Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity

The Historiography, Exemplarity, and Anti-Judaism of Pseudo-Hegesippus

Carson Bay

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009268578
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 On the Destruction of Jerusalem: Christian, Classical, Biblical, Josephan
• 2 Hebrew versus 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
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Old Testament Exempla in De Excidio, A–Z
• Appendix 2: Pseudo-Hegesippus’ Sources
• Bibliography
• Source Index
• General Index