Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/284

 1284 Zerachia ben Isaac from Barcelona translated Ibn Rushd's commentaries on the Physics, the MataphysicsMetaphysics [sic], and the treatises de coelo and de mundo. Rènan has drawn attention to the fact that the same works are translated again and again, sometimes by translators who were very nearly contemporary and lived in the same neighbourhood. Evidently these translations did not quickly enter into wide circulation, and it does not seem that the task of the translator was held in any great esteem; it was regarded as a purely mechanical work, and not credited with any literary possibilities.

Early in the 14th century Kalonymos b. Kalonymos b. Meir translated Ibn Rushd's commentaries on the Topica, Sophistica, and analytica Posteriora (completed 1314); then his commentaries on the Physica, MataphysicsMetaphysics [sic], de coelo and de mundo, de generatione and de corruptione, and the Meteora (completed 1317), and followed these by a translation of the Destruction of the Destruction. An independent Hebrew translation of this latter work was made about the same time by Kalonymos b. David b. Todros. About 1321 Rabbi Samuel ben Jehuda ben Meshullam at Marseilles prepared Hebrew versions of Ibn Rushd's commentaries on the Nicomachæan Ethics and his paraphrase of the Republic of Plato, which was regarded by the Arabic writers as part of the Aristotelian canon. It is rather interesting to note that somewhere about the same time Juda ben Moses ben Daniel of Rome prepared a Hebrew translation of de substantia