., 107-115.</note></p><pb n="49" /><p>In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>15-19, therefore, Thackeray discerns the work of two literary assistants, the one "Sophoclean" (books 15-16) and the other a "Thucydidean hack" (books 17-19).</p><p>How much leeway did Josephus grant these assistants? Thackeray is not absolutely clear, but he does indicate that after<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>14, "the work has been entrusted to other hands",<note id="p1_excur_n19" place="foot">Ibid., 107.</note>and that the Thucydidean was "responsible for writing practically the whole of Books xvii-xix . . .",<note id="p1_excur_n20" place="foot">Ibid., 113.</note>as well as various "purple patches" in the earlier narrative.<note id="p1_excur_n21" place="foot">Ibid., 106.</note>In general, the work of Josephus's assistants ranged from "polishing his periods" to "the composition of large portions of the narrative".<note id="p1_excur_n22" place="foot">Ibid., 100.</note></p><p>For the Pharisee passages, Thackeray's analysis would seem to require that<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>15:1-4, 365-379 were written by the Sophoclean,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-45 and 18:11-25 by the Thucydidean. (Recall that the source critics, by contrast, attribute<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:41-45 and 18:11-25 to different sources, because of their difference in tone toward the Pharisees.) His interpretation of the<span class="greek">συνεργοί</span>as full-fledged writers has not, however, proven durable.</p><p>In a 1939 article G. C. Richards showed, on the one hand, that certain characteristics of Josephan style appear in the books that Thackeray had attributed wholly to assistants and, on the other hand, that the imitation of Thucydides in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17-19 is too awkward to be the work of a skilled assistant.<note id="p1_excur_n23" place="foot">G. C. Richards, "The Composition of Josephus'<hi rend="italic">Antiquities</hi>",<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Classical Quarterly">CQ</span></hi>33 (1939), 36-40.</note></p><p>In a 1961 study, R. J. H. Shutt subjected Thackeray's proposal to careful scrutiny and also rejected it.<note id="p1_excur_n24" place="foot">R. J. H. Shutt,<hi rend="italic">Studies in Josephus</hi>(London: SPCK, 1961), 59-75.</note>Shutt argued as follows.<note id="p1_excur_n25" place="foot">Several of Shutt's arguments were anticipated by H. Peterson, in an incisive footnote to his article, "Real and Alleged Literary Projects of Josephus",<hi rend="italic">American Journal of Philology</hi>79 (1958), 260f. n. 5.</note></p><p>A. The break between<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>14 and 15 is a natural break in the story of Herod: book 14 closes with his entry into Jerusalem, whereas in book 15 he begins to consolidate his position in the city. Further, there are important narrative links between books 14 and 15.<note id="p1_excur_n26" place="foot">Schutt,<hi rend="italic">Studies</hi>, 63.</note></p><p>B.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>15-16 contains reminiscences of Sophocles but, since Josephus claimed to have studied Greek in Rome (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>20:263), that is not surprising. Such reminiscences also occur in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>.<note id="p1_excur_n27" place="foot">Ibid., 64-65.</note></p><pb n="50" /><p>C. Although Josephus's compositional (as distinct from conversational) Greek may have required assistance when he arrived in Rome and wrote<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, an assistance that he acknowledges (<hi rend="italic">Ag. Ap</hi>. 1:50), it seems unlikely that when he came to write<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>, having lived in Rome and studied Greek for many years, he needed the same assistance; he does not acknowledge any.<note id="p1_excur_n28" place="foot">Ibid., 66-68.</note></p><p>D. In a detailed examination of the Thucydidean expressions in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>1719, Shutt demonstrated that they are also present in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>20 and<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>, which Thackeray had attributed to the<hi rend="italic">ipsissima verba</hi>of Josephus.<note id="p1_excur_n29" place="foot">Ibid., 68-74.</note></p><p>Shutt, therefore, found Thackeray's hypothesis "basically unsound" and "unnecessary". In its place he proposed that Josephus took up a striking phrase, "worked upon it, extended it, in a comparatively short space, and then discarded it", after the manner of Livy.<note id="p1_excur_n30" place="foot">Ibid., 74-75.</note></p><p>T. Rajak's recent study of Josephus (1983) has confirmed and extended Shutt's critique of Thackeray.<note id="p1_excur_n31" place="foot">Rajak,<hi rend="italic">Josephus</hi>, 47-63, 233-236.</note>Rajak identifies Josephus as a member of the "upper echelons of the Palestinian priesthood, an outward looking, flexible group", a status indicated by his selection as an emissary to Rome and as a commander in the revolt.<note id="p1_excur_n32" place="foot">Ibid., 8, 21, 42.</note>In this capacity, Rajak argues, Josephus must have possessed a basic facility in Greek, which could only have been enhanced during his eight years or so of Roman captivity before he wrote<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>.<note id="p1_excur_n33" place="foot">Ibid., 47, 62. Cf. Hengel's comment on life in Palestine even before the Christian era (<hi rend="italic">Judentum</hi>, 108), that Greek "war die Sprache der Diplomaten wie der Literaten, und wer gesellschaftliches Ansehen oder gar den Ruf ein gebildeter Mann zu sein, suchte, musste sie fehlerfrei beherrschen." Cf. also Laqueur,<hi rend="italic">Historiker</hi>, 127, and Schreckenberg,<hi rend="italic">Untersuchungen</hi>, 173.</note>Thus, the kind of linguistic deficiencies for which he required help in the writing of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>were not basic but involved precision of idiom and style.<note id="p1_excur_n34" place="foot">Ibid., 50.</note>Rajak thus inclines toward the view discarded by Thackeray, that the<span class="greek">συνεργοί</span>of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Against Apion">Ag.Ap.</span></hi>1:50 were simply friends who were willing to edit<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>for style, as Agrippa II apparently had done for content (<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>364ff.). She remarks:</p><p><q>It would be rash, therefore, to suppose that he [Josephus] would not be fit, when eventually he came to the Greek<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, at the very least to collaborate fruitfully with his assistants, and to take the ultimate responsibility for substance and style alike.<note id="p1_excur_n35" place="foot">Ibid., 62-63.</note></q></p><pb n="51" /><p>Rajak is especially reluctant to allow the<span class="greek">συνεργοί</span>any significant rfle in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>, since, as Shutt had noted, Josephus does not acknowledge any assistance for that work.<note id="p1_excur_n36" place="foot">Ibid., 233-236.</note>Moreover, she points out, the Sophoclean and Thucydidean styles cannot be attributed to different writers because (a) Thucydideanisms occur throughout Josephus's writings and (b) the two styles are sometimes interwoven in a single passage (e.g.<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>4:89-95). Rajak's own explanation of these classical reminiscences is that Josephus, as he himself says (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>20:263), had studied the classics; she notes that the masters were studied precisely for the purpose of imitation.<note id="p1_excur_n37" place="foot">Ibid.</note>Other inconsistencies in his writings she attributes to (a) the influences of sources and (b) the occasion and purpose of the writing.</p><p>In sum: Richards, Shutt, and Rajak all support Thackeray's observation that Josephus's works exhibit an unevenness of style: they do not, however, endorse the other premises required for his inference that literary assistants actually composed large sections of the narrative. Since no defence of Thackeray's hypothesis has appeared, it would seem legitimate to take the position of the later scholars as the verdict of contemporary scholarship on the<span class="greek">συνεργοί</span>:</p><p><q>It is quite safe to take Josephus's works, starting with the first, the<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, as his own, and to treat him exactly in the same way as we do other ancient writers. It is as well to dispel all fantastic notions of ghost writers at this early stage.<note id="p1_excur_n38" place="foot">Ibid. 63.</note></q></p><p>In this matter, as with the source question, the interpreter of Josephus's Pharisee passages cannot begin by separating some of them as the work of another author.</p> |
