A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 1 (of 2) / During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era

by Lynn Thorndike

Pantegni.

The longest of Constantinus’ translations and the one most often cited in the middle ages was the Pantechni or Pantegni, comprising ten books of theory and ten of practice as printed in 1515 with the works of Isaac,[2968] although Peter the Deacon speaks of Constantinus’ dividing the Pantegni into twelve books and then of a Practica which also consisted of twelve books. What is the ninth book of the Practica in this printed version is listed as a separate book on surgery by Peter in his Illustrious Men, although omitted from his list in the Chronicle, and was so printed in the 1536 edition of the works of Constantinus.[2969] And the Antidotarium which Peter lists as a separate title is probably simply the tenth book of the Practica as printed with the works of Isaac.[2970] The Pantegni, however, is not a translation of any work by Isaac, but an adaptation of the Khitaab el Maleki, or Royal Art of Medicine, of Ali Ibn Abbas. The preface of Constantinus[2971] says nothing of Ali but tells the abbot Desiderius that, failing to find in the many works of the Latins or even in “our own writers, ancient and modern,” such as Hippocrates, Galen, Oribasius, Paulus, and Alexander, exactly the sort of treatise desired, he has composed “this little work of our own” (hoc nostrum opusculum). But Stephen of Pisa, who also translated Ali into Latin in 1127,[2972] accused Constantinus of having suppressed both the author’s name and title of the book and of having made many omissions and changes of order both in preface and text but without really adding any new contributions of his own.[2973] Stephen further justified his own translation by asserting that not only had the first part of The Royal Art of Medicine of Ali Ibn Abbas been “corrupted by the shrewd fraud of its translator,” but also that the last and greater portion was missing in the version by Constantinus.[2974] Also Ferrarius said in his gloss to the Universal Diets of Isaac that Constantinus had completed the translation of only three books of the Practica, losing the rest in a shipwreck.[2975] A third medieval writer, Giraldus Bituricensis, adds[2976] that Constantinus substituted in its place the Liber simplicis medicinae and Liber graduum, and that it was Stephen of Pisa who translated the remainder of the work of Ali ben Abbas which is called the Practica Pantegni et Stephanonis. Stephen’s translation is indeed different from the ten books of the Practica printed with the works of Isaac. From these facts and from an examination of the manuscripts of the Practica Rose concluded[2977] that Constantinus wrote only its first two books[2978] and the first part of the ninth, which is roughly the same as the Surgery published separately among Constantinus’ works. The rest of this ninth book was translated into Latin at the time of the expedition to besiege Majorca, that is, in 1114-1115, by a John[2979] who had recently been converted to Christianity[2980] and whom Rose was inclined to identify with John Afflacius, “a disciple of Constantinus,” of whom we shall have more to say presently. Rose further held that this John completed the Practica[2981] commonly ascribed to Constantinus with the exception of its tenth book which, as we have suggested, seems originally to have been a distinct Antidotarium. Different from the Pantegni is the Compendium megategni Galeni by Constantinus published with the works of Isaac, and the Librum Tegni, Megategni, Microtegni listed by Peter the Deacon.

Viaticum.

Perhaps the next best known and the most frequently printed[2982] of Constantinus’ translations or adaptations from the Arabic is his Viaticum which, as Peter the Deacon states, is divided into seven books. In the preface Constantinus states that the Pantegni was for more advanced students, this is a brief manual for others. He also adds that he appends his own name to it because there are persons who profit by the labors of others and, “when the work of someone else has come into their hands, furtively and like thieves inscribe their own names.” Daremberg designated Abu Jafar Ahmed Ibn-al-Jezzar as author of the Arabic original of the Viaticum. Moses Ibn Tibbon, who made a Hebrew translation in 1259, criticized the Latin version of Constantinus as often abbreviated, obscure, and seriously altered in arrangement.[2983] Constantinus seems to be alluded to in the Ephodia or Greek version of the same work.[2984]

Other translations.

If neither the original of the Pantegni nor of the Viaticum is to be assigned to Isaac, Constantinus nevertheless did translate some of his works, namely, those on diets, urines, and fevers.[2985] Moreover, Constantinus himself admits that these Latin works are translations, stating in the preface to the treatise on urines that, finding no satisfactory treatment of the subject in Latin, he turned to the Arabic language and translated the work which Isaac had compiled from the ancients. Constantinus also states that he translated the treatise on fevers from the Arabic. We have already seen that the alphabetical Latin version of Dioscorides which had most currency in the middle ages is ascribed in at least one manuscript to Constantinus. He also translated some treatises ascribed to Hippocrates and Galen, such as Galen’s commentary on the Aphorisms and Prognostics of Hippocrates[2986] and the Tegni of Galen. Constantinus has also been credited with translating works of Galen on the eyes, on diseases of women, and on human nature, but these are not genuine works of Galen.

The book of degrees.

In his list of the works which Constantinus translated from various languages.[2987] Peter the Deacon includes The book of degrees, but it has not yet been discovered from what earlier author, if any, it is copied or adapted. The work is a development of Galen’s doctrine that various medicinal simples are hot or cold, dry or moist, in varying degrees. Constantinus presupposes four gradations of this sort. Thus a food or medicine is hot in the first degree if its heating power is below that of the normal human body; if it is of the same temperature as the body, it ranks as of the second degree; if its heat is somewhat greater than that of the body, it is of the third degree; if its heat is extreme and unbearable, it is of the fourth degree. The rose is cold in the first degree, is dry towards the end of the second degree, while the violet is cold towards the end of the first degree and moist in the beginning of the second degree. Thus Constantinus distinguishes not only four degrees but a beginning, middle and end of each degree, and Peter the Deacon once gives the title of the work as The book of twelve degrees.[2988] This interesting though crude beginning in the direction of scientific thermometry and hydrometry unfortunately rested upon incorrect assumptions as to the nature and causation of heat and moisture, and so was perhaps destined to do more harm than good.

On melancholy.

A glossary of herbs and species and a work on the pulse, which Peter the Deacon includes in both his lists of Constantinus’ works or translations, do not seem to have been printed or identified as Constantinus’. On the other hand, the printed edition of the works of Constantinus includes treatises on melancholy and on the stomach[2989] which are not mentioned in Peter’s list. In a preface to the De melancholia which is not included in the printed edition[2990] Constantinus Africanus speaks of himself as a monk of Monte Cassino and states that, while he has often touched on the disease of melancholy in the many medical books which he has added to the Latin language, he has decided also to write a separate brochure on the subject because it is an important malady and because it is especially prevalent “in these regions.” “Therefore I have collected this booklet from many volumes of our adepts in this art.” Whether the word “our” here refers to Greek or Arabic writers would be hard to say. Constantinus states that melancholy is a disease to which those are especially liable who are always intent on study and books of philosophy, “because of their scientific investigations and tiring their memories and grieving over the failure of their minds.” This ailment also afflicts “those who lose their beloved possessions, such as their children and dearest friends or some precious thing which cannot be restored, as when scholars suddenly lose their books.” Constantinus also describes the melancholy of “many religious persons who live lives to be revered, but fall into this disease from their fear of God and contemplation of the last judgment and desire of seeing the summum bonum. Such persons think of nothing and seek for nothing save to love and fear God alone, and they incur this complaint and become drunk as it were with their excessive anxiety and vanity.”[2991] Such passages would seem to describe Constantinus’ own associates and environment, but they may possibly be a mere translation of some work of an earlier Christian Arab, such as Honein ben Ishak who translated or pretended to translate a number of works of Greek medicine into Arabic. In a later chapter[2992] we shall find that Honein perhaps had something to do with another work called The Secrets of Galen, in which remedies for religious ascetics who have ruined their health by their austerities form a rather prominent feature.