Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/30

10 The date of composition of the Peraḳim cannot be accurately determined. All that can be said is that it was written sometime between 1158 and 1165, along with the rest of the commentary on the Mishnah, which was made public in 1168. As to the translation, the only source of information regarding its date is the manuscript Parma R. 438⁶, which in a note states that the Commentary on Abot was translated by Samuel ibn Tibbon in Tebet 963, which is the year 1202.

Although written originally as an introduction to the commentary on the Pirḳe Abot, for the purpose of explaining in advance problems that Maimonides brings up in the course of his commentary, the Peraḳim form in themselves a complete system of psychology and ethics, so much so that Rosin, in writing on this phase of Maimonides’ activity, uses them as a basis of his discussion in the first half of his Ethik, in which he takes up Maimonides’ general ethics. They do not, however, form an exhaustive treatment of this subject, as Maimonides