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Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio Armenica edidit J. Manandean.

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Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.

Biographical information about Elias is sketchy to non-existent; three commentaries have been attributed to him (the present work, as well as commentaries on the Prior Analytics and on Porphyry’s Isagogue), all firmly placed within the Neoplatonic tradition. Elias has been linked with the school at Alexandria, and a number of commentaries and other philosophical works connected to that school were passed down in manuscripts not only in Greek but also in Armenian, Syriac, and other languages. Indeed, the Categories themselves benefitted from a fifth-century translation into Armenian, which was printed in Venice in 1833.

The present edition of the commentary is taken from the Armenian manuscript MS 1939 at the Echmiadzin Monastery, west of Yerevan. The editor, Jakob Manandean (1873 –1952) was the author of several works on ancient Armenian history, as well as on the Armenian manuscript tradition.

Outside continental Europe, we find four copies in the US (Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard, Library of Congress, Newberry) and three in the UK (BL, CUL, Nottingham).

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