The Emperor and His Jew — Lion Feuchtwanger

Feuchtwanger has been called, largely because of his story of Flavius Josephus, one of the greatest historical novelists of all time. The book begins with Josephus, aged 50, living in retirement in Rome and ends with his death in Galilee during the bloody uprising of the Jews against their Roman conquerors.In the present volume, "The Emperor and His Jew," the earlier young and ambitious emissary of Judea to the court of Nero (in "The Judean War") and the militant writer who held the ear of Titus (in "The Jew of Rome") has reached the fullness of years and wisdom. Now he engages in the subtlest and in many ways the most dangerous period of his career. In the East the Jewish fanatics were challenging the might of Rome; and everywhere, even in the family of the Emperor, the Christians were exerting a passive but disturbing force. The time had come for all men to take their stand, and Josephus, who had thought to live and die both a Roman and a defender of the Jewish perspective and cause, was forced to make a choice. This situation intensifies the deep personal conflict in the mind of Josephus, and in this book Feuchtwanger attempts to analyze Josephus' mind and to find motives for his apparently paradoxical actions and views. In its detail, the "Josephus" trilogy's final work leads the reader through the utterly fascinating daily life of Roman society. At the court of Domitian, in the apartments of the beautiful Empress, Lucia, in the Senate, and in the homes of the financial and intellectual leaders of Rome, Feuchtwanger walks with the ease and confidence of a man born to the toga.It was Josephus's fate to be feared and hated by three of the most powerful men in the world and to survive them all. His life was beset by the ambiguity of his intellect; his death was glorified by the clear simplicity of his faith.