Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity
The Historiography, Exemplarity, and Anti-Judaism of Pseudo-Hegesippus

Introduces a little-known text and shows how Classical culture and Bible heroes helped Christians conceptualize Jewish history in late antiquity.

Carson Bay (Author)

9781009268561, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 November 2022

452 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.7 cm, 0.8 kg

'Carson Bay's incisive and original study brings to light a little-known but critically important late fourth century Christian historian, Ps-Hegesippus. That author's rewriting of Josephus' Jewish War transformed the work into a centerpiece for Christian antisemitism and supersessionism. Bay's very careful dissection of the text shows it to be a remarkable blend of biblical stories, Jewish traditions, and classical historiography in advancing a Christian agenda in late antiquity. As Bay compellingly argues, the author employed the rhetorical techniques of Greek and Roman historians and exploited the authority of the Jewish intellectual Josephus to reinterpret the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as divine punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus. This book brings new insights to scholars and students of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish studies, early Christianity, and classical literature alike.' Erich S. Gruen, Emeritus Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley

In this volume, Carson Bay focuses on an important but neglected work of Late Antiquity: Pseudo-Hegesippus' On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano), a Latin history of later Second Temple Judaism written during the fourth century CE. Bay explores the presence of so many Old Testament figures in a work that recounts the Roman-Jewish War (66–73 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. By applying the lens of Roman exemplarity to Pseudo-Hegesippus, he elucidates new facets of Biblical reception, history-writing, and anti-Judaism in a text from the formative first century of Christian Empire. The author also offers new insights into the Christian historiographical imagination and how Biblical heroes and Classical culture helped Christians to write anti-Jewish history. Revealing novel aspects of the influence of the Classical literary tradition on early Christian texts, this book also newly questions the age-old distinction between the Christian and the Classical (or 'pagan') in the ancient Mediterranean world.

1. On the destruction of Jerusalem: Christian, Classical, Biblical, Josephan
2. Hebrew vs. Jew: identity and differentiation in De Excidio
3. Abraham, ethnography, exemplarity, and oratory at De Excidio 5.41.2 and 5.53.1
4. Exemplarity and national decline at De Excidio 5.2.1
5. Jewish and Christian martyrdom at De Excidio 3.2 and 5.22
6. King David as Christian-classical exemplum in Pseudo-Hegesippus
7. Elisha, disaster, and extended exemplarity in De Excidio
8. A classical world of Biblical Exempla: suicide and patriotism in De Excidio 3.16-17
9. A Christian world of Hebrew Exempla: war and faith in De Excidio 5.15-16. 10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], Old Testaments [HRCF1], History of religion [HRAX], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Historiography [HBAH]