An Unpublished Autobiograph Fragment of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed

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An Unpublished Autograph Fragment of Maimonides's "Guide of the Perplexed"

Author(s): Simon Hopkins and MaimonidesReviewed work(s):Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 50,No. 3 (1987), pp. 465-469Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/617737 .

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7/30/2019 An Unpublished Autobiograph Fragment of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed

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AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENT OF

MAIMONIDES'S GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED

By SIMONHOPKINS

PLATES I-II

Of Maimonides's (1135-1204) principal philosophical work Daldlat al-.Hd'irn ' (More Nevuxim) four autograph fragments are known, each from adifferent Geniza collection: 2

(i) The first discovery was made at the beginning of the century byH. Hirschfeld, who identifiedtwo unjoined leaves in the Geniza collection of the

University Library, Cambridge, and published them, with photographs, in

JQR, xv, 1902-3, 677-81 under the title: 'The Arabic portion of the CairoGeniza at Cambridge.IV. Two autograph fragmentsof Maimonides' Dalalat alHairin.' These leaves cover Book I, chs. 64-65 and Book II, chs. 32-33.

(ii) In 1912 B. Chapira3 discovered two further leaves in the Mossericollection in Cairo. A reproduction of fol. 2v was published by J. Mosserihimself in the Jewish Review, IV, 21, 1913, facing p. 210 and again in

uyi nMrTr7,, 1919-20, facing p. 29. The full fragment was presented, with a

plate of the same fol. 2v, by D. Yellin, "?'~nninw IT. In=t t'l' "'lwTarbiz

I, 3, 1929-30, 93-106. The text covered runscontinuously from Book I, ch. 17 toch. 21.

(iii) In 1946 M. Lutzki announced in Hatekufah, xxx-xxxI, 685 that 'ashort time ago' he had identified an additional leaf of the Guide in theE. N. Adler Collection held at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America inNew York. Photographs of the fragment were first published by S. D. Sassoonin P1.XLVI of his detailed discussion of Maimonidean autographs which formsthe Introduction to Maimonidis Commentarius n Mischnam... Vol. I, CorpusCodicum Hebraicorum Medii Aevi, ed. R. Edelmann, Pars I (Hafniae, 1956).Lutzki's fragment contains part of Book I, chs. 2-3.

(iv) In 1982 the present writer found two further fragments, of which theone exactly complements the other, in the Gaster Collection of the John

Rylands Library in Manchester. These two small pieces were published, with

photographs, as one fragment in 'Two new Maimonidean autographs in theJohn Rylands University Library', BJRL, 67, 1985, 711-17. The text represen-ted there is Book II, ch. 30.

Lutzki, loc. cit., stated that the piece he had discovered in New York was

shortly to be published. However, as far as I am aware, this publication nevertook place and the fragment remains available only in facsimile.4 Since all

autographs of Maimonides are of interest in themselves, particularlyin the caseof a work as significant as the Guide,and since such pieces are important first-hand sources for the study of Judaeo-Arabic, it seems worthwhile to carry outLutzki's intention and publish the text of the New York fragment.

The shelfmark of the fragment is given by Lutzki as ENA 3198.5. There is aconfusion here. The present ENA 3198 seems to contain only four items, noneof them being the piece in question. According to E. N. Adler's Catalogue of

'On the title ' Guide of the Perplexed'see A. Gil'adi, Tarbiz,XLVIII, 1978-9, 346-7; Le Museon,

97, 1984, 159-61.2 For autographs of other works of Maimonides see the list in JSS, 28, 1983, 274-6.3 That it was Chapira and not Mosseri who actually identified these pieces is stated by Chapira

himself in REJ, 99, 1935, 8-9.4In addition to the photographs published by Sassoon, the verso of our manuscript is

reproduced in the Yearbook1977-8 of the EncyclopaediaJudaica (Jerusalem, 1979), 107.

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SIMONHOPKINS

Hebrewmanuscripts n the collectionof Elkan Nathan Adler(Cambridge, 1921),110 there are six items subsumed under the shelfmark3198, but the descriptionsof these six items do not correspond to the contents of the present ENA 3198.

For example, ENA 3198.3, which Adler describes as' Talmud Commentary', isin fact a Judaeo-Arabic fragment of the Introduction to Bahya's Al-Hiddya ild

Fara'id al-Qulub.5Hence I think that Lutzki, loc. cit., n. 27 (where read ' 110'for ' 100'), was wrong in taking Adler to task for missing the identity of ourMaimonidean autograph and describing it as 'Tafsir'; Adler and Lutzki were

evidently not speaking of the same manuscript. Be that as it may, the fragmentin question is now found in the ENA 'Maimonides Album'.6

The portion of the Guiderepresented by the Adler-Lutzki autograph beginshalfway through Book I, ch. 2 and continues to the end of ch. 3. According tothe printed editions there are missing between the end of the recto and the

beginning of the versoapproximately70 words, i.e. + 6 lines of manuscripttext.This gives us a reconstructed full page of + 25 lines. A page of this size fitsverywell in all respects with the Mosseri-Yellin leaves; the first of the two Mosseri-Yellin folios (Book I: 17-21), which in Maimonides's originalcodex stood 7 or 8folios after the Adler fragment published here (Book I: 2-3), contains 25 and 26lines on the recto and the verso respectively. It seems, therefore, that we are

dealing here with remnants of a single manuscript containing leaves of uniformsize. Indeed, one may go furtherand state that all known autograph fragmentsof Maimonides's Guide are remnants of one and the same codex.7

In what follows I give the text of Maimonides's autograph exactly as hewrote it, warts and all, together with whatever variants can be culled from the

sources designated below as M, J, Q and A. It will be seen that these variants arefew and insignificant, a circumstance which emphasizes the important fact thatthe manuscript (and printed) tradition of Maimonides's Guideof the Perplexedis in general a very faithful reflection of what the Sage of Fustat himself wrote.

ENA Maimonides Album (3198.5?):recto

l[[ -]i [ 3 .1

'IY7;' sp[' 0bt Y81 :nY91- :'U5K: nn"" tpp] .2

n;h,psa*[?mNw?K'

6l[hl.nn 'l -i"vp 1Km K1n mpv] .3

ninpmnl~p .nKrKIfnm ['lp. h;[: nn: snY1 ] 4

"rsY mznp&nl bp' a an y fo s[nll On":w] ;["sa] *5

01 NY: .'' []':.. Nn ':.:p x n'K.t~ [1K. n ];-l[.v] .6

nsnn nti'nsa : [in](na)5=XKIo5r buy [mnldri in l[n] h7

lYn cft x xK ;li yBpn CX2 npap "iYRa, 9 3nI *9

npol nnmn noKn nwin -14s ] nT1nkt1 n"Sm 1: *o10

nlmpm vnn . :,o a".[1a2lnrpmn m nanx ;rnh.x .11

[1N]"xbl nli1N? Pn1?ens>II n1?y?nWw1- y?2tK *t12[nlt~;;n ~mnntmnm 3&l nan lP nbi[hpl]KrX *.13

[ln pnl]n :OKDa D ?lrw nnai[rl]'

la l] nnlm *.14

5 It corresponds to ed. A. S. Yahuda (Leiden, 1912),26-8 and ed. Y. Qafih(Jerusalem,1972-3),36-8.

6 I am grateful to Professor M. Schmelzer, Librarian of the JTS for locating the fragment,sending me a photographic reproduction and granting permission for the text to be published here.

7 Pace B. Chapira, REJ, 99, 1935, 11.

466

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PLATE I

ENA MAIMONIDES LBUM(3198.5?): recto

BSOAS. LI

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PLATEI

ENA MAIMONIDES LBUM(3198.5?): verso

BSOAS. L]

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AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENTOF MAIMONIDES'SGUIDE 467

[1r]Xsp ;88 -'jKw17m t?sp' ;nriln 7iwxK[fK j1?7 ;Ib .15

[p]"%p t?L7X Il-!w- [hj1 ;n;nid]r "n Ka1?1psp .16

[n5I :rpn] ^:[ plr 7171 87ltW n[NSIp' Xt7I vnzaK-b nn1:1 -.17

ENA Maimonides Album (3198.5?): verso

i ]-[+ ] a ,2

ynn'xmnrn ':n: , nl), no '"t3n3:a 1[n"] ;fi] .3

[rnnJnl^s5 ] *.4

[tin: o1?' nnKI n"x:KI [b] "rnz*ioawln *suluIK Xr' *5

[hx ;1:nanxsnI ;1] Ia pn ra Qxyn n'in IN 1?^ *6

[bnini nr',nn:i1,] "rrtnl71 sannn, ',nz n:,r ;yKxnn,lm .7

h[e]k Dn3ann iip],i rb' ' n',n nx, 7Iyan nrnin rnK 7p .8

[n1hin wrnrp3n[il q:: -n&ts7D nrzrn jpi -inn nxTn nnx .9

niMK in rinSnIYm Yspin nb 1i1l bDw min ^z a1Ni *10

,4y ymn1H3znz ln -KfK nil= mX 'X7-K y .11

/I Inf .14

nD"Dmn;nityr 'YK 1n75X ihX5 OKinbKan;1no1? 'WK *13

nIt-IIb [IUIX X tY Kp?I '7 n? n I mDrm D ;l1nXltm *159n1p imn [ltl5i 1Snnn7K j XKnil lD K .15

1n'In rnK'NX5i i'['

ip.S ' j15K1i l n1,'5 nlTn) tDywn .16

',p,' ,a:,K ',] '1'Y 'kina ':,m ,3~, ,3, 'h[1:] n3[r:n] *.7

y7a5n mn [Ztont]i 5psj,X nH%D[ra n p pn'N-;<rt [yb] .18

n3ayn ti'A-.'. ni[lhnnl p n3l]an ;rYn nrrDbmp n5x[nhx] *19

5[S r"1]"1 nx7 prnm ;n[nrl] .20

Notes and variants

M = Le Guide des Egares. Traite de Theologieet de Philosophie par Moise benMaimoun dit Maimonide, publie pour la premiere fois dans l'originalarabe... par S. Munk, I, Paris, 1856.

J = ,wa11n':: tM 13::1" (:1'':3 n;l'l: 1DO) fi?~`nL,K ,N,.L- :,^ui'-"T nr)ln10*lDMl 0n..o p3iaf 15K f lna5I nKxfl{ 'Db ?2F1zl 8ipnan

r":11'lM 1f" "T'n-71 '"Y , Jerusalem, 1931.

Q = "alin :otln m11pnnlm mn'n 'nSl -t ,'3in3n nnir ,jlrn 1:p t3 w:

nDtKp -1n "m: qOP..**.n"ma1, Vol. i, Jerusalem, 1972.

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SIMONHOPKINS

A = Delalet'ii 1-Hairin, Filozof Musa ibn Meymun el-Kurtubi 1135-1205... Prof. Dr. Hiiseyin Atay, Ankara Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakiiltesi

Yayinlar 93, Ankara, 1974(edition of a manuscriptof the Guide n Arabic

script).

RectoM 14a/20-14b/12J 17/1-17/14Q 28/8-28/29A 30/11-31/6

1.3 n"r7pyxKtkRw'?h: MJQA %nrnSK.

1.4. ?ttRnI: MJQA ?wKnl.The form is hardly 1st person sing. of the

imperfect; it is the imperative with prosthetic aleph, for which seeJ. Blau, A grammar of mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic(2nd ed. Jerusalem,1980) 77.

1.5. n'7y: MJQA an "'rny.

1.7. [n](nK):nK: MJQA nbXK. Maimonides correctednxbis to nizk , i.e.altered the western (Maghribi/Spanish) form with -at to the standard-at. This is a correction which Maimonides made

many times;it is

noticeable that in his later writings there occur far fewer dialectal -atforms of verbaIIIw/y than in his earlyworks, cf. J. Blau, Theemergenceand linguistic background of Judaeo-Arabic(2nd ed. Jerusalem, 1981)230.

1.12. nIy: MJQ trip'y,A e .

Verso

M 14b/ 19-15b/lJ 17/+19-18/14Q 29/ 7-30/15A31/+11-32/15

11.1-3. The writing here is smaller than in the rest of the fragment and extendsfurther into the margin; hence there was very likely space enough forthe restoration proposed for line 3.

1.5. 1tn3:NsK 'I: MJQA "rInk'I:aX rIK 'S, an uninteresting variantwhich occurs elsewhere, e.g. Hirschfeld, JQR, xv, 679, n. 9; Q(afih) 29,n. 2.

1.7. Kn'l1: MJQA TZxK ; KNfl'-1,but for this there is not enoughspace in the autograph (unless one assumes that %KxnKX 1n wasadded in the margin).

1.9. 'KpRI:MJQA omit.

93z: MJQA omit (A XS (!),' J' ).

468

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AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENTOF MAIMONIDES'SGUIDE 469

1.10 rni'Kx: MJQA }bgltKO .

1.11 MJQA nil.;rbKtK:a p

lu?nn 'liK tD.

1.12. 1Rv?z nPn: MJQ 'zIn ;nlin, A j L;3 . *li seems to have beenaltered from 'i:i .

1.14.': nmnun:MJQA add nn3n :Z DnTN"NI ": (A s) 1:1.

1.16. izl ,',; s j. iJ.

1.17. 'x"j:MJQA K1x'j with classical accusative.

1.18 rnanlx7 nprpnpntKn'T: MJQA1-r?x "p'pn'K t1wOn.

1.19 '5'yn: MJQA xyrn. This is a frequent spelling in Maimonides, see e.g.Hirschfeld JQR, xv, 679, n. 2; Yellin Tarbiz I, 3, 103, 8; Blau,Grammar,24.