Table Of ContentThe Alexandrian Summaries of Galen’s On Critical Days
Islamic Philosophy, Theology
and Science
Texts and Studies
Edited by
Hans Daiber
Anna Akasoy
Emilie Savage-Smith
volume 92
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ipts
The Alexandrian Summaries of
Galen’s On Critical Days
Editions and Translations of the Two Versions of the
Jawāmiʿ, with an Introduction and Notes
By
Gerrit Bos
Y. Tzvi Langermann
leiden | boston
Cover Illustration: Cod. Parma 2919; De Rossi 1276; Richler 1498. The ms, missing foliation, was copied in the
fifteenth century in a Byzantine script; in the right and bottom margin of the beginning of Book two it has
the Hebrew term: םירשבמה (the indicators [of the crisis]). Reproduced with the permission of Ministry of
Cultural Heritage and Activities (Italy).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Galen.
[De diebus decretoriis. Arabic. Selections]
The Alexandrian summaries of Galen's On critical days : editions and translations of the two versions of
the Jawami' / with an introduction and notes by Gerrit Bos, Y. Tzvi Langermann.
pages cm. -- (Islamic philosophy, theology and science ; v. 92)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-90-04-28221-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- isbn 978-90-04-28222-3 (e-book)
1. Galen. De diebus decretoriis. 2. Prognosis--Early works to 1800. 3. Medicine, Greek and Roman. 4.
Medicine, Arab. 5. Medical astrology--Early works to 1800. I. Bos, Gerrit, 1948- II. Langermann, Y. Tzvi. III.
Galen. De diebus decretoriis. English. IV. Galen. De diebus decretoriis. Hebrew. V. Title.
R126.G33 2015
610.938--dc23
2014036501
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issn 0169-8729
isbn 978-90-04-28221-6 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-28222-3 (e-book)
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Contents
Preface vii
1 The “Summaries” and Other Recensions of Galen 1
2 The “Summaries” of On Critical Days 11
3 The Arabic Versions of the “Alexandrian Summaries” of Galen’s
On Critical Days 28
1 Princeton ms 33
2 Tehran ms 49
4 The Translation of the Arabic Text 65
5 The Hebrew Version of Shimshon ben Shlomo 87
6 The Translation of the Hebrew Version 106
Bibliography 123
Arabic Glossary and Index 127
Hebrew Glossary and Index 137
Index of Subjects 145
Preface
Galen was undoubtedly the most important medical authority in antiquity,
and one of the most influential medical authorities of all times. He be-
queathed an enormous body of writings, mostly, but by no means all, in the
field of medicine. His works were translated into Syriac, then into Arabic, by
the Christian physicians of the early Abbasid period who played a pivotal
role in the transmission of the Galenic corpus to the Arabic-speaking world.
Galen’s works were translated into Latin, either directly from the Greek or
by way of the Arabic, and formed the basis of university and extra-university
medicine in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Galenic medicine is the ba-
sis of the tremendous, wide-ranging, and often innovative writings of me-
dieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish physicians who wrote in the principal
scientific languages of the medieval world—Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Persian,
and Syriac.
However, translations of books authored by the master were not the only
vehicle by which “Galenic” medicine exercised its enormous impact. Galen
was anything but concise, and he was prone to digressions and polemical
excursuses. For that reason, already in late antiquity, some sixteen Galenic
treatises were selected for a sort of “core curriculum” for the medical stu-
dent. But this is not all. There exists a group of “summaries”, often referred
to as the “Alexandrian summaries” (Jawāmiʿ al-Iskandarāniyīn, Summaria
Alexandrinorum), which overlap for the most part with the curriculum of
sixteen books which were taught with formal commentaries and read in a
specific order in pre-Islamic Alexandria and in the early centuries of Islam.1
Though there has always been a suspicion that the summaries were written
originally in Greek, perhaps in Alexandria, no Greek texts are known to exist.
The texts we publish here furnish some new information on the literary his-
tory of the “summaries”, though the question of their origin remains open.
As the name implies, these are greatly abridged versions of the Galenic
originals. However, they do not merely shorten the exposition; they main-
tain a certain critical distance from Galen, introducing as well minor, and
at times even major, revisions of Galenic doctrine. As such they are entirely
distinct from the Epitomes of the core curriculum prepared, for example, by
Maimonides, who tells us explicitly that he has built the abridgements by
piecing together literal quotations from Galen.2
1 The literature on this body of texts is not very extensive, but interest has grown in recent
years. See the bibliography.
2 See Maimonides, Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 1-5, ed. and trans. Gerrit Bos (Provo, 2004),
viii preface
Galen’s writings were thus transformed, not just by crossing linguistic
boundaries, but by deliberate intervention on the part of unnamed medical
writers who felt the need to adjust Galen’s teachings. There is evidence that
at least in some cases, it was the revised Galen transmitted by the summa-
ries, rather than the original Galen, that entered into the medieval discourse.
In the present publication we present editions and translations of the
summaries to Galen’s On Critical Days. Two very different versions exist, the
one in Arabic, the other in a Hebrew translation from a lost Arabic text.
Moreover, there are some significant differences between the two extant
copies of the Arabic text. Some of the key differences between the teachings
of the summaries and those of Galen have already been discussed by one of
us.3 We introduce the present study with a thorough conspectus of the two
summaries, in particular calling attention to where they diverge from Galen,
seeing as our main interest in this study is the transformation of Galen in
the summaries; the subsequent impact of the summaries must be left to
another project. For purposes of comparison we have used the recent edi-
tion and translation of Ḥunayn’s translation of On Critical Days by Glenn
Cooper;4 page numbers are indicated by (CG pp.). Where warranted, Kühn’s
edition of the Greek has also been consulted;5 page and line numbers are
indicated by [K ppp:ll]. For convenience of reference the texts have been
divided into numbered passages indicated by square brackets [].
We wish to thank the libraries whose resources were made available for this
publication: Princeton University Library, Majlis Library in Tehran, Biblio-
thèque Nationale de France, Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, National Library
of Russia, and the Österreichische Nationalbiliothek. Thanks go out as well
to the Insitute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in Jerusalem and its
p. 2: “In these aphorisms I have not followed the method that I followed in the Epitomes,
in which I quoted Galen’s very words, as I stipulated in the introduction to the Epitomes.”
Maimonides’ Epitomes are extant in a beautiful manuscript at Paris, BNF héb 1203, includ-
ing some notes added by Maimonides to the Epitomes; see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Mai-
monides on the Synochous Fever,” Israel Oriental Studies 12 (1993), 175-198.
3 Y. Tzvi Langermann, “The Astral Connections of Critical Days: Some Late Antique Sources
Preserved in Hebrew and Arabic,” in Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
(eds.), Astromedicine, Astrology, and Medicine, East and West (Florence, 2008), 99-118.
4 Cf. C.M. Cooper, Galen, De diebus decretoriis, from Greek into Arabic. A Critical Edition,
with Translation and Commentary, of Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, Kitāb ayyām al-buḥrān (Farn-
ham-Burlington, 2011).
5 Cf. C.G. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1821-1833, repr. Hildesheim,
1967).
preface ix
staff. Our thanks are extended to Dr. Leigh Chipman for her valuable help
in preparing these texts. Research for this project was carried out with the
generous support of the German-Israel Foundation (Research Grant I-1053-
110.4/2009), which we acknowledge with profound thanks.
