Pity and Emotion in Josephus’s Reading of Joseph

Abstract

Pity must be directed toward a harm that is not deserved, following Aristotle (Rhet. 2.8, 1385b.13–16). In her analysis of Josephus’s construction of pity in his paraphrase of Genesis, Francoise Mirguet demonstrates how this principle is exemplified in Josephus’s account of Judah’s appeal to Joseph to release Benjamin for the sake of their father, Jacob (Ant. 2.140–59; cf. Gen. 44:18–34). Here, Judah’s speech endorses the view that only the innocent (the brothers’ father, Jacob) deserves pity and that this should outweigh the punishment justly deserved by the brothers: that Joseph “graciously give [χάρισαι] to our father” what justice demands for the brothers’ wrongdoing, and that he “let pity for [Jacob] be more powerful (δυνηθήτω ... ἔλeος) than our wickedness” (Ant. 2.151). In what follows, I suggest that Judah’s appeal, as constructed by Josephus, is interesting also in other ways for thinking about the significance of pity and the subversion of its construction in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.