Farther, in the year 529, seven philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, who had been driven away from Athens, found a place of refuge at the court of Khosrau. Their experiences there, however, may have resembled those of the French free-thinkers of the 18th century at the Russian court. At all events they longed to get home again; and the king was sufficiently liberal-minded and magnanimous to allow them to go, and in his treaty of peace with Byzantium of the year 549 to stipulate in their case for freedom of religious opinion. Their stay in the Persian kingdom was doubtless not wholly devoid of influence.
6. The period of Syriac translations of profane literature from the Greek extends perhaps from the 4th to the 8th century. In the 4th century collections of aphorisms were translated. The first translator, however, who makes his appearance avowing his name, is Probus, “Priest and physician in Antioch” (1st half of the 5th century?). Possibly [[15]]he was merely an expounder of the logical writings of Aristotle, and of the Isagoge of Porphyry. Better known is Sergius of Rasain,—who died at the age of 70 or so, probably in Constantinople, about 536,—a Mesopotamian monk and physician, whose studies, which were probably pursued in Alexandria itself, took in the whole range of Alexandrian science, and whose translations not only embraced Theology, Morals and Mysticism, but even Physics, Medicine and Philosophy. Even after the Muslim conquest the learned activity of the Syrians continued. Jacob of Edessa (circa 640–708) translated Greek theological writings; but he occupied himself besides with Philosophy, and in answer to a question relative thereto he pronounced that it was lawful for Christian ecclesiastics to impart the higher instruction to children of Muslim parents. There was thus a felt need of culture among the latter.
The translations of the Syrians, particularly of Sergius of Rasain, are generally faithful; but a more exact correspondence with the original is shewn in the case of Logic and Natural Science than in Ethical and Metaphysical works. Much that is obscure in these last has been misunderstood or simply omitted, and much that is pagan has been replaced by Christian material. For instance, Peter, Paul and John would come upon the scene in room of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Destiny and the Gods were obliged to give place to the one God; and ideas like World, Eternity, Sin and the like were recast in a Christian mould. The Arabs, however, in subsequent times went to a much greater length with the process of adaptation to their language, culture and religion than the Syrians. This may perhaps be partly explained by the Muslim horror of everything [[16]]heathen, but partly too by their greater faculty of adaptation.
7. Apart from a few mathematical, physical and medical writings, the Syrians interested themselves in two subjects,—the first consisting of moralizing collections of aphorisms, put together into a kind of history of Philosophy, and, generally, of mystical Pythagorean-Platonic wisdom. This is found principally in pseudepigraphs, which bear the names of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plutarch, Dionysius and others. The centre of interest is a Platonic doctrine of the Soul, subjected to a later Pythagorean, Neo-Platonic, or Christian form of treatment. In the Syrian cloisters Plato is even turned into an oriental monk, who built a cell for himself in the heart of the wilderness, far away from the dwellings of men, and after three years’ silent brooding over a verse of the Bible was led to a recognition of the Tri-Unity of God.
A second subject of interest was added, in Aristotle’s Logic. Among the Syrians, and for a longer period among the Arabs also, Aristotle was commonly known almost solely as a logician. This knowledge, just as in the early scholasticism of the West, extended to the Categories, the Hermeneutics, and the first Analytics as far as the Categorical Figures. They stood in need of the Logic in order to comprehend the writings of Greek ecclesiastical teachers, since these, at least in form, were influenced thereby. But as they did not possess it complete, as little did they possess it pure. They had it before them only in a Neo-Platonic redaction, as may be seen, for example, from the work of Paulus Persa, which was written in Syriac for Khosrau Anosharwan. In that work knowledge is placed above faith, [[17]]and philosophy is defined as the process by which the soul becomes conscious of its own inner essence, in which, like a God as it were, it sees all things.
8. What the Arabs owe to the Syrians is expressed by this circumstance amongst others,—that Arab scholars held Syriac to be the oldest, or the real (natural) language. The Syrians, it is true, produced nothing original; but their activity as translators was of advantage to Arab-Persian science. It was Syrians almost without exception, who, from the 8th century to the 10th, rendered Greek works into Arabic, either from the older Syriac versions or from those which had been in part improved by them, and in part re-arranged. Even the Omayyad prince, Khalid ibn Yezid (died 704), who occupied himself with Alchemy under the guidance of a Christian monk, is said to have provided for translations of works on Alchemy from Greek into Arabic. Proverbs, maxims, letters, wills, and in short whatever bore on the history of philosophy, were at a very early time collected and translated. But it was not till the reign of Mansur that a commencement was made with the translation into Arabic—partly from Pahlawi versions—of those writings of the Greeks which deal with Natural Science, Medicine and Logic. Ibn al-Moqaffa, an adherent of Persian Dualism, took a leading part in this task, from whom later workers must have marked themselves off by their terminology. None of his philosophical translations have come down to us. Other material too, belonging to the 8th century has gone amissing. The earliest specimen of this work of translation which we possess dates from the 9th century, the time of Mamun and his successors.
The translators of the 9th century were, for the most [[18]]part, medical men; and Hippocrates and Galen were among the first to be translated after Ptolemy and Euclid. But let us confine ourselves to Philosophy, in the narrower sense. A translation of the Timäus of Plato is said to have come from Yuhanna or Yakhya ibn Bitriq (in the beginning of the 9th century), as well as Aristotle’s ‘Meteorology’, the ‘Book of Animals’, an epitome of the ‘Psychology’, and the tract ‘On the World’. To Abdalmasikh ibn Abdallah Naima al-Himsi (circa 835) is to be ascribed a rendering of the ‘Sophistics’ of Aristotle, in addition to the Commentary of John Philoponus upon the ‘Physics’, as well as the so-called ‘Theology of Aristotle’,—a paraphrased epitome of the Enneads of Plotinus. Qosta ibn Luqa al-Balabakki (circa 835) is said to have translated the Commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and John Philoponus upon the ‘Physics’ of Aristotle, and in part, Alexander’s Commentary on the ‘De generatione et corruptione’, as well as the ‘Placita Philosophorum’ of the Pseudo-Plutarch, and other works.
The most productive translators were Abu Zaid Honain ibn Ishaq (809?–873), his son, Ishaq ibn Honain († 910 or 911), and nephew Hobaish ibn al-Hasan. Seeing that they worked together, there is a good deal which is ascribed, now to the one and now to the other. Not a little material must have been prepared, under their oversight, by disciples and subordinates. Their activity extended over the whole range of the science of that day. Existing translations were improved, and new ones added. The father preferred to work at versions of medical authors, but the son turned more to the rendering of philosophical material.
The work of the translators was still proceeding in the 10th century. Among those who especially distinguished [[19]]themselves were Abu Bishr Matta ibn Yunus al-Qannai († 940), Abu Zakarya Yakhya ibn Adi al-Mantiqi († 974), Abu Ali Isa ibn Ishaq ibn Zura († 1008), and finally, Abu-l-Khair al-Hasan ibn al-Khammar (born 942), a pupil of Yakhya ibn Adi’s, of whose writings, besides translations, commentaries, and so forth, a tract is mentioned, on the Harmony between Philosophy and Christianity.
From the time of Honain ibn Ishaq the activity of the translators was almost wholly confined to Aristotelian and Pseudo-Aristotelian writings, and to epitomes of them, to paraphrases of their contents and to commentaries upon them.