The Life of Aesop and the Gospels: literary motifs and narrative mechanisms

Many literary motifs and narrative mechanisms reveal the surprising common ground upon which the Life of Aesop and the Gospels rest, and contribute in defining the exeptional characteristics of the protagonists. Similarities in narrative structures of the biographies of Aesop and Jesus certainly do not mean textual interdependence, but they do lead to the thesis that the authors of the Life of Aesop and the Gospels aim, where possible, to place the life of the protagonist in a literary and narrative context known to the public: once again the Life of Aesop shows it belongs within a wider and consciously literary production.