Gregorius Bat-Hebraeus (Abulfaragius)
(1226-1286), the revival was due to the example and influence of the
Arabian thinkers. It was otherwise with the Nestorians. Gaining by means
of their professional skill as physicians a high rank in the society of
the Moslem world, the Nestorian scholars soon made Bagdad familiar with
the knowledge of Greek philosophy and science which they possessed. But
the narrow limits of the Syrian studies, which added to a scanty
knowledge of Aristotle some acquaintance with his Syrian commentators,
were soon passed by the curiosity and zeal of the students in the
Caliphate. During the 8th and 9th centuries, rough but generally
faithful versions of Aristotle's principal works were made into Syriac,
and then from the Syriac into Arabic. The names of some of these
translators, such as Johannitius (Hunain ibn-Ishaq), were heard even in
the Latin schools. By the labours of Hunain and his family the great
body of Greek science, medical, astronomical and mathematical, became
accessible to the Arab-speaking races. But for the next three centuries
fresh versions, both of the philosopher and of his commentators,
continued to succeed each other.

To the Arabians Aristotle represented and summed up Greek philosophy,
even as Galen became to them the code of Greek medicine. They adopted
the doctrine and system which the progress of human affairs had made the
intellectual aliment of their Syrian guides. From first to last Arabian
philosophers made no claim to originality; their aim was merely to
propagate the truth of Peripateticism as it had been delivered to them.
It was with them that the deification of Aristotle began; and from them
the belief that in him human intelligence had reached its limit passed
to the later schoolmen (see SCHOLASTICISM). The progress amongst the
Arabians on this side lies in a closer adherence to their text, a nearer
approach to the bare exegesis of their author, and an increasing
emancipation from control by the tenets of the popular religion.

Under the Caliphate.

Secular philosophy found its first entrance amongst the Saracens in the
days of the early caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty, whose ways and
thoughts had been moulded by their residence in Persia amid the
influences of an older creed, and of ideas which had in the last resort
sprung from the Greeks. The seat of empire had been transferred to
Bagdad, on the highway of Oriental commerce; and the distant Khorasan
b