This volume contains the Syriac text, edited for the first time, of the commentary on Aristotleâs Rhetoric by Bar Hebraeus (died 1286) in his Cream of Wisdom. The text is accompanied by an English translation, and the volume also includes an introduction, commentary, and three glossaries (Syriac, Greek and Arabic).
Bar Hebraeusâ commentary is based on the lost Syriac version of Aristotleâs treatise, but the author also drew heavily on the commentary of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The text therefore provides a unique insight into the nature of that lost version, and also exemplifies the way Bar Hebraeus blended the Aristotle of the Graeco-Syriac translation literature with the more recent philosophy of Ibn Sina.
John W. Watt, Ph.D. (1974), University of St. Andrews, is Reader in the School of Religious Studies at Cardiff University. His other publications in Syriac literature include The Fifth Book of the Rhetoric of Antony of Tagrit (Peeters, 1986), and with J.W. Drijvers he has edited Portraits of Spiritual Authority (Brill, 1999).
Preface
Abbreviations
Note on Fonts and Transliterations
Introduction
Sigla
Text and Translation'
Commentary
Select Glossaries
Bibliography
Concordance of Passages
It will be of interest to historians of Syriac literature, rhetoric, and the Aristotelian tradition.