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A New Autograph Fragment of Maimonides's Epitomes of Galen (De Locis Affectis)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Simon Hopkins
Simon Hopkins
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

Unlike most of the medical works of Maimonides (1135–1204), which enjoyed wide circulation both in their original Arabic form and in Hebrew or Latin translations, his Epitomes of Galen seem never to have become widespread or popular. Whereas his other medical compositions are usually extant in a good number of manuscripts, and in their original language are often available in both Hebrew and Arabic script, the manuscript attestation of Maimonides's Epitomes of Galen is rather meagre. Steinschneider, whose splendid works remain the basic tools of reference for all research in this field, devotes to the Arabic Epitomes a mere three lines and lists only three manuscripts containing them (in fact, containing only a small part of them); Hebrew translations are not known to have been made, and not one of the Epitomes appears to have found its way into Latin. In 1966 two further manuscripts, both of them fragments from the Taylor-Schechter collection in the hand of Maimonides himself, became available when S. M. Stern published his ‘Ten autographs by Maimonides—fragments of medical works, responsa, letters and prescriptions’ in Maimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam … Vol. III, Corpus Codicum Hebraicorum Medii Aevi, ed. R. Edelmann, Pars I (Hafniae, 1966),11–29. The first two of these ten autographs are fragments of the Epitomes of Galen, to the publication of which Stern prefixed a fine discussion of the contents of these Maimonidean Epitomes and a summary of what is known about them.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 126 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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References

1 Steinschneider, M., Die arabische Literatur der Juden (Frankfurt a.M. 1902), 217Google Scholar. The same three manuscripts (Esc. 798 [Casiri] = Esc. 802 [Derenbourg-Renaud]) are mentioned by Ullmann, M., Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden-Köln 1970), 169Google Scholar.

2 Pace Meyerhof, M., Archivio di Storia della Scienza, 11, 1929, 142Google Scholar and again in Baron, S. W. (ed.), Essays on Maimonides (New York, 1941), p. 274, n. 11Google Scholar, whose reference to Steinschneider's Hebräische Uebersetzungen seems erroneous.

3 Steinschneider, M., Die europäischen Ubersetzungen aus dent Arabischen bis Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts, II, §163 = SBAWW, phil.-hist. Klasse, 101, 1, 1905, 33Google Scholar (repr. Graz, 1956) records no such item.

4 Uṣaybiՙa, Apud Ibn Abi, ‘Uyūn al-Anbā՚ fi Ṭabaqāt al-Aṭibbā’, ed. Müller, A. (2 vols., Cairo, 1882), II, 205Google Scholar = ed. N. Riḍā (Beirut, 1965), 687.

5 al-Ḥukamā, Ibn al-Q?fṭt's Ta'rīẖ’, ed. J. Lippert (Leipzig, 1903), 319Google Scholar. The passage had already been communicated, without indication of authorship, by Casiri, M., Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escuraliensis (2 vols., Matriti, 1760–1770), i, 294Google Scholar.

6 On the 16 Summaria Alexandrinorum see Stern, art. cit., p. 12, n. 4, and Ullmann, op. cit., 65–7

7 Ibn Abi Uṣaybi‘a (post 1194–1270) himself, ed. Müller, II, 117 = ed. Riḍā, 583, mentions an epitome (ikhtiṣār) of the 16 books only. These three passages of ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādi, Ibn al-Qifṭī and ibn Abi Uṣaybi'a were first combined by Sacy, S. de, Relation de I'Égypte par Abd-Allatif (Paris, 1810), 491Google Scholar, with whose discussion modern research on the identity of Maimonides's Epitomes of Galen begins.

8 Kahle, P. apud Schröder, H. O., Galeni in Platonis Timaeum Commentarii Fragmenta (Leipzig-Berlin, 1934), 94Google Scholar = Kahle, P., Opera Minora (Leiden, 1956), 164Google Scholar. The passage had already been given, in a different form, by Steinschneider, M. in his discussion of the Epitomes in Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berolini, 1852–1860), IIGoogle Scholar, cols. 1929–30 (repr. Berlin, 1931).

9 For the medieval Hebrew rendering of Nathan ha-Meathi see Muntner, S., Moshe Ben Maimon, (Medical) Aphorisms of Moses (Jerusalem, 1959), 12Google Scholar.

10 Steinschneider, M., ZDMG, 48, 1894, 222Google Scholar; Kafih, J., Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Iggerot, Letters (Jerusalem, 1972), 147Google Scholar (both based upon the unicum Bodleian MS Uri 608, in Arabic letters, which I have not seen).

11 For the medieval Hebrew rendering of Moses b. Tibbon see Muntner, S., Moshe Ben Maimon, Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates (Jerusalem, 1961), 5Google Scholar.

12 Ed. Riḍā has here fuṣūlan lā yakhtāruhā with a superfluous negative similar to the dittography fāḍilan lā which appears in ed. Müller a line or two earlier. The version in de Sacy, op. cit., 539 (text), 466 (translation) with lā in neither place seems preferable.

13 Read khmsh for jmh with Stern, loc. cit., p. 12, n. 6

14 Kūhn, C. G., Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia (20 vols., Leipzig, 1821–33), vm (1824), 1–452Google Scholar. A recent English translation is by Siegel, R. E., Galen on the Affected Parts (Basel-New York, 1976)Google Scholar.

15 On the Arabic translation of this work see Sezgin, F., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, III (Leiden, 1970), 90–1Google Scholar; v (1974), 407 and Ullmann, op. cit. supra n. 1, 41–2.

16 Information on autographs of Maimonides can be found in JSS, 28, 1983, 273 ff., to which add BJRL, 67, 1985, 710 ff., BSOAS, L, 3, 1987, 465 ff., Lěšonénu, 53, 1988–89, 124, Sefunot, N.S., 5, 1991, 109 ff. David, A., BJRL, 73, 1991, 3–5Google Scholar, published a further fragment of Mishneh Torah from the Gaster Collection in Manchester. A survey of some of the autograph material extant in the hand of Maimonides was given by Scheiber, A. in Codex Maimuni, Moses Maimonides’ Code of Law, The Illuminated Pages of the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah ([Budapest], 1984), 16–18Google Scholar.

17 The other specimen occurs in the very same manuscript and is likewise a marginal note referring to the contents of the text beside which it appears; see Stern, p. 15, n. 5.

18 I am grateful to the authorities of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester for permission to publish the fragment.

19 Not 499 as misprinted in Stern, p 14, n. 6.

20 I wish to acknowledge the friendly assistance of Professor F. Corriente, Saragossa, who very kindly obtained for me a copy of the Escurial manuscript.