FLAVIUS, the celebrated Jewish historian, was born at Jerusalem, A.D. 37, in the first year of Caligula, and four years after the ascension of our Lord. His advantages of birth were very considerable. His father Matthias, sprung from the highest priestly family, belonged to the first of the twenty-four courses. On his mother's side he was descended from the Asmonæan princes. He was very proud of his high birth; and it was a theme on which he used to dwell with a delighted complacency. He complained bitterly of some malignant persons who had ventured to laugh at his claims to an aristocratic lineage. The wealth and high standing of his parents procured for him the best Jewish education. Such was his progress—at least if his own account of himself is to be believed—that at the age of fourteen he was often consulted by learned rabbis on abstruse points of the Jewish law. At the age of sixteen he began to study with peculiar care the doctrines of the three leading Jewish sects, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Though a Pharisee by birth, and in later life a Pharisee both by belief and temperament, he seems at this period to have inclined to the views of the Essenes. Hearing at least that Banus, a celebrated member of that sect, was living in the wilderness with the rigorous asceticism of a hermit, he joined him, and remained under his teaching for three years. Whatever his real creed was, on his return to Jerusalem he allied himself with the Pharisees, and remained faithful to them ever after. At the age of twenty-six he set out for Rome to intercede for some priests of his acquaintance, whom Felix, the procurator of Judea, had sent to be tried there on some trifling charges. Landing safely at Puteoli after a very narrow escape from death by shipwreck in the Adriatic, he gained the friendship of Altinus, a famous mime of that day, and a favourite of Poppea, the wife of Nero. Through the good offices of this actor, Josephus not only obtained the pardon of his friends, but was rewarded with many valuable gifts by the empress. On his arrival in Judea, Josephus found his countrymen bent at all hazard on throwing off the Roman yoke. Knowing well the resources of Rome and the hopelessness of successfully resisting her power, he did his best to dissuade the Jews from their mad attempt. His efforts were thrown away; and though he was well aware that the struggle could only issue in the ruin of his country, he determined to share her fall. His own talents for administration were by this time well known, and to him was assigned the task of governing and defending the province of Galilee. His appointment was violently opposed by a strong party in the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, headed by John of Giscala, who intrigued against him, opposed his policy, and even tried to take his life. But Josephus having fortified the chief cities, and trained his subjects to war, repelled with ease the first attack of the Romans, and thus gained the affection and confidence of the Galileans. This success, combined with his own skill in diplomatic manoeuvring, enabled him to crush, or at least to defy his enemies in the state. Meanwhile the Romans had assembled a large force; and, in A.D. 67, entering Palestine with Vespasian at their head, laid the whole country in ashes as they advanced. Hopeless of success, and abandoned by the authorities at Jerusalem, Josephus still tried to make head against the foe. Throwing himself into Jotapata he roused the inhabitants to desperate resistance, and conducted the defence of the town for forty-seven days. At the end of that time the town was stormed, and such of the garrison as had not perished in the siege were put to death by the conquerors. When it came to the governor's turn to die, he demanded to be led into the presence of the Roman general. With great adroitness he assured his captor that he was no chance prisoner, but had been commissioned from heaven to foretell that he was shortly to become the sole head of the Roman empire. Vespasian, finding that Josephus, who had predicted the exact number of days that the siege would last, was looked upon as a prophet, spared his life, and even loaded him with valuable presents. He kept him in close confinement, however, for three years, and even then only set him free on the urgent instance of Titus.

When the siege of Jerusalem was begun, Josephus who had accompanied his patron Titus on the expedition, tried to persuade his countrymen to yield; but he was treated by them with scorn as a renegade, and even with the Roman soldiers he was very far from popular. When the city fell, Titus offered to grant any favour he might ask. Josephus asked for the lives of his brother and fifty friends, and begged that the sacred books be spared. Besides his request he obtained a valuable estate in Judea, and on returning to Italy with his patron was rewarded with the freedom of the state, a large annual pension, and a house originally occupied by the emperor himself, in compliment to whom he assumed the name of Flavius. Under Titus and Domitian he was confirmed in all his privileges. The remainder of his life was spent chiefly at Rome in literary pursuits. The exact date of his death is not known. He was alive very near the close of the first century, and probably survived a few years of the second.

Josephus was three times married. His first wife was a captive virgin, whom he espoused at the instance of Vespasian, but appears to have subsequently divorced. His second was an Alexandrian lady, whom, he says, "I forsook because her manners pleased me not, though she was the mother of my three children." His third was a Jewess, born of a noble Cypriote family, and, as he himself says, "endowed with as laudable manners as any other woman whatsoever." By her he had two sons, Justus and Simonides Agrippa.

Josephus' character was a strange mixture of strength and weakness. His great abilities for administration, both in peace and war, were acknowledged by his countrymen, and proved in his public career. The manner in which he maintained himself in his province of Galilee, perfected its military organization, and conducted the defence of Jotapata, has been already described, and puts beyond doubt his courage as well as his skill. But though he is undoubtedly entitled to great praise for these exploits, his insatiable vanity appears in every line of his narrative, and seduces him into displays of the most amusing vainglory. From the very first he seems to have been spell-bound by the power and majesty of Rome, and to have lost that faith in the destiny of his own people without which there can be no true patriotism. Since he could not check the progress of the Romans, he could at least hope to reach eminence by making himself useful to them. Hence his mean truckling to the emperors, and his flattery of the great nobles whom he met at court,—a flattery so gross as sometimes to fall little short of blasphemy. What his religious creed was, is exceedingly difficult to decide. In a famous passage in his Antiquities of the Jews, first quoted by Eusebius, he speaks of Christ as something more than human, and attests his miracles, death, and resurrection. The authenticity of the passage has been very much disputed. If it be admitted (and the external evidence in its favour is very strong), then Josephus must have been a Christian. On the other hand, the common belief that he was not a Christian condemns the passage as spurious. But it happens that Josephus nowhere else in all his writings commits himself in favour of Christianity. As an impartial historian he could not but accept it as an historical fact; yet even though he may have believed in its truth, he was too sceptical and indifferent to make himself a martyr for the sake of any truth or doctrine whatsoever. It is most probable that the passage in question, without being absolutely spurious, has been modified into its present form by Eusebius, who is well known to have often taken such a liberty in his quotations. As a historian Josephus possesses many valuable qualities. His diction is for the most part purely classical, and his narrative is so clear, lively, and vigorous, as to have earned for him, with some show of reason, the title of the Greek Livy. He claims for himself the merit of strict faithfulness, and under certain limitations he deserves it. His most important works are his History of the Jewish War, and his Antiquities of the Jews. The first of these was originally written in the Chaldeo-Syriac tongue for the sake of the Jews dwelling beyond the Euphrates, and was afterwards translated by its author into Greek. It is divided into seven books, and gives the history of the Jews from the taking of the city by Antiochus Epiphanes to its destruction by Titus. The second was written in Greek and was published in A.D. 93. It consists of twenty books, and is dedicated to Epaphroditus, a Roman philosopher of that day. Commencing with the creation of the world, it details the history of the Jews in a continuous narrative from the birth of Abraham to the beginning of the war with Rome. Much of it is taken from the Old Testament; but on the main stem of the narrative many traditions have been grafted, chiefly for the purpose of magnifying the importance of his countrymen with the Romans and refuting many of the calumnies against them. His other works are—an Autobiography, and two books Against Apion, in which he answers the charges brought against the earlier part of his Antiquities. The authenticity of this part of the work had been doubted, on the ground of its being passed over in silence by the Greeks.

The best editions of Josephus are those of Hudson, Oxford, 1720; Havercamp, Amst., 1726; Oberthür, Leipzig, 1782-85; Richter, in the Bibliotheca Patrum, Leipzig, 1826; and Dindorf, Paris, 1845.

Josephus has been translated into most of the European tongues. Of the English versions may be mentioned those of Lodge; LeStrange, Lond., 1702; and Whiston, Lond., 1737. The French translation is by Gilet, Paris, 1756; and the Italian by Angiolini, Verona, 1779. There are several German translations; one by J. F. Cotta, Tübingen, 1736; another by J. B. Ott, Zurich, 1736; and the Jewish War by J. B. Frise, Altona, 1804-5.