Pseudo-Hegesippus at Antioch? Testing a Hypothesis for the Provenance of the De Excidio Hierosolymitano

Abstract

A significant proportion of the meager scholarship that treats Pseudo-Hegesippus, or De Excidio Hierosolymitano, has been spent arguing about whether or not Ambrose was the author of the work. Part and parcel of this argument has been the implicit or explicit location of the text’s provenance in Rome. However, there are very good reasons for believing that the text, or the text’s author, hailed from Antioch in Syria instead; at the very least he held some significant attachment to that city. Here I argue that the text of De Excidio suggests for itself an Antiochene author. By presenting together a series of evidence that suggests an Antiochene provenance for De Excidio, I submit that scholarship should at least retain the possibility that De Excidio is a product of Antioch (or an Antiochene), as this is a more likely provenance than Rome.