Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 1–5. A Parallel Arabic-English Edition (review)

Mūsā ibn Maimūn(d. ca. 1204), the most important and influential medieval Jewish thinker, who is generally known as Maimonides, wrote the majority of his oeuvre in Arabic. This is true not only of the theological works primarily directed at his own community, such as his Responsa(advice given on questions of Jewish law) or his Guide of the Perplexed, but also of his more philosophical and medical writings. The latter include his Aphorisms( Fuṣūl) as well as shorter monographs on topics such as asthma, hemorrhoids, sex, poisons, and general health. Some of these Arabic originals have not, however, been edited to date; for instance, the Aphorismswere hitherto accessible only in an edition of a medieval Hebrew version and an English translation thereof. Gerrit Bos is therefore to be congratulated for filling this gap with his new series "The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides."

The Aphorisms, Maimonides' longest medical work (some four hundred pages in the previous Hebrew edition), are divided into twenty-five "treatises" ( maqālas) that are arranged according to topics and contain between 20 and 120 aphorisms. Maimonides explains his rationale in compiling this collection in his preface: inspired by earlier physicians such as Hippocrates and al-Rāzī (Rhazes, d. ca. 925), he wants to provide the reader with short excerpts from the major medical authorities, most prominently Galen, which contain important medical information in a form that can be easily remembered. Unlike many other medieval authors, Maimonides provides exact references to his sources, in order to allow readers to engage critically with the material presented. He mostly cites verbatim, but sometimes avails himself of the right to shorten or paraphrase the material in question; moreover, he occasionally adds his own comments and reflections.

The book under review is the first of six volumes containing the edition of the original Arabic text of Maimonides' Aphorisms, accompanied by an English translation as well as an introduction and notes, mainly concerned with matters of textual and source criticism. Because of its great popularity, the Aphorismssurvives in numerous manuscripts in the original Arabic, two Hebrew translations, and Latin. In his introduction, Bos mentions ten Arabic manuscripts, some of which are briefly described, as well as three Hebrew ones. Bos says that he has consulted six out of the ten Arabic manuscripts, and that his "edition is based mainly on G" (p. xxxi)—that is, Gotha, MS orint. 1937, which he regards as the best. Moreover, he states: "In editing the Arabic text . . . , I have adhered to the guidelines formulated by Oliver Kahl" (p. xxxii). The latter's editorial practice has recently come under severe criticism from Manfred Ullmann. ¹Bos's editorial approach can best be qualified as eclectic: He discusses the textual tradition of the various manuscripts in a cursory fashion, and does not provide a stemma. Since most of the aphorisms are quotations, the parallel sources are quite significant; Bos lists the most important in the "Sigla and Abbreviations," but adduces them only occasionally in the apparatus and notes (e.g., aphorisms iii. 16–18, 25, 28, where he quotes extensively from G. Strohmaier's forthcoming edition of Galen's Commentary to Hippocrates' "Airs, Waters, Places"). Similarly, variant readings from the Hebrew translations hardly ever appear in the apparatus.

Bos is extremely critical of F. Rosner and S. Muntner, whose edition and translation of the Hebrew version by Nathan Ha-Me'ati have been for nearly half a century the only complete text of the Aphorismsavailable to scholars and the general public. It is important to recognize that Bos's book marks significant progress, not least since it provides a first edition of the Arabic text of this influential work. Yet his own edition and translation, like those of his predecessors, will undoubtably be improved and amended by future research...