Karl-Gustav Sandelin

The Letter of Eudaemon

In the second year of Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus Augustus on the 5th of Pharmouthi in Alexandria, district Delta

Eudaemon son of Alexander greeting Joseph son of Matthias.

Call me Isaac. Having returned from a voyage on the great Nile, I decided to write this report to you, most honoured Flavius Josephus. Some weeks ago I decided to leave Alexandria for a while in order to see a bit more of this Imperial Province where I have grown up. In a small village near Memphis I went on shore in order to make my way to the impressive phenomena called the pyramids. According to Herodotus they were tombs of Egyptian kings who lived very long ago. Before reaching the site on the ship I made the acquaintance of a person who called himself a Christian. He told me that his small community gathered in a house in the neighbourhood of the Jewish quarters of Alexandria and that he was about to visit some believers at a location further up the river.
    We held a conversation, not very long, as we admired the lively traffic on the river with its palm adorned shores created by the Lord, blessed be He. I told my travel companion, who called himself Marcus son of Levi, that I had earlier heard about his group and even met with some of its adherents. I must give you, most honoured Flavius Josephus, some details concerning this.
    The first time I heard about the Christians was when I as a young lad of about thirteen or fourteen, had the great privilege of visiting Jerusalem together with my learned uncle Philo. Our pilgrimage took place a couple of years before my elder brother Tiberius Julius Alexander, whom you know very well, became the procurator of Judaea. My uncle and I admired the magnificent Temple and visited the prayer house that was built within its confines. I had been told that my father Alexander had been very generous towards the Temple administration by donating golden tablets for the side doors of the Sanctuary. What a grief to think of its destruction witnessed by both you and my brother.
    In Jerusalem my uncle talked with many a person both known and unknown to him. I could hear that he was told about some Jewish Jesus believers. As a diligent scholar he later tried to find out a bit more about that group. It turned out that it was not very much favoured by the Jewish leadership, nor, by so many other Jews for that matter. The adherents maintained that a Galilean Jew who had been crucified during the time when Pontius Pilate had been the prefect in the region in reality was the expected Messiah of the Jews! After his death he had been taken up to heaven by God. These believers were also said to regularly celebrate some kind of a vigil. My uncle was about to write a small book about another Jewish group that he called the Therapeutae and he said that he could see similarities between the two groupings. He did not give the Jesus people any further attention, though. But I have often wondered whether the Therapeutae were just a fantasy in my uncle’s head. I have never visited the area where they were supposed to live although my uncle located it in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. Who knows whether he was inspired by what he was told about the small community in Jerusalem.
    Some years after the visit to Jerusalem I decided to embark on a ship on the Mediterranean. My father did not like the idea, but after my intense pleadings he gave in to that thought. One of my arguments was that I wanted to see Rome as my uncle had done. My father agreed that a longer journey to the center of the Empire and to the ancient sites of Greece would broaden my view of the world. This would probably crown the thorough education he had provided me. This had not, alas, involved the attendance at a gymnasium in Alexandria. As you may know the Emperor Claudius by a decree forbade Jewish boys in Alexandria to attend gymnasia after the catastrophic events in our city under the Emperor Caligula. The decree was very shocking for many members of our Jewish nation.
    During several earlier decades many Jewish families had given their boys an education similar to those of the Alexandrian citizens. Likewise, because of his good financial position, my father could  hire a most competent private teacher for me and, of course, my uncle Philo did his best to spurn me on. His knowledge of the Greek and several Latin authors was dazzling and as a Jew he wanted to bring the central ideas of the sacred tradition of our nation to me. For him Moses was the foremost philosopher and he was also of the opinion that Plato, whom he admired and even called  most holy, had learned the essentials from Moses. It was when I was a boy of the age of nine that my uncle was sent to Rome in order to present the Jewish case to the Emperor. He has written a book on that topic. You may have read it. Even in more vivid detail than in that book he has told me how extremely scared he and his companions were when they were admitted to the madman Caligula’s presence.
    The ship that took me as a passenger was destined for Ostia in Italy. It was called Kastor after the one of the Dioscures and was transporting wheat for the population in the capital. We had to wait for some days in the harbour of Alexandria but at last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. The time of the journey was somewhat late in the autumn, and therefore with a fair northeastern wind, the ship was rushing through the water towards the oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea.
    I suggested you call me Isaac. The reason my father gave me the name Eudaemon was the following. The figure of Isaac in our sacred Scriptures was seen by my uncle Philo as a representative of the happy category of human beings who are spiritually taught by God without human mediation. I am not quite sure that I myself have been partaker of such happiness. But I felt very happy when I one starry night saw the high lighthouse, the Pharos of Alexandria, far south sending its clear beams which helped our ship to find its course on the waves of  the Mediterranean. I have many friends who cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the sea with me.
    The autumn storms had not begun when we made our voyage. Having anchored for a couple of days outside the southern coast of Crete in order to get some fresh food and water we laid our course towards Syracuse. There some slaves brought from Egypt were left to their new owners and our ship continued northward and reached Ostia after some days.  I went ashore and soon found my way to the Jewish quarters. A house there served as a site for prayer and reading of the Scriptures. Within some weeks I had made friends with people that I met there, among others with a person, Simon son of Reuben, who was in charge of the maintenance of the building and the organization of the meetings held in it. My uncle had told me that everywhere one found Jews in the world, there one would also find a place where the sacred Law was read publicly each Sabbath for everyone to hear. This was also true, I soon learned, concerning the great city of Rome that I had longed to see.
    To describe the city of Rome to you who know it so well has no sense. But still I must say that to approach the Imperial Palace, having made one’s journey from Ostia along the Tiber and climbed up the Aventine and to see it beyond the Circus Maximus was an overwhelming experience, notwithstanding my acquaintance with the Museion in Alexandria.
    I noticed that there were several synagogues in the city of Rome and its environs. But I found one particularly interesting district in the city, in the vicinity of a small island in the Tiber with a temple dedicated to Aesculapius, where the Jews had settled in several quarters. I also attended a funeral a couple of times. Our people were allowed to bury their dead in grottoes caved in the fairly soft kind of reddish stone which seems to be common in Latium. An area for such burials lies somewhat southward from the Jewish settlement I just mentioned. Probably the attendants thought that God, blessed be He, would revive the bodies of the dead in the world to come. My uncle Philo did not see things that way. He thought that it was not the body but only the spirit or soul of man that would receive an eternal abode with God and Wisdom in heaven. The important thing for man was to strive for such a goal by living a virtuous life.
    My uncle had found a view similar to his own in a fine book written by a wise man in the Alexandrian Jewish community. He knew the man, already old when he himself was a young fellow. The book begins with the words Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth. The writer covers himself in the disguise of King Solomon. But everyone who has some erudition will see that the book contains ideas borrowed from the philosophers. I took a copy of the book with me on my journey. Another book which also has a similar idea concerning the spirit of man tells about Tobit and his son Tobias. You may know it. It had recently been translated from Hebrew into Greek by a member of the Jewish community in Alexandria who was able to read Hebrew, which was a very rare ability even in those days more than thirty years ago. But my uncle was not very fond of that book and thought it was too fanciful.  
    At the funeral I met with a person who like me was from Alexandria. His name was Aristobulos. I noticed that he stood a little apart from the rest of the attendants. One and another of these gave him a somewhat fierce glance once and a while. I of course had no bad dealings with him so I joined him and after the funeral we went to a small Jewish  tavern and had some wine. He told me that he was a member of a small community believing that a certain Jesus from Galilee was the expected Anointed one. He had been crucified in Jerusalem about 20 years earlier. After his burial in a grave dug in a rock near the place of execution his body had disappeared. For me such an idea seemed strange, but he said that God must have taken Jesus to heaven like the prophet Elijah. I told Aristobulos that my uncle Philo had taken me to Jerusalem some years earlier and that we had heard about the Jesus community. But what Aristobulos had said about the empty tomb was new to me. It was clear to me that my partner in a way tried to convince me that his group was nothing but Jewish, and I did not attempt to argue against him. We parted as friends.
    I stayed in Ostia for some time, visiting the glorious capital every now and then. Although I had quite a good sum of money for my journey with me, I tried to earn some additional funds, made possible by teaching Greek to Latin speaking Jewish boys. One day something unexpected happened, however. A Jewish family appeared at the synagogue and told people they had to leave the area because the Emperor had ordered Jews to leave Rome. Jesus Christ believers, they said had started a quarrel in one of the synagogues near the Isle of Tiber. Therefore Claudius, not very fond of the Jews for several reasons, took these measures against them. The family was followed by others, and I understood it was the best for me also to leave. So I embarked a ship which was destined for Alexandria but would visit both Corinth and Ephesus.
    We sailed early in the autumn, when the winds were still modest. By then I had stayed in Rome for almost a year. The ship did not take the course towards the Corinthian golf. It would, of course, have been interesting for me to see the area where the ships of Antony and Cleopatra had been positioned during the humiliating battle of Actium. But instead of aiming at the Lechaeum harbour we sailed around the Peloponnese in order to reach Cenchreae. On board the ship there were some Jews who had left Rome. I noticed a couple who were doing leather work, they were constructing a saddle and sewed a number of tents. I started a conversation with them and asked for whom their products were intended. For the Roman legions they said. Apparently the couple who called themselves Aquila and Prisca did not have any greater resentment against our imperial government.
    Before reaching the harbour of Cenchreae from the east, we could as we approached the coast see the impressive temple of Poseidon on the right hand. My uncle Philo had taught me quite a lot about the Greek gods and the myths connected with them. Poseidon had been the main enemy of Odysseus. But these two had eventually come to terms with one another. Nevertheless, the chase of the gods had cost the lives of all companions of the king of Ithaka.
    Having gone ashore in Cenchreae, I rented a room and stayed a night in that nice small harbour town with its fish market lively loading and unloading of ships. Late in the evening I stood in admiration, beholding the light of the full moon spreading over the gulf. The following morning I went to Corinth by foot. After a couple of hours’ walk westward it appeared. I was impressed by its bright appearance. When I came closer and sensed the smell of forges and potter's ovens in my nostrils, I could see a town with large marble buildings. This reminded me very much of my impression of the Imperial palace in Rome although the proportions were much smaller. I reached a street leading down to the harbour of Lechaeum, paved by large stones in Roman style. When I entered the street and turned left, I soon had a huge building to the right that turned out to be the curia of the city. To the left there was an area where I could relieve myself after the tedious walk. Before going through the gate at the southern end of the street I observed a beautiful marbled fountain. People who were present said it was named Peirene after a heroine who had lived very long ago. The water ran from behind six vaulted gates.
    In front of the gates there was a pool. Looking towards the gates over the pool,  when I turned my eyes upwards I could see the mountain that arose towards the east with a small temple on the top. It immediately struck me that the sacred Scriptures speak of a cliff from which a stream of water rushed when Moses struck it with his rod. My uncle Philo who read the Books of Moses in an allegorical way said that the cliff was a symbol of heavenly Wisdom. In a generous way she poured her teaching on those who wanted to be instructed by her.
    Having admired the fountain for a while, I passed the gate and entered the agora which was not very large. Along the northern and southern long sides that were about 500 feet in length, colonnades were built. In the west there was a row of small temples and a fountain.  Opposite the entrance to the agora a tribune had been erected. When I turned to people present on the agora asking about the synagogue of the Hebrews, I was met with a kind reaction from people who instructed me where to find it. It was not far from the agora and I decided to stay in a house nearby. Some days later I fetched my rather modest belongings from Cenchreae.
    I actually stayed in Corinth somewhat longer than I had planned. It took some time to be acquainted with sites in Greece that my uncle had told me about. I was moved during a visit I made to Athens when I entered the place where Plato had established his Academy.  I already told you how much that great philosopher had meant to my uncle Philo.
    From the port of Lechaeum I once entered a ship that took me to a place on the northern coast of the Corinthian golf from where I could find my way to Delphi. There one finds an inscription on the façade of the Temple of Apollo saying Know Yourself. Philo had often referred to this which also was a kind of maxim for Socrates. For me it was a great moment in life to behold the inscription with my own eyes. The site of Delphi was magnificent. It lies uphill, but over it towers a high mountain where vultures soar around the top. Also here one finds a stream of water, the Castalian spring, flowing from a ravine at the base of mount Parnassos.
    Following the example of my uncle Philo I regularly attended the Sabbath prayers during my stay in Corinth. One day a Jewish man who called himself Paul appeared and gave a short speech in the form of a comment upon a text from the Prophet Isaiah. He said that in reality the account of the suffering servant of the Lord was a prophecy regarding the Galilean Jesus, the Messiah or Christ! Those present were stunned, but no one protested, although I could see that people were discussing the issue when they parted. I noted a particular feature in his address: Jesus was presented as a descendant of King David. This is a prerequisite, of course, if somebody pretends to be a Messiah of the Jews.
    After the meeting I had a chat with the man. I told him that I had a book in my possession which also contained a description of a pious man who had suffered a lot. He had even been killed by envious people, but his soul was said to be in God’s hand. At the end of time he would triumph over his enemies. The book was of course the one I mentioned earlier in this letter. Let us call it The Wisdom of Solomon. I promised to lend the book to Paul on the next Sabbath, which I did. At that meeting Paul continued his story. He said that his own name originally was Saul. He had grown up in Tarsus and had been a fierce enemy of the Jesus believers. But one day Jesus himself had appeared in a bright vision with the result that the Jewish Saul had become the Jesus believing Paul. He promised me that he would read the book I had given him.
    The next Sabbath Paul was allowed to speak again, although I noticed that there were some who manifested a silent protest. But the ruler of the synagogue named Crispus had enough authority to let him speak. This time the address Paul gave was so offensive in the eyes of many members of the community that the protest became very loud. Paul maintained that the Law of Moses was not so important anymore, after Jesus. He said that a new covenant had been established by God, a covenant that he himself served. This new covenant was designed to give both Jews and gentiles an equal stand before the Lord. Such a preaching divided the community. Crispus with his family and some other Jews did accept what Paul had said. Others condemned Paul’s ideas whereupon he decided not to preach in the synagogue anymore. There were some gentiles who earlier had visited the synagogue regularly and who now joined Paul. A new community of Jesus believers was thus established. One of the more wealthy, a certain Gaius, opened his house for their meetings.
    I myself continued to worship in the synagogue, but every now and then I passed by a small workshop that Paul together with the couple Aquila and Prisca had opened in the neighbourhood of the agora. Like these he worked in leather. One day he winked at me and told me he had read the book I had given him. He gave it back and said that he found it very fine in many respects. The description of the suffering righteous man was profound indeed. Its way of denouncing the depraved pagan life with its belief in a multiple of gods was also quite good. But on the other hand he was not very fond of how the Jew who had written the book looked upon himself and his people. They thought of themselves as mediators of the light of the Law to the world under the special protection of Wisdom. He saw this as a mark of insolence. I thereupon asked him whether his own claims were not of a similar kind. He gave me grin and said with reference to the book that, in fact, the true Wisdom was Christ. It was Christ that had been present as the rock in the desert when Israel fled from Egypt. I replied that my uncle Philo saw the rock as a manifestation of Wisdom and added how I had been reminded of the Biblical story when I saw the fountain of Peirene.
    In the vicinity of the temple of Poseidon, not far from Cenchreae, there was a large stadium. I learned that contests called the Isthmian games were held there every second year. At the end of my stay in Corinth I actually had the opportunity to attend the games. My uncle Philo was not unacquainted with such events. Therefore I did not hesitate to go there. I had certain feelings of doubt, though.  The Gentiles as you well know, most honoured Flavius Josephus, dedicate their gymnasia and stadia to heroes and demigods like Hercules or Hermes. The games commence with hymns and sacrifices to the protectors and gods.  For us Jews to know how to behave at such occasions is not quite unproblematic, is it? Should one turn one’s eyes in another direction than the altars or put wax in one’s ears?
    On the site of the stadium I passed a temple and a monument honouring a sea-god named Palaemon. I was informed that the Isthmian games were founded in honour of this hero whose name originally had been Melikertes. His corpse had been brought to the shore near Corinth by a dolphin and then buried, but brought to life again by divine beings. I was told that on the site there existed a cave where the competitors before the contests conducted some kind of mysterious ritual in memory of the hero. I could not resist the idea that there existed a certain kind of resemblance between Palaemon and the Jesus the Christians preached.
    I also noted that Paul with his companions Aquila and Prisca stood among the spectators of the games. Often Paul turned to his friends asking them about what was going on at the stadium. Apparently the sight of his eyes was not of the very best. When the final victor was crowned, one could see that the victor’s wreath was of a very poor design and consisted of withered celery. I met Paul when the contests were over and mentioned the wreath. He said it had given him a fine metaphor, contrasting that perishable crown with the imperishable one for which he and other Christians ought to strive.
    Soon after the Isthmian games I decided to leave Corinth and go back to Alexandria. I embarked a ship destined for my home town. It first took us to Ephesus where I also, one Sabbath, attended a Synagogue meeting. The city is perhaps even more impressive than Corinth with its temple of Artemis which is considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Of these, I had until now only seen the Pharos of Alexandria. From Ephesus we sailed southward, passing Rhodes where the great colossus had been situated almost three centuries earlier.
    I was back to Alexandria at the age of twenty-one, soon becoming twenty-two.  I shall not in detail describe my life during the decades after that. I was employed by a manufacture for copying books for the library of our city, and eventually I became the owner of the business myself. My whole life has been determined by books and the last part of this message to you, most honoured Flavius Josephus, will contain a short commentary on a book recently presented to me.
    At the beginning of my letter I told you about a Christian whom I had met on board a ship taking me up the Nile to the great pyramids. The man, Marcus son of Levi, presented me a book on the topic the life of Jesus. When I started unfolding the scroll in his presence I found that the text begins with the words The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. I was astonished because a book of the kind Marcus had given me must have had a much broader set of contents. But my friend explained that much in the book was borrowed from earlier sources. Some uneven details in the texture were remnants from those sources.
    I promised to read the book when I had returned to Alexandria. Its size suggested to me that it would require two or three hours to read it through. The reason I will send the book to you, most honoured Flavius Josephus, is that I have heard that you are preparing books on the history of our people and the sad events of the rebellion which you yourself witnessed in the land of our fathers. The story about Jesus might interest you. I shall here write some comments on the first part of the text.
    After the genealogy of Jesus the text presents some events from his infancy, his baptism by a Baptist by the name of John, his withdrawal to the desert, and how he called some followers. Upon that a long sermon where he addresses his disciples follows. Next comes a section reporting a series of wonders wrought.
    The genealogy of Jesus Christ starts with our father Abraham. On the way we meet David, Solomon and other kings in Israel. The last person in the row is Joseph who is called husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Having come that far in my reading I wondered why Joseph was not called the father of Jesus. The reason became clear when I had read the following passage saying that Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus at all. Jesus did not have an earthly father. His mother Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit!
    I have not met an account like this in The Law and the Scriptures. No doubt we there find stories about wonderful births, for instance when Sarah had a child when she was very old. But still it was the almost hundred years old Abraham who conceived Isaac. In pagan myths there are some tales, however, were some god approaches a virgin who then becomes pregnant. One example is the story of Zeus and the virgin Callisto. She was afterwards changed into a bear and became the constellation we know by that name. The book on Jesus sees his wonderful birth by a virgin as a fulfillment of a prophecy by Isaiah. But perhaps the whole story is designed with the prophecy in mind?
    The book continues with an episode telling about how magi from the East visited the infant in order to worship him. In front of  King Herod and to his utmost astonishment the magi called the boy the newborn King of the Jews. My uncle Philo had a very high regard of the Persian magi although he would also use the designation of that order, the word magos, in a negative sense of people performing conjuring tricks. The Magi said they had been led by a star, the star of the king. But what kind of star could that have been? The stars of the sky do not behave in the way that they move in front of those whom they guide. Not even planets or comets do that.
    King Herod was cheated by the Magi who never let him know where they had found the child although they were asked to do so. According to the story Herod became furious and let his soldiers kill children of the age of two and under that in the vicinity of Betlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. I have never heard of such an incident, but that kind of behaviour was not untypical of Herod. In my youth people in my home-town still spoke about Herod and his rule. At times he was quite a good friend of Cleopatra and Antony, as you probably know much better than I.
    After a time as refugees in Egypt Joseph took his wife and the boy back to his home-land and they settled in Nazareth. The book seems to see all that happens in the life of Jesus as fulfilment of old prophecies. My uncle Philo has written a book where he describes the Essenes. I have heard that they also in a similar way read the Scriptures which they believe has foretold what has happened in their midst. I do not know anything in detail of such rumours about the Essenes, however.
    Jesus was baptized by the Baptizer John. Nothing is said about his youth or early manhood or why he came to the baptism. But John talks about one who will come after him and baptize with the Holy Spirit. Apparently Jesus is meant, although this is not stated directly. And in the part of the book that I have read thus far Jesus does not baptize at all. The author on the other hand describes how Jesus himself experienced how the Holy Spirit descended on him in the shape of a dove.  A voice also came from heaven saying: ”This is my Son”. Our Sacred Scriptures use such a designation for the King of Israel. So the author apparently sees the event as an anointing of the King of the Jews. When my uncle Philo talked about the Word, a figure that was like a brother of Wisdom in heaven, he could at times call that heavenly spiritual force the Son of God.
    The book says that after his baptism Jesus was led by the Spirit to the desert where he was tempted by the devil. According to some Jewish works that I have read the devil originally was an archangel who did not obey God and therefore was hurled down from heaven. I could not see that my uncle Philo very much speculated about this sinister power. He very much talked about temptations, though. But these according to him came more from man’s inferior parts than from outside of him. They seduced man and made him a slave of passions. Still the devil did appear in the conversations between me and my uncle every now and then. We could for instance comment upon what the Wisdom of Solomon means when it reads: “Through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it”. In a way Jesus in the story was tempted to do something that may even have killed him. The devil took him on top of the Temple and asked him to throw himself down if he was the Son of God. But in a prompt way Jesus answered by referring to the Scriptures every time the devil presented seductive suggestions to him. Jesus must have been quite well versed in the Law and the Psalms. But it may of course just be the author of the book who presents him that way.
    After the temptations Jesus according to the book begins to preach. He exhorts the listeners to repent because as he says the Kingdom of the Heavens is near.  I have noticed that it is fairly typical also of us Jews in Alexandria in contradistinction to the gentile to speak of the heavens in the plural as we have it in the Scriptures. My uncle Philo thought that there existed two different heavens, the one that we observe with our bodily eyes and the other one which is accessible by the mind, that is the eyes of the soul, only. According to my uncle God was above or behind both of these heavens as their creator ruler, and king. To be drawn near to God and meet Him would definitely imply repentance.
    Two passages in the book given to me by Marcus son of Levi follow, the one presenting a long address given by Jesus to his disciples and another describing the wonders wrought by him.
    Having ascended a mountain Jesus gives his address. The mountain is by no means numinous in the manner of the Mount of Sinai where Moses received the Law. Nevertheless Jesus in a way acts as a lawgiver here. But he starts with a series of blessings. If I try to imagine which one of these sentences, let’s call them “beatitudes”, my uncle Philo would have been particularly fond of I would take the one where Jesus states: “Blessed are the pure in hearth, for they shall see God”.  For the goal of man according to my uncle was to be in a state where he could see God and the prerequisite for that was that his soul was pure.
    Jesus seems to give some of our Laws a very sharp interpretation. My uncle Philo would perhaps have been somewhat less strict and he might have been astonished at the high claims Jesus raises. But at one point he would have wholeheartedly agreed. He would have accepted the idea that not even the least of the commandments should be broken. Every command in the Law should be kept. Philo very energetically pleaded for such a principle himself against Jews who thought that the precepts of Moses needed to be kept in a spiritual way only. But I wonder if the Christian preacher Paul whom I met about thirty years ago in Corinth would have agreed with what Jesus said in the book that I have been referring to. If we Jews are divided into many different schools this may be the case of the Christians also. Many of them seem to regard themselves as Jews.
    Now I think I have bothered you long enough with my dealings with the Christians and their ideas. Perhaps I will at a time ahead write you some more comments on the book I am reading. I will give this letter, or maybe we should say report, to a mutual Alexandrinian friend Aristarchus who has the intention to visit Rome soon and who knows where you stay there. The son Philippus of my brother Tiberius Julius Alexander sends his warmest regards.
        
Author’s epilogue.

 

The text above has been published under the title The Letter of Eudaemon : An Exercise in Historical Fiction. See Publications No. 17.

Many years ago I attended a lecture given by an English speaking professor who visited the Åbo Akademi University but whose name I have, alas, forgotten. He made an interesting distinction between fictional history and historical fiction. In fictional history the main character of a novel is a historical person who can be documented. The way of presenting him or her is, however, fictional in many respects. As an example one could take the book I, Claudius by Robert Graves. In historical fiction the general framework, its events and characters, can be documented in a more or less trustworthy manner. But in contradistinction to fictional history the central character in historical fiction is invented by the author and is therefore completely fictional. A specimen to mention could be the novel Sinuhe the Egyptian by the Finnish author Mika Waltari. Among books in the Bible I am inclined to see the Gospel of Matthew as fictional history whereas for instance the Book of Tobit is an example of historical fiction. The idea for writing the Letter of Eudaemon was inspired by a scholarly work written by Harry W. Eberts, Jr. & Paul Ebetrs: The Early Jesus Movement and Its Congregations : Their Cities, Conflicts and Triumphs, New York: YBK Publishers, 2011.

 

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