Translatio studii: Stelae Traditions in Second Temple Judaism and Their Legacy in Byzantium

Traditions about ancient wisdom carved on monuments before the flood form part of a broader discussion in the Hellenistic age about the origins, preservation, and transfer of universal culture. Descriptions of ante-diluvian stelae found in Josephus’s Antiquities and the Book of Jubilees represent two highly opposing perceptions of their contents. As part of a larger project to transform figures of biblical history into vital links in the discovery and transfer of universal culture, Josephus casts the learning preserved on them in an entirely favorable light. By inscribing their discoveries on stone and brick monuments, the virtuous offspring of Seth saw to the preservation of their astronomical learning up to Josephus’s own day (Ant. 1.69–71). By contrast, the decidedly negative perspective of Jubilees, a work with a marked distaste for alien wisdom, treats the discovery of a pre-flood stone monument as one stage in the gradual decay of civilization after the flood. For Jubilees, the legitimate astronomical wisdom recorded in a book by Enoch before the flood had nothing to do with the dangerous and proscribed teachings about heavenly omens carved on stone by the fallen Watchers. Cainan thus committed a grave transgression by reading and transcribing its contents (Jub. 8.3–4). The second half of the paper examines how these two contrasting accounts were used and reshaped by Byzantine universal chroniclers, notably John Malalas (6th cent.), George Syncellus (9th cent.), George the Monk (9th cent.), Symeon Lopothete (10th cent.), and Michael Glycas (12th cent.). In the chronicle of Malalas, application of the principles of euhemeristic historiography enabled him to weave Josephus and Jubilees together into a unified narrative about the first discoveries of writing and astronomy, and the subsequent dissemination of this learning after the flood. Discussions about the contents of these monuments would also later play a central role in Byzantine discussions in the 12th century about the origins and legitimacy of “Chaldean” science (i.e. astrology).