Abstract
This paper studies the astrological connection between Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089–ca. 1161), who created the first comprehensive corpus of Hebrew astrological textbooks that address the main systems of Arabic astrology, and Henry Bate (1246–1310), who first translated into Latin a collection of Ibn Ezra’s astrological writings and brought Ibn Ezra to the knowledge of the Latin West. The first part of this paper offers a brief chronological survey of how Henry Bate became acquainted with Ibn Ezra’s astrological treatises. The second part focuses on a surprising element: when Bate refers to astrological treatises that we now know were written by Ibn Ezra, he assigns them to one of three different authors. All three are ‘Abraham’, but they have distinguishing cognomens. Here we determine which astrological treatises Bate assigned to each of the three Abrahams, try to identify the historical figure behind each of them, and explain Bate’s reason for trisecting Abraham Ibn Ezra.
Highlights
This paper studies the astrological connection between Abraham Ibn Ezra, who created the first comprehensive corpus of Hebrew astrological textbooks that address the main systems of Arabic astrology, and Henry Bate (1246–1310), who first translated into Latin a collection of Ibn Ezra’s astrological writings and brought Ibn Ezra to the knowledge of the Latin West
Latin astrological literature until the last decades of the thirteenth century. This emerges from the fact that neither Ibn Ezra’s name nor references to any of his works are found in the exhaustive catalogue of astrological writings in the Speculum astronomiae (Mirror of astronomy), possibly composed sometime after 1260 by Albertus Magnus,6 and so too in the Liber astronomicus, the most important astrological work of the thirteenth century, composed by Guido Bonatti around 1270.7 But Ibn Ezra was ‘reborn’ in the Latin West thanks to two almost simultaneous translation projects carried out in the last decades of the thirteenth century
Let us ask: Why did Henry Bate split Abraham Ibn Ezra into three Abrahams and divide Ibn Ezra’s astrological oeuvre among them? I would suggest that Bate ‘invented’ the three Abrahams principally to accommodate the fact that in his Nativitas he was working with three different treatises called Liber nativitatum, each written by a Jew whose name was Abraham
Summary
(2) De luminaribus seu de diebus creticis is a translation of Sefer ha-Meorot (Book of the luminaries; Meorot), which deals with the critical days when there are marked changes in the symptoms of a disease.23 This translation, dedicated to the bishop of Aversa, is extant in three manuscripts and a print edition as well. (3) Liber introductionis ad iudicia astrologie is Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot (Judgments of the zodiacal signs), Ibn Ezra’s second introduction to astrology.. According to the colophon of one of them, it was translated by Henry Bate at Orvieto and completed on October 28, 1292.26 (4) Liber causarum seu racionum super hiis que dicuntur in Introductorio Abrahe qui incipit Sapiencie timor domini (Book of causes or reasons on what has been said in the Introduction by Abraham, which begins ‘the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord’) is the Latin of the first version of Sefer ha-Ṭeamim (Book of reasons; Ṭeamim I), Ibn Ezra’s close commentary on Reshit Ḥokhmah.. Seculo, Henry Bate states explicitly that he had a Hebrew manuscript ofOlam I in front of him, and that the Hebrew script of part of it was illegible or its meaning unclear. Supporting evidence for the notion that Henry Bate could understand a Hebrew source text at least in part comes from the basic knowledge of Hebrew reflected in his work, of astronomical terms related to the names of planets.
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