[escepticos] Re: [escepticos] Alejandría: (era... conexion entre escritos cananeos-antiguo testamento)

["Kepler" <carlos_r_d@...>]

Hola :-)

Javier, tenía entendido que las peores de las destrucciones o "quemas" de la
bibloteca de Alejandría ocurrieron durante la dominación romana (una durante
Cesar y la última durante Teodosio, creo recordar) *bastante* antes que el
nacimiento del islam ¿no es así?

Saludos

Carlos

----- Original Message -----
From: "J.S." <j.susaeta en bitmailer.net>
To: <escepticos en ccdis.dis.ulpgc.es>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 5:57 PM
Subject: [escepticos] Alejandría: (era... conexion entre escritos
cananeos-antiguo testamento)


Hola...

Respecto a la quema 'principal', la relacionada con la conquista musulmana,
pensaba 'escanear' mi edición de 'Decline and Fall...', pero 'ahora está
todo en internet' y he transcrito, con poco esfuerzo, la elegante expresión
de Gibbon.

He dejado 'lo de la quema' y no he borrado un texto posterior, relativo a la
medida de la Tierra por Al Mamún, que está citado por muchos autores y puede
interesar a algunos compañeros. Aquí. Gibbon, refiere la unidad de medida a
la Gran Pirámide' como un submúltiplo de su lado. Hace un poco de
'piramidología', vamos, aunque da un montón de regerencias, como es habitual
en él. Pero el texto es interesante, tanto el de 'la quema' como el de la
medida del grado por los astrónomos califales. 'Ismailitas' les llama algún
otro autor, Bar-Hiyya, me parece.

Por cierto, yo creía -y sigo creyendo- que el incendio de Roma -no sé si en
el 62 o en el 64- fue 'de veras'. Otra cosa es que la culpa se la echaran
injustamente a Nerón, que puede ser.

Saludos

Javier


(...)


Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.


Part VII.

     I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed
in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is
described by the learned Abulpharagius.  The spirit of Amrou was
more curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his
leisure hours, the Arabian chief was pleased with the
conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who
derived the surname of Philoponus from his laborious studies of
grammar and philosophy. [115] Emboldened by this familiar
intercourse, Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable
in his opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians - the
royal library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had
not been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror.
Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his
rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without
the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was
inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic.  "If these writings of
the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need
not be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and
ought to be destroyed." The sentence was executed with blind
obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to
the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their
incredible multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for
the consumption of this precious fuel.  Since the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius [116] have been given to the world in a Latin
version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every
scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable
shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of
antiquity.  For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both
the fact and the consequences. [*] The fact is indeed marvellous.
"Read and wonder!" says the historian himself: and the solitary
report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years on
the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two
annalist of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of
Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has
amply described the conquest of Alexandria. [117] The rigid
sentence of Omar is repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept
of the Mahometan casuists they expressly declare, that the
religious books of the Jews and Christians, which are acquired by
the right of war, should never be committed to the flames; and
that the works of profane science, historians or poets,
physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of
the faithful. [118] A more destructive zeal may perhaps be
attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this
instance, the conflagration would have speedily expired in the
deficiency of materials. I should not recapitulate the disasters
of the Alexandrian library, the involuntary flame that was
kindled by Caesar in his own defence, [119] or the mischievous
bigotry of the Christians, who studied to destroy the monuments
of idolatry. [120] But if we gradually descend from the age of the
Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from a chain of
contemporary witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple of
Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred
thousand volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and
magnificence of the Ptolemies. [121] Perhaps the church and seat
of the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books;
but if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy
were indeed consumed in the public baths, [122] a philosopher may
allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the
benefit of mankind.  I sincerely regret the more valuable
libraries which have been involved in the ruin of the Roman
empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste
of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather
than our losses, are the objects of my surprise.  Many curious
and interesting facts are buried in oblivion: the three great
historians of Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a
mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing
compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the
Greeks.  Yet we should gratefully remember, that the mischances
of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the
suffrage of antiquity [123] had adjudged the first place of genius
and glory: the teachers of ancient knowledge, who are still
extant, had perused and compared the writings of their
predecessors; [124] nor can it fairly be presumed that any
important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been
snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

[Footnote 115: Many treatises of this lover of labor are still
extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and
unpublished are nearly in the same predicament.  Moses and
Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one
of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458 - 468.) A modern, (John Le
Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old
Philoponus in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real
knowledge.]

[Footnote 116: Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock.  Audi
quid factum sit et mirare.  It would be endless to enumerate the
moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish
with honor the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex.
Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia ... habet aliquid ut Arabibus
familiare est.]

[Footnote *: Since this period several new Mahometan authorities
have been adduced to support the authority of Abulpharagius.
That of, I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II.  Of Makrizi; I
have seen a Ms. extract from this writer: III.  Of Ibn Chaledun:
and after them Hadschi Chalfa. See Von Hammer, Geschichte der
Assassinen, p. 17.  Reinhard, in a German Dissertation, printed
at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin Encyclop. tom. iv. p.
433,) have examined the question.  Among Oriental scholars,
Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer. and Silv. de Sacy,
consider the fact of the burning the library, by the command of
Omar, beyond question. Compare St. Martin's note. vol. xi. p.
296.  A Mahometan writer brings a similar charge against the
Crusaders.  The library of Tripoli is said to have contained the
incredible number of three millions of volumes.  On the capture
of the city, Count Bertram of St. Giles, entering the first room,
which contained nothing but the Koran, ordered the whole to be
burnt, as the works of the false prophet of Arabia.  See Wilken.
Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211. - M.]
[Footnote 117: This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the
annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin.  The
silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less
conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.]

[Footnote 118: See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in
his iiid volume of Dissertations, p. 37.  The reason for not
burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians, is derived
from the respect that is due to the name of God.]

[Footnote 119: Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement.
Livian, c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had
styled the Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque
egregium opus; a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca, (De Tranquillitate
Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into
nonsense.]

[Footnote 120: See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]

[Footnote 121: Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus
Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all
speak in the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably
strong: fuerunt Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum
monumentorum veterum concinens fides, &c.]
[Footnote 122: Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible,
Hexapla, Catenoe Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our
Alexandrian Ms., if it came from Egypt, and not from
Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein, Prolegom. ad N. T. p.
8, &c.,) might possibly be among them.]

[Footnote 123: I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of
Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious
critic enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin
classics.]

[Footnote 124: Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c.  On this
subject Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 85
- 95) argues, with solid sense, against the lively exotic fancies
of Sir William Temple.  The contempt of the Greeks for Barbaric
science would scarcely admit the Indian or Aethiopic books into
the library of Alexandria; nor is it proved that philosophy has
sustained any real loss from their exclusion.]
(...)





Chapter LII: More Conquests By The Arabs.


Part III.

     In a private condition, our desires are perpetually
repressed by poverty and subordination; but the lives and labors
of millions are devoted to the service of a despotic prince,
whose laws are blindly obeyed, and whose wishes are instantly
gratified.  Our imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture;
and whatever may be the cool dictates of reason, there are few
among us who would obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and
the cares of royalty.  It may therefore be of some use to borrow
the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has
perhaps excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an
authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased
caliph.  "I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or
peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and
respected by my allies.  Riches and honors, power and pleasure,
have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to
have been wanting to my felicity.  In this situation, I have
diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which
have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: - O man!  place
not thy confidence in this present world!" [50] The luxury of the
caliphs, so useless to their private happiness, relaxed the
nerves, and terminated the progress, of the Arabian empire.
Temporal and spiritual conquest had been the sole occupation of
the first successors of Mahomet; and after supplying themselves
with the necessaries of life, the whole revenue was scrupulously
devoted to that salutary work.  The Abbassides were impoverished
by the multitude of their wants, and their contempt of oeconomy.
Instead of pursuing the great object of ambition, their leisure,
their affections, the powers of their mind, were diverted by pomp
and pleasure: the rewards of valor were embezzled by women and
eunuchs, and the royal camp was encumbered by the luxury of the
palace.  A similar temper was diffused among the subjects of the
caliph.  Their stern enthusiasm was softened by time and
prosperity. they sought riches in the occupations of industry,
fame in the pursuits of literature, and happiness in the
tranquillity of domestic life.  War was no longer the passion of
the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the repetition of
donatives, were insufficient to allure the posterity of those
voluntary champions who had crowded to the standard of Abubeker
and Omar for the hopes of spoil and of paradise.

[Footnote 50: Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330.  This confession,
the complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world, (read
Prior's verbose but eloquent poem,) and the happy ten days of the
emperor Seghed, (Rambler, No. 204, 205,) will be triumphantly
quoted by the detractors of human life. Their expectations are
commonly immoderate, their estimates are seldom impartial. If I
may speak of myself, (the only person of whom I can speak with
certainty,) my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the
scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to
add, that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the
present composition.]
     Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems
were confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the
eloquence and poetry of their native tongue.  A people
continually exposed to the dangers of the field must esteem the
healing powers of medicine, or rather of surgery; but the
starving physicians of Arabia murmured a complaint that exercise
and temperance deprived them of the greatest part of their
practice. [51] After their civil and domestic wars, the subjects
of the Abbassides, awakening from this mental lethargy, found
leisure and felt curiosity for the acquisition of profane
science.  This spirit was first encouraged by the caliph
Almansor, who, besides his knowledge of the Mahometan law, had
applied himself with success to the study of astronomy.  But when
the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the seventh of the Abbassides,
he completed the designs of his grandfather, and invited the
muses from their ancient seats.  His ambassadors at
Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt,
collected the volumes of Grecian science at his command they were
translated by the most skilful interpreters into the Arabic
language: his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these
instructive writings; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with
pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the
learned. "He was not ignorant," says Abulpharagius, "that they
are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose
lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties.
The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may glory in the
industry of their hands or the indulgence of their brutal
appetites.  Yet these dexterous artists must view, with hopeless
emulation, the hexagons and pyramids of the cells of a beehive:
[52] these fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior
fierceness of the lions and tigers; and in their amorous
enjoyments they are much inferior to the vigor of the grossest
and most sordid quadrupeds.  The teachers of wisdom are the true
luminaries and legislators of a world, which, without their aid,
would again sink in ignorance and barbarism." [53] The zeal and
curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of the
line of Abbas: their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the
Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, as well as
the commanders of the faithful; the same royal prerogative was
claimed by their independent emirs of the provinces; and their
emulation diffused the taste and the rewards of science from
Samarcand and Bochara to Fez and Cordova.  The vizier of a sultan
consecrated a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the
foundation of a college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an
annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars.  The fruits of
instruction were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six
thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to
that of the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the
indigent scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors
was repaid with adequate stipends.  In every city the productions
of Arabic literature were copied and collected by the curiosity
of the studious and the vanity of the rich.  A private doctor
refused the invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the
carriage of his books would have required four hundred camels.
The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred
thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound,
which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of
Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can
believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six
hundred thousand volumes, forty-four of which were employed in
the mere catalogue.  Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent
towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia, had given birth to more
than three hundred writers, and above seventy public libraries
were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom.  The age of
Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the
great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and
most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of
science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental
studies have languished and declined. [54]
[Footnote 51: The Guliston (p. 29) relates the conversation of
Mahomet and a physician, (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius,
Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 814.) The prophet himself was skilled
in the art of medicine; and Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p.
394 - 405) has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant
under his name.]

[Footnote 52: See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist.
des Insectes, tom. v. Memoire viii.) These hexagons are closed by
a pyramid; the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid,
such as would accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity
possible of materials, were determined by a mathematician, at 109
degrees 26 minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for the
smaller.  The actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70
degrees 32 minutes.  Yet this perfect harmony raises the work at
the expense of the artist he bees are not masters of transcendent
geometry.]

[Footnote 53: Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H.
462, A.D. 069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160) with
this curious passage, as well as with the text of Pocock's
Specimen Historiae Arabum.  A number of literary anecdotes of
philosophers, physicians, &c., who have flourished under each
caliph, form the principal merit of the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius.]
[Footnote 54: These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p. 38, 71, 201, 202,) Leo
Africanus, (de Arab. Medicis et Philosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xiii. p. 259 - 293, particularly p. 274,) and
Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 274, 275, 536, 537,) besides
the chronological remarks of Abulpharagius.]
     In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the
far greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only
of local value or imaginary merit. [55] The shelves were crowded
with orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and
manners of their countrymen; with general and partial histories,
which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest of
persons and events; with codes and commentaries of jurisprudence,
which derived their authority from the law of the prophet; with
the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox tradition; and with
the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics, scholastics, and
moralists, the first or the last of writers, according to the
different estimates of sceptics or believers.  The works of
speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physic.  The sages of
Greece were translated and illustrated in the Arabic language,
and some treatises, now lost in the original, have been recovered
in the versions of the East, [56] which possessed and studied the
writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, of
Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. [57] Among the ideal systems
which have varied with the fashion of the times, the Arabians
adopted the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible or
alike obscure for the readers of every age.  Plato wrote for the
Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with
the language and religion of Greece.  After the fall of that
religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity,
prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects, and their
founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain
to the Latin schools. [58] The physics, both of the Academy and
the Lycaeum, as they are built, not on observation, but on
argument, have retarded the progress of real knowledge.  The
metaphysics of infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been
enlisted in the service of superstition.  But the human faculties
are fortified by the art and practice of dialectics; the ten
predicaments of Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas, [59]
and his syllogism is the keenest weapon of dispute.  It was
dexterously wielded in the schools of the Saracens, but as it is
more effectual for the detection of error than for the
investigation of truth, it is not surprising that new generations
of masters and disciples should still revolve in the same circle
of logical argument. The mathematics are distinguished by a
peculiar privilege, that, in the course of ages, they may always
advance, and can never recede.  But the ancient geometry, if I am
not misinformed, was resumed in the same state by the Italians of
the fifteenth century; and whatever may be the origin of the
name, the science of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian
Diophantus by the modest testimony of the Arabs themselves. [60]
They cultivated with more success the sublime science of
astronomy, which elevates the mind of man to disdain his
diminutive planet and momentary existence.  The costly
instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph Almamon,
and the land of the Chaldaeans still afforded the same spacious
level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, and a
second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians accurately
measured a degree of the great circle of the earth, and
determined at twenty-four thousand miles the entire circumference
of our globe. [61] From the reign of the Abbassides to that of the
grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the aid of
glasses, were diligently observed; and the astronomical tables of
Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand, [62] correct some minute errors,
without daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without
advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar system.  In
the Eastern courts, the truths of science could be recommended
only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would have been
disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or honesty by the vain
predictions of astrology. [63] But in the science of medicine, the
Arabians have been deservedly applauded.  The names of Mesua and
Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian
masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty
physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession:
[64] in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to
the skill of the Saracens, [65] and the school of Salerno, their
legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of
the healing art. [66] The success of each professor must have been
influenced by personal and accidental causes; but we may form a
less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of anatomy, [67]
botany, [68] and chemistry, [69] the threefold basis of their
theory and practice.  A superstitious reverence for the dead
confined both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dissection of
apes and quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known
in the time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame
was reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern
artists.  Botany is an active science, and the discoveries of the
torrid zone might enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two
thousand plants.  Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted
in the temples and monasteries of Egypt; much useful experience
had been acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures; but
the science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the
industry of the Saracens.  They first invented and named the
alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances
of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and
affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous
minerals into soft and salutary medicines.  But the most eager
search of Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and
the elixir of immortal health: the reason and the fortunes of
thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchemy, and the
consummation of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of
mystery, fable, and superstition.

[Footnote 55: The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial will give a
just idea of the proportion of the classes.  In the library of
Cairo, the Mss of astronomy and medicine amounted to 6500, with
two fair globes, the one of brass, the other of silver, (Bibliot.
Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 417.)]

[Footnote 56: As, for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh
books (the eighth is still wanting) of the Conic Sections of
Apollonius Pergaeus, which were printed from the Florence Ms.
1661, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 559.) Yet the fifth
book had been previously restored by the mathematical divination
of Viviani, (see his Eloge in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 59, &c.)]
[Footnote 57: The merit of these Arabic versions is freely
discussed by Renaudot, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 812 -
816,) and piously defended by Casiri, (Bibliot. Arab. Hispana,
tom. i. p. 238 - 240.) Most of the versions of Plato, Aristotle,
Hippocrates, Galen, &c., are ascribed to Honain, a physician of
the Nestorian sect, who flourished at Bagdad in the court of the
caliphs, and died A.D. 876.  He was at the head of a school or
manufacture of translations, and the works of his sons and
disciples were published under his name.  See Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 88, 115, 171 - 174, and apud Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. ii. p. 438,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p.
456,) Asseman.  (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 164,) and Casiri,
(Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251, 286 - 290, 302,
304, &c.)]
[Footnote 58: See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181, 214,
236, 257, 315, 388, 396, 438, &c.]

[Footnote 59: The most elegant commentary on the Categories or
Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical
Arrangements of Mr. James Harris, (London, 1775, in octavo,) who
labored to revive the studies of Grecian literature and
philosophy.]

[Footnote 60: Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81, 222.  Bibliot. Arab.
Hisp. tom. i. p. 370, 371.  In quem (says the primate of the
Jacobites) si immiserit selector, oceanum hoc in genere
(algebrae) inveniet.  The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is
unknown; but his six books are still extant, and have been
illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac,
(Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. iv. p. 12 - 15.)]

[Footnote 61: Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211, vers. Reiske)
describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best
historians.  This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal
or Hashemite cubits which Arabia had derived from the sacred and
legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is
repeated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems
to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East.
See the Metrologie of the laborions.  M. Paucton, p. 101 - 195.]
[Footnote 62: See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the
preface of Dr. Hyde in the first volume of his Syntagma
Dissertationum, Oxon. 1767.]
[Footnote 63: The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar,
and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most
certain predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter
and the sun, (Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161 - 163.) For the state
and science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin, (Voyages en
Perse, tom. iii. p. 162 - 203.)]

[Footnote 64: Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438.  The
original relates a pleasant tale of an ignorant, but harmless,
practitioner.]
[Footnote 65: In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was
cured by the physicians of Cordova, (Mariana, l. viii. c. 7, tom.
i. p. 318.)]
[Footnote 66: The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the
Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and
judgment by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. iii.
p. 932 - 940) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
p. 119 - 127.)]

[Footnote 67: See a good view of the progress of anatomy in
Wotton, (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208 -
256.) His reputation has been unworthily depreciated by the wits
in the controversy of Boyle and Bentley.]

[Footnote 68: Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 275.  Al
Beithar, of Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into
Africa, Persia, and India.]
[Footnote 69: Dr. Watson, (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17,
&c.) allows the original merit of the Arabians.  Yet he quotes
the modest confession of the famous Geber of the ixth century,
(D'Herbelot, p. 387,) that he had drawn most of his science,
perhaps the transmutation of metals, from the ancient sages.
Whatever might be the origin or extent of their knowledge, the
arts of chemistry and alchemy appear to have been known in Egypt
at least three hundred years before Mahomet, (Wotton's
Reflections, p. 121 - 133.  Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens et
les Chinois, tom. i. p. 376 - 429.)
     Note: Mr. Whewell (Hist. of Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p.
336) rejects the claim of the Arabians as inventors of the
science of chemistry. "The formation and realization of the
notions of analysis and affinity were important steps in chemical
science; which, as I shall hereafter endeavor to show it remained
for the chemists of Europe to make at a much later period." - M.]

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Juan Rodriguez" <juanrod en geo.ucm.es>
To: <escepticos en ccdis.dis.ulpgc.es>
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 4:46 PM
Subject: Re: [escepticos] conexion entre escritos cananeos-antiguo
testamento


> Por cierto, ¿qué hay de verdadero en lo de las quemas de la Biblioteca?
> por ahí he leído también que fue algo tan mítico como el propio incendio
> de Roma por parte de Nerón.
>
> Saludos.
> Juan
>
> J.S. wrote:
>
> > No estoy muy seguro de que las religiones merezcan ser estudiadas con
> > ese propósito. En todo caso, como una parte de la historia, aunque lo
> > mejor que se puede hacer con las religiones es lamentar que hayan
> > existido, y sobre todo, que persistan, e ignorarlas, desecharlas como
> > escoria histórica. Y olvidarlas. Cuenta Gibbon que, en una de las
> > quemas de libros de la Biblioteca de Alejandría, se perdieron miles de
> > rollos sobre la controversia monofisita... Pues tampoco se perdió
> > tanto, me parece. Como si se llega a perder la controversia íntegra,
> > vamos. Que no importa en absoluto, pues sólo 'cuatro gatos' la habrían
> > echado de menos para sus cábalas bizantinas.
> >
> > Esos estudios son, en mi opinión, una pérdida de tiempo y de esfuerzo
> > dignos de mejor causa. Claro, que cada cual tiene sus aficiones. Cosa
> > de la diversidad...
> >
> > Saludos
> >
> > Javier
> >
>
>