144 | CHAPTER 5
But apart from (1) the difficulty of modal logic, which had caused it to be
skirted by many Greek and Latin students too, and (2) the fact that many
Syrians were bilingual so had no need of translations, we have evidence that
the whole of the Organon was in fact known in Syriac.^80 Nor is this surpris-
ing : logic remained attractive because it could support ontological conclu-
sions—about the very nature of being or reality—derived from Christian
teaching and therefore quite different from those Aristotle himself had es-
poused. Porphyry’s studious avoidance of ontolog y in presenting the Catego-
ries to his Platonist audience had already implied the same point, and in fact
prepared the way for Christian exploitation of Aristotelian logic.^81 Among
Syriac scholars, one might also find a Jacob of Edessa prepared to tackle even
the Metaphysics, or at least the lexicon of philosophical terms in book 5, for
the light it could throw on the Christian theological vocabulary of “nature,”
“substance,” “hypostasis,” “person.”^82
Another apparent limitation of Syriac philosophy in this phase was its ne-
glect of Plato (though, as with all gaps in the Syriac bibliography, we must
allow for the bilingual Syrian elite reading Plato, and indeed untranslated
Aristotle, in the original). Where Alexandria saw Aristotle as ideally the pre-
lude to Plato, Syriac scholars saw him as philosophy’s consummation, to be
approached with the same reverence late Platonists kept for his teacher.^83
(The parallel between Sergius and Boethius breaks down here.) yet by more
subterranean channels late Platonism did fertilize the Syriac mind, notably
through Sergius of Reshʿaina’s translation of the Christian mystic Ps.-
Dionysius the Areopagite, probably a Syrian pupil or reader of the Athenian
Platonist Proclus. That Sergius translated Dionysius but not Aristotle may
imply he saw Dionysius as directly accessible, without scholastic/logical
preparation, to monks and others of ascetic disposition; or he assumed a bi-
lingual audience. But as translation of Aristotle proceeded, this inconsis-
tency dissolved. And another version of Dionysius followed in the eighth
c entur y.^84 Dionysius was to Sergius’s Aristotle as Plato was to Alexandria’s:
the finest flower of divine contemplation. Together, Aristotle and Dionysius
might provide a Syriac ascent comparable to the lesser and greater mysteries
of Aristotle and Plato. Both ascents, but especially the Christian one, remind
us that what all too easily seems like a history of books is a story of people,
and that our exegetical cultures nourish communities, schools, and monas-
80 H. Daiber, “Die Aristotelesrezeption in der syrischen Literatur,” in D. Kuhn and H. Stahl (eds),
Die Gegenwart des Altertums (Heidelberg 2001) 331–35; King, Earliest Syriac translation [5:52] 11–12.
81 Hugonnard- Roche, Logique d’Aristote [3:8] 145–46.
82 Hugonnard- Roche, Logique d’Aristote [3:8] 51–53.
83 Hugonnard- Roche, Logique d’Aristote [3:8] 180–81, 185–86; id. [5:75], in Romeny (ed.), Jacob
of Edessa [3:92] 219–21.
84 On Dionysius in Sergius and subsequently, see J. Watt, “From Sergius to Mattā: Pseudo- Dionysius
in the Syriac tradition,” IBALA 239–57.