erful God (in Origen, Cels.5.41). Minucius Felix’s Caecilius contends that
the Judean god had so little power he is now enslaved by the Roman gods
(Oct.10; cf. 33). Since we find such views in later authors, since they are pre-
dictable responses to the war, and since Josephus confronts them directly
in his account, we may conclude that they were already present in the lost
histories of the revolt by Josephus’s contemporaries. The image of Judeans
in Rome suffered, in both popular and literary circles, as a result of the
war.
If we try now to paint a rounded picture of the Judean situation in
Rome after the war, we end up with something like this. Ever since its
arrival in Rome, Judean culture proved attractive to Gentiles of different eth-
nic backgrounds and social strata; most of the evidence for conversion
seems to involve native Romans or romanized elements of the population.
This is not the place to speculate on the reasons for this attraction, but it
seems that attraction and full conversion, with a conscious repudiation of
one’s native tradition, were well known. On the other hand, the revolt seri-
ously tarnished the Judean image. The war and its aftermath must have had
social and psychological effects on sympathizers and would-be proselytes
even before Domitian’s prosecution of Judaizers. We should like to learn a
great deal more about Josephus’s social context, but these general and
secure observations must suffice for our present purposes as background
to his Contra Apionem.
LITERARY CONTEXT: THE ANTIQUITATES JUDAICAE
When Josephus writes Contra Apionemat the end of the first century CE, he
appeals directly to his earlier Antiquitates judaicae:the new work, Josephus
says, will try again to do what his magnum opus had failed to do (C.Ap.
1.1–5). If we are to assess the purpose of Contra Apionem,we must therefore
have in mind some notion of the purpose and scope of Antiquitates judaicae.
Fortunately, we enjoy almost universal agreement on the main themes of
this work: Josephus writes Antiquitates judaicaeto defend Judean history
and culture before a Gentile audience. His apologetic motive has been
amply demonstrated by studies of particular passages, most notably, Louis
Feldman’s investigations of how Josephus portrays biblical characters
(listed in Feldman 1993a, 594–96). These studies have shown that Josephus
carefully reworks his sources, in part to refute common slanders about
Judean origins and misanthropic tendencies. Explicitly apologetic state-
ments appear also in his justification for including the pro-Judean decrees
(A.J. 14.1–3, 186–187; 16.175). Agreement about Josephus’s apologetic
motive in Antiquitates judaicaeis so widespread that even those who follow
TheContra Apionemin Social and Literary Context 147