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Josephus was essentially an apologist, and his writings include not only an apology for his people, but an apology for his own life. In contrast with the greater Jewish writers, he was given to vaunting his own deeds. We have therefore abundant, if not always reliable, information about the chief events of his career. It must always be borne in mind that he had to color the narrative of his own as well as his people's history to suit the tastes and prejudices of the Roman conqueror. He was born in 37 C.E., the first year of the reign of Gaius Caesar, the lunatic Emperor, who nearly provoked the Jews to the final struggle. Though he is known to history as Josephus Flavius, his proper name was Joseph ben Mattathias, Josephus being the Latinized form of the Hebrew [Hebrew: Yosef] and his patronymic being exchanged, when he went over to the Romans, for the family name of his patrons, Flavius. His father was a priest of the first of the twenty-four orders, named Jehoiarib, and on his mother's side he was connected with the royal house of the Hasmoneans. His genealogy, which he traces back to the time of the Maccabean princes, is a little vague, and we may suspect that he was not above improving it. But his family was without doubt among the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, and his father, he says, was "eminent not only on account of his nobility, but even more for his virtue."[1]

[Footnote 1: Vita, 2.]

He was brought up with his brother Matthias to fit himself for the priestly office, and he received the regular course of Jewish education in the Torah and the tradition. He says in the Antiquities that "only those who know the laws and can interpret the practices of our ancestors, are called educated among the Jews;" and it is likely that he attended in his boyhood one of the numerous schools that existed in Jerusalem at the time. According to the Talmud there were four hundred and eighty synagogues each with a Bet Sefer for teaching the written law and a Bet Talmud for the study of the oral law.[1] From his silence we may infer that he did not study Greek at this period, and Aramaic was his natural tongue. He was never able to speak Greek fluently or with sufficient exactness, because, as he says in the Antiquities, "Our own nation does not encourage those who learn the language of many peoples, and so color their discourses with the smoothness of their periods: for they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to freemen, but to any slave that pleases to learn it."[2] When, in his middle age, he set himself to write the history of his people in Greek, he was compelled to get the help of friends to correct his composition and syntax.

[Footnote 1: Yer. Meg. iii. 1.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. XX. xi. 2.]

As to his Hebrew accomplishments, he tells us, with his native immodesty, that he acquired marvelous proficiency in learning, and was famous for his great memory and understanding. When he was fourteen years of age, he continues, such was his fame that the high priests and principal men of the city frequently came to consult him about difficult points of the law. His mature works do not show any profound knowledge either of the Halakah or of the Haggadah, so that the statement is not to be taken strictly. It is probably nothing more than a grandiloquent way of saying that he was a precocious child, who impressed his elders. Paul, too, claimed that he was "a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and zealous beyond those of his own age in the Jews' religion," and yet he can hardly be regarded as an authority on the tradition. The autobiography of Josephus, it is pertinent to remember, was designed to impress the Romans with the greatness of the writer, and its readers were not equipped with the means of criticising his Jewish accomplishments. With the same object of impressing the Romans, Josephus recounts that, when about the age of sixteen, he had a mind to imbue himself with the tenets of the three Jewish parties, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes.

Elsewhere he describes the teaching of these sects for the benefit of his Roman readers according to a technical classification borrowed from his environment, i.e. he represents them as three philosophical schools of the Greek type, each holding different views about fate and Providence and the nature of the soul and its immortality. But just as this is demonstrably a misleading coloring of the difference between the sections of the Jewish people, so is his attempt to represent that he attended, as a cultured Greek or Roman of the time would have done, three philosophical colleges. He was compelled by the needs of his audience to present Jewish life in the form of Greco-Roman institutions, however ill it fits the mould, and his remarks about sects and schools must always be taken with caution. It is as though a modern writer should describe Judaism as a Church, and express its ideas and observances in the language of Christian theology.

There is, however, no reason to doubt that Josephus made himself acquainted with the tenets of the chief teachers of the time, and he may conceivably have sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel, then the chief sage at Jerusalem. But, anxious to exhibit his catholicity, after professing himself a Pharisee, he says that, not content with these studies, he became for three years a faithful disciple of one Banus, who lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, ate no other food than that which grew wild, and bathed frequently in cold water both night and day.[1] The extreme hermit form of the religious life was more fashionable in the first century of the Christian era among Gentiles than among Jews, and it is not unlikely that Josephus is embroidering his idea of life in an Essene community, rather than setting down his actual experience. An Essene he never became, but he remained throughout his life very partial to certain forms of the Essene belief, more especially those which coincided with the Greco-Roman superstitions of the time, such as the literal prediction of future events, the meaning of dreams, the significance of omens.[2] These ideas, handed down from primitive Israel, had lived on among the masses of the people, though discarded by the learned teachers, and Josephus, finding them in vogue among his masters, readily professed acceptance of them.

[Footnote 1: Vita, 2.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. B.J. II. viii. 12; III. viii. 3; VI. v. 4.]

Abandoning apparently the idea of being a hermit, Josephus at the age of nineteen returned to Jerusalem, and began to conduct himself according to the rules of the Pharisee sect, which is akin, he says, to the school of the Stoics. The comparison of the Pharisees with the Stoics is again misleading, and based on nothing more than the formal likeness of their doctrines about Providence. The Pharisees were essentially the party that upheld the whole tradition and the separateness of Israel. They numbered in their ranks the most popular teachers, and politically, though opposed to Rome and all its ways, they counseled submission so long as religious liberty was not infringed. It may be that Josephus only professed his attachment to them after his surrender, because, as pacifists and believers in moral as against physical force, they were favorably regarded by the Romans; but even if as a young and ambitious priest he attached himself to their body early in life in order to gain influence among the people, he was not a representative Pharisee. He obtained a certain acquaintance with the teaching of the Pharisees, and partly shared their political views, though not from the same motives as their true leaders. Yet the very next step in his life that he chronicles marks his outlook as fundamentally different.

At the age of twenty-six, after seven years in Jerusalem, during which he exercised his priestly functions, he journeyed to Rome. The cause of his voyage, on which he was picturesquely wrecked and had to swim for his life through the night, was the deliverance from prison of certain priests closely related to him, who had been sent there as prisoners by Felix, the tyrannical Roman governor. At Rome, through his acquaintance with Aliturius, an actor of plays, a favorite of Nero, and by birth a Jew, he came into touch with the profligate court. To the genuine Pharisee a Jewish play-actor would have been an abomination. Josephus used his acquaintance to obtain an introduction to Poppaea Sabina, the Emperor's wife for the time. Though a by-word for shamelessness of life, she was herself one of "the fearers of the Lord" ([Greek: sebomenoi]), who professed adherence to the Jewish creed without accepting the Jewish law. Josephus won her favor, and through it procured the liberation of the priests. The Imperial city was then at the height of its material magnificence, and must have made an immense impression of power upon the young Jewish aristocrat. Having acquired a lasting admiration for Rome and a desire to enter her society and a conviction of her invincibility, he returned to Palestine in triumph—and with the spirit of an opportunist. This at least is the picture he draws of himself, but a more kindly interpretation might see in the moment of his return the indication of a genuine patriotic feeling.

When he arrived in Jerusalem, in the year 65 C.E., he found his country seething with rebellion. The crisis soon came to a head. Gessius Florus, who owed his governorship, as Josephus owed the success of his errand, to the favor of the "God-fearing" Poppaea, roused the people to fury by his pillage of the Temple, and the moderates could no longer hold the masses in check. The Zealots seized the fortress of Antonia, which overlooked the Temple, and, having become masters of the city, murdered the high priest Ananias. Eleazar, whom Josephus, perhaps confusedly, describes as his son, an intense nationalist among the priests, became the leader in counsel, and sealed the rebellion by persuading the people to discontinue the daily sacrifice offered in the name of the Roman Emperor.

At the same time the extermination of the Jews in the Hellenistic cities, Caesarea, Scythopolis, and Damascus, by the infuriated Syrians, who organized a kind of Palestinian Vespers, convinced the people that they were engaged in a war to the death. The Herodian party, as the royal house and its supporters were called, endeavored to preserve peace, by dwelling on the overpowering might of Rome and the inevitable end of the insurrection, but in vain. In fear the priests withdrew to their duties in the Temple, and did not venture out till the Zealots were for a time dislodged. The Roman legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, after the defeat of the Romanizing party by the Zealots, himself marched on Jerusalem in the autumn of 68 C.E. with two legions. But he failed ignominiously to quell the revolt. The Roman garrison in the city was put to the sword, and the legate, while beating a hasty retreat, was routed in the defiles of Beth-Horon, where two centuries before the Syrian hosts had been decimated by Judas the Maccabee. The two legions were cut to pieces. The fierce valor of the untrained national levies had broken the serried cohorts of the Roman veterans, and in the unexpectedness of this deliverance the party of rebellion for a time was triumphant among all sections of the Jewish people.

Even those who had been the most determined Romanizers, such as the high-priestly circle, were induced, either by a belief in the chances of success or from a desire to protect themselves by a seeming adherence to the national cause, to throw in their lot with the war party. It might have been better for their people, had they, like Agrippa, joined the Romans. Half-hearted at best in their support of the struggle, yet by their wealth and position able at first to obtain a commanding part in the conduct of the war, they used it to temporize with the foe and to dull the edge of the popular feeling. Josephus unfortunately does not enlighten us as to the inner movements in Judea at this crisis. He merely relates that the Sanhedrin became a council of war, and Palestine was divided into seven military districts, over most of which commanders of the Herodian faction were placed. Joseph the son of Gorion and Ananias the high priest, both members of the moderate party, were chosen as governors of Jerusalem, with a particular charge to repair the walls, and the Zealot leader Eleazar the son of Simon was passed over.

Josephus himself, though he possessed no military experience, and had apparently taken no part in the opening campaign, was made governor of Lower and Upper Galilee, the most important military post of all; for Galilee was the bulwark of Judea, and if the Romans could be successfully resisted there, the rebellion might hope for victory. It lay in a strategic position between the Roman outposts, Ptolemais (the modern Acre) on the coast and Agrippa's kingdom in the east. It was a country made for defense, a country of rugged mountains and natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a hardy and warlike population, which, for half a century, had been in constant insurrection. Thence had come the founders of the Zealots and the still more violent band of the Sicarii, and each town in the region had its popular leader. Josephus was expected to hold it with its own resources, for little help could be spared from the center of Palestine. Guerrilla fighting was the natural resource of an insurgent people, which had to win its freedom against well-trained and veteran armies. It had been the method of Judas Maccabaeus against Antiochus amid the hills of Judea. Josephus, however, made no attempt to practise it, and showed no vestige of appreciation of the needs of the case.

It is difficult to gather the reason of his appointment, unless it be that in his writings he deliberately kept back from the Romans the more enthusiastic part he had played at the outset of the struggle. So far as his own account goes, neither devotion to the national cause, nor experience, nor prestige, nor power of leadership, nor knowledge of the country recommended him. His distinguished birth and his friendship for Rome were hardly sufficient qualifications for the post. The influence of his friend, the ex-high priest Joshua ben Gamala, may have prevailed, and one is fain to surmise that those who sent him, as well as he himself, were anxious to pretend resistance to Rome, but really to work for resistance to the rebellion.

At all events, at the end of the autumn of 67, Josephus repaired to his command, taking with him two priests, Joazar and Judas, as representatives of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. In the record which he gives of his exploits in the Wars, he says that his first care was to gain the good-will of the people, drill his troops, and prepare the country to meet the threatened invasion. In the Life, which he wrote some twenty years later, when he had perforce to cultivate a more complete servility of mind, and was anxious to convince the Romans that he was a double-dealing traitor to his country, he represents that he set himself from the beginning to betray the province. The record of his actions points to the conclusion that he fell between the stools of covert treachery and half-hearted loyalty, that he was neither as villainous in design nor as heroic in action as he makes himself out to be. He made some show of preparation at the beginning, but from the moment the Roman army arrived under Vespasian, and he realized that Rome was in earnest, he abandoned all hope of success, and set himself to make his own position secure with the conqueror.

The chief cities of Galilee were Sepphoris, situated on the lower spurs of the hills near the plain of Esdraelon, which divides the country from Samaria and Judea; Tiberias, a city founded by Herod Antipas on the western borders of the Lake of Gennesareth, and Tarichea, also an Herodian foundation, situate probably at the southeast corner of the lake. All these Josephus fortified; and he strengthened with walls other smaller towns and natural fortresses, such as Jotapata, Salamis, and Gamala.[1] He says also that he appointed a Sanhedrin of seventy members for the province, and in each town established a court of seven judges, as though he were come to exercise a civil government. He did, however, get together an army of more than a hundred thousand young men, and armed them with the old weapons which he had collected. Though he despaired of their standing up against the Romans, he ordered them in the Roman style, appointing a large number of subordinate officers and teaching them the use of signals and a few elementary military movements. His army ultimately consisted of 60,000 footmen, 4,500 mercenaries, in whom he put greatest trust, and 600 picked men as his body-guard. He had little cavalry, but as Galilee was a country of hills, this deficiency need not have proved fatal, had he been a strategist or even a loyalist. During the eight months' respite that he enjoyed before the appearance of the Roman army, he spent most of his time in civil feud, and succeeded in dividing the population into two hostile parties. He boasts that, though he took up his command at an age when, if a man has happily escaped sin, he can scarcely guard himself against slander, he was perfectly honest, and refrained from stealing and peculation[2]; but he is at pains to prove that he threw every obstacle in the way of the patriotic party, and did all that an open enemy of the Jews could have done to undermine the defense of the province.

[Footnote 1: B.J. II. xx. 6. His account of his actions in Galilee is, however, from beginning to end, open to question; and the contemporary account of Justus has unfortunately disappeared entirely. It is likely that his rival's narrative would have shown him in a better light than his own.]

[Footnote 2: Vita, 15.]

Before his arrival in the north, the leader of the national party was John the son of Levi, a man of Gischala, which was one of the mountain fastnesses in Northern Galilee, now known as Jish, near the town of Safed.[1] Josephus heaps every variety of violent abuse upon him in order, no doubt, to please his patrons. When he introduces him on the scene, he describes him as "a very knavish and cunning rogue, outdoing all other rogues, and without his fellow for wicked practices. He was a ready liar, and yet very sharp in gaining credit for his fictions. He thought it a point of virtue to deceive, and would delude even those nearest to him. He had an aptitude for thieving," and so forth. Whenever the historian mentions the name of his rival, he rattles his box of abusive epithets until the reader is wearied by the image of the monster conjured up before him. But, unfortunately for his credit, Josephus also records John's deeds, and these reveal him as one who, if at times cruel and intriguing, yet lived and died for his country, while his enemy was thinking of saving himself.

[Footnote 1: The Hebrew name of the fortress was [Hebrew: Nosh Halav], meaning "clot of cream"; the place was so called because of the fertility of the soil on which it stands.]

It is not surprising then that John, having eyes only for the defense of the land, was not blind to the double-dealing of the priestly governor, who had been sent by the Romanizing party to organize resistance. The first event that brought about a collision between them was the suspicious conduct of Josephus in the matter of some spoil seized from the steward of King Agrippa and brought to Tarichea. Agrippa had entirely turned his back on the national rising, and was the faithful ally of the Romans. He was therefore an open enemy, and Tiberias, which had been under his dominion, had revolted from him. Josephus upbraided the captors for the violence they had offered to the king, and declared his intention to return the spoil to the owner. A little later he prevented John from destroying the corn in the province stored by the Romans for themselves. The people were naturally indignant at this conduct, and led by John and another Zealot, Jesus the son of Sapphias, the governor of Tiberias, and by Justus of the same city, who was afterwards to be a rival historian, they rose against Josephus. With stratagems worthy of a better cause he evaded this onslaught.

More briefly in the Wars, and in the Life at wearisome length, Josephus tells a tale of intrigue and counter-intrigue, mutual attempts at assassination, wiles and stratagems to undermine the power of each other, which took place between him and John. The city of Tarichea was his stronghold, Tiberias the hot-bed of the movement against him. The part he professes to have played is so extraordinary in its meanness that we are fain to believe that it is largely fiction, composed to show that he was only driven in the end by danger of his life to fight against the sacred power of Rome. However that may be, John reported his doings to the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, and that body, which was now, it seems, in the control of the Pharisees and Zealots, sent a deputation to recall him. Simon, the celebrated head of the Sanhedrin and leader of the national party, had pressed for the dismissal of Josephus.[1] Ananias, the ex-high priest and Sadducee, had at first been his champion, but he had been overborne. The deputation consisted of two Pharisees, Jonathan and Ananias, and two priests, Joazar and Simon. Warned by his friends in Jerusalem of their coming, Josephus had all the passes watched, seized the embassy, and recaptured the four cities that had revolted from him: Sepphoris, Gamala, Gischala, and Tiberias. According to the account in the Wars, the cities revolted again, and were recaptured by similar stratagems; and when the disturbances in Galilee were quieted in this way, the people, ceasing to prosecute their civil dissensions, betook themselves to make preparations for the war against the Romans. The invasion had begun in earnest, and Josephus, fortified, as he said, by a dream, which told him not to be afraid, because he was to fight with the Romans, and would live happily thereafter, decided for the time not to abandon his post.

[Footnote 1: It is notable that this is the only reference in the work of Josephus to the great Rabbi; the name of his successor in the headship of the Sanhedrin, Johanan ben Zakkai, does not occur even once.]

Josephus had displayed his administrative talents in these eight months of peaceful government by losing all that had been gained in the four months of the successful rebellion at Jerusalem. He now had an opportunity of displaying his military abilities. In the spring of 67 C.E., Flavius Vespasian, the veteran commander of the legions in Germany and Britain, who, on the defeat of Cestius Gallus, had been chosen by Nero to conduct the Jewish campaign, brought his army of four legions from Antioch to Ptolemais. He was met there by King Agrippa, who brought a large force of auxiliaries, and by a deputation of citizens from Sepphoris, the chief city of Galilee, who tendered their submission and invited him to send a garrison. Josephus, though he knew of the city's Romanizing leanings, had negligently or deliberately failed to occupy it, so that the place was lost without a blow. He made a feeble effort to recapture it, for appearance sake it would seem, and then, though he had an unlimited choice of favorable positions, and the Roman forces were not very large at the time, he abandoned the attempt of meeting the enemy in the field. Titus arrived from Alexandria, with two more legions, the fifth and the tenth, and then the Roman army, numbering with auxiliaries 60,000 men, set out from Ptolemais, and proceeded to occupy Galilee.

The Jewish forces were encamped on the hills above Sepphoris. Josephus describes the wonderful array and order of the Roman army on the march. The sight seems to have led a large part of his army to run away. He himself, when he saw that he had not an army sufficient to engage the enemy, despaired of the success of the war, and determined to place himself as far as he could out of danger. In this inspiring mood he abandoned the rest of the country, sent a dispatch to Jerusalem demanding help, and threw himself into the fortress of Jotapata, situated on the crest of a mountain in Northern Galilee, which he chose as the most fit for his security. Vespasian, hearing of this step, and, as Josephus modestly suggests, "supposing that, could he only get Josephus into his power, he would have conquered all Judea," straightway laid siege to the town (Iyar 16). For forty-two days the place was besieged, and during that period every resource that heroic resistance could suggest, according to the narrative of its commandant, was exhausted. The height of the wall was raised to meet the Roman embankments, provisions were brought in by soldiers disguised in sheep-skins, the Roman works were destroyed by fire, boiling oil was poured on the assailants, and finally the city was not stormed till the garrison was worn out with famine and fatigue. But, as has been pointed out, the details recorded are "the commonplaces of poliorcetics," and may have been borrowed by Josephus from some military text-book and neatly applied. Jotapata fell on the first day of Tammuz, and whatever the heroism of his army, the general did not shine in the last days of his command or in the manner of his surrender. Suspected by his men and threatened by them with death, he was unable to give himself up openly. He took refuge with some of his comrades in a deep pit, where they were discovered by an old woman, who informed the Romans. Vespasian, who, we are again told, believed that, if he captured Josephus, the greater part of the war would be over, sent one Nicanor, well known to the Jewish commandant, to take him. Josephus, professing prophetical powers, offered to surrender, and quieted his conscience by a secret prayer to God, which is a sad compound of cant and cowardice:

"Since it pleaseth Thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, now to bring them low, and since their good fortune is gone over to the Romans, and since Thou hast chosen my soul to foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly surrender, and am content to live. I solemnly protest that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter, but as Thy minister."

It may be that Josephus really believed he had prophetic powers, and thought he was imitating the great prophets of Israel and Judah who had proclaimed the uselessness of resistance to Assyria and Babylon. But they, while denouncing the wickedness of the people, had shared their lot with them. And Josephus, who weakly sought a refuge for himself after defeat, resembles rather the prophets whom Jeremiah denounced: "They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you."[1] His comrades however prevented him from giving himself up, and called on him to play a braver part and die with them, each by his own hand. He put them off by talking philosophically, as he has it, about the sin of suicide, a euphemism for a collection of commonplaces on the duty of preserving their lives. But when this enraged them, he bethought him of another device, and proposed that they should cast lots to kill each other. They assented, and by Divine Providence he was left to the last with one other, whom he persuaded to break his oath and live likewise.[2] Having thus escaped, he was led by Nicanor to Vespasian, the whole Roman army gathering around to gaze on the hero. Continuing his prophetical function, when he found that he was like to be sent to Nero, he announced to Vespasian, "Thou art Caesar and Emperor, thou, and this thy son…. thou art not only lord over me, but over the land and the sea and all mankind." The Roman general was incredulous, till, hearing that his prisoner had foretold the length of the siege of Jotapata—a prophecy which, of course, he had the ability to fulfil—and further, on the report of the death of Nero, having conceived the possibility of becoming Emperor, he had regard to the Jewish prophet, and, without setting him at liberty, bestowed favors on him, and made him easy about his future. Such was the end of the military career of Josephus.

[Footnote 1: Jer. 23: 16-17.]

[Footnote 2: A charitable explanation of this self-debasing account of Josephus is that he was driven to invent some story to extenuate his resistance to the Romans, and had to blacken his reputation as a patriot to save his skin. The fact that he was kept prisoner some time by Vespasian suggests that he was not so big a traitor as he pretends.]

The Talmud relates that Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, the head of the Pharisees, was carried in a coffin outside the walls of Jerusalem by his disciples, and was brought to the Roman camp, where he hailed Vespasian as Emperor and Caesar, and thereby gained his favor. If not apocryphal, the event must have happened in 69 C.E., when the Roman commander was generally expected to aim at the Imperial throne, then the object of strife between rival commanders. The rabbi belonged to the peace party, and from the beginning had opposed the war. And though his action was disapproved by the later generations, it was justified by his subsequent conduct; for it was he who, by founding the famous college at Jabneh, kept alive the Jewish spirit after the fall of the nation. For him surrender was a valid means to the preservation of the nation. The action of Josephus hardly bears the same justification. His desire for self-preservation was natural enough, but his manner of effecting it was not honorable. He was a general who, having taken a lead in the struggle for independence, had seen all his men fall, and had at the end invited the last of his comrades to kill each other, and he saved his life by sacrificing his honor. His mind was from the beginning of the struggle subjugated to Rome, but unhappily he accepted the most responsible post in the national defense and betrayed it. His address to Vespasian was mere flattery, designed to impose on a superstitious man's credulity; for the ear of Vespasian, says Merivale, "was always open to pretenders to supernatural knowledge." Lastly Josephus used his safety, not for the purpose of preserving the Jewish heritage, but for personal ends. He became a flunkey of the Flavian house, and straightway started on the transformation from a Jewish priest and soldier into a Roman courtier and literary hireling. Hard circumstances compelled him to choose between a noble and an ignoble part, between heroic action and weak submission. He was a mediocre man, and chose the way that was not heroic and glorious. Posterity gained something by his choice; his own reputation was fatally marred by it.