9. These translators are not to be regarded as specially great philosophers. Their work was seldom entered upon spontaneously, but almost always at the command of some Caliph or Vizir or other person of note. Outside of their own department of study, usually Medicine, they were chiefly interested in Wisdom,—that is, in pretty stories with a moral, in anecdotes, and in oracular sayings. The expressions which we merely bear with in intercourse, in narrative or on the stage, as being characteristic utterances with certain persons, were admired and collected by these worthy people for the sake of the wisdom contained in them, or perhaps even for no more than the rhetorical elegance of their form. As a rule, those men continued true to the Christian faith of their fathers. The traditional story of Ibn Djebril gives a good idea both of their way of thinking and of the liberal-mindedness of the Caliphs. When Mansur wanted to convert him to Islam, he is said to have replied: “In the faith of my fathers I will die: where they are, I wish also to be, whether in heaven or [[20]]in hell”. Whereupon the Caliph laughed, and dismissed him with a rich present.
Only a small portion has been saved of the original writings of these men. A short dissertation by Qosta ibn Luqa on the distinction between Soul and Spirit (πνεῦμα, ruh), preserved in a Latin translation, has been frequently mentioned and made use of. According to it, the Spirit is a subtle material, which from its seat in the left ventricle of the heart animates the human frame and brings about its movements and perceptions. The finer and clearer this Spirit is, the more rationally the man thinks and acts: there is but one opinion upon this point. It is more difficult, however, to predicate anything sure, and universally valid, of the Soul. The deliverances of the greatest philosophers occasionally differ, and occasionally contradict each other. In any case the Soul is incorporeal, for it adopts qualities, and, in fact, qualities of the most opposite nature at one and the same time. It is uncompounded and unchangeable, and it does not, like the Spirit, perish with the body. The Spirit only acts as an intermediary between the Soul and the Body, and it is in this way that it becomes a secondary cause of movement and perception.
The statement which has just been given regarding the Soul is found in many of the later writers. But by slow degrees, as the Aristotelian philosophy thrusts Platonic opinions more and more into the background, another pair of opposites come into full view. Physicians alone continue to speak of the importance of the ‘ruh’ or Spirit of Life. Philosophers institute a comparison between Soul and Spirit or Reason (νοῦς, ʻaql). The Soul is now reduced to the domain of the perishable, and sometimes, in Gnostic fashion, even [[21]]to the lower and evil realm of the desires. The rational Spirit,—as that which is highest, that which is imperishable in man—is exalted above the Soul.
In this notice, however, we are anticipating history: let us return to our translators.
10. The most valuable portion of the legacy which the Greek mind bequeathed to us in art, poetry, and historical composition, was never accessible to the Orientals. It would even have been difficult for them to understand it, seeing that they lacked the due acquaintance with Greek life, and the relish for it. For them the history of Greece began with Alexander the Great, surrounded with the halo of legend; and the position which Aristotle held beside the greatest prince of ancient times must have assuredly conduced to the acceptance of the Aristotelian philosophy at the Muslim court. Arab historians counted up the Greek princes, on to Cleopatra, and then the Roman Emperors; but a Thucydides, for example, was not known to them, even by name. Of Homer they had not picked up much more than the sentence, that “one only should be the ruler”. They had not the least idea of the great Greek dramatists and lyric poets. It was only through its Mathematics, Natural Science and Philosophy, that Greek antiquity could bring its influence to bear upon them. They had come to know something of the development of Greek Philosophy, from Plutarch, Porphyry and others, as well as from the writings of Aristotle and Galen. A good deal of legendary matter, however, was mingled with their information; and the account which passed in the East, of the doctrines of the Pre-Socratic philosophers can only be referred by us to the pseudepigraphs which [[22]]they consulted, or perhaps even to the opinions which had been developed in the East itself, and which they endeavoured to support with the authority of old Greek sages. But still, in every case, our thoughts must turn first of all to some Greek original.
11. It may be affirmed generally that the Syro-Arabs took up the thread of philosophy, precisely where the last of the Greeks had let it fall, that is, with the Neo-Platonic explanation of Aristotle, along with whose philosophy the works of Plato were also read and expounded. Among the Harranaeans, and for a long time in several Muslim sects, it was Platonic or Pythagorean-Platonic studies which were prosecuted with most ardour,—with which much that was Stoic or Neo-Platonic was associated. Extraordinary interest was taken in the fate of Socrates, who had suffered a martyr’s death in heathen Athens for his rational belief. The Platonic teaching regarding the Soul and Nature exercised great influence. The Pythian utterance: “Know thyself”,—handed down as the motto of the Socratic wisdom, and interpreted in a Neo-Platonic sense,—was ascribed by the Muslims to Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law, or even put into the mouth of the Prophet himself. “He who knows himself, knows God his Lord thereby”: this was the text for Mystic speculations of all kinds.
In medical circles and at the worldly court, the works of Aristotle came more and more into favour, first of all of course the Logic and a few things from the Physical writings. The Logic—so they thought—was the only new thing the Stagyrite had discovered: in all the other sciences he agreed throughout with Pythagoras, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Socrates and Plato. Accordingly Christian [[23]]and Sabaean translators, and the circle influenced by them, drew their psychologico-ethical, political and metaphysical instruction without hesitation from the Pre-Aristotelian sages.
What bore the names of Empedocles, Pythagoras &c., was, naturally, spurious. Their wisdom is traced either to Hermes or to other wise men of the East. Thus Empedocles must have been a disciple of King David’s, and afterwards of Loqman the Wise: Pythagoras must have sprung from the school of Solomon,—and so on. Writings which are cited in Arabic works as Socratic are, in so far as they are genuine, Platonic dialogues in which Socrates appears. Their quotations from Plato—not to speak of spurious writings—have a more or less comprehensive range: they are taken from the Apology, Krito, the Sophistes, Phaedrus, the Republic, Phaedo, Timäus and the Laws. That does not mean, however, that they possessed complete translations of all these works.
This much is certain,—that Aristotle did not reign as sole lord from the very outset. Plato, as they understood him, taught the Creation of the world, the Substantiality of the Spiritual, and the Immortality of the Soul. That teaching did no harm to the Faith. But Aristotle, with his doctrine of the Eternity of the World, and his less spiritualistic Psychology and Ethics, was regarded as dangerous. Muslim theologians of the 9th and 10th centuries, from various camps, wrote therefore against Aristotle. But circumstances altered. Philosophers arose by-and-by who rejected the Platonic doctrine of the One World-Soul, of which the souls of men are only transient parts, and sought grounds for their hope of immortality from Aristotle who attributed so great a significance to the Individual Substance. [[24]]
12. The conception which was entertained of Aristotle in the period most remote, is best shown by the writings which were foisted upon him. Not only did they get his genuine works with Neo-Platonic interpretations attached to them,—not only was the treatise: “On the world” unhesitatingly acknowledged as Aristotelian, but he was also regarded as the author of many late-Greek productions, in which a Pythagorising Platonism or Neo-Platonism, or even a barren Syncretism was quite frankly taught.