A Hitherto Unknown Greek Translation of Al-Majūsī’s Kāmil ṣināʿa al-ṭibbiyya Discovered in MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Suppl. Gr. 638: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The main objective of the current paper is to offer a preliminary study of a hitherto unknown Byzantine translation of al-Majūsī’s Kitāb al-malakī preserved in a single manuscript: MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, supplément grec 638 (fourteenth century). After a brief introduction, the Paris manuscript is presented and described, and its content – a Greek translation of the first part of al-Majūsī’s Kitāb al-malakī – identified. The study then focuses on John Dioikêtês of Constantinople, responsible for the Greek text, showing that it is no less than the translator of the Arabic work as well as the copyist of the manuscript. The last part formulates an hypothesis as to where the manuscript could have been produced, and gives some details on its subsequent story. An Appendix compares Greek text samples of the Paris manuscript with Arabic text samples of the Kitāb al-malakī (based on two editions and a manuscript), showing that the Greek text is a translation of the Arabic.