Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism

A largely neglected thirteenth-century text, a Hebrew version of Aristotle's three treatises on sleep, dreams, and dream-divination, is reviewed. This version, by the Provençal scholar Solomon Melguiri, "updates" Aristotle's theory of sleep and dreams through explanations derived from other Aristotelian texts and the inclusion, in particular, of Galenic theories. It is shown that Melguiri cannot be credited with all the alterations. Parts of the adaptation are more plausibly explained as the work of its Latin adaptor(s), who incorporated Arabic material. Alternatively, the Hebrew treatise may draw on an Arabic-Latin translation.