Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/38

34 to write the history of the dismal time, Thus the first complete books which appeared in Jewish literature alter the loss of nationality were historical works written by two men, Justus and Josephus, both of whom bore an active part in the most recent of the wars which they recorded. Justus of Tiberias wrote in Greek a terse chronicle entitled, “History of the Jewish Kings,” and also a more detailed narrative of the “Jewish War" with Rome. Both these books are known to us only from quotations. The originals are entirely lost.

A happier fate has preserved the works al another Jewish historian of the same period, Flavius Josephus (38 to 95 C. E.), the literary and political opponent of Justus. He wrote three histories; “Antiquities of the Jews”; an “Autobiography”; “The Wars of the Jews”: together with a reply to the attacks of an Alexandrian critic of Judaism, “Against Apion.” The character of Josephus has been variously esti-