William of Moerbeke

The Rev. William of Moerbeke OP
Born	1215–35 Moerbeke, Holy Roman Empire
Died	1286 Corinth, Principality of Achaea
Occupations	Philosopher, Catholic cleric, Translator
Philosophical work
Era	Medieval philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Scholasticism

William of Moerbeke, O.P. (Dutch: Willem van Moerbeke; Latin: Guillelmus de Morbeka; 1215–35 – c. 1286), was a prolific medieval translator of philosophical, medical, and scientific texts from Greek into Latin, enabled by the period of Latin rule of the Byzantine Empire. His translations were influential in his day, when few competing translations were available, and are still respected by modern scholars.

Biography

Moerbeke was Flemish by birth (his surname indicating an origin in Moerbeke near Geraardsbergen), and a Dominican by vocation. Little is known of his life. In the spring of 1260, he was at either at Nicaea or at Nicles in the Peloponnese; in the autumn of the same year, he was at Thebes, where the Dominicans had been since 1253 and where he dated his translation of Aristotle's De partibus animalium.

For a time, he resided at the pontifical court of Viterbo (with evidence for his residence there in 22 November 1267, May 1268, and 15 June 1271), where he met the Latin translator Vitellius, who dedicated to him the Latin optical treatise Perspectiva (also named Opticae libri decem). Subsequently, Moerbeke moved to Orvieto in 1272 and appeared at the Council of Lyons (1274). Then, from 1278 until his death in 1286 (which probably occurred several months before the nomination of his successor as bishop in October 1286), he occupied the Latin Archbishopric of Corinth, a Catholic see established in the northeastern Peloponnese after the Fourth Crusade. It is not clear how much time he actually spent in his see; documents show him on mission in Perugia for the pope in 1283 and dictating his will there.

He was associated with the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, the mathematician John Campanus, the Polish naturalist and physician Vitello, and the astronomer Henri Bate of Mechlin, who dedicated to William his treatise on the astrolabe.

A little Greek village, Merbaka, with an exceptional late-13th-century church, is believed to have been named for him; it lies between Argos and Mycenae.

Translations

At the request of Aquinas—so it is assumed; the source document is not clear—he undertook a complete translation of the works of Aristotle directly from the Greek or, for some portions, in a revision of existing translations. The reason for the request was that many of the copies of Aristotle in Latin then in circulation had originated in Spain (see Toledo School of Translators), from Arabic whose texts in turn had often passed through Syriac versions rather than being translated from the originals.

Aquinas wrote his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, the translation of which from the Greek was completed by Moerbeke in 1267, while Aquinas was regent at the studium provinciale at the convent of Santa Sabina in Rome, the forerunner of the 16th-century College of Saint Thomas at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.

William of Moerbeke was the first translator of the Politics (c. 1260) into Latin, as the Politics, unlike other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, had not been translated into Arabic. He was also responsible for one of only three medieval Latin translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric. William's translations were already standard classics by the 14th century, when Henricus Hervodius put his finger on their enduring value: they were literal (de verbo in verbo), faithful to the spirit of Aristotle, and without elegance. For several of William's translations, the Byzantine Greek manuscripts have since disappeared; without him the works would be lost.

William also translated John Philoponus and mathematical treatises by Hero of Alexandria and Archimedes. Especially important was his translation of the Elements of Theology of Proclus (made in 1268), because the Elements of Theology is one of the fundamental sources of the revived Neo-Platonic philosophical currents of the 13th century. His translation of Proclus' commentary on Plato's Parmenides, which included Plato's dialogue up to 142b in Stephanus pagination, made this text available in Latin for the first time. Some important shorter texts of Proclus, such as "On Providence", "On Providence and Fate", and "On the Existence of Evil", are preserved only in William of Moerbeke's translations.

The Vatican collection holds William's own copy of the translation he made of the greatest Hellenistic mathematician, Archimedes, with commentaries of Eutocius, which was made in 1269 at the papal court in Viterbo. William consulted two of the best Byzantine Greek manuscripts of Archimedes, both of which have since disappeared. The manuscript, in his own hand, was in the exhibition Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture at the Library of Congress in 1993.

In popular culture

In Umberto Eco's puzzle-mystery set in the 1320s, The Name of the Rose, there is some debate among the monks about Aristotle's Poetics (Second Day: Prime). Jorge of Burgos has condemned this book because knowledge of it came through the "infidel Moors" (as so much of Aristotle had indeed come). But the main character, William of Baskerville, knew that Aristotle's Poetics had recently been translated directly from Greek into Latin by William of Moerbeke.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Scholar, Orientalist, philosopher, and one of the most distinguished men of letters of the thirteenth century, born about 1215; died in 1286. He held intellectual intercourse with the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, the mathematician John Campanus, the naturalist physician Witelo, and the astronomer Henri Bate of Mechlin. In turn he resided at the pontifical court of Viterbo (1268), appeared at the Council of Lyons (1274), and from 1277 until his death occupied the See of Corinth. At the request of Thomas Aquinas he undertook a complete translation of the works of Aristotle or, for some portions, a revision of existing translations, and it is noteworthy that he was the first translator of the "Politics" (c. 1260). The ancient catalogue of Dominican works published by Denifle (Arch. f. Litteratur u. Kirchengesch. d. Mittelaltes, II, 226) states: that "he translated all the books of natural and moral philosophy from Greek into latin, as did Brother Thomas, likewise the books of Proclus and certain others." Henry of Hervodia asserts that these translations were classic in the fourteenth century; they are literal (de verbo ad verbum) and faithful, and although without elegance are valuable. Petrus Victorius, a sixteenth-century philologist, praises them highly, and Susemihl, who has published a critical edition of the Greek text of the "Politics", sought to do service even to philologists by adding the translation of William of Moerbeke. The Flemish Dominican translated not only aristotle but also mathematical treatises (notably the "Catoptries" of Hero of Alexandria and the treatises of Archimedes), commentaries of Simplicius on the Categories of Aristotle and on the "De coelo", and especially the "Theological Elements" of Proclus (the translation is dated Viterbo, 18 May, 1268). Several other of Proclus's works no longer exist save in the Latin versions of William of Moerbeke, which makes the latter more valuable. The same may be said of a treatise of Ptolemy's, likewise translated by the Belgian Dominican, the Greek text of which exists only in fragments. The "Theological Elements" of Proclus together with the "Book of Causes", which compiles them, constitute the fundamental sources of the Neo- Platonic inspirations of the thirteenth century, so that William exercised a real influence on the Neo-Platonic movement, which appeared sporadically in the philosophy of the thirteenth century. The Polish physician Witelo, whose curious personality has been made known by M. Bacumker, wrote his "Perspectives" at the instance of Brother William of Moerbeke, the lover of truth (veritatis amatori), to whom he dedicated his treatise. Witelo was one of the authorized representatives of Neo-Platonism. It was likewise to William that Henri Bate dedicated his "Astrolabe". William of Moerbeke thus appears as a mind of high culture and extensive relations, a forerunner of humanism, who studied all his life and encouraged others in the path of knowledge.

MANDONNET, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme latin (2nd ed., Louvain, 1910), 9, II, 13-15; WILLIAM OF TOCCO in Life of St. Thomas Aquinas, Acta SS., I, 663; BERNARD GUIDONIS, Arch. Litt. u. Kirchgesch. Mitt., II, 226; HENRY OF HERVODIA, Liber de rebus memoriabilius, ed. POTTHAST (1859), 263; SUSEMIHL, Aristotelis Politicorum libri VIII cum translations Guilemi de Moerbeka (Leipzig, 1872); DE WULF, Hist. de la philosophie en Belgique, 48 sq.; IDEM, Hist. de la philosophie medievale, 5th ed. (1912), 292; BAEUMKER, Witelo, ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII. Jarh. (Munster, 1908), 127.