Alongside the personalized teachings from Deir el-Medina two longer texts from the New Kingdom, the Teaching of Anii and the Teaching of Amenemope, were also current. Despite all their manifest differences, they are commonly mentioned together with the classical wisdom-teachings of the Middle Kingdom (Shupak 1993: 22-3). The Teaching of Anii (Quack 1994) is documented in five papyri from Thebes and Saqqara, nine ostraca from Deir el-Medina, and on a wooden writing board, dating from the late Nineteenth Dynasty to the Late Period. The date of the text's origin is assumed, on the basis of linguistic criteria, to be the first half of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The existing manuscripts indicate that there was a standard textual body, despite modifications made in transmission (Quack 1994: 13-23; Moers 2009). However, the history of the text's transmission also shows that Anii exhibits a greater closeness to the Miscellanies than previously supposed. While direct intertextual connections between Anii and the Miscellanies may not be detected (Quack 1994: 199-201), the transmission of Anii and some Miscellanies in the same manuscripts shows that the texts not only descend from a common cultural milieu but also that the Egyptological appraisal of Anii as a ‘‘great teaching’’ only corresponds to a limited extent to the Egyptian reality. The passage Anii B 20,5-7 is transmitted on an ostracon, the title and content of which clearly identify the piece as Miscellany. The same goes for the passage documented on another ostracon, Anii B 19,1-4, about establishing an allotment, which is also transmitted in the Miscellanies of P. Chester Beatty V vso. 2,8-11. These observations support the view that the generic borders between the expanded group of the Miscellanies and the ‘‘great'' New Kingdom wisdom texts are, at least in the case of Anii, more unstable than previously assumed. Therefore the possibility exists that the Anii is a composition which can genetically be included within the Miscellanies in their broadest sense.
The text takes the classic form of a teaching of a scribe Anii to his son, Khonsuhotep. It consist of a sequence of maxims which connect through chains of
Association and loose thematic groups, and presents a code of conduct, the following of which enables the avoidance of negative sanctions and guarantees individual success. The themes are familiar already from the Middle Kingdom: consideration for others in the course of business and in communication; successful creation and preservation of an extended family; avoidance of law breaking and breaking taboos, as well as the call to follow the scribal profession. Thematically new are demands to keep one’s distance from foreigners and the foreign, as well as instructions as to correct behavior in cultic and ceremonial events. Although these themes may be roughly differentiated into worldly and religious maxims, the text generally stands apart through its pragmatic relevance to everyday life. In the Teaching of Anii it is no longer argued in abstract terms, as in the Middle Kingdom teachings, how one should behave socially. On the contrary, the text demonstrates from a personal perspective how an individual best behaves in practical contexts to achieve personal success. Anii consequently does not present abstract behavioral norms but elevates concrete knowledge of the world into a programme of action, based on pragmatism, which can make the world controllable for individuals. The prerequisite for this is to accept the view of social experience and divine intervention as they are presented in the text and, through skilful adaptation, make it the foundation of one’s own success.
Although this utilitarian focus of the text is described as ‘‘middle-class ethics,’’ due to the social position of its author, and its implied audience reconstructed as being administrative middle class (Quack 1994: 75, 79-81), it originally displayed an individual ethic which had a successful history of reception. The strong emphasis on economic profit, family-related themes, and warnings against the foreign, asserted in various forms (B 16,13-17; B 18,9-10; B 19,6-7; B 20,1-2; B 20,7), speak in favor of a perception of society as comparatively individualized (Vernus 1993: 159-96), a society in which unfamiliar social situations could no longer be dealt with according to generally accepted and abstract rules but were rather avoided through refusal to participate. This process and the absence of the causal relationship, typical for Middle Kingdom teachings, between one’s own good deeds and the resulting success achieved, have generally been explained by the influence of the religious phenomenon of personal piety (Quack 1994: 75, 78). However, it is more probable that personal piety itself is a secondary religious reaction to the contemporary social phenomena.
This might be underlined also by the epilogue of the teaching which is unique in Egyptian literary history and takes the shape of a double rebuttal in which neither father nor son accepts the view of the other. Under the assertion of the god-given character of his own nature, Khonsuhotep questions the relevance of his father’s teaching for his case and denies the possibility of developing his character through fatherly education: ‘‘Every man is dragged according to his nature’’ (B 22,15); thus ‘‘Tell the god who gave you wisdom: ‘Set them on your path!’ ’’ (B 23,11). Anii, however, closes the discussion with an image which draws an analogy between the natural development of man from suckling infant to toddler and his ability to grow intellectually, and so rebuts the argument of predestination presented by Khonsuhotep. Although the father thereby maintains the adequacy of his teaching, the presence itself of the epilogue demonstrates the ultimate irreducibility of an opposite standpoint which can be formulated in religious terms whenever needed. The possibility of holding an opposite standpoint to the proffered teaching is, however, not only prominent in the epilogue of Anii, but also pervades the entire extended group of Miscellanies. While Amennakht refuses to tolerate a sweeping reply wholly out of principle (Dorn 2004: 43), the Miscellanies of P. Chester Beatty IV vso. 6,5-7 warn the pupil against relying on the argument of predestination in order to go against the education of his teacher. The Prohibitions, for their part, ultimately deny the validity of exactly this position when they state, regarding predestination: ‘‘You should not straighten what is crooked, and do what is loved; every man is dragged according to his character like a part of his body’’ (Hagen 2005: 143). Thereby, they turn the fatherly argumentation of Anii’s epilogue on its head, which claims, with regard to the character, that it is to be worked on like a crooked piece of wood which is to be straightened (B 23,13-14). Overall, the Teaching of Anii is, in its literary origins and intertextual affinities to the Miscellanies, the same kind of literary product as the shorter teachings from Deir el-Medina. However, the integration of a wider variety of themes, and the reflection on alternative voices in its epilogue make the text more complex than the purely educational Miscellanies, or the personalized teachings from Deir el-Medina. It was probably this ability to adapt controversial themes of overriding social importance which gained the text its successful history of reception and elevated it to the status of ‘‘Wisdom Text’’ which it holds today.
World History
