Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 02.djvu/83



ERHAPS no other ancient manuscript has ever roused wider interest than the Precepts of Ptah-hotep. This venerable old teacher is certainly the earliest-known author in the world; and his book has won wide celebrity by being called earth's oldest book. This latter phrase needs explanation. Our existing copy of Ptah-hotep, known as the Prisse manuscript, is of uncertain age. It is a copy of an older work, which was apparently widely taught in very early Egyptian schools. Perhaps it was composed by some other than its reputed author and merely ascribed to him as a famous ancient sage. On the other hand, we know no reason why it may not have been written by Ptah-hotep himself, as he says it was, for the instruction of a young prince, the son of King Assa of the Fifth Dynasty. That would make it at least as old as the surviving Pyramid Texts or as the Palermo stone. Moreover, these other old texts are hardly to be called "books." Their brevity forbids the name; and their authors and origins are alike unknown. This is true also of all the early Babylonian texts. Ptah-hotep, on the contrary, is a teacher who deliberately sets himself to explaining to the world or to his pupil his entire philosophy of life, the sum total of his teachings. Ptah-hotep, therefore, is the oldest-known author, the oldest-known teacher, and his book is the oldest known in the world.

These facts give a curious interest to the personality of the writer himself. Ptah-hotep's book presents him as a venerable sage who has reached the traditional maximum of Egyptian age, a hundred and ten years. He is a relative, perhaps a brother, of King Assa, and is so distinguished for honor and wisdom that he has been entrusted with the guardianship of the King's son.