28 armin d. baum
which, according to the tradition of the Church, are true, genuine, and
recognized, and those which differ from them in that they are not canoni-
cal but disputed, yet nevertheless are known to most of the writers of the
Church, in order that we might know them and the writings which are put
forward by heretics under the name of the apostles containing gospels such
as those of Peter, and thomas, and Matthias, and some others besides, or
acts such as those of andrew and John and the other apostles. to none of
these has any who belonged to the succession of the orthodox ever thought
it right to refer in his writings.
7 Moreover, the type or phraseology differs from apostolic style, and the
opinion and tendency of their contents is widely dissonant from true ortho-
doxy and clearly shows that they are the forgeries of heretics. they ought,
therefore, to be reckoned not even among the spurious books but shunned
as altogether wicked and impious.
Galen, In hippocratis epidemiarum II commentarium
In the second century ce, the physician galen of Pergamum ascribed only
the first and the third book of the Epidemics directly to hippocrates. Books
two and six he ascribed to thessalus, the son of hippocrates. according to
galen, thessalus composed them by collecting everything that his father
had written on sheets or slips of parchment or paper. for this reason
galen proposed that these two books should not bear the same title as
hippocrates’ other books on epidemics. still, he attributed those works
to hippocrates. the decisive criterion for the correct authorial attribution
was the provenance of the text’s content. the person who was responsible
for the content was regarded as the author of the book even if he had not
himself written it down or dictated it.33
In this lemma we find a summary of the anatomy of the blood vessels
described succinctly. this is one of the things that bears witness to the truth
of those who say that this second book was compiled by hippocrates’ son
thessalus from things he found recorded by hippocrates on pages, sheets
and scattered fragments.
some said that this thessalus added some things of his own to them, and
as far as I am concerned, they are correct in saying this and in saying that
the first and third books are the only two books by hippocrates written to
be published among the people as books.
33 the greek original has been lost. a german translation of the arabic version is
offered by f. Pfaff, Galeni In Hippocratis Epidemiarum librum II commentaria V (leipzig:
teubner, 1934), 310,22–311,14. the above english translation of the arabic version has been
kindly provided by Bink hallum from the department of Classics and ancient history at
the university of Warwick and has so far not been published.