Мировоззренческий диалог или параллельное развитие мысли: античные параллели к Книге Кохелета 12:7

Abstract

The article deals with the ancient parallels of the fifth century B.C.E. to Qoh. 12:7 (“And the dust shall return to the earth, which it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it”). First of all, these parallels include passages from Euripides: “That which is of the earth returns to the earth, the same which is born of the etheric seed returns to the heavenly pole” (“Chrysippus”; 839, 8–11 [ed. Nauck]); “the spirit is to the ether (πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα), and the body to the earth” (“The Suppliants,” 533–534; see also: fr. 971 [ed. Nauck]). Another parallel to Qoh. 12:7 is found in an Attic public inscription commemorating the Athenian soldiers killed at Potidaea (432 B.C.E.): “The ether took (their) souls, [the earth (took)] the bodies...” (IG I³, 1179, eds. Kirchhoff et al.). This view correlates with Empedocles’ assertion that there is neither birth (φύσις) nor death, but only the mixing and subsequent separation of mixed elements (cf.: B 8–9, 11, 15 [DK]), and the idea of Anaxagoras, who said that “birth and death are tantamount” to “change (ἀλλλοιοῦσθαι) only” (Arist. GC I, 314a.14–15). In Euripides’ tragedy “Helen”, the heroine expresses the idea that all “mind” (ὁ νοῦς) “does not live” on the death of the body, it dies “in immortal ether”; but in ether the “immortal” γνώμη which the “mind” of man “possesses” persists. In analysing these fragments, the author concludes that one would rather assume a parallel development of the concepts of the afterlife in the Mediterranean region, rather than a direct influence of Hellenic religious doctrines on Jewish thought or a philosophical dialogue between Judaeans and Hellenes at the time the Book of Qoheleth was written.