(), a native of Aphrodisias in
Caria, who lived at the end of the second and the beginning of the third century after Christ,
the most celebrated of the commentators on Aristotle. He was the disciple of Herminus and
Aristocles the Messenian, and like them endeavoured to free the Peripatetic philosophy from
the syncretism of Ammonius and others, and to restore the genuine interpretation of the
writings of Aristotle. The title ὁ ἐξηγητὴς was the
testimony to the extent or the excellence of his commentaries. About half his voluminous works
were edited and translated into Latin at the revival of literature; there are a few more
extant in the original Greek, which have never been printed, and an Arabie version is
preserved of several others, whose titles may be seen in the Bibliotheca of Casiri. (Vol. i.
p. 243.)
If we view him as a philosopher, his merit cannot be rated highly. His excellencies and
defects are all on the model of his great master; there is the same perspicuity and power of
analysis, united with almost more than Aristotelian plainness of style; everywhere "a flat
surface," with nothing to interrupt or strike the attention. In a mind so thoroughly imbued
with Aristotle, it cannot be expected there should be much place for original thought. His
only endeavour is to adapt the works of his master to the spirit and language of his own age;
but in doing so he is constantly recalled to the earlier philosophy, and attacks bygone
opinions, as though they had the same living power as when the writings of Aristotle were
directed against them. (Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. iv. p.
255.)
The Platonists and earlier Stoics are his chief opponents, for he regarded the Epicureans as
too sensual and unphilosophical to be worth a serious answer. Against the notion of the first,
that the world, although created, might yet by the will of God be made imperishable, he urged
that God could not alter the nature of things, and quoted the Platonist doctrine of the
necessary coexistence of evil in all corruptible things. (Ritter, p. 262.) God himself, he
said, was the very form of things. Yet, however difficult it may be to enter into this
abstract notion of God, it would be unjust, as some have done, to charge him with atheism, as
in many passages he attributes mind and intelligence to the divine Being. This is one of the
points in which he has brought out the views of Aristotle more clearly, from his living in the
light of a later age. God, he says (in Metaphys. ix. p. 320), is
"properly and simply one, the self-existent substance, the author of motion himself unmoved,
the great and good Deity, without beginning and without end:" and again (in
Metaph. xii. p. 381) he asserts, that to deprive God of providence is the same thing as
depriving honey of sweetness, fire of warmth, snow of whiteness and coolness, or the soul of
motion. The providence of God, however, is not directed in the same way to the sublunary world
and the rest of the universe : the latter is committed not indeed to fate, but to general
laws, while the concerns of men are the immediate care of God, although he find not in the
government of them the full perfection of his being. (Quaest. Nat. 1.25,
2.21.) He saw no inconsistency, as perhaps there was none, between these high notions of God
and the materialism with which they were connected. As God was the form of all things, so the
human soul was likewise a form of matter, which it was impossible to conceive as existing in
an independent state. He seems however to have made a distinction between the powers of
reflection and sensation, for he says (de Anima i. p. 138), that the soul
needed not the body as an instrument to take in objects of thought, but was sufficient of
itself; unless the latter is to be looked upon as an inconsistency into which he has been led
by the desire to harmonize the early Peripateticism with the purer principle of a later
philosophy. (Brücker, vol. ii. p. 481.)
Works
De Fato
The most important treatise of his which has come down to us, is the
De Fato, an inquiry into the opinions of Aristotle on the subject of Fate and
Freewill. It is probably one of his latest works, and must have been written
between the years 199-211, because dedicated to the joint emperors Severus and Caracalla.
Here the earlier Stoics are his opponents, who asserted that all things arose from an
eternal and indissoluble chain of causes and effects. The subject is treated practically
rather than speculatively. Universal opinion, the common use of language, and internal
consciousness, are his main arguments. That fate has a real existence, is proved by the
distinction we draw between fate, chance, and possibility, and between free and necessary
actions. It is another word for nature, and its workings are seen in the tendencies of men
and things (c. 6), for it is an all-pervading cause of real, but not absolute, power. The
fatalism of the Stoics does away with freewill, and so destroys responsibility: it is at
variance with every thought, word, and deed, of our lives. The Stoics, indeed, attempt to
reconcile necessity and freewill; but, properly speaking, they use freewill in a new sense
for the necessary co-operation of our will in the decrees of nature :
moreover, they cannot expect men to carry into practice the subtle distinction of a will
necessarily yet freely acting; and hence, by destroying the accountableness of man, they
destroy the foundation of morality, religion, and civil government. (c. 12-20.) Supposing
their doctrine true in theory, it is impossible in action. And even speculatively their
argument from the universal chain is a confusion of an order of sequence with a series of
causes and effects. If it be said again, that the gods have certain foreknowledge of future
events, and what is certainly known must necessarily be, it is answered by denying that in
the nature of things there can be any such foreknowledge, as foreknowledge is proportioned
to divine power, and is a knowledge of what divine power can perform. The Stoical view
inevitably leads to the conclusion, that all the existing ordinances of religion are
blasphemous and absurd.
This treatise, which has been edited by Orelli, gives a good
idea of his style and method. Upon the whole, it must be allowed that, although with Ritter
we cannot place him high as an independent thinker, he did much to encourage the accurate
study of Aristotle, and exerted an influence which, according to Julius Scaliger, was still
felt in his day. (Brucker, vol. ii. p. 480.)
Overview of Alexander's Works
The following list of his works is abridged from Harles's Fabricius. (Vol. v. p. 650.)
I. Περὶ εἰμαρμένης καὶ τοῦ ἐφʼ ἡμῖν
(De Fato, deque eo quod in nostra potestate est)
Περὶ εἰμαρμένης καὶ τοῦ ἐφʼ ἡμῖν,
De Fato, deque eo quod in nostra potestate est : the short treatise
mentioned above, dedicated to the emperors Severus and Caracalla.
Editions
First printed by the successors of Aldus Manutius, 1534, folio, at the end of the
works of Themistius: translated into Latin by Grotius in the collection
entitled "Veterum Philos. Sententiae de Fato," Paris, 1648, 4to., Lond. 1688,
12mo., and edited by Orelli, Zurich, 1824, 8vo., with a fragment of
Alexander Aphrodis.
De Fortuna, and treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, &c. on
the same subject.
II. Commentarius ((Ὑπόμνημα) in primum librum Analyticorum Priorum
Aristotelis,
Editions
Venet. Aldi, 1520, fol.; Floren. 1521, 4to., with a Latin translation
by J. Bap. Felicianus.
III. Commentarius in VIII libros Topicorum
Editions
Ven. Aldi, 1513; with a Latin version by G. Dorotheus, Ven. 1526 and
1541, and Paris, 1542, folio; and another by Rasarius, Ven. 1563, 1573,
folio.
IV. Comment. in Elenchos Sophisticos
Graecè, Ven. Aldi, 1520, fol.; Flor. 1520, fol.:
translated into Latin by J. B. Rasarius.
V. Comment. in Metaphysicorum XII libros
Editions
Ex versione J. G. Sepulvedae, Rom. 1527, Paris, 1536, Ven. 1544 and 1561.
The Greek text has never been printed, although it exists in the Paris library and several
others.
VI. In librum de Sensu et iis quae sub sensum
cadunt
Editions
The Greek text is printed at the end of the commentary of Simplicius on the De
Animâ, Ven. Aldi, 1527, folio; there is also a Latin version by
Lucilius Philothaeus, Ven. 1544, 1549, 1554, 1559, 1573.
VII. In Aristotelis Meterologica
Supposed by some not to be the work of Alexander Aphrod.
Editions
Ven. Aldi, 1527
VIII. De Mistione
Editions
Bound up in the same edition as the
In Aristotelis
Meterologica.
IX. De Animâ libri duo (two distinct works)
Editions
Printed in Greek at the end of Themistius: there is a Latin version
by Hieronymus Donatus, Ven. 1502, 1514, folio.
X. Physica Scholia, dubitationes et solutiones
Editions
In Greek, Ven. Trincavelli, 1536, folio; in Latin, by Hieronymus
Bagolinus, Ven. 1541, 1549, 1555, 1559, 1563.
XI. Ἰατρικὰ Ἀπορήματα καὶ Φυσικὰ
Προβλήματα, Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata
Physica.
XII. Περὶ Πυρετῶν, Libellus de Febribus.
The last two treatises (XI. and XII.) are attributed by Theodore Gaza and many other
writers to Alexander Trallianus. They are spoken of below.
Works still extant in Arabic or in fragmentary form
His commentaries on the Categories, on the latter Analytics (of the last there was a
translation by St. Jerome), on the De Animâ and Rhetorical works, and also on those
περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς, together with a work
entitled Liber I de Theologiâ, probably distinct from the Commentaries on the
Metaphysics, are still extant in Arabic. A Commentary on the prior Analytics, on the De
Interpretatione, a treatise on the Virtues, a work entitled
περὶ
δαιμόνων λόγος, a treatise against Zenobius the Epicurean, and another on the
nature and qualities of Stones, also a book of Allegories from mythological fables, are all
either quoted by others or referred to by himself. [B.J]
Other works attributed to Alexander Aphrodisiensis
Besides the works universally attributed to Alexander Aphrodisiensis, there are extant two
others, of which the author is not certainly known, but which are by some persons supposed
to belong to him, and which commonly go under his name.
Ἰατρικὰ Ἀπορήματα καὶ Φυσικὰ Προβλήματα
(Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata Physica)
The first work attributed to Alexander is entitled
Ἰατρικὰ
Ἀπορήματα καὶ Φυσικὰ Προβλήματα, Quaestiones Medicae
et Problemata Physica, which there are strong reasons for believing to be the work
of some other writer. In the first place, it is not mentioned in the list of his works
given by the Arabic author quoted by Casiri (Biblioth. Arabico-Hisp.
Escurial. vol. i. p. 243); secondly, it appears to have been written by a person
who belonged to the medical profession (ii. praef. et § 11), which was not the case
with Alexander Aphrodisiensis; thirdly, the writer refers (1.87) to a work by himself,
entitled Ἀλληγοριαὶ τῶν εἰς Θεοὺς ʼἈναπλαττομένων
Πιθανῶν Ἱστοριῶν, Allegoriae Historiarum Credibilium de
Diis Fabricatarum, which we do not find mention ed among Alexander's works;
fourthly, he more than once speaks of the soul as immortal (ii. praef. et § 63, 67),
which doctrine Alexander Aphrodisiensis denied; and fifthly, the style and language of the
work seem to belong to a later age. Several eminent critics suppose it to belong to
Alexander Trallianus, but it does not seem likely that a Christian writer would have
composed the mythological work mentioned above. It consists of two books, and
contains several interesting medical observations along with much that is frivolous and
trifling.
Editions
It was first published in a Latin translation by George Valla, Venet. 1488,
fol. The Greek text is to be found in the Aldine edition of Aristotle's
works, Venet. fol. 1495, and in that by Sylburgius, Francof. 1585,
8vo.; it was published with a Latin translation by J. Davion, Paris. 1540,
1541, 16mo.; and it is inserted in the first volume of Ideler's Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, Berol. 1841, 8vo.
Περὶ Πυρετῶν (De
Febribus)
The other work is a short treatise, Περὶ Πυρετῶν,
De Febribus, which is addressed to a medical pupil whom the
author offers to instruct in any other branch of medicine; it is also omitted in the Arabic
list of Alexander's works mentioned above. For these reasons it does not seem likely to be
the work of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, while the whole of the twelfth book of the great
medical work of Alexander Trallianus (to whom it has also been attributed) is taken up with
the subject of Fever, and he would hardly have written two treatises on the same disease
without making in either the slightest allusion to the other. It may possibly belong to one
of the other numerous physicians of the name of Alexander.
Editions
It was first published in a Latin translation by George Valla, Venet. 1498,
fol., which was several times reprinted. The Greek text first appeared in the
Cambridge Museum Criticum, vol. ii. pp. 359-389,
transcribed by Demetrius Schinas from a manuscript at Florence; it was published,
together with Valla's translation, by Franz Passow, Vratislav. 1822, 4to.,
and also in Passow's Opuscula Academica, Lips. 1835,
8vo., p. 521. The Greek text alone is contained in the first volume of
Ideler's Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, Berol.
1841, 8vo.