-_J.Q.R._, III, p. 203.

S. Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 161 [197], etc.

On MAIMON (father of Maimonides), see L.M. Simmons, _Letter of
Consolation of Maimon ben Joseph_, _J.Q.R._, II, p. 62.

CRESCAS.

Graetz.--IV, pp. 146 [157], 191 [206].

ALBO.

Graetz.--IV, 7.

English translation of _Ikkarim, Hebrew Review_, Vols. I, II, III.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE

Provencal Translators.--The Ibn Tibbons.--Italian
Translators.--Jacob Anatoli.--Kalonymos.--Scientific
Literature.

Translators act as mediators between various peoples and ages. They
bring the books and ideas of one form of civilization to the minds and
hearts of another. In the Middle Ages translations were of more
importance than now, since fewer educated people could read foreign
languages.

No men of letters were more active than the Jews in this work of
diffusion. Dr. Steinschneider fills 1100 large pages with an account of
the translations made by Jews in the Middle Ages. Jews co-operated with
Mohammedans in making translations from the Greek, as later on they
were associated with Christians in making Latin translations of the
masterpieces of Greek literature. Most of the Jewish translations,
however, that influenced Europe were made from the Arabic into the
Hebrew. But though the language of these translations was mostly Hebrew,
they were serviceable to others besides Jews. For the Hebrew versions
were often only a stage in a longer journey. Sometimes by Jews directly,
sometimes by Christian scholars acting in conjunction with Jews, these
Hebrew versions were turned into Latin, which most scholars understood,
and from the Latin further translations were made into the every-day
languages of Europe.

The works so translated were chiefly the scientific and philosophical
masterpieces of the Greeks and Arabs. Poetry and history were less
frequently the subject of translation, but, as will be seen later on,
the spread of the fables of Greece and of the folk-tales of India owed
something to Hebrew translators and editors.

Provence was a meeting-place for Arab science and Jewish learning in the
Middle Ages, and it was there that the translating impulse of the Jews
first showed itself strongly. By the beginning of the thirteenth
century, Hebrew translation had become an art. True, these Hebrew
versions possess no graces of style, but they rank among the best of
their class for fidelity to their origi