The Even Bohan of Qalonymos ben Qalonymos has long been acknowledged as a masterpiece of Hebrew satire and an important source for Jewish life in medieval Aragon, Provence, and Italy. The date of its composition, however, has been the subject of persistent confusion. For over four centuries its completion was dated decades before the birth of its author, even though the correct date had been discovered by Joseph Scaliger and (independently) by Leopold Zunz. After an overview of Qalonymos’s world and works, this essay uncovers this history by tracing the fate of one word through textual transmission from manuscript to print. Studying past attempts to date Qalonymos’s text, this essay tells chapters in the histories of the Hebrew book and the perception of medieval Jewish history by both Renaissance Christian Hebraists and nineteenth-century scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. It also provides the correct date of the completion of the Even Bohan.
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See Gad Freudenthal, ed., Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), with discussion of Qalonymos throughout; Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in his World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides (New York: Doubleday, 2008); Charles Burnett, ed., Ibn Baklarish’s Book of Simples: Medical Remedies between Three Faiths in Twelfth-Century Spain (London: Arcadian Library, 2008); Y. Tzvi Langermann and Josef Stern, eds., Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction between Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraemer (Paris and Louvain: Peeters, 2007); Andreas Speer and Lydia Wegener, eds., Wissen über Grenzen: Arabisches Wissen und lateinisches Mittelalter (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006); Lenn Evan Goodman, Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999). On the Islamic East in particular, see Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1986 and 1993). On the West, see María R. Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York: Little, Brown, 2002).
See Walid Saleh, “ ‘Sublime in its style, exquisite in its tenderness’: The Hebrew Bible Quotations in al-Biqā’ī’s Qur’ān Commentary,” in Adaptations and Innovations, 331–347; Walid Saleh, In Defense of the Bible (Leiden: Brill 2008); Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism & the Hebrew Bible From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden: Brill, 1996); and Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Biblical Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). On Maimonides’ silent citation of the Qur’ān (59:2) in TheGuide of the Perplexed (2:29), see Ralph Lerner “The Philosopher as Legislator,” in Adaptations and Innovations, 276; Michael Schwarz, “Al-Fiqh, A Term Borrowed from Islam Used by Maimonides for a Jewish Concept in his Sefer ha-Mitzwōth and in the Guide of the Perplexed,” in Adaptations and Innovations, 349–353; Ronny Vollandt, “The Arabic Pentateuch of the Paris Polyglot: Saadiah Gaon’s Advent to the Republic of Letters,” in Translating the Bible into Arabic: Historical, Text-Critical and Literary Aspects, eds. Sara Binay and Stefan Leder (Beirut and Würzburg: Ergon, 2012), 19–36. I am grateful to Dr. Vollandt for sending me this article prior to its publication.
Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt, eds., Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2009).
See Gad Freudenthal and Mauro Zonta, “Remnants of Habib ibn Bahriz’s Arabic Translation of Nicomachus of Gerasa’s ‘Introduction to Arithmetic,’ ” in Adaptations and Innovations, 67–82; Gad Freudenthal and Tony Lévy, “De Gérase à Baghdad: Ibn Bahriz, Al-Kindi, et leur recension arabe de l’introduction Arithmétique de Nicomaque, d’après la version hébraïque de Qalonymos ben Qalonymos d’Arles” in De Zénon d’Élée à Poincaré. Recueil d’études en hommage à Roshdi Rashed, eds. Régis Morelon and Ahmad Hasnawi (Louvain and Paris: Peeters, 2004), 479–511; H. J. Drossaart Lulofs and E. L. J. Poortman, eds., Nicolaus Damascenus, De plantis: Five Translations (Amsterdam: North Holland Press, 1989); Robert Pasnau and Christina van Dyke, eds., Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, vol. 2 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 826–832 (a list of translations into Hebrew of Greek philosophical works and their Arabic commentaries). See also Gad Freudenthal, “Les sciences dans les communautés juives médiévales de Provence: leur appropriation, leur role,” Revue des Études Juives 152, no. 1–2 (1993): 70–77 and Mauro Zonta, “Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical and Scientific Texts: A Chronological Table,” Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures. The latter publication provides two lists of translations by Qalonymos.
See Samuel Kurland, Averroes on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione: Middle Commentary and Epitome—Translated from the Original Arabic and the Hebrew and Latin versions (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1958).
See Mauro Zonta, ed., La “Classificazione delle scienze” di Al-Fārābī nella tradizione ebraica: edizione critica e traduzione annotata della versione ebraica di Qalonymos ben Qalonymos ben Me‘ir (Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 1992).
See Gad Freudenthal, “ ‘Ketav ha-Da’at’ or ‘Sefer ha-Sekhel we-ha-Muskalot’: The Medieval Hebrew Translations of Al-Fārābī’s ‘Risālah fī’l-‘aql’—A Study in Text History and in the Evolution of Medieval Hebrew Philosophical Terminology,” Jewish Quarterly Review 93, no. 1–2 (2002): 29–115.
See Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin: Jtzkowski, 1893), 860–862. Qalonymos’s translation was first published in 1557 in Mantua, and translated into German by Julius Landsberger, Iggereth Baale Chajjim: Abhandlung über die Thiere von Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, oder Rechtstreit zwischen Mensch und Thier vor dem Gerichtshofe des Königs der Genien (Darmstadt: Jonghaus, 1882).
See Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Studies in medieval Hebrew Pythagoreanism: Translations and Notes to Nicomachus Arithmological texts,” Micrologus IX: Gli Ebrei e le Scienze (2001), 219–236; Tony Lévy, “L’histoire des nombres amiables: le témoignage des textes hébreux médievaux,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996), 63–87.
See Ruth Glasner, “Levi ben Gershom and the Study of Ibn Rushd in the Fourteenth Century,” Jewish Quarterly Review 86, no. 1–2 (1995): 51–90, especially p. 75 and note 105; Steven Harvey, “Islamic Philosophy and Jewish Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 361–362.
See Steven Harvey, “The Hebrew Translation of Averroes’ Proemium to his ‘Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics,’ ” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 52 (1985): 59.
See Ferdinand Edward Cranz, “Editions of the Latin Aristotle accompanied by the commentaries of Averroes” in Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Edward P. Mahoney (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 116–128; Dag Nikolaus Hasse, ‘Arabic Philosophy and Averroism’ ” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 114–115; Charles Burnett, “Arabic into Latin: The Reception of Arabic Philosophy into Western Europe,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, 386. On Mantino, see Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani vol. 69 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana 2007), 212–214. On Del Medigo and his translations of Averroes for Pico, see Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana 1990), 117–121; Seymour Feldman, “The end and aftereffects of medieval Jewish philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2003), 416–420.
Max Brod, Heinrich Heine (Amsterdam: Allert de Lange, 1935), 155.
Heinrich Gross, “Zur Geschichte der Juden in Arles,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 28 (1879): 554–55. “Dieses Werk in meisterhafter Reimprosa verfasst, ist in einer leidvollen Zeit entstanden, als die Juden der Provence von den grössten Widerwärtigkeiten heimgesucht wurden. Der Dichter stimmt über das hereingebrochene Verhängniss die bittersten Klagen an, aber er ist der festen Ueberzeugung, dass es durch die eigenen Fehler, Sünden und sittlichen Mängel seiner Glaubensgenossen als Strafe selbst verschuldet und heraufbeschworen wurde. Daher hält er seiner Zeit einen Sittenspiegel vor, in dem er ihre Gebrechen in scharfer Weise geisselt und ihre Verkehrtheiten schonungslos an den Pranger stellt. In seinen Ermahnungen vermeint man oft dem Widerhall der Prophetenstimme zu vernehmen, im Tone seiner Verzweiflung die Stimme eines Hiob zu hören, sein Wort ist bald lieblich einschmeichelnd, bald wie ein zweischneidig Schwert, seine Satyre wie ätzende Lauge. Nichts bleibt von dieser Satyre verschont, kein Alter, kein Stand, selbst die eigene Person nicht. Der Reihe nach werden alle durchgehächelt, die Wollüstlinge, die nur von der sinnliche Begierde beherrscht sind, die strebenden Jünger, die sich erst mit den dicken Folianten des Talmuds abquälen, und dann im Labyrinth der Speculation umherirren, die Reichen, die sich stolz aufblähen, aber des innern Werthes baar sind, die Ahnenstolzen, die sich mit ihrer zweifelhaften edlen Abstammung brüsten, die superklugen Leute, die Heuchler, die Halbwisser, die sich etwas zu gute thun auf die dürftigen Brosamen des Wissens, die sie da und dort aufgelesen haben, die Quacksalber, die Astrologen, die grammatischen Kleinigkeitskrämer, die hohlen Poeten und die prahlerischen, selbstsüchtigen Rabbinen. Das Judenthum ironisiert er nicht, wohl aber die ängstliche Frömmigkeit, die sich weniger an das wahre innere Wesen der Religion, als an äusserliche Kleinigkeiten und das Nebensächliche der religiösen Bräuche und Ceremonien hält. Alle diesen bittern Satyren durchzittert das eigene Weh, die Klage über die eigene freudlose Jugend, und das Missvergnügen mit dem eigenen Lebenslose.” See also Heinrich Gross, Die Satire in der jüdischen Literatur (Augsburg: Adolf Alkalay, 1908), 32–35. Gross calls Qalonymos a ‘Jewish Sebastian Brant’ and the Even Bohan his ship of fools.
See Danièle Iancu-Agou, Provincia Judaica (Paris, Louvain and Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2010); Pinchas Roth, Later Provençal Sages–Jewish Law (Halacha) and Rabbis in Southern France (1215–1348) [Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University 2012). Roth uses the Megillat ha-hitnatzlut ha-qatan but not the Even Bohan; Shlomo Pick, The Jewish Communities in Provence before the Expulsion in 1306 (Ph.D. diss., Bar Ilan University 1996); Joseph Shatzmiller, “Rabbi Isaac Ha-Cohen of Manosque and His Son Rabbi Peretz: The Rabbinate and its Professionalization in the Fourteenth Century” in Jewish History: Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramsky, ed. Ada Rapoport-Albert and Steven H. Zipperstein (London: Peter Halban, 1988), 61–83; Joseph Shatzmiller, Recherches sur la communauté juive de Manosque au Moyen Age 1241–1329 (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1973).
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Ms. 5463, f. 147 verso. Francisco Javier del Barco del Barco, Catálogo de Manuscritos Hebreos de Madrid II (Madrid: CSIC, 2004), 219, transcribes והעולם אחד rather than the correct והעולם אחר. I am grateful to Jesús de Prado Plumed for consulting this manuscript for me.
See Harvey J. Hames, Like Angels on Jacob’s Ladder (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007), 32, 85, 119; Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 1280–1510: A Survey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 84. I am grateful to James T. Robinson for suggesting this interpretation of the colophon and the translation of it given above. On the various formulaic ways by which medieval Hebrew scribes date the completion of their texts, see Michael Riegler, The Colophon in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts as Historical Source (PhD Dissertation, The Hebrew University, 1995) [Hebrew], especially pp. 173–187, though Riegler does not note this particular formula there.
See Leopold Zunz, “Kalonymos ben-Kalonymos,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie 2 (1836): 313–320, reprinted in Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3 (Berlin: Louis Gerschel, 1876), 150–155, at 150.
Zunz, “Namenkunde,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie IV (1839): 199–205, reprinted in Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften vol. 3, 185–191. “In der erste Ausgabe nämlich der Eben Bochan ist—wie Herr Saraval mir mitgetheilt hat—in der Nachschrift ein Zwischenraum zwischen den Worten הטבת und אחר. Ich forschte nun nach Handschriften, und siehe da! in zweien war die Lücke durch das Wort והעולם ausgefüllt. Hiemit ist das Räthsel gelöst, und die Behauptung, dass die Zahl 83 der Aere angehöre, erwiesen, obwohl die oben versuchte Emendation nun überflüssig ist.” Ibid., 186–187. Among the manuscripts Zunz consulted was Ms. Oratoire N. 24. Ibid., 187, note 1. It is now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. hébreu 188. On the Saraval collection, see Gérard E. Weil, “Sur un bibliothèque systématiquement pillée par les Nazis: Le catalogue des manuscrits et incunables retrouvés de la Bibliothek des Jüdisch-theologischen Seminars in Breslau,” in Hommage à Georges Vajda: études d’histoire et de pensée juives, eds. Gérard Nahon and Charles Touati (Louvain: Peeters, 1980), 579–604.
Heinrich Gross, “Zur Geschichte der Juden in Arles,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 28 (1879): 470–474, 541–563; Ibid., 29 (1880), 58.
Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus Codicum Hebraeorum, Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae (Leiden: Brill, 1858), 353–354; Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebraeischen Handschriften der K. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek (Munich: Palm, 1895), 183; Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin: Friedlaender, 1852–1860; repr. Berlin: Welt, 1931), 1576–1581, esp. 1579. Steinschneider notes the corruption of the colophon. Teveth 5083 is said to run from 10 December 1322 to 9 January 1323, two days too long. Steinschneider’s biography first appeared as “Kalonymos ben Kalonymyos,” Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste II: 32 (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1882), 169–175. It is reprinted in Moritz Steinschneider Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1, eds. Heinrich Malter and Alexander Marx (Berlin: Poppelauer, 1925), 196–215. Steinschneider notes that “Der Ausfall der Worte: ‘die Welt’ hat Verwirrung in die Daten über den Verfasser gebracht.” Moritz Steinschneider Gesammelte Schriften vol. 1, 199, note 19. Two brief essays dealing with Qalonymos were not included in Steinschneider’s collected works: Moritz Steinschneider, “Robert von Anjou und die jüdische Litteratur,” Vierteljahrsschrift für Kultur und Litteratur der Renaissance 2 (1887): 110–114; Moritz Steinschneider, “Robert von Anjou und sein Verhältnis zu einigen gelehrten Juden,” Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 48 (1904): 713–717.
Ernest Renan, Averroès et l’averroïsme (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1852; rev. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1861; repr. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1997), part II, chapter 1, ‘L’Averroïsme chez les Juifs,’ with discussion of the importance of Qalonymos’s works on 190–91 of the 1861 edition. See Steven Harvey, “On the nature and extent of Jewish Averroism: Renan’s Averroès et l’averroïsme Revisited,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 7, no. 2 (2000): 100–119. For a more general description, see Steven Harvey, “Arabic into Hebrew: The Hebrew translation movement and the influence of Averroes upon medieval Jewish thought,” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, 258–280.
See Qalonymos ben Qalonymos, Eben Bochen (Lemberg: Y. Cohen Tsedek and M. Wolf for Stand, 1865), 107.
Jean Cinquarbes, ed., Sanctum Domini Nostri Iesu Christi Hebraicum Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum (Paris: Martin Lejeune, 1551). Scaliger’s copy is now UB Leiden, 837 G 28. For Eusebius on the Hebrew original of Matthew in his Ecclesiastical History (with Papias and Irenaeus as his sources), see Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca 20 (Paris: Migne, 1857), 300, 450. For the testimony in Jerome’s De Viris Illustribus for the survival of the Hebrew Matthew, see Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina 23 (Paris: Migne, 1883), 643; Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius and the Library at Caesarea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 191. For the medieval Hebrew translation of Matthew, see William Horbury, “The Hebrew Matthew and Hebrew Study” in Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben Yehuda, ed. William Horbury (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 122–131.
See Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship II—Historical Chronology (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1993).
Franciscus Raphelengius, Cl[arissimi] Galeni Pergameni de Clysteribus et Colica Liber: a Iohannitio è Graeca in Arabicam, et inde à Kalonymo in Hebraeam linguam, translatus iam primum in lucem editus (Leiden: Ex Offinica Plantiniana Apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1591). See Léon Élaut, “Le Traité Galénique des Clystères et de la Colique, traduit en Latin par François de Ravelenghien,” Janus 51 (1964): 136–151. The extant Latin translation of this text was made by Niccolo da Reggio at the court of Robert of Anjou at the time the King also employed Qalonymos as a translator. Élaut argued that Qalonymos would have had access to the Greek along with the Arabic, and that his Hebrew translation might be closer to the Greek original than Niccolo’s Latin. The manuscript containing i.a. Qalonymos’s translation of Galen and Maimonides’s aphorisms is now UB Leiden, Cod. Or. 4719. See Steinschneider, Catalogus Codicum Hebraeorum, 311–341. Long ascribed to Scaliger bequest, Alastair Hamilton demonstrated that this manuscript in fact belonged to Raphelengius. See his “Franciscus Raphelengius: The Hebraist and his Manuscripts,” De Gulden Passer 68 (1990): 105–117, esp. 113–115.
See Burnett, “Arabic into Latin,” 385; Zonta, “The Jewish Mediation in the Transmission of Arabo-Islamic Science and Philosophy to the Latin Middle Ages: Historical Overview and Perspectives of Research,” in Wissen über Grenzen, 92, 99, note 42; Shatzmiller, “Au service de la cour de Naples,” 168.
See Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Some New Medical Manuscripts from St. Petersburg,” Korot 13 (1998/99): 9–20, esp. 11; Freudenthal, ed., Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 350. See Moritz Steinschneider, “Zur arabischen Literatur,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 9 (1855): 837–843, at 843.
Cambridge University Library, Ms. Add. 1517, title page: כתב יד ממש של החכם הגדול ר׳ קלונימוס בר קלונימוס המעתיק. Reif, Hebrew manuscripts, 323, ascribes the claim to Carmoly himself, and calls it dubious.
Jameleddine ben Abdeljelil, “Drei jüdische Averroisten: Höhepunkt und Niedergang des jüdischen Averroismus im Mittelalter,” Asiatische Studien 62 (2008): 933–986. See there, 981: “Ibn Ruschd erlangte durch seine kontinuierliche Rezeption im Judentum das, was ihm im Vergleich dazu in der arabisch-islamischen Geistesgeschichte versagt blieb.” See also Harry Austryn Wolfson, “Revised Plan for the Publication of a Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem,” Speculum 38 (1963): 88–104, esp. 88. Wolfson presents Jewish Averroism not as the posthumous achievement of the Commentator, but as that of his Jewish translators.
Salomon Schechter, ed., Aboth de Rabbi Nathan (Vienna: Knöpfelmacher, 1887), s.p.
See Piet van Boxel, “The Hebrew Collections at Oxford: A Treasure Trove for Jewish Studies,” European Judaism 41, no. 2 (2008): 56–66.
Boxel and Arndt, ed., Crossing Borders, 12. See the review of Crossing Borders by Arthur Kiron, The Bodleian Library Record 23, no. 1 (April 2010): 12–17.
See Eduard Mahler, Handbuch der jüdischen Chronologie (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1916), 568.
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The Even Bohan of Qalonymos ben Qalonymos has long been acknowledged as a masterpiece of Hebrew satire and an important source for Jewish life in medieval Aragon, Provence, and Italy. The date of its composition, however, has been the subject of persistent confusion. For over four centuries its completion was dated decades before the birth of its author, even though the correct date had been discovered by Joseph Scaliger and (independently) by Leopold Zunz. After an overview of Qalonymos’s world and works, this essay uncovers this history by tracing the fate of one word through textual transmission from manuscript to print. Studying past attempts to date Qalonymos’s text, this essay tells chapters in the histories of the Hebrew book and the perception of medieval Jewish history by both Renaissance Christian Hebraists and nineteenth-century scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. It also provides the correct date of the completion of the Even Bohan.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 577 | 87 | 11 |
Full Text Views | 198 | 3 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 64 | 9 | 2 |