Scholars have overlooked a direct parallel between Luke’s pericope of the Walk to Emmaus (24:13-35) and two Aesopic fables. This article investigates the parallel, which appears as a quotation on the lips of Jesus, and the direction of its literary dependence. Analysis of both internal and external evidence commends understanding the fables to reflect Luke due to its well-known status, but none of the arguments are definitive. The evidence also allows the possibility that Luke portrayed Jesus quoting Aesop, perhaps as an ironic hermeneutical critique. Both explanations for the direction of dependence are satisfactory in their own ways, and may only be resolved with further analysis or the appearance of more textual evidence.
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Leslie Kurke, Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011) 2-3.
Morten Nøjgaard, La fable antique (Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk, 1964) 1:471-75, cited in Kurke, Conversations, 44 n. 132.
See C.H. Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library (3 vols.; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1938) 3:119-28. Perry notes that there is no way of telling “to what extent, if any, the Aesop of Demetrius was altered or revised or incorporated in other collections in the course of its transmission”; Babrius and Phaedrus, xiv.
Rusten, “Aesop,” 29. Cf. Perry, Aesopica, xii, who dates Augustana to “not later than the second century after Christ.” The tenth century manuscript 397 in the Pierpont Morgan Library (cod. G) is closely related to Augustana, which was the parent text for three later recensions: Ia, ii (Vindobonensis), and ii (Accursiana or Planudean); Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, xvi.
Chambry, Aesopi Fabulae, 1:99-104. These variant versions, all of which Chambry confusingly labelled “Fab. 40Aliter,” mostly come from different codex families. The “Fab 40Alit.” with the Lukan parallel, referred to throughout this article simply as Fab. 40, is, as noted above, on p. 104 in Chambry, Aesopi Fabulae. See Perry’s index in the appendix in his Babrius and Phaedrus, 419-610, where he lists cross references to the equivalents in other editions, translations, and adaptations of his Aesopica fables.
Chambry, Aesopi Fabulae, 1:235-36. Labelled simply “Fab. 128.”
See, e.g., Eutecnius in I. Gualandri, Eutecnii paraphrasis in Nicandri theriaca (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1968) 59; Oribasus in J. Raeder, Oribasii synopsis ad Eustathium et libri ad Eunapium (Corpus medicorum Graecorum 6.3; Leipzig: Teubner, 1926 [repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1964]) 3:6.28.2; Paul of Aegina, Epitomae medicae libri septem in J.L. Heiberg, Paulus Aegineta (2 vols.; Corpus medicorum Graecorum 9.1-2; Leipzig: Teubner, 1921-24) 2:38.5; Georgios Chortatzis, Erofile, 7.265; T. Ab. 6.17-18; Didymus, Comm. Job 39.1141.33; Cyril, Comm. Isa. 70.476.6; Hesychius, In sanctum Antonium 4.8.
E.g., Barsanuphius and Johannes, Epist. 236.17 (βραδὺ τῇ καρδίᾳ); Nicetas David, Homiliae septem, 2.187 (καὶ τὸ βραδὺ τὴς καρδίας); Bartholomew of Edessa, Confutatio Agareni, 16.8 (Ἀνόητε καὶ βραδὺ τῇ καρδίᾳ). Some are direct quotations of Luke, as in Adamantius, De recta in deum fide in W.H. van de Sande Bakhuyzen, Der Dialog des Adamantius Περὶ τῆς εἰς θεὸν ὀρθῆς πίστεως (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 4; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1901) 198; Palladius, Dialogus de vita Joannis Chrysostomi in P.R. Coleman-Norton, Palladii dialogus de vita S. Joanni Chrysostomi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928) 123.
Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, xii. The notorious “moral” of an Aesopic fable is known as “promythium” or “epimythium”; ibid., xiv-xvi.
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Scholars have overlooked a direct parallel between Luke’s pericope of the Walk to Emmaus (24:13-35) and two Aesopic fables. This article investigates the parallel, which appears as a quotation on the lips of Jesus, and the direction of its literary dependence. Analysis of both internal and external evidence commends understanding the fables to reflect Luke due to its well-known status, but none of the arguments are definitive. The evidence also allows the possibility that Luke portrayed Jesus quoting Aesop, perhaps as an ironic hermeneutical critique. Both explanations for the direction of dependence are satisfactory in their own ways, and may only be resolved with further analysis or the appearance of more textual evidence.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 263 | 31 | 2 |
Full Text Views | 188 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 101 | 10 | 0 |