The Representation of Jewish Identity in On Sleep by Clearchus of Soli

The dialogue On Sleep by Clearchus of Soli is the first extant work depicting a personal meeting between a representative of the Jewish people and an ancient Greek. The character Aristotle is surprised by the deeds and words of a wise Jew. In fr. 6 Wehrli, Aristotle says that the wise Jew was a Hellenic not only in his language, but also in his soul. In fr. 7 Wehrli, we are told about a certain magician whom Aristotle met and who extracts the soul from a sleeping young man with a magic wand, and then returns it back into the body. In a number of fragments of the On Sleep, which were not included in the collection of Clearchus in Werhli, but included in the latest German edition by Tsitsiridis and in the English edition by Dorandi, it is said about certain mysterious people who feed on the sunny air and are not subject to sleep, with whom Aristotle allegedly talked. In our article, we propose the hypothesis that the miracle worker from fr. 7 Wehrli is identical to the wise Jew from fr. 6, and in two fragments from new editions, under sleepless and sunny-air-eating people, one must understand the Jewish ethnic group. In general, the representation of Jewish identity in this work of Clearchus is a vivid example of what can be called an Interpretatio Graeca

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