The short treatise On the Cosmos (Περὶ κόσμου, De mundo), transmitted with the Aristotelian corpus, is a learned combination of a handbook of natural philosophy and a protreptic to philosophy, advocating a distinctly Aristotelian conception of god and the cosmos. The treatise is of uncertain authorship and date and it seems to be gaining traction in recent years. This timely and superbly produced volume demonstrates that the treatise has a great deal to offer to a whole range of scholars, from classical philologists and philosophers to historians of ideas and specialists in Arabic.
The volume can be divided into two main parts, one centred on the Greek text and T.'s English translation of De mundo, the other comprising eight essays dedicated to various topics: three essays focus on points of content and language, five deal mainly with questions of reception.
The first part consists of the editor's succinct but very helpful introduction to the text of the De mundo, providing an overview of the questions of authorship, dating, doctrines, style, sources and intended readership of the text. The introduction also gives a helpful chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the contents of De mundo, and it can serve as a reliable guide to the extensive bibliography. T.'s view, sound and based on different considerations, is that De mundo was most likely written by an unknown author from the Peripatetic tradition at the turn of the eras, though T. admits that an earlier date (but not earlier than the third century b.c.) cannot be ruled out.
Pages 20–66 contain the Greek text, translation and notes. The text is that of Lorimer from the 1933 Budé edition, with only five departures defended in the notes. However, there is no critical apparatus nor are major manuscript variants discussed in the notes. The facing English translation by T. is both accurate and elegant, and represents an improvement on Furley's fine translation in the Loeb edition. The notes that accompany the translation are mostly short and clarificatory.
The second part is written by eight scholars from different disciplines, focusing on different aspects of the text. C. Chandler shows that the language and style of De mundo are in the service of the complex objectives of the text: to summarise a large body of knowledge of the physical world, to convince the reader in the cogency of the Peripatetic conception of the divine and to spark a lasting interest in philosophy. R. Burri analyses the chapter on geography (Chapter 3 of De mundo), its rootedness in the tradition, its idiosyncrasies and the likely references to Eratosthenes, which might be mediated through Strabo.
T.'s essay on the ‘cosmotheology’ of De mundo is one of the most substantial contributions in the volume. T. argues that the author's aim, once he has provided a survey of the cosmos and its main structures in chapters, is to explain how the order and preservation of the cosmos can be due to a transcendent god. Actually, god is not outside the cosmos, but at the most dignified place, the highest point of the heavens, from which his causal power spreads to the rest of the cosmos. T. is right to point out that the author insists on this conception of god and his involvement with the cosmos as ‘appropriate’ or ‘fitting’ for a divine being, and that this was most probably meant as a tacit criticism of the Stoic ‘immanentist’ view, according to which god or pneuma is causally efficacious in the world by permeating all things. One of the striking features of De mundo, T. indicates, is the many comparisons used to explain god's involvement with the cosmos. He unpacks some of the comparisons, but does not explore the connections among them. What is truly striking is that the twelve comparisons in fact form one large and skilfully crafted multiple analogy (see G. Betegh and P. Gregoric, ‘Multiple Analogy in Ps.-Aristotle De Mundo 6’, CQ 64 [2014], 574–91).
A. Smith explores common themes found in De mundo and in some other ancient texts – for example the unity of the universe, the harmonious balance of the opposites, the relationship of god to the physical world, divine providence – and collects evidence for direct reception by ancient philosophers. Some of this evidence is gathered in the appendix. Smith's conclusion is that De mundo was a widely read text in Late Antiquity. The discussion of the parallels between De mundo and Maximus of Tyre would have profited from P. van Nuffelen's study (Rethinking the Gods [2011], pp. 122–46), which is the only highly relevant piece of scholarship, to the best of my knowledge, that is omitted from the volume's bibliography.
A. Tzvetkova-Glaser looks at the way the author of De mundo contrasts god's transcendent ousia with his dunamis immanent in the cosmos, and argues that his way of contrasting god's ousia and dunamis has no counterpart in the parallel passages from two Alexandrian Jewish authors (Aristobulos and Philo) and four early Christian authors (Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Origen and Nemesius). I wish the relation between god's ousia, dunamis and the chain of motions, which becomes less regular as it spreads from the heavens to the earth, was more carefully developed. And I am positive that the text of De mundo does not warrant the talk of ‘God and the created world’ (p. 135).
H. Takahashi provides an overview of the various Syriac and Arabic versions of De mundo and their relationship, whereas H. Daiber discusses the few quotations of De mundo by Muslim authors and many more possible echoes in Christian Syriac and Arabic texts. J. Kraye reviews the multifaceted discussions of the authorship of De mundo, with the various evidence adduced for and against Aristotelian authorship, from antiquity to our times. Kraye lists other proposed candidates for authorship, but opts for the view that it was written ‘by an eclectic philosopher around the turn of the first century bce and ce’ (p. 196), praising Heinsius for reaching this conclusion already in the early-seventeenth century. Apart from Smith's digest of ‘Related Texts’, given in Greek with accompanying English translation, the appendices contain an exhaustive bibliography, a selective index fontium, a general index and a brief note on the contributors.
This volume is a must for anyone interested in De mundo. Those who approach the text for the first time will find an excellent introduction and the best available English translation. Scholars working on De mundo, or acquainted with it, will find a wealth of well-organised material and state-of-the-art discussions on various aspects of the text. Some aspects, however, require more study. For example, the volume does not contain a study of the chapter on meteorology (Chapter 4 of De mundo), which is important both for its substance and for the question of its sources. There are philological and philosophical issues that receive no attention in the volume or that could profitably be explored in more detail, for example the author's use of quotations and allusions to the Presocratic philosophers, his conception of the soul, his ethical and political ideas and the two notions of pneuma. However, T.'s volume will be an indispensable chart to navigate the terrain yet to be explored.
