achievements of generals, and reversals of constitution” (Ant.1.13; note
again the military emphasis). He stresses the moral lesson to be learned
from such an account: that those who follow these ancient prescriptions,
which also embody the laws of nature, find success and happiness, whereas
those who depart from them meet disaster (Ant.1.14-50, 20).
This opening prospectus is striking for a number of reasons. First, it
highlights the much overlooked connection betweenAntiquitiesandWa r
in Josephus’s conception. He beginsAntiquitiesby recalling his reasons for
writingWa r(Ant.1.1-4) and assumes his audience’s knowledge of the ear-
lier work as he often refers to it for detailed information (Ant.1.203; 13.173,
298; 18.11, 259). He thus offersAntiquitiesas a sort of prequel containing
the earlier history. Most important is the connection of theme and tone
between the two works.Wa rhad aimed at defending the Judean character
from predictable calumnies following the catastrophe of 70c.e.(J.W.1.1-2,
6-8;Ant.1.3-4). There Josephus foregrounded the Judean virtues — not
given much exposure in other accounts — of manly courage, toughness,
and contempt for death. Conspicuous in the above descriptions ofAntiq-
uitiesis the role of wars, generals, and manly deeds in the ancient Judean
past. (The Greek and Latin words for “virtue” both meant, in the first in-
stance, “manliness.”) Just asWa rhad sought to explore the Judeans’ char-
acter from the recent conflict, soAntiquitieswill show “who they werefrom
the beginning.”
This is where the language of “constitution” comes into play. Among
Greek ethnographers, from at least a half-millennium before Josephus’s
time, it was a common assumption that the many peoples of the inhabited
earth(oikoumen 3 )had different characters as a function of their diverse
geographical and climactic situations, and that their various political con-
stitutions, laws, and customs reflected those national characters. In some
tension with this idea was the equally common view that constitutions
were inherently unstable, constantly progressing and regressing in cycles,
with monarchy degenerating to tyranny, democracy to mob rule, and aris-
tocracy to oligarchy, so that each type yielded over time to another.
Josephus sits on both sides of this fence, highlighting in the prologueboth
the superiority of the apparently unchanging Judean constitutionandits
many vicissitudes over time.301
JosephusEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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