Ezekiel the Tragedian
Ezekiel the Tragedian · Arts & Literature
Author of the Exagoge, a Greek tragedy on the Exodus — the earliest known Jewish play and the only substantial Hellenistic tragedy to survive
IIe siècle av. n. è., Alexandrie, Égypte ptolémaïque — IIe siècle av. n. è., Alexandrie
Alexandrie
Ezekiel the Tragedian is recognized among Jewish contributors to Arts & Literature — Author of the Exagoge, a Greek tragedy on the Exodus — the earliest known Jewish play and the only substantial Hellenistic tragedy to survive
Origins and early life
Ezekiel the Tragedian was a Jew of Alexandria who wrote, in the second century BCE — some scholars say the third — a Greek tragedy in the manner of Euripides on the departure of the Israelites from Egypt: the Exagoge, 'The Leading Out'.
Work and career
Nothing is known of his life beyond his name, and his Jewishness is established by his work itself, which follows the Septuagint scene by scene, and by the ancient writers who quoted him as 'the poet of Jewish tragedies'; this fiche states that basis plainly, since no biography exists. Two hundred and sixty-nine lines of his play survive, preserved by Alexander Polyhistor and quoted by Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria — more than survives of any Greek tragedy after the classical age — and they show a playwright who knew his craft: Moses tells his story in a prologue, the burning bush speaks from offstage, a messenger recounts the drowning of Pharaoh's army in the sea, and the play ends with the miracle of the springs of Elim and the appearance of a wondrous bird, the phoenix.
Its most famous passage is Moses' dream of a throne on the summit of Sinai, from which a great figure hands him a scepter and crown and he sees the whole earth and counts the stars — a vision that scholars of Jewish mysticism have read as the earliest ascent to heaven in Jewish literature outside the Bible. Whether the Exagoge was performed, in a theatre or a synagogue, is unknown; it is the earliest Jewish drama, and evidence that the Jews of Alexandria, two centuries before the Common Era, made the forms of Greek art their own.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_the_Tragedian
This page is published in seven languages from an English source. The translations are reviewed, but a mistake can still slip through. If you spot one on this profile — a wrong word, a lost date, a sentence that says something the English does not — please tell us.
Author of the Exagoge, a Greek tragedy on the Exodus — the earliest known Jewish play and the only substantial Hellenistic tragedy to survive
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_the_Tragedian
