Hegesippus

Hegesippus, the supposed author of a free Latin adaptation of the Jewish War of Josephus under the title De bello Judaico et excidio urbis Hierosolymitanae. The seven books of Josephus are compressed into five, but much has been added from the Antiquities and from the works of Roman historians, while several entirely new speeches are introduced to suit the occasion. Internal evidence shows that the work could not have been written before the 4th century A.D. The author, who is undoubtedly a Christian, describes it in his preface as a kind of revised edition of Josephus. Some authorities attribute it to Ambrose, bishop of Milan (340-397), but there is nothing to settle the authorship definitely. The name Hegesippus itself appears to be a corruption of Josephus, through the stages Ἰώσηπος, Iosippus, Egesippus, Hegesippus, unless it was purposely adopted as reminiscent of Hegesippus, the father of ecclesiastical history (2nd century).

Best edition by C. F. Weber and J. Caesar (1864); authorities in E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People (Eng. trans.), i. 99 seq.; F. Vogel, De Hegesippo, qui dicitur, Josephi interprete (Erlangen, 1881).

* * *