Chapter 7

(T. H.; E. Br.)

1The evidence of MSS. is overwhelming against the form Jornandes. The MSS. exhibit Jordanis or Jordannis; but these are only Vulgar-Latin spellings of Jordanes.2The terms of the dedication of this book to a certain Vigilius make it impossible that the pope (538-555) of that name is meant.

1The evidence of MSS. is overwhelming against the form Jornandes. The MSS. exhibit Jordanis or Jordannis; but these are only Vulgar-Latin spellings of Jordanes.

2The terms of the dedication of this book to a certain Vigilius make it impossible that the pope (538-555) of that name is meant.

JORDANUS(Jordan Catalani) (fl.1321-1330), French Dominican missionary and explorer in Asia, was perhaps born at Séverac in Aveyron, north-east of Toulouse. In 1302 he may have accompanied the famous Thomas of Tolentino, via Negropont, to the East; but it is only in 1321 that we definitely discover him in western India, in the company of the same Thomas and certain other Franciscan missionaries on their way to China. Ill-luck detained them at Tana in Salsette island, near Bombay; and here Jordanus’ companions (“the four martyrs of Tana”) fell victims to Moslem fanaticism (April 7, 1321). Jordanus, escaping, worked some time at Baruch in Gujarat, near the Nerbudda estuary, and at Suali (?) near Surat; to his fellow-Dominicans in north Persia he wrote two letters—the first from Gogo in Gujarat (October 12, 1321), the second from Tana (January 24, 1323/4)—describing the progress of this new mission. From these letters we learn that Roman attention had already been directed, not only to the Bombay region, but also to the extreme south of the Indian peninsula, especially to “Columbum,” Quilon, or Kulam in Travancore; Jordanus’ words may imply that he had already started a mission there before October 1321. From Catholic traders he had learnt that Ethiopia (i.e.Abyssinia and Nubia) was accessible to Western Europeans; at this very time, as we know from other sources, the earliest Latin missionaries penetrated thither. Finally, theEpistlesof Jordanus, like the contemporarySecretaof Marino Sanuto (1306-1321), urge the pope to establish a Christian fleet upon the Indian seas. Jordanus, between 1324 and 1328 (if not earlier), probably visited Kulam and selected it as the best centre for his future work; it would also appear that he revisited Europe about 1328, passing through Persia, and perhaps touching at the great Crimean port of Soldaia or Sudak. He was appointed a bishop in 1328 and nominated by Pope John XXII. to the see of Columbum in 1330. Together with the new bishop of Samarkand, Thomas of Mancasola, Jordanus was commissioned to take the pall to John de Cora, archbishop of Sultaniyah in Persia, within whose province Kulam was reckoned; he was also commended to the Christians of south India, both east and west of Cape Comorin, by Pope John. Either before going out to Malabar as bishop, or during a later visit to the west, Jordanus probably wrote hisMirabilia, which from internal evidence can only be fixed within the period 1329-1338; in this work he furnished the best account of Indian regions, products, climate, manners, customs, fauna and flora given by any European in the Middle Ages—superior even to Marco Polo’s. In his triple division of the Indies, India Major comprises the shorelands from Malabar to Cochin China; while India Minor stretches from Sind (or perhaps from Baluchistan) to Malabar; and India Tertia (evidently dominated by African conceptions in his mind) includes a vast undefined coast-region west of Baluchistan, reaching into the neighbourhood of, but not including, Ethiopia and Prester John’s domain. Jordanus’Mirabiliacontains the earliest clear African identification of Prester John, and what is perhaps the first notice of the Black Sea under that name; it refers to the author’s residence in India Major and especially at Kulam, as well as to his travels in Armenia, north-west Persia, the Lake Van region, and Chaldaea; and it supplies excellent descriptions of Parsee doctrines and burial customs, of Hindu ox-worship, idol-ritual, and suttee, and of Indian fruits, birds, animals and insects. After the 8th of April 1330 we have no more knowledge of Bishop Jordanus.

Of Jordanus’Epistlesthere is only one MS., viz. Paris, National Library, 5006 Lat., fol. 182, r. and v.; of theMirabiliaalso one MS. only, viz. London, British Museum,Additional MSS., 19,513, fols. 3, r.-12 r. The text of theEpistlesis in Quétif and Echard,Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, i. 549-550 (Epistle I.); and in Wadding,Annales minorum, vi. 359-361 (Epistle II.); the text of theMirabiliain the Paris Geog. Soc.’sRecueil de voyages, iv. 1-68 (1839). The Papal letters referring to Jordanus are in Raynaldus,Annales ecclesiastici, 1330, §§ lv. and lvii. (April 8; Feb. 14). See also Sir H. Yule’sJordanus, a version of theMirabiliawith a commentary (Hakluyt Soc., 1863) and the same editor’sCathay, giving a version of theEpistles, with a commentary, &c. (Hak. Soc., 1866) pp. 184-185, 192-196, 225-230; F. Kunstmann, “Die Mission in Meliapor und Tana” and “Die Mission in Columbo” in theHistorisch-politische Blätterof Phillips and Görres, xxxvii. 25-38, 135-152 (Munich, 1856), &c.; C. R. Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 215-235.

(C. R. B.)

JORIS, DAVID,the common name ofJan JoriszorJoriszoon(c.1501-1556), Anabaptist heresiarch who called himself laterJan van Brugge; was born in 1501 or 1502, probably in Flanders, at Ghent or Bruges. His father, Georgius Joris de Koman, otherwise Joris van Amersfoordt, probably a native of Bruges, was a shopkeeper and amateur actor at Delft; from the circumstance that he played the part of King David, his son received the name of David, but probably not in baptism. His mother was Marytje, daughter of Jan de Gorter, of a good family in Delft. As a child he was clever and delicate. He seems then or later to have acquired some tincture of learning. His first known occupation was that of a glass-painter; in 1522 he painted windows for the church at Enkhuizen, North Holland (the birthplace of Paul Potter). In pursuit of his art he travelled, and is said to have reached England; ill-health drove him homewards in 1524, in which year he married Dirckgen Willems at Delft. In the same year the Lutheran reformation took hold of him, and he began to issue appeals in prose and verse against the Mass and against the pope as antichrist. On Ascension Day 1528 he committed an outrage on the sacrament carried in procession; he was placed in the pillory, had his tongue bored, and was banished from Delft for three years. He turned to the Anabaptists, was rebaptized in 1533, and for some years led a wandering life. He came into relations with John à Lasco, and with Menno Simons. Much influenced by Melchior Hofman, he had no sympathy with the fanatic violence of the Münster faction. At the Buckholdt conference in August 1536 he played a mediating part. His mother, in 1537, suffered martyrdom as an Anabaptist. Soon after he took up a rôle of his own, having visions and a gift of prophecy. He adapted in his own interest the theory (constantly recurrent among mystics and innovators, from the time of Abbot Joachim to the present day) of three dispensations, the old, with its revelation of the Father, the newer with its revelation of the Son, and the final or era of the Spirit. Of this newest revelation Christus David was the mouthpiece, supervening on Christus Jesus. From the 1st of April 1544, bringing with him some of his followers, he took up his abode in Basel, which was to be the New Jerusalem. Here he styled himself Jan van Brugge. His identity was unknown to the authorities of Basel, who had no suspicion of his heresies. By his writings he maintained his hold on his numerous followers in Holland and Friesland. These monotonous writings, all in Dutch, flowed in a continual stream from 1524 (though none isextant before 1529) and amounted to over 200 in number. Hismagnum opuswas’T Wonder Boeck(n.d.1542, divided into two parts; 1551, handsomely reprinted, divided into four parts; both editions anonymous). Its chief claim to recognition is its use, in the latter part, of the phraseRestitutio Christi, which apparently suggested to Servetus his titleChristianismi Restitutio(1553). In the 1st edition is a figure of the “new man,” signed with the author’s monogram, and probably drawn as a likeness of himself; it fairly corresponds with the alleged portrait, engraved in 1607, reproduced in the appendix to A. Ross’sPansebeia(1655), and idealized by P. Burckhardt in 1900. Another work,Verklaringe der Scheppenissen(1553) treats mystically the book of Genesis, a favourite theme with Boehme, Swedenborg and others. His remaining writings exhibit all that easy dribble of triumphant muddiness which disciples take as depth. His wife died on the 22nd of August, and his own death followed on the 25th of August 1556. He was buried, with all religious honours, in the church of St Leonard, Basel. Three years later, Nicolas Blesdijk, who had married his eldest daughter Jannecke (Susanna), but had lost confidence in Jorisz some time before his death, denounced the dead man to the authorities of Basel. An investigation was begun in March 1559, and as the result of a conviction for heresy the exhumed body of Jorisz was burned, together with his portrait, on the 13th of May 1559. Blesdijk’sHistoria(not printed till 1642) accuses Jorisz of havingplures uxores. Of this there is no confirmation. Theoretically Jorisz regarded polygamy as lawful; there is no proof that his theory affected his own practice.

The first attempt at a true account of Jorisz was by Gottfried Arnold, in his anonymousHistoria(1713), pursued with much fuller material in hisKirchen und Ketzer Historie(best ed. 1740-1742). See also F. Nippold, inZeitschrift für die historische Theologie(1863, 1864, 1868); A. van der Linde, inAllgemeine Deutsche Biographie(1881); P. Burckhardt,Basler Biographien(1900); Hegler, in Hauck’sRealencyklopädie(1901), and the bibliography by A. van der Linde, 1867, supplemented by E. Weller, 1869.

(A. Go.*)

JORTIN, JOHN(1698-1770), English theologian, the son of a Protestant refugee from Brittany, was born in London on the 23rd of October 1698. He went to Charterhouse School, and in 1715 became a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge, where his reputation as a Greek scholar led to his being selected to translate certain passages from Eustathius for the notes to Pope’sHomer. In 1722 he published a small volume of Latin verse entitledLusus poetici. Having taken orders in 1724, he was in 1726 presented by his college to the vicarage of Swavesey in Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1730 to become preacher at a chapel-of-ease in New Street, London. In 1731, along with some friends, he began a publication entitledMiscellaneous Observations on Authors Ancient and Modern, which appeared at intervals during two years. He was Boyle lecturer in 1749. Shortly after becoming chaplain to the bishop of London in 1762 he was appointed to a prebendal stall of St Paul’s and to the vicarage of Kensington, and in 1764 he was made archdeacon of London. He died at Kensington on the 5th of September 1770.

The principal works of Jortin are:Discussions Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion(1746);Remarks on Ecclesiastical History(3 vols. 1751-2-4);Life of Erasmus(2 vols. 1750, 1760) founded on the Life by Jean Le Clerc; andTracts Philological Critical and Miscellaneous(1790). A collection of hisVarious Worksappeared in 1805-1810. All his writings display wide learning and acuteness. He writes on theological subjects with the detachment of a thoughtful layman, and is witty without being flippant. See John Disney’sLife of Jortin(1792).

JOSEPH,in the Old Testament, the son of the patriarch Jacob by Rachel; the name of a tribe of Israel. Two explanations of the name are given by the Biblical narrator (Gen. xxx. 23 [E], 24 [J]); a third, “He (God) increases,” seems preferable. Unlike the other “sons” of Jacob, Joseph is usually reckoned as two tribes (viz. his “sons” Ephraim and Manasseh), and closely associated with it is the small tribe of Benjamin (q.v.), which lay immediately to the south. These three constituted the “sons” of Rachel (the ewe), and with the “sons” of Leah (the antelope?) are thus on a higher level than the “sons” of Jacob’s concubines. The “house of Joseph” and its offshoots occupied the centre of Palestine from the plain of Esdraelon to the mountain country of Benjamin, with dependencies in Bashan and northern Gilead (seeManasseh). Practically it comprised the northern kingdom, and the name is used in this sense in 2 Sam. xix. 20; Amos v. 6; vi. 6 (note the prominence of Joseph in the blessings of Jacob and Moses, Gen. xlix., Deut. xxxiii.). Originally, however, “Joseph” was more restricted, possibly to the immediate neighbourhood of Shechem, its later extension being parallel to the development of the name Jacob. The dramatic story of the tribal ancestor is recounted in Gen. xxxvii.-l. (seeGenesis). Joseph, the younger and envied son, is seized by his brothers at Dothan north of Shechem, and is sold to a party of Ishmaelites or Midianites, who carry him down to Egypt. After various vicissitudes he gains the favour of the king of Egypt by the interpretation of a dream, and obtains a high place in the kingdom.1Forced by a famine his brothers come to buy food, and in the incidents that follow Joseph shows his preference for his young brother Benjamin (cf. the tribal data above). His father Jacob is invited to come to Goshen, where a settlement is provided for the family and their flocks. This is followed many years later by the exodus, the conquest of Palestine, and the burial of Joseph’s body in the grave at Shechem which his father had bought.

The history of Joseph in Egypt displays some familiarity with the circumstances and usages of that country; see Driver (Hastings’sD.B.) and Cheyne (Ency. Bib., col. 2589 seq.); although Abrech (xli. 43), possibly the Egyptianib rk(Crum, in Hastings’sD.B., i. 665), has been otherwise connected with the Assyrianabarakku(a high officer). An interesting parallel to the story of Joseph in Gen. xxxix. is found in the Egyptian tale ofThe Two Brothers(Petrie,Eg. Tales, 2nd series, p. 36 seq., 1895), which dates from about 1500B.C., but the differences are not inconsiderable compared with the points of resemblance, and the tale has features which are almost universal (Frazer,Golden Bough, 2nd ed., vol. iii. 351 seq.). On the theory that the historical elements of Joseph’s history refer to an official (Yanhamu) of the time of Amenophis III. and IV., see Cheyne, op. cit., andHibbert Journal, October 1903. That the present form of the narrative has been influenced by current mythological lore is not improbable; on this question see (with caution) Winckler,Gesch. Israels, ii. 67-77 (1900); A. Jeremias,Alte Test., pp. 383 sqq. (1906). It may be added that the Egyptian names in the story of Joseph are characteristic of the XXII. and subsequent dynasties. See, also Meyer and Luther,Die Israeliten(1906), Index,s.v.

(S. A. C.)

1Joseph’s marriage with the daughter of the priest of On might show that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were believed to be half-Egyptian by descent, but it is notoriously difficult to determine how much is of ethnological value and how much belongs to romance (viz. that of the individual Joseph).

JOSEPH,in the New Testament, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He is represented as a descendant of the house of David, and his genealogy appears in two divergent forms in Matt. i. 1-17 and Luke iii. 23-38. The latter is probably much more complete and accurate in details. The former, obviously artificial in structure (notice 3 × 14 generations), traces the Davidic descent through kings, and is governed by an apologetic purpose. Of Joseph’s personal history practically nothing is recorded in the Bible. The facts concerning him common to the two birth-narratives (Matt. i.-ii.; Luke i.-ii.) are: (a) that he was a descendant of David, (b) that Mary was already betrothed to him when she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and (c) that he lived at Nazareth after the birth of Christ; but these facts are handled differently in each case. It is noticeable that, in Matthew, Joseph is prominent (e.g.he receives an annunciation from an angel), while in Luke’s narrative he is completely subordinated. Bp Gore (The Incarnation, Bampton lecture for 1891, p. 78) points out that Matthew narrates everything from Joseph’s side, Luke from Mary’s, and infers that the narrative of the former may ultimately be based on Joseph’s account, that of the latter on Mary’s. The narratives seem to have been current (in a poetical form) among the early Jewish-Christian community of Palestine. At Nazareth Joseph followed the trade of a carpenter (Matt. xiii. 55). It is probable that he had died before the public ministry of Christ; for no mention is made of him in passages relating to this period where the mother and brethren of Jesus areintroduced; and from John xix. 26 it is clear that he was not alive at the time of the Crucifixion.

Joseph was the father of several children (Matt. xiii. 55), but according to ecclesiastical tradition by a former marriage. The reading of Matt. i. 16, in the Sinaitic Palimpsest (Joseph ... begat Jesus, who is called the Christ) also makes him the natural father of Jesus, and this was the view of certain early heretical sects, but it seems never to have been held in orthodox Christian circles. According to various apocryphal gospels (conveniently collected in B. H. Cowper’sThe Apocryphal Gospels, 1881), when married to Mary he was a widower already 80 years of age, and the father of four sons and two daughters; his first wife’s name was Salome and she was a connexion of the family of John the Baptist.

In the Roman Catholic Church the 19th of March has since 1642 been a feast in Joseph’s honour. Two other festivals in his honour have also been established (the Patronage of St Joseph, 3rd Sunday after Easter, and the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, 23rd of January). In December 1870 St Joseph was proclaimed Patron of the whole Church.

(G. H. Bo.)

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHAEA,1in the New Testament, a wealthy Jew who had been converted by Jesus Christ. He is mentioned by the Four Evangelists, who are in substantial agreement concerning him: after the Crucifixion he went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, subsequently prepared it for burial and laid it in a tomb. There are, however, minor differences in the accounts, which have given rise to controversy. Matthew (xxvii. 60) says that the tomb was Joseph’s own; Mark (xv. 43 seq.), Luke (xxiii. 50 seq.) say nothing of this, while John (xix. 41) simply says that the body was laid in a sepulchre “nigh at hand.” Both Mark and Luke say that Joseph was a “councillor” (εὐσχήμων βουλευτής, Mark xv. 43), and the Gospel of Peter describes him as a “friend of Pilate and of the Lord.” This last statement is probably a late invention, and there is considerable difficulty as to “councillor.” That Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin is improbable. Luke indeed, regarding him as such, says that he “had not consented to their counsel and deed,” but Mark (xiv. 64) says thatallthe Sanhedrin “condemned him to be worthy of death.” Perhaps the phrase “noble councillor” is intended to imply merely a man of wealth and position. Again Matthew says that Joseph was a disciple, while Mark implies that he was not yet among the definite adherents of Christ, and John describes him as an adherent “secretly for fear of the Jews.” Most likely he was a disciple, but belonged only to the wider circle of adherents. The account given in the Fourth Gospel suggests that the writer, faced with these various difficulties, assumed a double tradition: (1) that Joseph of Arimathaea, a wealthy disciple, buried the body of Christ; (2) that the person in question was Joseph of Arimathaea a “councillor,” and solved the problem by substituting Nicodemus as the councillor; hence he describes both Joseph and Nicodemus (xix. 39) as co-operating in the burial. Some critics (e.g.Strauss,New Life of Jesus, ch. 96) have thrown doubt upon the story, regarding some of the details as invented to suit the prophecy in Isa. liii. 9, “they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (for various translations, see Hastings’sDict. Bible, ii. 778). But in the absence of any reference to this prophecy in the Gospels, this view is unconvincing, though the correspondence is remarkable.

The striking character of this single appearance of Joseph of Arimathaea led to the rise of numerous legends. Thus William of Malmesbury says that he was sent to Britain by St Philip, and, having received a small island in Somersetshire, there constructed “with twisted twigs” the first Christian church in Britain—afterwards to become the Abbey of Glastonbury. The legend says that his staff, planted in the ground, became a thorn flowering twice a year (seeGlastonbury). This tradition—which is given only as such by Malmesbury himself—is not confirmed, and there is no mention of it in either Gildas or Bede. Joseph also plays a large part in the various versions of the Legend of the Holy Grail (seeGrail, The Holy).

1Generally identified with Ramathaim-Zophim, the city of Elkanah in the hilly district of Ephraim (1 Sam. i. 1), near Diospolis (Lydda). See Euseb.,Onomasticon, 225. 12.

JOSEPH I.(1678-1711), Roman emperor, was the elder son of the emperor Leopold I. and his third wife, Eleanora, countess palatine, daughter of Philip William of Neuburg. Born in Vienna on the 26th of July 1678, he was educated strictly by Prince Dietrich Otto von Salm, and became a good linguist. In 1687 he received the crown of Hungary, and he was elected king of the Romans in 1690. In 1699 he married Wilhelmina Amalia, daughter of Duke Frederick of Brunswick-Lüneburg, by whom he had two daughters. In 1702, on the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, he saw his only military service. He joined the imperial general Louis of Baden in the siege of Landau. It is said that when he was advised not to go into a place of danger he replied that those who were afraid might retire. He succeeded his father as emperor in 1705, and it was his good fortune to govern the Austrian dominions, and to be head of the Empire during the years in which his trusted general Prince Eugène, either acting alone in Italy or with the duke of Marlborough in Germany and Flanders, was beating the armies of Louis XIV. During the whole of his reign Hungary was disturbed by the conflict with Francis Ráckóczy II., who eventually took refuge in France. The emperor did not himself take the field against the rebels, but he is entitled to a large share of the credit for the restoration of his authority. He reversed many of the pedantically authoritative measures of his father, thus placating all opponents who could be pacified, and he fought stoutly for what he believed to be his rights. Joseph showed himself very independent towards the pope, and hostile to the Jesuits, by whom his father had been much influenced. He had the tastes for art and music which were almost hereditary in his family, and was an active hunter. He began the attempts to settle the question of the Austrian inheritance by a pragmatic sanction, which were continued by his brother Charles VI. Joseph died in Vienna on the 17th of April 1711, of small-pox.

See F. Krones von Marchland,Grundriss der Oesterreichischen Geschichte(1882); F. Wagner,Historia Josephi Caesaris(1746); J. C. Herchenhahn,Geschichte der Regierung Kaiser Josephs I.(1786-1789); C. van Noorden,Europäische Geschichte im 18. Jahrhundert(1870-1882).

JOSEPH II.(1741-1790), Roman emperor, eldest son of the empress Maria Theresa and her husband Francis I., was born on the 13th of March 1741, in the first stress of the War of the Austrian Succession. Maria Theresa gave orders that he was only to be taught as if he were amusing himself; the result was that he acquired a habit of crude and superficial study. His real education was given him by the writings of Voltaire and the encyclopaedists, and by the example of Frederick the Great. His useful training was conferred by government officials, who were directed to instruct him in the mechanical details of the administration of the numerous states composing the Austrian dominions and the Empire. In 1761 he was made a member of the newly constituted council of state (Staatsrath) and began to draw up minutes, to which he gave the name of “reveries,” for his mother to read. These papers contain the germs of his later policy, and of all the disasters which finally overtook him. He was a friend to religious toleration, anxious to reduce the power of the church, to relieve the peasantry of feudal burdens, and to remove restrictions on trade and on knowledge. So far he did not differ from Frederick, Catherine of Russia or his own brother and successor Leopold II., all enlightened rulers of the 18th-century stamp. Where Joseph differed from great contemporary rulers, and where he was very close akin to the Jacobins, was in the fanatical intensity of his belief in the power of the state when directed by reason, of his right to speak for the state uncontrolled by laws, and of the reasonableness of his own reasons. Also he had inherited from his mother all the belief of the house of Austria in its “august” quality, and its claim to acquire whatever it found desirable for its power or its profit. He was unable to understand that his philosophical plans for the moulding of mankind could meet with pardonable opposition. The overweening character of the man was obviousto Frederick, who, after their first interview in 1769, described him as ambitious, and as capable of setting the world on fire. The French minister Vergennes, who met Joseph when he was travelling incognito in 1777, judged him to be “ambitious and despotic.”

Until the death of his mother in 1780 Joseph was never quite free to follow his own instincts. After the death of his father in 1765 he became emperor and was made co-regent by his mother in the Austrian dominions. As emperor he had no real power, and his mother was resolved that neither husband nor son should ever deprive her of sovereign control in her hereditary dominions. Joseph, by threatening to resign his place as co-regent, could induce his mother to abate her dislike to religious toleration. He could, and he did, place a great strain on her patience and temper, as in the case of the first partition of Poland and the Bavarian War of 1778, but in the last resort the empress spoke the final word. During these wars Joseph travelled much. He met Frederick the Great privately at Neisse in 1769, and again at Mährisch-Neustadt in 1770. On the second occasion he was accompanied by Prince Kaunitz, whose conversation with Frederick may be said to mark the starting-point of the first partition of Poland. To this and to every other measure which promised to extend the dominions of his house Joseph gave hearty approval. Thus he was eager to enforce its claim on Bavaria upon the death of the elector Maximilian Joseph in 1777. In April of that year he paid a visit to his sister the queen of France (seeMarie Antoinette), travelling under the name of Count Falkenstein. He was well received, and much flattered by the encyclopaedists, but his observations led him to predict the approaching downfall of the French monarchy, and he was not impressed favourably by the army or navy. In 1778 he commanded the troops collected to oppose Frederick, who supported the rival claimant to Bavaria. Real fighting was averted by the unwillingness of Frederick to embark on a new war and by Maria Theresa’s determination to maintain peace. In April 1780 he paid a visit to Catherine of Russia, against the wish of his mother.

The death of Maria Theresa on the 27th of November 1780 left Joseph free. He immediately directed his government on a new course, full speed ahead. He proceeded to attempt to realize his ideal of a wise despotism acting on a definite system for the good of all. The measures of emancipation of the peasantry which his mother had begun were carried on by him with feverish activity. The spread of education, the secularization of church lands, the reduction of the religious orders and the clergy in general to complete submission to the lay state, the promotion of unity by the compulsory use of the German language, everything which from the point of view of 18th-century philosophy appeared “reasonable” was undertaken at once. He strove for administrative unity with characteristic haste to reach results without preparation. His anti-clerical innovations induced Pope Pius VI. to pay him a visit in July 1782. Joseph received the pope politely, and showed himself a good Catholic, but refused to be influenced. So many interferences with old customs began to produce unrest in all parts of his dominions. Meanwhile he threw himself into a succession of foreign policies all aimed at aggrandisement, and all equally calculated to offend his neighbours—all taken up with zeal, and dropped in discouragement. He endeavoured to get rid of the Barrier Treaty, which debarred his Flemish subjects from the navigation of the Scheldt; when he was opposed by France he turned to other schemes of alliance with Russia for the partition of Turkey and Venice. They also had to be given up in the face of the opposition of neighbours, and in particular of France. Then he resumed his attempts to obtain Bavaria—this time by exchanging it for Belgium—and only provoked the formation of theFürstenbundorganized by the king of Prussia. Finally he joined Russia in an attempt to pillage Turkey. It began on his part by an unsuccessful and discreditable attempt to surprise Belgrade in time of peace, and was followed by the ill-managed campaign of 1788. He accompanied his army, but showed no capacity for war. In November he returned to Vienna with ruined health, and during 1789 was a dying man. The concentration of his troops in the east gave the malcontents of Belgium an opportunity to revolt. In Hungary the nobles were all but in open rebellion, and in his other states there were peasant risings, and a revival of particularist sentiments. Joseph was left entirely alone. His minister Kaunitz refused to visit his sick-room, and did not see him for two years. His brother Leopold remained at Florence. At last Joseph, worn out and broken-hearted, recognized that his servants could not, or would not, carry out his plans. On the 30th of January 1790 he formally withdrew all his reforms, and he died on the 20th of February.

Joseph II. was twice married, first to Isabella, daughter of Philip, duke of Parma, to whom he was attached. After her death on the 27th of November 1763, a political marriage was arranged with Josepha (d. 1767), daughter of Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria (the emperor Charles VII.). It proved extremely unhappy. Joseph left no children, and was succeeded by his brother Leopold II.

Many volumes of the emperor’s correspondence have been published. Among them areMaria Theresia und Joseph II. Ihre Korrespondenz samt Briefen Josephs an seinen Bruder Leopold(1867-1868);Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana. Ihr Briefwechsel 1781-1790(1872);Joseph II. und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel(1869); andMaria Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. Ihr Briefwechsel(1866); all edited by A. Ritter von Arneth. Other collections are:Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz. Ihr Briefwechsel, edited by A. Beer (1873);Correspondances intimes de l’empereur Joseph II. avec son ami, le comte de Cobenzl et son premier ministre, le prince de Kaunitz, edited by S. Brunner (1871);Joseph II. und Graf Ludwig Cobenzl. Ihr Briefwechsel, edited by A. Beer and J. von Fiedler (1901); and theGeheime Korrespondenz Josephs II. mit seinem Minister in den Oesterreichischen Niederlanden, Ferdinand Graf Trauttmannsdorff 1787-1789, edited by H. Schlitter (1902). Among the lives of Joseph may be mentioned: A. J. Gross-Hoffinger,Geschichte Josephs II.(1847); C. Paganel,Histoire de Joseph II.(1843; German translation by F. Köhler, 1844); H. Meynert,Kaiser Joseph II.(1862); A. Beer,Joseph II.(1882); A. Jäger,Kaiser Joseph II. und Leopold II.(1867); A. Fournier,Joseph II.(1885); and J. Wendrinski,Kaiser Joseph II.(1880). There is a useful small volume on the emperor by J. Franck Bright (1897). Other books which may be consulted are: G. Wolf,Das Unterrichtswesen in Oesterreich unter Joseph II.(1880), andOesterreich und Preussen 1780-1790(1880), A. Wolf and H. von Zwiedeneck-Südenhorst,Oesterreich unter Maria Theresia, Joseph II. und Leopold II.(1882-1884); H. Schlitter,Die Regierung Josephs II. in den Oesterreichischen Niederlanden(1900); andPius VI. und Joseph II. 1782-1784(1894); O. Lorenz,Joseph II. und die Belgische Revolution(1862); and L. Delplace,Joseph II. et la révolution brabançonne(1890).

JOSEPH, FATHER(François Leclerc du Tremblay) (1577-1638), French Capuchin monk, the confidant of Richelieu, was the eldest son of Jean Leclerc du Tremblay, president of the chamber of requests of the parlement of Paris, and of Marie Motier de Lafayette. As a boy he received a careful classical training, and in 1595 made an extended journey through Italy, returning to take up the career of arms. He served at the siege of Amiens in 1597, and then accompanied a special embassy to London. In 1599 Baron de Mafflier, by which name he was known at court, renounced the world and entered the Capuchin monastery of Orleans. He embraced the religious life with great ardour, and became a notable preacher and reformer. In 1606 he aided Antoinette d’Orléans, a nun of Fontevrault, to found the reformed order of the Filles du Calvaire, and wrote a manual of devotion for the nuns. His proselytizing zeal led him to send missionaries throughout the Huguenot centres—he had become provincial of Touraine in 1613. He entered politics at the conferences of Loudun, when, as the confidant of the queen and the papal envoy, he opposed the Gallican claims advanced by the parlement, which the princes were upholding, and succeeded in convincing them of the schismatic tendency of Gallicanism. In 1612 he began those personal relations with Richelieu which have indissolubly joined in history and legend the cardinal and the “Eminence grise,” relations which research has not altogether made clear. In 1627 the monk assisted at the siege of La Rochelle. A purely religious reason also made him Richelieu’s ally against the Habsburgs. He had a dream of arousing Europe to another crusade against the Turks, andbelieved that the house of Austria was the obstacle to that universal European peace which would make this possible. As Richelieu’s agent, therefore, this modern Peter the Hermit manœuvred at the diet of Regensburg (1630) to thwart the aggression of the emperor, and then advised the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus, reconciling himself to the use of Protestant armies by the theory that one poison would counteract another. Thus the monk became a war minister, and, though maintaining a personal austerity of life, gave himself up to diplomacy and politics. He died in 1638, just as the cardinalate was to be conferred upon him. The story that Richelieu visited him when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words, “Courage, Father Joseph, we have won Breisach,” is apocryphal.

See Fagniez,Le Père Joseph et Richelieu(1894), a work based largely on original and unpublished sources. Father Joseph, according to this biography, would seem not to have lectured Richelieu in the fashion of the legends, whatever his moral influence may have been in strengthening Richelieu’s hands.

JOSEPHINE(Marie Rose Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie) (1763-1814), empress of the French, was born in the island of Martinique on the 23rd of June 1763, being the eldest of three daughters of Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, lieutenant of artillery. Her beauty and grace, though of a languid Creole style, won the affections of the young officer the vicomte de Beauharnais, and, after some family complications, she was married to him. Their married life was not wholly happy, the frivolity of Josephine occasioning her husband anxiety and jealousy. Two children, Eugène and Hortense, were the fruit of the union. During Josephine’s second residence in Martinique, whither she proceeded to tend her mother, occurred the first troubles with the slaves, which resulted from the precipitate action of the constituent assembly in emancipating them. She returned to her husband, who at that time entered into political life at Paris. Her beauty and vivacity won her many admirers in the salons of the capital. As the Revolution ran its course her husband, as an ex-noble, incurred the suspicion and hostility of the Jacobins; and his ill-success at the head of a French army on the Rhine led to his arrest and execution. Thereafter Josephine was in a position of much perplexity and some hardship, but the friendship of Barras and of Madame Tallien, to both of whom she was then much attached, brought her into notice, and she was one of the queens of Parisian society in the year 1795, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s services to the French convention in scattering the malcontents of the capital (13 Vendémiaire, or October 5, 1795) brought him to the front. There is a story that she became known to Napoleon through a visit paid to him by her son Eugène in order to beg his help in procuring the restoration of his father’s sword, but it rests on slender foundations. In any case, it is certain that Bonaparte, however he came to know her, was speedily captivated by her charms. She, on her side, felt very little affection for the thin, impecunious and irrepressible suitor; but by degrees she came to acquiesce in the thought of marriage, her hesitations, it is said, being removed by the influence of Barras and by the nomination of Bonaparte to the command of the army of Italy. The civil marriage took place on the 9th of March 1796, two days before the bridegroom set out for his command. He failed to induce her to go with him to Nice and Italy.

Bonaparte’s letters to Josephine during the campaign reveal the ardour of his love, while she rarely answered them. As he came to realize her shallowness and frivolity his passion cooled; but at the time when he resided at Montebello (near Milan) in 1797 he still showed great regard for her. During his absence in Egypt in 1798-1799, her relations to an officer, M. Charles, were most compromising; and Bonaparte on his return thought of divorcing her. Her tears and the entreaties of Eugène and Hortense availed to bring about a reconciliation; and during the period of the consulate (1799-1804) their relations were on the whole happy, though Napoleon’s conduct now gave his consort grave cause for concern. His brothers and sisters more than once begged him to divorce Josephine, and it is known that, from the time when he became first consul for life (August 1802) with large powers over the choice of a successor, he kept open the alternative of a divorce. Josephine’s anxieties increased on the proclamation of the Empire (May 18, 1804); and on the 1st of December 1804, the eve of the coronation at Notre Dame, she gained her wish that she should be married anew to Napoleon with religious rites. Despite her care, the emperor procured the omission of one formality, the presence of the parish priest; but at the coronation scene Josephine appeared radiant with triumph over her envious relatives. The august marriages contracted by her children Eugène and Hortense seemed to establish her position; but her ceaseless extravagance and, above all, the impossibility that she should bear a son strained the relations between Napoleon and Josephine. She complained of his infidelities and growing callousness. The end came in sight after the campaign of 1809, when Napoleon caused the announcement to be made to her that reasons of state compelled him to divorce her. Despite all her pleadings he held to his resolve. The most was made of the slight technical irregularity at the marriage ceremony of the 1st of December 1804; and the marriage was declared null and void.

At her private retreat, La Malmaison, near Paris, which she had beautified with curios and rare plants and flowers, Josephine closed her life in dignified retirement. Napoleon more than once came to consult her upon matters in which he valued her tact and good sense. Her health declined early in 1814, and after his first abdication (April 11, 1814) it was clear that her end was not far off. The emperor Alexander of Russia and Frederick William III. of Prussia, then in Paris, requested an interview with her. She died on the 24th of May 1814. Her friends, Mme de Rémusat and others, pointed out that Napoleon’s good fortune deserted him after the divorce; and it is certain that the Austrian marriage clogged him in several ways. Josephine’s influence was used on behalf of peace and moderation both in internal and in foreign affairs. Thus she begged Napoleon not to execute the duc d’Enghien and not to embroil himself in Spanish affairs in 1808.

See M. A. Le Normand,Mémoires historiques et secrets de Joséphine(2 vols., 1820);Lettres de Napoléon à Joséphine(1833); J. A. Aubenas,Hist. de l’impératrice Joséphine(2 vols., 1858-1859); J. Turquan,L’Impératrice Joséphine(2 vols., 1895-1896); F. Masson,Joséphine(3 vols., 1899-1902);Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine(1796-1812), translated and edited by H. F. Hall (1903). Also theMemoirs ofMme. de Rémusat and of Bausset, and P. W. Sergeant,The Empress Josephine(1908).

(J. Hl. R.)

JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS(c.37-c.95?), Jewish historian and military commander, was born in the first year of Caligula (37-38). His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly families, and through his mother he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan. A precocious student of the Law, he made trial of the three sects of Judaism—Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes—before he reached the age of nineteen. Then, having spent three years in the desert with the hermit Banus, who was presumably an Essene, he became a Pharisee. In 64 he went to Rome to intercede on behalf of some priests, his friends, whom the procurator Felix had sent to render account to Caesar for some insignificant offence. Making friends with Alityrus, a Jewish actor, who was a favourite of Nero, Josephus obtained an introduction to the empress Poppaea and effected his purpose by her help. His visit to Rome enabled him to speak from personal experience of the power of the Empire, when he expostulated with the revolutionary Jews on his return to Palestine. But they refused to listen; and he, with all the Jews who did not fly the country, was dragged into the great rebellion of 66. In company with two other priests, Josephus was sent to Galilee under orders (he says) to persuade the ill-affected to lay down their arms and return to the Roman allegiance, which the Jewish aristocracy had not yet renounced. Having sent his two companions back to Jerusalem, he organized the forces at his disposal, and made arrangements for the government of his province. His obvious desire to preserve law and order excited the hostility of John of Giscala, who endeavoured vainly to remove him as a traitor to the nationalcause by inciting the Galileans to kill him and by persuading the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem to recall him.

In the spring of 67 the Jewish troops, whom Josephus had drilled so sedulously, fled before the Roman forces of Vespasian and Titus. He sent to Jerusalem for reinforcements, but none came. With the stragglers who remained, he held a stronghold against the Romans by dint of his native cunning, and finally, when the place was taken, persuaded forty men, who shared his hiding-place, to kill one another in turn rather than commit suicide. They agreed to cast lots, on the understanding that the second should kill the first and so on. Josephus providentially drew the last lot and prevailed upon his destined victim to live. Their companions were all dead in accordance with the compact; but Josephus at any rate survived and surrendered. Being led before Vespasian, he was inspired to prophesy that Vespasian would become emperor. In consequence of the prophecy his life was spared, but he was kept close prisoner for two years. When his prophecy was fulfilled he was liberated, assumed the name of Flavius, the family name of Vespasian, and accompanied his patron to Alexandria. There he took another wife, as the Jewess allotted him by Vespasian after the fall of Caesarea had forsaken him, and returned to attend Titus and to act as intermediary between him and the Jews who still held Jerusalem. His efforts in this capacity failed; but when the city was stormed (70) Titus granted him whatever boon he might ask. So he secured the lives of some free men who had been taken and (by the gift of Titus) certain sacred books. After this he repaired to Rome and received one of the pensions, which Vespasian (according to Suetonius) was the first to bestow upon Latin and Greek writers. He was also made a Roman citizen and received an estate in Judaea. Thenceforward he devoted himself to literary work under the patronage of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. As he mentions the death of Agrippa II. it is probable that he lived into the 2nd century; but the date of Agrippa’s death has been challenged and, if his patron Epaphroditus may be identified with Nero’s freedman, it is possible that Josephus may have been involved in his fall and perished under Domitian in 95.

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