Onchsheshonqy 8/9-10

Do not follow a scribe who has been taken to prison, follow him after he has been taken to the tomb. (P. Onch. 8/9-10)

While the  general gist of the saying seems fairly certain, the exact idiom translated follow is unusual and is imperfectly understood. The idea is that while an intellectual (here a scribe) might have good things to say, those sayings can often get him in trouble. It is often not politically safe to follow someone who is in trouble and thus in the house of detention. Once he is dead, then he is no longer seen as a political problem.

The irony in this is that Onchsheshonqy is a scribe who is in prison. Perhaps Onchsheshonqy is simply warning his son not to follow in his footsteps until after he was dead.

Onchsheshonqy 8/4-5

Do not do something you have not first researched. Researching it is your good fortune. (P. Onch. 8/4-5)

The demotic term šn basically means to ask and thus to inquire, investigate. It is used in the sense of a inquiry or investigation into criminal acts. In a scholarly sense it would include to research. It is also used for inquiring of god for an oracle, which might be through a vessel (e.g. P. Mag. 21/1) or a lamp (e.g. P. Mag. 6/1). The noun form is also used for the result of such an inquiry, i.e., a report, or news.

This is similar to the saying of Jesus recorded in Luke:

28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. (Luke 14:28–32)

Estimating whether it is possible to accomplish something before beginning is generally a sound practice. Failure to properly do your research ahead of time often reveals hidden costs which should have been counted but were not.

Onchsheshonqy 8/8

There is no one who will not die (P. Onch. 8/8).

The statement in Onchsheshonqy seems banal enough but it plays an interesting role in Onchsheshonqy. The frame story of Onchsheshonqy is all about death. It begins with an assassination plot against the Pharaoh. The plot goes awry and the conspirators are executed. Onchsheshonqy, however, is not put to death because he was not involved in the plot. His friend, however, is already dead and while he has not been killed yet, there is a chance that he will still be executed. So death lingers in the background against which the sayings are written down. Even the king, who decrees life and death, is mortal.

Death actually played a much larger role in ancient Egyptian society than it does in ours. A third of all babies born would die before reaching their first birthday. A quarter of those left would not make it to puberty. While people could live as long as they do today (Shenoute, for example, lived to be more than a hundred), it was much rarer for them to do so.

Onchsheshonqy's warning is actually more needed in our day than it was in his.

Onchsheshonqy 7/20

The great man who is humble is widely praised.

This line is opposite the previous line.

Great men (or rich men) who consider themselves ordinary people are actually a pleasure to be around.

On the other hand, this recent analysis suggests that corrupt culture flows from corrupt leaders. In some ways it is a variation of the great man theory of history that says that great men are responsible for the changes in history. This is one reason why a great man who considers himself just like every one else should be widely praised.

Steven Law notes that in investigating Enron:

What we found was a small circle of certifiably bad actors who acted without regard for the law or for anyone else. Surrounding this inner circle was a culture that gave these employees tacit permission to run roughshod over others and break the law.

While lower-level Enron employees did their jobs honorably, senior management cultivated a malignant esprit de corps that corroded the company's ethics. The C-Suite view was that no one was smarter, faster or more aggressive than these executives. Mortals couldn't possibly understand what they did. That belief created its own closed-system logic, leading to deceptive accounting schemes, self-dealing and, ultimately, a battery of criminal convictions for Enron's top brass.

This is Onchsheeshonqy's vulgar men puffing themselves up.

So the tone gets set at the top and corruption in the top rots out the heart of an organization.

Onchsheshonqy 7/19

A vulgar man who puffs up his character increases his stench (P. Onch 7/19)

 The expression rendered here as "vulgar man," rmṯ ḫm, has been translated as "little man" (Glanville) or "small man" (Lichtheim). My interpretation is based on the dialogue that Setne and Tabubu have in P. Setne I 5/3-10 where Tabubu uses the same expression, rmṯ ḫm, in her reply to Setne's offer of 10 gold pieces to sleep with her:

I am pure; I am not a vulgar person (rmṯ ḫm). (P. Setne I 5/8-9).

Tabubu repeats this phrase several times (P. Setne 5/19, 23, 25). She refuses to have sex with Setne in the street (P. Setne I 5/10) or anywhere until he (P. Setne I 5/19-20) and his family (P. Setne I 5/23-24) have all signed the marriage contract. This sets up a contrast between the actions of a pure person, and those of a vulgar person.

The expression translated "puffs up" means to increase, make big, but the expression "big" refers not just to size but with people it means to be wealthy, important. The leading men in society were called the "big men."

The term translated "stench" is a term of opprobrium with a long history, going back nearly two millennia before Onchsheshonqy.

Onchsheshonqy's point is that increasing the wealth or power of a vulgar person simply increases the power of his vulgarity. It does not improve his character. Wealth and status do not change what we are. An increase in fame, money, or power usually do not magnify or even improve our good qualities, they tend to magnify our bad qualities. Most mortals do not handle power well and usually the best way to bring our someone's bad qualities is to increase their power or wealth or popularity.

Addendum to Onchsheshonqy 7/15

In my earlier discussion of Onchsheshonqy, I neglected to point out that the word translated boss could also mean superior or supervisor. In an academic context I have known of some supervisors who want their graduate students to worship them. If the graduate student refuses to worship the supervisor, the supervisor seeks to destroy the graduate student. This is also idolatry.

Onchsheshonqy 7/14-15

Do not neglect to worship your god (P. Onch. 7/14)

 The term translated as to neglect can also mean to hesitate or to procrastinate. The term translated worship can also mean to follow or to serve.

This saying has several similarities with Alma 34:33-34. Amulek, in Alma, goes further than Onchsheshonqy in that he specifies a reason why we should not wait to serve God.

Immediately on the heels of this statement, Onchsheshonqy appends:

Do not hesitate to worship your boss (P. Onch. 7/15).

The only difference in the phrasing of these two statements is the last word. Onchsheshonqy, like most wisdom literature, is the ancient equivalent of How to Make Friends and Influence People. This sort of statement shows that.

Doubtless there are many bosses who would love to be worshiped, but not a good one, and certainly not a Christian one. (A Christian would recognize this as a form of idolatry.) A good boss appreciates candid assessments and so will not surround himself with sycophants who simply tell their boss what they think their boss wants to hear.

A Christian, therefore, would disagree with Onchsheshonqy: Worship God, not your boss.

Onchsheshonqy 7/7

Do not trust the things of a stupid man (P. Onch. 7/7).

Though the term nk.t often means property, it can also mean a thing in general. In the sense of property, the implication is that because a foolish man cannot wisely take care of his own property, it is wrong to rely on it. One could extrapolate and say that one should not rely on the ideas of a foolish man either. They are likely to be wrong.

Onchsheshonqy 7/5

Do not instruct someone who never listens to you (P. Onch. 7/5).

This seems self-evident. If someone is not going to listen to you, it is a waste of time talking to them.

Years ago, a colleague called me up and asked me my opinion about a certain point of ancient Egyptian. He was not a specialist in ancient Egypt and I appreciated him asking me about it. It became clear in the course of the conversation, however, that he had already made up his mind about how the point ought to be, and did not appreciate me saying that ancient Egyptian did not work the way he thought it did. For all the effect it had, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. He persisted and published his opinion regardless of the fact that it had absolutely no support for it. How sad!

Onchsheshonqy 7/4

Do not instruct a fool lest he hate you (P. Onch. 7/4).

The term translated instruct can also mean to bear witness as in giving testimony in court. The term for fool refers not so much to the uninformed as to the willfully misinformed.

On the one hand, Onchsheshonqy is right.  It often seems counterproductive to try to reason with fools. They do not seem to learn anything. They rarely change their ways. And they just hate and despise anyone who tries to teach them what is right.

On the other hand, Onchsheshonqy may be wrong here. Even an idiot deserves a chance to change his mind. (We might recall that Greek metanoia refers to both changing one's mind and repentance.) Though that may not lessen the hatred, at least it lessens the culpability that we have to try to warn our neighbor, even when they choose to deliberately ignore the warning.

Jesus teaches something similar in Matthew 7:6 when he talks about the folly of casting pearls before swine. We tend to overlook, however, the less common metaphor immediately before that, the one about giving things that are holy to the dogs. The holiness aspect is probably the more important one for Jesus.While we may not give that which is holy unto the dogs, the dogs can still eat of the crumbs that fall from the Master's table (Matthew 15:27).

Onchsheshonqy 6/10

Do not covet another's property, saying "I will live on it." Acquire your own. (P. Onch. 6/10)

From the Ptolemaic Egypt from which the manuscript of Onchsheshonqy comes, we have records of lengthy lawsuits fighting over the ownership of property, usually considerable amounts. The choachyte archive, for example, preserves the records of one side of a lengthy legal dispute where one side of the dispute was clearly trying to live on the property of the other.

During the reign of Augustus, however, things got worse, when the powers that be took over the endowments that had been set aside for charitable purposes by others, and used them for their own gain, saying, in effect, "I will live on it."

Covetousness has been with the human race since the beginning. In some sense we live off the capital inherited from others. An illustration of this comes from the fifteenth century A.D.:

By the middle of the fifteenth century the population of Europe was half what it had been a hundred years before. . . . When the plague was over, however, everybody was better off in gross terms, since those who survived took what had belonged to those who had died. (James Burke, Connections, 2nd ed. [New York : Simon & Schuster, 1995], 98).

The children of Israel were warned that they would live in

great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,
And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full;
Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.
Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;
(For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 6:10–15)

But in real ways we have the opportunity by our labor to add to the collective sum of human capital. We have an obligation to make things better for those who follow us.

To live off the human capital that others accumulated obligates those who do so with a debt of gratitude, whether or not they realize it. To rob someone of the living that they earned and live off it instead not only shows a want of gratitude, it shows a want of human decency.

Onchsheshonqy 6/7

Study a matter so that you may learn it. (P. Onch. 6/7)

The word translated as study is also used for to investigate. The sense is not so much one of a casual inquiry but a more thorough searching for information. While the term translated as learn can also mean to know, the idea is really more one of learning something.

What Onchsheshonqy advocates here is more than a superficial perusal, like looking something up in Wikipedia, but a thorough investigation of the subject that produces something more than superficial knowledge.

At the Symposium today, there were many who talked about others' study of the ancient world because those others thought there was something useful to be learned from the ancient world. For all of the talk of these people, they had not done any study of the ancient world themselves. Thus one speaker who feigned much learning informed his audience that Latin prisca came from Greek and that Patristic authors ceased in the fourth century. Those who think that the ancient world actually has something to offer, do the study themselves.

Ramses III and the Harem Conspiracy: Papyrus Rollin

The recent news report (on which see here) that concluded that Ramses III had indeed been assassinated shows that the documents of that affair are not well enough known. There are four main documents. The Juridical Papyrus of Turin, Papyrus Lee, Papyrus Rollins, and Papyrus Rifaud. Papyrus Rollin reads as follows:

It came to pass that he was making potent scrolls for repelling and confusing and making wax figurines and some poisons to weaken the limbs of people. They were administered by Pabakamun, whom Pre did not allow to act as steward, and the other great enemies. They said, "Let them come," and they were allowed to approach. When he was allowed to enter, he did the evils which Pre did not allow to obtain success, and he was examined and the truth of all his crimes and all the evil that his heart invented to do was revealed. The accusations of all the things that he did with the other great enemies like him were true. The things he had done were capital felonies and great abominations in the land. When he understood the capital felonies that he had committed, he killed himself.

The principle conspirator is mentioned again in the Turin Juridical Papyrus. In both cases his name is given as a dysphemism (on which see here).

There are accounts of three harem conspiracies from ancient Egypt. The first is the assassination of Amenemhet I. The second is the assassination of Ramses III. The third is the (possibly fictional) assassination attempt reported in Onchsheshonqy.

The penalty here under Ramses IV is different than that administered in Onchsheshonqy. In the time Ramses III the conspirators are allowed to kill themselves. Not so in Onchsheshonqy, were they are put to death by being burned. We do not know how they were put to death in the time of Sesostris I, but in other cases, he is known to have sacrificed them ending with burning them (on which see here). So the conspiracy which killed Ramses III seems to have been the unusual one with the conspirators allowed to kill themselves.

Onchsheshonqy 5/11

One of the opening proverbs of Onchsheshonqy provides an interesting juxtaposition:

P. Onchsheshonqy 5/11

If Pre is wroth with a district he commands its ruler to do evil to its people (P. Onch. 5/11).

This shift of blame is interesting in light of the frame story of the text. In the frame story, a man seeks to shift responsibility for his actions onto the god. The Pharaoh's response to that is to have the man burned alive. The moral of the frame story is that individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions and not try to shift the blame for their bad behavior on the god. Yet here, the ruler is absolved of his bad behavior in precisely the same way. I noted before that in ancient Egypt criticism of one's leaders was not allowed under penalty of death. Onchsheshonqy phrases his critique in such a way to make it look like the ruler is off the hook but it still means that the god is angry with the district.

While the causation is not what we expect, the correlation is. Onchsheshonqy notes that rulers mistreating the people and the wrath of the god go together.