Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

In the Margins of Josephus: Two Ways of Reading

  • Published:
International Journal of the Classical Tradition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Notes

  1. K. Loveman, ‘Books and Sociability: The Case of Samuel Pepys’s Library’, Review of English Studies, 61, 2010, pp. 214–33.

  2. Scaligerana, ed. P. des Maizeaux, II, Amsterdam, 1740, p. 187. For the exception see The Correspondence of Joseph Justus Scaliger, ed. P. Botley and D. van Miert, 8 vols, Geneva, 2012, V, p. 335; cf. IV, p. 112 and n. 1.

  3. K. Sharpe, Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England, Oxford, 1979; T. Smith, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, 1696, ed. C. G. C. Tite, Cambridge, 1984; Tite, The Manuscript Library of Sir Robert Cotton, London, 1994; Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use, London, 2003.

  4. Catalogue of the Library of Ferdinand Columbus, New York, 1910; T. M. Martínez, ‘Memoria de las obras y libros de Hernando Colón’: del bachiller Juan Pérez, Madrid, 1970; C. A. Márquez, El mundo del libro en la Iglesia Catedral de Sevilla en el siglo XVI, Seville, 1992.

  5. A. Grafton, ‘The Humanist as Reader’, in A History of Reading in the West, ed. G. Cavallo and R. Chartier, Amherst, 1999, pp. 179–81; A. D. Nuttall, Dead from the Waist Down: Scholars and Scholarship in Literature and the Popular Imagination, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 142.

  6. See the description by Jacopo Corbinelli in R. Calderini de-Marchi, Jacopo Corbinelli et les érudits français d’après la correspondance inédite Corbinelli-Pinelli (1566–1587), Milan, 1914, pp. 174–6, and Scaligerana (n. 2 above), II, p. 75.

  7. ‘My Booke and My Selfe: Michel de Montaigne, 1533–1592’ (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Montaigne/, consulted 15 May 2015); W. Sherman, ‘“Nota Bembe”: How Bembo the Elder Read His Pliny the Younger’, in Pietro Bembo e le Arti, ed. G. Beltramini, H. Burns and D. Gasparotto, Venice, 2013, pp. 119–33.

  8. See John Dee’s Library Catalogue, ed. J. Roberts and A. Watson, London, 1990; W. Sherman, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance, Amherst, 1995.

  9. J. Nider, Formicarius, Cologne, c. 1480, fly-leaf, in Parkerian red chalk [Corpus Christi College Cambridge, EP.E.16]. For the ways in which Parker and his men paginated and otherwise worked with their books, see in general R. I. Page, Matthew Parker and His Books, Kalamazoo, 1993; C. Hall, ‘The One-Way Trail: Some Observations on CCC MS 101 and G&CC MS 427’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 11, 1998, pp. 272–85; J. Summit, Memory’s Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England, Chicago, 2008; T. Graham, ‘Matthew Parker’s manuscripts: An Elizabethan Library and its Uses’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, II, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 322–41; M. McMahon, ‘Matthew Parker and the Practice of Church History’, in Confessionalisation and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, ed. N. Hardy and D. Levitin, Oxford, forthcoming.

  10. L. Jardine and A. Grafton, ‘“Studied for Action”: How Gabriel Harvey Read his Livy’, Past & Present 129, 1990, pp. 30–78.

  11. ‘Haec omnia evenerunt in nostro tempore.’ For Donne’s copy of More’s Lucubrationes, now in the University of San Francisco Library, see J. Gleason, ‘Doctor Donne in the Courts of Kings: A Glimpse from Marginalia’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 59, 1970, pp. 599–612 (601).

  12. M. Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, 1559–1614, London, 1892, pp. 428–9. On the pioneering character of these observations see H. S. Jones, Intellect and Character in Victorian England: Mark Pattison and the Invention of the Don, Cambridge, 2007.

  13. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, ed. E. Fraenkel, 3 vols, Oxford, 1950, I, pp. 60–77; Nuttall, Dead from the Waist Down (n. 5 above), pp. 152–7.

  14. For Casaubon’s marginalia on Hermes see A. Grafton, ‘Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 46, 1983, pp. 78–93, reprinted with corrections in A. Grafton, Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Humanism in an Age of Science, 1450–1800, Cambridge, MA, 1991, with the additions in A. Grafton and J. Weinberg, “I have always loved the holy tongue”: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship, Cambridge, MA and London, 2011.

  15. O. Gingerich, An Annotated Census of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566), Leiden and Boston, 2002; H. Brayman Hackel, Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy, Cambridge, 2005.

  16. Casaubon’s copy of the 1544 Josephus is British Library C.76.g.7, finely bound by Samuel Mearne. Smith’s copy is Cambridge University Library Adv.a.44.9.

  17. See in general P. Smith, ‘The Reception and Influence of Josephus’ Jewish War in the Late French Renaissance with Special Reference to the Satyre Menipée’, Renaissance Studies, 13, 2 (1999), pp. 173–91.

  18. For Casaubon’s life, see Pattison and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.n. Issac Casaubon, by J. Considine. His classical scholarship is analyzed in H. Parenty, Isaac Casaubon helléniste: Des studia humanitatis à la philology, Geneva, 2009. For his critique of Baronio see Grafton and Weinberg, "I have always loved the holy tongue" (n. 14 above), chap. 4, and N. Hardy, The Ars Critica in Early Modern England, Oxford, forthcoming.

  19. M. Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office, London, 1964; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.n. Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577), by I. Archer.

  20. Casaubon’s note on the top of the title-page reads: ‘Auctor est in historia ϕιλαλήϑης ϕιλόπονος, et multis eximiis virtutibus historico necessariis excellens: vt per me quidem procurare possit quemvis e Graecis historicis. Illud excusare non possum, quod libros sacros non semper sequatur accurate: addit enim aliquando τοῖς ἐν αυτοῖς: detrahit saepe, et omittit non omittenda. causas etiam rerum longe alias assignat multis locis quam Moses: et in summa non fuit in rebus iis referendis quae sacris literis continentur tam religiosus quam par erat. πολλοῦ γε καὶ δεῖ. In primis offendit me quod saepe res narrans sacra historia comprehensas vocat illa μυθευόμενα: ut p. 819 de Sodomae eversione loquens. et p. 821. Μυθεύουσιν, ait, Abraham habitasse in Chebron. Atqui diserte id notat Moses Genes. 35.27. Scio posse hoc flagitium molliri si μυθεύειν expones non fabulantur sed aiunt. Verum nescio q. caret culpa graviss. Josephus. Sed omnia superat quod p. 882. notamus.’

  21. For a parallel one might cite Casaubon’s copy of the first edition of Scaliger’s Opus novum de emendatione temporum, Paris, 1583, British Library 582.l.9. On the title-page of this work, which he greatly admired, Casaubon also jotted down a sceptical remark about chronological tables from Plutarch. For his enthusiastic response to the work see, Scaliger, Correspondence (n. 2 above), ed. Botley and van Miert, III, pp. 46–8.

  22. W. Haddon, Lucubrationes passim collectae et editae, ed. T. Hatcher, London, 1567, pp. 305–06: ‘Et quia nostram rempublicam absens desydero, de eadem tres libros hic Tholosae conscripsi, quibus titulum feci de republica Anglorum, in quibus totam fere formam eius explicui, praesertim in illis rebus, ubi a caeteris differt. Differt autem fere in omnibus, ita ut opus longius progressum sit, quam putabam. Scripsi autem sermone nostrati, stylo inter historicum & philosophicum medio, ad eam formam, qua scripsisse coniectabam Aristotelem de multis Graeciae rebuspublicis, qui libri nunc exciderunt. Praebui argumentum uberrimum illis, qui disputare philosophico more de singulis quaestionibus volunt, & problemata facere, aequumne an iniquum sit, & utrum sit melius, id quod istic teneatur in Anglia pro lege, an quod hic, & in illis provincijs, quae Romano iure reguntur.’

  23. Thomas Smith, De republica Anglorum, London, 1584 (ESTC S117629), New York Society Library Win 232.

  24. Haddon, Lucubrationes, pp. 304–05.

  25. A. N. McLaren, ‘Reading Sir Thomas Smith's De republica Anglorum as Protestant Apologetic’, Historical Journal, 42, 1999, pp. 911–39.

  26. Isaac Casaubon, De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes xvi, London, 1614, p. 232: ‘Nullam occasionem praetermittit Baronius, sive iustam, sive iniustam, detrahendi Iosepho, historico nobilissimo, quicquid ingrati Iosephomastiges muginentur. Igitur quum in historia seditionis, quae propter imagines Caesaris Vrbi sanctae illatas contigit, primo procurationis Pilati anno, dissensum aliquem observasset inter Iosephum & Philonem: arripit hanc tanquam hermaeum, & adversus Iosephum perorat, qui, ait, non tantum a nostris scriptoribus, sed a suis gentilibus mendaciis arguitur. Sed haec viro gravi & historiae veritatis studioso, indigna est oratio. Nam si omnes Iosephi errores, hallucinationes, aut ablepsiae (de iis non loquor, in quibus discedit Iosephus a Bibliis: in quo excusari non potest) in unam summam contrahantur, vix centesima pars ea fuerit culparum ab uno Eusebio admissarum, sive in Chronico, sive in aliis scriptis. Cur igitur tanta cura & tanta cum iniquitate Iosepho insultabimus? Cuius libros nisi providentia Dei singularis ad nostra servasset tempora, in quantis rerum Iudaicarum tenebris hodie versaremus?’ See also ibid., pp. 30, 151–2, 649–50, 771–2.

  27. Labbé to Casaubon, Paris, 4 March 1613; British Library MS Burney 365, fol. 39r.

  28. Scaliger, Correspondence (n. 2 above), ed. Botley and van Miert, III, 471 and n. 1.

  29. Casaubon, title-page of Josephus: ‘Σηαι fasciculo temporum legimus Josephi libros insigniter esse mendis obsitos’; ‘De mendis librorum, quaedam Rainold, Lection, I, p. 806–07.’

  30. Ibid.: ‘Josephus, p. 655 [Bios 423] narrat se civitate donatum a Tito, nec dubium appellationem Flavii eum habuisse ex ea, fuisseque habitum tanquam Titi Flavii aut eius patris libertum’; ‘649. [on Bios 340ff.] Cum Justo Tiberiensi historico gravis expostulatio’; ‘651 [on Bios 365–6]. Agrippae R. de historia Josephi ad Jos. Epistolae.’

  31. Ibid., p. 658.

  32. Ibid., title-page: ‘455 Circa Babylonem Judaei habuerunt ἀρχιερέα καὶ βασιλέα.’

  33. Ibid.: ‘ἀρχιερέα καὶ βασιλέα. videtur intelligere cuius magnam fuisse potestatem declarat Seder zuta et Juchasin, et alii.’

  34. Eusebius DE 3.5.106; HE 1.11.7–9; Theophany V.44. See D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Eusebius of Caesarea and the Testimonium Flavianum (Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII.63f.)’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 25, 1974, pp. 353–62; A. Whealey, Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times, New York, 2003; H. Schreckenberg and K. Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity, tr. P. Cathey, Assen and Philadelphia, 1991.

  35. J. L. Koerner, The Reformation of the Image, London, 2004; S. Clark, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture, Oxford, 2009.

  36. P. Drury and R. Simpson, Hill Hall: A Singular House Devised by a Tudor Intellectual, London, 2009.

  37. Ibid., p. 212.

  38. Ibid., pp. 210–12.

  39. Joseph Scaliger, Autobiography, tr. G. W. Robinson, Cambridge, 1927, p. 112, n. 1.

  40. M. Wintroub, ‘The Looking Glass of Facts: Collecting, Rhetoric and Citing the Self in the Experimental Natural Philosophy of Robert Boyle’, History of Science, 35, 1997, pp. 189–217; C. Ginzburg, Threads and Traces: True, False, Fictive, tr. A. Tedeschi and J. Tedeschi, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2012, pp. 9–10.

  41. Erasmus, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, tr. B. Knott, in Collected Works of Erasmus, Literary and Educational Writings, ed. C. Thompson, II: De copia. De ratione studii, Toronto, 1978, p. 577; for the original see Erasmus, De copia, II, ed. B. Knott, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, Ordo I, VI, Amsterdam, 1988, p. 202.

  42. Erasmus, On the Method of Study, tr. B. McGregor, in Erasmus, Works, Literary and Educational Writings, ed. Thompson, II, p. 671; for the original see De ratione studii, ed. J.-C. Margolin, in Opera Erasmi, Ordo I, II, Amsterdam, 1971, pp. 118–19.

  43. Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour, London, 1531, I.8, fol. 24v.

  44. Ibid., fol. 25r.

  45. Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, London, 1583, sig. Q3v.

  46. Livy, Latinae historiae principis decades tres, Basel, 1549, National Gallery, Washington DC, Rare PA6452.A2 1549 Fol.

  47. A. Krantz, Chronica regnorum Aquilonarium Daniae, Suetiae, Norvegiae, Hamburg, 1561, Queen’s College Cambridge Library D.10.22; Justinian, Codex, Louvain, 1540, Queen’s College Cambridge Library M.2.11–13.

  48. Plato, Opera, ed. S. Grynaeus and J. Oporinus, Basel, 1534, Lambeth Palace Library Arc CII P69 GRY, fol. 253v.

  49. Casaubon’s Josephus (n. 16 above), 919: ‘No. Joseph. linguae grae<c>orum non peritiss.’

  50. Bodleian Library MS Casaubon 27, fol. 169r.

  51. Casaubon’s Josephus (n. 16 above), title-page: ‘sed cum illum librum Joseph. Ben Gorion Hebraice legimus animadvertimus ipsum auctorem ita perplexe de se loqui sub finem lib. primi ut merito ex eius lectione possit aliquis adduci in errorem.’

  52. Casaubon, note in Josippon, Venice, 1544, British Library 1938.f.21: ‘loca sunt in hoc scriptore ex q. videtur facere discrimen inter se et Josephum: cum ad illum reiicit lectorem. Notandum vero col. 191. reiici lectorem ad Josephum qui est penes Ro. col. al. Σηαι Σηαι locum p. 199. ubi librum magnum historiarum Jos. Qui scriptus est Romanis sibi vindicat. confer similes locos omnes, maxime col. 303. ubi videtur sui oblitus.’

  53. Casaubon’s Josephus (n. 16 above), p. 657: ‘Hic liber versus est de Hebraico: qui etiamnunc extat ut quibusdam placet. sed eos gravissime falli res arguit: et Scaliger probavit.’

  54. Casaubon’s copies of these works are in the British Library, C.79.a.4. See Grafton and Weinberg, I have always loved the holy tongue (n. 14 above), pp. 200–04; F. Schmidt, ‘The Hasideans and the Ancient Jewish “Sects”: A Seventeenth-Century Controversy’, in Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History, ed. S. Stern, Leiden, 2011, pp. 187–204.

  55. Grafton and Weinberg, I have always loved the holy tongue (n. 14 above), pp. 200–12.

  56. Casaubon’s Josephus (n. 16 above), p. 776: ‘Hoc verissime dici docet experientia.’ Such comparisons were standard in the France of the religious wars: see Smith, pp. 180–81, 185–6.

  57. Ibid., p. 447: ‘Mirum stratagema ad inveniendum hostem in speluncis latitantem.’

  58. Ibid., p. 784: ‘Par δειλία nolle mori cum opus est: et velle cum non est opus. ita et Aristoteles.’

  59. Ibid.

  60. Ibid., p. 626: ‘Josephus alter Polybius suos cupit retinere ne rebellent adversus Ro. et uterque pereunte patria floret apud Ro. sine ulla perfidiae nota.’

  61. Ibid., p. 658: ‘Excusat se, quod contra legem historicam miscuerit narrationi πάϑος.’

  62. Ibid., p. 406: ‘Hoc accidisse aiunt Carolo IX qui Christianos in Galliis laniavit.’

  63. Ibid., p. 819: ‘O scelus! verbum dei hoc dicit: et tu [sic?] loqueris?.’

  64. Ibid., p. 882: ‘Oraculum de Messia accommodatum Vespasiano. Vide Sueto. Vesp. c. 4.’

  65. Ibid., p. 5: ‘hoc non est in bibliis: et melius id tacuisset Jos.’

  66. Ibid., p. 206: ‘Vide Rainold. Praelect. I. p. 729.’

  67. John Rainolds, Censura librorum apocryphorum veteris testamenti, 2 vols, Oppenheim, 1611, I, pp. 729–30: ‘manifestum est Josephum libris Hebraicis quaedam adjecisse, quae in illis non reperit’.

  68. Joseph Scaliger, Thesaurus temporum, Leiden, 1606, Animadversiones in chronologica Eusebii, p. 102. Casaubon, note ad loc., in Cambridge University Library Adv.a.3.4: ‘Ego non video quae magna utilitas est ad historia veram in istis stultarum gentium figmentis.’

  69. Ibid., p. 317: ‘No. sic saepissime loquitur Joseph. non quod ille dubiam fidem tribueret libris sacris et verae religioni sed ne Romanos et Graecos offenderet damnans eorum religionem.’

  70. Ibid., p. 888: ‘Mirandum Dei iudicium, qui ita e diversissimis locis coegit in unum quos voluit perdere Judaeos.’

  71. Ibid., p. 609. He also wrote: ‘Deo confidendum et illi per omnia parendum’ just above the other note.

  72. See also Smith, ‘The Reception and Influence of Josephus’ Jewish War' (n. 17 above), pp. 179–80.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Anthony Grafton

  2. Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, London, SW7 2RL, UK

    William Sherman

Authors
  1. Anthony Grafton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. William Sherman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anthony Grafton.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Grafton, A., Sherman, W. In the Margins of Josephus: Two Ways of Reading. Int class trad 23, 213–238 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-016-0400-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-016-0400-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation