Ahiqar, Aesop and Lokman

Ahiqar and Aesop

 

Part Two:

Ahiqar, Aesop and Lokman

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

“Now concerning this Lokman, the commentators and the critics have diligently thrown their brains about. The former have disputed whether Lokman was an inspired prophet or merely a philosopher and have decided against his inspiration: and they have given him a noble lineage, some saying that he was sister's son to Job, and others that he was nephew to Abraham, and lived until the time of Jonah”.

F. C. Conybeare et al.

 

According to these authors, “… the legend of Ahikar was known to Mohammed, and … he has used it in a certain Sura of the Koran”.

First of all, there was no historical Mohammed - ‘he’, as a single historical entity supposedly of the C7th AD is as dead as a doornail. See e.g. my article:

 

Prophet Jonah, Nineveh, and Mohammed

 

https://www.academia.edu/30409779/Prophet_Jonah_Nineveh_and_Mohammed

 

noting that Mohammed claimed to be a ‘brother of the prophet Jonah’, an anomalous historical mish-mash as crazy as the above suggestion that “Lokman … was nephew to Abraham, and lived until the time of Jonah”.

But, then, why not? That would make Lokman only something like a thousand years old!

A veritable spring chicken.

 

“The Story of Ahiqar” by F. C. Conybeare et al. does make some interesting connections, however – Ahiqar/Aesop and Lokman:

http://archive.org/stream/TheStoryOfAhikar/Ahikar_djvu.txt

 

....

ON THE USE OF THE LEGEND OF AHIKAR IN THE

KORAN AND ELSEWHERE.

 

We pass on, in the next place, to point out that the legend of Ahikar was known to Mohammed, and that he has used it in a certain Sura of the Koran.

 

There is nothing a priori improbable in this, for the Koran is full of Jewish Haggada and Christian legends, and where such sources are not expressly mentioned, they may often be detected by consulting the commentaries upon the Koran in obscure passages. For example, the story of Abimelech and the basket of figs, which appears in the Last Words of Baruch, is carried over into the Koran, as we have shown in our preface to the Apocryphon in question. It will be interesting if we can add another volume to Mohammed's library, or to the library of the teacher from whom he derived so many of his legends.

 

The 31st Sura of the Koran is entitled Lokman (Luqman) and it contains the following account of a sage of that name.

 

* We heretofore bestowed wisdom on Lokman and commanded him, saying, Be thou thankful unto God: for whoever is thankful, shall be thankful to the advantage of his own soul: and if any shall be unthankful, verily God is self-sufficient and worthy to be praised. And remember when Lokman said unto his son, as he admonished him.  

….

 

O my son, Give not a partner unto God, for polytheism is a great impiety.

 

♦ ♦♦♦♦♦

 

O my son, verily every matter, whether good or bad, though it be of the weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and be hidden in a rock, or in the heavens, God will bring the same to light: for God is clear-sighted and knowing.

 

O my son, be constant at prayer, and command that which is just, and forbid that which is evil, and be patient under the afflictions that shall befall thee: for this is a duty absolutely incumbent upon all men.

 

♦ ♦♦#♦♦

 

And be moderate in thy pace, and lower thy voice, for the most ungrateful of all voices surely is the voice of asses.'

 

♦ ♦♦#♦♦

 

Now concerning this Lokman, the commentators and the critics have diligently thrown their brains about.

The former have disputed whether Lokman was an inspired prophet or merely a philosopher and have decided against his inspiration: and they have given him a noble lineage, some saying that he was sister's son to Job, and others that he was nephew to Abraham, and lived until the time of Jonah. Others have said that he was an African: slave. It will not escape the reader's notice that the term sister's son to Job, to which should be added nephew of Abraham, is the proper equivalent of the [€f aSeX^o?] by which Nadan and Ahikar are described in the Tobit legends.

Job, moreover, is singularly like Tobit.

That he lived till the time of Jonah reminds one of the destruction of Nineveh as described in the book of Tobit, in accordance with Jonah's prophecy. Finally the African slave is singularly like Aesop … who is a black man and a slave in the Aesop legends. From all of which it appears as if the Arabic Commentators were identifying Lokman with Ahikar on the one hand and with Aesop on the other; i.e. with two characters whom we have already shown to be identical.

 

The identification with Aesop is confirmed by the fact that many of the fables ascribed to Aesop in the west are referred to Lokman in the east: thus Sale says: —

 

'The Commentators mention several quick repartees of Luqman which agree so well with what Maximus Planudes has written of Aesop, that from thence and from the fables attributed to Luqman by the Orientals, the latter has been generally thought to be no other than the Aesop of the Greeks. However that may be (for I think the matter may bear a dispute) I am of opinion that Planudes borrowed a great part of his life of Aesop from the traditions he met with in the east concerning Luqman, concluding them to have been the same person ….

 

These remarks of Sale are confirmed by our observation that the Aesop story is largely a modification of the Ahikar legend, taken with the suggestion which we derive from the Mohammedan commentators, who seem to connect Lokman with Tobit on the one hand and with Aesop on the other.

 

Now let us turn to the Sura of the Koran which bears the name Lokman, and examine it internally: we remark (i) that he bears the name of sage, precisely as Ahikar does: (ii) that he is a teacher of ethics to his son, using Ahikar's formula ' ya bani ' in teaching him : (iii) although at first sight the matter quoted by Mohammed does not appear to be taken from Ahikar, there are curious traces of dependence. We may especially compare the following from Ahikar: ' O my son, bend thy head low and soften thy voice and be courteous and walk in the straight path and be not foolish And raise not thy voice when thou laughest, for were it by a loud voice that a house was built, the ass would build many houses every day.'

 

Clearly Mohammed has been using Ahikar, and apparently from memory, unless we like to assume that the passage in the Koran is the primitive form for Ahikar, rather than the very forcible figure in our published texts. Mohammed has also mixed up Ahikar's teaching with his own, for some of the sentences which he attributes to Lokman appear elsewhere in the Koran. But this does not disturb the argument. From all sides tradition advises us to equate Lokman with Aesop and Ahikar, and the Koran confirms the equation. The real difficulty is to determine the derivation of the names of Lokman and Aesop from Ahikar ….

 

Some of the Moslem traditions referred to above may be found in Al Masudi c. 4 : ' There was in the country of Ailah and Midian a sage named Lokman, who was the son of Auka, the son of Mezid, the son of Sar ….

 

….

 

Another curious point in connexion with the Moslem traditions is the discussion whether Loqman was or was not a prophet.

This discussion cannot have been borrowed from a Greek source, for the idea which is involved in the debate is a Semitic idea.

But it is a discussion which was almost certain to arise, whether Lokman of whom Mohammed writes so approvingly had any special … as a prophet, because Mohammed is the seal of the prophets.

 

And it seems from what Sale says on the subject, that the Moslem doctors decided the question in the negative; Lokman * received from God wisdom and eloquence in a high degree, which some pretend were given him in a vision, on his making choice of wisdom preferably to the gift of prophecy, either of which was offered him.' Thus the Moslem verdict was that Lokman was a sage and not a prophet.

 

On the other hand it should be noticed that there are reasons for believing that he was regarded in some circles and probably from the earliest times as a prophet. The fact of his teaching in aphorisms is of no weight against this classification: for the Hebrew Bible has two striking instances of exactly similar character, in both of which the sage appears as prophet. Thus Prov. XXX. begins :

 

* The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy*

 

and Prov. xxxi begins :

 

*The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.'

 

Both of these collections appear to be taken from popular tales*, and they are strikingly like to the sentences of Ahikar.

 

….

 

The legend of Ahikar has also had an influence upon other books of a similar type, where story-telling and the enforcement of ethical maxims are combined. Such a case is the Story of Syntipas the Philosopher, a late Greek translation of a Syriac text, of which the date of composition is uncertain, as also whether it was primitively composed in Syriac or in some other language ….

 

There was an Arabic form of this story extant as early as 956 A.D., and the diffusion of the collection of tales is phenomenal in later times.

 

The opening of the story is as follows :

 

'There was once a king whose name was Cyrus. He had seven wives; but had become old and had no son. Then He arose and prayed, and vowed a vow and anointed himself.

And it pleased God to give him a son. The boy grew and shot up like a cedar …. Then he gave him over to learn wisdom and he was three years with his teacher, without however learning anything.'

 

The opening of the story is common matter to an Eastern novelist, but there are allusions which betray the use of a model of composition. To put Ahikar into the form Cyrus was not difficult in view of the Slavonic Akyrios for the same name; 'seven wives' is the modification of a later age on the original * sixty wives ' of Ahikar ; but what is conclusive for the use of the earlier legend is the remark that the king's son ' shot up like a cedar.' Thus we have in the Arabic version, 'Nadan grew big and walked, shooting up like a tall cedar,' and in the final re-proaches of the sage, ' My boy! I brought thee up with the best upbringing and trained thee like a tall cedar.' So that Ahikar is as truly a model for Syntipas as he was for Tobit [sic].

 

At the conclusion of the Syntipas legends, when the young man is solving all the hard ethical problems that his father proposes to him, we again find a trace of Ahikar, for he speaks of the 'insatiate eye which as long as it sees wealth is so ardent after it that he regards not God, until in death the earth covers his eyes.' And amongst the sayings of Ahikar we find one to the effect that * the eye of man is as a fountain, and it will never be satisfied with wealth until it is filled with dust.' Dr Dillon points out that this is one of the famous sayings of Mohammed, and if that be so, we have one more loan from Ahikar in the Koran.

 

Cf Sura 102, 'The emulous desire of multiplying [riches and children] employeth you, until ye visit the graves.' ….

 

Aspects of Deborah story absorbed into Egyptian Neith mythology

 

Neith a goddess

of great antiquity

 

Part Two: Aspects of Deborah story absorbed into Egyptian Neith mythology

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“One of the features of Neith worship, according to Herodotus, was a great festival known as the Feast of Lamps, during which her devotees all through the night kept numerous lights burning. So we have Neith, who is worshipped at the House of the Bee with a festival of torches, and Deborah, “the Bee” who is married to “torches” [Lapidoth]. A coincidence?

 

Gary Greenberg

 

 

By far the majority of the ancient pagan gods, we have found, had their origins in antediluvian heroes or villains. But this does not mean that the mythology associated with any one of them was incapable also of absorbing, or appropriating, much later literary aspects.

 

The goddess Athene (Athena), for instance - {the Greek version of Neith: “Among the festivals confirmed in Greek papyri for Athena-Neith at Sais is the festival of lamps (Lychnocaia) …”}: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312531134_The_Illumination_of_Lamps_Lychnokaia_for_Neith_in_SaisEsna_in_Greco-Roman_Egypt - plays a part in Homer’s The Odyssey that I think has been dragged straight out of the Book of Tobit. See e.g. my article:

 

Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit

 

https://www.academia.edu/8914220/Similarities_to_The_Odyssey_of_the_Books_of_Job_and_Tobit

 

There I noted:

 

The ‘Divine’ Messenger

 

From whom the son, especially, receives help during his travels.

 

In the Book of Tobit, this messenger is the angel Raphael (in the guise of “Azarias”).

In The Odyssey, it is the goddess Athene (in the guise of “Mentes”).

 

 

Now, Gary Greenberg has convincingly proposed that a part of the account of the biblical Deborah can be discerned in some of the Neith mythology:

http://ggreenberg.tripod.com/writings/w-neith-deb.htm

 

Neith and the Two Biblical Deborahs:

One and the Same 

….

[Neith's] role as both mother goddess and warrior is most evident from the Hymn to Neith preserved at the Esna temple, where she is quoted as saying:

 

“An august god will come into being today. When he opens his eyes, light will come into being; when he closes them, darkness will come into being. People will come into being from the tears of his eye, gods from the spittle of his lips. I will strengthen him by my strength, I will make him effective by my efficacy, I will, make him vigorous by my vigor. His children will rebel against him, but they will be beaten on his behalf and struck down on his behalf, for he is my son issued from my body, and he will be king of this land forever. I will protect him with my arms . . .. I am going to tell you his name: It will be Khepri in the morning and Atum in the evening; and he will be the radiating god in his rising forever, in his name of Re, every day.”

 

Compare elements of this hymn with the Song of Deborah.

 

1. Deborah and Neith both talk about their role as a mother;
2. Deborah and Neith each talk about how their actions led to an increase in population;
3. In both stories we find a rebellion of new gods battling against heaven;
4. In both stories, the mother, in her role as mother, promise to intervene in the fighting;
5. In both stories, the mother fights on the side of the chief deity;
6. In both stories there is talk about the enemy being struck down; and
7. In both stories the side representing the chief deity wins.

 

Additionally, we note that in the prose version, Barak is made effective by Deborah’s participation, and, in the Hymn to Neith, Re was made effective and vigorous by the actions of the goddess.

 

One difference between the two stories is that the Neith is identified as the mother of the chief deity, but the child of Deborah is not named. This is not surprising given the monotheistic nature of Hebrew religion. Permitting a character to have too close a resemblance to the chief Egyptian deity would be highly offensive.

 

Although we don’t know the name of Deborah’s child, we do know the names of the only two persons with a close relation to her. Her husband’s name, Lapidoth, translates as “torches”. Barak’s name means “lightening.” Both of these names are interesting in connection with the iconography of Neith.

 

One of the features of Neith worship, according to Herodotus, was a great festival known as the Feast of Lamps, during which her devotees all through the night kept numerous lights burning. So we have Neith, who is worshipped at the House of the Bee with a festival of torches, and Deborah, “the Bee” who is married to “torches”. A coincidence?

 

Perhaps, but certainly very suggestive of a close mythological relationship.

 

Neith and Deborah also have a connection as Judges. In the New Kingdom story known as “the Contendings of Horus and Set”, Neith appears twice in a judiciary role. In this story, Set and Horus sue for the right to succeed Osiris as king of Egypt. Early in the story we are told that the struggle has been going on for eighty years but the dispute was unresolved. The gods then implored Thoth to send a letter to Neith, asking for guidance on how to resolve the dispute. Neith replied that the office should go to Horus, and then adds that if the gods don’t award judgment to Horus, “I shall become so furious that the sky will touch the ground.” This threat sounds very much like a description of lightening, an interesting phrase considering that Deborah’s general, the enforcer of her will, is named “lightening.” Later in the story of the “Contendings”, Neith is once again called upon to make a decision.

 

From the above, we can see a number of points of comparison between Neith and Deborah the warrior/judge. Not only were there thematic similarities between the Hymn to Neith and the Song of Deborah, we find both are judges, both are associated with the bee, and both have an important connection to torches and perhaps lightening. ….