Christian Texts and History • Re: james eusebius and alexandria

Hegesippus?

Hegesippus seems to have dated the death of James later, just before the Jewish War.

I would speculate that Clement of Alexandria (who we know read Josephus) wrote in his Hypotyposes an account of the death of James dating it to the 7th year of Nero on the basis of a citation of Josephus.

Why?

The account was partly based on Hegesippus (whom we know Clement read) and linked the death of James to the siege of Jerusalem. This account is the basis of Origen on Josephus and James (Origen regarded the whole passage as based on Josephus and hence misattributed to Josephus things from Hegesippus). Julius Africanus (who knew of Clement) used Clement's date for the death of James in constructing his chronology.

So the theory you are proposing is that Clement gave an account that combined material from Hegesippus and Josephus and gave dated it to the 7th year of Nero based on inference from Josephus and then Julius Africanus and Origen both took over the passage from Clement.

We have a partial quotation and/or paraphrase of Clement's passage from the Hypotposeis in Eusebius HE 2.1.3-5, which does not include the 7th year of Nero date.

We have two version (or three) versions of the James passage in Origen, which do not include the 7th year of Nero date.

We do not have the supposed passage from Julius Africanus at all (do we?).

I do not understand how you got to your conclusions/inferences/theories, nor how this would show an early connection between the death of James and the appointment of Annianus as bishop of Alexandria if we accepted them.

Best,

Ken

ETA: I can see how, IF we accepted that Clement combined material on James the Just from Hegesippus with material about the James mentioned in Ant. 20.200, this would mean that the James in Ant. 20.200 James was identified with the Christian James before the time of Eusebius. However, (1) I still do not see why we would suppose that Clement combined material from Hegesippus and Josephus, and (2) I don't see what Annanias adds to the argument.

Hi Ken

My post to which you reply above is a speculation based on the prior argument that a/ the agreement in date between James and Annianus is not coincidental and b/ the date for Annianus is pre-Eusebian. If the prior argument is correct it seems a plausible explanation of what Origen says about Josephus and James. The real issue is the strength or otherwise of the prior argument.

Andrew Criddle

The prior argument is a speculation isn't it?

We have Eusebius Chronicle, preserved by Jerome in Latin, that records in the first year of the 210th Olympiad, 7th year of the reign of Nero (=61 CE, pp. 264-265):

James, the brother of the Lord, whom everyone used to call the Just, is stoned to death by the Jews. Simeon, also called Simon, is the second to be placed in his stoned to death by the Jews. Simeon, also called Simon, is the second to be placed in his throne.

Roger Pearse has a link to Jerome, Chronicle, Pages 188-332, here:

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/inde ... echronicle

We know Eusebius knew (leaving aside the question of whether he altered the passage himself in his quotation of it) the accounts about James in both Josephus Antiquities 20.199-203 (HE 2.23.21-24) and Hegesippus (HE 2.23.3-18; ) and could be inferring the date of James' death from Josephus (as opposed to Hegesippus, who seems to date it later).

Eusebius Chronicle also records for the following year, the second year of the 210th Olympiad, the 8th year of the reign of Nero (=62 CE, p.265):

The first bishop of the church of Alexandria ordained after Mark the Evangelist was Annianus, who presided for twenty two years.

Eusebius also attests that Annanias received the diocese of Alexandria in the 8th year of Nero in HE 2.24.

So Eusebius had at least one source (Josephus) from which he could have taken his dating of James death, and he had a different source from which he took the the dating of Annianus becoiming bishop of Alexandria (because this is not found in Josephus). Since we do not know what his source for Annianus was, it is possible that that source could also have given a date for James death, but the diea that it did is a speculation and not something for which we have positive evidence.

You have also suggested that some other pre-Eusebian witnesses may have known the James passage in Josephus and its dating, but that is also a speculation and not directly attested.

It seems that your argument is a truism: IF we accept the speculation that there were pre-Eusebian authors who knew the reference to in Ant. 20.200 and understood it to refer to the Christian James, Jesus' brother, then Eusebius was not the first to take the passage as referring to the Christian James, Jesus's brother.

Is there more to it than that? I'm not seeing what it is that would suggest your speculation is correct.

Best,

Ken

Statistics: Posted by andrewcriddle — Wed Jun 05, 2024 9:02 am