Category:Hegesippus (text)

• See Josephus Studies

The so-called Hegisippus, or more properly De excidio urbis Hierosolymitanae (On the ruin of the city of Jerusalem), is a 4th-century "Christian" retelling of Josephus' Bellum Iudaicum, in Latin, with some original additions. The work has been doubtfully ascribed to Ambrose of Milan.

Overview

Although sometimes labelled as a "translation" of Josephus' Bellum Iudaicum, the Hegesippus is rather a free adaptation which paraphrases the text and includes additional material from Josephus' Antiquitates Iudaicae and other Latin sources. The work is divided in 5 books, the first four corresponding to the first four of Josephus' War, but the fifth combines the fifth, sixth and seventh books of War.

The work is usually dated to between 370-c.375 CE. It began to circulate about the time of the death of Ambrose of Milan, in 398, or shortly after, and some manuscripts attributes the authorship to the Bishop of Milan. The evidence is not conclusive and most modern scholars prefer to talk of an anonymous writing. Hegesippus appears to be a mere corruption of Josephus' Latin name, Iosippus. In any case, the document has nothing to do with the lost works of the second-century writer Hegesippus mentioned by Eusebius.

The work was extremely popular in the Middle Ages, as much as the Latin translation of the works of Josephus by Rufinus and Cassiodorus. The religious overtone of the Hegesippus made it one of the most important sources for the common Christian interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus as an act of "divine revenge" for the death of Jesus.

Editions and translations of the Hegesippus

The editio princeps of Hegesippus appeared in Paris in 1510, a few decades after the first edition of the Latin Josephus in 1470, but before the editio princeps of Josephus' Greek text in 1544.

The Hegesippus was translated into Italian in 1544 by Lauro and then in German in 1575 by Lauterbach.

The Latin text was reprinted in Andreas Gallandi's Bibliotheca veterum patrum (tom. vii, 1765-81) at the end of the 18th century and in Migne's Patrologia latina (tom. xv) at the beginning of the 19th century.

A critically revised text was completed by Karl Friedrich Weber and Julius Caesar in Marburg in 1857-63, and then by Ussani in 1932-60.

An English translation by Wade Blocker, based on Ussani's edition and completed in 2005, is freely available on the web (here).

under the title Hegesippus qui dicitur sive Egesippus de bello Judaico ope codicis Casellani recognitus, ed. Weber, opus morte Weberi iuterruptum absolvit Caesar (Marburg, 1864)