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The Syriac Commentary Tradition: an Update*

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The Syriac Commentary Tradition: an Update* THE SYRIAC COMMENTARY TRADITION: AN UPDATE* Grigory KESSEL Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Manchester What follows is an update of Sebastian Brock’s influential and most useful bibliographic presentation of the Syriac commentary tradition on the Organon. 1 Over the course of the sixteen years since its publication, significant progress has been made in the field of Syriac philosophy as well as in our knowledge of Syriac manuscripts collections; an update, therefore, is overdue. The bibliographic presentation follows the structure introduced by Brock with its principal division into translations and commentaries. The restriction to extant works has generally been retained as well. I felt it necessary, however, to add a few new texts 2 and to introduce one additional division (“Introductions to philosophy originally composed in Syriac”). By no means is the survey comprehensive as there still remains a number of unstudied and unidentified texts and fragments that one day will find their place in the commentary tradition. Likewise, the position of some texts within the survey may eventually be reconsidered. For greater usefulness, I decided to expand the original entries of Brock’s list and to provide the following additional information: • formal division of a text: number of books, chapters, etc.; • all manuscripts containing the text (as a rule, but with some exceptions, without precise indication if the text is preserved in complete * The research leading to this article has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ ERC Grant Agreement n. 679083 as part of the research project “Transmission of Classical Scientific and Philosophical Literature from Greek into Syriac and Arabic” (HUNAYNNET), carried out at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous help of Nicolás Bamballi and Yury Arzhanov. 1. BROCK 1993. 2. 1.2.4, 1.3.b, 1.8.e, 2.2.7, 2.2.10.e, 4.2.8. La philosophie en syriaque, E. FIORI & H. HUGONNARD-ROCHE (éds), Paris, 2019 (Études syriaques 16), pp. 389-416. LA PHILOSOPHIE EN SYRIAQUE form, if it is defective or merely a fragment); the page range is indicated only in exceptional cases to avoid confusion; • type of handwriting: Estrangela (E), West Syriac (WS) and East Syriac (ES), without more specific designation; • date: a commonly accepted dating is indicated, but if there is no scholarly opinion on that matter, the catalogue description was followed; • editions/translations and studies, which are divided into two different sections: while the listing of editions attempts to be complete, only the most relevant studies are mentioned; • indirect witnesses, if identified in the scholarship; • Graeco-Syriac apparatus: usually provided independently but occasionally also embedded in the critical edition of the Greek text. Moreover, I have deliberately opted to call the translations of the Greek texts “versions” (instead of “revisions” as in Brock’s survey) because the latter presupposes the use of an earlier translation as a base text and the actual genetic relationship between the translations has not always been properly studied. The author’s name is accompanied by a question mark in cases where the manuscript attribution has been objected to in the literature. If the attribution was demonstrated to be false, the name receives the prefix “pseudo.” Nearly all manuscripts were examined de visu (with the exception of some of the manuscripts of Jacob bar Šakkō’s Book of Dialogues) in order to verify the identification of the texts. Moreover, an attempt has been made to list not only the manuscripts preserved in European libraries, but also those preserved in the Middle East and often relatively unknown to scholars. Many of the Middle Eastern collections have become available recently thanks to the digitization campaigns of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. 3 Undoubtedly, further progress in the cataloguing of those collections (many of which were in fact never catalogued) will bring new discoveries. 4 Manuscript Vat. sir. 158 is one of the most important sources for the study of the Syriac philosophical tradition. As we now know, the manuscript was kept at the Dayr al-Suryān monastery in Egypt, where it was acquired 3. In particular, the manuscripts from the two important Middle Eastern collections are available at the Virtual Reading Room (www.vhmml.org): CCM – Mardin, Chaldean Cathedral (now includes the former Chaldean collections of Diyarbakır and Mardin), CPB – Baghdad, Chaldean Patriarchate. 4. I am planning to describe some little and absolutely unknown philosophical manuscripts. One instalment has already appeared (KESSEL & BambaLLI 2018), and another (on Alqoš, Chaldean Diocese (DCA) 61) is in preparation. 390 THE SYRIAC COMMENTARY TRADITION: AN UPDATE by a notorious promotor of Syriac studies in Europe, Moshe of Mardin, who left in the manuscript a possession note dated to 1576. 5 This manuscript, along with several others, was first preserved at the Collegio dei Neofiti and in 1662 transferred to the Vatican Library. The significance of this manuscript was immediately recognized and a number of copies were made in Rome, the earliest of which by Moshe of Mardin himself: • Firenze BML Or. 209/Assemani 196 (1585, Moshe of Mardin); • Vat. sir. 36, ff. 35r-52v (unknown date, Moshe of Mardin); • Firenze BML Or. 174/Assemani 183-184 (1592, Melchisedek of Ḥisn Kifā); • Paris BnF syr. 248 (1637, Abraham Ecchellensis); • Madrid Escorial ar. 655 (17th c.). Given the straightforward relationship between those apographs and their model, they are not listed in the entries. Nevertheless, it should be highlighted that apparently at least some of these were produced before the Vatican manuscript lost a number of its folios (particularly the beginning containing the introduction to the Isagoge and the opening part of the Isagoge) and hence still merit attention. During the course of this work I managed to identify a number of fragments that I intend to discuss in greater detail elsewhere: • a fragment from the Treatise on Logic by Paul the Persian preserved in London BL Add. 17156, f. 1 (9th c.); • a fragment from the version of Isagoge by Athanasius of Balad preserved in London BL Add. 17215, f. 6 (dated to 838/9); • selected fragments from the Commentary on the Categories by Sergius of Rēšʿaynā preserved in London BL Add. 12155 (8th c.), ff. 178v-180v; • a membrum disjectum of London BL Add. 14658 (7th c.) containing the Commentary on the Categories by Sergius of Rēšʿaynā now in Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Or. 1078/I. As with Brock’s survey, the relevant post-medieval works are not indicated, although one should bear in mind that in terms of source- critical analysis those texts may turn out to be of considerable value. In particular, one should mention the following works: • Introduction to logic/dialectic and its commentary, both composed by the Chaldean patriarch Joseph II (1667-1713). Reportedly, they were first composed in Arabic and then translated into Syriac. 6 5. BORBONE 2017. 6. Preserved in the following manuscripts (the list is not complete): Mardin, Chaldean Cathedral (CCM) 452 / olim Diyarbakır/Scher 104 (1705, autograph), Siirt/Scher 93 (1717, lost), CCM 385 (1722), Alqoš, Chaldean Diocese (DCA) 116 (1809), CCM 462 (1820), Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana syr. 433 (1820), Harvard Syr. 149 391 LA PHILOSOPHIE EN SYRIAQUE • Book of logic/dialectic by Jeremiah Maqdasi, Chaldean bishop of Zakho (1847-1929). A brother of Samuel Giamil, he is better known for his Grammaire chaldéenne published in Mosul in 1889. Judging from the number of copies, his philosophical treatise must have been very popular, but to the best of my knowledge it was never published. 7 • Exposition of Aristotelian logic in twelve-syllable metre (covering the Isagoge, On interpretation, Prior Analytics), composed by the Chaldean monks of Rabban Hormizd during the 19th century. 8 Besides the immediate philosophic content of those works, they all bear witness to the considerable interest in Aristotelian logic in the Chaldean milieu during the Ottoman period. A proper analysis of intellectual studies among the Chaldeans, and the particular impact of Joseph II on its revival, remains an important desideratum for the future. It is a major interest of the present survey that, as a rule, the manuscripts with philosophical content produced during the Ottoman period originate from Chaldean circles. 9 Another little explored area is the Arabic versions of the Organon. Some Arabic versions of the works of Aristotelian logic are claimed to have been translated from Syriac, but the secondary sources not infrequently contradict each other and hence cannot be taken for granted. An investigation into the role played by Syriac intermediaries is unfortunately impeded by the absence of a critical edition of the Arabic Organon. 10 (1885), Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery 182 / olim Alqoš, Notre-Dame-des-Semences 67 (not dated). 7. Preserved in the following manuscripts (the list is not complete): Baghdad, Chaldean Patriarchate (CPB) 401 (1887), Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery 183 / olim Alqoš, Notre-Dame-des-Semences 68 (1887), Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery 185 (1888), 186 (1888), Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana syr. 574 (1889), Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery 187 (1890), 188 (1892), 184 (1904), Karemlesh, Mar Addai Chaldean Church 19 (1905), Baghdad, Chaldean Patriarchate (CPB) 462 (1911), Baghdad, Chaldean Monastery
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