Ask the Texts: What did Josephus think of Jesus as Messiah?
Each answer provided by Ask the Texts is built by searching directly through Appian Way Press's translations and revisions of early Christian writings.
What did Josephus think of Jesus as Messiah?
The provided excerpts present differing interpretations among early Christian writers regarding what Josephus thought of Jesus as Messiah.
Hermias Sozomen, in A History of the Church in Nine Books, indicates that Josephus "openly calls Him Christ" and "hesitates to call Him merely a man because of the marvelous works He performed and His teaching of truthful doctrines." Sozomen further states that Josephus "records that Christ was condemned to death by crucifixion and appeared alive again on the third day." According to Sozomen, Josephus "was not unaware of the many other wonderful predictions made beforehand by the holy prophets about Christ" and "further testifies that Christ won over many followers, both Greeks and Jews, who continued to love Him, and that the people named after Him had not disappeared." Sozomen concludes that Josephus "almost seems to declare that Christ, judged by His works, is God" and "took a middle path, neither attacking those who believed in Jesus nor opposing them, but rather agreeing with them." Sozomen also interprets Josephus as having "foretold the time of Christ’s coming when he said, 'the rulers of the Hebrews of the tribe of Judah, the tribal leader, shall fail,'” which Sozomen links to the reign of Herod.
Conversely, Origen of Alexandria, in Against Celsus, explicitly states that Josephus "disbelieved in Jesus as the Christ." Origen notes that Josephus "testifies about John as a baptizer who promised purification to those who were baptized." However, Origen points out that Josephus, despite his disbelief in Jesus as the Christ, "sought the reason for the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple." Origen suggests that Josephus "should say that the plot against Jesus was the cause of these events for the people, since they killed the prophesied Christ," but instead, Josephus "as if unwilling, says that these things happened to the Jews as a punishment for James the Just, who was the brother of 'Jesus called Christ,' because they killed him, being a very righteous man."
Therefore, while Josephus is presented as having recorded events concerning Jesus, including his crucifixion and reported resurrection, and referring to him as "Christ," the excerpts offer conflicting views on whether Josephus personally believed Jesus to be the Messiah.
 |
Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus: Contra Celsum
Origen of Alexandria’s monumental apologetic work, Contra Celsum (Against Celsus), written around 248 AD, systematically refutes the arguments of the pagan philosopher Celsus, who had criticized Christianity in his work The True Word.
|
 |
Hermias Sozomen, A History of the Church in Nine Books: Historia Ecclesiastica
Hermias Sozomen’s *Historia Ecclesiastica*, written in the fifth century, offers a vital and detailed account of the Christian Church’s transformation during the fourth century, spanning the reigns of Constantine to Theodosius I.
|
Enjoying Ask the Texts? Subscribe to get new issues by email.
This answer was generated on September 26, 2026 using a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system built on Appian Way Press's own translations and revisions of early Christian writings, with the gemini-2.5-flash language model producing the final answer text from the retrieved passages.
Copyright © 2026 Rick Brannan
