Syriac physician, educated at Alexandria, who translated Galen and other Greek works into Syriac and wrote Syriac treatises on Aristotle’s Categories and on the aim of Aristotle’s writings, early links in the chain that carried Greek logic and medicine to Baghdad.
Life
Sergius was regularly styled archiatros, ‘chief physician’, of Reshʿaynā. He was evidently educated at Alexandria, in medicine among other subjects; the Stanford Encyclopedia names him as a former student of Ammonius. Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch, sent him with a letter to Pope Agapetus, and he died suddenly at Constantinople on the return journey in 536.
He translated a wide range of Greek works into Syriac: in theology the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite and possibly Evagrius’ Gnostic Chapters; in medicine a number of Galen’s treatises (about thirty, according to D’Ancona), of which only a few survive; in philosophy the pseudo-Aristotelian On the Universe and a work on the causes of the universe now identified as Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On the Principles of the All, lost in Greek and preserved only in Arabic. In logic he wrote two treatises of his own, both still unedited: one on Aristotle’s Categories addressed to Philotheos, and one ‘On the aim of all Aristotle’s writings’ addressed to Theodore. The Stanford Encyclopedia describes the first as a larger commentary on the Categories. Older attributions to him of the Syriac translations of Porphyry’s Isagoge and of the Categories are now known to be incorrect (Brock).
His work belongs to the Syriac learning that the Arabic translators of the ninth and tenth centuries inherited. Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq, in his famous letter on the translations of Galen, credits Sergius with a considerable number of Syriac versions, and the Syriac scholarship he represents continued under Umayyad rule and fed the translation movement in Baghdad (D’Ancona).
Uncertain or disputed
- Whether he studied with Ammonius himself: Brock says only that he was evidently educated at Alexandria; the Stanford Encyclopedia entries on Ammonius and on Greek sources in Arabic call him a student of Ammonius.
- The attribution to him of the unexpurgated Syriac version of Evagrius’ Gnostic Chapters rests on a passage in Yawsep Ḥazzaya (Brock).
- No Arabic form of his name is given here, since none was found in the sources consulted for this page.
Works
- Treatise on the Categories, addressed to Philotheos — op AristotelesIn Syriac; unpublished, partly studied by Henri Hugonnard-Roche.werk
- On the aim of all Aristotle’s writings, addressed to Theodore — op AristotelesIn Syriac; unedited; prologue and book I studied by Hugonnard-Roche.werk
- Syriac translations of Galen’s medical treatises — op GalenListed by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq; only a few survive.vertaling
- Syriac translation of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On the Principles of the All — op Alexander of AphrodisiasThe Greek original is lost; the work survives in Arabic.vertaling
Reception
Gabriel Qaṭraya cites his Treatise on the Spiritual Life in his Commentary on the Liturgy, though not by name (Brock).
Sources (3)