“The
Christian writer Clement of Alexandria … claimed that the Greek author
Democritus (ca. 460–370 b.c.e.) plagiarized from a stele of Ahiqar (tēn Akikarou stēlēn [Str. 1.69, 4]).
In
this connection, the Persian Muslim philosopher Shahrastani (1071–1153), in a
collection of sayings from Democritus, cites three sayings which agree very
closely with proverbs from the versions of Ahiqar”.
Anchor Bible
Dictionary
Ioannis M. Konstantakos in his
scholarly article, “The Tale of Ahiqar
and the Vita Aesopi” (Akicharos, vol. 3), draws “point-by point comparison between
the Vita’s Babylonian section and the main extant versions of Ahiqar”:
On p. 1 he writes:
The
so-called Vita Aesopi (or Aesop Romance) is an extensive fictional narrative concerning the
life and adventures of Aesop, the legendary fabulist. The original work,
composed sometime between the 1st c. B.C. and the 2nd c. A.D., has not survived
to the present. Among extant redactions, the G (transmitted by one manuscript
of the 10th/11th c.) is the older one and represents more faithfully the original
text. The W version, compiled in the early Byzantine period, is briefer and secondary;
nonetheless, it preserves some authentic elements which have been lost or
distorted in the G. A number of papyrus fragments (dating from the 2nd/3rd to the
7th c. A.D.) offer variant texts, not entirely identical either to the G or to
the W. This suggests that the Vita was enjoying a complex and fluid tradition already in late
antiquity. Part of the Vita (§§ 101-123, the so-called “Babylonian section”) is based
on the Near-Eastern Tale of Ahiqar.
Other
recent theories (by F. R. Adrados and S. Schirru), attempting to trace the core
of the Vita back to the Hellenistic age or the 5th c. B.C., are not
based on compelling arguments. The presence of Cynic elements in the narrative
fully accords with the flourishing of Cynicism in the early Imperial period and
the influence of its ideas and literary forms on authors of that time. The Vita illustrates many customs and
realities of life prevalent in the Roman age. Aristophanes cannot have known
anything remotely resembling the Vita Aesopi in its present form. Apparent echoes of Ahiqar’s story
in the Birds are to be explained as products of a different line of
transmission.
There
is no consensus as to the identity and provenance of the creator of the original
work (the “Vita-Author”, as he will be called here for convenience). B.
E. Perry argued that he was Egyptian, but on unconvincing grounds: the cult of
Isis, who plays a capital role in the early phase of the plot, was widespread
around the Mediterranean; popular tales about the Pharaoh Nectanebo had
infiltrated the Greek tradition since Hellenistic times and may well have
circulated outside Egypt. The Vita-Author was not an enemy of Hellenic learning. He was an
educated man, with access to Greek literary and philosophical works. His satire
against the pedantic philosopher Xanthos and his insipid disciples belongs to a
thriving Greek tradition of anti-philosophical lampoons, extending from the Clouds to Lucian. Antonio La Penna, on the
other hand, proposed that the creator of the Vita
stemmed from Syria, like other
writers of that time maintaining an interest in Aesopic lore (Lucian, Babrios
etc.). However, the Vita-Author’s use of Ahiqar
does not imply anything about his
geographical origins. The Tale of Ahiqar was available in Greek since the early Hellenistic
period and was also current in Demotic Egyptian and Aramaic. In any case, the Vita-Author appears to have been keenly
interested in Egypt and knowledgeable about its culture ….
The
present study offers a detailed, point-by-point comparison between the Vita’s Babylonian section and the main
extant versions of Ahiqar: both the earliest Aramaic text (from the 5th-c.
papyrus of Elephantine) and the most notable later recensions, which circulated
in various languages during late antiquity and the Middle Ages (Syriac,
Armenian, Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Old Slavonic, Ethiopic, Old Turkish, Romanian).
In this way, the form of Ahiqar known and exploited by the Vita-Author can be reconstructed. It
also becomes possible to trace the changes made by the Vita-Author to his model, discover the
reasons that dictated them, and investigate how the story of Ahiqar was
organically integrated into the Greek work. We may thus better appreciate the Vita-Author’s writing practices and compositional
techniques, as well as examine the construction of the Vita as a coherent whole.
On p. 59, Ioannis
M. Konstantakos begins to conclude:
….
Many sayings of Aesop correspond to items of the Elephantine collection or of
the first sequence in the later oriental recensions. In most cases the similarities
concern only the content, a common moral theme or basic idea. Frequently,
however, the Greek and the oriental maxim also share common modes of
expression, e.g. keywords, similar combinations of terms, or comparable syntax patterns.
In some maxims the similarities extend to more developed formations, such as
figures of speech, similes, parallelisms, metaphors and imagery. Sometimes the
same distinctive combination of themes or ideas underlies both Aesop’s and Ahiqar’s
saying, bringing them close despite their divergent wording. Finally, in a few
instances there are strong similarities in phrasing and vocabulary, clearly indicating
that the Greek maxim is a rendering or paraphrase of the oriental one. On the
contrary, the sayings of the Vita which find no equivalent at all in any version of Ahiqar are very few: only three such
examples occur in the fullest collection (P.Oxy. 3720), and one of them is too
lacunose to discern its actual meaning or theme.
It
is thus clear that the maxims of Vita §§ 109-110 are derived from Ahiqar, presumably from the model version
used by the Vita-Author. In most cases the wording or ideology of the
oriental prototype has been freely altered, but an essential thematic and
formal connection to the original saying is retained. The parallels to Aesop’s
sayings are found only in the first sequence of the later recensions, as well
as in those maxims of Elephantine that belong to the same genre (i.e. moral
precepts or apophthegms of general truth). ….
[End of quotes]
Here are two other examples of this
theme of the Greeks (Aesop) having plagiarised Ahiqar:
....
Art. XIII.—Contributions to the History of Aḥiḳar and Nadan
M. Gaster
The history of Aḥiḳar and his
nephew Nadan forms part of Eastern popular literature. When publishing my
history of Roumanian popular literature seventeen years ago (Bucureesti, 1883)
I devoted a special chapter to the Roumanian versions of this history (pp.
104–114). I was the first to recognize the connection between the Roumanian and
Slavonic versions and those contained in the Arabian Nights. I then drew
attention to the intimate relation between this legend and that which has
entered the Greek life of Æsop. Since that time scholars have paid much
attention to this legend, especially as through Meissner's studies it is being
considered as one of the lost Apocrypha mentioned already in the Book of Tobit.
....
Damien Mackey’s comment: “Aḥiḳar
and his nephew Nadan”, above, I have identified as, respectively, the Book of
Judith’s “Achior” and “Holofernes”. See e.g. my article:
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
The next excerpt has been taken
from The Anchor Bible Dictionary:
.... Several ancient writers
mention a character whose name closely resembles that of Ahiqar; they may be
referring to the hero of the book (Harris, Lewis, Conybeare APOT 2:
715–17; Küchler 1979: 344–46; Lindenberger OTP 2: 491). The Christian
writer Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215) claimed that the Greek author
Democritus (ca. 460–370 b.c.e.) plagiarized from a stele of Ahiqar (tēn
Akikarou stēlēn [Str. 1.69, 4]). In this connection, the Persian
Muslim philosopher Shahrastani (1071–1153), in a collection of sayings from
Democritus, cites three sayings which agree very closely with proverbs from the
versions of Ahiqar. Strabo (ca. 63 b.c.e.–23 c.e.), in his Geography 16,2,39,
gives from Poseidonius (135–51 b.c.e.) the names of famous seers; among them he
names Achaikaros as being among the people from the Bosporus. It has
been suggested that Bosporus is an error for Borsippa, so that
the Mesopotamian savant could be intended (Harris, Lewis, Conybeare APOT
2: 716). This must be regarded, however, as quite uncertain. Diogenes Laertius
(3d century c.e.) provides a list of the works by Theophrastus (372–287
b.c.e.), among which is one named Akicharosa. If all of these intend the
Ahiqar known from the story and proverbs, they show that his fame, especially
as a dispenser of wise words, was early and spread over a wider area than the
Semitic world. The same could be concluded from the fact that the Greek Life
of Aesop borrows heavily from the story and proverbs of Ahiqar in chaps.
23–32. It has also been suggested that Ahiqar’s name should be restored on the
3d-century c.e. Roman mosaic of Monnus in Trier. In it there are 9 octagonal
sections in each of which are pictured a Muse with a symbol of the art with
which she is connected and an expert in that art or founder of it. In the
section for Polymnia, the Muse often associated with dance and mime, is a
figure only part of whose name is preserved. The letters -icar could
well be part of Acicarus or Ahiqar (Lindenberger OTP 2: 492), though
combining him with Polymnia is surprising (Küchler 1979: 352–55). ....
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