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Lectures On The History Of Philosophy
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Lectures On The History Of Philosophy

"Moses Maimonides, a learned Jew, gives further historical particulars in his Doctor Perplexorum of this transition of Philosophy to the Arabians. He says: “All that the Ishmaelites have written of the unity of God and other philosophic dogmas”—especially the sect of the Muatzali (‎‏מעתוזלה‏‎, i.e. the Separated), who were the first to take an interest in the abstract intellectual knowledge of such subjects, while the sect Assaria (‎‏האשערייה‏‎) arose later—“is based upon arguments and propositions which have been taken from the books of the Greeks and Aramaeans” (Syrians), “who strove to refute and deny the teachings of the philosophers.”" "The Christian Greeks and learned Aramaeans, therefore, when they perceived that their doctrines were so clearly and plainly refuted by the philosophers, thought out a wisdom of their own, the “Wisdom of the Words” (Devarim), and they themselves received on that account the name of the Speakers (Medabberim, ‎‏מִדַבְרִים‏‎)." "When the Ishmaelites followed and attained supremacy, and the books of the philosophers themselves fell into their hands, and along with them the answers which “Christian Greeks and Aramaeans had written against the philosophic books, as for instance the writings of Johannes Grammaticus, Aben Adi, and others, they eagerly laid hold of these and adopted them bodily.” Christians and Ishmaelites felt the same need of philosophy; the Ishmaelites, moreover, strove all the more eagerly after knowledge of this kind, because their first desire was to defend Mohammedanism against Christianity, which was the religion of a large proportion of the nations they had conquered." In reference to the source he drew from, Hegel equates the terms "Syrians" and "Arameans" while talking about philosophy that had been transmitted from Arameans and Greeks to the Arabs.

Book
Pre-Islamic Arameans
Pavlos KarolidisPavlos Karolidis

Pre-Islamic Arameans

"But in Mesopotamia the Greek and Greek speaking population lived primarily in the cities, almost all which were built by the Greeks. On the contrary, the people in the countryside of this far-flung land were definitely a compact Aramaean population. This explains the fact that in Mesopotamia, through Christianity, we see Aramaic literature which in turn quickly produced a culture for the Aramaean element, that in the end prevailed in the whole country. In this also contributed as we saw earlier, that by the end of the 4th century began in the eastern and southern parts of the country a political change. And it was in the interest of the Persians to support the Aramaean element against the Greek in their perpetual dispute over Mesopotamia with the Greco-Romans. The ecclesiastical unity of the Christians in Mesopotamia and in Persia who were primarily Aramaeans and Nestorians also played a strong role in the evolution of things. After Seleucia, the great city of southeast Mesopotamia or Babylonia and Ctesiphon became permanently part of the Persian state and Ctesiphon became its capital, Seleucia, a city even bigger than Antioch, the creation of Seleucus and great center of Greek civilization, became instead an Aramaean Nestorian religious and educational center under the auspices of the Persian authorities. Same was the fate of the important city of Nisibis in northeast Mesopotamia. The Aramaean heretical element came to dominate in all of Mesopotamia while the Greek element that represented Orthodoxy became a minority."