Natural Sciences and Anthropology in Didymus the Blind’s Commentaries on the Bible: a Possible Aristotelian Influence

This paper gathers from Didymus’ exegetical works (in particular from the lessons on the book of Psalms and on the Ecclesiastes) all significant testimonies concerning his knowledge of natural sciences and his anthropological doctrine. Based on these materials I will briefly discuss their possible sources, trying to answer following questions: a) What kind of Aristotelian doctrines can we recognise in Didymus’ statements concerning cosmology, biology and anthropology? b) Is there sufficient evidence to conclude that he had, beside the Organon, also a direct knowledge of other Aristotelian works? c) How important are methods and doctrines coming from Aristotle for Didymus’ exegetical practice?

Aristotle was an object of mistrust among Christian writers at least until the end of the IVth century, but it is not very clear how much Christian authors really knew about him. 7 Was their critical attitude based on a direct knowledge of his thought and writings or did the Christian theologians rely on second hand and rather hostile sources? 8 In a letter of Jerome (Ep. 70,4) we read that Origen composed his own Stromata proving the truth of Christian religion through evidences from Plato, Aristotle, Numenius and Cornutus. This is a very generic statement, but it could be that Origen actually knew Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition better than we can guess from our remaining evidence. 9 On the other side, the summary of Aristotelian doctrine given by Eusebius of Caesarea in book XV of his Evangelical preparation shows that even a very learned Christian intellectual like him could, in reconstructing Aristotle's thought, completely ignore the authentic writings of Aristotle and rely only on indirect and hostile sources. 10 To get an idea about how much Christian writers could know of the Aristotelian works, we should first consider which kind of Aristotelian corpus was available to them. The Aristotelian corpus as we know it today established itself gradually during the first centuries of the C.E. As Porphyry (Vita Plot. 24,(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11) shows, that at the beginning of the IV th century the systematic ordering of the esoteric works, as we know it, was a fait accompli, which he attributed without any hesitation to Andronicus of Rhodes; but it is not said that the corpus thus constituted was widespread. It is possible that the apparently little knowledge Christian authors show of the esoteric Aristotelian works depended on the difficulty of getting them rather than on their lack of interest in them.
We must also take account of the doctrinal concerns of Christian writers. In general we can assume that they did not like to openly reveal their dependence on pagan culture; thus, Christian authors could actually have a wider knowledge of it than it appears from their writings. We have, in fact, some evidence that there was a tradition of Aristotelian studies among the Christians at Alexandria. Eusebius tells us that in the the Seventies of the III century a teacher called Anatolius, later bishop of Laodicea, was appointed as chief of the Aristotelian school of Alexandria: Anatolius [...] was an Alexandrian by birth. Concerning his learning and education in Greek philosophy, namely, arithmetic and geometry, astronomy, and dialectics in general, as well as in the theory of physics, he was first among the ablest men of our time, and he was also at the head in the knowledge of rhetoric. It is reported that, for this reason, he was requested by the citizens of Alexandria to establish there the school of Aristotelian philosophy. 12 Arius, Aetius and Eunomius are credited with the study of dialectics and of Aristotelian doctrine at Alexandria in the first half of the IVth century. 13 Therefore we can conclude that Didymus had good opportunities to get acquainted with Aristotle's philosophy and works. Most of the philosophical doctrines we find in the writings of Didymus arise within a school tradition where Aristotelian and Stoic elements are mixed together into a Neoplatonic frame. An example is offered by the explanation of Eccl 7, 25 ("I and my heart went round about -ἐκύκλωσα -to know, and to examine, and to seek wisdom"):

Aristotelian Doctrines in a Platonic Frame
It has already been said many times that the heart means the intellect. Nevertheless the intellect does move neither obliquely nor straight; it turns around itself. Likewise as some of the pagans said that the noetic acts are like wheels and circles turning around. Of course, when the intellect tends towards external things and wants to receive a representation of sensible things, it doesn't turn around itself. But when it acts as intellect and it directs its attention towards itself, then it becomes the subject and the object of its noetic activity. Indeed the noetic activity always belongs to the intellect in actuality and, in that case, it is never dispersed towards the external things. 14 Didymus speaks of "some of the pagans" but does not specify to which authors he refers.
There are general statements or definitions which derive from or agree with Aristotle's doctrine but which were very common in the philosophical language of his time, and do not imply that Didymus had a direct knowledge of Aristotle himself. They are interesting for us because, by using them without further explanations, the teacher supposed that his pupils too were familiar with them. In this way we can retrace the philosophical background shared by Didymus and his audience. An example of this kind of widespread doctrines is the explanation of the title which opens several psalms: "for the end" (εἰς τὸ τέλος). Didymus explained it by referring both to the Aristotelian and to the Stoic definition of τέλος: It has often been said about the end that it is "that thing for whose sake everything else happens, whereas it is not for the sake of any other thing"; it is also called "the ultimate object of desire" [...]. 19 A deeper level of appropriation of Aristotle's thought is shown by passages containing explicit quotations from his works or the systematic use of typical Aristotelian doctrines, e.g. actuality as opposed to potentiality, the different kinds of change, the distinction between homonymous, synonymous and paronymous things. 20 The analysis of these texts of Didymus shows that he was acquainted at least with a part of Aristotle's written works and with some fundamental teachings of him. 21 An example of how Didymus creatively used Aristotelian notions in his theological reflection is offered by the way he distinguishes between different types of movement. In the context of a christological discussion, he lists the ways in which a change can take place: Both from Scripture and from the common notions we know about God that he is unchanging and free from alteration: he who does not undergo any quality, does not change and is not subjected to alteration. An alteration is nothing but a change with respect to quality. Not every change is an alteration, but only the change with respect to quality. There are also other kinds of change, since there are also other kinds of movement.
[2] What can increase changes [...]; this kind of movement is an addition and an increase of the quantity.
[2] There is also another movement and change with respect to increase, when an increase takes place and the quantity gets larger. [...] [3] Therefore, the alteration is a movement with respect to quality, like the passage from illness to health or from health to illness, from ignorance to science or the contrary, and from unbelief to belief. 23 The same distinction appears again at the beginning of the commentary on Job: Didymus compares the physical changes, which take place through the increasing in size or the passing away of the body, to the ethical changes, which take place through a deliberation and cause the passage from virtue to vice and the contrary (HiT 1, 25-2, 5).
Didymus reproduces a classification that can be read at the beginning of Book III of Aristotle's Physics. Here Aristotle distinguishes changes related to being (γένεσις καὶ φθορά), quantity (αὔξησις καὶ φθίσις), quality (ἀλλοίωσις) and place (φορά): What changes, changes always with respect to substance or to quantity or to quality or to place.
"movement", which can be applied to specific problems of Christian theology and anthropology.

Traces of Aristotle's Biology and Zoology in Didymus' Writings
Various biological and zoological explanations are scattered throughout Didymus' biblical commentaries. In several cases there are more or less significant correspondences between what Didymus writes and what we read in Aristotle's works dedicated to biology and zoology. There are, however, no real quotations, nor any explicit references to Aristotle's scientific doctrines. Didymus sometimes states that he has obtained his information from other sources, but he refers to it in a generic way, speaking of "those who have dealt with <...>". 25 Although the possibility cannot be excluded that helike other early or contemporary Christian authors 26was familiar with and used some of Aristotle's biological writings, it seems more likely that the information he possessed in this area depended on intermediate sources. 27 Didymus' anthropology can be defined as Aristotelian in a very generic way 28 : man is a "rational mortal animal", "capable of receiving science" 29 ; Didymus recognises the primacy and autonomy of the soul with respect to the body, but man is for him properly "the living compound, made up of soul and body" ( GenT 54,[22][23][24]. highlights the fact thataccording to the prophet -God not only created the spirit of man, but created it in him, thus indicating the close union established between the human body and soul. Since Zechariah, speaking of the spirit of man, uses a verb (πλάσσω) which the version of the LXX also uses to describe the formation of the body from the dust of the earth (Gen 2, 7), the commentator explains: The "spirit of man" is not simply "moulded", but is "moulded in him"; in fact, it is not of corporeal nature, but of rational nature. In a proper sense, however, what is moulded is the body of man "men" as the "principal creation", to which all other animals are ordered. This superiority implies, according to him, that the human soul is immortal, while the soul of animals are mortal. 34 Also according to Aristotle, man is the apex and criterion of reference for the study of all living beings because, like them, he has perceptive capacities and, in addition to them, he possesses the rational faculty. 35 According to Aristotle and Didymus, human beings differ from all other animals in the fact that only humanseven though they have in common with many other animals the organs of phonationhave a voice capable of producing a word (λόγος), namely "a sound with a meaning". 36 In his Politics, Aristotle specifies that the possession of the voice unites man with many animals, capable of expressing pleasure and pain. However, the possession of the ability to speak is linked to the sphere of ethical-political action and is proper to man only: language is used to express what is useful and what is harmful, therefore also the right and the unjust; in fact, compared to other animals, it is a characteristic of humans that they alone possess the perception of the good of the bad, the right and the unjust and so on. 37 The dimension of ethical action is a point on which the anthropology of Didymus is in interesting agreement with that of Aristotle. 38 It is true that possessing the logos makes 34 Didym. GenT 42, 4-10 (Sources chrétiennes 233: 110): Ἐπεὶ προηγουμένη κτίσις ἐστὶν τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ἡ κατὰ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ζῷα θνητὰ τυγχάνοντας, ἀκολούθως τὰ ἄλλα ζῷά τε καὶ φυτὰ διὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ χρείαν δεδημιούργηται [...]; 44, 7-12 (Sources chrétiennes 233: 116): "Καὶ ἐγένετο ἑσπέρα καὶ ἐγένετο πρωΐ, ἡμέρα πέμπτη" καὶ εἰκότως· ἔπρεπεν γὰρ τὰ πολὺ τῆς αἰσθήσεως μετέχοντα ἄλογα ζῷα ἐν τῇ πεντάδι δηλούσῃ τὰς αἰσθήσεις γενέσθαι. Κἂν γὰρ ἄνθρωποι αἰσθήσεως κοινωνῶσιν, ἀλλ' ἔχουσιν τὸ μεῖζον τῆς αἰσθήσεως, τὸν νοῦν καὶ λογισμόν, τῶν ἀλόγων περὶ μόνην αἴσθησιν ἐχόντων; 48, 11-15; 48, 26-49, 6.  human beings different from and superior to other animals in terms of knowledge, but the latter too possess not insignificant cognitive abilities. For Aristotle the sphere in which man's most distinctive character appears is the practical sphere, because only man is the principle of his own action and is therefore capable of living according to virtues. 39 Also according to Didymus, man's possession of the logos, which constitutes him "in the image and likeness" of God (Gen 1, 26), is expressed specifically in the ethical dimension -that is, in the capacity, given only to human beings, to "live according to philosophy and virtue" 40 , because that is why they were created. Virtue and vice are, in fact, the outcome of a choice that presupposes the ability to dispose of oneself, which in turn depends on the possession of the logos; thus neither children nor irrational beings are capable of exercising virtue. 41 It cannot be said that these elements prove a specific dependence on Aristotle, but they at least indicate a proximity to him in the way that Didymus reflected on certain themes. Doctrines originating from Aristotle (or attested to in his writings) are also encountered when Didymus dwells on the description of the properties and symbolic meaning of some animals. For example, commenting on Eccl 9, 12 ("Surely the man doesn't know his time: as fishes which are taken in an evil net [...]"), he reports an opinion, attributed to "learned men", according to which there are fishes which possess a kind of language. There is a passage in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus, where Aristotle is mentioned as holding this opinion: It has been well said by some learned men -I don't know if it is also true, anyway it has been well saidthat if a parrotfish, after having been caught in a net, manages to escape from it, it is impossible for that day to find another fish of the same kind in the same place. [...] With some special sign of theirs, they give directions to those which were absent. 42 39 Aristot. EE II 5, 1222 b 19-20; cf. Sassi, "I trattati di Aristotele 'sugli animali '", 16-17. 40 Didym. EcclT 165, 17-18 Kramer -Koenen: ἡ κυρίως καὶ ἀληθῶς ζωὴ τοῦτο τὸ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ἀρετήν ἐστιν ζῆν; 238, 8-9 Kramer -Krebber: ὁ γνοὺς ἑαυτὸν οἶδεν, ὅτι γενητός ἐστιν, καὶ οἶδεν, ὅτι πέφυκεν πρὸς ἀνάλημψιν ἀρετῆς; 358, 7 Binder -Liesenborghs: ἀνθεῖ τοίνυν ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ὅτε προκόπτει ἐν ἀρετῇ; HiT 152, 32 Henrichs: ἐδημιουργήθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἵνα κατ' ἀρετὴν ζῇ. 41 Didym. PsT 30,[13][14][15][16][17][18]93,[21][22][23][24][25][26]EcclT 338,4; GenT 1, 25-2, 5; HiT 5, 1-7; ZaT II 347. 42 Didym. EcclT 286, 13-16 Kramer -Koenen: καλῶς λέγεται ὑπὸ ἀνδρῶν λογικῶν -εἰ ἀληθές ἐστιν δέ, οὐκ οἶδα, ὅμως δὲ καλῶς λέγεται· ἐὰν σκάρος, φησίν, ἀνγιστρευθεὶς φύγῃ, ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν ἔτι ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ἐκείνῳ εὑρεθῆναι ὁμογενῆ αὐτῷ ἰχθύν. The complaint of the Psalmist in Psalm 21, 7 "I am a worm and not a man" is explained by Didymus as a reference either to the humiliation of the Christ or to his birth from a virgin: Since [the Christ] did not receive his body from the sowing of human seeds, but only from the matter taken from the woman who gave him birth, therefore [the Psalmist] calls him a worm; the worm is not engendered from the copulation, but from the simple matter. 43 Spontaneous generation is dealt with by Aristotle in De generatione animalium and in Historia animalium V and VI. 44 Ιn Historia animalium V 19, examining the ways in which insects are generated, Aristotle talks about some kinds of insects arising out of a grub (σκώληξ), with or without copulation (συνδυασμός). In the same chapter he mentions various types of insects and intestinal worms (ἕλμινθες) arising spontaneously (αὐτόματα) from different materials (dew, mud, manure, wood, hairs, flesh, excrement). 45 Of the complex cases and distinctions made by Aristotle there is nothing in the brief mention made by Didymus, except the coincidence in the use of the terms σκώληξ (also found in the text of the LXX) and συνδυασμός, which Aristotle was the first to use. It is very probable, therefore, that the interpretation of the worm as the image of the virginal birth of Jesusalthough originating in the Aristotelian doctrine of the spontaneous generation of certain types of σκώληξwas elaborated by a previous author, perhaps Origen 46 , and taken up by Didymus.
Explaining Psalm 41, Didymus mentions the symbolical meaning of the deer and quotes a proverb concerning it: When [the deer] gets old and sheds its horns, it conceals itself somewhere, until new horns grow and get strong; as long as it doesn't have its horns it is easier to capture it: in fact, they are its weapons and means of defence. Therefore, there is this saying: "Woe to the deers (οὐαὶ ἐλάφοις) φησιν ἰχθῦς φθέγγεσθαι, καίτοι μόνους εἰρηκότος ᾽Αριστοτέλους φθέγγεσθαι σκάρον καὶ τὸν ποτάμιον χοῖρον.
which do not have their horns!". This proverb implicitly signifies: "Woe to the man, who has no help". 47 A similar passage concerning the deer in the Historia animalium of Aristotle gives a different spelling and interpretation of this proverb: They shed their horns in places difficult of access and discovery, whence the proverbial expression of "the place where the deers (οὖ αἱ ἔλαφοι) shed their horns"; the fact being that, as having parted with their weapons, they take care not to be seen. 48 We can imagine that Didymus, listening to Aristotle's text, understood οὐαὶ ἐλάφοις (woe to the deers) instead of οὖ αἱ ἔλαφοι (where the deers), or that he was misled by his memory. But it is easier to think that there has been an intermediate source between him and Aristotle.
Another animal whose characteristics Didymus describes in a way reminiscent of To show the fact that the wings of those women are worthy of blame, they have been compared and declared similar to the hoopoe's wings. This animal is impure, as it loves corpses and human excrements; it feeds at the graves and builds its nest with human excrement, laying its eggs in this unhealthy shelter, so that it can hatch and give birth to little ones similar to itself. 49 A passage in Book IX of the Historia animalium contains the information that "the hoopoe usually constructs its nest out of human excrements" 50 , but in the quoted passage Didymus offers other information about this bird (the hoopoe was used to provoke abortions and to make love filters), which is not found in Aristotle and which supposes a different source. 51 I quote a last example of how Didymus used biological knowledge that can refer, at least indirectly, to Aristotle. In the commentary on the book of Job (10, 10: "Didn't you press me out like milk and didn't you curdle me like cheese?") we find a short report on embryology: [Job] calls "pressed out milk" the seed out of which the animal is made; and as the curdled milk becomes cheese, so the seed, after having been curdled, becomes nature. This condition comes before the embryo. The seed sown in the furrows of the womb, when it has been curdled like cheese, becomes nature, which in turn receives a shape or, as the Scripture says, the "image" [of God] and is impressed with something like distinctive marks. But when the limbs have been distinguished and each of them is separated from the other and acts like the hand or the foot of an animal, at that time the birth of the embryo shows openly the animal. 52 The formation of the embryo is also described in the comment on Eccl 11, 5 ("as you do not know the bones in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you will not know the works of God"). There Didymus refers explicitly to the theories of "those who have dealt with the nature of animals" to expose the process of formation of the fetus' organs: digested food is transformed into blood, while what has not been digested is expelled. The blood condenses into flesh, while what remains of it forms hair, hairs and nails. Didymus points out that biologists do not know how to describe the origin of bones, confirming what Scripture says: "my bone was not hidden from you, which you did in hiding" (Ps 138, 15). As for the formation of the embryo, it comes from the condensed sperm. As it condenses, it is transformed into "nature" (φύσις), which in turn is transformed into flesh, and the embryo, which has become a living being, can be given birth. 53 This process is 51 ZaT I 391; L. Doutreleau, "Introduction", in Didyme l'Aveugle, Sur Zacharie, 3 vols., ed. L. Doutreleau (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 1962), 1: 115-116. 52 Didym. HiT 276, 27-277, 11 U. Hagedorn -D. Hagedorn -Koenen: τὸ σπέρμα, ἐξ οὗ συνίσταται τὸ ζῷον, ὡς γάλα ἀμελχθὲν λέγει· καὶ ὥσπερ τὸ γάλα συστρεφόμενον τυρὸς γίνεται, οὕτω καὶ τὸ σπέρμα συστραφὲν φύσις γίνεται· κατάστασις δέ ἐστιν αὕτη πρὸ τοῦ ἐμβρύου· τὸ γὰρ καταβληθὲν εἰς τοὺς αὔλακας τῆς ὑστέρας σπέρμα, ὅταν συστραφῇ οἷα τυρός, γίνεται φύσις· ὅπερ λοιπὸν διαπλάττεται ἤ, ὡς ἡ γραφή φησιν, "ἐξεικονίζεται" καὶ δέχεται ὥσπερ χαρακτῆρας. ὅταν δὲ διαστῇ τὰ μέλη καὶ ἕκαστον ἰδίᾳ γένηται καὶ κινῆται λοιπὸν οἷα ζῴου χεὶρ ἢ πούς, τότε ἐμβρύου μὲν ἡ ἀπότεξις ἀποδείκνυσιν εἰς τὸ φανερὸν τὸ ζῷον. 53 Didym. EcclT 324, 24-325, 15 Binder -Liesenborghs: οἱ περὶ φύσεως ζῴων πραγματευσάμενοι [...] λέγουσιν ὅτι αἷμα συνίσταται τοιῶσδε· τῆς τροφῆς τῆς προσενεχθείσης διαγευθείσης -ὅταν διὰ τοῦ πεπέφθαι φλέγμα γένηται -ἡ τροφὴ εἰς αἷμα μεταβάλλει· τὸ δὲ ἄπεπτον ἐκβλητέον ἐστίν, οὐκ ἀναλύεται εἰς τὴν σύνστασιν τοῦ βεβρωκότος, ἀλλ' ὡς περίττευμα ἀποβάλλεται. [...] εἶτα ἐκ τοῦ αἵματος λέγουσιν πυκνωθέντος καὶ παγέντος γίνεσθαι σάρκα καὶ ἐκ τῶν περιττευμάτων τῆς τροφῆς γίνεσθαι τρίχας, ὄνυχας καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἃ ὥσπερ περιττεύματά ἐστιν. περὶ δὲ τῆς γενέσεως τοῦ ὀστέου οὐδεὶς ἐκείνων εὗρεν [...] κυοφορεῖ ἡ συνλαβοῦσα ὑπὸ ἀνδρὸς mentioned, in shorter terms, in the commentary on the title of Psalm 44 ("For the end, for those who are undergoing an alteration"), to which we have already referred. Here Didymus compares the change that is produced in the passage from the seed to the embryo to the change that is produced in the resurrected body compared to the mortal body. 54 In De generatione animalium Aristotle offers a description of the genesis of the embryo similar in some passages to the one we read in Didymus: When the female's secretion in the uterus has been fixed by the semen of the male, which acts in a similar way to rennetand in fact rennet is milk that contains vital heat [...] -, [...] membranes are formed. When the embryo has been formed, it acts similarly to the seeds that are sown. The first principle [of growth], in fact, is also contained in the seeds. And when this principle has been differentiatedwhile before it was contained potentiallythe bud and root are pushed out of it; the root is the one through which [the plant] receives nourishment. [...] in fact what exists grows and the final nourishment of an animal is blood or something similar. 55 The image of the curdled milk which becomes cheese is used both by Aristotle and Didymus to describe the development of the embryo. 56 But for Aristotle the seed is like rennet -it is the agent of the curdling process -whereas for Didymus it is the object of that process. Like Aristotle, Didymus believes that the blood is the final stage of transformation of nourishment 57 , but there are also other elements (for instance the Stoic doctrine that the first stage of development of the embryo is the φύσις 58 ) and the whole ἡ σπέρματα δεξαμένη. τὸ σπέρμα δὲ καταβληθὲν εἰς τὴν ὑστέραν πρώτην μεταβολὴν δέχεται εἰς φύσιν. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἕτερόν ἐστιν φύσις ἢ σπέρμα πεπυκνωμένον ἐγγὺς ἔχον τοῦ μεταβαλεῖν εἰς σάρκα. μετὰ τὴν φύσιν ἡ μεταβολὴ εἰς τὸ ἔνβρυον ἄγει, τὸ ἔνβρυον εἰς τὸ ζῷον, μεθ' ὃ ἡ ἀπότεξις εὐθέως γίνεται.
The conclusion of this brief review is rather poor: Didymus possessed a considerable amount of knowledge of philosophical and scientific culture, but was not a philosopher in the way his pagan contemporaries were. Philosophical and scientific doctrines were not studied by him for themselves, but only in order to use them to explain biblical passages, as a complement to their interpretation or as tools to discuss the problems arising from theological teachings.
Several passages in the works of Didymus show an explicit reference to Aristotle or to one of his writings. Almost all these passages are not in the published commentaries, but in the transcript of the classes given by Didymus on Psalms and Ecclesiastes. It seems, therefore, that philosophical topics were openly discussed in the circle of the school, but not in the works composed for a larger written circulation. It is also clear that the pupils of Didymus were acquainted with Aristotle: the teacher quotes passages and uses Aristotelian doctrines, though he never explains them directly.
From the explicit quotations and more extensive discussions of some themes it appears that Didymus certainly knew the logical corpus of Aristotle and perhaps also other works by him. It is not possible to say whether Didymus derived his direct knowledge of Aristotle from his scholastic training in grammar and rhetoric (which limited his interest to certain logical writings) and had only an indirect, albeit good, knowledge of other Aristotelian doctrines, or whether he had a greater knowledge of the Aristotelian corpus than appears in his writings.
In any case, we do not find in his writings any direct quotation or explicit reference to Aristotle's biological works. It can be said that some aspects of Didymus' anthropology and ethics have a more explicit Aristotelian colour than his contemporaries. Moreover, in several cases the naturalistic observations he makes in his biblical commentaries correspond to the writings of Aristotle. But Didymus dedicated to the study of nature the encyclopaedic curiosity of an amateur, not a speculative and systematic interest, and his knowledge in this field probably depended on sourcessuch as the collections of mirabiliawhose origin it is not possible to determine more precisely, because he never mentions either authors or titles, but among them it is not probable that there were the biological writings of Aristotle.