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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2017
An analysis of Calvin's multifaceted use of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus reveals several things of importance both for scholarship on Renaissance historical and biblical criticism generally, and for Calvin studies in particular. Calvin's reception of Josephus was quite extraordinary in its breadth, and complex in its employment and function. References to the historian are peppered throughout his works in a wide array of contexts, from the special authority of Moses to the length of the Sea of Galilee. Significantly, Calvin not only used Josephus as a source for raw historical data, but also employed him to philosophical, theological, and political ends as well. And while the reformer is not unequivocally positive in his judgment of the historian as a reliable source, an overwhelming majority of the instances where Calvin cites Josephus's texts are used to augment his exegetical works, and at times Josephus's authority comes close to overriding that of the literal biblical account. The purpose of this paper is to show how Calvin's engagement with Josephus in his commentaries reveals him to have been an able and discerning critic who would at times go to great lengths in order to sort out perceived discrepancies or to fill in historiographical lacunae pertinent to the biblical story, but also an opportunistic humanist who would use whatever resources he had at his disposal for clarifying the historical background of the biblical text.
1 Theodore Beza, Discours du Recteur Th. de Beze . . . in Leges Academiae Genevensis, ed. Estienne, Robert (Geneva, 1559)Google Scholar: “Iosephum ego non modo inter profanos, sed etiam inter ridiculos et ineptos scriptores soleo recensere.” Beza's judgment of Josephus did not go unchallenged, even in the sixteenth century; see Smith, Pauline, “The Reception and Influence of Josephus's Jewish War in the Late French Renaissance with Special Reference to the Satyre Menippee ,” Renaissance Studies 13, no. 2 (1999): 182 Google Scholar.
2 Calvin, Praelectiones in Danielam, in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Cunitz, Edouard, Baum, Johann-Wilhelm, and Eduward Wilhelm Eugen Reuss, Corpus Reformatorum, 58 vols. (Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke, 1863)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as CO), 40:534.
3 On the Geneva Academy, see Maag, Karin, Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560–1620 (Aldershot: Scholar, 1999)Google Scholar; on the Daniel lectures, see Pitkin, Barbara, “Prophecy and History in Calvin's Lectures on Daniel (1561),” in Die Geschichte der Daniel-Auslegung in Judentum, Christentum und Islam: Studien zur Kommentierung des Danielbuches in Literatur und Kunst, ed. Bracht, Katherina and DuToit, David S. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 323–347 Google Scholar.
4 By way of comparison, Calvin cites Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, only forty-nine times, per Irena Backus's study. Martin Luther cites Josephus only twenty-one times, per Betsy Amaru's study. See Backus, , “Calvin's Judgment of Eusebius of Caesarea: An Analysis,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 22, no. 3 (1991), 423 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Amaru, , “Martin Luther and Flavius Josephus,” in Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. Feldman, Louis and Hata, Gohei (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 411–426 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 See Borchardt, Frank, “The Topos of Critical Rejection in the Renaissance,” MLN 81, no. 4 (1966): 476–488 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank Anthony Grafton for pointing this paper out to me.
6 Most recently, see the issue edited by Joanna Weinberg and Martin Goodman on Josephus in the early modern world: International Journal of the Classical Tradition 23, no. 3 (October 2016)Google Scholar. See also Smith, “The Reception and Influence of Josephus's Jewish War in the Late French Renaissance”; Amaru, “Martin Luther”; Kelly, Erin, “Jewish History, Catholic Argument: Thomas Lodge's ‘Workes of Josephus' as a Catholic Text,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 34, no. 4 (2003): 993–1010 Google Scholar; and Levenson, David B. and Martin, Thomas R., “The Place of the Early Printed Editions of Josephus's Antiquities and War (1470–1534) in the Latin Textual Tradition,” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. Baden, Joel, Najman, Hindy, and Tigchelaar, Eibert (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 765–825 Google Scholar. Riemer Faber deals briefly with Josephus's appearance in Reformed orthodoxy in “Scholastic Continuities in the Reproduction of Classical Sources in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae ,” Church History & Religious Culture 92, no. 4 (2012): 561–579 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an overview of the printing history of ancient historians in the early modern period, which includes an assessment of Josephus, see Burke, Peter, “A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians: 1450–1700,” History and Theory 5, no. 2 (1966): 135–152 Google Scholar. On the medieval reception of Josephus, and an accessible overview with bibliography of the nachleben of Josephus's works in Calvin's Christian predecessors from Origen to the twelfth century, see Karen Kletter, “The Uses of Josephus: Jewish History in Medieval Christian Tradition” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 2005). Finally, see also den Hollander, William, “ Historicus Practicus: Calvin's Use of Josephus in the Commentaries and Lectures ,” in Unio Cum Christo: International Journal of Reformed Theology and Life 2, no. 1 (2016): 117–134 Google Scholar. Unfortunately, this piece appeared while the current article was in production, and I did not have the chance to take it into account here.
7 A major reason for the survival and proliferation of Josephus throughout the Middle Ages is the so-called Testimonium Flavianum, a section of the Antiquities whose authenticity is doubted at various levels by modern scholars, but which recounts Christ's crucifixion under Pilate, complete with an oblique reference to Christ's being somehow more than human. It is worth noting that Calvin does not cite this passage. In addition to this passage (which comes at Antiquities 18.3.3) Antiquities also includes a reference to James, the brother of Jesus, and to the beheading of John the Baptist (Antiquities 20.9.1 and 18.5.3, respectively). For a recent scholarly treatment, see Whealy, Alice, Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (New York: Peter Lang, 2003)Google Scholar; see also Levenson and Martin, “The Place of the Early Printed Editions;” and the bibliography in Levenson, and Martin, , “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and James: Critical Texts of the Latin Translation of the Antiquities and Rufinus' Translation of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History Based on Manuscripts in Early Printed Editions,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 45, no. 1 (2014): 3n2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 O'Donnell, James, Cassiodorus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 246 Google Scholar.
9 Levenson, David B. and Martin, Thomas R., “The Ancient Latin Translations of Josephus,” in A Companion to Josephus, ed. Chapman, Honora Howell and Rodgers, Zuleika (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 322–343 Google Scholar.
10 Daniel Stein Kokin, “‘A Noble and Famous Jew’: Josephus and His Writings in the Italian Renaissance Imagination,” Viator (forthcoming). Many thanks to Professor Stein Kokin for sending me an early draft of this piece.
11 See Zachman, Randall, “Gathering Meaning from Context: Calvin's Exegetical Method,” The Journal of Religion 82, no. 1 (2002): 1–26 Google Scholar.
12 On Bullinger, see below; for Castellio, whose esteem for pagan sources in his biblical text-criticism has been well-documented by Irena Backus, see her Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation 1378–1615 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 117–128 Google Scholar. Interestingly, Backus notes that while Castellio was capable of these types of interpolations, he was less quick than Calvin to admit that pagan sources could be useful more broadly for Christian readers (ibid., 127–128). Castellio was primarily attempting to establish the most factually accurate biblical text.
13 Randall C. Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 19. The most comprehensive analysis of Calvin's sources in English is Lane, Anthony, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991)Google Scholar. He notes Calvin's use of Josephus in the Genesis commentary (see 246–250). See also Mooi, Remco Jan, Het Kerk-en Dogmahistorisch Element in de Werken van Johannes Calvijn (Wageningen: H. Veenman, 1965)Google Scholar.
14 In addition to his larger works, the Antiquities and the War, previously discussed, Josephus's extant works include, in their English titles, Against Apion, and his autobiography, The Life. This does not include 4 Maccabees, which was thought to have been written by Josephus in the sixteenth century, and was printed alongside his other works in a Latin translation by, at least in part, Erasmus. Calvin may cite this work, but to my knowledge he did not do so with explicit reference to Josephus's authorship.
15 On the importance of this method for Calvin, see Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context.”
16 See John Calvin, Commentarius in Exodi (hereafter cited as Comm. Exod.) 28:1, in CO 24:428; and Antiquities 20.8.8, for example.
17 Calvin, John, Praelectiones ioannis calvini in librum prophetiarum danielis (Geneva: Jean I de Laon, 1561)Google Scholar on Dan. 11:13 and 11:29, fols. 148 and 154.
18 On Haggai 2:1–5 in Praelectiones in duodecim Prophetas quod vocant minors (Geneva: Jean de Crespin, 1559), 582–583 Google Scholar.
19 Luke 3:1 (New Revised Standard Version): “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanius ruler of Abilene.”
20 CO 45:109–110.
21 Antiquities 18.4.3.
22 See also references to Josephus on Caiaphas's priesthood in his notes on Matt. 26:57 and John 18:13.
23 CO 45:353.
24 CO 45:99. Joseph Scaliger will later, albeit not publicly, consider the Matthew passage a later interpolation precisely on the grounds that Josephus did not include it in his history. He no doubt knew of Calvin's wonder at the omission. See further, de Jonge, H. J., “Joseph Scaliger's Historical Criticism of the New Testament,” Novum Testamentum 38, no. 2 (1996): 181–182 Google Scholar.
25 Calvin, Commentarius in Acta Apostolorum (hereafter cited as Comm. Acts), in CO 48:81.
26 Most modern scholars (and authors in the Christian tradition) agree that the same person wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, although since they are technically anonymously written, most modern scholars would not refer to the author by name. As Calvin refers to the author as “Luke,” I have done so as well.
27 Strangely, Calvin later contradicted his own reading by arguing that Josephus was mistaken in writing that Fadus was sent to Judea by Claudius. See Comm. Acts 21:37, in CO 48:489.
28 Acts 8:5; Comm. Acts 8:5, in CO 48:177.
29 Acts 11:28; Comm. Acts 11:28, in CO 48:264.
30 Bullinger, too, uses Josephus in his discussion of this passage, and actually reproduces the entire text in his commentary on Acts, as had Eusebius in Book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History.
31 Indeed, here Calvin echoes a statement made by Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiastica 2.10.10. For Calvin, see CO 48:275: “In re quidem ipsa et circumstantiis omnibus, mirus est consensus inter Iosephum et Lucam.”
32 Erasmus, Paraphrase of Acts, in Collected Works of Erasmus, ed. Bateman, John and Sider, Robert (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 50:83 Google Scholar. Erasmus adds several things from Josephus to his paraphrasing of Acts.
33 Calvin actually repeats this line twice in the same section of his commentary, but it does not figure in either the Greek or Latin versions of Josephus.
34 Antiquities 19.8.2.
35 CO 48:275: “diabolo magis figurando quam coelesti angelo quadrabat.”
36 Calvin's Commentary on Acts: The Acts of the Apostles 1–13, trans. Fraser, John W. and McDonald, W. J. G., ed. Torrance, T. F. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965), 114 Google Scholar. For the original Latin, see CO 48:82: “Mirum est autem quod Lucas hic Annam faciat summum pontificem, quum ex Iosepho pateat, hunc honorem Caiaphae non fuisse ereptum, donec Vitellius, Pilato Romam ire iusso, Ierosolymam cum imperio ingressus est. Dominum anno Tiberii 18 fuisse crucifixum inter omnes convenit. Usque ad finem imperii illius numerantur adhuc anni quatuor. Non minus quam triennium a morte Christi fluxisse oportet, usque dum proconsulis officio abdicatus fuit Pilatus. Mortuo enim Tiberio, Romam demum pervenit. Ita tribus post mortem Christi annis adhuc pontifex erat Caiaphas. Quare probabile est quod hic narrat Lucas, non statim post Christi resurrectionem contigisse. Quanquam nec sic quidem soluta erit tota difficultas. Iosephus enim in locum Caiaphae subrogatum fuisse tradit Ionatham: sed quia hic Ionathas Annae erat filius, a verisimilitudine non abhorret, nomen patris simul illi fuisse inditum: quemadmodum et Caiaphas binominis fuit: nam Iosephum simul vocabant.”
37 Bullinger, who often attempted to smooth out discrepancies between Luke and Josephus, makes no mention of the historian in his comments on this passage. Nor does Josephus's name appear in Erasmus's Annotationes or Pellikan's commentary.
38 Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 19. The use of “secular” may be anachronistic and misleading, but it is clear in Zachman's piece that Josephus fits in this category alongside other Greco-Roman historians.
39 Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity, 129.
40 Calvin did not employ the term adiaphora in this sense, to my knowledge, and so I use it here only as a heuristic device which seems to get some work done in explaining his use of Josephus. Calvin did use the term adiaphora and various Latin equivalents in his discussion of theological practices which are not pertinent to salvation. For an overview of some of the relevant scholarship, see Thompson, John, John Calvin and the Daughters of Sarah (Geneva: Droz, 1992), 231–240 Google Scholar. For Erasmus on doctrinal adiaphora, see Remer, Guy, Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1996), 50–55 Google Scholar.
41 See Muller, Richard A. and Thompson, John L., “The Significance of Precritical Exegesis: Retrospect and Prospect,” in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, ed. Muller, and Thompson, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996), 335–346 Google Scholar. See also a modification of their assessments by Randall Zachman in “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 4n7, 6–7n13. For a recent insinuation of Calvin as a forerunner to modern criticism, see Frampton, Travis, Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 41 Google Scholar. But cf. Pak, Sujin, The Judaizing Calvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar, the conclusion.
42 Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity, 2.
43 Muller and Thompson, “The Significance of Precritical Exegesis: Retrospect and Prospect,” 339.
44 Calvin's misreading was perhaps due to Josephus's own unclear manner of explaining things, for Josephus describes Ananias as high priest alongside Jonathan in War 2.243, and as continuing to hold the office after Jonathan dies (Antiquities 20.205) even though others are said to have held the position in the meantime.
45 Calvin, Commentarius in Harmoniam Evangelicam, in CO 45:430. And see Antiquities 18.5.1–5. Calvin seems to think that Herod Chalcis was the granduncle of Herodias, which served as part of the reason for Calvin's doubt on the matter; but Josephus does not say that Herodias marries Herod Chalcis in the first place. More confusing is the fact that in his analysis of Acts 12:1, Calvin seems perfectly aware of the fact that Herod Chalcis was the brother of Herod Agrippa, who was Herodias's uncle. The slip can perhaps be forgiven: sorting out all the family members of the Herodean dynasty and their wives, shared or otherwise, is no mean task, even with aids other than Josephus's Antiquities.
46 The consensus among New Testament scholars today is that all the Gospels, with the possible exception of Mark, were written after the Jewish War, that is, at more or less the same time (or after, in the case of John) that Josephus was writing.
47 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 1.5.
48 Bullinger, Commentariorum in evangelium secundum Lucam (Froschauer, 1557) (hereafter cited as Comm. in Lucam), fol. 24–25, http://www.e-rara.ch. Erasmus mentions Josephus in his annotation on the section, but only in order to sort out the differences between Greek and Latin spellings of Quirinius. Faber Stapulensis mentions Josephus's account of the census, and briefly points out that the census in Luke took place under Herod the Great, while in Josephus it took place under Herod Archelaus: “alia ergo fuit, ac multo posterior” (Jacques Lefevre d?Etaples, Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Evangelia [Basel, 1523], fol. 192r).
49 Antiquities 17.13.2.
50 Bullinger counts fourteen: Comm. in Lucam, fol. 25.
51 CO 45:71.
52 Comm. in Lucam, fol. 24: “Certissimum enim et indubitatum est Lucam nihil aberrasse.” For Stapulensis, see Lefevre d'Etaples, Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Evangelia.
53 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.9.12, ed. McNeill, John T., trans. Battles, Ford Lewis (Westminster: John Knox, 1960)Google Scholar. For Josephus, see Antiquities 3.5.5.
54 Comm. Exod. 1:15 (see next note).
55 Ibid.: “Josephus falso existimat obstetrices fuisse Aegyptias, quae ad explorandum missae fuerint: quum diserte narret Moses, ministras Hebraeis mulieribus et adiutrices fuisse ad pariendum. Et ex toto contextu plane refellitur illa divinatio, praesertim quia retentae fuerunt Dei timore, ne libidini tyranni morem gererent. Unde sequitur pietate aliqua fuisse ante imbutas.”
56 Calvin, John, In Librum Iosue brevis Commentarius (Geneva, 1564)Google Scholar, fol. 67: “Quod Iosephus libertatem interpretatur, vanum et ridiculum est. Unde apparet non minus linguae Hebraicae fuisse ignarum quam scientiae legalis.”
57 CO 41:168: “Dum repudiat Iosephum, putat se esse victorem. Ego quidem ingenue fateor Iosepho non semper, nec absque exceptione habendam esse fidem.”
58 CO 40:537.
59 Antiquities 10.6.1.
60 It may be mentioned here that both Jerome and Oecolampadius cite Josephus in their commentaries on this passage, but neither explicitly disagrees with him: Oecolampadius, In Danielem prophetam Ioannis Oecolampadii libri duo (Basel: Bebelius, 1530), 3 Google Scholar.
61 Note that this is exactly the same charge leveled at Jerome below, on Ezek. 5:10.
62 CO 40:534.
63 Furthermore, it seems that Josephus was inconsistent himself on the question of the timing of Nebuchadnezzar's entry into Jerusalem: see Niese's note Antiquities 10.6.1 in Jewish Antiquities: Books 9–11, trans. Marcus, Ralph, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1933), 6:205 Google Scholar.
64 Of interest to historians of scholarship in this case, and as further corroboration of Calvin's wide humanist approach to ancient sources in this context, is the fact that Calvin writes here that Josephus is following “Metasthenes and others whom he cites” (Metasthenem et alios quos citat). Metasthenes, however, and the fragment of his history of Persia, were fabrications of the Dominican Annius of Viterbo (d. 1502). Along with other texts forged by Annius, the work of “Metasthenes” was fairly widely printed and variously received in the sixteenth century. Annius himself had ascribed to Josephus a dependence on the invented historian. In fact, in this case, Calvin seems to have confused Metasthenes with Megasthenes, who was an ancient Greek ethnographer from the third-century b.c.e., and whom Josephus did cite later in the Antiquities on the matter of Nebuchadnezzar's besieging of Tyre. Nevertheless, Calvin unmistakably refers to material from Annius's “Metasthenes” later in his Praelectiones on Daniel (5:1). Calvin questions the authenticity of another Annius fabrication, Ps.-Berosus, in his Comm. Gen. 11:1. For scholarly analysis of Annius's historiographical creations, see Stephens, Walter, “Complex Pseudonymity: Annius of Viterbo's Multiple Persona Disorder,” MLN 126, no. 4 (2011), 698–708 Google Scholar; Ligota, C. R., “Annius of Viterbo and Historical Method,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institutes 50 (1987): 44–56 Google Scholar; Grafton, Anthony, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Grafton, Anthony, Defenders of the Text (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 80–89 Google Scholar; Grafton, , “Renaissance Readers and Ancient Texts: Comments on Some Commentaries,” in Renaissance Quarterly 38, no. 4 (1985): 615–649 Google Scholar; and Grafton, , “An Ocean of Lies: The Problem of Historical Evidence in the Sixteenth Century,” Huntington Library Quarterly 74, no. 3 (2011): 375–400 Google Scholar.
65 Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 15.
66 Ibid., 17.
67 See, for example, Praelectiones in Danielam, 41:21, in CO 41:220.
68 There is simply not space enough here to address in full the question of Calvin's attitude toward Judaism. For a recent treatment of the general question with a bibliography, see G. Sujin Pak, “John Calvin and the Jews: His Exegetical Legacy,” Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington, www.reformedinstitute.org/images/Documents/GSPak.pdf. See also Barnes, Peter, “Calvin and the Jews,” Reformed Theological Review 68, no. 3 (2009): 175–193 Google Scholar; Detmers, Achim, “Calvin, the Jews, and Judaism,” in Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, ed. Bell, Dean Phillip and Burnett, Stephen G. (Leiden: Brill, 2006)Google Scholar; Detmers, Reformation und Judentum (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001)Google Scholar, passim; and Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context.”
69 See Daniel Stein Kokin, “‘A Noble and Famous Jew’.”
70 Amaru, “Martin Luther and Flavius Josephus,” 423.
71 John Calvin, dedicatory letter to Praelectiones in Jeremiam (Geneva, 1563), fol. 16: “Verum illis omnibis, ad tumultuosos clamatores redeo, qui fere similes sunt phreneticis Zelotis, quorum apud Josephum sit mentio, quorum intemperie accensum fuit funestum bellum, quo consumpta fuit Iudaea. Nullum atrocius reperiunt maledictum, quo tuam Celsitudinem incessant, Illustrissime Princeps, quam nomen Calvinismi.”
72 A similar, but less involved, reference comes at Comm. Exod. 14:28, in CO 24:157, where Calvin refers to the “fetid chatter” (putide fabulati) of Manetho and others whose stories were criticized by Josephus and Eusebius. The reference is non-specific.
73 Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 19–20.
74 CO 24:138.
75 Calvin perhaps made a mistake, and seems to have in mind Antiquities 3.11.4; cf. Josephus, Contra Apionem 1.25.
76 CO 24:319: “Certe clara et solida ratione refellit Iosephus illius commenti vanitatem, quod Moses cum turba exsulum fugatus fuerit ex Aegypto, ne morbi sui tabe regionem corrumperent.”
77 See Contra Apionem 1.22, 2.36, 2.39; cf. Calvin, Institutes 1.8.4, ed. McNeill, trans. Battles, 84n5.
78 War 6.3.4 (it comes in Book 7 of the Latin versions).
79 Calvin, John, Commentaries on the Prophet Jeremiah, trans. Owen, John (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1851), 2:446 Google Scholar. Calvin, Praelectiones in Jeremiam 19:9 (Geneva, 1563), fol. 328: “Scimus hoc etiam fuisse completum in ultima urbis obsidione. Iosephus enim multis verbis prosequitur, quod beluino impetu matres iugulaverint filios, atque adeo aliae aliis fuerint insidiatae, ut raperunt frustrum aliquod. Fuit hoc etiam iudicium horribilis Dei vindictae. Sed non mirum est, Deum tam atrociter ulcisci scelera eorum, a quibus tot modis, et tam diu provocatus fuit. Nam si conserimus Iudaeos cum aliis gentibus, certe eorum impietas, et ingratitudo, et contumacia superavit scelera omnium gentium. Merito igitur exegeit Deus tales poenas, quae nec hodie quoque possunt referri sinc magno nostro metu: siquidem totum hoc eius iudicio tribuitur.”
80 Lamentations 2:20 (Should women eat their offspring?) provides another obvious moment for the inter-textual reference, and Calvin capitalized on it in his eighth lecture on the text.
81 Calvin refers to Josephus here as well, obliquely: “that [mothers did in fact eat their own children] is evident from other writers, but the Prophet is to us a sufficient witness, who had seen it with his own eyes.” Praelectiones in Lamentationes Jeremiae 4:10, in CO 39:220.
82 Praelectiones in Ezechialis, on vv. 5:9–10, in CO 40:126: “Videmus ergo virum illum non fuisse exercitatum in Scripturis.”
83 Praelectiones in Danielam, in CO 41:221. For an analysis of Calvin's historicizing tendencies in his lectures on Daniel, see Barbara Pitkin, “Prophecy and History.”
84 Praelectiones in duodecim Prophetas quod vocant minors (Geneva: Jean de Crespin, 1559)Google Scholar, fol. 681.
85 Praelectiones in Danielam 11:3, in CO 41:222: “Num quum adhuc esset in patria ante reditum asiaticum, oblata fuerat ei species summi sacerdotis, hoc est, Deus angelum miserat sub illo habitu. Putavit Alexander aliquem esse deum, sed postquam obviam processit illi summus pontifex, rediit in animum visio illa, et cohibitus fuit quasi videret deum sibi e coelo apparentem. Quidquid sit, certum est initio Alexandrum venisse eo animo in Iudaeam, ut totam gentem perderet.”
86 Backus, “Calvin's Judgment of Eusebius of Caesarea,” 419–437.
87 Gilmont, Jean-Francois, Calvin and the Printed Book, trans. Maag, Karin (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State Press, 2005), 164 Google Scholar. Josephus is not mentioned in Gilmont's book.
88 See Zachman, “Gathering Meaning from Context,” 1–4, 22–24.
89 There were also French translations beginning in the end of the fifteenth century, and we cannot exclude the possibility that Calvin could have at one time or another read Josephus in his native tongue. Once in Switzerland, however, he would have had easier access to Latin and, beginning in 1544, Greek editions.
90 For an overview of the history and texts of the Latin Josephus, see Levenson and Martin, “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus”; and Levenson and Martin, “The Place of the Early Printed Editions.”
91 Alexandre Ganoczy, La bibliothèque de l'Académie de Calvin: le catalogue de 1572 et ses enseignements (Geneva: Droz, 1969), 54.
92 It is therefore somewhat misleading when T. H. L. Parker quotes the Greek from Froben's edition of Josephus in his critical edition of Calvin's Commentary on Romans. See Iohannis Calvini Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli Ad Romanos, Studies in the History of Christian Thought (Leiden, Brill: 1981), 48 Google Scholar, comment on Romans 2:17. The Institutes of the Christian Religion reference is 2.8.12.
93 Lane has suggested that in at least one case Calvin probably borrowed a Josephus reference from Jerome's Liber de situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum (John Calvin, 200). I have found that Jerome cites Josephus between fifty and sixty times in a multiplicity of works (commentaries, polemical treatises, and letters), far more than any other early church father, though many of these citations repeat the same information. It is possible that Calvin was led to some of his Josephus references as a result of his consultation with Jerome's commentaries, but while the bulk of Calvin's references to Josephus come in his New Testament commentaries, Jerome only mentions Josephus five times in his, compared with around forty-five in his Old Testament commentaries. I have examined many Josephus references in Jerome's works where Jerome is commenting on the same biblical text as Calvin, and documented the (few) instances where there is possible influence in the footnotes above. Calvin is not by any means wholly dependent on Jerome for his use of Josephus.
94 See Lane, John Calvin, 5.
95 Calvin read Chrysostom, one of his favorite exegetes, in Latin translation early on (see Gilmont, Calvin and the Printed Book, 161), so it should not be surprising that he consulted Josephus in translation as well, even if he had the Greek available beginning in 1544.
96 Admittedly, these belong to the same textual tradition, but importantly, in many other cases Gelenius corrected the Latin with the Greek, though clearly not here: Venetian editions served as base texts for the Cologne and then Basel editions.
97 War 3.10.7.
98 The Greek is somewhat periphrastic, but certainly not intractable, in reading pros toutois heteron hekaton, that is, “add another hundred to this” for the length (to the forty mentioned in the previous clause describing the breadth).
99 See CO 48:275.
