Pseudo-Phocylides is an

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

l work, at one time, claiming to have been written by

Phocylides Phocylides ( el, Φωκυλίδης ὁ Μιλήσιος), Greek gnomic poet of Miletus, contemporary of Theognis of Megara, was born about 560 BC. A few fragments of his " maxims" have survived (chiefly in the ''Florilegium'' of Stobaeus), in ...

, a

Greek philosopher Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...

of the 6th century BC. Its authorship was deciphered by

Jacob Bernays Jacob Bernays (11 September 182426 May 1881) was a German philologist and philosophy, philosophical writer. Life Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was a man of wide culture and the first ...

. The text is noticeably

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, and depends on the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

, although it does not make direct references to either the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

. Textual and linguistic studies point to the work as having originally been written in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, and having originated somewhere between 100BC and 100AD, although the oldest surviving manuscripts date from the 10th century AD.

Authorship

Jonathan Klawans believes the author was a Christian.

Texts

Douglas Young used five manuscripts for his edition: M (tenth cent., in Paris); B (tenth cent., in Oxford); P (twelth cent., in Paris); L (thirteenth cent., in Florence); V (thirteenth-fourteenth cent., in Vienna).

Description

Pseudo-Phocylides consists of a series of

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...

s, and these refer indirectly to each of the ''

Noachide Laws In Judaism, the Seven Laws of Noah ( he, שבע מצוות בני נח, ''Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noach''), otherwise referred to as the Noahide Laws or the Noachian Laws (from the Hebrew pronunciation of "Noah"), are a set of universal moral law ...

'', as well as the so-called ''

unwritten law Unwritten Law is an American punk rock band formed in 1990 in Poway, California. They have released seven full-length studio albums and have toured internationally, including performances on the Warped Tour. They are notable for their singles " ...

s'' of the Greeks. There are about 250 in total, and these are written as a series of

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

verses, in the form of a teaching manual; each maxim directly commanding the reader to obey it. The poem was a popular school textbook for many years especially during

The Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

Example translations

There are several translations of Pseudo-Phocylides. Some of the maxims in Pseudo-Phocylides were copied directly into one of the Sibylline Oracles, found in Book 2. The text of Pseudo-Phocylides is published in volume 2 of ''Old Testament Pseudepigrapha'' edited by

James Charlesworth James Hamilton Charlesworth (born May 30, 1940) is an American academic who served as the George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature until January 17, 2019, and Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project at the Princeton The ...

. Some authors, including Luke T. Johnson, believe there is a resemblance in the work to Leviticus 19, and also to how the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

'' Letter of James'' is a moral code of conduct for Christians. From Pieter van der Horst's translation:

Remain not unmarried, lest you die nameless.
Cut not a youth's masculine procreative faculty.
And let not women imitate the sexual role of men.
Long hair is not fit for men, but for voluptuous women.line 212, p. 101, The sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, translated by Pieter Willem van der Horst

Other sections of the text, which were once attributed to

of Miletos, detailed that the tongue is mightier than the sword.

Do not be carried away in your heart by the delights of bold talk.
Practice the art of speaking, which will profit everyone greatly.
Speech is for man a sharper weapon than the sword;
God has given each being one weapon: to birds,
The ability to fly; to coursers, speed; to lions, strength;
To bulls, horns which grow of themselves; to bees, he has given
Their sting as a natural defense; to men, the armor of words.

In 2005, Walter T. Wilson composed a new translation, published with attached the Greek text.

Do not revel in boastfulness and rage in your heart.
Practice speaking well, which will greatly benefit everyone.
Surely the word is for a man a weapon sharper than iron.
To each God has allotted a weapon: power to roam the air
to birds, to horses swiftness, strength to lions;
for bulls there are self-growing horns; stingers to bees
he's given as an inborn defense, but the word to people for protection.

Its authorship was deciphered by

and its contents are widely discussed and studied in theology schools even to this day.

References

External links