Jakob Bernays
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Jacob Bernays (11 September 182426 May 1881) was a German
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
and
philosophical Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
writer.


Life

Jacob Bernays was born in
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
to
Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
ish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox German
rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
to preach in the vernacular; his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar. Between 1844 and 1848, Bernays studied classical philology at the
University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...
under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, Christian August Brandis, and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, of whom Bernays became a favourite pupil. In 1853, he accepted the chair of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with
Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th ce ...
. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for
Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, Bernays returned to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He remained in Bonn until his death on 26 May 1881. Upon his death, he bequeathed his Hebrew library to the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.


Scholarship

Bernays was most famous for his boo
''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie''
His medical interpretation of
catharsis Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing", commonly used to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. The desired result is an emotional state of renewal an ...
greatly influenced Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. Bernays was the first scholar to suggest that
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
's '' Protrepticus'' inspired
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
to write the ''
Hortensius Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114–50 BC) was a Roman Republic, Roman lawyer, an orator and a statesman. Politically he belonged to the Optimates. He was consul in 69 BC alongside Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus. His nickname was ''Dionysia ( ...
''. He further suggested that the ''Hortensius'' should be used as the base by which the ''Protrepticus'' could be reconstructed.Chroust, Anton-Hermann. ''Aristotle: New Light on His Life and On Some of His Lost Works, Volume 2'' Routledge, 1973. Web.
/ref>


Works

His chief works, which deal mainly with the
Greek philosophers Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics ...
, are:
''Joseph Justus Scaliger''
(1855) *''Über das Phokylidische Gesicht'' (1856) *''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie'' (1857)
''Über die Chronik des Sulpicius Severus''
(1861) *''Die Dialoge des Aristoteles im Verhältniss zu seinen übrigen Werken'' (1863) *''Theophrastos' Schrift über Frömmigkeit'' (1866) *''Die Heraklitischen Briefe'' (1869)
''Lucian und die Kyniker''
(1879) *''Zwei Abhandlungen über die Aristotelische Theorie des Dramas'' (1880). The last of these was a republication of his ''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlungen des Aristoteles über die Wirkung der Tragödie'' (1857), which aroused considerable controversy.


See also

*
Protrepticus (Aristotle) ''Protrepticus'' () or, "Exhortation to Philosophy" () is a lost philosophical work written by Aristotle in the mid-4th century BCE. The work was intended to encourage the reader to study philosophy. Although the Protrepticus was one of Aristotle ...
* Hortensius (Cicero)


Notes


References

*Notices in ''Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde'' (1881), and ''
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB; ) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences between 1875 and 1912 in 56 volumes, printed in Lei ...
'', xlvi. (1902) *article in the ''
Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...
'' * John Edwin Sandys, ''History of Class. Schol.'' iii. I 76 (1908). * Arnaldo Momigliano, ''Jacob Bernays'', in Id., '' Pagine ebraiche'', a cura di Silvia Berti, Einaudi, Torino 1987, pp. 167–180. *Bollack, Jean, ''Ein Mensch zwischen zwei Welten: der Philologe Jacob Bernays''. Goettingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2009. *''Du, von dem ich lebe! Letters to Paul Heyse''. Ed. W. M.Calder III & Timo, Günther. Wallstein, Göttingen 2010. *Ugolini, Gherardo. ''Jacob Bernays e l’interpretazione medico-omeopatica della catarsi tragica. Con traduzione del saggio di Bernays, Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie (1857)'', Cierre Grafica, Verona 2012. Attribution *


External links


Signature of Jacob Bernays (Rare Books of the Shimeon Brisman Collection in Jewish Studies, Washington University)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernays, Jacob 1824 births 1881 deaths German philologists 19th-century German Jews Writers from Hamburg University of Bonn alumni Academic staff of the University of Bonn German librarians Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities