Jakob Bernays


Jacob Bernays was a German philologist and philosophical writer.

Life

Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular; his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar.
Between 1844 and 1848, Bernays studied at the University of Bonn, whose philological school, under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, was the best in Germany.
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. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipzig, 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 the first scholar to suggest that Aristotle's Protrepticus inspired Cicero to write the Hortensius. He further suggest that the Hortensius should be used as the base by which the Protrepticus could be reconstructed.

Works

His chief works, which deal mainly with the Greek philosophers, are:
The last of these was a republication of his Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlungen des Aristoteles über die Wirkung der Tragödie, which aroused considerable controversy.