October 2013 – Page 2

Spain, 1438: end of the world is near, says Archpriest of Talavera

end of the world is near

The moral situation in Spain in 1438 looked desperate to the Archpriest of Talavera. He wrote:

Since nowadays our sins increase and worsen daily, and our sinful life keeps on without visible improvement … one of the most practiced sins is lascivious love, especially of women. Because of this lascivious love, conflicts, murders, deaths, scandals, wars, loss of goods and worse, the loss of persons, and even worse, the loss of mournful souls occurs by the abominable carnal sin of love joined to disorder. And such, such decadence has now come into the world that the underage boy and even the overage old man love women licentiously. The same goes for the young girl who does not know the ways of the world, whose natural maliciousness makes her seem older than she is. The same goes for the old woman in whom the world is no longer interested, worth so little as to be burned alive. Today both men and women know about sex and, worse, they practice it to such an extent that one is faced with an out-of-kilter world, since it used to be that a man of twenty years of age scarcely knew what sex was all about, nor did a woman of twenty. But nowadays it’s not even appropriate to remark on the things a person observes all around, since it would be shameful to talk about them. Consequently, it is quite evident that the end of the world is soon to come upon us. Further, in respect to this sin, no one any longer adheres to custom or law or regards friendships or family ties or marriage. Everything is going to hellfire and to evil.

{ como en los tiempos presentes nuestros pecados son multiplicados de cada día más, … Y como uno de los usados pecados es el amor desordenado, y especialmente de las mujeres, por do se siguen discordias, omecillos, muertes, escándalos, guerras y perdiciones de bienes y, aun peor, perdición de las personas y, mucho más peor, perdición de las tristes de las ánimas por el abominable carnal pecado con amor junto desordenado. Y en tanto y a tanto decaimiento es ya el mundo venido que el mozo sin edad y el viejo fuera de edad, ya aman las mujeres locamente. Eso mismo la niña infanta, que no es en reputación del mundo por la malicia que suple a su edad, y la vieja que está ya fuera del mundo, digna de ser quemada viva; hoy estos y estas entienden en amor y, lo peor, que lo ponen por obra. En tanto que ya hombre ve que el mundo está de todo mal aparejado: que solía que el hombre de 20 años apenas sabía qué era amor, ni la mujer de 20. Mas ahora no es para decirse lo que hombre ve, que sería vergonzoso de contar. Por ende, bien parece que el fin del mundo ya se demuestra de ser breve. Demás, en este pecado ya no se guardan fueros ni leyes, amistades ni parentescos ni compadrazgos: todo va a fuego y a mal. }[1]

The Archpriest of Talavera wasn’t a dour complainer or a prudish cleric. He apparently had detailed personal knowledge about the sins he discussed.[2] His book includes outrageously funny stories. One scholarly translator perceived, “the Archpriest is shaking with laughter a good part of the time, even as he wags a monitory finger.”[3] Other scholarly translators of his work described him as:

a writer deeply involved in his age, interested in serious contemporary issues such as courtly love and the debate over free will and predestination, and also highly conscious of prose style [4]

The Archpriest of Talavera’s primary theme is simple:

the only true love is loving God and to love anything else is total deceit, windy rhetoric, and ridicule

{ amar sólo Dios es amor verdadero, y lo á amar todo es burla y viento y escarnio }[5]

The Archpriest of Talavera’s book demonstrates the attractiveness of total deceit, windy rhetoric, and ridicule. It also indicates that the Archpriest of Talavera was sincere in his claim of what is true love. An understanding of “true love” cannot be disproved.

In the measure of mortal human life, the Archpriest of Talavera clearly was wrong. The end of the world was not near in 1438.

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Notes:

[1] Alonso Martínez de Toledo, Archpriest of Talavera, Prologue, Spanish text from the online presentation by Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes of the edition of Gerli (1979), English translation (modified slightly) from Naylor & Rank (2013) p. 27. Martínez de Toledo, who was the Archpriest of Talavera, finished his book by that name in 1438.

[2] The Archpriest of Talavera declared:

And don’t you believe that the man who wrote this is saying it to you because he only heard it, because in practice he saw, studied and read a lot, and believes, following ancient, great, and holy teachers, this to be so. And you can see it every day if you want, although a lot of reading is advantageous and sharp understanding helps. A lot of practice and experience in the real world is the best instructor in all things, because he who speaks it speaks it without fear … {with respect to the reader putting into practice what the Archpriest of Talavera has written} I ask God since he’s straightening out his life that He will deliver me and that this will serve as contrition for some of my sins which I committed long ago

{ Y no pienses que el que lo escribió te lo dice porque lo oyó solamente, salvo porque por prática de ello mucho vio, estudió y leyó; y cree, según antiguos, grandes y santos doctores, ello ser así. Y de cada día tú lo puedes ver si quisieres, que, aunque mucho leer aprovecha y mucho entender ayuda, pero mucha prática y experiencia de todo es maestra y enseñadora porque hable el que lo habla sin miedo; que parece que lo ve cuando lo escribe. … a Dios ruego que sea su enmienda relevación de algunas de mis culpas que tiempo ha cometí, y de las que cometo de cada día en satisfacción, y después de la presente vida de penas y tormento relevación. }

Id. Part I. Section IV, Ch. 37, p. 96-7, sourced as above.

[3] Translator’s introduction, Simpson (1959) p. 3.

[4] Translator’s introduction, Naylor & Rank (2013) p. 19.

[5] Archpriest of Talavera, Prologue, trans. Naylor & Rank (2013) p. 27. Similarly, “true love is required only for God, and not for any other {sólo el amor a Dios verdadero es debido, y a ninguno otro no}.” Id. These statements can be interpreted as declaring love for God (“true love”) to be categorically different from other types of love.

References:

Gerli, Michael, ed. 1979. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho. Madrid: Cátedra.

Naylor, Eric W. and Jerry Rank, trans. 2013. The Archpriest of Talavera by Alonso Martínez de Toledo: dealing with the vices of wicked women and the complexions of men. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Simpson, Lesley Byrd Simpson, trans. 1959. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. Little sermons on sin: the Archpriest of Talavera. Berkeley: University of California Press.

prosecutors' decisions have driven growth in U.S. prison population

The number of persons held in U.S. prisons has risen since 1980 to extraordinary heights. Neither incarceration for drug offenses nor longer prison sentences factually accounts for the enormous growth of incarcerated persons. The most important factor is prosecutors’ decisions; specifically, an increasing proportion of arrests for which prosecutors file felony charges.[1] The pressures, incentives, and regulations that shape prosecutors’ decisions largely make the barbaric U.S. criminal justice system.

Most U.S. criminal charges are resolved through plea bargaining. Among federal criminal cases in which prosecutors brought charges in 2009, 88% were resolved through plea bargaining. Judges dismissed 9% of those cases. Only 3% of cases went to trial. Among cases tried, only 16% did not result in a conviction. Cases that go to trial probably represent defendants who greatly misjudge how the criminal justice system actually works, or who insist on principle on having a trial. The government has much greater ability to marshal and expend legal resources than do most defendants. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of federal defendants lose at trial. Public interest in the functioning of the criminal justice system hasn’t been sufficient to impel the difficult task of collecting and compiling nationally state statistics on criminal court case dispositions. State criminal case statistics, which are less comprehensive than federal statistics, indicate that only 4% of prosecuted felony cases are resolved through trials.[2]

Plea bargaining is largely lawless. U.S. criminal law has become a heap of over-lapping statues that collectively allow almost unlimited punishment of anyone. The Aaron Swartz case provides a tragic example of the possibility to threaten punishment far beyond any common understanding of justice. The Anti-Deficiency Act, under which federal government workers were furloughed, arguably makes voluntary work by a furloughed federal employee a felony crime with punishment of up to two years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.[3] Moreover, like many criminal laws, the number of counts that can be brought isn’t well specified. A prosecutor could bring a separate count for each “act” of work, such as a quarter-hour timesheet work increment. So an employee who voluntarily spends six hours responding to 100 emails demanding to know what the effect of the furlough will be on a government proceeding could face charges threatening up to 48 years of imprison (one count of voluntary work for each 15 minutes of work) or 200 years of imprisonment (one count of voluntary work of each act of email returned). The prosecutor could offer the defendant-worker a guilty plea to an act of prostitution and sex offender registration in return for dropping the charges of voluntary work. That’s legal in the U.S. criminal justice system. A prudent defendant might well choose to accept that plea bargain. That’s obviously not just. To the extent that justice is done in the U.S. criminal system, it occurs mainly through prosecutors’ personal respect for doing justice.

Political, legal, and ethical checks on prosecutors’ decisions are largely non-existent. Elections of prosecutors are generally not contested, and many prosecutors serve many years in office. More political pressure on prosecutors isn’t likely to advance justice, but as for any official, complacency, arrogance, and corruption are risks with entrenched power. In Connick v. Thompson (2011), a district attorney was absolved of liability for prosecutors’ failure to give to the defense evidence indicating that the defendant was innocent. Only after an investigator uncovered that evidence was the defendant’s conviction overturned. The convicted defendant faced imminent execution after having been held in prison for fourteen years.[4] Prosecutors are seldom disciplined for ethical violations. In 381 homicide cases in 1999 for which prosecutors’ misconduct resulted in a reversed conviction, not a single prosecutor was publicly sanctioned. In 707 cases in California between 1997 and 2009 in which judges explicitly found prosecutors’ misconduct, less than seven prosecutors were publicly subject to professional disciplinary action.[5] Hundred of prosecutors across the country sell the use of their letterhead to debt-collection agencies. Like all humans, prosecutors respond to incentives and constraints. Prosecutors have very weak constraints on their professional behavior and professional incentives to imprison persons.

Every single person, including victims of crime and alleged criminal offenders, deserves to receive justice. Creating a system that does justice in the real world is difficult. Perfection cannot be expected. Yet one must recognize systemic reality: the U.S. imprisons an extraordinary number of persons with almost no due process of law. That’s unjust and shameful.

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Data: U.S. criminal case disposition statistics (Excel version).

Notes:

[1] Pfaff (2011). Pfaff has written a series of blog posts outlining the argument. See his posts on prison growth, defining drug crimes (part 1 & part 2), evidence against the war on drugs causing mass incarceration, evidence against war on drugs causing racial composition of prisons, more complicated arguments about drugs and prisons, longer sentences haven’t caused prison population growth (part 1 & part 2), better explanations for growth of prison population, central role of prosecutors in prison growth, and prosecutors have driven prison admissions. Pfaff discusses how the standard story about drug criminalization and imprisonment lacks a sound factual basis, but is nonetheless continually repeated, included in well-regarded publications. He also documents appallingly superficial “expert” discussion of media violence and violent crime. His discussion of allocation of criminal justice authority is provocative. Pfaff’s work, in my judgment, is by far the highest quality empirical work available on the criminal justice system. For Pfaff’s academic-style articles, see his SSRN author page.

[2] Based on U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics 2009 – Statistical Tables, Table 4.12; and Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 2006, Table 11. Non-federal cases have a higher share of cases dismissed relative to federal cases (23% compared to 9%) and a higher share of other dispositions (8% compared to 0% reported).

[3] See 31 USC § 1342 – Limitation on voluntary services and 31 USC § 1350 – Criminal penalty. Matt Kaiser, a federal criminal defense attorney, discusses the significance of these laws in “Congress Hates Federal Employees So Much That Employees Who Volunteer for the Government During a Shutdown Can Go to Prison,” Huffington Post, Sept. 27, 2012.

[4] Here’s the Connick v. Thompson majority opinion and dissent.

[5] Keenan et al. (2011) p. 220.

References:

Keenan, David, Deborah Jane Cooper, David Lebowitz and Tamar Lerer. 2011. “The Myth of Prosecutorial Accountability After Connick v. Thompson: Why Existing Professional Responsibility Measures Cannot Protect Against Prosecutorial Misconduct.” 121 Yale L.J. Online 203 (2011).

Pfaff, John F. 2011. “The Causes of Growth in Prison Admissions and Populations.” Social Science Research Network (SSRN). July 12, 2011.

ancient advice to kings on property rights and taxation

advisors to king in Padshahnama

The Book of Secret of Secrets, an Arabic text probably composed about 750, offers kings ancient advice on property rights and taxation, among many other matters. The secret Arabic advice is styled as the words of the eminent Greek philosopher Aristotle to the world-conqueror Alexander the Great:

As I say to thee, O Alexander, and I have never ceased from saying it to thee, that generosity and liberality and the permanence of a state depend upon withholding oneself from that which is in the hands of the people, and abstaining from their possessions. And I have seen it written in some testaments of Hermes the Great, that the perfect magnanimity of a king, the soundness of his judgement, and the permanence of his good name depend upon his abstaining from the possessions of the people. O Alexander, the cause of the downfall of the kings of Hanaj was no other than this, that they extracted too much revenue from the people and seized their property.[1]

The argument for security of property is not directly economic, but concerns the moral and popular status of the ruler. The advice on taxation, in contrast, emphasizes supply-side response:

he should lower all the taxes, especially in the case of those who come into his presence as merchants and traders. Because by abstaining from their properties and treating them with justice, they will return more frequently and their number will increase, and his country will be greatly benefited by the variety of goods and men and beasts. And this is the means of the civilization of the country, increase of its revenue, flourishing of its condition, and humiliation of its enemies. Therefore he who gives up the small will obtain the great. [2]

According to this analysis, lowering taxes will increase tax revenue in the long run. That wasn’t a laughable idea dreamed up in the late-twentieth-century United States. Insecurity of property rights and too high taxes apparently were recognized policy problems in the early Islamic caliphate.

The Book of Secret of Secrets doesn’t engage in pointless arguments about whether government is good or bad. The book analogizes the ruler and his government to the wind, rain, summer, winter, heat, and cold. For example, the analogy to wind:

the king also resembles the winds which God sends as harbingers of His blessings. He drives the clouds by means of them, and causes them to fertilize the fruits and impart new life to mankind; by means of them He makes their rivers to flow, lights their fires; and drives their ships. They injure many things on land and sea, both the lives and property of mankind, and cause plagues and simoons. Men may complain of them to God, but He does not make them cease from the function He has assigned to them. [3]

Economists and policy-makers today now commonly talk of “government intervention,” as if government is some unnatural, extra-worldly force. That’s ridiculous. Government is as natural as the wind and the rain. It is also as full of possibilities, both good and bad.

Beginning in the mid-twelfth century, the Book of Secret of Secrets was translated into Latin, Hebrew, and then European vernacular languages. It was widely disseminated and frequently copied. Known in Latin as the Secretum Secretorum, it was one of the most popular books in Europe prior to the sixteenth century.[4]

European vernacular translations were adapted to the communicative circumstances of smaller, competing Christian kingdoms. The reference to the Egyptian god Hermes the Great became a reference to the great human Greek doctor Hermogenes.[5] Immediately preceding the Arabic text’s advice to lower taxes was a description of the Indian king presenting himself to the people only once a year. Some European texts changed the Indian king to a Jewish king. More importantly, the European texts de-institutionalized tax policy and made forgiving tributes and rents part of the king’s annual appearance.[6] The European texts also added advice on the importance of merchants in inter-kingdom communication:

A king should do no violence to merchants, nor hinder them, but should pay them great respect, for they go through all the world by sea and land, and they will report what they find, good or evil. And the king should either by himself or by his true deputy do fair justice in giving every man what is rightly his, and then shall the honor and joy of the king increase and he shall be more feared of his enemies and live and reign in prosperity and peace, and shall have at his will all his desires. [7]

Another English translation similar advised:

The king must beware that he does no wrong nor violence to the merchants. But he ought to love them and cherish them, because they go into diverse parts of the world, where they make their reports as they have cause. [8]

Merchants in Europe could much more easily travel to a different kingdom than could merchants in Mesopotamia in the eighth and ninth centuries. Communication and competition across jurisdictions in Europe provided additional reason for kings not to seize private property and not to impose exorbitant tributes.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Kitab sirr al-asrar (The Book of the Secret of Secrets), from Arabic trans. Ali (1920) p. 181. A Persian elite secretary seeking a high government position probably composed the text about 750, when the Abbasids replaced the Umayyads as the caliphate of the Islamic world. The eminent ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle adds additional authority by invoking the great, esoteric Egyptian-Greek god Hermes.

[2] Id. p. 186. The translation for the last sentence in id. is “Therefore he who abstains from little gains much.” I’ve used the translation from Arabic to Hebrew to English for the last sentence above. See Gaster (1908) p. 122, para. 19. The fourth caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, advised lowering taxes in response to economic shocks:

If the tax-payers complain to you of the heavy incidence to taxation, of any accidental calamity, of the vagaries of the monsoons, of the recession of the means of irrigation, of floods, or destruction of their crops on account of excessive rainfall and if their complaints are true, then reduce their taxes. This reduction should be such that it provides them opportunities to improve their conditions and eases them of their troubles.

Decrease in state income due to such reasons should not depress you because the best investment for a ruler is to help his subjects at the time of their difficulties. They are the real wealth of a country and any investment in them even in the form of reduction of taxes, will be returned to the State in the shape of the prosperity of its cities and improvement of the country at large. At the same time you will be in a position to command and secure their love, respect and praises along with the revenues.

Ali ibn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 53, trans. from Arabic to English, Wikipedia.

[3] Kitab sirr al-asrar, trans. Ali (1920) p. 188.

[4] Williams (2003) pp. 1-2.

[5] 2 Timothy 1:15 refers to a Hermogenes who deserted Paul of Tarsus in Asia. A reference to that Hermogenes makes no sense in the context of Aristotle invoking a respected authority.

[6] Periodic forgiveness of debts is a part of the Jewish-Christian concept of jubilee. Associating reduction of taxes with forgiveness of debts and jubilee may have prompted the switch from the Indian king to the Jewish king. For examples of references to a Jewish king, see Secret of Secrets manuscripts in Steele (1898) pp. 13, 140 (Yonge manuscript); Manzalaoui (1977) p. 314. For a modern English translation of the Yonge manuscript, Kern (2008) pp. 22-23. In the sixteenth century, Mughal rulers made daily appearances to the people (Jharokha Darshan). That courtly ritual seems to have been based on more ancient Indian ideas.

[7] Secret of Secrets (medieval English translation from French; MS. Reg. I8A. in British Museum), Steele (1898) p. 14. I’ve modernized the English.

[8] Secret of Secrets (medieval English translation from French version of abbreviated Tripolitanus text, 2nd half of 15th century; Oxford MS. 85, University College, fols. 36-68), Manzalaoui (1977) p. 316.

[image] detail from “The presentation of Prince Dara-Shikoh’s wedding gifts,” Windsor Castle Padshahnama, folio 72B (c. 1635).

References:

Ali, Ismail, trans. 1920. Kitab sirr al-asrar (The Book of the Secret of Secrets). Pp. 176-266 in Steele, Robert, ed. 1920. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi. Vol. 5. Secretum secretorum, cum glossis et notulis : Tractatus brevis et utilis ad declarandum quedam obscure dicta. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gaster, Moses. 1907-8. “The Hebrew version of the Secretum Secretorum: a mediaeval treatise ascribed to Aristotle.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Oct., 1907, pp. 879-912 (Hebrew text); Jan., 1908, pp. 111-162 (English translation)’ Oct., 1908, pp. 1065-1084 (discussion in English).

Kerns, Lin, trans. 2008. The Secret of secrets (Secreta secretorum): a modern translation, with introduction, of The governance of princes {James Yonge translation}. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.

Manzalaoui, Mahmoud. 1977. Secretum secretorum: nine English versions. Oxford: Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press.

Steele, Robert, ed. 1898. Three prose versions of the Secreta secretorum. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.

Williams, Steven J. 2003. The secret of secrets: the scholarly career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Latin Middle Ages. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wednesday's flowers

cloud-coming

humorous medicine for healing pain of personal scholarly battles

In Egypt about 1050, prominent physicians engaged in a vicious scholarly battle about whether the chick is warmer than the chicken. That debate became famous. In Spain about 1170, the physician Yosef ibn Zabara wrote a book entitled Book of Delight. It’s a loosely autobiographical dream journey covering enormous intellectual, social, and geographic range.[1] It seems to be humorous medicine to help heal the pain of personal scholarly battles.

According to ibn Zabara, he was invited to the home of his physician-colleague Enan. Ibn Zabara was very hungry. They sat at table and a servant brought unleavened bread, lettuce, and vinegar. Ibn Zabara declared that lettuce and vinegar are unhealthful. Using technical terms from medieval medicine, Enan countered that lettuce “guards men from evil humors, black choler, and red bile.”[2] Ibn Zabara responded that lettuce dims vision, induces gout, causes constipation, and reduces sexual potency. After Enan angrily declared that ibn Zabara lacked learning, ibn Zabara devoured the whole bowl of lettuce.

Enan quoted “the Sage”: “There is no trait as evil as haste, and none as good as delay.” [3]

Ibn Zabara quoted “the Sage”: “When you have plenty, don’t eat until you are hungry, but if you lack food, eat whenever you can.”

Enan said: Don’t you know the saying of Hippocrates, “In bodies which are not free of humors, the disease increases as the food increases?”

Ibn Zabara said: Galen has said,“Do not allow your stomach to go a long time without food, for food withdraws from your body all evil humors and destroys them.”

They debated in this way until the morning of the next day.

Finally a servant brought out an entire roast lamb. Ibn Zabara recounted:

I reached out to take the shoulders of the lamb, but he said to me, “Be careful not to eat them, for they contain the humors of the heart.” So I reached for the lamb breast, but he said, “Don’t touch it, even in your dreams, for it impedes digestion.” I moved my hands to the kidneys, whereupon he said, “They are the source of the urine, and contain the waste products of the blood.” I lifted my hands to the knees, but said he: “They are very near the bowels, from where come feces.” So I turned my hand back to take of the tail, which continues from the spine, “The spine is no good,” said he, “for it is filthy and bad and kills the wicked desire of him who takes it.”

Enan continued to challenge ibn Zabara’s attempts to eat. Ibn Zabara managed to secure with Enan’s approval only a dry, scorched left leg bone. Finally, he ignored Enan’s words and ate to satiety. Enan complained bitterly of his guest’s bad manners.

Enan then sought to test ibn Zabara’s medical knowledge. Ibn Zabara insisted on eating before answering scholarly questions. After he had nearly perished from over-eating, ibn Zabara said that he felt sleepy. Enan insisted that ibn Zabara answer scholarly questions before sleeping. Enan wanted to determine whether “all these victuals have entered the paunch of a wise man or of a fool.” Thirty-two highly technical medical questions ensued. Ibn Zabara answered them in detail.

That scholarly discussion made Enan sleepy. Ibn Zabara then attempted to reverse Enan’s ploy of scholarly questioning to prevent/induce sleep. Ibn Zabara began questioning Enan. After declaring that he knows half of wisdom, Enan answered nine questions covering astronomy, geometry, phonology, and navigation. He answered all, “I don’t know.” Ibn Zabara declared that Enan knew nothing. Enan replied, “Aristotle has said, ‘He that says, “I know not,” has spoken half of wisdom.'” Ibn Zabara was forced to concede that Enan had spoken the truth.

Ibn Zabara then forced Enan to acknowledge that fifty years ago Enan had sworn never to speak the truth. Enan said that he faithfully kept that oath. But now Enan declared that he truly had knowledge of medicine and understood two principles of philosophy. Those philosophical principles where, “Nothing serves a person better than silence,” and “Whoever speaks profusely causes sin.” Ibn Zabara chose to test Enan’s knowledge of medicine. To twenty-one scholarly questions about medicine, Enan answered, “I don’t know.” Ibn Zabara concluded his fruitless questioning with a biting satire of physicians’ greed and pretenses to knowledge.

Before this intellectually hostile dinner began, ibn Zabara remarked that he had seen bad signs in Enan. Earlier ibn Zabara had described twelve signs according to an ancient master of physiognomy. The first eleven signs are formally similar to the traditional discourse of physiognomy. The twelfth, however, is unusually elaborated medically:

The tall person is a fool, a sinner in all his deeds, who blindly follows his desires. Because he is too tall, his heart is too narrow, not wide enough for his breast. One of the two ventricles is thus too small to contain the blood that supplies it, and since the brain is therefore only supplied by the remaining blood, both are weak: the heart’s capacity for discernment and the brain’s capacity for thought are both limited. Moreover, the distance between heart and brain is too great, such that both the faculties of discernment and thought cannot quickly join together. This means that his knowledge is always lacking. [4]

Enan, a tall man, was grieved by this claim that “the knowledge of tall men is short.” He exclaimed:

Now I know that you are seeking a pretext against me and are dissimulating in all your speech.

That’s probably how the ancient discourse of physiognomy commonly functioned. Physiognomy provided the same sort of knowledge as Enan’s full name: Enan ha-Natash, son of Arnan ha-Desh. That’s an anagram for Enan the Satan, son of Ornan the Demon.[5]

Ibn Zabara’s Book of Delight is filled with comical, nonsensical invocations of knowledge. Personal scholarly battles often have that context. Inability to see such comedy suggests that authority in knowledge is more oppressive today than it was about a millennium ago in learned, multi-cultural Spain.

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Notes:

[1] Ibn Zabara seems to have adapted text from ibn Butlan’s The Physicians’ Dinner Party. See Schippers (1999) pp. 159-61. Ibn Butlan was one party in the debate about the relative warmth of chicks and chickens.

[2] Ibn Zabara, Sefer Sha’ashu’im (Book of Delight), from Hebrew trans. Hadas (1932) p. 112. Unleavened bread, a fresh, raw vegetable (karpas), and a bitter liquid are associated with the Passover meal. Bread, salt, and vinegar were foods that the famous ninth-century Muslim scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal ate, according to his biography. Hoyland (2007) p. 280. Those foods signal a scholarly life of austerity and dedication.

[3] Id. p. 113. I’ve modernized and adapted the English translation. Subsequent quotes, unless otherwise noted, are similarly modernized and adapted from id. pp. 113, 114, 121,126, 139, 55.

[4] Ibn Zabara, Sefer Sha’ashu’im (Book of Delight), from Hebrew trans. Schippers (1999) p. 154. Hadas (1932), p. 55, provides a less modern, less fluid translation. The Arabic Kitab sirr al-asrar (The Book of the Secret of Secrets) includes a section on physiognomy ordered like ibn Zabara’s passage on physiognomy. Yehudah ben Shelomo al-Harizi translated Kitab sirr al-asrar from Arabic into Hebrew between 1190 and 1218. Ibn Zabara’s physiognomy has similarly style but different substantive claims than the physiognonmy in Kitab sirr al-asrar or its Hebrew translation. Here’s a comparison of the physiognomic claims (Excel version). Manzalaoui (1974), pp. 244-5, discusses Zabara’s sources. The physiognomy most similar in style to ibn Zabara’s analysis of tall men is pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomonica:

Men of abnormally large stature, on the other hand, are slow, for the flow of the blood has to cover a large area, and its movements are therefore propagated to the organ of intelligence slowly. … big men with moist tissues or of the hue that results from cold, also lack persistence; for their blood flowing over a large area, and slowly, on account of the cold condition of the body, its movement does not manage to reach the organ of intelligence entire. … big men with dry tissues, and of the hue that results from heat, are … persistent, and are keen of sense; for the warmth of tissue and complexion counteracts the excessive size, so that a proportion conducive to effectiveness is attained.

From Greek trans. Loveday & Forster (1913) p. 813a-813b. For more on ancient physiognomy, see this analysis of the physiognomy of skin color. Part of the humor in ibn Zabara’s Book of Delight is extended, realistic displays of technical knowledge. The modern institutionalization of knowledge makes appreciating the humor of knowledge display more difficult today.

[5] Enan seems to reflect a disliked physician-colleague from ibn Zabara’s life. For a biographical interpretation, Davidson (1914) p. XXV. Late in the tale, Enan reveals to ibn Zabara his comical extended name:

Enan the Satan, son of Ornan the Demon, son of Deathcourt, son of Mightydeath, son of Deathshade, son of Dread, son of Confusion, son of Terror, son of Bereftment, son of Malady, son of Pestilence, son of Destruction, son of Diminish, son of Evilname, son of Alvan, son of Javan, son of Scorn, son of Mishap, son of Plague, son of Brazen, son of Haughty, son of Sheram, son of Guilt, son of Deceiver, son of Stenchdom, son of Perish, son of Crooked, son of Curse, son of Abdai, son of Asmodeus, king of the demons, to whom all my ancestors served.

Adapted from Hadas (1932) pp. 147-8. Javan is a biblical figure that Jews interpreted as the progenitor of the Greeks.

[image] Sculpted head of Aristotle with bloody nose, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BGC. National Museum of Rome. Thanks to Wikimedia and Jastrow.

References:

Davidson, Israel, ed. and trans. 1914. Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara. Sepher Shaashuim {Sefer Sha’ashu’im}: a book of mediaeval lore. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Hadas, Moses, trans. 1932. Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara. The book of delight {Sefer Sha’ashu’im}. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hoyland, Robert. 2007. “The Islamic Background to Polemon’s Treatise.” Ch. 5 (pp. 227-280) in Swain, Simon, ed. 2007. Seeing the face, seeing the soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from classical antiquity to medieval Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Loveday, T. and E.S. Forster, trans. 1913. Aristotle. Physiognomonica. Pp. 805a-814a in W.D. Ross, ed. The works of Aristotle. Vol. 6. London: Oxford University Press.

Manzalaoui, Mahmoud. 1974. “The Pseudo-Aristotelian Kitāb Sirr al-asrār: Facts and Problems.” Oriens. 23/24: 147-257.

Schippers, Arie. 1999. “Ibn Zabara’s Book of Delight (Barcelona, 1170) and the transmission of wisdom from east to west.” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 26: 149-161.