AMEN-EM-OPE. — An Egyptian high official, son of Kanceth, resident at Persepolis, who lived, according to A. Erman, H. O. Lange, R. Griffith, around 1000 B.C. To “the youngest of his sons,” Hor-em-machem, a priest in the temple of Min, he addressed a gnomic book distinguished by the nobility of its moral-religious doctrine. The Wisdom of A. arouses great interest because of its resemblance to the collection of Proverbs (v.) 22:17–24:22; the undisputed affinity seems due, not to direct derivation, but to dependence on a common source.
Thus P. Dhorme, in Revue Biblique, 38 (1929), pp. 622–624, and H. Duesberg, who admit a common source for the two collections of sayings without being able to determine whether this source was Hebrew or Egyptian. Almost all “critics” (cf. A. Mallon), following A. Erman, maintain instead the dependence of Proverbs on A. Nor is there lacking one who considers possible the dependence of A. on Proverbs: R. O. Kevin, The Wisdom of Amen-em-ape and its possible dependence upon the Hebrew Book of Proverbs, in Journal of the Soc. of Oriental Research, 14 (1930), pp. 115–57.
The text, written in hieratic (551 lines over 27 columns), is preserved in Papyrus No. 10474 of the British Museum. The work is divided into 30 chapters (called “houses”) and forms a complete whole. First published by Sir E. A. W. Budge (v.) in 1923, it has been translated into several languages, including Latin by A. Mallon.