reprisals (11.285; cf. Esth. 9:17). So the wicked Persians were forced to
adopt the very way of life that they had tried to eradicate. The whole story
is triumphantly told, and Cohen’s supposition (1987b, 422) that Josephus
opposed these conversions is hard to credit. Josephus’s editorial remarks
(11.268) and the king’s letters on behalf of the Judeans (11.272–283) make
Josephus’s points clearly enough.
In his narrative of Hasmonean history, Josephus incidentally men-
tions the forced conversions of Idumea and Iturea by John Hyrcanus and
Aristobulus I, respectively. Cohen cites a passage from Vita(113), in which
Josephus himself allows Gentile refugees to remain uncircumcised during
the war, to argue that Josephus must therefore have opposed these forced
conversions by the Hasmoneans (Cohen 1987b, 423). The problem is that
all of the contextual indicators in the Hasmonean story point in the oppo-
site direction. Hyrcanus’s action is recounted as part of Josephus’s glowing
tale of his virtuous reign, which culminates in the author’s famous decla-
ration of the prince’s unique favour with the deity (A.J. 13.299–300; cf.
13.282, 284, 288). Aristobulus’s conversion of the Itureans similarly receives
explicit praise in Josephus’s closing remarks on his reign (13.319). Jose-
phus’s comment, in Vita,concerning his own command of the Galilee,
reflects an entirely different rhetorical and historical situation. His stated
reason for not circumcising his guests is that they should be able to make
their own choice to worship God and not be forced to do so, lest they regret
having fled to the Judeans (Vita113). This reasoning certainly leaves open
the prospect of conversion, and fits well with Josephus’s whole project of
persuasion in Antiquitates judaicae, Vita,andContra Apionem.It has no bear-
ing on the Hasmonean golden age.
Closer to his own time, Josephus incidentally mentions the conversion
of the Roman aristocrat Fulvia (A.J. 18.82), in order to explain the awkward
fact that Judeans had been expelled from Rome by the otherwise gentle
Tiberius (18.84). Josephus also mentions the voluntary circumcision of two
Gentile kings who wished to marry Herodian princesses (20.139, 145). Cohen
is quite right that none of these stories turned out happily for the converts
in question, but his inference that Josephus therefore means to discourage
conversion again runs counter to the narrative indicators. Josephus only
mentions the defrauding of Fulvia by some Judeans in Rome in order to iso-
late them as aberrant specimens of the nation (18.81); he laments the pun-
ishment of all Roman Judeans for the actions of these few miscreants (18.84).
He surely does not mean to say to his readers: If you convert, you may be
defrauded as well! The moral lies elsewhere, namely, in explaining the expul-
sion under Tiberius, to which Fulvia’s conversion is mere background.
nora
(Nora)
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