In The Šabdan Baatır Codex, Daniel Prior presents the first complete edition, translation, and interpretation of a unique manuscript of early twentieth-century Kirghiz poetry, which includes detailed accounts of nineteenth-century warfare. Dedicated to the chief Šabdan Baatır, the Codex occupies an illuminating position in a network of oral and written genres that encompassed epic poetry and genealogy, panegyric and steppe oral historiography; that echoed oral performance and aspired to print publishing. The Codex’s fresh articulation of concepts of Kirghiz self-identification was incipiently national, yet remained couched in traditional forms. The Codex thus bridges the interval, often glossed over in cultural histories, between a supposedly archaic state of oral epic tradition and the “afterlife” of epics in modern ethno-nationalist projects.

This is the first serious study on seventeenth-century Central Asian medicine that provides a major resource for the linguistic and cultural history of Central Asia. The richly annotated English translation makes the edition useful for readers without special knowledge on medical history and Turkic studies.
The author offers a critical edition of a seventeenth-century Central Asian medical treatise written by Sayyid Subḥān Qulï Muḥammad Bahādur khan in the Chagatay language.The edition includes a detailed introduction, a transcription of the original text for philological purposes, an annotated English translation, complete lexica of vocabulary, herbs and plants, minerals and chemicals, diseases and related terms, measures and units, personal names and Qur’ānic verses, and finally two manuscripts in facsimile.

The French mystic Jean-Joseph Surin (1600–65) was the chief exorcist during the infamous demonic possession in Loudun in 1634–37. During the exorcism, a demon entered Surin’s own soul, and the exorcist became demoniac. He spent the following eighteen years of his life mute and paralyzed. All the while his troubled mind conversed with God, and he composed hymns and poems that tried to comprehend his agony. Surin left detailed descriptions of the dramatic events that shaped his life and fascinated his fellow Jesuits. But Surin was also an author of spiritual texts, a spiritual director of souls, a poet, and a prolific correspondent. This volume is the first to offer English readers a comprehensive selection of Surin’s mystical writings.

It is well known that medieval Europe owes most of its scientific learning to the translations of Arabic treatises made in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The earliest Arabic infiltrations in Latin science are however much older. They can be traced back to the tenth century and to the making, in Catalonia, of a large corpus of astrological treatises: the Alchandreana. Based mainly on Arabic sources, but also on Hebrew and Latin sources, the Alchandreana constitute an exceptional testimony of cross-cultural exchanges between Christian, Arabic and Jewish scholars before the turn of the first millenium. This book offers a historical study, a technical analysis and a critical edition of the whole corpus.

Brill's Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, vol. 2

The “Letter of Love and Concord” is a unique source, which allows us a glimpse into the political and religious aspirations of the Armenian Cilician elite at the end of the twelfth century, alluding to its hopes and expectations from the Crusades and the Church of Rome, as well as its uneasy relationship with the Byzantine Empire. The “Letter” is especially valuable for the wealth of information it contains on the royal ideology nurtured within the highest circles of the ruling Rubenid dynasty. The study provides an analysis of the sources used by its anonymous author, placing them within a historical context. Moreover, this marks the first time that a text based on the study of surviving sixty nine manuscripts along with its English translation has been made available for scholars.

Ever since it was first written, Adriaan Koerbagh's anti-Christian work, A Light Shining in Dark Places, has been nearly inaccessible. Had it been known during the Enlightenment, it would have been a great inspiration to radical thinkers. However, it was suppressed and the author died in jail. The full text is now available in English. Koerbagh demolishes such Christian notions as the Creator, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, heaven and hell, angels, devils and miracles. Instead, he presents a monistic world view in which Nature and God are identical. Theology is a part of natural science. God can only be worshipped by acting rationally. Koerbagh's rational religion is intended to contribute to a free, peaceful and liberal society.

ENGLISH
Contrary to an old thesis, the dawning of the Reformation was not the end of Christian Aristotelianism. Rather, Protestants were again faced with the traditional question of the relationship between theology and philosophy. Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) counts as one of the authors who endeavored to interpret Aristotelian philosophy before the backdrop of Reformed theology. In addition to numerous exegetical and theological writings, this well respected theologian left behind a commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which is edited in the present volume. It not only evidences Vermigli’s intense engagement with the source material but also his struggle for an adequate understanding of the relationship between Aristotelian ethics and Protestant theology.

DEUTSCH
Entgegen einer althergebrachten These bedeutete der Durchbruch der Reformation nicht das Ende des christlichen Aristotelismus. Vielmehr stellte sich für Protestanten die traditionelle Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Theologie und Philosophie wieder neu. Zu den Autoren, die sich um eine Deutung aristotelischer Philosophie vor dem Hintergrund reformierter Theologie bemühten, zählt Petrus Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562). Neben zahlreichen exegetischen und kontroverstheologischen Schriften hinterließ dieser zu seiner Zeit hochgeachtete Theologe auch einen Kommentar zur Nikomachischen Ethik des Aristoteles. Dieser Kommentar, welcher im vorliegenden Band in historisch-kritischer Edition herausgegeben wird, belegt nicht nur Vermiglis intensive Auseinandersetzung mit dem Quellentext, sondern auch sein Ringen um eine adäquate Verhältnisbestimmung von aristotelischer Ethik und protestantischer Theologie.

Brill authors Leen Spruit and Pina Totaro discovered the original manuscript of Spinoza's "Ethica" in the Vatican library. This spectacular discovery attracted a lot of media attention.

NRC Handelsblad, 26th May 2011
Radio 1 News, 27th May 2011
NOS News, 27th May 2011

The Vatican codex, which contains the complete text of Spinoza’s Ethics, is the only surviving manuscript of this work and constitutes a document of great importance. On 23 September 1677, it was handed over to the Roman Holy Office by Spinoza’s former friend Niels Stensen who had converted to Catholicism in 1667. Thus, it predates the publication of the Opera Posthuma, which is dated 1677, but which did not in fact appear until the first months of 1678. Recent research and fresh documentation allow us to determine the several stages of the manuscript’s life before it reached Rome, where it was kept in the Archive of the Holy Office, and subsequently, transferred to the Vatican Apostolic Library, in 1922.

Written by Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo (c. 1110-1180), Dorot ‘Olam (Generations of the Ages) is one of the most influential and innovative historical works of medieval Hebrew literature. In four sections, three of which are edited and translated in this volume for the first time, Dorot ‘Olam asserts the superiority of rabbinic Judaism and stresses the central role of Iberia for the Jewish past, present, and future. Combining Jewish and Christian sources in new ways, Ibn Daud presents a compelling vision of the past and formulates political ideas that stress the importance of consensus-driven leadership under rabbinic guidance. This edition demonstrates how Dorot ‘Olam was received by Jewish and Christian readers who embraced the book in Hebrew, Latin, and two English and German translations.