Next in section 2, Josephus narrates how Pilate took money from the treasury to build an aqueduct to the city, the people protested, so Pilate ordered the soldiers to attack, and they attacked harder than ordered. So the uprising ended after some were slain.
In Section 3, Josephus introduces what is called the "Testamonium" about Jesus. (About this time there lived Jesus....)
In Section 4, he tells the story of Paulina at the Temple of Isis, which I see as a parallel story to the Testamonium. He begins the section this way:
In section 5, he tells how four Jews tricked Fulvia into giving them money for the temple and then spent it on themselves, after which the Jews were expelled from Rome.About this same time another outrage threw the Jews into an uproar; and simultaneously certain actions of a scandalous nature occurred in connexion with the temple of Isis at Rome. I shall first give an account of the daring deed of the followers of Isis and shall then come back to the fate of the Jews...
So this chapter seems to be a telling of a number of incidents that incited the Jews to revolt, which eventually led to the nation's ruin. He may be telling a lesson here too:
Pilate does the impious action of bringing images to Jerusalem, the people piously offer themselves for death in protest, and succeed in having the images remove.
Pilate takes the good action of bringing water to the city, the people mistakenly protest and are killed.
Jews deceive the Roman proselytes about the use of the donations and the Jewish people are exiled from Rome.
The story of Jesus in this context suggests itself as an anecdote explaining a spiritual reason for why the disaster came onto Israel. The Romans in this context were heavy handed and the Jewish leaders were acting wrongly. Like the Jewish protestors against idolatry who offered themselves and were spared, the Christians are a tribe who have still survived, Josephus writes in his Testamonium.
Some scholars have proposed that the Testamonium sounds out of place, as if it was inserted, but after reading almost all of Josephus' volumes, I don't agree with this impression. Instead, the story of Paulina strongly suggests that the Testamonium was used exactly at this point. The reason is that the story of Paulina takes place entirely in Rome and ostensibly doesn't seem to have a relation to any other events in the chapter, as it doesn't involve any Jews. I can tell from my reading that Josephus almost always limits himself to Jewish events or to events that have a strong purpose or relationship to them, like the succession of Roman emperors. There is no ostensible reason why Josephus includes the story of Paulina at this point, and besides that, Paulina's story has major close similarities to the Testamonium.
The Testamonium is immediately followed by the story of Paulina, below, which I feel cryptically refers to the Testamonium because of their similar elements. Here is Whiston's translation:
Loeb's footnote:4. About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs.
There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus, one that was every way answerable to her in an excellent character. Decius Mundus fell in love with this woman, who was a man very high in the equestrian order; and as she was of too great dignity to be caught by presents, and had already rejected them, though they had been sent in great abundance, he was still more inflamed with love to her, insomuch that he promised to give her two hundred thousand Attic drachmae for one night's lodging; and when this would not prevail upon her, and he was not able to bear this misfortune in his amours, he thought it the best way to famish himself to death for want of food, on account of Paulina's sad refusal; and he determined with himself to die after such a manner, and he went on with his purpose accordingly. Now Mundus had a freed-woman, who had been made free by his father, whose name was Ide, one skillful in all sorts of mischief. This woman was very much grieved at the young man's resolution to kill himself, (for he did not conceal his intentions to destroy himself from others,) and came to him, and encouraged him by her discourse, and made him to hope, by some promises she gave him, that he might obtain a night's lodging with Paulina; and when he joyfully hearkened to her entreaty, she said she wanted no more than fifty thousand drachmae for the entrapping of the woman. So when she had encouraged the young man, and gotten as much money as she required, she did not take the same methods as had been taken before, because she perceived that the woman was by no means to be tempted by money; but as she knew that she was very much given to the worship of the goddess Isis, she devised the following stratagem: She went to some of Isis's priests, and upon the strongest assurances [of concealment], she persuaded them by words, but chiefly by the offer of money, of twenty-five thousand drachmae in hand, and as much more when the thing had taken effect; and told them the passion of the young man, and persuaded them to use all means possible to beguile the woman. So they were drawn in to promise so to do, by that large sum of gold they were to have. Accordingly, the oldest of them went immediately to Paulina; and upon his admittance, he desired to speak with her by herself. When that was granted him, he told her that he was sent by the god Anubis, who was fallen in love with her, and enjoined her to come to him. Upon this she took the message very kindly, and valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis, and told her husband that she had a message sent her, and was to sup and lie with Anubis; so he agreed to her acceptance of the offer, as fully satisfied with the chastity of his wife. Accordingly, she went to the temple, and after she had supped there, and it was the hour to go to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple, when, in the holy part of it, the lights were also put out. Then did Mundus leap out, (for he was hidden therein,) and did not fail of enjoying her, who was at his service all the night long, as supposing he was the god; and when he was gone away, which was before those priests who knew nothing of this stratagem were stirring, Paulina came early to her husband, and told him how the god Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends, also, she declared how great a value she put upon this favor, who partly disbelieved the thing, when they reflected on its nature, and partly were amazed at it, as having no pretense for not believing it, when they considered the modesty and the dignity of the person. But now, on the third day after what had been done, Mundus met Paulina, and said, "Nay, Paulina, thou hast saved me two hundred thousand drachmae, which sum thou sightest have added to thy own family; yet hast thou not failed to be at my service in the manner I invited thee. As for the reproaches thou hast laid upon Mundus, I value not the business of names; but I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took to myself the name of Anubis." When he had said this, he went his way.
But now she began to come to the sense of the grossness of what she had done, and rent her garments, and told her husband of the horrid nature of this wicked contrivance, and prayed him not to neglect to assist her in this case. So he discovered the fact to the emperor; whereupon Tiberius inquired into the matter thoroughly by examining the priests about it, and ordered them to be crucified, as well as Ide, who was the occasion of their perdition, and who had contrived the whole matter, which was so injurious to the woman. He also demolished the temple of Isis, and gave order that her statue should be thrown into the river Tiber; while he only banished Mundus, but did no more to him, because he supposed that what crime he had committed was done out of the passion of love. And these were the circumstances which concerned the temple of Isis, and the injuries occasioned by her priests. I now return to the relation of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome, as I formerly told you I would.
Here is the relevant passage from Tacitus:Actually [Paulina's story occurred in]AD 19 as we see from Tacitus Ann. ii.85 and not c. 30, as we should deduce from the insertion of these incidents in the midst of the narrative of the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. EM Smallwood... though rejecting Josephus' date, suggests that this date was prompted by the danger in which the Jews found themselves in the year 30 because of Sejanus' opposition to them.
...
C. Pharr, 'The testimony of Josephus to Christianity'... remarks that this story of Mundus and Paulina in its present literary form has been influenced by the classic story of the trick of Nectanebus II, the Egyptian king who, according to Pseudo-Callisthenes... deceived Olympias, wife of King Philip of Macedonia, into believing that he was Zeus Ammon, and through her became the father of Alexander the Great.
First, I note that Paulina's story doesn't seem to have much to do with the other events in the chapter, except in that both the Egyptian and Jewish cults were banned from Rome. And I can see how Paulina's story could have played a role in the expulsion of the Egyptian cult. But there is still no practical need for Josephus to have told the story even if it did relate to the expulsion of the Egyptian cult, because Josephus, as I have seen, generally only narrates events that relate directly to Jewish affairs. If the banishment in Paulina's story actually happened in 19 AD like Tacitus said, then it occurred before Pilate's rule in Judea and hence the purpose of inserting it at this point would not really be to show why Jews were revolting against Pilate. It seems that the purpose of Josephus telling Paulina's story is to serve as a relief or antithesis to the Testamonium.That same year [when Germanicus died, 19 CE]… There was a debate too about expelling the Egyptian and Jewish worship, and a resolution of the Senate was passed that four thousand of the freedmen class who were infected with those superstitions and were of military age should be transported to the island of Sardinia, to quell the brigandage of the place, a cheap sacrifice should they die from the pestilential climate. The rest were to quit Italy, unless before a certain day they repudiated their impious rites.
Second, the opening introducing Paulina and her virtues reminds me of the opening of the Testamonium in introducing Jesus and his virtues:
Third, Ida's paying the priests money in order to treacherously entrap Paulina reminds me of the temple priests' payment to Judas to treacherously catch Jesus.There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty.
Fourth, whereas Paulina slept with Mundus, thinking that he was the god Anubis, and Mundus met her "on the third day" of the event and revealed himself, Jesus appeared to his apostles "on the third day" of his crucifixion. In the New Testament, the resurrection appearance is considered a revelation that Jesus is divine.
Fifth, Ida and the priests were crucified by the Romans, and the temple of Isis was destroyed. On the other hand in the Bible, Jesus was crucified. And Christians like Origen ascribed the Jerusalem temple's destruction to Jesus' crucifixion.
Sixth, the mating of Ida and "Anubis" could find a parallel in the divinely induced virgin birth by Mary of Jesus, which Josephus alludes to with his words "if indeed he should be called a man".
Roger Viklund suggests that Paulina was Jewish, noting:
https://rogerviklund.wordpress.com/2011 ... ext/#_edn1Afterwards, when Paulina finds out about the deception, she “rent her garments” in despair over her humiliation; a common expression of grief and despair among the Jews and this therefore suggest that she also was a Jewess.
...
Ivan G. Marcus writes:
”The tearing of clothes is the basis of what the rabbis called qeriyah, tearing one’s garment, and it is already anticipated here: ’Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and observed mourning for his son many days’ (Gen. 37:34)” (Ivan G. Marcus, The Jewish life cycle: rites of passage from biblical to modern times, p. 203).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AJo ... _18,_Ch._3?I've read... that the off-topic digression [about Paulina] is an allegorical fable intended by Josephus to link the short "Jesus passage" with the final section of the chapter -- in which an unnamed Roman Jew swindles a sincere but naive convert to Judaism out of a huge pile of cash (ostensibly for the Temple in Jerusalem). Which is to say that the racy anecdote about a seducer who pretends to be a god is meant to draw an analogy between the Jewish con-artist in Rome and another Jewish con-artist in Jerusalem!
In other words, could the gushingly "Christian-sounding" quality that skeptics have complained about in the Testimonium Flavium be nothing more than SARCASM on the part of Josephus?
In James the Brother of Jesus, Robert H. Eisenman writes:
Throbert McGee writes:Tacitus, who agrees that Tiberius expelled the jews from Rome because of these kinds of pernicious superstitions, places these events [Paulina's story and Fulvia's deception by the four Jews, leading to the banishment from Rome] precidely in 19 CE - the year of Jesus' purported crucifixion according to the allegedly spurious Acti Pilates.... These 'acts'... have now been lost....
For some this [set of stories] could represent a subtle if malevolent burlesque of Christian infancy narratives. The Fulvia episode has to do with fundraising activities overseas on the part of a teacher, condemnded for Lawbreaking in palestine and three of his associates. Not only does the date of the Mundus and Paulina episode in Tacitus like the date of the death of John the Baptist in Josephus cause problems where New testament chronologies are concerned, it overlaps later information in Suetonius about how during the reign of Claudius (41-54 CE) the Jews were banished from Rome for making propaganda on behalf of one 'Chrestus'.
...
There is something very peculiar about these stories, which are immediately followed up by descriptions of additional tumults and Pilate's repression of what are obviously Messianic disturbances among the Samaritans. It is impossible to say what is going on, but at least in the Mundus and Fulvia stories, Josephus appears to substitute titillating trivia for more substantial turns of events. Additionally, the parody of Christian birth narratives about Jesus, represented by the Mundus and Paulina story, would be typical of Josephus and others of a similar frame of mind.
http://freethoughtnation.com/does-josep ... ical-jesusI would cautiously argue that Josephus’s entertaining but utterly off-topic digression about the seduction of “Paulina” makes sense ONLY as a rhetorical bridge between the passage about Jesus and the subsequent passage about an unnamed Roman Jew who swindles a naive convert to Judaism out of a huge pile of money. Remove the “TF” on the grounds that it’s a complete forgery and the Paulina story has no reason for being there — Josephus could’ve gone right to the story about the dishonest Jew in Rome and its repercussions for the city’s Jewish community. Furthermore, Paulina is described as being a virtuous and faithful wife who is TRICKED into “accidental adultery” by a clever seducer who claims to be the Egyptian god Anubis, making love to her in a dream.
...the “Paulina” story IS ABOUT A CON-MAN WHO PRETENDS TO BE A GOD, and it comes RIGHT AFTER the disputed passage in which Josephus describes Jesus as the Messiah who Rose From the Dead. Far from being an obvious Christian forgery, the Testimonium is possibly deadpan sarcasm!
Karl Kautsky said that the connection was a longstanding observation by readers of the Antiquities:
In the late fourth century, a writer using Hegessippus as a pseudonym rewrote the story of Paulina as a satire of the Christian gospel story. Albert Bell writes in his essay "Josephus the Satirist":Pious commentators early occupied themselves with this sequence, linking the adventure of Madame Paulina with Christ, and seeing in it a hidden sneer on the part of the malicious Jew Josephus at the virginity of the Virgin Mary and the credulity of her fiance Joseph, a sneer that to be sure would not go very well with the recognition of the miracles of Christ immediately preceding it.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsk ... t/ch06.htm
Bell suggests that as a result, Josephus' original writing of the Testamonium likely referred to Jesus' virgin birth in a derogatory way, and proposes:In [Book] II, 12.1 ["Hegesippus"] retells the sory of Paulina and Mundus as an example of the ludibrium typical of the Rome which killed Christ. .... Hegesippus then introduces the element of pregnancy, which is altogether lacking in Josephus: de se quoque et illa deum esse generandum persuadet mulieri. To the Christian audience for whom he was writing this must surely have suggested the Annunciation in Luke I. THe words used to describe Paulina's reaction... when compared to certain phrases in Luke's Gospel heighten this impression...
https://www.scribd.com/document/1180041 ... -FlavianumIf [in the story of Paulina], Josephus has just satirized the founder of Christianity, could not [Fulvia's story], in light of its context, be understood as satirizing the new sect's foremost propagator, Paul? ... The apostle's converts included large numbers of women, such as Lydia, his first convert in Europe... and Priscilla... Women are prominently mentioned in the salutations to the letters to Colossae and ROme. ... And of course his collection of funds for the Jerusalem Christians was a major aspect of his third missionary journey.
John Munter notes the connections between the two stories that follow the Testamonium:
Munter questions whether Decius Mundus and Paulina were real names of real people. Decius Mundus means something like Worldly God in Latin, and in the story he was playing the character of Anubis, a god of the dead. Paulina, on the other hand, is a feminine form of "Paul".The first story involves sex and the second one money but both describe a supposed con man hoodwinking a well-meaning and prominent woman in the religious contexts of both the Greek gods and the Jewish faith. Both are very oddly placed in that during a discussion of events in Palestine the focus suddenly veers to Rome that includes a discussion of the Temple of Isis about characters and events that are otherwise unattested outside of Josephus...
http://www.themirroredbridalchamber.com ... _Jesus.pdf
Another curiosity is that in the two stories that immediately follow the Testamonium, the female protagonist is married to a "Saturninus":
If these two stories are fictional, then why did Josephus decide to name their husbands "Saturninus"? One blog commentor proposed that "Saturn" is supposed to be a reference to Judaism (https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/4664). It seems to me that Loeb's footnote's idea, suggested by RS Rogers, that Paulina and Fulvia could be the same person and the husband Saturninus her husband in both stories, could be correct.4... She[Paulina] was married to Saturninus, one that was every way answerable to her in an excellent character.
5... Whereupon Tiberius, who had been informed of the thing by Saturninus, the husband of Fulvia, who desired inquiry might be made about it, ordered all the Jews to be banished out of Rome
Peter Cresswell also sees the story of Paulina to be an allegory:
He adds:The unison of a god with a mortal woman is the Christian nativity theme even to the detail of the husband, having been told, feeling honoured at the prospect! The pretender, Decius Mundus, is based on Decius Mus, a mfamous, legendary Roman war hero. He was a soldier who in battle sacrificed himself in to appease the gods, thus dying for the benefit of the many – in the same way that Caiaphas speaks of Yeshua in John’s gospel. Like the figure of gospel creation, Jesus, Decius claims in the story to be a god and he makes public his resolution to die. Like Jesus/Yeshua, Decius appears on the third day (after two days). But his purpose was quite contrary to that of Jesus/Yeshua who proclaimed thereby his divinity. Decius’ objective was to tell Paulinus that he had been pretending to be Anubis; that he was not after all, a god. The outcome, as in the case of Yeshua, is crucifixion. But Decius escapes into exile, as indeed I have earlier suggested that Yeshua may have.
http://www.theinventionofjesus.com/jose ... -saulpaul/
The article "Josephus' Report on Jesus" in Collected Studies on Philo and Josephus makes an interesting observation showing the connection between the two women's stories: "it could be argued that these sections form one unity, since in his editorial remarks, Josephus claims that 18.65 and 18.80 introduce and conclude the story of Paulina, which clearly indicates that this particular story should be understood as part of the overarching tale of the Jews in Rome. The purpose of the Paulina story is to throw the Fulvia story into relief: In the Paulina story, a greater fraud results in a smaller punishment, whereas in the Fulvia story, a minor fraud results in a terrible and much larger punishment."In [both the story of Fulvia and that of Paulina,] the victim is a woman of high birth, betrayed by a priest or priests, and the husband knows the Emperor and reports the matter. Tiberias exacts punishments, including in both cases a sentence of banishment. To make quite sure the point is not lost, he calls the husband in each case by the same name, Saturnicus! So Paulina is Fulvia and Fulvia is Paulina, perhaps even Fulvia Paulina.
[Fulvia's story is] an almost exact précis of Paul’s position as described in the Acts of the Apostles and, as in Acts, Paul is on a mission, ostensibly to collect money for Jews in Jerusalem. Josephus maliciously repeats rumours that Paul had been using some of the money for himself, something that Paul himself appears to have been acutely aware of (Corinthians I, 9, 3-12).
In Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World (pp. 85-86), Sarolta A. Takacs says that there was in real life a Paulina Fulvia married to a Saturninis, but she implies that enough details in the story are unrealistic that the story is probably made up:
I find it relevant that the ancient Table of Contents mentions the protests against Pilate bringing the images of the emperor to Jerusalem (Chapter 3), as well as the failed Messianic-type Samaritan revolt (Chapter 4), and yet omits mention of the revolts against the aqueduct, as well as the stories of Jesus, Paulina, and Fulvia. But this doesn't necessarily mean that those stories were absent in Josephus' original text.The major problem however is the fusion of the two women who had different religious interests. Paulina was an adherent of the cult of Isis... Fulvia... can be thought of as a proselyte Jew. .... One is then left to wonder not only about her religious conversion [from Isis worship to Judaism] and persuasion, her judgment of character and naivete, but also the emperor's repeated willingness to intervene on behalf of the twice foolwed Paulina Fulvia and his sweeping punishments to avenge her. Josephus' colorful account... does not rely on the existence of a Paulina Fulvia but on the theme of moral disintegration that was in his opinion equally applicable to the Jewish and Roman state of affairs.