Lysimachus (Flavius ​​Josephus)

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Lysimachos is the name of a historian quoted by Flavius ​​Josephus in his work On the Originality of Judaism . Flavius ​​Josephus gives no details that would allow a reliable dating of his work.

In 2008, Folker Siegert reworked all available sources in this context, as Benedikt Niese's assumptions in particular were partially incorrect. In his work On the Originality of Judaism, Flavius ​​Josephus deals with the statements of Lysimachus in Book 1 (304-311) and Book 2 (16, 20, 145 and 236).

Possible assignments

The name common in Hellenism , for example the Diadoche Lysimachos (361–281 BC), makes it difficult to assign it unequivocally. Possibly it is about the grammarian Lysimachos , whom some scholias on Greek poets mention as " Alexandrians " and who, according to Athenaeus, worked after Mnaseas . This would be a date for the second century BC. Chr. Or after mean. Another candidate is a Lysimachus, who may be a contemporary of the Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra III. End of the second century BC Lived. Bezalel Bar-Kochva assumes that the writing Pseudo-Hekataios I followed as a literary answer to the anti-Jewish statements of Lysimachus, who probably made his polemical reports due to the pro-Jewish policies of Cleopatra III. († 101 BC) wrote. The statements in Pseudo-Hekataios I are a fiction that was written for a specific target audience.

An additional reference to a Lysimachus comes from the Topographia Christiana 12 , written by Kosmas Indicopleustes , a Nestorian Christian and contemporary of Justinian's late antiquity, as well as writers and travelers from Alexandria. He lists Manetho , Chaeremon , Apollonius Molon , Lysimachos and Apion the grammarians as the authors who wrote an ancient Egyptian Aegyptiaca in connection with the subject of biblical Moses . The ancient historian Felix Jacoby speaks out against equating Lysimachus of Aegyptiaca with the Alexandrian grammarian and therefore assigns the surviving fragments of Aegyptiaca a different number in his collection of fragments by Greek historians than the other works of the Alexandrian Lysimachus. Folker Siegert also considers the information handed down by Kosma to be at least partially incorrect, since Manetho, for example, certainly did not mention the biblical Moses in his Aegyptiaca . Rather, they are obviously addenda by other authors who wanted to create a chronological harmonization between the Bible and ancient Egyptian history.

If, however, it is a completely different Lysimachus who, as an ethnologist, produced an ancient Egyptian ethnography , it can only be said without a doubt that Lysimachus, named by Flavius ​​Josephus, worked after Mnaseas and before Apion (around 40 AD). Due to this fact and the fact that ethnography was still a popular literary topic in Roman times , a possible time frame of the second century BC for the Lysimachus of Flavius ​​Josephus arises. BC to the first century AD Folker Siegert calls those text passages from Lysimachus as Aegyptiaca based on the verses referred to by Flavius ​​Josephus, but without using this term in the characterization of Lysimachus and without assigning it to a specific Lysimachus.

Lysimachus with Flavius ​​Josephus

Contents of the passages from Book 1

The text passages from Book 1 (304-311) have only survived in the Greek-language Codices Eliensis , Schleusingensis , Laurentianus and the Latin translation . The Latin translation is sometimes fraught with considerable problems. In the earlier editions, numerous smoothings were not mentioned, in particular that of Sigismund Gelenius . In addition, the humanists corrected the content and added assumptions. In the first book, Flavius ​​Josephus condemns the publications of Lysimachus in his introductory statement:

" 304  Whom I ... still want to bring, that is Lysimachus, who takes on the same subject of lies as the above, that of the lepers and defaced ones, who, however, exceeds their incredibility with his fictions, which makes it clear that he writes out of sheer hatred . 305  He says that under Bokchoris, King ( Pharaoh ) of the Egyptians, the Jewish people who had leprosy and rash and were afflicted with other diseases sought refuge in the sanctuaries and begged for food. "

- Flavius ​​Josephus, On the Originality of Judaism, Book 1, verses 304–305

According to Lysimachus, a harvest problem had arisen because of the needy Jews. Bokchoris called the oracle about the emergency in the Amun temple to find out how to proceed. In this regard, Amun gave the order to “cleanse” all sanctuaries from people who are impure and not religious and to relocate them to uninhabited areas. But those suffering from leprosy and rash should be drowned. Bokchoris therefore ordered the Egyptian soldiers to carry out the order received from Amun and gave them instructions to drown the people afflicted with leprosy and rash wrapped in lead in the sea. After this act, the "groups of the unclean" located in the desert united and called on the gods for assistance during the night so that they could be freed from their fate. The next morning, a "certain Moses " advised them to move from this place to an inhabited area. But they should not listen to the advice of the residents there and tear down the temples that were built there. Lysimachus 'narrative ends with the events that followed Moses' advice:

" 310  After a great deal of effort they got into the populated area, harassed the people, robbed the shrines and set them on fire, and finally got to what is now called Judea , founded a city and settled there. 311 But  this city was called Hierosyla - according to the behavior of those people - but later, when they came to power, they changed the name over time so that they would not be insulted by it, and the city Hierosolyma , itself but called hierosolymites . "

- Flavius ​​Josephus, On the Originality of Judaism, Book 1, verses 310-311

reviews

The verses of Book 1, 304-311 are very similar to a passage in the history of the Roman historian Tacitus , without it being possible to be sure that Lysimachus was the source of Tacitus. Lysimachus also reports on two contradicting rumors concerning the exodus from Egypt . First there is a description of the people suffering from leprosy who are drowned in the sea. Then it comes to critics of religion who leave Egypt and found Hierosyla .

Flavius ​​Josephus mixed two independent rumors into one unified statement by Lysimachus. It remains to be seen whether this was done out of convenience or whether it can be assumed from an intention of Flavius ​​Josephus. Any sources where he got his information from are kept secret. The redesign of both rumors, however, made it easier for the Jewish historian to condemn Lysimachus' statements.

literature

  • Bezalel Bar-Kochva: Pseudo-Hecataeus, "On the Jews": Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora (= Hellenistic Culture and Society 21). California University Press, Berkeley 1996, ISBN 0-520-20059-4 , pp. 46-93.
  • Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judaism (Contra Apionem) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-54206-4
    • Vol. 1: First collation of the entire tradition (Greek, Latin, Armenian), literary critical analysis and German translation (= writings of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum 6.1).
    • Vol. 2: Additions, notes, Greek text (= writings of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum 6.2).

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judaism , vol. 1, p. 33.
  2. ↑ The work is cited according to the edition by Folker Siegert. There is also another chapter division of the books.
  3. ↑ Scholien zu Apollonios von Rhodes 1,558; Scholien to Sophocles , Oedipus on Colonos 91.
  4. ↑ Athenaios 4,158d.
  5. ↑ Precision of the dating: Bezalel Bar-Kochva: Apollonius Molon versus Posidonius of Apamea . In: Jürgen Kalm (Ed.): International Josephus Colloquium Aarhus 1999 (= Münster Judaic Studies 6). Münster 2001, p. 24.
  6. ↑ Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judaism , Vol. 1, pp. 43-44.
  7. ↑ Felix Jacoby: The fragments of the Greek historians No. 382 and No. 621.
  8. ^ Oskar Dreyer: Lysimachos 4). In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, Col. 841 f.
  9. ↑ Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judaism , vol. 2, p. 4.
  10. ↑ a b Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judentums , vol. 1, p. 57.
  11. ↑ Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judentum , vol. 1, pp. 73-75.
  12. ↑ Folker Siegert: Flavius ​​Josephus: About the originality of Judentum , vol. 1, p. 158.
  13. ^ Tacitus, Historien 5,3.
  14. ^ Alfred Gudeman : Lysimachos 20). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XIV, 1, Stuttgart 1928, Col. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Lysimachus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethnologist named by Flavius ​​Josephus
DATE OF BIRTH between 2nd century BC BC and 1st century
DATE OF DEATH between 2nd century BC BC and 1st century