JosephusClass 2

• So this is class 2 of our Josephus series. We red about felix and we see in paragraph 3 that josephus was in a ship wreck

• They were in the Adriatic and along comes a ship from Cyrene which rescues him and 80 men along with him. There were 600 that had started out.

• It’s pretty amazing how he survided all these things how ever he did it but had he not survived we wouldn’t have the wealth of information that he provides concerning the first century.

• After this shipwreck he winds up in Puteoli Pozzuoli today which is clear ion the other side of Italy. There he gets to know Aliturius, an actor and he’s also a friend of Nero’s

• Josephus then becomes friends with Caesars wife Poppaea. So this is Nero’s second wife.

• She is also known as Poppaea Sabina the Younger to differentiate between her and her mother. Her mother never enjoyed being called Poppaea Sabina the elder.

• Poppaea Sabina the Younger is not only mentioned in Josephus but she’s also talked about in Tacitus. We talked a little bit last week about Tacitus. He was a Roman historian.

• Poppaea was a bit of a vixen she had previously been married to Otho who was a good friend of Nero’s in fact that’s how she met Nero. Otho later became emperor for a short time.

• She was said to be very beautiful and from a wealthy family. In Pompeii they owned a brick or tile business archeologists found evidence of this written in papers discovered in Pompii

• You probably remember that Pompii was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvious but there’s been numerous digs there and because of the way it was destroyed some things have been preserved extraordinarily well.

• So Josephus seems to know she is a woman of power and he befriends her Josephus says she even gave him many presents before he left.

• So Josephus didn’t just become well known when he fought the Romans up in the Galil, he was already well known.

• So then we go into the next few paragraphs and here’s where we have to be careful because we have to understand who Josephus is writing for.

• He’s writing for his captors. So of course he acts as if he was against any uprisings of the Jews right from the beginning.

• Our people were getting ready to fight the Romans and I love the way Josephus puts this he says… we pretended that we were of the same opinion with them,

• My guess is that he really was of the same opinion but then when he got captured he decided that if he wanted to live he’d say he was never really a part of that persuasion.

• At the end of paragraph 5 he brings up Gessius and in the translation I’m reading in parenthesis it says [Florus] which is another name for Gessius but in the translation I’m using in paragraph 6 it says

• “And this disgrace which Gessius [with Cestius] received..” I don’t know why it says that that way. Cestius is another name for Gessius.

• When I was younger reading this I don’t remember it saying that that way in the translation. But it’s simply another name for Gessius.

• Let’s talk about Gessius for a bit… Last procurator of Judea (64-66). He was notorious for his cruelty and rapacity, and he was very detested by our people back then.

• He like Felix worked with the Sicarri. He took some bribes from the Jews of Caesarea and then he fled to Samaria. When the Jews came under attack they asked for Gessius’ help.

• They sent 12 ambassadors to him and Gessius threw all 12 of them into prison.

• Later he demanded from the warden of the Temple treasury seventeen talents of gold. His demand being refused and even ridiculed, he went to Jerusalem and ordered his soldiers to attack the upper market-place.

• We were killed, regardless of sex or age, and the houses plundered. On that day (16th of Iyyar, 66) more than 3,600 were slaughtered; many were scourged and crucified.

• Queen Berenice in vain implored Gessius on her knees to stop the carnage. But instead he went to seize the Temple. But the people opposed him with so much vigor and determination that he left Jerusalem with the larger number of his troops

• You remember who Bernice was? The daughter of Herod agrippa 1rst. In Josephus’ Antiquities he says that her and agrippa the 2nd were twins. So how do all these people tie into the New Testament? Acts 25…

• Who’d like to read acts 25:13-15

• 13 A few days later King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus. 14 Since they were spending many days there, Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king. He said: “There is a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner. 15 When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked that he be condemned.

• Ok we know who some of these people are now right? We learned more about Felix last week. He was relieved by Festus. We talked about Festus as well. Remember we read Acts 24 which concludes by saying… 27 After two years, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; but because Felix wanted to grant the Judeans a favor, he left Sha’ul still a prisoner.

• Festus was then succeeded by Albinus. Lets see what Josephus had to say about him... We read in book 22 chpter 14 of wars of the Jews we read this…

• 1. NOW it was that Festus succeeded Felix as procurator, and made it his business to correct those that made disturbances in the country.

• So he caught the greatest part of the robbers, and destroyed a great many of them. But then Albinus, who succeeded Festus, did not execute his office as the other had done;

• nor was there any sort of wickedness that could be named but he had a hand in it. Accordingly, he did not only, in his political capacity, steal

• and plunder every one's substance, nor did he only burden the whole nation with taxes, but he permitted the relations of such as were in prison for robbery, and had been laid there, either by the senate of every city, or by the former procurators, to redeem them for money; and no body remained in the prisons as a malefactor but he who gave him nothing.

• At this time it was that the enterprises of the seditious at Jerusalem were very formidable; the principal men among them purchasing leave of Albinus to go on with their seditious practices; while that part of the people who delighted in disturbances joined themselves to such as had fellowship with Albinus;

• and every one of these wicked wretches were encompassed with his own band of robbers, while he himself, like an arch-robber, or a tyrant, made a figure among his company, and abused his authority over those about him, in order to plunder those that lived quietly.

• The effect of which was this, that those who lost their goods were forced to hold their peace, when they had reason to show great indignation at what they had suffered;

• but those who had escaped were forced to flatter him that deserved to be punished, out of the fear they were in of suffering equally with the others. Upon the whole, nobody dare speak their minds, but tyranny was generally tolerated; and at this time were those seeds sown which brought the city to destruction.

• 2. And although such was the character of Albinus, yet did Gessius (18) who succeeded him, demonstrate him to have been a most excellent person, upon the comparison;

• for the former did the greatest part of his rogueries in private, and with a sort of dissimulation; but Gessius did his unjust actions to the harm of the nation after a pompons manner;

• and as though he had been sent as an executioner to punish condemned malefactors, he omitted no sort of rapine, or of vexation; where the case was really pitiable,

• he was most barbarous, and in things of the greatest turpitude he was most impudent. Nor could any one outdo him in disguising the truth; nor could any one contrive more subtle ways of deceit than he did.

• He indeed thought it but a petty offense to get money out of single persons; so he spoiled whole cities, and ruined entire bodies of men at once, and

• did almost publicly proclaim it all the country over, that they had liberty given them to turn robbers, upon this condition, that he might go shares with them in the spoils they got.

• Accordingly, this his greediness of gain was the occasion that entire toparchies were brought to desolation, and a great many of the people left their own country, and fled into foreign provinces.

• So you can bet that a lot of those who fled Judea were Messiancs.

• When I come back from vacation the3re will be a test. I’m giving you the questions now though so it should be easy… who was FESTUS, FELIX, ALBINUS, and Gessius? And…

• Who were Bernice and Poppaea Sabina the Younger

THE END