It has been the custom to assume that the author of the work was a Jew,[1] although Erasmus suggested that he was a Christian.[2] The passage from which these inferences were chiefly drawn was that in which Noah and Abraham are mentioned, a passage which does not occur in the Persian, and is therefore an interpolation. It would have been as reasonable to argue from it that the author was a Muhammadan, for the Qorʾan is quoted there, although the quotation is concealed in Losius’ edition by a gross mistranslation.[3] The original work as represented by the Persian bears no trace of a Jewish origin.
It is not probable that the book ever existed in Greek: not only is there no vestige of any mistranslation of a Greek text, but also many of the phrases which cannot be banished from the argument show the influence of the Qorʾan; such are ثواب and الآخرة, الملا الاعلى, عقاب. The expression “to mortify one self before death” seems borrowed from a tradition of the Prophet. On the other hand, the author must have possessed some acquaintance with Greek works. The passage in which Kriton warns Aristotle against making himself warm by talking is borrowed from the Phaedo of Plato (p. 63 d, e). From the same dialogue comes the discussion upon suicide (p. 62). The saying attributed to “Hermes,” and quoted from Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” (?), is not unlike the opinion of Empedocles explained in that work. The names Simmias and Kriton are borrowed from the Phaedo; Zeno and Diogenes from some history of philosophy; the source of Pindar and Lysias is less obvious. A Greek writer, choosing names for the interlocutors in a dialogue, would probably have chosen those of real disciples of Aristotle. In this respect Musen’s text, which gives Aristoxenus as an interlocutor, is an improvement.
