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THE GRECO-SYRIAC AND ARABIC SOURCES OF BARHEBRAEUS MINERALOGY 245
mew da-mtih. (iii) w-hden man iitwatti 'al nihe wa-glizut mefd w-kurhSne mmitiint
hammime w-yabbishe mshawdcSn.
... (i) They also cause illusions of chasms in the air and of dark porches in the sky. (ii)
Sometimes a very thick sulphureous exhalation rises from the earth and reaches the
upper heights, while its m t is fixed to the earth, when it catches fire from the aether,
there appears a coluhrn of fire extending from the earth to the sky. (iii) These signs
portend winds, drought and fatal, 'hot' and 'dry' diseases.
It is to be noted that Barhebraeus talks here of "sulphureous" exhalation as in
Cad and Zalgt?, and of the column extending "from the earth to the sky" as in
Tggrat t@grata. The sentence here may therefore be one which Barhebraeus put
together on the basis of his earlier works. The fact that Barhebraeus inserts this
sentence into a passage otherwise based on Ibn Sina shows again the interest he
had in this phenomenon of the "column of fire".
The reason for this interest is not difficult to guess. Barhebraeus probably
has in mind the "column of fire" of the Exodus narrative (Ex. 13.21). It is
probably for the same reason that the phrase "column of fire" occurs in some
other Oriental works dealing with Aristotelian meteorology for which Jewish or
Christian authors we= responsible, as in the Arabic version of Arist. Mete. by the
Christian Y*yi b. al-Bitriq (ob. ca. 830) and in the Hebrew translation of that
Arabic version by Samuel b. Tibbon, as well as in a compendium of Aristotelian
meteorology attributed to Hunain b. 1shQ6'
In the Arabic version by Ibn al-Bipiq, it is difficult to find any points of
similarity with the passages of Barhebraeus' works quoted above beyond the
coincidence of the phrase "column of fire". Passages where there are at least
some further points of contact with the passages quoted above may be found in a
work of a Jewish author (who converted to Islam in his old age), namely in the K.
al-muctabar of Abii 'I-Barakat Hibat All& b. 'Ali b. Malka al-Baghdiidi (ca.
1 077-after 1 l64/5).
Abu'l-Bdt, K. al-mu'tabar [Hyderabad (1357-8 h.)] 11.222.1 1- 16:
JUK )C;II iJ ".i J1# + dl JLSI Jl &Ldl c+Jl jCiJJl jkJI j l& 1
j-1 y b
-4
JI G a l + JL+ .-;La ,L3 I+b &I Iil &I LJ&l JI &b +i i& a,~, ~4 )I;! &LdI
-- a+ 2 &I Jl J>, &dl di j 4- JC;Ildy -1 Jl &I ,p 2bJI
... w- 4 1 , @I & dX .11- .-;La
These all [i.e. shooting stars, comets, etc.] arise from mixed smoky vapour rising to the
upper parts of the atmosphere until it reaches the proximity of the circle [sphere] of fire
and is kindled in the same way as [when] rising smoke is kindled by fire above it and
62 Ibn al-Bipiq [Petahis] 30.8, 11, 31 .lo, [Schoonheim] 1. 207, 210, 222; Ibn Tibbon [Fontaine]
1.321.324. 335 ('~vnrSd Csh). - The phrase in these instances apparently represent "w" of
Arist. 341b 2, 26. - Hunain, Comp. [Daiber] 294, 303, 305, 306; Moses b. Kepha, Paris 241,
I%v b25 (tr. 642.2).