Table Of ContentALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS
On Aristotle
On Coming-to-Be
and Perishing 2.2-5
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ALEXANDER OF
APHRODISIAS
On Aristotle
On Coming-to-Be
and Perishing 2. 2 - 5
Translated by
Emma Gannage
Guest editor: Peter Adamson
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2005 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Paperback edition first published 2014
© Emma Gannage, 2005
Emma Gannage has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining
from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by
Bloomsbury Academic or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN HB: 978-0-7156-3303-8
PB: 978-1-4725-5774-2
ePDF: 978-1-4725-0129-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Acknowledgements
The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the
following resources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs,
an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the
Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centre Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia
della Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation;
the Arts and Humanities Research Borad of the British Academy; the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable
Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research (NWO/GW), Dr Victoria Solomonides, the Cultural Attache of the Greek Embassy
in London. The editor wishes to thank the Council of Gresham College for a special grant for
the preparation of this volume, Peter Adamson, Inna Kupreeva and Stephen Menn for their
comments, John Sellars for preparing the volume for press, and Deborah Blake who has been
Duckworth's editor for all volumes in this series since the beginning.
Typeset by Derek Doyle & Associates, Mold, Clwyd.
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Guest Editor's preface vii
Author's preface ix
Introduction 1
Alexander of Aphrodisias 2
Alexander's commentary On Aristotle On Coming-to-Be and Perishing 6
Jabir b. Hayyan, Book of Morphology 10
I: The authenticity of Alexander's commentary in Jabir's
Book of Morphology, and the theory of elements 14
A: Four explicit references 15
B: Ya'qub b. Ishaq al-lsra'ill as confirmation of the 21
commentary's authenticity
C: Elements in the proper sense, and the primary perceptible bodies 43
II: Prime matter and elemental hylomorphism 56
A: Alexander and the tradition 57
B: Elemental change and prime matter 60
Conclusion 81
Translation 83
Appendix: Treatise of Ya'qub b. Ishaq al-lsra'ill al-Mahalll 127
Bibliography 131
English-Arabic Glossary 139
Arabic-English Index 146
Subject Index 161
A Jean-Pierre Osier
pour m'avoir appris I'essentiel
Guest Editor's Preface
This volume is an unusual addition to the Ancient Commentators series.
Although it does render into English a Greek commentary on Aristotle, what
Emma Gannage has provided is in fact a translation of a translation. Alexander's
commentary on On Coming-to-Be and Perishing (which in this volume will be
called On Generation and Corruption, or GC for short) is lost in Greek and had
been thought lost in Arabic as well. But in the introduction to this volume,
Gannage' shows that fragments found in an early Arabic alchemical work
ascribed to Jabir b. Hayyan constitute an Arabic translation of Alexander's
commentary on GC 11.2-5. These fragments are thus an important piece of
evidence for the transmission of Greek philosophy and science into Arabic.
Those interested in the Arabic translation movement will be especially grateful
to Gannage for her thorough index of Arabic terms, at the end of this volume.
The translation is also of considerable philosophical importance, as the
introduction to this volume shows. It adds to our understanding not only of late
ancient chemistry, but also of how ancient authors viewed Aristotle's
cosmology and his theory of matter and the elements. In this commentary we
see Alexander attempting nothing less than a unified theory of Aristotle's
physics and chemistry.
Of great assistance for the editing of this volume were Inna Kupreeva, who
helped to edit the translation and prepare the introduction, and John Sellars, who
helped put the volume into camera ready copy. I am also grateful for the support
of the Leverhulme Foundation, which allowed me to give this volume the
attention it deserved.
Peter Adamson
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Author's Preface
The present volume is a revised version of a part of my PhD thesis, 'Le
commentaire d'Alexandre d'Aphrodise In De generatione et corruptione, perdu
en grec retrouve en arabe dans Jabir b. Hayyan, Kitab al-Tasrlf (Universite
Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris I, decembre 1998). Thanks are due to my dissertation
supervisor Prof Remi Brague and to the members of the Jury, particularly Dr
Fritz Zimmermann for his constant and valuable support.
This research was initiated, at the Warburg Institute, at the instigation of Dr
Silvia Fazzo, during a short stay at the autumn 1995-1996 thanks to a Henry
Franckfort Fellowship. The fantastic atmosphere of the Warburg Institute and
the great resources of its library were decisive at the beginning of this work. I
am very grateful to all the members of the Institute then and in particular to Prof
Charles Burnett who welcomed this research in his seminar.
The French Institute in Teheran (Institut Fran?ais de recherche en Iran)
supported my trip to Teheran and welcomed me during the time necessary to my
research. My thanks to the Director at that time, Dr Remy Boucharlat and to all
the scholars who were present for their warm welcome. Iran will always be
associated in my mind with Dr Asghar Mahdawi, who very kindly put his
collection of manuscripts at my disposal. I have wonderful memories of the long
hours spent working in his fantastic place and of the conversations we
sometimes had. For all that I am very grateful to him.
I am indebted to Prof George Saliba and Prof Maroun Aouad for stimulating
and very fruitful discussions of my views, as well as to Prof Dimitri Gutas for
providing me with valuable advice concerning the translation.
I am grateful to the readers for the Ancient Commentators series and in
particular to Dr Steven Menn for his useful comments.
My thanks are also due to Nicole Stephan and Lara Challita, who contributed
to the translation of this work into English.
I wish to thank the editorial board of the Ancient Commentators series and
especially Dr Inna Kupreeva and Dr John Sellars for their assistance in the
preparation of this volume. In its final form, this book is very much indebted to
Dr Peter Adamson: he put it into readable English, and his remarks led me to
clarify my thoughts on some issues. I am deeply grateful to him for his zeal and
his endless patience.
