Judah Romano’s Hebrew Translation from Albert, De anima III

Abstract

Judah ben Moses Romano's most important translation from the works of Albert the Great is, as Steinschneider recognized, his long extract from the Liber tertius de anima , a paraphrastic commentary on the Aristotelian book. The Latin original is usually dated between 1254 and 1257. The translated portion of the text extends over slightly more than twenty-six chapters, to which the translator added one article from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae . Jean-Pierre Rothschild calls cod. Parma 2629 the most complete collection of Judah's Latin-Hebrew translations. While his judgment regarding the quantity of texts is correct, one must add that the quality of the copying is not very satisfying. The intercalated chapter from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae was counter-checked with the Editio Leonina; while the author's edition adopts the division of paragraphs found here. Keywords: Albert; Judah ben Moses Romano; Liber tertius de anima