Arabic nuṭfah
and Syriac nuṭptā in Avicenna’s and Barhebraeus’s Works
Substantial Change, Embryology, and Ensoulment
Florian U.
Jäckel
Schloss Dagstuhl LZI
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James E. Walters
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2023
Volume 26.2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv26n2jackel
Florian U. Jäckel
Arabic nuṭfah
and Syriac nuṭptā in Avicenna’s and Barhebraeus’s Works:
Substantial Change, Embryology, and Ensoulment
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol26/HV26N2Jackel.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2023
vol 26
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pp 377-414
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
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Bar Hebraeus
Souls
Ensoulment
Philosophy
Arabic
File created by James E. Walters
Abstract
This article analyzes how the Syriac word for ‘drop,’ nuṭptā, was used by Barhebraeus (1226–1286) with the
meaning of ‘drop of semen’ or ‘sperm drop.’ The term appears in Barhebraeus’s
writings within broader exami-nations of substantial change, embryology, and
ensoulment. I argue that Barhebraeus received the term in this sense from
Avicenna (ca. 980–1037), including the latter’s concept of substantial change.
While Barhebraeus’s reception of Avicenna’s philosophy has implications for his
position regarding the time of ensoulment of the unborn, the independence of
Barhebraeus’s embryology will also become apparent. The paper thus contributes
to research on notions of the unborn in both Arabic and especially Syriac
literature and the investigation of Barhebraeus’s creative appropriation of
Avicennan philosophy. These two aspects are connected by analyzing the critical
term nuṭptā/nuṭfah.
Bar ʿEḇrāyā (1226–1286), also known as Barhebraeus, is a
significant representative of the so-called Syriac Renaissance (ca. 1100–1300),
in which new intellectual developments by Muslim authors and thinkers were
integrated into the Syriac learned and literary tradition. See Herman Teule, “The
Interaction of Syriac Christianity and the Muslim World in the Period of
the Syriac Renaissance,” in Syriac Churches
Encountering Islam: Past Experiences and Future Perspectives,
ed. Dietmar W. Winkler (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2010). For a
comprehensive overview of Barhebraeus’s works, see Hidemi Takahashi, Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias, 2013). If not stated otherwise, for most Syriac sources and
their authors mentioned in this paper, a brief overview is openly
accessible in George A. Kiraz, ed., Gorgias
Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic
Edition, accessed October 20, 2022,
https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/index.html. For the area of philosophy,
the same holds true for Edward N. Zalta, ed., Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed October 20, 2022,
https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html. In Barhebraeus’s
reception of Islamic Vorlagen and ideas, Ibn Sīnā (ca.
980–1037), also known as Avicenna, looms large. For Barhebraeus’s reception of Islamic
philosophy, see, e.g., Hidemi Takahashi, “The Reception of Ibn Sīnā in
Syriac: The Case of Gregory Barhebraeus,” in Before
and After Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the
Avicenna Study Group, ed. David C. Reisman, with the assistance
of Ahmed H. Al‑Rahim (Leiden: Brill, 2003) and id., “Reception of
Islamic Theology among Syriac Christians in the Thirteenth Century: The
Use of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in Barhebraeus’ Candelabrum of the Sanctuary,” Intellectual
History of the Islamicate World 2 (2014): 170–192. For
Avicenna, see Jon McGinnis, Avicenna, Great
Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Dimitri
Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition:
Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works, Second, Revised and Enlarged Edition, Including an
Inventory of Avicenna’s Authentic Works (Leiden: Brill,
2014). As an example of this reception, I will analyze here
how the Syriac word for ‘drop,’ nuṭptā, was used by
Barhebraeus with the meaning of ‘drop of semen’ or ‘sperm drop.’ The term
appears in Barhebraeus’s writings within broader examinations of substantial
change, embryology, and ensoulment. I will argue that Barhebraeus received the
term in this sense from Avicenna, including the latter’s concept of substantial
change. While Barhebraeus’s reception of Avicenna’s philosophy has implications
for his position regarding the time of ensoulment of the unborn, the
independence of Barhebraeus’s embryology will also become clear. The paper thus
contributes to research on notions of the unborn in both Arabic and especially
Syriac literature as well as the investigation of Barhebraeus’s creative
appropriation of Avicennan philosophy. These two aspects are connected by
analyzing the key term nuṭptā/nuṭfah.
The first part of this paper will examine key passages from
Barhebraeus’s works that highlight the major contours of his thoughts in
connection with the Syriac term nuṭptā. This discussion
will provide a foundation for the second part, in which I will investigate the
correspondence of these passages to sections in Avicenna’s writings, including
key differences between the authors. In the third and last step, I will trace
the development of the term nuṭptā beginning with
pre-Islamic Syriac literature. As a whole, I will argue that Barhebraeus adapted
the Arabic term nuṭfah and the underlying philosophical
concepts and integrated this into his synthesis of embryological ideas.
Barhebraeus’s conceptions of substantial change, embryology, and
ensoulment
I will first investigate four key passages that demonstrate how
Barhebraeus uses nuṭptā in his writings. Moving forward,
it will become clear that the term nuṭptā is directly
linked to Barhebraeus’s conceptions of substantial change, embryology, and
ensoulment. As a starting point, one can look at the shortest of Barhebraeus’s
three philosophical compendia, the Discourse of Wisdom.
In this work, the term nuṭptā for ‘sperm drop’ surfaces
in the context of a discussion of ‘coming-to-be’ and ‘passing-away’, a central
theme of natural philosophy following Aristotle:
[1] When we say that the drop (nuṭptā) becomes human, we do not mean that the drop remains what
it is nor that it vanishes in its entirety. Rather, the nature (kyānā) of the drop passes away from it and it clothes
itself with human nature. Barhebraeus, Discourse of
Wisdom 2.18 (text: Herman F. Janssens, ed., L’Entretien de la Sagesse: Introduction aux œuvres
philosophiques de Bar Hebraeus (Liège: Faculté de
Philosophie et Lettres; Paris: Librairie E. Droz, 1937), 79.5–8;
translation: ibid., 233). All translations are my own, if not stated
otherwise. For the Discourse of Wisdom, see
the introduction of Janssens’s edition. The premodern Arabic
translation of this difficult text should be taken into
consideration as well, cf. Emilio Platti, “‘L’entretien de la
sagesse’ de Barhebraeus: La traduction arabe” MIDEO 18 (1988): 153–194; Iġnāṭiyūs Afrām I Barṣaum, ed.,
L’Entretien de la sagesse par Mar Gregorius
Abulfarage Bar Hebraeus Maphrien (catholicos) syrien de
l’Orient (Homs, 1940). As Jean Fathi has recently argued,
this Arabic translation might have been undertaken by Barhebraeus
himself, cf. Jean Fathi, “Apologie et Mysticisme chez les chrétiens
d’Orient: Recherches sur al-Kindī et Barhebraeus (vers 820 &
1280)” (PhD diss., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2020), 257–259.
This will need further research. For the metaphor of clothing in the
earlier Syriac tradition, which might have inspired Barhebraeus
here, see Sebastian P. Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of
Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren
Parallelen im Mittelalter: Internationales Kolloquium, Eichstätt
1981, ed. Margot Schmidt and Carl Friedrich Geyer
(Regensburg: Pustet, 1982).
Barhebraeus illustrates here the Aristotelian notion of matter and
form: if a being ceases to be, another being originates from the same matter but
with a different form. For the concept of hylomorphism behind
coming-to-be and passing-away, see Thomas Ainsworth, “Form vs. Matter”,
substantive revision: March 25, 2020, in Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed on
October 20, 2022,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/. According to the
categories that Aristotle introduces (such as substance, quality, quantity, or
place), the change involved in this process pertains to the category of
substance. For the categories, see Paul Studtmann, “Aristotle’s Categories,” substantive revision: February 2, 2021, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed on October 20, 2022,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/. For categories
in Avicenna and post-Avicennan works see Alexander Kalbarczyk, Predication and Ontology: Studies and Texts on
Avicennian and Post-Avicennian Readings of Aristotle’s
Categories (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), with further literature
in n. 6 on p. 4. As Barhebraeus puts it, the drop does not
remain what it is. Change in other categories, on the other hand, as in quality
or quantity, does not alter the substance or being itself. A human can become
sick or healthy, bigger or smaller, while remaining human.
There is a fundamental difference between substantial change and
other kinds of change. A being can change continuously in quality or quantity.
For example, a tree grows continuously, and a stone becomes hot or cold
progressively. The term ‘gradually’ might imply a change by degrees, i.e.
step-by-step, which would thus not be continuous. The sources themselves
show some inconsistencies regarding this point (cf. text [3] below).
This is pointed out by Jens Ole Schmitt, ed., Barhebraeus, Butyrum Sapientiae, Physics: Introduction, Edition,
Translation, and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming),
section “I.4.8.5 Definitions and Categories of Motion”.
However, can a human being become more or less human? Can the sperm drop become
a human being little by little? Barhebraeus addresses this topic in a section
known as the Book of Categories in his longer
philosophical summa, the Cream of Wisdom:
[2] Change in the category of substance does not come about
through change which comes to be [or] passes away continuously (b-[ʾ]idā b-[ʾ]idā) but suddenly (menšel[y]). Such is the change of the body in respect to
reproduction: not a change of substance, but an alteration in the quality of
the seed (zarʿā) until the aptitude towards the
reception [of the new form] is perfected. Then, the form of the animate
being (ṣurat ḥayyutā) is bestowed suddenly by the
Giver of Forms. Barhebraeus, Cream of
Wisdom, Book of Categories 3.3.6. The text is not edited.
Translation based on ms. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,
Or. 69, (dated 1340), fol. 35v. The ms. forms a unit with Florence,
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Or. 83. Both are freely accessible
online. For these mss. see Hidemi Takahashi, ed., Aristotelian Meteorology in Syriac. Barhebraeus, Butyrum
Sapientiae, Books of Mineralogy and Meteorology (Leiden:
Brill, 2004), 15–16, 585–588, and 601–604. For the Cream of Wisdom in general
, see his
introduction. The idea of the right aptitude to receive the form can
also be found in Barhebraeus’s Treatise of
treatises. This, his medium-length summa, is one of the
least studied among his works; see Hidemi Takahashi, “Barhebraeus
und seine islamischen Quellen. Têḡraṯ têḡrāṯā (Tractatus tractatuum)
und Ġazālīs Maqāṣid al-falāsifa,” in Syriaca. Zur
Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen
Kirchen, ed. Martin Tamcke (Münster, Hamburg, and London:
LIT 2002). In a passage on ensoulment, Barhebraeus compares the
process to the lightening of a candle wick: if the wick has the
right quality, it is lit by the flame and thus becomes a light or
lamp. This text is not edited either; for the mentioned passage see
ms. Mardin, Chaldean Cathedral, hmml project n° CCM 00382 (dated
18th/19th century), fol. 89r–v (available online:
https://www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/132501); cf. Florian
Jäckel, “Wenn wir sagen, dass der Tropfen
Mensch wird”: Vorstellungen ungeborenen Lebens bei Bar ʿEbrāyā
(1226 –1286 n. Chr.) (Ergon: Baden-Baden, 2022), https://doi.org/10.5771/9783956509278, 268.
However, the terms semen or drop do not appear in the Treatise.
Barhebraeus states that change or movement in the Aristotelian
category of substance happens suddenly (menšel[y]). Here,
the less ambiguous term zarʿā is used for human semen.
The changes happening to the semen until it becomes an animate being are
attributed to the category of ‘quality.’ In his Book of the
Pupils of the Eye, a writing on logic, there is a parallel passage:
[3] To say that coming-to-be and passing-away of substance
are movements is not correct, in that movement occurs by degrees and
continuously, while coming-to-be and passing-away are sudden. Therefore, the
drop (nuṭpṯā) changes in quality and quantity in the
womb until all at once the form of humanity dawns upon it. For this reason,
it is not said that this one [i.e. an unborn child] is more human due to the
fact that he has changed more towards humanity, and that this [other] one
[i.e. another unborn] is less [human] because he has changed less towards
it. Barhebraeus, Book of the Pupils of the Eye
2.2 (“On Change”) (text: Herman F. Janssens, “Bar Hebraeus’ Book of
the Pupils of the Eye,” The American Journal of
Semitic Languages and Literatures 47, no. 1 (1930): 26–49,
47, no. 2 (1931): 94–134, 48, no. 4 (1932): 209–263, 52, no. 1
(1935): 1–21, here: 47, no. 1 (1930): 119.7–15; translation: ibid.,
52, no. 1 (1935): 15). Cf. the edition Curt Steyer, ed., Buch der Pupillen von Gregor Bar Hebräus
(Leipzig: August Pries, 1908), 8. For the Book of
the Pupils of the Eye, see the introductions of the two
editions. The question of various terms for ‘change,’ which
Barhebraeus uses (and comments upon) in his different works needs
further study. In this regard, there are two further passages in the
Cream of Wisdom: Book
on Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away 1.1.1 as well as Physics
3.4.1. These
are discussed by Schmitt, Butyrum Sapientiae,
Physics, section “I.4.8.5 Definitions and Categories of
Motion”. In what follows in the Book of
Categories of the Cream after text
[2] cited above, Barhebraeus states that substantial changes are
metaphorically called ‘jumps’ or ‘jerks’ (zuʿē) in the ‘old writings’. Originally, I had read ‘old
writings’ as Barhebraeus’s attempt to mask the origin of this
terminology of ‘jumps’ as Avicennan; cf., however, below, n.
15.
Here, as in text [1], the human seed is termed nuṭptā, and the changes it undergoes until it becomes a human being
are attributed to the categories of both quality and quantity. The end of this
passage clearly expresses the notion that the unborn can either be human or
non-human – and nothing in between. Presumably, what Barhebraeus implies with
‘more human’ and ‘less human’ is the progress of embryological development.
Ultimately, Barhebraeus’s notion of substantial change as taking
place suddenly has implications for his position regarding ensoulment as
presented in his theological writings. He wrote two theological compendia: the
extensive Candelabrum of the Sanctuary and a shorter
reworking of the Candelabrum known as the Book of Rays. The exact dating of these two works is uncertain;
cf. the chronology of Barhebraeus’s works in Takahashi, A Bio-Bibliography, 90–94. In the Candelabrum, Barhebraeus opposes the view that the human
body precedes its soul and rejects the idea that ensoulment occurs later during
pregnancy. Barhebraeus, Candelabrum of the Sanctuary
8.3.1.2 (text: Ján Bakoš, ed., Psychologie de Grégoire
Aboulfaradj dit Barhebraeus d’après la huitième base de l’ouvrage
“Le Candélabre des Sanctuaires” (Leiden: Brill, 1948), Syr.
71–72; translation: ibid., 42). For the part of the Candelabrum treating the soul, see Giuseppe Furlani,
“Barhebreo sull’ anima razionale (dal Libro del Candelabro del
Santuario)” Orientalia N. S. 1 (1932): 1–23,
97–115, the introduction in Bakoš, Psychologie de
Grégoire Aboulfaradj as well as Jobst Reller, “Iwannis von
Dara, Mose bar Kepha und Bar Hebräus über die Seele,
traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht,” in After
Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity
in Honour of Professor Han J.W. Drijvers, ed. G.J. Reinink and
A.C. Klugkist (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oosterse
Studies, 1999), 264–267. For Syriac works on the soul up until the 9th
century, see Henri Hugonnard-Roche, “La question de l’âme dans la
tradition philosophique syriaque (VIe–IXe siècle),” Studia graeco-arabica 4 (2014): 17–64. For the Greek context,
especially with reference to the ensoulment of the unborn, see
Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, L’embryon et son âme dans
les sources Grecques (viᵉ siècle av. J.-C.-vᵉ siècle apr. J.-C.)
(Paris: Association des amis du Centre d'histoire et civilisation
de Byzance, 2007) and, generally for late antiquity, id., “Debating the
Soul in Late Antiquity,” in Reproduction: Antiquity to
the Present Day, ed. Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren
Kassell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). To my knowledge,
there is no systematic study of ensoulment or the soul in later Syriac
or Christian-Arabic works. In the later Book of Rays, however, Barhebraeus writes:
[4] Regarding the simultaneity of the origination (šāwyut šwiḥutā) of soul and body: It is rightly
assumed for the time of the perfection of the body (šumlāy
pagrā), but not for the time of the establishment (tarmitā) of the sperm drop (nuṭptā). Barhebraeus, Book of
Rays 6.3.1. The Book of Rays has not
been critically edited. I translate according to ms. Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Sachau 327
(dated 17th cent.), fol. 80r–v, which is freely accessible online.
The only edition available contains an error here (as well as in
other places), cf. Yešūʿ b. Gabriel, ed., Ktābā
d-Zalgē w-šurārā d-šetēssē ʿēdtānyātā – Book of Zelge by
Bar-Hebreaus [sic]. Mor Gregorius
Abulfaraj the Great Syrian Philosopher and Author of Several
Christian Works 1226–1286 (Istanbul, 1997), 149. That there
is a difference between Barhebraeus’s position on ensoulment in the
Candelabrum and in the Book of Rays had been pointed out by Oskar Braun, ed., Moses Bar Kepha und sein Buch von der Seele
(Freiburg i. Br.: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1891), 139–140,
however without any further explanations. It is also important to
note that Barhebraeus’s principial idea of ensoulment with the body has not changed. Rather, the
notion of body as ‘completed body’ and the idea of substance have
been specified. Also, it is noteworthy that my translation of tarmitā is rather literal. The word is used
in conjunction with zarʿā, i.e. seed, to mean
sowing and in this respect also for ‘conception.’ However,
Barhebraeus renders ‘conception’ mostly as baṭnā.
Comparing this passage with texts [1]–[3] above, the implicit idea
is that the human seed cannot be substantially identical to the human being, and
the substantial change from ‘drop’ to a human being cannot happen continuously.
In Barhebraeus’s view, the reception of the human soul – understood as the human
form – occurs when the body has been completed. The interpretation of the human soul as the
substantial form of a human being is explicit in Barhebraeus, Discourse of Wisdom 2.32 (text: Janssens, L’Entretien de la Sagesse, 89.8–12; translation:
ibid., 257). This identification of soul and form is philosophically
problematic in the case of the human soul; cf., e.g., Davlat Dadikhuda,
“Not that Simple: Avicenna, Rāzī, and Ṭūsī on the Incorruptibility of
the Human Soul at Ishārāt VII.6,” in Islamic
Philosophy from the 12th to the 14th Century, ed. Abdelkader Al
Ghouz (Göttingen: V&R unipress and Bonn University Press, 2018).
Barhebraeus thus qualifies the relationship of body and soul in the same
context of the Discourse of Wisdom 2.32 as “love
and leadership” rather than “composition and mixture” (w-b-[ʾ]esārā d-šengtā w-malāḥutā w-lā hwā d-ḥabbikuta
w-da-mmazgutā).
In the Book of Rays, following text [4],
Barhebraeus interprets Leviticus 12:2–5 as a biblical proof-text for his
position. In Leviticus, the number of days determined for a mother’s
purification after birth is 40 for a boy and 80 for a girl. “If a woman conceives and
bears a male child, she shall be ceremonially unclean for seven days; as
at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. On the eighth day
the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Her time of blood
purification shall be thirty-three days; she shall not touch any holy
thing, or come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purification
are completed. If she bears a female child, she shall be unclean for two
weeks, as in her menstruation; her time of blood purification shall be
sixty-six days” (quoted according to the New Revised
Standard Version). He explains that this is equal to
the number of days the mother has carried an inanimate, dead body. In the Candelabrum, the same argument is attributed by
Barhebraeus explicitly to Philoxenos of Mabbug (before 440–523) – and
rejected. This explanation by Philoxenos is only attested indirectly as of yet.
It is mentioned, among other places, in Moses bar Kepha’s (d. 903) Mēmrā on the Soul, which is Barhebraeus’s Vorlage for the Candelabrum. Tracing Barhebraeus’s entire reworking of these
passages (first, of Moses’s Mēmrā for the Candelabrum, then the latter for the Book of Rays) is beyond the scope of this
article. At any rate, Moses and Barhebraeus mention other Greek and
Syriac authors, who either put forth the simultaneity of body and soul
or later ensoulment. For a detailed analysis of these points see chapter
4 in Florian Jäckel, “Wenn wir sagen, dass der Tropfen
Mensch wird”, 215–288. We will return to these
periods of embryological development later.
Avicenna’s notion of substantial change as Barhebraeus’s point of
reference
In the following, I will explore Avicenna as Barhebraeus’s point of
reference for texts [1]–[4] discussed above. What links the textual passages by
both authors is the illustration of the philosophical problem of substantial
change with human procreation. At the same time, differences in their notion of
embryological development will become apparent. We can identify Barhebraeus’s
reception of Avicenna as creative appropriation rather than mere adoption.
Avicenna’s understanding of substantial change was first discussed
in 2004 in an article by Jon McGinnis. Jon McGinnis, “On the Moment of Substantial
Change: A Vexed Question in the History of Ideas,” in Interpreting Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam:
Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Avicenna Study
Group, ed. Jon McGinnis (Leiden: Brill, 2004); see also id.,
Avicenna, 84–88. I would like to correct
McGinnis’s suggestion (“Moment of Substantial Change,” 56) that Avicenna
refers so substantial changes as ‘jumps’ or ‘jerks’ (Arabic iḫtilāǧāt). The passage he scrutinizes is part of
Avicenna’s treatment of the generation of twins. In this context, the
male emission of semen is described as distinct ‘jerks’ resulting in
distinct embryos, see Ursula Weisser, Zeugung,
Vererbung und pränatale Entwicklung in der Medizin des
arabisch-islamischen Mittelalters (Erlangen, 1983), 163–164 and
Johannes M. Thijssen, “Twins as Monsters: Albertus Magnus’s Theory of
the Generation of Twins and its Philosophical Context,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61, no. 2
(1987): 237–246. According to McGinnis, Avicenna offered a
novel explanation of the problem of substantial change as taking place
suddenly. McGinnis, “Moment of Substantial Change,” 42–48. In the
general treatment of physics in his Book of the Healing,
Avicenna illustrates the problem using human generation:
[5] Until the semen (manīy) becomes
an animate being (ḥayawān), other acts of
coming-to-be happen to it, which introduce changes in quality and quantity
between the two [i.e. the semen and the animate being]. The semen, then,
changes continuously little by little (lā yazāl yastaḥīl
yasīran yasīran) – while still being semen – until it comes to the
brink of being stripped of its seminal form and becomes an ʿalaqah. And such is its state until it comes to be a muḍġah. ʿAlaqah is often
translated as ‘bloodclot’ or ‘leech’ and muḍġah as ‘piece of flesh’ or ‘embryo’. It is best, I
believe, not to impose modern concepts of embryological developments
on these kinds of texts. On the other hand, Avicenna (and other
later authors) seem to treat them as technical terms for distinct
embryological stages. This is why translations that convey the
original meaning, such as ‘clinging thing’ for ʿalaqah, do not resolve this problem either. For this
reason, I have left these words untranslated. After that
bones, nerves/sinews, blood vessels and other things we do not grasp [come to be], and thus
until it receives the form of the animate being. Avicenna, Book of the Healing: Physics 2.3
(text + translation: Jon McGinnis, ed. and trans., Avicenna. The Physics of The Healing. Books I & II. A
parallel English-Arabic text (Provo, UT: Brigham Young
University Press, 2005), Arabic 141, 141. For the Book of the Healing, see Gutas, Avicenna
and the Aristotelian Tradition, 103–115.
We know that Barhebraeus extensively used Avicenna’s Book of the Healing for the Cream of
Wisdom and his other works. For the
Book of the Healing as Vorlage for
Barhebraeus’s
Cream of
Wisdom,
see Takahashi, Aristotelian Meteorology in Syriac, 11–14 and 48–50. The
present case is also an example of Barhebraeus’s rearrangement of
material in his sources: Avicenna had come to the conclusion that the
question of movement and change should not be dealt with within logic,
i.e. the Categories; cf. Avicenna, Kitāb aš-Šifāʾ,
al-manṭiq 2, al-Maqūlāt, ed. al-Ab
Qanawātī [=George Anawati] et al. (Cairo: Dār al-kātib al-ʿarabī
li-ṭ-ṭibāʿah wa-n-našr, 1959), 271.3–9. He only mentions that changes in
substance are to be treated differently than in other categories; ibid.,
271.11–12. Accordingly, Avicenna treats the question in the Physics of the Healing;
cf. Paul Thom, “The division of the categories according to Avicenna,”
in Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition, ed. Ahmed
Alwishah and Josh Hayes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015),
38. In the Cream of Wisdom
(text [2] above), Barhebraeus reverts to treating the problem in
the Book of Categories, but he uses Avicenna’s
correspondent text from the Physics of the Book of the Healing (text [5]). In
this case, too, there are several points in which the quotations from
Barhebraeus’s works given above overlap with what Avicenna states in text [5].
One general agreement between the texts cited is to use human generation as a
prime example of the underlying issue of substantial change. Regarding
terminology, in text [5], Avicenna uses the Arabic word manīy, ‘the ejaculate,’ which is often used in a more technical sense
than the figurative term nuṭfah, ‘(sperm) drop.’
Barhebraeus accordingly uses the Syriac word zarʿā,
‘seed’ in text [2]. There seems to be no direct equivalent for Arabic
manīy in Syriac, apart from verbal
expressions using the root r-m-y with the general
meaning of ‘to throw’ as well as ‘to set.’ To this effect, Barhebraeus’s
use of the cognate tarmitā in text [4] above is
noteworthy. In general, the texts I looked at do not seem to provide a
consistent terminology with regard to the semen. In specific passages,
the male and female contributions to generation are meticulously
distinguished, functionally and terminologically, and later referred to
again as the ‘two seeds;’ cf. also Weisser, Zeugung,
Vererbung und pränatale Entwicklung, 117–140. I will
later point out other instances where Avicenna uses
nuṭfah that correspond to Barhebraeus’s usage of
nuṭptā. Moreover, the changes happening to the semen are described in
the quotations by the two authors as both qualitative and quantitative. Only
when matter undergoes these continuous changes in the categories of quality and
quantity and is thus prepared or suitable does it receive a new form. Avicenna
adds:
[6] However, the outer appearance of the situation suggests
that this is a single process from one substantial form to another
substantial form and makes one believe therefore that there is motion [i.e.
change] (ḥarakah) in the [category of] substance,
when this is not the case. Rather, there are many motions and rests. Avicenna,
Book of the Healing: Physics 2.3
(text + translation: McGinnis, The Physics of The
Healing, 141, Arabic 141).
Although the term ‘sudden’ does not appear here, Avicenna’s
underlying notion of substantial change becomes apparent. He conceives the
motion or change (ḥarakah) in the category of substance
as sudden and there is no substantial change in between, i.e. the process of
substantial change comes to a rest. This marks yet another point of intersection
between Avicenna and Barhebraeus, and the final one explored here.
However, there is also an essential difference between the two
authors’ accounts. Avicenna mentions further embryological stages apart from the
semen, namely ʿalaqah and muḍġah,
as well as bones, nerves, and blood vessels. Most of these terms are found in
the Quran and later Islamic religious texts such as Hadith. I specifically refer to ʿalaqah and muḍġah.
Naturally, bones and nerves/sinews appear in medical texts as well, but
figure in Hadith texts, too. In general, cf. Quran 23:12–14 as an
example. A key text is one of the Forty Ḥadiths
by an-Nawawī (1233–1277): “Indeed, each one of you—his figure/creation
(ḫalq) is gathered in the belly of his mother
for forty days as a drop (nuṭfah), then it is
(yakūn) a ʿalaqah
likewise [i.e. forty days?], then it is a muḍġah
likewise [i.e. forty days?], then the angel is sent to him and he blows
into him the spirit (rūḥ) […];” translated
according to Muḥammad b. Sālih al-ʿUṯaymīn, Šarḥ
al-arbaʿīn an-nawawīyah (Riyadh: Dār aṯ-ṯurayyā li-n-našr
wa-tawzīʿ, 2004), 99. For an-Nawawī, see Fachrizal A. Halim, Legal Authority in Premodern Islam. Yaḥyā b. Sharaf
al-Nawawī in the Shāfiʿī School of Law (London: Routledge,
2015), 14–34. For research on the unborn in Islamic religious texts see
Thomas Eich, “Induced Miscarriage in Early Mālikī and Ḥanafī Fiqh,” Islamic Law and
Society 16 (2009): 302–336; id., “Patterns in the History of
the Commentation on the So-Called ḥadīth Ibn
Masʿūd,”
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 18 (2018):
137–162; id., “Zur Abtreibung in frühen islamischen Texten,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft 170, no. 2 (2020): 345–360; and Marion Holmes
Katz, “The Problem of Abortion in Classical Sunni fiqh,” in Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion,
War, and Euthanasia, ed. Jonathan E. Brockopp (Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003). Barhebraeus, on
the other hand, only refers to a seed (zarʿā) or a drop
(nuṭptā), which eventually becomes a human being (or
an animate being more generally).
This difference in embryological terminology between the passages
cited is not an isolated case. For comparison, one can consider Barhebraeus’s
description of procreation and embryological development in the zoological part
of the Cream of Wisdom. As is the case elsewhere, his
primary point of reference is Avicenna’s Book of the
Healing, juxtaposed in many smaller or greater details with Aristotle’s
History of Animals (Historia
animalium). Apart from Avicenna’s Book of
the Healing and Aristotle’s History of
Animals, Faḫr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī’s (1150–1210) Eastern Investigations (al-Mabāḥiṯ
al-mašriqiyyah) are another source for Barhebraeus treatment of
procreation and embryology. For details, see Jäckel,
“Wenn wir sagen, dass der Tropfen Mensch wird”, 122–209. That
Barhebraeus’s account actually corresponds with the compendium On the Philosophy of Aristotle dubiously ascribed
to Nicolaus of Damascus must be considered as well. However, the
zoological parts of this work are only transmitted in small fragments
and can thus not be used for comparison; cf. H.J. Drossaart Lulofs,
“Aristotle, Bar Hebraeus, and Nicolaus Damascenus on Animals,” in Aristotle on Nature and Living Things: Philosophical
and Historical Studies Presented to David M. Balme on his Seventieth
Birthday, ed. Allan Gotthelf (Pittsburgh, PY: Mathesis
Publications; Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1985). For the wrong
attribution of Nicolaus’s compendium see Silvia Fazzo and Mauro Zonta,
“Aristotle’s Theory of Causes and the Holy Trinity: New Evidence about
the Chronology and Religion of Nicolaus ‘of Damascus’,” Laval théologique et philosophique 64, no. 3
(2008): 681–690 and Silvia Fazzo, “Nicolas, l’auteur du sommaire de la
philosophie d’Aristote: Doutes sur son identité, sa datation, son
origine,” Revue des Études Grecques 121, no. 1
(2008): 99–126. Barhebraeus often literally translates
Avicenna’s Book of the Healing into Syriac, and thus, the
differences between the two works here stand out. In his account, Barhebraeus
skips a rather long passage by Avicenna treating the embryological stages,
including those with Islamic connotations. Cf. Avicenna, Book of the
Healing: Book of Animals 9.5 (“On the Distinction of
Alterations of the Matter of the Embryo until it is Completed”) (text:
Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb aš-Šifāʾ, aṭ-ṭabīʿiyyāt 8, al-ḥayawān, ed. ʿAbd
al-Ḥalīm Muntaṣir et al. (Cairo: al-Hayʾah al-miṣriyyah al-ʿāmmah
li-t-taʾlīf wa-n-našr, 1970), 172–178. Barhebraeus only takes
up a few aspects of Avicenna’s work in his section on the development of the
“main organs from the two seeds.” Cream of Wisdom: Book of
Animals 5.2 (text: Jäckel, “Wenn wir sagen,
dass der Tropfen Mensch wird”, 341–343; translation: ibid.,
356–358). One major difference is that Barhebraeus does not
provide a terminological or conceptual match for muḍġah.
Further, Barhebraeus only refers to the similarity of the
embryo’s body to an ʿellaqtā “The body of the embryo
becomes similar to a leech/clinging thing,” l-ʿellaqtā
metdammē gšum ʿulā. – Barhebraeus’s Syriac
equivalent to Arabic ʿalaqah – whereas Avicenna states
that the drop becomes an ʿalaqah.
Differences between Barhebraeus’s and Avicenna’s accounts
demonstrate the independence of Barhebraeus’s embryological synthesis. This
indipendent thought includes his idea of later ensoulment in the Book of Rays and of the duration of the embryo’s
formation. Concerning the latter, Barhebraeus’s presentation of the duration of
the embryo’s formation in the zoology of the Cream of
Wisdom is taken from the Aristotelian account in the
History of Animals, namely, 40 days for a male child and three months
for a female child. Barhebraeus, Cream of Wisdom:
Book of Animals 5.1.2 (text: Jäckel, “Wenn
wir sagen, dass der Tropfen Mensch wird”, 338; translation:
ibid., 354) and Aristotle, History of Animals
VII.3 (583b14–23 Bekker). Avicenna, on the other hand, states
that the formation of the embryo takes roughly 40 days. A girl might develop
more slowly, but there is always some natural variation between
individuals. Cf. Book of the Healing: Book of Animals 9.5
(text: Ibn Sīnā, ed. Muntasir et al., 172.4–173.19). In this same
context, Avicenna treats the embryological stages ʿalaqah and muḍġah.
Moreover, the periods provided by Barhebraeus also echo those for ensoulment in
the Book of Rays (cf. text [4] above). While we have seen
in texts [2] and [3] that Avicenna’s concept of substantial change constitutes
an essential aspect of Barhebraeus’s notion of the unborn, the differences
identified here between their accounts show that Barhebraeus developed his own
distinct notion of the unborn. It can be described as a synthesis of
Aristotelian, Avicennan, and Syriac-Christian notions of the unborn. In the passages
treated in this article, Barhebraeus’s engagement with the Syriac
tradition is rather implicit (cf. fn. 14 above). For a more detailled
analysis see Chapter 4 in Jäckel, “Wenn wir sagen,
dass der Tropfen Mensch wird”, especially
269–285.
Nuṭptā/nuṭfah in Syriac and
Arabic texts before Barhebraeus
In what remains, I will trace the term nuṭptā/nuṭfah as ‘sperm drop’ more broadly,
arguing that Barhebraeus adapts it from philosophical contexts in Avicenna’s
(and possibly in other Arabic-Islamic) writings. To begin with, I have not found
any instances where nuṭptā is metaphorically used for
semen in earlier Syriac literature. For a search as comprehensive as possible I have
used the dictionaries by Brockelmann and Payne-Smith, which both refer
to attestations in the sources, as well as the digital thesaurus Simtho (see Beth Mardutho, ed., Simtho: The Syriac Thesaurus, accessed on October 20, 2022,
http://bethmardutho.org/simtho/) and the Digital
Syriac Corpus (see James E. Walters, ed., “About the Digital
Syriac Corpus,” accessed on October 20, 2022,
https://syriaccorpus.org/index.html). In the medieval
Syriac-Arabic dictionary of Bar Bahlul (fl. ca. 1050), the meaning of ‘semen’ is
only attested for nuṭptā in a single manuscript from
1796; it is most likely a later addition. Bar Bahlul, Lexicon
s.v. nuṭptā (text: Rubens Duval, ed., Lexicon Syriacum auctore Hassano Bar Bahlule, 3
vols. (Paris: Reipublicae typographaeum, 1901), vol. 2, col.
1225). There is no attestation of nuṭptā
as semen in the Book of the Translator by Eliya of
Nisibis (975–1046). Eliya of Nisibis, Book of the
Translator 21 (text: Paul Lagarde, ed., Praetermissorum Libri Duo (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1879), 47). I
am grateful to Nicolas Atas for pointing this out to me.
Searching in the digital thesaurus Simtho, one can
mention passages where Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373) or Babai the Great (ca.
551–628) treat the biblical account of the creation of humankind from a grain of
dust and drop (nuṭptā) of water. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns against Heresies 49.4 (text: Edmund Beck,
ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen Contra
Haereses, CSCO 169 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1957),
193.1–4; translation: id., ed. and trans., Des
Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen Contra Haereses, CSCO 170
(Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1957, 170–171) and Babai the Great,
Book of Union 1.3 (text: Arthur Vaschalde,
ed., Babai Magni Liber de Unione, CSCO 79
(Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste L. Durbecq, 1953), 20.15–17;
translation: id., ed. and trans., Babai Magni Liber de
Unione, CSCO 80 (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste L. Durbecq,
1953), 16–17). Another passage (not found via Simtho) is in the Cave of
Treasures. Cf. Alexander Toepel, Die Adam-
und Seth-Legenden im syrischen Buch der Schatzhöhle: Eine
quellenkritische Untersuchung, CSCO 618 (Louvain: Peeters,
2006), 56. Moreover, in the Hexaemera
of Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) and Jacob of Edessa (ca. 630–708), human
procreation is treated alongside and, in the case of Jacob of Serugh, as
partially analogous to God’s creation of the first humans. However, the male
semen is termed zarʿā in these cases. Jacob of Serugh, Hexaemeron Day 6 (text + translation: Takamitsu
Muraoka, ed. and trans., Jacob of Serugh’s
Hexaemeron (Louvain: Peeters, 2018), 186–187, l. 505–510) and Jacob of
Edessa, Hexaemeron Day 7 (text: Jean Baptiste
Chabot, ed., Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron seu in opus
creationis libri septem, CSCO 92 (Paris: Imprimerie
Orientaliste L. Durbecq, 1928), 331.ii–333.ii; translation: Arthur
Vaschalde, ed., Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron seu in opus
creationis libri septem, CSCO 97 (Leuven: Typographeum Marcelli
Istas, 1932), 283.24–284.3). In short, Barhebraeus does not
seem to have inherited this term from earlier Syriac writings. A notable instance of nuṭptā in a Syriac text is John of Dara’s (fl.
ca. 800–860) Mēmrā on the Resurrection of Human
Bodies 1.4.4 (text: Aho Shemunkasho, ed. and trans., John of Dara On the Resurrection of Human Bodies,
Bibliotheca Nisibinensis 4 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2020), 109;
translation: ibid., 370). I am grateful to the
editor for sharing the passages with me. I only give a brief analysis:
John of Dara compares God’s power to raise the dead with his power in
creating humankind. The latter is paralleled with human procreation –
similar to the Hexaemera of the two Jacobs (cf.
n. 34 above). John uses zarʿā in almost all
cases, which mirrors, e.g., the terminology of his contemporary Moses
bar Kepha. When John speaks of the ‘miracle’ of procreation, the human
seed is figuratively called “a little drop” (nuṭptā
zʿortā), which is “foul” (ndid) and
“dishonorable (škir) to approach.” Strikingly,
this resembles a locus classicus of embryological
motives in Rabbinic literature, i.e. Pirkei Avot
3.1. On the other hand, John portrays the development of the unborn
after the mingling of the drop and menstrual blood with almost the same
motives as contemporaneous Islamic discourse (cf. n. 22 above). Further,
an instance of the term nuṭptā d-zarʿā can be
found in Išoʿdād of Merv (fl. ca. 850), where he refers to the Greek
mythology of Chronos’s semen falling into the sea; cf. Išoʿdād of Merv,
Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, ad.
13 (text: M. D. Gibson, The commentaries of Ishoʿdad
of Merv, bishop of Hadatha (c. 850 A.D.) in Syriac and English,
5 vols. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1911–1916), vol. 4, 25;
translation: ibid., Syriac 34. Regarding the references given for niṭupta in E.S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1963), 298, the only one establishing a connection to sperm is W.
Brandt, “Mandæans”, in Encyclopedia of Religion and
Ethics, vol. 8, p. 382; I would like to express my gratitude to
one of the reviewers for pointing me into this direction. In general,
this suggests a lively transcommunal discussion of the unborn in the
context of creation and resurrection in early Islamic times, which will
need further research. A possible echo of this interaction can be seen
in Barhebraeus’s reference to the “foul drop” (nuṭptā
ndidtā) in his Book of the Dove, I.4
(text: Paul Bedjan, ed., Ethicon, seu Moralia Gregorii
Barhebraei (Paris: Otto Harrassowitz, 1898), 527; translation:
A.J. Wensinck, ed. and trans., Bar Hebraeus’s Book of
the Dove: Together with some chapters from his Ethikon (Leyden:
E.J. Brill, 1919), 9). Here, Barhebraeus likely draws on al-Ġazālī’s
expression nuṭfah qaḏirah in his Revival of the Religious Sciences, cf. ibid., 9, n.
2.
In the Quran, one finds the sequence nuṭfah,
ʿalaqah and muḍġah as well as
nuṭfah on its own. An analysis of this Quranic material by the
ERC-Project Contemporary Bioethics and the History of
the Unborn in Islam (University of Hamburg) will be available
in Thomas Eich and Doru C. Doroftei: Adam und Embryo
(Ergon: Baden-Baden, forthcoming). My research on Barhebraeus was
part of this larger project. This Quranic material and
certain Hadith and early legal texts developed into an Islamic embryology, which
was and is still widely received. This ‘Islamic’ embryology is distinct in that key
terms and notions are employed throughout. However, it should not be
conceived as totally self-contained and uniform. See the references in
n. 22 above and also Nahyan Fancy, “Generation in Medieval Islamic
Medicine,” in Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present
Day, 129–140. In addition, the term nuṭfah for semen is found in two relatively early texts:
the Arabic translation of Aristotle’s On the Generation of
Animals (De generatione animalium) as well as in
the Book of the Secret of Creation attributed to
Apollonios of Tyana (ca. 40–120). These texts should be contextualized in
reference to other works of natural philosophy or alchemy in the case of the Secret of Creation. With their origins in the learned
Greek tradition, their translation or redaction took place within a Christian
milieu. However, no direct Syriac intermediary texts are known or extant. In case of the
On the Generation of Animals, there was a
Syriac translation that is no longer extant, but it is not considered to
be an intermediary for the Arabic translation; see Remke Kruk, ed., The Arabic Version of Aristotle’s Parts of Animals.
Book XI–XIV of the Kitāb al-Ḥayawān: A
Critical Edition with Introduction and Selected Glossary
(Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979), 24–31 and Lourus S.
Filius, ed., The Arabic Version of Aristotle’s
Historia Animalium. Book i–x of the Kitāb
Al-Hayawān, in collaboration with Johannes den Heijer and John N.
Mattock (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 4–6, 8–14. In the case of the Book of the Secret of Creation, the exact Vorlage is not known; see Ursula Weisser, Das „Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung“ von
Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980),
48–54. In the Secret of Creation, nuṭfah is used, among other things, for plant seeds and
even offshoots. Pseudo-Apollonios of Tyana, Book of the Secret of
Creation IV.3.2 (text: Ursula Weisser, ed., Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung und die Darstellung der Natur
(Buch der Ursachen) (Aleppo: Institute for the History of
Arabic Science, University of Aleppo, 1979), Arabic 318.11–319.2; German
paraphrase: id., Das „Buch über das Geheimnis der
Schöpfung“, 117). Further accounts of nuṭfah can be found in the comprehensive index of the
edition. Most notably, the Book of
Secrets mentions nuṭfah in cosmogony, along the
lines of logoi spermatikoi. Pseudo-Apollonios von
Tyana,
Book of the Secret
of Creation
Prologue (text: Weisser, Darstellung der Natur, Arabic 3; German
Paraphrase: id., Das „Buch über das Geheimnis der
Schöpfung“ , 74). In the translation of Aristotle’s On the Generation of
Animals, nuṭfah is used in a short passage for
various Greek terms, even for the egg yolk. Aristotle, On the
Generation of Animals (premodern Arabic translation) IV.4
(769b31–770a23 Bekker). In three more cases, nuṭfah is used to translate Greek sperma and kuēma (772a10, 772a19 and
772b18 Bekker, respectively). For the translation of Aristotle’s
zoological works, see the introductions in J. Brugman and H. J.
Drossaart Lulofs, eds., Generation of Animals. The
Arabic Translation commonly ascribed to Yaḥyâ ibn al-Biṭrîq
(Leiden: Brill, 1971); Kruk, The Arabic Version of
Aristotle’s Parts of Animals, and Filius, The
Arabic Version of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium.Accordingly, in both of these works, nuṭfah renders different phenomena of procreation into
Arabic. Recalling the probable Syriac-Christian background of the translators or
redactors, it could be inferred that there had been no fixed terminology in
Syriac for nuṭptā as male semen or sperm drop. Weisser dates
the Book of the Secret of Creation to the 8th century;
Weisser, Darstellung der Natur, 3. Comparing its more fluid usage of
nuṭfah with the slightly later writings by John of Dara (cf. n.
35 above) and the Arabic translation of the On the
Generation of Animals (dated at around 850), one is tempted to
assume a gradual consolidation of the meaning of ‘drop’ meaning
specifically ‘the human semen.’ This will need further
research.
In his writings in the 10th/11th century, Avicenna used these
Islamic terms and notions of the unborn. This is not to say that the content of Avicenna’s ideas of embryology can be conceived as
‘Islamic’ in a narrower, religious sense. However, his usage of terms
such qarār for the womb (cf. Quran 23:12–14),
which he uses in the context of text [8] below, clearly betray his
Islamic background. In the following, I will highlight how he
draws on semen and, more generally, on human procreation to illustrate
philosophical problems. Only in the case of biological problems proper does
Avicenna refer to manīy, ‘the ejaculate,’ whereas nuṭfah is used in most other cases. For example, in the
Book on Demonstrative Proof within his Book of the Healing, he writes:
[7] We explain this in respect to something very obvious
(aẓhar), such as the human being: His effective,
obvious cause is either the human being [itself], the drop (nuṭfah) or the power [of formation] in the drop and
the [potential] form therein. Avicenna, Book of the
Healing: Book on Demonstrative Proof
2.9 (text: Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb aš-Šifāʾ,
al-manṭiq 5, al-Burhān, ed. Abū al-ʿAlā ʿAfīfī and Ibrāhīm Maḏkūr
(Cairo: Dār al-kātib al-ʿarabī li-ṭ-ṭibāʿah wa-n-našr, 1956),
182.8–9).
Here, Avicenna discusses causation theory and how this relates to
proper logical proofs and natural processes. On this topic in Avicenna’s philosophy see
McGinnis, Avicenna, 27–52. Leaving the
philosophical details aside, I want to point out that this kind of illustration
is widespread and is presented as very obvious (aẓhar) by
Avicenna. Against this background, further such instances in his writings can be
examined. In a passage of the Physics in the Book of the Healing, Avicenna exemplifies how the active,
formal, and final causes are one and the same in the case of human
generation:
[8] Indeed, in the father there is the principle for the
generation of the human form from the drop. But not all of this is from the
father, rather the human form [alone]. And that which results in regard to
the drop (al-ḥāṣil fī n-nuṭfah) is nothing other than
the human form. And the end to which the drop moves/changes (tataḥarrak) is nothing other than the human
form. Avicenna, Book of the Healing: Physics 1.11
(text + translation: McGinnis, The Physics of The
Healing, Arabic 73, 73). McGinnis translates al-ḥāṣil fī n-nuṭfah as what “exists in the
semen.” This is misleading, as the semen itself does not have human
form. A more accurate translation would be “exists in the semen
[potentially].”
Certainly, passages where Avicenna treats causal theory in
connection with human generation deserve more study. I add one last example from
Avicenna’s Book of the Salvation, where, again,
the connection of demonstrative proofs and causal theories is discussed.
Here, a carpenter and a father are presented as effective cause and
principle of movement for the chair and the child (ṣabī), respectively. Accordingly, the material cause is the
wood or the menstrual blood: Avicenna, Book of the
Salvation: Book of Demonstrative Proof
“On the Divisions of Causes and on the Proof of their Introduction into
Definition and Demonstrative Proof” (text: Ibn
Sinā, Kitāb an-Naǧāh fī l-ḥikmah
al-mantiqiyyah wa‑ṭ‑ṭabiʿiyyah wa-l-ilāhiyya, ed. Māǧid Faḫrī
(Beirut: Dār al-āfāq al-ǧadīdah, 1985), 119). In each case,
examples from the technical field and from nature are provided. In what
follows, Avicenna also uses nuṭfat al-insān as an
example of a specific case in natural causation. The semen is conceived
by Avicenna as an effective cause (or, if the mixture of female and male
contribution is implied, as material cause as well?) which can be used
as a middle term in demonstrative proofs. This is because what is
becoming already exists (yūǧad al-kāʾin) with no
division (lā farqa bayna l-qismayn) between cause
and effect (?). For the Book of the
Salvation, see Gutas, Avicenna
and the Aristotelian Tradition, 115–117. A clearer
example can be found in the Doctrines of the Philosophers
of al-Ġazālī (1055–1111), a post-Avicennan author whose works Barhebraeus also
adapted. See Hidemi Takahashi, “The Influence of al-Ghazālī on the Juridical,
Theological and Philosophical Works of Barhebraeus,” in Islam and Rationality, ed. Georges Tamer (Leiden:
Brill, 2015). For the Doctrines of the
Philosophers see Ayman Shihadeh, “New Light on the Reception of
al-Ghazālī’s Doctrines of the Philosophers (Maqāṣid al-Falāsifa),” in In
the Age of Averroes: Arabic Philosophy in the Sixth/Twelfth
Century, ed. Peter Adamson (London: Warburg Institute,
2011). When treating the question of whether the soul
precedes the body, al-Ġazālī describes the drop of semen as an instrument (ālah) for the soul in the human coming-to-be. Al-Ġazālī, Doctrines of the Philosophers “Teaching (qawl) regarding the Human Soul” (text: al-Ġazālī,
Maqāṣid al-falāsifa, ed. Sulaymān Dunyā
(Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif bi-Miṣr, 1961), 370).
The preceding examples show how human procreation is used in
Islamic philosophy, specifically by Avicenna, as a ready illustration when
treating general philosophical problems. The Arabic term nuṭfah for ‘sperm drop’ is introduced in this philosophical discourse
from the Quran and other Islamic religious writings. Pre-Islamic Syriac
literature, conversely, does not seem to use the corresponding word nuṭptā in this sense. This usage of nuṭptā probably entered the Christian discourse via philosophical and
theological writings – rather than from literary genres connected to Quran or
Hadith. An
example from a Christian-Arabic author shows that there might be further
instances, where nuṭfah/nuṭptā is used for sperm drop in figurative speech in the
writings of later Christian authors in an Islamic milieu: Paul of
Antioch, in his Response regarding the Miracles of
Christ, attributes Jesus Christ to originate “neither from
intercourse (ǧamāʿ) nor from a drop (nuṭfah):” Paul of Antioch, Response regarding the Miracles of Christ (text: Louis
Cheikho, ed., Vingt traités théologiques d’auteurs
arabes chrétiens (IXe–XIIIe siècle) (Beirut: Imprimerie
Catholique, 1920), 43; translation: Georg Graf,
“Philosophisch-theologische Schriften des Paulus al-Râhib, Bischofs von
Sidon: Aus dem Arabischen übersetzt,” Jahrbuch für
Philosophie und spekulative Theologie 20 (1906): 55–80,
160–179, here 166). The translation by Max Horten is free and does not
include an exact match for nuṭfah, cf. his
“Paulus, Bischof von Sidon (XIII. Jahrhundert). Einige seiner
philosophischen Abhandlungen,” Philosophisches
Jahrbuch 19 (1906): 144–166, here 161.
In summary, I have argued that Barhebraeus draws on the
illustrations of philosophical problems related to human procreation, especially
in Avicenna’s works. The latter conceives of substantial change as sudden and
uses human generation as an illustration. The unborn cannot be more or less
human, depending on its development. Instead, there must be a distinct point
when the unborn stops to be semen and becomes a human being. This understanding
of substantial change leaves a mark on Barhebraeus’s presentation of ensoulment
as laid out in his later theological summa, the Book of
Rays. Here, he argues for ensoulment after the body has been completed
rather than when the sperm drop is ‘sown.’ In his earlier Candelabrum of the Sanctuary, Barhebraeus rejects this. Thus, the
Avicennan notion of substantial change is vital to Barhebraeus’s understanding
of unborn life.
However, in other instances, Barhebraeus deviates from Avicenna’s
position. The latter refers to ʿalaqah and muḍġah as distinct embryological stages, following a
widespread Islamic terminology in the context of the unborn. Barhebraeus avoids
these terms. In his zoology, he posits periods for the embryo’s formation in
line with Aristotle instead of Avicenna: 40 days in the case of a male and three
months in the case of a female child. These periods mirror Barhebraeus’s
reasoning on later ensoulment in the Book of Rays: he
explains the duration of the cleansing after birth prescribed in Leviticus
12:2–5 (40 days for a boy, 80 for a girl) as a reflection of the time that a
mother carries an inanimate body.
Finally, it is Barhebraeus’s use of the term nuṭptā to refer to the sperm drop that forms a linchpin between his
account of the unborn and that of Avicenna. Like Avicenna, he does not use this
term in passages explicitly treating biological issues. Throughout the zoology
of the Cream of Wisdom, Barhebraeus renders semen as zarʿā. Nevertheless, the term nuṭptā finds its way into his philosophical treatises. The respective
passages reflect Barhebraeus’s reception of Avicenna.
This article forms a case study on the complex paths of
intellectual exchange that characterized the Syriac Renaissance. In this
context, Islamic philosophical texts were one of Syriac-Christian authors’ most
important conversation partners. Barhebraeus is an outstanding example of how
Christians engaged with the new intellectual developments found in these texts,
wrestled with them regarding their heritage, and ultimately developed a new
synthesis, which could be seen as faithful to their own tradition but also
reflected the debates of their time.
As is known from many studies, Barhebraeus’s distinctiveness lies
in his innovative approach of combining, modifying, and reinterpreting various
sources. This bricolage technique, assembling and adapting existing materials
into a cohesive whole, aligns with his normative provisions on the unborn that I
have previously analyzed. Florian Jäckel, “Re-Negotiating Interconfessional
Boundaries through Intertextuality: The Unborn in the Kṯābā ḏ-Huddāyē of Barhebraeus (d. 1286),” Medieval Encounters 26 (2020): 95–127, especially
103–106. Ultimately, his regulations on the burial of miscarried
children and the sanctioning of abortions can be understood as a pastoral
response to the concerns of a Christian community in an Islamic context.
Barhebraeus’ embryological synthesis can be seen as a response to
the inquiries of his time just as well. The enduring importance attributed to
the unborn is evident not only in Barhebraeus’ writings but also in the works of
other authors from various periods. Collectively, these sources highlight the
unborn as a central theme in the theological and philosophical discourse of the
late antique and medieval intellectual history. The perspectives of Syrian
authors, particularly Barhebraeus, are not an exception within this broader
panorama. Similar studies on this or other technical terms may reveal yet
further instances of such a creative appropriation of Islamic ideas by Christian
communities in the Middle Ages.
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