10 - The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The philosophical or scientific commentary was a prevalent genre in Late Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. It served to present and examine canonical texts or textbooks and in some cases to revise them. Writing a commentary was an active dynamic process and by medieval standards was a common way of “doing” science. In the introduction to his classical book on Greek mathematics, Heath writes that “the Greeks with their unclouded clearness of mind and their freedom of thought, untrammeled by any ‘Bible’ or its equivalent, were capable of creating the sciences as they did create them.” Does the existence of canonical writings indeed hinder the development of science and discourage creativity? Heath’s opposition between freethinking Greeks and those whose thought was trammeled by canonical texts is somewhat romantic. Within a few centuries, Plato and Aristotle became ho theios and ho daimonios, respectively. Their writings acquired a canonical status, and the genre of commentaries on their books flourished. Commentaries were also written on Euclid’s Elements, Ptolemy’s Almagest, Hippocrates’ medical writings, and other scientific treatises. The Stoics, who avoided canonical texts, were no more creative than the Platonists or Aristotelians.

“Jewish religion and culture,” writes Funkenstein, “more than any other culture known to me, are saturated with texts and commentaries on texts. Underlying any corner in Jewish culture and religion is a text, a commentary on a text or a commentary on a commentary.” This is true not only of religious studies but also of the study of the foreign wisdom. Furthermore, we can sometimes detect structural and stylistic similarities between biblical commentaries and philosophical commentaries.