PREFACE

...by the Professor from Copenhagen original: "Hafnienſi Profeſſore"; referring to a scholar from the University of Copenhagen.; by whose generosity an extremely accurate collation of the books Against Apion was also sent to me from his own manuscripts, conducted and written by his own hand, just as the earlier one for the Jewish War had been. This latter is cited under the name of the Copenhagen Codex, because Hudson John Hudson (1662–1719), the previous editor of Josephus’s works. had also called it so, though he had obtained only a few excerpts from it. If we seek the number of manuscripts and the density of variant readings, a massive forest of them was sent to us from the Royal Codices of France; Jacques Philippe D'Orville A celebrated Dutch philologist and traveler (1696–1751). was a supporter of this work there and a researcher of such treasures, then residing abroad for the sake of his studies; but now, after having also seen Britain, he is enjoying the riches of Italy and visiting ancient Latium The region around Rome.; we eagerly await his return from there, so that he may pour out the erudition collected from all sides into the lap of his fatherland's glory. However, these collations and several others, because of the infinite number of variant readings original: "V. L." or Variae Lectiones. and because they arrived rather late, are placed in the Addenda Appendix on page 1 and following. They include the books of the Jewish War collated against six or seven manuscripts; among which is a Royal manuscript from the eleventh century, and a distinguished specimen from the Coislin Library A famous collection of Greek manuscripts in Paris, now part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.. Next, the book of Josephus on the Maccabees Usually referring to the work known today as 4 Maccabees, which was historically attributed to Josephus. is seen collated with five Parisian codices of remarkable discrepancy on the same page 157 through 171. Then follows the Life of Josephus with a Royal manuscript from page 171 to 175. Then follows the order and reading of the chapters and certain fragments also from the Royal codices from page 176 to 180. Finally, there are the variant readings excerpted from five Royal manuscripts for the Jewish Antiquities, a large part of which Bigot Émery Bigot (1626–1689), a French scholar and book collector. had used, and which are cited here and there in Hudson’s edition under the title of "Bigotian" (just as the Bigotian excerpts, with no specific manuscript assigned, came into the hands and libraries of many learned men), but without any authority as to which manuscripts they had been drawn from; for which reason I did not wish to deny the curious reader a most accurate view of them, especially since many things occur in them which you would seek in vain in the Bigotian excerpts; Monsieur Sallier Claude Sallier (1685–1767), a French philologist and librarian. sent this final medley from Paris, and you will find it from page 424 to 481, which also presents the final book on his Life, and others Against Apion collated with manuscripts. And these things indeed concern the manuscripts which reached us either in good time or later, and which we have either used in the Notes or, depending on whether they reached us sooner or later, placed among the Addenda.

I proceed now to the labors of learned men by which this edition comes forth more enriched than Hudson’s, and which include both published and unpublished notes. Published notes had been scattered by Edward Bernard and Henry Aldrich on some books of the Antiquities and the War; likewise François Combefis on the book of Maccabees; and Jacob Gronovius on the Roman and Asiatic Decrees: unpublished ones, however, and which we now give for the first time, are those of Johannes Cocceius, Ezekiel Spanheim, and Hadrian Reland, to which we have occasionally sprinkled our own observations and corrections. Something must be said about each of these, as well as about those into which I have inquired in vain.

Everyone knows that Edward Bernard, a man most learned in every respect and especially well-equipped in Oriental literature, rushed toward the writings of Josephus with great impetus and maximum effort. The whole history of Bernard's ni The editor adds the suffix "ni" to "Bernardi" to complete the Latin name "Bernardini," or perhaps correcting the possessive. Josephus, like an aborted offspring, is contained quite expressively in his Life, which was edited by Thomas Smith in London in 1704, together with the Life and Letters of Robert Huntington, Bishop of Raphoe. But since very few copies of that little book were printed, and for that reason it remains in the hands of few, I will set down his very words, just as they are read on page 29 and following: “Now Bernard, returned to himself, went back to his former labors—interrupted by that journey for a year and more—with a more cheerful spirit. He possessed indeed, if anyone ever did, a vast intellect capable of all disciplines, which gave way only with difficulty to the industry necessary for sustaining a weak and infirm body, and much less to shameful...