SGA 8 (2018)

Studia graeco-arabica 8 (2018) – Available in print: please contact cristina.dancona@unipi.it

    Affiliations and addresses of the Authors of this Volume

    Prof. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
    Ali.Amir-Moezzi[at]ephe.psl.eu
    École Pratique des Hautes Études
    UMR 8584 Laboratoire d’Études sur les Monothéismes (LEM)
    Les Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus
    75014 Paris (France)
    –––

    Prof. Carmela Baffioni
    baffioni[at]unior.it
    Facoltà di Studi arabo-islamici e del Mediterraneo
    Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
    Palazzo Du Mesnil 8012 Napoli (Italy)
    Institute of Ismaili Studies
    10 Handyside St, King’s Cross, London (UK)
    –––

    Prof. David B. Burrell C.S.C.
    Department of Theology
    130 Mallory Hall, Notre Dame IN 46556 (USA)
    –––

    Prof. Giovanni Catapano
    giovanni.mcatapano[at]unipd.it
    Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia, Psicologia Applicata
    Università di Padova Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padova (Italy)
    –––

    Dr. Elisa Coda
    elisa.coda[at]cfs.unipi.it
    Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
    Università di Pisa, v. P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Rev. Valentino Cottini
    valentino.cottini[at]pisai.it
    Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica
    Viale di Trastevere 89 – 00153 Roma (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Dr. Hans Daiber
    Daiber[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de
    Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.
    Juridicum, 2. Stock, Senckenberganlage 31
    60325 Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
    –––

    Prof. Cristina D ’ Ancona
    cristina.dancona[at]unipi.it
    Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
    Università di Pisa, v. P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Thérèse-Anne Druart
    druart[at]cua.edu
    The Catholic University of America
    School of Philosophy
    Washington, DC 20064 (USA)
    –––

    Prof. Gianfranco Fioravanti
    gianfranco.fioravanti[at]unipi.it
    Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
    Università di Pisa, v. P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Henri Hugonnard-Roche
    henri.hugonnard-r[at]orange.fr
    Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
    (UMR 8230, Centre Jean Pépin)
    7, rue Guy Môquet BP N°8
    94801 Villejuif Cedex, Paris (France)
    –––

    Prof. Christian Jambet
    christian.jambet[at]ephe.psl.eu
    École Pratique des Hautes Études
    UMR 8584 Laboratoire d’Études sur les Monothéismes (LEM)
    Les Patios Saint-Jacques 4-14 rue Ferrus, 75014 Paris (France)
    –––

    Prof. Jules Janssens
    jules.janssens[at]kuleuven.be
    De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
    Kardinaal Mercierplein 2
    Box 3200 Leuven (Belgium)
    –––

    Dr. Concetta Luna
    concetta.luna[at]sns.it
    Scuola Normale Superiore
    Piazza dei Cavalieri 1, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
    –––

    Dr. Issam Marjani
    issam.marjani[at]cli.unipi.it
    Centro Linguistico Interdipartimentale
    Università di Pisa, via S. Maria 36, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
    –––

    Dr. Giovanni Mandolino
    giovanni.mandolino@studenti.unipd.it
    Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata
    Università di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35141 Padova (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo
    cecilia.martini[at]unipd.it
    Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche
    e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova
    Via del Vescovado 6, 35141 Padova (Italy)
    –––

    Dr. Mauro Mormino
    mmormino@unime.it
    Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne
    Università di Messina (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Emmanuel Pisani O.P.
    e.pisani@icp.fr
    Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientales
    Al Tarabeeshi، Al Ganzouri, El-Zaher, Cairo /
    Couvent des Dominicains
    8 rue Fabre, 34000 Montpellier (France)
    –––

    Prof. Khalil Samir Khalil S.J.
    samirkhs@pontificio-orientale.it
    Pontificio Istituto per l’Oriente
    Piazza di S. Maria Maggiore 7, 00185 Roma (Italy)
    –––

    Dr. Patrizia Spallino
    patrizia.spallino[at]unipa.it
    Dip.to di culture e società, Viale delle Scienze
    edificio 15, 90100 Palermo (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Richard C. Taylor
    richard.taylor[at]marquette.edu
    Dept. of Philosophy, Marquette University
    P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee
    WI 53201-1881 (USA)
    –––

    Dr. Marco Zambon
    marco.zambon.2[at]unipd.it
    Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche
    e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova
    Via del Vescovado 6, 35141 Padova (Italy)
    –––

    Prof. Ida Zilio-Grandi
    idazg[at]unive.it
    Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea
    Palazzo Cappello, San Polo 2035
    30125 Venezia (Italy)

    Articles

    1. Valentino Cottini, Maurice Borrmans. Un profilo
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 1-12

    Affiliation: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica (PISAI)
    Keywords: Maurice Borrmans, Islamochristiana, Interfaith dialogue

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This paper gives an overview of the life and works of Father Maurice Borrmans MAfr.

    2. Marco Zambon, Apprendere qualcosa di sicuro” (ps. Clem. Hom. I 3, 1), Verità filosofica e verità profetica nella I omelia pseudoclementina
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 13-48

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova (Italy)
    Keywords: ps.-Clement Romanus, Hellenic paideia, Origen’s Against Celsus, Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This study offers the Italian translation and an analysis of the 1st ps.-Clementine Homily, comparing it with the Prefaces of Origen’s Against Celsus and Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles. The narrative frame of the Clementine homily is represented by Clement’s conversion from the Hellenic paideia to the “true prophet’s” doctrine – meaning Jesus’ – after Clement met his testimonies Barnabas and Peter, and attended their preaching. By this narrative the ps.-Clement aims at showing that sure knowledge of the truth cannot be attained through Greek philosophy; rather, it is attained only through direct acquaintance with the teachings of the true prophet. The comparison here carried on with Origen and Porphyry shows that the Christian doctrine and Hellenic philosophy oppose to each other, in this Homily, precisely in that for Christians truth consists in the God’s revelation in the human history, something that cannot be adequately be rendered by the philosophical claim for universal knowledge.


    3. Giovanni Catapano, Nobilissimus philosophus paganorum / falsus philosophus: Porphyry in Augustine’s Metaphilosophy
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 49-66

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia, Psicologia Applicata, Università di Padova (Italy)
    Keywords: Porphyry, Augustine, Augustine’s evaluation Porphyry

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    The aim of this article is to highlight Augustine’s judgment on Porphyry as a philosopher and to show whether and how it is related to Augustine’s general idea of philosophy. In Augustine’s evaluation Porphyry is a great philosopher and a false philosopher at the same time: a great philosopher as being an eminent exponent of the best among the schools of philosophy, Platonism; a false philosopher as being an archenemy of Christianity, which is the uerissima philosophia. The question that this article tries to answer is: To what extent does Augustine think that Porphyry’s anti-Christian errors depend on the fact that Porphyry was a philosopher, which means a Platonic philosopher? In other words: How much is philosophy, especially Platonism, responsible for Porphyry’s anti-Christianism in Augustine’s opinion? By analysing Books VIII and X of the City of God, this article claims that Augustine wants to present Porphyry’s rejection of the Christian religion as not due to authentically philosophical reasons, and not necessarily consequent to Porphyry’s Platonism. Augustine argues that had been Porphyry a consistent Platonist and a consistent philosopher, he would have found in philosophy, if anything, reasons for embracing Christianity rather than dismissing it. The simultaneous presence of greatness and falsehood in the portrait of Porphyry painted by Augustine is not, therefore, due to contradiction in Augustines’s thought. On the contrary, such ambivalence is due to Augustine’s apologetic plan for depriving Porphyry’s anti-Christianism of any philosophical foundation and putting it at odds with the Platonic tradition itself, regarded as the school that has rightly gained primacy among the ancient philosophical schools.


    4. Elisa Coda, Divine Providence and Human Logos in Themistius Some Philosophical Sources of Discourse 6
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 67-84

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa (Italy)
    Keywords: Themistius, Dio of Prusa, Aristotle’s De Anima

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Themistius’ Discourse 6 proclaims philantropia as the key term for the ainity between the ruler and God, and logos as the cause of the ainity of all the human beings among them and with God. Against the background of the philosophical paideia that represents Themistius’ project for the élite in Constantinople, the Discourse 6 is analysed in comparison with another rhetorical work that two centuries earlier had been devoted to the same topic: Dio of Prusa’s Olympic Discourse. The two orations share some common features, but the Discourse 6 bears the traces of Themistius’ reading of the Timaeus, as well as of his exegesis of Aristotle’s De Anima.


    5. Henri Hugonnard-Roche, E Dio disse: “La terra produca germogli” (Gen. 1, 11). Sulla tradizione botanica siriaca
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 85-104

    Affiliation: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (France)
    Keywords: Theophrastus’ On Plants, Basilius of Caesarea, Nicolas of Damascus, Barhebraeus,

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This paper examines the botanical tradition in Syriac from the viewpoint of the theory on the nature of plants, exploring its relationship with the Aristotelian framework as part and parcel of the study of the living beings. The utilitarian account of plants (in pharmacological or medical terms) does not enter the picture; rather, in Syriac literature the scientiic examination of plants occurs irst woithin the context of the place of plants in the hierarchy of the living beings as it appears in the exegeses of the Hexaemeron, especially that of Basilius of Caesarea’s Homilies, as relected by Jacob of Edessa. Even though Theophrastus’ On Plants was not translated into Syriac, the translation od of Nicolas of Damascus’ De Plantis made the learned Syriac readership acquainted with the Aristotelian – and Theophrastean – model in a much more complete form. This is especially apparent in Barhebraeus, who combined it with extracts from Avicenna.


    6. Ida Zilio-Grandi, La pazienza dell’Islam: la virtú detta ‘ṣabr’
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 105-118

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea, Università di Venezia (Italy)
    Keywords: Quran, al-Ġazālī, al-Makkī, Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyya, Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Nāṣir al-Saʿdī, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ al-Munağğid, Hayā bint Nāṣir ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāšid

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    In the Qurʾān forms of the root ṣ-b-r occur more than one hundred times, and the virtue of ‘patience’ features as one of the main issues in the faith and behaviour of the believer. God himself has ‘al-Ṣabūr’ as one of his names. This article examines and classifies the various instances of ṣabr in the religious, ethical, and juridical literatures. Starting with the collections of prophetical traditions, chiefly al-Buḫārī and Muslim, it explores the texts of ‘religious adab’, e.g. the works of Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, as well as prominent examples of the religious literature of the period that corresponds to our Middle Ages: al-Ġazālī, al-Makkī, Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyya. Attention is paid also to the renewal of this religious tradition in contemporary authors: Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, Muḥammad Rātib al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Nāṣir al-Saʿdī, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ al-Munağğid, and Hayā bint Nāṣir ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāšid.


    7. Patrizia Spallino, Mauro Mormino, Cuore, anima e mente. Un esempio di circolarità lessicale tra tradizione islamica e cristiana
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 119-132

    Affiliations: Dipartimento di culture e società, Università di Palermo; Università di Messina (Italy)
    Keywords: Quran, Old Testament, Gospels, Arabic lexicography

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    The starting point of this article is a topic that features in the synoptic Gospels (Mt 22, 37; Mc 12, 29-31; Lc 10, 27) and is presented as the most essential among Jesus’ precepts: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. The three terms that are mentioned here – heart, soul, and mind – are of prominent importance both in the Christian and Islamic spiritual traditions. We compare them and the respective traditions of commentary both on a lexicographical and exegetical level. The analysis of similarities and differences issued from a comparison of the contexts of the exegeses, and the respective reactions to the common Biblical background, counts as a starting point for further research.


    8. Cristina D’Ancona, God and Intellect at the Dawn of Arabic Philosophical Thought Plotinus’ Treatise V 4[7], Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De Anima in the Age of al-Kindī
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 133-152

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa (Italy)
    Keywords: Plotinus, al-Fārābī, De Anima, Enn. V 4[7]

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Plotinus’ treatise V 4[7], How that which is after the First comes from the First, and on the One argues that Intellect, that coincides with the intelligible Forms, stands as a second principle after the One, whose absolute simplicity implies transcendence even to this degree of being, the highest. Translated into Arabic in the first half of the 9th/3rd century, How that which is after the First comes from the First, and on the One was combined with other treatises of Ennead V in an Epistle on the Divine Science falsely attributed to al-Fārābī. This paper investigates the adaptations that characterize the Arabic rendering of V 4[7], and compares the Arabic rendition with the coeval translations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De Anima. The issue at stake is that of the nature of the First principle: is it an intellect, or beyond intellect?


    9. Giovanni Mandolino, La testimonianza del patriarca nestoriano Israel di Kaškar (m. 872) sulla pseudo-Teologia di Aristotele
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 153-166

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata, Università di Padova (Italy)
    Keywords: Israel of Kaškar, pseudo-Theology of Aristotle, Christian Trinity

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This article presents a little known text that has good chances to be the earliest quotation from the pseudo-Theology of Aristotle. A Treatise on the Unity and Trinity of God attributed to the Nestorian bishop Israel of Kaškar (d. 872) contains a passage clearly derived from Chapter Ten of this work. The passage is examined in its relationship with the source and in its importance for the theological views of Israel. For him, the “Theology” authored by Aristotle provides arguments that support the Christian Trinity, described in terms of a triad of principles: ‘being, life, reason’. This Trinitarian doctrine is examined in its relationship with other examples in Arabic Christian theology which forms the background of the whole of Israel’s thought. Israel’s tenets are Neoplatonic to the same extent in which the theology of his predecessors is itself influenced by Neoplatonism. What makes Israel’s Treatise on the Unity and Trinity of God worthy of special attention is the quotation of “Aristotle” as an authoritative source to account for the triadic structure of the unique God.


    10. Carmela Baffioni, Embryology in an Ismāʿīlī Messianic Context. The Manuscript Tradition of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 167-180

    Affiliation: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (Italy) / Institute of Ismaili Studies, London (UK)
    Keywords:

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract: Adam and Eve, embryology, Fāṭimids, Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, imamology, Ismāʿīlism, Muḥammad, the six nuṭaqāʾ, al-Risāla al-Ǧāmiʿa, Risāla Ǧāmiʿat al-Ǧāmiʿa
    This paper discusses Ismāʿīlī tendencies in some additions to the MSS of the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ consulted for the new edition of the Encyclopaedia launched by the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. Embryology is addressed in particular, and may be understood as supporting Fāṭimid rule. The texts examined are in part copied from the Risāla al-Ǧāmiʿa and the Risāla Ǧāmiʿat al-Ǧāmiʿa. Even if the additions are later interpolations, they demonstrate that the Iḫwān’s leaning towards Ismāʿīlism was a common belief at least in a certain manuscript tradition.


    11. Thérèse-Anne Druart, Al-Fārābī: A Philosopher Challenging Some of the Kalām’s Views on the Origin and Development of Language
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 181-188

    Affiliation: The Catholic University of America – School of Philosophy, Washington DC (USA)
    Keywords: Fārābī, Kalām, Aristotle, Fārābī’s Book of Letters

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    The Qurʾān itself pays much attention to language and theological views that see God as the language giver and
    humankind as originally a single Umma with a single language. Al-Fārābī, on the other hand, follows Aristotle
    who considers that the various languages stem from human conventions, but that all human beings have the
    same concepts as they have the same sensory perceptions. Al-Fārābī indirectly defeats the theological views in
    offering a purely naturalistic account of the origin and development of language as well as of the multiplicity
    of idioms. He also adds a political dimension in introducing human language givers rather than a sole divine
    language giver and therewith claims that controlling language ensures power.


    12. Khalil Samir Khalil S.J., La doctrine de l’Incarnation de Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī à la lumière du Traité 17 Sbath
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 189-194

    Affiliation: Pontificio Istituto per l’Oriente, Rome (Italy)
    Keywords: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, doctrine de l’Incarnation, Christian literature in Arabic

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    One of the theological writings by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī among many other works in every field of knowledge, the Traité au sujet de l’ expression ‘Il s’est incarné de l’Esprit-Saint et de la Vierge Marie’ was published by Father Paul Sbath in 1929 on the basis of a manuscript of his private collection, the MS Sbath-Alep 1564. This treatise is translated here into French as a contribution to a better understanding of the Christian literature in Arabic.


    13. Hans Daiber, Ethics as Likeness to God in Miskawayh. An Overlooked Tradition
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 195-204

    Affiliation: Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M. (Germany)
    Keywords: Miskawayh, Nicomachean Ethics , Iamblichus’ commentary on the Pseudo-Pythagorean Golden Verses

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    We have a fairly good knowledge of Miskawayh’s ethics and his sources. Still puzzling is his combination of Platonic, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic concepts. In single cases Miskawayh’s use of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics betrays Neoplatonizing interpretaments, perhaps due to Hellenistic commentaries. Why and how these interpretaments are introduced in Miskawayh’s ethics, is still unclear. The paper will focus on an overlooked tradition about the soul, which evolved to be the common basis for ethics from al-Kindī to Miskawayh. This tradition can be traced back to critical discussions about the soul by Alexandrian philosophers since the 3rd century. Porphyry’s pupil Iamblichus (d. 330 AD) seems to have played a remarkable role, also in the ethics of Miskawayh, as a comparison with Iamblichus’ commentary on the Pseudo-Pythagorean Golden Verses shows. This commentary is lost in the Greek original, but is available in an Arabic translation from
    the early 9th century.


    14. Issam Marjani, Avicenne, commentaire de la Sourate al-Aʿlā. Traduction française du texte établi à l’aide d’un ‘nouveau’ témoin et relevé des emprunts de Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī dans son exégèse de la sourate
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 205-232

    Affiliation: Centro Linguistico Interdipartimentale, Università di Pisa (Italy)
    Keywords: Sūrat al-Aʿlā (The Most High), Avicenna, Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This paper presents the Arabic text, accompanied by French translation, of Avicenna’s commentary on Q 87, The Most High (Sūrat al-Aʿlā). The text is established taking into account a manuscript unknown to the previous editors of this short but important commentary: Qom, Kitābḫāna  yatūllāh Marʿāšī 286. Avicenna’s commentary proves to be the source of Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s own commentary on Q 87.


    15. Emmanuel Pisani O.P., Le ḥanbalisme, matrice idéologique du fondamentalisme islamique?
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 233-246

    Affiliation: Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientales (Cairo, Egypt) / Couvent des Dominicains (Montpellier, France)
    Keywords: ḥanbalism, Ibn ḥanbal, Islamic Theology

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Among Father Borrmans’ most recent works, several contributions are focused on the issue of fundamentalism in Islam and its contemporary expressions. Even though ḥanbalism is often presented as the matrix of Islamic fundamentalism, we would like in this article to revisit the sources and history of this current and its thinkers in order to deconstruct this often simplistic presentation, that ignores not only the richness and diversity of authors in search of perfection, virtues and wisdom, but also abusively assimilates its few fanatical or extremist personalities to the ḥanbalite movement as a whole.


    16. David B. Burrell C.S.C., In the Wake of Maurice Borrmans: Perceptions of Islam and Christianity
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 247-254

    Affiliation: University of Notre Dame IN (USA)
    Keywords: al-Gazali, Islamic theology, Divine Providence

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    The tension between negative and affirmative theology characterizes the discourse on God both in Christian and Muslim traditions. In the axial chapter on the “Faith in divine Unity and Trust in divine Providence” of the Iḥyāʾ ʿulum al-dīn the Ghazalian version of negative theology is presented. The pretensions of the philosophers to understand the whole reality by conceptual argument alone is contrasted with the central mistery of the free creation of the universe by the one God. Philosophy is no longer identified as a higher wisdom; speculative reason is wholly subject to practical reason, and this is the inevitable implication of the faith in an intentional creator. Man has to respond to events as they happen, in such a way that the true ordering of the things, the divine decree, can be made manifest in one’s actions-as-responses.


    17. Christian Jambet, Le problème de la certitude dans la philosophie de Suhrawardī
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 255-268

    Affiliation: École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris (France)
    Keywords: Suhrawardī, falsafa, notion of ‘presence’ (ḥuḍūr)

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Suhrawardī, Šayḫ al-išrāq (d. 1191 CE) defined the knowledge by means of the notion of ‘presence’ (ḥuḍūr). He criticized the Peripatetic doctrine of the representative forms. Any certain knowledge originates in the actual presence of the perceived object in relation with the perceiving agent, as proved by the experience I have of my own existence: a certainty that is bright and obvious. From it, I am driven to God’s knowledge and to the knowledge of God. The main reason of this new definition of knowledge is theological.


    18. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo, Una parafrasi araba di Metafisica Iota. Il capitolo XI del Libro sulla scienza della metafisica di ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 269-286

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova (Italy)
    Keywords: ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī, Aristotle, Metaphysics Iota

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s Book on the Science of the Metaphysics (Kitāb fī ‘ilm mā baʿda l-ṭabīʿa) contains a chapter on “The One, Many, Other, Different, Contrary, and Opposite” (Fī l-wāḥid wa-l-kaṯīr wa-l-ġayr wa-l-ḫilāf wa-l-ḍidd wa-l muqābil), that consists in a loose paraphrase of Metaphysics Iota. Unedited and not yet translated in any language, this chapter is here edited on the basis of the MSS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Carullah 1279 and Cairo, Dār al kutub, Aḥmad Taymūr Pāšā, Ḥikma 117, with facing Italian translation.


    19. Richard C. Taylor, Averroes and the Philosophical Account of Prophecy
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 287-304

    Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee WI (USA)
    Keywords: Averroes’ Commentary on the Parva Naturalia, Prophecy, falsafa

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Prophecy is conspicuous by its complete absence from all three of the commentaries on De Anima by Averroes. However, prophecy and philosophical metaphysics are discussed by him in his Commentary on the Parva Naturalia, a work written before his methodological work on philosophy and religion, the Faṣl al-maqāl, generally held to have been written ca. 1179-1180. The analyses and remarks of Averroes presented in that Commentary have been characterized by Herbert Davidson as “extremely radical” to the extent that “The term prophet would, on this reading, mean nothing more than the human author of Scripture; and the term revelation would mean a high level of philosophical knowledge”. In the present article I discuss Averroes on method in matters of religion and philosophy as well as prophecy in philosophically argumentative works and in dialectical works, with particular consideration of the reasoning of his Commentary on the Parva Naturalia. I conclude that Averroes found in philosophy and its sciences the most complete and precise truth content and highest levels of knowledge and understanding and from them constructed his worldview, while he found prophecy and religion to be like an Aristotelian practical science in that they concern good and right conduct in the achievement of an end attained in action, not truths to be known for their own sake.


    20. Concetta Luna, Prêcher aux philosophes et aux théologiens: quatre sermons de Gilles de Rome pour le temps pascal
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 305-380

    Affiliation: Scuola Normale Superire, Pisa (Italy)
    Keywords: Giles of Rome, Gregory the Great, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    This article presents the critical edition of four sermons by Giles of Rome for Easter. The analysis focuses in particular on Sermon 16 “Venit Ihesus ianuis clausis” (Ioh. 20, 26) for the first Sunday after Easter. This sermon, approximately contemporary of Giles’ lecture on the fourth book of the Sentences (1271-72), is very important and interesting: it discusses the problem of bodies’ impenetrability raised by the two apparitions of Jesus after the resurrection that feature in John’s Gospel. Here Jesus is said to have passed through doors that were closed. How does this happen? Giles criticizes the solutions by Gregory the Great, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, and presents a new solution based on a ‘weak’ notion of per se property.

    21. Gianfranco Fioravanti, La Questio ‘utrum passiones sive accidentia sint separabilia a subiecto’ di Antonio da Parma (m. 1327)
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 381-386

    Affiliation: Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa (Italy)
    Keywords: Antonio da Parma, Aristotle’s De Generatione et corruptione, Transubstantiation in Eucharisty

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    A little known magister of Bologna, Antonio da Parma (d. 1327) discusses the question “Whether accidents are separable from their subject (Utrum accidentia sint separabilia a subiecto)” within the context of his commentary on Aristotle’s De Generatione et corruptione. In his detailed discussion Antonio da Parma argues that from a philosophical point of view it is impossible for the First Cause to produce an accident as separate from the substance it inheres to. One can, and even must accept this as a credal truth, as required by the doctrine of transubstantiation in Eucharisty, but attempts at providing a philosophical explanation are doomed to failure.


    22. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Le šiʿisme entre exercice du pouvoir et sauvegarde de la foi Le cas d’ al-Maǧlisī
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 387-396

    Affiliation: École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
    Keywords: Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maǧlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, šīʿī traditions, mystical Imāmi religiosity

    Abstract, Full Text PDF

    Abstract:
    Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maǧlisī (d. 1110/1699) was a prominent personality of Safavid Iran. A great authority of the šīʿī clergy in its formative stage and a key figure of the religious policy of the empire, he had a crucial role in the elites of his times. Such a role however contradicted some explicit statements of the holy Imāms of the Šīʿa, transmitted through compilations of the imami tradition. On the other hand, Maǧlisī acted as a real architect of the renaissance of the šīʿī traditions, chiefly through his gigantic work Biḥār al-anwār. Is this an ambiguity, or dissimulation on his part? Or should we think of a search for a balanced attitude between personal engagement with the mystical Imāmi religiosity and the construction of Twelver Šīʿa as the official religion of the empire?


    Book announcements
    1. Cristina D’Ancona: S. Delcomminette – P. d’Hoine – M.-A. Gavray (eds.), Ancient Readings of Plato’s Phaedo, Brill, Leiden- Boston 2015 (Philosophia Antiqua, 140), vii + 364 pp., SGA 8, pp. 403-406

    2. Cristina D’Ancona: R.C, Fowler, Imperial Plato. Albinus, Maximus, Apuleius. Text and Translation, with an Introduction and Commentary, Parmenides Publishing, Las Vegas – Zurich – Athens 2016, x + 362 pp., SGA 8, pp. 404-406

    3. Cristina D’Ancona: Ch. Riedweg (ed.), Philosophia in der Konkurrenz von Schulen, Wissenschaften und Religionen. Zur Pluralisierung des Philosophiebegriffs in Kaiserzeit und Spätantike, herausgegeben von Ch. Reitweg in Zusammenarbeit mit R. Füchslin u. C. Semenzato sowie Ch. Horn und D. Wyrwa. Akten der 17. Tagungs der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung vom 16.-17. Oktober 2014 in Zürich, De Gruyter, Boston – Berlin 2017 (Philosophie der Antike, 34), x +393 pp., SGA 8, pp. 406-412

    4. Cristina D’Ancona: R.C. Taylor – L.X. López-Farjeat (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, Routledge, London – New York 2016, xvii + 433 pp., SGA 8, pp. 412-418

    5. Elisa Coda: The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, Edited by Kh. El-Rouayheb and S. Schmidtke, Oxford U.P.,
    Oxford 2016 (Oxford Handbooks), 700 pp.
    , SGA 8, pp. 418-426

    6. Marianna Zarantonello, Manfred Ullmann, Aufsätze zur arabischen Rezeption der griechischen Medizin und Naturwissenschaft, ed. by Rüdiger Arnzen, De Gruyter, Boston – Berlin 2016 (Scientia Graeco-Arabica, 15), IX+ 461 pp., SGA 8, pp. 427-430

    7. Veysel Kaya, Ö.M. Alper, Osmanlı Felsefesi – Seçme Metinler [Ottoman Philosophy – Selected Texts], Klasik Publications, Istanbul 2015 (in Turkish), 517 pp. SGA 8, pp. 431-432

    8. Giovanni Mandolino, Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages, I: New Commentaries on Liber de causis (ca. 1250–1350); II: New Commentaries on Liber de causis and Elementatio theologica (ca. 1350–1500). Edited by D. Calma, Turnhout,
    Brepols 2016 (Studia Artistarum 42), vol. I, 1-562 pp., vol. II, 1-418 pp.
    , pp. 433-435




    Reviews
    1. Cristina D’Ancona: C. Genequand, Alexandre d’ Aphrodise. Les principes du tout selon la doctrine d’ Aristote. Introduction, texte arabe, traduction et commentaire, Vrin, Paris 2017 (Sic et Non), 156 pp., SGA 8, pp. 436-444

    2. Cristina D’Ancona: Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. Sciences of the Soul and Intellect. Part III. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 39-41. Edited and Translated by C. Baffioni, I.K. Poonawala. Foreword by N. El-Bizri, Oxford U.P. in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Oxford 2017, xxiii + 378 pp., SGA 8, pp. 445-455

    3. Cristina D’Ancona: J. Lameer, The Arabic Version of Ṭūsī’s Nasirean Ethics. With an Introduction and Explanatory Notes, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2015 (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, 96), ix + 550 pp.; 10 Plates, 34-41 pp., SGA 8, pp. 445-455

    4. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo: Avicenna Latinus. Liber primus naturalium. Tractatus tertius. De his quae habent naturalia ex hoc quod habent quantitatem, édition critique par J. Janssens, Académie Royale de Belgique 2017, 1-19* + 158 pp. (= 379-533 + Indexes), SGA 8, pp. 461-463

    5. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo: M. Di Giovanni, Averroè, Carocci Editore, Roma 2017 (Pensatori, 42), 282 pp., SGA 8, pp. 461-463


    23. Jules Janssens, Marc Geoffroy. In Memoriam
    SGA 8 (2018), pp. 470-472

    Full Text PDF

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