Pseudo-Phokylides

With pseudo-Phocylides is called an unknown, presumably Jewish proverbs, of approximately v between 50th He wrote a long Greek saying poem ( The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides ) and placed it under the name of the time-honored Greek poet Phokylides of Miletus (6th century BC, Asia Minor).

The pseudonym Phokylides

In the late antiquity, famous personalities from ancient times were preferably used as namesake for a pseudepigraph . There are obvious reasons for choosing the name Phokylides . The poem was recognizable from the outset as a collection of wisdom sayings about the practical way of life; for Phocylides was famous for it. And it got the nimbus of the revered old times, since Phokylides lived at the same time as the also famous Theognis and only a good 100 years after Homer and Hesiod .

The Pseudo-Phokylides author camouflaged his pseudonym by two means. On the one hand, Phokylides had his sayings, of which only 15 to 16 survived, sealed with his name at the beginning : This, too, from Phokylides ... (Και τόδε Φωκυλιδεω). The plagiarist begins his poem in a similar way, albeit a bit grandiose: This advice ... is revealed by Phokylides, the wisest of men . The second, more important means of camouflage is antiquated language . Like Phokylides, he writes in hexameters and in the Ionic dialect , which all educated people from the Iliad and the Odyssey knew - and recognized.

This self-conception of the beginning of the poem was believed for a good 1500 years. The poem was still frequently printed in the 16th century and valued as a time-honored, at the same time pleasing and morally high-quality school reading. It was not until 1607 that the scholar Joseph Scaliger recognized the linguistic difference to the short words of Phocylides. He concluded from the biblical allusions in the text that the author must be a Jew or a Christian. The educated world suddenly lost interest in the poem.

A new approach to the poem

The classical philologist and Orthodox Jew Jacob Bernays aroused new interest in the poem in 1856 in the specialist article On the Phocylidean Poem, which has not been outdated to this day . He described the spiritual place of the work in Hellenistic Judaism and worked out the biblical and Jewish parts of the poem. In the (many) studies and (few) commentaries that have appeared since then, the thesis of the Jewish author became more and more popular. It has become an integral part of research that deals with Hellenistic-Jewish wisdom, the relationship between ancient Jewish and Greek education and early Jewish education for young people.

Text inventory and individual character

The handwritten tradition of the poem offers 219 presumably original verses (= lines), which are now numbered 1–230 with later additions and duplicates.

To the literary character

The poem is addressed to men in the middle of life and with a certain level of education. If it is intended for youth education, then it shows the youth the duties of the adult.

Don't trust the people. The mass is weather turning (v. 95)

In contrast to other wisdom poems , especially speculative wisdom , the poem is dominated by the warning, which often consists of an imperative and a justifying indicative.

Do not torment your liver with ephemeral evils.

What happened can never be undone (vv. 55–56)

The sequence of the sayings of the poem vv. 3–227 is apparently unstructured according to the type of wisdom literature and contains predominantly one-verse, but also two- and more-verse sayings (sentences, maxims). One should perceive them individually and train one's ethical will on them. An overarching teaching only comes into focus indirectly. As it could be imagined, the Greek doctrine of the four virtues , in the interpretation of justice as care for the underprivileged, in the requirement of wisdom for leadership positions and moral behavior and in maxims to avoid sexual "impurity" (violation of sexual taboos) comes to the fore Expression.

Sense sections

The sections of meaning that can be observed usually begin with a concrete, practical imperative.

You should never let uneducated people speak right. (V. 86)

(V.86-90 subject: judiciary)

Do not wear yourself down fruitlessly, sitting by the fire, dear heart. (V. 97)

(V.97–115 theme: grief - death - immortality)

Do not remain celibate lest you eventually go nameless. (V. 175)

(V.175–206 subject: sexuality, marriage and family)

Thematic blocks

In addition to the prologue (vv. 1–2), which names the (alleged) poet and his intention, and the epilogue with a résumé (vv. 228–230), five special warning blocks are recognizable as regards content.

The opening (vv. 3–8), which seems to be modeled on the Ten Commandments , sets the tone for the admonitions to come. The themes of the “Second Table” (vv. 3–7) with adultery, bloodshed, stealing and lying, which are reformulated and supplemented in a contemporary way, are followed by the “First Table” with the glory of God and parents. All bids are taken up again later, e.g. B. in v. 32-34.

Belt the sword - not for killing, but for fighting.

Oh that you never used it, neither illegally nor rightly!

Because even if you kill an enemy, you stain your hand.

The topic-rich and interesting episode vv. 97–121 can be described as “mourning, death and immortality”. It posed problems for research into the history of religion .

With the price of the “good word” and “wisdom” (vv. 122-131), the author sets standards for social leadership positions and at the same time emphasizes the dignity of his own poetic endeavors.

Lands and cities and ships: wisdom rules them. (V. 130-131)

The recommendation of diligent manual labor (vv. 153-174) - according to Bernays probably the most beautiful part of the poem - provocatively takes a position on the widespread contempt for manual labor - entirely in keeping with Cynical philosophy and Jewish morality.

The last and largest admonition block, vv. 175–227, as a “house table”, ie as a tabular listing of the duties of the members of the household , met with particular interest from New Testament scholars (cf. eg Col 3: 18–4: 1).

swell

Pseudo-Phokylides drew abundantly from sources, the suggestions of which, however, he adapted very independently to his poem. How far he found his topics and formulations in general knowledge, how far in reading, is difficult to determine. He shows a vehement interest in the text of the Mosaic Torah of the Septuagint . In addition to the Ten Commandments (v. 3–8), the great chapter of charity from Lev. 19 (v. 9-41), on this Lev. 18 (v. 175-189) and other Torah commandments to have influenced him. Conspicuous parallels to two short versions of the Jewish way of life in Philo of Alexandria and Josephus (which are there in a completely different context) lead to the question of a collection of material for youth and proselyte instruction, which may have inspired the author. From Greek literature he knew at least some of the epics of Homer and Hesiod, Phocylides and the poetry of Theognis.

To preserve the pseudonym, the author has linguistically reshaped the biblical models beyond recognition, while making the echoes of the ancient Greek poets clear. He wanted to present biblical ethos as wisdom from the great Greek past.

Jewish identity of the author?

The author abstains from all advertising for Judaism and all apologetic defense of the often attacked Judaism. The Sabbath commandment, circumcision, and Jewish rites are not mentioned. What is striking is a certain dandling with the names of polytheistic gods in addition to a consistently monotheistic keynote. So far-reaching is the amalgamation of Jewish norms with Greek language that doubts arose about his interest in being a Jew. In the professional world, three positions are taken on this question.

• Pseudo-Phokylides was an assimilated Jew for whom it was sufficient to recognize and represent a harmony between his Jewish heritage and the Greek educational world.
• He wanted to instruct his fellow Jews (especially the youth) to use Greek doctrine of virtues and mystery language (v.229) to deepen their own ethos and to balance with the Greek educational world.
• He valued the Torah as the highest wisdom and wanted to bring its contents as much as possible - within the framework of generally cultivated wisdom - to non-Jewish readers without them being able to recognize him as a Jew.

Selected literature

Text output

• Douglas Young: Theognis etc. 2nd edition, Leipzig 1971. pp. 95–112.
• Pascale Derron (Ed / French transl.): Pseudo-Phocylide, Sentences. Collection des Universités de France [Budé] 1986.

German translation

• Dietrich Ebener (ed.): Greek poetry in one volume. Pp. 440–448, Library of Antiquity, Greek Series, 2., through. Aufl. Aufbau-Verlag Weimar 1980 (revision in hexameters)
• Paul Riessler: Old Jewish literature outside the Bible. Augsburg 1928 (reprints!). Pp. 862-870 and 1318-1321.
• Nikolaus Walter: Pseudepigraphic Jewish-Hellenistic poetry. In: Jewish writings from the Hellenistic-Roman period. Volume IV, Part 3, Gütersloh 1983. With generally understandable commentary.

Investigations and Comments

• Jacob Bernays : About the Phokylidean poem. Breslau 1856 (= Collected Papers I, 192–236, Berlin / Hildesheim 1885/1971).
• PW van der Horst: The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides. With Introduction and Commentary. Leiden 1978 (with Greek text and English translation).
• PW van der Horst: Pseudo-Phocylides and the New Testament. In: Journal for the New Testament Science and the News of the Older Church (ZNW). Volume 69, 1978, pp. 187-202.
• Wilhelm Kroll : Phokylides . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XX, 1, Stuttgart 1941, Col. 505-510.
• Max Küchler : Early Jewish Wisdom Traditions. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 26, Freiburg / Switzerland 1979.
• Johannes Thomas: The Jewish Phokylides. Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus 23, Freiburg-Switzerland / Göttingen 1992.
• Walter T. Wilson: The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides . Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin 2005