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A HISTORY OF
JEWISH PHILOSOPHY
,
I
I· i IN THE
MIDDLE AGES
COLETTE SIRAT
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The right of the
University of Camhridge
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was granted by
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The University has printed
and published contil/uously
slnce 1584,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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EDITIONS DE
LA MAISON DES SCIENCES DE L'HOMME
Paris The Fourteenth Century
There was also Elijah ben Eliezer ha-Yerushalmi, who wrote a book
logic as a dialogue between a master and his pupil, a commentary on some> parts of the Guide of the Perplexed, and also other commentaries.
While Christian logic spread, translations of medical works from Latin to Hebrew were also very numerous, especially in Provence, where important treatises were translated shortly after they appeared. Arnald of Villanova Regimen Sanitatis was translated in Avignon in I327 by Isaac ben Joseph ha-Levi, called Crescas Vidal of Caslar, as well as other treatises by the same author; Abraham Avigdor translated Bernard Albert's Introduction to the Art, and so on. It would be tedious to enumerate all the medical works trans_ lated from Latin between 13 IO and 1320. The frequency of these translations seems to indicate that in general Latin was not well known; it is also Possible that it was easier for a Jewish doctor to get a book from a co-religionist than from a Christian colleague. One must also remember that in the Middle Ages reading and writing did not always go together. Very many people were able to read, but not to write, and it is possible that Jewish doctors could read' Latin but not copy a m~nuscript that interested them, while they could easily do so in Hebrew. Thus, the influence of the Christian intellectual milieu made itself felt more or less according to the authors, but it was rarely altogether '. absent.
In the introduction to this chapter I mentioned the very numerous com-' mentaries on Ibn Ezra's Commentary. Among the more important of these " is that by Joseph Bon/ils ben Eliezer ben Joseph the Spaniard, a work called' Sophnath Paneah (The Revealer of Secrets), and the Mekor Hayyim (The.
Fountain ofLife), by Samuel Sarsa, both of which have the great advantage .'1f,u..••..O of the Messiah. According to the Christians, Isaiah 53 clearly an-
of having been published. Of the commentary of Samuel Ibn Motot (fl. 1370) and the introduction to the commentary of Judah Ibn Mosconi, only' have so far been published. All the other commentaries are still in manuscript, although they certainly merit scholarly attention. They include the! commentary by Shem Tov ben Isaac Ibn Shaprut of Tudela and that of
Solomon Franco (fl. 1360), pupil of Joseph Ibn Waqar, which was a source of inspiration to his contemporaries.
Whatever the interest of these texts, an interest that cannot yet be evaluated, philosophy, astrology and Kabbalah remain the three great doctrines of reference for Jewish philosophers of the fourteenth century.
Chapter 9
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
S· h
pams Jews between Judaism and Christianity
Spanish Jewry the fifteenth century began in 1391 and ended with the ulsion, in 1492.
. in I345, the Black Death decimated European Jewry together the rest of the population; moreover it provoked popular riots against Jews, suspected of having brought about the epidemic. The full impact these events was only felt towards the end of the century, but in the latter of the period a certain mounting apprehension begins to be sensed; one in the texts reports of discussions with Christians, and polemical proliferate, especially concerning the advent of the Messiah. missionary activity began early in the thirteenth century, but it as yet sporadic. It became more insistent from the middle of the four-century, in Spain as well as in Provence. The sermons that Jews were to hear, sometimes under police protection, often dealt with the
the coming of Jesus, and it is no accident that many Jewish inter-
of this chapter were written at this time; those of Moses Cohen Crispin of TordesilIas, in I 375; that of En Solomon Astruc of Barcelona of Isaac Eli the Spaniard (after 1359), and that of Shem Tov ben Isaac Shaprut (in I385, at Tarazona).
work of David of Rocca Martino seems to me to belong to the same
; this author, whose dates are uncertain, wrote a small treatise called
Adam (Adam's Justification), demonstrating that the expulsion from
as well as all the chastisements proceeding from the Fall are not
but natural processes contained within the laws of nature .
•,F,.--_...._-in syllogistic form, David of Rocca Martino's arguments are an to polemical debate, and his thought is aggressively rationalistic .
• ". ·'·.....n
despite the tensions and uneasiness engendered by a certain number conversions to Christianity, Jewish philosophical activity did not falter . the second half of the fourteenth century; indeed, it was intensified,
we have seen in the previous chapter. brutal end came to an already precarious equilibrium. In the early of 139I, anti-Jewish riots ravaged the communities of Andalusia Castille, Navarre and the Balearic Islands, but spared the kingdom of
344
Spanish Jews
The Fifteenth Century
Aragon. Very many Jews were killed; many others conver~ed to Catholicism his co-religionists. The arguments on both sides, of those who had to escape death or slavery. Synagogues were transformed mto ch~rches, and Jews and of converts to Christianity, are drawn from the same nothing remained of formerly prosperous Jewish centres except rumed build. and utilize the same logic. On both sides people were tormented by ings and a greatly diminished group of th~ fa,ithful, th.o~e ,:"ho ha~ found refuge with Christian friends or had fled m time, A vlVld ImpreSSIOn Was After his conversion Pablo de Santa Maria wrote a letter to Joseph made on people's minds not only by the massacres but also by the wave of chief rabbi of the kingdom of Naverre, in which he remarked conversions, which, starting in 1391, continued throughout the fifteenth he had come to the conclusion that Jesus had fulfilled Jewish Messianic century until the final Expulsion in 1492, at which time the new Christians, IJl"."",~. The letter circulated among the Jews; it had perhaps been written later called Marranos, outnumbered the Jews, Aristotelian philosophy was
this purpose in mind .
accused of having troubled the minds of the people, causing the leaders of . ' Joshua Lorki, another celebrated scholar, author of a manual of therathe communities, wealthy and generally acquainted with philosophical ideas, .!Cm:uLlI." in Arabic that was translated into Hebrew, took it upon himself to to be among the first to convert instead of providing an example of heroic
Judaism and replied to his former friend. conduct. This accusation, which has been taken up again by contemporary scholars such as I. Baer, is presented in the work of Shem Tov.
JOSHUA LORK1
Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov (ca. 1380-1441), who was rather unoriginal as a Kabbalist, wrote his Sefer ha-Emunot (Book of Beliefs) to demonstrate the ..•
having declared his astonishment and spoken of his anxiety at hearing noxiousness of Jewish philosophy, far more pernicious than Greek as such, Solomon ha-Levi's abjuration of his faith, Joshua Lorki enumerates the
·.'11II1:i1MJlW
for it was dissimulated under the names of venerated men such as Abraham that might have caused this apostasy and this attack against his Ibn Ezra, Gersonides, Albalag and, especially, Maimonides. Shem Tov does co-religionists: perhaps a longing for worldly honours, or for wealth not deny the importance of science, but he rejects its, applicati~n to matters the pleasures associated with it -refined dishes and beautiful women? of faith' but this was the way of thinking of Maimomdes and hIS successors, perhaps philosophical motivations had leq him to judge religious conwho d; not admit that, where God is concerned, only the science given as frivolous and consequently to assign greater importance to directly by Him to Israel is valid. Saadiah and Abraham bar I;Iiyya clearly and intellectual satisfactions? Perhaps the misfortunes afflicting his understood this and preserved the literal meaning of the biblical text on such . had made him despair of divine aid and brought him to think that. points as individual providence, reward and punishment, the creation of the would not again remember his people Israel? All these, according to
world, the miracles, the resurrection of the dead, and so on. are not very probable reasons, and a fourth motivation seems to have
How asked Shem Tov, could one remain firm in the face of ordeals and to the conversion of Solomon ha-Levi of Burgos -the fact that he had confro~t persecution if one had been taught that there i,s no punishn:ent for
I!eX.oeI'1erlCed revelations concerning the foundations of the prophecies and the wicked and no reward for the just? that only the mtellect survlves, an meanings. Besides, he remarks, Solomon of Burgos is very learned in intellect acquired through knowledge of logic, mathematics, natural sciences Latin tongue, and he, Lorki, has seen in his friend's house books of and metaphysics, and that this knowledge is accessible only to philosophers? .,,,1111",LlaU theology explaining the roots of the Catholic faith; moreover, he that the divine commandments are no more than a preparation for the acqUIseen a letter addressed to Joseph Orabuena in which Solomon of Burgos sition of this knowledge? that the stories of the Torah are intended for the that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah awaited by the Jews. For simple people, for if philosophical truth were knownto all, the political order Lorki, it was not ambition, nor contempt for religion engendered by
would be imperilled? and so on.
, nor the obvious contradiction between contemporary Jewish
These are valid arguments, and we have met them all in the works of and the divine promise of election and providence, that caused his Jewish philosophers after Maimonides. However, in lie~ of this dangerous to convert to Christianity, but rather a genuinely religious reason: the philosophy, Shem Tov can only propose a return to the hteral text or to the in Jesus who had come to fulfil the biblical prophecies. Kabbalah which the rationalists could not accept. Moreover, apart from Lorki continues by expounding eight objections to admitting that emphasizi~g the risk of conversion, he does not prove that this philosophy is the Messiah; in conclusion he remarks that if the claims of the is false as Hasdai Crescas would attempt to do. ,.~LIlJ"Llalll~ are true; if Jesus were indeed the Messiah predicted by the pro
lt is ~rue that eminent philosophers were to be found among the convert~, ; if he were born from the word of God, without intercourse between such as Solomon Ha-Levi of Burgos who took the name of Pablo de ~anta and woman; if his resurrection, as well as the other miracles had, in Maria, becoming a Christian theologian, possessed by a fervent deSIre to occurred, he, Lorki, could only remain silent, for the mind may hesitate
concerning all these matters; these are things that it lies in God's POWer t Burgos himself has adopted a difficult position; while, after reflection, he accomplish, by working miracles and changing the course of nature. 0 . accepted the law of the Christians, he still has to judge between it and All.these miracles took place in this lower world, during Jesus' terrestrial of the Muslims, and yet other beliefs; for the intellect acknowledges life; one can therefore explain them in a way similar to that employed by one can find yet other faiths and that it is possible that none of these Moses of Narbonne in speaking of other miracles, which belong to the spheres are divine, and that there is another that has this character and thus quest will never come to an end. '
of the possible. It is the same with the subtleties of the Trinity that the theologians have adopted, as well as the doctrine of consubstantiality, for Let us now examine the other side of the question. If it is not fitting, and one can argue that these were ancient opinions that were already known .is in no way the duty of a religious man to reason about his religion, the
and that certain persons had already accepted in the time of the prophets: will be that he who practices a religion, whichever it be, will besides, he, Joshua Lorki, has found them in Aristotle, in a passage speakin~ saved by his belief; one religion will not be better than another, unless of the eternity of the world. acts contrary to justice, and punishes unjustly. If a man attached to one
All these opinions, inadmissible to those who participate in Abraham's should not meditate on the foundations of his faith, and compare covenant, may nevertheless be accepted by those who incline to lend faith to to another, he is forced to believe in the religion in which he is born, them. This argument rests on a psychological difference arising from education' it is true or false, and if he worships. God in the manner that his
Wl1\,.W_L
Jewish scholars admitted that Christian theologians had their own habits or· ."I'"""'·~H prescribes, he will therefore be happy and saved by it; if it were not thought, which inclined them to admit distinctions that a Jew could not the ways of God would be unjust, for how could God punish a man who accept. taken the wrong road if he was obliged to do so? It would follow from Ofthe three Christian dogmas: Jesus as the Messiah, the Trinity and the opinion that Solomon acted ill in denying his faith, for he should not Incarnation, the Incarnation was the most obnoxious to Jews. Lorki asks: done this, being attached to one religion.
Finally, Joshua Lorki asks the following question: Let us consider the
How can one believe that a Messiah of flesh and blood, who eats and drinks, who·
lives and dies, is the true God, cause of causes, whose emanation of power moves . nations: the Christians who live at the extreme end of England have the spheres, and of whose overflowing existence are formed the separate Intellects heard about the Israelites or the Muslims; those who are attached to the who are not body nor power in a body and whose dwelling is not among mortals? of Muhammad dwell in a land too far away to know the Israelites How can their existence be continuous and perpetual if He is corporeal? That . and the Christians; all the men of these different religions are born and have [terrestrial] matter should persist eternally in actu is one of those impossible things up in their faith, and have never heard about any other religion than of which the sages said that the impossible has a stable nature. In truth the intellect own; they are happy in the practice of their religion, they do not even cannot conceive this opinion, and no doubt on this subject can arise in the mind. that any other may exist, and their faith is for them not only a tradition
(Ketav Divrei Hakhamim, p. 45) a reasoned doctrine; they adore God in the purity of their hearts. However, Joshua Lorki now poses an even more fundamental question. ~. Evidently one of these religions is false, and a lie bequeathed by their If a man professes a certain religion, is it for him a religious duty to fathers. How may those who belong to a different religion tell them that God examine, to prove deeply and to seek to know the foundations of his law·· •. will punish them if they do not convert to the true faith that they have never and of his religion, to know whether it is true, or whether another religion known ? And in truth, according to reason, it is a strange thing that God has more truth in it; or is he not obliged to do so? Let us now consider the •• should condemn to eternal punishment innumerable thousands of innocent consequences of these two suppositions: If we admit that it is his duty to mortals, who do not and cannot know their error (Ketav Divrei Hakhamim, compare by reason the dogmas of his law and belief with those of other pp. 19-2 8). religions, until he thinks he has found the truth (and it is most probably this This last problem raised by Joshua Lorki, although formulated under the way of thinking to which Solomon of Burgos conformed when he meditated, .• pressure of Christian missionary activity, is purely philosophical, and has a probed, searched, until he had found the truth, in his opinion, and acted in . rather modern sound: should religion be measured by the yardstick ofreason? consequence) -if it were so, the result would be that no religious man would .•. Since a choice is given in matters of religion and one can be Jew, Christian remain attached to his faith; he would be in perpetual doubt and perplexity; or Muslim, is it every man's duty to examine the faith in which he is born it would also follow that each man would have to make a decision concerning according to scientific criteria, and to reject it if he decides that another faith the validity of his religion; he would no longer accept as truth the law of .is more in conformity with a philosophical ideal? What then are the criteria the prophet, of the legislator; he would rely exclusively on the inspirations for judging one particular religion as the best? of reason; no faith, in the true meaning of the word, would remain. Solomon This is to state the problem in terms according to Arab-Jewish Aristotelian
philosophy, where the criterion of truth is human reason and religion is a political law that accords with reason; the source of truth is not revelati~n' Besides, Lorki observes, since one specific revelation is not universally recog~ nized, it would be unjust on the part of God to exclude a great part of the human race. One can see how, by taking reason as a criterion of religion, one may come to place all religions on the same level. Because of its universality· philosophy was not therefore particularly advantageous to the preservation of . religious identity, whose absolute necessity appears to be doubtful. On the other hand, no philosophical argument can turn the scale in favour of one Or other religion.
As D. L. Lasker has remarked, for both Jewish and Christian polemicists and philosophers philosophy was only the servant of theology, or of other less spiritual tendencies. Joshua Lorki demonstrated this himself when he converted to Christianity. It was as a Christian under the name of Geronimo de Santa Fe that he took part in the Disputation of Tortosa in 1413-14.
One of the instructive aftermaths of the events of 1391 was the notion of the bankruptcy of reason, in religious life as well as in practical existence. This accounts for the importance that was henceforth assigned to faith, and the affirmation of its superiority over reason.
If it is true that the spiritual climate, strongly influenced by Aristotelian philosophy, was not a good preparation for martyrdom to the faith, nevertheless on the individual level philosophers, like other men, were capable of resisting pressure. We do not know how many preferred death to conversion, but we do know of some who remained Jewish. Moreover, they remained faithful to Maimonidean philosophy.
Such was Ephraim ben Israel al-Naqawa. This celebrated rabbi took refuge in North Africa after the massacres of 1391. He is revered not only at Tlemcen, where his tomb is found, but throughout Algeria and Morocco.
. For many generations his grave has been a site of pilgrimage, and legend attributes many miracles to him. This is not surprising; did he not arrive at Tlemcen riding a lion and using an enormous serpent as a rein? This personage, metamorphosed by popular belief into a wonder-working saint, was a convinced Maimonidean who hardly believed in miracles at all. In the book Sha'ar Kevod Elohim (The Gate of the Glory of God), he replies to Nahmanides' objections to Maimonides' theories on supernatural vision. With the help of philological and psychological arguments drawn from his own experience, he proved that Maimonides was correct in believing that the prophetical visions of Abraham and Jacob occurred in dreams, and that the biblical text should not be taken in its literal sense. Fervent rationalism shines forth on every page. . .
pespite persecutions and assaults, Jewish and even Aristotelian Jewish phiiosophy Was far from extinct in the fifteenth century. Thus in 1405, Meir Alguadez, Chief Rabbi ofCastille, translated Aristotle's Ethics from Latin into
,aided in this by Solomon Benveniste Ibn Lavi (della Cavalleria), who, his son Judah, remained among the most ardent defenders of Judaism.
. With the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, philosophy was to flourish the Mediterranean basin, and it took new root in Italy. Morewhile defending itself with varying success against polemical attacks, philosophy was increasingly interested in the Christian thought that . was called upon to confront. In Spain as in Italy there were numerous . from Latin to Hebrew. Not only works on medicine and logic translated, but also works on metaphysics: Elijah ben Joseph Habillo ••!frI:UI:)JLa.-;u the works of Thomas Aquinas, three treatises by William of Occam perhaps a treatise by Vincent of Beauvais. Azariah ben Joseph ben Abba . (Bonafoux Astruc, of Perpignan) translated Boetius' Consolation of
; Abraham Shalom translated MarsiIius of Inghem. As the century progressed these translations became less and less necessary, Jews were reading Latin and the great majority of the learned men who " now be introduced spoke this language perfectly.
Joshua Lorki wrote to Solomon ha-Levi at the time of his conversion that had seen in his house' treasures of Christian books ... for you are versed their tongue more than any of the learned men of our days'. This was of most Jewish men of erudition, and public controversies like the DisIlolltatlOn of Tortosa were conducted in Latin. In Spain this knowledge of among Jews had defensive connotations, but the phenomenon was II~vlll"lc:U throughout the Christian countries of the Mediterranean. In Italy, the atmosphere was much more relaxed, both Christians and Jews I!"no'~hr",..."ted in the Renaissance, as we shall see a little later, and the languages
this Renaissance were Latin, Greek and often Hebrew.
of the major themes of Spanish Jewish philosophy after 1391 was that the commandments given by God, commandments that must be accomIlplllShf:d literally through bodily actions, which are enjoined by and in accor-,
with reason.
Let us recall that Maimonides did not accept Saadiah's distinction between ,auvwal' and 'revealed' commandments. For him, all the commandments a 'reason', sometimes known and sometimes not. However, while the reason of each commandment should be looked for, one should not .'U~",",ual'" about the practical details, such as the number of animals that be sacrificed in the Temple. The reasons for the commandments are
I\UI1IIQe:Q into two great classes:
(I)
The good of human society;
(2)
The good of the soul, prepared by and to a great extent depending on good of the body, which is achieved through the physical accomplishof the commandments. To this is added the acquisition of true opinions,
prepare the soul for the acquisition of the intelligibles, conducting it supreme felicity.
The Fifteenth Century
Spanish Jews
These explanations of the divine commandments are comparatively nega.
as a Christian at Perpignan, under the name of Honoratus de Bonafide,
tive and in any case very austere. They were complemented by the much
, in the service of John I of Aragon, without however giving up his
more positive reasons given in the commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra.
activity in Hebrew. During this period he wrote his anti-Christian
Moses of Narbonne and other Jewish philosophers of the fourteenth cen.
UUl'''U<.w~< works and exchanged an erudite correspondence with his pupils
tury thought that the physical accomplishment of the divine commandments
Meir Crescas and Shealtiel Gracian, while continuing to dedicate his scienti
had an immediately efficacious virtue: these acts contribute to the functioning
productions to high-ranking Christian personages. In 1403, when he com
of the celestial and terrestrial world, which is regulated by a pre-established harmony favouring the survival of Israel. These ideas were reinforced by the vogue of astrology and the popularity of Neopl~tonism.. .
Judah Halevi's thought, centring on Israel, Its people, Its land, Its law, again became a theme of meditation and study in the fi~t~enth ~entury. The centrality of Israel whose acts and thoughts partIcIpate m the cosmic
, ~
drama was also proclaimed by the Kabbalah, andr these convergences en~ hanced the great importance attributed by Jews to the divine commandments carried out in the flesh.
The reasons for the commandments and the liaison between their corporal observance and the survival of the soul is one of the major themes of the century, and we shall frequently encounter it. The 'physical act of the accom· plishment of the commandments also tends to be mterpreted as a sacram~nt embodying its own salvationary virtue.
These tendencies are still very discreetly voiced in a theological treatise in fifteen chapters entitled Ya'ir Nativ (He who lights the Way), by Judah ben Samuel Ibn Abbas (most probably the brother of Moses ben Samuel Ibn Abbas, who together with Joseph Albo took part in the Dis~utati~nof Tortosa). Ibn Abbas recapitulates the problem: profoundly MalmOm?ean, he classes the divine commandments intwo groups: those that are deSIgned to perfect the body and those that are designed to bring perfection to the soul.
Some people cease to fulfil the commandments on the pretext that they are intended to teach us the virtues, and once virtue is acquired, need no longer be observed. These, says Judah Ibn Abbas, are ignorant people or else false scholars, and he declares that he has never met a truly learned man who is a heretic. '
Here the problem was still formulated in Maimonidean terms. With Efodi this was no longer the case.
ISAAC BEN MOSES, LEVI
Isaac ben Moses Levi, called Maestro Pro fiat Duran and often designated
by the acronym Efodi, lived at the end of the fourteenth century and. the beginning of the fifteenth. Born in Catalonia, he suffered the ~ers~cutlOns of 1391 and converted to Christianity. Deciding to go to Palestme m ord~r to regain the free practice of Judaisin, he was about to leave with his pupJl and friend David Bonet Bonjorn, when David informed him that he intended to remain faithful to Christianity. Efodi renounced his plans, and.
352
'posed his grammar, Efodi had again become a Jew. No more is known of him after that date. Efodi's work is encyclopedic, comprising medicine, grammar, philosophy,
'arithmetic, astronomy and astrology, and various controversies. His pole.mical works show his profound knowledge of Christian culture; in Kelimat 'ha-Goyim (Opprobrium of the Gentiles), most probably dedicated to l;Iasdai
and composed in 1397, Efodi points out the errors in the translation
Jewish texts in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers; he also O¥!-' .. llIa'l" use of the arguments of internal Christian criticism.
Al-tehi ka-Avotekha (Do not be as your fathers) is a satirical letter written
j!ihetwetm 1391 and 1397, addressed to his former friend David Bonet Bonjorn. the name of Alteca Boteca this humorous chef d'oeuvre attacking was disseminated by Christians, who did not grasp its satirical 'intention. However, after the appearance of an illuminating commentary by ben Shem Tov, in about 1450, the book became an object of great .1l1!!'.v"r~11{)11 to the Inquisition; it was placed on the Index and remained on this
"list of forbidden books until the nineteenth century.
Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the work:
Now, my brother, I became aware of thy good intentions, and that all thou dost 'is for the sake of the Lord. Faith is for thee a girdle round the loins, and Reason . all her lies is unable to entice thee and divert thy paths. Therefore I made up
mind to show thee clearly the ways of the faith which thou hast chosen as thy compass in the light of the Messiah. ' Be not like unto thy fathers, who believed in one God from whose unity they
u: rern01{ed any plurality. They have erred indeed, when they said, 'Hear Israel, the
, Lord is One!', when they understood this unity in the purest sense without inclusion ofspecies, kind or number. Not so thou !Thou shalt believe that one can becomethree and that three united make one. Lips will never tell it, ears never take it in.
Be not like unto thy fathers, who conceived by deep meditations the eternal Ruler beyond change and body, as expressed in the words 'I change not', and who ex: plained in this sense even those passages which, when interpreted unskHfully, perplex simple souls. Not so thou! Heaven forbid that thou shouldst deny His corporeal JIf!errIOOOlnnerlt. but believe rather that one of His three persons became flesh, when He to shed blood for the atonement of mankind. Offer Him thanks that He ,.suffered death in order to redeem thee ... For this was surely the only way"which
•could be found by' the wisdom of the Almighty! Believe that He became flesh in the womb of a virgin, of an 'Almah' as the Hebrew word reads; it occurs also in ':' the passage 'the way of the man with a young woman'. This miracle was able to
the faint-hearted Ahaz, although he had lived five hundred years earlier ... Be not like unto thy fathers, who by close scrutiny tried to find a deep philosophical meaning in the account of creation, and who had much to disclose about the firt human couple, about the four rivers, the tree of knowledge, the serpent, and t~ coats of skin which the Lord made them for clothing. Not so thou! Conceive all th·e literally! Add, however, yet an inner punishment to Adam's misfortune, increa~s through it the burden of his bitter fate that he has to carryon his back. He wU~ never get rid of it, and is entirely in the grip of Satan, until the Redeemer comes and purifies him by his death. Now that sin is abolished, although it is not men. tioned in our holy Scripture, while the other curses, the punishments of hell, remain for ever: .. Stick to the mystery of hereditary sin which the head of the Apostles proclaimed, he whose name is identical with that of thy teacher. Thy reward will grow immensely like thy faith.
Be not like unto thy fathers, who were continuously engaged in sciences of aU kinds, in mathematics, metaphysics and logic, and tried to penetrate to the foun. dations of truth. Not so thou! Far be it from thee to recognize the first fundamental rule of reasoning in logic. For this would entice thee to deny thy faith by saying: God is Father; the Son, too, is God truly: the Son is therefore the Father. Brother stick to this belief! It will lead thee to eternal life, and God will be with thee ' Alas, thy fathers ate the bread of affliction, suffered thirst and hunger; thou, h~~: ever, hast saved thy soul, thou eatest and becomest satisfied, thou rejoicest in the Lord and praisest the Holy One of Israel. . . .
But above all believe sincerely in the almighty Redeemer. He is the root ... of thy faith ... But do not believe in the metaphysical principle that affirmation and negation cannot exist at the same time, further that transformation of an accident into essence is impossible, and also that the being of a thing consists in its essence, but that the being of an accident depends on the object which carries it. For the body of the Messiah who sits on the throne in heaven does not move while that on the altar moves in every direction. The wafer is, before the utterance of the priest nothing else than bread, but by this utterance the essence of the bread becomes a~ accidental quality or disappears entirely, and the previous accidental qualities be. come independent and enter the stomach of the priest who eats the wafer. None of the believers denies this ... In general, brother, do not accept the principle, 'What is impossible in itself remains impossible', but, on the contrary, accept faithfully all those impossibilities, for the almighty Messiah dominates all things, near or far, possible or impossible.
(Trans. F. Kobler, Letters ofJews through the Ages, vol. I, pp. 277-9)
Efodi did not expound his ideas systematically; they are dispersed in his various writings. His Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed is rather literal; he continually attempts to refute the exegeses that make Maimonides appear a philosopher disdainful of the Torah, and he also stresses the danger of certain Maimonidean positions. In his astroiogical conceptions Efodi is very close to Abraham Ibn Ezra; he annotated passages of the latter's commentaries in response to the questions of his pupil Meir Crescas, and he developed these same ideas in a letter of condolence addressed to En Joseph Abram on the occasion of the death of his father Abraham Isaac Halevi in Gerona, October 1393.
Two other letters, commenting on II Samuel 14 and 16-17, are more historical than philosophical in character. On the other hand, his commentary
354
Spanish Jews
Abraham Ibn Ezra's Book of the Name treats entirely of mystical arithand his answer to Ibn Ezra's commentary on Exodus 25 is essentially
In the introduction to his grammar, Ma'aseh Efod (Making of the Ephod, allusion to Exodus 28: 15 and to the name Efodi) we find a summary of opinions.
The Torah is perfect; it alone leads to eternal, supreme felicity; to safeit, to observe its commandments, is the only way that leads to God; since the role of humanity is to serve God and accomplish His command
only Israel really fulfils human destiny. The Torah is perfect, for it leads to eternal felicity; but it also leads to felicity. So far, all the Jewish sages might be in agreement; but opinions differ as the manner of observing the Torah. Here Efodi draws up an inventory of
different opinions current in his time: Some say that only the accomplishment of the mi~vot, the commandments, important; these commandments have virtues which we do not know but
are efficacious; some go so far as to say that intention is not indispento the efficacity of these mi~vot, as a medical treatment cures a sick man he has faith or not in the efficacity of the remedy.
Others affirm, and Efodi agrees with them, that the Torah has two parts. first part is knowledge and leads to eternal felicity, the second is act, performance of the commandments, and brings about terrestrial happiBut the two parts of the Torah are intimately linked. The acquisition knowledge; apart from the eternal felicity it brings, will also bestow a
terrestrial happiness; and he who fulfils the commandments will receive, addition to earthly happiness, something of the joy that awaits the learned the next world. In fact, the two parts of the Torah cannot really be separated; only know
allows one to really carry out the commandments, even if this fulfilment not the ultimate aim of the acquisition of knowledge, but only its necessary
u.''''''VJLlll-'''UUH'~'Ht.
The Talmudists reject the physical and metaphysical sciences because they Greek in origin; some of them are even opposed to the study of the Bible. them only the Talmud is the voice of the Torah. Efodi concedes that the
sharpens the intelligence.
.•. As for the philosophers, they want to reconcile two contraries, Aristotelian .n'uu~'''vl~uy and the Torah, holding that the latter leads to the acquisition of moral virtues that precede the acquisition of the sciences of logic, physics metaphysics. But, says Efodi, not only is the Torah a preliminary but true knowledge derives from the Jews: science and Judaism are 1r."""l1·lCH<") bound together and Maimonides never placed philosophy above
Torah.
Religious acts aim to attract the emanation of God Himself, saintly beings 355
The Fifteenth Century
and pure angels. The perfect worship is the accomplishment of the command. \ Moreover, we see that it is because the Jews have studied the Bible for ments in the Land of Israel, for these commandments are dictated by the years that God has preserved their existence among the dangers and angels who preside over the Land ofIsrael (literally 'The Gods of the Land'). tions of the Diaspora, where every other people would have dishowever, it is imperative to fulfil them wherever one may be, because of th~ c_.... ,'<lw·f1. Contemporary history is an illustration of this: the Jews of France needs of the human body. Spain neglected the study of the Torah, consecrating only one hour a While the Kabbalah is not' proved', one must admit that the Torah and to it, that of the reading of the weekly pericope. This is the cause of the prophets are much more in accordance with its doctrines than with those exile and persecutions. The Jews of Aragon, on the other hand, were of the philosophers, and if what is told of the Kabbalists -that they change becallse they prayed day and night and constantly recited the Psalms. the nature of created things by miracles -is true, this would even more we not see, says Efodi, that the Christians' and even the Muslims have definitely confirm their claims to possess the truth. ,However, since the ail'i'U"Fi,"" to recite the Psalms? While the Jews, instead of doing likewise, lose Kabbalists are far from agreeing among themselves, the danger of error is in the subtleties of talmudic learning! Efodi proposes that one greater here than elsewhere. of the time of study should be devoted to the Bible, the second third to
Efodi concludes thus: one must return to the study of the Torah, the only Mishnah, the final third to the gemarah. As for profane sciences, one sure way to supreme felicity. For, if it is true that the entire Torah is Com_ study everything that does not contradict the foundations of the posed of divine names, the study of biblical texts, like prayer, participates iri the efficacity of the names of God. Efodi's ideas reflect a conjunction of all the currents of neoplatonic, astro
The different books of the Bible all have this virtue, to a lesser or greater .""IIV""Y~' and magical thought that tend to rehabilitate the Torah in its positive
degree, provided that one studies them in Hebrew.
When the Temple existed and God was worshipped there, the divine emanation, the divine presence and providence dwelt among the people of Israel; when the Temple was destroyed, this was because the study of the Bible was neglected. At present the Holy Book, its reading and study, fulfil the task of the Temple; it is the Book that attracts divine providence and ensures the continuation of Israel's existence.
The symbolism of the cosmos and the Temple is found in the Bible; the world of the intellect, the world of the armies of the God of Israel, is the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant; it is also the Pentateuch. The celestial world is the Table of Offerings and the Lamp; it is also the Books of the Prophets. The world of bodies is the Temple precinct, open to everyone, the altar of sacrifice; it is also the poetical books and the Wisdom literature.
The two Temples, that of Jerusalem and of the Torah, have as their final purpose the bringing of man to a purely intelligible eternal felicity. Therefore, Israel has taken the greatest care to preserve exactly. each of the Torah's words, to pronounce it correctly, for fear that its virtue should be lost or enfeebled, as one notes carefully the ingredients of a medicine without changing anything in it; however, not only does the Torah, contrary to medicine, preserve the body by its physical virtue, but its virtue of wisdom leads man to conjunction with the divine.
Certainly, Efodi admits, we do not have any philosophical proofs for this, but the natural virtues and qualities of existing things are also not known through demonstration and reasoning; it is sensory experience that instructed us in them; and the philosophers with all their seekings are not capable of reproducing the form of the smallest of plants.
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I~{:asoects. The Torah is no longer a stage in the conquest of knowledge, it is
purpose of human existence, in flesh and in spirit. This is a major theme Jewish philosophy of the fifteenth century.
pre-eminence of the Torah is again expounded in a short work written 1378 by Abraham ben Judah Leon ofCandie in Crescas' house at Barcelona. Arba'ah Turim (Four Rows) has been preserved in a unique copy thanks
• , to Shabbetai ben Levi, who says that he transcribed it from the author's , manuscript. This book, which cites the philosophers as well as the Sefer ha-Bahir,l in succession with the existence of God, with providence and its degrees, ,with the importance of the Torah, and with the purpose of the mi~vot. The ,', Torah and the commandments play the principal role. With this work we
"""",u.~'U I;Iasdai Crescas, the last of the great medieval philosophers, who . already introduces a new era.
I;IASDAl CRESCAS
Crescas died in 1412 at Saragossa. In 1367, in Barcelona, he was already well known for his communal activities and he was among the representatives of the Jewish community who negotiated the renewal of the privileges of the " Jews of Aragon in 1383. From 1387 Crescas enjoyed the favour of John II . of Aragon and exercised the function of rabbi at Saragossa. During the anti'Jewish riots of 1391 his only son was killed in Barcelona; Crescas himself was saved thanks to the presence of the royal court at Saragossa. The rest of his life was devoted to the reconstruction of the communities that had 1 See above, p. 248.
been destroyed, from the material as well as from the spiritual point of view.
His philosophical activity was an integral part of this great outburst of Com_ passion and reflected his profound conviction of the mortal danger incurred by the Jews as individuals and as a religious community. To combat the abundant literature aiming at the conversion of the Jews, Crescas wrote at least two polemical works in Catalan. Only one of these has survived, the Refutation of Christian Dogmas (1397-8) in the Hebrew translation of Joseph ben Shem Tov (Biftul 'Iqqarrey ha-No$rim), made in
1451. The Or Adonai (The Light of God) was written in Hebrew, in 1410. In the introduction Crescas explains that the book is only the first part of a vaster project that was to include a section on the halakhah to be called Ner Mi?vah (The Lamp of the Divine Commandment). This second part was never written but the project throws light on the author's motivation. His aim was to replace the work of Maimonides, from both the philosophical and halakhic points of view. Crescas of course renders homage to the immense erudition
of his illustrious predecessor, but the service of God takes precedence over
respect for the Master.
According to Crescas, the very foundation of Maimonidean thought is false.
The way that leads to God is not the knowledge of the intelligibles but the fear and love of God. God, in His goodness, has chosen the House of Jacob as the dwelling-place of His glory, so that Israel wi1110ve Him and fear Him, follow Him and join itself to Him, and this is the ultimate purpose of human existence. All the relationships between thought and act must be reconsidered. It is the accomplishment of the mi?vot that leads to perfection; this accomplishment is impossible without knowledge of the mi?vot; thus knowledge receives its importance from the fact that it leads to the accomplishment of the divine commandments.
So that this knowledge may play the part imposed on it, three conditions
are indispensable: that each commandment should be precisely defined; that
it should be easily understood; that it should be accomplished and preserved
in the memory. However, the Mishneh Torah does not fulfil these conditions:
Maimonides does not cite his sources nor the reason for his decision, so that
when in another work one encounters a decision that runs contrary to his,
one is plunged into uncertainty. This reproach is already found in Abraham
ben David of Posquieres, but Crescas adds a more philosophical argument:
Maimonides did not make clear the causes of the mi?vot and their general
laws. He expounded a certain number of commandments, a necessarily finite
number, instead of seeking their principles and the causes, principles and
causes that would permit one to understand and resolve an infinite number
of particular problems; he therefore did not give a real knowledge of the
commandments.
The work that Crescas did not write, the Lamp ofthe Divine Commandment,
was to have answered these conditions of precision, clarity and knowledge
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the four Aristotelian causes, which one does not find in the halakhic
of Maimonides. Further, according to Crescas, Maimonides unduly .rningled beliefs and commandments; to place the belief in God as the first , of the positive commandments is absurd, for the knowledge of the divine . existence is a necessary presupposition: what would be the significance of a
commandment if one did not believe in the existence of Him who ordained
this commandment? Besides, belief does not depend on will or on choice;
one cannot therefore impose it or argue for it.
For Crescas the cause of all Maimonides' errors and those of his successors
is Aristotelian science. The traditional science that had been lost through
Israel's tribulations had been replaced by this false science, . The whole of Book I of Or Adonai is devoted to a criticism of Aristotelian . science, and this refutation forms part of new physical conceptions of the
world that Crescas calls' roots', for they are necessary to the conception of
• the divine Law.
The first part of the book expounds and refutes the twenty-five propositions in physics that Maimonides had placed at the beginning of the second book
the Guide of the Perplexed. These twenty-five chapters are followed by seven others expounding and refuting in detail the proofs of the existence of God given by Maimonides. The second part returns to some of these subjects in a different order and adds arguments to the demonstrations already given in the first part. The third part is entirely devoted to proofs of the divine existence and its unity, subjects already touched on in the two
. earlier parts. Book II gives, in six parts, the bases or foundations of the Torah, describing God, His attributes and His relation with the world. Book III enumerates and explains the other beliefs that necessarily accompany the Torah. Book IV discusses some ideas or speculations that can or cannot be accepted.
A. Infinity, space and vacuum
One of the definitions of infinity according to Aristotle is: a kind of extension
or magnitude which, although it might be finite, is infinite. Extension can
only be corporeal; however, corporeal extension cannot be infinite and a
body cannot extend to infinity, for this body may be either an element of
the sublunary world, endowed with rectilinear motion, which cannot go on
infinitely, or else the quintessence, which is endowed with circular motion,
and no infinite can have a circular motion.
In fact, the finite, being a magnitude, (I) must be contained within boun
daries; (2) must have gravity or levity; (3) must have a spherical shape; (4)
must revolve round a centre; and (5) must be surrounded by external per
ceptible objects. These five characteristics, Crescas objects, are those of
finite bodies, and the infinite is only conceived in this context in relation to
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the finite. The infinite, if it exists, will not be contained by boundaries; it will be devoid of both lightness and weight; it will have neither form nOr figure; ifit is endowed with circular motion, it will notm~ve ar~und a centre and although it moves voluntarily, it will not need exten.or objects t? draw it into movement. Similarly, it may be simple or composIte. In fact, It must not be described by any of t1;le terms used to describe a finite object. .
Another of Aristotle's propositions that was generally accepted In the Middle Ages is the definition of place:
(1) It is the limit that surrounds the body; .
(2) This limit is equal to it, neither greater nor smaller than the thtng surrounded; .
(3) This limit is not part of the body itself but something separate from it.
These characteristics can easily be applied to the places of the elements within the sublunary sphere: earth is surrounded by water, water by air, air by fire, fire by the lunar sphere and so on; the spheres ~t p.er~ect!y into each other and each of them is the place of the one that IS WIthlll It. The internal surface of the outermost sphere, that most remote from the centre of the world, was generally considered as place of this sphere ~nd 'the pl~ce' of the world. However, 'place' could not have the same meanlllg here, smce there is no surrounding limit for this outermost sphere.
Crescas maintains that body and space must be separated. What is
called vacuum when it contains no body is called place when it contains a
body.
If space can be empty of body, then the definition ofthe pl~ce of th~ wo~ld
as being its external limit no longer applies and one can .conceIv~ of an I~fim~e
space. Space is no longer a relation between bodies; It. ~r~-exIsts bO~Ies,. It
is pure extension, having three dimensions. The possIbIlIty of an lllfimte
number ofworlds is not rejected. Concerning our world C~esc~s d.oes no~affi~m
that it is infinite, but that this finite corporeal world IS WIthlll an lllfimte
vacuum, as is implied in the citation of a passage from the Talmud (Baby
lonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 40b):
Accordingly, since the Blessed One is the form o~the entire universe, ha~ing c~eated,
individuated and determined it, He is figuratively called Place, as 1ll thel.r oft-
repeated expressions, 'Blessed be the Place'; 'We cause .thee to swear not III th; .
sense but in our sense and in the sense of the Place '; 'He IS the Place of.the world.
This iast metaphor is remarkably apt, for as the dimensions of the vOId 'permeate
through those of the body and its fullness, so His glor~, .bles~ed,be He, IS prese~t
in all the parts of the world and the fullness thereof, as It IS said, [Holy, holy, h? y
is the Lord of Hosts], the whole earth is full of his glory', the meaning of whl~~
may be stated as follows: Though God is holr and separated. by a threefold ho :~
ness, alluding thereby to His separation from three wo~lds, still t~e whol~ e~rth~e
full of His glory, which is an allusion to the element of ImpregnatIOn, whIch IS 0
of the elements of Glory.
(Proposition I, part TI, trans. H. A. Wolfson in Crescas' Critique ofAristotle, p. 201).,
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B. Motion
· Motion is common to all the elements, including the matter of the spheres. What distinguishes the quintessence from the terrestrial elements is their internal structure and their tendency to move in a certain direction. Like Gersonides, Crescas considers the movement of the spheres to be 'natural',
. and not 'voluntary'. As for the movements of the elements, it is not due to
, their tendency to return to a natural place, for there is no natural place for each element. All the elements are invested wit1;l a downward movement, 1l10re or less determined by their weight. As for the elements that rise upward, like fire, their movement is due to a pressure exercised over them by other, heavier bodies that are below them.
C. Time
·For Aristotle, time is 'the number of motion according to the prior and the liipm;terl'()r'. Years and months are the measure of the motion of the spheres:
·WHHVI....
the motion of the spheres, there is no time. Time was also con· sidered as the measure of rest when und~rstood as a privation of motion.
, eternal beings, God and the Intellects, could not have the
attribute of time, for this would imply corporeality and mobility. For Crescas 'time is the duration of motion or of rest between two instants'.
•Like Abu-I-Barakat before him, who defined time as the measure of being, dissociates time and motion. God and the Intellects could thus again the attribute of time, for' it seems therefore that the existence of time
only in the soul': 'the Intelligences, though immovable, may still have lif:eXHlteIICe in time, inasmuch as it can be demonstrated that time existed prior measure of motion or rest'
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joy that He feels is that of this constant gift of being that spreads throughout
creation, in the most perfect manner possible.
The joy that God experiences in an infinite and essential way is thus
giving; it is also love and desire; God loved and desired the Patriarchs, and
God loves and desires the love of Israel. It is with the love of God, a love
entirely separated from matter, as he emphasizes in the last chapter, that
Crescas concludes the first book of his work.
Book II enumerates the fundamental doctrines of the Torah and first of all
the principle that God is Knowing. The divine knowledge is defined by three
characteristics:
(I)
God knows infinity;
(2)
God knows what is not yet;
(3) God knows possible things and this knowledge does not prevent them from being possible.
Here Crescas' adversary is Gersonides, whose doctrine becomes the object ofa vehement critique. According to Gersonides, God on the one hand knows things because He is their cause, but He does not know free human decision except as possible, and thus does not know its outcome; on the other hand, He only knows particular things in their place in the general order and as part of a whole, and not as they exist materially in this world. To Crescas this is an absurd and impious doctrine: absurd because it attributes to God ignorance of the creatures that He. brought into being, impious because it is contrary to the biblical text, which is the account of direct relations between God, the Patriarchs and Israel.
To accept Gersonides' ideas would mean that nothing of the literal text of the Bible would remain intact, for God would not have known the Patriarchs, would not have spoken to them, would not have made them promises. Further, since free human decision is an important factor in the biblica:I stories, one would reach the point of denying God all knowledge of the history of the people of Israel, and, in fact, all knowledge of what happens
on earth. In reality, Crescas concludes, divine and human knowledge cannot be. compared; one cannot define the infinite on the basis of the finite. It is not because our intelligence stops at a certain limit that we should attribute ignorance to God; one must maintain that God knows the possible inasmuch as it is possible, at the same time knowing what will necessarily take place, and this knowledge does not change the nature of the possible. It is because God knows the individuals of this lower world that He can exercise His providence in their favour. Divine providence, the second fundamental doctrine, acts with or without intermediary; only Moses enjoyed divine providence without intermediary, The intermediaries between God and men may be angels, that is, the separate intellects, or prophets, or sages, or the celestial bodies. The prophets are the
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of providence ~y the intermediary of the angels and serve as interfor the prOVIdence of the sages; the sages serve as intermedi .
th 'd f h· anes
e provl ence 0 t e people of Israel. As for the other peoples they abandoned to the domination of the astral bodies. ,are Providence itself is of ttree kinds:
(1)
Natural providence, equal for all men;
(2)
The providenc,e special to Israel, equal for all its people;
(3). Personal prOVIdence, which is in proportion to the deserts of everyman In Israel.
... This. l~st provi.d~nce can be perfectly proportioned to a man's merits,
•..
and thIS IS the spmtual reward or punishment that is decreed and ordained by God's eternal will; it is also sometimes imperfectly proportioned' this is
•..
corp~real reward or punishment. And in fact there is hardly any con~incing
solutIOn to the problem of the sufferings of the just, says Crescas, except that ,. of or~eal by l~ve, for sufferings supported in the love of God make the soul
• acqUIre a s~ecIaI q~ality, a particular virtue, which brings it nearer· to God. ,.. The s~ec~al prOVIdence of the People of Israel is first of all the Torah. But · Cres~as InSIStS on three points which, he says, throw light on the action of
provl~ence; and here, as in many other cases, we see the influence of Judah
HalevI.
... ,(~) Cert~in places, that is, Jerusalem, that are particularly suited to receive
·dIVIne prOVIdence; .
(2)
Certain times that are particularly propitious;
(3)
Circumcision redeems original sin.
· Th.is is a ~a~sag~ that ca~ls for more detailed analysis, for we here recognize cert~l~ ChnstJan Ideas WhICh, adapted to Judaism, were used to combat the .. Chn~tIan pretension that baptism and not circumcision was the real sign of God,S covenant. There was, says Crescas, an original sin (the idea is tal~UdlC and one also finds it in the Kabbalah) that defiled mankind from . bIrth. Ab~aham, Israel's ancestor, was in every way Adam's opposite; and he, gave nse to a new race destined to perpetuate itself. This persistence of ?em~ does not ~ean the corporeal eternity of the race of Abraham, but ImplIes true etermty, that of the world to come. Cleansing from original sin ~nd access to the spiritual life are provided by circumcision. Circumcision I~ th~ sacrament that leads to salvation; like baptism, it washes away original sm; It makes the Jew enter into the divine alliance. However in itself it is only an initiation rite leading the Jew to the threshold of the commandme~ts that he must accomplish in order to approach. the divine presence. ThIS covenant of circumcision was confirmed by the sacrifice of Isaac' in Isaac, the .la~b of sacrifice, the entire people of Israel consolidated ~he covenant; It IS through this sacrifice that Israel escapes the decrees of the stars, the. laws of natur~, and accedes to the favour of truly divine providence. The sacnfices offered In the Temple recall this perpetual sacrifice of Isaac,
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which is perpetuated in the accomplishment of the commandments and in the first and most important of them: circumcision.
The third fundamental doctrine is that God is Omnipotent. Divine POWer does not signify that God can abolish the first intelligibles, for what the intellect conceives as impossible, for instance, that a thing should be true and false at the same time and from the same point of view, cannot be an object of the divine power. But divine power is infinite in strength and in time. Aristotle's great mistake had been to affirm that since the world is finite, the cause that moves it, although infinite in time, is limited in strength; he thus bound with a necessary bond the cause, God, and the caused, the world, and attributed to the cause a statement that is only applicable to the caused. Divine power is infinite; if it had caused a finite world, this is by will and choice; it is not only infinite in power but infinite in act; the divine Omnipotence, whose infinite force in act is proved by reason, is revealed in the biblical miracles when substances are created or destroyed, such as Moses' rod, which changed into a serpent.
God has given the Torah. One cannot conceive the existence of the divine law, which is a commandment proceeding from Him who orders -God -to those who receive the order -the whole people -without some kind of relation or tie between the two; this link is prophecy.
Prophecy is defined as 'an emanation which flows over the human intel
lect; this spiritual emanation brings a teaching and has its source in God.
With or without intermediary, it teaches man, in any domain, a thing or
things that he does not know and whose premises he does not know, in
order to guide him or to guide other men' (Or Adonai II, 4, fo1. 4Ia).
For Crescas, prophecy is first of all that which guides men and teaches
them the divine will; it can teach intelligible and sensible notions even when
the premises of these notions, indispensable to the scholar who reasons by
deduction, are not present to the mind of the prophet.
Crescas emphasizes the difference between prophetic perception and
dream:
In defining prophecy as an emanation which emanates from God, we have distin
guished it from dream and from divination. The proof of this is that the prophet
has not the slightest doubt concerning his prophecy; it is because of the divine
origin of prophecy that we have received the order to listen to the prophet and to
follow him, and that, according to the tradition, the prophet who pays no heed to
his own words is liable to be executed. (Or Adonai II, 4, fol. 44a)
However, there is nothing that the prophet represents to himself in the
prophetic dream that he cannot naturally represent to himself in the non
prophetic dream; this is self-evident. Thus, if there were no indication
proving to the prophet that the dream is of divine origin, then the prophet
alone would be judge (of the origin of the dream) and this is not possible.
We must then admit that the sign is the intensity of the perception at the moment of the representation; the sensible perception is superior to the imaginative'
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lii\i"rce)PtJon. for, thanks to the sensible perception, the subject knows, being awake, his perception is not only in the imagination, that he is not dreaming. In the way, the perception of the prophetic imagination, although it be a dream, is to the imaginary non-prophetic imagination. (Ibid. fol. 44b)
The second idea that Crescas develops is a comparison between Moses Balaam and the miraculous status of these two personages, according the Tradition. Our author severely criticizes those scholars who depart the traditional explanation. Nevertheless his own conception also from rabbinical exegeses; in fact, he considers that Moses' per~ I,'t""i".., does not surpass the limits of natural laws, for perfection has no
limits, although in action it is limited.
However, when Crescas, in Book III, returns to the difference between and the other prophets, he cites the same factors as Maimonides: without intermediary, in a waking state, without fear and face to
and at any time.
Free will is also one of the fundamental doctrines of divine Law. Crescas ts arguments that I have already expounded. He affirms that things are from the point of view of their essence; but everything, including which depends on free will, is totally necessary insofar as it is caused, necessarily as the production of a chemical reaction when its causes are
Nevertheless, in Cre3cas' opinion, this ineluctable causality should not be ."",vGlvU to people, for it might serve as an excuse for the wicked, who, when evil, would forget that punishment is necessarily caused by crime.
esee therefore that Crescas is very close to Abner of Burgos. Although constantly uses the words' will' and' free will', he empties them of their for, if all human acts are made necessary by their causes, man is called ..,.,,\\1111-11'''' when the cause is interiorized and not perceived by him, and 'non, only when an external cause is perceived as forcing him, against interior assent, into a certain action. Crescas thus goes very far in the of reducing human liberty, in order to safeguard divine knowledge;
Abner, he is on the side of the theologians against the philosophers.
But he is well aware of the difficulties. He attempts to palliate them, first saying that this truth should not be published, since it could lead to a fatalism, and secondly in his analysis of the notions of pleasure will; referring to the joy experienced by God, Crescas says that this joy be an act of contemplation, a static pleasure; joy is for God the gift Good. For man, joy, pleasure, and thus even reward, is also to do good, perform the commandments of God; this joy accompanies the fulfilment effect accompanies cause, but only when the soul acquiesces, wills, with
exterior obligation felt as constraint.
'·l.I~"IC''', and especially true beliefs, are received in the soul as obligation not will, since they impose themselves from without, and their reality . the soul to accept them. Thus neither reward nor punishment
The Fifteenth Century Spanish Jews
follow beliefs; and it is impossible to accept that reward and punishment
of the other prophets, the miraculous properties of the High Priest's should be linked to the knowledge of intelligibles. What sense would reward te in the Temple of Jerusalem, the coming of the Messiah. Crescas have when a man admits, as reality forces him to admit, that the sum of the not deny that these eight' roots', however important, are not absolutely angles of a triangle is equal to 180°? Crescas does not deduce from t~is that In(~Cel;sal:Y, for the absence of one or another of them would not involve the knowledge counts for nothing in the survival of the soul; but he de~l~s that disappearance of the divine Law. Certainly, the world was created in time, the intelligibles, becoming the substance of the soul, should be what IS called
but, in fact, whether God created the world in time or eternally is of little 'the survival of the soul'. What brings about reward, joy, is the effort towards
as long as He willed its creation. knowledge, the desire to know, the will to understand.
What is important, is the manner of being of this one God, His attributes, The purpose of the Torah is to lead to the acq~isition of the perfe~tion of
fIis relations with the world and man, for these are the bases of the Torah morals, the perfection of beliefs, material happllless and the happllless of
and the Torah is the only way that leads man to his eternal salvation, bringing the soul. The happiness of the soul is the most important of these and this
man to God. is the final purpose of the divine Law.
After having examined, at the end of Book III, the beliefs that depend on However, the eternal felicity of the soul is the love and fear of God; love
particular commandments of the Law of Moses: prayer; the blessing of the and fear of God are the ultimate stage, not only of the Torah but also of true
people by the priests, repentance, the Day of Atonement and the festivals, philosophy.
Crescas devotes Book IV to the examination of various traditional and Three principles are to be accepted on this matter: philosophical opinions that are probable or credible according to reason.
(I) Some rabbinical texts hold that the present world is doomed to des
(I) The human soul, which is the form of man, is a spiritual substance truction. The Aristotelians maintain that since the world has no beginning,
which is disposed for intellection but is not, by itself, intelligent in actu.
·it cannot have an end. The movement of the heavens is perfect and has no
(2) The perfect, in virtue of its perfection, loves the Good and th~ Pe~. contrary and therefore no cause of corruption; besides, their perfect and
fection, and desires them. The love and pleasure generated by the object m ·eternal movement is caused by an eternal intellect that is not subject to
the will are in proportion to the perfection of this object.
change; after having expounded arguments for and against, Crescas con
(3) The love and pleasure that the will experiences differ from intellection. cludes that it is probable that the world will persist to eternity; however, he Will is defined as the concordance and the relation between the appetitive
does not altogether dismiss the other hypothesis, that of the end of the world. faculty and the imagination, that is, consent by the latter to what's willed
(2) There is disagreement on whether there is one single world or several. by the former, the pleasure caused by the object being in proportion to this
There too, contrary to Aristotle, Crescas tends to believe that there are concordance and this relation.
numerous worlds; for why should the infinite goodness of God be limited Intellection on the other hand is representation and verification, and both
to a single world?
are produced by the intellective faculty. Given that the intellective faculty is
· (3) Are the celestial spheres beings endowed with reason? Crescas does other than the appetitive and the imaginative, it is thus proved that the love
not seem to accept that the stars are intelligent beings; he rather tends to and pleasure suscitated by the object of desire are other than intellection.
believe that their movement is natural; but tradition insists that they are From love proceeds conjunction, communion with God sinc~, eve~ in t~e
intelligent beings.
case of natural things, the love and the harmony that domlllate III theIr
(4)
Do the stars have an influence over the conduct of human affairs? The structure cause their perfection and their unity to such a degree that an
answer is yes, and Crescas refutes various objections.
ancient philosopher (Empedocles) saw in love and concord the principle of
(5)
Do amulets and incantations have an influence over human actions? generation that of corruption being hatred and discord. All the more reason
Yes, says Crescas; in fact, they are linked to the stars and serve as inter-that harm~ny and love should be factors of communion and unity in the
· mediaries to the astral influx.
spiritual domain.
(6) The existence of demons is proved for our author by biblical and tra-In the same way, the greater the love between God and man, the closer,
· ditional texts, as by everyday experience and universal consensus. Let us stronger and greater their communion. The aim of the Torah is that of the
note that as with the preceding point, Crescas starts with the perceived whole of creation: Love.
reality of things and then looks for the philosophical explanation.
Book III expounds true beliefs: the creation of the world, the survival of
Crescas continues by refuting the theory of the transmission of souls; he the soul after death, reward and punishment, the resurrection of the dead,
.. declares that the child who has been circumcised and can say 'Amen' has the eternity of the Torah, the difference between the prophecy of Moses and a right to the world to come; he affirms the existence of hell and discusses 368
its site and that of paradise; he refuses to identify the Story of the Creation with physics, and the Story of the Chariot with metaphysics. He denies the unity of the intellecting, the intellect and the intelligible; he remarks that the philosophers' dispute as to whether God or the first emanation is the First Mover is not of the slightest interest; and he concludes his book by stating that it is not impossible that the angels, and even men, should have an idea of the essential attributes of God.
Crescas was not the first Jewish philosopher who undertook to overthrow Aristotelian philosophy; Abu-I-Barakat, in the East, had done so before him; but it seems that this resemblance was due to a parallel thought-process and not in any way to a direct influence. Other anti-Aristotelian philosophers, like Judah ha-Cohen and Shemariah ben Elijah of Crete, cast doubt on certain aspects of the Aristotelian theses but not the system as a whole (as did Abu-I-Barakat). Crescas was also not the only philosopher of his time to reconsider the entire physical system on which Aristotelian science rested.
S. Pines, in his article on Scholasticism, has discussed the resemblances between Crescas' theories and the theories of 'Parisian physics' as well as other theories of the school of Duns Scotus.
Crescas certainly drew on the scholastics, but he borrowed from them the ideas and conceptual tools that he needed for the elaboration of his personal theories, those that were in accord with the Jewish tradition as he understood it. Another influence is very perceptible in Crescas' work, that of the Kabbalah. Not only does his idea of the infinite evidently evoke the En-Sofof the Kabbalists, but other, less important, points of resemblance can be traced. Here too, Crescas did not adopt the system of the Kabbalah, but borrowed
ideas suiting his personal thought.
Crescas' philosophy did not meet with much success. His rejection of all the commonly accepted notions, and especially of Maimonides, aroused astonishment and indignation. Many scholars, who in fact admired Crescas, rallied to the support of the' Second Moses' (who was whitewashed of all his philosophical audacities), and the period saw more Maimonideans than partisans of Crescas. They made great use of a little book called Mesharet Moshe (Moses' Servant), written before 1273 but attributed to . Kalonymus ben Kalonymus: in six chapters he answers in advance Crescas' attacks on Maimonides. To give one example: we remember the interpretation of Exodus 23 and Crescas' expression of his surprise that Maimonides should have attributed to Moses a demand to know the divine essence, an absurd demand that a mere novice in philosophy would not dare to formulate. Our author gives two reasons for this exegesis. One is exoteric: Maimonides uses the pedagogical method, which consists of proposing provocative questions inciting the pupil to display his critical sense. The other is esoteric: Moses, having reached the level of the Active Intellect and joined with it, posed the question of the knowledge of the divine essence by the separate intellects, and God answered: 'For neither man nor intellect may know Me.'
further consequence of the religious and political situation at the beginning ' the fifteenth century was the need experienced by Jewish thinkers to define ves as clearly as possible in relation to their own tradition. The quesof the principles of Judaism assumed considerable importance and .~V~~"'lU" even more prominent at the time of the Disputation of Tortosa as
shall see with Joseph Albo. '
There are no dogmas, properly speaking, in Judaism. The Jewish tradition, Bible and the Talmud are a whole, where for a long time no differentiation made and which had to be accepted in its entirety, belief in each of the 11C()Jllll1aJl<UJ:l1v,lll1S being implied. However, when faced with other religions found itself obliged to clarify and systematize the principles of the The first to do this were the Karaites, with Judah Hadassi (ca. II 50), most probably following olcier sources, enumerated ten principles but not use the Hebrew word 'iqqar. Elijah ben Moses Bashyatchi a Karaite I[sc1101:U living in Constantinople (ca. 1420-90), does use the word ~hen quotthese. principles in his 'Adderet Eliyahu (The glory ofElijah): (I) all physicreatIOn has been created; (2) it has been created by a creator who is ; (3) the Creator has no likeness and is unique in all respects; (4) he the prophet Moses; (5) he sent, along with Moses, His Law, which is ; (6) it is the duty of the believer to know the language of the Law and its interpretation; (7) God inspired also the other true prophets Moses; (8) God will resurrect all mankind, on the Day of Judgement; God requites each person according to his ways and the fruits of his ; (10) God has not forsaken the people of the Diaspora; rather they sufferi?g the Lord's just punishment and they must hope every day for salvation at the hands of the Messiah, the descendant of King David
L. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, p. 250). . Of the. Rabbanites, Maimonides was the first to make a list of principles, In number, which I have discussed at some length. This list gave . to much discussion. Some refused the very notion that there could be '.,~Vh"·'~U in Judaism, others did not agree with the principles or with their . Nahmanides spoke of three fundamental principles: divine creation, is, the non-eternity of matter, divine omniscience, and providence. Abba ben Moses of Montpellier, in his Min/:lat Kenaot (a collection of anti-epistles) also lists three. The first is metaphysical; the existence God as well as His unity and His incorporeality; the second is Mosaic: creation ex nihilo, with the consequence that God can change the laws nature according to His will; the third is ethical: particular providence, for God knows human acts in all their details. ~~other Proven9al rabbi, David ben Samuel d'Estella (ca. 1320) gives seven ,prinCIples and Shemariah ben Elijah of Crete has five. David ben Yom Tov Bilia accepts the Thirteen Principles of Maimonides and adds to them
thirteen more, in the Yesodot ha-Maskil (Principles ofthe Intelligent Man). However, the problem remained marginal until the end of the fourteenth
The Fifteenth Century
century; in the fifteenth, it became urgent. Let us note that among these
principles the coming of the Messiah is always a minor theme; one of the polemical arguments of Christianity was precisely the advent of t~e Messiah, Jesus. The Jews therefore were not inclined to assign too great an 1mportance
to this topic.
SIMEON BEN ZEMAI;l DURAN
Duran (1361-1444) was born in Majorca and after the 1391 massacres left Spain for Algiers, where he was appointed Chief Rabbi in 1408. He wa~ a physician, knew Arabic and Latin, and, like all young men of good family, had enjoyed an encyclopedic education.
He is especially known for his rabbinical decisions, which usually had the force of law in North Africa. Of his philosophical works, it seems that his glosses on Gersonides' biblical commentary, which were. followed by f~ur discourses refuting Crescas' theories, have been lost. We stIll have two major works.
Ohev Mishpat (Lover of Justice) deals with providence. It is divided in~o two parts; the first is a kind of introduction to the book of Job, also diScussing the principles of Judaism; the second is a commentary on Job.
Magen Avot (Shield of the Fathers) is in four parts; .the first three, ea~h
discussing one of the principles of Judaism, were publIshed a.t Leghorn III
1785 and recently in Jerusalem in a reprint edition; the fourth 1S a commen
tary on the Pirkei Avot. .
His polemic directed against Christians and MuslIms, called Keshet u-
M agen (The Arrow and the Shield) is the fourth chapter of the second part
of the preceding book, but was printed separately.. . . .
Duran displays great erudition in his philosophical wntmgs, and he Cites
Greek Arab and Jewish philosophers in profusion. However, the thrust of
his th~ught is essentially religious. The search· for truth is possible only with
divine aid, that is, revelation.
While it is true that God created man capable of understanding alone and
without a teacher, two c.onditions are indispensable for the acquisition of
knowledge; zeal and study, and divine succour. . ...
The philosophers often erred because they were without th1s dlVl~e help.
The Jews who have the good fortune to have received the revelatIOn and
therefore ~he truth, do not need philosophy, except perhaps in order to argue
against unbelievers. ., .,
Spanish Jews
(I) Those which are demonstrated at all points by correctly directed reason~
and which no man can refuse to admit, unless he is totally ignorant of the laws of logic, or else out of bad faith; for instance, the existence of God and Bis unity.
(2)
Those that human reason cannot demonstrate apodictically, such as the creation of the world; for demonstration is performed on the basis of premises and causes, and, in the case of the creation of the world, the causes and premises ,are God Himself, Whose essence we cannot know. The ways of knowledge on this subject are therefore irrevocably closed to all but God Jlimself.
(3)
Subjects where intellect affirms one thing and sensible experience re~ [utes it; thus, according to philosophy, God is not concerned with his creatures, while experience shows us divine providence in all things.
Concerning these three kinds of problem, the Torah makes affirmations, and does not demonstrate with the help of arguments, for it is not a book of philosophy, and the proof offered by the Torah is the Torah itself, sufficient here as elsewhere; in the third type,however, it is easier to make mistakes than in the others; and indeed we find in the Bible a whole book devoted to the problem of divine providence. These considerations are an introduction .to the Book of Job, which, says our author, in this following a long tradition, presents the different arguments for and against particular providence. The Book of Job is thus considered as Torah and Duran does not differentiate between the books of the Bible; they are all of equal importance and all
present the 'true' revelation.
He also does not discriminate between the divine comma~dments; all of them have the same importance and none of them can be abandoned with impunity. To abandon anyone of the ideas of the Torah, if this abandoning is the result of conscious knowledge, is to abandon the entire Torah. In a certain sense one can say that the principles of Jewish law are as numerous as the number of letters of the Bible or the number of the words of all the verses or the number of the commandments. It is thus not surprising that Simon Duran attacked Maimonides on the score of the Thirteen Principles of the faith, and it is in this light that one must understand the Three Principles that he himself defined, which serve as a basis for his Shieldofthe Fathers. These three principles are the existence of God, revelation, and reward and punishment.
For Maimonides the Thirteen Principles represented the minimum of
This principle granted, the various philosophical and KabbahstIc opmlOns intelligible notions to be intellected by every human being in order to be that our author approves are evidently not very interesting in t~e~selves; truly a man, with a right to the world to come. In the case of the nonthey were chosen because they seemed to him capable of convlllcmg the philosophical, these intelligible notions should be received by tradition. For infidels, Jews and non-Jews, of the truth of verities that surpass human Duran, the right to the next world, which he describes only in traditional . reason. ' terms and not as the more or less individual conjunction with the Active This does not mean that Duran was an adversary of reason. He classes Intellect, does not depend on the acquisition of the intelligible notions but the philosophical subjects treated in the texts in three kinds: on the purity of the soul, which is sustained, since the soul is initially pure,
by the accomplishment of the commandments, that is, all the divine Com••1l:en(~dllct XIII, on 7 February 1413 and concluded on 13 November 1414.
mandments. The'principles' thus correspond to a very different need, that of grouping all the revealed beliefs around the three essential themes of the Jewish religion, and of showing where philosophy is in accord with religion and where it is contrary to it and therefore false. In J. Guttmann's felicitous phrase, he wanted to fix the limits of the rationalization of the Jewish reli. gion, and decide how far a Jew's scientific investigation could go if he wished to remain a Jew. Philosophy, when it is true, is essentially human. Duran takes his arguments wherever he finds them; J. Guttmann remarks that Duran's theory of the divine attributes is a brief formulation of the Thomist theory. As for the Three Principles, Guttmann finds their source in Averroes' Decisive Treatise on the Harmony ofReligion and Philosophy; however, while the Three Principles are literally the same, they do not have the same sense in the two authors. For Averroes,
This [latter] error is that which occurs about matters, knowledge of which is provided by all the different methods of indication, so that knowledge of the matter in question is in this way possible for everyone. Examples are acknowledgement of God, Blessed and Exalted, of the prophetic missions, and of happiness and misery in the next life; for these three principles are attainable by the three classes ofindi. cation, by which everyone without exception can come to assent to what he is obliged to know: I mean the rhetorical, dialectical and demonstrative indications..
(On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy, trans. G. Hourani, p. 58) Immediately afterwards A verroes shows that the interpretation of the reo vealed text permits one to give extremely different definitions of these three principles, which may be contrary to the literal sense.
Duran, however, conceives his principles as chapter headings introducing the entire traditional divine Law. Joseph Albo conceived these principles in the same way, perhaps receiving them from Simon Duran (or did Duran find them in Albo ?). At all events, it was Albo who made these principles popular.
JOSEPH ALBO 'd" I fi' h d 't' th B k .1' P l'ncl'P'les at
Alb0, one 0 f Crescas ISCIP es, ms e wn mg e 00 oJ r
Soria in 142 5. He died in 1444·
The Sefer ha-Ikkarim (Book of Principles) can only be understood in the context of the great public Disputation that was taking place in Spain at tills period. These public debates were designed as illustration and manifest demonstration of the errors of the Jews. The first, opposing the apostate. Nicholas Donin and the well-known French scholar Yehiel ben Joseph, was held in Paris in 1240 and terminated in the burning of the Talmud.
The Disputation of Barcelona in I263 witnessed the confrontation of
the Jewish delegates summoned to appear and defend their religion Joseph Albo ofDaroca. The Christian faith was represented by Geronimo Santa Fe, converted in 14I2, who died in 1419. We have already encounhim at the beginning of this chapter under the name of Joshua Lorki, the Jewish religion against his former master Solomon ha-Levi of who had converted and taken the name of Pablo de Santa Maria,
becoming Bishop of Burgos.
Geronimo's knowledge of Jewish sources was remarkable and his attacks . his former co-religionists were therefore particularly incisive. He two polemical books in Latin, and it was perhaps he who had the
of calling together the Disputation.
It was in the course of this controversy that Joseph Albo took the decision elucidate the problem of the principles, concerning which Jewish scholars not yet succeeded in formulating a commonly-accepted opinion. He to integrate the Law of Moses within the framework of the political
of human society, and to show its place in the economy of mankind.
The Book of Principles is composed of an introduction followed by four In fact, Book I contains Albo's chief ideas; the three other books, at the request of the author's friends, only explicate the Three Prinadding a number of often interesting features or definitions. The of the book and the respective place occupied by faith and reason
stated at the beginning:
. happiness depends upon theoretical knowledge and practical conduct, as Philosopher explains in the book On the Soul. But it is not possible by the
intellect alone to arrive at a proper knowledge of the true and the good, .,••';~""V human reason is not capable of comprehending things as they are in reality,
be explained later. There must therefore be something higher than the human , by means of which the good can be defined and the true comprehended in a manner leaving no doubt at all. This can be done only by means of divine guidance. It is incumbent therefore upon every person, out of all laws to know that one divine law which gives this guidance. This is impossible unless we know the basic principles without which a divine law cannot exist. Accordingly the purpose
this work is to explain what are the essential principles of a divine law, and for reason it is called The Book ofPrinciples. (Sefer ha-Ikkarim, trans. I. Husik, vol. I, pp.I-2)
. In ills introduction, Albo first compares the Law to other sciences; only who knows the principles of medicine can be a physician. Since all men and are subject to laws, they should therefore have a knowledge of principles of these laws; if a real knowledge of them is not always attain-they should at least have one sufficiently close to reality. However,
Nahmanides on the Jewish side and on the Christian side Pablo Christiani, "V'.v.""" are far from being in agreement: Maimonides enumerates thirteen a converted Jew. In 1413-14 the last ofthese great public controversies was of the Law, others (probably David Yom Tov Ibn Bilia) twenty-held at Tortosa. It was inaugurated with great pomp by the Pope himself, others (Crescas) six, and none of them has explained precisely in what
way these principles characterize the divine law and if it is possible to have' several divine laws. The inquiry can only be undertaken within the context of a study of all human laws. It is in this context that one must define what the divine law is, and since all agree in attributing this status to the Law of Moses, one must know the principles that make this Law divine; and also the principles that are specific to it and make it this particular divine Law. . The general principles are three in number. They state that God exists, that law comes from God, that reward and punishment exist. It is evident that these three principles are necessary to the divine Law, for if one suppresses one of them, one suppresses the divine Law itself, which can only be . authenticated by the existence of a legislator: this is God, who is the source
of the Law and who rewards men corporeally in this world and spiritually in the world to come. Otherwise, what would be the difference between divine Law, and law enacted by men?
Following the whole philosophical Arab~Jewish tradition, Albo in fact defines religion (dat) as a political law. It can be of three kinds: natural, conventional and divine.
_ Natural law is equal for all men, at all times and in all places. Its purpose is to repress evil and to promote good, so that human society may subsist and that all may be protected from the wicked and the criminal. .
_ Conventional law was promulgated by one or several sages in conformity with a certain period or place, and also the nature of the inhabitants of the country. Some of these conventional laws were decreed in accordance with human reason and without divine help. Conventional law has the role of eliminating what is ethically ugly and encouraging ethical good; this ethical good and evil being generally accepted in human society; thus, while having the same aims as natural law, it is superior to it because it is concerned with the ethical conduct of its subjects.
_ Divine Law was given by God through the intermediary of a prophet, Adam, Noah, Abraham or Moses; its aim is to guide men towards the true happiness, which is the happiness of the soul and its immortality.
Thus the superiority of the conventional law over the natural law lies in the fact that it is concerned not only with causing order to prevail, but with making men acquire good ethics. Divine Law has all the advantages of the other laws, but it also directs men towards the true God, and the immortality
of the soul. To this basic superiority, Albo adds some others. For instance, only divine Law truly discerns good from evil, independent of time and place; it alone precisely defines the acts that should be accomplished at each moment of life and in each circumstance, while the teachings of conventional laws are very general (we have here an echo of Saadiah Gaon). Is divine Law one or several? A genuine divine Law can be recognized by two criteria:
(I) The content of this Law, where the Three Principles must necessarily
(as well as the roots attached to them, which will be discussed below) where nothing may be contrary to the principles or the roots.
(2) The messenger or the law-giver who transmitted this Law. One must be absolutely sure of the prophets and prophecy and prove in . direct manner that the law~giver has received a prophetic message and was by God to give mankind a law. This certainty must be essential, that is, must be based on the causes of the thing in question as well as on its es~~lUl."l properties. And the performance of miracles by a person claiming be a prophet does not necessarily prove that he is a messenger sent by to give a law . so we shall find that all the miracles which Moses performed before the reveof the Torah on Sinai, merely proved that he was a worthy instrument for performance of miracles, but not for the transmission of a law. This is all that Israelites believed about him. And they followed his directions because they l;h~]jfl\,eC1 that God heard his prayer and granted his requests ... This is the meaning the expression used in the narrative of the division of the Red Sea, 'And they .illf\lJt)11t:U in the Lord, and in His servant Moses.' [Exodus 14: 3 I]. They believed he was the servant of God, that God performed miracles through him, and
He granted all his requests. We find in the case of other good men too that God miracles through them, though they were not prophets ...
• Seejng therefore that miracles are not a direct proof of prophecy, the people I:OC)UUtt:u whether Moses was a prophet, despite the miracles he performed, which numerous and of a remarkable character in changing the laws of nature. It is after the revelation on Sinai that the people said to Moses, 'We have seen this that God doth speak with man, and he liveth.' [Deuteronomy 5: 21]. This that until that time they were still in doubt about the reality of prophecy, they believed that Moses was the servant of God, and that miracles were .i.....f"~.•~.>rI by him, as we read, 'And they believed in the Lord and in His servant
[Exodus 14: 3I].
This is the reason why at the time of the revelation on Sinai, God said to Moses, 'Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with and may also believe thee forever.' [Exodus 19: 9]. The meaning is, I desire to to them directly the reality of prophecy, and also that you were sent by Me
give them the Torah. I will make them experience the prophetic spirit themselves. This will convince them that prophecy is a reality. And they will hear Me speaking to you, and indicating a desire to give them a law through you. This constituted a direct proof of prophecy and of the authentic character of the messenger, and there could no longer be any doubt or the least suspicion of fraud after that sublime experience; for through it were verified the two elements essential to prove the reality of revelation. The reality of prophecy was proved, because they were all ,prophets at that time, and heard the voice of God speaking the ten commandments. The second element was proved when they heard the voice saying to Moses, 'Go say to them: Return ye to your tents. But as for thee, stand thou here by Me, and Iwill speak unto thee all the commandments, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land .. .' [Deuteronomy
s: 27]. In this they had a direct proof that Moses was a divine messenger through Whom a perpetual law was to be given. (Ibid. pp. 156-9)
377
The Fifteenth Century Spanish Jews
If we examine the pretensions of the two great religions to be divine, We see that the Catholic religion contradicts divine unity. However, divine unity.·' is an essential attribute of the very existence of God, therefore the Catholic ' religion cannot be divine. As for the Muslim belief, the messenger who trans_ mitted it does not correspond to the criteria that are expected of such a personage. In fact, only Moses corresponds to the ~efinitio~ of 'mes~enger',
Besides if one considers the Law from the pomt of VIew of HIm Who gives it, God, Who does not change and therefore c~~not change Hi.s Law, divine Law can but be unique. Nevertheless, this dlVlne Law was gIven to guide men, and men are very different, even if they all. ~elong to the same species _ mankind. One can thus understand, that the dlVl~e .Law s~ould be adapted to different kinds of temperaments m human socIetIes, whIch have different climates, diverse traditions, and changing manners.
In the divine Law the three fundamental principles (and the roots attached to them) cannot be other, for these are the things that depend on Him who gives the Law _ God, and God is immutable.
There have been divine laws other than the Torah, and they correspond to the preceding definitions; thus the Law given by God to th~ sons of Noah agrees with the Mosaic Law in its general principles, that IS to say, from the point of view of Him who gave it, but it differs as regards the specific principles. In fact, the Law of the sons of Noah, wh~ch ~s addressed to all mankind coexists in time with the Law of Moses, whIch IS addressed
Albo him~elf thin~s that one cannot abandon a traditional belief that has
down m a~ unmterrupted ch~in of transmission since the prophet himself,. unless one IS absolutely certam that the principles, general as well as partIcular, of the proposed new Law are true, and one is totally convinced that GOd.wishes to abolish the words of the first prophet.
~o aC?IeVe certainty on this subject, one must proceed to a very searching verIficatIOn of ~he authenticity of the second prophet. The proof cannot be p:oduced b~ mI~acles. We have seen this in the case of Moses, The Israelites dId not belIeve m Moses the legislator because he performed miracles but first of all because the second prophet, Moses, was greater than the first Noah; and secondly because the authenticity of his mission was as weli
demonstrated as that of his predecessor.
If Moses came to bring a new.Law, may not another prophet, greater yet than Moses, do the same? In thIS Albo answers that the Bible in advance refutes the possibility that a greater prophet than Moses rna; appear (cf. D~u~ero~omy 34: ~o). Anew prophet, besides, would have to prove his mISSIOn m as stnkmg a manner as Moses did on Mount Sinai whe 11 Israel heard the divine voice proclaim the Ten Commandments 'and :rd:r Moses to promulgate the Law that would be communicated to him
An event ~f,this ~ature is not beyond the bounds of the possible, and depends on dlVlne wIll; one ~annot affirm that it will happen, or that it will n?t ~appe~, but as long as It has not happened, the revelation on Mount
to Israel only,' and differs from it in that it is destined for pe~ples living Sm~I remams the solid foundation on which the divine Law, the Torah, rests,
. everywhere except in the Land of Israel, whose culture and heredIty are also destI?ed fo~ Israel, a~d ~~ Jew can listen to a prophet who might attempt to different. It offers all the peoples felicity, felicity lesser than that of Israel, abolIsh an IOta o~ thIS dlVlne Law, so manifestly given by God. but felicity nevertheless. ..', The general prmciples of the divine Law are three, according to Albo, and The fact that two divine Laws designed for dIfferent peo~l~s coe~Is~ III no mo~e.than three. The acceptance of these principles is in effect the sign time does not give rise to difficulties. But what about other dlVlne relIgIOus determI~mg ~hat a Jew belongs to the community of believers. If one held which preceded the Torah and which were abrogated by the Law of Moses, that M~Imomdes' Thirteen Principles were those that every Jew must consider for instance the 'religion of Abraham? May it not be admitted that another true, thIS woul~ mean classing among unbelievers, for instance, all those for
divine Law might come to abrogate the Torah? This was an urgent and Albo devoted a large part of Book III to it.
One must first declare that the three ~reat prin~iples on which every Law rests, existence of God, God as gIver of thIS Law,. reward and ment, cannot change in any way, any more than God HImself can be to change. The question only arises for a certain number of . specific to the Law of Moses, which a new prophet could conc~I~ably If one affirms that a prophet sent by God cannot change a dIvme Law
has been faithfully transmitted, without adulteration, by a tradition which back to the people's ancestors, one would then ask oneself why the accepted the Law of Moses and abandoned that of Noah, which also answered these criteria.
On the other hand, to affirm that every prophet can abrogate a divine
would remove all permanence and value from it. "
TIS
whom the commg of the Messiah is not a fundamental dogma of Judaism.
Here. Albo clearly dissociates the Law and the rationalization of faith. Ac~ordI~g to the sag~s, every Israelite must believe that everything that is w~Itten m the Torah IS absolute tr~th; the problem of the principles only a~Ises when a Jew has accepted thIS Torah and tries to understand it with hIS r.eas,on, and then to interpret it. He may make mistakes; he may refuse , a pnncIple, or he may d~ny a miracle that is described in the biblical text. These Jews, far from bemg unbelievers, are wise and pious men who err' should realize their errors and do penitence. ' T~e three general principles thus determine the legal status of the Jew in to Go~ and the. community of Israel; if he accepts them, he is a and wIll have hIS part in the world to come. Acceptance of the
nevertheless involves the acceptance of what is connected with
TI9
The Fifteenth Century
Spanish Jews
Thus one who believes in the first principle, the existence of God, must also believe that God is one and incorporeal in any sense, and other such corollaries as fOllow from or are dependent upon the first principle. Similarly one who believes in divine revelation, which is the second principle, must believe in the reality of prophecy, and in the genuineness of the divine representative's mission. Likewise one who believes in the third principle, reward and punishment, must believe in God's knowledge and providence, and in retribution, spiritual and corporeal. To deny any of the secondary principles which are derived from the fundamental principles or based upon them, is tantamount to a denial of the fundamental principle itself.
(Seier ha-Ikkarim, trans. I. Husik, vol. 1, p. 121)
The 'secondary principles' or 'roots' are not identical with the command~ ments given in the Torah, the mi?vot, for he who violates a biblical command. ment receives adequate punishment, but is not on that account considered to be an unbeliever.
There are eight 'roots':
-Four of them are attached to the first principle, which is divine existence: the unity of God, His incorporeality, His independence of time, and the negation of every fault or lack in Him.
:.... From the second principle, the divinity of the Torah, arise three 'roots', divine knowledge, prophecy, and the authenticity of the Messenger's mission. -From the third principle arise reward and punishment; or, more exactly,
divine providence precedes it.
The superiority of Moses and the immutability of the law we regard as neither fundamental nor derivative principles, because they are not essential to divine law. They are merely like branches issuing from the belief in the authenticity of the prophet's mission. If they are principles at all, primary or secondary, they are peculiar to the law of Moses, and not common to all divine law. Thus, belief in the, Messiah and in the resurrection of the dead are dogmas peculiar to Christianity which cannot be conceived without them. But the law of Moses can be conceived as existing without the belief in the superiority of Moses and the immutability of the law. It is better to say therefore that they are like branches issuing from the belief in the authenticity of the lawgiver's mission, and not independent principles. Similarly, resurrection and the Messiah are like branches issuing from the dogma of reward and punishment, and not independent principles, primary or secondary, common to all divine law or peculiar to the law of Moses. (Ibid. vol. 1, pp. 158-9)
The denial of the importance of the Messiah's coming responds very definitely to the Christian affirmation that the Messiah has already come. It is related that during the Disputation of Tortosa, Geronimo de Sante Fe set out to prove with the aid ofa passage from the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 97b) that the Messiah had already come; Joseph Albo answered him: 'Even if it were proved to me that the Messiah had already come, I would not consider myself a worse Jew for all that (Posito Messiam probari iam venisse non putarem deterior esse judaeus).'
Albo's sources have been analysed by J. Guttmann. The division into divine, conventional and natural law, which one already finds in Moses Ibn
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" ; Waqar, first appears in Thomas Aquinas (together with other less important ;: ideas), and the three fundamental principles were probably drawn from Simeon ben Zemal;t Duran or perhaps directly from Averroes. At the end of the
fifteenth century Jacob Ibn I;Iabib was already reproaching Albo with not having cited his sources. This accusation, which was well founded, is not of
, great importance in the case of a work like this, more apologetic than philosophical and perfectly performing the task for which it was conceived, namely, to show that the Law of Moses was the only one that corresponds to the definition of divine Law, and therefore to establish its particularism in the larger context of the universal laws, that tie man to God.
Albo's Ikkarim enjoyed a prolonged success in Jewish circles. Some Christian theologians, including Hugo Grotius and Richard Simon, held the work in high esteem; a Latin translation of the two anti-Christian chapters (III, 25-6) ,with a refutation by G. Genebrard, appeared in Paris in 1566.
,Aristotelian philosophy took on renewed strength towards the middle of the century, and in 1450 and a little later several very fine copies were made of the Guide of the Perplexed and of a number of philosophical works composed during the fourteenth century. In this renaissance the sons of Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov played a far from negligible part.
JOSEPH BEN SHEM TOV IBN SHEM TOV
Joseph ben Shem Tov (1400-60) .served at the court of John II of Castile,
'then at that of Henry IV of Castile. His political position led him to participate in philosophical and religious debates with Christian scholars. It seems that he fell into disgrace in 1456, or thereabouts, and afterwards wandered from town to town, preaching on Saturdays and writing down his sermons. He died a martyr to his faith.
Between 1440 and 1460 he engaged in intensive philosophical activity, composing a long commentary on the Nicomachaean Ethics, two commentaries, one long and one short, on Averroes' Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect, and another commentary on Averroes' Paraphrase of Alexander of Aphrodisias' Treatise on the Intellect, with appendixes discussing the same problem.
He also commented on the Lamentations of Jeremiah. His homiletic activities induced him to write a treatise on the art of preaching (preserved in two manuscripts). In the course of his polemical activity he translated into Hebrew and commented on Crescas' Bittul 'Iqqarrey ha-No~rim (Refutation of the Christian Dogmas). Two of his other works were also published, Kevod Elohim (The Glory of God) in 1556, and the commentary on the satirical epistle Alteca Boteca, the very commentary that opened the eyes of the Inquisition to the satirical double meanings of Profiat Duran's work, and led to its being placed on the Index.
The Glory oj God is designed as a new attempt at a synthesis between religion and philosophy. Using a translation from the Latin version of the Nicomachaean Ethics, Joseph ben Shem Tov states that the views of Aristotle as expressed in the first and tenth books of this work, can be reconciled with the teachings of the Torah. Some later Jewish scholars had doubts in regard to this point and, in consequence, were in a state of perplexity (an evident allusion to the Guide of the Perplexed), but these doubts were not justified.
The supreme good and the way that leads to it are the subjects of the book, which presents Aristotle's texts translated from Latin and accompanied by the exegeses that the author was able to collect on the subject, or by his personal commentaries. The aim of this work is thus a return to Aristotle, in his original purity, thanks to the Latin texts. The first question that shquld be asked concerns the relation of Jews to philosophy: is philosophy useful, permissible or prohibited to a Jew in the attainment of perfection?
A Jew should accomplish the divine commandments and he will thus attain perfection. The principles that govern the universe, and the philosophy that underlines the gift of these commandments must be accepted by every Israelite, but he does not necessarily have to know them with a profound and demonstrated knowledge, as the goldsmith, to carry out his work perfectly, has no need to know how the metal that he is using is formed under the earth; or, again, the astrologer can draw up excellent horoscopes without on that account knowing the nature of the celestial bodies, or whether they are perishable. The Talmud, and the Bible before it, tell us what act to perform, and what is the best act to accomplish.
Philosophy has two fields of investigation.
The first field is the true knowledge that one can draw from the existents. This science, divided into mathematics, natural and divine, is the necessary activity of the intellect and its perfection; the world of the existents, object of this science, being the work of God, knowledge of the existents leads to knowledge of God and to attachment to God, which are, undoubtedly, in-. finitely laudable and extremely useful. Intellectual perfection is also the road that leads to another perfection: that bestowed by the Torah. The Law given by God is thus seen to be acquired through intellectual research; in the hierarchy of forms the intellective form is superior to the animal soul and the latter becomes better and more perfect in the former; similarly, when the intellectual form is received in the man who is traditionally religious, it functions even more successfully. The religious man, who has attained p~rfection as a man, is more perfect in religious and divine perfection, for he unites in himself the two perfections, and he is superior to him who has only
acquired one of these two perfections.
The second field of investigation is that where the Greeks ventured to con
tradict the revealed religions, and in these texts one cannot speak of science,
for everything that is contrary to the Torah is not knowledge but illusion.
Nevertheless, adds Joseph ben Shem Tov, one cannot deny that some of
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contemporaries considered intellectual perfection as the supreme good,
that they entrenched themselves behind this perfection and despised the
while the Jews who did not know philosophy, like the Jews of France,
capable of dying for the Torah. . This in no way means that the study of the sciences should be abandoned.
. Joseph ben Shem Tov approves of those who insist that the
and philosophy should only be taught after a certain age, when
truth has formed the spirit, and man is capable of discriminating
truth and falsehood, of repelling doubts and resolving difficulties.
should not be prohibited, our author repeats; on the contrary, as
as one recognizes its limits it is useful to religion.
However, one must know that the human spirit cannot discover the reasons
the divine commandments, for the divine cannot be born in a natural
nor aim at a natural end. To understand the truth of the command
one must have a guide to whom God Himself has revealed His pur
The natural qualities of things exist and one cannot deny their existence;
the magnet attracts the iron and this power is not linked to heat or to
or to dryness or humidity, which are the qualitiesoHpe four elements;
power of attraction is not natural, but supernatural and we witness it understanding it. It is the same regarding the divine commandments, the reason for which we do not know, although it exists.
We see, then, that although he supported Aristotelian philosophy, Joseph ben Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov could not set aside his concern for the survival of the Jewish people, and the accomplishment of the commandments, which is the condition for it, and the extremely difficult political situation weighed heavily on his philosophical thought. This distress is less marked in his younger brother.
Isaac ben Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov left only purely philosophical works, in which he does not consider the relation between faith and reason. Some of his writings have disappeared: a composition entitled E? ha-Da' at (The Tree of Knowledge), treatises on the creation of the world and on metaphysics, commentaries on Averroes' Possibility oj the Conjunction, AI-Ghazali's Intentions oj the Philosophers (most probably the part dealing with physics), and perhaps on the Hayy Ibn Yaqzan of Ibn Tufayl. Other works have been preserved (in manuscript): four commentaries on Averroes' Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, a commentary on Averroes' Great Commentary on the De Anima, and one on Generation and Corruption. The first two commentaries on the Physics and the two last commentaries were finished before 1471. The commentary on Metaphysics in AI-Ghazali's Intentions oJthe Philosophers was completed in 1489. Of the commentary on the Guide oj the Perplexed it seems that only Book 1 has been preserved.
It is very probable that these commentaries were the outcome of his teaching of philosophy over a period of some decades.
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undertakes to make the miracles fit into the schema of the four Aristotelian causes, that is, to understand them within a philosophical framework.
The material cause of a miracle is the object that is transformed; thus with the Nile water that turned to blood (one of the plagues of Egypt), the liquid was the material cause. But this object must in itself have the possibility of change. This eliminates the likelihood that the substance of the celestial bodies and the world of the angels might be perceived by men as being the object of miraculous manifestations. When in Joshua 10: 12 the sun stands still over Gibeon, the matter of the miracle was not the substance of the sun but its movement; it is thus possible that the movement of the sun should have been arrested, for movement can be slow or quick; but the matter of the miracle was not the substance of the sphere of the sun for this is not susceptible to change.
To explain the formal cause of miracle Bibago takes as an example the case of the rod that changed into a serpent; the formal cause being neither the rod nor the serpent but the substance of change of one form into another, for the causes of the change from rod to serpent were not naturally present in these forms.
To regard the prophet, as Ibn Ezra does, or the Active Intellect, as Gersonides, or else the astral influx as the immediate cause of a miracle is not acceptable, for the action of these agents is natural and irrevocably fixed, while miraculous action is voluntary and free. Here Bibago defines four kinds of phenomenon that one tends to confound:
(I)
The prodigy (pele) is the change that occurs in the law of nature, and it reinforces the truth ofthe miracle, the sign, the proof.
(2)
The miracle itself(nes) brings about the salvation of a man, of a community or of a people, by the instrument of divine providence.
(3)
The sign ('ot) is a general thing that represents an exception to the laws of nature, while its particular signification is not immediately evident.
(4)
The proof (mofet) is a sign of which the particular signification is clearly expressed.
All these supernatural phenomena have God as their causal agent; however for the miracle (nes) the Prince of the World, the Active Intellect, is the intermediary agent; for the sign and the proof the prophet is the intermediary causal agent; while the prodigy is the direct act of God. .
The final cause of miracles must be more exalted than the other causes, matter form and agent; this is the true faith.
We ~hus see the appearance of the term 'faith' in a clearly Aristotelian system, and faith plays a large part in Bibago's work, a fact that differentiates him profoundly from philosophers who may seem close to him, like Moses of Narbonne. .
Supreme felicity and the ultimate aim of man's existence is the imitation of God. Since man participates in two worlds, that of the intellect and that
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of matter, subject to generation and corruption, he must achieve full development and perfection in the two worlds. To wish that man should conjoin himself to the intellect alone is to wish that he should not be man; 'to go in the divine way' means perfection in bodily acts as in intellect.
This rehabilitation of act in Bibago's thought is supplemented by the rehabilitation of non-intellectual faith. Following Averroes, our author con
, siders that the acquisition of the intelligibles is a disposition that disappears when it has reached its goal, making way for another disposition that is not subject to generation and corruption but is of the same kind as the world of the intellects. This second disposition, which according to Averroes cannot be acquired except by acquiring the intelligible notions, can then be actualized by the action of the Active Intellect. According to Bibago, at this second stage the soul is attracted by the Intellect (an attraction described by Ibn Tufayl in his Hayy Ibn Yaqzan) and this is the degree of prophecy. In using Ibn Tufayl's passage, Bibago gives this stage of the conjunction with the Intellect a mystical colouring that is not at all Averroistic. The conjunction
. with the Active Intellect is no longer, properly speaking, a natural and automatic phenomenon, for divine will should be added to human knowledge. Moreover, the conjunction with the Intellect is not identification; rather our author says, man preserves his individuality and the degrees of the conjunction with the Active Intellect are the degrees of prophecy. On the level of conjunction with the Intellect, sage and prophet are the same.
Bibago adds two specific characteristics to prophecy:
(I)
The knowledge of things that the human intellect, left to its own forces, cannot attain;
(2)
The foreseeing of future things.
The prophecy that has been described is that which is desired by man, for which he prepares himself and which he attains, if God so wishes; but there is another sort of prophecy: that which God places in the mouth of a man when He wishes to address Himself to the people. In this case, the prophet only transmits the divine word; he is the instrument of divine providence.
The eminence of the prophecy depends on the prophet, and, like Maimonides, Bibago links the perfection of the Torah with the perfection of Moses. Moses did not commit any fault, for his perfection is the ultimate degree of human perfection, and it is a guarantee that no more perfect law will come to abrogate that which he gave to the people of Israel.
In the same way as Bibago adds to the intellectual Maimonidean prophecy that given by God' to a non-philosophical man, he also adds to the two kinds of providence defined by Maimonides, natural providence and that linked to the conjunction with the intellect, a third type of providence; that which takes special care of Israel.
Should one see in this a concession to popular mentality or to the mis
fortunes ofthe time? This does not seem to' be the case, for the faith and
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the ontological status of the people of Israel, far from being added on as an afterthought, form an integral part of Bibago's system. . To understand the place occupied by the people of Israel in the econOmy of the human world, one must first see what our author means by 'faith'.
Mankind can only attain perfection if it achieves plenitude for the two parts of which it is composed: the body and the soul; these two perfections are equally necessary, and one cannot ignore this fact and pretend that man belongs only to the spiritual world. Divine providence therefore gave the Torah and the faith, which offer, without hardship and without difficulty (in contrast to science), the truths necessary to salvation.
Further, while the true faith guides the body and the spirit, the science of the intelligibles is restricted to the only part of man that is close to it, the intellect. Knowledge is not inferior to faith; it is more limited, but it also belongs to the superior world.
The ultimate aim of faith as of knowledge is the eternity of the soul, and this eternity is purely intelligible. The learned man and the believer will both attain conjunction with the intelligible and eternal world, and the difference between them is the road they respectively adopt.
Logicians use demonstration to prove a truth; the demonstration itself, truth once established, is no longer necessary to the logician. It is the same for the intelligible truths; whether one takes the road of knowledge or that of faith, the object is to reach the stage of truth. The two definitions of the faith are based on Thomas Aquinas, for whom the object of faith is not only what is above reason, but also what is known by the reason which faith knows in a different, more perfect, manner.
Bibago's own definition of faith is the following: intellectual acquisition conceived according to the truth on the basis of premises received from tradition. This faith is only acquired freely and voluntarily, for one cannot receive divine reward for the acquisition of knowledge that necessarily imposes itself on the reason. Faith is indissolubly linked to will and choice: thus the belief in the creation of the world, which cannot be proved, is faith. From this it follows that faith cannot be acquired by perception or by axiomatic intelligible data, or by experience, or by demonstrations based on natural premises, for these are the logically necessary foundation of knowledge, and knowledge imposes itself on man; he does not choose it. That the domain of faith is more restricted for the scholar than for the simple believer is obvious, for the scholar scientifically acquires a large part of the knowledge that the simple believer acquires by faith, but both are equal when they come to problems that human reason cannot resolve without divine assistance.
This brings us back to divine providence and to the part played by Israel in human economy.
Divine providence takes greater care of the people of Israel than of any other people because the people of Israel are 'intellect in actu', thanks to the perfect Torah. Particular providence takes more special care of the
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individual in proportion to the intellect that he has acquired, and the same applies to the people of Israel. Now, one could ask: are people, other than Israel, an intermediary species between mankind and the individual? In that case, it would be enough to belong to the people of Israel to enjoy particular providence. Bibago absolutely rejects this distinction between the peoples, which was made by Judah Halevi. There is only mankind and the individual.
If an individual is the particular object of divine providence, this is not because he is part of the people of Israel, but because he is an individual identifying himself with the essence of Israel, which has received the truths of the Torah and, because of its beliefs in these verities, is intellect in actu. The definition of a Jew is thus that of a man believing in a true faith, who has knowledge (literally of things) as a man and supplementary knowledge as believer in a true faith.
As a man, he has attained the knowledge that every man should acquire, since he is intellect, intelligent and intelligible, and he will thus resemble the world of the inteIligibles. As a Jew, he must acquire the perfection of faith, study the Torah and believe what he should believe as a Jew. This second perfection is more particular than the first, but the individual form to which these two perfections contribute is that of the Jew and of the believing Israelite.
I will not follow Bibago in his very scholastic arguments demonstrating that the people of Israel, according to the definition given above, is on the level of substance, assuring it eternity, while the other peoples are on the level of accident. We may remark that Bibago's philosophy opens out onto historical perspectives. Israel plays the role of the intellect in mankind, in relation to the other faculties, which hate it and fight against it; thus Israel has been exiled three times, the first time in Egypt, which means the senses, the second in Babylon, which symbolizes the imagination, and a third time in Christianity, which symbolizes practical wisdom (tevuna); this wisdom is so eminent that its difference from the intellect is hardly discernible; this is why the exile will be prolonged until the imagination and the sophism that dominate at present finally disappear.
ISAAC BEN MOSES ARAMA
Isaac Arama (ca. 1420-94) was a rabbi in various communities of Aragon, then at Calatayud, where he wrote most of his works. His sermons were often the basis of his later compositions. He also participated in the public debates against Christian scholars. After the expulsion of 1492 he removed to Naples (where he met Isaac Abrabanel), and died there. .
The best known of his works is Akedat Yizhak (The Sacrifice of Isaa~), a collection of philosophical sermons and of allegorical commentaries that follow the order of the peri copes of the Torah. It is divided into 105 chapters
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(or porticos), each forming a sermon in 2 parts. In the first part the author
examines a philosophical idea in the light of biblical and rabbinical texts.
. in the second, the scriptural commentary dominates, and the textual difli~
culties are resolved with the help of the philosophical idea expounded at the
beginning. First printed in Salonica in 1522, the Sacrifice of Isaac has fre_
quently been republished (at least twelve times). Apart from another Pole
mical work, dealing with the relations between religion and philosophy, Isaac
Arama wrote commentaries on the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes, Esther and Proverbs, the last being dedicated to the memory of
his son-in-law. He may also have written a commentary on Aristotle's Ethics,
which he often cites, but this is not certain.
In contrast to Abraham Shalom, who will be discussed shortly, Isaac
Arama does not hesitate to criticize Maimonides. For him, the superiority
of religious truth over human reason is never in doubt; our intellects receive
the data of the senses, which are far from providing exact information about
the world; similarly, our rational knowledge is limited and certain domains
are entirely closed to it. Philosophers are incapable of answering difficult
questions, such as how the diversity of creatures issued from the divine unity,
if the world is eternal or created in time, if the celestial spheres have a soul
or not, why some of them move from west to east and others in the opposite
direction, and so on. It should not be supposed that one day these questions
will be resolved by man; they cannot be, for they are beyond the realm of
human reason, as Maimonides admitted concerning creation.
Philosophy makes one know the God of nature; it cannot teach man the
mystery of the Last Day and of the supreme felicity. The Patriarch Abraham
began by knowing God according to reason, and, like the philosophers, he
only believed in what he could know. Thus, when he made his act of faith,
'He believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness;
(Genesis 15: 6), for to make an act of faith is a spiritual degree superior to
that of rational knowledge. But Abraham had not yet reached perfect belief,
simple belief, which is satisfied with the received tradition, asks no questions
and imposes no conditions, for Abraham asks God: 'Lord God, whereby
shall I know that I shall inherit it?' (Genesis 15: 8), and God says to him:
'Go before me and be thou perfect [tamin = simple, perfect]' (Genesis 17: I).
Arama inveighs against the scholars of his time who wish to base faith
on the intellect and on human reason, and prove religion by demonstration.
There are decided contradictions between faith and reason and one cannot
harmonize the two as Maimonides tried to do. This does not mean that the
biblical text must be taken only in its literal sense. While faith is superior to
reason, it does not contradict it but surpasses it, and some verses should be
interpreted allegorically. In fact, this is what the rabbis of the Talmud con
stantly did, but the allegorization should not make one lose sigh~ of the
literal sense. Arama objects to the excessive allegorization of the biblical text
practised by the philosophers. However, he takes fewer precautions with the
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· aggadot and gives a philosophical interpretation of a large number of talmudic narratives that offend reason, with the evident apologetic intention of ••. endowing the talmudical rabbis with a philosophical status that the Christian
polemicists denied them.
Arama proposes six principles of faith: creation; divine omnipotence, that is, miracles; prophecy and the revelation of the Torah; providence; penitence; and the immortality of the soul.
These principles are not designed to define philosophical religion or divine religion in general, but the religion of Israel, in its difference from philosophy and from the other revealed religions. The principles complement philosophy, as faith is added to reason and contains it. The existence of God, His unity and His incorporeality are included in the Torah, but in spite of that, they are not principles.
· One of the points that Arama stresses is divine omnipotence; God can suspend the laws of nature and perform miracles. In fact, there are two laws of nature: 'natural' nature, which obeys the laws of causality and bears witness to the First Cause; and supernatural nature, the visible or hidden miracles of which (the influence of Nahmanides is seen here) penetrate every
. day life and bear witness to the biblical God, omnipotent al)d exercising His will.
If philosophers like Moses of Narbonne and Gersonides denied this supernatural nature, this was because they placed man below the level of the celestial spheres; but these spheres are only dead bodies, and man, thinking
· being, is the beginning and end of creation, and its master. In fact, according to Arama, man, when he is 'the image of God', has power over natural nature, for he has received from God the key of cosmic harmony, and he knows that 'the macrocosm and the microcosm are two cords that vibrate together with one sound'.
Human error, the lack of harmony in man, leads to cosmic disorder:
For there is a strong relation and a very powerful link between the actions performed by the classes of men, from the best to the worst, and the existing things, in general and in particular, to the point that one may believe that by the ordering and the rectitude of their actions in general the nature of existing things is maintained and is fortified. And when these actions become vile and degenerate, this nature is also debased and humiliated. This marvellous thing is due to the fact that the human edifice is like the edifice of the entire world: one is called microcosm and the other macrocosm, because of the relation that there is between the two, in general and in particular.
It is necessary therefore that there should be between the two a great correspondence which resembles that created by musicians between two instruments of music altogether alike and tuned to the same note, for when a string vibrates in one of them, the voice of the second instrument is awakened because of the relation between the two ... The construction of the universe is like the first of the instruments and it has an order and structure fixed in all its celestial and terrestrial parts, and, thanks to them, life in the world is maintained in its wholeness.
Facing this order and this structure, and similar to them, are the strings of the second instrument, the microcosm, which vibrates in unison with the first. And when the second instrument is well tuned and its strings are disposed as they shoUld be, in relation with the mystery of existence, its nature, its general and particular plan, then when one makes them vibrate, their sound awakens the harmony of the universe and causes to vibrate the strings of the macrocosm and the two instru_ ments vibrate in unison, that which acts and that which is acted on, so that the existence of everything that exists and its mode of being should be perfect, in the most complete manner that there may be.
(The Philosophy of Isaac Arama, pp. 130-1)
The power that Arama ascribes, to God as to man, of using the laws of 'supernatural' nature and of performing miracles, does not prevent our author from giving a rational explanation of most of the biblical miracles. Supernatural law perfects nature, and does not destroy it. Man also is free to do good or evil, and the divine omniscience is not affected by this. Nevertheless, this does not mean that God justifies man by free grace, for such a grace would deny the power that man has over his own destiny, and therefore his free will.
The path that Arama strives to follow between philosophy and faith is narrow and difficult, for our author does not sacrifice one or the other. This is clearly seen in his treatment of the Law of Moses: it is the natural law of the philosophers, it is identical with the moral and intellectual virtues, but it is also the way that leads towards other virtues unknown to philosophers, and it alone bestows true felicity, that which is the supreme human good -a life turned towards God: through the accomplishment of religious acts that make the soul climb the degrees of the fear of 'God, of faith, of love, of the cult, and assure it survival in the next world.
From the purely philosophical point of view Arama is hardly original; however, his sermons had a great influence on later generations and were held in esteem by Christian theologians. This is easily comprehensible: Arama gave an image of God, the world and of Israel, that was entirely human and also faithful to Israel's specificity.
ABRAHAM BEN ISAAC SHALOM
Abraham Shalom lived in Catalonia during the fifteenth century and died in 1492. He translated the Philosophia Pauperum attributed to Albertus Magnus and Marsilius of Inghem's Questions concerning Aristotle's Organon from Latin into Hebrew.
Abraham Shalom's Neveh Shalom (Dwelling of Peace) is divided into thirteen books, a clear allusion to Maimonides' Thirteen Principles. Each book consists of chapters, varying in number, which are in fact homilies examining various philosophical problems: the creation of the world; the existence of God; His unity and His incorporeality; the other divine attributes -knowledge of particulars and divine providence; the intellect and its
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survival after death; the Torah and its eminence, various divine commandments, sacrifice and prayers; and so on. Apart from the fact that the work is not systematic, the author often returns to the same subjects for further discussion. In his introduction he explains that his work has two aims:
(I)
To demonstrate to Jews influenced by 'Greek' ideas that the aggadot of the Talmud contain profound wisdom, when they are correctly interpreted.
(2)
To survey the philosophical opinions of his predecessors in order to decide which are consistent with the Torah and which are not.
In practice, Abraham Shalom also gives an exegesis of numerous biblical verses, and the aggadot that he explicates are all taken from the first traCtate of the Talmud, Berakhot.
In ?is philosophical interpretations, Abraham Shalom begins by presenting the VIews of Maimonides, Gersonides and Crescas, and although he avows a high degree of esteem for the two latter, he generally adopts the ideas of Maimonides, which he defends against his two opponents. Thus, he accepts the proof of the existence of God founded on the eternity of movement, although he affirms that God has created the world by His will, ex niMlo. Nevertheless, in this following Maimonides, he admits that creation by will on the basis of a pre-existing matter is not inconceivable, and can be brought into agreement with religion.
However, it is sometimes difficult to reconcile Maimonides with orthodox religious ideas,such as those regarding providence and its relation to the intellect. Abraham Shalom agrees with the Jewish tradition and Crescas that d~vine providence is especially attached to Israel and that this providence dIffers from that which is concerned with mankind as a whole. In this case ~bra~am Shalom almost displays bad faith, for he does not say that Maimo?Ides IS wrong, but he interprets the word sekhel, 'intellect', as meaning
knowledge, actions, or the two together'. Even in the passages discussing the principles of Judaism his thought is not very c~herent and he sometimes gives a list of four dogmas, once of five and sometimes uses the term 'principle' in a looser sense.
In fact, H. Davidson is most probably right when he says that Abraham Shalom, whose philosophical culture is displayed on every page of his lengthy ,,:ork, was not real~y interested in philosophical questions. Profoundly convmced of the doctnnes of the Jewish religion on the one hand and the truth of the Maimonidean positions on the other, he endeavoured to communicate his certitudes in the philosophical style of the period.
ISAAC ABRABANEL
~ith Isaac A~rabanel we leave Spain and almost the Middle Ages. I shall stIll speak bnefly of Jewish fifteenth-century philosophers in Yemen in North Africa, Greece and Turkey, and especially in Italy, where Je~ish scholars often found asylum and participated in the great movement of the Renaissance. But 1492, the date of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, marked the end of an epoch.
It has been said ofIsaac Abrabanel that he is the last of the medieval Jewish philosophers of Spain and the first of the humanists. This judgement is exemplified by his life as well as by his works, for, if he was a man of the Renaissance, he was also a medieval philosopher who again took up all the themes that I have already presented.
Born in Lisbon in 1437 of a family of merchants and courtiers, he received a careful education, which included the sciences as well as Jewish subjects, classical texts and Christian theology. At the age of twenty-five he had already composed a treatise on providence and prophecy, and was giving pUblic lessons on Deuteronomy in the synagogue.
Like his father Judah he was the treasurer of Alfonso V of Portugal, and was head of a flourishing business. Accused of conspiracy by Joan II, who come to power in 1481, he fled in 1483 and a year later entered the service of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile.
In 1492, he attempted unsuccessfully to obtain the revocation of the Edict of Expulsion. On 31 May of that year he sailed for Naples, where in 1493 he entered on functions similar to those he had performed in Castile, at the court of· Ferrante I, King ~f Naples. He remained at this court until 1495 and then, settling at Venice in 1503, he participated in diplomatic negotiations between the Venetian Senate and the kingdom of Portugal. Most of his works were committed to writing during the sixteen years of his sojourn in Italy, where he died in 1509.
His works, both philosophical and exegetical, are abundant.
(I)
Commentaries on the whole of the Pentateuch, on the early ProphetsJoshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings -and the later Prophets -Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel -and the twelve minor prophets.
(2)
Commentaries on the Haggadah and Pirkei Avot.
(3)
Three works of messianic tendency, including a commentary on Daniel.
(4)
A commentary on the Guide of the Perpiexed, as well as answers to questions on the subject ofthe Guide and a short treatise on the composition of this book.
(5) Various works discussing philosophical or theological questions:
-A youthful work, Ateret Zekenim (The Crown of the Ancients), which
deals with prophecy and providence;
-Shamayim Hadashim (New Skies), on the creation of the world;
-Mifalot Elohim (The Works ofGod), also on the creation of the world;
-Rosh Amanah (The Principle ofFaith), on the principles or dogmas of the Jewish religion; -A short work on the Form of the Elements: Tsurat ha-yesodot;
Two other works, announced by Abrabanel in a letter to Saul Ha-Cohen
394
Spanish Jews
of Candia in 1507, one on divine justice and the other on prophecy, have
not been preserved and were perhaps not finished. All Abrabanel's works were printed, most of them in the sixteenth century. Abrabanel m~intained an intense and ambivalent attitude towards Mai
· monides; he does not write a page without citing him with immoderate respect, and without criticizing him with acerbity. His three principal s~bjects of meditation were the creatio~ of th~ world,. prophecy a~d the pnnciples of Judaism. On these three POInts he IS often In accord WIth the letter · of Maimonides' text, and in disagreement with Maimonides' thought; he is then obliged to rehabilitate the literal text whenever this is possible or to refute it word by word and phrase by phrase. His philosophical writing may
· be considered as an extremely precise commentary on the work of Maimonides (his original ideas are to be found in his biblical commentaries) and he most probably considered his commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed as his chief work. .
For Abrabanel, the creation of the world ex nihilo is the only hypothesis that religion accepts, even if it cannot be philosophically demonstrated. Opposing Gersonides, he affirms that a pre-existing and unformed matter
· cannot be admitted because of the correlation necessary between matter and form; arguing against Crescas, he remarks that the idea of a necessary will on the part of God destroys the very concept of will. As regards the question of the exact moment when the act of creation is supposed to have taken place, he tries to resolve it by the idea that God creates innumerable worlds and destroys them after a certain time. Prophecy is what Maimonides describes in the first opinion he gives on the subject, that attributed to the simple and the ignorant: God chooses whom he wishes among men in order to make him His prophet, provided that he be of pure morals and pious heart. Prophecy is a divine knowledge that God causes to descend on the prophet, an essential and detailed knowledge, through or without an intermediary; if the intellect receives this knowledge, the prophet's words will be clear and explicit; if it is the imagination, they will be expressed in images and allegories. As for the difference beh:een the sage and the prophet, one finds it in the different influx that each recelve~. The prophet receives an influx incomparably more abundant and more.e~Inent. Thus, superabundance of divine emanation also allows one .to .dlstInguish the prophetic from the premonitory dream. The prophetiC Images impose themselves on the imagination by their power and intensity. A supernatural phenomenon that corrects the natural failings of the prophet; his imagination and his intellect, prophecy can only reside in a ~an whose soul is constantly turned towards God. This can only happen In a free nation living in its land, the Land of Israel, and never when the Jew, overwhelmed by calamities, is dependent on the good will of gentile kings. In his book, The Principle ofFaith, Abrabanel sets out to defend Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, and this he does in the first twenty-two chapters.
The Fifteenth Century
However, in the two last chapters, he declares that since the Law of Moses is a supernatural law, no principle is more important than another; every, thing is equally important and must be accepted by the believer. Why did Maimonides choose to single out these Thirteen Principles? It was, declares Abrabanel, because he wished to make it easier for the vulgar to under_ stand the principles; besides, are not these Thirteen Principles part of the Mishneh Torah, which is not destined for philosophers but for the simple faithful?
While Abrabanel as a philosopher is not remarkable for originality but rather for depth and erudition, he holds particularly interesting opinions concerning politics and history.
For Maimonides, the prophet-philosopher promulgated a law that in the case of the Torah was the only divine Law, because Moses was closest to the Active Intellect and attained the highest degree of the human spirit.
For Abrabanel prophecy is a supernatural phenomenon and the Law a divine Law that is very much connected with the natural phenomena and the events of the human history in which we live.
There are therefore two histories: human and natural, and divine and supernatural, and at the meeting-place of the two is biblical history, where God's intervention took place.
The Messiah is not the conquering king who will re-establish the independence of the Jewish people and restore it to its land by means of its military virtues, as he was for Maimonides, but a man inspired by God, whose miracles will be manifested in a context of war, revolution, and the end of the world.
So far there is nothing here that had not been said, more or less, in the
trend of thought that began with Judah Halevi. But Abrabanel adds another
theme, deriving from Seneca, which considers the whole of human civiliza
tion as we see it something' artificial' and' superfluous'.
Human history, 'natural' history, in fact is not so at all; it is 'artificial',
for true 'nature' is miraculous in essence. The life of Israel in the desert,
where everything depended on the divine generosity, is analogous to the
'natural' life, that of Adam before the Fall. Adam's sin overthrew the whole
order of nature; civilization, with its cities and governments, is a rebellion
against God; the only 'natural' life is that of free and equal men, leading a
rural existence. The different languages and the different nations are also
the outcome of man's rebellion. When Abrabanel discusses the best form of
government possible in our civilization, it is in the context of this false life,
and the question is rather of the least bad government, for all are fundament
ally bad; only the Messianic ~eign will re-establish 'natural' human life.
But our author was a statesman, and' he could not help being interested
in the government of men as it existed at his time. Discussing two biblical
passages (Deuteronomy 17: 14 and I Samuel 8 : 6), he refutes the philosophical
arguments that would make monarchy the best possible government; these.
396
North A/rica, Provence and Turkey
. arguments were based on the principle of hierarchy, essential principle of all medieval tho,ught: the king is to the nation what the heart is to the body and the First Cause to the universe. Only monarchy, it was said, assures the three conditions of the good functioning of society; unit, continuity and absolute power. According to our author, society can be maintained and subsist with other governments as well. Unity can be achieved through the unanimous will of several persons far better than by the irresponsible will of one man; continuity may result from the government of successive leaders, if they know that they must give an account of themselves. As for absolute power, Abrabanel sees no necessity for this. Besides, collective government is that advocated by the Torah. After various theoretical arguments, Abrabanel comes to actual experience. Government by elected judges, as it is seen in the Italian cities, Venice, Florence, Genoa, and so on, is greatly superior to monarchy; and we know that Abrabanel had experienced both kinds of rule. Nevertheless, he remained respectful towards established power; in a monarchical state, absolute obedience is owed to the king.
For Israel the true guide is God, who preserves it with His particular providence; a king is thus not necessary to it, and experience has shown that the kings were disastrous and the judges, on the contrary, always faithful; its best government therefore is that of an elite of judges letting themselves be guided by the will of God. The Messiah will not be a king in the proper sense of the word, but a judge and a prophet. Abrabanel interprets the passage in Deuteronomy (17: 14), following Abraham Ibn Ezra, as a simple concession, a permission given by God to Israel to elect a king. The expression, like the idea, recalls a postil by Nicholas of Lyre, belonging to an anti-monarchical current fairly widespread in Christian tradition, while the monarchical idea was generally preferred in the Jewish. Other details of temporal (human) government and spiritual (that of God) are borrowed
from other Christian authors. Thus, while he remains very medieval in his philosophical and religious conceptions, in his political ideas Abrabanel is clearly a man of the Renaissance.
The last philosophers in North Africa, Provence and Turkey
While the Spanish philosophers strove to perpetuate their tradition by preserving both Judaism and what remained of medieval philosophy, the Jews living around the Mediterranean also tried, with considerable difficulty, to keep their philosophical culture alive.
This soon descended to a scholastic level, where logic predominated. The domain of philosophy was considerably reduced, almost of its own accord. Metaphysics, the nobiest science, no longer inspired the confidence and respect that it had enjoyed during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; it was no longer believed that it was possible to attain the total truth through the acquisition of philosophy. The sciences had become detached from the
397
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Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought
Editor:
Reinier Munk, Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Editorial Board:
Resianne Fontaine, University ofAmsterdam, The Netherlands
Robert Gibbs, University ofToronto, Canada
Warren Zev Harvey, The Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Israel
Albert van der Heide, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Arthur Hyman, Yeshiva University, New York, US.A.
Howard Kreisel, Ben Gurian University ofthe Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel
David Novak, University ofToronto, Canada
Kenneth Seeskin, North Western University, Illinois, US.A.
VOLUME 9
The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.
()
HEBREW SCHOLASTICISM
IN THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY
AHISTORY
AND SOURCEBOOK
by
MauroZonta
Universita di Roma 'La Sapienza',
Rome, Italy
~Springer
INTRODUCTION ,
A number of philosophers active m some of the most important Jewish cultural centres of the second half of the fifteenth century (the kingdom of Aragon in North-Eastern Spain; Florence, Mantua and Padua in Central and Northern Italy) seem to have grown increasingly unsatisfied with one of the main traits that characterised Spanish and Proven~al Jewish philosophy during the previous two centuries-namely its reliance upon Averroes's interpretation of Aristotle and, in general, upon traditional Jewish Aristotelianism, mainly based upon medieval ArabicIslamic philosophy.
In their pursuit of a renewal of Jewish philosophy, these authors turned to the doctrines and methods of contemporary Latin Scholasticism. Thus, after three centuries, Scholasticism partly replaced Arabic-Islamic philosophy's role as a guide in the development of European Jewish thought. These philosophers, who apparently read Latin very well, were impressed by the new theories formulated by their Latin colleagues, from Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas onwards. They tried to assimilate these theories in two ways. In the first place, they produced a wave of translations of Latin Scholastic texts into Hebrew, intended to replace the old translations ofArabic Aristotelian texts produced between 1200 and 1350. Secondly, they composed original works in Hebrew (mainly commentaries and questions on Aristotle), in which they faithfully reproduced the techniques and terminology of late Scholasticism, and explicitly quoted and discussed Scholastic texts and doctrines. Some of these authors-possibly also in order to avoid being accused of interest in non-Jewish doctrines-declared that a deeper understanding of the subtleties of contemporary Scholasticism was not only useful for updatingJewish philosophy and theology, butwas also necessary for engaging in religious controversies with Christian scholars.
Thus, in fifteenth century Italy and Spain there came into being whatwe may call a "HebrewScholasticism":Jewish authors composed philosophical treatises in which they discussed the same questions and used the same methods as contemporary Christian Schoolmen. These thinkers were not simply influenced by Scholasticism: they were real Schoolmen who tried to participate (in a different language) in the philosophical debate of contemporary Europe. Although these "Hebrew Scholastic" works depended heavily (as we shall see) on Latin sources, they were not mere translations or compilations: their authors, adopting a technique employed also by their Christian colleagues, mixed words and doctrines taken from these sources with words and doctrines that were, instead, original. Consequently, the relationship of "HebrewScholasticism" to its Latin counterpart, rather than one ofmere dependence, is one of"parallelism", involving the independent elaboration of similar conclusions from the same premises.1
1 A history of "Hebrew Scholasticism" in the fifteenth century is yet to be written. As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of "Hebrew Scholasticism" is usually neglected even in general studies about the relationship ofChristian andJewish cultures in the late Middle Ages (cf. e.g., the recent book by H. Santiago Otero [ed.], Dirilogo filos6fico-religioso entre Cristianismo, Judaismo e Islamismo durante la Edad Media en la peninsula iberica, Turnhout 1994, where only a very short mention of it can be found on pp. 376-377). Generally speaking, as Daniel Lasker correctly points out, "the study of the Christian impact on late medieval, especially Iberian,Jewish philosophy remains in its infancy" (D]. Lasker, The Impact ofChristianity on Late IberianJewish Philosophy, in B.D. Cooperman [ed.], In Iberia and Beyond. HispanicJews Between Cultures, Newark 1998,175-190, p. 175). However, some of the most recent historical sketches of fifteenth century Jewish philosophy and ofits relationship with Scholastic philosophy contain timely references to "Hebrew Scholasticism" and to the role played by its chief figures:
H. Tirosh-Rothschild,Jewish Philosophy on the Eve ofModernity, in D.H. Frank and
O. Leaman (eds.), History ofJewish Philosophy, London-NewYork 1997, 499-573, especially pp. 504-505, 514-516; T.M. Rudavsky, The Impact ofScholasticism upon Jewish Philosophy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and A. Ackerman, Jewish Philosophy and theJewish-Christian Philosophical Dialogue in Fifteenth-Century Spain, in D.H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to MedievalJewish Philosophy, Cambridge University Press 2003, 345-390, !;!specially pp. 348-350, 380-382. A sketch of "Hebrew Scholastic logic" has been recently published by Ch.H. Manekin, Scholastic Logic and theJews, "Bulletin de philosophie medievale" 41 (1999),123-147. For a short, tentative bibliographical overview of "Hebrew Scholasticism", see M. Zonta, The Relationship of European Jewish Philosophy to Islamic and Christian Philosophies in the Late Middle Ages, 'Jewish Studies Quarterly" 7 (2000), 127-140, especially pp. 138-140; see also Id., The Autumn of Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Latin Scholasticism in Late 15th-Century Hebrew Philosophical Literature, in J.A. Aertsen and M. Pickave (eds.), "Herbst des Mittelalters"? Fragen zur Bewertung des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, "Miscellanea Mediaevalia" 31, Berlin-NewYork 2004, 474-492-part ofwhich has been recast in this introduction.
INTRODUCTION
The Influence ofScholasticism on Fourteenth Century Jewish Philosophy:
An Overview
"HebrewScholasticism", however, was not a totally newphenomenon in the history of medieval Jewish thought. It is well-known that a group of Jewish philosophers, active in Central and Southern Italy (especially in Rome) between 1250 and 1350, had been in close contact with their Christian colleagues: Christian doctrines and methods were absorbed and applied to the questions peculiar to Judaism. Moses of Salerno, in his commentary on Maimonides's Guide ofthe Perplexed, written around 1270, often refers to his previous co-operation, in Naples, with the Christian scholars Nicholas of Giovinazzo and Peter of Hibernia (one of the teachers of Thomas Aquinas) .2 Some of these Jewish philosophers composed philosophical-theological writings in which Thomas Aquinas was one of their main sources. This is the case with Hillel ofVerona's The Book ofthe Retributions ofthe Soul (Sefer tagmuley ha-nefesh) , written between 1287 and 1291; in this work, Thomas's De unitate intellectus contra Averroim is literally (although not explicitly) quoted, as well as Domingo Gundisalvi's De anima.3 The most important thinker in this group, and the first true "Hebrew Schoolman", was Judah Romano, active in Rome and at the court of Robert ofAnjou, probably between 1310 and 1330 . Judah translated into Hebrew passages ofvarious lengths explicitly taken from Latin philosophical and theological treatises. His Latin sources include Domingo Gundisalvi (Judah translated into Hebrew the whole text ofhis De uno et unitate, falsely ascribed to Boethius), 4 Albert the Great (Judah translated the complete text ofhis De spiritu et respiratione, and knew and employed Albert's De anima, De intellectu et intelligibili, De causis et processu universitatis, part ofhis Summa de creaturis, and, very probably, his lost Summa de bono, ofwhich he has transmitted to us some otherwise unknown
2 See C. Rigo, Per un'identijicazione del "sapiente cristiano" Nicola da Giovinazzo,
collaboratore di rabbi Moseh ben Selomoh da Salerno, "Archivum fratrum praedicato
rum" 69 (1999),61-146.
3 See J.B. Sermoneta (ed.), Book of the Retributions of the Soul by rabbi Hillel ben
Samuel of Verona (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1981, pp. 4-26 (for passages from Gundisalvi), 35-145 (for passages from Thomas). 4 Cf. M. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Ubersetzungen des Mittelalters und dieJuden
als Dolmetscher, Berlin 1893 (reprint Graz 1956), p. 467.
fragments) ,5 Thomas Aquinas (Judah quoted his commentaries on the De anima and the De causis, translated into Hebrew his treatise De ente et essentia and an apocryphal treatise On the Difference of the Soul's Faculties, as well as passages from the De fallaciis, the Summa theologica, the Summa contra Gentiles and the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum) ,6 Giles ofRome (Judah translated parts ofhis commentaries on the Posterior Analytics, the Rhetoric, the Physics and the De anima, as well as parts of his original writings Quaestiones metaphysicales, Quodlibeta, De regimine principum, Theoremata de esse et essentia and parts of a number of minor works, some of which possibly not by Giles), 7 and two minor representatives of contemporary Italian Thomism, namely Angel ofCamerino (Judah quoted his commentaries on the Categories and the De interpretatione) and Alexander of Alexandria (Judah quoted his commentary on the Metaphysics).8 Moreover, in some of his original works-e.g., in his commentary on Averroes's De substantia orbifl-Judah tried to reproduce the techniques used
5 See C. Rigo, Un passo sconosciuto di Alberto Magno nel Sefer 'e~em ha-shamayim di Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano, "Henoch" 11 (1989), 295-318;J.-P. Rothschild, Un traducteur hebreu qui se cherche: R. juda b. Moise Romano et Ie De causis et processu universitatis, II, 3, 2 d'Albert Ie Grand, "Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age" 59 (1992), 159-172; C. Rigo, Yehudah b. MoshehRomano traduttore di Alberto Magno (commento al De Anima III, II, 16), "Henoch" 15 (1993),6591; Ead., Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, "Henoch" 17
(1995),141-170, pp. 157-16l. 6 See G. Sermoneta, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opusculum de ente et essentia a Rabbijehuddh ben Moseh ben Dani'el Romano primum hebraice redditum (saec. XIV
incipiente) (in Hebrew), in A.Z. Bar-On (ed.), From Parmenides to Contemporary
Thinkers: Readings in Ontology (in Hebrew), Vol. 1, Jerusalem 1978, pp. 184214; Id., jehudah ben Mose ben Daniel Romano, traducteur de Saint Thomas, in G.
Nahon and Ch. Touati (eds.), Hommage d Georges Vajda. Etudes d'histoire et de
pensee juive, Louvain 1980, 235-262 (some complements to the latter work are
found in Rigo, Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, pp. 165169).
7 See C. Rigo, Egidio Romano nella cultura ebraica: Ie versioni di Yehudah b.
Mosheh Romano, "Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale" 5
(1994), 397-437. Among the above mentioned Egidian or pseudo-Egidian
minor works, there are the De plurificatione intellectus possibilis, and two short
writings on the faculties of the human soul and on the generation of
syllogisms.
8 See Rigo, Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, pp. 161-164.
9 An edition of this work is found ;n C. Rigo, II De substantia orbis di Averroe:
edizione della traduzione latino-ebraica con commento di Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano,
doctoral thesis (unpublished), 2 vols., Universita di Torino 1992.
INTRODUCTION
by Latin Schoolmen.10 These facts led Giuseppe Sermoneta to speak of the existence of a sort of "Hebrew Thomism" in Italy in the years around 1300,1l and possibly extending to the second halfof the century. This hypothesis is corroborated by the existence ofa complete Hebrew translation of Thomas's Sententia libri De anima, probably composed in Italy after 1350.12
However, an explicit "Hebrew Thomism" appears to be limited to Italy and to constitute an isolated phenomenon within European Jewish philosophy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is true that some new doctrines in physics and metaphysics set forth by Proven~alJewish philosophers in the fourteenth century display surprising similarities with analogous theories developed at the same time within Scholastic philosophy. In fact, these philosophers seem to be influenced by the most discussed themes in Proven~al Scholasticism during the first half of the fourteenth century-namely the "new physics" of William Ockham andJohn Buridan, the theology ofDuns Scotus and his doctrine ofindividuation and, perhaps, early fourteenth century debates about universals. However, it is not yet clear whether these doctrines were the result of a historical development internal to Jewish thought, or whether they were also somehow stimulated by contemporary discussions of the same questions among Christian thinkers.
Scholars have tried to point out parallels with contemporary Scholasticism in the works of several Jewish authors active in Provence between the end of the thirteenth century and the Black Death (1348-1349).13 Georges Vajda was the first to remark on the
10 Cf. C. Rigo, Un 'antologia filosofica di Yehuda b. Mosheh Romano, "ltalia" 1 0
(1993),73-104.
11 Cf. G. Sermoneta, Pour une histoire du Thomisme jui[, in G. Verbeke and D.
Verhelst (eds.), Aquinas and Problems ofHis Time, "Mediaevalia Lovaniensia" s. 1,
Vol. 5, Leuven-The Hague 1976, 130-135, and Id., Per una storia del Tomismo
ebraico, in Tommaso d'Aquino nella storia del pensiero, 2 vols., Napoli 1976, Vol. 2,
354-359. On Judah Romano as representative of this "Hebrew (or 'Jewish")
Thomism", cf. G. Sermoneta, La dottrina dell'intelletto ela 'Jedefilosofica" dijehuddh
e Immanuel Romano, "Studi Medievali", s. III, Vol. 6, fasc. 2 (1965), 3-78; cf. also
W.Z. Harvey, Knowledge ofGod in Aquinas,judah Romano and Crescas (in Hebrew),
'Jerusalem Studies inJewish Thought" 14 (1998), 223-238.
12 On this point, see M. Zonta, Lafilosofia antica nelMedioevo ebraico. Le traduzioni
ebraiche medievali dei testi filosofici antichi, Brescia 1996, p. 233.
13 The first, pioneering study on this topic is: S. Pines, Scholasticism after Thomas
Aquinas and the Teachings of Hasdai Crescas and His Predecessors, first published
HEBREW SCHOLASTICISM IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
similarities between the "Averroistic" doctrines of the unique intellect and of the "double truth" propounded by Isaac Albalag (active either in Catalonia or in Provence at the end of the thirteenth century) and theories ascribed to Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia.14 Mfinities have been detected between the physics ofGersonides (Levi ben Gershom, 1288-1344,whoworked as an astronomer at the papal courtin Avignon15) and a number ofpossible influencesnamely pseudo-Siger of Brabant's questions on the Physics (relative to the concept of "now") ,16 Thomas Aquinas's commentary on the Physics (relative to the "absolute generation of first matter") ,17 William Ockham's doctrine of natural motion18 and, most recently, Walter Burley's theory ofthe existence ofindivisible magnitudes and a doctrine from the questions on the Physics possibly written by Marsilius ofInghen.19 Moreover, Gersonides's discussions about the freedom of man, God's knowledge of future contingents and divine attributes, have been compared to similar discussions in contemporary
in Hebrew in 1967 (see the most recent and complete re-edition, in Alfred L. Ivry's English translation, in S. Pines, Studies in the History ofJewish Thought, eds. W.Z. Harvey and M. Idel, "The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines" V, Jerusalem 1997, pp. 489-589); this study, however, focuses its attention not on "Hebrew Scholasticism", but on looking for implicit traces of Latin Scholasticism in the works of some major Jewish philosophers of the fourteenth
century.
14 Cf. G. Vajda, Isaac Albalag, averroiste jui[, traducteur et annotateur d'al-Ghazfilf,
Paris 1960, pp. 246-266.
15 On Gersonides's contacts with the papal court (which are certain in the last
decade of his life, but might have started earlier), se~J.L. Mancha, Gersonides'
Astronomical Work: Chronology and Christian Context, in C. Sirat, S. Klein-Braslavy
and O. Weijers (eds.), Les methodes de travail de Gersonide et le maniement du savoir
chez les scolastiques, Paris 2003, 39-58.
16 See Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 497-500.
17 See S. Harvey, Did Gersonides Believe in the Absolute Generation ofFirst Matter? (in
Hebrew), 'Jerusalem Studies inJewish Thought" 7 (1988),307-318, especially
pp. 317-318.
18 See R. Glasner, Gersonides's Theory of Natural Motion, "Early Science and
Medicine" 1 (1996),151-203, especiallypp. 201-203.
19 See R. Glasner, On the Question of Gersonides' Acquaintance with Scholastic Phi
losophy, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les methodes de travail de Ger
sonide, pp. 281-287. The Quaestiones in octo libros Physicorum that Glasner as
cribes to Duns Scotus (p. 285 and note 6) are certainly not by Scotus; they
are possibly the work of Marsilius of Inghen (cf. Pines, Scholasticism, p. 495
note 7).
()
INTRODUCTION
Scholasticism (where resemblances with Gersonides's "indeterministic" positions have been detected).20 Shlomo Pines has tentatively traced back to William Ockham and other Scholastics (Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas) some new interpretations of Aristotle's physics set forth by a contemporary and countryman ofGersonides, Yedayah Bedershi ha-Penini (c. 1285-1350)-namely the doctrine of "discrete and continuous" and the doctrine of a "force" exerted by heavenly bodies upon terrestrial ones.21 However, Ruth Glasner has recently questioned this hypothesis. In her view, Yedayah may have had some knowledge of the physical doctrines upheld by contemporary Christian philosophers (John Buridan, William Ockham, John Duns Scotus) ;22 but, since he did not know Latin, what knowledge he had must have depended exclusively upon personal contact') with Christian scholars. Furthermore, some of his doctrines may reflect conclusions drawn independently from Greek and Arabic sources.23 Bedershi's oral contacts with Christians may also explain his interest for the principle of individuation, a topic much debated in fourteenth century Scholasticism. This interest is apparent in the unpublished Treatise on Personal or Individual Forms, where Bedershi-without ever mentioning Scotus or any Scotist authorseems to adopt a solution similar, if not identical to Duns Scotus's doctrine of the existence of "individual forms" as principles of
20 Cf. Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 493-496, 519-524, 582-584 (where Pines compares Gersonides's and ThomasAquinas's views about determinism). S. M6buss,
Die Intellektlehre des Levi ben Gerson in ihrer Beziehung zur christlichen Scholastik,
Frankfurt a.M.-Bern-NewYork-Paris 1991, especially p. 133, notes a relationship between the theology of Gersonides and theories found in contemporary Latin "Averroism" (Siger of Brabant, John ofJandun) and in some representatives of the Franciscan School (William Ockham); in particular, M6buss tries to highlight the relationship between Gersonides' and Ockham's doctrines of universals (see pp. 77-82). 21 Cf. Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 547-553. 22 For example, Glasner has shown the similarity between Yedayah's doctrine of void and that found in two works ascribed to Duns Scotus: the authentic Quaestiones quodlibetales and the Quaestiones in octo libros Physicorum (by Marsilius of Inghen? See above, note 19). See R. Glasner, Yeda'aya ha-Penini's Unusual Conception ofVoid, "Science in Context" 10 (1997),453-470, especially pp. 466
468.
23 See R. Glasner, A Fourteenth Century Scientific Philosophic Controversy. Jedaiah
Ha-Penini's Treatise on Opposite Motions and Book of Confutation (in Hebrew),
Jerusalem 1998.
individuation.24 Finally, the radical nominalist doctrine of universals that characterises the critique ofGersonides's logic by Samuel of Marseilles (1294-1340) has recently been compared to the thought of some early fourteenth century Latin authors (Peter Aureol, Durandus of Saint-Poun;:ain, Ockham).25
More compelling evidence has been presented for the knowledge of Latin sources by Joseph Ibn Caspi and Nissim of Gerona. Joseph Ibn Caspi (1279-1340), in his Biblical commentary Pure Silver (Tam ha-kesef) , explicitly discusses the problem of God's knowledge of "possible future occurrences"-in Hebrew, ha-'atidot ha-efshariyyot. This appears to be a literal rendering of the Latin expression contingentia futura; and contingentia futura were the object of the contemporary "Pelagian" controversy in Latin Scholasticism.26 Warren Z. Harvey argues that the Catalan thinker Nissim of Gerona (c. 13101375) read directly, and quoted the doctrines about the creation of a unique first matter common to heavens and earth in William Ockham's physics. Harvey also believes that Nissim may have known something ofJohn Buridan's doctrine of creationP
As a matter of fact, none of the fourteenth century Jewish Proven~al scholars directly or indirectly involved in this "renewal" refer explicitly to Latin Scholastic sources or use them directly. As a rule, these philosophers show no knowledge of the most important topics discussed in contemporary Scholastic philosophy and
24 The Treatise on Personal Forms is preserved in the ms. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, hebreu 984, ff. 66r-93v. For a summary and discussion of its contents, with reference to Scotus's thought, see S. Pines, IndividualForms in the Teaching of Yeda 'aya Bedershi (in Hebrew), in Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1965, Hebrew section, 187-201, as reprinted in S. Pines, Studies in the History ofJewish Philosophy: The Transmission of Texts and Ideas (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1977, 263-276, especially pp. 270-274; cf. also the sketch in Rudavsky,
The Impact ofScholasticism, pp. 356-357 and notes.
25 See M. Zonta, Una disputa sugli universali nella logica ebraica del Trecento. She
muel di Marsiglia contro Gersonide nel Supercommentario all'Isagoge di Yehudah
ben Ishaq Cohen, "Documeriti estudi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale" 11
(2000), pp. 409-458.
26 See S. Pines, Joseph Ibn Caspi's and Spinoza's Opinion on the Probability of a
Restoration ofaJewish State (in Hebrew), "Iyyun" 14 (1964),289-317, as reprinted
in S. Pines, Studies in the History ofJewish Philosophy. The Transmission of Texts and
Ideas (in Hebrew) ,Jerusalem 1977, 277-305, especiallyp. 283.
27 W.Z. Harvey, Nissim of Gerona and William ofOckham on Prime Matter, 'Jewish
History" 6 (992),87-98.
INTRODUCTION
science, and seem to be acquainted only with some matters of detail. Besides, when they discuss the same topics as their Latin colleagues, they use different methods. For instance-if we exclude some possible echoes in Gersonides28-they seem to have totally ignored one of the most important Scholastic methods of discussion: the quaestio disputata. 29 The exception is Scholastic logic. Peter of Spain's Tractatus or Summulae logicales were translated into Hebrew more or less literally at least twice during the fourteenth century: by Shemariah the Cretan (ha-Ikriti), a philosopher from Negroponte active in Italy in the first half of the century, and by Abraham Avigdor, a Proven~alJewish author active between 1367 and 1393. Moreover, Peter's work was summarised and commented in Hebrew by Hezekiah bar Halafta, working in Provence around 1320.30 In any case, the reason for this interest in Scholastic logic was probably of a practical nature: the Tractatus could provide Jewish physicians with a basic knowledge of logic useful for their studies in medical schools. Besides, knowledge of Peter's work was mostly limited to the parts dealing with the so-called logica antiqua (the same found in medieval Arabic philosophy), to the exclusion of the logica modernorum (as developed by Christian Scholasticism during the thirteenth century).31
From this overview, one can conclude that, although in some limited cases there may be substantial clues (in Ibn Caspi and Nissim of Gerona) or even solid evidence (in the case of the logical tradition) in favour of a direct knowledge of Scholastic philosophical literature, the influence of Scholasticism on fourteenth century
Jewish Proven~al thought seems to have been mostly indirect (not
through the reading ofLatin texts, but through conversations), lim
ited (relative only to some particular points ofScholastic doctrine),
28 Cf. C. Sirat, Un recueil de questions, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les methodes de travail de Gersonide, 149-157.
29 These facts have been noted by Gad Freudenthal in the case of Gersonides, but they hold true for most of the authors in question: see G. Freudenthal,
Gersonide, genie solitaire. Remarques sur l'evolution de sa pensee et de ses methodes sur quelques points, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les methodes de travail de Gersonide, 291-317. 30 See Ch.H. Manekin, When theJews Learned Logic from the Pope: Three Medieval Hebrew Translations of the Tractatus of Peter of Spain, "Science in context" 10 (997),395-430. 31 See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 123-129, 138-139.
and implicit (since it was not openly recognised in Hebrew literature) .32
Generally speaking, what we have said holds true also for the Jewish culture that developed during the fourteenth century in the four Iberian kingdoms of Navarra, Aragon, Castilia and Portugal. It is very likely that the philosophical and theological works by Avner of Burgos (c. 1270-1344), most ofwhich originally written in Hebrew, were heavily influenced by Scholasticism and Christian theology. On the other hand, these works were probably composed after Avner's conversion to Christianity (under the name of Alphonso of Valladolid), and so it is improbable that they played a direct role in the development ofJewish philosophy.33 Besides Avner's isolated case, remarkable parallels, which may reflect a non-declared interest in contemporary Scholasticism, have been observed in Hasdai Crescas and in some philosophers of his circle, active in Catalonia between 1380 and 1411. Recent research, mostly after Pines's 1967 study, has detected in Crescas's writings-in particular in his Lebenswerk, The Light ofthe Lord-an impressive number ofsimilarities with the "new physics" of the fourteenth century and the thought of Duns Scotus and his followers. Crescas was a studentofNissim ofGerona, and, like his master, probably had personal contacts with Christian scholars skilled in philosophy. Possible referents are the Catalanwriter Bernat Metge (1345-1413)34 as well as the teachers and students of the
32 The "non-citation" of Christian sources in Jewish philosophical texts before the fifteenth century (with the exclusion of the Italian authors mentioned above) is traditionally explained as a sort of "literary custom": see Pines, Scholasticism, p. 51. Very recently, Gad Freudenthal has questioned this explanation, by pointing out that some fourteenth century Proven~al Jewish authors did occasionally refer to Christian scholars as "the sages of the nations" or in similar ways (although they never called them by name, and mentioned them only in the context of personal oral contacts); consequently, the fact that some authors (in particular, Gersonides) did not even mention Christian scholars in these terms seems to indicate that either they had no real contacts with them qua philosophers and scientists, or, more plausibly, that such contacts were not determining for the development of their own thought: see Freudenthal, Gersonide, genie solitaire, pp. 314
315.
33 On this point, cf. Rudavsky, The Impact ofScholasticism, p. 353.
34 See W.Z. Harvey, Hasdai Crescas and Bernat Metge on the Soul (in Hebrew),
'Jerusalem Studies inJewish Thought" 5 (1986), 141-154; Id., L'anima: un tema
comu aRabi Hasday Cresques i Bernat Metge, "Calls" 4 (1990), 53-68.
i)
INTRODUCTION
Franciscan school (studium generale) in Barcelona.35 However, there is no evidence that Crescas directly read and literally quoted Latin philosophical works. Pineswrites that"Crescas was a quite typical representative of certain trends in the Scholasticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries";36 but in reality his "Scholasticism"-if any at all-is always implicit. Pines has compared Crescas's doctrine of the extension of matter to that of Ockham, his doctrine of time as a measure not only of motion but also of rest, to the doctrines of Gerald Odonis and PeterJohn Olivi, his doctrine ofinfinite space to that ofNicholas Oresme, his doctrine of the possibility ofan infinite chain ofcauses to that ofNicholas Bonet, his proofs of the existence ofGod to those ofDuns Scotus, his theory about the relationship between essence and existence to those ofScotus and Henry ofGhent, his doctrine of divine attributes (among which infinity) to that of Scotism, and his doctrine of divine will to a Christian doctrine reported by Scotus.37 Other scholars have noted parallels between the ideas offaith ofCrescas and Thomas and between the deterministic views of Crescas (in his Sermon on the Passover) and Scotus.38 Further parallels have been pointed out concerning particular points of Crescas's physics and metaphysics. For instance, Crescas's discussion on the possibility of many worlds has been compared to similar discussions in Oresme39 and in other thirteenth and fourteenth century Christian thinkers,4o and Crescas's doctrine of time as a purely mental being has been traced back to Peter Aureol and William Ockham.41 As for metaphysics, one of the two solutions of the problem of divine omniscience proposed by Crescas in The Light of the Lord seems related to the solution proposed by Duns Scotus.42 In any case, Pines himself admits that "even ifwe accept the idea (...)
35 W.Z. Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas, "Amsterdam Studies
inJewish Thought" 6, Amsterdam 1999, p. 138.
36 Pines, Scholasticism, p. 501.
37 Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 502-532. Cf. also Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics,
pp. 118, 145-146, who claims that Crescas's doctrine of the divine will should
be traced back to an evident Scotist influence.
38 See A. Ravitzky, Crescas'Sermon on the Passover and Studies in His Philosophy (in
Hebrew),Jerusalem 1988, pp. 49-60.
39 See Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics, pp. 23-29.
40 Cf. Rudavsky, The Impact ofScholasticism, p. 360 and note 81.
41 See Rudavsky, The Impact ofScholasticism, p. 362.
42 See Ravitzky, Crescas'Sermon, pp. 38-43.
that Crescas is to be placed within the scholastic framework, one must remember that he maintained a marked independence, and in discussing physical problems related explicitly ( ...) to another tradition-the Arabic:Jewish philosophical one".43 Crescas is sure to have had first-hand and sound knowledge of only one field of Christian thought, namely dogmatic theology. Crescas argued against it in detail in his Refutation ofthe Christian Principles (this work, however, was probably composed in Catalan or in Aragonese rather than Hebrew).44 It should be noted that even in this work Crescas does not explicitly quote his theological sources; nor does he always rely on orthodox interpreters of Christian dogmas.45 Daniel]. Lasker suggests that Crescas's reluctance to reveal his Latin sources may reflect the general climate of hostility between Christians and Jews in late fourteenth century Spain;46 it is clear, however, that, in the light of extant evidence, it is impossible to regard Crescas as a "Hebrew Schoolman" in the sense we have given to this expression.
Overt references to Latin sources-but always in the context of anti-Christian polemics-make their appearance at the end of the fourteenth century in the works of a younger contemporary of Crescas (and, possibly, a member of his circle), the Catalan author Profiat Duran, who died around 1414. In Disgrace ofthe Nations, he explicitly mentions and draws from Peter Lombard's theological work (the Sententiae) , Nicholas of Lyra's Biblical commentary (the Postillae) and Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum historiale. It is also possible that his discussion of Catholic dogmas reflects contemporary Christian criticisms.47
43 Pines, Scholasticism, p. 510.
44 R. Hasdai Crescas, Sefer bittul iqqarei ha-Nozrim, trans. by Joseph Ben Shem
Tov, ed. DJ. Lasker, Ramat-Gan-Beer Sheva 1980. In the notes to this edition,
Lasker gives many references to medieval Christian theological sources (mostly
to passages of Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologica and Summa contra Gentiles);
but none of these references corresponds to a literal quotation of a Latin text
in Crescas's work.
45 See, e.g., the unorthodox doctrine ofJesus' "glorified body", which Crescas
might have taken from Bonaventure, Albert the Great or William ofAuvergne
(cf. Hasdai Crescas, Seferbittul, ed. Lasker, p. 72 note 16), or the doctrine about
the sin of the demons (cf. ibidem, p. 90 note 4). On this and other similar cases,
cf. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, pp. 178-180.
46 Cf. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 179.
47 Cf. Lasker, The Impact ofChristianity, p. 181, quoting F. Talmage, The Polemical
Writings ofProjiatDuran, "Immanuel" 13 (1981),69-85.
INTRODUCTION
In the late fourteenth century, a sure case ofknowledge ofcontemporary Latin Scholasticism is that ofLeonJoseph of Carcassonne, a Provent;alJewish physician who worked at Perpignan from 1370 to 1418. He was well versed both in Latin (he readJohn ofTornamira's medical works) and in the method of the quaestio disputata. Rather significantly, he seems to have converted to Christianity some years before his death.48
However, a fully fledged "Hebrew Scholasticism"-characterised by the production of Hebrew philosophical works that use Latin Scholastic texts, doctrines and techniques in a way that is direct and clearly identifiable, systematic and mostly explicit-does not come into being before the late fifteenth century in Spain and Italy.49 In its maturity, "Hebrew Scholasticism", with its extensive use of Aristotelian philosophy (metaphysics, psychology, physics, logic) and Christian theology (studied for the purpose of inter-religious debate), did not influence the whole ofcontemporaryJewish thought; itseems, however, to have constituted an important branch ofit, one parallel to-and no less important than-the ongoing traditions of
Jewish "Averroism", Kabbalah, and religious apologetics.
"Hebrew Scholasticism" in Fifteenth Century Spain
Scholars have identified a number ofpossible, implicit or occasional references to Latin Scholastic sources in some of the key works of fifteenth century Iberian Jewish theological and philosophical literature. These works comprise Joseph Albo's Book of the Roots,50
48 See]. Shatzmiller, Etudiants juifs Ii la faculte de medecine de Montpellier, dernier quart du XIVe siecle, 'Jewish History" 6 (1992),243-255, pp. 248-252. 49 However, some isolated traces of"Hebrew Scholasticism" have been recently discovered also in late fifteenth century Provence. Some instances of an "encounter between Arab and Scholastic logic in Hebrew writings" have been detected in a series of comments on Averroes,s Compendium of theOrganon, sometimes ascribed to Moses Narboni, but actually written by the Proven~alphysician Mordecai Natan (fl. 1450-1470): see Ch.H. Manekin, Some Aspects ofthe Assertoric Syllogism in Medieval Hebrew Logic, "History and Philosophy of Logic" 17 (1996), 49-71, pp. 66-67. 50 See, e.g., R. Lerner, Natural Law in Albo's Book of Roots, in]. Cropsey (ed.), Ancients and Moderns, New York 1964, 132-147, who points out Albo,s use of Thomas Aquinas's fourfold division of law (in his Summa theologica and in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics); cf. also Lasker, The Impact ofChristianity,
p. 182 and notes 53-55.
Abraham Bibago's The Path ofFaith,51 Abraham Shalom's The Abode ofPeace,52 Isaac Arama's The Binding ofIsaa~3 and Isaac Abravanel's Biblical commentaries and other works.54 However, as we observed in the previous section, fifteenth century Spanish "Hebrew Scholasticism" constituted a far more systematic phenomenon and appears to reflect a surprisingly extensive absorption of Christian culture between 1430 and the expulsion ofJews from Spain in 1492. Indicators of this absorption-constituting necessary premises for the development of "Hebrew Scholasticism"-include a possible better knowledge ofLatin among theJewish cultural elite; the possible Jewish attendance at Christian schools; the possible existence ofsimilar
Jewish schools of philosophy; the evident employment of Scholastic methods by Iberian rabbis; the explicit references to Latin Scholastic authors by Jewish "Averroists"; and, last but not least, a number of Hebrew translations of Latin philosophical texts.
There is proof that knowledge of Latin among Iberian Jewish scholars improved after the middle of the fourteenth century, when increasing numbers ofJewish apologists were required to speakLatin fluently, so as to be able to take part in inter-religious debates. This does not mean that these scholars could necessarily read Latin.55 However, marginal notes in some Hebrew manuscripts copied in that period and milieu suggest that a good reading knowledge of Latin was quite widespread. These notes prove that some copyists were
51 See below, chapter 1, list of Bibago's works, on number 15.
52 See below, chapter 3.
53 See S. Heller-Wilensky, ThePhilosophy ofIsaacArama in theFramework ofPhilonic
Philosophy (in Hebrew),Jerusalem-TeIAviv 1956, pp. 64 note 7,186 note 9,190
note 13a, 218-219 note 69 (most ofthese references concern Thomas Aquinas).
54 See, e.g., Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 80 note 238 (on
Abravanel's quotations of Paul ofVenice) and p. 486, §297, no. 7 (on his quo
tations ofThomas Aquinas and other Christian authors); B.Z. Netanyahu, Don
Isaac Abravanel. Statesman and Philosopher, Philadelphia 1982, pp. 295-316, var
ious notes (on Abravanel's apparent dependence on Thomas's works, in par
ticular on his Summa theologica); A. Melamed, Abravanel and Aristotle's Politics:
A Drama ofErrors (in Hebrew), "Daat" 29 (1992),69-82 (on Abravanel's read
ing ofAristotle's Politics through the mediation of Scholastic commentaries on
the Politics). For a general historical overview of this literature, see C. Sirat, A
History ofJewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press 1985,
pp. 345-397; Tirosh-Rothschild,Jewish Philosophy, pp. 500-512.
55 See the many examples given by Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, pp. 176
177.
INTRODUCTION
apparentlyable to correct Hebrew translations ofLatin texts by direct
comparison with the original orwith similar Latin works.56 Moreover,
the Latin terms inserted in some ofthe works ofthe fifteenth century
"Hebrew Schoolmen" Baruch IbnYa'ish and Eli Habillo presuppose
a fairly good knowledge ofLatin-at least in some oftheir readers.57
Possible evidence of attendance at Christian schools by members
of the Jewish elite in fifteenth century Spain, or at least of their
employing Christian private teachers, is found in some contem
porary Hebrew sources: Meir Alguadez,58 Solomon Bonafed,59 Eli
Habillo,6o and perhapsJoseph Garc;:on.61 If this were true, it would
56 See, e.g., the marginal corrections of the Hebrew translation of pseudo
Aristotle's Economics, found in some fifteenth century Spanish manuscripts,
pointed out in M. Zonta, La tradizione ebraica degli scritti economici greci,
"Athenaeum" 84 (1996), 549-554; cf. also Id., La filosofia antica, pp. 135-136,
260-262.
57 Cf. below, chapters 2 and 3. There still exists a Hebrew-Latin philosoph
ical glossary, written in Spain in the fifteenth century and preserved in the
ms. Moscow, Rossiskaia Gosudarstvennaia Bibliotheka, Giinzburg 264, ff. 111
112: see ].-P. Rothschild, Remarques sur la tradition manuscrite du glossaire hebreu
italien du commentaire de Moise de Salerne au Guide des egares, in]. Hamesse and
D.Jacquart (eds.), Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique
(Moyen Age-Renaissance), Turnhout 2001, 49-88, pp. 59, 75 (number 27).
58 Cf. the analysis of his introduction to the Hebrew translation of Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics (as published in L.V. Berman, The Latin-to-Hebrew Translation
ofthe Nicomachean Ethics [in Hebrew]' 'Jerusalem Studies inJewish Thought"
7 [1988], 147-168, pp. 157-158) in Zonta, Lafilosofia antica, pp. 83-85.
59 See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 131-132: Bonafed wrote that a student of
his contemporary and countryman Isaac Arondi employed a Christian scholar
to teach him logic in Latin; he himself admitted the superiority of Scholastic
logic over the old Arabic logic (see Sh. Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology inJewish
Philosophy in the 14th Century, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, The Hebrew University
ofJerusalem 1973, pp. 37-38). Cf. also M. Saperstein, The Social and Cultural
Context: Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries, in Frank and Leaman (eds.), History of
Jewish Philosophy, 294-330, p. 318 note 55, p. 320 note 79.
60 See below, chapter 3.
61 Gan;:on's ambiguous mention of attendance at the yeshivat ha-J.wkmot ha
lJi~~uniyyot, lit. "the academy of external sciences" (quoted in]. Hacker, On the
Intellectual Character and Self-Perception ofSpanish Jewry in the Late Fifteenth Century
[in Hebrew], "Sefunot" 17, n.s. 2 [1983], 21-95, pp. 55-56), may refer either to a Christian school, or to aJewish academy where philosophy and other "profane" sciences were taught (as recently suggested by C. Sirat, Looking at Latin books, understanding Latin texts. Different attitudes in different Jewish communities, paper read at the international colloquium Hebrew to Latin-Latin to Hebrew. The Mirroring ofTwo Cultures in the Age ofHumanism, The Warburg Institute, London, October 18th-19th, 2004).
help to explain the clear influence exerted on Spanish "Hebrew Scholasticism" by the different currents of contemporary Scholastic philosophy in Spain (Thomism, Scotism, Nominalism). Scholars have also tried to prove that in fifteenth century Spain there existed quasi-institutional Jewish establishments where philosophy was taught, and these were attended by a number ofJewish scholars: HarryA. Wolfson and others argue that this was the character of the "academies" (yeshivot) of Hasdai Crescas and Abraham Bibago.62
Evident influence of Scholastic methods has been recognised even in fifteenth century Iberian religious literature, in collections of rabbinical sermons. Marc Saperstein has noted that Isaac Aboab, Joel Ibn Shu'eib, and other rabbis active in the last decades of the century used the methods of the syllogism and the quaestio disputata, according to the habitual Scholastic schemes.63 It should also be remembered that Aristotelian logic was already familiar to Spanish talmudists from 1400 onwards.64
This increasing interest in Scholasticism naturally influenced also the still living tradition ofJewish Aristotelianism based upon Averroes's commentaries on Aristotle. The commentaries (expositiones) on Aristotle's works by, or ascribed to, Thomas Aquinas (especially his Sententia libri Ethicorum) were among the most important channels for the knowledge of Scholastic philosophy. The importance of this particular text reflects the widespread interest in Aristotle's ethics in fifteenth century IberianJudaism65-an interest
62 Cf. the overview by Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context, pp. 305-306,
who, however, seems rather skeptical about the "institutional" status of these
schools.
63 See M. Saperstein, "Your Voice Like a Ram's Horn ": Themes and Texts in Tradi
tionalJewishPreachings, "Monographs of the Hebrew Union College" 18, Cincin
nati 1996, pp. 83-86, 200-207. These sermons belong to the literarygenre ofthe
"collection ofphilosophical sermons", widespread in fifteenth century Spanish
Judaism: see Ackerman,Jewish Philosophy, p. 382.
64 Cf. Tirosh-Rothschild,JewishPhilosophy, p. 503 (quoting D. Boyarin, Sephardi
Speculation: A Study in Methods of Talmudic Interpretation [in Hebrew], Jerusalem
1989, pp. 47-68).
65 Cf. H. Tirosh-Rothschild, Human Felicity-Fifteenth-Century Sephardic Perspec
tives on Happiness, in Cooperman (ed.), In Iberia and Beyond, 191-243, pp. 205206; cf. also J.-P. Rothschild, Les philosophes juifs d'Espagne au.Kl1i siecle, lEthique
aNicomaque et le projet philosophique de Joseph Ibn Shem Tob (etude preparatoire),
in J.M. Soto Rabanos (ed.), Pensamiento medieval hispano. Homenaje a Horacio
Santiago Otero, 2 vols., Madrid 1998, Vol. 2, 1289-1316.
INTRODUCTION
shared, and probably influenced by contemporary Christian Spanish culture.66 Lawrence V. Berman has drawn attention to the fact that, probably around 1400, there started to circulate a Hebrew supercommentary on Averroes's Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. This text, originally ascribed to Thomas Aquinas, has been shown to be an original work, partly inspired by (but, as a rule, not literally taken from) Aquinas's authentic commentary on Aristotle's Ethics. 67 Two facts suggest a Spanish origin.68 First, its most complete manuscript was copied in Spain (in the little town of Agramunt, in the kingdom ofAragon) in 1444.69 Second, this work was known and used some years later by the Spanish philosopher, apologist and exegete Joseph Ibn Shem Tov (active about 14401460).70Jean-Pierre Rothschild71 and Hava Tirosh-Rothschild have found traces of Scholastic philosophical and theological doctrines in the writings ofJoseph Ibn Shem Tov, in particular in The Glory of God (Kevod 'Elohim). In this work, Ibn Shem Tov paraphrased book X ofthe Nicomachean Ethics, possibly drawing on Thomas's own commentary and, with greater certainty, on some passages of his Summa contra Gentiles.72 Finally, it should be noted that some explicit
66 Cf. on the latter AR.D. Padgen, The Diffusion ofAristotle's Moral Philosophy in
Spain, ca. 1400-ca. 1600, "Traditio" 31 (1975),287-313.
67 See L.V. Berman, Ibn Rushd's Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean
Ethics in Medieval Hebrew Literature, in]. Jolivet (ed.), Multiple Averroes, Paris
1978,287-32l.
68 Berman, however, argues that the supercommentary was possibly written in
a philosophical circle of followers of Samuel of Marseilles, active in Provence
around 1350 (see AZ. [L.v.] Berman, A Manuscript Named "Shoshan Limmudim"
and its Relationship to aProvenfal "Circle ofScholars "[in Hebrew], "Kiryath Sepher"
53 [1978], 368-372, p. 372).
69 See A Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library,
Oxford 1886, c. 508, no. 1426 (Opp. 591); cf. also M. Beit-Arie and R. May,
Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library. Supplement ofAddenda
and Corrigenda to Vol. I (A. Neubauer's Catalogue), Oxford 1994, c. 237. The super
commentary is also preserved in the mss. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
vat. ebr. 556, and Leiden Bibliotheek der Rijks Universiteit, Or. 4786 (Warner
48).
70 Cf. L.v. Berman, The Hebrew Versions ofBook Four ofAverroes' Middle Commentary
on the Nicomachean Ethics (in Hebrew) ,Jerusalem 1981, p. 16.
71 Cf. J.-P. Rothschild, Le dessein philosophique de Joseph Ibn Shem Tob (flor. 14421455), "Revue des etudesjuives" 162 (2003),97-122.
72 Cf. Tirosh-Rothschild, Human Felicity, pp. 212-224. Tirosh-Rothschild has
pointed out striking similarities between Ibn Shem Tov's analysis of human
felicity in the first pages of his work, and the Summa contra Gentiles, book III,
references to Thomas Aquinas (although not all of them clearly identifiable in Thomas's authentic works) are scattered in the numerous supercommentaries-on Averroes's Middle Commentary on the Physics,73 on his Middle Commentary on the De generatione,74 and on his Middle Commentary on book I-II of the De Anima75-written in the period 1478-1480 and ascribed to Joseph's son, Shem Tov ben Joseph Ibn Shem Tov, or to some of his students.76
The most solid proof of the popularity of Latin Scholasticism among fifteenth century Iberian Jews are the extant Hebrew translations of Latin philosophical works carried out in this period and milieu. Very often these translations were by the same authors who were engaged in the creation of "Hebrew Scholasticism", such as Baruch Ibn Ya'ish, Abraham Shalom and Eli Habillo. It is important to note that in fifteenth centurySpain some ofAristotle's works were translated into Hebrew, not only from the old-fashioned medieval Latin versions by William ofMoerbeke, but also from contemporary Humanistic translations (e.g., by Leonardo Bruni). These translations were mostly regarded as substitutes for the old Hebrew translations of Averroes's Arabic Long and Middle Commentaries, no longer adequate for the new study of Aristotle based upon Latin Scholastic sources. In two successive waves-between 1400 and 1430 and around 1480-the Nicomachean Ethics was translated twice (by Meir
chapters 18-25. Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 487, had already noted traces ofIbn ShemTov's apparently directknowledge ofThomasAquinas' works, as well as of Peter Lombard's Sententiae. On Ibn Shem Tov's critique of Scholastic casuistry, with references (not always correct!) to Ockham and Raymond Lull, see Manekin, Scholastic Logic, p. 131, who mentions a passage of Ibn Shem Tov's commentary on Profiat Duran's Alteca Boteca (as quoted in Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, p. 45). 73 See the text of the supercommentary in the ms. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, hebreu 967, ff. 205r-343v, in particular f. 341r, where a quotation of "Thomas" (Tomas) might refer to Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Physicorum, book VIII, lectio 21, §2. 74 See ms. Paris, BibliothequeNationale de France, hebreu 967, ff. 172r-204v, on f. 181v. 75 See ms. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, hebreu 967, ff. 110r-171v, on f. 112r (the text of this supercommentary is also preserved in the ms. New York,Jewish Theological Seminary, microfilm 2341, ff. 317r-352r). 76 On Joseph and Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov's dependence on Scholastic literary genres for some of their philosophical works (a sort of auctoritates and a tabula of the Nicomachean Ethics), see also Zonta, La filosofia antica,
p.262.
INTRODUCTION
Alguadez and Baruch Ibn Ya'ish); pseudo-Aristotle's Economics was translated twice (by an anonymous translator and, possibly, by Ibn Ya'ish himself); and books I-XII of the Metaphysics (those studied in Christian universities at the time)77 were translated by Ibn Ya'ish.78
The translators of the original works of late medieval Latin Scholasticism, mostly active in the kingdom ofAragon between 1470 and 1490, seem strongly influenced by the two main philosophical and theological schools represented in contemporary Spanish universities (especially in the Aragonese area), namely Scotism and Thomism.79 Significantly, the Scholastic texts translated or read by these authors were sometimes the same ones first published in late fifteenth century Spanish incunabula. Eli Habillo's translation of Antonius Andreas's questions on the Metaphysics and his planned translation ofJohn the Canon's questions on the Physic/'o are clearly indicative of an attempt to lay the foundations of a sort of "Hebrew Scotism", since those two works seem to have been often regarded as belonging to a Scotist philosophical corpu/'l (Scotism was, at the time, officially adopted by the University of Lerida, not too distant from Monzon, where Habillo worked). On the other hand, Habillo and his colleagues seem to have attempted to create a "Hebrew Thomism". This endeavour is attested by their translations of Thomas Aquinas's works (the commentary on the Metaphysics, translated byAbraham Ibn Nahmias in Ocana near Toledo in 1490,82 and
77 See L.M. de Rijk, The Commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics, in O. Weijers
and L. Holtz (eds.), L'enseignement des disciplines Ii la Faculte des Arts, Turnhout
1997,303-312, p. 312: in Christian universities, only books I-II, IV-X and XII
of the Metaphysics were part of the official curriculum.
78 On these fifteenth century translations, see the historical sketch in Zonta,
Lafilosofia antica, pp. 258-262, 269-274.
79. Cf. T. C.ar.reras y Artau. andJ. Carreras y Artau, Historia de la filosofia espanola.
Hlosofia crtstzana de los szglos XlII al xv, 2 vols., Madrid 1939-1943, Vol. 2,
pp. 564--585.
80 See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo's works, on numbers D.3.I. and D.3.2.
81 !owe this observation to prof. Kent Emery, Jr. (University of Notre Dame,
IndIana).
82 The unique manuscript of this translation has been now rediscovered. See
the Hebrew text of Ibn Nahmias's introduction as published by Senior Sachs
in "Kerem }-Iemed" 8 (1854), pp. 110-111 note; see also Steinschneider, He
braeischen Ubersetzungen, pp. 485-486, and Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 156
157. Ibn Nahmias's translation may be one of the sources of the anonymous
Hebrew commentary on the Metaphysics in the ms. Leiden Bibliotheek der
the Quaestiones disputatae de anima and the De ente et essentia, translated by Habillo).83 One should also not forget Baruch IbnYa'ish's liberal use of Thomas's commentaries on the De anima and on the Nicomachean Ethics, as well as translations of some minor works falsely ascribed to Thomas (De potentiis animae, De universalibus). 84 However, this "return" to Thomas was apparently intended as a means to absorb contemporary Christian Thomism, as represented by Paris professors, such as Jean Letourneur (whose corpus of questions on Aristotle and Thomas was almost completely translated by Habillo in the 1470s)85 and Thomas Bricot (whose Textus abbreviatus philosophiae naturalis was translated in Avignon shortly after 1492 by the Spanish exile, David Ibn Shoshan) .86 Itis significant thatinterestin Thomism was undergoing a revival in Christian Spain, and particularly in Catalonia, during the last three decades of the fifteenth century. Ofcourse, interest in Scotistic and/or Thomistic philosophy did not prevent some of these translators-whose philosophical interests, as usual with medieval Jewish philosophers, seem to have been rather eclectic-from paying attention to authors belonging to other philosophical schools: they translated into Hebrew minor works such as the summae on the natural sciences by Robert Grosseteste87 and
Rijks Universiteit, Or. 4796 (Warner 58). The latter is almost completely pre
served (only the beginning is lost) and was probably written in Spain in the
fifteenth century (c[ M. Steinschneider, Catalogus codicum Hebraeorum Bibliothe
cae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, Lugduni Batavorum 1858, p. 264); it consists in
a sort of Scholastic expositio of the Metaphysics, and includes several quaestiones in
which "Thomas" (Tomas) is quoted as a source (cf. f. 29v, last line). A possible
quotation from Ibn Nahmias's translation is contained in one of Isaac Aboab's
rabbinical sermons, written in 1490-1493: see Saperstein, "Your Voice Like a Ram's
Horn ", p. 79 note 17.
83 See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo's works, on numbers D.l.l. and D.1.2.
84 See below, chapter 3, on numbers D.1.4. and D.1.3. According to Moses
Almosnino (Greece, sixteenth century), Isaac Abravanel translated into Hebrew
Thomas's Quaestio de spiritualibus creaturis, but this translation is now apparently
lost (see Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, p. 295 note 72; c[ Steinschneider,
Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 487).
85 See below, chapter 3, list of Habil~.o's works, on number D.2.
86 See Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 468.
87 See Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 267-268 and note 25. This translation
undertaken by an anonymous scholar probably active in Spain before 14601470, and preserved in the mss. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France,
hebreu 1004, ff. 106r-117r, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Reggio 44, ff. 30r39v-is different from the one found in the ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library,
INTRODUCTION
Albert of Orlamiinde, and a corpus of logical questions ascribed to Marsilius of Inghen (and whose real author has not yet been ascertained) .88 The anonymous fifteenth century Hebrew translation of Giles of Rome's De regimine principum was possibly also written in Spain.89 The choice of texts to translate might have depended in some cases on the geographical area where the translator was working: this seems to be the case for Habillo's translation of a work on universals by the Catalan preacher Vincent Ferrer.9o Finally, it should be remembered that, well before the golden pe-' riod of "Scholastic" translations, Samuel Benveniste, working in 1412 in Asentiu (Catalonia), had translated the Catalan Scholastic "translation-commentary" of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae by the two fourteenth century Catalan authors, Pere Saplana and Antoni Ginebreda.91
This framework provides some important premises, which, however, are not per se sufficient to explain the development of "Hebrew Scholasticism" in fifteenth century Spain. Some scholars have wondered why this remarkable "duplication" of the currents ofcontemporary Latin philosophy (and, in particular, this blooming of interest in Scholasticism) occurred in Jewish cultural elites during
Michael 288, ff. 112r-126r, c9mpleted in 1537 in Italy by Elijah Nolano (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 476): see Zonta, La filosofia antica,
269. The same translator translated into Hebrew a bookDe anima falsely ascribed to Robert Grosseteste, which has no parallel in the Latin tradition: see Zonta, La filosofia antica, p. 268 and note 26, and Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, pp.476-477. 88 As for Albert ofOrlamiinde and the (pseudo?)-Marsilius, both translated by Abraham Shalom, see below, chapter 3. 89 On this translation, found in a unique manuscript, see A Melamed, The anonymous Hebrew translation ofAegidius'De Regimine Principum: an unknown chapter in medievalJewish political philosophy, "Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale" 5 (1994),439-461. This translation was possibly produced in early-fifteenth century Spain, shortly after two previous Iberian translations of Giles's work (one in Castilian around 1350, and the other in Catalan at the end of the fourteenth century). 90 See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo's works, on number D.4.3. 91 See Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 262-267; Id., Le origini leUerarie efilosofiche delle versioni ebraiche del De consolatione philosophiae di Boezio, in F. Israel, AM. Rabello and AM. Somekh (eds.), Hebraica. Miscellanea di studi in onore di Sergio J Sierraperilsuo 15° compleanno, Torino 1998, 571-604, especiallypp. 572-585; cf. also F. Ziino, The Catalan Tradition of Boethius's De consolatione: a New Hypothesis, "Carmina Philosophiae.Journal ofthe International Boethius Society" 10 (2001),31-37.
a period of evident inter-religious tension, on the eve of the traumatic expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Even more surprising is the fact that, in this same period and milieu, Scholasticism seems to have been successful also among some of the most conservativeJewish authors, whose attitude to philosophy was generally quite diffident-this is the case, for instance, with Abraham Bibago. Ari Ackerman and Hava Tirosh-Rothschild argue that the development of "Hebrew Scholasticism" in Iberia can be explained as an attempt to strengthenJewish thought to enable it to fend off more effectively the two greatest threats to Judaism in fifteenth century Spain, namely Christian apologetics and theology on the one hand, and radical rationalism (as found in Jewish "Averroism") on the other.92 This explanation, based upon the fundamental role that
Jewish-Christian polemics indisputably played in fifteenth century SpanishJewish culture, seems confirmed bysome explicit statements by "Hebrew Schoolmen" about the reasons of their own adhesion to Scholastic philosophy. Eli Habillo declares that the new arguments of contemporary Scholasticism are necessary, both for fighting "Averroism" and for debating Christians.93 It should also be recalled that fifteenth century Spanish Jewish authors had a strong interest in Scholastic logic, which they saw as a useful tool for constructing effective replies to Christian critiques in inter-religious disputes.94
It would seem reductive, however, to explain fifteenth century "Hebrew Scholasticism" merely as a kind of defence against the opponents ofcontemporaryJudaism, and against Christianity in particular.95 The need to updateJewish philosophybyabsorbingScholastic doctrines and methods was felt not only for religious reasons, but apparently also for philosophical reasons, in order to allow Jewish philosophers to fully partake in the development of contemporary European thought. (This is exactly what seems to have happened
92 Cf. Ackerman, jewish Philosophy, pp. 380-381; Tirosh-Rothschild,jewishPhi
losophy, pp. 504-505.
93 See below, chapter 3.
94 See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 130-133.
95 See, e.g., Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 183, according to whom "the
more involved aJewish author was with anti-Christian polemics, the more im
pact Christianity had on his works". Lasker's thesis has been judged as "trop
systematique" by Rothschild, Remarques, p. 63 note 18.
()
INTRODUCTION
in the case ofJudah Romano in early fourteenth century Italy.)96 Ofcourse, the appreciation ofScotist and Thomist Scholasticism by some hardline defenders ofJewish religious tradition against rationalism can be explained as a sort of alliance of "conservative" Judaism with "conservative" Christianity against radical philosophy.97 But it is also difficult to dismiss the fact that some fifteenth century IberianJewish philosophers felt the need to study Scholasticism as something "new" and as a useful instrument for the advancement of Jewish thought.98
As a matter of fact, the major IberianJewish "Schoolmen" of the fifteenth century (Abraham Bibago, Baruch Ibn Ya'ish, Abraham Shalom, Eli Habillo) appear to have been most interested in the results reached by Scholasticism in the areas ofphilosophymore closely associated with theology, namely metaphysics, ethics and human psychology. These thinkers seem to have been emulators rather than mere imitators of their Christian sources: they used Scholastic doctrines and methods as points of departure for the independent discussion of philosophical and even theological matters (sometimes, of course, in contrast with their Christian colleagues) .99 Their general approach to Latin sources appears to be rather free and, even in translations, not slavishly literal. In a recent study on some aspects of
96 Giuseppe Sermoneta (in his La dottrina dell'intelletto, pp. 75-76 note 159) has v~ry aptly compared early fourteenth century "Hebrew Scholasticism" in Italy WIth late fifteenth century "Hebrew Scholasticism" in Spain, and has defined Habillo "the SpanishJudah Romano". 97 See Ackerman, jewish Philosophy, p. 381; Manekin, Scholastic Logic, p. 131: "One may even speak of a coalition of interests between Christian and Jewish philosophy, both increasingly theologically conservative, against the philosophical naturalism of an earlier age". On the "conservative" tendency of fifteenth centuryJewish philosophy in Spain, see H.A. Davidson, MedievalJewishPhilosophy in the Sixteenth Century, in B.D. Cooperman (ed.) ,jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts-London 1983, 106-145, p. 112. 98 One can consider, e.g., some statements found in Abraham Ibn Nahmias's introduction to his translation of Thomas's commentary on the Metaphysics: Abraham criticises some contemporary Jews for their hostility to philosophy, and attributes it to their lack of understanding of the relationship between philosophy and religion. He praises Christian scholars (/.takmey ha-No~erim) for their results in this field, thus emphasising the necessity ofstudying their philosophy (~f. Sachs's article cited above [note 82], p. 110; cf. Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, p. 485). 99 See the remarks in M. Zonta, Einige Bemerkungen iiber "hebriiische Scholastik" im
15. jahrhundert in Spanien und ltalien, "1m Gespriich" 7 (2003), 52-60, pp. 53-56.
the dependence oflate medieval Hebrew philosophical terminology on the vocabulary of Latin Scholasticism, I have shown that skilled translators from Latin into Hebrew, such as Eli Habillo, preferred to paraphrase the more difficult "technical" terms, rather than give a literal rendering ofthem. These translators even resorted to glosses, inserting in the margins of the manuscripts the Latin or Spanish philosophical or theological terms corresponding to their Hebrew paraphrases in the text.IOO The same features also appear in the original works ofSpanish "Hebrew Scholasticism", where literal references to Scholastic sources are sometimes modified and adapted to the new context created by theJewish author.IOI
"Hebrew Scholasticism" in Fifteenth Century Italy and After
Late fifteenth century Italian "Hebrew Scholasticism" is, in many respects, analogous to the same phenomenon in contemporary Iberia; but there are also some substantial differences.
First of all, as said above, ItalianJewish culture had a longer tradition ofcontacts with Christian thought; this fact presumably facilitated the development, or rather the revival, of "Hebrew Scholasticism" in Italy. Despite the apparent scarcity of contemporary Hebrew-Latin glossaries ofphilosophical terms,102 it is generally believed that the ItalianJewish elite of the fifteenth century possessed a rather good and extensive knowledge of Latin. There is substantial evidence that in fifteenth century Italy members of the Jewish cultural elite attended Christian schools to improve their knowledge of philosophy and science (in this period, some of them started to
100 See M. Zonta, Arabic and Latin Glosses in Medieval Hebrew Translations ofPhilosophical Texts and Their Relation to Hebrew Philosophical Dictionaries, in Hamesse andJacquart (eds.), Lexiques bilingues, 31-48, pp. 44-48; Id., The Relationship between Hebrew and Latin Philosophical Vocabularies in the Late Middle Ages, in
J. Hamesse and C. Steel (eds.), L'elaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au Moyen Age, Turnhout 2000,147-156. 101 Cf., e.g., the references to Thomas Aquinas in the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by Baruch Ibn Ya'ish's school: see below, chapter 2. 102 In the list of glossaries in Rothschild, Remarques, pp. 70-88, only the ms. Warsaw, Zydowsky Instytut Historyczny, no. 255 (containing Latin translations of Hebrew philosophical and scientific terms of Abraham Ibn 'Ezra's Reshit (tokmah) can surely be ascribed to this period (1460) and area (the Tuscan town of Lucca) (see ibidem, p. 88, number 90).
INTRODUCTION
attend university courses, especially medicine, in Bologna and, possibly, Padua) .103 Furthermore, in fifteenth century Italy there also existed Jewish academies where philosophy was taught alongside traditional religious disciplines-for instance,Judah Messer Leon's yeshivah in the second half of the century.104 In these schools, traditional Jewish Averroism was not regarded as a non-religious or an old-fashioned philosophy, but it was still considered by "Hebrew Schoolmen" as the core ofJewish Aristotelianism.105
Jewish thought in the fifteenth century was, of course, heavily influenced by the parallel development of Humanism in Christian thought. Humanist thinkers considered obsolete the medieval and Scholastic approach to Aristotle, and were more interested in Platonism and other currents of ancient thought. Italian 'Jewish Humanism" has been studied extensively,106 and I shall not try to sketch its history here. What I intend to stress here is the fact that the new Humanistic trends in fifteenth centuryJewish thought did not hinder the development of a parallel Italian "Hebrew Scholasticism"although the latter appears to have been different in character and more limited in scope with respect to its Spanish counterpart. In fact, in some cases the same person partook of both Scholasticism and Humanism. For instance, Judah Messer Leon, the foremost Italian "HebrewSchoolman", was also the author ofa well-known treatise on Hebrew rhetoric, The Honeycomb's Flow, which has been recognised
103 Cf. Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context, p. 301 and note 46; Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, p. 350; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, p. 512 (cf. also the bibliography quoted there, especially Robert Bonfil's writings on this subject). On the Jewish attendance at university courses in fifteenth century Italy, see also Shatzmiller, Etudiants juijs, pp. 244-246; J. Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1994, pp. 27-35. In fifteenth centuryItalianJewish authors there is also some possible evidence of the knowledge ofcontemporary university practices, such as, e.g., the so-called disputationes circulares in Bologna: see Zonta, Una disputa, p. 412. 104 On Messer Leon's academy, see Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context,
p. 306 and note 78; see also the data provided below, chapter 4.
105 Cf. A.L. Ivry, Remnants ofJewish Averroism in the Renaissance, in Cooperman
(ed.) ,Jewish Thought, 243-265, pp. 243-245; Tirosh-Rothschild,JewishPhilosophy,
pp. 512-519.
106 For a general historical overview of"Humanism" in fifteenth centuryItalian
Jewish philosophy, see Sirat, A History, pp. 398 ff.; Tirosh-Rothschild,Jewish Phi
losophy, pp. 519-525. Cf. also H. Tirosh-Rothschild, In Defence ofJewish Humanism,
'Jewish History" 3 (1988),31-57.
as a patchwork of some of the most important sources of contemporary Humanistic rhetoric, such as Cicero's De inventione, pseudoCicero's Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian's Institutio oratoria and Victorinus's commentary on Cicero.l07
ItalianJewish authors interested in Latin Scholasticism were cer
tainly less attracted by theological questions than their Spanish col
leagues; surviving Italian "Hebrew-Scholastic" writings are mostly on
logicl08 and physics.109 However, these texts adhere to their Latin
sources more closely and literally than their Spanish counterparts:
Italian "Hebrew Schoolmen" reproduce Latin words and contents
more faithfully, and create also a new terminology by literally repro
ducing in Hebrew Latin Scholastic terms and expressions (signifi
cant instances of this linguistic approach appear inJudah Shalom's
translation ofPeter ofSpain's Tractatus,110 and in the works ofJudah
Messer Leon) .111
The exponents of Italian "Hebrew Scholasticism" seem to have been particularly interested in the texts known and employed by Paduan Scholasticism. This Paduan focus is revealed by the extant translations of Latin philosophical works made in Italy during the fifteenth century, and by the Scholastic texts that were surely read and quoted by Italian "Hebrew Schoolmen" (in particular, Judah Messer Leon)112. Among the main sources of Messer Leon and his school, there are works on Aristotelian logic and physics by two professors in the university of Padua, Paul of Venice (d. 1429) and
107 On the sources of The Honeycomb's Flow, see Judah Messer Leon, Nofet Zufim On Hebrew Rhetoric, ed. R. Bonfil, Jerusalem 1981, pp. 54-69; see also
A. Altmann, Ars Rhetorica as Reflected in Some jewish Figures of the Italian
Renaissance, in Cooperman (ed.),Jewish Thought, 1-22, pp. 5-13.
108 On the diffusion of Scholastic logic in fifteenth century Italian Jewish cul
ture, see Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 134-138.
109 See Zonta, Einige Bemerkungen, p. 56.
110 See Manekin, When thejews, p. 423, who points out three features ofJudah's
translation: "Great commitment to the Latin original ( ... ); linguistic accuracy,
even to the extent of the Hebrew syntax mirroring the Latin; the adoption of
new Hebrew philosophical terms, or new meanings for old ones that better
capture the Latin".
III See Zonta, The Relationship, pp. 152-153.
112 OnJudah Messer Leon as a "Hebrew Schoolman", see the sketch in Tirosh
Rothschild,jewish Philosophy, pp. 514-515; Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 137-138
(where he is defined as "ascholastic logician writing in Hebrew"); see also below,
chapter 4.
INTRODUCTION
his successor, Gaetano de Thiene (1387-1465). Furthermore, when Italian "Hebrew Schoolmen" had to refer to earlier authors, they relied on the same sources as the Paduan Schoolmen, such as Walter Burley and John ofJandun.113 Alongside this Hebrew "extension" of the Paduan school, there was also a sort of "Hebrew Latin Averroism". The latter was based, rather than on the old translations of Averroes's works from Arabic into Hebrew, on new Hebrew translations of texts pertaining to the Latin Averroism that was flourishing again in Italy after 1450. The translations ofAverroes's Long Commentary and ofJohn ofJandun's questions on the De anima (if they were really composed in Italy) should be ascribed to this trend.114 On the contrary, not much attention seems to have been paid to the old sources ofItalian "HebrewThomism"-although Messer Leon in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics refers repeatedly to the commentaries on this work by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome.ll5 Finally, we should take into account some further translations that bear witness to the interest of fifteenth century Italian Jewish thinkers in medieval Latin philosophy: the translation of the Tractatus mentioned above, by Judah Shalom,116 the version of the De consolatione philosophiae by Bonafous Bonfil Astruc (patterned af
h ." I' . "fB h" k) 117
ter the Sc olastlc trans atlOn-commentanes 0 oet lUS swor ,
113 On these sources, see M. Zonta, Scholastic Commentaries in Hebrew: Some Notes
AboutjudahMesser Leon (Italy, 15th Century), in G. Fioravanti, C. Leonardi and S.
Perfetti (eds.), II commento filosofico nell'Occidente latino (secoli XIII-XV), Turnhout
2002, 379-400; see also below, chapter 4.
114 On these translations, see below, chapter 2.
115 See below, chapter 4. Thomas's works were not totally neglected by fif
teenth centuryItalianJewish authors: see, e.g., Elijah del Medigo's t:?,plicit refer
ence to the Summa contra Gentiles (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen,
p. 487 note 149), or the quotation ofThomas's commentary on the Metaphysics (Tomaso be-ve'uro le-Mah she-'a[!ar) in the anonymous commentary on some parts ofAvicenna's Canon, book I, preserved in the ms. Florence, Biblioteca MediceoLaurenziana, Pluteo LXXXVIII no. 26, folios 81r-91r, f. 81r (copied in fifteenth century Italy). 116 On this translation, see Manekin, When the jews, pp. 422-425; Id., Scholastic Logic, pp. 136-137. 117 Bonafous Bonfil Astruc's translation, written in 1423 in Macerata Feltria (now in the Italian province of Pesaro-Urbino), was published by S. Sierra,
Boezio De consolatione philosophiae. Traduzione ebraica di 'Azaria ben r. joseph Ibn Abba Mari . .. ,Turin:Jerusalem 1967. On its possible sources (not only Boethius' original work, butalso two Scholastic commentaries on it, by the pseudo-Thomas Aquinas and by Nicholas Trevet), see Zonta, Le origini, pp. 586-604.
and the Hebrew translations of two Scholastic logical works, namely pseudo-Thomas's De fallaciis ad quosdam nobiles artistas, translated by an anonymous scribe,118 and Raymond Lull's Ars brevis, translated by Pinhas Tzvi ben Natanael Mozon.119 Also the Hebrew translation of the medico-scientific Quaestiones falsely ascribed to Albert the Great was probably made while the translator, a Portuguese Jew, lived in Italy.120 However, it seems that the role of translations in Italian "Hebrew Scholasticism" was very limited in comparison with fifteenth century Spain, where the number of Latin-to-Hebrew translations was far greater.
As far as we can tell, Judah Messer Leon's approach to Scholasticism was rather atypical in fifteenth century Italian Jewish thought.121 Among his students, only Abraham Farissol seems to have followed the path of his master,122 while well-known figures such as Yohanan Alemanno and Judah's own son, David Messer Leon, were mostly attracted by Platonism and Kabbalah.123 The
118 This translation was inserted by an anonymous scribe into the text ofAbra
ham Avigdor's Hebrew version of the Tractatus: see the ms. Paris, Bibliotheque
Nationale de France, hebreu 929, written in 1472 (Manekin, Scholastic Logic,
p.135).
119 This translation, preserved in the unique ms. NewYork,Jewish Theological
Seminary, microfilm 2312, was completed in Senigallia (province of Pesaro
Urbino) in 1474. See Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, pp. 475-476; Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, p. 107. 120 This work was translated into Hebrew by Moses Ibn Habib (d. c. 1505), a Jewish physician, philosopher and grammarian from Lisbon, pro~~bly around the end of the fifteenth century (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen, pp. 776-777). There is evidence that from c. 1480 onwards Ibn Habib lived in Italy, first in Naples and then in Bitonto and Otranto (in Puglia): see A. David, Ibn Habib, Moses ben Shem Tov, in Encyclopaedia judaica, CD Rom Edition. Version 1.0,Judaica Multimedia (Israel) 1997. 121 Of course, as well as the works of the authors mentioned above, there are isolated cases of anonymous "Hebrew Scholastic" texts which can be dated to this period and area: see, e.g., the ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. Add. 4° 10 (Neubauer 1324), ff. 89r-90~ (probably copied in early fifteenth century Italy), where there is a question by a certain Solomon ha-Qatan, "if souls are created before the creation of bodies or not", quoting Augustine and other Christian authors, and patterned after a typical quaestio of Scholastic theology. 122 On Farissol, see D.B. Ruderman, The World ofa Renaissance jew: The Life and Thought ofAbraham ben Mordecai Farissol, Cincinnati 1981; cf. also below, chapter 4, note 3. 123 See M. Idel, The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations ofthe Kabbalah in the Renaissance, in Cooperman (ed.), jewish Thought, 186-242 (about Alemanno's
INTRODUCTION
only other major contemporary Italian Jewish philosopher who was deeply interested in Scholasticism and wished to participate in the development of contemporary Scholastic philosophy was Elijah del Medigo (1460-1493). He was active in Padua and Florence and wrote Scholastic commentaries and translations of texts belonging to the Aristotelian tradition.124 Scholars have tried to detect in del Medigo's thought traces of Paduan "Averroism", as represented by Pietro Pomponazzi or his source, John ofJandun.125 However, del Medigo's usual language, while acting as Schoolman and translator, was not Hebrew, but Latin. His extant Scholastic works in Hebrew, the commentary on Averroes's De substantia orbis and the Two Questions on Soul, were originally written in Latin between 1482 and 1485, and later translated into Hebrew by the
author.126 Spanish "Hebrew Scholasticism" came to an untimely end in 1492, as a consequence of the expulsion ofJews from the Iberian peninsula, which led to the dispersion of the Judaeo-Spanish cultural elite and its heritage. Some Jewish philosophers, whether of Spanish origin or not, continued to follow the path traced by their ancestors in the countries where exiled Jews took up their new
role); H. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds. The Life and Thought ofRabbi David benjudah Messer Leon, Albany 1991; cf. also Ead., jewish Philosophy, pp. 515,525
529. 124 On Elijah del Medigo's works and thought, see D.M. Geffen, Faith and Reason in Elijah Del Medigo's Bel;linat Ha-Dat and the Philosophic Backgrounds of the Work, Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1970 (non vidi); Id., Insight into the Life and Thought ofElijah Del Medigo Based on His Published and Unpublished Works,
"Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research" 41-42 (19731974),69-86; cf. alsoJ]. Ross' introduction to Eliyyahu Del Medigo, Seferbehinat
ha-dat, ed. and trans.J]. Ross, Tel Aviv 1984,11-61, and Tirosh-Rothschild,Jewish Philosophy, pp. 515-517. 125 On del Medigo's Averroism, see the overview in Ivry, Remnants, pp. 250261; see also S. Feldman, The End and Aftereffects ofMedieval jewish Philosophy, in Frank and Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion, pp. 414-445, pp. 416-420. 126 Del Medigo's Hebrewversions ofthe above mentioned philosophicalworks, which are still unpublished, appear to differ from their Latin originals only in some passages, concerning autobiographical data and references to religious questions. See K.P. Bland, Elijah del Medigo's Averroist Response to the Kabbalahs of Fifteenth-Century jewry and Pico della Mirandola, "TheJournal ofJewish Thought and Philosophy" 1 (1991),23-53; Id., Delmedigo, Elijah, in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 10 vols., London and New York 1998, Vol. 2, 861-863.
residence. There was a "Hebrew Scholasticism" in sixteenth century Greece, especially in Salonica, where philosophers likeJoseph Taitazak127 and Moses Almosnino128 wrote philosophical works in Hebrew, in which they employed late medieval and Renaissance Latin sources and reproduced their techniques. In Italy, there is evidence of the persistence of an interest in Latin Scholasticism in the works of some Jewish philosophers active in the sixteenth century, such as Ovadiah Sforno (c. 1470-1550).129 However, sixteenth centuryJewish philosophy in Greece and Italy seems substantially different from late medieval Jewish Aristotelianism, since it involved an eclectic fusion ofvarious doctrinal trends: Aristotelianism, Renaissance Platonism and Humanism, and also Kabbalah, which had begun to replace philosophy as the major expression ofJewish thought.
***
As observed at the beginning of this introduction, fifteenth century "Hebrew Scholasticism" has been long neglected by scholars: serious research on it seems to have begun only in the last decade, almost one century after Moritz Steinschneider's preliminary
127 See J.B. Sermoneta, Scholastic Philosophic Literature in Yosef Taitazak's Porat Yosef (in Hebrew), "Sefunot" 11 (1971-1978),137-185. 128 See Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 531-545; see also Ead. (under the name H. Tirosh-Samuelson), The Ultimate End of Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature, in B.R. Gampel (ed.), Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, 1391-1648, New York 1997, 22~-25~, 351-380, pp. 232-233 a?"d notes (about Almosnino's Scholastic sources m his commentary on the Nzcomachean Ethics), and Ead., Happiness in Premodern Judaism. Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being, "Monographs of the Hebrew Union College" 29, Cincinnati 2003, pp. 423-438; cf. also below, chapter 2. 129 See Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, p. 518; see also Ead. (under the name H. Tirosh-Samuelson), Theology ofNature in Sixteenth-Century ItalianJewish Philosophy, "Science in context" 10 (1997), 521-570, especially pp. 524-53~. Cf. also R. Bonfil, The Doctri1Je of the Soul and Holiness in the Teachings of Obadza Sforno (in Hebrew), "Eshel Beer Sheva" 1 (1976),200-257. Bonfil points out the similarities between a question about the immortality ofthe soul in Sforno's The Light of the Nations ('Or 'ammim) and Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologica, I, q. 75 (De homine), a. 6. Bonfil stresses the "Hebre~ Schol~stic" character of The Light of the Nations, which was even translated mto Latm by the author: in Renaissance Italy, "Hebrew Schoolmen" like Sforno and Elijah del Medig.o were apparently eager for their Christian colleagues to know the results of their work.
INTRODUCTION
inventory of sources.130 Most of the sources themselves remain unpublished, and their contents and relationship to Latin sources have not yet been studied in detail. These reasons lead me to believe that it would be premature to try to write a general historical overview of "Hebrew Scholasticism". What is needed now is to present, edit, translate and comment on some of the most significant texts of"Hebrew Scholasticism", so that scholars can attain a more precise idea of its extent and character. This book aims to respond to this need.
130 Among the best few recent works on this subject, one should mentionJeanPierre Rothschild's study of some of Eli Habillo's "Scholastic" philosophical questions: cf. below, chapter 3, note 9.
