Critical Edition Books I to IV, Arabic version
Responsible: Dr. Raphaela Veit
Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq’s (808–873 CE) Arabic rendering of Galen’s Commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms must be regarded as a very important textual witness, for the Greek manuscripts he used were significantly older than – and thus independent of – those that we have now. In other words, the Arabic translation testifies to lost Greek textual witnesses that are prior to the archetype of the extant Greek manuscripts. It follows from this that in some passages the Arabic translation is the only one to offer the correct reading and can be decisive for the correct reading in many other passages where the Greek manuscripts show variants
Raphaela Veit will produce a full critical edition of the Arabic version of books I, II, III and IV taking account of all surviving Arabic manuscripts but also the Greek original and the Syriac and Latin witnesses. This edition will complement the work on books V–VII currently being prepared by Taro Mimura (University of Tokyo).
Peter Pormann (University of Manchester, DFG- Mercator Fellow) will be involved in work on the Arabic version and on the role of Galen’s commentary as a vehicle for the reception of the Aphorisms in the Islamicate world; in particular, he will be focusing on the impact of Galen’s commentary on Ibn Abī Ṣādiq’s commentary on the Aphorisms (11th century CE).