Dodi Ve-Nechdi (Quaestiones Naturales)

The Munich manuscript contains no such expression, as can be seen by referring to the corresponding passage (quoted above), and I doubt whether Berachya himself would have used it. A Hebrew scholar can easily account for the insertion of such a grotesque expression by the carelessness of a copyist. This view seems to be shared by the writer of the article in the Rabbins Referring to the encyclopedic work Histoire littéraire de la France, where authors are often referred to as "Rabbins", who had the critical acumen and fine sensibility to leave these words untranslated. But I scarcely think that I could provide better proof in support of my argument than the fact that Berachya, in his larger work, which I termed the Compendium (see my “Ethical Treatises of Berachya, etc.,” 1902), uses the following evenly-balanced and moderate terms when speaking of the literature of those who do not share his faith. He remarks there (cf. XLIX., p. 92, Eng.): “I have gathered all this information from the learning of the Greeks, which had been translated into other languages by certain non-Jews; I have redeemed it from the hand of the stranger, and have given it a purer turn of my own, and have incorporated it into this work.”

Next, in Question LII. (which should be LIX.), Jacobs interprets “grêle” as grasshopper. It would have been impossible for him to make this unpardonable error had he consulted the original. In the Munich Codex, the word occurs five times (also in the Index) and is explained in the text by קרח, which can mean nothing else but “ice” or “cold”; grasshopper is therefore out of the question and wrong.

“He leaves out all proper names like those of Socrates, Aristotle, etc.” This is a rather unfortunate statement, as Aristotle is mentioned by name in both the Munich and Bodleian Codices (M. VIII.; Bodl. 34.).

And why refer to the colophon of another work, that by his son Elijah, to confirm the authorship of the work in question, when the name “Berachya” as the author occurs three times in the “Dodi” itself, once as the “Son of Natronai”?

Finally, the communication from Dr. Perles, alluded to in the article of “Les Rabbins Français,” is also wrong; for the 52nd question is to be found in the Latin, though not under a separate heading, which misled Perles. I found it as the second portion of Ad. LXI.