that some of Josephus’s assumptions would not have convinced a critical
Greek reader only reinforces the conclusion that Josephus expected a benev-
olent, already partially committed audience.
After summarizing each Egyptian author’s comments on the Judeans,
Josephus ridicules their statements by pointing out internal contradic-
tions. He also takes every opportunity to reiterate the shortcomings of
Egyptian culture (C.Ap. 2.139). But he reserves his sharpest barb for Apion,
who had exercised some influence in Rome under Claudius: this lying trou-
blemaker, Josephus claims, who had taken so much pleasure in deriding cir-
cumcision, was himself forced to be circumcised late in life, for medical
reasons, and eventually died of ulcerated genitals. J.G. Müller notes (1969,
9) that, in spite of its failings by modern standards (cf. Cohen 1988), this
section reflects a literary-critical ability of the highest order for the first
centuryCE; its cleverness must have been impressive. But in all of his witty
refutation of Egyptian writers and their religion, Josephus assumes a benev-
olent readership already predisposed to Judean culture and its ineffable
deity. He is attacking Judaism’s detractors in a safe atmosphere.
Positive Summary and Appeal
Josephus’s assumptions about his audience and his own aims become
clearest in the second half of Volume 2. Here Josephus gives his most force-
ful statement of Judaism’s virtues: it is a way of life that is vastly superior
to any other, and it welcomes converts. In Contra Apionem 2.145–286, Jose-
phus states that the Judean laws cultivate piety (eusebeia), friendship
(koinonia) with one another, humanity (philanthrôpia) toward the world,
justice, steadfastness, and contempt of death (2.146). And Judeans not
only possess the most excellent laws; they also observe them most faithfully
(2.150).
What comes next is disarmingly frank. Josephus admits that every
nation tries to make a case for the antiquity of its own laws, because every-
one agrees that the oldest is best: the one who introduced the concept of
ordered life is more admirable than those who merely imitated him. But this
premise only sets up Josephus’s claim: “I maintain that our legislator is the
most ancient of all legislators in the records of the whole world. Compared
with him, your Lycurguses and Solons and Zaleukos, the legislator of the
Locrians, and all those who are so admired among the Greeks, seem to
have been born just yesterday” (C.Ap. 2.154). And again: “But the question,
who was the most successful legislator, and who attained to the truest
conception of God, may be answered by contrasting the laws themselves
with those of others” (2.163). We can only appreciate the boldness of this