The Jewish War: First half of Book 4

[cahn]

Last week: Josephus really hypes Vespasian up! Galilee is also very nice! Discussion of Josephus' prophecy of Vespasian, both in Josephus and in Feuchtwanger's novelization, with detours into Antonia and Caenis.

This week: Internal strife in Jerusalem! Lots of internal strife!

Next week: Last half of book 4.

Comments

[cahn]

Gonna be a recap this week, because I was having one of those weeks where I was having issues parsing the text unless I was taking recap notes.

Joseph talks about the Romans taking Gamala (eventually) and then talks about Gischala a lot. Definitely Not because he is obsessed with John of Gischala at all. The Gischalan resistance is organized by our old friend John, "a specious rogue of infinite guile" (this translation, I love it), who apparently also has organized bandits? Anyway, they are set on fighting and John, that rogue, escapes from Gischala and makes his way to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, factionalism is rife in Jerusalem. The radical militants basically become bandits, "so that in terms of lawless brutality their victims could see no difference between these compatriots and the Romans" (133). (Moreover, Josephus says more-or-less parenthetically, Jerusalem admits "without scrutiny any fellow Jew" (136), and "it was this very influx which, quite apart from the factional strife, ultimately sank the city: a useless idle mob drained the supplies which would otherwise have been sufficient for the active combatants" (137).)

More bandits come in to join forces with the gangs already in the city, and they kidnap and kill people. It gets to be so bad they actually elect their own high priests! (Me: Is this so bad... yeah, I understand that it's supposed to be the particular families, I get it, but this does hit a bit differently in the modern era. I suppose my church also does not elect anyone -- although in theory it is also not supposed to be particular families -- but D's church does!) They even appoint the high priests by lot. "In reality they were abolishing a more reliable system as part of a ploy to gain absolute power by controlling all appointments to high office" (154). The footnote here says what I was thinking: "It is not clear how this could be achieved if the lot was random." Hmm this brings back the question of how random those lots in the cave really were... :P

So okay, the older party, represented by high priest Ananus (but some other guys too) tries to take on the "Zealots," the guys who are electing their own high priests. John of Gischala, that infinitely guileful person, pretends to be part of Ananus' team but is actually shuttling all the information to the Zealots, except adding in stuff like, Ananus and his guys want to call in Rome! The Zealots call in the Idumaeans to help them. Ananus' party shuts the gates against them.

But wait, Ananus doesn't inspect the guardposts on a crucial night. "This was no laziness on Ananus' part, but Fate's strategy to ensure that he should die, and all his guards with him" (297). Hm. It's interesting to me that Josephus invokes God as the architecture of most things, but Fate here. Anyway... the Zealots sneak the Idumaeans in, who go on to kill a ton of people, including Ananus.

In elegy Josephus says of Ananus, "If Ananus had lived there would either have been a settlement [with Rome]... or, if it had to be war, the Jews would have greatly delated the Roman victory (321). The footnote says, "Josephus' admission that a settlement with Rome was on the cards may seem to endorse the accusations of treachery levelled against Ananus by his enemies earlier in Book 4."

The Zealots and Idumaeans kill a bunch of people, then having trials to kill them a little more decorously. Finally the Idumaeans have enough of this and leave. The Zealots are like, cool, let's keep being The Worst.

Meanwhile, Vespasian is munching popcorn while his enemies do all the work for him.