The Logika of the Judaizers

In the latter part of the fifteenth century, a Jewish translator, working together with a Slavic amanuensis, translated into the East Slavic language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania three medieval Hebrew translations of Arabic philosophical texts: the Logical Terminology, a short work on logic attributed to Maimonides (but probably by a different medieval Jewish author); and two sections of the Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali’s famous Intentions of the Philosophers. Highlighting the unexpected role played by Jewish translators as agents of cultural transmission in the heady messianic atmosphere leading up to the year 1492, these texts drew the attention of the Orthodox Church authorities as being in the possession of the enlightened heretical sect known as the Judaizers, which had emerged in Novgorod and spread to Moscow. Reflecting three and even four layers of translation, Prof. Moshe Taube’s new triple-language critical edition of the Logika of the Judaizers displays the Slavic texts alongside the Hebrew translations on which they are based and accompanies them with a modern English translation. In his comprehensive introduction and commentary, Taube surveys earlier scholarly efforts to identify the provenance and purport of the translations, discusses the linguistic and textological issues raised by these early Ruthenian texts, puts forward the likely dissimilar motivations of the Jewish translator and the Christians who commissioned the work, and reveals the translator’s probable identity. The present publication, a long-awaited desideratum, will be of interest not only to historians of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and of the principality of Muscovy, but also to scholars of Jewish history and of the history of philosophy and science, as well as to linguists studying the history of the Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian languages.

Preface Abbreviations References Bibliographical Abbreviations Additional Works Consulted in the Preparation of This Volume Introduction 1. Background 1.1 The Corpus of Translations from Hebrew into Slavic 1.2 The Judaizers 2. The Slavic Texts of the Logika and Their Hebrew Sources 2.1 The Logical Terminology 2.2 The Intentions of the Philosophers 3. The Provenance and Character of the Logika 3.1 The Translator and His Collaborator 3.2 The Language of the Translations 3.2.1 Phonology 3.2.2 Morphology 3.2.3 Calquing of the Hebrew Syntax 3.2.4 Lexicon 3.3 The Readership of the Translations 3.3.1 The Intended Readership 3.3.2 The Actual Readership 3.4 The Adaptation of the Slavic Version of the Texts 3.4.1 The Logical Terminology 3.4.2 The Intentions of the Philosophers 3.5 The Link between the Ruthenian Translations and the Muscovite Heresy 3.6 The Purport of the Logika 3.6.1 A Rationalist Credo 3.6.2 A Possible Jewish Motivation Conclusion: By Whom, and to What Purpose, was the Logika of the Judaizers Composed? 5. History of Research 5.1 Aleksej Ivanovic Sobolevskij (1899, 1903) 5.2 Vladimir Nikolaevic Peretc (1906) 5.3 Mikhail Nestorovic Speranskij (1908) 5.4 Sergej Leonidovic Neverov (1909) 5.5 Lev L'vovic Bedrzickij (1911, 1912) 5.6 Pavel Konstantinovic Kokovcov (1912) 5.7 Gustav Spet (1922) 5.8 Julij Davidovic Brutzkus (1930, 1935) 5.9 Haim Borodianski (1937) 5.10 Brice Parain (1939) 5.11 Andrej Jakovlevic Borisov and Klavdija Borisovna Starkova (1941-42/1993) 5.12 Vasilij Pavlovic Zubov (1950) 5.13 Jakov Solomonovic Lur'e (1955, 1960) 5.14 Aleksandr Il'ic Klibanov (1956) 5.15 Dimitrij Tschizewskyj (1961, 1962, 1966) 5.16 Il'ja Nikolaevic Goleniscev-Kutuzov (1963) 5.17 Fairy von Lilienfeld (1963) 5.18 Arkadz' Iosifavic Zurawski (1967) 5.19 Tat'jana Nikolaevna Protas'eva (1970) 5.20 Thomas M. Seebohm (1965, 1977) 5.21 Rem Aleksandrovic Simonov, Nikolaj Ivanovic Stjazkin (and Pavel Sergeevic Popov) (1977, 1978) 5.22 William F. Ryan (1988) 5.23 Moshe Taube (1997) 6. The Critical Edition 6.1 The Slavic Texts 6.2 Composition of the Individual Slavic Manuscripts 6.2.1 The Logical Terminology and Al-Ghazali's Theology 6.2.2 The 'Kievan Logic' 6.3 The Hebrew Texts 6.4 Conventions of Presentation 6.4.1 Symbols Used in the Critical Edition The Logika of the Judaizers Slavic Texts, Hebrew Texts, English Translations and Commentary (pseudo-?) Maimonides: Logical Terminology Introduction Texts, translation and commentary Al-Ghazali: Intentions of the Philosophers: Theology Introduction Texts, translation and commentary Al-Ghazali: Intentions of the Philosophers: Logic Introduction Texts, translation and commentary Glossaries and Concordantial Index Glossary of English Terms Glossary of Hebrew Terms Slavic Concordantial Index Hebrew Preface

• By (author) Moshe Taube