Louis Feldman, in his monumental Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937–1980), published in 1984, stated: “one of scholarship’s favorite indoor sports, especially at the turn of the century, had been to guess the identity of the author of Hegesippus.”[1] The “Hegesippus” to whom Feldman refers—aka “Pseudo-Hegesippus”—is the unknown author of the late-fourth (or early-fifth) century Latin work, On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De excidio Hierosolymitano, hereafter DEH), a paraphrase of Josephus’ Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum, hereafter BJ). Feldman’s statement is, of course, a wild exaggeration. Neither this work nor its author has ever been front-page news within scholarship; rather, they have occupied a marginal niche usually familiar to mere handfuls of scholars and all but unknown in the last half-century. Still, the question of DEH’s authorship—in particular, whether Ambrose wrote it, what Otto Scholz dubbed “die Hegesippus-Ambrosius-Frage”—did dominate scholarship on DEH until quite recently. (Indeed, DEH appears among Ambrose’s spuria in J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Latina and figures in lists of Ambrosian manuscripts). So central was this question seen to be, that studies only tangentially related to it used it to situate themselves, e.g. the Catholic University of America dissertations by William Dwyer (1931) and John McCormick (1935), between which Vincenzo Ussani produced the standard critical edition of DEH in 1932.[2]
Recent studies have generally concentrated on DEH as a text, setting authorship aside as indeterminate, most prominently Albert Bell’s unpublished dissertation (1977), Dominique Estève’s unpublished dissertation (1987), Richard Pollard’s article on DEH’s manuscripts and reception (2015), and Carson Bay’s monograph on DEH’s biblical exempla (2023).[3] An exception in this has been Italian scholarship: Chiara Somenzi’s 2009 monograph placed the ‘Ambrose question’ front and center, concluding somewhat diffidently (but perhaps wisely) that DEH’s author (“Egesippo”) was the product of the same “scholastic formation” as was the young Ambrose,[4] which could align with Ussani’s idea that Ambrose wrote DEH early on but that it was only published posthumously by Ambrose’s friends. Ambrosian authorship of DEH has not been accepted by most modern scholars, nor has it been central to research. Otto Zwierlein’s substantial monograph resurrects this debate by arguing comprehensively that Ambrose wrote DEH.
Zwierlein’s argument, meticulously outlined in the Table of Contents (XI–XVII)—6 chapters in Teil I, 3 chapters of “Anhänge,” and 8 chapters in Teil II—starts by surveying the scholarship. Zwierlein rightly rejects minority positions like J.-P. Callu’s suggested early date (353–358 CE) for DEH and problematizes 19th-/20th-century attempts to identify the author with a Jewish convert, even a certain “Isaac” known to Jerome, on the basis of DEH’s contents. Zwierlein also states that taking topographic descriptions in DEH as evidence of authorial origin misconceives the nature of the “Rhetorikunterricht” on display in DEH (14). Zwierlein is right to be reticent of using DEH’s contents to sketch its author’s biography, though this renders half-ironic the book’s thesis that Ambrose authored DEH based mostly on internal evidence. That said, there is far better evidence supporting Ambrosian authorship than that the author was a Jew, or Isaac.
Zwierlein’s introduction ends with a long section on the Maria Story (DEH 5.40.1), a tale expanded from BJ 6.201–13 about a mother in Jerusalem of 70 CE who kills, cooks, and eats her infant son. Contra the suggestion that Ambrose borrowed from DEH in Hex. 5.7, Zwierlein argues that Ambrose himself wrote this passage in DEH earlier and then reworked portions of it later for Hex 5.7. This is a fitting entrée to the book, which provides a systematic comparison of DEH with aspects of Ambrose’s vocabulary, style, prose rhythm, motifs, structure, and sources.
Chapter 2 deals with Cassiodorus, Jerome, and some DEH manuscripts. About 25 of the 200+ extant manuscripts, including fragments, cite Ambrose as author and/or translator, and Jerome and Cassiodorus proffer ambivalent testimonies to DEH’s authorship. Cassiodorus refers to a seven book Captiuitatis Iudaicae (Inst. 1.17.1) of Josephus whose Latin translation has been, he says, attributed to Jerome, Ambrose, and Rufinus, at least according to the received text. Correcting a conjectural reading (quorum translationem rather than quam translationem, rendering not a seven-book translation but a translation of Josephus’ seven books as what was imputed to these three), Zwierlein suggests that Cassiodorus was speaking of DEH rather than the Latin translation of BJ that was probably also produced in the fourth century. While not impossible, this suggestion is only a guess. After this, Zwierlein takes the fact that other early works of Ambrose have been lost entirely to support the idea that a work like DEH could have become unmoored from its author’s identity. Also a guess.
Chapter 3 surveys a host of Ambrosian idioms reflected in DEH, a fact long appreciated within scholarship. This brings Zwierlein to a crucial articulation of his methodological assumptions: comparative philology can, at best, provide proof of the inauthenticity of a text, but can never prove authenticity; “Deshalb liegt das onus probandi mit gutem Grund jeweils bei den Verfechtern der Unechtheit” (44). The issue here is whether the sparse, late, and shaky evidence associating Ambrose with DEH is enough to make the assumption of “authenticity” a reasonable de facto position. I have doubts. But Zwierlein does not, and this chapter puts forward an impressive array of comparisons between Ambrose’s Latin idiom and parallels in DEH, often with a view to Josephus’ Greek BJ, Latin influences like Vergil and Cicero, and other purveyors of later Latin. The parallels surveyed here include distinctive phrases, granular linguistic features like conjunctions, literary phenomena like metaphors, and more. The data collection displayed in this lengthy chapter is massive, and a very helpful resource for scholars of Ambrose or DEH. At the very least, it demonstrates undeniably that the Latin idiom employed by Ambrose is somewhat connected to what one finds in DEH.
Chapter 4 makes the ambitious and intricate argument that DEH and Ambrose’s later works drew upon Aelius Donatus’ Terence and Vergil commentaries (“lagen spätestens 366 vor”) when citing these classical authors, as evidenced by correspondence between DEH/Ambrose and passages from the Exempla Elocutionum of Arusianus Messius (395 CE) (what Cassiodorus calls the Quadriga). Chapter 5 picks up a centuries-old method of comparing Ambrose’s and DEH’s prose rhythms to determine identity of authorship. Working across a range of thematically diverse excerpts, the chapter—which includes several impressive tables—purports to confirm “der Verfasser des ‘Hegesipp’ ist identisch mit dem späteren Bischof Ambrosius” based upon a high “Prozentsatz an Rhythmisierung” (202), only slightly less than between Ambrose’s definite works in the aggregate, the difference being attributed to DEH’s identity as historiography.
Chapter 6 attempts to locate DEH within Ambrose’s career with reference to Ambrose’s administrative work at Sirmium and the Emperor Julian’s abortive attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. Zwierlein concludes that Ambrose penned DEH after 361, probably between 367 and 372 given Julian’s activities (223) and the appointment of Ambrose as governor of Aemilia Liguria between 372 and 374 CE (following Christoph Markschies; 209).
The next portions of the work (starting on p. 227) comprise “Anhänge,” illustrating 1) Ambrose’s (including DEH’s) “Klauselrhythmus” and numerous parallels (227–71), 2) a longer list of classical citations shared by Ambrose/DEH and Arusianus Messius (273–80), and 3) a text-critical discussion based on a handful of passages taken as representative, measured against Josephus’ Greek (281–95).
Part 2 of the work, on “Historiographische Technik und Geschichtsdeutung,” begins with an essay on Ambrose’s judgment of Josephus as historical actor and historiographical author—i.e., on how DEH gauges Josephus’ character and writings. Chapter 2 explores how Josephus’ 7-book BJ became the 5-book DEH. Chapter 3 argues that DEH Books 2 and 5 mirror the fall of Troy “durch geschickt evozierte Anklänge an Vergil [Aeneid]” (343). Chapter 4 surveys the Sallustian “color” of DEH’s narrative, reflected in lexicon and style. Chapter 5 is an essay examining various aspects of selected speeches from DEH (the subject of Bell 1977 and much of Bay 2023). Chapter 6 examines DEH’s treatment of Roman generals and emperor, a useful survey. Chapter 7 is an essay on “Das Leitmotiv der clementia Titi” in DEH, a well-chosen subject given the prominence of that trope. Chapter 8 discusses BJ vis-à-vis DEH as representing a move from Jewish to Christian interpretation of history.
Stylistically, the book’s chapters would have benefitted from summaries; they generally cut off seemingly mid-discussion without conclusion. In terms of format, the book has dozens of pages of white space, due partially to the publisher, partially to the study’s footnote- and block-quote-heavy nature. Structurally, the work proceeds from an argument (that Ambrose wrote DEH) to a lengthy series of studies that assume that argument; this does not negate the work’s efficacy, and in fact makes it a useful collection of variegated studies—this monograph almost does the work of two. Functionally, it is unfortunate that Zwierlein cites DEH by page and line number from Ussani’s edition: this ties the study not to the text—which possesses adequate internal numbering given by Ussani—but to a critical edition which will be replaced in coming decades. Bibliographically, this work betrays relative ignorance of scholarship from the half-decade preceding its appearance, especially in its earlier sections. It barely engages recent research.
Overall, Zwierlein’s book is ambitious, packed with useful data, and relatively careful in its scholarship. While taking cues from the history of scholarship, Zwierlein generally draws conclusions from engagement with the ancient texts themselves, which is laudable. Zwierlein’s overarching thesis is quasi-convincing, which I find troubling: as a scholar who has not treated DEH as though Ambrose were (probably) the work’s author, I now find myself needing to return to that question. So also must all scholars now who will study that work. This is a problem because close resemblance to Ambrose cannot prove definitively that he wrote DEH, whereas the similarity of DEH’s vocabulary, style, etc. to Ambrose’s oeuvre makes clear that Ambrose and DEH inhabited the same educational and cultural universe (cf. again Somenzi 2009). Thus, the possibility of Ambrose as author of DEH cannot be ignored (but should it be assumed?), meaning that the Ambrosian corpus should probably be close to hand for scholars working on DEH.
Notes
[1] Louis H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937–1980) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1984), 41.
[2] William Francis Dwyer, The Vocabulary of Hegesippus: A Study in Latin Lexicography (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1931); John Patrick McCormick, A Study of the Nominal Syntax and Indirect Discourse in Hegesippus (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of American Press, 1935); Vincenzo Ussani, ed., Hegesippi qui dicitur Historiae libri v – Pt. 1: Textum criticum continens (CSEL 66.1; Vienna, 1932).
[3] Albert A. Bell, Jr., “An Historiographical Analysis of the De Excidio Hierosolymitano of Pseudo-Hegesippus” (diss. UNC Chapel Hill, 1977); Dominique Estève, “L’Oeuvre historique du Pseudo-Hegésippe: ‘De Bello iudaico’, livre I à IV” (diss. Université Paris Nanterre, 1987); Richard Matthew Pollard, “The De Excidio of ‘Hegesippus’ and the Reception of Josephus in the Early Middle Ages,” VIATOR 46 (2015): 65–100; Carson Bay, Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity: The Historiography, Exemplarity, and Anti-Judaism of Pseudo-Hegesippus (Cambridge, 2023).
[4] Chiara Somenzi, Egesippo – Ambrogio: Formazione scolastica e Cristiana a Roma alla metà del IV secolo (Milan, 2009); see already Chiara Somenzi, “Affinità di formazione scolastica tra Ambrogio e lo Ps.Egesippo?” in Nuovo e antico nella cultura greco-latina di IV–VI secolo, ed. Isabella Gualandri, F. Conca, and R. Passarella (Milan, 2005), 741–80. The influence of Somenzi’s argument on Italian scholarship is discernable: Roberto Alciati, “Review of Somenzi, Egesippo – Ambrogio,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62 (2011): 359–61; Milena Raimondi, “Ambrogio ed Egesippo nella Roma del IV secolo: una nuova prospettiva per un Vecchio problema,” Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 65 (2011): 135–47.