Alexander of Aphrodisias' on the Principles of The

ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS’ ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE IN A SYRIAC ADAPTATION

Every kindly thing that is / Hath a kindly stede ther he May best in hit conserved be; / Unto which place every thing Through his kindly enclyning / Moveth for to come to. CHAUCER, Hous of Fame

The seventh century Syriac manuscript BL Add.14658 is a wide-rang- ing collection of texts of mostly non-Christian origin1. Some are translations from Greek, others native Syriac compositions. A number of these have received scholarly treatment in the century and a half since the vel- lum codex was brought, with many others, from the Monastery of the Syrians in the Egyptian delta to the British Museum2. It is, for example, the only extant witness to the Book of the Laws of the Countries, tradi- tionally ascribed to the second century ‘heresiarch’ Bardaisan, and to the Apology ascribed to Melito of Sardis. Many of the texts found in the volume are in some way or other connected with the sixth century Syrian polymath Sergius of Res‘aina3. The first, and most extensive, piece in the collection is Sergius’ On the Aim of the Works of Aristotle, which turns out to be a commentary on the Categories, written in the tradition of fifth/sixth century Alexandrian Neoplatonism, transposed into a Syriac milieu4. Other works connected

1 W. WRIGHT, Catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum acquired since the year 1838. 3 vols. London, 1870-2, p. 1154-60. 2 After being excitedly reported in 1852 by E. RENAN, Lettre à M. Reinaud, sur quelques manuscrits syriaques du Musée britannique, contenant des traductions d’auteurs grecs profanes et des traités philosophiques, in Journal Asiatique, 19 (1852), p. 293-333 (= RENAN, Lettre à M. Reinaud), the texts in this collection tended to be treated separately. For a more recent assessment of the whole collection, H. HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Éthique et politique au premier âge de la tradition syriaque, in Mélanges de l’Université Saint- Joseph, 57 (2004), p. 99-120. 3 For a general overview, H. HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Aux origines de l’exégèse orientale de la logique d’Aristote: Sergius de Res’aina (†536), médecin et philosophe, in Journal Asiatique, 277 (1989), p. 1-17. 4 For an overview of the text, J.W. WATT, Commentary and Translation in Syriac Aristotelian Scholarship: Sergius to Baghdad, in Symposium Syriacum X, forthcoming (= WATT, Commentary and Translation); parts have been translated by H. HUGONNARD- ROCHE, La Logique d’Aristote du grec au syriaque: Études sur la transmission des textes de l’Organon et leur interpretation philosophique, Paris, 2004, chs. VII, VIII, IX (= HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Logique). A full edition and translation is in preparation by J.W. Watt.

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with Sergius include translations of the De Mundo and of Galen’s On Critical Days, to be discussed in due course. The present study concerns another of the texts in this important collection, namely that which is entitled A treatise concerning the causes of the universe, written by Mar Sargis, priest of Rish Ayna, according to the view of Aristotle the Phi- losopher, that it is a sphere5. Earlier work on the manuscript and on Sergius assumed that this was an original work of the Syrian’s6. Only in 1994 was the text correctly identified by Dana Miller as an adapted version of a work by Alexander of Aphrodisias7, otherwise known only in an Arabic version entitled Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise on the theory concerning the Princi- ples of the Universe according to the philosopher Aristotle’s opinion (more generally referred to as the Mabadi’)8. This Arabic text was edited originally by Badawi9, and more recently in a much improved edition in 2001 by Charles Genequand10, following closely on the heels of an important study of this and related texts by Prof. Endress11. The present offering seeks to complement the critical Syriac text published in the present volume by indicating the characteristics of the adaptation and by locating Sergius’ treatment of it within the broader currents of cosmological and theological concern among educated Greeks and Syrians of his era.

The Mabadi’

The manuscript collection with which we are concerned is moving into a new phase when we arrive at the Mabadi’. The six preceding texts

5 See the edition and translation of our text in the current issue by E. Fiori, which replaces the less accurate Italian translation, G. FURLANI, Il trattato di Sergio di Res’ayna sull’ universo, in Rivista trimestrale di studi filosofica e religiosi, 4 (1923), p. 1-22 (= FURLANI, Il trattato di Sergio). The item is no. 7 in Wright’s Catalogue (p. 1156). 6 E.g. RENAN, Lettre à M. Reinaud, p. 320; FURLANI, Il trattato di Sergio. 7 D.R. MILLER, Sargis of Res’ayna: On what celestial bodies know, in R. LAVENANT (ed.), VI Symposium Syriacum (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 247), Rome, 1994, p. 221- 233 (= MILLER, Sargis). .مقالة الاسكندر الافروديسي في القول في مبادئ الكل بحسب ٔراي ٔارسطاطالس الفيلسوف 8 9 A. BADAWI, Aristu ‘inda al-‘Arab, Cairo, 1947, p. 253-277. 10 C. GENEQUAND (ed.), Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Cosmos. Arabic text with English Translation, Introduction and Commentary (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, 44), Leiden, 2001 (= GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos). 11 G. ENDRESS, Alexander Arabus on the First Cause. Aristotle’s First Mover in an Arabic Treatise attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias, in C. D’ANCONA COSTA – G. SERRA, (ed.), Aristotele e Alessandro di Afrodisia nella tradizione araba, Padua, 2002, p. 19-61 (= ENDRESS, Alexander Arabus on the First Cause).

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all had to do with logic or grammar; this is the first to deal with cosmology and physics. Since in his earlier work on the Categories Sergius had argued that the aim of logic was as a propaedeutic to the study of physics, metaphysics, and theology, we might be entitled to regard the present text as a partial fulfilment of that trajectory. The extent to which the ms collection as a whole represents a particular approach to philosophy, or a curriculum, will be discussed on another occasion, but will also surface from time to time here12. Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Mabadi’ is concerned primarily with the motions of the heavenly spheres and how these are caused, together with various ancillary questions about the relationship between these motions and the motions of the sublunary bodies, as well as how both of these relate to the First, or Unmoved, Mover. Broadly speaking, it is an attempt by Alexander to harmonise various different passages in Aristotle, such as Physics VIII, Metaphysics L, and De Anima III,1013. It thus presents a supposedly Peripatetic cosmology, grounded in Aristotle but incorporating some of the results of subsequent philosophical and astronomical research. The text has a special concern for demonstrating the effects of the heavenly spheres on sublunar bodies. The model of celestial mechan- ics that is thereby presented appears to be designed as a grounding for the general theories of providence and fate which Alexander expounded in detail elsewhere14. If, as is generally accepted as established, the extant Arabic provides a text close enough to its Greek Vorlage that we can assume that we have

12 See n. 2 above. The question will be further considered from different perspectives in D. KING, Origenism in Sixth Century Syria. The Case of a Syriac Manuscript of Pagan Philosophy, in A. FÜRST (ed.), Origenes und seine Bedeutung für die Theologie- und Geistesgeschichte Europas und des Vorderen Orients (Adamantiana. Texte und Studien zu Origenes und seinem Erbe, 1), Münster, 2009 (= KING, Origenism in Sixth Century Syria). 13 For a fuller summary of the contents and interpretation of the Mabadi’, GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 6-20, and ENDRESS, Alexander Arabus on the First Cause, p. 37-55. Alexander’s development of the Aristotelian tradition is part of a wider phenomenon, called ‘astrologization’ by G. FREUDENTHAL, The Mediaeval Astrologization of the Aristo- telian Cosmos: From Alexander of Aphrodisias to Averroes, in Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 59 (2006), p. 29-68; the process is amply described by R.W. SHARPLES, Aristotelian theology after Aristotle, in D. FREDE – A. LAKS (ed.), Traditions of Theology. Studies in Hellenistic Theology, its background and aftermath, Leiden, 2002, p. 1-40, and IDEM, Peripatetics on Fate and Providence, in R.W. SHARPLES – R. SORABJI (ed.), Greek and Roman Philosophy 100BC-200AD, London, 2007, p. 595-605. 14 In his On Fate, Alexander argues against determinism and allows a sphere of influence for fate (text and translation by R.W. SHARPLES, Duckworth, 1983); in the On Prov- idence he builds on the theories of the Mabadi’ and the On Fate by identifying the influence of the heavenly bodies on the sublunar world with providence – P. THILLET (ed.), Alexandre d’Aphrodise. Traité de la providence, Verdier, 2003.

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reasonable access to Alexander’s original text, then it becomes immediately clear that the Syriac text is by no means a simple translation of the original. This point is well taken by Genequand in abjuring the use of the Syriac as a helpful witness in the reconstruction of the text itself15. Nei- ther is there any reason to believe that there was once a literal Syriac translation upon which Sergius’ adaptation depends, for Sergius was as familiar with Greek as with his native tongue and most likely wrote his treatise on the basis of the Greek text itself16. Although this state of affairs renders the text less useful to the editor of Alexander’s works, it does thereby lend itself more readily to a study of the tendencies and interests of the translator/interpreter.

The Translator and Adapter of the Syriac Version

In general terms the Syriac text reflects the arguments and subject matter of sections A1-85 of the Arabic text17. Since the latter has 151 sections, this might appear to suggest that the translator either simply omitted the second half or did not have access to it. However, the last chapter of the Syriac (S36) is clearly a paraphrase of the Arabic ending (A147-151), so although it would still be possible that the translator had a text before him which lacked A86-146, it would seem more likely that he voluntarily chose to omit the extra material18. On the other hand, there are a number of passages which are found only in the Syriac. While it may occasionally be the case that these are sections preserved from the original but omitted from the Arabic version19, for the most part they are clearly interpolations by an adapter.

15 GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 34, contra what is said in S. FAZZO, art. Alexandros d’Aphrodisias, in R. GOULET (ed.), Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques, Supplément, Paris, 2003, p. 67. 16 Again, contra Fazzo, ibidem. Even Sergius’ extensive commentary on the Catego- ries was designed to be read alongside the Greek text by scholars working in a thoroughly bilingual context, as is shown by WATT, Commentary and Translation. 17 The chapters of the Arabic text are referred to here as A# (according to Gene- quand’s edition), those of the Syriac by S# (according to Furlani’s and Fiori’s translations, see n. 5 above). A concordance of the Arabic and Syriac sections is provided in an Appen- dix to this article. 18 Some of this material (A99-119) may in fact not belong to the original Greek text anyway, thereby reducing the amount that Sergius would have deliberately omitted (GENE- QUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 16-17). ENDRESS, Alexander Arabus on the First Cause, 44, does suggest that Sergius’ version may lie behind the second of the two Arabic versions (that made by al-Dimasqi), but Genequand does not seem to endorse this possibility, rather affirming that al-Dimasqi’s text is a simple revision of the earlier attempt ascribed to Ibrahim ibn ‘Abdallah. 19 Unusual loanwords are sometimes to be found in Syriac-only passages, e.g. haplos

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In the only thorough study to date of the Syriac version of the Mabadi’, Dana Miller suggested that Sergius himself was only the original translator and that the interpolations derive from a later hand. This finding is based on two questionable arguments. The first is that a belief in astrology appears to lie behind some of the Syriac-only passages in the Mabadi’, and yet in his Memra on the Spir- itual Life Sergius specifically rejects the beliefs of the Chaldaeans20. However, Sergius’ position on astrology is rather equivocal and is in fact in perfect harmony with the very limited role allowed to astrology within the current text. In fact, the very point of the relevant passage in the Memra on the Spiritual Life is that a limited form of astrology is desir- able in the Christian who seeks the true contemplation (theoria) of God21. The second is an argument from translation technique, in which Miller suggests that Sergius was well-known as a ‘loose’ translator22. However, this is not really what the ‘modern scholarship…has shown’ which is rather that Sergius was more an expositor than a word-for-word literalist like some of his successors23. In fact this fits rather well what we have before us; and in any case this argument tells us nothing in particular about the origin of the so-called ‘interpolations’. By contrast, a number of factors point firmly toward Sergius as the source of both ‘translation’ and ‘adaptation’. Firstly, the ‘interpolations’ are not really best described as such. The whole text is a paraphrased version of the original (understood from the Arabic version) shot through with expansions, additions, paraphrases, and omissions. Occasionally the Syriac comes verbally quite close to the Vorlage of the Arabic but more often keeps it at arm’s length. The addi-

(äpl¬v, S12), and parehsiya d‘al kuleh dogma (parrjsía concerning all dógma, S36). In general, such words are found only in translations, though such an argument cannot ultimately be conclusive since Sergius may well have sought to give a Hellenic edge to his compositions. 20 MILLER, Sargis, p. 229. 21 This is also in line with the position of Bardaisan whom Sergius may have thought of as a master. The parallels between the Mabadi’ and the Memra are important and will be dealt with below. 22 MILLER, Sargis. 23 For Sergius’ approach to translation, HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Logique, p. 23-37 (on logical terminology), V. RYSSEL, Über den textkritischen Werth der syrischen Übersetzun- gen griechischer Klassiker, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1880-81, II, p. 10-17 (on ps-Aristotle, De Mundo), S.P. BROCK, The Syriac Background to Hunayn’s Translation Techniques, in Aram, 3 (1991), p. 139-162, and S. BHAYRO, Syriac Medical Terminology: Sergius and Galen’s Pharmacopia, in Aramaic Studies, 3 (2005), p. 147-165 (for the medical work). When compared with his contemporary Paul of Callinicum, Sergius is very much the reader-oriented expositor – cf. D. KING, Paul of Callinicum and his place in Syriac literature, in Le Muséon, 120 (2007), p. 327-349 (= KING, Paul of Callinicum).

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tions/expansions are scattered throughout the text, sometimes long, sometimes short. It would be hard, if not quite impossible, to separate out an original ‘translation’ from subsequent ‘interpolations’. It is much more likely that the whole is the work of one hand. Secondly, as we shall show below (with reference to section S28 in particular), passages that appear to be interpolations in fact often turn out to be substitutions for an equivalent passage in the original such that it is clear that the author of the ‘interpolation’ must have had the original in front of him, since he glances back at it from time to time. To main- tain a distinction between translator and interpolator we would therefore have to assume that the latter was in fact revising the translation with the original in front of him. It would be much simpler to assume the identity of the two hands. Thirdly, this ‘one hand’ is discernible in a number of ‘authorial intrusions’ into Alexander’s text which we shall investigate more closely below. These intrusions or interjections sometimes involve references to other works written by the ‘interpolator’ and to his thoughts on the theological significance of what he is describing. These references all align closely with what we know of Sergius’ life and work24. Furthermore, when we compare the current text with Sergius’ Memra on the Spiritual Life, we find a number of close parallels. These are too numerous and interesting to pursue here, save to note that after rejecting the Chaldaean (i.e. predictive) use of astrology25, Sergius actively encourages the aspir- ing ascetic to gain a thorough knowledge of the movements of the heavens, in particular of the procession of the Zodiac26. Fourthly, the nature of the interpolated elements sometimes points us to Sergius directly. For instance, when he argues that a Creator must always be creating (S35), he uses the example of the ladder upon which an ‘ascent’ and a ‘descent’ are the same thing looked at from different points of view. This is not present in the Arabic but rather draws on an example used by the Alexandrian teacher Ammonius when discussing homonyms and heteronyms in the context of Aristotle’s Categories27.

24 E.g. we discover that he wrote a treatise on the ‘course of the planets’ and also ‘on contemplation (theoria)’. As we shall see below, all this fits with Sergius’ overall pro- gramme of teaching. 25 Even this is ambiguous, since he earlier uses the term (Chaldaeism) for the third member of the quadrivium, which he clearly views as a key part of any education. 26 E. FIORI, Sergio di Resh’ayna. Trattato sulla Vita Spirituale (Testi dei Padri della Chiesa, 93), Monastero di Bose, 2008, p. 53. 27 The exemplum is found in Ammonius, In Isagoge 70,27, and In Cat. 16,29. Also Philoponus, In Cat. 14,19; 15,9-10 (Philoponus’ commentary on the Categories derives

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Ammonius was also Sergius’ teacher and it is quite obvious whence this particular exemplum derives, although here it is being deployed in a new way. When we add to these particulars the testimony of the heading given in the ms, which attributes the text as a whole to Sergius28, it would seem obtuse not to grant Sergius the role of both translator and interpolator, or rather simply the ‘adapter’.

The Characteristics of the Syriac version

Now while it is true in a broad sense, as Miller states, that Sergius’ text is ‘an abridgement of a longer, more sophisticated Greek original,’ this does not account for the uneven treatment of different sections which is found in the Syriac version. For while some sections are abbreviated, sometimes radically, many others are close translations and a few involve expansions upon the original text in the interests of completeness and clarity29. Thus, for example, in A8 the words What shows that the spherical body is the best of all bodies is the fact that it does not perish and that it moves with it eternally and regularly

is given a rather more elaborate treatment in Syriac (S7): It is clear that [the ensouled body] is better than [the soulless one] from the fact that it does not change and does not alter and does not grow old and does not see decay like every [other] body and by the fact that it is moved [by] a motion that is better than every [other] motion, namely in a circle, and it always moves itself in an equal and ceaseless order; for all other motions are either up or down, or to the right or left, or forwards or back- wards, and because of this they find a limit for their eagerness, but the motion that is in a circle revolves ceaselessly upon itself and for this reason it is better than all [other] motions.

In another place, Alexander explains that of the three types of desire (appetite, anger, volition) only the last mentioned is appropriate for divine bodies (A9-11). Sergius is a little more expansive, explaining (S9) how appetite and anger exist in en-souled bodies that require outside

directly from Ammonius’ lectures). Philoponus also developed the exemplum for other contexts, e.g. In Phys. 720-721,728; and In De An. 473,24. 28 In other texts in our ms, when the text is a straight translation by Sergius, it is described as such (e.g. De Mundo); when it is an adaptation, it is ascribed to Sergius as author (e.g. On the Action of the Moon). 29 To the possible objection that such passages represent places where the Arabic version has abbreviated the original, it should be pointed out that these ‘pluses’ in the Syriac are usually distinctive as authorial intrusions by Sergius, as we shall see below.

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help for their movement, but bodies that move in a circle have no need of such assistance and therefore volition (Òebyana) is the only variety of desire (metragragnuta) that is appropriate to them. These ‘pluses’ in Sergius’ text are thus often expansions aimed at making a particular point clearer to the reader. They are generally quite distinctive in that Sergius ‘intrudes’ into the text, speaking in the first person to clear up possible ambiguities or objections to the argument. The first significant example of this procedure is chapter S6. Sergius here perceives that the reader may be confused by the terminology of the foregoing section, in which all bodies have been described as ‘natural’ since “what you have heard many times from us in our explanations (kad mpassqinnan)30” suggests that there are unnatural bodies too. The difficulty lies in a difference between the Greek and Syriac words for body, for it seems that Sergius had elsewhere used the term body (gusma) in a metaphorical sense, as in gusma d-yulpana (a body of teaching)31. There are many other small pluses in the Syriac (indicated by + in our appended concordance). These are usually intrusive clarifications and have no particularly strong tendencies. For example, the plus in S7/A8 which explains why circular movement is superior to linear; or the passage about the whole and the parts of the First Mover (S12/A23). To the passage about animals as self-movers (S22/A44b) Sergius adds a comment that reflects his own interests and knowledge as a physician: But I call this [type of] cause primary because the movements of animals have other causes that are not primary, namely nerves (gyade)32, anatomi- cal structures (rukabe), limbs (ha∂dame), and things like these.

Above and beyond these small intrusions, there are a some that are more considerable, e.g. S25 is an added paragraph in which Sergius takes the opportunity to speak about polytheism. This and other more notable

30 It is instructive to note the topics upon which Sergius says that he commented, namely geometry () and astronomy, or perhaps astrology, ( , The Movement of the Sphere and the Lights, or possibly The Procession of the Zodiac and the Stars). For the meaning of which refers properly to the zones into which the heavenly sphere is divided by means of the zodiacal constellations, Thes., 109. This is also the Bardesanite use of the term (F. NAU, Bardesanes. Liber Legum regionum [Patrologia Syriaca, I/2], Paris, 1907, p. 490-658, cit. p. 544,15), and is probably also the sense at Jacob of Edessa, Hexaemeron, 172a7 (J.-B. CHABOT [ed.], Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron [CSCO, 92; Scr. Syri, 44), Louvain, 1928). was the more common Syriac word for the individual signs of the zodiac, as also in the Mandaean Book of the Zodiac, the Sfar Malwasia. At any rate, Sergius was evidently teaching at least these two parts of the ancient quadrivium. As regards the trivium, we know from elsewhere that he taught logic, and the current text is self-confessedly an exercise in dialectic. 31 Cf. Eng. ‘a corpus of writing’. The Greek s¬ma cannot carry this sense.

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moments will be discussed in what follows as the principal features of Sergius’ adaptation.

Christianising the Text

The most distinctive feature of Sergius’ work in adapting this text from the Peripatetic tradition is his careful Christianising of certain aspects of the text. This tendency is quite evident in a number of pluses and also in alterations made to passages in which he otherwise stays close to the original. Firstly, there is a consistent and deliberate avoidance of the term divine body (al-jism al-ilahi, which must be a rendering of to theion soma) in reference to the heavenly bodies which move in a circle and which are the subject of large portions of the treatise. Instead, Sergius usually uses gusma methkarkana, which seems to mean revolving body (‘le corps qui tourne’, in Fiori’s version). Where Alexander describes -divine, ungener) إِلاهي وغير كائن و لا فساد these revolving bodies as being ated and imperishable), Sergius describes them as naqda (pure) and m‘alya (superior) (A4/S4). He also occasionally uses the expression gusma smayana (heavenly body, A16 /S12). It is quite clear that Sergius is not happy to refer to these objects as ‘divine’ (although the Arabic translator had no such qualms) and indeed, as we shall show below, some of his additions to the text are specifically aimed at asserting a fundamental distinction between the First Mover and the celestial bodies33. Furthermore, the word for ‘God’ is never once used in the Syriac text for any reason, although it occasionally surfaces in the Arabic (e.g. A11)34. Instead, Sergius often refers to ’itya (the Being, the Existent)35,

32 Or, sinews, but the Greek term neÕron, earlier meaning the sinews or tendons, had come to refer specifically to the motor and sensory nerves already in late Hellenistic times and is probably what Sergius has in mind here. 33 There are other texts preserved in this unusual manuscript (BL Add. 14658) which have the same concern for comabting those who treat the elements or the heavenly bodies as ‘gods’, namely the Apology of Ps-Melito (for text and translation of this early Syriac document, W. CURETON, Spicilegium Syriacum, London, 1855, p. 41-51 [= CURETON, Spi- cilegium Syriacum]). Note for example the polemic against those who “affix that name which is unchangeable to those things which are subject to change” (43,6). 34 The closest Sergius comes to using the word God is in the conclusion where, for “opinions held about God Most High” (A147), the Syriac has “discourses that are spoken on divine matters (’alahayata)” (S36). 35 is not a particularly common word in Syriac. It may therefore be worth noting that it was of great significance to the Bardesanite cosmology, although there the word was used to refer to the primary elements as the ’itye. The expression is thrown back

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who is equated with the ‘abuda (Creator) and the mqaymana (Sustainer) (S27). Earlier the ‘elta qadmaya (First Cause), an expression used very frequently throughout the text, is equated with the ‘abuda d-kol (Creator of all) (S12), and Sergius’ intrusions often involve referring to the Being and the Creator36, expressions that are not found in the Arabic version and would not normally be in the vocabulary of Peripatetics37. If we seek a reason for these careful omissions and alterations of terminology, it ought to be located within the same concern that motivated Sergius to deny divinity to the celestial spheres. Though it might seem an obvious step to use the simple assignation God instead of more allu- sive terms such as Creator and Sustainer, Sergius seems to steer clear of the regular vocabulary of Christian doctrine altogether in this work ascribed in the main to a pagan philosopher, though this by no means deters him from ‘Christianising’ the text in other ways, as we shall now see.

The Eternity of the World

It is in this connection that we also encounter the vital issue of the eternity of the movement of the heavenly bodies and the eternity of the world in general, the latter doctrine being a consequence of the former. This eternity is affirmed and demonstrated by Alexander (quite unre- markably for any follower of Aristotle), is preserved intact by the Arabic translator, but was obviously a problem for Sergius, for whom the world had a clear beginning in the activity of the creator38. S12 represents a transition from the early portion of the treatise which concerns the cause of motion in the revolving bodies (Ar. divine bodies) and the nature of the ‘desire’ which the latter have toward the First Mover, or First Cause. From S13 onwards, the attention of the texts turns towards the nature of this First Mover, dealing with questions such as whether it is incorporeal, whether it is compound or simple, whether it itself moves or not (S13-24). Already in S12, Sergius has added a gloss

at Bardaisan by Ephrem on many occasions (see H.J.W. DRIJVERS, Bardaisan of Edessa, Assen, 1966, p. 130ff.). 36 Frequently in the expanded sections S28,31, for which see further below. 37 This is not the only time that Sergius did this. When Ammonius refers in his commentaries to the Demiurge, Sergius speaks instead of the Creator. 38 The lack of concern for this issue in the Arabic translation matches the reception of this doctrine more generally in Arabic philosophy. Al-Farabi, for instance, deployed arguments specifically against Philoponus on the matter of the world’s eternity, and the doctrine was reaffirmed in Ibn Sina’s Shifa’ (GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 24).

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in which he equates the First Cause with the Creator, and this is evidently what he has in mind throughout the succeeding sections. When Sergius arrives at A49, the argument turns towards the eternity of the divine spheres and indeed of the whole universe (A52), which is asserted on the basis that the First Mover must cause a motion that is itself eternal. In the Syriac, A49 is replaced with a parallel but rather different passage (S26): As we have said, then, the Mover of the revolving body is a Being (’itya) and if it were not [so], then when it perishes and another movement begins after it, then the uniformity of the movement would be interrupted, and the universe would be shocked and nullified.

He then moves in a quite different direction from that of the Arabic text. While admitting (S27=A51) with the latter that the First Mover “must be the mover of all the other things which are moved and generated by nature,” he breaks off before it draws any conclusions about the eternity of those natural beings and instead asserts that: This Being is a Creator and a Mover and a Sustainer. If all this [world] is material, then the cause of natural movement and of generation and of sus- tenance is these revolving bodies, but the cause of the movement of the revolving [bodies] and of their sustaining is Him/It.

Sergius has thus made sure that a Christian interpretation is read into the text and that the only true cause of anything is in fact the First Mover and that nothing positive is seemingly said about the possible eternity of the revolving bodies. Since he was in agreement with Alexander where the latter argues that the motion caused by the First Mover must itself be eternal, Sergius cannot entirely avoid the issue of what was being moved before things were created (or, the theological crux of ‘what was God doing before He created the world?’). He first argues that if the creator is eternal He must have been creating from eternity (S31) and there must therefore be an eternity of ‘being’ since the creator is Himself a Being (S32). He then explains (S33) that the act of moving and the act of creating are one and the same thing, merely described from different points of view (this is Sergius’ own addition, since Alexander’s version talks only about moving)39. So since the First Mover must always have been causing motion he must also have been always creating. If things are thus, it is certain that there are creatures from eternity, and that that Being who is thought of as prior to everything is a creator who has no

39 It seems to go back to Ammonius (see n. 27 above).

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beginning and whose creative powers have never failed [i.e. been unused] from eternity, and nor is it possible that they should ever fail40.

Moreover, it becomes quite clear in the following sections (S34-5) that all of Alexander’s many references to the eternal motion of the divine bodies have been ignored and in fact Sergius only follows Alexander in very general terms in these last sections, as he seeks to describe how the various types of movement within the heavenly bodies are transmitted down into the sublunar regions (A79-85). Although the movements of the heavenly bodies are often described as bida‘ta (intellectual) and ’aminait (continuous) (S34), or even as salma (perfect) (S24), there is really nothing in all this to correspond to the presupposition that per- vades the equivalent portion of Alexander’s text that these movements are coeternal with the Mover41. We have noted that at the end of the treatise Sergius concedes that God must always have been in the act of creating but does not explicitly draw from this the implication that the creation itself is eternal (as Alex- ander does). Zacharias Scholasticus (on whom more below) provides a slightly earlier example of the same problem, for he differed from his teacher Ammonius on this point, denying the coeternity of God and the world, while allowing a possibly infinite extension in time for the crea- tion42. In fact, it was common among the later Neoplatonists, of whom Sergius was undoubtedly one, to interpret Aristotle as saying that the universe was created, but without a beginning in time43. Against this background it was therefore quite possible for Sergius to accept the eternity of God’s creating power without thereby committing himself to the view that the universe was coeternal with God in the qualitative sense. The later Alexandrian Neoplatonists also attempted some such rap-

40 S 33, which broadly matches A74-75. 41 Sergius does not present us with the subtlety and sophistication of philosophical argument that we find in Philoponus on this matter, yet in other contexts we find the same issue even further popularised, e.g. within Syriac hagiographical literature, in which the holy man, presented as a philosopher, can outmatch the pagan thinkers in his arguments about the beginning of the world. See J. WALKER, The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq, Berkeley, 2006, p. 190-197. 42 L. OBERTELLO, Proclus, Ammonius of Hermias, and Zacharias Scholasticus: The Search after Eternity and the Meaning of Creation, in M. TRESCHOW et al. (ed.), Divine Creation in Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Thought: Essays presented to Rev’d Robert D. Crouse (Studies in Intellectual History, 5), Leiden, 2007, p. 173-190 (= OBERTELLO, Proclus, Ammonius, and Zacharias). 43 R. SORABJI, Time, Creation, and the Continuum: theories in antiquity and the early middle ages, London, 1983, p. 282-283. This view was not, however, held by Origen, and so, in this matter at least, Sergius did not follow the Christian philosopher, as he did in others (see below).

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prochement between Christian doctrine and Aristotle, while continuing in practice to teach the traditional curriculum of their school44.

The Souls of the Heavenly Bodies It is worth noting, however, that Sergius follows Alexander in arguing that the heavenly bodies must be animate, with the proviso that for such bodies souls and nature are one and the same thing (S7,S12), such that there are not thereby two different principles of motion45. These souls of the heavenly bodies are the cause of the motions of those bodies through their desire (orexis) for the First Cause, but this desire consists only of pure volition and excludes appetite and anger – these being the three sub-divisions of the motivating (desirous) faculty of the soul according to Aristotle, though Sergius also derived it from Ammonius46. Whether one attributed souls to the heavenly bodies, and if so in what sense, depended upon an interpretation of various passages in the De Caelo, and there was some variety of opinion47. Philoponus, in his commentary on the De Anima (written before 517), argued in favour (following, as he thought, Aristotle), probably picking up on some of Alexan- der’s points48. Arabic philosophy mostly followed his lead49.

44 The last two known heads of the school, Elias and David, were probably Christians, and yet their philosophy seems little different from that of their predecessors (see L.G. WESTERINK – J. TROUILLARD, Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon, Paris, 1990, p. xxxvi ff.), though Elias may not have been a Christian (C. WILDBERG, Three Neopla- tonic Introductions to Philosophy: Ammonius, David, and Elias, in Hermathena, 149 [1990], p. 33-51). 45 Philoponus uses the same arguments in his Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World (ed. C. WILDBERG, London, 1987), fr.49. 46 Ar., De An. III,9; Ammonius, In Isag. 11,18 (ed. BUSSE, Commentaria in Aristo- telem Graeca [= CAG], IV,3, Berlin, 1891), whence Sergius has the same group of three sub-faculties of the animal part of the soul in his commentary on the Categories, HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Logique, p. 191, 206. See the appendix for the different Syriac and Arabic equivalents for these terms. 47 E.g. Alexander argues that the heavenly souls have only the rational and intellective faculties and are thus not truly ‘alive’ (since they have not the faculties of sense perception), whereas Simplicius and Olympiodorus do apply at least some of the senses to the heavenly bodies. The account here is based on that of H.A. WOLFSON, The Problem of the Souls of the Spheres from the Byzantine Commentaries on Aristotle through the Arabs and St. Thomas to Kepler, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), p. 65-93. Aquinas later debated the question (Summa 1,70,art.3), summarising the opinions of some of the Fathers, including Origen. 48 Philoponus, In De An. 101,33-102,7 (ed. HAYDUCK, CAG, XV, Berlin, 1897), and in many other places throughout the text. He ascribes the doctrine to Aristotle and specifically to Alexander. The assumption is still at work in the In Phys., 892,18-20 (ed. VITELLI, CAG, XVII, Berlin, 1888), written in 517, and even in the works of Christian philosophy on the eternity of the world (see n. 45 above) written in the 520s. 49 H.A. DAVIDSON, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect. Their Cosmologies, theories of the active intellect, and theories of human intellect, Oxford, 1992, p. 44-45.

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However, the Origenist controversy in the sixth century50, which revolved largely around some of the doctrines associated with Evagrius51, made a specific point of outlawing belief in Origen’s ensouled universe52. As a result, after 543, and even more especially after the ecumenical council of 553, Philoponus was open to the charge of Origenism and thus he appears to have changed his position, for in his De Opificio Mundi (written between 547-60) he expressly discusses it and denies souls to the heavenly spheres53. Another of the texts in the current ms collection, the Apology of ps-Melito, seems to deal with the same problem, insisting that one reserve the term ‘divine’ to the God ‘who revolves the heavens’ rather than to the heavenly bodies themselves54. Origen himself of course never ascribed divinity to the heavenly bodies, but his high estimation of their animated natures was considered by the later tradition tantamount to such an admission. Looking back from the viewpoint of the 560s, the Syriac church (or at least some part of it) accused Sergius similarly of being a follower of Origen55. On the basis of the Mabadi’ such an accusation could probably have stuck56.

50 For an overview of which, D. HOMBERGEN, The Second Origenist Controversy: a new perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis’ monastic biographies as historical sources for sixth-century Origenism (Studia Anselmiana), Roma, 2001. 51 Guillaumont’s classic demonstration to this effect is still broadly accepted (A. GUIL- LAUMONT, Les Képhalaia gnostica d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les Grecs et chez les Syriens, Paris, 1962). 52 Justinian’s edict against the Origenists (543) included the following anathema (Acta Conciliorum Œcumenicorum, III,213,27-8): e÷ tiv légei oûranòn kaì Ølion kaì selßnjn kaì âstérav kaì Àdata tà üperánw t¬n oûran¬n êmcúxouv kaì logikàv e˝naí tinav dunámeiv, ânáqema ∂stw (if anyone says that heaven and sun and moon and stars and the waters above the heavens are some sort of en-souled and rational powers, let him be anathema). For Origen’s own discussion which commits him to this point of view, De Princ. II,7,2-3. A.B. SCOTT, Origen and the life of the stars: a history of an idea, Oxford, 1991, explores the background and significance of the doctrine but not its Nach- leben. 53 De Opificio Mundi, VI,2 – C. SCHOLTEN (ed.), Joannes Philoponus. De Opificio Mundi. Über die Erschaffung der Welt (Fontes Christiani), Freiberg, 1997 (= De Opificio Mundi), which is to be contrasted with the statements made in his earlier work, cited above, n. 48. Philoponus himself may have been accused of Origenism by Cosmas Ind- icopleustes, and his followers among the Tritheists were also thus labelled – A. GRILL- MEIER – T. HAINTHALER, Jesus der Christus im Glauben der Kirche 2.4, Die Kirche von Alexandrien mit Nubien und Äthiopien nach 451, Freiburg, 1990, p. 132, 144; also p. 111 for the suggestion that the Origenist controversy explains the differences between Philo- ponus’ earlier and his later works. 54 Edition and translation in CURETON, Spicilegium Syriacum, μ (tr., 41-51). 55 As he is by the monk of Amida who was responsible for the compilation known as ps-Zachariah’s Ecclesiastical History (ed. BROOKS, IX, XIX), though of course he had many other reasons for throwing accusations at Sergius. 56 However, there are many other bases upon which one could call Sergius an ‘Origen-

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There is one other matter of philosophical background which may have some bearing on our tract. When John Philoponus wrote his De Opificio Mundi, he directed it not only towards pagan philosophy, but also other Christian points of view with which he disagreed, specifically the pro-Chalcedonian author, Cosmas Indicopleustes57, who had con- structed an alternative, and to Philoponus’ mind, absurd cosmology58. Put simply, Cosmas argued for a flat earth, Philoponus for a spherical one. The assertion in the title of our present treatise, viz. that it argues that the world is a sphere, sounds like an echo of this debate59. This remains a possibility, although it would require us to project this particular debate back into the Alexandria of a slightly earlier time than that of Cosmas and the De Opificio Mundi. Alternatively, this title may have been introduced by a scribe rather than by Sergius himself and it may refer to the fact that one of the main arguments in the treatise concerns the circular motion of the heavens (, e.g. f.106v)60.

The Philosophical Background Given that Sergius gained his philosophical education in the Neopla- tonist schools of Alexandria, the identification of these distinctive facets of our text enables us to locate it as one among a series of texts emanat- ing from Alexandria in the late fifth/early sixth century which were concerned with precisely the issue of the eternity of the heavens. A brief resumé of this background may be of use in highlighting elements of Sergius’ own intellectual context61. The dialectic between Christianity and traditional religion in Alexan- dria had long been a significant and potentially inflammatory aspect of

ist’ from the post-553 perspective, since Origenism by then referred more to a method and approach to theology rather than a particular set of doctrinal positions – on Sergius as an Origenist, see the article cited in n. 12. 57 Cosmas was closely associated with Mar Aba (Patricius), one of the heads of the School of Nisibis, who may well have been responsible for introducing the study of Aris- totle to that famous institution of East Syrian learning (S.P. BROCK, From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac attitudes to Greek learning, in N. GARSOÏAN et al. (ed.), East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, Washington, 1982, p. 17-32), just as his near contemporary Sergius was responsible for bringing Aristotelianism to the West Syrian church. 58 Specifically De Opificio Mundi III attacks Cosmas’ notion of a flat earth. 59 This suggestion originated with Emiliano Fiori (personal communication). 60 See esp. the introductory questions in A3/S3 and the argument in S7. 61 For what we know of Sergius’ life and education, HUGONNARD-ROCHE, Logique, p. 123-142. That Sergius wrote a book on time as the measure of movement is probably not accurate (ibid., p. 128) since the sentence which refers to this work is found also in the Arabic and hence belongs to Alexander not to Sergius.

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life in that city. In the days of Origen and Didymus, a Christian Platonist school managed to exist side by side with the much older philosophical schools and succeeded in propagating its own distinctive Christian philosophy. In the fourth century, and especially after the adoption of the Christian religion as that of the state under Theodosius, the rise of desert asceticism challenged and sought to refashion the very notion of Chris- tian philosophy. It was in the monks’ cells, rather than in the universities that true wisdom and knowledge was to be found. However, although under the new régime, many wealthy Christians now tended towards monasticism or the church hierarchy rather than to the secular universities (e.g. all the famous bishops of Alexandria, Athanasius, Theophilus, Cyril), the latter still appear to have been popular with people of all religious backgrounds throughout the fourth and fifth centuries. Further- more, the second half of the fifth century saw something of a renaissance of Neoplatonist teaching in Alexandria, and so the tensions between the religious communities grew concomitantly62. In order to preserve Christian students from being unduly influenced by their ‘pagan’ lecturers, a pressure group, known as the philoponoi, formed from local Christian leaders and students, was instituted with the aim of restricting and perhaps eventually eliminating paganism from the city. Often they organised violent action in support of Christian students who were felt to be under pressure to take part in pagan religious activ- ity63. It was after a major incident of this kind between the philoponoi and pagan members of the Neoplatonist schools that the foremost teacher of ‘pagan’ philosophy in Alexandria, Ammonius son of Hermeias, seems to have come to a compromise with the Church in which he agreed to tone down the religious content of his teaching64. The struggle between the Christian and pagan elements in the city continued after this, however, as we learn from Zacharias Scholasticus’ Life of Severus, in which student life in Alexandria in the 480s is described for us in vivid detail65. It seems that it was not only by

62 The best recent summary of the Alexandrian schools in this period is E. WATTS, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Transformation of the Classical Heritage, 41), Berkeley, 2006, chs. 8,9 (= WATTS, City and School). 63 These incidents were seemingly engineered by the philoponoi to ignite anti-pagan resentment in the mob, such as in the case of Paralius. On this and other such events, see F.R. TROMBLEY, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, vol. 2 (2nd ed.), Leiden, 2001, p. 1-51. 64 For the details of what may have actually happened, see WATTS, City and School, p. 222-225, and R. SORABJI, Divine Names and Sordid Deals in Ammonius’ Alexandria, in A. SMITH (ed.), The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity: Essays in Honor of Peter Brown, Swansea, 2005, p. 203-214. 65 This vital text is now available in English translation, L. AMBJÖRN, The Life of Severus by Zachariah of Mytilene, Piscataway, NJ, 2008.

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violence that the philoponoi carried on their activities. They also organised ‘alternative’ reading groups for students at the Neoplatonic schools, which were designed to harmonise the Fathers of the Church with the teachings of Plato and Aristotle and hence to counter the literary produc- tivity of the schools with their own philosophical literature. Extant literature arising from this context includes Zacharias Scholasticus’ Ammo- nius66and the text known as the Tübingen Theosophy67. The Ammonius, written probably in the 490s soon after Zacharias had left Alexandria for the law school at Beirut, portrays a number of (presumably fictitious) dialogues between Zacharias himself and his teacher Ammonius, and also with the renowned (pagan) doctor Gessius68. In these discussions, it is precisely the eternity of the world that is the primary bone of contention between the pagans and the Christians and it is belief in a created world which has a beginning and an end which marks out the Christian Neoplaton- ist student from the pagan. It was even hoped that such debates could lead to the conversion of students from one category to the other69. Now Zacharias presents these debates in an inflammatory manner and the author submits the philosophers to personal vilification and attacks their intellectual pretensions, while seeking to show that the Christian doctrine is superior in every way. This sort of confrontation is clearly very unlike what we see Sergius doing in the Mabadi’. In writing the Ammonius, however, Zacharias drew upon an earlier dialogue, the Theophrastus, written by his mentor Aeneas of Gaza70.

66 M. COLONNA, Ammonio. Introduzione, testo critico, tradizione, commentario, Naples, 1973. 67 P.F. BEATRICE, Pagan Wisdom and Christian Theology according to the Tübingen Theosophy, in Journal of Early Christian Studies, 3 (1995), p. 403-418, in which Severus is even suggested as its author. 68 Gessius was an iatrosophist and his name may have been connected with that of Sergius. According to Bar Hebraeus (The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l-Faraj, tr. E. WALLIS BUDGE, Oxford, 1932, p. 57), there was a famous medical text, a Pandect in 30 books, written by Aaron the Priest, an Alexandrian physician of the seventh/eighth century, and translated into Syriac by a certain Ghosios and thence into Arabic by ‘Masa- rdjuwayh’. This tradition is clearly very confused but it would appear at least that this medical compilation came down to Bar Hebraeus with at least three names attached: Aaron, Gessius (syriacised as Ghosios), and Sergius (i.e. Mar Sargis arabised as an otherwise unknown Masardjuwayh). Sergius certainly studied medicine at Alexandria while Gessius was the most famous medical theorist in the city. 69 For the philosophical virtues of the dialogue, OBERTELLO, Proclus, Ammonius, and Zacharias, and see the theory regarding the reconstruction of Ammonius’ thought by P. MERLAN, Ammonius Hermiae, Zacharius Scholasticus and Boethius, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 9 (1968), p. 193-203, refuted by K. VERRYCKEN, La métaphysique d’Ammonius chez Zacharie de Mytilène, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 85 (2001), p. 241-266. 70 M. COLONNA, Enea di Gaza, Teofrasto, Naples, 1958, with corrections in E. GALLICET,

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Aeneas was another (Christian) member of the intellectual scene in Alex- andria, probably in the 470s/80s, and he too represents through his dialogue the debate between the Christian and pagan students in Alexandria. But there is a profound difference between the two dialogues, in that Aeneas is far more conciliatory and respectful towards the pagan teachers and does not present the debate as having a polemical edge to it71. All the philosophical subjects discussed in the Theophrastus are given pro-Christian conclusions, but Christian doctrine as such is neither described nor defended: “Christian language has little real presence… Aeneas affirms Christian ideals without explicitly acknowledging their Christianity72.” While thus belonging to a Christian-pagan dialogue genre, it does not seek confrontation and conceives itself essentially as a piece of philosophy which respectfully draws on Neoplatonism and the Alexandrian masters, while omitting what is not in harmony with Chris- tian belief. If, as seems very likely, Sergius was educated in the Alexandria of Aeneas and Zacharias73, then the best parallel for the phenomena that we have witnessed in the Mabadi’ is perhaps to be found in Aeneas of Gaza rather than in Zacharias. Sergius was a close follower of his teacher Ammonius, not his adversary, as we can see from his commentary on the Categories, which in essence builds upon his teacher’s work. Sergius in no way repudiates the general approach to Aristotelian philosophy as presented by Ammonius. Furthermore, he nowhere offers a militantly Christian, or ascetically-tinged, version of philosophy, as Zacharias, under the influence of the Gazan ascetic scene, strove to do74.

Per una rilettura del Teofrasto di Enea di Gaza e dell’Ammonio di Zacaria Scolastico, in Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino: Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filolog- iche, 112 (1978), p. 117-135. 71 The similarities and differences between the two dialogues, in terms both of content and of cultural significance are discussed in E. WATTS, An Alexandrian Christian Response to Neoplatonic Influence, in A. SMITH (ed.), The Philosopher and Society in Late Anti- quity: Essays in Honor of Peter Brown, Swansea, 2005, p. 215-230 (= WATTS, An Alex- andrian Christian Response). 72 Ibidem, p. 216-217. 73 When Sergius died in 536, he had already written many works and had a high stand- ing in society. He is unlikely, therefore, to have still been young. The most appropriate date for his time in Alexandria would then be 470-90, making him of the same generation as Aeneas (who was closely connected with the networks of Alexandria, even if he did not reside there), Zacharias, and Severus (later the patriarch of Antioch). Philoponus, who was born around 490, most likely belongs to a slightly younger generation, although his literary oeuvre begins early. 74 In Alexandria and Gaza, there was a complex but vital relationship between ascetic leaders and Christian students. See especially E. WATTS, Creating the ascetic and sophis-

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Rather, as we have seen, he simply lays the issue of the eternity of the world quietly to one side, such that a careless reader might not even notice its absence. He simply takes what he believes to be of value from the Aristotelian tradition and recasts it to a new purpose. It was in 529, just seven years before the death of Sergius, that John Philoponus published his explosive new work Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World, in which he too, one of the foremost philosophers in Alexandria, departed radically from the teachings of the Nepolatonists and tried to construct a robust defense of the Christian doctrine of crea- tion75. The confrontation which this work sparked with his former co- pupil turned Athenian Neoplatonist Simplicius76 led to further works, first the Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World (probably written in the mid-530s), and eventually his magisterial On the Creation of the World (De Opificio Mundi), written some time between 547-6077. Seen in its broader context, the stand off between Philoponus and Simplicius clearly had its origins in the confrontations between the philoponoi and the pagan teachers a generation earlier, albeit in so doing they took the debate onto a new plane of philosophical sophistication. However, while Philoponus’ work undoubtedly represents the most important and nuanced approach from the Christian side, it is not necessary that Ser- gius’ work should be placed only after Philoponus78. Sergius was present in Alexandria, studying philosophy under Ammonius (and perhaps medicine under Gessius)79 at the same time that Aeneas of Gaza was writing his more measured rebuttal of the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world. There is a fundamental difference also in the approaches of Philo- ponus and Sergius. While the former was charging head-on into the Aris- totelian doctrine of eternity, Sergius quietly effaced it from the peri-

tic mélange: Zacharias Scholasticus and the intellectual influence of Aeneas of Gaza and John Rufus, in Aram, 18 (2006), p. 153-164. 75 H. RABE (ed.), Ioannes Philoponus de aeternitate mundi contra Proclum, Leipzig, 1899; translated by M. SNARE, Philoponus: Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World, 1-5, London, 2004. 76 Simplicius’ reply was his Commentary on the De Caelo (ed. J.L. HEIBERG, CAG, VII,1, Berlin, 1894). 77 Cf. n. 53 above. 78 Furlani’s suggestion that Sergius was a pupil of Philoponus is anyway chronologi- cally unlikely, as we have seen (n. 73 above). 79 There was a close relationship between medical and philosophical studies in Alex- andria from this time onwards. Indeed the famous Byzantine doctor Asclepius seems to have been another student of logic under Ammonius – L.G. WESTERINK, Medicine and Philosophy in Late Antiquity, in Janus, 51 (1964), p. 169-177. The logical and medical literature of the sixth century show a remarkable overlap in method and form, which is exemplified for the Syriac world in Sergius.

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patatic tradition. Instead of opposing Aristotle, he was making Aristotle agree with the Christian view80.

Questions of Christian Dogma

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Sergius was greatly concerned to build a specifically Christian cosmology upon some of the basic principles of the Peripatetic tradition. But let us return to the text itself and to Sergius’ additions and alterations to discover any further clues as to his specific religious concerns. Immediately following the argument (S24=A46-9) that the First Mover must be single and simple rather than multiple and composite, Sergius adds a short additional section (S25): I say therefore, O my friend, that if these things are thus, who would not deride the feeblenesses of those who introduce for us many gods. But we have said quite enough on this matter in our treatise [entitled] ‘Against those who say that it is impossible for God to put on a human body’81. But now let us return to our discourse!

This interjection, as with all the others, is couched in the first person and constitutes a direct address to the reader82. Following the assertion of the oneness of the First Mover, then, he derides the polytheists of his own day and says that he has written more on this subject in another tract of his which seems to have been a defense of the theological expression ‘God put on a human body.’ Now this expression to put on a human body (lbes pegra nasaya) constitutes the so-called ‘clothing metaphor’, one of the most distinctive and pervasive images of early Syriac literature83. The expression was originally found in the Syriac version of Hebrews 5.7 and 10.584, and also in the Nicene creed85, whence it became a stock phrase in the writ-

80 Aristotle is mentioned by Alexander in the prologue as being the originator of the views expressed in the treatise, hence this argument need not depend on Sergius being the author of the expression in the title, ‘according to the view of Aristotle’ as found in the ms. 81 . 82 See S15 for a similar format. 83 For an overall treatment of the motif, S.P. BROCK, Clothing metaphors as a means of theological expression in the Syriac tradition, in M. SCHMIDT – C.F. GEYER (ed.), Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter (Eichstät- ter Beiträge, 4), Regensburg, 1982, p. 11-40 (= BROCK, Clothing metaphors). Reprinted, Studies in Syriac Christianity, XI, and R. MURRAY, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: a study in early Syriac tradition, Cambridge, 1975, p. 69-82. 84 I.e. in the Peshitta. 85 A. DE HALLEUX, Le symbole des évêques perses au synode de Séleucie-Ctésiphon

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ings of Ephrem86. In a later age, however, it was the cause of no little difficulty and dispute. The arch-miaphysite bishop Philoxenus of Mab- bug argued that this traditional expression was susceptible of a Nestorian interpretation and should therefore be avoided87. He appears to have been responsible for a revision of the Syriac version of the Nicene creed which replaced the suspect expression with a closer calque on the Greek word- ing88. The same issue, furthermore, formed one of the reasons Philoxenus gave for ordering the ‘more accurate’ translation of the New Testament that bears his name89. Whether or not it was acceptable to say that God had ‘put on a body’ was thus a very pertinent and divisive issue in the Syriac church of the early sixth century in a way that it had not been in the fourth or fifth century. It seems, therefore, that Sergius wrote a tract against those who, like Philoxenus, denounced the traditional expression as Nestorian. It is not clear whether Sergius, in using the expression “those who introduce for us many gods” was accusing the Severan party of actually being polytheists (an accusation that did later become possible when some Mia- physites were forced to the conclusion that there were three divine ‘natures’)90 or whether he simply dealt with the question of the unity of God at some length within this work, perhaps attacking both pagans and Severan Miaphysites.

(410), in G. WIESSNER (ed.), Erkenntnisse und Meinungen II (Göttinger Orientforschun- gen. I Reihe, Syriaca, 17), Wiesbaden, 1978, p. 161-190, see p. 163. 86 Examples can be found in the appendix to BROCK, Clothing metaphors. 87 A. DE HALLEUX (ed.), Philoxène: Commentaire du Prologue Johannique (CSCO, 380), Leuven, 1977, p. 53,23-9. 88 For these successive revisions of the creed in which lbes pegra became first ethgasam and later ethbasar, see A. DE HALLEUX, La Philoxénienne du symbole, in R. LAVENANT (ed.), Symposium Syriacum II (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 205), Rome, 1978, p. 295-315, with conclusions slightly altered in D. KING, The Syriac Versions of the Writings of Cyril of Alexandria: A Study in Translation Technique (CSCO, 626; Subsidia, 123), Leuven, 2008, p. 130,264,355 (= KING, Cyril of Alexandria), and IDEM, New Evi- dence on the Philoxenian Versions of the New Testament and Nicene Creed, in Hugoye. Journal of Syriac Studies, 13 (2010), p. 9-30 (http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye). 89 S.P. BROCK, The Resolution of the Philoxenian/Harclean Problem, in E.J. EPP – G.D. FEE (ed.), New Testament Textual Criticism: Its significance for Exegesis. Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, Oxford, 1981, p. 325-343. For a resumé of the scholarship on reconstructing the Philoxenian, KING, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 281-292. 90 The so-called Tritheist Controversy, in which the application of Aristotelian categories to both Christology and the Trinity led Philoponus and others to the conclusion that there were three separate substances within the Godhead. See R.Y. EBIED – A. V. ROEY – L.R. WICKHAM (ed.), Peter of Callinicum: anti-Tritheist dossier (Orienta- lia Lovaniensia Analecta, 10), Leuven, 1981, and the other texts described there which have since been published. The Tritheist Controversy as such had not yet erupted in Sergius’ day.

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His opposition to those who say that it is impossible for God to assume a human body strongly suggests, then, that he was not a strict follower of the Severan Miaphysite party91. Ps-Zachariah’s potted biography of Sergius tells how in later life the philosopher ‘apostasised’ to the Chal- cedonians and became an ambassador to the Pope on behalf of the Patri- arch of Antioch and, by escorting the Pope to Constantinople, set in motion the train of events that led to the condemnation of Severus in 53692. Since Sergius himself died soon after his embassy, while still in the capital, it seems unlikely that this tract could have been written after his so-called ‘defection’, to be followed later by the translation of the Mabadi’93. It may well be, therefore, that this treatise represents rather some earlier reservations about the Severan Miaphysite theology. In fact, Sergius appears not to have been the only supposed Miaphysite who continued to use the expression in apparent contravention of Phi- loxenus’ command. Paul of Callinicum, for example, the Syriac translator of Severus of Antioch’s works, used the expression in a positive sense, translating eî m® s¬ma pefórjke tò ânqrÉpinon (unless he had taken a human body) as en law pegra lbes haw nasaya (unless he had put on a body, a human one)94. It is probably incorrect, as well as unhelpful, to categorise Sergius as a Miaphysite in any case, as is often done on the basis of his translation of ps-Dionysius and the prologue he prefixed to it. This philosopher- cum-doctor seems to have been more interested in a variety of lines of inquiry other than the strictly Christological95. The ambiguity of his posi-

91 Contra Furlani, who takes this tract to have been written against the Nestorians, FURLANI, Il trattato di Sergio, p. 18. 92 Ps-Zachariah Rhetor, Ecclesiastical History, IX,XIX. 93 Defection is probably too strong a word. There were doubtless many who, when the Libellus of Pope Hormisdas was enforced by imperial decree in Osrhoene in 521/2 (V.L. MENZE, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church [Oxford Early Christian Studies], Oxford, 2008, p. 50-51), felt that obedience to the Emperor was incumbent upon them. This was the moment at which the individual had to decide whether his (or her) anti-Chalcedonian tendencies were sufficient to compel him into open rebel- lion against God’s viceroy. 94 R. HESPEL (ed.), Sévère d’Antioche: le Philalèthe (CSCO, 68), Leuven, 1952, p. 27,17-19. On Paul and his background more generally, KING, Paul of Callinicum. The quoted words actually come from Cyril of Alexandria and the Syriac version of the latter, made by 485 at the latest, translates the same expression more neutrally, as elu gusma nasaya la hwa leh (Greek in E. SCHWARTZ [ed.], Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum I,1,6a,153,16; Syriac in R.Y. EBIED – L.R. WICKHAM [ed.], A Collection of unpublished Syriac Letters of Cyril of Alexandria [CSCO, 359], Leuven, 1975, p. 42,8-9). For the relative dates of the two versions, see KING, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 44-59, 175-177. 95 Although perhaps over idealistic, Baumstark was probably right in his assessment of Sergius as not being heavily involved in theological polemic, A. BAUMSTARK, Lucubra- tiones Syro-Graecae, in Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, 21 (1894), p. 367 (= BAUM- STARK, Lucubrationes).

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tion in the eyes of others led to both West and East Syrians of a later age claiming him as one of their own96. This lack of concern with the niceties of the Christological debate can perhaps be detected in another passage of the Mabadi’, wherein Sergius makes no particular effort to watch his terminology. S15 closely follows A29-31, with some minor abbreviation and emendation. The Syriac text reads: If someone were to ask whether the First Mover imparts motion through it itself being moved, then great is the dispute among the philosophers on this question97. Firstly listen to this: anything that is moved while also causing motion is composed of [the action of] moving and [the action of] being moved. Therefore it must be the case that whatever is the state of the simple things of which it is composed, the other shall also be in the same state, i.e. if one of them is capable of being distinguished from the other in reality, then the other will be capable of being distinguished in reality also. However, if in definition alone one of them is capable of being distinguished from the other, then the other also is distinguished in definition alone. [Not only in definition]98 is the moved distinguished from the mover, but in many ways also in reality, therefore, is the mover [distinguished] from the moved. It is consequently understood that there can be something that is moved while not causing motion in something else. Therefore, it is necessary that there must be that something that causes motion primarily, without itself being moved.

The translator has added to his Vorlage the comment about the debate among the philosophers being particularly vexed on this issue and he has also added some didactic pointers which are quite unlike anything in Alexander’s text, e.g. “listen to this!” and “it is thus to be understood!”. Although the order of the two sentences in the middle (one about in reality, the other in definition alone) are transposed in the Syriac, nonethe- less the argument is identical to the Arabic. However, the language could be read as having an explicit bearing on Christology. We might have expected Sergius to connect the ‘mover’ and the ‘moved’ with the divine and the human elements in Christ respectively, and then to have affirmed that the two could be distinguished (methparras) only in definition

96 Barhebraeus claimed him as a West Syrian and a Severan, but he was clearly read by the Easterns as well, since he is included in the Catalogue of East Syrian writers by Abd‘isho of Nisibis (Bibliotheca Orientalis, III,1, p. 87). Abd‘isho included three West Syrians in his catalogue, all of them philosophers; the others were Ahudemmeh and Jacob of Edessa. 97 I.e. whether the First Mover can be thought to impart motion without itself being moved. For the ‘debate among the philosophers on this question’, see, e.g., Simplicius In Phys. 1227, 10-21 (ed. H. DIELS, CAG, IX/X, Berlin, 1882/1895). The issue goes back to Aristotle himself (Phys 256b). 98 These words are supplied. There is a line missing due to homoeoteleuton in the ms of the words ‘in definition only’.

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(b-melta balÌud) and not in reality (qnomayit), a pattern which would be acceptable to Chalcedonians and to Cyrillian Miaphysites/Severans, for whom the distinction of the natures was possible in conceptualisation (en theoria), but not in their personhood (in Syriac, their qnome)99. One cannot read too much into the fact that Sergius does not concern himself with these issues, but it does perhaps underline the distance he felt between those debates and the work he was doing in this text and elsewhere. At the close of the treatise, Sergius makes one other connection not present in the original which represent his personal concerns: Because of this we say accurately that everything desires the Being. It seems that also among men the knowledge of Him – what we call theoria – is their [men’s] fulfillment, because knowledge is the highest blessedness and fulfillment [that exists] for men (as has been demonstrated by us in the discourse ‘On Theoria), and the head of all knowledge is theoria of Him.

Here Alexander’s fundamental cosmological principle, that the cause of the movements of the heavenly spheres is their desire for the First Mover, has been applied equally to human beings and is transformed into a religious principle. All people, Sergius points out, similarly ‘desire’ the Being (God) in their intellects and this is what we call theoria. He then refers the reader to his treatise on the matter. This may be the same as his ‘Discourse on the Spiritual Life’ which became a preface to his translation of the ps-Dionysian corpus100. At any rate, the link that Sergius makes here between the desire of the heavenly bodies for their Mover on the one hand and the ascent of our intellects towards union with the one by means of theoria indicates clearly the influence of the Areopagite on Sergius’ thinking in all the areas on which he wrote. It is here, rather than in the Christological controversy, that we should locate Sergius’ religious concerns. He evidently feels the pressure that church dogma places on him. For where, at the conclusion of the work, Alexander wrote that If it should seem…that some of the things which we have said require further and more precise inquiry, we should not, on account of a slight difficulty…, give up the care and effort we have expended in examining all this doctrine.

99 The contrast between in reality (qnomayit) and mere verbal definition (b-melta) also has a history in Syriac literature. For instance, see Ephrem’s First Discourse against Hypatius (J.J. OVERBECK [ed.], S. Ephraemi Syri, Rabulae episcopi Edesseni, Balaei alio- rumque opera selecta, Oxford, 1865, p. 57), where things which exist only by definition are unable to cause things to happen or move. 100 P. SHERWOOD, Mimro de Serge de Resayna sur la vie spirituelle I, in L’Orient Syrien, 5 (1960), p. 433-457.

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Sergius writes instead: If then, my friend, something should appear to you in the investigation of these things that have been discussed which stands in need of greater accu- racy or a profounder treatment than this one [which I have given], then one should not, simply because of a small difficulty that is perceived in this matter, render null and void the freedom of speech (parrjsía) that per- tains to every dogma (dógma),

from which we should conclude that Sergius was particularly keen to preserve the famous Greek freedom of speech in scientific matters also within his own environment and that he was probably getting into trou- ble for not doing so. We might note as a parallel that Leontius of Byzan- tium was accused of Origenism for holding this same view101, and that, as we have seen, Sergius too was later called a follower of Origen.

Knowledge of the Heavenly Bodies and the Astrological Tendency

In Miller’s study, some suggestions are put forward on the text’s tendency to overplay the argument that the heavenly bodies have knowledge about the sublunary bodies102. Miller points out that the fifth of the questions found in the prologue has been altered in its Syriac form from an original Are the things that are in the sublunary regions caused by the motions of these bodies, or do they come to be by volition or by knowledge?

to And do these [bodies] that revolve in a circle possess knowledge and understanding of everything that comes to pass in the sublunary regions?

The more recent editor of the Arabic text, however, has shown that the former of these two citations cannot be right; rather for aw inma one ought to read (with most mss) just inma. Once this emendation is made, the Arabic actually reads much more like the Syriac: As for the things generated in the places below the sphere of the moon because of the motions of these bodies, are they generated by choice and knowledge103?

101 B. DALEY, The Origenism of Leontius of Byzantium, in Journal of Theological Stud- ies, 27 (1976), p. 333-369, argues that Leontius’ Origenism lay not in some aspect of the Christology so much as in his openness to speculation, his assertion of the freedom of the individual thinker in theological matters. 102 See n. 7. 103 GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 33-34. In other words, it is assumed (by the Arabic text) that the sublunar bodies are generated by the movements of the supralunar bodies;

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Read thus, the overarching theme of the (Syriac) text becomes clear. Presupposing that the heavenly motions bring about the sublunar ones, is there are a deliberate activity involved in the process? The overall tendency of the text is to affirm this proposition and we can best grasp Sergius’ own purpose if we treat the text in this manner as a whole, not focusing only on the ‘interpolations’. Thus almost everything that can be said of Alexander’s text can be said of Sergius, too. The most significant of these ‘interpolations’ according to Miller are S28 and S35104. However, the former of these on closer inspection turns out to be a substitute for A53-61. The Syriac expands slightly on the issue of exactly how it is that motion is mediated from the First Mover via the outer (fixed) sphere and the wandering inner spheres to the sublunary regions, but the truly distinctive characteristic of this Syriac alternative is that the conclusions Alexander draws about the necessary eternity of the sublunar species are not present in the Syriac which instead develops a passage (written surely by Sergius) in which the reader is invited to contemplate the fixed outer sphere, at the same time looking back at our world and thereby gaining a profounder understanding of the radical distinction between creature and creator. The ‘adaptation’ here is therefore just another manifestation of the characteristics of the text already mentioned, joined to Sergius’ own vision of the spiritual life (the theoria discussed above)105. The other major plus in the Syriac not so far discussed is S35106. Here, Sergius states that planets have complete knowledge of things in the place of generation and corruption. Miller claims that this is not logically consequent on the foregoing, in which it has been shown that the motion of the celestial bodies is the cause of sublunar motion and change and that this celestial motion is in turn caused by intellect (their intellectual desire for the perfect stability of the First Mover). However, if there is a false move here it is Alexander’s, not Sergius’, for the Syriac statement equates that in A85, that “one must not believe that…the spheres of the planets…do not know the generation, destruction and change which are in the bodies which we have mentioned [i.e. sublunar bodies].” The rea- soning here is that they (the inner wandering spheres) must have knowl-

the question simply revolves around whether the latter do so willingly and knowingly. Before Genequand’s edition, one had to rely upon Badawi who used only a single, unreli- able ms. 104 These are described at MILLER, Sargis, p. 225-6. 105 As has been pointed out already, the connections between Sergius’ Memra on the Spiritual Life and the Mabadi' are many and various, and there are many parallels also in the first book of his commentary on the Categories. 106 MILLER, Sargis, p. 226.

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edge of sublunar motion and change because such perfect beings could not cause something without also knowing it107. The Syriac is therefore here in tune with the Arabic, just as it was with the introductory questions. In sum Miller’s observations about the tendencies of the text, if they are indeed valid, should be attributed to Alexander rather than to Sergius or any other interpolator, or at least to one of the latter only derivatively. It may be that the Moon and Saturn, by ruling Cancer and Capricorn, represent the gateways to the stars, but the former is the natural place to stand when contemplating the supralunar realms and Saturn is the outer- most wandering sphere. One does not need an ‘Harranian philosopher’ to use such imagery108. The importance of theoria is rather a sign of the Christian vision of the ascetical life leading towards the contemplation of the supranatural which Sergius derived from Evagrius and which became central to subsequent ascetical doctrine in the Syriac church. Sergius was also probably the translator of the Evagrian corpus into Syriac, which may in turn be part of the reason for his being later accused of Origenism109. Given the geographical proximity of Harran and Res‘aina and given that many of Sergius’ interests and concerns are comparable to those of the Harranian tradition, it is quite likely that there is here an interaction with the philosophers of that renowned pagan city, where the cult of the seven wandering stars was the principal religious tradition110. Syriac writers frequently inveighed against the religion of the Harranians, often listing some of their Gods, which almost invariably include Sun and Moon111. Fifth and sixth century Syriac literature abounds with warnings against the paganism of the type known in Harran and Edessa (and most likely in Res‘aina too)112. The famous Teaching of Addai, for instance, is

107 This is made more explicit in Alexander’s De Providentia (see ref. GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 158, ad loc. 85). 108 MILLER, Sargis, p. 232. 109 The arguments in favour of Sergius’ authorship of the unadulterated form of the Evagrian corpus in Syriac are set out in GUILLAUMONT, Les Képhalaia gnostica d’Évagre le Pontique, p. 215-227. Even if he was not the translator, his Memra on the Spiritual Life leaves no doubt that he was thoroughly influenced by Evagrian thought. 110 This is especially well known from the archaeological discoveries at Sumatar Harabesi as well as a host of other literary sources. For a full account, T.M. GREEN, The City of the Moon God. Religious Traditions of Harran, Leiden, 1992 (= GREEN, The City of the Moon God). 111 E.g. in The Teaching of Addai (see below) and Jacob of Serug’s Homily on the Fall of the Idols (GREEN, The City of the Moon God, p. 57-58). Sergius’ earlier comments about polytheism may also be aimed at Harran. 112 E.g. S.P. BROCK, A Syriac collection of prophecies of the pagan philosophers, in

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outspoken in its denunciation of Edessan and Harranian religion and specifically of Chaldaean astrologers who cast horoscopes and look at the stars and the zodiac113. As mentioned above, the principal motivation behind the Syriac-only section S28 seems to be to prove the fundamental difference between the creator (the First Mover) and the creation (both the wandering spheres and the sublunar realm). Together with Sergius’ aforementioned frequent references to the First Mover as ‘the Creator of All’, we may be possibly justified in taking all this as anti-Harranian rhetoric, though this cannot be certain. At any rate, the teaching of astrological knowledge was carried on in late antiquity not only at Harran but probably in Edessa and perhaps in other centres, following the Alexan- drian tradition of a modified or limited form of astrology which attempted to conform itself to the new Byzantine orthodoxy114. In fact, to be more specific, Sergius champions a middle ground between this radical rejection of his country’s religious/astrological traditions and their preservation. This is, after all, the basic purport of the whole text and provides the rationale for its translation. We have already seen this in Sergius’ Memra on the Spiritual Life, in which he goes out of his way to encourage in the ascetic student a mollified form of astrology (somewhat in the traditions of Bardaisan, on which see further below), rejecting the horoscopes of the Chaldaeans (to have failed to do this would have been dangerous for a priest!) but acknowledging the vital importance of planetary influence on the mundane. That he does even allow for a real and deliberate influence of the planets on the sublunar makes him less cautious than some other traditions of modified astrology115. But he clearly has his limits.

Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 14 (1983), p. 303-346; IDEM, Some Syriac excerpts from Greek collections of pagan prophecies, in Vigiliae Christianae, 38 (1984), p. 77-90. 113 The Teaching of Addai (tr. G. HOWARD, Chico, 1981), 49,71: “be far removed from… the casting of lots (Ìelqe, i.e. fate in Bardaisan), horoscopes… and from stars and zodiacs.” 114 Theophilus of Edessa may well have received his training in this milieu in the early eighth century, not long after Jacob of Edessa’s anti-astrological polemic (D. PINGREE, From Alexandria to Baghdad to Byzantium. The Transmission of Astrology, in Interna- tional Journal of the Classical Tradition, 8 [2001], p. 3-37, see p. 13). There were evidently two sides to the debate. Severus Sebokht may not wholly have sided with his student Jacob. 115 Byzantine astrologers, following Ptolemy, denied that the influence of the heavenly bodies was deliberate and conscious (P. MAGDALINO, L’orthodoxie des astrologues. La science contre le dogme et la divination à Byzance [VIIe-XIVe siècle], [Réalités Byzan- tines, 12], Paris, 2006, p. 18-19, 22) just as they had to avoid ‘Origenism’ by denying souls to the stars. Sergius also rejects Origen’s own route of accepting the stars merely as signs of what happens on earth, a doctrine that Philoponus still espoused even in his later and more cautious work (De Opificio Mundi IV,18-20).

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As already mentioned, the whole text must be viewed as a new cultural product, the transposition of a Greek philosophical work into a Christian Syriac context. Looking at the text from this standpoint, it is clear at least that Sergius had an interest in cosmology as applied to the science of limited astrology. That Sergius was particularly attracted to astronomy and astrology is well known from external sources116, as well as from our present text, in which he refers to his other commentaries ‘On the Movement of the Sphere and the Lights’ (S6)117. Furthermore, he was also the adapter of another text in the current ms collection which is here entitled ‘On the Action of the Moon’118. It is in fact an adaptation of Galen’s On Critical Days, in which the Greek doctor applies the science of the stars to the pathology of disease119. Its colophon describes it as a book in which Sergius explains “how one knows what the astrologers reason by means of the movements of the stars,” and the ms collection links this knowledge and tradition closely to that of the ‘school of Bardaisan’120. The structure of the universe presented in Alexander’s treatise thus provided Sergius with the paradigm he sought for explaining how astrology functioned as a branch of genuine (Aristotelian) learning, not, as with the Chaldaeans, as a form of pagan sorcery. It served his own pur-

116 For Sergius’ astrological interest, see KING, Origenism in Sixth Century Syria. Despite Baumstark’s positive comments, however (BAUMSTARK, Lucubrationes, p. 380) Sergius was not the Syriac translator of the Almagest, which came rather later: P. KUNITZSCH, Der Almagest. Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in ara- bisch-lateinischer Überlieferung, Wiesbaden, 1974, p. 65-6. 117 , which may mean ‘On the Procession of the Zodiac and the Stars’ but in any case concerns astronomy – see n. 30 above. 118 It is followed by a very short note, ‘On the Motion of the Sun’ (Ed. E. SACHAU, Inedita Syriaca, Vienna, 1870, p. 125-6 [= SACHAU, Inedita Syriaca]), telling the reader how to calculate the sun’s position. It is an adaptation of ch. 28 of Paulus Alexandrinus’ Introduction – G. SALIBA, Paulus Alexandrinus in Syriac and Arabic, in Byzantion, 65 (1995), p. 440-454. We recall that worship of Sun and Moon was the principal characteristic of Harranian (and probably of old Edessan) religion. 119 SACHAU, Inedita Syriaca, p. 101-124, and discussion in BAUMSTARK, Lucubrationes, p. 125. For the Arabic version, G.M. COOPER, Galen’s “On Critical Days”: Greek Med- icine in Arabic. Unpublished Dissertation, Columbia University, 1999. Sergius was of course a practising doctor, and medical science made use of the theory of the influence of the planets (the ‘airs’ or ‘influenzas’) until relatively modern times. 120 Immediately following ‘On the Motion of the Sun’ we find a list of ‘The Signs of the Zodiac according to the school of Bardaisan,' (SACHAU, Inedita Syriaca, p. 126) in which the names of the zodiac are identical with those in the Galen translation, including two rather unusual names for Libra and Sagittarius. The text immediately preceding it is the Book of the Laws of the Countries, in which Bardaisan as a character in a dialogue defends a limited form of astrology, melding together local religious traditions within a unitary Christian cosmos just as Sergius does. For more on the unusual names, see KING, Origenism in Sixth Century Syria.

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pose particularly well, and furthermore takes its place within the overall conception of the collection, since this paradigm is paralleled in a number of other texts in the ms which seem to be connected with the school of Sergius, especially the latter’s translation of the pseudo Aristotelian De Mundo121, and works associated with the old school of Bardaisan122. We have also had cause to mention the Galen translation and the Apology of ps-Melito which tend in the same direction. The latter, together with the Hypomnemata of Ambrose are essentially anti-polytheist tracts123. One might suspect that polytheism and astrology were accusations against which the school of Sergius had frequently to defend itself.

Within this overall scheme, then, the Mabadi’ did present Sergius with some problems, not least of which was the issue of the world’s eternity. He could not leave the text as he had found it (as, perhaps, he had received it in Alexandria) and yet desirous of incorporating its apparently Aristotelian cosmology into his own teaching, the solution that presented itself was simply to omit or replace all references to an eternal cosmos that he found in Alexander’s treatise. This he did, thereby making his new version promote and stress the singularity and transcendence of the Creator. As with Aeneas of Gaza’s Theophrastus, he makes his Greek philosophy unproblematic (with the possible exception of attributing souls to the celestial bodies) to a Christian audience without pitting the two against one another.

121 The De Mundo is known to have had a significant impact on Alexander and some of its doctrines lie behind the Mabadi’ itself – see GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 6,17-19. The connections between these texts are further explored in KING, Origenism in Sixth Century Syria. 122 The connections between these two ‘schools’ is based on more than just the geographical locations of Edessa and Res‘aina or the conceptual proximity of their astrological paradigms. Sergius refers to Bardaisan directly in his commentary on the Catego- ries (G. FURLANI, Sur le Stoïcisme de Bardesane d’Édesse, in Archiv Orientální. Journal of the Czechoslovak Oriental Institute, 9 [1937], p. 347-352) in a way that indicates that he knew his writings well. The way that the Bardesanite texts are deployed within our ms would seem to indicate that they were being used towards the same ends as the Sergian texts. It is possible that Sergius was also interacting with the reception of Bardesanite Hermeticism within Harranian philosophy, but this requires further consideration (starting from the observations of H.J.W. DRIJVERS, Bardaisan of Edessa and the Hermetica, in Ex Oriente Lux, 21 [1969/70], p. 190-210, repr. East of Antioch. Studies in early Syriac Christianity, London, 1984, XI). 123 The Hypomnemata is an adapted form of ps-Justin’s Oratio ad Graecos and focuses on the unethical behaviour of the gods of Greek myth.

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In his commentary on the Categories, Sergius writes about the purpose and direction of philosophical education. While it begins with logic, it moves through the realms of physics and on to ‘theology’. Sergius’ curriculum matches that of the late antique Neoplatonists of Alexandria save only that for them it was Plato, and especially the Plato of the Timaeus and Parmenides, who was its ultimate object. Sergius replaces Plato’s contemplation of the One with the Christian’s (especially the ascetic’s) union with the Creator which, as we learn elsewhere in his work, is achieved through an Evagrian pattern of ascent124. Within this framework, Sergius made good use of Alexander’s version of the Peri- patetic cosmos and pressed it into service as an intermediary on the way to accomplishing his goal. The interests both of Sergius and of the compiler(s) of this manuscript collection thus seem to have been closely related and testify to a distinctive and little understood thread within Syrian Christianity and philosophy.

Religious and Theological Studies Daniel KING Cardiff University Humanities Building Colum Drive Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK [email protected]

Abstract — Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On the Principles of the Universe (Mabadi’) is extant in a Syriac adaptation as well as its better known Arabic translation. This adaptation, made by the sixth century polymath and doctor Sergius of Reshaina, yields important clues as to the latter’s special concerns and background. The paper shows how Sergius omitted from the Peripatetic text all references to the world’s eternity, a concern that is known from other contemporary Christian philosophical works. However, Sergius does adopt Alexander’s doctrine of celestial motion and influence on the sublunar realm. This cosmology could be, and was, used to buttress modified forms of astrological doctrine, and this appears also to have been Sergius’ own purpose in translating and circulating this influential work. A proper knowledge of the heavens and their sublunar influence allowed the mind to ascend to the higher levels of the contemplation of God.

124 I.e. in the Memra on the Spiritual Life, which we have had cause to mention on a number of occasions.

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APPENDIX I

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

There are a few key terms for which we ought to note the Syriac equivalents for the sake of further comparison with other texts125:

Greek Term [English equivalent] Syriac [French]126 Arabic 127 اِشتياق [örmß [Impulse] [Désir ميل - Åopß [Inclination] —128 شهوة [reziv [Desire] [Cupidité∫ شوق [êpiqumía [Appetite]129 [Appetit غضب [qúmov [Anger] [Colère إِرادة [boúljsiv [Volition] [Volonté اقتداء [ömoíwsiv [Imitation] [Assimilation قوة [dúnamiv [Faculty] [Faculté

APPENDIX II

CONCORDANCE OF PASSAGES

The Syriac enumeration follows that of Fiori’s text (published in the current volume), which itself follows the markings within the ms. The Arabic sections are those of Genequand’s edition. Asterisks indicate that a section has been abbreviated in the Syriac; crosses, that the Syriac section includes additional material.

125 For some of the permutations and combinations of the different Arabic terms in different authors, see R. WALZER (ed.), Al-Farabi. On the Perfect State, Oxford, 1985, p. 391, and GENEQUAND, On the Cosmos, p. 37. 126 I.e. the terms used in Fiori’s French translation of the Syriac. 127 This equivalence has been proved by WOLFSON, Souls of the Spheres, p. 73-4. 128 The term only appears twice in the Arabic text. On one occasion the Syriac abbre- viates too much (A16), and on the other (A5) the Syriac rephrases the thought such as to omit a direct equivalent for what must have been an original Åopß. 129 These terms for the faculties of the soul (in this case the appetitive, or animal, faculties) soon became standardised in Syriac philosophy (A. BECKER, The Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: the School of Nisibis and the development of scholastic culture in late antique Mesopotamia, Philadelphia, 2006, p. 144).

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Syriac Arabic Syriac Arabic 1* 1 20* 42 22 21 43-44a 33 22+ 44b 4* 4-5 23 45 56 24 46-48 6- 25 - 7** + 7-8 26* 49 8** 9-11a 27*+ 50-52 9* 10 28+ 53-54a + a substitute for 10+ 11b-12 54b-61 11* 13-15 29 62-63 12* 16-24a 30+ 64-68 13 24 31+ 69-70 14* 25-28 32+ 69-70 15 29-31 33+ substitute for 71-75 16* 32-33 34 79 17 34-39 35*+ 80-85 18 40 36**+ 147-151 19 41

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