An Unpublished Autograph Fragment of Maimonides's "Guide of the Perplexed" Author(s): Simon Hopkins and Maimonides Reviewed work(s): Source:

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 50, No. 3 (1987), pp. 465-469 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/617737 . Accessed: 08/05/2012 00:49
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AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENT OF MAIMONIDES'S GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED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 a different Geniza collection: 2 (i) The first discovery was made at the beginning of the century by H. Hirschfeld, who identified two 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 Cairo Geniza at Cambridge.IV. Two autograph fragments of Maimonides' Dalalat al Hairin.' 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 Mosseri collection in Cairo. A reproduction of fol. 2v was published by J. Mosseri himself in the Jewish Review, IV, 21, 1913, facing p. 210 and again in uyi nMrTr7, i, 1919-20, facing p. 29. The full fragment was presented, with a Tarbiz plate of the same fol. 2v, by D. Yellin, "?'~nnin w IT. In=t t'l' "'lw I, 3, 1929-30, 93-106. The text covered runs continuously from Book I, ch. 17 to ch. 21. (iii) In 1946 M. Lutzki announced in Hatekufah, xxx-xxxI, 685 that 'a short time ago' he had identified an additional leaf of the Guide in the E. N. Adler Collection held at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Photographs of the fragment were first published by S. D. Sassoon in P1. XLVI of his detailed discussion of Maimonidean autographs which forms the Introduction to Maimonidis Commentariusin Mischnam... Vol. I, Corpus Codicum 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 the one 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 the John Rylands University Library', BJRL, 67, 1985, 711-17. The text represented 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 never took place and the fragment remains available only in facsimile.4 Since all autographs of Maimonides are of interest in themselves, particularly in the case of a work as significant as the Guide, and since such pieces are important firsthand sources for the study of Judaeo-Arabic, it seems worthwhile to carry out Lutzki'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 a confusion here. The present ENA 3198 seems to contain only four items, none of 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, 159-61. 97, 1984, 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 Yearbook 1977-8 of the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1979), 107.

466

SIMON HOPKINS

Hebrew manuscriptsin the collection of Elkan Nathan Adler (Cambridge, 1921), 110 there are six items subsumed under the shelfmark 3198, but the descriptions of 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', is in 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 our Maimonidean autograph and describing it as 'Tafsir'; Adler and Lutzki were evidently not speaking of the same manuscript. Be that as it may, the fragment in question is now found in the ENA 'Maimonides Album'.6 The portion of the Guiderepresented by the Adler-Lutzki autograph begins halfway through Book I, ch. 2 and continues to the end of ch. 3. According to the printed editions there are missing between the end of the recto and the beginning of the versoapproximately 70 words, i.e. + 6 lines of manuscript text. This gives us a reconstructed full page of + 25 lines. A page of this size fits very well in all respects with the Mosseri-Yellin leaves; the first of the two MosseriYellin folios (Book I: 17-21), which in Maimonides's original codex stood 7 or 8 folios after the Adler fragment published here (Book I: 2-3), contains 25 and 26 lines on the recto and the verso respectively. It seems, therefore, that we are dealing here with remnants of a single manuscript containing leaves of uniform size. Indeed, one may go further and state that all known autograph fragments of 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 he wrote 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 are few and insignificant, a circumstance which emphasizes the important fact that the manuscript (and printed) tradition of Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed is in general a very faithful reflection of what the Sage of Fustat himself wrote. ENA Maimonides Album (3198.5?): recto
l[[ -]i [
0bt

3 .1 'Y91Y81 :n :'U5K:

'IY7;' sp['

nn""

jp] tp .2

mNwl?K inimpv] .3 m' 6l[hl. nn 'l -i"vp -m 1K K1 n;h,psa*[? m fnm ['lp. h;[: nn: snY a1 .] 4 n~p .nKrKI ninpmnl i y fo s[nll On":w];;["sa] *5 "rsY mznp&nl bp' a an h n ];-l[.v] .6 01 NY: .'' []':.. M Nn ':.:p x ..t~ n'K [1K. i : [in](na)5=XK nsnn pIo5r nt ii'nsa buy [mnldri nn l[n] h7
cft 9 nRa, lYn x 3n 5I ;li xK yBpn CX2 npap "iY *9

npol nnmn noKn nwin -14s ] nT1n kt1 n"Sm 1: *o10 :,o a". s m nx na - vnn . [1a2lnrpmn nlmpm ;rnh.x .11

at12 Xw ;1-nW y?2tK * n1?y? [1N]"xbl nli1N? CII Pn1?ens> na [nlt~;;n ~m inntmnm mn 3&l nbi[hpl] KrX *.13 lP ' l * ? l] nnlm *.14 D ta :OK Da trw nnai[rl] [ln pnl]n l
5

36-8.

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

6 I am grateful to Professor M. Schmelzer, Librarian of the JTS for locating the fragment, me a photographic reproduction and granting permission for the text to be published here. sending 7 Pace B. Chapira, REJ, 99, 1935, 11.

PLATE I

ENA MAIMONIDES ALBUM(3198.5?): recto

BSOAS. LI

II PLATE

ALBUM(3198.5?): verso ENA MAIMONIDES

BSOAS. L]

AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENTOF MAIMONIDES'SGUIDE

467
;Ib .15
.16

[1r]Xsp ;88
[p]"% p t?L7X
[

-'jK i w17m
Il-!w-

;iln 7iwxK[fK j1?7 t?sp' ;nr

[hj1 i1psp ;n;nid]r "n ^: :1:1 nn Ka1?

plr

t71 71

[n5I :rpn] 87ltW n[NSIp' Xt7I vnz aK-b

-.17

ENA Maimonides Album (3198.5?): verso

]-[+

]a

,2

ynn'xm lnrn [rnnJnl

'n: ':

r nl),
^s5 ]

mn3:a 7 no '"t3 1[n"]

h i] ;f .3
*.4

rawln [tin: o1?' nnKI n"x:KI [b] "rnz*io [hx ;1:na nxsnI
n'in Qx 1ynpn ;1] Ia pra

[bnini nr',nn:i1,] "rrtnl71 sannn, ',nz n:,r i rb' ' n',n nx, 7Iyan nrnin rnK 7p .8 h[e]k Dn3ann xip],i [n1hin wr nrp3n [il q:: -n&ts7D nrzrn jpi -inn nxTn nnx .9 bDw min ^z a1Ni *10 niMK in rinSnIYm Yspin nb 1i1l y .11 y 1nz -KfK nil= -7-K mX 'X ln mn1H3z ,4y
nD"Dmn;nityr ' YK 1n75X ihX5 OKinbKa n;1no1?
/ I

*sulu IK Xr' *5 IN 1?^ *6 ;yKx nn,lm .7

'WK *13
Inf .14

Y n? n '7 1tm *15 bI mDrm D ;l1nXl nIt-IIb [IUIX X tY '7 K 1S p 7Kp?I nil lD K .15 XK j 9n1p imn [ltl5i "nnn ' i l n1,'5 nl nTn) tDywn .16 [NX5i i'[ ip.S ' j15K1i 1n'In rnK'

',p,'
z mn y7a5n

,a:,K ',] '1'Y 'kina ':,m ,3~, ,3, 'h[1:] n3[r:n] *.7
nH%D[ra n p n-;<rt pn'N [yb] .18

[Ztont]i 5psj,X n3ayn ti'A-.'. ni[lhnnl

p n3l]an ;rYn nrrDbmp n5x[nhx] *19

5[S
Notes and variants

r"1]" ,1 nx7

n;n[nrl] .20 prnm

M = Le Guide des Egares. Traite de Theologie et de Philosophiepar Moise ben Maimoun dit Maimonide, publie pour la premiere fois dans l'original arabe... par S. Munk, I, Paris, 1856.

, :,^ui J = ,wa11n' oN,.LItM 1:: 13::1" (:1'':3 n;l'l: 1DO) fi?~`nL,K l f 0 '-"T nr)ln10*lD ;5K 1 na5I nKxfl{ 'Db ?2F1zl 8ipnan ;Ml.n..o p3iaf
r":11 ,'lM 1f" "T'n-71

'"Y , Jerusalem, 1931.

Q =

"alin,:otln m11pn ,nlm

nDtKp -1n "m:

np t3 w: mn'n 'nSl -t ,'3in3n nnir ,jlrn 1:

Vol. i, Jerusalem, 1972.

qOP..**.n"ma1,

468

SIMON HOPKINS

A = Delalet'ii 1-Hairin, Filozof Musa ibn Meymun el-Kurtubi 11351205... Prof. Dr. Hiiseyin Atay, Ankara Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlar 93, Ankara, 1974 (edition of a manuscript of the Guidein Arabic script).

Recto M 14a/20-14b/12 J 17/1-17/14 Q 28/8-28/29 A 30/11-31/6 1.3 1.4. ?tkRw'?h: MJQA %nrnSK. n"r7pyxK ?ttRnI: MJQA ?wKnl.The form is hardly 1st person sing. of the imperfect; it is the imperative with prosthetic aleph, for which see J. Blau, A grammar of mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic (2nd ed. Jerusalem, 1980) 77.
n'7y: MJQA an

1.5. 1.7.

"'rny.

[n](nK):nK: MJQA nbXK . Maimonides corrected nxbis 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 -at forms of verbaIIIw/y than in his early works, cf. J. Blau, The emergence and linguistic background of Judaeo-Arabic (2nd ed. Jerusalem, 1981) 230. nIy: MJQ trip'y, A e .

1.12.

Verso M 14b/ 19-15b/l J 17/+19-18/14 Q 29/ 7-30/15 A31/+11-32/15 11.1-3. The writing here is smaller than in the rest of the fragment and extends further into the margin; hence there was very likely space enough for the restoration proposed for line 3. 1.5. 1tn3:NsK 'I: MJQA,"rInk'I:aX rIK 'S, an uninteresting variant which occurs elsewhere, e.g. Hirschfeld, JQR, xv, 679, n. 9; Q(afih) 29, n. 2.

1.7.

b ; KNfl'-1, but for this there is not enough Kn'l1: MJQA TZxK space in the autograph (unless one assumes that %KxnKX 1n was added in the margin).
MJQA omit. 'KpRI: omit (A XS (!),' MJQA 93z: J' ).

1.9.

AN UNPUBLISHED AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENTOF MAIMONIDES'SGUIDE

469

1.10 1.11 1.12. 1.14.': 1.16. 1.17.

rni'Kx: MJQA }bgltKO . MJQA nil. ;rbKtK:a p lu?nn 'liK

1Rv?z nPn: MJQ 'zIn

tD.
*li seems to have been ": (A s)

;nlin, A j L;3 .
x DnTN"NI

altered from

'i:i .

MJQA add nn3n :Z nmnun: A; izl ,',

1:1.

J j.

iJ.

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

1.18
1.19

rn'T: rnanlx7 nprpnpntK

MJQA'1-r?x

K. "p'pn'K t1wOn

'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.