At least 33 series containing his astrological treatises exist; not all of them are com-
plete but most include The Beginning of Wisdom.There are 43 single treatises, eight of
which are manuscripts owned by the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in
New York. Eight more are in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and others are scat-
tered throughout Europe in private and public collection. The Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and the Vatican Library also possess some of the manuscripts.Ibn Ezra’s best-known book, The Beginning of Wisdom,was translated from
Hebrew into French in 1273 by Hagin le Juif (Hagin the Jew), under the auspices of
Henry Bate. This translation served as a basis for three translations into Latin, still
extant: one by Henry Bate in 1281 and 1292, another by Peter de Abano in 1293 and
a third by Arnoul de Quinquempoix sometime before 1326. A translation was made
independently from the Hebrew original into Catalan, by Martin of Osca (or Huesca),
Aragon. From this Catalan version, The Book of Nativitieswas translated into Latin by
Louis de Angulo in 1448.Raphael Levy provides a word of caution with regard to the 1507 printing of
the Peter de Abano translation:It is a Latin translation made from the French translation of the
Hebrew, and anyone who has access to it must control it carefully, since
the style is considered impure and inaccurate.The circumstances pertaining to the French translation by Hagin are
explained in a colophon, which is reproduced at the end. Many years
ago Paulin Paris (1847) remarked: “One can readily see that Hagin was
obliged to dictate his translation to a copyist, because he himself did
not know how to write them in French; for, if it had been a question
merely of having them transcribed clearly and elegantly, he would have
probably called upon a better calligrapher than Obert de Montdidier.”
This procedure of a Jew dictating a French translation to an amanuen-
sis explains the curious fact that it was written in Roman characters,
whereas all other contemporary texts, extant in Judaeo-French, were
written in Hebrew characters. Consequently it may serve as a guide in
deciphering the French texts written in Hebrew characters. Nothing
else is known about Hagin le Juif nor about the scribe, but the name of
Montdidier is significant because it gives a clue to the Picard dialect of
the scribe. Henry Bate, under whose aegis the translation was executed,
has already been referred to as one of the three translators from French
into Latin.Naturally, the system of translating the Hebrew of Ibn Ezra into the
French of Hagin transcribed by Obert has resulted in an awkward style.
Hagin has interpreted the original in a servile manner and often given
a literal equivalent word for word. In addition to the large proportion
of solecisms and anacolutha, Hagin has interspersed his text with
Hebraisms, while Obert suffered from an inevitable confusion in
homonyms.Ibn Ezra, Avraham
[354] THEASTROLOGYBOOK