Alcibiades a Greek Absalom

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

  

 

 

 

“The picture of Absalom that is presented in 2 Samuel 13–19 suggests that

he was the Alcibiades of the Old Testament, alike in his personal attractiveness,

his lawless insolence, and his tragic fate”.

 

Britannica.com

 

 

  

 

 

There is that knee-jerk reaction, again, that the Hebrew must be based upon the pagan Greek.

Absalom was not “the Alcibiades of the Old Testament”.

Absalom was a fully fleshed-out historical son of King David, and the Greeks later, in their typical fashion, appropriated Absalom as their fictitious character, “Alcibiades” (or Alkibiades).

 

Many parallels could be drawn between Absalom and Alcibiades, and some have been.

For instance:

 

 

Rosalyn Rossignol writes, in “Critical Companion to Chaucer: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work” (p. 319): “Like the biblical ABSALOM … Alcibiades became legendary for his beauty, and two of Chaucer’s references to him are attributable to that”.

 

And:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Syria,_the_land_of_Lebanon_(1914).djvu/80

“The value of team-work is a comparatively new idea to western Asia and eastern Europe. Since the days of Alcibiades and Absalom the old ideal has been that of "every man for himself." If it had not been so, the history of the world might have been different”.

 

And:

http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/collections/exhibits/bobst/washsq/voices/volumes/cdreeme/html/CD_020.HTM

 

"What! Densdeth, the cleverest man I have ever met?"

 

"The same."

 

"Densdeth, handsome as Alcibiades, or perhaps I should say Absalom, as he is Hebrewish ?"

 

"That very Alcibiades, Absalom, Densdeth."

 

And:

https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/fass/Classics/Hankey/Behold%20thy%20Mother%20Requiem%20for%20Petronella%20Neish.pdf

 

The stories of the great lovers prick our hearts and illumine our minds: Ruth and Naomi, David and Absalom, Jonathan and David, Achilles and Patroclus, Socrates and Alcibiades, Jesus and John.

 

Ruth said to Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” ….

Socrates declared to Alcibiades: “I am the only friend who has never left you because I was the only lover of you, the rest were lovers only of what was yours.... [I am sent by God to bring you to self-knowledge]. If your soul, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must see ... her highest part, the spring of her virtue [mirrored in another] ... [There she will see what of herself] resembles God. Whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself. ….

Achilles wept: “My dear friend has perished, Patroclus, whom I loved beyond all my companions, as well as my own life...and now I must die soon because I was not there to stand beside my friend when he was killed.” ….

David was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” ….

Jesus said: “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends.” ….