Translation into Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew

Galen’s works were translated from Greek into Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew during the medieval period. These translations had an enormous impact not just on the development of medicine both East and West, but also on how we now understand Galen. Instead of analyzing the Greco–Arabic translation “movement,” the present chapter investigates a number of translation phenomena, each of which has its own unique context: the Syriac translations of the sixth and ninth centuries; the Arabic translations of the late eighth and mid-ninth centuries; and the Hebrew translations mainly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It concludes with three vignettes illustrating not just how Galen was transmitted into the Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, but also how physicians creatively engaged with, and innovated on the basis of, Galen’s work.