Thomas Lodge — English translations (1602)
Thomas Lodge’s The famous and memorable workes of Iosephus was published in London in 1602. His translations of the Antiquities, the Jewish War and Against Apion are available here. This translation saw considerable success in early modern England.1
Translation and sources
The general title page and the separate title page for the Jewish War both say that Lodge translated “out of the Latin, and French”. His dedications and address to the reader do not name the editions he used.
Our text comes from EEBO-TCP’s transcription, released under CC0. Lodge’s spelling and marginal notes are retained.
Read Lodge
- Antiquities: Proem and Books I–XX · EEBO text.
- Jewish War: Books I–VII · EEBO text.
- Against Apion: Books I–II · EEBO text.
Whiston’s translations (based on the Greek) are also available for these three works.
Lodge and the Latin tradition
Comparison of selected passages in Book I of the Jewish War supports Lodge’s declared use of Latin and French. At several points where Niese’s Greek and the Latin differ, Lodge preserves the Latin reading. Checking these cases against Bader’s critical edition helps establish their place within the Latin tradition.2
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I.106: Alexander’s reign. Lodge gives thirty-seven years, matching a widely transmitted Latin reading also found in Froben’s edition of 1524 and Cardwell. Niese’s Greek gives twenty-seven; Bader prints twenty-seven but records the competing Latin numeral. (Bader, p. 70.)
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I.215: the fortune of war. Lodge’s “consider the fortune of warres” follows the Latin formulation. The Greek explicitly makes God the arbiter of success in war, an expression absent from both Cardwell and Bader’s Latin. (Bader, pp. 90, 214.)
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I.422: harbours. Lodge’s “woods, and ports” corresponds to Latin lucos portusque, retained by Bader. Niese’s Greek has groves and meadows. Bader suggests that the ancient Latin translator read a different Greek word, meaning harbours. (Bader, pp. 129, 215.)
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I.452: an inexperienced judge. Lodge’s “an vnskilfull Iudge” matches Latin imperitissimum, preserved by both Cardwell and Bader. Niese’s Greek describes an experienced judge. Lodge thus reproduces a striking feature of the Latin version. (Bader, pp. 134, 229–230.)
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I.568: Antipater’s role. Where the Greek makes Herod reject Pheroras’s wife, the Latin names Antipater. Lodge’s “chiefly set on by Antipater” preserves that Latin agent while interpreting the action as instigation. Bader reports Antipater in all his Latin manuscripts. (Bader, pp. 155, 212.)
A Latin textual basis, reached directly or through French, is a probable explanation for these agreements. They do not identify the particular Latin or French edition Lodge consulted. For the Latin transmission itself, see Cardwell as a witness to the medieval Latin tradition.
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Freyja Cox Jensen, “What Was Thomas Lodge’s Josephus in Early Modern England?”, The Sixteenth Century Journal 49, no. 1 (Spring 2018), pp. 3–24; Heinz Schreckenberg, Bibliographie zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1968), p. 21; Gohei Hata, “A Note on English Translations of Josephus from Thomas Lodge to D. S. Margoliouth”, in A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (Wiley Blackwell, 2015), pp. 414–418. ↩
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Bernd Bader, ed., Josephus Latinus: De Bello Iudaico. Buch 1, Palingenesia 119 (Stuttgart, 2019). References above use the printed page numbers. ↩
Institutional affiliation and research support
This project draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Ce projet s’appuie sur des recherches financées par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada.
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