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Wisdom About Tomorrow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

J. Gwyn Griffiths
J. Gwyn Griffiths
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford.
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Extract

That a new richesse of comparative material is offered by Walter Bauer's fifth edition of his celebrated Wörterbuch (Berlin, 1958) is exemplified by his article on αὔριον. He notes that Epictetus too rejects care περὶ τῆς αὔριον. Indeed a sentence in Epictetus I.9.8 (καὶ πόθεν ϕάγω, ϕησίν, μηδὲν ἔχων) is in one respect an obvious parallel to Matthew vi.25 (μὴ μεριμνᾶτε τῇ ψυχῇ ὑμῶν, τί ϕάγητε ἢ τί πίητε.). Bauer cites an interesting instance of a Pythagorean exhortation which, in a manner exactly opposite to the injunction of Matthew vi.34, advises one to be constantly thinking of the morrow: διδάσκει ἀεί τι τοῦ παρόντος εἰς τὸ μέλλον καταλιπεῖν, καὶ τῆς αὔριον ἐν τῇ σήμερον μνημονεύειν.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , July 1960 , pp. 219 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

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References

1 Cf. M.-J. Lagrange's summary of Weiss's view of the saying in Matthew: “J. Weiss y voit une saine et fraîche joie de vivre” (Lagrange, , 7th ed., Paris, 1948, P. 143).Google Scholar

2 Cf. Prov. xxvii. 1: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

3 Cf. the commentaries of W. C. Allen (Edinburgh, 1907), A. Carr (Cambridge, 1913), and A. H. McNeile (London, 1915).

4 Less likely is the suggestion of A. Plummer (London, 1909): “It may be the Evangelist's own comment. …”

5 Cf. John A. Wilson's translation in Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (2nd ed., Princeton, 1955), 413Google Scholar; also Erman-Blackman, , The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1927), 61.Google ScholarGunn's interpretation in his The Instruction of Ptah-hotep (The Wisdom of the East, London, 1918), 51 is different, but he did not himself adhere to all details of this early work of his, as he made clear in his classes at Oxford.Google Scholar

6 Cf. Wilson in Pritchard, op. cit. 423.

7 Cf. Vogelsang's ed. p. 146 and Gardiner in JEA 9 (1923), 14, where, however, the proverbial nature of the saying does not seem to be recognized.Google Scholar

8 For this thoroughly Egyptian idea cf. the Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days.

9 Some have argued that in the case of Amenemope the converse is true: see Kevin, R. O., “The Wisdom of Amen-em-apt and its possible dependence upon the Hebrew book of Proverbs” in JSOR 14 (1930), 115–157Google Scholar; McGlinchey, J. M., The Teaching of Amen-em-ope and The Book of Proverbs (Diss. Washington, 1939)Google Scholar; cf. Goodenough, E. R., Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, V (New York, 1956), 189.Google Scholar This view does not affect the conclusion reached above, but the fact that Amenemope in our instance echoes the much earlier Eloquent Peasant shows that the attempt to give a late origin to the content of Amenemope may not be entirely well advised.