The Latin legacies of the Greek writings of the Roman Jewish author Flavius Josephus (ca. 37/38-100 CE) have had a checkered history in modern textual scholarship.[1] His seven-book account of the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-73 CE entitled The Judean War was rendered into Latin twice before the sixth century, both in a literal translation attributed falsely to Rufinus and in a free adaptation that circulated under the name Hegesippus. While an edition of pseudo-Hegesippus’s paraphrase was published in 1932, the literal translation of pseudo-Rufinus did not receive a modern scholarly treatment until 2019, when Bernd Bader published his critical edition of the first of its seven books.[2] In contrast, the editing history of the Latin translation of Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews has been fraught. This magnum opus was a history of the ancient Jews in twenty books from the biblical and Second Temple periods (Books 1-11) to Hellenistic and Roman times (Books 12-20), which culminated with the onset of the Roman-Jewish war in 66 CE. Cassiodorus and his team of translators at Viviarium rendered this sprawling work into Latin in the sixth century. Despite its great length and the Jewish identity of its author, Josephus’s Antiquities enjoyed considerable popularity in the Middle Ages because its biblical source material appealed to Christian readers with an interest in ancient history. No fewer than twenty-five manuscripts made before the year 1000 preserve this influential work in full or in part. The first and only attempt to produce a modern critical edition of the Latin Antiquities appeared in 1958, when Franz Blatt published the text of the first five books.[3] Unfortunately, the deficiencies of Blatt’s edition drew the attention of critics. While praising Blatt’s efforts to assemble and describe 171 manuscript witnesses of the Latin Antiquities, one reviewer savaged the conception and execution of the edition, remarking on inconsistencies in presentation, errors of transcription and punctuation, and the general sloppiness of the work.[4] Perhaps not surprisingly, no further volumes of his edition ever appeared.
Blatt’s efforts were not entirely in vain, however. Building on the foundation of his edition of Books 1-5 of the Latin Antiquities, Randolf Lukas has produced a new edition of Books 6 and 7. His book falls into two parts. In the first part, he outlines the rationale and sources for his edition. Lukas begins by laying out the history of the Latin translations of Josephus’ writings, their appeal to Christian readers, and the textual scholarship they have inspired (pp. xv-xxiv). He acknowledges his indebtedness not only to Blatt’s work on the manuscript tradition of Josephus’ corpus, but also to recent publications by David Levenson and Thomas Martin, who made a preliminary edition of some difficult passages in Book 6 of the Latin Antiquities based on 119 manuscript witnesses (pp. xxv-xxvii).[5] Careful to avoid Blatt’s mistakes, Lukas describes in detail the sixteen manuscripts used for his edition as well as the printed editions that inform his work (pp. xxviii-l). The Latin Antiquities survives in full and in part in 174 manuscripts, 159 of which contain the text of Books 6 and 7. All the manuscript witnesses descended from a common archetype, the text of which was already flawed. Lukas explains at length the relationship of the surviving manuscripts to one another and their value for the edition, thus providing the clarity and transparency that Blatt’s edition lacked (pp. li-cx). Lukas then offers an analysis of the translation itself, which was overall very literal; the translator even went so far as to imitate the exact word order of the Greek original (pp. cxi-cl). The influence of the vocabulary and cadence of the Latin Bible is clear in many passages, as Lukas has illustrated on a helpful chart (pp. cxl-cxlii). This part of the book concludes with a bibliography and notes on the principles of the Latin edition to follow.
The second part of the book offers a critical edition of Books 6 and 7 of the Antiquities in Latin with accompanying textual apparatus (pp. 1-107). Drawing on 1 Sam. 5-31 and 1 Chr. 10, Book 6 treats the reign of Saul, the rise of David, and their tenacious rivalry. It features some well-known biblical vignettes, like David’s battle against Goliath (6.170-192) and Saul’s consulation with the witch of Endor (6.325-350), before concluding with the death of Saul in battle against the Philistines. Book 7 draws on 1 Reg. 1-2 and 1 Chr. 11-29 to highlight the achievements of David’s military career as the king of all Israel, including accounts of his battles and the failed coup attempts against him. The book ends with David’s final speech to his son and successor Solomon, followed by his death and burial. Appended to Lukas’ edition is an index of rare Latin words and an index of proper names (pp. 109-117). There follows a list of all known manuscripts of the Latin translation of the Antiquities keyed to the sigla assigned to them in Blatt’s edition, which also includes information about their date, manuscript family classification, and contents (pp. 118-128), as well as a short overview of the earliest printed editions between 1470 and 1534 (p. 129).
This edition of Books 6 and 7 of the Latin Antiquities is nothing short of revelatory. Lukas’s enduring contribution to the field is twofold. First, after decades of inertia following the harsh criticism of Blatt’s edition, he has rejuvenated the study of the Latin Antiquities by establishing the Latin texts for two more books of Josephus’s history. Second and more importantly, in his systematic reevaluation of the entire manuscript tradition of the Latin Antiquities, Lukas has single-handedly provided a new foundation for the study of the Latin legacy of Josephus’s Antiquities in the western Middle Ages. Hopefully other scholars will make use of his book to complete the Herculean task of producing an edition of all twenty books of this influential work of ancient history.
Notes
[1] For a recent overview, see S. G. Bruce, “The Redemption of Flavius Josephus in the Medieval Latin Tradition,” in Litterarum dulces fructus: Studies in Honour of Michael W. Herren on his 80th Birthday, ed. S. G. Bruce (Turnhout 2021), pp. 53-69.
[2] See Hegesippi qui dicitur historiae libri V, ed. V. Ussani, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 66 (Vienna 1932); and Josephus Latinus, De Bello Iudaico, Buch 1, ed. B. Bader (Stuttgart 2019)
[3] The Latin Josephus I, Introduction and Text: The Jewish Antiquities, Books I-V, ed. F. Blatt (Copenhagen 1958).
[4] See the review by J. Willis in Journal of Roman Studies 51 (1961): 272-73.
[5] See, for example, D. B. Levenson and T. R. Martin, “A Revised Classification of Manuscript Groups for the Early Books of the Latin Translation of Josephus’s Antiquities Based on Textual Variants in AJ 6.356-360 and 6.362b,” in The Latin Josephus, ed. R. F. Glei and R. Lukas, Medievalia et Humanistica Special Edition 46 (2021): 69-146.