A Syriac version of the Physiologus, with German translation. The source manuscript is probably a 19th century copy.

In addition to previously published editions of Physiologus, the Syrian Buch der Naturgegenstände [BNG, Book of Natural Things] published and translated below, written by the philosopher Aristotle, provides a new one. According to its content, it is divided into four main divisions: land animals, birds, reptiles and aquatic animals; Of these, the sections on land animals and on aquatic animals are each introduced by a larger section in which general remarks on the peculiarities of the animal class in question are compiled; The comments about the birds are broken up into several sections; they are missing about the reptiles. What is now offered in the individual sections goes far beyond the content of the traditional Physiologus, both in terms of the number of chapters and the scope of the narrative in individual chapters; on the other hand, the theories that are otherwise attached are missing. For these reasons I concluded in my treatise "On the history of the so-called Physiologus" published in 1885 that not only the basic form of the Physiologus was present in the Book of Natural Objects, but also the source Basilius the Great for the animal stories in his Homilies on the Hexaemeron. However, I have to withdraw this assumption as untenable; because, what is particularly important, the unity of the BNG cannot be proven; rather, it must be admitted that it is a collective work. First of all, the geographical chapters (80-89) should perhaps be excluded, as they insert themselves between reptiles and fish and completely interrupt the content; then the writing is also characterized as a collective work by the fact that the same animal is mentioned repeatedly a few times (Siren 38 and 110, Seleucis 56 and 63). In the BNG we obviously have to distinguish between different parts, one of which corresponds to the stories of Physiologus, while another refers back to Basilius, so that our book is related to the Phys. Syr. Land as well as the section in Pseudo-Eustathius dealing with the creation of animals, both of which also show a union of Physiologus and certain sections from Basil. Our task will now be to subject the relationship of the BNG to the writings mentioned to a new examination; We start with those sections that are common to the BNG and the Physiologus. - [Author]

Language: German

LCCN: 44-25036; LC: PJ5671.P54; DDC: 381.45; OCLC: 6892892