Commentary and Translation in Syriac Aristotelian Scholarship: Sergius to Baghdad

Abstract

This article considers the relationship between the composition in Syriac of commentaries on Aristotle and the translation of his treatises from the time of Sergius of Reshaina through to the Baghdad scholars of the 8th-10th centuries. Surveying the work particularly of Sergius, the scholarly translators of Qenneshre, and the interests of Patriarch Timothy I as evidenced in his letters, it argues that the translation activity up to the 8th century must be seen within the context of a school tradition in which the Syriac text of Aristotle was read in association with a written or oral commentary, or with the Greek text, or both. An appreciation of the link between commentary and translation, as also Syriac and Greek, in Graeco-Syriac Aristotelian scholarship of the 6th-8th centuries enables a better understanding of its relationship to the Syro-Arabic Aristotelian scholarship of Abbasid Baghdad.