JOURNAL
OF
THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.
ART. V. — The Book of the Apple, ascribed to Aristotle. Edited in Persian and English by D. S. Margoliouth.
A pseudo-Aristotelian treatise called de pomo et morte incliti principis philosophorum Aristotelis has been printed several times in Europe, the earliest editions being without place or date.[1] This work is a Latin translation of a Hebrew tract bearing the name “The Book of the Apple,” the translator being Manfred, King of Sicily (ob. 1266), or, as Steinschneider suggests,[2] a Jew employed by him. The Hebrew text professes to be a translation from the Arabic made by R. Abraham B. Hisdai, an author who flourished at the end of the thirteenth century. There are MSS. of B. Hisdai’s work in the Vatican and at Oxford, and it has been repeatedly printed, first at Venice, 1519.[3] It was republished with a new Latin translation and a copious but irrelevant commentary by J. J. Losius, at Giessen, in 1706.[4] A German translation was issued by J. Musen at Lemberg, 1873, and an English translation by Kalischer at New York, 1885. An edition with a brief Hebrew commentary is said to have been produced by J. Lichtstein (Grodno, 1799).
- ↑ Hoffmann, Bibliographisches Lexicon, i. 347. Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. iii. 281 (ed. 2), mentions certain early Latin editions of Aristotle in which it is to be found.
- ↑ Hebräische Übersetzungen, p. 268 (advance sheets lent the author by Dr. Neubauer).
- ↑ See Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. i. p. 57 ; Steinschneider, l.c.
- ↑ Biga dissertationum quarum prior exhibet ספר התפח, etc. Losius’ translation is very inaccurate, and his text very corrupt.
