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A Latin Commentary (? Translated by Boethius) on the Prior Analytics, and its Greek Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

L. Minio-Paluello
L. Minio-Paluello
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

Cod. Florence Bibl. Nazion. Centr. Conv. Soppr. J.VI.34—formerly in Niccolò Niccoli's and St. Mark's libraries—written in a beautiful French hand of c. A.D. 1150–1200—contains the second edition of Boethius's translation of Pr. An. Many scholia, written on the margins and between the lines by the same calligraphic hand which wrote the Aristotelian text or by a hand very similar to and contemporary with it, accompany the translation in this MS. They are mainly concentrated in about one-half of the work, viz. in book i.23–30 (4ob–46a) and book ii (52a–70b); quite a few accompany i. 1, 5–6, 30–45 (24a, 27b–28a, 46a–50a); almost none is to be found in i. 10–14, 17–22 (30b7–33b25, 37a25–40b10). Arrangement and writing suggest that the scribe intended to give the reader Aristotle's text together with what was available to him of an authoritative commentary.

The scholia range, in nature and extent, from short glosses on single words or phrases and short summaries of sections of Aristotle's work to detailed explanations and doctrinal developments of important or difficult passages. Here and there carefully drawn diagrams illustrate logical rules and geometrical examples. The following scholia are mainly chosen from book i; others, from both books, will be given farther on.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , November 1957 , pp. 93 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 The MS. was ascribed to the fifteenth century by the author of the hand-written catalogue in the library, and to the fourteenth by Franceschini, E. (in Lacombe, G., etc., Aristoteles Latinus—Codices II, Cambridge 1955, p. 967)Google Scholar: they were wide of the mark; the writing clearly belongs to the second half of the twelfth century; the decorated initials—as Dr. O. Pächt kindly informed me—place it in France.—About two hundred and seventy mediaeval MSS. contain Pr. An. in Latin, usually together with the rest of the Organon. Less than half—including the oldest, of the twelfth century—have been examined. With one exception they present two distinctly different texts, rarely in almost pure forms, otherwise with various degrees of contamination. An analysis of the two texts has led to the conclusion that, with all probability, they represent two stages of Boethius's translation. The first more imperfect edition is preserved uncontaminated only in Theodoric's encyclopaedia (see below, p. 102, n. 19); the second, corrected, edition is preserved almost uncontaminated in Codd. Florence Nazion. Centr. Conv. Soppr. J. VI. 34, Paris Nat. lat. 6290, Vatic, lat. 2978; the most frequent contaminated text contains the second edition as far as 36b25, the first from 36b26 to the end; Codd. Glasgow Hunter U. 6.10, London Br. Mus. Arund. 383 and Paris Nat. lat. 16.595 contain much of the first edition also before 36b26. Cod. Padua Anton. XVIII. 401 contains book i and three short sections of book ii according to a common contaminated form, and the rest of book ii in a different, otherwise unknown, translation.

2 ‘Vera’ in this instance, and twice farther on in this scholion, is ablative (for scil. ).

3 The ‘descriptio’ (διάγραμμα) is a quite elaborate figure, corresponding only in part to that found in Pseudo-Ammonius 52.32–35.

4 The pseudo-Themistian paraphrase of book i. 9–46, probably by Sophonias, (CAG xxiii. 3)Google Scholar, appears to be a poor conflation of Alexander and Philoponus; the anonymous fragments published in the volumes mentioned above do not offer sufficient elements for comparison. No close relationship exists between our scholia and those in Syriac by George the Bishop of the Arabs (eighth century), published by Furlani, (Riv. d. Studi Orientali, 1942, pp. 47–64Google Scholar, and 1943, pp. 229–38). It might also be profitable to examine in this connection the Arabic commentaries.

5 Other scholia to book i literally translated from passages extant in Philoponus's commentary are the following (pages and lines of Philop.): 194.29–32, 241.25–29, 287.27–30, 304.11–19, 28–33, 305.12–18, 23–24, 306.25–28.

6 The translator read and interpreted as

7 The figure summarising some rules for the discovery of the middle term of a syllogism, which came to be called the ‘pons asinorum’, is said by Prantl to appear for the first time in the works of Petrus Tataretus (end of the fifteenth century); a similar figure he had found in Averroes, ' ‘middle commentary’ and thought it to be this philosopher's discovery (Gesch. d. Logik im Abendl., Leipzig 1855–1870, ii, pp. 382–3, iv, pp. 205–6).Google Scholar But ‘Tataretus’s' figure appears already in Philoponus's commentaries (p. 274), and is described and referred to by Alexander of Aphrodisias, although it is not printed with the commentary: It appears in some Greek manuscripts of Pr. An., and in at least a hundred Latin MSS. In the thirteenth century a memorising verse had been composed on the symbolic letters: FaCia CoGenti DeFert HeBere GraDendo GalBa valent, sed non constant HeDes FaBer HirCe.

8 Among the other ‘independent’ scholia are a considerable number of figures illustrating the various kinds of syllogisms.

9 Other passages of Pseudo-Philoponus translated into Latin are the following: 387.18–21, 389.17–19, 390.17, 21–22, 391.15–18, 392.20–25, 30–32, 393–25–394–2, 394.21–27, 395.7–8, 397.2–3, 398.19–399.8, 400.4–9, 400.25–401.3, 401.20–30, 402.27–403.23, 403.33–404.7, 404.23–24, 405.11–15, 405.21–406.11, 406.12–13, 406.29–407.3, 407.28–408.30, 408.33–34, 409.15–21, 23–25, 410.18–20, 411.26–412.7, 412.18–28, 414.22–25, 415.3–5, 416.23–25, 417.22–28, 418.30–32, 419.4–7, 16–19, 419.22–420.3, 420.15–18, 420.31–421.2, 421.25–26, 422.5–6, 9–11, 14–16, 20–21, 423.5–9, 426.1–9, 428.32–33, 431.12–23, 432.22–24, 432.29–433.8, 434.17–24, 434.26–435.2, 435.6–8, 20–22, 436.3–7, 14–22, 437–3–4, 438.18, 20, 440.13–16, 441.2–8, 24–27, 446.12–447.1, 447.10–13, 16–18, 449.5–8, 449.11–13, 450.2–3, 6–12, 451.15–18, 453.36–454.11, 455–3–9, 12–16, 456.1–8, 460. 18–22, 463.10, 476.5–6, 476.28–477.5, 480.6–13, 481.9–13.

10 The Latin text confirms Wallies' conjecture γίνονται for συνάγονται of the Greek MSS., but confirms these against him, giving καταφατικαὶ καὶ ἀποφατικαί, and not the singular.

11 A large number of scholia to book ii.16–27 have no equivalent in Pseudo-Philoponus.

12 See below, p. 101.

13 Cf. Zeller, E., Die Philos. d. Gr. 5 iii. 2, p. 878.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Prantl, op. cit. i, p. 642.

15 Cf. our ‘Iacobus Veneticus Grecus’ in Traditio viii, pp. 265–304.

16 ‘Est etiam alia expositio, sed in Analyticis nostris iam dicta est” (De Syll, Cat. ii, PL 64, col. 822b); but in the same work, few pages farther on (col. 830d), he uses the future: ‘si qua vero desint, in Analyticis nostris calcatius exprimemus’. Did he ever complete such a commentary? Or was he partly repeating the words of a Greek model, partly thinking of his future work?

17 Bidez, J., ‘Boèce et Porphyre’, in Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, ii, pp. 189–201.Google Scholar Some sections of Bidez's unpublished work on Porphyry's fragments have been drawn upon by J. Shiel in his thesis on Boethius's commentaries on Aristotle (typewritten; a copy is in the Bodleian Library).

18 Boeth, . In librum περὶ ἑρμην. secunda editio, pp. 3–4 (Meiser).Google Scholar

19 See our ‘Note sull'Aristotele latino medievale VIII’ in Riv. di Filos. Neo-Scol., 1954, pp. 217–18.—Theodoric's Eptateuchon is preserved in microfilms in several libraries, including the Bodleian; the MS. was destroyed by fire in 1944.

20 Cf. the article quoted above, p. 101, n. 15.

21 Only scanty fragments from the scholia are also preserved in two or three of the many other manuscripts inspected. The only important exception is the figure of the ‘pons asinorum’, which exists in most MSS.: but it is likely that Boethius had included it in the text of Aristotle itself, as it appears in Greek copiesof Pr. An., independently of any commentary or scholia.