PAUL KRAUS, RICHARD WALZER, AND GALEN'S COM. TIM.

Aileen R Das

doi:10.1017/s0957423921000072

Abstract

AbstractA key work for the study of pre-modern Platonism, Galen's (d. ca. 217 CE) “Synopsis of Plato's Timaeus” (Com. Tim.) is served solely by an “imperfect” 1951 edition that presents for the first time the surviving Arabic text and translates it into Latin. The editors of the “Plato Arabus” series of the Corpus Platonicum, to which the edition belongs, blamed its flaws on the untimely death of Paul Kraus (1904-1944), who prepared the edition with another Jewish refugee Richard Walzer (1900-1975) around WWII. My analysis of archival sources will demonstrate that the labor on the volume was disproportionately Kraus’, whom Walzer and the Corpus Platonicum editor Raymond Klibansky (1905-2005) marginalized from the project in their attempts to secure employment in British academia as displaced Jews. I will also consider how Walzer and Klibansky re-envisioned Kraus’ plans for a Semitic corpus of Platonism to a narrower “Plato Arabus” that would align with a study of Latin Platonism (“Plato Latinus”) in which they presumed their British patrons would be more interested.

Highlights

Galen of Pergamum’s (d. ca. 217 CE) “Synopsis of Plato’s Timaeus”
The editors of the “Plato Arabus” series of the Corpus Platonicum, to which the edition belongs, blamed its flaws on the untimely death of Paul Kraus (1904-1944), who prepared the edition with another Jewish refugee Richard Walzer (1900-1975) around WWII
My analysis of archival sources will demonstrate that the labor on the volume was disproportionately Kraus’, whom Walzer and the Corpus Platonicum editor Raymond Klibansky (1905-2005) marginalized from the project in their attempts to secure employment in British academia as displaced Jews

Summary

Introduction

Galen of Pergamum’s (d. ca. 217 CE) “Synopsis of Plato’s Timaeus” (hereafter Com. Tim.) seems to have offered pre-modern readers of Arabic a more comprehensive overview of the Timaeus than other available.

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Results

Conclusion