30 CHAPTER TWO
IbnAdi could not have infl uenced the emergence of Muslim kalam. It
seems that this error of Maimonides’ resulted from the similarity be-
tween Yahya ibn Adi’s given name and that of “the Grammarian” John
Philoponus (in Arabic: Yahyaal-nahwi).^23 But is it only an error?
Maimonides mentions Yahya ibn Adi in his letter to Samuel Ibn Tib-
bon, where he dedicates a separate paragraph to three Christian phi loso-
phers: Ibn al-Tayyib (d. 1063), Yahya ibn Adi, and Yahya al- Bitriq (early
ninth century).^24 Their renderings of the Aristotelian texts, says Maimo-
nides, attempt to be servile and are ipso facto seriously fl awed.^25
This passage indicates, fi rst of all, that Maimonides was familiar with
IbnAdi’s milieu. The fact that he refers to these three Arab Christians
together suggests that he regarded the fl aws in Ibn Adi’s writings as typi-
cal of Christian works. And the fact that Maimonides mentions Ibn Adi
with two other Christians who lived under Islam also suggests that he
knew his correct chronological setting. If so, his embarrassing mistake in
theGuide cannot be said to “make evident a glaring lacuna in his knowl-
edge of the history of philosophy,”^26 and we must seek another explana-
tion for it.
Maimonides’ anachronism in the Guide appears to be more than a
meaningless confusion of similar names. He mentions Ibn Adi and John
Philoponus while discussing the historical background to Jewish kalam,
thus committing an obvious chronological error, but the context suggests
that his primary association of these two Christian theologians with kalam
(^23) As was fi rst pointed out by Pines; see his translation of Maimonides’ Guide, 178, note 19;
idem, “Translator’s Introduction,” cxxvi and note 112.
(^24) This last author is mentioned again by Maimonides in the course of his correspondence
with Ibn Tibbon. Maimonides recommends an idiomatic translation, one that captures
sense rather than etymology. This, he says, was Hunain ibn Ishaq’s way of translating
philosophical texts, whereas al- Bitriq strived for a literal translation, the result being in-
comprehensible and incorrect. (Epistles, 532– 33; I. Sonne, “Maimonides’s Epistle to Sam-
uel ibn Tibbon,” Tarbiz 10 [1939]: 135– 54 [Hebrew]).Opinions about the quality of Yahya
ibnAdi’s translations varied: AbuHayyan al- Tawhidi considered these translations inele-
gant; see Kitab al- imta wa’l-muanasa, ed. Ahmad Amin and Ahmad al- Zayn. (Beirut,
n.d.), 37. Ibn Abi Usaybia, on the other hand, thought highly of them. See also G. Berg-
strässer, “Hunain ibn Ishaq über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-Übersetzungen,” Ab-
handlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 17 (Leipzig 1925): 711– 12; E. Booth, Aristo-
telian Aporetic Ontology in Islamic and Christian Thinkers (Cambridge, 1983), 89n202.
On the various methods of translation, see S. Brock, “Aspects of Translation Technique in
Antiquity,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 26 (1979): 69– 89.
(^25) Marx, “Texts by and about Maimonides,” 380; Epistles, 532. The Arabic original of this
part of the letter is not extant. The Hebrew medieval translation speaks of the way al- Bitriq
“used to explain (haya mefaresh) the books of Aristotle and of Galen,” but from the con-
text it is evident that this refers to the translations (perhaps rendering “tafsir” in the sense
of translation).
(^26) Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” cxxvi n112.