Josephus
τῶν ἡδονῇ ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ1 δεχομένων,2 καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ἰουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο· 64ὁ χριστὸς3 οὗτος ἦν. καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξει τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν4 σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου5 οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο6 οἱ τὸ πρῶτον ἀγαπήσαντες· ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς7 τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μυρία περὶ αὐτοῦ θαυμάσια8 εἰρηκότων. εἰς ἔτι τε νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένον οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φῦλον.
65(4) Καὶ ὑπὸ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους ἕτερόν τι δεινὸν ἐθορύβει τοὺς Ἰουδαίους καὶ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τῆς Ἴσιδος τὸ ἐν Ῥώμῃ πράξεις αἰσχυνῶν οὐκ ἀπηλλαγμέναι συντυγχάνουσιν. καὶ πρότερον τοῦ τῶν Ἰσιακῶν τολμήματος μνήμην ποιησάμενος οὕτω μεταβιβῶ9 τὸν λόγον ἐπὶ τὰ ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις γεγονότα. 66Παυλῖνα ἦν τῶν ἐπὶ Ῥώμης προγόνων τε
- 1τἀήθη Thackeray.
- 2τῶν . . . δεχομένων] τἀληθῆ σεβομένων Eus. Dem.
- 3χριστὸς] codd.: χριστὸς λεγόμενος Richards et Shutt (Class. Quart. xxxi, 1937, p. 176); cf. Ant. xx. 200.
- 4τῶν ἡμῖν] codd.: τῶν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν ἀρχόντων Eus. Dem.
- 5ante οὐκ i. marg. σεβάζειν add. m. 2 M.
- 6ἐξεπαύσαντο Eusebii Praep. codd. plurimi.
- 7αὐτοῖς] αὐτοῖς <ὡς ἔλεγον> vel <ὡς λέγουσιν> coni. Richards et Shutt.
- 8θαυμάσια] om. Eus. Dem.
- 9Naber: μεταδιδῶ MW: μεταδίδωμι A: μεταγάγω E: transibo Lat.
Jewish Antiquities XVIII
teacher of such people as accept the trutha gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah.b When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third dayc he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
(4) About this same timed another outrage threwPaulina and her lover; trick played by the priests of Isis. 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.e There was a lady Paulina,f who because of her descent
- aVariant (Thackeray’s emendation) “the unusual.”
- bVariant (Richards and Shutt’s emendation in Class. Quart. xxi, 1937, p. 176) “the so-called Christ.”
- cRichards and Shutt suggest that “according to their report” has been removed by the Christian censor.
- dActually a.d. 19, as we see from Tac. Ann. ii. 85, and not c. a.d. 30, as we should deduce from the insertion of these incidents in the midst of the narrative of the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. E. M. Smallwood, “Some Notes on the Jews under Tiberius,” Latomus xv, 1956, p. 326, 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.
- eBoth Tacitus, Ann. ii. 85, and Suetonius, Tib. 36, also couple Tiberius’ actions against the Egyptian and Jewish worship.
- fC. Pharr, “The Testimony of Josephus to Christianity,” Am. Jour, of Philol. xlviii, 1927, p. 144, 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, History of Alexander; i. 4 ff., 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.