Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

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andrewcriddle
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by andrewcriddle »

Ken Olson wrote:In this long-dormant thread I had previously posted:
Consider the following passage from Pseudo-Hegesippus::
And because it has been proposed by us to reveal the causes, by which the people of the Jews defected from the Roman empire and hastened destruction for themselves, the event indicates that Pilatus the governor of the province gave the beginning of its ruin, seeing that first of all he did [not] hesitate to bring into the Jerusalem temples the images of Caesar. When the people disturbed by this resisted and he decreed the images had to be received, he forced many into death. (Excidio 2.3).

In Josephus’ account (Ant. 18.55-59//BJ 2.169-174), Pilate brings the images into Jerusalem, but not into the temple. And when the Jews show their willingness to be killed rather than allow this transgression of the law, Pilate relents and removes the images from the city and no one is killed. It seems that Pseudo-Hegesippus is a very tendentious interpreter of Josephus, not an honest one. Or does he have a source other than Josephus here?
I closed with a leading question about whether Pseudo-Hegesippus had another source here, which I think he does. Three things that are not in Josephus' accounts in Ant. 18.55-59//BJ 2.169-174: (1) that Pilate brought the images into the temple itself, (2) that the incident went badly for the Jews, and (3) that this incident was the beginning of the ruin of Judea and the Jewish people could all be derived easily from the works of Eusebius of Caesarea.

In Demonstratio Evangelica 8.2, Eusebius writes:
And the same writer [Josephus] writes elsewhere: Pilate the governor (meaning the same Pilate of our Saviour's time) brought the images of Caesar into the temple by night, which was unlawful, and caused a great outburst of tumult and disorder among the Jews. (Ferrar trans. 2.138)
And in Ecclesiastical History 2.6.3-8, Eusebius gives Josephus' account of Pilate and the images, cutting off the ending containing the peaceful resolution, and follows it with his account of Pilate's use of money from the sacred treasury incident, in which many Jews *were* killed, and comments:
The same writer shows that besides this innumerable of other revolts were started in Jerusalem itself, affirming that from that time risings and war and mutual contrivance of evil never ceased in the city and throughout Judea until the time when the siege under Vespasian came upon them as the last scene of all. Thus the penalty of God pursued the Jews for their crimes against Christ. [HE 2.6.8]
Now it seems to me that the most reasonable interpretation of this evidence is that Pseudo-Hegesippus is guided in his reading of Josephus by knowledge of Eusebius' works. Globally, Pseudo-Hegesippus' decision to write a Christian history using Josephus as a source to prove the thesis that the disasters that befell the Jews in the war were God's punishment for what they had done to Christ and his disciples already shows the influence of Eusebius who had done this 45 years earlier in the Ecclesiastical History (see now Richard Pollard, "The De Excidio of 'Hegesippus' and the Reception of Josephus," Viator 46.2 (2015) 65-100 at 76-77 also available on his Academia.edu page https://uqam.academia.edu/RichardPollard ).
The idea that Pilate;s actions were an attack on the temple may go back to Origen's commentary on Matthew see https://archive.org/stream/patrologiae_ ... 3/mode/2up

Andrew Criddle
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Ken Olson
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by Ken Olson »

Andrew,

Okay. That's one of three points. Do you have an explanation for the other two? And is there a good reason to prefer the theory that Pseudo-Hegesippus would have known Origen's Commentary on Matthew in Greek or Latin translation over the theory that he would have known Eusebius' work. Isn't knowledge of Eusebius the more economical theory?

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by andrewcriddle »

Ken Olson wrote:Andrew,

Okay. That's one of three points. Do you have an explanation for the other two? And is there a good reason to prefer the theory that Pseudo-Hegesippus would have known Origen's Commnetary on Matthew in Greek or Latin translation over the theory that he would have known Eusebius' work. Isn't knowledge of Eusebius the more economical theory?

Best,

Ken
Hi Ken

IMHO the first point is the most likely to involve a written source as distinct from a shared attitude.
As to the most economical explanation. I think it definitely unlikely that Hegesippus had access to the Demonstratio Evangelica (which seems to have had little or no circulation in the West). Origen on Matthew (popular in the West) would be more likely than the DE as a source for Hegesippus. However Eusebius does say something similar in his Chronicle (as translated by Jerome)
Also Josephus, a native writer of the Jews, attests that around that time on the day of Pentecost, the priests first perceived an earth tremor and certain (loud) sounds. Then, that an unexpected voice suddenly burst out from the innermost part of the Temple saying: "Let us flee from this abode." However the aforementioned man writes that in the same year Pilate the governor secretly in the night set up images of Caesar in the temple, and from this arose the first cause of the rebellion and turmoil of the Jews.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerom ... _part2.htm
and it is a lot more probable that Hegesippus knew the Chronicle than the DE.

I'm not sure what source Hegesippus was using for his claims about Pilate, but I don't think we have evidence that he was using the Demonstratio or Church History of Eusebius.

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Ken Olson
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by Ken Olson »

Andrew,

Thanks. Yes, both the point about Pilate bringing the images into the temple and the point about this incident being the first cause of the rebellion and turmoil of the Jews could have come from Eusebius' Chronicon. So I understand why one might think Pseudo-Hegesippus' knowledge of Eusebius' Chronicon was more likely than his knowledge of the Demonstratio. But if you're willing to entertain that idea (and I realize you said "a lot more probable", which does not necessarily mean "probable"), what specifically would lead you to suggest that it's unlikely that Pseudo-Hegesippus knew the Ecclesiastical History?

Best,

Ken
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MrMacSon
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by MrMacSon »

andrewcriddle wrote:
The idea that Pilate's actions were an attack on the temple may go back to Origen's commentary on Matthew; see
It seems that "Jerome and Theophylat also commented and, according to Marcus Borg, they "preserve, apparently independently of Josephus, the memory that Pilate deposited images in the Temple" [cf. the idea that the images on Pilate's troops' standards had only been placed "in the fortress Antonia adjacent to the Temple"]
"The magnitude of the offense is suggested by the fact that Jerome and Theophylat preserve, apparently independently of Josephus, the memory that Pilate deposited images in the Temple.82 "

Marcus Borg (1998) Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Bloomsbury Publishing USA) p. 59.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=I7 ... le&f=false
82. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, and Theophylat, Commentary on Mark, cites by GA Beasley-Murray, a Commentary of Mark Thirteen London, 1957), 71. In Jewish tradition, Megillath Taanith 18 may refer to the day when the standards were removed; if so, they days was observed annually as one on which fasting was not permitted.

.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by Ken Olson »

MrMacSon wrote:
It seems that "Jerome and Theophylat also commented and, according to Marcus Borg, they "preserve, apparently independently of Josephus, the memory that Pilate deposited images in the Temple" [c. the idea that the images on Pilate's troops' standards had only been placed "in the fortress Antonia adjacent to the Temple"]
Independent of Josephus, yes, because it's not in Josephus. But that's not really the issue we're discussing here. Jerome is certainly not independent of Eusebius, as he was the translator of Eusebius' Chronicon into Latin and thus knew the passage about Pilate bringing the images into the temple that Andrew quoted above (which we know of from his translation). He probably knew the passage from Origen's Commentary on Matthew as well. In commenting on the Abomination of Desolation from Matt. 24.15, he wrote: "It can simply be understood of Antichrist, or the image of Caesar, which Pilate placed in the temple, or of the equestrian statue of Hadrian, which stands in in the place of the Holy of Holies to this very day."

I don't have the quotation from Theophylact of Ohrid on hand, but he wrote in the 11th and 12th centuries, so it would probably be pretty difficult to show he was independent of Origen and even more so Eusebius.

Best,

Ken
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MrMacSon
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by MrMacSon »

Ken Olson wrote: Independent of Josephus, yes, because it's not in Josephus. But that's not really the issue we're discussing here. Jerome is certainly not independent of Eusebius, as he was the translator of Eusebius' Chronicon into Latin, and thus knew the passage about Pilate bringing the images into the temple that Andrew quoted above (which we know of from his translation). He probably knew the passage from Origen's Commentary on Matthew as well.
Cheers. I mainly posted b/c I had found the reference in relation to another thread on Pilate, and though aspects of it might be relevant or expand on certain aspects of the discussions above.
Ken Olson wrote:
In commenting on the Abomination of Desolation from Matt. 24.15, he wrote: "It can simply be understood of Antichrist, or the image of Caesar, which Pilate placed in the temple, or of the equestrian statue of Hadrian, which stands in in the place of the Holy of Holies to this very day."
Interestingly, Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah (+/- Rosenthal-Heginbottom) has proposed that "reshaping of the urban topography of Jesusalem in establishing Aelia Capitolina] must have appeared as a total destruction [desolation?] of whatever was left of the Herodian city", and that likely happened a decade or so before the Bar Kokhba Revolt - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 098#p59098
Ken Olson wrote: ... Theophylact of Ohrid ... wrote in the 11th and 12th centuries, so it would probably be pretty difficult to show he was independent of Origen and even more so Eusebius.
ah, Cheers.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by andrewcriddle »

Ken Olson wrote:Andrew,

Thanks. Yes, both the point about Pilate bringing the images into the temple and the point about this incident being the first cause of the rebellion and turmoil of the Jews could have come from Eusebius' Chronicon. So I understand why one might think Pseudo-Hegesippus' knowledge of Eusebius' Chronicon was more likely than his knowledge of the Demonstratio. But if you're willing to entertain that idea (and I realize you said "a lot more probable", which does not necessarily mean "probable"), what specifically would lead you to suggest that it's unlikely that Pseudo-Hegesippus knew the Ecclesiastical History?

Best,

Ken
Hi Ken

The Chronicle became available in Latin translation (c 379) a number of years earlier than the translation of the Ecclesiastical History. However, if Pseudo-Hegesippus wrote c 370 neither would have been available in Latin so this may not be relevant.

Andrew Criddle
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Ken Olson
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by Ken Olson »

Andrew Criddle wrote:
The Chronicle became available in Latin translation (c 379) a number of years earlier than the translation of the Ecclesiastical History. However, if Pseudo-Hegesippus wrote c 370 neither would have been available in Latin so this may not be relevant.
The argument you're making seems to imply that you have a strong presupposition that Pseudo-Hegesippus would not have used Greek sources. But since his major source, Josephus, was in Greek, why? And your presupposition is so strongly held that you would discount the possibility you suggested above that Pseudo-Hegesippus could have gotten his information about Pilate from Eusebius' Chronicon if this meant he would have known it in Greek instead of Latin. So you'd rather deny his use of Greek sources other than Josephus (leaving you without an explanation of why he would say Pilate brought the images into the temple and that this incident was the beginning of the downfall of the Jews) than allow that he may well have known Eusebius in Greek. Again, what is the justification for your presupposition? What would count as evidence that he did have Greek sources other than Josephus?

Best,

Ken
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Pseudo-Hegesippus and the TF

Post by Peter Kirby »

Thanks for your comments regarding Pseudo-Hegesippus and the connection to Eusebius, Ken (and thanks to Andrew, too, for making good contributions).

This does, in a way, lead back to the general question of the interrelationship of the Greek and Latin versions of Josephus and their "Testimonia," along with the versions of the Testimonium Flavianum found outside of the copies of Josephus (e.g., Eusebius, Pseudo-Hegesippus, Jerome, Agapius, etc.).

Previously I sustained a (somewhat elaborate) argument that the Latin version of the Antiquities' Testimonium (the version of Cassiodorus) derived from the Latin of the H.E. (the version of Rufinus), which came to a conclusion here:

http://peterkirby.com/the-latin-testimo ... ebius.html

With these other pages as background:

http://peterkirby.com/eusebius-rufinus- ... ities.html
http://peterkirby.com/the-quotable-josephus.html
http://peterkirby.com/latin-table-of-contents.html
http://peterkirby.com/table-of-contents-josephus.html

There, in response, you asked:
Ken Olson wrote:If the Latin translators did not have the Testimonium in their exemplar of the Antiquities, are they responsible for its insertion into the text between 18.61 and 18.64? Is the Testimonium’s location in the Greek text dependent on the work of Cassiodorus’ group?
And I suggested, instead:
Peter Kirby wrote:Thanks for the question, Ken. I wouldn’t suggest that. I would suggest that, if it were absent in the exemplar, “This would explain why the translators reached for a secondary source for Josephus in the first place, because they knew the passage on Jesus were missing and wished to restore it in the place at which they remembered it being, from other manuscripts of Josephus’ Antiquities which were known but not at hand…”
However, this isn't really certain; as far as I know, there is no very clear evidence that the Testimonium even was available in Josephus' Greek manuscripts by then. So that does leave the question open for discussion.

Would you consider it plausible that "the Testimonium’s location in the Greek text [is] dependent on the work of Cassiodorus’ group"?

Would such a hypothesis explain anything else, besides what was discussed in that blog article?

Thanks for sharing any comments in this regard. (The question is open to others besides Ken, too, by the way...)
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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