Histoire naturelle by Pline L'AncienReview by: George SartonIsis, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Apr., 1952), pp. 58-60Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/227141 .

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Book Reviews

versum, in Arabic and German by Gotthelf Bergstraesser (CMG XI, 2, i, Leipzig I9I4),

and Galen's treatise on medical experience pub- lished in Arabic and English by Richard Walzer (London I944; Isis 36, 25I-55). [Note that the four Galenic texts dealt with in this review were all Arabicized by Ijunain.] It is highly probable that this list will be gradually lengthened, and that Arabic texts will continue to increase our knowledge of Galen.

GEORGE SARTON

ROBERT GORDIS: Koheleth -The Man and his World. xii+396 pp. (Texts and studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.) New York: 195I.

Omar Khayyam (d. 1123) was one of the greatest medieval mathematicians, and his ac- tivity marks the climax of Muslim efforts in the field of algebra,1 but his fame and popularity rest upon his Ruba'ydt. Thanks to the genius of his translator, Fitz-Gerald, the quatrains have become one of the most popular classics of litera- ture. Koheleth, or Ecclesiastes, who must have lived in the end of the 3rd century B.C., was nicknamed by one of his modern commentators 2

the "Omar Khayyam of the Bible." He was neither a mathematician nor an astronomer, but as the epilogue to his book (I2 : 9-IO) describes him, a sage and educator who searched for truth and presented his thoughts in charming words and pithy epigrams. Koheleth's fame, however, is due not to the poetic genius of a translator but to the dry naivete of his Rabbinic editors. Those Rabbis who fixed the canon of the Bible (c. go A.D.) were fortunately not familiar with the methods of our sophisticated Bible critics. They read in the book that Koheleth pretends to have been a king over Israel in Jerusalem who searched for wisdom, amassed gold and silver, and built himself a magnificent palace; so they took it for granted that this was King Solomon the Wise. Now, how can a man snub the great King Solomon and exclude his book from the Holy Canon? Besides, a book composed by King Solomon must be full not only of deep wisdom but also of the fear of God and of holy inspiration. Whenever the plain meaning of the words contradicted this theory, the text was "interpreted," or some edifying sentence was added to make the facts fit the theory. Thus, the book became full of contradictory notes, so that it has rightly been called the "Sphinx of the Old Testament" or the "Book of the Two Voices."

Critical Bible exegesis explains this duality as due to the struggle between the heretic author and the orthodox editor. The author says, Life has no meaning and no purpose, all is vanity; but the editor finds a deep meaning in it, "Fear God and keep His commandments." The author

1 See Sarton, Introduction, I, 759. 2See M. Jastrow, A Gentle Cynic, I9I9, pp.

i86 ff.

faces the realities of this world: The poor are crushed into the dust and their lot is tears, sweat and blood; but the editor assures us that God will bring into judgment every deed, nay every hidden act. In his learned volume on Koheleth Dr Gordis introduces a novel and in- teresting method of exegesis, according to which the unique style of the book is mainly responsible for many of its apparent contradictions. Like other writers who were raised in a religious tra- dition from which they broke away, Koheleth often uses the theological language in which he was reared to express his own heretic viewpoint. Gordis points to the interesting parallel of Spinoza who, according to his ablest interpreter, H. A. Wolfson, has been widely misunderstood for the same reason. Both Koheleth of the third century B.C. and Spinoza of the I7th century A.D. retained not only the style of their milieu but also part of its thought-content as well.

In the reviewer's humble opinion, Koheleth is neither the Spinoza nor the Omar Khayyam but rather the Epicurus of the Bible.' In the author of Koheleth we may recognize one of those enlightened Hebrew thinkers who was not directly influenced by Epicurus' teaching and did not belong to his school but taught "hedonis- tic ethics, the rejection of a purpose in nature and the denial of a moral government of the world," all doctrines which were vaguely called "Epicurean" in those times.4 The Book Koheleth represents a popular version of Epicureanism which gained currency among the educated Jew- ish circles of 200 B.C. in Palestine. Owing to a mistake of the Rabbis the heretic book of an Epicurean gained access into the Canon and was saved from oblivion. Were Koheleth to rise from his grave today and see how his light- hearted pamphlet was canonized as part of the Holy Writ and how it was made the text for the homilies of pious Rabbis, Bishops and Ulema he would cry out again: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!

SOLOMON GANDZ

Dropsie College

PLINE L'ANCIEN: Histoire natutrelle. Livre I. Texte etabli, traduit et commente par Jean Beaujeu. Introduction de Alfred Ernout. i6i pp. Livre II. XXii+282 pp., 4 figs. (Collec- tion des Universit6s de France publiee sous le patronage de l'Association Guillaume Bude). Paris: Societ d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," I950.

It is always a pleasure to make a fresh study of the Natural History of Pliny which is one of the outstanding books of general science ever published, and we are grateful to the Association

'This idea has already found expression in several commentaries; cf. T. Tyler, Ecclesiastes, London i874, pp. i8 ff; P. Haupt, The Book of Ecclesiastes, 1905, p. 6.

' Cf. Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 5, 324.

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Book Reviews 59

Guillaume Bude for obliging us to do so. In order to judge that book fairly, we must bear in mind that it was written in Rome before the end of the first century. The author made full use of the Greek and Latin books available to him (he refers to 327 Greek authorities and I46 Latin ones), and his compilation is the more precious to us, because many of his sources are lost. The Natural History is thus a treasury of ancient lore. It may seem very imperfect to modern readers; yet, it is vastly superior to many mediaeval encyclopaedias written in Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. To indicate its importance to the historian of science it will suffice to re- mark that when one investigates any topic of ancient knowledge, it is always necessary to refer to it. It is equally important in another way because of its immense influence upon mediaeval thought. Its mediaeval popularity is witnessed by the existence of some 200 MSS and of I5 incunabula editions in Latin, plus 3 in Italian and a French abbreviation (Klebs 786- 87). See also the large number of references to him in vols. 2 and 3 of my Introduction and in the Critical Bibliographies of Isis. It seldom happens that a Critical Bibliography does not contain a Plinian item in section 1(2).

The main items recorded in recent years have been the volumes of the Loeb edition and trans- lation by Harris Rackham which began to ap- pear in I938; the fourth and fifth volumes of that handsome edition (libri XII-XIX) ap- peared in 1950 after Rackham's death. Five more volumes will be needed to complete that edition. An English translation of the last book (37) dealing with precious stones was published by an expert in such matters, Sydney H. Ball, in 1950 (Isis 42, 52). The French edition is more ambitious than the Loeb one, because it leaves more room for learned discussions. Thus far, we have been given books I and II in 2 vols.

(corresponding to vol. I of the Loeb edition). Book I of the Natural History contains the

long preface written in 77/78, dedicated to Titus, who was to succeed Vespasian soon after- ward, and was emperor from 79 to 8i. The rest of that book is simply an elaborate table of contents of the whole work, books 2 to 37, with indication of the Greek and Latin sources used for each book. This was a remarkable innova- tion. We may recall that the Natural History is divided as follows:

i. Preface. Table of contents; 2. Astronomy, geodesy, meteorology, general physical geography; 3-6. Geography; 7. Anthropology; 8-i i. Zoology; 12-27. Botany; 28-32. Animal remedies; 33- 34. Metals. 35. Painting. History of art; 36. Stones; 37. Precious stones.

Book II is in many respects the most impor- tant, for it deals with astronomy and cosmology, with the philosophy of science and with religion. That cosmology is based upon the theory of four elements-fire, air, earth and water- which correspond more or less to the four regions,

sidereal space, atmosphere, land and seas. (The Aristotelian quintessence is left out.) The phi- losophy is Stoician with many Oriental incre- ments.

In I930, Wilhelm Kroll published a "bahn- brechend" memoir, Die Kosmologie des Plinius, in which he developed the thesis that the Plinian cosmology was largely derived from Posidonios of Apamea (I-I B.C.). Now, that may be so, but how could it be completely proved, considering that his scientific writings are lost?' The philologists are very strange creatures; sometimes they insist on the ipsissima verba with almost unbearable pedantry, at other times when the verba are lost, they are ready to indulge in the wildest fantasies. If we are to believe them, Posidonios was the leading scien- tific thinker of antiquity next to Democritos and Aristotle; he was certainly the leading Stoic teacher after his own master, Panaitios, and the influence of both men upon Cicero and others was considerable, but how can we be sure of his definite opinions without sufficient evidence?

That Posidonios influenced Pliny is certain, but the extent of that influence is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Hence, the Posi- donian mirage or as a Swiss scholar chose to call it, the Posidonian nephelococcygia.2 The Plinian cosmology is based not only on Posidonios but on the writings of many other men and also on all the Oriental flotsam and jetsam which had drifted into the Tiber by the beginning of our era.

The editor, M. Jean Beaujeu, lecturer at the University of Lille, has added to the text and translation a pretty long commentary (I52 pages in small type), which is more useful in this case

'Ludwig Edelstein promised in I936 an edi- tion of all the fragments which have been ascribed to Posidonios. That edition has not yet materialized, but we may look forward to its publication in I953 D.V. Dr Edelstein kindly wrote to me (9 Nov. I951): "The first part of the book on Posidonios, the collection of the fragments, is just being retyped for the printer. The second part, an interpretation of the ma- terial, is well in hand, since last summer I was able to finish a detailed commentary on the individual fragments. The whole book should be in the hands of the printer some time next year."

2Georges Meautis: Recherches str le Pytha- gorisme (p. I9, Neuchatel I922). The word is borrowed from Aristophanes' Birds; it means the city of the cuckoos in the clouds.

'Pliny gives a long list of the authorities used by him for the writing of his Book II. The list enumerates I7 Roman writers and 27 Greek or Oriental ones. The names seem to have been put together without any order. For example, the foreign list begins thus, Hipparchos, Timaios, Sosigenes, Petosiris, Nechepso, the Py- thagoreans, Posidonios, Anaximandros, Epigenes (plus i8 others). Posidonios is one authority among 44.

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6o Book Reviews

than marginal notes.4 That commentary is, in fact, a small treatise on Plinian cosmology, treating the same subjects as Pliny in the same order but with more method and abundant ref- erences to other sources. Book II and its com- mentary are divided roughly in the following way:

The celestial sphere. Elements. God. Stars. Planets. Moon and eclipses. Theory of planets. Colors of planets, seasons, sidereal thunders. Dis- tances of the celestial bodies. Comets and prodi- gies. Atmosphere. Winds. Thunders. Mother Earth (this being a kind of rhetorical intermezzo setting forth the goodness of Mother Earth and the perversity of men). The surface of the Earth. Proofs of its spherical shape. Oceans. Lands and waters. Astronomical geography. Aspects of the sky. Length of day. Earthquakes. Volcano-seismic phacnomena. Tides. Water prodigies. Fire prodi- gies. Size of the Earth.

It is a mixture of astronomy, geodesy, me- teorology, seismology, -but that could not be helped. A running synthetic commentary was necessary for Book II; I am not sure, however, that the method would apply equally well to other books. For example, in the case of definite animals, plants or minerals one would prefer to have the explanations relative to each close to the paragraph dealing with it.

As far as one can judge from Book II which contains his deepest thoughts, Pliny was an intelligent man, who had taken infinite trouble to be as well informed as possible on every question. He was studious and critical, not very critical, but almost as critical and rational as any one could be in his time and place. His older contemporary, Seneca, it is true, was su- perior to him, scientifically and morally; Seneca was not as learned as Pliny but he was a better writer, a clearer thinker, and a greater man. Pliny's discussion of Roman religion proves that he was conservative, yet honest and open- minded. His Stoical pantheism had been some- what unbalanced by too many Oriental accre- tions, and his rationality jeopardized by magical ideas. He accepted the astrological theory of the universe, as every thinking man did, but be it said to his honor, he rejected the absurdities of judicial astrology.

The text offered to us is essentially the same as was given by Carl Mayhoff (5 vols., Leipzig I892-I906). We are not competent to discuss M. Beaujeu's emendations, or to judge his work from the philological point of view, but his edi- tion of Book II is the best available to the historian of science today. It is as handy as the Loeb edition, but superior to it because of the scientific commentary which for a text of this kind is truly indispensable.

GEORGE SARTON

'Beaujeu regrets that he was not able to use the commentary of Donald John Campbell (Aberdeen University Studies no. II8, Aberdeen I936-42; Isis 36, I72), but Campbell was more

DEAN PUTNAM LOCKWOOD: Ugo Benzi, medieval philosopher and physician, 1376-

1439. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, '95I.

Attention has been drawn on numerous occa- sions to the importance in the history of science of the Italian physicians of the first half of the fifteenth century, for they acted simultaneously as the principal natural philosophers and medical theorists of their day. It was among these physi- cians that we find the most enlightened students of the nature of scientific method since antiquity. And it is in part at least to these physicians that we owe the continued discussion and preserva- tion of the fourteenth century mechanics of Oxford and Paris.

The fact that these physicians made contribu- tions to natural philosophy as well as medical philosophy arises largely from the fact that their medical training and teaching was preceded by intensive study of natural science in the form of Aristotelian texts and commentaries thereto. Furthermore it was customary in the Italian University of the late fourteenth and early fif- teenth century for the young physician or medi- cal aspirant to begin his academic career with a less remunerative post in natural or moral phi- losophy. If he attracted attention in philosophi- cal pursuits or if he won the favor of somebody of influence, he would then go on to a more lucrative chair in medicine.

Dr Lockwood has focused his attention in this scholarly biography on the life and writings of one of the prominent members of this group of medical philosophers, Ugo Benzi (Hugh of Siena). It is a study that might better be de- scribed as an introduction to, rather than a study of, Ugo's philosophy and medical opinion. For Lockwood concentrates his attention on the com- plete reconstruction of the chronological details of Ugo's life and the sequence and form of his writings. No pretense is made at evaluating the medical or physical content of the writings with certain exceptions which I shall note in a moment. Lockwood was considerably aided in his careful reconstruction of the life of Ugo by the- discovery in a Ferrara manuscript of an un- published Vita Ugonis written by his son Socino. It was the discovery of this manuscript that ap- pears to have stimulated Lockwood's interest in Ugo's activities. This Life of Ugo, composed about 1440, Lockwood sees as "the earliest in- dependent and authentic Life of a physician in existence," comparable to the.kind of a biogra- phy in which "Tacitus had immortalized his father-in-law Agricola." Lockwood includes both a text (pp. I48-156) and a translation (pp. 20-32) of this Life.

In my opinion, one of the most useful sections of the book is the careful reconstruction of the almost year-by-year chronology of Ugo's life and

concerned with words than with ideas, and may be overlooked by the student of Pliny's cosmnol- ogy.

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