The Jewish War (novel)
The Jewish War is a historical novel by the writer Lion Feuchtwanger . The book was published in 1932 and is the first part of the Josephus trilogy , which tells the life of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus .
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First book: Rome
Josef Ben Matthias, “young man of letters and statesman” , comes to Rome from his native Judea three months after the great fire in the city. Here he is supposed to campaign at the imperial court for a pardon for three members of the great council of Jerusalem, who were wrongly sentenced to forced labor, accused of leading rioting against the Roman government.
Josef is young, eager, and confident. He sees the case as the perfect stepping stone for his career, "as the longed-for, great opportunity to excel" . At a dinner in the house of his host Cajus Barzaarone, in which the influential businessman Claudius Regin also takes part, Josef uses the opportunity to speak for his three innocents. But Regin refuses to help him because he fears possible negative consequences for himself, since the three scholars are followers of the Jewish-national and radical avenger of Israel. Another guest, Justus von Tiberias, who in the further course of the novel develops into a kind of friend and at the same time a bitter competitor of Joseph, gives the aspiring young man the tip to turn to the actor Demetrius Liban. So he takes Josef to the theater a few days later and introduces them to each other. In the following, Joseph succeeds in getting Demetrius Liban interested in his commission. They are soon going to Tibur together, where the three prisoners have to do their forced labor in a brick factory. The actor is deeply touched by the fate of the three innocent people and their miserable condition and arranges a meeting with the Empress Poppäa (see: Poppaea Sabina ). Josef presents his case to her. At first the Empress does not take him very seriously, but in the end she promises to have the three innocent pardoned if Josef Demetrius convinces Liban to bring the Jew Apella onto the stage (the Jew Apella is a figure of the Jew like the Roman one Volkswitz sees).
Since the actor has actually already decided to play the play, the three prisoners will soon be released, which gives Joseph great popularity in Rome. But his success is tarnished by an initiative by Minister Talass. He is an anti-Semite and only confirms the release of the three prisoners because it paves the way for a fateful undertaking: the change of the electoral statute in Caesarea. Instead of the existing right to vote according to property, a general right to vote is to be introduced. The old suffrage, however, favors the Jews, because many of them are wealthy and therefore have a prominent political position and can make decisions that are favorable to the Jews. The majority of the population is made up of Romans and Greeks, who do not benefit from this political system. The time to curtail the rights of the Jews is so favorable for Talass because the people of Rome are now of the opinion that enough is already being done for the Jews, since the three unjustly convicted Jewish scholars have been pardoned. When the Empress Poppäa dies shortly afterwards, the way is finally free for the edict. Joseph learns about the minister's plan from Justus. At first he does not want to believe him, but cannot stand the tension as to whether the edict will actually come into force and therefore returns to Judea.
Second book: Galilee
After the change in the electoral statute became known, there were clashes between Jews and Greeks or Romans in Caesarea and, in some cases, armed uprisings by the Jews in Judea. Many Jews who previously belonged to moderate pro-Jewish currents are now turning to the radical avengers of Israel. There are many dead and prisoners on both sides, whereupon a state of emergency is declared in the province. To defuse the situation, the leaders of the liberal Jewish parties turned to King Agrippa and asked him to mediate between the insurgents and the Roman central government in order to prevent a possible war. The king tries to dissuade the insurgents from rising against the Roman protectorate, but his speech is meaningless. First the head of the temple administration in Jerusalem rejects the traditional Roman sacrifice for YHWH . After that the Jewish population of Jerusalem rose up, buildings were set on fire and defenseless civilians were killed, which is why there were pogroms against the Jews in other cities. Then the Roman troops intervene. They successfully enter Judea, pillage and pillage. But they fail to conquer Jerusalem: as if by a miracle, the city holds up and the Roman troops withdraw. After this has happened, the great council of Jerusalem sends people's commissars to the various provinces of the country and Josef Ben Matthias, together with the old doctor Jannai, is surprisingly sent to Galilee (the headquarters of the Avengers of Israel).
Shortly after his arrival, Josef set himself the goal of gaining the trust of the local population. He chooses Magdala as his headquarters, Tiberias is nearby. This city is subordinate to King Agrippa and Justus of Tiberias (Joseph's rival) is installed as its governor. The people of Tiberias are poor, discontented and hostile to the Roman protectorate. The movement's spokesmen are Sapita from Tiberias and Johann von Gischala. The former turns to Josef, who gladly uses this opportunity to undermine Justus' power. They make an illegal agreement: the supporters of Sapita can flee from Tiberias to Josef's area and are not prosecuted there, but Josef receives money for his war fund. Justus finds out about it, orders Josef and Doctor Jannai to come and see the agreement. Now the young, ambitious Josef is threatened with recall. Thereupon he got together with Johann von Gischala and made an agreement with him: Josef gave his consent for King Agrippa's grain to be confiscated, for which the rebel leader placed his military organizations under his control. Since the groups of Sapita and Johann von Gischala take offense at the royal palace of Agrippa, Josef asks Justus to tear it down. Since Jupiter refuses to do this, the palace is soon stormed, destroyed and looted by the rebels. This act nullifies all attempts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with Rome. There is a war. Encouraged not least by Minister Talass, Rome decides to take full force of action against the rebellious province. The Emperor Nero appoints Senator Mucian and the hitherto unsuccessful General Vespasian as leaders of the Roman troops. Joseph holed up with the rebel troops in the fortress city of Jotapata and decided to withstand the siege by the Roman troops for seven weeks, until July 1st, as it was already too late for the Romans to march in front of Jerusalem by then. The water in the fortress city is getting scarce and the situation seems hopeless, but Josef manages to hold the fortress until July 1st. He himself is captured and taken before Vespasian. He realizes that the general does not want to move before Jerusalem because he wants to keep his well-trained troops. In the following, Joseph makes use of the rumor of the imminent arrival of the Messiah and prophesies Vespasian that he will be this longed-for Messiah. Vespasian does not dislike being considered such, and so Joseph is not crucified but becomes the general's serf. Vespasian also refrains from going before Jerusalem.
Third book: Caesarea
Josef Ben Matthias is doing relatively well as the serf of General Vespasian. He acts as an advisor on questions of Jewish customs and tries to use his position for the Jews of Galilee. Nevertheless, they regard him as a “cowardly defector” and are hated by many. The Maccabi rebels, who have established a reign of terror in Jerusalem, as a result of which there is even a civil war, impose the great ban on Joseph. This becomes an outlaw among their own people.
General Mucian still wants to get Vespasian to march in front of Jerusalem, but he convinces him instead to merge their legions with one another in order to secure his own power. Shortly afterwards, Vespasian buys the Jewish prisoner of war Mara for himself and subsequently makes fun of marrying her (forcibly) with Josef. Joseph grudges his teeth in order not to lose the general's favor, but for him it is an unforgivable sin and a great shame to marry a girl "who has become a whore through being a prisoner of war and courting the Roman." In the meantime, Emperor Nero killed himself, after which power is now in the hands of the leaders of the armies. Several emperors followed, but all of them died shortly after taking office or were overthrown by the military. General Mucian was the first to recognize that in this situation it would be best to make Vespasian emperor, as the Roman troops fully support him: "The army makes the emperor, the army swears by Vespasian". But the general holds back for tactical reasons. He does not want to be an emperor of the soldiers, but to be raised to the office by a legal confirmation, which is impossible. Josef is supposed to convince Vespasian to become emperor illegally, but Vespasian still refuses. However, he lets it be known that he would give way to extreme coercion. The next morning Vespasian is “forced” to take over the office of emperor. As a result, he made Joseph a free man and allowed him to use the Roman name Flavius Josephus in the future .
Fourth book: Alexandria
After Joseph became a free man again, he went to Alexandria. The Jews there are open-minded and peacefully disposed towards the Roman protectorate. For this reason they receive Joseph kindly and respect him; they know what part he played in the appointment of Vespasian as emperor. Now an inner development of Joseph comes to an end, which began in the third book. He increasingly distanced himself from his radical views and developed the ideal of cosmopolitanism: the amalgamation of Judaism and Greece. “He was the first person to exemplify such a worldview. He was a new kind of person, no longer a Jew, not a Greek, not a Roman: a citizen of the whole world, as far as he was civilized. ”Joseph is no longer the ambitious, uncompromising politician he was at the beginning of the novel, but a writer And cosmopolitan: "So Joseph made himself a citizen of Judea into a citizen of the world and the priest Joseph Ben Matthias into the writer Flavius Josephus." Both Romans and Jews take offense at this attitude, especially Joseph's Psalm of the cosmopolitan . Under pressure from some Maccabi people, Joseph was even expelled from the synagogue, which initially sealed his exclusion from the Jewish community.
At a festival on the island of Pharrus, he met the painter Fabull's daughter, Dorion. The shame of his marriage to Mara does not let go of him and so Joseph decides to take the penalty of forty blows, as this is the only way to obtain forgiveness of his sin and to be able to divorce Mara. This again earned him respect for the Jews. But shortly afterwards Joseph loses this recognition again because he has fallen in love with Dorion and wants to marry her, even though she is Egyptian. Dorion agrees to take him as a husband and, formally, to convert to Judaism if Joseph succeeds in obtaining Roman citizenship within ten days. The Emperor Vespasian granted it to Joseph for 150,000 sistercias. Since the young man does not have this large sum of money, he asks Claudius Regin for help. He gives him the money on the condition that Josef publishes his planned book about the events of the war in Judea in Regins Verlag. The wedding then takes place, but the marital happiness does not last long because Vespasian has commissioned his son Titus to finally end the turmoil in Judea by conquering Jerusalem. Joseph has the choice of either going to Rome with Vespasian and his wife or to Jerusalem in the entourage of Titus. He would like to experience the history of the Jewish war from beginning to end in order to be able to write it down truthfully and to act as a mediator between Romans and Jews. So Joseph decides to take part in the campaign.
Fifth book: Jerusalem
The legions of Titus begin the siege of Jerusalem at exactly the time when a large number of pilgrims come to the city for the Passover festival. For Joseph, the struggle between Roman troops and Jewish rebels is difficult to endure because he is plagued by an inner conflict. “His brain belongs to those in whose midst he is. But his heart is with the others [...] ”. The two rebel leaders Simon Bar Giora and Johann von Gischala, who previously fought each other in the civil war, join forces again. But this does not have much effect, because slowly the Romans penetrate further and further into the city until they finally stand in front of the wall of the temple area. Nevertheless, Titus tried again and again to negotiate peace, which the rebels rejected. The reason for Titus' efforts is the Jewish princess Berenike, with whom he fell madly in love. Her greatest concern is to preserve the Jewish temple, so Titus is reluctant to simply storm the temple precinct. Since a famine has broken out in besieged Jerusalem, the rebel leaders are forcing the priests of the temple to give them sacrificial lambs, bread, wine and oil from the sanctuary. The decisive battle draws ever closer and one last effort is made to find a compromise on the Roman side. Josef is supposed to act as a mediator, but is mocked by the rebels by letting a pig loose on him. He is then laughed at by Jews and Romans. “In these moments, which were as long as years, Joseph atone for all the arrogance of his life [...] A great cold fell upon him, everything had peeled off from him, pain and arrogance. He did not belong to the Romans or to the Jews, the earth was desolate and empty, as before creation, he was alone, there was nothing to him but mockery and laughter. ”With the refusal of the last offer of peace, the rebels had the chance of opening up forfeited a peaceful outcome to the conflict.
In order not to have to decide what to do with the Jewish temple alone, Titus convenes a council of war, but opinions are divided. The Roman troops are yearning for the temple to be destroyed, the long weeks of waiting were grueling. In addition, in this case, Titus expects a great triumph in Rome. Out of love for Berenike, Titus still decides to spare the temple. The captain of the fifth legion, Pedan, takes the appropriate order. He “has a great hatred: the Jews” and desperately wants to see their sanctuary destroyed. For this reason, he interprets the command differently than it is intended. When cleaning up the temple, he first sets fire to the building and then storms it with his legion. Shortly afterwards he received reinforcements, soldiers destroyed and plundered the Jewish sanctuary, it burned down completely. Pedan therefore comes before a court martial, but since he is the favorite of the army, nothing happens to him. Joseph follows a promise made by Titus to release 77 prisoners and to recover 70 scrolls. Joseph goes in search of Justus of Tiberias and finally finds him, already nailed to the cross. After Justus is out of danger, Joseph returns to Rome. Princess Berenike also decides to accompany Titus, even if he did not spare the temple. Joseph meets Dorion, but the events in Jerusalem have made a different person out of him and he can no longer live with her. For the Jews in Rome he is a traitor and archenemy, despite his role as a mediator in the war. Titus wants to marry Berenike and his father suggests that she either attend the imperial triumphal procession or leave Italy. Titus agrees, but when he makes the proposal to Berenike, she leaves him forever. In order to be able to write his book truthfully, Joseph forces himself to look at the Roman triumphal procession. It is a great torment and he realizes: “[His book] will be misunderstood by the Romans and the Jews. It will take a long time to be understood. But there will be a time when it will be understood. "
The first part of the Josephus trilogy ends when Joseph starts working on his book De bello Iudaico (Eng: The History of the Jewish War); "As a reminder for the present, a warning for the later".
Historical background
The uprising in Judea from 66 AD to 70 AD
The novel refers to the Jewish uprising in the Roman province of Judea. This inflamed in 66 AD due to excessive tax burdens. The population of a province pays taxes in thanks for the peace, protection and freedom offered by the Roman protectorate. But the taxes that the residents of Judea have to pay are more like exploitation and also lead to the division of Jewish society, as the upper class benefits from the high taxes of the poor and therefore likes to work with the protectorate. The Romans' lack of understanding of the Jewish religion, which manifests itself in provocations such as the setting up of idols in the temple, and the strict insistence of the Jews on their tradition, as well as their refusal to worship the emperor as God, lead to tensions. In this sense, the uprising also shows the problem of the administration of the numerous Roman provinces. These tensions have existed since the Roman conquest of Judea (63 AD), but they continue to increase over the years and so Judea is like a powder keg in 66 AD. When Emperor Nero announced that he would have the Jewish temple treasures plundered, riots broke out, fueled by Jewish radicals and nationalists such as the Zealots . Thereupon the procurator of Judea, Gessius Florus , sends troops to Jerusalem. There are massacres of Jews. The moderate Jewish upper class stands between the fronts, trying to mediate, but as the massacres continue, a change in the Jewish population takes place.
She now turns to the radical rebels and offers armed resistance, which is ultimately successful. The troops of Gessius Florus are initially driven out and Jewish rebels take control. As a result, Roman legions are deployed, but this remains unsuccessful and they withdraw. From this point on, the provincial uprising turns into war with the superpower Rome, the greatest military action against the population of a province in Roman history. After that, there was also cooperation between the Jewish upper class and rebels. Commanders are sent to the various parts of Judea, one of them is Josef ben Matthias. In Rome, Vespasian was given the command of the troops to put down the uprising. His plan is to first conquer the areas around Jerusalem, since the city itself is considered impregnable. As in Feuchtwanger's novel, Josef ben Matthias declares Jotapata to be a fortress, which the Romans (as Josef predicts) besieged for 47 days. It is also true that the young man then hides for two days in a cave in which the inmates commit collective suicide when they are discovered, which Joseph miraculously escapes. Whether with marked dice or by means of applied mathematics (this is what the Josephus problem is named after today) is not clear. Meanwhile, Jerusalem falls into the hands of rival, nationalist rebel groups, and civil war breaks out. Vespasian conquers all pockets of resistance in Judea. However, the offensive against Jerusalem is suspended due to Nero's suicide. The death of the emperor plunges the Roman Empire into a deep crisis (see: The year of the four emperors and the founding of the Flavian dynasty). After Vespasian became emperor, he entrusted his son Titus to put down the rebellion in Judea for good. The legions of Titus begin the siege of Jerusalem in March 70 AD and offer the rebels the advantages of surrender . However, they want to hold out at all costs, but their supplies are running out and many people in Jerusalem are starving. Titus initially rejects a major attack, because despite the tireless guerrilla war of the rebels, the Romans penetrate further and further into the city center until they finally stand in front of the wall of the temple complex. Titus decides to spare the temple because of its architectural importance. But Roman legionaries invade the temple complex, let their hatred run free and set fire to the Jewish sanctuary. Titus wants to have the flames put out, but no soldier obeys his orders. The temple treasures are plundered and so much gold is looted that the price of it in Syria falls by half. Since the Jewish rebels still refuse to surrender, the Romans razed Jerusalem to the ground after six months of siege. A pompous triumph is then celebrated in Rome and Vespasian uses the profits from the war in Judea to finance the Colosseum . Jerusalem, on the other hand, will remain uninhabitable for the next 60 years.
The year of the four emperors and the founding of the Flavian dynasty
After the Emperor Nero fell out of favor and was declared an enemy of the state by the Roman Senate , partly because he had failed to put down the uprising in Judea , he chose suicide. The last member of the Julier family had died with him , as Nero had left no heir to the throne. Formally, the emperor had to be recognized by the Senate and the people of Rome in order to rule legally. But now it became clear for the first time what power the military in particular had (Feuchtwanger makes this very clear in his novel). First, Galba , a successful military leader, was recognized by the Senate as emperor. However, he turned the soldiers against him when he refused to give them the traditional gift of money. He was then murdered by the Praetorian Guard Othos , who also proclaimed him emperor, in 69 AD. But Otho's power ended at the city limits of Rome. Therefore the Rhine Legion declared him deposed. It came to a fight of both troops, whereupon Otho suffered a defeat and killed himself. Vitellius was now recognized as emperor by the Senate, but the legions of the East rebelled against this. On July 1, 69 AD, they proclaimed Vespasian (even if he did not belong to an important noble family) as emperor. The armies of the Danube provinces joined them. Nevertheless, a bloody battle broke out, from which Vespasian emerged victorious. Due to the violent assumption of office, the people of Rome were very skeptical of their new emperor. In order to demonstrate its power and to secure the support of the population, a great military success was needed. It was extremely important for Vespasian to lay the foundation for a new dynasty. He entrusted his son Titus with the suppression of the Jewish uprising in Judea. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the great triumphal procession in Rome, his claim to power was secured and the new Flavian dynasty (see: Flavier ) was founded.
Flavius Josephus
The historical statements in the novel about the Jewish writer and historian Flavius Josephus are largely correct, not least because Feuchtwanger is also based on Josephi's numerous statements about himself. The young Pharisee actually went on a trip to Rome to (successfully) advocate the release of three captured Jewish priests and, as the commander of Judea, organized the Jewish uprising, after which he fell into their hands after the fortress of Jotapata was conquered by the Romans . Afterwards Josephus Vespasian prophesied future emperors, whereby he became the serf and good luck charm of the general and thus saved his life. When his prophecy was finally fulfilled, Josephus was a free man again, who accompanied the young general Titus to Jerusalem around AD 70. On the one hand he acted here as a chronicler of the war, on the other hand as a (unsuccessful) negotiator. In contrast to the novel, Josephus actually received Roman citizenship only after the fall of Jerusalem, as a kind of thanksgiving. At the end of the novel, Josephus begins working on Bellum Judaicum . This is in a sense the most important work of the historian, as it describes the Jewish war (66 AD - 70 AD) very precisely and even if it portrays the Romans very positively, it is nevertheless written from a Jewish perspective. Josephus even appeals to his Jewish readership: "God is now in Italy", therefore he is on the side of the Romans. This also reflects the messianic-apocalyptic mood among the Jews at that time. However, none of this changes the fact that Josephi's work was hushed up by Jewish scholars well into the 16th century and that his idea of cosmopolitanism only found attention at the end of the 19th century. René Bloch even goes as far as to suspect that Feuchtwanger was probably one of the few who really understood Josephus.
The idea of cosmopolitanism from the merging of Eastern and Western cultures is one of the most important aspects of the novel. With Josephus Feuchtwanger shows the failure of the first world citizen, his futile attempt to take on a mediating role in the conflict between Romans and Jews. What is decisive is that Josephus turns away from radical Jewish nationalism and opens up to Roman culture without denying his roots. He stands by his Jewry as well as his Romanism, which has earned him skepticism and hatred on both sides from the start. Josephi Ideal is doomed to failure because it is way ahead of his time.
Time of writing the novel
Lion Feuchtwanger wrote The Jewish War in the late 1920s and early 1930s. For this reason, many cross-references to the political situation at the time can be established. On the one hand, there are parallels between the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Flavian dynasty: the political turmoil of the four-emperor year and that of the declining Weimar Republic; a blossoming of the Jewish national feeling in AD 66, as can also be found in Zionism of the 19th and 20th centuries (including a striving for political independence, or a separate nation state); the shattered Roman finances and German inflation from 1914 to 1923 ; and finally the increasing power of the military in the Roman Empire and the Weimar Republic. On the other hand, Feuchtwanger reflects on his own experiences with (National Socialist) discrimination and outsiders. In this context, Feuchtwanger's novel is also a well-founded representation of Judaism , which explains both cosmopolitan thinking and Zionist tendencies within the people living in the diaspora and thus counteracts National Socialist propaganda in its own way.
expenditure
- First edition: The Jewish War. Propylaea Publishing House, Berlin 1932.
- Collected works in individual volumes Vol. 2: The Jewish War. 2nd edition, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-351-01661-1 .
- One-volume edition of the trilogy: The Jewish War. The day will come. The Sons (Josephus Trilogy). Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar GmbH, 1998, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-351-01755-3 .
- Paperback: The Jewish War. Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-7466-5602-8 .
- New edition: The Jewish War. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-596-25707-7 .
literature
- Wilhelm von Sternburg : Lion Feuchtwanger - A German writer's life. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, chapter: Josephus Trilogy, ISBN 3-7466-1416-3 .