Nemesius' "On the Nature of Man": Edition, Translation, and Study of the Arabic Version

大部分希腊科学和哲学在公元8世纪到10世纪之间被翻译成阿拉伯语。在其鼎盛时期，这种“翻译运动”直接得到了阿巴斯哈里发的支持。希腊学习的遗产迅速成为用阿拉伯语写作的作家的动力，使他们适应并进一步发展了“古人”的思想。他们的成就鼓励了中世纪晚期的欧洲人学习阿拉伯语，并将阿拉伯语作品翻译成拉丁语。伊斯兰文化开始了欧洲文艺复兴的说法并不是没有道理的，中东地区持续意识到，希腊罗马古代的知识遗产既“东方”又“西方”，这种意识已经超出了学术界的范围。继续研究伊斯兰教对希腊文化的传播和使用是至关重要的。然而，掌握希腊-阿拉伯语研究所需的希腊语和阿拉伯语的学者越来越少了。每个新项目都会产生重大影响。目前的建议希望对这一领域作出重大贡献。它将呈现中世纪最广泛阅读的科学哲学著作之一《论人的本性》的完整阿拉伯语译本，该书是由埃米萨的涅墨修斯（叙利亚的涅墨修斯）在公元4世纪末用希腊语写成的。涅墨修斯为读者提供了一个关于生命中重大问题的全面描述：身体是如何工作的，它与灵魂的关系，感觉和情感的运作，在上帝的指导下，宇宙向我们开放的选择。他总结并引用了古代异教的主要哲学和科学作家，如亚里士多德和盖伦的观点。他成功地将这些知识建立在基督教的框架中，使他的书非常受欢迎，并被翻译成中世纪文化的大多数主要语言（阿拉伯语，亚美尼亚语，格鲁吉亚语，拉丁语，叙利亚语）。在阿拉伯语中有两个主要的版本。第一个是早期和不完整的。它被收录在一本著名的深奥著作《创造的秘密》中，这本书在炼金术科学的发展中发挥了重要作用。第二个完整版本是这个项目的主要焦点，但到目前为止还没有发布。它被认为是Ishaq ibn Hunayn（公元910/11年），一位杰出的哲学家和翻译家，是最伟大的翻译家Hunayn（公元873年）的儿子，但它可能是由Hunayn自己完成的，因为它的第一个已知读者是al-Kindi，“阿拉伯人的哲学家”，死于公元870年。目前中东的紧张局势使我们很难欣赏阿巴斯王朝时期的思想开放，这一时期在今天通常被称为伊斯兰教的“文艺复兴”。阿拉伯语是各种文化和教派的通用语。像Hunayn一样，许多译者都是基督徒，使用希腊语、阿拉伯语和叙利亚语，这些中东闪族语言的翻译文化对建立知识传递的期望至关重要。许多翻译家，像胡纳因父子一样，在朝廷有很好的关系。《论人的本性》在所有译本中是不同寻常的，因为它是一部基督教哲学著作。湖南版本增加了基督教的参考资料，其四个主要的MSS中有三个是在基督教圈子里复制的。虽然在《创世的秘密》中发现的第一个阿拉伯语译本被剥夺了基督教，但Hunayn版本也吸引了像Kindi和哲学家/翻译家al-Dimashqi这样的穆斯林。最古老的手稿是著名的12世纪手稿。一位穆斯林绅士为私人使用而抄写的希腊和伊斯兰哲学文集。因此，涅墨修斯提供了跨信仰合作文化的重要证据，这种文化是中世纪伊斯兰教知识分子生活的特征。这篇文章的编辑、翻译和研究将使所有对探索伊斯兰和西方文化共同根源的文化翻译感兴趣的人都能得到它。

Large parts of Greek science and philosophy were translated into Arabic between the 8th and 10th c. At its height this 'translation movement' was directly supported by the Abbasid caliphate. The legacy of Greek learning quickly acted as a spur to authors writing in Arabic to adapt and further the ideas of 'the ancients'. Their achievements encouraged Europeans in the late Middle Ages to learn Arabic and translate Arabic works into Latin. The claim that Islamic culture started the European renaissance is not unjustified, and continuing awareness in the Middle East that the intellectual inheritance of Greco-Roman antiquity is as much 'eastern' as 'western' has ramifications beyond academia.The need to continue studying the Islamic transmission and usage of Greek culture is of critical importance. There are, however, fewer and fewer scholars with the command of Greek and Arabic that is needed for Greco-Arabic research. Every new project delivers major impact.The current proposal hopes to make a substantial contribution to the field. It will present the full Arabic translation of one of the mostly widely read scientific-philosophical works of the Middle Ages, On the Nature of Man, which was written in Greek at the end of the 4th c. by Nemesius of Emesa (Hims in Syria). Nemesius offered readers a comprehensive account of the great problems of life: how the body worked, its relation to the soul, the operation of feelings and emotions, the choices open to us in a universe under God's direction. He summarized the views - and quoted the words - of the major philosophical and scientific authors of pagan antiquity like Aristotle and Galen. His success in building this knowledge into a Christian framework made his book immensely popular and it was translated into most of the main languages of medieval culture (Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Latin, Syriac). Two major versions are known in Arabic. The first is early and incomplete. It survives incorporated in a famous esoteric treatise, The Secret of Creation, which played an important part in the development of alchemical science. The second, full version, which is the primary focus of this project, is so far unpublished. It is ascribed to Ishaq ibn Hunayn (d. 910/11), a distinguished philosopher and translator who was the son of the greatest of the translators, Hunayn (d. 873), but it was probably done by Hunayn himself for its first known reader is no less a figure than al-Kindi, 'the Philosopher of the Arabs', who died before ca.870. The current tensions in the Middle East make it difficult to appreciate the intellectual openness of the Abbasid period, which is today often called the 'Renaissance' of Islam. Arabic functioned as a lingua franca for various cultures and denominations. Many of the translators were, like Hunayn, Christians working with Greek, Arabic, and Syriac, the Middle Eastern Semitic language whose culture of translation was of great importance in establishing the expectation of transferring knowledge. Many translators were, like Hunayn and his son, well connected at court.On the Nature of Man is unusual among the translations because it is a work of Christian philosophy. The Hunayn version adds Christian references, and three of its four major MSS were copied in Christian circles. While the first Arabic translation found in The Secret of Creation was stripped of Christianity, the Hunayn version appealed also to Muslims like Kindi and the philosopher/translator al-Dimashqi. The oldest manuscript is a famous 12th-c. collection of Greek and Islamic philosophy copied by a Muslim gentleman for private use. Nemesius, then, offers important testimony of the culture of inter-faith cooperation that characterized the intellectual life of Islam in the Middle Ages. The edition, translation, and study of this text will make it available to all those interested in exploring cultural translation alongside the common roots of Islamic and western culture.