FARAONE (EGIZ. *PER-Ö [PER'J'J']*: «CASA ELEVATA», CIOÈ LA REGGIA; EBR. *PAR'ÖLI*, GR. *ΦΑΡΜΑΔ[Ν]*, LAT. *PHARAO[N]»)
Pharaoh (Egypt. *Per-Ö [Per'J'J']*: 'Exalted House,' i.e., the palace; Heb. *Par'ōli*, Gr. *Φαρμάδ[ν]*, Lat. *Pharao[n]*)
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Volume V · p. 630 · 1950
English translation · Testo originale italiano
PHARAOH (Egyptian *Per-ö [per'j'j']*: “exalted house,” i.e. the palace; Heb. *par'ō*, Gr. *Φαρμαδ[ν]*, Lat. *Pharao[n]*). — The term used to designate the king’s house in Egypt and, from the Eighteenth Dynasty onward, the person of the king; from 900 B.C. the term regularly precedes the king’s name as a title. Hence Flavius Josephus (Antiq. *Ind.*, VIII, 6, 2): “Φαρμαδν κατ' Αγυπτω,” signifies “king.”
In the Bible, from Gen. 12, 15–20 onward, with reference to the times of Abraham, Moses, and the Exodus, the king of Egypt is impersonally called “Pharaoh.”
Rationalist criticism has employed this argument, among others, to deny the validity of the Sacred Books. In reality, documents from the Old Kingdom already admit the use of the term to designate the person of the king, although it is also applied to the palace.
BIBL.: F. Vigouroux, *Les Livres Saints et la critique rationnelle*, IV, 5th ed., Paris 1902, pp. 375 sq.; C. Lagier, *Pharaon*, in DB, V, cols. 190–23; A. Erman–H. Ranke, *Archetype und ägyptisches Leben*, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1923; A. Moret, *Le Nil et la civilisation égyptienne*, Paris 1926, pp. 158–59; A. Erman–H. Grappow, *Wörterbuch d. ägyptischen Sprache*, I, Leipzig 1926, p. 516 sq.; *Hori Apollini: Hieroglyphica*, essay by F. Sbordone, Naples 1940, pp. 124–25 § 61; van De Walle – J. Vergote, *Traduction des Hieroglyphica d'Horapollon*, in *Chron. d'Egypte*, 17 (1943), pp. 84–87. Aristide Calderini
