JOSEPHUS' PORTRAIT of MOSES Louis H

THE JEWISH QUARTERLYREVIEW, LXXXII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1992) 285-328 JOSEPHUS' PORTRAIT OF MOSES Louis H. FELDMAN, YeshivaUniversity ABSTRACT Because Moses was the onefigure in the Jewish tradition who was well known to the pagan world and because he had been reviled by several anti-Jewish writers, Josephus can be assumed to have felt a special need to paint afavorable picture of him. Several events in Moses'life presented a particular problem to Josephus. Despite his promise in his proem to add nothing to, and to subtract nothingftom, the biblical text, in almost all of these cases Josephus simply omits the embarrassing episodes. On the other hand, he is careful to avoid the undue aggrandizement and near deification of Moses found in the Samaritan tradition and, to a lesser degree, in the rabbinic tradition, with which there is good reason to believe he was well acquainted. Likewise, because his sophisticated audience would undoubtedly have found the biblical miracles hardly credible, he tends to downgrade or rationalize them, or, as in the case of the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, he makes a point of noting as a parallel the crossing of the Pamphylian Sea by Alexander the Great. Because the Antiquities is an apologetic work directed primarily to non-Jews, Josephus portrays Moses as embodying the qualities of the great heroes of the Greeks and Romans, notably the external qualities of good birth and handsome stature, precociousness in youth, and the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, as supple- mented by what was, in effect, afifth cardinal virtue, piety. Moses 'appeal to this audience is particularly effective because he is depicted as the ideal leader, especially in meeting the test of sedition and in coping with the unruly mob. Josephus' tone here is highly reminiscent of Thucydides' portrait of Pericles, of Plato's description of the philosopher-king, of Virgil'sportrayal of Aeneas, and of the traditional Stoic sage; and con- currently, the role of Aaron as his spokesman is considerably down- graded. It is particularly as an educator, a legislator, a poet, and above all as a general and a prophet that Moses excels. In stressing these achieve- ments Josephus shifts the focus from God to Moses. Josephus' modifications of the biblical narrative of Moses are occa- sioned by his apologetic concern to defend the Jews against the charges of their critics, particularly cowardice, provincialism, and intolerance, and by his positive desire to portray a personality fully comparable to such great leaders, whether historical or legendary, as Heracles, Lycurgus, Aeneas, and Pericles. Finally, Josephus has included several motifs- notably irony and suspense-from the Greek tragedians in order to render his narrative more dramatic. * All references to Josephus, unless otherwise noted, are to the Antiquities. Abbreviations and bibliography of works cited in this article are found on pp. 327-328. 286 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Issues 2. Moses' Personal Qualities a. Genealogy b. The Birth of the Hero c. The Upbringing of the Hero d. Handsomeness e. The Qualities of Leadership f. The Virtues of Moses: Wisdom g. The Virtues of Moses: Courage h. The Virtues of Moses: Temperance i. The Virtues of Moses: Justice j. The Virtues of Moses: Piety 3. The Role of God in the Moses Narrative 4. Josephus as Political Theorist 5. Hellenizations in Josephus' Version 1. Introduction: Issues The one figure in Jewish tradition who was well known to the pagan world was Moses.1 His connection with Egypt undoubtedly gave him a certain notoriety, especially during the Hellenistic period. Philo (De vita Mosis 1.1-2), writing within the Alexandrian milieu, asserts that while the fame of his laws had spread through- out the world, not many knew him as he really was, since Greek authors had not wanted to accord him honor, in part out of envy and in part because the ordinances of local lawgivers were often opposed to him. Similarly, Josephus (Ap 2.145) declares that Apollonius Molon, Lysimachus, and others, partly out of igno- rance and partly out of ill will, had cast aspersions upon Moses and his code, maligning him as a charlatan (y6rira) and as an impostor (a&icvaC5va).The opponents of the Jews, according to Josephus (Ap 2.290), had apparently reviled Moses as utterly unimportant (qpacXoTaToq).Braun2 has pointed out the signifi- cance of the omission of Moses' name from the list of oriental l See Gager, Moses. 2 Martin Braun, History and Romance in Graeco- Oriental Literature (Oxford, 1938), p. 68. JOSEPHUS' PORTRAIT OF MOSES-FELDMAN 287 national heroes cited by Plutarch (Isis and Osiris 24.360B), otherwise a relatively impartial authority. We may see a sample of this attempt to denigrate Moses in the remarkable comment of Alex- ander Polyhistor (Suidas, s.v. 'AXktav8poq o MtXiYtoq) that the laws of the Hebrews had been composed by a Hebrew woman, Moso.3 Indeed, in an age and place in which grammarians and Homeric scholars were the leaders of the intellectual community, one of the important figures on the intellectual scene in Alexandria in the first half of the first century CE, Apion, known for his glosses on Homer,4 and Philo's counterpart as a leader of the Alexandrian non-Jewish delegation to the emperor Gaius Caligula, was a major figure in the revisionist view of Moses. And yet, if we may put any stock in the admittedly questionable reference to Moses in Pseudo-Justin (Cohortatio ad Gentiles 9), the historians Hellanicus (fifth century BCE) and Philochorus (third century BCE) mention Moses as a very ancient leader of the Jews. Likewise, Hecataeus (ca. 300 BCE; Diodorus 40.3.3) introduces Moses as outstanding for his practical wisdom (ppopv9mt, a distinctively political virtue) and for his courage (Av8psia), two of the four cardinal virtues. This helps to give Moses a rank among the greatest lawgivers, since similar phraseology is used by Dio- dorus (1.94.1-5) to describe three Egyptian lawgivers. Indeed, the very Egyptians who maligned Moses apparently regarded him as remarkable (0auvttautov) and even divine (0Qcov), and indeed as one of their very own priests (Ap 1.279) who, to be sure, had been expelled because of his alleged leprosy. The fact that in the earliest extended mention of Moses, that by Hecataeus, it is he who is responsible for all the major institutions of the Jews, including especially those that set them apart from other people, indicates 3 Heinemann ("Moses," p. 360) has described the tradition as malevolent and cites as parallels the transformation of the name Cleomenes to Cleomene in Aristophanes, Clouds 680; and Chrysippus to Chrysippa in Cicero, De natura deorum 1.34.93. 4 I have found some of Apion's glosses on Homer in a papyrus fragment (P. Rylands 1.26) dating from the first century CE, as well as a few first-century scholia on Homer's Odyssey (P. Lit. London 30; British Museum inv. 271), mentioning his name among other commentators. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was apparently Philo's counterpart as a leader of the Alexandrian non-Jews, since he was a member of the three-man delegation sent by the Alexandrians to the emperor Gaius Caligula (Josephus 18.257). See also Feldman, "Pro-Jewish," pp. 238-239. 288 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW that a tradition had developed, apparently in Alexandria, protect- ing the reputation of Moses, while actually imputing the alleged Jewish misanthropy to his successors. Apparently Moses was so well known that pseudo-Longinus (On the Sublime 9.9), in the first half of the first century CE, refers to him as the lawgiver (0crgo0go6,) of the Jews, no chance person (okX ? toyXiwva'vip)-a phrase used about him also in Strabo (16.2.36.761)-since he understood and gave expression to the power of the divinity as it deserved. Apparently "Longinus" felt that Moses was sufficiently well known so that he did not have to refer to him by name. At the end of the century, Josephus' con- temporary, Quintilian (3.7.21), like "Longinus," did not deem it necessary to name him, but rather referred to him merely as "the founder of the Jewish superstition." Likewise, the Historia Au- gusta, Vita Claudii 25.2.4-5, mentions Moses by name as having lived 125 years, without bothering to introduce him further to the reader, as if he was well known. And yet, in his portrayal of Moses, Josephus was faced with a number of problems. On the one hand, the Bible itself (Deut 34:10) indicates that since his time there had not arisen a prophet equal to him; and indeed Maimonides, in his classic formulation of the thirteen principles of faith, includes this as one of those funda- mentals. Nevertheless, the rabbis themselves debated whether the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the founders of the Jewish nation, may not have been greater in humility (SifNum 101, bHul 89a), the greatest of Moses' qualities. Moreover, they found it possible to relate the entire story of the Exodus in the lengthy narrative compiled for the Passover seder while mentioning the name of Moses only once, and that only because his name was included in a biblical verse which they quoted. Josephus, like the rabbis, was particularly concerned that the figure of Moses should not be aggrandized to the point of deification. He was, perhaps, especially careful to do so because the Samaritans, the bitter enemies of the Jews at this time, had built up the figure of Moses to the point where their religion was almost a Mosaism.5 Perhaps too, he was reacting against Philo's near deification of Moses as a "man of God" and as the most perfect of 5 See John MacDonald, "The Samaritan Doctrine of Moses," Scottish Journal of Theology 3 (1960): 149-162.

Load more