As for the philosophical and scientific texts are concerned, we can observe three periods of the translation activity from Greek into Syriac: the first (second–fifth century) is characterized by the interest in popular philosophy of ethical content and gnomic form; in the second, (sixth century) the translations focus on the Aristotelian logic and physics; the third one (seventh–ninth century) is still focused on Aristotle but is marked by a change in the translation style, from a more periphrastic to a more literal one.
Short information about the key figures (Sergius of Resh‘aynā, Athanasius of Baladh, James of Edessa, George of the Arabs, and Ḥunayn b. Isḥaq) is given.
As it is impossible to outline a complete overview of the Syriac translation activity throughout the centuries, we will limit ourselves to the philosophical texts and to some scientific literature, excluding the biblical, patristic, or narrative texts.
First Period: The So-Called Popular Philosophy
Greek philosophy had its first impact on Syriac culture already by the second century, in the form of little texts, often of gnomic form and ethical content, and often transmitted in little collections.
It is commonly believed that they were composed by and for a cultivated and not necessarily Christian milieu, a urban – mainly Edessene – audience located in Mesopotamia between the second and the fifth century, although it is impossible to reach a more detailed description of the circumstances of these earlier translations.
To this period belong the translations of some Pythagorean sayings, of collections of sentences by the Pseudo-Menander and by a Pseudo-Plato, of a “Socratic” dialogue, of two of Plutarch’s moralia, and of one of Isocrates’ orations. Works by Lucian of Samosata and by the fourth century rhetor Themistius are also preserved.
Second Period
Philosophy made its real entrance in the Syriac-speaking cultivated world only at the beginning of the sixth century, with the first translations of Aristotle’s logical and physical works along with commentaries on them. Plato was never translated into Syriac.
The Categories were translated, presumably in the first half of the century, by an anonymous translator, and have been commented at length by Sergius of Resh‘aynā (d. 536), who nevertheless did not know the translation just mentioned. Porphyry’s Isagoge as well was translated by an anonymous author in the first half of the sixth century.
The same Sergius wrote a short introduction to the whole logical œuvre of Aristotle. He also translated two other works of the Aristotelian tradition: the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De mundo, and perhaps Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On the Principles of the Universe.
Sergius is most of all famous for his translation into Syriac of the pseudo-Dionysian Corpus, and for having introduced Galen into Syriac: the ninth-century doctor and translator Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq informs us that he had translated some 30 works of Galen’s: four fragments, three of which attributed to him by Sachau (1870), have come down to us: from the Ars medica, from the De alimentorum facultatibus, and from the De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus. A short treatise on the influence of the moon, based on the De diebus decretoriis was edited by Merx (1885).
Two other logical texts from the Organon are preserved in anonymous translations: the Deinterpretatione and the Prior Analytics until I, 7: for these works, scholars could not give a precise date, so that at present it is not possible to determine their context. We also have a version of Theophrastus’ Metereology.
Third Period
Between the seventh and the eighth century, after the Muslim conquest, the West Syrian monastic cenacle of Qenneshre, on the western bank of the Euphrates, produced a great amount of philosophical and scientific work, both in the form of translations and commentaries.
It is in these works that we can clearly detect the main change of the Syriac translation technique analyzed by Brock (1979, 1983, 2004): from a periphrastic style to a more literal one, with a much more abundant presence of Greek borrowings in the new translations.
The initiator of Qenneshre’s flourishing period was Severus Sebokht (d. 666/7). He is well known for a wide scientific production, but not for translations. His main disciples and successors were Athanasius of Baladh (d. 687), James of Edessa (d. 708), and George of the Arabs (d. 724). Athanasius revised in 645 the first anonymous translation of the Isagoge, edited by Freimann (1897); other translations by him of Aristotelian texts are lost, but we know that he translated the Prior and the Posterior Analytics, the Topics and the Sophistici elenchi: that is to say that he is the only Syriac scholar of the first millennium who, as far as we know, translated the entire Organon which, as an heritage of the Alexandrian commentary tradition, was neither usually translated nor commented upon beyond the Prior Analytics.
James of Edessa, for example, did not go beyond the An.pr.; he revised the sixth-century anonymous translation of the Categories, translated the De interpretatione (even if this translation is attributed to the sixth century Syriac philosopher Probus in the manuscript which transmits it), and the Prior Analytics.
George of the Arabs translated the same three works in a more literal way. In the same monastery a certain Phokas substantially revised Sergius’ version of the Dionysian Corpus, which he translated together with John of Scythopolis’ scholia. After George, almost nothing has survived of the Syriac translations.
The most important translator, both into Syriac and Arabic, under the ‘Abbāsids is Hunayn b. Isḥāq (ninth century), but it is difficult to single out any fragments of his Syriac translations. We know about them from a letter that he wrote in 856, where he displays the list of his Syriac translations of Galen’s works. He retranslated many of Galen’s works into Syriac, because of his severe judgment on many of Sergius’ translations.
We know that he also produced new versions of the Categories and the De interpretatione, but they are no longer extant.
To the third era of the Syriac translations probably belongs also the version of Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis, which is known only from fragments quoted by eighth and ninth century authors, and for linguistic reasons should not be dated before the seventh century.
Source: Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, editor: Henrik Lagerlund, second edition pp. 1959 -1962, Springer, 2020.
