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Title: A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy

Author: Isaac Husik

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                   A HISTORY OF
            MEDIAEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

                        BY

              ISAAC HUSIK, A.M., PH.D.
 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
                 OF PENNSYLVANIA


                     New York
              THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                      1916

              _All rights reserved_




                 COPYRIGHT, 1916
            BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1916.




This book is issued by the Macmillan Company in conjunction with the
Jewish Publication Society of America.




                       TO
            SOLOMON SOLIS COHEN, M.D.
                   AS A TOKEN
                       OF
              GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM




PREFACE


No excuse is needed for presenting to the English reader a History of
Mediæval Jewish Philosophy. The English language, poor enough in books
on Jewish history and literature, can boast of scarcely anything at all
in the domain of Jewish Philosophy. The Jewish Encyclopedia has no
article on Jewish Philosophy, and neither has the eleventh edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and
Ethics will have a brief article on the subject from the conscientious
and able pen of Dr. Henry Malter, but of books there is none. But while
this is due to several causes, chief among them perhaps being that
English speaking people in general and Americans in particular are more
interested in positive facts than in tentative speculations, in concrete
researches than in abstract theorizing--there are ample signs that here
too a change is coming, and in many spheres we are called upon to
examine our foundations with a view to making our superstructure deep
and secure as well as broad and comprehensive. And this is nothing else
than philosophy. Philosophical studies are happily on the increase in
this country and more than one branch of literary endeavor is beginning
to feel its influence. And with the increase of books and researches in
the history of the Jews is coming an awakening to the fact that the
philosophical and rationalistic movement among the Jews in the middle
ages is well worth study, influential as it was in forming Judaism as a
religion and as a theological and ethical system.

But it is not merely the English language that is still wanting in a
general history of Mediæval Jewish Philosophy, the German, French and
Italian languages are no better off in this regard. For while it is true
that outside of the Hebrew and Arabic sources, German books and
monographs are the _sine qua non_ of the student who wishes to
investigate the philosophical movement in mediæval Jewry, and the
present writer owes very much to the researches of such men as Joel,
Guttmann, Kaufmann and others, it nevertheless remains true that there
is as yet no complete history of the subject for the student or the
general reader. The German writers have done thorough and distinguished
work in expounding individual thinkers and problems, they have gathered
a complete and detailed bibliography of Jewish philosophical writings in
print and in manuscript, they have edited and translated and annotated
the most important philosophical texts. France has also had an important
share in these fundamental undertakings, but for some reason neither the
one nor the other has so far undertaken to present to the general
student and non-technical reader the results of their researches.

What was omitted by the German, French and English speaking writers was
accomplished by a scholar who wrote in Hebrew. Dr. S. Bernfeld has
written in Hebrew under the title "Daat Elohim" (The Knowledge of God) a
readable sketch of Jewish Religious philosophy from Biblical times down
to "Ahad Haam." A German scholar (now in America), Dr. David Neumark of
Cincinnati, has undertaken on a very large scale a History of Jewish
Philosophy in the Middle Ages, of which only a beginning has been made
in the two volumes so far issued.

The present writer at the suggestion of the Publication Committee of the
Jewish Publication Society of America has undertaken to write a history
of mediæval Jewish rationalistic philosophy in one volume--a history
that will appeal alike to the scholar and the intelligent non-technical
reader. Treating only of the rationalistic school, I did not include
anything that has to do with mysticism or Kabbala. In my attempt to
please the scholar and the layman, I fear I shall have succeeded in
satisfying neither. The professional student will miss learned notes and
quotations of original passages in the language of their authors. The
general reader will often be wearied by the scholastic tone of the
problems as well as of the manner of the discussion and argument. And
yet I cannot but feel that it will do both classes good--the one to get
less, the other more than he wants. The latter will find oases in the
desert where he can refresh himself and take a rest, and the former will
find in the notes and bibliography references to sources and technical
articles where more can be had after his own heart.

There is not much room for originality in a historical and expository
work of this kind, particularly as I believe in writing history
objectively. I have not attempted to read into the mediæval thinkers
modern ideas that were foreign to them. I endeavored to interpret their
ideas from their own point of view as determined by their history and
environment and the literary sources, religious and philosophical, under
the influence of which they came. I based my book on a study of the
original sources where they were available--and this applies to all the
authors treated with the exception of the two Karaites, Joseph al Basir
and Jeshua ben Judah, where I had to content myself with secondary
sources and a few fragments of the original texts. For the rest I tried
to tell my story as simply as I knew how, and I hope the reader will
accept the book in the spirit in which it is offered--as an objective
and not too critical exposition of Jewish rationalistic thought in the
middle ages.

My task would not be done were I not to express my obligations to the
Publication Committee of the Jewish Publication Society of America to
whose encouragement I owe the impulse but for which the book would not
have been written, and whose material assistance enabled the publishers
to bring out a book typographically so attractive.


                                                        ISAAC HUSIK.

 PHILADELPHIA,
 _July, 1916._




TABLE OF CONTENTS



                                                               PAGE

 PREFACE                                                        vii

 INTRODUCTION                                                  xiii

 CHAPTER

     I. ISAAC ISRAELI                                             1

    II. DAVID BEN MERWAN AL MUKAMMAS                             17

   III. SAADIA BEN JOSEPH AL-FAYYUMI                             23

    IV. JOSEPH AL-BASIR AND JESHUA BEN JUDAH                     48

     V. SOLOMON IBN GABIROL                                      59

    VI. BAHYA IBN PAKUDA                                         80

   VII. PSEUDO-BAHYA                                            106

  VIII. ABRAHAM BAR HIYYA                                       114

    IX. JOSEPH IBN ZADDIK                                       125

     X. JUDAH HALEVI                                            150

    XI. MOSES AND ABRAHAM IBN EZRA                              184

   XII. ABRAHAM IBN DAUD                                        197

  XIII. MOSES MAIMONIDES                                        236

   XIV. HILLEL BEN SAMUEL                                       312

    XV. LEVI BEN GERSON                                         328

   XVI. AARON BEN ELIJAH OF NICOMEDIA                           362

  XVII. HASDAI BEN ABRAHAM CRESCAS                              388

 XVIII. JOSEPH ALBO                                             406

 CONCLUSION                                                     428

 BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                   433

 NOTES                                                          439

 LIST OF BIBLICAL AND RABBINIC PASSAGES                         449

 INDEX                                                          451




INTRODUCTION


The philosophical movement in mediæval Jewry was the result of the
desire and the necessity, felt by the leaders of Jewish thought, of
reconciling two apparently independent sources of truth. In the middle
ages, among Jews as well as among Christians and Mohammedans, the two
sources of knowledge or truth which were clearly present to the minds of
thinking people, each claiming recognition, were religious opinions as
embodied in revealed documents on the one hand, and philosophical and
scientific judgments and arguments, the results of independent rational
reflection, on the other. Revelation and reason, religion and
philosophy, faith and knowledge, authority and independent reflection
are the various expressions for the dualism in mediæval thought, which
the philosophers and theologians of the time endeavored to reduce to a
monism or a unity.

Let us examine more intimately the character and content of the two
elements in the intellectual horizon of mediæval Jewry. On the side of
revelation, religion, authority, we have the Bible, the Mishna, the
Talmud. The Bible was the written law, and represented literally the
word of God as revealed to lawgiver and prophet; the Talmud (including
the Mishna) was the oral law, embodying the unwritten commentary on the
words of the Law, equally authentic with the latter, contemporaneous
with it in revelation, though not committed to writing until many ages
subsequently and until then handed down by word of mouth; hence
depending upon tradition and faith in tradition for its validity and
acceptance. Authority therefore for the Rabbanites was two-fold, the
authority of the direct word of God which was written down as soon as
communicated, and about which there could therefore be no manner of
doubt; and the authority of the indirect word of God as transmitted
orally for many generations before it was written down, requiring belief
in tradition. By the Karaites tradition was rejected, and there remained
only belief in the words of the Bible.

On the side of reason was urged first the claim of the testimony of the
senses, and second the validity of logical inference as determined by
demonstration and syllogistic proof. This does not mean that the Jewish
thinkers of the middle ages developed unaided from without a system of
thought and a _Weltanschauung_, based solely upon their own observation
and ratiocination, and then found that the view of the world thus
acquired stood in opposition to the religion of the Bible and the
Talmud, the two thus requiring adjustment and reconciliation. No! The
so-called demands of the reason were not of their own making, and on the
other hand the relation between philosophy and religion was not
altogether one of opposition. To discuss the latter point first, the
teachings of the Bible and the Talmud were not altogether clear on a
great many questions. Passages could be cited from the religious
documents of Judaism in reference to a given problem both _pro_ and
_con_. Thus in the matter of freedom of the will one could argue on the
one hand that man must be free to determine his conduct since if he were
not there would have been no use in giving him commandments and
prohibitions. And one could quote besides in favor of freedom the direct
statement in Deuteronomy 30, 19, "I call heaven and earth to witness
against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the
blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live,
thou and thy seed." But on the other hand it was just as possible to
find Biblical statements indicating clearly that God preordains how a
person shall behave in a given case. Thus Pharaoh's heart was hardened
that he should not let the children of Israel go out of Egypt, as we
read in Exodus 7, 3: "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my
signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not hearken
unto you, and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth my hosts,
my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great
judgments." Similarly in the case of Sihon king of Heshbon we read in
Deuteronomy 2, 30: "But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by
him: for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart
obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as at this day." And
this is true not merely of heathen kings, Ahab king of Israel was
similarly enticed by a divine instigation according to I Kings 22, 20:
"And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth-Gilead?"

The fact of the matter is the Bible is not a systematic book, and
principles and problems are not clearly and strictly formulated even in
the domain of ethics which is its strong point. It was not therefore a
question here of opposition between the Bible and philosophy, or
authority and reason. What was required was rather a rational analysis
of the problem on its own merits and then an endeavor to show that the
conflicting passages in the Scriptures are capable of interpretation so
as to harmonize with each other and with the results of rational
speculation. To be sure, it was felt that the doctrine of freedom is
fundamental to the spirit of Judaism, and the philosophic analyses led
to the same result though in differing form, sometimes dangerously
approaching a thorough determinism, as in Hasdai Crescas.[1]

If such doubt was possible in an ethical problem where one would suppose
the Bible would be outspoken, the uncertainty was still greater in
purely metaphysical questions which as such were really foreign to its
purpose as a book of religion and ethics. While it was clear that the
Bible teaches the existence of God as the creator of the universe, and
of man as endowed with a soul, it is manifestly difficult to extract
from it a rigid and detailed theory as to the nature of God, the manner
in which the world was created, the nature of the soul and its relation
to man and to God. As long as the Jews were self-centered and did not
come in close contact with an alien civilization of a philosophic mould,
the need for a carefully thought out and consistent theory on all the
questions suggested was not felt. And thus we have in the Talmudic
literature quite a good deal of speculation concerning God and man. But
it can scarcely lay claim to being rationalistic or philosophic, much
less to being consistent. Nay, we have in the Bible itself at least two
books which attempt an anti-dogmatic treatment of ethical problems. In
Job is raised the question whether a man's fortunes on earth bear any
relation to his conduct moral and spiritual. Ecclesiastes cannot make up
his mind whether life is worth living, and how to make the best of it
once one finds himself alive, whether by seeking wisdom or by pursuing
pleasure. But here too Job is a long poem, and the argument does not
progress very rapidly or very far. Ecclesiastes is rambling rather than
analytic, and on the whole mostly negative. The Talmudists were visibly
puzzled in their attitude to both books, wondered whether Job really
existed or was only a fancy, and seriously thought of excluding
Ecclesiastes from the canon. But these attempts at questioning the
meaning of life had no further results. They did not lead, as in the
case of the Greek Sophists, to a Socrates, a Plato or an Aristotle.
Philo in Alexandria and Maimonides in Fostat were the products not of
the Bible and the Talmud alone, but of a combination of Hebraism and
Hellenism, pure in the case of Philo, mixed with the spirit of Islam in
Maimonides.

And this leads us to consider the second point mentioned above, the
nature and content of what was attributed in the middle ages to the
credit of reason. It was in reality once more a set of documents. The
Bible and Talmud were the documents of revelation, Aristotle was the
document of reason. Each was supreme in its sphere, and all efforts must
be bent to make them agree, for as revelation cannot be doubted, so
neither can the assured results of reason. But not all which pretends to
be the conclusion of reason is necessarily so in truth, as on the other
hand the documents of faith are subject to interpretation and may mean
something other than appears on the surface.

That the Bible has an esoteric meaning besides the literal has its
source in the Talmud itself. Reference is found there to a mystic
doctrine of creation known as "Maase Bereshit" and a doctrine of the
divine chariot called "Maase Merkaba."[2] The exact nature of these
teachings is not known since the Talmud itself prohibits the imparting
of this mystic lore to any but the initiated, i. e., to those showing
themselves worthy; and never to more than one or two at a time.[3] But
it is clear from the names of these doctrines that they centered about
the creation story in Genesis and the account of the divine chariot in
Ezekiel, chapters one and ten. Besides the Halaka and Agada are full of
interpretations of Biblical texts which are very far from the literal
and have little to do with the context. Moreover, the beliefs current
among the Jews in Alexandria in the first century B.C. found their way
into mediæval Jewry, that the philosophic literature of the Greeks was
originally borrowed or stolen from the Hebrews, who lost it in times of
storm and stress.[4] This being the case, it was believed that the Bible
itself cannot be without some allusions to philosophic doctrines. That
the Bible does not clearly teach philosophy is due to the fact that it
was intended for the salvation of all men, the simple as well as the
wise, women and children as well as male adults. For these it is
sufficient that they know certain religious truths within their grasp
and conduct themselves according to the laws of goodness and
righteousness. A strictly philosophic book would have been beyond their
ken and they would have been left without a guide in life. But the more
intellectual and the more ambitious are not merely permitted, nay they
are obligated to search the Scriptures for the deeper truths found
therein, truths akin to the philosophic doctrines found in Greek
literature; and the latter will help them in understanding the Bible
aright. It thus became a duty to study philosophy and the sciences
preparatory thereto, logic, mathematics and physics; and thus equipped
to approach the Scriptures and interpret them in a philosophical manner.
The study of mediæval Jewish rationalism has therefore two sides to it,
the analysis of metaphysical, ethical and psychological problems, and
the application of these studies to an interpretation of Scripture.

Now let us take a closer glance at the rationalistic or philosophic
literature to which the Jews in the middle ages fell heirs. In 529 A.D.
the Greek schools of philosophy in Athens were closed by order of
Emperor Justinian. This did not, however, lead to the extinction of
Greek thought as an influence in the world. For though the West was
gradually declining intellectually on account of the fall of Rome and
the barbarian invasions which followed in its train, there were signs of
progress in the East which, feeble at first, was destined in the course
of several centuries to illumine the whole of Europe with its
enlightening rays.

Long before 529, the date of the closing of the Greek schools, Greek
influence was introduced in the East in Asia and Africa.[5] The whole
movement goes back to the days of Alexander the Great and the victories
he gained in the Orient. From that time on Greeks settled in Asia and
Africa and brought along with them Greek manners, the Greek language,
and the Greek arts and sciences. Alexandria, the capital of the
Ptolemies in Egypt after the death of Alexander, and Antioch, the
capital of Syria under the empire of the Seleucidæ, were well-known
centres of Greek learning.

When Syria changed masters in 64 B.C. and became a Roman province, its
form of civilization did not change, and the introduction of
Christianity had the effect of spreading the influence of the Greeks and
their language into Mesopotamia beyond the Euphrates. The Christians in
Syria had to study Greek in order to understand the Scriptures of the
Old and the New Testaments, the decrees and canons of the ecclesiastical
councils, and the writings of the Church Fathers. Besides religion and
the Church, the liberal arts and sciences, for which the Greeks were so
famous, attracted the interests of the Syrian Christians, and schools
were established in the ecclesiastical centres where philosophy,
mathematics and medicine were studied. These branches of knowledge were
represented in Greek literature, and hence the works treating of these
subjects had to be translated into Syriac for the benefit of those who
did not know Greek. Aristotle was the authority in philosophy,
Hippocrates and Galen in medicine.

The oldest of these schools was in Edessa in Mesopotamia, founded in the
year 363 by St. Ephrem of Nisibis. It was closed in 489 and the teachers
migrated to Persia where two other schools became famous, one at Nisibis
and the other at Gandisapora. A third school of philosophy among the
Jacobite or Monophysite Christians was that connected with the convent
of Kinnesrin on the left bank of the Euphrates, which became famous as a
seat of Greek learning in the beginning of the seventh century.

Christianity was succeeded in the Orient by Mohammedanism, and this
change led to even greater cultivation of Greek studies on the part of
the Syrians. The Mohammedan Caliphs employed the Syrians as physicians.
This was especially true of the Abbasid dynasty, who came into power in
750. When they succeeded to the Caliphate they raised Nestorian Syrians
to offices of importance, and the latter under the patronage of their
masters continued their studies of Greek science and philosophy and
translated those writings into Syriac and Arabic. Among the authors
translated were, Hippocrates and Galen in medicine, Euclid, Archimedes
and Ptolemy in mathematics and astronomy, and Aristotle, Theophrastus
and Alexander of Aphrodisias in philosophy. In many cases the Greek
writings were not turned directly into Arabic but as the translators
were Syrians, the versions were made first into Syriac, and then from
the Syriac into Arabic. The Syrian Christians were thus the mediators
between the Greeks and the Arabs. The latter, however, in the course of
time far surpassed their Syrian teachers, developed important schools
of philosophy, became the teachers of the Jews, and with the help of the
latter introduced Greek philosophy as well as their own development
thereof into Christian Europe in the beginning of the thirteenth
century.

We see now that the impulse to philosophizing came from the Greeks,--and
not merely the impulse but the material, the matter as well as the
method and the terminology. In the Aristotelian writings we find
developed an entire system of thought. There is not a branch of
knowledge dealing with fundamental principles which is not there
represented. First of all Aristotle stands alone as the discoverer of
the organon of thought, the tool which we all employ in our reasoning
and reflection; he is the first formulator of the science and art of
logic. He treats besides of the principles of nature and natural
phenomena in the Physics and the treatise on the Heavens. He discusses
the nature of the soul, the senses and the intellect in his
"Psychology." In the "History of Animals" and other minor works we have
a treatment of biology. In the Nikomachean and Eudemian Ethics he
analyzes the meaning of virtue, gives a list and classification of the
virtues and discusses the _summum bonum_ or the aim of human life.
Finally in the Metaphysics we have an analysis of the fundamental
notions of being, of the nature of reality and of God.

The Jews did not get all this in its purity for various reasons. In the
first place it was only gradually that the Jews became acquainted with
the wealth of Aristotelian material. We are sure that Abraham Ibn Daud,
the forerunner of Maimonides, had a thorough familiarity with the ideas
of Aristotle; and those who came after him, for example Maimonides,
Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas, show clearly that they were deep students of
the ideas represented in the writings of the Stagirite. But there is not
the same evidence in the earlier writings of Isaac Israeli, Saadia,
Joseph Ibn Zaddik, Gabirol, Bahya Ibn Pakuda, Judah Halevi. They had
picked up Aristotelian ideas and principles, but they had also absorbed
ideas and concepts from other schools, Greek as well as Arabian, and
unconsciously combined the two.

Another explanation for the rarity of the complete and unadulterated
Aristotle among the Jewish thinkers of the middle ages is that people in
those days were very uncritical in the matter of historical facts and
relations. Historical and literary criticism was altogether unknown, and
a number of works were ascribed to Aristotle which did not belong to
him, and which were foreign in spirit to his mode of thinking. They
emanated from a different school of thought with different
presuppositions. I am referring to the treatise called the "Theology of
Aristotle,"[6] and that known as the "Liber de Causis."[7] Both were
attributed to Aristotle in the middle ages by Jews and Arabs alike, but
it has been shown recently[8] that the former represents extracts from
the works of Plotinus, the head of the Neo-Platonic school of
philosophy, while the latter is derived from a treatise of Proclus, a
Neo-Platonist of later date.

Finally a third reason for the phenomenon in question is that the Jews
were the pupils of the Arabs and followed their lead in adapting Greek
thought to their own intellectual and spiritual needs. It so happens
therefore that even in the case of Abraham Ibn Daud, Maimonides and
Gersonides, who were without doubt well versed in Aristotelian thought
and entertained not merely admiration but reverence for the philosopher
of Stagira, we notice that instead of reading the works of Aristotle
himself, they preferred, or were obliged as the case may be, to go to
the writings of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes for their information on
the views of the philosopher. In the case of Gersonides this is easily
explained. It seems he could read neither Latin nor Arabic[9] and there
was no Hebrew translation of the text of Aristotle. Averroes had taken
in the fourteenth century the place of the Greek philosopher and instead
of reading Aristotle all students read the works of the Commentator, as
Averroes was called. Of course the very absence of a Hebrew translation
of Aristotle's text proves that even among those who read Arabic the
demand for the text of Aristotle was not great, and preference was shown
for the works of the interpreters, compendists and commentators, like
Alfarabi and Avicenna. And this helps us to understand why it is that
Ibn Daud and Maimonides who not only read Arabic but wrote their
philosophical works in Arabic showed the same preference for the
secondhand Aristotle. One reason may have been the lack of historical
and literary criticism spoken of above, and the other the difficulty of
the Arabic translations of Aristotle. Aristotle is hard to translate
into any language by reason of his peculiar technical terminology; and
the difficulty was considerably enhanced by the fact that the Syriac in
many cases stood between the original Greek and the Arabic, and in the
second place by the great dissimilarity between the Semitic language and
its Indo-European original. This may have made the copies of Aristotle's
text rare, and gradually led to their disuse. The great authority which
names like Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes acquired still further served
to stamp them as the approved expositors of the Aristotelian doctrine.

Among the Arabs the earliest division based upon a theoretical question
was that of the parties known as the "Kadariya" and the "Jabariya."[10]
The problem which was the cause of the difference was that of free will
and determinism. Orthodox Islam favored the idea that man is completely
dependent upon the divine will, and that not only his destiny but also
his conduct is determined, and his own will does not count. This was the
popular feeling, though as far as the Koran is concerned the question
cannot be decided one way or the other, as it is not consistent in its
stand, and arguments can be drawn in plenty in favor of either opinion.
The idea of determinism, however, seemed repugnant to many minds, who
could not reconcile this with their idea of reward and punishment and
the justice of God. How is it possible that a righteous God would force
a man to act in a certain manner and then punish him for it? Hence the
sect of the "Kadariya," who were in favor of freedom of the will. The
Jabariya were the determinists.

This division goes back to a very early period before the introduction
of the Aristotelian philosophy among the Arabs, and hence owes its
inception not to reason as opposed to religious dogma, but to a pious
endeavor to understand clearly the religious view upon so important a
question.

From the Kadariya, and in opposition to the Aristotelian movement which
had in the meantime gained ground, developed the school of theologians
known as the "Mutakallimun." They were the first among the Arabs who
deliberately laid down the reason as a source of knowledge in addition
to the authority of the Koran and the "Sunna" or tradition. They were
not freethinkers, and their object was not to oppose orthodoxy as such.
On the contrary, their purpose was to purify the faith by freeing it
from such elements as obscured in their minds the purity of the
monotheistic tenet and the justice of God. They started where the
Kadariya left off and went further. As a school of opposition their
efforts were directed to prove the creation of the world, individual
providence, the reality of miracles, as against the "philosophers," _i.
e._, the Aristotelians, who held to the eternity of motion, denied God's
knowledge of particulars, and insisted on the unchanging character of
natural law.

For this purpose they placed at the basis of their speculations not the
Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, the former uncreated and
continuous, but adopted the atomistic theory of Democritus, denied the
necessity of cause and effect and the validity of natural law, and made
God directly responsible for everything that happened every moment in
life. God, they said, creates continually, and he is not hampered by any
such thing as natural law, which is merely our name for that which we
are accustomed to see. Whenever it rains we are accustomed to see the
ground wet, and we conclude that there is a necessary connection of
cause and effect between the rain and the wetness of the ground. Nothing
of the kind, say the Mutakallimun, or the Muʿtazila, the oldest sect of
the school. It rains because God willed that it should rain, and the
ground is wet because God wills it shall be wet. If God willed that the
ground should be dry following a rain, it would be dry; and the one is
no more and no less natural than the other. Miracles cease to be
miracles on this conception of natural processes. Similarly the dogma of
creation is easily vindicated on this theory as against the Aristotelian
doctrine of eternity of the world, which follows from his doctrine of
matter and form, as we shall have occasion to see later.

The Muʿtazila were, however, chiefly known not for their principles of
physics but for their doctrines of the unity of God and his justice. It
was this which gave them their name of the "Men of Unity and Justice,"
_i. e._, the men who vindicate against the unenlightened views of
popular orthodoxy the unity of God and his justice.

The discussion of the unity centered about the proper interpretation of
the anthropomorphic passages in the Koran and the doctrine of the divine
attributes. When the Koran speaks of God's eyes, ears, hands, feet; of
his seeing, hearing, sitting, standing, walking, being angry, smiling,
and so on, must those phrases be understood literally? If so God is
similar to man, corporeal like him, and swayed by passions. This seemed
to the Muʿtazila an unworthy conception of God. To vindicate his
spirituality the anthropomorphic passages in the Koran must be
understood metaphorically.

The other more difficult question was in what sense can attributes be
ascribed to God at all? It is not here a question of anthropomorphism.
If I say that God is omniscient, omnipotent and a living God, I
attribute to God life, power, knowledge. Are these attributes the same
with God's essence or are they different? If different (and they must be
eternal since God was never without them), then we have more than one
eternal being, and God is dependent upon others. If they are not
different from God's essence, then his essence is not a strict unity,
since it is composed of life, power, knowledge; for life is not power,
and power is not knowledge. The only way to defend the unity of God in
its absolute purity is to say that God has no attributes, _i. e._, God
is omniscient but not through knowledge as his attribute; God is
omnipotent but not through power as his attribute, and so on. God is
absolutely one, and there is no distinction between knowledge, power,
and life in him. They are all one, and are his essence.

This seemed in opposition to the words of the Koran, which frequently
speaks of God's knowledge, power, and so on, and was accordingly
condemned as heretical by the orthodox.

In the tenth century a new sect arose named the "Ashariya" after
Al-Ashari, its founder. This was a party of moderation, and tended to
conciliate orthodoxy by not going too far in the direction of
rationalistic thinking. They solved the problem by saying, "God knows
through a knowledge which is not different from his essence."

The other problem to which the Muʿtazila devoted their attention was
that of the justice of God. This was in line with the efforts of the
Kadariya before them. It concerned itself with the doctrine of free
will. They defended man's absolute freedom of action, and insisted on
justice as the only motive of God's dealings with men. God must be just
and cannot act otherwise than in accordance with justice.

In reference to the question of the nature of good and evil, the
orthodox position was that good is that which God commands, evil that
which God forbids. In other words, nothing is in itself good or evil,
the ethical character of an act is purely relative to God's attitude to
it. If God were to command cannibalism, it would be a good act. The
Muʿtazila were opposed to this. They believed in the absolute character
of good and evil. What makes an act good or bad is reason, and it is
because an act is good that God commands it, and not the reverse.

The foregoing account gives us an idea of the nature of the Muʿtazilite
discussions of the two problems of God's unity and God's justice. Their
works were all arranged in the same way. They were divided into two
parts, one dealing with the question of the unity, and the other with
that of justice. The proofs of the unity were preceded by the proofs of
God's existence, and the latter were based upon a demonstration that the
world is not eternal, but bears traces of having come to be in time.
These are the earmarks by which a Muʿtazilite book could be recognized,
and the respect for them on the part of the philosophers, _i. e._, the
Aristotelians, was not great. The latter did not consider them worthy
combatants in a philosophical fight, claiming that they came with
preconceived notions and arranged their conceptions of nature to suit
the religious beliefs which they desired to defend. Maimonides expresses
a similar judgment concerning their worthlessness as philosophical
thinkers.[11]

This school of the Mutakallimun, or of the more important part of it
known as the Muʿtazila, is of great interest for the history of Jewish
rationalism. In the first place their influence on the early Jewish
philosophers was great and unmistakable. It is no discovery of a late
day but is well known to Maimonides who is himself, as has just been
said and as will appear with greater detail later, a strong opponent of
these to him unphilosophical thinkers. In the seventy-first chapter of
his "Guide of the Perplexed," he says, "You will find that in the few
works composed by the Geonim and the Karaites on the unity of God and on
such matter as is connected with this doctrine, they followed the lead
of the Mohammedan Mutakallimun.... It also happened, that at the time
when the Mohammedans adopted this method of the Kalam, there arose among
them a certain sect, called Muʿtazila. In certain things our scholars
followed the theory and the method of these Muʿtazila."

Thanks to the researches of modern Jewish and non-Jewish scholars we
know now that the Rabbanite thinker Saadia and the Karaite writers, like
Joseph Al Basir and Jeshuah ben Judah, are indebted far more to the
Mohammedan Muʿtazilites than would appear from Maimonides's statement
just quoted. The Rabbanites being staunch adherents of the Talmud, to
the influence of which they owed a national and religious
self-consciousness much stronger than that of the Karaites, who rejected
the authority of tradition, did not allow themselves to be carried away
so far by the ideas of the Mohammedan rationalists as to become their
slavish followers. The Karaites are less scrupulous; and as they were
the first among the Jews to imitate the Muʿtazila in the endeavor to
rationalize Jewish doctrine, they adopted their views in all details,
and it is sometimes impossible to tell from the contents of a Karaite
Muʿtazilite work whether it was written by a Jew or a Mohammedan. The
arrangement of the work in the two divisions of "Unity" and "Justice,"
the discussion of substance and accident, of the creation of the world,
of the existence, unity and incorporeality of God, of his attributes, of
his justice, and of human free will, are so similar in the two that it
is external evidence alone to which we owe the knowledge of certain
Karaite works as Jewish. There are no mediæval Jewish works treating of
religious and theological problems in which there is so much aloofness,
such absence of theological prepossession and religious feeling as in
some Karaite writings of Muʿtazilite stamp. Cold and unredeemed logic
gives the tone to the entire composition.

Another reason for the importance of the Muʿtazilite school for the
history of Jewish thought is of recent discovery. Schreiner has
suggested[12] that the origin of the Muʿtazilite movement was due to the
influence of learned Jews with whom the Mohammedans came in contact,
particularly in the city of Basra, an important centre of the school.
The reader will recall that the two main doctrines of the Muʿtazila were
the unity of God and his justice. The latter really signified the
freedom of the will. That these are good Jewish views would of course
prove nothing for the origin of similar opinions among the Mohammedans.
For it is not here a question simply of the dogmatic belief in
Monotheism as opposed to polytheism. Mohammedanism is as a religion
Monotheistic and we know that Mohammed was indebted very much to Jews
and Judaism. We are here concerned with the origin of a rationalistic
movement which endeavors to defend a spiritual conception of God against
a crude anthropomorphism, to vindicate a conception of his absolute
unity against the threatened multiplication of his essence by the
assumption of eternal attributes, and which puts stress upon God's
justice rather than upon his omnipotence so as to save human freedom.
Another doctrine of the Muʿtazila was that the Koran was not eternal as
the orthodox believed, but that it was created. Now we can find
parallels for most of these doctrines. Anthropomorphism was avoided in
the Aramaic translations of the Pentateuch, also in certain changes in
the Hebrew text which are recorded in Rabbinical literature, and known
as "Tikkune Soferim," or corrections of the Scribes.[13] Concern for
maintaining the unity of God in its absolute purity is seen in the care
with which the men of the Agada forbid any prayer which may have a
semblance, however remote, of dualism.[14] The freedom of the will is
clearly stated in the Rabbinic expression, "All is in the hands of God
except the fear of Heaven."[15] And an apparently deterministic passage
in Job 23, 13, "But he is one and who can turn him, and what his soul
desireth, even that he doeth," is explained by Rabbi Akiba in the
following manner, "It is not possible to answer the words of him who
with his word created the world, for he rules all things with truth and
with righteousness."[16] And we find a parallel also for the creation of
the Koran in the Midrashic statement that the Torah is one of the six or
seven things created before the world.[17]

These parallels alone would not be of much weight, but they are
strengthened by other considerations. The Muʿtazilite movement seems to
have developed among the ascetic sects, with the leaders of whom its
founders were in close relation.[18] The ascetic literature bears
unmistakable traces of having been influenced by the Halaka and the
Agada.[19] Moreover, there is a Mohammedan tradition or two to the
effect that the doctrine of the creation of the Koran and also of the
rejection of anthropomorphism goes back to a Jew, Lebid-ibn
Al-Aʿsam.[20]

More recently still[A] C. H. Becker proved from a study of certain
Patristic writings that the polemical literature of the Christians
played an important rôle in the formation of Mohammedan dogma, and he
shows conclusively that the form in which the problem of freedom was
discussed among the Mohammedans was taken from Christianity. The
question of the creation or eternity of the Koran or word of Allah, is
similarly related to the Christian idea of the eternal Logos, who is on
the one hand the Word and the Wisdom, and is on the other identified
with Jesus Christ. And the same thing holds of the doctrine of
attributes. It played a greater rôle in Christian dogma than it ever did
in Judaism prior to the philosophic era in the middle ages. To be sure,
the Patristic writers were much indebted to Philo, in whose writings the
germ of the mediæval doctrine of attributes is plainly evident. But the
Mohammedan schools did not read Philo. It would seem, therefore, that
Schreiner's view must be considerably modified, if not entirely
rejected, in view of the later evidence adduced by Becker.


[A] Cf. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 1912, 175 ff.


The more extreme doctrines, however, of the more orthodox Ashariya, such
as the denial of natural law and the necessity of cause and effect,
likewise the denial of man's ability to determine his actions, none of
the Jews accepted. Here we have again the testimony of Maimonides, who,
however, is not inclined to credit this circumstance to the intelligence
and judgment of his predecessors, but to chance. His words are,
"Although another sect, the Ashariya, with their own peculiar views, was
subsequently established among the Mohammedans, you will not find any of
these views in the writings of our authors; not because these authors
preferred the opinions of the first named sect to those of the latter,
but because they chanced first to become acquainted with the theory of
the Muʿtazila, which they adopted and treated as demonstrated
truth."[21]

The influence of the Kalam is present in greater or less degree in the
philosophers up to Abraham Ibn Daud and Maimonides. The latter gave this
system its death blow in his thoroughgoing criticism,[22] and
thenceforth Aristotelianism was in possession of the field until that
too was attacked by Hasdai Crescas.

Another sect of the Mohammedans which had considerable influence on some
of the Jewish philosophical and ethical writers are the ascetics and the
Sufis who are related to them. The latter developed their mode of life
and their doctrines under the influence of the Christian monks, and are
likewise indebted to Indian and Persian ideas.[23] In their mode of
life they belong to the class of ascetics and preach abstinence,
indifference to human praise and blame, love of God and absolute trust
in him even to the extent of refraining from all effort in one's own
behalf, and in extreme cases going so far as to court danger. In
theoretical teaching they adopted the emanatistic doctrine of the
Neo-Platonic School. This has been called dynamic Pantheism. It is
Pantheism because in its last analysis it identifies God with the
universe. At the same time it does not bring God directly in contact
with the world, but only indirectly through the powers or δυνάμεις,
hence _dynamic_ Pantheism. These powers emanate successively from the
highest one, forming a chain of intermediate powers mediating between
God and the world of matter, the links of the chain growing dimmer and
less pure as they are further removed from their origin, while the
latter loses nothing in the process. This latter condition saves the
Neo-Platonic conception from being a pure system of emanation like some
Indian doctrines. In the latter the first cause actually gives away
something of itself and loses thereby from its fulness. The process in
both systems is explained by use of analogies, those of the radiation of
light from a luminous body, and of the overflowing of a fountain being
the most common.

The chief exponent of the ethics of the Sufis in mediæval Jewish
literature is Bahya Ibn Pakuda. In his ethical work "The Duties of the
Hearts," he lays the same stress on intention and inwardness in
religious life and practice as against outward performance with the
limbs on the one hand and dry scholasticism on the other, as do the
Sufis. In matters of detail too he is very much indebted to this Arab
sect from whose writings he quotes abundantly with as well as without
acknowledgment of his sources except in a general way as the wise men.
To be sure, he does not follow them slavishly and rejects the extremes
of asceticism and unworldly cynicism which a great many of the Sufis
preached and practiced. He is also not in sympathy with their mysticism.
He adopts their teachings only where he can support them with analogous
views as expressed in the Rabbinical writings, which indeed played an
important rôle in Mohammedan ascetic literature, being the source of
many of the sayings found in the latter.[24]

The systems of thought which had the greatest influence upon Jewish as
well as Mohammedan theology, were the great systems of Plato
(especially as developed in Neo-Platonism) and Aristotle. These two
philosophies not merely affected the thinking of Jew and Mohammedan but
really transformed it from religious and ethical discussions into
metaphysical systems. In the Bible and similarly in the Koran we have a
purely personal view of God and the world. God is a person, he creates
the world--out of nothing to be sure--but nevertheless he is thought of
doing it in the manner in which a person does such things with a will
and a purpose in time and place. He puts a soul into man and
communicates to him laws and prohibitions. Man must obey these laws
because they are the will of God and are good, and he will be rewarded
and punished according to his attitude in obedience and disobedience.
The character of the entire point of view is personal, human,
teleological, ethical. There is no attempt made at an impersonal and
objective analysis of the common aspects of all existing things, the
elements underlying all nature. Nor is there any conscious effort at a
critical classification of the various kinds of things existing in
nature beyond the ordinary and evident classification found in
Genesis--heaven and earth; in heaven, sun, moon and stars; on earth,
grass, fruit trees, insects, water animals, birds, quadrupeds, man. Then
light and darkness, the seasons of the year, dry land and water.

In Greek philosophy for the first time we find speculations concerning
the common element or elements out of which the world is made--the
material cause as Aristotle later called it. The Sophists and Socrates
gave the first impulse to a logical analysis of what is involved in
description or definition. The concept as denoting the essence of a
thing is the important contribution Socrates made to knowledge. Plato
objectified the concept, or rather he posited an object as the basis of
the concept, and raised it out of this world of shadows to an
intelligible world of realities on which the world of particulars
depends. But it was Aristotle who made a thoroughgoing analysis of thing
as well as thought, and he was the master of knowledge through the
middle ages alike for Jew, Christian and Mohammedan.

First of all he classified all objects of our experience and found that
they can be grouped in ten classes or categories as he called them.
Think of any thing you please and you will find that it is either an
object in the strict sense, _i. e._, some thing that exists
independently of anything else, and is the recipient of qualities, as
for example a man, a mountain, a chair. Or it is a quantity, like four,
or cubit; or a quality, like good, black, straight; or a relation like
long, double, master, slave; and so on throughout the ten categories.
This classification applies to words and thoughts as well as to things.
As an analysis of the first two it led him to more important
investigations of speech and thinking and arguing, and resulted in his
system of logic, which is the most momentous discovery of a single mind
recorded in history. As applied to things it was followed by a more
fundamental analysis of all real objects in our world into the two
elements of matter and form. He argued as follows: nothing in the
material world is permanent as an individual thing. It changes its state
from moment to moment and finally ceases to be the thing it was. An
acorn passes a number of stages before it is ripe, and when it is placed
in the ground it again changes its form continually and then comes out
as an oak. In artificial products man in a measure imitates nature. He
takes a block of marble and makes a statue out of it. He forms a log
into a bed. So an ignorant man becomes civilized and learned. All these
examples illustrate change. What then is change? Is there any similarity
in all the cases cited? Can we express the process of change in a
formula which will apply to all instances of change? If so, we shall
have gained an insight into a process of nature which is all-embracing
and universal in our experience. Yes, we can, says Aristotle. Change is
a play of two elements in the changing thing. When a thing affected with
one quality changes into a thing with the opposite quality, there must
be the thing itself without either of the opposite qualities, which is
changing. Thus when a white fence becomes black, the fence itself or
that which undergoes the change is something neither white nor black. It
is the uncolored matter which first had the form of white and now lost
that and took on the form of black. This is typical of all change. There
is in all change ultimately an unchanging substratum always the same,
which takes on one quality after another, or as Aristotle would say, one
_form_ after another. This substratum is _matter_, which in its purity
is not affected with any quality or form, of which it is the seat and
residence. The forms on the other hand come and go. Form does not change
any more than matter. The changing thing is the composite of matter and
form, and change means separation of the actual components of which
one, the form, disappears and makes room for its opposite. In a given
case, say, when a statue is made out of a block of marble, the matter is
the marble which lost its original form and assumed the form of a
statue. In this case the marble, if you take away both the previous form
and the present, will still have some form if it is still marble, for
marble must have certain qualities if it is to be marble. In that case
then the matter underlying the change in question is not pure matter, it
is already endowed with some primitive form and is composite. But marble
is ultimately reducible to the four elements, fire, air, water, earth,
which are simpler; and theoretically, though not in practice, we can
think away all form, and we have left only that which takes forms but is
itself not any form. This is matter.

Here the reader will ask, what kind of thing is it that has no form
whatsoever, is it not nothing at all? How can anything exist without
being a particular kind of thing, and the moment it is that it is no
longer pure matter. Aristotle's answer is that it is true that pure
matter is never found as an objective existence. Point to any real
object and it is composed of matter and form. And yet it is not true
that matter is a pure figment of the imagination; it has an existence of
its own, a potential existence. And this leads us to another important
conception in the Aristotelian philosophy.

Potentiality and actuality are correlative terms corresponding to matter
and form. Matter is the potential, form is the actual. Whatever
potentialities an object has it owes to its matter. Its actual essence
is due to its form. A thing free from matter would be all that it is at
once. It would not be liable to change of any kind, whether progress or
retrogression. All the objects of our experience in the sublunar world
are not of this kind. They realize themselves gradually, and are never
at any given moment all that they are capable of becoming. This is due
to their matter. On the other hand, pure matter is _actually_ nothing.
It is just capacity for being anything, and the moment it is anything it
is affected with form.

It is clear from this account that matter and form are the bases of
sublunar life and existence. No change, no motion without matter and
form. For motion is presupposed in all kinds of change. If then all
processes of life and death and change of all kinds presuppose matter
and form, the latter cannot themselves be liable to genesis and decay
and change, for that would mean that matter is composed of matter and
form, which is absurd. We thus see how Aristotle is led to believe in
the eternity of matter and motion, in other words, the eternity of the
world processes as we know them.

Motion is the realization of the potential _qua_ potential. This is an
Aristotelian definition and applies not merely to motion in the strict
sense, _i. e._, movement in place, or motion of translation, but
embraces all kinds of change. Take as an example the warming of the air
in a cold room. The process of heating the room is a kind of motion; the
air passes from a state of being cold to a state of being warm. In its
original state as cold it is potentially warm, _i. e._, it is actually
not warm, but has the capacity of becoming warm. At the end of the
process it is actually warm. Hence the process itself is the
actualization of the potential. That which is potential cannot make
itself actual, for to make itself actual it must be actual, which is
contrary to the hypothesis of its being potential. Potentiality and
actuality are contradictory states and cannot exist side by side in the
same thing at the same time in the same relation. There must therefore
be an external agent, itself actual, to actualize a potential. Thus, in
the above illustration, a cold room cannot make itself warm. There must
be some agency itself actually warm to cause the air in the room to pass
from cold to warm. This is true also of motion in place, that a thing
cannot move itself and must be moved by something else. But that
something else if itself in motion must again be moved by something
else. This process would lead us to infinity. In order that a given
thing shall be in motion, it would be necessary for an infinite number
of things to be in motion. This is impossible, because there cannot be
an infinite number of things all here and now. It is a contradiction in
terms. Hence if anything is to move at all, there must be at the end of
the finite chain a link which while causing the next link to move, is
itself unmoved. Hence the motion existing in the world must be due
ultimately to the existence of an unmoved mover. If this being causes
motion without being itself in motion it does not act upon the bodies it
moves as one body acts upon another, for a body can move another body
only by being itself in motion. The manner in which the unmoved mover
moves the world is rather to be conceived on the analogy of a loved
object moving the loving object without itself being moved. The person
in love strives to approach and unite with the object of his love
without the latter necessarily being moved in turn. This is the way in
which Aristotle conceives of the cause of the world's motion. There is
no room here for the creation of the world. Matter is eternal, motion is
eternal, and there is an eternal mind for the love of which all motions
have been going on, eternally.

The unmoved mover, or God, is thus not body, for no body can move
another body without being itself in motion at the same time. Besides,
all body is finite, _i. e._, it has a finite magnitude. A body of
infinite magnitude is an impossibility, as the very essence of body is
that it must be bounded by surfaces. A finite body cannot have an
infinite power, as Aristotle proves, though we need not at present go
into the details of his proof. But a being which causes eternal motion
in the world must have an infinite power to do this. Hence another proof
that God is not corporeal.

If God is not subject to motion, he is not subject to change of any
kind, for change involves motion. As matter is at the basis of all
change God is without matter, hence he is pure form, _i. e._, pure
actuality without the least potentiality. This means that he is what he
is wholly all the time; he has no capacities of being what he is at any
time not. But if he is not corporeal, the nature of his actuality or
activity must be Thought, pure thinking. And the content of his thought
cannot vary from topic to topic, for this would be change, which is
foreign to him. He must be eternally thinking the same thought; and the
highest thought it must be. But the highest thought is himself; hence
God is pure thought thinking himself, thought thinking thought.

The universe is in the shape of a sphere with the earth stationary in
the centre and the heavens revolving around it exactly as appears to us.
The element earth is the heaviest, hence its place is below or, which is
the same thing, in the centre. This is its natural place; and its
natural motion when away from the centre is in a straight line toward
the centre. Water is the next heaviest element and its natural place is
just above earth; hence the water in the world occupies a position
spherical in shape round about the earth, _i. e._, it forms a hollow
sphere concentric with the earth. Next comes the hollow sphere of air
concentric with the other two. Its natural motion when away from its
place in the direction of the earth is in a straight line toward the
circumference of the world, not however going beyond the sphere of the
lightest element of all, namely, fire. This has its natural place
outside of the other elements, also in the form of a hollow sphere
concentric with the other three. Its natural motion is in a straight
line away from the centre of the world and in the direction of the
circumference. Our earth, water, air and fire are not really the
elements in their purity. Each one has in it also mixtures of the other
three elements, the one which gives it the name predominating.

All minerals, plants and animals are formed from these four elements by
various combinations, all together forming the sublunar world, or the
world of generation and decay. No individual thing in this world is
permanent. All are subject to change and to ultimate destruction, though
the destruction of one thing is the genesis of another. There is no
annihilation.

The causes of the various combinations of the elements and the
generation and destruction of mineral, plant and animal resulting
therefrom, are the motions of the heavenly bodies. These are made of a
purer substance than that of the four elements, the ether. This is
proven by the fact that the heavenly bodies are not subject to change or
destruction. They are all permanent and the only change visible in them
is change of place. But even their motions are different from those of
the four elements. The latter are in a straight line toward the centre
or away from it, whereas the heavenly bodies move in a circle eternally
around the centre. This is another proof that they are not composed of
the same material as sublunar bodies.

The heavens consist of transparent spheres, and the stars as well as the
planets are set in them and remain fixed. The motions of the heavenly
bodies are due to the revolutions of the spheres in which they are set.
These spheres are hollow and concentric. The outermost sphere forming
the outer limit of the universe (the world is finite according to
Aristotle) is studded with the fixed stars and moves from east to west,
making a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. This motion is
transmitted to the other spheres which carry the planets. Since,
however, we notice in the sun, moon and the other planetary bodies
motions in the contrary direction in addition to that from east to west,
there must be other spheres having the motions apparent to us in the
positions of the planets borne by them. Thus a given body like the sun
or moon is set in more than one sphere, each of which has its own proper
motion, and the star's apparent motion is the resultant of the several
motions of its spheres. Without entering into further details concerning
these motions, it will be sufficient for us to know that Aristotle
counted in all fifty-five spheres. First came the sphere of the fixed
stars, then in order the spheres of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury,
Venus, Sun, Moon.

God himself sets the outer sphere in motion, or rather is the eternal
cause of its motion, as the object of its desire; and in the same way
each of the other motions has also its proper mover, likewise a pure
form or spirit, which moves its sphere in the same incorporeal and
unmoved manner as God.

Thus we have in the supra-lunar world pure forms without matter in God
and the spirits of the spheres, whereas in the sublunar world matter and
form are inseparable. Neither is found separately without the other.

In man's soul, however, or rather in his intellect we find a form which
combines in itself the peculiarities of sublunar as well as celestial
forms. When in contact with the human body it partakes of the nature of
other sublunar forms exhibiting its activity through matter and being
inseparable from it. But it is not destroyed with the death of the body.
It continues as a separate form after death.

The soul, Aristotle defines as the first entelechy of the body. The term
entelechy which sounds outlandish to us may be replaced by the word
realization or actualization and is very close in meaning to the
Aristotelian use of the word form. The soul then, according to
Aristotle, is the realization or actualization or form of the body. The
body takes the place of matter in the human composite. It has the
composition and the structure which give it the capacity for performing
the functions of a human being, as in any other composite, say an axe,
the steel is the matter which has the potentiality or capacity of being
made into a cutting instrument. Its cutting function is the form of the
axe--we might almost say the soul of the axe, if it were not for the
circumstance that it cannot do its own cutting; it must be wielded by
someone else.

So far then the human soul forms an inseparable unit with the body which
it informs. As we do not think of the cutting function of an axe
existing apart from the axe, so neither can we conceive of sensation,
emotion or memory as existing without a body. In so far as the soul is
this it is a material form like the rest, and ceases with the
dissolution of the body. But the soul is more than this. It is also a
thinking faculty. As such it is not in its essence dependent upon the
body or any corporeal organ. It comes from without, having existed
before the body, and it will continue to exist after the body is no
more. That it is different from the sensitive soul is proven by the fact
that the latter is inherent in the physical organ through which it acts,
being the form of the body, as we have seen. And hence when an unusually
violent stimulus, say a very bright light or a very loud sound, impinges
upon the sense organ, the faculty of sight or hearing is injured to such
an extent that it cannot thereafter perceive an ordinary sight or sound.
But in the rational faculty this is not the case. The more intense the
thought occupying the thinking soul, the more capable it becomes of
thinking lesser thoughts. To be sure, the reason seems to weaken in old
age, but this is due to the weakening of the body with which the soul is
connected during life; the soul itself is just as active as ever.

We must, however, distinguish between two aspects of the rational soul,
to one of which alone the above statements apply. Thought differs from
sensation in that the latter perceives the particular form of the
individual thing, whereas the former apprehends the essential nature of
the object, that which constitutes it a member of a certain class. The
sense of sight perceives a given individual man; thought or reason
understands what it is to be a member of the human species. Reason
therefore deals with pure form. In man we observe the reason gradually
developing from a potential to an actual state. The objects of the sense
with the help of the faculties of sensation, memory and imagination act
upon the potential intellect of the child, which without them would
forever remain a mere capacity without ever being realized. This aspect
of the reason then in man, namely, the passive aspect which receives
ideas, grows and dies with the body. But there is another aspect of the
reason, the active reason which has nothing to do with the body, though
it is in some manner resident in it during the life of the latter. This
it is which enables the passive intellect to become realized. For the
external objects as such are insufficient to endow the rational capacity
of the individual with actual ideas, any more than a surface can endow
the sense of sight with the sensation of color when there is no light.
It is the active intellect which develops the human capacity for
thinking and makes it active thought. This alone, the active intellect,
is the immortal part of man.

This very imperfect sketch of Aristotle's mode of approach to the
ever-living problems of God, the universe and man shows us the wide
diversity of his method from that with which the Jews of Biblical and
Rabbinic tradition were identified. Greek philosophy must have seemed a
revelation to them, and we do not wonder that they became such
enthusiastic followers of the Stagirite, feeling as they must have done
that his method as well as his results were calculated to enrich their
intellectual and spiritual life. Hence the current belief of an original
Jewish philosophy borrowed or stolen by the Greeks, and still betraying
its traces in the Bible and Talmud was more than welcome to the
enlightened spirits of the time. And they worked this unhistorical
belief to its breaking point in their Biblical exegesis.

Aristotle, however, was not their only master, though they did not know
it. Plotinus in Aristotelian disguise contributed not a little to their
conception of God and his relation to the universe. The so-called
"Theology of Aristotle"[25] is a Plotinian work, and its Pantheistic
point of view is in reality foreign to Aristotle's dualism. But the
middle ages were not aware of the origin of this treatise, and so they
attributed it to the Stagirite philosopher and proceeded to harmonize it
with the rest of his system as they knew it.

Aristotle's system may be called theistic and dualistic; Plotinus's is
pantheistic and monistic. In Aristotle matter is not created by or
derived from God, who is external to the universe. Plotinus derives
everything from God, who through his powers or activities pervades all.
The different gradations of being are static in Aristotle, dynamic in
Plotinus. Plotinus assumes an absolute cause, which he calls the One and
the Good. This is the highest and is at the top of the scale of
existence. It is superior to Being as well as to Thought, for the latter
imply a duality whereas unity is prior to and above all plurality. Hence
we can know nothing as to the nature of the Highest. We can know only
_that_ He is, not _what_ he is. From this highest Being proceeds by a
physical necessity, as light from a luminous body or water from an
overflowing spring, a second _hypostasis_ or substance, the _nous_ or
Reason. This is a duality, constituting Being and Knowledge. Thus
Thought and Being hold a second place in the universe. In a similar way
from Reason proceeds the third hypostasis or the _World-Soul_. This
stands midway between the intelligible world, of which it is the last,
and the phenomenal world, of which it is the first. The Soul has a dual
aspect, the one spiritual and pertaining to the intelligible world, the
other, called _Nature_, residing in the lower world. This is the
material world of change and decay. Matter is responsible for all change
and evil, and yet matter, too, is a product of the powers above it, and
is ultimately a derivative of the Absolute Cause, though indirectly.
Matter is two-fold, intelligible and sensible. The matter of the lower
world is the non-existent and the cause of evil. Matter in a more
general sense is the indeterminate, the indefinite and the potential.
Matter of this nature is found also in the intelligible world. The
Reason as the second hypostasis, being an activity, passes from
potentiality to actuality, its indeterminateness being made determinate
by the One or the Good. This potentiality and indeterminateness is
matter, but it is not to be confused with the other matter of the
phenomenal world.

Man partakes of the intelligible, as well as of the sensible world. His
body is material, and in so far forth partakes of the evil of matter.
But his soul is derived from the universal soul, and if it conducts
itself properly in this world, whither it came from without, and holds
itself aloof from bodily contamination, it will return to the
intelligible world where is its home.

We see here a number of ideas foreign to Aristotle, which are found
first in Philo the Jew and appear later in mediæval philosophy. Thus God
as a Being absolutely unknowable, of whom negations alone are true just
because he is the acme of perfection and bears no analogy to the
imperfect things of our world; matter in our world as the origin of
evil, and the existence of matter in the intelligible world--all these
ideas will meet us again in Ibn Gabirol, in Ibn Daud, in Maimonides,
some in one, some in the other.

Alike in respect to Aristotle as in reference to Plotinus, the Jewish
philosophers found their models in Islamic writers. The "Theology of
Aristotle" which, as we have seen, is really Plotinian rather than
Aristotelian, was translated into Arabic in the ninth century and
exerted its influence on the _Brethren of Purity_, a Mohammedan secret
order of the tenth century. These men composed an encyclopædia of
fifty-one treatises in which is combined Aristotelian logic and physics
with Neo-Platonic metaphysics and theology. In turn such Jewish writers
as Ibn Gabirol, Bahya, Ibn Zaddik, Judah Halevi, Moses and Abraham Ibn
Ezra, were much indebted to the Brethren of Purity. This represents the
Neo-Platonic influence in Jewish philosophy. The Arab Aristotelians, Al
Kindi, Al Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes, while in the main disciples of
the Stagirite, were none the less unable to steer clear of Neo-Platonic
coloring of their master's doctrine, and they were the teachers of the
Jewish Aristotelians, Abraham Ibn Daud, Moses ben Maimon, Levi ben
Gerson.

One other phase must be mentioned to complete the parallelism of Islamic
and Jewish philosophy, and that is the anti-philosophic attitude adopted
by Judah Halevi and Hasdai Crescas. It was not a dogmatic and unreasoned
opposition based simply upon the un-Jewish source of the doctrines in
question and their incompatibility with Jewish belief and tradition,
such as exhibited itself in the controversies that raged around the
"Guide" of Maimonides. Here we have rather a fighting of the
philosophers with their own weapons. Especially do we find this to be
the case in Crescas who opposes Aristotle on philosophic grounds. In
Judah Halevi similarly, though with less rigor and little technical
discussion, we have nevertheless a man trained in philosophic
literature, who found the philosophic attitude unsympathetic and
unsatisfying because cold and impersonal, failing to do justice to the
warm yearning after God of the religious soul. He could not abide the
philosophic exclusion from their natural theology of all that was racial
and national and historic in religion, which was to him its very heart
and innermost essence.

In this attitude, too, we find an Arab prototype in the person of Al
Gazali, who similarly attacked the philosophers on their own ground and
found his consolation in the asceticism and mysticism of the Sufis.

We have now spoken in a general way of the principal motives of mediæval
Jewish philosophy, of the chief sources, philosophical and dogmatic, and
have classified the Jewish thinkers accordingly as Mutakallimun,
Neo-Platonists and Aristotelians. We also sketched briefly the schools
of philosophy which influenced the Jewish writers and determined their
point of view as Kalamistic, Neo-Platonic or Aristotelian. There still
remains as the concluding part of the introductory chapter, and before
we take up the detailed exposition of the individual philosophers, to
give a brief and compendious characterization of the content of mediæval
Jewish philosophy. We shall start with the theory of knowledge.

We have already referred to the attitude generally adopted by the
mediæval Jewish thinkers on the relation between religion and
philosophy. With the exception of Judah Halevi and Hasdai Crescas the
commonly accepted view was that philosophy and religion were at bottom
identical in content, though their methods were different; philosophy
taught by means of rational demonstration, religion by dogmatic
assertion based upon divine revelation. So far as the actual
philosophical views of an Aristotle were concerned, they might be
erroneous in some of their details, as was indeed the case in respect to
the origin of the world and the question of Providence. But apart from
his errors he was an important guide, and philosophy generally is an
indispensable adjunct to religious belief because it makes the latter
intelligent. It explains the why's and the wherefore's of religious
traditions and dogmas. Into detailed discussions concerning the origin
of our knowledge they did not as a rule go. These strictly scientific
questions did not concern, except in a very general way, the main object
of their philosophizing, which was to gain true knowledge of God and his
attributes and his relation to man. Accordingly we find for the most
part a simple classification of the sources of knowledge or truth as
consisting of the senses and the reason. The latter contains some truths
which may be called innate or immediate, such as require no experience
for their recognition, like the logical laws of thought, and truths
which are the result of inference from a fact of sensation or an
immediate truth of the mind. To these human sources was added tradition
or the testimony of the revealed word of God in the written and oral
law.

When Aristotle began to be studied in his larger treatises and the
details of the psychology and the metaphysics became known especially
through Averroes, we find among the Jews also an interest in the finer
points of the problem of knowledge. The motives of Plato's idealism and
Aristotle's conceptualism (if this inexact description may be allowed
for want of a more precise term) are discussed with fulness and detail
by Levi ben Gerson. He realizes the difficulty involved in the problem.
Knowledge must be of the real and the permanent. But the particular is
not permanent, and the universal, which is permanent, is not real. Hence
either there is no knowledge or there is a reality corresponding to the
universal concept. This latter was the view adopted by Plato. Gersonides
finds the reality in the thoughts of the Active Intellect, agreeing in
this with the views of Philo and Augustine, substituting only the Active
Intellect for their Logos. Maimonides does not discuss the question, but
it is clear from a casual statement that like Aristotle he does not
believe in the independent reality of the universal (Guide III, 18).

In theoretical physics the Arabian Mutakallimun, we have seen (p. xxii),
laid great stress on the theory of atom and accident as opposed to the
concepts of matter and form by which Aristotle was led to believe in the
eternity of the world. Accordingly every Mutakallim laid down his
physical theory and based on it his proof of creation. This method was
followed also by the early Jewish thinkers. The Karaites before
Maimonides adopted the atomic theory without question. And Aaron ben
Elijah, who had Maimonides's "Guide" before him, was nevertheless
sufficiently loyal to his Karaite predecessors to discuss their views
side by side with those of the Aristotelians and to defend them against
the strictures of Maimonides. Saadia, the first Rabbanite philosopher,
discusses no less than thirteen erroneous views concerning the origin
and nature of the world, but he does not lay down any principles of
theoretical physics explicitly. He does not seem to favor the atomic
theory, but he devotes no special treatment to the subject, and in his
arguments for creation as opposed to eternity he makes use of the
Kalamistic concepts of substance and accident and composition and
division. The same is true of Bahya Ibn Pakuda. Joseph Ibn Zaddik is
the first who finds it necessary to give an independent treatment of the
sciences before proceeding to construct his religious philosophy, and in
so doing he expounds the concepts of matter and form, substance and
accident, genesis and destruction, the four elements and their natures
and so on--all these Aristotelian concepts. Ibn Daud follows in the path
of Ibn Zaddik and discusses the relevant concepts of potentiality and
actuality and the nature of motion and infinity, upon which his proof is
based of the existence of God. Maimonides clears the ground first by a
thorough criticism and refutation of the Kalamistic physics, but he does
not think it necessary to expound the Aristotelian views which he
adopts. He refers the reader to the original sources in the Physics and
Metaphysics of Aristotle, and contents himself with giving a list of
principles which he regards as established. Aristotle is now the master
of all those who know. And he reigns supreme for over a century until
the appearance of the "Or Adonai" of Hasdai Crescas, who ventured to
deny some of the propositions upon which Maimonides based his proof of
the existence of God--such, for example, as the impossibility of an
infinite magnitude, the non-existence of an infinite fulness or vacuum
outside of the limits of our world, the finiteness of our world and its
unity, and so on.

These discussions of the fundamental principles of physics were applied
ultimately to prove the existence of God. But there was a difference in
the manner of the application. During the earlier period before the
"Emunah Ramah" of Abraham Ibn Daud was written, the method employed was
that of the Arabian Mutakallimun. That is, the principles of physics
were used to prove the creation of the world in time, and from creation
inference was made to the existence of a Creator, since nothing can
create itself. The creation itself in time as opposed to eternity was
proved from the fact of the composite character of the world.
Composition, it was said, implies the prior existence of the constituent
elements, and the elements cannot be eternal, for an infinite past time
is unthinkable. This method is common to Saadia, Bahya, Joseph Ibn
Zaddik, and others.

With the appearance of Ibn Daud's masterpiece, which exhibits a more
direct familiarity with the fundamental ideas of Aristotle, the method
changed. The existence of God is proved directly from physics without
the mediation of the doctrine of creation. Motion proves a mover, and to
avoid an infinite regress we must posit an unmoved mover, that is, a
first mover who is not himself moved at the same time. An unmoved mover
cannot be corporeal, hence he is the spiritual being whom we call God.
Ibn Daud does not make use of creation to prove the existence of God,
but neither does he posit eternal motion as Aristotle does. And the
result is that he has no valid proof that this unmoved mover is a pure
spirit not in any way related to body. This defect was made good by
Maimonides. Let us frankly adopt tentatively, he says, the Aristotelian
idea of the eternity of the world, _i. e._, the eternity of matter and
motion. We can then prove the existence of an unmoved mover who is pure
spirit, for none but a pure spirit can have an infinite force such as is
manifested in the eternal motion of the world. Creation cannot be
demonstrated with scientific rigor, hence it is not safe to build so
important a structure as the existence of God upon an insecure
foundation. Show that eternity of the world leads to God, and you are
safe no matter what the ultimate truth turns out to be concerning the
origin of the world. For if the world originated in time there is no
doubt that God made it.

Thus Maimonides accepted provisionally the eternity of matter and
motion, but provisionally only. No sooner did he prove his point, than
he takes up the question of the world's origin and argues that while
strict demonstration there is as yet none either for or against
creation, the better reasons are on the side of creation.

Gersonides, on the other hand, was a truer Aristotelian than Maimonides
and he decided in favor of the eternity of matter, though not of this
our world.

The Jewish Mutakallimun, as we have seen, proved the existence of God
from the fact that a created world implies a creator. The next step was
to show that there is only one God, and that this one God is simple and
not composite, and that he is incorporeal. The unity in the sense of
uniqueness was shown by pointing out that dualism or pluralism is
incompatible with omnipotence and perfection--attributes the possession
of which by God was not considered to require proof. Maimonides, indeed,
pointed out, in his opposition to the Mutakallimun, that if there is a
plurality of worlds, a plurality of Gods would not necessarily be in
conflict with the omnipotence and perfection of each God in his own
sphere (Guide I, 75), and he inferred the unity of God from his
spirituality.

The simplicity of God was proved by arguing that if he is composite, his
parts are prior to him, and he is neither the first, nor is he eternal,
and hence not God; and the incorporeality followed from his simplicity,
for all body is composite. Maimonides proved with one stroke God's
existence, unity and incorporeality. For his argument from motion leads
him to conceive of the first mover as a "separate" form or intellect.
This clearly denotes incorporeality, for body is composed of matter and
form. But it also denotes unity, for the immaterial is not subject to
numerical distinction unless the one be the cause and the other the
effect. But in that case the cause alone is God.

Next in importance to the proof of God's existence, unity and
incorporeality, is the doctrine of attributes. We have seen (p. xxiii)
how much emphasis the Arabian Mutakallimun placed upon the problem of
attributes. It was important to Jew, Christian and Mohammedan alike for
a number of reasons. The crude anthropomorphism of many expressions in
the Bible as well as the Koran offended the more sophisticated thinkers
ever since Alexandrian days. Hence it was necessary to deal with this
question, and the unanimous view was that the Biblical expressions in
question are to be understood as figures of speech. The more difficult
problem was how any predicates at all can be applied to God without
endangering his unity. If God is the possessor of many qualities, even
though they be purely spiritual, such as justice, wisdom, power, he is
composite and not simple. The Christian theologians found indeed in this
problem of attributes a philosophical support for the doctrine of the
Trinity. Since God cannot be devoid of power, reason and life, he is
trinitarian, though he is one. The difficulty was of course that the
moment you admit distinctions within the Godhead, there is no reason for
stopping at three. And the Jewish critics were not slow to recognize
this weakness in the system of their opponents. At the same time they
found it necessary to take up a positive attitude toward the question of
attributes so as to harmonize the latter with God's absolute unity. And
the essence of the solution of the problem was to explain away the
attributes. Saadia says that the ascription of life, power and
knowledge to God does not involve plurality in his essence. The
distinction of three attributes is due to our limited mind and
inadequate powers of expression. In reality the essence of which we
predicate these attributes is one and simple. This solution did not seem
thoroughgoing enough to Saadia's successors, and every one of the Jewish
philosophers tried his hand at the problem. All agreed that the
attributes cannot apply to God in the same signification as they have
when we use them in our own experience. The meaning of the term
attribute was investigated and the attributes were divided into classes,
until finally in the system of Maimonides this question too received its
classical solution. God is conceived as absolutely transcendent and
unknowable. No positive predicate can apply to him so as to indicate his
essence. We can say only what he is not, we cannot say what he is. There
is not the faintest resemblance between him and his creatures. And yet
he is the cause of the world and of all its happenings. Positive
attributes signify only that God is the cause of the experiences denoted
by the attributes in question. When we say God is just we mean that he
is not unjust, and that he is the cause of all justice in the world.
Hence Maimonides says there are no essential attributes, meaning
attributes expressive of God's essence, and the only predicates having
application are negative and such as designate effects of God's causal
activity in the world. Gersonides was opposed to Maimonides's radical
agnosticism in respect of the nature of God, and defended a more human
view. If God is pure thought, he is of the nature of our thought, though
of course infinitely greater and perfect, but to deny any relation
whatsoever between God's thought and ours, as Maimonides does, is
absurd.

From God we pass to man. And the important part of man is his soul. It
is proved that man has a soul, that the soul is not material or
corporeal, that it is a substantial entity and not a mere quality or
accident of the body. Both Plato and Aristotle are laid under
contribution in the various classifications of the soul that are found
in Saadia, in Joseph Ibn Zaddik, in Judah Halevi, in Abraham Ibn Daud,
in Maimonides. The commonest is the three-fold division into vegetative,
animal and rational. We also find the Platonic division into appetitive,
spirited and rational. Further psychological details and descriptions of
the senses, external and internal, the latter embracing the common
sense, memory, imagination and judgment, are ultimately based upon
Aristotle and are found in Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daud and
Maimonides, who derived them from Avicenna and Alfarabi. In the
Neo-Platonic writers, such as Isaac Israeli, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Joseph
Ibn Zaddik, Moses Ibn Ezra, Pseudo-Bahya, Abraham Bar Hiyya, and so on,
we also find reference to the World Soul and its emanation from
Intelligence. In the conception of the human soul the Jewish
philosophers vary from the Platonic view, related to the Biblical, that
the soul is a distinct entity coming into the body from a spiritual
world, and acting in the body by using the latter as its instrument, to
the Aristotelian view that at least so far as the lower faculties of
sense, memory and imagination are concerned, the soul is the form of the
body, and disappears with the death of the latter. The human unit,
according to this opinion, is body-and-mind, and the human activities
are psycho-physical and not purely psychical as they are according to
Plato. Some writers occupying intermediate positions combine unwittingly
the Platonic and Aristotelian views, or rather they use Aristotelian
expressions and interpret them Platonically (Saadia, Joseph Ibn Zaddik,
Hillel ben Samuel).

As the influence of the Arab Aristotelians, Alfarabi, Avicenna and
especially Averroes, began to make itself felt, the discussions about
the Active Intellect and its relation to the higher Intelligences on the
one hand and to the human intellect on the other found their way also
among the Jews and had their effect on the conception of prophecy.
Aristotle's distinction of an active and a passive intellect in man, and
his ideas about the spheral spirits as pure Intelligences endowing the
heavenly spheres with their motions, were combined by the Arabian
Aristotelians with the Neo-Platonic theory of emanation. The result was
that they adopted as Aristotelian the view that from God emanated in
succession ten Intelligences and their spheres. Thus the first emanation
was the first Intelligence. From this emanated the sphere of the fixed
stars moved by it and the second Intelligence. From this emanated in
turn the sphere of Saturn and the third Intelligence, and so on through
the seven planets to the moon. From the Intelligence of the lunar sphere
emanated the Active Intellect and the sublunar spheres of the four
elements. These Intelligences were identified with the angels of
Scripture. With some modifications this theory was adopted by the
Jewish Aristotelians, Abraham Ibn Daud, Maimonides, Levi ben Gerson.

The Active Intellect was thus placed among the universal Intelligences
whose function it is to control the motions of the sublunar world, and
in particular to develop the human faculty of reason which is in the
infant a mere capacity--a material intellect. Sensation and experience
alone are not sufficient to develop the theoretical reason in man, for
they present concrete, individual material objects, whereas the reason
is concerned with universal truth. The conversion of sense experience
into immaterial concepts is accomplished through the aid of the Active
Intellect. And at the end of the process a new intellect is produced in
man, the Acquired Intellect. This alone is the immortal part of man and
theoretical study creates it. Averroes believed that this Acquired
Intellect exists separately in every individual so long only as the
individual is alive. As soon as the individual man dies, his acquired
intellect loses its individuality (there being no material body to
individuate it) and there is only one acquired intellect for the entire
human species, which in turn is absorbed into the Active Intellect.
There is thus no individual immortality. Maimonides, it would seem,
though he does not discuss the question in his "Guide," shared the same
view. Gersonides devotes an entire book of his "Milhamot Adonai" to this
problem, but he defends individuation of the acquired intellect as such
and thus saves personal immortality.

The practical part of philosophy, ethics, the Mutakallimun among the
Arabians discussed in connection with the justice of God. In opposition
to the Jabariya and the Ashariya who advocated a fatalistic determinism
denying man's ability to determine his own actions, some going so far as
to say that right and wrong, good and evil, are entirely relative to
God's will, the Muʿtazila insisted that man is free, that good and evil
are absolute and that God is just because justice is inherently right,
injustice inherently wrong. Hence reward and punishment would be unjust
if man had not the freedom to will and to act. The Karaites Joseph Al
Basir and Jeshua ben Judah discuss the problem of the nature of good and
evil and vindicate their absolute character. God desires the good
because it is good, and it is not true that a thing is good because God
has commanded it. Freedom of man is a corollary of the goodness of God.
The Rabbanites take it for granted that good is good inherently, and
God desires and commands it because it is identical with his wisdom and
his will. Freedom of man does follow as a corollary from the justice of
God and it is also taught in the Bible and the Talmud. The very fact of
the existence of a divine law and commandments shows that man has
freedom. And those passages in Scripture which seem to suggest that God
sometimes interferes with man's freedom are explained away by
interpretations _ad hoc_. Our own consciousness of power to determine
our acts also is a strong argument in favor of freedom. Nevertheless the
subject is felt to have its difficulties and the arguments against free
will taken from the causal sequences of natural events and the influence
of heredity, environment and motive on the individual will are not
ignored. Judah Halevi as well as Abraham Ibn Daud discuss these
arguments in detail. But freedom comes out triumphant. It is even sought
to reconcile the antinomy of freedom vs. God's foreknowledge. God knows
beforehand from all eternity how a given man will act at a given moment,
but his knowledge is merely a mirror of man's actual decision and not
the determining cause thereof. This is Judah Halevi's view. Abraham Ibn
Daud with better insight realizes that the contingent, which has no
cause, and the free act, which is undetermined, are as such
unpredictable. He therefore sacrifices God's knowledge of the contingent
and the free so as to save man's freedom. It is no defect, he argues,
not to be able to predict what is in the nature of the case
unpredictable. Maimonides cannot admit any ignorance in God, and takes
refuge in the transcendent character of God's knowledge. What is
unpredictable for us is not necessarily so for God. As he is the cause
of everything, he must know everything. Gersonides who, as we have seen,
is unwilling to admit Maimonides's agnosticism and transcendentalism,
solves the problem in the same way as Ibn Daud. God knows events in so
far as they are determined, he does not know them in so far as they are
contingent. There is still another possibility and that is that God
knows in advance every man's acts because no act is absolutely free. And
there is an advocate of this opinion also. Hasdai Crescas frankly adopts
the determinist position on the basis of God's knowledge, which cannot
be denied, as well as of reason and experience, which recognizes the
determining character of temperament and motive. But reward and
punishment are natural and necessary consequences, and are no more
unjust than is the burning of the finger when put into the fire.

In respect to the details of ethical doctrine and the classification of
the virtues, we find at first the Platonic virtues and their relation to
the parts of the soul, in Saadia, Pseudo-Bahya, Joseph Ibn Zaddik and
even Abraham Ibn Daud. In combination with this Platonic basis
expression is given also to the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean.
Maimonides, as in other things, so here also, adopts the Aristotelian
views almost in their entirety, both in the definition of virtue, in the
division of practical and intellectual virtues, and the list of the
virtues and vices in connection with the doctrine of the mean. As is to
be expected, the ultimate sanction of ethics is theistic and Biblical,
and the ceremonial laws also are brought into relation with ethical
motives. In this rationalization of the ceremonial prescriptions of
Scripture Maimonides, as in other things, surpasses all his predecessors
in his boldness, scientific method and completeness. He goes so far as
to suggest that the institution of sacrifice has no inherent value, but
was in the nature of a concession to the crude notions of the people
who, in agreement with their environment, imagined that God's favor is
obtained by the slaughter of animals.

Among the peculiar phenomena of religion, and in particular of Judaism,
the one that occupies a fundamental position is the revelation of God's
will to man and his announcement of the future through prophetic
visions. Dreams and divination had already been investigated by
Aristotle and explained psychologically. The Arabs made use of this
suggestion and endeavored to bring the phenomenon of prophecy under the
same head. The Jewish philosophers, with the exception of Judah Halevi
and Hasdai Crescas, followed suit. The suggestion that prophecy is a
psychological phenomenon related to true dreams is found as early as
Isaac Israeli. Judah Halevi mentions it with protest. Abraham Ibn Daud
adopts it, and Maimonides gives it its final form in Jewish
rationalistic philosophy. Levi ben Gerson discusses the finer details of
the process, origin and nature of prophetic visions. In short the
generally accepted view is that the Active Intellect is the chief agent
in communicating true visions of future events to those worthy of the
gift. And to become worthy a combination of innate and acquired powers
is necessary together with the grace of God. The faculties chiefly
concerned are reason and imagination. Moral excellence is also an
indispensable prerequisite in aiding the development of the theoretical
powers.

Proceeding to the more dogmatic elements of Judaism, Maimonides was the
first to reduce the 613 commandments of Rabbinic Judaism to thirteen
articles of faith. Hasdai Crescas criticised Maimonides's principle of
selection as well as the list of dogmas, which he reduced to six. And
Joseph Albo went still further and laid down three fundamental dogmas
from which the rest are derived. They are the existence of God,
revelation of the Torah and future reward and punishment.

The law of Moses is unanimously accepted as divinely revealed. And in
opposition to the claims of Christianity and Mohammedanism an endeavor
is made to prove by reason as well as the explicit statement of
Scripture that a divine law once given is not subject to repeal. The
laws are divided into two classes, _rational_ and _traditional_; the
former comprising those that the reason approves on purely rational and
ethical grounds, while the latter consist of such ceremonial laws as
without specific commandment would not be dictated by man's own reason.
And in many of these commandments no reason is assigned. Nevertheless an
endeavor is made to rationalize these also. Bahya introduced another
distinction, viz., the "duties of the heart," as he calls them, in
contradistinction to the "duties of the limbs." He lays stress on
intention and motive as distinguished from the mere external observance
of a duty or commandment.

Finally, some consideration is given in the works of the majority of the
writers to eschatological matters, such as the destiny of the soul after
death, the nature of future reward and punishment, the resurrection of
the body and the Messianic period, and its relation to the other world.
This brief sketch will suffice as an introduction to the detailed
treatment of the individual philosophers in the following chapters.




A HISTORY OF MEDIÆVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY




MEDIÆVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY




CHAPTER I

ISAAC ISRAELI


We know next to nothing about the condition of the Jews in Mohammedan
Egypt in the ninth and tenth centuries. But the fact that the two first
Jewish writers who busied themselves with philosophical problems came
from Egypt would indicate that the general level of intellectual culture
among the Jews at that time was not so low as the absence of literary
monuments would lead us to believe. Every one knows of Saadia, the first
Hebrew grammarian, the first Hebrew lexicographer, the first Bible
translator and exegete, the first Jewish philosopher of mediæval Jewry.
He was born in Egypt and from there was called to the Gaonate of Sura in
Babylonia. But not so well known is his earlier contemporary, Isaac ben
Solomon Israeli, who also was born in Egypt and from there went later to
Kairuan, where he was court physician to several of the Fatimide Califs.
The dates of his birth and death are not known with certainty, but he is
said to have lived to the age of one hundred years, and to have survived
the third Fatimide Calif Al-Mansur, who died in 953. Accordingly we may
assume the years of his birth and death as 855 and 955 respectively.

His fame rests on his work in theory and practice as a physician; and as
such he is mentioned by the Arab annalists and historians of
medicine.[26] To the Christian scholastics of mediæval Europe he is
known as the Jewish physician and philosopher next in importance to
Maimonides.[27] This is due to the accident of his works having been
translated into Latin by Constantinus Afer,[28] and thus made accessible
to men like Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas and
others. For his intrinsic merits as a philosopher, and particularly as a
Jewish philosopher, do not by any means entitle him to be coupled with
Maimonides. The latter, indeed, in a letter which he wrote to Samuel
Ibn Tibbon, the translator of the "Guide of the Perplexed," expresses
himself in terms little flattering concerning Israeli's worth as a
philosopher.[29] He is a mere physician, Maimonides says, and his
treatises on the _Elements_, and on _Definitions_ consist of windy
imaginings and empty talk. We need not be quite as severe in our
judgment, but the fact remains that Israeli is little more than a
compiler and, what is more to the purpose, he takes no attitude in his
philosophical writings to Judaism as a theological doctrine or to the
Bible as its source. The main problem, therefore, of Jewish philosophy
is not touched upon in Israeli's works, and no wonder Maimonides had no
use for them. For the purely scientific questions treated by Israeli
could in Maimonides's day be studied to much better advantage in the
works of the great Arabian Aristotelians, Al Farabi and Avicenna,
compared to whom Israeli was mediocre. We are not to judge him, however,
from Maimonides's point of view. In his own day and generation he was
surpassed by none as a physician; and Saadia alone far outstrips him as
a Jewish writer, and perhaps also David Al Mukammas, of whom we shall
speak later. Whatever may be said of the intrinsic value of the content
of his philosophical work, none can take away from him the merit of
having been the first Jew, so far as we know, to devote himself to
philosophical and scientific discussions, though not with the avowed aim
of serving Judaism. The rest was bound to come later as a result of the
impulse first given by him.

The two works of Israeli which come in consideration for our purpose are
those mentioned by Maimonides in his letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon spoken
of above, namely, the "Book of the Elements,"[30] and the "Book of
Definitions."[31] Like all scientific and philosophic works by Jews
between the ninth and thirteenth centuries with few exceptions, these
were written in Arabic. Unfortunately, with the exception of a fragment
recently discovered of the "Book of Definitions," the originals are
lost, and we owe our knowledge of their contents to Hebrew and Latin
translations, which are extant and have been published.[32] We see from
these that Israeli was a compiler from various sources, and that he had
a special predilection for Galen and Hippocrates, with whose writings he
shows great familiarity. He makes use besides of Aristotelian notions,
and is influenced by the Neo-Platonic treatise, known as the "Liber de
Causis," and derived from a work of Proclus. It is for this reason
difficult to characterize his standpoint, but we shall not go far wrong
if we call him a Neo-Platonist, for reasons which will appear in the
sequel.

It would be useless for us here to reproduce the contents of Israeli's
two treatises, which would be more appropriate for a history of mediæval
science. A brief _résumé_ will show the correctness of this view. In his
"Book of the Elements" Israeli is primarily concerned with a definite
physical problem, the definition of an element, and the number and
character of the elements out of which the sublunar world is made. He
begins with an Aristotelian definition of element, analyzes it into its
parts and comes to the conclusion that the elements are the four
well-known ones, fire, air, water, earth. Incidentally he seizes
opportunities now and then, sometimes by force, to discuss points in
logic, physics, physiology and psychology. Thus the composition of the
human body, the various modes in which a thing may come into being, that
the yellow and black galls and the phlegm are resident in the blood, the
purpose of phlebotomy, the substantial character of prime form, that the
soul is not an accident, the two kinds of blood in the body, the various
kinds of "accident," the nature of a "property" and the manner in which
it is caused--all these topics are discussed in the course of proof that
the four elements are fire, air, water, earth, and not seed or the
qualities of heat, cold, dryness and moisture. He then quotes the
definitions of Galen and Hippocrates and insists that though the wording
is different the meaning is the same as that of Aristotle, and hence
they all agree about the identity of the elements. Here again he takes
occasion to combat the atomic theory of the _Muʿtazila_ and Democritus,
and proves that a line is not composed of points. In the last part of
the treatise he refutes contrary opinions concerning the number and
identity of the elements, such as that there is only one element which
is movable or immovable, finite or infinite, namely, the power of God,
or species, or fire, or air, or water, or earth; or that the number is
two, matter and God; or three, matter, form and motion; or six, viz.,
the four which he himself adopts, and composition and separation; or the
number ten, which is the end and completion of number. In the course of
this discussion he takes occasion to define pain and pleasure, the
nature of species, the difference between element and principle. And
thus the book draws to a close. Not very promising material this, it
would seem, for the ideas of which we are in search.

The other book, that dealing with definitions of things, is more
promising. For while there too we do not find any connected account of
God, of the world and of man, Israeli's general attitude can be gathered
from the manner in which he explains some important concepts. The book,
as its title indicates, consists of a series of definitions or
descriptions of certain terms and ideas made use of by philosophers in
their construction of their scheme of the world--such ideas and terms as
Intelligence, science, philosophy, soul, sphere, spirit, nature, and so
on. From these we may glean some information of the school to which
Israeli belongs. And in the "Book of the Elements," too, some of the
episodic discussions are of value for our purpose.

Philosophy, Israeli tells us, is self-knowledge and keeping far from
evil. When a man knows himself truly--his spiritual as well as his
corporeal aspects--he knows everything. For in man are combined the
corporeal and the spiritual. Spiritual is the soul and the reason,
corporeal is the body with its three dimensions. In his qualities and
attributes--"accidents" in the terminology of Israeli--we similarly find
the spiritual as well as the corporeal. Humility, wisdom and other
similar qualities borne by the soul are spiritual; complexion, stature,
and so on are corporeal. Seeing that man thus forms an epitome, as it
were, of the universe (for spiritual and corporeal substance and
accident exhausts the classes of existence in the world), a knowledge of
self means a knowledge of everything, and a man who knows all this is
worthy of being called a philosopher.

But philosophy is more than knowledge; it involves also action. The
formula which reveals the nature and aim of philosophy is to become like
unto God as far as is possible for man. This means to imitate the
activities of God in knowing the realities of things and doing what the
truth requires. To know the realities of things one must study science
so as to know the various causes and purposes existing in the world. The
most important of these is the purpose of the union in man of body and
soul. This is in order that man may know reality and truth, and
distinguish between good and evil, so as to do what is true and just and
upright, to sanctify and praise the Creator and to keep from impure
deeds of the animal nature. A man who does this will receive reward
from the Creator, which consists in cleaving to the upper soul, in
receiving light from the light of knowledge, and the beauty of splendor
and wisdom. When a man reaches this degree, he becomes spiritual by
cleaving to the created light which comes directly from God, and
praising the Creator. This is his paradise and his reward and
perfection. Hence Plato said that philosophy is the strengthening and
the help of death. He meant by this that philosophy helps to deaden all
animal desires and pleasures. For by being thus delivered from them, a
man will reach excellence and the higher splendor, and will enter the
house of truth. But if he indulges his animal pleasures and desires and
they become strengthened, he will become subject to agencies which will
lead him astray from the duties he owes to God, from fear of him and
from prayer at the prescribed time.

We look in vain in Israeli's two treatises for a discussion of the
existence and nature of God. Concerning creation he tells us that when
God wanted to show his wisdom and bring everything from potentiality to
actuality, he created the world out of nothing, not after a model (this
in opposition to Plato and Philo), nor for the purpose of deriving any
benefit from it or to obviate harm, but solely on account of his
goodness.

But how did the creation proceed? A fragment from the treatise of
Israeli entitled "The Book of Spirit and Soul"[33] will give us in
summary fashion an idea of the manner in which Israeli conceived of the
order and connection of things in the world.

In the name of the ancients he gives the following account. God created
a splendor. This having come to a standstill and real permanence, a
spark of light proceeded from it, from which arose the power of the
rational soul. This is less bright than the splendor of the Intelligence
and is affected with shadow and darkness by reason of its greater
distance from its origin, and the intervening Intelligence. The rational
soul again becoming permanent and fixed, there issued from it likewise a
spark, giving rise to the animal soul. This latter is endowed with a
cogitative and imaginative faculty, but is not permanent in its
existence, because of the two intervening natures between it and the
pure light of God. From the animal soul there likewise issued a
splendor, which produced the vegetative soul. This soul, being so far
removed from the original light, and separated from it by the
Intelligence and the other two souls, has its splendor dimmed and made
coarse, and is endowed only with the motions of growth and nourishment,
but is not capable of change of place. From the vegetative soul proceeds
again a splendor, from which is made the sphere (the heaven). This
becomes thickened and materialized so that it is accessible to the
sight. Motion being the nature of the sphere, one part of it pushes the
other, and from this motion results fire. From fire proceeds air; from
air, water; from water, earth. And from these elements arise minerals,
plants and animals.

Here we recognize the Neo-Platonic scheme of emanation as we saw it in
Plotinus, a gradual and successive emanation of the lower from the
higher in the manner of a ray of light radiating from a luminous body,
the successive radiations diminishing in brightness and spirituality
until when we reach the Sphere the process of obscuration has gone so
far as to make the product material and visible to the physical sense.
The Intelligence and the three Souls proceeding from it in order are
clearly not individual but cosmic, just as in Plotinus. The relation
between these cosmic hypostases, to use a Neo-Platonic term, and the
rational and psychic faculties in man Israeli nowhere explains, but we
must no doubt conceive of the latter as somehow contained in the former
and temporarily individualized, returning again to their source after
the dissolution of the body.

Let us follow Israeli further in his account of the nature of these
substances. The Intelligence is that which proceeds immediately from the
divine light without any immediate agency. It represents the permanent
ideas and principles--species in Israeli's terminology--which are not
subject to change or dissolution. The Intelligence contains them all in
herself eternally and immediately, and requires no searching or
reflection to reach them. When the Intelligence wishes to know anything
she returns into herself and finds it there without requiring thought or
reflection. We can illustrate this, he continues, in the case of a
skilful artisan who, when he wishes to make anything, retires into
himself and finds it there. There is a difference, however, in the two
cases, because Intelligence always knows its ideas without thought or
reflection, for it exists always and its ideas are not subject to change
or addition or diminution; whereas in the smith a difficulty may arise,
and then his soul is divided and he requires searching and thinking and
discrimination before he can realize what he desires.

What has been said so far applies very well to the cosmic Intelligence,
the νοῦς of the Neo-Platonists. It represents thought as embracing the
highest and most fundamental principles of existence, upon which all
mediate and discursive and inferential thinking depends. Its content
corresponds to the Ideas of Plato. But the further account of the
Intelligence must at least in a part of it refer to the individual human
faculty of that name, though Israeli gives us no indication where the
one stops and where the other begins.

He appeals to the authority of Aristotle for his division of
Intelligence into three kinds. First, the Intelligence which is always
actual. This is what has just been described. Second, the Intelligence
which is in the soul potentially before it becomes actual, like the
knowledge of the child which is at first potential, and when the child
grows up and learns and acquires knowledge, becomes actual. Third, that
which is described as the second Intelligence. It represents that state
of the soul in which it receives things from the senses. The senses
impress the forms of objects upon the imagination (φαντασία) which is in
the front part of the head. The imagination, or phantasy, takes them to
the rational soul. When the latter knows them, she becomes identical
with them spiritually and not corporeally.

We have seen above the Aristotelian distinction between the active
intellect and the passive. The account just given is evidently based
upon it, though it modifies Aristotle's analysis, or rather it enlarges
upon it. The first and second divisions in Israeli's account correspond
to Aristotle's active and passive intellects respectively. The third
class in Israeli represents the process of realization of the potential
or passive intellect through the sense stimuli on the one hand and the
influence of the active intellect on the other. Aristotle seems to have
left this intermediate state between the potential and the eternally
actual unnamed. We shall see, however, in our further study of this very
difficult and complicated subject how the classification of the various
intellects becomes more and more involved from Aristotle through
Alexander and Themistius down to Averroes and Levi ben Gerson. It is
sufficient for us to see here how Israeli combines Aristotelian
psychology, as later Aristotelian logic and physics, with Neo-Platonic
metaphysics and the theistic doctrine of creation. But more of this
hereafter.

From the Intelligence, as we have seen, proceeds the rational soul. In
his discussion of the general nature of the three-fold soul (rational,
animal and vegetative) Israeli makes the unhistoric but thoroughly
mediæval attempt to reconcile Aristotle's definition of the soul, which
we discussed above (p. xxxv), with that of Plato. The two conceptions
are in reality diametrically opposed. Plato's is an anthropological
dualism, Aristotle's, a monism. For Plato the soul is in its origin not
of this world and not in essential unity with the body, which it
controls as a sailor his boat. Aristotle conceives of the relation
between soul and body as one of form and matter; and there is no union
more perfect than that of these two constituent elements of all natural
substances. Decomposition is impossible. A given form may disappear, but
another form immediately takes its place. The combination of matter and
form is the essential condition of sublunar existence, hence there can
be no question of the soul entering or leaving the body, or of its
activity apart from the body.

But Israeli does not seem to have grasped Aristotle's meaning, and
ascribes to him the notion that the soul is a separate substance
perfecting the natural body, which has life potentially, meaning by this
that bodies have life potentially before the soul apprehends them; and
when the soul does apprehend them, it makes them perfect and living
actually. To be sure, he adds in the immediate sequel that he does not
mean temporal before and after, for things are always just as they were
created; and that his mode of expression is due to the impossibility of
conveying spiritual ideas in corporeal terms in any other way. This
merely signifies that the human body and its soul come into being
simultaneously. But he still regards them as distinct substances forming
only a passing combination. And with this pretended Aristotelian notion
he seeks to harmonize that of Plato, which he understands to mean not
that the soul enters the body, being clothed with it as with a garment,
and then leaves it, but that the soul apprehends bodies by clothing them
with its light and splendor, and thus makes them living and moving, as
the sun clothes the world with its light and illuminates it so that
sight can perceive it. The difference is that the light of the sun is
corporeal, and sight perceives it in the air by which it is borne;
whereas the light of the soul is spiritual, and intelligence alone can
perceive it, not the physical sense.

Among the conceptual terms in the Aristotelian logic few play a more
important part than those of substance and accident. Substance is that
which does not reside in anything else but is its own subject. It is an
independent existence and is the subject of accidents. The latter have
no existence independent of the substance in which they inhere. Thus of
the ten categories, in which Aristotle embraces all existing things, the
first includes all substances, as for example, man, city, stone. The
other nine come under the genus accident. Quantity, quality, relation,
time, place, position, possession, action, passion--all these represent
attributes which must have a substantial being to reside in. There is no
length or breadth, or color, or before or after, or here or there, and
so on except in a real object or thing. This then is the meaning of
accident as a logical or ontological term, and in this signification it
has nothing to do with the idea of chance. Clearly substance represents
the higher category, and accident is inferior, because dependent and
variable. Thus it becomes important to know in reference to any object
of investigation what is its status in this respect, whether it is
substance or accident.

The nature of the soul has been a puzzle to thinkers and philosophers
from time immemorial. Some thought it was a material substance, some
regarded it as spiritual. It was identified with the essence of number
by the Pythagoreans. And there have not been wanting those who, arguing
from its dependence upon body, said it was an accident and not a
substance. Strange to say the Mutakallimun, defenders of religion and
faith, held to this very opinion. But it is really no stranger than the
maintenance of the soul's materiality equally defended by other
religionists, like Tertullian for example, and the opposition to
Maimonides's spiritualism on the part of Abraham ben David of
Posquières. The Mutakallimun were led to their idea by the atomic
theory, which they found it politic to adopt as more amenable to
theological treatment than Aristotle's Matter and Form. It followed then
according to some of them that the fundamental unit was the material
atom which is without quality, and any power or activity in any atom or
group of atoms is a direct creation of God, which must be re-created
every moment in order to exist. This is the nature of accident, and it
makes more manifest the ever present activity of God in the world. Thus
the "substantial" or "accidental" character of the soul is one that is
touched on by most Jewish writers on the subject. And Israeli also
refers to the matter incidentally in the "Book of the Elements."[34]
Like the other Jewish philosophers he defends its substantiality.

The fact of its separability from the body, he says, is no proof of its
being an accident. For it is not the separability of an accident from
its substance that makes it an accident, but its destruction, when
separated. Thus when a white substance turns green, the white color is
not merely separated from its substance but ceases to exist. The soul is
not destroyed when it leaves the body.

Another argument to prove the soul a substance is this. If the soul were
an accident it should be possible for it to pass from the animal body to
something else, as blackness is found in the Ethiopian's skin, in ebony
wood and in pitch. But the soul exists only in living beings.

We find, besides, that the activity of the soul extends far beyond the
body, and acts upon distant things without being destroyed. Hence it
follows that the soul itself, the agent of the activity, keeps on
existing without the body, and is a substance.

Having made clear the conception of soul generally and its relation to
the body, he next proceeds to treat of the three kinds of soul. The
highest of these is the rational soul, which is in the horizon of the
Intelligence and arises from its shadow. It is in virtue of this soul
that man is a rational being, discriminating, receptive of wisdom,
distinguishing between good and evil, between things desirable and
undesirable, approaching the meritorious and departing from wrong. For
this he receives reward and punishment, because he knows what he is
doing and that retribution follows upon his conduct.

Next to the rational soul is the animal soul, which arises from the
shadow of the former. Being far removed from the light of Intelligence,
the animal soul is dark and obscure. She has no knowledge or
discrimination, but only a dim notion of truth, and judges by appearance
only and not according to reality. Of its properties are sense
perception, motion and change in place. For this reason the animals are
fierce and violent, endeavoring to rule, but without clear knowledge and
discrimination, like the lion who wants to rule over the other beasts,
without having a clear consciousness of what he is doing. A proof that
the animals have only dim notions of things is that a thirsty ass coming
to the river will fly from his own shadow in the water, though he needs
the latter for preserving his life, whereas he will not hesitate to
approach a lion, who will devour him. Therefore the animals receive no
reward or punishment (this in opposition to the Mutakallimun) because
they do not know what to do so as to be rewarded, or what to avoid, in
order not to be punished.

The vegetative soul proceeds from the shadow of the animal soul. She is
still further removed from the light of Intelligence, and still more
weighed down with shadow. She has no sense perception or motion. She is
next to earth and is characterized by the powers of reproduction,
growth, nutrition, and the production of buds and flowers, odors and
tastes.

Next to the soul comes the Sphere (the heaven), which arises in the
horizon and shadow of the vegetative soul. The Sphere is superior to
corporeal substances, being itself not body, but the matter of body.
Unlike the material elements, which suffer change and diminution through
the things which arise out of them as well as through the return of the
bodies of plants and animals back to them as their elements, the
spiritual substances (and also the sphere) do not suffer any increase or
diminution through the production of things out of them. For plants and
animals are produced from the elements through a celestial power which
God placed in nature effecting generation and decay in order that this
world of genesis and dissolution should exist. But the splendor of the
higher substances, viz., the three souls, suffers no change on account
of the things coming from them because that which is produced by them
issues from the _shadow_ of their splendor and not from the essence of
the splendor itself. And it is clear that the splendor of a thing in its
essence is brighter than the splendor of its shadow, viz., that which
comes from it. Hence the splendor of the vegetative soul is undoubtedly
brighter than that of the sphere, which comes from its shadow. The
latter becomes rigid and assumes a covering, thickness and corporeality
so that it can be perceived by sight. But no other of the senses can
perceive it because, although corporeal, it is near to the higher
substances in form and nobility, and is moved by a perfect and complete
motion, motion in a circle, which is more perfect than other motions and
not subject to influence and change. Hence there is no increase or
diminution in it, no beginning or end, and this on account of the
simplicity, spirituality and permanence of that which moves it. The
Intelligence pours of her splendor upon it, and of the light of her
knowledge, and the sphere becomes intelligent and rational, and knows,
without investigation or reflection, the lordship of its Creator, and
that he should be praised and glorified without intermission. For this
reason the Creator assigned to the Sphere a high degree from which it
cannot be removed, and gave it charge of the production of time and the
four seasons of the year, and the month and the day and the hour, and
made it ruler of the production of perishable things in this world of
generation and dissolution, so that the upper souls may find bodies to
apprehend, to clothe with their light, and to make visible in them their
activities according to the determination of God.

The Sphere by its motion produces the four elements, fire, air, water,
earth; and the combinations of these in various proportions give rise to
the minerals, plants and animals of this world, the highest of whom is
man.

That the elements are those mentioned above and nothing else is proved
by the definition of element and its distinction from "principle." A
principle is something which, while being the cause of change, and even
possibly at the basis of change, is not itself subject to change. Thus
God is undoubtedly the cause of everything that happens in the world. He
may therefore be called a principle of the world, but he does not enter
with his essence the changing things. Hence it is absurd to speak of God
as an element of the sublunar world. Matter, i. e., primary formless
matter, does enter all changing things and is at the basis of all
change; but it does not itself change. Hence matter also is a principle
but not an element. An element is something which is itself a composite
of matter and form, and changes its form to become something else in
which, however, it is contained potentially, not actually. The product
ultimately goes back to the element or elements from which it was made.
When we follow this resolution of a given composite into its elements
back as far as we can until we reach a first which is no longer
produced out of anything in the same way as things were produced from
it, we have the element. Such is the nature of fire, air, water, earth.
All things are made from them in the manner above indicated. But there
is nothing prior to them which changes its form to become fire,
continues to reside potentially in fire and returns to its original
state by the resolution of fire. The same applies to the other three.

The matter is now clear. The elements stand at the head of physical
change and take part in it. Prior to the elements are indeed matter and
form, but as logical principles, not as physical and independent
entities. Hence it would seem, according to Israeli, that matter and
form are side-tracked in the gradual evolution of the lower from the
higher. For the elements, he tells us, come from the motion of the
Sphere, the Sphere from the shadow of the Soul, the Soul from the shadow
of the Intelligence, the Intelligence is created by God. To be sure he
tells us that the Sphere is not body, but the matter of body. Yet the
Sphere cannot take the place of prime matter surely, for it is
undoubtedly endowed with form, nay is rational and intelligent, as we
have seen.

When Israeli says that prior to the four elements there is nothing but
the Omnipotence of God, he means that the sublunar process of change and
becoming stops with the elements as its upper limit. What is above the
elements belongs to the intelligible world; and the manner of their
production one from the other is a spiritual one, emanation. The Sphere
stands on the border line between the corporeal and the intelligible,
itself a product of emanation, though producing the elements by its
motion--a process apparently neither like emanation nor like sublunar
becoming and change.

Creation in Israeli seems to be the same as emanation, for on the one
hand he tells us that souls are created, that nothing precedes the four
elements except the Omnipotence of God, and on the other that the
elements come from the motion of the Sphere, and the souls issue from
the shadow of the Intelligence. For matter and form there seems to be no
room at all except as logical principles. This is evidently due to the
fact that Israeli is unwittingly combining Aristotelian physics with
Neo-Platonic emanationism. For Aristotle matter and form stand at the
head of sublunar change and are ultimate. There is no derivation of
matter or form from anything. The celestial world has a matter of its
own, and is not the cause of the being of this one except as influencing
its changes. God is the mover of the Spheres, but not their Creator,
hence he stands outside of the world. This is Theism. In Israeli there
is a continuity of God, the intelligible world and the corporeal, all
being ultimately the same thing, though the processes in the two worlds
are different. And yet he obviates Pantheism by declaring that God is a
principle not an element.

We said before that Israeli takes no avowed attitude to Jewish dogma or
the Bible. He never quotes any Jewish works, and there is nothing in his
writings to indicate that he is a Jew and is making an effort to
harmonize Judaism with philosophy and science. In words he refers to
creation _ex nihilo_, which is not necessarily Jewish, it might be just
as well Mohammedan or Christian. But in reality, as we have seen, his
ideas of the cosmic process are far enough removed from the orthodox
doctrine of creation as it appears in Bible and Talmud.

Incidentally we learn also something of Israeli's ideas of God's
relation to mankind, of his commandments, and of prophecy. God created
the world, he tells us, because of his goodness. He wanted to benefit
his creatures. This could not be without their knowing the will of God
and performing it. The will of God could not be revealed directly to
everybody because the divine wisdom can speak only to those in whom the
rational soul is mistress and is enlightened by the Intelligence. But
people are not all of this kind; for some have the animal soul
predominating in them, being on that account ignorant, confused,
forward, bold, murderous, vengeful, unchaste like animals; others are
mastered by the vegetative soul, i. e., the appetitive, and are thus
stupid and dull, and given over to their appetites like plants. In
others again their souls are variously combined, giving to their life
and conduct a composite character. On this account it was necessary for
God to select a person in whom the rational soul is separated, and
illumined by the Intelligence--a man who is spiritual in his nature and
eager to imitate the angels as far as it is possible for a man to do
this. This man he made a messenger to mankind. He gave him his book
which contains two kinds of teaching. One kind is spiritual in its
nature, and needs no further commentary or interpretation. This is
meant for the intellectual and discriminating. The other kind is
corporeal, and requires spiritual interpretation. This is intended for
the various grades of those who cannot understand directly the spiritual
meaning, but who can grasp the corporeal teaching, by which they are
gradually trained and prepared for the reception of higher truths. These
people therefore need instructors and guides because a book alone is not
sufficient for the purposes of those who cannot understand.

Dreams and prophecy are closely related, hence an explanation of the
former will also throw light on the latter. A dream is caused by the
influence of the Intelligence on the soul in sleep. The Intelligence
receives its knowledge directly from God, and serves as a mediator
between him and the soul, like a prophet who mediates between God and
his creatures. In communicating to the soul the spiritual forms which it
received from God, the Intelligence translates them into forms
intermediate between corporeality and spirituality in order that they
may be quickly impressed upon the common sense, which is the first to
receive them. The common sense stands midway between the corporeal sense
of sight and the imagination, which is in the anterior chamber of the
brain, and is known as phantasy (Aristotelian φαντασία).

That the forms thus impressed on the common sense in sleep are
intermediate between corporeal and spiritual is proved by the fact that
they are different from the corporeal forms of things seen in the waking
state. The latter are obscure and covered up, whereas those seen in
sleep are finer, more spiritual and brighter. Proof of this is that a
person sees himself in sleep endowed with wings and flying between
heaven and earth. He sees the heavens opening and someone speaking to
him out of the heaven, and so on. There would be no sense in all this if
these phenomena had no spiritual meaning, for they are contrary to
nature. But we know that they have real significance if interpreted by a
really thoughtful person. The prophets also in wishing to separate
themselves from mankind and impress the latter with their qualities,
showed them spiritual forms of similar kind, which were preternatural.
Hence all who believe in prophecy admit that dreams are a part of
prophecy.

Now these intermediate forms which are impressed upon the common sense
in sleep are turned over by it to the phantasy and by the latter to the
memory. When the person awakes, he recovers the forms from the memory
just as they were deposited there by the phantasy. He then consults his
thinking power; and if this is spiritual and pure, the Intelligence
endows him with its light and splendor and reveals to him the spiritual
forms signified by the visions seen in sleep. He is then able to
interpret the dream correctly. But if his powers of thought are not so
good and are obscured by coverings, he cannot properly remove the husk
from the kernel in the forms seen in sleep, is not able to penetrate to
the true spirituality beneath, and his interpretation is erroneous.

This explanation does not really explain, but it is noteworthy as the
first Jewish attempt to reduce prophecy to a psychological phenomenon,
which was carried further by subsequent writers until it received its
definitive form for the middle ages in Maimonides and Levi ben Gerson.

To sum up, Israeli is an eclectic. There is no system of Jewish
philosophy to be found in his writings. He had no such ambitions. He
combines Aristotelian logic, physics and psychology with Neo-Platonic
metaphysics, and puts on the surface a veneer of theistic creationism.
His merit is chiefly that of a pioneer in directing the attention of
Jews to the science and philosophy of the Greeks, albeit in Arab dress.
There is no trace yet of the Kalam in his writings except in his
allusions to the atomic theory and the denial of reward and punishment
of animals.




CHAPTER II

DAVID BEN MERWAN AL MUKAMMAS


Nothing was known of Al Mukammas until recently when fragments of his
philosophical work were found in Judah ben Barzilai's commentary on the
Sefer Yezirah.[35] The latter tells us that David Al Mukammas is said to
have associated with Saadia, who learned a good deal from him, but the
matter is not certain. If this account be true we have a second Jewish
philosopher who preceded Saadia. His chief work is known by the title of
"Twenty Chapters," fifteen of which were discovered in the original
Arabic in 1898 by Abraham Harkavy of St. Petersburg.[36] Unfortunately
they have not yet been published, and hence our account will have to be
incomplete, based as it is on the Hebrew fragments in the Yezirah
commentary above mentioned.

These fragments are sufficient to show us that unlike Israeli, who shows
little knowledge of the Muʿtazilite discussions, Al Mukammas is a real
Muʿtazilite and moves in the path laid out by these Mohammedan
rationalists. Whether this difference is due to their places of
residence (Israeli having lived in Egypt and Kairuan, while Al Mukammas
was in Babylon), or to their personal predilections for Neo-Platonism
and the Kalam respectively, is not certain. Saadia knows the Kalam; but
though coming originally from Egypt, he spent his most fruitful years in
Babylonia, in the city of Sura, where he was gaon. The centres of
Arabian rationalism were, as we know, the cities of Bagdad and Basra,
nearer to Babylon and Mesopotamia than to Egypt or Kairuan.

The first quotation in Judah ben Barzilai has reference to science and
philosophy, their definition and classification. Science is the
knowledge of the reality of existing things. It is divided into two
parts, theoretical and practical. Theoretical science aims at knowledge
for its own sake; practical seeks an end beyond knowledge, viz., the
production of something. We call it then art. Thus geometry is a science
in so far as one desires to know the nature and relations to each other
of solid, surface, line, point, square, triangle, circle. But if his
purpose is to know how to build a square or circular house, or to
construct a mill, or dig a well, or measure land, he becomes an artisan.
Theoretical science is three-fold. First and foremost stands theology,
which investigates the unity of God and his laws and commandments. This
is the highest and most important of all the sciences. Next comes logic
and ethics, which help men in forming opinions and guide them in the
path of understanding. The last is physics, the knowledge of created
things.

In the ninth and tenth chapters of his book Al Mukammas discusses the
divine attributes. This was a very important problem in the Muʿtazilite
schools, as we saw in the Introduction, and was treated in Muʿtazilite
works in the first division, which went by the title of "Bab al Tauhid,"
the chapter on the unity.

God is one--so Al Mukammas sums up the results of his previous
discussions--not in the sense in which a genus is said to be one, nor in
that in which a species is one, nor as the number one is one, nor as an
individual creature is one, but as a simple unity in which there is no
distinction or composition. He is one and there is no second like him.
He is first without beginning, and last without end. He is the cause and
ground of everything caused and effected.

The question of God's essence is difficult. Some say it is not permitted
to ask what God is. For to answer the question what a thing is is to
limit it, and the limited is the created. Others again say that it is
permitted to make this inquiry, because we can use in our answer the
expressions to which God himself testifies in his revealed book. And
this would not be limiting or defining his glory because his being is
different from any other, and there is nothing that bears any
resemblance to him. Accordingly we should answer the question what God
is, by saying, he is the first and the last, and the visible and the
hidden, without beginning or end. He is living, but not through life
acquired from without. His life is not sustained and prolonged by food.
He is wise, but not through acquired wisdom. He hears without ears, sees
without eyes, is understanding in all his works, and a true judge in all
his judgments. Such would be our answer in accordance with God's own
testimony of himself.

We must on no account suppose that the expressions living, wise,
seeing, hearing, and so on, when applied to God mean the same thing as
when we ascribe them to ourselves. When we say God is living we do not
mean that there was a time when he was not living, or that there will be
a time when he will not be living. This is true of us but not of God.
His life has no beginning or end. The same thing applies to his wisdom.
It is not acquired like ours, it has no beginning or end, and is not
subject to error, forgetfulness, addition or diminution. It is not
strange that his attributes should be so unlike ours, for it is fitting
that the Creator should be different from the thing created, and the
Maker from the thing made.

We must, however, analyze the matter of divine attributes more closely.
When we say God is living, we may mean he is living with life as his
attribute, i. e., that there is an attribute life which makes him
living, or we may deny that there is any such attribute in him as life,
but that he is living through himself and not through life as an
attribute. To make this subtle distinction clear we will investigate
further what is involved in the first statement that God is living with
life. It may mean that there was a time when God was not living and then
he acquired life and became living. This is clearly a wrong and unworthy
conception. We must therefore adopt the other alternative, that the life
which makes him living is eternal like him, and hence he was always
living from eternity and will continue to be living to eternity. But the
matter is not yet settled. The question still remains, Is this life
through which he lives identical with his being, or is it distinct from
his being, or is it a part of it? If we say it is distinct from his
being, we are guilty of introducing other eternal beings beside God,
which destroys his unity. The Christians are guilty of this very thing
when they say that God's eternal life is the Holy Ghost, and his eternal
Wisdom is the Son. If we say that his life is a part of his being, we do
injury to the other aspect of his unity, namely, his simplicity. For to
have parts in one's being implies composition. We are forced therefore
to conclude that God's life is identical with his being. But this is
really tantamount to saying that there is no attribute life which makes
him living, or that he is living not through life. The difference is
only in expression.

We may make this conception clearer by illustrations from other spheres,
inadequate though they be. The soul is the cause of life to the body,
i. e., the body lives through the soul, and when the latter leaves it,
the body loses its life and dies. But the soul itself does not live
through anything else, say through another soul. For if this were the
case this other soul would need again another soul to make it live and
this again another, and so on _ad infinitum_, which is absurd. The soul
lives through itself. The same thing applies to angels. They live
through their own being; and that is why souls and angels are called in
the Sacred Scriptures spirits. A spirit is something that is fine and
light and incomposite. Hence their life cannot be due to anything
distinct from their being, for this would make them composite.

This statement, however, that souls and angels are living through their
own being must not be understood as meaning that they have no creator
who gave them being and life. The meaning merely is that the being which
God gave them is different from the being he gave to bodies. Bodies need
a soul to become living, the soul is itself living. So in material
things, also, the sun shines with its own light and not with light
acquired. The odor of myrrh is fragrant through itself, not through
anything else. The eye sees with its own power, whereas man sees with
the eye. The tongue does not speak with another tongue, man speaks with
a tongue, and so on. So we say of God, though in a manner a
thousand-fold more sublime, that he is living, but not with a life which
is distinct from his being; and so of the other attributes, hearing,
seeing, and so on, that we find in the Scriptural praises of him.

It is necessary to add that as on the one hand we have seen that God's
attributes are identical with his being, so it follows on the other that
the various attributes, such as wise, seeing, hearing, knowing, and so
on, are not different from each other in meaning, though distinct in
expression. Otherwise it would make God composite. The reason we employ
a number of distinct expressions is in order to remove from God the
several opposites of the terms used. Thus when we say God is living we
mean to indicate that he is not dead. The attribute wise excludes folly
and ignorance; hearing and seeing remove deafness and blindness. The
philosopher Aristotle says that it is truer and more appropriate to
apply negative attributes to God than positive. Others have said that we
must not speak of the Creator in positive terms for there is danger of
endowing him with form and resemblance to other things. Speaking of him
negatively we imply the positive without risking offence.

In the sequel Al Mukammas refutes the views of the dualists, of the
Christians and those who maintain that God has form. We cannot afford to
linger over these arguments, interesting though they be, and must hurry
on to say a word about the sixteenth chapter, which deals with reward
and punishment. This no doubt forms part of the second Muʿtazilite
division, namely, the "Bab al ʿAdl," or section concerning God's
justice.

He defines reward as the soul's tranquillity and infinite joy in the
world to come in compensation for the sojourn in this world which she
endured and the self-control she practiced in abstaining from the
pleasures of the world. Punishment, on the other hand, is the soul's
disquietude and sorrow to the end of days as retribution for indulging
in the world's evil pleasures. Both are imposed by God with justice and
fairness. It is fitting that the promises of reward and threats of
punishment consequent upon obedience and disobedience should be
specified in connection with the commandments and prohibitions in the
Scriptures, because this is the only way to train the soul to practice
self-control. A child who does not fear his teacher's punishment, or has
no confidence in his good will will not be amenable to instruction. The
same is true of the majority of those who serve kings. It is fear alone
which induces them to obey the will of their masters. So God in
commanding us to do what is worthy and prohibiting what is unworthy saw
fit in his wisdom to specify the accompanying rewards and punishments
that he who observes may find pleasure and joy in his obedience, and the
unobservant may be affected with sorrow and fear.

As the world to come has no end, so it is proper that the reward of the
righteous as well as the punishment of the wicked should be without end.
Arguments have been advanced to show that unlike reward which is
properly infinite as is becoming to God's goodness, punishment should
have a limit, for God is merciful. On the other hand, it is claimed on
the basis of the finiteness of human action that both reward and
punishment should be finite. But in reality it can be shown in many ways
that reward and punishment should be infinite. Without naming all the
arguments--as many as ten have been advanced--in favor of this view, we
may urge some of the more important.

It was God's own goodness that prompted him to benefit mankind by giving
them laws for their guidance, and not any prior merits on their part
which gave them a claim on God's protection. God himself is not in any
way benefited by man's obedience or injured by his disobedience. Man
knows that it is for his own good that he is thus admonished; and if he
were asked what reward he would like to have for his good deeds he would
select no less than infinite happiness. Justice demands that punishment
be commensurate with reward. The greater the reward and the punishment
the more effective are the laws likely to be. Besides in violating God's
law a person virtually denies the eternity of him who gave it, and is
guilty of contempt; for he hides himself from men, fearing their
displeasure, whereas the omnipresence of God has no deterring effect
upon him. For such offence infinite punishment is the only fit
retribution.

The question whether the soul alone is rewarded or the body alone or
both has been answered variously. In favor of the soul alone as the
subject of reward and punishment it has been urged that reward raises
man to the grade of angels, who are pure spirits. How then can the body
take part? And punishment must be of the same nature as reward. On the
other hand, it is claimed that the Bible says nothing of man being
raised to the status of angels, and we know in this world of physical
reward and punishment only. The Garden of Eden of which the Bible speaks
is not peopled with angels, and that is where the righteous go after
death.

The true solution is that as man is composed of body and soul, and both
share in his conduct, reward and punishment must attach to both. As we
do not understand the nature of spiritual retribution so the composite
is equally inconceivable to us. But everyone who believes in the
resurrection of the dead has no difficulty in holding that the body has
a share in future reward and punishment.




CHAPTER III

SAADIA BEN JOSEPH AL-FAYYUMI (892-942)


Saadia was the first important Jewish philosopher. Philo of Alexandria
does not come within our purview as he was not mediæval. Besides his
work is not systematic, being in the nature of a commentary on Holy
Writ. Though Philo was a good and loyal Jew, he stood, so to speak,
apart from the real centre of Jewish intellectual and spiritual
development. He was on the one hand too closely dependent on Greek
thought and on the other had only a limited knowledge of Jewish thought
and tradition. The Bible he knew only in the Greek translation, not in
the original Hebrew; and of the Halaka, which was still in the making in
Palestine, he knew still less.

It was different with Saadia. In the tenth century the Mishna and the
Talmud had been long completed and formed theoretically as well as
practically the content of the Jew's life and thought. Sura in
Babylonia, where Saadia was the head of the academy, was the chief
centre of Jewish learning, and Saadia was the heir in the main line of
Jewish development as it passed through the hands of lawgiver and
prophet, scribe and Pharisee, Tanna and Amora, Saburai and Gaon. As the
head of the Sura academy he was the intellectual representative of the
Jewry and Judaism of his day. His time was a period of agitation and
strife, not only in Judaism but also in Islam, in whose lands the Jews
lived and to whose temporal rulers they owed allegiance in the East as
well as in Spain.

In Islam we saw in the introduction how the various schools of the
Kadariya, the Muʿtazila and the Ashariya arose in obedience to the
demand of clarifying the chief problems of faith, science and life. In
Judaism there was in addition to this more general demand the more local
and internal conflict of Karaite and Rabbanite which centred about the
problem of tradition. Saadia found himself in the midst of all this and
proved equal to the occasion.

We are not here concerned with the vicissitudes of Saadia's personal
life or of his literary career as opponent of the Karaite sect. Nor can
we afford more than merely to state that Jewish science in the larger
sense begins with Saadia. Hebrew grammar and lexicography did not exist
before him. The Bible had been translated into several languages before
Saadia's day, but he was the first to translate it into Arabic, and the
first to write a commentary on it. But the greatest work of Saadia, that
which did the most important service to the theory of Judaism, and by
which he will be best remembered, is his endeavor to work out a system
of doctrine which should be in harmony with the traditions of Judaism on
the one hand and with the most authoritative scientific and philosophic
opinion of the time on the other. Israeli, we have seen, was interested
in science before Saadia. As a physician he was probably more at home in
purely physical discussions than Saadia. But there is no evidence that
he had the larger interest of the Gaon of Sura, namely, to construct a
system of Judaism upon the basis of scientific doctrine. Possibly the
example of Islam was lacking in Israeli's environment, as he does not
seem to be acquainted with the theories and discussions of the
Mutakallimun, and draws his information from Aristotelian and
Neo-Platonic sources. Saadia was in the very midst of Arab speculation
as is evident from the composition of his _chef d'œuvre_, "Emunot
ve-Deot," Beliefs and Opinions.[37]

The work is arranged on the Muʿtazilite model. The two main divisions in
works of this character are _Unity_ and _Justice_. The first begins with
some preliminary considerations on the nature and sources of knowledge.
It proceeds then to prove the existence of God by showing that the world
cannot have existed from eternity and must have been created in time.
Creation implies a creator. This is followed by arguments showing that
God is one and incorporeal. The rest is devoted to a discussion of the
divine attributes with the purpose of showing that God's unity and
simplicity are not affected by them. The section on unity closes with a
refutation of opposing views, such as those of the dualists or
Trinitarians or infidels. The section on Justice centres about the
doctrine of free will. Hence psychology and ethics are treated in this
part of the work. To this may be added problems of a more dogmatic
nature, eschatological and otherwise. We shall see in the sequel that
Saadia's masterpiece is modeled on the same plan.

But not merely the plan and arrangement of his work give evidence of the
influence upon Saadia of Islamic schools, many of his arguments, those
for example on the existence of God and the creation of the world, are
taken directly from them. Maimonides, who was a strong opponent of the
Mutakallimun, gives an outline of their fundamental principles and their
arguments for the existence, unity and incorporeality of God.[38] Some
of these are identical with those of Saadia. Saadia, however, is not
interested in pure metaphysics as such. His purpose is decidedly
apologetic in the defence of Judaism and Jewish dogma. Hence we look in
vain in his book for definite views on the constitution of existing
substances, on the nature of motion, on the meaning of cause, and so on.
We get a glimpse of his attitude to some of these questions in an
incidental way.

The Mutakallimun were opposed to the Aristotelian theory of matter and
form, and substituted for it the atomic theory. God created atoms
without magnitude or quality, and he likewise created qualities to
inhere in groups of atoms. These qualities they called accidents, and
one of their important discussions was whether an accident can last more
than a moment of time. The opinions were various and the accidents were
classified according to their powers of duration. That is, there were
some accidents which once created continued to exist of their own accord
some length of time, and there were others which had to be re-created
anew every moment in order to continue to exist. Saadia does not speak
of matter and form as constituting the essence of existing things; he
does speak of substance and accident,[39] which might lead us to believe
that he held to the atomic theory, since he speaks of the accidents as
coming and going one after the other, which suggests the constant
creation spoken of by the Mutakallimun. On the other hand, when he
answers an objection against motion, which is as old as Zeno, namely,
how can we traverse an infinitely divisible distance, since it is
necessary to pass an infinite number of parts, he tells us that it is
not necessary to have recourse to the atomic theory or other theories
adopted by some Muʿtazilites to meet this objection. We may believe in
the continuity and infinite divisibility of matter, but as long as this
divisibility is only potentially infinite, actually always finite, our
ability to traverse the space offers no difficulty.[40] Finally, in
refuting the second theory of creation, which combines Platonism with
atomism, he argues against an atomic theory primarily because of its
implications of eternity of the atoms, but partly also on other grounds,
which would also affect the Kalamistic conceptions of the atoms.[41]
These points are not treated by Saadia expressly but are only mentioned
incidentally in the elucidation of other problems dealing with the
creation of the world and the existence of God.

Like Israeli Saadia shows considerable familiarity with Aristotelian
notions as found in the Logic, the Physics and the Psychology. It is
doubtful, however, whether he really knew Aristotle's more important
treatises at first hand and in detail. The "Categories," a small
treatise forming the first book of Aristotle's logic, he no doubt knew,
but the other Aristotelian concepts he probably derived from secondary
sources. For while he passes in review all the ten categories showing
that none of them is applicable to God,[42] we scarcely find any mention
of such important and fundamental Aristotelian conceptions as matter and
form, potentiality and actuality, the four causes, formal, material,
efficient and final--concepts which as soon as Aristotle began to be
studied by Al Farabi and Avicenna became familiar to all who wrote
anything at all bearing on philosophy, theology, or Biblical exegesis.
Nay, the very concepts which he does employ seem to indicate in the way
he uses them that he was not familiar with the context in which they are
found in the Aristotelian treatises, or with the relation they bear to
other views of Aristotle. Thus no one who knew Aristotle at first hand
could make the mistake of regarding his definition of the soul as making
the latter an accident.[43] When Saadia speaks of six kinds of motion
[44] instead of _three_, he shows clearly that his knowledge of the
Aristotelian theory of motion was limited to the little of it that is
contained in the "Categories."

We are thus justified in saying, that Saadia's sources are Jewish
literature and tradition, the works of the Mutakallimun, particularly
the Muʿtazilites, and Aristotle, whose book on the "Categories" he knew
at first hand.

Saadia tells us he was induced to write his book because he found that
the beliefs and opinions of men were in an unsatisfactory state. While
there are some persons who are fortunate enough to possess the truth and
to know that they have it and rejoice thereat, this is not true of all.
For there are others who when they have the truth know it not, and hence
let it slip; others are still less fortunate and adopt false and
erroneous opinions, which they regard as true; while still others
vacillate continually, going from one opinion and belief to another.
This gave him pain and he thought it his duty to make use of his limited
knowledge to help them. A conscientious study of his book will tend to
remove doubt and will substitute belief through knowledge for belief
through tradition. Another result of such study, not less important,
will be improvement of character and disposition, which will affect for
the better a man's life in every respect, in relation to God as well as
to his fellowmen.[45]

One may ask why it is that one encounters so many doubts and
difficulties before arriving at true knowledge. The answer is, a human
being is a creature, i. e., a being dependent upon another for its
existence, and it is in the nature of a creature as such that it must
labor for the truth with the sweat of its brow. For whatever a man does
or has to do with is subject to time; each work must be accomplished
gradually, step by step, part by part, in successive portions of time.
And as the task before him is at the beginning complex, he has to
analyze and simplify it. This takes time; while certainty and knowledge
cannot come until the task is accomplished. Before that point is reached
he is naturally in doubt.[46]

The sources of truth are three. First is that to which the senses
testify. If our normal sense perceives under normal conditions which are
free from illusion, we are certain of that perception.

The judgment is another source of truth. There are certain truths of
which we are certain. This applies especially to such judgments of
value, as that truth is good and falsehood is bad. In addition to these
two sources of immediate knowledge, there is a third source based upon
these two. This is logical inference. We are led to believe what we have
not directly perceived or a matter concerning which we have no immediate
knowledge of the second kind, because we infer it from something else
which we have perceived or of which we have immediate certainty. Thus we
believe man has a soul though we have never seen it because we infer its
presence from its activity, which we do see.

These three sources are universal. They are not peculiar to a given race
or religious denomination, though there are some persons who deny the
validity of some or all of them. We Jews believe in them and in still
another source of truth, namely, authentic tradition.[47]

Some think that a Jew is forbidden to speculate or philosophize about
the truths of religion. This is not so. Genuine and sincere reflection
and speculation is not prohibited. What is forbidden is to leave the
sacred writings aside and rely on any opinions that occur to one
concerning the beginnings of time and space. For one may find the truth
or one may miss it. In any case until a person finds it, he is without a
religious guide; and if he does find what seems to him the truth and
bases his belief and conduct upon it, he is never sure that he may not
later be assailed by doubts, which will lead him to drop his adopted
belief. But if we hold fast to the commandments of the Bible, our own
ratiocination on the truths of religion will be of great benefit to
us.[48]

Our investigation of the facts of our religion will give us a reasoned
and scientific knowledge of those things which the Prophets taught us
dogmatically, and will enable us to answer the arguments and criticisms
of our opponents directed against our faith. Hence it is not merely our
privilege but our duty to confirm the truths of religion by reason.[49]

Here a question presents itself. If the reason can discover by itself
the truths communicated to us by divine revelation, why was it necessary
to have recourse to the latter? Why was it not left to the reason alone
to guide us in our belief and in our conduct? The answer is, as was
suggested before, that human reason proceeds gradually and does not
reach its aim until the end of the process. In the meantime one is left
without a guide. Besides not everybody's reason is adequate to discover
truth. Some are altogether incapable of this difficult task, and many
more are exposed to harassing doubts and perplexities which hinder their
progress. Hence the necessity of revelation, because in the witness of
the senses all are equally at home, men and women, young and old.[50]

The most important fact of religion is the existence of God. We know it
from the Bible, and we must now prove it by reason. The proof is
necessarily indirect because no one of us has seen God, nor have we an
immediate certainty of his existence. We must prove it then by the
method of inference. We must start with something we do know with
certainty and proceed from it through as many steps of logical inference
as may be necessary until we reach the object of our search.[51]

The world and the things in it are directly accessible to our senses and
our judgment. How long has the world been in existence and how did it
come to be? The answers to these questions also we do not know through
our senses, and we must prove them by a chain of reasoning. There are
several possibilities. The world just as it is may have existed from
eternity. If so nobody made it; it just existed, and we have no proof of
God. The world in its present form might have proceeded from a primitive
matter. This hypothesis only removes the problem further back. For,
leaving aside the question how did this prime matter develop into the
complex world of our experience, we direct our attention to the prime
matter itself, and ask, Has it existed from eternity or did it come to
be? If it existed from eternity, then nobody made it, and we have no
proof of a God, for by God we mean an intelligent being acting with
purpose and design, and the cause of the existence of everything in
creation. The third alternative is that whether the world was developed
out of a primitive matter or not, it at any rate, or the primitive
matter, as the case may be, was made in time, that is, it was created
out of nothing. If so there must have been someone who created it, as
nothing can create itself. Here we have proof of the existence of God.
It follows therefore that we must first show that the world is not
eternal, that it came to be in time, and this is what Saadia does.

Here are some of his proofs. The world is finite in magnitude. For the
world consists of the earth, which is in the centre, and the heavens
surrounding it on all sides. This shows that the earth is finite, for an
infinite body cannot be surrounded. But the heavens are finite too, for
they make a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. If they were
infinite it would take an infinite time to complete a revolution. A
finite body cannot have an infinite power. This Saadia regards as
self-evident, though Aristotle, from whom this statement is derived,
gives the proof. Hence the force or power within the world which keeps
it going is finite and must one day be exhausted. But this shows also
that it could not have gone on from eternity. Hence the world came to be
in time.[52]

Another proof is based on the composite character of all things in
heaven and earth. Minerals, plants and animals are made up of parts and
elements. The heavens consist of spheres, one within the other. The
spheres are studded with stars. But composition implies a time when the
composition took place. In other words, the parts must have been there
first and somebody put them together. Hence the world as we see it now
is not eternal.[53]

A special form of composition, which is universal, is that of substance
and accident. Plants and animals are born (or sprout), grow and decay.
These manifestations are the accidents of the plant or animal's
substance. The heavenly bodies have various motions, lights and colors
as their accidents. But these accidents are not eternal, since they come
and go. Hence the substances bearing the accidents, without which they
cannot exist, are also temporal like them. Hence our world is not
eternal.[54]

Finally, past time itself cannot be eternal. For this would mean that an
infinite time has actually elapsed down to our day. But this is a
contradiction in terms. What is already accomplished cannot be infinite.
Infinity is possible only as a potentiality, for example, we may speak
of a given length as infinitely divisible. This merely means that one
may mentally continue dividing it forever, but we can never say that one
has actually made an infinite number of divisions. Therefore not merely
the world, but even time must have begun to be.[55]

It will be seen that the first three arguments prove only that the world
in the form which it has now is not eternal. The possibility is not yet
excluded of an eternal matter out of which the world proceeded or was
made. The fourth argument proves a great deal. It shows that nothing
which is subject to time can be eternal, hence not even prime matter.
God can be eternal because he is not subject to time. Time, as we shall
see later, cannot exist without motion and moving things, hence before
the world there was no time, and the fourth argument does not apply to
premundane existence.

To complete the first three arguments Saadia therefore proceeds to show
that the world, which we now know came to be in time, must have been
made by someone (since nothing can make itself), and that too out of
nothing, and not out of a pre-existing eternal matter.

If an eternal matter existed before the world, the explanation of the
origin of the world is open to two possibilities. One is that there is
nothing outside of this matter and the world which came from it. This is
absurd, for it would mean that an unintelligent dead thing is the cause
of intelligence and life in the universe. We must therefore have
recourse to the other alternative that someone, an intelligent being,
made the world out of the primitive, eternal matter. This is also
impossible. For if the matter is eternal like the maker of the world, it
is independent of him, and would not be obedient to his will to adapt
itself to his purpose. He could therefore not make the world out of it.

The only alternative left now is that the author of the universe is an
intelligent being, and that nothing outside of him is eternal. He alone
is responsible for the existence of the world, which was at one time
nothing. Whether he first created a matter and then from it the
universe, or whether he made the world outright, is of secondary
importance.[56]

There is still a possibility that instead of making the world out of
nothing, God made it out of himself, _i. e._, that it emanated from him
as light from the sun. This, as we know, is the opinion of the
Neo-Platonists; and Israeli comes very close to it as we saw before (p.
6). Saadia is strongly opposed to any such doctrine.

It is unlikely, he says, that an eternal substance having neither form,
condition, measure, place or time, should change into a body or bodies
having those accidents; or that a wise being, not subject to change or
influence, or comprehensibility should choose to make himself into a
body subject to all of these. What could have induced a just being who
does no wrong to decree that some of his parts should be subject to such
evils as matter and material beings are afflicted with? It is
conceivable only in one of two ways. Either they deserved it for having
done wrong, or they did not deserve it, and it was an act of violence
that was committed against them. Both suppositions are absurd. The fact
of the matter is that the authors of this opinion to avoid the theory of
creation _ex nihilo_ went from the frying pan into the fire. To be sure,
creation out of nothing is difficult to conceive, but this is the reason
why we ascribe this power to God alone. To demand that we show how this
can be done is to demand that we ourselves become creators.[57]

The question what existed in place of the earth before it was created
evinces ignorance of the idea of place. By place is meant simply the
contact of two bodies in which the one is the place of the other. When
there is no earth and no bodies there is no such thing as place.

The same thing applies to time. Time means the persistence of existing
things in heaven and earth under changing conditions. Where there is no
world, there is no time. This answers the objection raised by some,
namely, how is it possible that before all these bodies were made time
existed void of objects? Or the other difficulty which is closely
related, viz., Why did not God create the world before he did? The
answer to both is, there was no before and there was no time, when the
world was not.

The following question is a legitimate one, Why did God create all
things? And our answer is, there was no cause which made him create
them, and yet they were not made in vain. God wished to exhibit his
wisdom; and his goodness prompted him to benefit his creatures by
enabling them to worship him.[58]

We have now proved the existence of God as the cause of the existence of
all things. We must now try to arrive at some notion of what God is as
far as this is in our power. God cannot be corporeal or body, for in our
proof of his existence we began with the world which is body and arrived
at the notion of God as the cause of all corporeal existence. If God
himself is corporeal our search is not at an end, for we should still
want to know the cause of him. Being the cause of all body, he is not
body and hence is for our knowledge ultimate, we cannot go beyond him.
But if God is not corporeal, he is not subject to motion or rest or
anger or favor, for to deny the corporeality of God and still look for
these accidents in him is to change the expression and retain the idea.
Bodily accidents involve body.[59]

The incorporeality of God proves also his unity. For what is not body
cannot have the corporeal attributes of quantity or number, hence God
cannot be more than one.[60] And there are many powerful arguments
besides against a dualistic theory.

A unitary effect cannot be the result of two independent causes. For if
one is responsible for the whole, there is nothing left for the other,
and the assumption of his existence is gratuitous. If the effect
consists of two parts of which each does one, we have really two
effects. But the universe is one and its parts cannot be separated.[61]
Again, if one of them wishes to create a thing and cannot without the
help of the other, neither is all-powerful, which is inconsistent with
the character of deity. If he can compel the other to help him, they are
both under necessity. And if they are free and independent, then if one
should desire to keep a body alive and the other to kill it, the body
would have to be at the same time alive and dead, which is absurd.
Again, if each one can conceal aught from the other, neither is
all-knowing. If they cannot, they are not all-powerful.[62]

Having proved God's existence, unity and incorporeality, he proceeds to
discuss his most essential attributes, which are, Life, Omnipotence, and
Omniscience. These easily follow from what was said before. We cannot
conceive a creator _ex nihilo_ unless he is all-powerful; power implies
life; and the thing made cannot be perfect unless its maker knows what
it is going to be before he makes it.

These three concepts our reason discovers with one act of its thinking
effort, for they are all involved in the concept, Maker. There is no
gradual inference from one to the other. The reason we are forced to use
three expressions is because of the limitations of language. Hence it
must not be thought that they involve plurality in God. They are simply
the implications of the one expression, Maker, and as that does not
suggest plurality in God's essence, but signifies only that there is a
thing made by the maker, so the three derivative terms, Living,
Omnipotent, Omniscient, imply no more.

The Christians erred in this matter in making God a trinity. They say
one cannot create unless he is living and wise, hence they regard his
life and his wisdom as two other things outside of his essence. But this
is a mistake. For in saying there are several attributes in him distinct
one from the other, they say in effect that he is corporeal--an error
which we have already refuted. Besides they do not understand what
constitutes proof: In man we say that his life and his knowledge are not
his essence because we see that he sometimes has them and sometimes not.
In God this is not the case. Again, why only three? They say essence,
life, wisdom; why do they not add power, or hearing and seeing? If they
think that power is implied in life, and hearing and seeing in wisdom,
so is life implied in wisdom.

They quote Scripture in their support, for example, the verse in II
Samuel (23, 2), "The _Spirit_ of the Lord spoke through me, and his
_Word_ was upon my tongue." "Word" denotes, they say, his attribute of
wisdom, and "Spirit" his life, as distinct persons. But they are
mistaken. The expressions in question denote the words which God puts
into the mouth of his prophets. There are other similar instances which
they cite, and in their ignorance of Hebrew take metaphorical
expressions literally. If they are consistent, they should add many more
persons in the Godhead, in accordance with the many phrases of the Bible
concerning the hand of God, the eye of God, the glory of God, the anger
of God, the mercy of God, and so on.[63]

The above discussion, as also that of Al-Mukammas (p. 19), shows clearly
the origin of the doctrine of attributes as well as its motive. Both
Al-Mukammas and Saadia and the later Jewish philosophers owed their
interest in this problem primarily to the Mohammedan schools in which we
know it played an important rôle (see Introduction, pp. xxiii, xxvi).
But there is no doubt that the problem originated in the Christian
schools in the Orient, who made use of it to rationalize the dogma of
the Trinity.

There is extant a confession of faith attributed to Jacob Baradæus
(sixth century), the founder of the Syrian Church of the Monophysites or
Jacobites, in which the phrase occurs that the Father is the Intellect,
the Son is the Word and the Holy Ghost is Life. In the works of Elias of
Nisibis of the Nestorian Church, who lived shortly after Saadia
(975-1049), we also find a passage in which the three expressions
essence, life and wisdom are applied to the three persons of the
Trinity. The passage is worth quoting. It reads as follows: "As the
essence of God cannot receive accidents, his life and his wisdom cannot
be accidents. But whatever is not accident is either substance or
person. Hence as the essence of the Creator and his life and his wisdom
are not three substances or three accidents, it is proved that they are
three persons."[64]

Monotheism was a fundamental dogma of the Mohammedan faith. Hence it was
necessary for their rationalizing theologians to meet the Trinitarians
with their own weapons and show that the multiplicity of the divine
attributes which they could not deny, since the Koran was authority for
it, does in no way affect God's unity. The problem was quite as
important for Judaism as it was for Islam, and for the same reason.
Hence Saadia's insistence that inadequacy of language is alone
responsible for our expressing God's essential attributes in the three
words, Living, Omnipotent, Omniscient; that in reality they are no more
than interpretations of the expression Maker.

We have now shown that God is one in the two important senses of the
word. He is one in the sense that there is no second God beside him; and
he is one in his own essence, _i. e._, he is simple and not composed of
parts. His Life and his Power and his Wisdom are not distinct one from
the other and from his essence. They are all one. We have also proved
God's incorporeality. Nevertheless Saadia is not satisfied until he has
shown in detail that God cannot be compared to man in any sense, and
that the anthropomorphic expressions in the Bible must not be taken
literally. In reference to Biblical interpretation Saadia makes the
general remark that whenever a verse of Scripture apparently contradicts
the truths of reason, there is no doubt that it is figurative, and a
person who successfully interprets it so as to reconcile it with the
data of sense or reason will be rewarded for it. For not the Bible alone
is the source of Judaism, Reason is another source preceding the Bible,
and Tradition is a third source coming after the Bible.[65]

In order to show that God is not to be compared to any other thing in
creation Saadia finds it convenient to use Aristotle's classification of
all existing things under the ten categories.[66] Everything that exists
is either a substance, or it is an accident, _i. e._, an attribute or
quality of a substance. Substance is therefore the first and most
important of the categories and is exemplified by such terms as man,
horse, city. Everything that is not substance is accident, but there are
nine classes of accident, and with substance they make up the ten
categories. The order of the categories as Aristotle gives them in his
treatise of the same name is, substance, quantity, quality, relation,
place, time, position, possession, action, passion. If these categories
include all existing things and we can prove that God is not any of
them, our object is accomplished. The one general argument is one with
which we are already familiar. It is that God is the cause of all
substance and accident, hence he is himself neither the one nor the
other. Scripture supports our view, as in Deuteronomy 4, 15: "Take ye
therefore good heed of yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the
day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of
any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast
that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the
heaven; the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the
likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth: and lest thou
lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon
and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away," etc.
And tradition is equally emphatic in this regard. Our sages, who were
the disciples of the prophets, render the anthropomorphic passages in
the Bible so as to avoid an objectionable understanding. This is
particularly true of the Aramaic translation of the Targum.

Such terms as head, eye, ear, mouth, lip, face, hand, heart, bowels,
foot, which are used in relation to God in the Bible, are figurative.
For it is the custom of language to apply such terms metaphorically to
certain ideas like elevation, providence, acceptance, declaration,
command, favor, anger, power, wisdom, mercy, dominion. Language would be
a very inadequate instrument if it confined itself to the literal
meaning of the words it uses; and in the case of God we should be
limited to the statement that he is.

What was said of the nouns above mentioned applies also to other parts
of speech, such as verbs attributing human activity to God. Such phrases
as "incline thine ear," "open thine eyes," "he saw," "he heard," "he
spoke" are figurative. So the expression, "the Lord smelled," which
sounds especially objectionable, denotes acceptance.

The theophanies in the Bible, where God is represented under a certain
form, as in Ezekiel, Isaiah and Kings, do not argue against our view,
for there are meant specially created forms for the benefit and honor of
the prophet. This is what is meant by the "Glory of the Lord," and
"Shekinah." Sometimes it is simply a created light without an individual
form. When Moses asked to see God, he meant the created light. God
cannot be seen with the eye nor can he be grasped in thought or
imagination. Hence Moses could not have meant to see God, but the
created light. His face was covered so that he should not be dazzled by
the exceeding splendor of the beginning of the light, which is too much
for a mortal to endure; but later when the brightest part passed by,
the covering was taken off and Moses saw the last part of the light.
This is the meaning of the expression in Exodus 33, 23, "And I will take
away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back: but my face shall not be
seen."

Having treated of God as the creator of the world and having learned
something about his attributes, we must now proceed to the study of man,
or which is the same thing, to an investigation of God's relations to
the rational part of his creation in the sublunar world. That man is
endowed with a soul cannot be doubted, for the activities of man's soul
are directly visible. The problem which is difficult is concerning the
nature of the soul.[67] Here opinions differ, and some regard the soul
as an accident of the body, some think it is a corporeal substance like
air or fire, while others believe there is more than one soul in man. It
will be our task to vindicate our own view against these erroneous
ideas. The soul is too important in its functions to be an accident. It
is neither air nor fire because it has not the properties of these
bodies. And if the soul consisted of two or more distinct parts, the
perceptions of sense would not reach the reason, and there would be no
co-operation between these two powers. The true view is therefore that
the soul of man is a substance created by God at the time when the human
body is completed. The soul has no eternal existence before the body as
Plato thought, for nothing is eternal outside of God, as we saw before.
Nor does it enter the soul from the outside, but is created with and in
the body. Its substance is as pure as that of the celestial spheres,
receiving its light like them, but is much finer than the substance of
the spheres, for the latter are not rational, whereas the soul is. The
soul is not dependent for its knowledge upon the body, which without the
latter has neither life nor knowledge, but it uses the body as an
instrument for its functions. When connected with the body the soul has
three faculties, reason, spirit and desire. But we must not think with
Plato that these powers form so many divisions or parts of the soul,
residing in different parts of the body. All the three faculties belong
to the one soul whose seat is in the heart; for from the heart issue the
arteries, which give the body sense and motion.

The soul was put in the body because from its nature it cannot act by
itself; it must have the body as its instrument in order thereby to
attain to perfect happiness, for the soul's functions either purify or
defile it. When the soul leaves the body she can no longer repent; all
this must be done while she is in the body. Being placed in the body is
therefore a good for the soul. If she were left alone, there would be no
use in her existence or in that of the body, and hence the entire
creation would be in vain, which was made for the sake of man. To ask
why was not the soul made so as to be independent of the body is foolish
and tantamount to saying why was not the soul made something else than
soul. The soul is not in any way harmed by being with the body, for the
injury of sin is due to her own free will and not to the body. Moreover,
the body is not unclean, nor are the fluids of the body unclean while in
the body; some of them are declared in the Bible to cause uncleanness
when they leave the body, but this is one of those ordinances which, as
we shall see later, are not demanded by the reason for their own sake,
but are specially commanded for a different purpose. As for the
sufferings which the soul undergoes by reason of her connection with the
body, some are due to her own negligence, such as cold, heat, and so on,
others are inflicted by God for the soul's own good so that she may be
later rewarded.

We see here, and we shall learn more definitely later, that Saadia is
opposed to the view of the ascetics--a view Neo-Platonic in its
origin--that matter and body as such are evil, and that the constant
effort of man must be to free the soul from the taint of the body in
which it is imprisoned, and by which it is dragged down from its
pristine nobility and purity. Saadia's opposition to the belief in the
pre-existence of the soul at once does away with the Neo-Platonic view
that the soul was placed in the body as a punishment for wrongdoing. The
soul was created at the same time with the body, and the two form a
natural unit. Hence complete life involves both body and soul.

We have seen that God's creation of the world is due to his goodness.
His first act of kindness was that he gave being to the things of the
world. He showed himself especially beneficent to man in enabling him to
attain perfect happiness by means of the commandments and prohibitions
which were imposed upon him. The reward consequent upon obedience was
the real purpose of the commandments.[68]

The laws which God gave us through the prophets consist of two groups.
The first embraces such acts as our reason recognizes to be right or
wrong, good or bad, through a feeling of approval or disapproval which
God planted in our minds. Thus reason demands that a benefactor should
receive in return for his goodness either a kind reward if he needs it,
or thanks if he needs no reward. As this is a general demand of the
reason, God could not have neglected it in his own case, and hence the
commandments that we should serve him, that we should not offend or
revile him and the other laws bearing on the same subject.

It is likewise a demand of the reason that one should prevent the
creatures from sinning against one another in any way. Murder is
prohibited because it would lead to the destruction of the race and the
consequent frustration of God's purpose in creating the world.
Promiscuous association of the sexes is prohibited in order that man may
be different from the lower animals, and shall know his father and other
relatives that he may show them honor and kindness. Universal stealing
would lead to indolence, and in the end would destroy itself when there
is nothing more to steal. In a similar way we can explain all laws
relating to social dealings among mankind.

The second group of laws has reference to acts which are inherently
neither right nor wrong, but are made so by the act of God's commandment
or prohibition. This class may be called _Traditional_ in contrast to
the first, which we shall name _Rational_.

The traditional laws are imposed upon us primarily so that we may be
rewarded for obeying them. At the same time we shall find on careful
examination of these laws that they also have a rational signification,
and are not purely arbitrary. Thus the purpose of sanctifying certain
days of the year, like Sabbaths and holy days, is that by resting from
labor we may devote ourselves to prayer, to the acquisition of wisdom,
and to converse with our fellows in the interest of religion. Laws of
ceremonial purity have for their purpose to teach man humility, and to
make prayer and the visitation of holy places more precious in his eyes
after having been debarred from his privileges during the period of his
uncleanness.

It is clear that we should not know how to perform the traditional
commandments without divine revelation since our own reason would not
have suggested them. But even in the case of the rational laws the
general principles alone are known to us from our own reason but not the
details. We know in general that theft, unchastity, and so on, are
wrong, but the details of these matters would lead to disagreement among
mankind, and hence it was necessary that the rational laws also be
directly communicated to us by divine messengers.

The divine messengers are the prophets.[69] They knew that their
revelations came from God through a sign which appeared at the beginning
of the communication and lasted to the end. The sign was a pillar of
cloud or of fire, or an extraordinary bright light, as we learn in the
case of Moses.

The genuineness of a prophet's message is tested first of all by the
nature of the content, and then by his ability to perform miracles. The
Israelites would not have believed Moses, notwithstanding his miracles,
if he had commanded them to commit murder or adultery. It is because his
teaching was found acceptable to the reason that the miracles
accompanying it were regarded as a confirmation of Moses's divine
mission.

The Jewish Law[70] contains three elements, all of which are necessary
for effective teaching. First, the commandments and prohibitions, or the
laws proper; second, the reward and punishment consequent upon obedience
and disobedience; and third, examples of historical characters in which
the laws and their consequences are illustrated.

But the written law would not accomplish its purpose without belief in
tradition. This is fundamental, for without it no individual or society
can exist. No one can live by what he perceives with his own senses
alone. He must depend upon the information he receives from others. And
while this information is liable to error either by reason of the
informant being mistaken or his possible purpose to deceive, these two
possibilities are eliminated in case the tradition is vouched for not by
an individual, but by a whole nation, as in the case of the Jewish
revelation.

As Saadia's emphasis on tradition, apart from its intrinsic importance
for Judaism, has its additional motive in refuting Karaism, so the
following discussion against the possibility of the Law being abrogated
is directed no doubt against the claims of the two sister religions,
Christianity and Mohammedanism.[71]

Abrogation of the law, Saadia says, is impossible. For in the first
place tradition has unanimously held to this view, and in the second
place the Law itself assures us of its permanent validity, "Moses
commanded us a law, an inheritance for the assembly of Jacob" (Deut. 33,
4). The law constitutes the national existence of our people; hence as
we are assured by the Prophets that the Jewish nation is eternal, the
Law must be likewise. We must not even accept the evidence of miracles
in favor of a new law abrogating the old. For as we saw before, it was
not primarily Moses's miracles that served to authenticate his teaching,
but the character of the teaching itself. Now that the law of Moses
stood the test of internal acceptability and external confirmation by
the performance of miracles, its declaration of permanent validity
cannot be upset by any new evidence even if it be miraculous.

Man[72] alone of all created things was given commandments and
prohibitions, because he is superior to all other creatures by reason of
the rational faculty which he possesses, and the world was created for
him. Man's body is small, but his mind is great and comprehensive. His
life is short, but it was given him to assist him to the eternal life
after death. The diseases and other dangers to which he is subject are
intended to keep him humble and God-fearing. The appetites and passions
have their uses in the maintenance of the individual and the race.

If it is true that God gave man commandments and that he rewards and
punishes him according to his conduct, it follows that unless we
attribute injustice to God he must have given man the power to do and to
refrain in the matters which form the subject of the commandments. This
is actually the case and can be proven in many ways. Everyone is
conscious of freedom in his actions, and is not aware of any force
preventing him in his voluntary acts. The Bible testifies to this when
it says (Deut. 30, 19), "I have set before you life and death ...
therefore choose thou life," or (Malachi 1, 9), "From your hand has this
thing come." Tradition is equally explicit in the statement of the
Rabbis (Berakot 33b), "Everything is in the hands of God except the fear
of God." To be sure God is omniscient and knows how a given individual
will act in a given case, but this does not take away from the freedom
of the individual to determine his own conduct. For God's knowledge is
not the _cause_ of a man's act, or in general of a thing's being. If
that were so, all things would be eternal since God knows all things
from eternity. God simply knows that man will choose of his own free
will to do certain things. Man as a matter of fact never acts contrary
to God's knowledge, but this is not because God's knowledge determines
his act, but only because God knows the final outcome of a man's free
deliberation.

Since it is now clear from every point of view that God does not
interfere with a man's freedom of action, any passages in the Bible
which seem to indicate the contrary are not properly understood, and
must needs be interpreted in accordance with the evidence we have
adduced from various sources including the Bible itself. Thus when God
says (Exod. 7, 3) "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh," it does not
mean, as many think, that God forced Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel go.
The meaning rather is that he gave Pharaoh strength to withstand the
plagues without succumbing to them, as many of the Egyptians did. The
same method should be followed with all the other expressions in the
Bible which appear to teach determinism.

A man's conduct has an influence upon the soul, making it pure or impure
as the case may be.[73] Though man cannot see this effect, since the
soul is an intellectual substance, God knows it. He also keeps a record
of our deeds, and deals out reward and punishment in the world to come.
This time will not come until he has created the number of souls which
his wisdom dictates. At the same time there are also rewards and
punishments in this world as an earnest of what is to come in the
hereafter.

A man is called righteous or wicked according as his good or bad deeds
predominate. And the recompense in the next world is given for this
predominating element in his character. A righteous man is punished for
his few bad deeds in this world, and rewarded for his many good deeds in
the world to come. Similarly the wicked man is paid for his good deeds
in this world, while the punishment for his wickedness is reserved. This
answers the old problem of the prosperity of the wicked and the misery
of the righteous in this world.

There are also sufferings of the righteous which are not in the nature
of punishment for past conduct, but in view of the future so as to
increase their reward in the world to come for the trials they endured
without murmuring. The sufferings of little children come under this
head.

On the other hand, a sinner is sometimes well treated and his life
prolonged for one of the following reasons: To give him time to repent,
as in the case of Manasseh; that he may beget a righteous son, like
Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah; to use him as God's tool to punish others
more wicked than he--witness the rôle of Assyria as Isaiah describes it
in chapter ten of his prophecies; for the sake of the righteous who is
closely related to him, as Lot was saved for the sake of Abraham; or in
order to make the punishment more severe later, as in the case of
Pharaoh.

That there is another world after this one in which man is rewarded and
punished can be proved from reason, from Scripture and from
tradition.[74] It is not likely from what we know of God's wisdom and
goodness that the measure of happiness intended for the soul is what it
gets in this world. For every good here is mixed with evil, the latter
even predominating. No one is really content and at peace in this world
even if he has reached the top of the ladder of prosperity and honor.
There must be a reason for this, which is that the soul has an
intuitional longing for the other world which is destined for it. There
are many things from which the soul is bidden to abstain, such as theft,
adultery, and so on, which it desires, and abstention from which causes
it pain. Surely there must be reward awaiting the soul for this
suffering. Often the soul suffers hatred, persecution and even death for
pursuing justice as she is bidden to do. Surely she will be rewarded.
Even when a person is punished with death for a crime committed in this
world, the same death is inflicted for one crime as for ten crimes.
Hence there must be another world where all inequalities are adjusted.

It is also evident that the men of the Bible believed in a hereafter.
Else why should Isaac have consented to be sacrificed, or why should God
have expected it? The same applies to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,
who preferred to be thrown into the fiery furnace rather than fall down
in worship before the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar; and to Daniel who
was thrown into the den of lions for disobeying the order of the king
and praying to God. They would not have done this if they did not
believe in another world, where they would be rewarded for their
sufferings in this one.

Tradition and the Rabbinical literature are filled with reference to a
future world. We need mention only one or two. In the Ethics of the
Fathers (ch. 4) we read that this world is like the vestibule to the
other world. Another statement in the Talmudic treatise Berakot (p. 17a)
reads that "in the world to come there is no eating and drinking, nor
giving in marriage, nor buying and selling, but the righteous sit with
their crowns on their heads and enjoy the splendor of the Shekinah."

With regard to the condition of the soul after death and the nature of
reward and punishment in the next world, there is a variety of opinions.
Those who hold that the soul is corporeal or that it is an accident of
the body believe it is destroyed with the death of the body. We have
already refuted their opinion. Others, like the Platonists, the Dualists
and the Pantheists, who believe in the pre-existence of the soul either
as a separate entity or as a part of God, hold that after the death of
the body the soul returns to its original condition. Our belief as
stated above (p. 37) is opposed to this. But there are some calling
themselves Jews who believe in metempsychosis, that the soul migrates
from one person to another and even from man to beast, and that in this
way it is punished for its sins and purged. They see a confirmation of
their view in the fact that some persons exhibit qualities which are
characteristic of lower animals. But this is absurd. The soul and the
body form a natural unit, the one being adapted to the other. A human
body cannot unite with the soul of an animal, nor an animal body with a
human soul. They try to account by their theory for the suffering of
little children, who could not have sinned in their own person. But we
have already explained that the suffering of children is not in the
nature of punishment, but with a view to subsequent reward, and they
must admit that the first placing of the soul in the body and giving it
commandments is not in the nature of compensation for any past merit,
but with a view to later reward. Why not then explain the suffering of
children in the same way?[75]

As the body and the soul form a natural unit during life and a man's
conduct is the combined effort of the two constituent parts of his
being, it stands to reason that future reward and punishment should be
imposed upon body and soul in combination. Hence the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body, which is alluded to in the Bible and made
into a religious dogma by the Rabbis, has support also in the
reason.[76] Many objections have been advanced against it, but they can
be easily answered. The strongest objection might seem to be that which
attempts to show that resurrection is a logical contradiction. The
argument is that the elements making up a given body during life find
their way after the death of the person into the body of another, to
which they are assimilated and of which they form a part. Hence it is
impossible to resurrect two bodies out of the material common to both.
But this argument is untrue to fact. Every human body has its own
matter, which never enters into the composition of any other body. When
the person dies and the body decomposes, each element returns to its
place in nature, where it is kept until the resurrection.

But there is another event which will happen to Israel before the time
of the resurrection. In accordance with the promises of the Prophets we
believe that Israel will be delivered from exile by the Messiah.[77]
Reason also supports this belief, for God is righteous, and since he has
placed us in exile partly as a punishment for wrongdoing, partly for the
purpose of trying us, there must be a limit to both.

Messiah the son of David will come, will deliver Jerusalem from the
enemy and settle there with his people. When all the believing
Israelites have been gathered from all the nations to the land of
Palestine, then will come the resurrection. The Temple will be rebuilt,
the light of the Shekinah will rest upon it, and the spirit of prophecy
will be vouchsafed to all Israel, young and old, master and servant.
This blessed period will last until the end of time, _i. e._, until this
world will give place to the next, which is the place of reward and
punishment.

We describe the future habitation and status of the soul as Garden of
Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna.[78] The former expression is intended to
suggest happiness, there being nothing pleasanter in the world than a
garden. The term Gehenna is associated in the Bible with Tofteh, which
was a place of impurity not far from the Temple. In reality, however,
God will create a substance which will combine light and heat in such a
way that the righteous will enjoy the light only, while the wicked will
be tortured by the heat. All this Saadia infers from Biblical passages.

There will be no eating and drinking in the next world, and hence no
need of a heaven and an earth like ours, but there will be place and
time, since creatures cannot do without it. There will be no succession
of day and night, for these are of use only for our present life and
occupations, but will be unnecessary there. There will, however, be a
special period for worship.

Reward and punishment in the next world will both be eternal. It stands
to reason that God should _promise_ eternal reward and punishment so as
to inspire mankind with the highest possible degree of hope and fear,
that they may have no excuse for not heeding the commandments so
forcibly impressed upon them. Having made the promise, his justice
prompts him to fulfil it, and those who suffer have themselves to blame.

We have now completed in outline Saadia's system of Judaism. There are
many details which we necessarily had to leave out, especially in the
more dogmatic part of his work, that dealing with specific Jewish
doctrines, which he constructs on the basis of Rabbinical literature and
Biblical allusions interpreted so as to harmonize with the statements of
the Rabbis. Many questions specifically theological and eschatological
assumed importance in his mind by reason of his surroundings. I mean the
Mohammedan schools and sects, and the Karaite discussions which were
closely modelled after them. The most important part of his system
philosophically is that which deals with creation and the attributes of
God. His discussions of the soul and of free will are less thorough, and
the details of his doctrines of resurrection, future reward and
punishment, the redemption of Israel and the Messiah are almost purely
dogmatic. For a scientific ethic there is no room at all in the body of
his work. A man's conduct is prescribed for him in the divine
commandments, though in a general way the reason sees the right and the
wrong of the so-called rational group of laws. Still as an after thought
Saadia added a chapter to the "Emunot ve-Deot" in which he attempts to
give a psychological basis for human conduct. Noting the various
tendencies of individuals and sects in his environment to extremes in
human behavior, some to asceticism, some to self-indulgence, be it the
lust of love or of power, he lays emphasis on the inadequacy of any one
pursuit for the demands of man's complex nature, and recommends a
harmonious blending of all things for which men strive.[79]

God alone, he says, is a real unity, everything else is by the very
reason of its being a creature essentially not one and simple, but
composite and complex. So man has a love and desire for many things, and
also aversion for many things. And as in other objects in nature it
takes a combination of several elements to constitute a given thing, so
in man it is by a proper systematization of his likes and dislikes that
he can reach perfection of character and morals. It cannot be that God
intended man to pursue one object all his life to the exclusion of all
others, for in that case he would have implanted only one desire in man
instead of many. You cannot build a house of stones alone neither can
you develop a perfect character by one pursuit and one interest.

Pursuit of one thing is likely to result in harm, for example,
over-indulgence in eating brings on disease. Wisdom is therefore needed
in regulating one's conduct. The principle here is control of one's
likes and dislikes. Of the three faculties of the soul, reason, spirit
and desire, reason must be the master of the other two. If any matter
occurs to a person's imagination, he must try it with his reason to see
whether it is likely to benefit or injure him, and pursue or avoid it
accordingly. If, on the other hand, he allows the lower parts of his
soul to rule his reason, he is not a moral man.

The reader will recognize Plato in the last statement. The division of
the soul into the three faculties of reason, spirit and desire is
Platonic, as we have already seen, and the attempt to base an ethic on
the proper relation between the powers of the soul also goes back to
Plato. But Saadia tries to show that the Bible too favors this
conception.

When Ecclesiastes tells us (1, 14), "I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after
wind," he does not mean that there is nothing worth striving after, for
he would then be condemning the objects of God's creation. His meaning
is that it is vain to pursue any one thing to the exclusion of every
other. He then proceeds to name three prominent objects of pursuit,
wisdom, pleasure and worldly gain--all is vain when taken by itself. A
proper combination of all is to be recommended as is delicately hinted
in the same book (2, 3), "I searched in mine heart how to cheer my flesh
with wine, mine heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on
folly."




CHAPTER IV

JOSEPH AL-BASIR AND JESHUA BEN JUDAH


I. _Joseph Al-Basir (11th century)_[80]

Joseph ben Abraham, euphemistically surnamed on account of his
blindness, al-Basir (the seer), was a Karaite and lived in Babylonia or
Persia in the beginning of the eleventh century. His philosophical work
is closely modelled on the writings of the Arabian Mutakallimun, the
Muʿtazilites. Unlike Saadia, who tacitly accepts some of their methods
and views, al-Basir is an avowed follower of the Kalam and treats only
of those questions which are common to Jew and Mohammedan, avoiding, for
example, so important an issue as whether it is possible that the law of
God may be abrogated--a question which meant so much to Saadia. The
division of his investigation into the two parts, Unity and Justice, is
a serious matter with him; and he finds it necessary to tell us in
several instances why he chose to treat a given topic under the one or
the other heading. In spirit and temperament he is a thoroughgoing
rationalist. Brief and succinct to the point of obscurity, he betrays
neither partiality nor emotion, but fearlessly pushes the argument to
its last conclusion and reduces it to its lowest terms.

Saadia (above p. 28) puts revelation as a fourth source of truth
parallel to sense, judgment and logical inference. To be sure he, in one
instance (p. 35), speaks of the reason as preceding the Bible even as
tradition follows it, but this is only a passing observation, and is
properly corrected by the view expressed elsewhere (p. 28) that while a
Jew is not forbidden to speculate, he must not set the Bible aside and
adopt opinions as they occur to him. Al-Basir does not leave the matter
in this unsettled condition. He definitely gives priority--logical
priority, to reason. Knowledge, he says, must precede revelation. The
prophet as the messenger of God cannot be believed on his word, for the
opponent may have the same claim. Not only must the prophet
authenticate his mission by the performance of a miracle which cannot be
explained by natural means, but we must know besides that he who sent
him has our good at heart and would not deceive us. A knowledge of the
existence, power and wisdom of the creator must therefore precede our
belief in the prophet's mission. To take these truths from the words of
the prophet and then give him credence because God sent him would be
reasoning in a circle. The minimum of knowledge therefore which is
indispensable before we can make any appeal to the words of the prophet
is rational proof of the existence, power and wisdom of God. Having this
minimum the person who is not practiced in speculative investigation may
rely for the rest of the creed, for example, the unity of God and his
other attributes, upon the words of the Bible. For if we know
independently that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, and the prophet can
substantiate his claim to be a divine messenger by the performance of
genuine miracles, his reliability is established and we are safe in
accepting all that he has to say without proof; but the fundamental
thing to do is to establish the prophet's reliability, and for this an
independent source of evidence is necessary. This is the reason.

Our problem therefore is to prove the power and wisdom of God, which
will imply his existence. We cannot do this directly, for we cannot see
God. Hence the only method is to prove the existence of a powerful and
wise creator through his creation. We must prove his power in doing
things which we cannot do, such as the ability to create our bodies. But
for this it is necessary to show that our bodies--and the same will
apply to the other bodies of the world, and hence to the world as a
whole--were created, _i. e._, that there was a time when they were not.
This leads us to an analysis of the constituents of body. All bodies
consist of atoms and their "accidents," or conditions and qualities. The
primary accidents, which are presupposed by all the rest, are the
following four, combination, separation, motion and rest. Without these
no body can exist, for body is the result of a combination and
separation of atoms at rest or in motion. But combination and separation
are the acts of a combiner and separater, as we can infer from the
analogy of our own acts. Our acts have ourselves as their creators,
hence the acts visible in the combinations and separations of atoms to
form bodies must also have their creator.

The attributes of the creator we infer from the nature of his work. So
we call God "Powerful," meaning that he had the power to create the
world. As creation denotes power, so the success and harmony of the
product argues wisdom; and this power and wisdom thus established are
not disproved by an occasional production or event which is not perfect,
a monstrosity for example, or disease and suffering. We say in reference
to these that God must have a deeper object in view, to inspire mankind
with the fear of God, and in order to increase their reward in the next
world.

The attribute of Life follows from the other two, for life denotes the
possession or capacity of power and knowledge.

Thus al-Basir has the same three essential attributes as Saadia. His
proof of the existence of God is also identical with one of the proofs
of Saadia. But he shows himself a more loyal follower of the Kalam by
frankly adopting the atomic theory, whereas Saadia opposes it (p. 25).

Other predicates of God are perception, will, unity, incorporeality and
eternity.

Perception is one of the most important expressions of life, but it must
not be confused with knowledge or wisdom. The latter embraces the
non-existent as well as the existent, the former the existent only. It
is in virtue of the former attribute that we speak of God as "hearing"
and "seeing."

"Willing" is another attribute of God, and those are wrong who identify
God's will with his knowledge, and define God's willing to mean that his
works take place in accordance with his knowledge. God's will must be a
special attribute since we see in creation traces of free will. To be
the will of God it must not reside in anything different from God, and
yet it cannot inhere in God as the subject, for only body is capable of
being the subject of accidents. The only solution, therefore, is that
God exercises his voluntary activity through a will which he creates, a
will not residing in any subject.

This discussion of the nature of God's will seems a case of hair
splitting with a vengeance, and al-Basir is not the author of it. As in
his other doctrines so in this also he is a faithful follower of the
Muʿtazila, and we shall see more of this method in his discussion of the
unity of God despite the plurality of his attributes.

But we shall first take up the attributes of incorporeality and
eternity, which can be dismissed in a few words.

God is eternal because the only other alternative is that he is created.
But if so there is a creator, and if the latter is again created, he
must likewise have a creator, and so we are led to infinity, which
cannot be, the infinite regress being in all cases an impossibility
according to an axiom of the Kalam. We must, therefore, have an eternal
creator somewhere, and he is God.

From God's eternity follows his incorporeality, for we have shown before
that all body is created, since it presupposes combination and
separation, and the latter a combiner and separater.

When we speak of the unity of God we mean first that there is no second
God, and then that his own essence has no composition or plurality in
it. Two Gods is an absurdity, for the one might desire what the other
does not, and he whose will predominates is the real God. It is no
objection to say that in their wisdom they would never disagree, because
the _possibility_ is there, and this makes the above argument valid.
Again, if there were two Gods they would have to be completely alike in
their essential attributes, and as space cannot hold them apart, since
they are not bodies, what is there to constitute them two?

The other problem, of God's simplicity, is more difficult. Does not the
multiplicity of attributes make God's essence multiple and composite?
The form which this question took was this. Shall we say that God is
omnipotent through Power, omniscient through Knowledge, and so on? If
so, this Power, Knowledge, etc., are created or eternal. If the Power,
say, is created, then God must have had power in order to create it,
hence was powerful not through Power. If the Power is eternal, we have
more than one God, and "Power" as an eternal would also be Wise and
Living, etc.; Wisdom would also be powerful, living, etc., and so on
with the other attributes, a doctrine closely bordering on Christianity
and reminding one of Augustine. The principle of monotheism could not
allow such a conception as this. If Power is neither created nor
eternal, it follows that God is omnipotent not through Power as an
external cause or a distinct entity, but through his own essence. The
attributes Power, Wisdom, Life, are not anything distinguishable from
each other and from God's essence. They are modes or conditions of
God's essence, and are known along with it.

The same considerations which prompted us to conceive God as one and
simple, make impossible the belief in the eternity of God's word. This
was a point much discussed in the Mohammedan schools, and was evidently
directed against Christianity, where the Word or Logos was identified
with the second person in the Trinity. Eternity, Al-Basir says, is
incompatible with the idea and purpose of speech. God speaks with a word
which he creates. This adds no new predicate to God, but is implied in
his Power. The attribute omnipotent implies that when he wills he can
make himself understood by us as we do through speech.

We notice that Al-Basir is more elaborate in his discussion of the
attributes than Saadia, and like Al-Mukammas he makes use of the formulæ
of the Kalam, "omnipotent not with Power, omniscient not with Wisdom."
Saadia does not follow the Kalam so closely, but is just as emphatic in
his endeavor to show that the three essential attributes are only
verbally three; conceptually and really they are one.

The doctrine of the attributes brings to a close the section on unity,
and the second division of the investigation is entitled Justice and
Fairness. The main problems here are the nature of good and evil and the
relation of God to them, the question of free will and other subordinate
topics, theological and eschatological.

With regard to the first question two extreme positions are possible,
which were actually held by Mohammedan schools of Al-Basir's day. One is
that nothing is good or bad in itself, our reason not recognizing it as
such; that the divine command or prohibition makes the thing good or
bad. Hence, the representatives of this opinion say, God, who stands
above his commands and prohibitions, is not bound by them. Good and bad
hold for the subject, not for the author. The acts of God do not come
within the classification, and hence it is possible that God may do what
we regard as injustice. Some, in their endeavor to be consistent and to
carry the argument to its last conclusion, did not even shrink from the
_reductio ad absurdum_ that it is possible God may lie; for, said they,
if I promise a boy sweetmeats and fail to keep my promise, it is no
worse than if I beat him.

For this school there is no problem of evil, because ethical
distinctions do not apply to God's doings. Whatever God does is good.
The other school came under the influence of Greek thought and
identified the idea of God with the idea of the Good. They maintained
that from the nature of God's essence it was not only his duty to do the
good, but that it was impossible for him to do anything else. Doing good
is a necessity of his nature, and our good and evil are also his good
and evil. Ethical values are absolute and not relative.

Neither of these radical views can be maintained. The first is refuted
by its own consequences which only very few of its advocates were bold
enough to adopt. The possibility of God telling a falsehood, which is
implied in the purely human validity of good and evil, is subversive of
all religion. God would then cease to be trustworthy, and there would be
no reason for giving him obedience. Besides, if revelation alone
determines right and wrong, it would follow that if God chose to reverse
his orders, our moral judgments would be turned the other way around,
good would be evil, and evil good. Finally, if good and bad are
determined by the will of God only, those who do not believe in
revelation would be without an idea of right and wrong, but this is
manifestly not true.

But the other opinion, that God is compelled by the necessity of his
nature to do the good, is also erroneous. In the first place it detracts
from God's omnipotence to say he cannot do wrong. Besides, if he is
compelled by an inner necessity to do the good, he must always have done
this, and the world would have existed from eternity. It is just as
wrong to say that it is the duty of God to do what is good and useful
for man. For this is due to a confusion of the good or generous with the
obligatory. Any deed to which no blame attaches may be called good. If
no praise attaches to it either, it is indifferent. If it is deserving
of praise and its omission does not call forth blame, it is a generous
act. A duty is an act the omission of which deserves blame.

Now the truth in the question under discussion is midway between the two
extremes. God is able to do good as well as evil, and is under no
necessity. The notions of right and wrong are absolute and not merely
relative. God never does wrong because evil has no attractive power _per
se_. Wrong is committed always as a means to an end, namely, to gain an
advantage or avoid an injury. God is not dependent upon anything; he
needs no advantages and fears no injuries. Hence there is nothing to
prompt him to do wrong. The good on the other hand attracts us by its
inherent goodness, not for an ulterior end. If the good were done only
for the sake of deriving some benefit external to the good itself, God,
who is self-sufficient, would not do anything either good or evil. God
does the good always and not the bad, because in his wisdom he sees the
difference between them. It was a deed of generosity in God to have
created the world and given life to his creatures, but it was not a
duty.

This conception of the nature of good and evil leaves on our hands the
problem of evil. Why does a good God permit disease and suffering to
exist in the world? In particular, how explain the suffering and death
of innocent children and harmless animals?

The answer of Al-Basir is that infliction of pain may under certain
circumstances be a good instead of an evil. In human relations a person
is permitted to inflict pain on another in self-defence, or to prevent
the pain from becoming worse, as, for example, when a finger is
amputated to save the hand. The infliction of pain is not only
permitted, it becomes a duty in case of retribution, as in a court of
justice; and finally it is permitted to inflict temporary pain if it
will result in a greater advantage in the future. The last two cases
apply also to God's treatment of his creatures. Disease and suffering
are either punishment for offences committed, or are imposed with a view
to later reward. In the case of children the last explanation alone is
applicable. They will be rewarded in the next world. At the same time
the parents are admonished to repentance and good conduct.

The most difficult question of the section on justice is that of free
will and foreknowledge. Is man master of his actions? If so, how can we
reconcile this with God's omniscience, who knows beforehand how the
person will act at a given moment? Is man free to decide at the last
moment in a manner contrary to God's knowledge? If so, we defend freedom
at the expense of God's omniscience. If man is bound to act as God
foreknew he would act, divine knowledge is saved, man's freedom lost.
Al-Basir has no doubt man is free. Our own consciousness testifies to
this. When we cut off our finger bitten by a snake, we know that we
ourselves did it for a purpose, and distinguish it from a case of our
finger being cut off by order of an official, before whom we have been
accused or maligned. One and the same act can have only one author and
not two, and we know that we are the authors of our acts. There is a
much closer connection between an agent and his act than between a
knower and his knowledge, which may be the common property of many, and
no one doubts that a man's knowledge is his own.

The dilemma above mentioned with its two horns, of which one denies
God's knowledge, the other man's freedom, is puzzling enough, to be
sure. But we are not bound to answer it since it is purely hypothetical.
We do not know of a real instance in which a man's decision tended to be
contrary to God's foreknowledge of its outcome. Just as we should refuse
to answer the question whether an actual case of injustice on the part
of God would prove his ignorance or dependence, because we know through
irrefutable proofs that God is wise and without need; so here we say man
has freedom though God knows he will act thus and so, and refuse to say
whether in case the unbeliever turned believer it would prove God's
ignorance or change in his knowledge.

God's creation was a pure act of grace. But once having done this and
communicated to us a knowledge of himself and his will, it is now his
duty to guide us in the right path, by sending us his prophets. The
commandments and prohibitions must never be contrary to the knowledge of
reason. We must see in the commandments means of guidance, in the
prohibitions a protection against destructive influences. If they had
not this rational basis, we do not see why God should have imposed them
upon us.

Having given us reason to know his being, and having announced his truth
through the prophets, it is his duty to reward those who knew him and
were obedient, eternally in the next world, and to punish eternally the
unbeliever. If one has merits and sins, they are balanced against each
other. If the sinner repents of his evil deeds, it is the duty of God to
accept his repentance and remit his punishment.


2. _Jeshua ben Judah_[81]

Jeshua ben Judah or, as he is known by his Arabic name, Abu al-Faraj
Furkan ibn Asad, was likewise a Karaite, a pupil of Joseph Al-Basir,
and flourished in Palestine in the second half of the eleventh century.
His point of view is essentially the same as that of his teacher,
Al-Basir. He is also a follower of the Muʿtazilite Kalam and as strong a
rationalist as his master. He agrees with Al-Basir that we cannot get
certain knowledge of the creation of the world and the existence of God
from the Bible. This information must come originally from rational
speculation. It should then be applied to the miracles of the prophets
so as to prove the authenticity of their mission and the truth of their
announcements.

He adopts the atomic theory, though he is opposed to the view that atoms
are created ever anew by God from moment to moment, and that there is no
natural and necessary sequence or continuity in the phenomena of the
world or qualities of bodies, all being due to habit, and custom induced
in us by God's uninterrupted creations. As in his philosophical
discussions he is a follower of the Kalam, so in his legalistic works he
is indebted to the Mohammedan schools of religious law.

Like Al-Basir, Jeshua ben Judah regards as the corner stone of his
religious philosophy the proof that the world was created, _i. e._, that
it is not eternal. His arguments are in essence the same, though
differently formulated. In their simplest form they are somewhat as
follows. The world and its bodies consist of atoms and their accidents.
Taking a given atom for the sake of argument we know that it is
immaterial to it, so far as its own essence is concerned, whether it
occupy one place or another. As a fact, however, it does occupy a
definite place at a given moment. This must be due to a cause. And as
the atom in question in the course of time changes its place, this shows
that the cause which kept it in the former place has disappeared and
given way to a new cause, and so on. In other words, the successive
causes which determine the positions and motions of the atoms are not
permanent, hence not eternal but created. The necessary inference is
that the atoms or the bodies, which cannot exist without these created
causes (else they could not occupy one place rather than another), must
also be created.

Another form of the argument for creation is this. The eternal has no
cause. It exists by virtue of its own essence, and is not dependent on
anything else. If now the atoms were eternal, they would have to persist
in the same condition all the time; for any change would imply a cause
upon which the atom is dependent, and this is fatal to its eternity. But
the atoms do constantly change their condition and place. Hence they are
created.

If the things of the world are created, someone must have created them.
This is clear. But there may be room for the supposition that this
creative agency is a "_cause_," _i. e._, an impersonal entity, which by
necessity produces other things from itself. Hence we must hasten to say
that this conception of the Creator is impossible because incompatible
with our results so far. A necessarily producing cause cannot be without
creating, hence an eternal cause implies an eternal effect--which
contradicts our idea of a created world proved above. We say, therefore,
that the Creator is not a "cause" but an "agent," _i. e._, one acting
with will and choice.

God is incorporeal because body consists of atoms, and atoms, we have
shown, are created. Besides, if he were corporeal, he could not create
bodies any more than we can. He would furthermore be limited to a
definite place, and the same arguments cited above to prove that atoms
are dependent on a cause would apply to him. Finally we as corporeal
beings cannot exert an influence on objects except by coming in contact
with them. God causes the seed to grow without being in contact with it.
Hence he is not body, and the scriptural passages apparently teaching
the contrary must be explained otherwise.

Jeshua ben Judah likewise agrees with Al-Basir in regarding the nature
of good and evil as absolute, not relative. Like his master he opposes
those who make God's command and prohibition the sole creators of good
and evil respectively, as on the other hand he refuses to agree with the
view that God is bound by necessity to do the good. Our reason
distinguishes between good and evil as our senses between white and
black.

Among other arguments in favor of the absolute character of right and
wrong, which we have already found in Al-Basir, appears the following.
If good and evil mean simply that which God commands and prohibits
respectively, and the distinction holds only for us but not for God, it
follows that God may do what we think is evil. If this be so, we have no
ground for believing in the good faith of the prophet--God might have
sent him to deceive us--and the alleged basis of right and wrong is
removed.

We conclude therefore that good and evil are absolute and are binding
upon God as well. God can do evil as well as good, but being omnipotent
he can accomplish his purpose just as easily by doing good as by doing
evil, and hence surely prefers to do good. Besides, all evil doing is
the result of some need, but God has no needs, being self-sufficient,
hence he does not do evil.

It follows from the above that God had a purpose in creating the world.
For an act without a purpose is vain and hence bad. This purpose cannot
have been egoistic, since God is without need, being above pleasure and
pain. The purpose must therefore have been the well-being of his
creatures.




CHAPTER V

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL


With Gabirol the scene of Jewish intellectual activity changes from the
east to the west. Prior to the middle of the tenth century the centre of
Jewish learning was in Babylonia. The succession of Geonim in the
Talmudical schools of Sura and Pumbadita, and particularly the great
fame of Saadia, made all the other Jewish communities of the world look
to Babylonia as the spiritual centre. They considered it a privilege to
contribute to the support of the great eastern academies and appealed to
their spiritual heads in cases of doubt in religious matters. Some of
this glory was reflected also upon the neighboring countries under
Mohammedan domination, Palestine, Egypt, and Kairuan or northern Africa
to the west of Egypt. Thus all the men, Rabbanites as well as Karaites,
whom we treated so far lived and flourished in the east in one of the
four countries mentioned. Christian Europe was intellectually on a low
level, and as far as scientific studies were concerned, the Jews under
Christian rule were no better than their temporal rulers.

But a new era dawned for Jewish literature with the accession to power
of the Umayyad caliph Abd al Rahman III, as head of Mohammedan Spain or
Andalusia. He was a liberal man and a patron of learning. Hasdai ibn
Shaprut, a cultured and high-minded Jew, was his trusted adviser, and
like his royal patron he protected and encouraged Jewish learning,
Talmudical as well as scientific. When Moses ben Enoch, a learned
emissary from the Babylonian Academy, was ransomed by the Jewish
community of Cordova and made the head of a Talmudical school in that
city, the beginning of the end of Babylonian Jewish supremacy was at
hand. Moses ben Enoch the Talmudist, Menahem ben Saruk, the grammarian
and lexicographer, and Dunash ben Labrat, the poet--all three under the
distinguished patronage of Hasdai ibn Shaprut--inaugurated the long line
of Spanish Jewish worthies, which continued almost five centuries,
constituting the golden era of Jewish literature and making of Spain
the intellectual centre of all Jewry.

Solomon ibn Gabirol was not merely the first Jewish philosopher in
Spain, he was the first Spanish philosopher, that is, he was the first
philosophical writer in Andalusia. Ibn Badja, the first Mohammedan
philosopher in Spain, was born at least a half century after Gabirol.
The birth of Gabirol is generally placed in 1021 and his death in 1058,
though some have put it as late as 1070.

The fate of Gabirol in the history of Jewish literature was a peculiar
one. Highly celebrated as a synagogal poet in the Sephardic as well as
Ashkenazic community, his fame as a great philosopher was early
overshadowed by his successors, and his chief work, the "Fountain of
Life," was in the course of time quite forgotten. The Arabic original
was lost and there was no Hebrew translation. The Tibbonides, Judah,
Samuel and Moses, who translated everything worth while in Jewish
philology, science and philosophy from Arabic into Hebrew, either did
not know of Gabirol's masterpiece or did not think it important enough
to translate. To judge from the extant fragments of the correspondence
between Samuel ibn Tibbon and Maimonides, it would seem that both were
true; that is that Samuel ibn Tibbon had no access to Gabirol's "Fons
Vitæ," and that if he had had such access, Maimonides would have
dissuaded him from translating it. Maimonides actually tells his
translator[82] that the only books worth studying are those of Aristotle
and his true commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius,
Averroes. Alfarabi and Avicenna are also important, but other writings,
such as those of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Hermes, Porphyry, represent a
pre-Aristotelian philosophy which is obsolete, and are a waste of time.
The books of Isaac Israeli on the "Elements" and on "Definitions," are
no better, seeing that Israeli was only a physician and no philosopher.
He is not familiar with the "Microcosmus" of Joseph ibn Zaddik, but
infers from a knowledge of the man that his work is based upon the
writings of the "Brothers of Purity"; and hence, we may add, not
strictly Aristotelian, and not particularly important. Not a word is
here said about Gabirol, apparently because Samuel ibn Tibbon had not
inquired about him. But from Maimonides's judgment concerning the works
of "Empedocles," we may legitimately infer that he would have been no
more favorable to Gabirol; for, as we shall see, Gabirol's system is
also based upon a point of view similar to that of the so-called
"Empedocles." What the Tibbonides left undone was, however, partially
accomplished about a half century later by the commentator and critic
Shem Tob Falaquera (1225-1290). Apparently in agreement with Abraham ibn
Daud that Gabirol's profuseness in his philosophic masterpiece made it
possible to reduce it to a tenth part of its size, Falaquera did not
find it necessary to translate the whole of the "Mekor Hayim" into
Hebrew, giving us instead a translation of selected parts, which in his
estimation contained the gist of Gabirol's teaching. The absence of a
complete Hebrew translation of Gabirol's philosophical work meant of
course that no one who did not know Arabic could have access to
Gabirol's "Mekor Hayim," and this practically excluded the majority of
learned Jews after the first half of the thirteenth century. But the
selections of Falaquera did not seem to find many readers either, as may
be inferred from the fact that so far only one single manuscript of this
translation is known.

_En revanche_, as the French would say, the Christian Scholastics of the
thirteenth century made Gabirol their own and studied him diligently.
His fundamental thesis of a universal matter underlying all existence
outside of God was made a bone of contention between the two dominant
schools; the Dominicans, led by Thomas Aquinas, opposing this
un-Aristotelian principle, the Franciscans with Duns Scotus at their
head, adopting it as their own. "Ego autem redeo ad sententiam
Avicembronis," is a formula in Duns Scotus's discussion of the principle
of matter.[83]

The translation of Gabirol's philosophy into an accessible language,
which was not considered desirable by Jews, was actually accomplished by
Christians. About a century before Falaquera a complete translation into
Latin was made in Toledo of Gabirol's "Fountain of Life," under the
title "Fons Vitæ." This translation was made at the instance of Raymond,
Archbishop of Toledo in the middle of the twelfth century, by Dominicus
Gundissalinus, archdeacon of Segovia, with the assistance of a converted
Jewish physician, Ibn Daud (Avendehut, Avendeath), whose name after
conversion became Johannes Hispanus or Hispalensis. Unlike the Hebrew
epitome of Falaquera this translation was not neglected, as is clear
from the rôle Gabirol's philosophy plays in the disputations of the
schools, and from the fact that there are still extant four manuscripts
of the complete translation, one of an epitome thereof, and there is
evidence that a fifth manuscript existed in 1375 in the Papal
library.[84] As Ibn Sina was corrupted by the Latin writers into
Avicenna, and Ibn Roshd into Averroes, so Ibn Gabirol became in turn,
Avencebrol, Avicembron, Avicebron; and the Scholastics who fought about
his philosophy had no idea he was a Jew and celebrated as a writer of
religious hymns used in the synagogue. He was regarded now as a
Mohammedan, now as a Christian.

This peculiar circumstance will help us to get an inkling of the reason
for the neglect of Gabirol's philosophy in the Jewish community. It is
clear that a work which, like the "Fons Vitæ," made it possible for its
author to be regarded as a Mohammedan or even a Christian, cannot have
had the Jewish imprint very deeply stamped upon its face. Nay more,
while the knowledge of its having been translated from the Arabic may
have been sufficient in itself to stamp the author as a Mohammedan,
there must have been additional indications for his Scholastic admirers
to make them regard him as a Christian. An examination of the work lends
some semblance of truth to these considerations.

Gabirol nowhere betrays his Jewishness in the "Fons Vitæ." He never
quotes a Biblical verse or a Talmudic dictum. He does not make any overt
attempt to reconcile his philosophical views with religious faith. The
treatise is purely speculative as if religious dogma nowhere existed to
block one's way or direct one's search. Abraham Ibn Daud, the author of
the philosophical treatise "Emunah Ramah" (The Exalted Faith), and the
predecessor of Maimonides, criticises Gabirol very severely, and that
not merely because he disagrees with him in the conception of matter and
finds Gabirol's reasoning devoid of cogency and logical force--many bad
arguments, he says, seem in the mind of Gabirol to be equivalent to one
good one--but principally because Gabirol failed to take a Jewish
attitude in his philosophizing, and actually, as Ibn Daud tells us,
maintains views dangerous to Judaism (below, p. 198).

This will easily account for the fact that Gabirol, celebrated as he was
as a poet, was lost sight of generally as a philosopher. The matter is
made clearer still if we add that his style in the "Mekor Hayim" is
against him. It is devoid of all merit whether of literary beauty or of
logical conciseness and brevity. It is diffuse to a degree and
frequently very wearisome and tedious. One has to wade through pages
upon pages of bare syllogisms, one more flimsy than another.

Finally, the point of view of Gabirol was that of a philosophy that was
rapidly becoming obsolete, and Maimonides, the ground having been made
ready by Ibn Daud, gave this philosophy its death-blow by substituting
for it the philosophy of Aristotle.

We now understand why it is that, with few exceptions here and there,
Gabirol's philosophical work was in the course of time forgotten among
the Jews, though his name Avicebron as well as some of his chief
doctrines were well known to the Scholastic writers. To be sure, even
students of Scholastic literature had no direct access to Gabirol's
treatise as it was never printed and no one knew whether there were
still any manuscripts of it extant or not. The only sources of
information concerning Avicebron's philosophy were Aquinas's
refutations, and Duns Scotus's defence, and other second-hand references
in the writings of the Scholastics. Who Avicebron was no one knew. It
was not until 1819 that Amable Jourdain,[85] in tracing the history of
the Latin translations of Aristotle, came to the conclusion that more
must be known about the philosophy of Avicebron's "Fons Vitæ" if we
intended to understand the Scholastics. In 1845 Solomon Munk discovered
in the national library at Paris the epitome of Falaquera mentioned
above, and comparing it with the views of Avicebron as found in the
discussions of the Scholastics, made the important discovery that the
mysterious Avicebron was neither a Mohammedan nor a Christian but a Jew,
and none other than the famous poet Solomon ibn Gabirol. Then began a
search for copies of a Latin translation, which was rewarded amply. Both
Munk and Seyerlen discovered manuscript copies of the "Fons Vitæ," and
now both the Hebrew epitome of Falaquera and the Latin translation of
Gundissalinus are accessible in print.[86] So much for the interesting
history of Gabirol. Now a word as to his views.

Shem Tob ibn Falaquera, in the brief introduction which he appends to
his epitome of the "Mekor Hayim" says, "It seems to me that Solomon ibn
Gabirol follows in his book the views of the ancient philosophers as we
find them in a book composed by Empedocles concerning the 'Five
Substances.'[87] This book is based upon the principle that all
spiritual substances have a spiritual matter; that the form comes from
above and the matter receives it from below, _i. e._, that the matter is
a substratum and bears the form upon it." He then adds that Aristotle
attributes a similar view to his predecessors, but that this view is
inconsistent with Aristotle's own thinking. For in his opinion what is
material is composite and possessed of potentiality. Hence only those
things have matter which are subject to generation and decay, and in
general change from one state to another.

Without going into detail as to the nature of this work of Empedocles
named by Falaquera as the source of Gabirol's views--expositions of
these so-called Empedoclean views and fragments from Empedocles's book
have been found in Arabian and Hebrew writers[88]--it is sufficient for
us to know that it has nothing to do with the real Empedocles, the
ancient Greek philosopher; that it was another of the many spurious
writings which circulated in the middle ages under famous names of
antiquity; and that like the "Theology of Aristotle," and the "Liber de
Causis," mentioned in the Introduction (p. xx), it was Neo-Platonic in
character.

Thus Gabirol was a Neo-Platonist. This does not mean that he did not
adopt many important Aristotelian conceptions. Neo-Platonism itself
could not have arisen without Aristotle. The ideas of matter and form,
and potentiality and actuality, and the categories, and so on, had
become the fixed elements of philosophical thinking, and no new system
could do without them. In this sense Plotinus himself, the founder of
Neo-Platonism, is an Aristotelian. When we speak of Gabirol as a
Neo-Platonist, we mean that the essence of his system is Neo-Platonic.
He is not a dualist, but a monist. God and matter are not opposed as two
ultimate principles, as they are in Aristotle. Matter in Gabirol is
ultimately identified with God. In this he goes even beyond Plotinus.
For whereas in Plotinus matter occupies the lowest scale in the
gradation of being as it flows from the One or the Good (_cf._
Introduction, p. xxxviii), and becomes equivalent to the non-existent,
and is the cause of evil, in Gabirol matter is the underlying substance
for all being from the highest to the lowest, with the one exception of
the Creator himself.[89] It emanates from the essence of the Creator,
forming the basis of all subsequent emanations.[90] Hence the spiritual
substances of the celestial world, or, to use a more technical and more
precise term--since spirit is not located in heaven or anywhere
spatially--the intelligible world, have matter underlying their
form.[91] In fact, matter itself is intelligible or spiritual, not
corporeal.[92] Corporeality and materiality are two different things.
There are various gradations of matter, to be sure; for the prime matter
as it emerges from the essence of the Creator pervades all existence
from highest to lowest, and the further it extends from its origin the
less spiritual and the more corporeal it becomes until in the sublunar
world we have in the matters of its particular objects, corporeal
matter, _i. e._, matter affected with quantity and magnitude and figure
and color.[93] Like Plotinus, Gabirol conceives of the universe as a
process of a gradually descending series of existences or worlds, as the
Kabbalistic writers term them; these cosmic existences radiating or
flowing out of the superabundant light and goodness of the Creator. The
two extremes of this graded universe are God at the one end, and the
corporeal world at the other. Intermediate between these are the
spiritual substances, Intelligence, Soul and Nature.[94] Man as a
microcosm, a universe in little, partakes of both the corporeal and
intermediate worlds, and hence may serve as a model of the constitution
of the macrocosm, or great universe. His body is typical of the
corporeal world, which consists of the lowest matter, viz., that which
has no other form except that of corporeality, or extension, and the
forms of figure, color, and so on, borne on top of the extension.[95]

Body as such is at rest and is not capable of action. To act it needs an
agent. Hence it needs an agency to compose its parts and hold them
together. We call this agency Nature. Man's body also grows, is
nourished and propagates its kind as do plants. This likewise must have
its non-corporeal cause. This we call vegetative soul. Man has also
sense perception and local motion like the animals. The principle or
substance causing this is the animal soul. Man also thinks and reasons
and reflects. This is brought about by the rational soul. Finally, man
has a still higher function than discursive thought. The latter has to
search and to pass from premise to conclusion, whereas the apprehension
of the intelligence takes place "without seeking, without effort, and
without any other cause except its own essence, because it is full of
perfection." In other words, it is immediate intellectual intuition of
which Gabirol speaks here. The Intelligence is capable of this because
it has in itself, constituting its essence, all the forms of existence,
and knowledge means possession of the forms of the things known.

As man is typical of the universe, it follows that there are cosmic
existences corresponding to the principles or powers just enumerated in
man, and the relation of the latter to the former is that of the
particular to the general. Hence there is a cosmic Intelligence, a
cosmic soul embracing the rational, the animal and the vegetative parts,
and a cosmic nature. Of these the more perfect is the cause of the less
perfect; hence the order in which we named them represents the order of
causation or of emanation from the prime source.

The lowest of these emanations is the matter which sustains extension or
magnitude, and with it the process ceases. This matter is no longer the
source of an additional form of existence. The various qualities and
attributes which inhere in this corporeal matter are caused by the
spiritual substances above. For like the prototype of all generosity and
goodness the First Essence or God, every one of the spiritual substances
proceeding from him has the same tendency of imparting its form or forms
to the substance next below it. But the forms thus bestowed are no
longer the same as they are in the essence of the bestowing substance,
as it depends upon the recipient what sort of form it will receive. An
inferior receiving substance will receive a superior form in an inferior
way. That is, the form which in the substance above the one in question
is contained in a spiritual and unitary manner, will be transformed in
the substance below it into something less spiritual, less unified, and
more nearly corporeal, _i. e._, visible and tangible. Hence the visible
and tangible, and in general the sensible qualities of particular things
in the sublunar world, are in reality descended from a line of spiritual
ancestors in the forms of the simple substances, Intelligence, Soul and
Nature. But it is their distance from the prime source, which increases
with every transmission of influence, together with the cruder nature of
the receiving substance, that makes the resulting forms corporeal and
sensible. The matter may be made clear if we use the analogy of light,
which is invisible as long as it is in air because it penetrates it,
but becomes visible when it comes in contact with a gross body which it
cannot penetrate. It then remains on the surface condensed, and becomes
visible to the senses.

We thus see that the higher substance acts upon the lower and contains
all that is found in the latter, though in a more perfect and simple
manner. The lower substances flow from the higher and yet the latter are
not diminished in their essence and power.[96]

That ordinary material objects are composed of matter and form is
admitted and we need not now prove it, as we have already discussed the
subject in the Introduction, where we gave an outline of the
Aristotelian philosophy. The principle peculiar to Gabirol is that not
merely the material objects of the sublunar world, but that the
intelligible or spiritual substances also are composed of matter and
form.[97] Whenever two things have something in common and something in
which they differ, that which they have in common is the matter, that in
which they differ is the form. Two things absolutely simple must be
prime to each other, _i. e._, they must have nothing in common, for if
they have anything in common they have everything in common, and they
are no longer two things but one. Hence a spiritual substance must be
composite, for it must have something by which it differs from a
corporeal substance, and something, viz., substantiality, which it has
in common with it. In the same way the intelligible substances,
Intelligence and Soul, have their substantiality in common, and they
differ in form. Hence they are composed of matter and form, and the
matter must be the same in all the intelligible substances; for their
differences are due to their forms, hence if their matters also
differed, they would have to differ in form, but matter as such has no
form. Hence matter in itself is everywhere the same.

As the Intelligence is the highest existence next to God, and is
composed of matter and form, these are respectively the universal matter
and universal form, embracing all subsequent matters and forms.[98]
Hence the Intelligence in knowing itself knows everything, as everything
is contained in it. And as it is prior to everything and the cause of
everything it has an immediate knowledge of all things without effort or
searching.

But what is the origin of universal matter and universal form which, in
constituting Intelligence, are the fundamental principles of all
existence?[99] The answer is they come from the First Essence, God.
Unity comes before duality or plurality, and there is no true unity
except in God. Whatever issues from him is _ipso facto_, as a product
which is not God, affected with duality. Matter and Form is this
duality. Their union is necessary and real, and it is only in thought
that we can keep them apart. In reality they form a unit, their union
varying in perfection according as they are nearer or further away from
their origin. Hence the union is closest in Intelligence, the first
divine emanation, and least close in corporeal objects of the sublunar
world, where plurality is the order of the day.

This process by which universal matter and form issue from God may be
called creation.[100] But we must conceive of it on the analogy of water
flowing from a fountain in continued and uninterrupted succession. The
only difference is that the emanation from God takes place without
motion and without time.

The union of universal form and universal matter must be thought of as a
stamping of the form upon the matter. Matter has in itself no actual or
definable existence. It serves merely as a _tabula rasa_, as a potential
background, as an empty receptacle, as a reflecting mirror for form to
be written, filled out, impressed or reflected therein or upon. Hence we
may view God as the spectator, universal matter as the mirror, and
universal form as the reflection of the spectator in the glass. God
himself does not enter the glass, only his reflection is outlined
therein. And as matter and form are really the whole world, it would
follow that the universe is a reflection of God, though God remains in
himself and does not enter the world with his essence.

We may also picture to ourselves this impression of form upon matter on
the analogy of speech. The speaker's words impress ideas upon the soul
of the listener. So God speaks and his Word or Will impresses form upon
matter. The world is created by the Word or the Will[101] of God.

In all these similes matter appears as something external to God, upon
which he impresses form. But this is not strictly true, since matter has
no real existence without form, and has never so existed. The existence
of matter and form is simultaneous, and both come from God, matter from
his essence, form from his attribute, or his Wisdom, or his Word, or his
Will. And yet in God, who is a perfect unity, essence and attribute are
one. It is the Will of God, not God himself, that must be regarded as
the spectator, whose outline is reflected in the mirror of matter in the
above simile. It is the Will of God that writes form upon the chart of
matter, and thereby produces a world. It is in virtue of the Will that
God is said to be in everything.

But what is this will of God as distinguished from God himself, since in
God there can be no duality of any kind? Gabirol's answer is not clear
or satisfactory. The will, he says, is identical with God if we consider
it apart from its activity; considered as active it is different from
the divine essence. Exactly to describe it is impossible, but the
following is an approximation. It is a divine power producing matter and
form, binding them together, pervading them throughout their extent
above and below, as the soul pervades the body, and moving and ordering
everything.

God himself, or the First Essence, can be known only through the Will as
pervading everything, _i. e._, through his effects in the world. And in
this way too only his existence can be known but not his essence as he
is in himself, because God is above everything and infinite. The soul
may know Intelligence because though the latter is above the soul there
is some similarity between them. But the First Essence has no similarity
to Intelligence, therefore no intelligence can know it.

There is a kind of mystic knowledge by which man may come in touch with
the spiritual substances and rise even to universal matter, which is
above Intelligence. "If you wish to form a picture of these substances,"
the master says to the disciple in the "Fons Vitæ," "you must raise your
intellect to the last intelligible, you must purify it from all sordid
sensibility, free it from the captivity of nature and approach with the
force of your intelligence to the last limit of intelligible substance
that it is possible for you to comprehend, until you are entirely
divorced from sensible substance and lose all knowledge thereof. Then
you will embrace, so to speak, the whole corporeal world in your being,
and will place it in one corner of your soul. When you have done this
you will understand the insignificance of the sensible in comparison
with the greatness of the intelligible. Then the spiritual substances
will be before your eyes, comprehending you and superior to you, and you
will see your own being as though you were those substances. Sometimes
it will seem to you that you are a part of them by reason of your
connection with corporeal substance; and sometimes you will think you
are all of them, and that there is no difference between you and them,
on account of the union of your being with their being, and the
attachment of your form to their forms." The pupil assures the teacher
that he has followed this advice and seen the whole corporeal world
floating in the spiritual substances as a small boat in the sea, or a
bird in the air. "When you have raised yourself to the first universal
matter," replies the teacher, "and illumined its shadow, you will see
there the wonder of wonders. Pursue this therefore diligently and with
love, because this is the purpose of the existence of the human soul,
and in this is great delight and extreme happiness."[102]

But Gabirol does not promise a knowledge of the Most High even through
this royal road of ecstasy, unless we suppose that in the promise of
seeing in universal matter the wonder of all wonders there may be a
covert allusion to a glimpse of the deepest secret of all, the essence
of God.

All knowledge is according to Gabirol embraced in the following three
topics, (1) Matter and Form, (2) the Active Word or Will, (3) the First
Essence or God. By far the larger part of the "Fons Vitæ" is devoted to
the first subject. Only brief hints are given of the second and third,
and Gabirol refers us to a special work of his on the Will, which he
says he wrote. There is no trace of any such treatise. At any rate it is
clear from the little that is contained on the Divine Will in the "Fons
Vitæ" that the Will forms an important element in Gabirol's philosophy.
This is the more remarkable because it is not an essential element in
Neo-Platonism, upon which Gabirol's system is based. Nay, the doctrine
of a divine will scarcely has any place in the form of emanation taught
by Plotinus. The cosmic process is conceived there as necessary and
impersonal. And but for the introduction of the Will in the "Fons Vitæ"
we should be forced to understand Gabirol in the same way. The
difficulty in Neo-Platonism is that God is at the same time transcendent
and, through his powers or emanations, immanent in the world. God is
above all being and at the same time is the cause of and pervades all
existence. Gabirol must have felt not merely this purely philosophical
difficulty, but as a Jew, Pantheism as well as impersonalism must have
been objectionable to him. Hence he mitigates both by introducing the
divine will as mediating between God and the world. This brings God in
closer and more personal touch with his creation. The cosmic process is
not a necessary and impersonal flow or radiation but a voluntary
activity having a purpose. The solution is unsatisfactory, as all such
solutions are bound to be, because it introduces as many difficulties as
it solves. The nature of this divine Will is ambiguous. If it is God's
will, and God is the One in whom there can be no distinctions, we have
only a new word, and nothing is solved. If on human analogy we are
inclined to take the will seriously, we are endangering God's unity.
This dilemma Gabirol does not succeed in removing. His system still has
a strong flavor of Pantheism, and moreover his identification of the
Will of God with the Wisdom and the Word of God, and his hypostatization
of the latter as in a sense a being distinct from God, reminds us
strongly of Philo's Logos, which became the Logos of Christianity, the
second person in the Trinity. This is the reason why William of
Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the thirteenth century, regarded Avicebron
as a Christian. And these same reasons were no doubt adequate to
estrange Jewish readers, as Abraham ibn Daud expressly tells us about
himself, though his terms are general (see above, p. 62).

Gabirol is also the author of an ethical work which he composed in 1045.
Though of little importance philosophically, or perhaps because of this,
the "Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh" (Improvement of the Qualities of the Soul)
fared much better than its more important companion, the "Mekor Hayim."
Not only did it have the privilege of a Hebrew translation at the hands
of the father of translators, Judah ibn Tibbon, but the original Arabic
itself is still extant and was recently published with an English
translation by Stephen S. Wise (1901).[103] The Hebrew translation also
had the good fortune of being reprinted several times. This is due to
the fact that the "Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh" is a popular work, dealing
with morals, and does not go into metaphysical questions. It is full of
Biblical citations, which stamps it as Jewish; and there are also in it
quotations from Arabic writers serving to illustrate the argument and
lending variety and interest to the style.

The larger question of the aim of human life is touched on in the "Fons
Vitæ." We are told there that the ultimate aim of man's existence is
that the soul should unite with the upper world to which it
belongs.[104] The particular human soul is according to Gabirol a part,
though not in a physical sense, of the cosmic soul, which is one of the
universal spiritual substances (see above, p. 66). Hence its own real
existence is spiritual and eternal, and independent of the body. Its
entrance into the body obscures its spiritual vision, though it does not
lose all touch with the higher world from which it came. The senses and
the data of sense perception are not an end in themselves; they are only
a means for the soul through them to recall the higher knowledge which
was its own in its spiritual existence, and thereby win its return to
the intelligible world. Man's duty therefore in this world is to strive
to attain this higher life for his soul. This is brought about by means
of _knowledge_ and _practice_. This knowledge has to do with knowing all
things as they really are, and particularly the intelligible substances
and the Prime Essence. Practice signifies to keep away as far as
possible from things of sense, which are foreign to the soul and might
injure it. What more particularly the things are which are beneficial to
the soul, and what are injurious, we learn from Gabirol's ethical
treatise. Man's soul has a higher and a lower nature. The higher power
is the reason or rational soul, the lower is the animal or vegetative
soul; and man's business is to see that the reason rules over the lower
nature.

Gabirol does not give us any test by which we can tell whether a given
act or feeling belongs to the lower or higher nature except to say that
the appetites are diseases of the body which must be cured; that they do
not belong to the rational soul, and to satisfy them is not the
attainment of a good. Gabirol's method of treating virtue and vice, or
rather the virtues and the vices, is to relate them to the five senses
and the four humors in man, which in turn correspond to the four
elements, fire, air, water, earth, and the four primitive qualities,
hot, cold, moist, dry. This division of the elements, the humors, the
qualities and the senses was a commonplace of the physiological and
medical science of the time. We have met it in Isaac Israeli (see above,
p. 3), and it goes back to Aristotle and Galen and Hippocrates. The
originality, though a queer one to be sure, of Gabirol is to bring the
ethical qualities of man into relation with all these. The
approximations are forced in every instance and often ludicrous. Instead
of attempting to give a psychological analysis of the qualities in
question, he lays stress on their physical basis in one of the five
senses, as we shall see presently.

The great world, we are told, was created out of the four elements, and
similarly man, the microcosm, also consists of four natures
corresponding to the elements. Thus the four humors, upon the harmonious
combination of which the health of man's body depends, viz., blood,
phlegm, black gall, and red gall, correspond respectively to air, water,
earth, fire. Man is endowed besides with five senses. If he is wise he
will use his senses properly and in the right measure, like a skilful
physician who calculates carefully what proportion of each drug should
be prescribed.

The sense of sight is the noblest of the senses, and is related to the
body as the sun to the world. The philosophers have a wonderful saying
concerning the eye that there are spiritual tints in the soul which are
visible in the movements of the eyelids--pride and haughtiness, humility
and meekness. Accordingly the ethical qualities due to the sense of
sight are pride, meekness, modesty and impudence, besides the
subordinate qualities derived from these.

Pride is common in a person of a warm disposition in whom the red gall
predominates. Many wise men exhibit this quality out of place, fools
adopt it until they are mastered by it, and it is prevalent in youth. It
may be useful when it keeps a man away from vice and unworthy things,
inspiring him to rise to nobility of character and the service of God.
But generally it is useless and leads to many evils, especially if it
causes one to be self-opinionated, refusing to seek the advice of
anyone. When a man sees this quality gaining mastery over him, he should
consider the origin and end of existing things. When he sees that all
things are destined to pass away, and himself likewise, his pride will
change to humility.

Meekness is closer to virtue than the quality mentioned before, because
he who possesses it withholds his desire from seeking gratification. It
is a quality manifested by the prophets and leads to honor. "The fruits
of lowliness," a philosopher has said, "are love and tranquillity."
Contentment is of a kind with meekness. The greatest riches are
contentment and patience. He who esteems his rank but lightly enhances
man's estimation of his dignity. A wise man has said, "Be humble without
cringing, and manly without being arrogant. Arrogance is a wilderness
and haughtiness a taking refuge therein, and altogether a going astray."

Modesty is connected with humility but is superior to it, for it is a
sister of reason, and reason, as everybody knows, is the most important
quality, which separates man from beast and brings him near to the
angels. You never see a modest person without sense, or a person of good
sense who is not modest. A man must be modest not only before others but
also to himself. Modesty and faithfulness, it is said, are closely
related, and the one cannot be had truly without the other.

The impudent man is disliked by God and by man, even if he be wise and
learned. If one has this quality it is the duty of his friend and
associate to break him of it by reproving him. It is of value only when
used in defence of the Torah and in behalf of God and the truth.

Space will not permit us to treat in detail of the other senses and the
virtues and vices depending upon them, but we shall indicate briefly
Gabirol's method of relating the ethical qualities to the physical
senses.

Thus the sense of hearing, which is next in importance to sight has as
its qualities hate, love, mercy and cruelty. It takes some fine insight,
he says, to see the connection of these qualities with the sense of
hearing, but the intelligent and discerning reader will find this hint
sufficient. I hope he will not blame me, Gabirol continues, if I do not
bring together all the reasons and the scriptural passages to prove
this, for human flesh is weak, especially in my case on account of my
vexatious experiences and disappointments. We find in the Bible love
associated with hearing: "_Hear_, O Israel ... and thou shalt _love_ the
Lord thy God" (Deut. 6, 4). Hate follows hearing in the phrase: "When
Esau heard the words of his father ... and Esau hated Jacob" (Gen. 27,
34-41). Mercy is related to hearing in Exod. (22, 26), "And I will hear
for I am merciful." Finally cruelty is to refuse to listen, as we find
in the case of Pharaoh (Ex. 9, 12), "And the Lord hardened the heart of
Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them."

In a similar manner Gabirol proves that the sense of smell has four
qualities, anger, favor, envy, wide-awakeness; the sense of taste, the
four qualities, joy, sorrow, regret, calmness; while liberality,
niggardliness, courage and cowardice are related to the sense of touch.

The relation of the ethical qualities to the senses, humors, elements
and primitive physical qualities is exhibited in the following table, as
it appears in the Arabic text of the "Aslah al-Ahlak," the original
title of Gabirol's ethical work.

[Illustration]

Among Gabirol's religious poems there is one which interests us
particularly because it bears traces of the philosophy of the "Fons
Vitæ." It is the most important of his hymns and is found in the
prayer-book of the Sephardic ritual for the Day of Atonement. "The Royal
Crown," as the poem is entitled, is an appeal to God for mercy and
forgiveness, and is based upon the contrast between the greatness of God
and the insignificance of man. The first part is therefore devoted to a
poetical description of God's attributes and the wonders of the cosmic
system, as conceived in the astronomical science of the day. A few
quotations will give us an idea of the style and character of the hymn
and its relation to the "Fons Vitæ."

"Thine are the mysteries, which neither fancy nor imagination can
comprehend; and the life, over which dissolution hath no power. Thine is
the _Throne_ exalted above all height; and the habitation concealed in
the eminence of its recess. Thine is the existence, from the shadow of
whose light sprung every existing thing; of which we said, under its
protecting shadow shall we live....

"Thou art One, the first of every number, and the foundation of all
structure. Thou art One, and in the mystery of the Unity all the wise in
heart are astonished; for they cannot define it. Thou art One, and thy
Unity can neither be lessened nor augmented; for nothing is there
wanting or superfluous. Thou art One, but not such a one as is estimated
or numbered; for neither plurality, nor change, form, nor physical
attribute, nor name expressive of thy quality, can reach thee...."

In the same way he treats God's other attributes, existent, living,
great, mighty. Then he continues:

"Thou art light, and the eyes of every pure soul shall see thee; for the
clouds of iniquity alone hide thee from her sight.... Thou art most
high, and the eye of the intellect desireth and longeth for thee; but it
can only see a part, it cannot see the whole of thy greatness....

"Thou art God, who by thy Divinity supportest all things formed; and
upholdest all creatures by thy Unity. Thou art God, and there is no
distinction between thy godhead, unity, eternity or existence; for all
is one mystery; and although each of these attributes is variously
named, yet the whole point to one end.

"Thou art wise, and wisdom, which is the _fountain of life_, floweth
from thee; and compared with thy wisdom, the knowledge of all mankind is
folly. Thou art wise; and didst exist prior to all the most ancient
things; and wisdom was reared by thee. Thou art wise; and hast not
learned aught from another, nor acquired thy wisdom from anyone else.
Thou art wise; and from thy wisdom thou didst cause to emanate a ready
_will_, an agent and artist as it were, to draw existence out of
non-existence, as light proceeds from the eye. Thou drawest from the
source of light without a vessel, and producest everything without a
tool."

Then follows a description of the constitution of the sublunar world,
the terrestrial sphere consisting of part earth, part water, and being
surrounded by the successive spheres of air and fire. Then follow in
order the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, the spheres of the fixed stars, and the outermost sphere
embracing all and giving to the entire heaven the diurnal motion from
east to west. He then continues:

"Who can understand thy tremendous mysteries, when thou didst exalt
above the ninth orb, the sphere of the _Intelligence_; that is the inner
temple; for the tenth shall be holy to the Lord. This is the sphere
which is exalted above all the highest, and which no imagination can
reach; and there is the hiding-place, wherein is the canopy for thy
glory....

"O Lord! who can come near thy understanding, when thou didst place on
high above the sphere of the Intelligence the _Throne of thy glory_,
where is the glorious dwelling of the hiding-place; there also is the
mystery and the _foundation_ (matter); so far the intellect may reach
and no further; for above this art thou greatly exalted upon thy mighty
throne, where no man may come up to thee....

"Who can comprehend thy power, when thou didst create from the splendor
of thy glory a pure lustre? From the rock of rocks was it hewn, and dug
from the hollow of the cave. Thou also didst bestow on it the spirit of
wisdom, and didst call it soul. Thou didst form it hewn from the flames
of intellectual fire, so that its spirit burneth as fire within it. Thou
didst send it forth to the body to serve and guard it; it is as fire in
the midst of it, and yet doth not consume it; for _from the fire of the
soul the body was created_, and called into existence from nothing,
because the Lord descended thereto in fire."

Here we see the Intelligence spoken of as standing above the heavenly
spheres. This clearly represents the cosmic Intelligence as a creation
of God, "which is exalted above all the highest," hence the first
product of God's light. And yet the _Throne of Glory_ is said to be
placed even above the sphere of the Intelligence. He speaks of it as the
mystery and the foundation (Yesod), beyond which the intellect cannot
reach. This is apparently a contradiction, but becomes clear when we
learn what is meant by the Throne of Glory, and by "foundation." In the
"Fons Vitæ" Gabirol tells us that matter receives form from the First
Essence through the medium of the Will, which latter therefore, as it
bestows form upon matter, sits in it and rests upon it. And hence, he
says, matter is as it were the stool (cathedra) of the One. The word
"yesod" (foundation) which Gabirol applies in the "Keter Malkut" (Royal
Crown) to the Throne of Glory is the same that Falaquera uses for matter
throughout in his epitome of the "Mekor Hayim." Hence it is clear that
the Throne of Glory which is above the Intelligence is nothing else than
Gabirol's matter. And we know from the "Fons Vitæ" that matter is really
prior to Intelligence as it exists in the knowledge of God, but that in
reality it never was, as a creation, without form; and that with form it
constitutes the Intelligence. Finally there is also a reference in the
poem to the will as emanating from God's wisdom, and like an "agent and
artist drawing existence out of non-existence as light proceeds from the
eye." The process of creation is thus compared with the radiation of
light in the sentence just quoted, and likewise in the following: "Thou
drawest from the source of light without a vessel, and producest
everything without a tool."

We do not know whether Gabirol wrote any commentaries on the Bible--none
are extant, nor are there any references to such works--but from his
exegetical attempts in his ethical work discussed above (p. 71 ff.) and
from citations by Abraham ibn Ezra of Gabirol's explanations of certain
passages in Scripture, we gather that like Philo of Alexandria before
him and Maimonides and a host of philosophical commentators after him,
he used the allegorical method to reconcile his philosophical views with
the Bible, and read the former into the latter.[105]

Thus we are told that Eden represents the presence of God, the garden
planted in Eden stands for the angelic beings or, according to another
interpretation, for the world of sense. By the river which flows out of
Eden is meant prime matter which issues from the essence of God
according to the "Fons Vitæ." The four divisions of the river are the
four elements; Adam is the rational soul, Eve, as the Hebrew name
indicates, the animal soul, and the serpent is the vegetative or
appetitive soul. The serpent entices Adam to eat of the forbidden tree.
This means that when the lower soul succeeds in controlling the reason,
the result is evil and sin, and man is driven out of the Garden, _i. e._,
is excluded from his angelic purity and becomes a corporeal being.

It is clear from all this that Gabirol's omission of all reference to
Jewish dogma in the "Fons Vitæ" was purely methodological. Philosophy,
and religion or theology should be kept apart in a purely philosophical
work. Apologetics or harmonization has its rights, but it is a different
department of study, and should be treated by itself, or in connection
with exegesis of the Bible.

While it is true that Gabirol's influence on subsequent Jewish
philosophy is slight--at most we find it in Moses and Abraham ibn Ezra,
Abraham ibn Daud and Joseph ibn Zaddik--traces of his ideas are met with
in the mysticism of the Kabbala. Gabirol's "Fons Vitæ" is a peculiar
combination of logical formalism with mystic obscurity, or profundity,
according to one's point of view. The latter did not appeal to pure
rationalists like Ibn Daud or Maimonides, and the former seemed
unconvincing, as it was employed in a lost cause. For Neo-Platonism was
giving way to Aristotelianism, which was adopted by Maimonides and made
the authoritative and standard philosophy. It was different with the
Kabbala. Those who were responsible for its spread in the thirteenth
century must have been attracted by the seemingly esoteric character of
a philosophy which sees the invisible in the visible, the spiritual in
the corporeal, and the reflection of the unknowable God in everything.
There are certain details also which are common to both, such as the
analogies of irradiation of light or flowing of water used to represent
the process of creation, the position of the Will, the existence of
matter in spiritual beings, and so on, though some of these ideas are
common to all Neo-Platonic systems, and the Kabbala may have had access
to the same sources as Gabirol.




CHAPTER VI

BAHYA IBN PAKUDA


All that is known of the life of Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda is that he
lived in Spain and had the office of "Dayyan," or judge of the Jewish
community. Not even the exact time in which he lived is yet determined,
though the most reliable recent investigations make it probable that he
lived after Gabirol and was indebted to the latter for some of his views
in philosophy as well as in Ethics.[106] So far as traditional data are
concerned we have equally reliable, or rather equally unreliable
statements for regarding Bahya as an older contemporary of Gabirol
(eleventh century), or of Abraham ibn Ezra (1088-1167). Neither of these
two data being vouched for by any but their respective authors, who
lived a long time after Bahya, we are left to such indirect evidence as
may be gathered from the content of Bahya's ethical work, the "Duties of
the Hearts." And here the recent investigations of Yahuda, the latest
authority on this subject and the editor of the Arabic text of Bahya's
masterpiece (1912), force upon us the conclusion that Bahya wrote after
Gabirol. Yahuda has shown that many passages in the "Duties of the
Hearts" are practically identical in content and expression with similar
ideas found in a work of the Arab philosopher Gazali (1059-1111). This
leaves very little doubt that Bahya borrowed from Gazali and hence could
not have written before the twelfth century.

To be sure, there are arguments on the other side, which would give
chronological priority to Bahya over Gabirol,[107] but without going
into the details of this minute and difficult discussion, it may be said
generally that many of the similarities in thought and expression
between the two ethical works of Gabirol and Bahya rather point in favor
of the view here adopted, namely, that Bahya borrowed from Gabirol,
while the rest prove nothing for either side. In so far as a reader of
the "Duties of the Hearts" recognizes here and there an idea met with in
Gabirol's "Fons Vitæ," there can scarcely be any doubt that the latter
is the more original of the two. Gabirol did not borrow his philosophy
or any part thereof from Bahya. Despite its Neo-Platonic character the
"Fons Vitæ" of Gabirol is the most independent and original of Jewish
mediæval productions. The "Duties of the Hearts" owes what originality
it has to its ethics, which is the chief aim of the work, and not at all
to the introductory philosophical chapter. As we shall see later, the
entire chapter on the existence and unity of God, which introduces the
ethical teachings of Bahya, moves in the familiar lines of Saadia, Al
Mukammas, Joseph al Basir and the other Jewish Mutakallimun. There is
besides a touch of Neo-Platonism in Bahya, which may be due to Gabirol
as well as to Arabic sources. That Bahya did not borrow more from the
"Fons Vitæ" than he did is due no doubt to the difference in temperament
between the two men. Bahya is not a mystic. Filled as he is with the
spirit of piety and warmth of heart--an attitude reflected in his style,
which helped to make his work the most popular moral-religious book in
Jewish literature--there is no trace of pantheism or metaphysical
mysticism in his nature. His ideas are sane and rational, and their
expression clear and transparent. Gabirol's high flights in the "Fons
Vitæ" have little in common with Bahya's modest and brief outline of the
familiar doctrines of the existence, unity and attributes of God, for
which he claims no originality, and which serve merely as the background
for his contribution to religious ethics. That Bahya should have taken a
few leading notions from the "Fons Vitæ," such as did not antagonize his
temperament and mode of thinking, is quite possible, and we shall best
explain such resemblances in this manner.

As Abraham ibn Ezra in 1156 makes mention of Bahya and his views,[108]
we are safe in concluding that the "Duties of the Hearts" was written
between 1100 and 1156.

As the title of the work indicates, Bahya saw the great significance of
a distinction made by Mohammedan theologians and familiar in their
ascetic literature, between outward ceremonial or observance, known as
"visible wisdom" and "duties of the limbs," and inward intention,
attitude and feeling, called "hidden wisdom" and "duties of the
hearts."[109] The prophet Isaiah complains that the people are diligent
in bringing sacrifices, celebrating the festivals and offering prayer
while their hands are full of blood. He informs them that such conduct
is an abomination to the Lord, and admonishes them to wash themselves,
to make themselves clean, to put away the evil of their deeds from
before God's eyes; to cease to do evil; to learn to do well, to seek for
justice, to relieve the oppressed, to do justice to the fatherless, to
plead for the widow (Isa. 1, 11-17). This is a distinction between
duties to God and duties to one's fellow man, between religious ceremony
and ethical practice. Saadia makes a further distinction--also found in
Arabic theology before him--between those commandments and prohibitions
in the Bible which the reason itself approves as right or condemns as
wrong--the rational commandments--and those which to the reason seem
indifferent, and which revelation alone characterizes as obligatory,
permitted or forbidden--the so-called "traditional commandments."

Bahya's division is identical with neither the one nor the other.
Ethical practice may be purely external and a matter of the limbs, quite
as much as sacrifice and ceremonial ritual. On the other hand, one may
feel profoundly moved with the spirit of true piety, love of God and
loyalty to his commandments in the performance of a so-called
"traditional commandment," like the fastening of a "mezuzah" to the
door-post. Bahya finds room for Saadia's classification but it is with
him of subordinate importance, and is applicable only to the "duties of
the limbs." Among these alone are there some which the reason unaided by
revelation would not have prescribed. The "duties of the heart" are all
rational. Like all precepts they are both positive and negative.
Examples of positive duties of the heart are, belief in a creator who
made the world out of nothing; belief in his unity and incomparability;
the duty to serve him with all our heart, to trust in him, to submit to
him, to fear him, to feel that he is watching our open and secret
actions, to long for his favor and direct our actions for his name's
sake; to love those who love him so as to be near unto him, and to hate
those who hate him. Negative precepts of this class are the opposites of
those mentioned, and others besides, such as that we should not covet,
or bear a grudge, or think of forbidden things, or desire them or
consent to do them. The common characteristic of all duties of the heart
is that they are not visible to others. God alone can judge whether a
person's feeling and motives are pure or the reverse.

That these duties are incumbent upon us is clear from every point of
view. Like Saadia Bahya finds the sources of knowledge, particularly of
the knowledge of God's law and religion, in sense, reason, written law
and tradition. Leaving out the senses which are not competent in this
particular case, the obligatory character of the duties of the heart is
vouched for by the other three, reason, law, tradition.

From reason we know that man is composed of soul and body, and that both
are due to God's goodness. One is visible, the other is not. Hence we
are obliged to worship God in a two-fold manner; with visible worship
and invisible. Visible worship represents the duties of the limbs, such
as prayer, fasting, charity, and so on, which are carried out by the
visible organs. The hidden worship includes the duties of the heart, for
example, to think of God's unity, to believe in him and his Law, to
accept his worship, etc., all of which are accomplished by the thought
of the mind, without the assistance of the visible limbs.

Besides, the duties of the limbs, the obligation of which no one doubts,
are incomplete without the will of the heart to do them. Hence it
follows that there is a duty upon our souls to worship God to the extent
of our powers.

The Bible is just as emphatic in teaching these duties as the reason.
The love of God and the fear of God are constantly inculcated; and in
the sphere of negative precepts we have such prohibitions as, "Thou
shalt not covet" (Exod. 20, 17); "Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor
bear any grudge" (Lev. 19, 18); "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy
heart" (ib. 17); "You shalt not go astray after your own heart" (Num.
15, 39); "Thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy
needy brother" (Deut. 15, 7), and many others.

Rabbinical literature is just as full of such precepts as the Bible, and
is if possible even more emphatic in their inculcation. Witness such
sayings as the following: "Heaven regards the intention" (Sanh. 106b):
"The heart and the eye are two procurers of sin" (Jer. Berak. 1), and
many others, particularly in the treatise Abot.

The great importance of these duties is also made manifest by the fact
that the punishment in the Bible for unintentional misdeeds is more
lenient than for intentional, proving that for punishment the mind must
share with the body in the performance of the deed. The same is true of
reward, that none is received for performing a good deed if it is not
done "in the name of heaven."

They are even more important than the duties of the limbs, for unlike
the latter the obligation of the duties of the heart is always in force,
and is independent of periods or circumstances. Their number, too, is
infinite, and not limited, as are the duties of the limbs, to six
hundred and thirteen.

And yet, Bahya complains, despite the great importance of these duties,
very few are the men who observed them even in the generations preceding
ours, not to speak of our own days when even the external ceremonies are
neglected, much more so the class of precepts under discussion. The
majority of students of the Torah are actuated by desire for fame and
honor, and devote their time to the intricacies of legalistic discussion
in Rabbinic literature, and matters unessential, which are of no account
in the improvement of the soul; but they neglect such important subjects
of study as the unity of God, which we ought to understand and
distinguish from other unities, and not merely receive parrot fashion
from tradition. We are expressly commanded (Deut. 4, 39), "Know
therefore this day, and reflect in thy heart, that the Eternal is the
God in the heavens above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none
else." Only he is exempt from studying these matters whose powers are
not adequate to grasp them, such as women, children and simpletons.

Moreover Bahya is the first, he tells us, among the post-Talmudical
writers, to treat systematically and _ex professo_ this branch of our
religious duties. When I looked, he says, into the works composed by the
early writers after the Talmud on the commandments, I found that their
writings can be classified under three heads. First, exposition of the
Torah and the Prophets, like the grammatical and lexicographical
treatises of Ibn Janah, or the exegetical works of Saadia. Second, brief
compilations of precepts, like the works of Hefez ben Yazliah and the
responsa of some geonim. Third, works of a philosophico-apologetic
character, like those of Saadia, Al Mukammas and others, whose purpose
it was to present in an acceptable manner the doctrines of the Torah, to
prove them by logical demonstration, and to refute the criticisms and
erroneous views of unbelievers. But I have not seen any book dealing
with the "hidden wisdom."[110]

Here we see clearly the purpose of Bahya. It is not the rationalization
of Jewish dogma that he is interested in, nor the reconciliation of
religion and philosophy. It is the purification of religion itself from
within which he seeks to accomplish. Sincerity and consistency in our
words and our thoughts, so far as the service of God is concerned, is
the fundamental requirement and essential value of the duties of the
heart. To be sure this cannot be attained without intelligence. The
knowledge of God and of his unity is a prerequisite for a proper
understanding and an adequate appreciation of our religious duties.
Philosophy therefore becomes a necessity in the interest of a purer and
truer religion, without reference to the dangers threatening it from
without.

Having found, he continues in the introduction to the "Duties of the
Hearts," that all the three sources, reason, Bible and tradition,
command this branch of our religious duties, I tried to think about them
and to learn them, being led from one topic to another until the subject
became so large that I feared I could not contain it all in my memory. I
then determined to write the subject down systematically in a book for
my own benefit as well as for the benefit of others. But I hesitated
about writing it on account of my limitations, the difficulty of the
subject and my limited knowledge of Arabic, the language in which I
intended writing it because the majority of our people are best familiar
with it. But I thought better of it and realized that it was my duty to
do what I could even if it was not perfect; that I must not yield to the
argument springing from a love of ease and disinclination to effort; for
if everyone were to abstain from doing a small good because he cannot do
as much as he would like, nothing would ever be done at all.

Having decided to compose the work, he continues, I divided the subject
into ten fundamental principles, and devoted a section of the book to
each principle. I endeavored to write in a plain and easy style,
omitting difficult expressions, technical terms and demonstrations in
the manner of the dialecticians. I had to make an exception in the first
section dealing with the existence and unity of God, where the sublet of
the subject required the employment of logical and mathematical proofs.
For the rest I made use of comparisons or similes, adduced support from
the Bible and tradition, and also quoted the sages of other
nations.[111]

We have already seen in the introduction that Bahya was indebted for his
ideas to the ascetic and Sufic literature of the Arabs, and Yahuda, who
is the authority in this matter of Bahya's sources, has shown recently
that among the quotations of the wise men of other nations in Bahya's
work are such as are attributed by the Arabs to Jesus and the gospels,
to Mohammed and his companions, to the early caliphs, in particular the
caliph Ali, to Mohammedan ascetics and Sufis.[112]

In selecting the ten general and inclusive principles, Bahya lays down
as the first and most fundamental the doctrine of the deity, or as it is
called in the works of the Kalam, the Unity. As God is a true unity,
being neither substance nor accident, and our thought cannot grasp
anything except substance or accident, it follows that we cannot know
God as he is in himself, and that we can get a conception of him and of
his existence from his creatures only. The second section is therefore
devoted to an examination of creation. Then follow in order sections
treating of the service of God, trust in God, action for the sake of God
alone, submission to God, repentance, self-examination, separation from
the pleasures of the world, love of God.

In his discussion of the unity of God, Bahya follows the same method as
Saadia, and the Kalam generally, _i. e._, he first proves that the world
must have been created; hence there must be a creator, and this is
followed by a demonstration of God's unity. The particular arguments,
too, are for the most part the same, as we shall see, though differently
expressed and in a different order. The important addition in Bahya is
his distinction between God's unity and other unities, which is not
found so strictly formulated in any of his predecessors, and goes back
to Pseudo-Pythagorean sources in Arabian literature of Neo-Platonic
origin.

In order to prove that there is a creator who created the world out of
nothing we assume three principles. First, nothing can make itself.
Second, principles are finite in number, hence there must be a first
before which there is no other. Third, every composite is "new," _i. e._,
came to be in time, and did not exist from eternity.

Making use of these principles, which will be proved later, we proceed
as follows: The world is composite in all its parts. Sky, earth, stars
and man form a sort of house which the latter manages. Plants and
animals are composed of the four elements, fire, air, water, earth. The
elements again are composed of matter and form, or substance and
accident. Their matter is the primitive "hyle," and their form is the
primitive form, which is the root of all forms, essential as well as
accidental. It is clear therefore that the world is composite, and
hence, according to the third principle, had its origin in time. As,
according to the first principle, a thing cannot make itself, it must
have been made by some one. But as, in accordance with the second
principle, the number of causes cannot be infinite, we must finally
reach a first cause of the world before which there is no other, and
this first made the world out of nothing.

Before criticising this proof, from which Bahya infers more than is
legitimate, we must prove the three original assumptions.

The proof of the first principle that a thing cannot make itself is
identical in Bahya with the second of the three demonstrations employed
by Saadia for the same purpose. It is that the thing must either have
made itself before it existed or after it existed. But both are
impossible. Before it existed it was not there to make itself; after it
existed there was no longer anything to make. Hence the first
proposition is proved that a thing cannot make itself.

The proof of the second proposition that the number of causes cannot be
infinite is also based upon the same principle as the fourth proof in
Saadia for the creation of the world. The principle is this. Whatever
has no limit in the direction of the past, _i. e._, had no beginning,
but is eternal a _parte ante_, cannot have any stopping point anywhere
else. In other words, we as the spectators could not point to any
definite spot or link in this eternally infinite chain, because the
chain must have traversed infinite time to reach us, but the infinite
can never be traversed. Since, however, as a matter of fact we can and
do direct our attention to parts of the changing world, this shows that
the world must have had a beginning.

A second proof of the same principle is not found in Saadia. It is as
follows: If we imagine an actual infinite and take away a part, the
remainder is less than before. Now if this remainder is still infinite,
we have one infinite larger than another, which is impossible. If we say
the remainder is finite, then by adding to it the finite part which was
taken away, the result must be finite; but this is contrary to
hypothesis, for we assumed it infinite at the start. Hence it follows
that the infinite cannot have a part. But we can separate in thought out
of all the generations of men from the beginning those that lived
between the time of Noah and that of Moses. This will be a finite number
and a part of all the men in the world. Hence, as the infinite can have
no part, this shows that the whole number of men is finite, and hence
that the world had a beginning.

This proof is not in Saadia, but we learn from Maimonides ("Guide of the
Perplexed," I, ch. 75) that it was one of the proofs used by the
Mutakallimun to prove the absurdity of the belief in the eternity of the
world.

The third principle is that the composite is "new." This is proved
simply by pointing out that the elements forming the composite are prior
to it by nature, and hence the latter cannot be eternal, for nothing is
prior to the eternal. This principle also is found in Saadia as the
second of the four proofs in favor of creation.[113]

We have now justified our assumptions and hence have proved--what?
Clearly we have only proved that this _composite_ world cannot have
existed _as such_ from eternity; but that it must have been composed of
its elements at some point in time past, and that hence there must be a
cause or agency which did the composing. But there is nothing in the
principles or in the demonstration based upon them which gives us a
right to go back of the composite world and say of the elements, the
simple elements at the basis of all composition, viz., matter and form,
that they too must have come to be in time, and hence were created out
of nothing. It is only the composite that argues an act of composition
and elements preceding in time and by nature the object composed of
them. The simple needs not to be made, hence the question of its having
made itself does not arise. It was not made at all, we may say, it just
existed from eternity.

The only way to solve this difficulty from Bahya's premises is by saying
that if we suppose matter (or matter and form as separate entities) to
have existed from eternity, we are liable to the difficulty involved in
the idea of anything having traversed infinite time and reached us;
though it is doubtful whether unformed matter would lend itself to the
experiment of abstracting a part as in generations of men.

Be this as it may, it is interesting to know that Saadia having arrived
as far as Bahya in his argument was not yet satisfied that he proved
creation _ex nihilo_, and added special arguments for this purpose.

Before proceeding to prove the unity of God, Bahya takes occasion to
dismiss briefly a notion which scarcely deserves consideration in his
eyes. That the world could have come by accident, he says, is too absurd
to speak of, in view of the evidence of harmony and plan and wisdom
which we see in nature. As well imagine ink spilled by accident forming
itself into a written book.[114] Saadia also discusses this view as the
ninth of the twelve theories of creation treated by him, and refutes it
more elaborately than Bahya, whose one argument is the last of Saadia's
eight.

In the treatment of creation Saadia is decidedly richer and more
comprehensive in discussion, review and argumentation. This was to be
expected since such problems are the prime purpose of the "Emunot
ve-Deot," whereas they are only preparatory, though none the less
fundamental, in the "Hobot ha-Lebabot," and Bahya must have felt that
the subject had been adequately treated by his distinguished
predecessor. It is the more surprising therefore to find that in the
treatment of the unity of God Bahya is more elaborate, and offers a
greater variety of arguments for unity as such. Moreover, as has already
been said before, he takes greater care than anyone before him to guard
against the identification of God's unity with any of the unities,
theoretical or actual, in our experience. There is no doubt that this
emphasis is due to Neo-Platonic influence, some of which may have come
to Bahya from Gabirol, the rest probably from their common sources.

We see, Bahya begins his discussion of the unity of God, that the causes
are fewer than their effects, the causes of the causes still fewer, and
so on, until when we reach the top there is only one. Thus, the number
of individuals is infinite, the number of species is finite; the number
of genera is less than the number of species, until we get to the
highest genera, which according to Aristotle are ten (the ten
categories). Again, the causes of the individuals under the categories
are five, motion and the four elements. The causes of the elements are
two, matter and form. The cause of these must therefore be one, the will
of God. (The will of God as immediately preceding universal matter and
form sounds like a reminiscence of the "Fons Vitæ".)

God's unity is moreover seen in the unity of plan and wisdom that is
evident in the world. Everything is related to, connected with and
dependent upon everything else, showing that there is a unitary
principle at the basis.

If anyone maintains that there is more than one God, the burden of proof
lies upon him. Our observation of the world has shown us that there is a
God who made it; hence one, since we cannot conceive of less than one;
but why more than one, unless there are special reasons to prove it?

Euclid defines unity as that in virtue of which we call a thing one.
This means to signify that unity precedes the unitary thing by nature,
just as heat precedes the hot object. Plurality is the sum of ones,
hence plurality cannot be prior to unity, from which it proceeds. Hence
whatever plurality we find in our minds we know that unity precedes it;
and even if it occurs to anyone that there is more than one creator,
unity must after all precede them all. Hence God is one.

This argument is strictly Neo-Platonic and is based upon the idealism of
Plato, the notion that whatever reality or attributes particular things
in our world of sense possess they owe to the real and eternal types of
these realities and attributes in a higher and intelligible (using the
term in contradistinction to sensible) world in which they participate.
In so far as this conception is applied to the essences of things, it
leads to the hypostatization of the class concepts or universals. Not
the particular individual whom we perceive is the real man, but the
typical man, the ideal man as the mind conceives him. He is not a
concept but a real existent in the intelligible world. If we apply it
also to qualities of things, we hypostatize the abstract quality. Heat
becomes really distinct from the hot object, existence from the existent
thing, goodness from the good person, unity from the one object. And a
thing is existent and one and good, because it participates in
Existence, Unity and Goodness. These are real entities, intelligible
and not sensible, and they give to our world what reality it possesses.

Plotinus improved upon Plato, and instead of leaving these Ideas as
distinct and ultimate entities, he adopted the suggestion of Philo and
gathered up all these intelligible existences in the lap of the
universal Reason, as his ideas or thoughts. This universal Reason is in
Philo the _Logos_, whose mode of existence is still ambiguous, and is
rather to be understood as the divine mind. In Plotinus it is the first
stage in the unfoldment of the Godhead, and is a distinct _hypostasis_,
though not a person. In Christianity it is the second person in the
Trinity, incarnated in Jesus. In Israeli, Gabirol and the other Jewish
Neo-Platonists, it occupies the same place as the _Nous_ in Plotinus. In
Bahya, whose taint of Neo-Platonism is not even skin deep, there is no
universal Reason spoken of. But we do not really know what his ideas may
have been on the subject, as he does not develop them in this direction.

To return to Bahya's arguments in favor of the unity of God, we proceed
to show that dualism would lead to absurd conclusions. Thus if there is
more than one creator, they are either of the same substance or they are
not. If they are, then the common substance is the real creator, and we
have unity once more. If their substances are different, they are
distinct, hence limited, finite, composite, and hence not eternal, which
is absurd.

Besides, plurality is an attribute of substance, and belongs to the
category of quantity. But the creator is neither substance nor accident
(attribute), hence plurality cannot pertain to him. But if he cannot be
described as multiple, he must be one.

If the creator is more than one, it follows that either each one of them
could create the world alone, or he could not except with the help of
the other. If we adopt the first alternative, there is no need of more
than one creator. If we adopt the second, it follows that the creator is
limited in his power, hence, as above, composite, and not eternal, which
is impossible. Besides, if there were more than one creator, it is
possible that a dispute might arise between them in reference to the
creation. But all this time no such thing has happened, nature being
always the same. Hence God is one. Aristotle also agrees with us, for he
applies in this connection the Homeric expression, "It is not good to
have many rulers, let the ruler be one" (Iliad, II, 204; Arist.,
Metaphysics, XII, ch. 10, p. 1076a 4).[115]

So far as Bahya proves the unity of God he does not go beyond Saadia,
some of whose arguments are reproduced by him, and one or two of a
Neo-Platonic character added besides. But there is a decided advance in
the analysis which follows, in which Bahya shows that there are various
kinds of unity in our experience, and that the unity of God is unique.

We apply the term one to a class, a genus, a species, or an individual.
In all of these the multiplicity of parts is visible. The genus animal
contains many animals; the species man embraces a great many individual
men; and the individual man consists of many parts and organs and
faculties. Things of this sort are one in a sense and many in a sense.

We also apply the term one to an object in which the multiplicity of
parts is not as readily visible as in the previous case. Take for
example a body of water which is homogeneous throughout and one part is
like another. This too is in reality composed of parts, matter and form,
substance and accident. It is in virtue of this composition that it is
subject to genesis and decay, composition and division, union and
separation, motion and change. But all this implies plurality. Hence in
both the above cases the unity is not essential but accidental. It is
because of a certain appearance or similarity that we call a thing or a
class one, which is in reality many.

Another application of the term one is when we designate by it the basis
of number, the numerical one. This is a true one, essential as
distinguished from the accidental referred to above. But it is mental
and not actual. It is a symbol of a beginning which has no other before
it.

Finally there is the real and actual one. This is something that does
not change or multiply; that cannot be described by any material
attribute, that is not subject to generation and decay; that does not
move and is not similar to anything. It is one in all respects and the
cause of multiplicity. It has no beginning or end, for that which has is
subject to change, and change is opposed to unity, the thing being
different before and after the change. For the same reason the real one
does not resemble anything, for resemblance is an accident in the
resembling thing, and to be possessed of accidents is to be multiple.
Hence the true one resembles nothing. Its oneness is no accident in it,
for it is a purely negative term in this application. It means not
multiple.[116]

We have now shown that there is a creator who is one, and on the other
hand we have analyzed the various meanings of the term one, the last of
which is the most real and the purest. It remains now to show that this
pure one is identical with the one creator. This can be proved in the
following way. The world being everywhere composite contains the one as
well as the many--unity of composition, plurality of the parts composed.
As unity is prior by nature to plurality, and causes do not run on to
infinity (see above, p. 87), the causes of the world's unity and
multiplicity cannot be again unity and multiplicity of the same kind
forever. Hence as multiplicity cannot be the first, it must be
unity--the absolute and true unity before which there is no other, and
in which there is no manner of multiplicity. But God is the one cause of
the universe, as we have shown, hence God and this true unity are the
same.

We can show this also in another way. Whatever is an accidental
attribute in one thing is an essential element in some other thing. Thus
heat is an accidental attribute in hot water. For water may lose its
heat and remain water as before. It is different with fire. Fire cannot
lose its heat without ceasing to be fire. Hence heat in fire is an
essential element; and it is from fire that hot water and all other hot
things receive their heat. The same thing applies to the attribute of
unity. It is accidental in all creatures. They are called one because
they combine a number of elements in one group or concept. But they are
really multiple since they are liable to change and division and motion,
and so on. Hence there must be something in which unity is essential,
and which is the cause of whatsoever unity all other things possess. But
God is the cause of the universe, hence he is this true and absolute
unity, and all change and accident and multiplicity are foreign to
him.[117]

This unity of God is not in any way derogated from by the ascription to
him of attributes. For the latter are of two kinds, "essential" and
"active." We call the first essential because they are permanent
attributes of God, which he had before creation and will continue to
have when the world has ceased to be. These attributes are three in
number, Existing, One, Eternal. We have already proved every one of
them.

Now these attributes do not imply change in the essence of God. They are
to be understood in the sense of denying their opposites, _i. e._, that
he is not multiple, non-existent or newly come into being. They also
imply each other as can easily be shown, _i. e._, every one of the three
implies the other two. We must understand therefore that they are really
_one_ in idea, and if we could find one term to express the thought
fully, we should not use three. But the three do not imply multiplicity
in God.

The "active" are those attributes which are ascribed to God by reason of
his actions or effects on us. We are permitted to apply them to him
because of the necessity which compels us to get to know of his
existence so that we may worship him. The Biblical writers use them very
frequently. We may divide these into two kinds: First, those which
ascribe to God a corporeal form, such as (Gen. 1, 27), "And God created
man in his image," and others of the same character. Second, those
attributes which refer to corporeal movements and actions. These have
been so interpreted by our ancient sages as to remove the corporeality
from God by substituting the "Glory of God" for God as the subject of
the movement or act in question. Thus, (Gen. 28, 13) "And behold the
Lord stood above it," is rendered by the Aramaic translator, "and behold
the _glory of God was present_ above it." Saadia deals with this matter
at length in his "Emunot ve-Deot," in his commentary on Genesis, and on
the book "Yezirah." So there is no need of going into detail here. We
are all agreed that necessity compels us to speak of God in corporeal
terms so that all may be made to know of God's existence. This they
could not do if the prophets had spoken in metaphysical terms, for not
everyone can follow such profound matters. But having come to the
knowledge of God in this simpler though imperfect way, we can then
advance to a more perfect knowledge of him. The intelligent and
philosophical reader will lose nothing by the anthropomorphic form of
the Bible, for he can remove the husk and penetrate to the kernel. But
the simple reader would miss a very great deal indeed if the Bible were
written in the language of philosophy, as he would not understand it and
would remain without a knowledge of God.

Despite its predominant anthropomorphism, however, the Bible does give
us hints of God's spirituality so that the thoughtful reader may also
have food for _his_ thought. For example, such expressions as (Deut. 4,
15), "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner
of form on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the
midst of the fire," and many others are meant to spur on the
discriminating reader to further thought. The same applies to all those
passages in which the word "name" is inserted before the word God as the
object of praise to indicate that we do not know God in his essence. An
example of this is, "And they shall bless the name of thy glory" (Neh.
9, 5). For the same reason the name of God is joined in the Bible to
heaven, earth, the Patriarchs, in such phrases as the God of the
heavens, the God of Abraham, and so on, to show that we do not know
God's essence but only his revelation in nature and in history. This is
the reason why after saying to Moses, "I am sent me unto you" (Ex. 3,
14), he adds (ib. 15), tell them, "the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob sent me unto you." The
meaning is, if they cannot understand God with their reason, let them
know me from history and tradition.[118]

In Bahya's treatment of the divine attributes we already have in brief
the main elements which Maimonides almost a century later made classic,
namely, the distinction between essential and active attributes, and the
idea that the former are to be understood as denying their opposites,
_i. e._, as being in their nature not positive but negative. The outcome
therefore is that only two kinds of attributes are applicable to God,
negative and those which are transferred or projected from the effects
of God's activity as they are visible in nature. Saadia had already made
the distinction between essential and active attributes, but it was
quite incidental with him, and not laid down at the basis of his
discussion, but casually referred to in a different connection. Al
Mukammas speaks of negative attributes as being more applicable to God
than positive, as Philo had already said long before. But the
combination of these two, negative and active, as the only kinds of
divine attributes is not found in Jewish literature before Bahya.

It is worth noting also that Bahya does not lay down the three
attributes, Power, Wisdom and Life as fundamental or essential in the
manner of the Christians, the Arab Mutakallimun, and the Jewish Saadia.
Bahya, as we have seen, regards as God's essential attributes,
existence, unity, eternity. Herein, too, he seems to anticipate
Maimonides who insists against the believers in essential attributes
that the attributes, living, omnipotent, omniscient, having a will, are
no more essential than any other, but like the rest of the qualities
ascribed to God have reference to his activity in nature.[119]

We have now gone through Bahya's philosophical chapter giving us the
metaphysical basis of his ethico-religious views. That his purpose is
practical and not theoretical is clear from his definition of what he
calls the "acknowledgment of the unity of God with full heart," not to
speak of the title of the book itself, the meaning of which we explained
at the beginning of this section, and the nine chapters in Bahya's work
following upon the first, which constitute its real essence and purpose.
To acknowledge the unity of God with full heart means, he tells us, that
one must first know how to prove the existence and unity of God, to
distinguish God's unity from every other, and then to make his heart and
his tongue unite in this conception.[120] It is not a matter of the
intellect merely, but of the heart as affecting one's practical conduct.
The adequacy of the conception is destroyed not merely by thinking of
God as multiple, or by worshiping images, sun, moon and stars; it is
made null and void likewise by hypocrisy and pretence, as when one
affects piety before others to gain their favor or acquire a reputation.
The same disastrous result is brought about by indulging the low
physical appetites. Here the worship of the appetites is brought into
competition and rivalry with devotion to the one God.[121]

Our object being to trace the philosophical conceptions in mediæval
Jewish literature, we cannot linger long in the study of the rest of
Bahya's masterpiece, which is homiletical and practical rather than
theoretic, and must content ourselves with a very brief résumé of its
principal contents.

In studying the nature and attributes of God we reached the conclusion
that while a knowledge of him is absolutely necessary for a proper mode
of life, we cannot form an idea of him as he is in himself, and are left
to such evidence as we can gather from the world of which he is the
author. It becomes our duty, therefore, to study nature, as a whole and
in its parts, conscientiously and minutely, in order to realize clearly
the goodness and wisdom of God as exhibited therein. For various reasons
we are apt to neglect this study and miss the insight and benefits
arising therefrom. Chief among these hindering circumstances are our
excessive occupations with the pleasures of this world, and the
accidents and misfortunes to which mortal is heir, which blind him to
his real good, and prevent him from seeing the blessing in disguise
lurking in these very misfortunes.

But it is clear that man has a duty to study the divine goodness and
wisdom as exhibited in nature, else of what use is his faculty of reason
and intelligence, which raises him above the beast. If he neglects it,
he places himself below the latter, which realizes all the functions of
which it is capable. Bible and Talmud are equally emphatic in urging us
to study the wonders of nature.

The variety of natural phenomena and the laws they exhibit give evidence
of the personality of God and the existence of his will. A being without
will, acting by necessity of nature, acts with unswerving uniformity.

Heaven and earth, plant and animal, all creatures great and small, bear
witness, in their structure and relations, in their functions and mutual
service and helpfulness, to the wisdom and goodness of God. Above all is
this visible in man, the highest of earthly beings, the microcosm, the
rational creature, the discoverer and inventor of arts and sciences. In
the laws and statutes which were given to him for the service of God,
and in the customs of other nations which take the place of our divine
law, we see God's kindness to man in securing his comfort in this world
and reward in the next.

Pride is the great enemy of man, because it prevents him from
appreciating what he owes to God's goodness. Pride makes him feel that
he deserves more than he gets, and blinds him to the truth.[122]

We all recognize the duty of gratitude to a fellow man who has done us a
favor, although all such cases of benefit and service between man and
man, not excepting even the kindness of a father to his child, will be
found on examination to be of a selfish nature. The benefit to self may
not in all cases be conscious, but it is always there. It is a father's
nature to love his child as part of himself. Moreover, these human
favors are not constant, and the person benefited stands comparatively
on the same level of existence and worth as his benefactor. How much
greater then is the duty incumbent upon us to appreciate God's favors
which are not selfish, which are constant, and which are bestowed by the
greatest of all beings upon the smallest of all in respect of physical
strength.

The only way in which man can repay God for his kindness, and show an
appreciation thereof is by submitting to him and doing those things
which will bring him nearer to God. In order to realize this it is
necessary to abandon the bad qualities, which are in principle two, love
of pleasure and love of power. The means enabling one to obtain this
freedom are to abstain from too much eating, drinking, idling, and so
on, for the first, and from too much gossip, social intercourse, and
love of glory for the second. It may be difficult to do this, but one
must make up one's mind to it, like the invalid who is ready to lose a
limb in order to save his life.

The problem of free will is perplexing indeed and interferes with the
proper attitude toward God and his worship. The best way out of the
difficulty is to act as if we were free, and on the other hand to have
confidence in God as the author of everything.

We have seen that the reason bids us recognize our duty to God in return
for his goodness to us. At the same time we are not left to the
suggestions and promptings of the reason alone. We have a positive law
prescribing our conduct and the manner and measure of expressing our
gratitude to God. This is made necessary by the constitution of man's
nature. He is a composite of body and spirit. The former is at home in
this lower world and is endowed with powers and qualities which tend to
strengthen it at the expense of the spirit, a stranger in this world.
Hence the necessity of a positive law to cure the spirit from the ills
of the body by forbidding certain kinds of food, clothing, sexual
indulgence, and so on, which strengthen the appetites, and commanding
such actions as prayer, fasting, charity, benevolence, which have the
opposite tendency of strengthening the reason.

The positive law is necessary and useful besides because it prescribes
the middle way, discouraging equally the extremes of asceticism and of
self-indulgence. It regulates and defines conduct, and makes it uniform
for old and young, intelligent and unintelligent. It institutes new
occasions of worship and thanksgiving as history reveals new
benefactions of God to his people in various generations. The law also
contains matters which the reason alone would not dictate, and of which
it does not understand the meaning. Such are the "traditional
commandments." The reason why the law prescribes also some of the
principles of the "rational commandments" is because at that time the
people were so sunk in their animal desires that their minds were
weakened, and there was need of putting both classes of commandments on
the same level of positive prescription. But now the intelligent person
observes them in accordance with their distinct origin, whereas the
masses simply follow the law in both.

The admonition of the positive law serves as an introduction to the
suggestions of our own reason and prepares the way for the latter. The
first is absolutely necessary for the young, the women and those of weak
intellectual power. To worship God not merely because the law prescribes
it, but because reason itself demands it denotes a spiritual advance,
and puts one in the grade of prophets and pious men chosen of God. In
this world their reward is the joy they feel in the sweetness of divine
service; in the next world they attain to the spiritual light which we
cannot declare or imagine.[123]

One of the duties of the heart is to trust in God. Apart from the Bible
which commands us to have trust in God, we can come to the same
conclusion as a result of our own reflection. For in God alone are
combined all the conditions necessary to confidence. He has the power to
protect and help us, and the knowledge of our needs. He is kind and
generous and has a love for us and an interest in our welfare, as we
have shown in a previous discussion. Trust in God is of advantage
religiously in giving a person peace of mind, independence and freedom
to devote himself to the service of God without being worried by the
cares of the world. He is like the alchemist who changes lead into
silver, and silver into gold. If he has money he can make good use of it
in fulfilling his duties to God and man. If he has not, he is grateful
for the freedom from care which this gives him. He is secure against
material worries. He does not have to go to distant lands to look for
support, or to engage in hard and fatiguing labor, or to exploit other
people. He chooses the work that is in consonance with his mode of
life, and gives him leisure and strength to do his duty to God and man.

The suffering of the good and the prosperity of the bad, which
apparently contradicts our conclusion, is a problem as old as the world,
and is discussed in the Bible. There is no one explanation to cover all
cases, hence no solution is given in the Bible. But several reasons may
be brought forward for this anomaly. The righteous man may suffer by way
of punishment for a sin he has committed. He may suffer in this world in
order that he may be rewarded in the next. His suffering may be an
example of patience and goodness to other people; especially in a bad
generation, to show off their wickedness by contrast with his goodness.
Or finally the good man may be punished for not rebuking his generation
of evil doers. In a similar way we may explain the prosperity of the
wicked.

Trust in God does not signify that one should neglect one's work, be
careless of one's life, health and well-being, or abandon one's effort
to provide for one's family and dependents. No, one must do all these
things conscientiously, at the same time feeling that if not for the
help of God all effort would be in vain. In the matter of doing one's
duty and observing the commandments, whether of the limbs or the heart,
trust in God can apply only to the last step in the process, namely, the
realization in practice. He must trust that God will put out of the way
all obstacles and hindrances which may prevent him from carrying out his
resolutions. The choice and consent must come from a man's own will,
which is free. The most he may do is to trust that God may remove
temptations.

While it is true that good deeds are rewarded in this world as well as
in the next, a man must not trust in his deeds, but in God. It may seem
strange that there is no reference in the Bible to reward in the
hereafter. The reasons may be the following. Not knowing what the state
of the soul is without the body, we could not understand the nature of
future reward, and the statement of it in the Bible would not have been
a sufficient inducement for the people of that time to follow the
commandments. Or it is possible that the people knew by tradition of
reward after death, hence it was not necessary to specify it.

As knowledge of nature and of God leads to trust in him, so ignorance
leads away from it. It is as with a child, who develops in his manner of
trusting in things; beginning with his mother's breast and rising
gradually as he grows older and knows more, until he embraces other
persons and attains to trust in God.[124]

We said before (p. 83) that the duties of the limbs are imperfect unless
accompanied by the intention of the heart. A man's motive must be
sincere. It must not be his aim to gain the favor of his fellowmen or to
acquire honor and fame. The observance of the prescribed laws must be
motived by the sole regard for God and his service. This we call the
"unity of conduct." The meaning is that a man's act and intention must
coincide in aiming at the fulfilment of God's will. In order to realize
this properly one must have an adequate and sincere conception of God's
unity as shown above; he must have an appreciation of God's goodness as
exhibited in nature; he must submit to God's service; he must have trust
in God alone as the sole author of good and evil; and correspondingly he
must abstain from flattering mankind, and must be indifferent to their
praise and blame; he must fear God, and have respect and awe for him.
When he is in the act of fulfilling his spiritual obligations, he must
not be preoccupied with the affairs of this world; and finally he must
always consult his reason, and make it control his desires and
inclinations.[125]

Humility and lowliness is an important element conducive to "unity of
conduct." By this is not meant that general helplessness in the face of
conditions, dangers and injuries because of ignorance of the methods of
averting them. This is not humility but weakness. Nor do we mean that
timidity and loss of countenance which one suffers before a superior in
physical power or wealth. The true humility with which we are here
concerned is that which one feels constantly before God, though it shows
itself also in such a person's conduct in the presence of others, in
soft speech, low voice, and modest behavior generally, in prosperity as
well as adversity. The truly humble man practices patience and
forgiveness; he does good to mankind and judges them favorably; he is
contented with little in respect to food and drink and the needs of the
body generally; he endures misfortune with resignation; is not spoiled
by praise, nor irritated by blame, but realizes how far he is from
perfection in the one case, and appreciates the truth of the criticism
in the other. He is not spoiled by prosperity and success, and always
holds himself under strict account. God knows it, even if his fellowmen
do not.

Humility, as we have described it, is not, however, incompatible with a
certain kind of pride; not that form of it which boasts of physical
excellence, nor that arrogance which leads a man to look down upon
others and belittle their achievements. These forms of pride are bad and
diametrically opposed to true humility. Legitimate mental pride is that
which leads a person blessed with intellectual gifts to feel grateful to
God for his favor, and to strive to improve his talents and share their
benefits with others.[126]

Humility is a necessary forerunner of repentance and we must treat of
this duty of the heart next. It is clear from reason as well as from the
Law that man does not do all that is incumbent upon him in the service
of God. For man is composed of opposite principles warring with each
other, and is subject to change on account of the change of his mental
qualities. For this reason he needs a law and traditional custom to keep
him from going astray. The Bible also tells us that "the imagination of
the heart of man is evil from his youth" (Gen. 8, 21). Therefore God was
gracious and gave man the ability and opportunity to correct his
mistakes. This is repentance.

True repentance means return to God's service after having succeeded in
making the reason the master of the desires. The elements in repentance
are, (1) regret; (2) discontinuance of the wrong act; (3) confession and
request for pardon; (4) promise not to repeat the offence.

In respect to gravity of offence, sins may be divided into three
classes: (1) Violation of a positive commandment in the Bible which is
not punished by "cutting off from the community." For example, dwelling
in booths, wearing fringes, and shaking the palm branch. (2) Violation
of a negative commandment not so punished. (3) Violation of a negative
commandment the penalty for which is death at the hands of the court,
and being "cut off" by divine agency; for example, profanation of the
divine name or false oath. In cases of the first class a penitent is as
good as one who never sinned. In the second class he is even superior,
because the latter has not the same prophylactic against pride. In the
third class the penitent is inferior to the one who never sinned.

Another classification of offences is in two divisions according to the
subject against whom the offence is committed. This may be a human
being, and the crime is social; or it may be God, and we have sin in the
proper sense of the term. Penitence is sufficient for forgiveness in the
latter class, but not in the former. When one robs another or insults
him, he must make restoration or secure the pardon of the offended party
before his repentance can be accepted. And if the person cannot be
found, or if he died, or is alive but refuses to forgive his offender,
or if the sinner lost the money which he took, or if he does not know
whom he robbed, or how much, it may be impossible for him to atone for
the evil he has done. Still if he is really sincere in his repentance,
God will help him to make reparation to the person wronged.[127]

Self-examination is conducive to repentance. By this term is meant
taking stock of one's spiritual condition so as to know the merits one
has as well the duties one owes. In order to do this conscientiously a
man must reflect on the unity of God, on his wisdom and goodness, on the
obedience which all nature pays to the laws imposed upon it, disregard
of which would result in the annihilation of all things, including
himself. A man should review his past conduct, and provide for his
future life, as one provides for a long journey, bearing in mind that
life is short, and that he is a stranger in this world with no one to
help him except the goodness and grace of his maker. He should cultivate
the habit of being alone and not seek the society of idlers, for that
leads to gossip and slander, to sin and wrong, to vanity and neglect of
God. This does not apply to the company of the pious and the learned,
which should be sought. He should be honest and helpful to his friends,
and he will get along well in this world. All the evils and complaints
of life are due to the fact that people are not considerate of one
another, and everyone grabs for himself all that he can, more than he
needs. One should examine anew the ideas one has from childhood to be
sure that he understands them in the light of his riper intellect. He
should also study again the books of the Bible and the prayers which he
learned as a child, for he would see them now in a different light. He
must try to make his soul control his body, strengthening it with
intellectual and spiritual food for the world to come. These efforts and
reflections and many others of a similar kind tend to perfect the soul
and prepare it to attain to the highest degree of purity, where the evil
desire can have no power over her.[128]

In self-examination temperance or abstemiousness plays an important
rôle. Let us examine this concept more closely. By abstemiousness in the
special sense in which we use it here we do not mean that general
temperance or moderation which we practice to keep our body in good
order, or such as physicians prescribe for the healthy and the sick,
bidding them abstain from certain articles of food, drink, and so on. We
mean rather a more stringent abstemiousness, which may be called
separation from the world, or asceticism. We may define this to mean
abstention from all corporeal satisfactions except such as are
indispensable for the maintenance of life.

Not everyone is required to practice this special form of temperance,
nor is it desirable that he should, for it would lead to extinction of
the human race. At the same time it is proper that there shall be a few
select individuals, ascetic in their habits of life, and completely
separated from the world, to serve as an example for the generality of
mankind, in order that temperance of the more general kind shall be the
habit of the many.

The object of God in creating man was to try the soul in order to purify
it and make it like the angels. It is tried by being put in an earthy
body, which grows and becomes larger by means of food. Hence God put
into the soul the desire for food, and the desire for sexual union to
perpetuate the species; and he made the reward for the satisfaction of
these desires the pleasure which they give. He also appointed the "evil
inclination" to incite to all these bodily pleasures. Now if this "evil
inclination" gets the upper hand of the reason, the result is excess and
ruin. Hence the need of general abstemiousness. And the ascetic class
serve the purpose of reinforcing general temperance by their example.

But in the asceticism of the few there is also a limit beyond which one
should not go. Here too the middle way is the best. Those extremists who
leave the world entirely and live the life of a recluse in the desert,
subsisting on grass and herbs, are farthest from the middle way, and the
Bible does not approve of their mode of life, as we read in Isaiah (45,
18) "The God that formed the earth and made it; he that hath
established it,--not in vain did he create it, he formed it to be
inhabited." Those are much better who without leaving for the desert
pass solitary lives in their homes, not associating with other people,
and abstaining from superfluities of all kinds. But the best of all are
those who adopt the mildest form of asceticism, who separate from the
world inwardly while taking part in it outwardly, and assisting in the
ordinary occupations of mankind. These are commended in the Bible.
Witness the prayer of Jacob (Gen. 28, 20), the fasting of Moses forty
days and forty nights on the mount, the fasting of Elijah, the laws of
the Nazirite, Jonadab ben Rechab, Elisha, prescriptions of fasting on
various occasions, and so on.[129]

The highest stage a man can reach spiritually is the love of God, and
all that preceded has this as its aim. True love of God is that felt
toward him for his own sake because of his greatness and exaltation, and
not for any ulterior purpose.

The soul is a simple spiritual substance which inclines to that which is
like it, and departs from what is material and corporeal. But when God
put the soul into the body, he implanted in it the desire to maintain
it, and it was thus affected by the feelings and desires which concern
the health and growth of the body, thus becoming estranged from the
spiritual.

In order that the soul shall attain to the true love of God, the reason
must get the upper hand of the desires, all the topics treated in the
preceding sections must be taken to heart and sincerely and
conscientiously acted upon. Then the eyes of the soul will be opened,
and it will be filled with the fear and the love of God.[130]




CHAPTER VII

PSEUDO-BAHYA


It had been known for a number of years that there was a manuscript
treatise in Arabic on the soul, which was attributed on the title page
to Bahya. In 1896 Isaac Broydé published a Hebrew translation of this
work under the title "Torot ha-Nefesh," ("Reflections on the
Soul").[131] The original Arabic was edited by Goldziher in 1907.[132]
The Arabic title is "Maʿani al-Nafs," and should be translated "Concepts
of the soul," or "Attributes of the soul."

There seems little doubt now that despite the ascription on the title
page of the manuscript, the treatise is not a work of Bahya. It is very
unlikely that anything written by so distinguished an author as Bahya,
whose "Duties of the Hearts" was the most popular book in the middle
ages, should have been so thoroughly forgotten as to have left no trace
in Jewish literature. Bahya as well as the anonymous author refer, in
the introductions to their respective works, to their sources or to
their own previous writings. But there is no reference either in the
"Duties of the Hearts" to the "Attributes of the Soul," or in the latter
to the former. A still stronger argument against Bahya as the author of
our treatise is that derived from the content of the work, which moves
in a different circle of ideas from the "Duties of the Hearts." Our
anonymous author is an outspoken Neo-Platonist. He believes in the
doctrine of emanation, and arranges the created universe, spiritual and
material, in a descending series of such emanations, ten in number. The
Mutakallimun he opposes as being followers of the "Naturalists," who
disagree with the philosophers as well as the Bible. Bahya, on the other
hand, is a strict follower of the Kalam in his chapter on the "Unity,"
as we have seen (p. 86), and the Neo-Platonic influence is very slight.
There is no trace of a graded series of emanations in the "Duties of the
Hearts."[133]

The sources of the "Attributes of the Soul" are no doubt the various
Neo-Platonic writings current among the Arabs in the tenth and eleventh
centuries, of which we spoke in the Introduction (p. xx) and in the
chapter on Gabirol (p. 63 f.). Gabirol himself can scarcely have had
much influence on our author, as the distinctive doctrine of the "Fons
Vitæ" is absent in our treatise. The reader will remember that matter
and form, according to Gabirol, are at the basis not merely of the
corporeal world, but that they constitute the essence of the spiritual
world as well, the very first emanation, the Universal Intelligence,
being composed of universal matter and universal form. As we shall see
this is not the view of the "Attributes of the Soul." Matter here
occupies the position which it has in Plotinus and in the encyclopædia
of the Brethren of Purity. It is the fourth in order of emanations, and
the composition of matter and form begins with the celestial sphere,
which is the fifth in order. Everything that precedes matter is
absolutely simple. At the same time it seems clear that he was familiar
with Gabirol's doctrine of the will. For in at least two passages in the
"Attributes of the Soul" (chs. 11 and 13)[134] we have the series,
vegetative soul, spheral impression, [psychic power--omitted in ch. 13],
universal soul, intellect, will.

The "Categories" of Aristotle is also clearly evident in the "Attributes
of the Soul." It is the ultimate source of the definition of accident as
that which resides in substance without being a part of it, but yet in
such a way that without substance it cannot exist.[135] The number of
the species of motion as six[136] points in the same direction. This,
however, does not prove that the author read the "Categories." He might
have derived these notions, as well as the list of the ten categories,
from the writings of the Brethren of Purity. The same thing applies to
the statement that a spiritual substance is distinguished from a
corporeal in its capacity of receiving its qualities or accidents
without limits.[137] This probably goes back to the De Anima of
Aristotle where a similar contrast between the senses and the reason is
used as an argument for the "separate" character of the latter. The
doctrine of the mean in conduct[138] comes from the ethics of Aristotle.
The doctrine of the four virtues and the manner of their derivation is
Platonic,[139] and so is the doctrine of reminiscence, viz., that the
soul recalls the knowledge it had in its previous life.[140]

Ibn Sina is one of the latest authors mentioned in our work; hence it
could not have been written much before 1037, the date of Ibn Sina's
death. The _terminus ad quem_ cannot be determined.

As the title indicates, the anonymous treatise is concerned primarily
with the nature of the soul. Whatever other topics are found therein are
introduced for the bearing they have on the central problem. A study of
the soul means psychology as well as ethics, for a complete
determination of the nature of the soul necessarily must throw light not
only upon the origin and activity of the soul, but also upon its purpose
and destiny.

The first error, we are told, that we must remove concerning the soul,
is the doctrine of the "naturalists," with whom the Muʿtazilites among
the Arabs and the Karaites among the Jews are in agreement, that the
soul is not an independent and self-subsistent entity, but only an
"accident" of the body. Their view is that as the soul is a corporeal
quality it is dependent for its existence upon the body and disappears
with the latter. Those of the Muʿtazilites who believe in "Mahad"
(return of the soul to its origin), hold that at the time of the
resurrection God will bring the parts of the body together with its
accident, the soul, and will reward and punish them. But the
resurrection is a distinct problem, and has nothing to do with the
nature of the soul and its qualities.

The true opinion, which is that of the Bible and the true philosophers,
is that the soul is a spiritual substance independent of the body; that
it existed before the body and will continue to exist after the
dissolution of the latter. The existence of a spiritual substance is
proved from the presence of such qualities as knowledge and ignorance.
These are opposed to each other, and cannot be the qualities of body as
such, for body cannot contain two opposite forms at the same time.
Moreover, the substance, whatever it be, which bears the attributes of
knowledge and ignorance, can receive them without limit. The more
knowledge a person has, the more capable he is of acquiring more. No
corporeal substance behaves in this way. There is always a limit to a
body's power of receiving a given accident. We legitimately conclude,
therefore, that the substance which bears the attributes of knowledge
and ignorance is not corporeal but spiritual.[141]

To understand the position of the soul and its relation to the body, we
must have an idea of the structure and origin of the universe. The
entire world, upper as well as lower, is divided into two parts, simple
and composite. The simple essences, which are pure and bright, are
nearer to their Creator than the less simple substances which come
after. There are ten such creations with varying simplicity, following
each other in order according to the arrangement dictated by God's
wisdom. As numbers are simple up to ten, and then they begin to be
compound, so in the universe the ten simple substances are followed by
composite.

The first of these simple creations, which is nearest to God, is called
in Hebrew "Shekinah." The Torah and the Prophets call it "Name" (Exod.
23, 21), also "Kabod," Glory (Is. 59, 19). God gave his name to the
nearest and first of his creations, which is the first light, and
interpreter and servant nearest to him. Solomon calls it "Wisdom" (Prov.
8, 22); the Greeks, Active Intellect. The second creation is called by
the Prophets, "the Glory of the God of Israel" (Ezek. 8, 9); by the
Greeks, Universal Soul, for it moves the spheres through a natural power
as the individual soul moves the body. The soul partakes of the
Intelligence or Intellect on the side which is near to it; it partakes
of Nature on the side adjoining the latter. Nature is the third
creation. It also is an angel, being the first of the powers of the
universal soul, and constituting the life of this world and its motion.

These three are simple essences in the highest sense of the word. They
are obedient to their Creator, and transmit in order his emanation and
the will, and the laws of his wisdom to all the worlds. The fourth
creation is an essence which has no activity or life or motion
originally, but only a power of receiving whatever is formed and created
out of it. This is the _Matter_ of the world. From it come the bodies
which possess accidents. In being formed some of its non-existence is
diminished, and its matter moves. It is called "hyle," and is the same
as the darkness of the first chapter in Genesis. For it is a mistake to
suppose that by darkness in the second verse of the first chapter is
meant the absence of the light of the sun. This is accidental darkness,
whereas in the creation story the word darkness signifies something
elemental at the basis of corporeal things. This is what is known as
matter, which on account of its darkness, _i. e._, its imperfection and
motionlessness, is the cause of all the blemishes and evils in the
world. In receiving forms, however, it acquires motion; its darkness is
somewhat diminished, and it appears to the eye through the forms which
it receives.

The fifth creation is the celestial Sphere, where for the first time we
have motion in its revolutions. Here too we have the first composition
of matter and form; and the beginning of time as the measure of the
Sphere's motion; and place. The sixth creation is represented by the
bodies of the _stars_, which are moved by the spheres in which they are
set. They are bright and luminous because they are near the first simple
bodies, which were produced before time and place. The last four of the
ten creations are the four elements, fire, air, water, earth. The
element earth is the end of "creation." What follows thereafter is
"formation" and "composition." By creation is meant that which results
through the will of God from his emanation alone, and not out of
anything, or in time or place. It applies in the strictest sense to the
first three only. The fifth, namely the Sphere, already comes from
matter and form, and is in time and place. The fourth, too, enters into
the fifth and all subsequent creations and formations. Still, the term
creation is applicable to the first ten, though in varying degrees,
until when we reach the element earth, creation proper is at an end.
This is why in the first verse in Genesis, which speaks of heaven and
earth, the term used is "bara" (created), and not any of the other
terms, such as "yazar," "ʿasah," "kanah," "paʿal," and so on, which
denote formation.

From earth and the other elements were formed all kinds of minerals,
like rocks, mountains, stones, and so on. Then plants and animals, and
finally man.

Man who was formed last bears traces of all that preceded him. He is
formed of the four elements, of the motions of the spheres, of the
mixtures of the stars and their rays, of Nature, of the Universal Soul,
the mother of all, of the Intellect, the father of all, and finally of
the will of God. But the order in man is reversed. The first two
creations, Intellect and Soul, appear in man last.

The soul of man, embracing reason and intellect, is thus seen to be a
divine emanation, being related to the universal soul and Intellect. On
its way from God to man it passes through all spheres, and every one
leaves an impression upon her, and covers her with a wrapper, so to
speak. The brightness of the star determines the ornament or "wrapper"
which the soul gets from it. This is known to the Creator, who
determines the measure of influence and the accidents attaching to the
soul until she reaches the body destined for her by his will. The longer
the stay in a given sphere the stronger the influence of the sphere in
question; and hence the various temperaments we observe in persons,
which determine their character and conduct. For at bottom the soul is
the same in essence and unchangeable in all men, because she is an
emanation from the Unchangeable. All individual differences are due to
the spheral impressions. These impressions, however, do not take away
from the soul its freedom of will.[142]

In the rest of his psychology and ethics the anonymous author follows
Platonic theories, modified now and then in the manner of Aristotle.
Thus we are told that the soul consists of three powers, or three souls,
the vegetative, the animal and the rational. We learn of the existence
of the vegetative soul from the nourishment, growth and reproduction
evidenced by the individual. The animal soul shows its presence in the
motions of the body. The existence of the rational soul we have already
shown from the attributes of knowledge and ignorance.

The vegetative soul comes from certain spheral influences, themselves
due to the universal soul, and ultimately to the will of God. It is the
first of the three to make its appearance in the body. It is already
found in the embryo, to which it gives the power of motion in its own
place like the motion of a plant or tree. Its seat is in the liver,
where the growth of the embryo begins. Its function ceases about the
twentieth year, when the growth of the body reaches its limit.

The animal soul springs from the heart. Its functioning appears after
birth when the child begins to crawl, and continues until the person
loses the power of locomotion in old age. The rational soul resides in
the middle of the brain. She knows all things before joining the body,
but her knowledge is obscured on account of the material coverings which
she receives on her way down from her divine source.[143]

The virtue of the vegetative soul is temperance; of the animal soul,
courage; of the rational soul, wisdom. When these are harmoniously
combined in the individual, and the two lower souls are controlled by
the higher, there results the fourth virtue, which is justice, and which
gives its possessor the privilege of being a teacher and a leader of his
people. In Moses all these qualities were exemplified, and Isaiah (11,
1-4) in describing the qualities of the Messianic King also enumerates
these four cardinal virtues. "The spirit of wisdom and understanding"
represents wisdom, "the spirit of counsel and strength" stands for
courage; "the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord" denotes
temperance; and justice is represented in the phrase, "and he will judge
the poor with righteousness."[144]

Virtue is a mean between the two extremes of excess and defect, each of
which is a vice. Thus an excess of wisdom becomes shrewdness and cunning
and deceit; while a defect means ignorance. The true wisdom consists in
the middle way between the two extremes. Similarly courage is a mean
between foolhardiness and rashness on the side of excess, and cowardice
on the side of defect. Temperance is a mean between excessive indulgence
of the appetites on one side and utter insensibility on the other. The
mean of justice is the result of the harmonious combination of the means
of the last three. If the rational soul has wisdom and the two other
souls are obedient to it through modesty and courage, their substance
changes into the substance of the rational soul, _i. e._, their bad
qualities are transformed into the four virtues just mentioned. Then the
two lower souls unite with the rational soul and enjoy eternal happiness
with it. On the other hand, if the rational soul follows the senses, its
wisdom changes into their folly, its virtues into their vices, and it
perishes with them.[145]

The immortality of the soul is proved as follows. Things composed of
elements return back to their elements, hence the soul also returns to
its own origin. The soul is independent of the body, for its qualities,
thought and knowledge, are not bodily qualities, hence they become
clearer and more certain after the soul is separated from the body than
before, when the body obscured its vision like a curtain. The fact that
a person's mind is affected when his body is ill does not show that the
soul is dependent in its nature upon the body; but that acting as it
does in the body by means of corporeal organs, it cannot perform its
functions properly when these organs are injured.

Since death is a decree of God, it is clear that he has a purpose in
changing the relations of body and soul. But if the soul comes to an
end, this change would be a vain piece of work of which he cannot be
guilty. Hence it follows that the destruction of the body is in order
that we may exist in another similar form, similar to the angels.[146]

The purpose of the soul's coming into this world is in order that she
may purify the two lower souls; also that she may know the value of her
own world in comparison with this one, and in grieving for having left
it may observe God's commandments, and thus achieve her return to her
own world.

In the matter of returning to their own world after separation from the
body, souls are graded according to the measure of their knowledge and
the value of their conduct. These two conditions, ethical and spiritual
or intellectual, are requisite of fulfilment before the soul can regain
its original home. The soul on leaving this world is like a clean, white
garment soaked in water. If the water is clean, it is easy to dry the
garment, and it becomes even cleaner than it was before. But if the
water is dirty, no amount of drying will make the garment clean.

Those souls which instead of elevating the two lower souls, vegetative
and animal, were misled by them, will perish with the latter. Between
the two extremes of perfection and wickedness there are intermediate
stages, and the souls are treated accordingly. Those of the proud will
rise in the air and flying hither and thither will not find a resting
place. Those which have knowledge, but no good deeds, will rise to the
sphere of the ether, but will be prevented from rising higher by the
weight of their evil deeds, and the pure angels will rain down upon them
arrows of fire, thus causing them to return below in shame and disgrace.
The souls of the dishonest will be driven from place to place without
finding any rest. Other bad souls will be punished in various ways.
Those souls which have good deeds but no knowledge will be placed in the
terrestrial paradise until their souls recall the knowledge they had in
their original state, and they will then return to the Garden of Eden
among the angels.[147]




CHAPTER VIII

ABRAHAM BAR HIYYA


Abraham bar Hiyya, the Prince, as he is called, lived in Spain in the
first half of the twelfth century. He also seems to have stayed some
time in southern France, though we do not know when or how long. His
greatest merit lies not in his philosophical achievement which, if we
may judge from the only work of a philosophical character that has come
down to us, is not very great. He is best known as a writer on
mathematics, astronomy and the calendar; though there, too, his most
important service lay not so much in the original ideas he propounded,
as in the fact that he was among the first, if not the first, to
introduce the scientific thought current in the Orient and in Moorish
Spain into Christian Europe, and especially among the Jews of France and
Germany, who devoted all their energies to the Rabbinical literature,
and to whom the Arabic works of their Spanish brethren were a sealed
book.

So we find Abraham bar Hiyya, or Abraham Savasorda (a corruption of the
Arabic title Sahib al-Shorta), associated with Plato of Tivoli in the
translation into Latin of Arabic scientific works. And he himself wrote
a number of books on mathematics and astronomy in Hebrew at the request
of his friends in France who could not read Arabic. Abraham bar Hiyya is
the first of the writers we have treated so far who composed a
scientific work in the Hebrew language. All the others, with the
exception of Abraham ibn Ezra, wrote in Arabic, as they continued to do
until and including Maimonides.

The only one of his extant works which is philosophical in content is
the small treatise "Hegyon ha-Nefesh," Meditation of the Soul.[148] It
is a popular work, written with a practical purpose, ethical and
homiletic in tone and style. The idea of repentance plays an important
rôle in the book, and what theoretical philosophy finds place therein is
introduced merely as a background and basis for the ethical and
religious considerations which follow. It may be called a miniature
"Duties of the Hearts." As in all homiletical compositions in Jewish
literature, exegesis of Biblical passages takes up a good deal of the
discussions, and for the history of the philosophic movement in mediæval
Judaism the methods of reading metaphysical and ethical ideas into the
Bible are quite as important as these ideas themselves.

The general philosophical standpoint of Abraham bar Hiyya may be
characterized as an uncertain Neo-Platonism, or a combination of
fundamental Aristotelian ideas with a Neo-Platonic coloring. Thus matter
and form are the fundamental principles of the world. They existed
potentially apart in the wisdom of God before they were combined and
thus realized in actuality.[149] Time being a measure of motion, came
into being together with the motion which followed upon this
combination. Hence neither the world nor time is eternal. This is
Platonic, not Aristotelian, who believes in the eternity of motion as
well as of time. Abraham bar Hiyya also speaks of the purest form as
light and as looking at and illuminating the form inferior to it and
thus giving rise to the heavens, minerals and plants.[150] This is all
Neo-Platonic. And yet the most distinctive doctrine of Plotinus and the
later Neo-Platonists among the Arabs, the series of emanating
hypostases, Intellect, Universal Soul, Nature, Matter, and so on, is
wanting in the "Hegyon ha-Nefesh."[151] Form is the highest thing he
knows outside of God; and the purest form, which is too exalted to
combine with matter, embraces angels, seraphim, souls, and all forms
related to the upper world.[152] With the exception of the names angel,
seraphim, souls, this is good Aristotelian doctrine, who also believes
in the movers of the spheres and the active intellect in man as being
pure forms.

To proceed now to give a brief account of Abraham bar Hiyya's teaching,
he thinks it is the duty of rational man to know how it is that man who
is so insignificant was given control of the other animals, and endowed
with the power of wisdom and knowledge. In order to gain this knowledge
we must investigate the origins and principles of existing things, so
that we may arrive at an understanding of things as they are. This the
wise men of other nations have realized, though they were not privileged
to receive a divine Torah, and have busied themselves with philosophical
investigations. Our Bible recommends to us the same method in the words
of Deuteronomy (4, 39), "Know therefore this day, and reflect in thy
heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above, and upon the earth
beneath: there is none else." This means that if you understand
thoroughly the order of things in heaven above and the earth beneath,
you will at once see that God made it in his wisdom, and that he is the
only one and there is no one beside him. The book of Job teaches the
same thing, when it says (19, 26) "And from my flesh I shall behold
God." This signifies that from the structure of the body and the form of
its members we can understand the wisdom of the Creator. We need not
hesitate therefore to study the works of the ancients and the wise men
of other nations in order to learn from them the nature of existence. We
have the permission and recommendation of Scripture.[153]

Starting from a consideration of man we see that he is the last of
created things because we find in him additional composition over and
above that found in other creatures. Man is a "_rational animal_."
"Animal" means a body that grows and moves and at last is dissolved.
"Rational" refers to the power of knowledge, of inferring one thing from
another, and discriminating between good and evil. In this man differs
from other animals. Descending in the scale of existence we find that
the plant also grows and dies like the animal, but it does not move.
Stones, metals and other inanimate bodies on the earth, change their
forms and shapes, but unlike plants they have no power of growing or
increasing. They are the simplest of the things on the earth. They
differ from the heavenly bodies in that the latter never change their
forms. Proceeding further in our analysis, we find that body, the
simplest thing so far, means length, breadth and depth attached to
something capable of being measured. This definition shows that body is
also composed of two elements, which are theoretically distinct until
God's will joins them together. These are "hyle" (matter)--what has no
likeness or form, but has the capacity of receiving form--and form,
which is defined as that which has power to clothe the hyle with any
form. Matter alone is too weak to sustain itself, unless form comes to
its aid. Form, on the other hand, is not perceptible to sense unless it
clothes matter, which bears it. One needs the other. Matter cannot
_exist_ without form; form cannot _be seen_ without matter. Form is
superior to matter, because it needs the latter only to be seen but can
exist by itself though not seen; whereas matter cannot _exist_ without
form. These two, matter and form, were hidden in God, where they existed
potentially until the time came to produce them and realize them _in
actu_.

Matter is further divided into two kinds. There is pure matter, which
enters into the composition of the heavens, and impure matter, forming
the substance of terrestrial bodies. Similarly form may be divided at
first into two kinds; closed and sealed form, too pure and holy to be
combined with matter; and open and penetrable form, which is fit to
unite with matter. The pure, self-subsistent form gazes at and
illuminates the penetrable form, and helps it to clothe matter with all
the forms of which the latter is capable.

Now when God determined to realize matter and form _in actu_, he caused
the pure form to be clothed with its splendor, which no hyle can touch.
This gave rise to angels, seraphim, souls, and all other forms of the
upper world. Not all men can see these forms or conceive them in the
mind, because they do not unite with anything which the eye can
perceive, and the majority of people cannot understand what they cannot
perceive with their corporeal senses. Only those who are given to
profound scientific investigations can understand the essence of these
forms.

The light of this pure form then emanated upon the second form, and by
the word of God the latter united with the pure matter firmly and
permanently, so that there is never a change as long as they are united.
This union gave rise to the bodies of the heavens (spheres and fixed
stars) which never change their forms. Then the form united with the
impure matter, and this gave rise to all the bodies in the sublunar
world, which change their forms. These are the four elements, and the
products of their composition, including plants.[154]

So far we have bodies which do not change their places. Then a light
emanated from the self-subsisting form by the order of God, the splendor
of which spread upon the heaven, moving from point to point, and caused
the material form (_i. e._, the inferior, so-called penetrable form) to
change its place. This produced the stars which change their position
but not their forms (planets). From this light extending over the heaven
emanated another splendor which reached the body with changing form,
giving rise to the three species of living beings, aquatic, aerial and
terrestial animals, corresponding to the three elements, water, air,
earth; as there is no animal life in fire.

We have so far therefore three kinds of forms. (1) The pure
self-subsistent form which never combines with matter. This embraces all
the forms of the spiritual world. (2) Form which unites with body firmly
and inseparably. These are the forms of the heavens and the stars. (3)
Form which unites with body temporarily. Such are the forms of the
bodies on the earth. The forms of the second and third classes cannot
exist without bodies. The form of class number one cannot exist with
body. To make the scheme complete, there ought to be a fourth kind of
form which can exist with as well as without body. In other words, a
form which unites with body for a time and then returns to its original
state and continues to exist without body. Reason demands that the
classification should be complete, hence there must be such a form, and
the only one worthy of this condition is the soul of man. We thus have a
proof of the immortality of the soul.[155]

These are the ideas of the ancient sages, and we shall find that they
are drawn from the Torah. Thus matter and form are indicated in the
second verse of Genesis, "And the earth was _without form_ (Heb. Tohu)
and _void_ (Heb. Bohu)." "Tohu" is matter; "Bohu" (בו הוא = בהו)
signifies that through which matter gains existence, hence form.
"Water" (Heb. Mayim) is also a general word for any of the various
forms, whereas "light" (Heb. Or) stands for the pure subsistent form. By
"firmament" (Heb. Rakiaʿ) is meant the second kind of form which unites
with the pure matter in a permanent and unchangeable manner. "Let there
be a _firmanent_ in the midst of the _waters_" (Gen. 1, 6) indicates
that the "firmament" is embraced by the bright light of the first day,
that is the universal form, from which all the other forms come. "And
let it divide between _water_ and _water_" (_ib._) signifies that the
"firmament" stands between the self-subsistent form and the third kind
of form above mentioned, namely, that which unites with body and gives
rise to substances changing their forms, like minerals and plants. The
"luminaries" (Heb. Meorot) correspond to the second light mentioned
above. We shall find also that the order of creation as given in Genesis
coincides with the account given above in the name of the ancient
sages.[156]

It would seem as if the self-subsisting form and the two lights
emanating from it are meant to represent the Intellect, Soul and Nature
of the Neo-Platonic trinity respectively, and that Abraham bar Hiyya
purposely changed the names and partly their functions in order to make
the philosophical account agree with the story of creation in Genesis.

With regard to the intellectual and ethical condition of the soul and
its destiny, the speculative thinkers of other nations, arguing from
reason alone and having no divine revelation to guide or confirm their
speculations, are agreed that the only way in which the soul, which
belongs to a higher world, can be freed from this world of body and
change is through _intellectual excellence_ and _right conduct_.
Accordingly they classify souls into four kinds. The soul, they say, may
have health, sickness, life, death. Health signifies _wisdom_ or
_knowledge_; sickness denotes _ignorance_. Life means the _fear of God_
and _right conduct_; death is _neglect of God_ and _evil practice_.
Every person combines in himself one of the two intellectual qualities
with one of the two ethical qualities. Thus we have four classes of
persons. A man may be wise and pious, wise and wicked, ignorant and
pious, ignorant and wicked. And his destiny after death is determined by
the class to which he belongs. Thus when a man who is wise and pious
departs this world, his soul by reason of its wisdom separates from the
body and exists in its own form as before. Owing to its piety it will
rise to the upper world until it reaches the pure, eternal form, with
which it will unite for ever. If the man is wise and wicked, the wisdom
of the soul will enable it to exist without body; but on account of its
wickedness and indulgence in the desires of this world, it cannot become
completely free from the creatures of this world, and the best it can do
is to rise above the sublunar world of change to the world of the
planets where the forms do not change, and move about beneath the light
of the sun, the heat of which will seem to it like a fire burning it
continually, and preventing it from rising to the upper light.

If the man is ignorant and pious, his soul will be saved from body in
order that it may exist by itself, but his ignorance will prevent his
soul from leaving the atmosphere of the lower world. Hence the soul will
have to be united with body a second, and a third time, if necessary,
until it finally acquires knowledge and wisdom, which will enable it to
rise above the lower world, its degree and station depending upon the
measure of intellect and virtue it possesses at the time of the last
separation from the body. The soul of the man who is both ignorant and
wicked cannot be saved from the body entirely, and dies like a beast.

These are the views of speculative thinkers which we may adopt, but they
cannot tell us what is the content of the terms _wisdom_ and _right
conduct_. Not having been privileged to receive the sacred Law, which is
the source of all wisdom and the origin of rectitude, they cannot tell
us in concrete fashion just what a man must know and what he must do in
order to raise his soul to the highest degree possible for it to attain.
And if they were to tell us what they understand by wisdom and right
conduct, we should not listen to them. Our authority is the Bible, and
we must test the views of the philosophers by the teaching of the Bible.

If we do this we find authority in Scripture also for belief in the
immortality of the soul. Thus if we study carefully the expressions used
of the various creations in the first chapter of Genesis, we notice that
in some cases the divine command is expressed by the phrase, "Let there
be...," followed by the name of the thing to be created; and the
execution of the command is expressed by the words, "And there was...,"
the name of the created object being repeated; or the phrase may be
simply, "And it was so," without naming the object. In other cases the
expression "Let there be" is not used, nor the corresponding "And there
was."

This variation in expression is not accidental. It is deliberate and
must be understood. Upon a careful examination we cannot fail to see
that where the expression "Let there be" is used, the object so created
exists in this world permanently and without change. Thus, "Let there be
light" (Gen. i, 3). If in addition we have the corresponding expression,
"And there was," in connection with the same object and followed by its
name, it means that the object will continue its everlasting existence
in the next world also. Hence, "And there was light" (_ib._). In the
creation of the firmament and the luminaries we have the expression,
"Let there be"; the corresponding expression at the end is in each case
not, "And there was...," but, "And it was so." This signifies that in
this world, as long as it lasts, the firmament and luminaries are
permanent and without change; but they will have no continuance in the
next world. In the creation of the sublunar world we do not find the
phrase, "Let there be," at all, but such expressions as, "Let the waters
be gathered together" (_ib._ 9), "Let the earth produce grass" (_ib._
11), and so on. This means that these things change their forms and have
no permanent existence in this world. The phrase, "And it was so,"
recording the realization of the divine command, signifies that they do
not exist at all in the next world.

The case is different in man. We do not find the expression, "Let there
be," in the command introducing his formation; hence he has no
permanence in this world. But we do find the expression, "And the man
became (lit. _was_) a living soul" (_ib._ 2, 7), which means that he
will have permanent existence in the next world. The article before the
word man in the verse just quoted indicates that not every man lives
forever in the next world, but only the good. What manner of man he must
be in order to have this privilege, _i. e._, of what nation he must be a
member, we shall see later. This phase of the question the speculative
thinkers cannot understand, hence they did not investigate it. Reason
alone cannot decide this question; it needs the guidance of the Torah,
which is divine.

Consulting the Torah on this problem, we notice that man is
distinguished above other animals in the manner of his creation in three
respects. (1) All other living beings were created by means of something
else. The water or the earth was ordered to produce them. Man alone was
made directly by God. (2) There are three expressions used for the
creation of living things, "create" (Heb. bara), "form" (Heb. yazar),
and "make" (Heb. ʿasah). The water animals have only the first (_ib._ 1,
21), as being the lowest in the scale of animal life. Land animals have
the second and the third, "formed" and "made" (_ib._ 1, 25; 2, 19). Man,
who is superior to all the others, has all the three expressions (_ib._
26, 27; 2, 7). (3) Man was given dominion over the other animals (_ib._
1, 28).

As man is distinguished above the other animals, so is one nation
distinguished above other men. In Isaiah (43, 7) we read: "Every one
that is called by my name, and whom I have _created_ for my glory; I
have _formed_ him; yea, I have _made_ him." The three terms, created,
formed, made, signify that the reference is to man; and we learn from
this verse that those men were created for his glory who are called by
his name. But if we inquire in the Bible we find that the nation called
by God's name is Israel, as we read (_ib._ 1), "Thus said the Lord that
created thee, O Israel, Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have
called thee by thy name; thou art mine," and in many other passages
besides. The reason for this is their belief in the unity of God and
their reception of the Law. At the same time others who are not
Israelites are not excluded from reaching the same degree through
repentance.[157]

There is no system of ethics in Abraham bar Hiyya, and we shall in the
sequel select some of his remarks bearing on ethics and pick out the
ethical kernel from its homiletical and exegetical husk.

Man alone, he tells us, of all animal creation receives reward and
punishment. The other animals have neither merit nor guilt. To be sure,
their fortune in life depends upon the manner in which they respond to
their environment, but this is not in the way of reward and punishment,
but a natural consequence of their natural constitution. With man it is
different, and this is because of the responsible position man occupies,
having been given the privilege and the ability to control all animal
creation.[158]

The psychological basis of virtue in Abraham bar Hiyya is Platonic in
origin, as it is in Pseudo-Bahya, though we do not find the four
cardinal virtues and the derivation of justice from a harmonious
combination of the other three as in the Republic of Plato, to which
Pseudo-Bahya is ultimately indebted.

Man has three powers, we are told, which some call three souls. One is
the power by which he grows and multiplies like the plants of the field.
The second is that by which he moves from place to place. These two
powers he has in common with the animal. The third is that by which he
distinguishes between good and evil, between truth and falsehood,
between a thing and its opposite, and by which he acquires wisdom and
knowledge. This is the soul which distinguishes him from the other
animals. If this soul prevails over the lower two powers, the man is
called meritorious and perfect. If on the other hand the latter prevail
over the soul, the man is accounted like a beast, and is called wicked
and an evil doer. God gives merit to the animal soul for the sake of
the rational soul if the former is obedient to the latter; and on the
other hand imputes guilt to the rational soul and punishes her for the
guilt of the animal soul because she did not succeed in overcoming the
latter.[159]

The question of the relative superiority of the naturally good who feels
no temptation to do wrong, and the temperamental person who has to
sustain a constant struggle with his passions and desires in order to
overcome them is decided by Abraham bar Hiyya in favor of the former on
the ground that the latter is never free from evil thought, whereas the
former is. And he quotes the Rabbis of the Talmud, according to whom the
reward in the future world is not the same for the two types of men. He
who must overcome temptation before he can subject his lower nature to
his reason is rewarded in the next world in a manner bearing resemblance
to the goods and pleasures of this world, and described as precious
stones and tables of gold laden with good things to eat. On the other
hand, the reward of the naturally perfect who is free from temptation is
purely spiritual, and bears no earthly traces. These men are represented
as "sitting under the Throne of Glory with their crowns on their heads
and delighting in the splendor of the Shekinah."[160]

His theodicy offers nothing remarkable. He cites and opposes a solution
frequently given in the middle ages of the problem of evil. This is
based on the assumption that God cannot be the cause of evil. How then
explain the presence of evil in the world? There is no analysis or
classification or definition of what is meant by evil. Apparently it is
physical evil which Abraham bar Hiyya has in mind. Why do some people
suffer who do not seem to deserve it? is the aspect of the problem which
interests him. One solution that is offered, he tells us, is that evil
is not anything positive or substantial. It is something negative,
absence of the good, as blindness is absence of vision; deafness,
absence of hearing; nakedness, absence of clothing. Hence it has no
cause. God produces the positive forms which are good, and determines
them to stay a definite length of time. When this time comes to an end,
the forms disappear and their negatives take their place automatically
without the necessity of any cause.

Abraham bar Hiyya is opposed to this solution of the problem, though he
gives us no philosophic reason for it. His arguments are Biblical. God
is the cause of evil as well as good, and this is the meaning of the
word "judgment" (Heb. Mishpat) that occurs so often in the Bible in
connection with God's attributes. The same idea is expressed in Jeremiah
(9, 23) "I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment and
righteousness in the earth." Loving kindness refers to the creation of
the world, which was an act of pure grace on the part of God. It was not
a necessity. His purpose was purely to do kindness to his creatures and
to show them his wisdom and power. Righteousness refers to the kindness
of God, his charity so to speak, which every one needs when he dies and
wishes to be admitted to the next world. For the majority of men have
more guilt than merit. Judgment denotes the good and evil distributed in
the world according to the law of justice. Thus he rewards the righteous
in the next world, and makes them suffer sometimes in this world in
order to try them and to double their ultimate reward. He punishes the
wicked in this world for their evil deeds, and sometimes he gives them
wealth and prosperity that they may have no claim or defence in the next
world. Thus evil in this world is not always the result of misconduct
which it punishes; it may be inflicted as a trial, as in the case of
Job. Abraham bar Hiyya's solution is therefore that there is no reason
why God should not be the author of physical evil, since everything is
done in accordance with the law of justice.[161]




CHAPTER IX

JOSEPH IBN ZADDIK


Little is known of the life of Joseph ben Jacob ibn Zaddik. He lived in
Cordova; he was appointed _Dayyan_, or Judge of the Jewish community of
that city in 1138; and he died in 1149. He is praised as a Talmudic
scholar by his countryman Moses ibn Ezra, and as a poet by Abraham ibn
Daud and Harizi, though we have no Talmudic composition from his pen,
and but few poems, whether liturgical or otherwise.[162] His fame rests
on his philosophical work, and it is this phase of his career in which
we are interested here. "Olam Katon" or "Microcosm" is the Hebrew name
of the philosophical treatise which he wrote in Arabic, but which we no
longer possess in the original, being indebted for our knowledge of it
to a Hebrew translation of unknown authorship.[163] Maimonides knew
Joseph ibn Zaddik favorably, but he was not familiar with the
"Microcosm." In a letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon, the translator of his
"Guide of the Perplexed," Maimonides tells us that though he has not
seen the "Olam Katon" of Ibn Zaddik, he knows that its tendency is the
same as that of the Brothers of Purity (_cf._ above, p. 60).[164] This
signifies that its trend of thought is Neo-Platonic, which combines
Aristotelian physics with Platonic and Plotinian metaphysics, ethics and
psychology.

An examination of the book itself confirms Maimonides's judgment. In
accordance with the trend of the times there is noticeable in Ibn Zaddik
an increase of Aristotelian influence, though of a turbid kind; a
decided decrease, if not a complete abandonment, of the ideas of the
Kalam, and a strong saturation of Neo-Platonic doctrine and point of
view. It was the fashion to set the Kalam over against the philosophers
to the disadvantage of the former, as being deficient in logical
knowledge and prejudiced by theological prepossessions. This is attested
by the attitude towards the Mutakallimun of Judah Halevi, Maimonides,
Averroes. And Ibn Zaddik forms no exception to the rule. The
circumstance that it was most likely from Karaite writings, which found
their way into Spain, that Ibn Zaddik gained his knowledge of Kalamistic
ideas, was not exactly calculated to prepossess him, a Rabbanite, in
their favor. And thus while we see him in the manner of Saadia and Bahya
follow the good old method, credited by Maimonides to the Mutakallimun,
of starting his metaphysics with proofs of the world's creation, and
basing the existence of God, his unity, incorporeality and other
attributes on the creation of the world as a foundation, he turns into
an uncompromising opponent of these much despised apologetes when he
comes to discuss the nature of God's attributes, of the divine will, and
of the nature of evil. And in all these cases the target of his attack
seems to be their Karaite representative Joseph al-Basir, whose
acquaintance we made before (p. 48 ff.).

He laid under contribution his predecessors and contemporaries, Saadia,
Bahya, Pseudo-Bahya, Gabirol; and his sympathies clearly lay with the
general point of view represented by the last, and his Mohammedan
sources; though he was enough of an eclectic to refuse to follow
Gabirol, or the Brethren of Purity and the other Neo-Platonic writings,
in all the details of their doctrine; and there is evidence of an
attempt on his part to tone down the extremes of Neo-Platonic tendency
and create a kind of level in which Aristotelianism and Platonism meet
by compromising. Thus he believes with Gabirol that all things corporeal
as well as spiritual are composed of matter and form;[165] but when it
comes to defining what the matter of spiritual things may be, he tells
us that we may speak of the genus as the matter of the species--a
doctrine which is not so Neo-Platonic after all. For we do not have to
go beyond Aristotle to hear that in the definition of an object, which
represents its _intelligible_ (opposed to sensible) essence, the genus
is like the matter, the difference like the form. Of the universal and
prime matter underlying all created things outside of God, of which
Gabirol says that it is the immediate emanation of God's essence and
constitutes with universal form the Universal Intelligence, Ibn Zaddik
knows nothing. Nor do we find any outspoken scheme of emanation, such as
we see in Plotinus or with a slight modification in the cyclopœdia of
the Brethren of Purity, or as it is presupposed in the "Fons Vitæ" of
Gabirol. Ibn Zaddik does refer to the doctrine of the divine Will, which
plays such an important rôle in the philosophy of Gabirol and of the
Pseudo-Empedoclean writings, which are supposed to have been Gabirol's
source.[166] But here, too, the negative side of Ibn Zaddik's doctrine
is developed at length, while the positive side is barely alluded to in
a hint. He takes pains to show the absurdity of the view that the divine
will is a momentary entity created from time to time to make possible
the coming into being of the things and processes of our world--a view
held by the Mutakallimun as represented by their spokesman al-Basir, but
when it comes to explaining his own view of the nature of the divine
will, and whether it is identical with God or not, he suddenly becomes
reticent, refers us to the writings of Empedocles, and intimates that
the matter is involved in mystery, and it is not safe to talk about it
too plainly and openly. Evidently Ibn Zaddik was not ready to go all the
length of Gabirol's emanationism and Neo-Platonic mysticism.

The Aristotelian ideas, of which there are many in the "Microcosm," are
probably not derived from a study of Aristotle's works, but from
secondary sources. This we may safely infer from the way in which he
uses or interprets them. An Aristotelian definition is a highly
technical proposition in which every word counts, and requires a
definition in turn to be understood. In the Aristotelian context the
reader sees the methodical derivation of the concept; and the several
technical terms making up the definition are made clear by illustrative
examples. Aside from the context the proposition is obscure even in the
original Greek. Now conceive an Arabic translation of an Aristotelian
definition taken out of its context, and you do not wonder that it is
misunderstood; particularly when the interpreter's point of view is
taken from a school of thought at variance with that of Aristotle. This
is exactly what happens to Ibn Zaddik. He quotes approvingly Aristotle's
definition of the soul, and proceeds to interpret it in a manner not
intended by the author of the "De Anima."[167] If he had read the
context he could not have misunderstood the definition as he did.

Unlike his predecessors, Ibn Zaddik did not confine himself to a special
topic in philosophy or to the metaphysical aspects of Judaism. Isaac
Israeli and Gabirol discuss special questions in Physics and Metaphysics
without bringing them into relation with Judaism or the text of the
Bible. Saadia takes cognizance of philosophical doctrine solely with a
view to establishing and rationalizing Jewish dogma, and only in so far
as it may thus be utilized. Bahya and Abraham bar Hiyya confine their
philosophical outlook within still narrower limits, having Jewish ethics
as their primary concern. All of the latter make a feature of Biblical
interpretation, which lends to their work the Jewish stamp and to their
style the element of homeliness and variety. To this they owe in a
measure their popularity, which, however, cannot be said for Abraham bar
Hiyya, whose "Hegyon ha-Nefesh" was not printed until the second half of
last century. The "Microcosm" of Ibn Zaddik is the first compendium of
science, philosophy and theology in Jewish literature. And yet it is a
small book; for Ibn Zaddik does not enter into lengthy discussions, nor
does he adorn his style with rhetorical flourishes or copious quotations
from Bible and Talmud. The "Olam Katon" is clearly meant for beginners,
who require a summary and compendious view of so much of physics,
psychology, metaphysics and ethics as will give them an idea of the
position of man in the world, and his duties, theoretical and practical,
in this life, that he may fulfil his destiny for which he was created.
It is very possible that Ibn Zaddik modelled his work on the
Encyclopædia of the Brethren of Purity, leaving out all that he regarded
as unessential or objectional and abridging the rest.

Accordingly, the "Microcosm" is divided into four parts. The first part
treats of what is called in the Aristotelian classification of the
sciences Physics, _i. e._, the principles and constitution of the
corporeal world and its processes. The second treats of man, including
anthropology and psychology. The third is devoted to a discussion of the
existence, unity, incorporeality and other attributes of God, based upon
the doctrine of the creation of the world. This bears the stamp of the
Kalam, and is indebted to the writings of Saadia, Bahya and Joseph
al-Basir. It covers the topics usually treated by the Mutakallimun in
the division of their works, known by the name of "Bab al Tauhid,"
treatise on Unity. The fourth part corresponds to the "Bab al Adi" of
the Kalam, _i. e._, the second division of Kalamistic works devoted to
theodicy, or vindication of God's justice in his dealings with mankind.
Hence it includes theological questions of an ethical nature, like
freedom of the will, reasons for divine worship, the nature of reward
and punishment, and so on.

The book was written, Ibn Zaddik tells us, in answer to the question of
a pupil concerning the meaning of such terms as "perfection" and
"permanent good," used by philosophers. They are not of this world these
men say, and yet every man of intelligence should seek them. This is a
very difficult subject, made more so by the small number of persons
engaged in its study. Particularly in our own generation is this true,
that the value of knowledge and investigation is not recognized. People
are Jews in name only, and men only in outward appearance. Former ages
were much superior in this regard.

Two fundamental requisites are necessary for the knowledge of our
subject. They are the knowledge of God, and performance of his will. For
this purpose we must understand the works of the philosophers. But these
in turn require a knowledge of the preliminary sciences of arithmetic,
geometry, music, astronomy, and logic. This takes a long time and is
likely to weary the student, especially the beginner. I have therefore
made it my purpose to show how a man can know himself, for from a
knowledge of self he will come to a knowledge of all. Man is called
"Microcosm," a world in miniature, because he has in him represented all
the elements of the universe. His body resembles the corporeal world;
his rational soul the spiritual world. Hence the importance of knowing
himself, and hence the definition of philosophy as a man's _knowledge of
himself_. Philosophy is the science of sciences and the end thereof,
because it is the path to a knowledge of the Creator.[168]

Here we see at the outset Ibn Zaddik's Neo-Platonic tendency to make a
short cut to knowledge through the study of man instead of the painful
and laborious mastery of the preliminary sciences. And so it was that
the Neo-Platonists added little to Aristotle's study of nature,
concentrating their attention upon the intelligible or spiritual world.

The first thing we must do then is to show that the human body is
similar to the corporeal world. This will require an analysis of the
structure of the latter. But before examining the _objects_ of
knowledge, we must say a word about the process of knowing. Man
perceives things in two ways--through sense and through intellect. His
senses give him the accidents of things, the shell or husk, so to speak.
He perceives color through sight, sound through hearing, odor through
smell, and so on. It takes reason to penetrate to the essence of an
object. Take as an example a book. The sense of sight perceives its
color, and through the color its form. This is then apprehended by the
power of imagination or representation. The latter in turn hands it over
to the cogitative power of the rational soul, from the reflection of
which results the spiritual reality of the object, which is its
knowledge. So we see that the reason knows the essence and reality of a
thing, whereas the senses know only its husk and its accidents. This
same thing is stated by the philosopher in another form. The senses, he
says, know only the particular, the universal can be known by the
intellect only. This is because the soul is fine and penetrating, while
the body is gross, and can reach the surface only.

We may also classify knowledge from another point of view as necessary
(or immediate), and demonstrated (or mediate). Necessary knowledge is
that which no sane man can deny. Such knowledge may be of the senses, as
the sight of the sun or the sound of thunder; or it may be of the
reason, such as that the whole is greater than its parts. We may then
enumerate four kinds of things known directly without the help of other
knowledge, (1) The percepts of the senses. (2) Truths generally admitted
by reason of their self-evidence. (3) Traditional truths, _i. e._,
truths handed down by a reliable and wise man, or by a community worthy
of credence. (4) First principles or axioms. These four can be easily
reduced to two; for traditional truths ultimately go back to the
testimony of the senses; while first principles or axioms are included
in self-evident propositions. We thus have two kinds of necessary or
immediate knowledge, the data of sense, and self-evident propositions.
The latter kind is superior to the former, because man shares sense
knowledge with the lower animals; whereas rational propositions are
peculiar to him alone.

Demonstrated knowledge is built upon necessary knowledge, and is derived
from it by means of logical inference.[169]

We may now proceed to discuss the principles of the corporeal world.
Matter is the foundation and principle of a thing. All things, natural
as well as artificial, are composed of matter and form. Wood is the
common matter of chair and bed. Their forms are different. So the common
matter of the four elements is the prime matter endowed with the form of
corporeality, _i. e._, with the capacity of filling place. This form of
corporeality makes the prime matter corporeal substance. Matter is
relative to form, form is relative to matter.

Spiritual things also have matter and form. In corporeal artificial
things like ring or bracelet, the matter is gold, the form is the form
of ring or bracelet, the efficient cause is the art of the goldsmith,
the final cause or purpose is the adornment. In spiritual things we may
compare genus to matter, species to form, specific difference to
efficient cause, the individual to the final cause.

Everything exists either by itself (_per se_) or in something else.
Matter exists by itself, form exists in something else, in matter.
Matter is potentially substance; after it assumes a form it becomes
actual substance. In reality there is no matter without form, but in
thought we can remove the form and leave the matter.

Substance may be described as that which bears opposite and changing
qualities. No substance can be the opposite of another substance through
its substantiality, but through its accidents; for opposition resides in
quality. Matter receiving form is substance. Absolute substance is
simple and spiritual, for it cannot be perceived through the five
senses. When the philosophers say that all body is substance, and that
the individual is a substance, they use substance in contradistinction
to accident, meaning that the individual exists by itself, and needs not
another for its existence, unlike accidents, which must have something
to exist in.

This absolute substance, which is simple and spiritual, seems to be
identical with Gabirol's "substantia quæ sustinet decem prædicamenta,"
the substance which supports the ten categories. Gabirol means by it
that which remains of a corporeal substance when we take away from it
everything that qualifies it as being here or there, of a particular
nature or size, in a given relation, and so on.

The expression corporeal world includes the celestial spheres and all
which is under them. To be sure, the body of the sphere is different
from the other bodies in matter and form and qualities. It consists of a
fifth nature, different from the four elements. It is not cold, or it
would move downward like earth and water. It is not warm, or it would
move upward like air and fire. It is not wet, for it would then roll
like the waves of the sea. Nor is it dry, for it would condense and not
move at all. Not being any one of these qualities, which constitute our
four elements, the sphere is not a composite of them either; for the
simple is prior to the composite, and we cannot regard the elements of
the sublunar world as prior and superior to the spheres.

The sphere is neither light nor heavy. For light and heavy are relative
terms. An object is heavy when out of its natural place, light when in
its natural place. Thus a stone is heavy when it is away from the earth,
which is its natural place, but is light when it comes to rest where it
belongs. The sphere is never out of its place or in its place, as it
moves constantly in a circle. Hence it is neither light nor heavy.

Ibn Zaddik's definition of light and heavy as being relative, and
dependent on the relation of the object to its natural place is
peculiar, and would lead him to say that fire and air are also heavy
when out of their natural place, which is outside of, and above earth
and water. But this does not seem in consonance with the Aristotelian
use of these terms. According to Aristotle an object is heavy if its
tendency is to move to the centre of the world; it is light if it moves
away from the centre to the circumference. Hence earth and water are
heavy, fire and air are light. The natural place of a body or element is
that to which it has a tendency to move, or in which it has a tendency
to rest, when left to itself. Hence a body will always move to its
natural place when away from it and under no restriction; and its
heaviness or lightness does not change with its position.

To continue, the sphere moves in a circle, the most perfect of all
motions, having neither beginning nor end. It is more perfect than all
bodies, and the knowledge of God is not hidden from it as it is hidden
from us. Whatever moves in a circle must move around a body at rest; for
if it moves around another moving body, this second body must have
another body around which it moves, and this third body another, and so
on _ad infinitum_, which is impossible. Hence the sphere moves around a
body at rest. This is the earth.

The four elements of the sublunar world are, fire, air, water, earth. In
their purity these elements have neither color nor taste, nor odor nor
any other sensible property. For the elements are simple bodies, whereas
the sensible qualities are the result of the composition of the
elements. If air had color, we should see it as we see all colored
things; and all other things would appear to us in the color of air, as
is the case when we look through a colored glass. The same argument
applies to water.

The elements change into each other. We see water changing under the
effect of heat into vapor, and the vapor condenses again under the
influence of cold and changes back to water, namely, rain. Air changes
into fire when flint strikes iron. Fire cannot exist here unless it has
something to take hold of; otherwise it changes into air. Earth and
water change into each other very slowly, because earth is hard to
change.

The basis of the four elements is a substance filling place as a result
of its assuming the form of corporeality, _i. e._, extension in three
directions. Filling place, it moves; moving, it becomes warm. When its
motion is completed, it necessarily comes to rest and becomes cold. Heat
and cold are the active powers, wet and dry are the passive qualities,
wet being associated with heat, dry with cold. The mixture of these
qualities with the corporeal basis results in the four elements.

The three natures, mineral, plant, animal are composed of the four
elements. When a seed is put in the ground it cannot grow without water,
and sunshine and air. These form its food, and food is assimilated to
the thing fed. Our bodies are composed of the four elements, because
they are nourished by plants. The general process of the sublunar world
is that of genesis and dissolution. The genesis of one thing is the
dissolution of another. The dissolution of the egg is the genesis of the
chicken; the dissolution of the chicken is the genesis of the four
elements; for in the living being the elements are potential, and they
become actual when the animal dies. This continuous process of genesis
and dissolution proves that this world is not permanent, for the basis
of its processes is change.[170]

The human body corresponds to the corporeal world, and is similar to it
in its nature and matter. Man's body is subject to genesis and decay
like other objects. It is composed of the elements and returns to them.
It has in it the nature of minerals, plants and animals. It has the
power of growth, sustenance and reproduction like plants. Man is like
animal in having motion and sensation. He has the spirited power and the
appetitive like other animals. His body is perfect because it has
resemblances to all kinds of plants and animals. His body as a whole
resembles great trees, his hair is like grass and shrubs. Animals have
various qualities according to the relation of the animal soul to the
body. Thus the lion has strength, the lamb meekness, the fox shrewdness,
and so on. Mankind includes all of these qualities. In the same way
various animals have various instincts resembling arts, such as the
weaving of the spider, the building of the bird and the bee, and so on.
They also subsist on various foods. Man alone combines all arts and all
kinds of food.

The human body has three dimensions like inanimate bodies. It is also
similar to the bodies of plants and animals, and at the same time is
distinguished alone among animals by its erect position. This is due to
the fact that man's nature is proportionate, and his body is purer and
finer than other bodies. Thus we see when oil is pure, its flame rises
in a straight line; when the oil is impure the flame is not straight.
Another thing proving that man's nature is superior to that of other
animals is that the latter live in that element which is akin to their
constitution--fish in water, birds in air, quadrupeds on land. Man alone
can inhabit all three. Another reason for man's erect position is that
he is a plant originating in heaven. Hence his head, which is the root,
faces heaven.[171]

Man has three souls, a plant soul, an animal soul and a rational soul.
He must have a plant soul to account for the fact that man grows like
other plants and dies like them. For if he can grow without a plant
soul, plants can do the same. And if this too is granted, then there is
no reason why mountains and stones should not grow also. Again, if man
can grow without a plant soul, he can live without an animal soul, and
know without a rational soul, which is absurd.

The faculty of the vegetative soul is the appetitive power, whose seat
is in the liver. Its subordinate powers are those of nutrition and
growth. Through it man feels the need of food and other natural desires.
He has this in common with the lower animals. It is the first power that
appears in man while he is still in his mother's womb. First comes the
power which forms the combined seed of the male and the female into a
human being in its proper form and nature. In doing this it requires the
assistance of the "growing" power, which begins its activity as soon as
the first member is formed, and continues until the period of youth is
completed. This power in turn needs the assistance of the nourishing
power, which accompanies the other two from the beginning of their
activity to the end of the person's life. All this constitutes the plant
soul, and it must not be supposed that these powers are separated from
one another, and that one is in one place and another in another place.
_They are all spiritual powers derived from the universal powers in the
upper world._

When the form of the being is complete, the animal soul makes its
appearance. This soul is carried in the spirit of the animal or man,
which is found in the pure blood of the arteries. There are two
membranes in every artery, making two passages, one for blood and the
other for the spirit or wind. The seat of the animal soul is in the
heart, and it is borne in the pure red blood. This is why we see in the
heart two receptacles; in one is spirit, in the other, blood. Hence
after death we find congealed blood in the one, while the other is
empty. Death happens on account of the defective "mixture" of the heart.
This means that the four humors of which the body is composed, namely,
blood, yellow and black gall and phlegm, lose the proper proportionality
in their composition, and one or other of them predominates. An animal
does not die unless the mixture of the heart is injured, or the heart is
wounded seriously. Death is also caused by disease or injury of the
brain. For the brain is the origin of the nerves which control the
voluntary activities by means of contraction and expansion. If the chest
does not contract, the warm air does not come out; if it does not
expand, the cold air does not come in; and if the air does not come in
or out, the heart loses its proportionality, and the animal dies. The
functions of the animal soul are sensation and motion. This motion may
be active as well as passive. The active motions are those of the
arteries, and the expansion and contraction of the chest which results
in respiration. The passive motions give rise to the emotions of anger,
fear, shame, joy, sorrow.

Anger is the motion of the spirit within the body toward the outside,
together with the blood and the humors. This is found in animals also.
Fear is the entrance of the soul within, leaving the surface of the
body, and causing the extremities to become cold. Shame is a motion
inward, and forthwith again outward. Sorrow is caused in the same way as
fear, except that fear is sudden, while sorrow is gradual. This is why
fear sometimes kills when the body is weak. Joy is motion outward. Joy
may kill too, when it is very great, and the person is weak and without
control. Joy is of the nature of pleasure, except that pleasure is
gradual, while joy is sudden.

Pain is that feeling we have when we are taken out of our natural state
and put into an unnatural. Pleasure is felt when we are restored to the
natural. Take, for example, the heat of the sun. When a person is
exposed to it, the sun takes him out of his natural state. Heat is then
painful, and pleasure is produced by the thing which restores him to his
natural state; in this case a cold spring and a drink of cold water.
Similarly a person walking in the snow and cold air feels pain by reason
of the cold taking him out of his natural state. Heat then gives him
pleasure by restoring him. The same thing applies to hunger and thirst,
sleeping and waking, and other things which give us pleasure and pain.
Without pain there is no pleasure, and the pleasure varies in accordance
with the antecedent pain.

Life is the effect of the animal soul. The disappearance of the effect
does not necessarily involve the disappearance of the cause, as the
disappearance of the smoke does not require the cessation of the fire.
Death means simply the separation of the soul, not the destruction
thereof. It does not follow because the human soul remains after the
death of the body, that the soul of the ox and the ass continues
likewise, for the two souls are different. Animals were created for the
sake of man, whereas man exists for his own sake. Moreover, man's life
is ultimately derived from his rational soul. For if the animal soul of
man were the ultimate source of life, the rational soul too would be
dependent for its life upon the former, and hence would be inferior to
it, which is absurd. It remains then that the _rational soul gives
existence to the animal soul in man_.

Sleep is the rest of the senses, as death is their entire cessation. The
purpose of sleep is to give the brain rest so that the "spirit" of the
soul should not be dissolved and the "mixture" of the body injured
suddenly and cause death. The heart rests continually between
contraction and expansion, hence it needs no special rest at night.
Waking is the activity of the senses and the exercise of their functions
to satisfy the desires of the body. The motions of the soul in the
waking state are in the interest of the needs of the body. During sleep
the soul looks out for itself, for its better world, being then free
from the business of the body. If it is pure and bright, and the body
is free from the remnant of food, and the thought is not depressed by
sorrow and grief--then the soul is aroused in its desire for the future,
and beholds wonderful things.[172]

No one can deny that man has a rational soul because speech is an
attribute which man has above all other animals. The soul is not a
corporeal thing, for if it were it would have to occupy place like body,
and would have color and form and other qualities like body. Moreover,
it would require something else to give it life like body. In other
words, the soul would require another soul, and that soul another soul,
and so on _ad infinitum_, which is impossible. Hence the soul is not a
corporeal thing.

Nor can we say that the soul is _in_ the body. For if it were, it would
itself be body; since only body can fill the empty place in another
body, as water fills a jar.

The soul is a substance and not an accident. An accident is a quality
which makes its appearance in something else, and has no permanence. If
then the rational soul is an accident of the body, it has no permanence,
and man is sometimes rational and sometimes not. This is absurd, for in
that case there could be no purpose in giving him commandments and
statutes.

There are inseparable accidents to be sure, like the color of the
Ethiopian's skin. But in that case we know the color is an accident
despite its inseparability, from the fact that in other things color is
an accident and may be removed. This will not apply to the reason. For
we do not find anything in which reason is a removable accident. The
moment you remove reason, you remove man, for reason is essential to
man. The fact that as a result of an injury a man may lose his reason is
no argument against us, for this happens only when an injury is
inflicted on the brain, which is the reason's instrument. This accounts
for the fact, too, that men in good health if given henbane to drink
lose their reason, because the drink affects the brain. On the other
hand, we see that those afflicted with a certain disease of the
intestines, which causes their death, are more rational and brighter at
the time of death than ever before, showing that the soul cannot be an
accident depending upon the "mixture" of the body.

To regard the soul as an accident, while the body is a substance, would
make the soul inferior to the body. This is absurd. For we have the
body in common with the beasts; whereas it is in virtue of the reason
that we are given commandments, and reward and punishment in the world
to come.

If the soul is neither a corporeal thing nor an accident of body, it
must be a spiritual substance. And the best definition of the soul is
that of Aristotle, who says it is _a substance giving perfection to a
natural organic body, which has life potentially_. Every phrase in this
definition tells. "Substance" excludes the view that the soul is an
accident. "Giving perfection" signifies that the soul is that which
makes man perfect, bringing him to the next world, and being the purpose
not merely of his creation and the composition of his body, but of the
creation of matter as well. "Natural organic body" indicates that the
body is an organon, or instrument in the function of the soul, the
latter using the body to carry out its own purposes. The rational soul
is like a king; the animal soul is like an official before the king,
rebuking the appetitive soul.

In the discussion of the last paragraph we have a good example of the
uncritical attitude of Ibn Zaddik toward the various schools of
philosophical thought, particularly those represented by Plato and
Aristotle. This attitude is typical of the middle ages, which appealed
to authority in philosophy as well as in theology, and hence developed a
harmonistic attitude in the presence of conflicting authorities. Aided
by their defective knowledge of the complete systems of the ancient
Greek philosophers, by the difficulties and obscurities incident to
translations from an alien tongue, and by the spurious writings
circulating in the name of an ancient Greek philosopher, the precise
demarcation of schools and tendencies became more and more confused, and
it was possible to prove that Plato and Aristotle were in entire
agreement. Thus Ibn Zaddik has no scruple in combining (unconsciously,
to be sure) Platonic and Neo-Platonic psychology with the Aristotelian
definition representing quite a different point of view. The one is
anthropological dualism, regarding the soul as a distinct entity which
comes to the body from without. The other is a biological monism, in
which the soul is the reality of the body, the essence of its
functioning, which makes the potentially living body an actually living
body. We cannot enter here into a criticism of the elements of the
Aristotelian definition of the soul as rendered and interpreted by Ibn
Zaddik, but will merely say that it misses completely the meaning of
Aristotle, and shows that Ibn Zaddik did not take it from the "De Anima"
of Aristotle, but found it without its context in some Arabic work.

To return from our digression, the three souls, Ibn Zaddik tells us, are
spiritual powers; every one of them is a substance by itself of benefit
to the body. The rational soul gets the name soul primarily, and the
others get it from the rational soul. The _Intellect_ is called soul
because the rational soul and the Intellect have a common matter. And
hence when the soul is perfected it becomes intellect. This is why the
rational soul is called potential intellect. The only difference between
them is one of degree and excellence. The world of Intellect is
superior, and its matter is the pure light, Intellect in which there is
no ignorance, because it comes from God without any intermediate agency.

Here we see just a touch of the Neo-Platonic doctrine of emanation, of
which the Universal Intellect is the first. But it is considerably toned
down and not continued down the series as in Plotinus or the Brethren of
Purity.

The accidents of the soul are spiritual like the soul itself. They are,
knowledge, kindness, goodness, justice, and other similar qualities.
Ignorance, wrong, evil, and so on, are not the opposites of those
mentioned above, and were not created with the soul like the others.
They are merely the absence of the positive qualities mentioned before,
as darkness is the absence of light. God did not create any defect, nor
did he desire it. Evil is simply the result of the incapacity of a given
thing to receive a particular good. If all things were capable of
receiving goods equally, all things would be one thing, and the Creator
and his creatures would be likewise one. This was not God's purpose.

There is a tacit opposition to the Mutakallimun in Ibn Zaddik's
arguments against the view that the soul is an accident, as well as in
his statement in the preceding paragraph that the bad qualities and evil
generally are not opposites of the good qualities and good respectively,
but that they are merely privations, absences, and hence not created by
God. This is a Neo-Platonic doctrine. Pseudo-Bahya, we have seen (p. 108
f.), and Abraham bar Hiyya (p. 123 f.) adopt the Kalamistic view in the
latter point, and solve the problem of evil differently.

The function of the rational soul is knowledge. The rational soul
investigates the unknown and comprehends it. It derives general rules,
makes premises and infers one thing from another. Man alone has this
privilege. It is in virtue of the rational soul that we have been given
commandments and prohibitions, and become liable to reward and
punishment. Brute animals have no commandments, because they have no
reason. The soul has reason only potentially, and man makes it actual by
study. If the reason were actual originally in the soul, there would be
no difference between the soul's condition in its own world and in this
one; and the purpose of man, which is that he may learn in order to
choose the right way and win salvation, would have no meaning.

The existence of many individual souls, all of which have the soul
character in common, shows that there is a universal soul by virtue of
which all the particular souls exist. This division of the universal
soul into many individual souls is not really a division of the former
in its essence, which remains one and indivisible. It is the bodies
which receive the influence of the universal soul, as vessels in the sun
receive its light according to their purity. Hence the existence of
justice and evil, righteousness and wrong. This does not, however, mean
to say that the reception of these qualities is independent of a man's
choice. Man is free to choose, and hence he deserves praise and blame,
reward and punishment.

The rational soul is destined for the spiritual world, which is a pure
and perfect world, made by God directly without an intermediate agency.
It is not subject to change or defect or need. God alone created this
spiritual world to show his goodness and power, and not because he
needed it. The world is not like God, though God is its cause. It is not
eternal _a parte ante_, having been made out of nothing by God; but it
will continue to exist forever, for it cannot be more perfect than it
is. It is simple and spiritual. This applies also to the heavenly
spheres and their stars.

Man is obliged to reason and investigate, as all nations do according to
the measure of their capacities. No animal reasons because it has not
the requisite faculty. But if man should neglect to exercise the power
given him, he would lose the benefit coming therefrom and the purpose of
his existence. There would then be no difference between him and the
beast.

The first requisite for study and investigation is to deaden the animal
desires. Then with the reason as a guide and his body as a model, man
acquires the knowledge of the corporeal world. From his rational soul he
comes to the knowledge of the existence of a spiritual world. Finally he
will learn to know the Creator, who is the only real existent, for
nothing can be said truly to exist, which at one time did not exist, or
which at some time will cease to exist. When a man neglects this
privilege which is his of using his reason, he forfeits the name man,
and descends below the station of the beast, for the latter never falls
below its animal nature.

It is very important to study the knowledge of God, for it is the
highest knowledge and the cause of human perfection. The prophets are
full of recommendations in this regard. Jeremiah says (31, 33), "They
shall all know me, from the least of them even unto their greatest."
Amos (5, 6) bids us "Seek for the Lord and you shall live." Hosea
likewise (6, 3) recommends that "We may feel it, and strive to know the
Lord."[173]

The first loss a man suffers who does not study and investigate is that
he does not understand the real existence of God, and imagines he is
worshipping a body. Some think God is light. But this is as bad as to
regard him body. For light is an accident in a shining body, as is
proved by the fact that the air receives the light of the sun, and later
it receives the shadow and becomes dark. And yet these people are not
the worst by any means, for there are others who do not trouble to
concentrate their minds on God, and occupy their thoughts solely with
the business and the pleasures of this world. These people we do not
discuss at all. We are arguing against those who imagine they are wise
men and students of the Kalam. In fact they are ignorant persons, and do
not know what logic is and how it is to be used.

Before giving our own views of the nature and existence of God, we must
refute the objectionable doctrines of these people. Joseph al-Basir in a
work of his called "Mansuri" casts it up to the Rabbanites that in
believing that God descends and ascends they are not true worshippers of
God. But he forgets that his own doctrines are no better. Anyone who
believes that God created with a newly created will and rejects by means
of a newly created rejection has never truly served God or known him.
Just as objectionable is their view that God is living but not with life
residing in a subject, powerful but not with power, and so on. We shall
take up each of these in turn.

The Mutakallimun refuse to believe that God's will is eternal, for fear
of having a second eternal beside God. And so they say that whenever God
wills, he creates a will for the purpose, and whenever he rejects
anything he creates a "rejection" with which the objectionable thing is
rejected. But this leads them to a worse predicament than the one from
which they wish to escape, as we shall see. If God cannot create
anything without having a will as the instrument in creating, and for
this reason must first create a will for the purpose--how did he create
this will? He must have had another will to create this will, and a
third will to create the second, and so on _ad infinitum_, which is
absurd. If he created the first will without the help of another will,
why not create the things he wanted outright without any will? Besides,
in making God will at a given time after a state of not willing, they
introduce change in God.

As for the other dictum, that God is "living but not with life,"
"powerful but not with power," "knowing but not with knowledge," and so
on; what do they mean by this circumlocution? If they say "living" to
indicate that he is not dead, and add "but not with life," so as to
prevent a comparison of him with other living things, why not say also,
"He is body, but not like other bodies"? If the objection to calling him
body is that body is composite, and what is composite must have been
composed by someone and is not eternal, the same objection applies to
"living." For "living" implies "breathing" and "possessed of sensation,"
hence also composite and created. If they reply, we mean life peculiar
to him, we say why not also body peculiar to him? You see these people
entangle themselves in their own sophisms, because they do not know what
demonstration means.[174]

Having disposed of the errors of the Mutakallimun, we must now present
our own method of investigation into the nature of God. To know a thing,
we investigate its four causes--material, formal, efficient and final.
What has no cause but is the cause of all things, cannot be known in
this way. Still it is not altogether unknowable for this reason. Its
essence cannot be known, but it may be known through its activities, or
rather effects, which suggest attributes. We cannot therefore know
concerning God _what_ he is, nor _how_ he is, nor _on account of what_,
nor _of what kind_, nor _where_, nor _when_. For these can apply only to
a created thing having a cause. But we can ask concerning him, _whether_
he is; and this can best be known from his deeds.

We observe the things of the world and find that they are all composed
of substance and accident, as we saw before (p. 131). These are
correlative, and one cannot exist without the other. Hence neither
precedes the other. But accident is "new" (_i. e._, not eternal), hence
so is substance. That accident is new is proved from the fact that rest
succeeds motion and motion succeeds rest, hence accidents constantly
come and go and are newly created.

Now if substance and accident are both new there must be something that
brought them into being unless they bring themselves into being. But the
latter is impossible, for the agent must either exist when it brings
itself into being, or not. If it exists it is already there; if it does
not exist, it is nothing, and nothing cannot do anything. Hence there
must be a being that brought the world into existence. This is God.

God is one, for the cause of the many must be the one. If the cause of
the many is the many, then the cause of the second many is a third many,
and so on _ad infinitum_; hence we must stop with the one. God is to the
world as unity is to number. Unity is the basis of number without being
included in number, and it embraces number on all sides. It is the
foundation of number; for if you remove unity, you remove number; but
the removal of number does not remove unity. The one surrounds number on
all sides; for the beginning of number is the one, and it is also the
middle of number and the end thereof. For number is nothing but an
aggregate of ones. Besides, number is composed of odds and evens, and
one is the cause of odd as well as even.

If there were two eternal beings, they would either coincide in all
respects, and they would be one and not two. Or they would differ. In
the latter case, the world is either the work of both or of one only.
If of both, they are not omnipotent, and hence not eternal. If of one
only, then the other does not count, since he is not eternal, and there
is only one.

By saying God is one we do not mean that he comes under the category of
quantity, for quantity is an accident residing in a substance, and all
substance is "new." What we mean is that the essence of God is true
unity, not numerical unity. For numerical unity is also in a sense
multiplicity, and is capable of multiplication and division. God's unity
is alone separate and one in all respects.

God is not like any of his creatures. For if he were, he would be
possessed of quality, since it is in virtue of quality that a thing is
said to be like another, and quality is an accident contained in a
substance.

God is self-sufficient and not in need of anything. For if he needed
anything at all, it would be first of all the one who created him and
made him an existent thing. But this is absurd, since God is eternal. We
might suppose that he needs the world, which he created for some
purpose, as we sometimes make things to assist us. But this, too, is
impossible. For if he were dependent upon the world for anything, he
could not create it. It is different with us. We do not create things;
we only modify matter already existing.

Again, if God created the world for his own benefit, then either he was
always in need of the world, or the need arose at the time of creating.
If he was always in need of the world, it would have existed with him
from eternity, but we have already proved that the world is not eternal.
If the need arose in him at the time of creation, as heat arises in a
body after cold, or motion after rest, then he is like created things,
and is himself "new" and not eternal. To say the need was always there,
and yet he did not create it until the time he did would be to ascribe
inability to God of creating the world before he did, which is absurd.
For one who is unable at any given time, cannot create at all. It
remains then that he does not need anything, and that he created the
world by reason of his goodness and generosity and nothing else.

The question of God's will is difficult. The problem is this. If God's
will is eternal and unchanging, and he created the world with his will,
the world is eternal. If we say, as we must, that he created the world
after a condition of non-creation, we introduce a change in God, a
something newly created in him, namely, the will to create, which did
not exist before. This is a dilemma. My own view is that since God's
creating activity is his essence, and his essence is infinite and
eternal, we cannot say he created _after_ a condition of non-creation,
or that he willed _after_ a condition of non-willing, or that he was
formerly not able. And yet we do not mean that the world is eternal. It
was created a definite length of time before our time. The solution of
the problem is that time itself was created with the world; for time is
the measure of motion of the celestial sphere, and if there are no
spheres there is no time, and no before and after. Hence it does not
follow because the world is not eternal that _before_ its creation God
did not create. There is no _before_ when the world is not.

We objected to the view of the Mutakallimun (p. 142), who speak of God
creating a will on the ground that if he can create a will directly he
can create the world instead. Our opinion is therefore that God's will
is eternal and not newly created, for the latter view introduces
creation in God. There is still the difficulty of the precise relation
of the will to God. If it is different from God we have two eternals,
and if it is the same as God in all respects, he changes when he
creates. My answer is, it is not different from God in any sense, and
there is no changing attribute in God. But there is a subtle mystery in
this matter, which it is not proper to reveal, and this is not the place
to explain it. The interested reader is referred to the book of
Empedocles and other works of the wise men treating of this subject
(_cf._ above, p. 64).

God created the world out of nothing, and not out of a pre-existent
matter. For if the matter of the world is eternal like God, there is no
more reason for supposing that God formed a world out of it than that it
formed a world out of God.

The world is perfect. For we have repeatedly shown that its creation is
due entirely to God's goodness. If then it were not perfect, this would
argue in God either ignorance or niggardliness or weakness.[175]

Most of the ancients avoided giving God attributes for fear of making
him the bearer of qualities, which would introduce plurality and
composition in his essence. The proper view, however, is this. As God's
essence is different from all other essences, so are his attributes
different from all other attributes. His attributes are not different
from him; his knowledge and his truth and his power are his essence. The
way man arrives at the divine attributes is this. Men have examined his
works and learned from them God's existence. They then reflected on this
existent and found that he was not weak; so they called him strong. They
found his works perfect, and they called him wise. They perceived that
he was self-sufficient, without need of anything, and hence without any
motives for doing wrong. Hence they called him righteous. And so on with
the other attributes. All this they did in order that people may learn
from him and imitate his ways. But we must not forget that all these
expressions of God's attributes are figurative. No one must suppose that
if we do not say he has life, it means he is dead. What we mean is that
we cannot apply the term living to God literally, in the sense in which
we apply it to other living things. When the Bible does speak of God as
alive and living, the meaning is that he exists forever. The philosopher
is right when he says that it is more proper to apply negative
attributes to God than positive.[176]

Taking a glance at Ibn Zaddik's theology just discussed in its essential
outlines, we notice that while he opposes vigorously certain aspects of
Kalamistic thought, as he found them in al-Basir, the Karaite, his own
method and doctrine are not far removed from the Kalam. His proof of the
creation of the world from its composite character (substance and
accident) is the same as one of Saadia, which Maimonides cites as a
Kalamistic proof. We have already spoken of the fact that the method of
basing one's theology upon the creation of the world is one that is
distinctive of the Kalam, as Maimonides himself tells us. And this
method is common to Saadia, Bahya and Ibn Zaddik. In his discussion of
the attributes Ibn Zaddik offers little if anything that is new. His
attitude is that in the literal and positive sense no attribute can be
applied to God. We can speak of God negatively without running the risk
of misunderstanding. But the moment we say anything positive we do
become thus liable to comparing God with other things; and such
circumlocutions as the Kalamistic "Living without life," and so on, do
not help matters, for they are contradictory, and take away with one
hand what they give with the other. The Biblical expressions must be
taken figuratively; and the most important point to remember is that
God's essence cannot be known at all. The manner in which we arrive at
the divine attributes is by transferring them from God's effects in
nature to his own essence. All this we have already found in Bahya much
better expressed, and Bahya is also without doubt the source of Ibn
Zaddik's discussion of God's unity.

We must now review briefly the practical part of Ibn Zaddik's philosophy
as it is found in the fourth part of the "Microcosm." In the manner of
Bahya he points out the importance of divine service and obedience to
the commandments of God, viewing man's duties to his maker as an
expression of gratitude, which everyone owes to his benefactor. Like
Bahya he compares God's benefactions with those of one man to another to
show the infinite superiority of the former, and the greater duty which
follows therefrom.

The commandments which God gave us like the act of our creation are for
our own good, that we may enjoy true happiness in the world to come. As
it would not be proper to reward a person for what he has not done, God
gave man commandments. The righteous as well as the wicked are free to
determine their own conduct, hence reward and punishment are just.

Like Saadia and Bahya before him, Ibn Zaddik makes use of the
distinction (or rather takes it for granted) between rational and
traditional commandments; pointing out that the latter also have a cause
and explanation in the mind of God even though we may not know it. In
some cases we can see the explanation ourselves. Take for instance the
observance of the Sabbath. Its rational signification is two-fold. It
teaches us that the world was created, and hence has a Creator whom we
worship. And in the second place the Sabbath symbolizes the future
world. As one has nothing to eat on the Sabbath day unless he has
prepared food the day before, so the enjoyment of the future world
depends upon spiritual preparation in this world.

In his conduct a man must imitate God's actions by doing good and mercy
and kindness. Without the knowledge of God a person's good deeds are of
no account and no better than the work of idolaters. In fact it is not
possible to do good deeds without a knowledge of God, for he is the
source of all good, and there is no true good without him. When a fool
is seen with good qualities such as mercy and benevolence, they are due
to the weakness of his animal soul, the spirited part of his nature.
Similarly if this fool abstains from pleasures, it is because of the
weakness of his appetitive soul.

Thus we see that knowledge comes first in importance; for knowledge
leads to practice, and practice brings reward in the world to come. As
the purpose of man's creation is that he may enjoy the future life,
wisdom or knowledge is the first requisite to this great end.

The four principal qualities constituting goodness or virtue are (1)
knowledge of God's attributes; (2) righteousness or justice; (3) hope;
(4) humility. All other good qualities are derived from these. Jeremiah
names some of them when he says (9, 23), "I am the Lord who exercise
kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth; for in these things I
delight, saith the Lord." Similarly Zephaniah (2, 3) bids us, "Seek ye
the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who have fulfilled his ordinances;
seek righteousness, seek meekness."

The four qualities of wisdom or knowledge, righteousness, hope and
humility are without doubt modified descendants of the four Platonic
virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, which we still find in
their original form and in their Platonic derivation and psychological
origin in Pseudo-Bahya (_cf._ above p. 111).

Reward and punishment of the real kind, Ibn Zaddik thinks, are not in
this world but in the next. In this way he accounts for the fact of the
prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the righteous. Another
proof that this world cannot be the place of final reward and punishment
is that pleasure in this world is not a real good, but only a temporary
respite from disease. Pain and pleasure are correlative, as we saw
before (p. 136). In fact pleasure is not a good at all; for if it were,
then the greater the pleasure, the greater the good, which is not true.
Reward in the next world is not a corporeal pleasure at all.

The evil which happens to the righteous in this world is often a natural
occurrence without reference to reward and punishment, and may be
compared to the natural pleasures which men derive from the sense of
sight and the other senses, and which have nothing to do with reward and
punishment. Sometimes, too, this evil is inflicted upon the good man to
forgive his sins. Real reward and punishment are in the future life,
and as that life is spiritual, the reward as well as the punishment is
timeless.

The Mutakallimun think that animals and little children are also
rewarded in the next world for ill treatment, suffering and death which
are inflicted upon them in this world. So we find in Joseph al Basir's
Mansuri. But this is absurd. If the killing of animals is a wrong, God
would not have commanded us to do it, any more than he ordered us to
kill human beings in order that he may reward them later. Moreover, we
should then deserve punishment for killing animals if that is wrong, and
there would follow the absurdity that God commanded us to do that for
which we deserve punishment. Besides, if the animals deserve reward and
punishment, they should have been given commandments and laws like
ourselves. If this was not done because animals are not rational, reward
and punishment are equally out of place for the same reason.

When the soul leaves the body in death, if she exercised her reason in
the pursuit of knowledge, she will continue her existence forever in the
upper world. This is her happiness, her reward and her paradise, namely,
to cleave to her own world, and to shine with the true light emanating
from God directly. This is the end of the human soul. But if she did not
exercise her reason and did not pursue right conduct, she will not be
able to return to the spiritual world, for she will have lost her own
spirituality. She will be similar to the body, desiring this world and
its pleasures. Her fate will be to revolve forever with the sphere in
the world of fire, without being able to return to her world. Thus she
will be forever in pain, and homeless.

When the Messiah comes, the pious men of our nation, the Prophets, the
Patriarchs and those who died for the sanctification of the name, _i. e._,
the martyrs, will be brought back to life in the body, and will
never die again. There will be no eating and drinking, but they will
live like Moses on the mountain basking in the divine light. The wicked
will also be joined to their bodies and burned with fire.[177]




CHAPTER X

JUDAH HALEVI


In Judah Halevi the poet got the better of the rationalist. Not that
Judah Halevi was not familiar with philosophical thinking and did not
absorb the current philosophical terminology as well as the ideas
contained therein. Quite the contrary. He shows a better knowledge of
Aristotelian ideas than his predecessors, and is well versed in
Neo-Platonism. While he attacks all those views of philosophers which
are inconsistent to his mind with the religion of Judaism, he speaks in
other respects the philosophic language, and even makes concessions to
the philosophers. If the reason should really demand it, he tells us,
one might adopt the doctrine of the eternity of matter without doing any
harm to the essence of Judaism.[178] As for the claims of reason to rule
our beliefs, he similarly admits that that which is really proved in the
same absolute manner as the propositions in mathematics and logic cannot
be controverted. But this opinion need cause one no difficulty as there
is nothing in the Bible which opposes the unequivocal demands of the
reason.[179] He cannot consistently oppose all philosophy and science,
for he maintains that the sciences were originally in the hands of the
Jews, and that it was from them that the Chaldeans borrowed them and
handed them over to the Persians, who in turn transferred them to Greece
and Rome, their origin being forgotten.[180] At the same time he insists
that philosophy and reason are not adequate means for the solution of
all problems, and that the actual solutions as found in the writings of
the Aristotelians of his day are in many cases devoid of all
demonstrative value. Then there are certain matters in theory as well as
in practice which do not at all come within the domain of reason, and
the philosophers are bound to be wrong because they apply the wrong
method. Revelation alone can make us wise as to certain aspects of God's
nature and as to certain details in human conduct; and in these
philosophy must fail because as philosophy it has no revelation. With
all due respect therefore to the philosophers, who are the most reliable
guides in matters not conflicting with revelation, we must leave them if
we wish to learn the truth concerning those matters in which they are
incompetent to judge.

This characterization of Judah Halevi's attitude is brief and
inadequate. But before proceeding to elaborate it with more detail and
greater concreteness, it will be well to sketch very briefly the little
we know of his life.[181]

Judah Halevi was born in Toledo in the last quarter of the eleventh
century. This is about the time when the city was taken from the
Mohammedans by the emperor Alphonso VI, king of Leon, Castile, Galicia
and Navarre. At the same time Toledo remained Arabic in culture and
language for a long while after this, and even exerted a great influence
upon the civilization of Christendom. The Jews were equally well treated
in Toledo by Mohammedan emir and Christian king. The youth of Halevi was
therefore not embittered or saddened by Jewish persecutions. It seems
that he was sent to Lucena, a Jewish centre, where he studied the Talmud
with the famous Alfasi, and made friends with Joseph ibn Migash,
Alfasi's successor, and Baruh Albalia, the philosopher. A poet by
nature, he began to write Hebrew verses early, and soon became famous as
a poet of the first order in no manner inferior to Gabirol. His living
he made not from his verses, but like many others of his day by
practicing the art of medicine. Later in life he visited Cordova,
already in its decline through the illiberal government of the Almoravid
dynasty. The rulers were strict religionists, implicit followers of the
"fukaha," the men devoted to the study of Mohammedan religion and law;
and scientific learning and philosophy were proscribed in their domains.
Men of another faith were not in favor, and the Jews who, unlike the
Christians, had no powerful emperor anywhere to take their part, had to
buy their lives and comparative freedom with their hard earned wealth.
Here Halevi spent some time as a physician. He was admitted in court
circles, but his personal good fortune could not reconcile him to the
sufferings of his brethren, and his letters give expression to his
dissatisfaction. He wrote a variety of poems on subjects secular and
religious; but what made him famous above all else was his strong
nationalism, and those of his poems will live longest which give
expression to his intense love for his people and the land which was
once their own. That it was not mere sentiment with Judah Halevi he
proved late in life when he decided to leave his many friends and his
birthplace and go to Palestine to end his life on the soil of his
ancestors. It was after 1140 that he left Spain for the East.
Unfavorable winds drove him out of course to Egypt, and he landed at
Alexandria. From there he went to Cairo at the invitation of his
admirers and friends. Everywhere he was received with great honor, his
fame preceding him, and he was urged to remain in Egypt. But no
dissuasion could keep him from his pious resolve. We find him later in
Damietta; we follow him to Tyre and Damascus, but beyond the last city
all trace of him is lost. We know not whether he reached Jerusalem or
not. Legend picks up the thread where history drops it, and tells of
Judah Halevi meeting his death at the gates of the holy city as with
tears he was singing his famous ode to Zion. An Arab horseman, the story
goes, pierced him through with his spear.

This sketch of Halevi's life and character, brief and inadequate as it
is, will prepare us to understand better his attitude to philosophy and
to Judaism. His was not a critical intellect whose curiosity is not
satisfied until the matter in dispute is proved in logical form. Reason
is good enough in mathematics and physics where the objects of our
investigation are accessible to us and the knowledge of their nature
exhausts their significance. It is not so with the truths of Judaism and
the nature of God. These cannot be known adequately by the reason alone,
and mere knowledge is not enough. God and the Jewish religion are not
simply facts to be known and understood like the laws of science. They
are living entities to be acquainted with, to be devoted to, to love.
Hence quite a different way of approach is necessary. And not everyone
has access to this way. The method of acquaintance is open only to those
who by birth and tradition belong to the family of the prophets, who had
a personal knowledge of God, and to the land of Palestine where God
revealed himself.[182]

We see here the nationalist speaking, the lover of his people and of
their land and language and institutions. David Kaufmann has shown that
Judah Halevi's anti-philosophical attitude has much in common with that
of the great Arab writer Al Gazali, from whom there is no doubt that he
borrowed his inspiration.[183] Gazali began as a philosopher, then lost
confidence in the logical method of proof, pointed to the contradictions
of the philosophers, to their disagreements among themselves, and went
over to the Sufis, the pietists and mystics of the Mohammedan faith.
There are a number of resemblances between Gazali and Halevi as Kaufmann
has shown, and there is no doubt that skepticism in respect of the
powers of the human reason on the one hand, and a deep religious sense
on the other are responsible for the point of view of Gazali as well as
Halevi. But there is this additional motive in Halevi that he was
defending a persecuted race and a despised faith against not merely the
philosophers but against the more powerful and more fortunate professors
of other religions. He is the loyal son of his race and his religion,
and he will show that they are above all criticism, that they are the
best and the truest there are. Maimonides, too, found it necessary to
defend Judaism against the attacks of philosophy. But in his case it was
the Jew in him who had to be defended against the philosopher in him. It
was no external enemy but an internal who must be made harmless, and the
method was one of reconciliation and harmonization. It is still truer to
say that with Maimonides both Judaism and philosophy were his friends,
neither was an enemy. He was attached to one quite as much as to the
other. And it was his privilege to reconcile their differences, to the
great gain, as he thought, of both. Judah Halevi takes the stand of one
who fights for his hearth and home against the attacks of foreign foes.
He will not yield an inch to the adversary. He will maintain his own.
The enemy cannot approach.

Thus Halevi begins his famous work "Kusari": "I was asked what I have to
say in answer to the arguments of philosophers, unbelievers and
professors of other religions against our own." Instead of working out
his ideas systematically, he wanted to give his subject dramatic
interest by clothing it in dialogue form. And he was fortunate in
finding a historical event which suited his purpose admirably.

Some three or four centuries before his time, the king of the Chazars, a
people of Turkish origin living in the Caucasus, together with his
courtiers and many of his subjects embraced Judaism. Hasdai ibn Shaprut,
the Jewish minister and patron of learning of Cordova, in the tenth
century corresponded with the then king of the Chazars, and received an
account of the circumstances of the conversion. In brief it was that the
king wishing to know which was the true religion invited representatives
of the three dominant creeds, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism,
and questioned them concerning the tenets of their respective faiths.
Seeing that the Christian as well as the Mohammedan appealed in their
arguments to the truth of the Hebrew Bible, the king concluded that
Judaism must be the true religion, which he accordingly adopted. This
story gave Halevi the background and framework for his composition. He
works out his own ideas in the form of a dialogue between the Jewish
Rabbi and the king of the Chazars, in which the former explains to the
king the essentials of the Jewish religion, and answers the king's
questions and criticisms, taking occasion to discuss a variety of
topics, religious, philosophical and scientific, all tending to show the
truth of Judaism and its superiority to other religions, to philosophy,
Kalam, and also to Karaism.

The story is, Halevi tells us, in the introduction to his book, that the
king of the Chazars had repeated dreams in which an angel said to him,
"Your intentions are acceptable to God, but not your practice." His
endeavors to be faithful to his religion, and to take part in the
services and perform the sacrifices in the temple in person only led to
the repetition of the dream. He therefore consulted a philosopher about
his belief, and the latter said to him, "In God there is neither favor
nor hatred, for he is above all desire and purpose. Purpose and
intention argue defect and want, which the fulfilment of the intention
satisfies. But God is free from want. Hence there is no purpose or
intention in his nature.

"God does not know the particular or individual, for the individual
constantly changes, whereas God's knowledge never changes. Hence God
does not know the individual man and, needless to say, he does not hear
his prayer. When the philosophers say God created man, they use the word
created metaphorically, in the sense that God is the cause of all
causes, but not that he made man with purpose and intention.

"The world is eternal, and so is the existence of man. The character and
ability of a person depend upon the causes antecedent to him. If these
are of the right sort, we have a person who has the potentialities of a
philosopher. To realize them he must develop his intellect by study, and
his character through moral discipline. Then he will receive the
influence of the 'Active Intellect,' with which he becomes identified so
that his limbs and faculties do only what is right, and are wholly in
the service of the active Intellect.

"This union with the active Intellect is the highest goal of man; and he
becomes like one of the angels, and joins the ranks of Hermes,
Æsculapius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. This is the meaning of the
expression 'favor of God.' The important thing is to study the sciences
in order to know the truth, and to practice the ethical virtues. If one
does this, it matters not what religion he professes, or whether he
professes any religion at all. He can make his own religion in order to
discipline himself in humility, and to govern his relations to society
and country. Or he can choose one of the philosophical religions. Purity
of heart is the important thing, and knowledge of the sciences. Then the
desired result will come, namely, union with the active intellect, which
may also result in the power of prophecy through true dreams and
visions."

The king was not satisfied with the statement of the philosopher, which
seemed to him inadequate because he felt that he himself had the
necessary purity of heart, and yet he was told that his practice was not
satisfactory, proving that there is something in practice as such apart
from intention. Besides, the great conflict between Christianity and
Islam, who kill one another, is due to the difference in religious
practice, and not in purity of heart. Moreover, if the view of the
philosophers were true, there should be prophecy among them, whereas in
reality prophecy is found among those who did not study the sciences
rather than among those who did.

The king then said, I will ask the Christians and the Mohammedans. I
need not inquire of the Jews, for their low condition is sufficient
proof that the truth cannot be with them. So he sent for a Christian
sage, who explained to him the essentials of his belief, saying among
other things, We believe in the creation of the world in six days, in
the descent of all men from Adam, in revelation and Providence, in
short, in all that is found in the law of Moses and in the other
Israelitish Scriptures, which cannot be doubted because of the publicity
which was given to the events recorded therein. He also quoted the
words of the gospel, I did not come to destroy any of the commandments
of Israel and of Moses their teacher; I came to confirm them.

The king was not convinced by the Christian belief, and called a
Mohammedan doctor, who in describing the specific tenets of
Mohammedanism also mentioned the fact that in the Koran are quoted the
Pentateuch and Moses and the other leaders, and the wonderful things
they did. These, he said, cannot be denied; for they are well known.

Seeing that both Christian and Mohammedan referred to the law of Moses
as true, and as evidence that God spoke to man, the king determined to
call a Jewish sage also, and hear what he had to say.

The Jewish "Haber," as Judah Halevi calls him, began his discourse by
saying, We Jews believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who took
the children of Israel out of Egypt, supported them in the wilderness,
gave them the land of Canaan, and so on.

The king was disappointed and said, I had determined not to consult the
Jews in this matter at all, because their abject condition in the world
did not leave them any good quality. You should have said, he told the
Jew, that you believe in him who created the world and governs it; who
made man and provides for him. Every religionist defends his belief in
this way.

The Jew replied, The religion to which you refer is a rational religion,
established by speculation and argument, which are full of doubt, and
about which there is no agreement among philosophers, because not all
the arguments are valid or even plausible. This pleased the king, and he
expressed a wish to continue the discourse. The Rabbi then said, The
proper way to define one's religion is by reference to that which is
more certain, namely, actual experience. Jews have this actual
experience. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spoke to Moses and
delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. This is well known. God gave
Israel the Torah. To be sure, all others not of Israel who accept the
Law will be rewarded, but they cannot be equal to Israel. There is a
peculiar relation between God and Israel in which the other peoples do
not share. As the plant is distinguished from the mineral, the animal
from the plant, and man from the irrational animal, so is the prophetic
individual distinguished above other men. He constitutes a higher
species. It is through him that the masses became aware of God's
existence and care for them. It was he who told them things unknown to
them; who gave them an account of the world's creation and its history.
We count now forty-five hundred years from the creation. This was handed
down from Adam through Seth and Enos to Noah, to Shem and Eber, to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses, and finally to us. Moses came only
four hundred years after Abraham in a world which was full of knowledge
of heavenly and earthly things. It is impossible that he should have
given them a false account of the division of languages and the
relations of nations without being found out and exposed.

The philosophers, it is true, oppose us by maintaining that the world is
eternal. But the philosophers are Greeks, descended from Japheth, who
did not inherit either wisdom or Torah. Divine wisdom is found only in
the family of Shem. The Greeks had philosophy among them only during the
short time of their power. They borrowed it from the Persians, who had
it in turn from the Chaldeans. But neither before nor after did they
have any philosophers among them.

Aristotle, not having any inherited tradition concerning the origin of
the world, endeavored to reason it all out of his own head. Eternity was
just as hard to believe in as creation. But as he had no true and
reliable tradition, his arguments in favor of eternity seemed to him to
be the stronger. Had he lived among a people who had reliable traditions
on the other side, he would have found arguments in favor of creation,
which is more plausible than eternity. Real demonstration cannot be
controverted; and there is nothing in the Bible which opposes what the
reason unequivocally demands. But the matter of eternity or creation is
very difficult. The arguments on one side are as good as those on the
other. And tradition from Adam to Noah and Moses, which is better than
argument, lends its additional weight to the doctrine of creation. If
the believer in the Torah were obliged to hold that there is a primitive
eternal matter from which the world was made, and that there were many
worlds before this one, there would be no great harm, as long as he
believes that this world is of recent origin and Adam was the first
man.[184]

We see now the standpoint of Judah Halevi, for the "Haber" is of course
his spokesman. Philosophy and independent reasoning on such difficult
matters as God and creation are after all more or less guess work, and
cannot be made the bases of religion except for those who have nothing
better. The Jews fortunately have a surer foundation all their own. They
have a genuine and indisputable tradition. History is the only true
science and the source of truth; not speculation, which is subjective,
and can be employed with equal plausibility in favor of opposite
doctrines. True history and tradition in the case of the Jews goes back
ultimately to first hand knowledge from the very source of all truth.
The prophets of Israel constitute a higher species, as much superior to
the ordinary man as the ordinary man is to the lower animal, and these
prophets received their knowledge direct from God. In principle Judah
Halevi agrees with the other Jewish philosophers that true reason cannot
be controverted. He differs with them in the concrete application of
this abstract principle. He has not the same respect as Maimonides for
the actual achievements of the unaided human reason, and an infinitely
greater respect for the traditional beliefs of Judaism and the Biblical
expressions taken in their obvious meaning. Hence he does not feel the
same necessity as Maimonides to twist the meaning of Scriptural passages
to make them agree with philosophical theories.

According to this view Judah Halevi does not find it necessary with the
philosophers and the Mutakallimun painfully to prove the existence of
God. The existence of the Jewish people and the facts of their wonderful
history are more eloquent demonstrations than any that logic or
metaphysics can muster. But more than this. The philosophical view of
God is inadequate in more ways than one. It is inaccurate in content and
incorrect in motive. In the first place, they lay a great deal of stress
on nature as the principle by which objects move. If a stone naturally
moves to the centre of the world, they say this is due to a cause called
nature. And the tendency is to attribute intelligence and creative power
to this new entity as an associate of God. This is misleading. The real
Intelligence is God alone. It is true that the elements, and the sun and
moon, and the stars exert certain influences, producing heat and cold,
and various other effects in things material, by virtue of which these
latter are prepared for the reception of higher forms. And there is no
harm in calling these agencies Nature. But we must regard these as
devoid of intelligence, and as mere effects of God's wisdom and
purpose.[185]

The philosopher denies will in God on the ground that this would argue
defect and want. This reduces God to an impersonal force. We Jews
believe God has will. The word we use does not matter. I ask the
philosopher what is it that makes the heavens revolve continually, and
the outer sphere carry everything in uniform motion, the earth standing
immovable in the centre? Call it what you please, will or command; it is
the same thing that made the air shape itself to produce the sounds of
the ten commandments which were heard, and that caused the characters to
form on the Tables of Stone.[186]

The motive of the philosopher is also different from that of the
believer. The philosopher seeks knowledge only. He desires to know God
as he desires to know the exact position and form of the earth.
Ignorance in respect to God is no more harmful in his mind than
ignorance respecting a fact in nature. His main object is to have true
knowledge in order to become like unto the Active Intellect and to be
identified with it. As long as he is a philosopher it makes no
difference to him what he believes in other respects and whether he
observes the practices of religion or not.[187]

The true belief in God is different in scope and aim. What God is must
be understood not by means of rational proofs, but by prophetic and
spiritual insight. Rational proofs are misleading, and the heretics and
unbelievers also use rational proofs--those for example who believe in
two original causes, in the eternity of the world, or in the divinity of
the sun and fire. The most subtle proofs are those used by the
philosophers, and they maintain that God is not concerned about us, and
pays no attention to our prayers and sacrifices; that the world is
eternal. It is different with us, who heard his words, his commands and
prohibitions, and felt his reward and his punishment. We have a proper
name of God, Jhvh, representative of the communications he made to us,
and we have a conviction that he created the world. The first was Adam,
who knew God through actual communication and the creation of Eve from
one of his ribs. Cain and Abel came next, then Noah and Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, and so on to Moses and the Prophets, who came after him. All
these called him Jhvh by reason of their insight. The people who
received the teaching of the Prophets, in whom they believed, also
called him Jhvh, because he was in communication with men; and the
select among them saw him through an intermediate agency, called
variously, Form, Image, Cloud, Fire, Kingdom, Shekinah, Glory, Rainbow,
and so on, proving that he spoke to them.[188]

As the sun's light penetrates different objects in varying degrees, for
example, ruby and crystal receive the sun's light in the highest degree;
clear air and water come next, then bright stones and polished surfaces,
and last of all opaque substances like wood and earth, which the light
does not penetrate at all; so we may conceive of different minds varying
in the degree to which they attain a knowledge of God. Some arrive only
as far as the knowledge of "Elohim," while others attain to a knowledge
of Jhvh, which may be compared to the reception of the sun's light in
ruby and crystal. These are the prophets in the land of Israel. The
conception involved in the name "Elohim" no intelligent man denies;
whereas many deny the conception of Jhvh, because prophecy is an unusual
occurrence even among individuals, not to speak of a nation. That is why
Pharaoh said (Exod. 5, 2), "I know not Jhvh." He knew "Elohim," but not
Jhvh, that is a God who reveals himself to man. "Elohim" may be arrived
at by reasoning; for the reason tells us that the world has a ruler;
though the various classes of men differ as to details, the most
plausible view being that of the philosophers. But the conception of
Jhvh cannot be arrived at by reason. It requires that prophetic vision
by which a person almost becomes a member of a new species, akin to
angels. Then the doubts he formerly had about "Elohim" fall away, and he
laughs at the arguments which led him to the conception of God and of
unity. Now he becomes a devotee, who loves the object of his devotion,
and is ready to give his life in his love for him, because of the great
happiness he feels in being near to him, and the misery of being away
from him. This is different from the philosopher, who sees in the
worship of God only good ethics and truth, because he is greater than
all other existing things; and in unbelief nothing more than the fault
of choosing the untrue.[189]

Here there is clearly a touch of religious poetry and mysticism, which
reveals to us Halevi's real attitude, and we have no difficulty in
understanding his lack of sympathy with what seemed to him the shallow
rationalism of the contemporaneous Aristotelian, who fancied in his
conceit that with a few logical formulæ he could penetrate the
mysteries of the divine, when in reality he was barely enabled to skim
the surface; into the sanctuary he could never enter.

Though, as we have just seen, Halevi has a conception of God as a
personal being, acting with purpose and will and, as we shall see more
clearly later, standing in close personal relation to Israel and the
land of Palestine, still he is very far from thinking of him
anthropomorphically. In his discussion of the divine attributes he
yields to none in removing from God any positive quality of those
ascribed to him in the Bible. The various names or appellatives applied
to God in Scripture, except the tetragrammaton, he divides, according to
their signification, into three classes, _actional_, _relative_,
_negative_. Such expressions as "making high," "making low," "making
poor," almighty, strong, jealous, revengeful, gracious, merciful, and so
on, do not denote, he says, feeling or emotion in God. They are ascribed
to him because of his visible acts or effects in the world, which we
judge on the analogy of our own acts. As a human being is prompted to
remove the misery of a fellowman because he feels pity, we ascribe all
instances of divine removal of misery from mankind to a similar feeling
in God, and call him merciful. But this is only a figure of speech. God
does remove misery, but the feeling of pity is foreign to him. We call
therefore the attribute merciful and others like it actional, meaning
that it is God's acts which suggest to us these appellations.

Another class of attributes found in the Bible embraces such expressions
as blessed, exalted, holy, praised, and so on. These are called
relative, because they are derived from the attitude of man to God. God
is blessed because men bless him, and so with the rest. They do not
denote any essential quality in God. And hence their number does not
necessitate plurality in God. Finally we have such terms as living, one,
first, last, and so on. These too do not denote God's positive essence,
for in reality God cannot be said to be either living or dead. Life as
we understand it denotes sensation and motion, which are not in God. If
we do apply to God the term living, we do so in order to exclude its
negative, dead. Living means not dead; one means not many; first means
not having any cause antecedent to him; last means never ceasing to be.
Hence we call these attributes negative.[190]

We see that Judah Halevi is at one with Bahya and Joseph ibn Zaddik in
his understanding of the divine attributes. The slight difference in the
mode of classification is not essential.

This God chose Israel and gave them the ten commandments in order to
convince them that the Law originated from God and not from Moses. For
they might have had a doubt in their minds, seeing that speech is a
material thing, and believe that the origin of a law or religion is in
the mind of a human being, which afterwards comes to be believed in as
divine. For this reason God commanded the people to purify themselves
and be ready for the third day, when they _all_ heard the word of God,
and were convinced that prophecy is not what the philosophers say it
is--a natural result of man's reason identifying itself with the Active
Intellect through the help of the imagination, which presents true
visions in a dream--but a real communication from God. Not only did they
hear the word of God, but they saw the writing of God on the Tables of
Stone.

This does not mean that we believe in the corporeality of God; Heaven
forbid, we do not even think of the soul of man as corporeal. But we
cannot deny the things recorded, which are well known. Just as God
created heaven and earth, not by means of material tools as a man does,
but by his will, so he might have willed that the air should convey
articulate sounds to the ear of Moses, and that letters should be formed
on the Tables of Stone to convey to the people the ideas which he wanted
them to know. They might have happened in a still more wonderful way
than I have been able to conceive.

This may seem like an unwarranted magnifying of the virtues of our
people. But in reality it is true that the chain of individuals from
Adam to Moses and thereafter was a remarkable one of godly men. Adam was
surely a godlike man since he was made by the hand of God and was not
dependent on the inherited constitution of his parents, and on the food
and climate he enjoyed in the years of his growth. He was made perfect
as in the time of mature youth when a person is at his best, and was
endowed with the best possible soul for man. Abel was his successor in
excellence, also a godly man, and so down the line through Seth and
Noah, and so on. There were many who were unworthy and they were
excluded. But there was always one in every generation who inherited the
distinguished qualities of the Adam line. And even when, as in the case
of Terah, the individual was unworthy in himself, he was important as
being destined to give birth to a worthy son, who would carry on the
tradition, like Abraham. Among Noah's sons, Shem was the select one, and
he occupied the temperate regions of Palestine, whereas Japheth went
north and Ham went south--regions not so favorable to the development of
wisdom.[191]

The laws were all given directly to Moses with all their details so that
there is no doubt about any of them. This was absolutely necessary, for
had there been any detail left out, a doubt might arise respecting it
which would destroy the whole spiritual structure of Judaism. This is
not a matter which philosophical reasoning can think out for itself. As
in the natural generation of plant and animal the complexity of elements
and conditions is so great that a slight tilting of the balance in the
wrong direction produces disease and death, so in the spiritual creation
of Israel the ceremonies and the laws are all absolutely essential to
the whole, whether we understand it or not, and none could be left to
speculation. All were given to Moses.

Moses addressed himself to his own people only. You say it would have
been better to call all mankind to the true religion. It would be better
also perhaps that all animals should be rational. You have forgotten
what I said about the select few that worthily succeeded Adam as the
heart of the family to the exclusion of the other members, who are as
the peel, until in the sons of Jacob all twelve were worthy, and from
them Israel is descended. These remarkable men had divine qualities
which made them a different species from ordinary men. They were aiming
at the degree of the prophet, and many of them reached it by reason of
their purity, holiness and proximity to the Prophets. For a prophet has
a great influence on the one who associates with him. He converts the
latter by awakening in him spirituality and a desire to attain that high
degree which brings visible greatness and reward in the world to come,
when the soul is separated from the senses and enjoys the heavenly
light. We do not exclude anyone from the reward due him for his good
works, but we give preference to those who are near to God, and we
measure their reward in the next world by this standard. Our religion
consists not merely in saying certain words, but in difficult practices
and a line of conduct which bring us near to God. Outsiders too may
attain to the grade of wise and pious men, but they cannot become equal
to us and be prophets.[192]

Not only is Israel a select nation to whom alone prophecy is given as a
gift, but Palestine is the most suitable place in the world for
communion with God, as a certain spot may be best for planting certain
things and for producing people of a particular character and
temperament. All those who prophesied outside of Palestine did so with
reference to Palestine. Abraham was not worthy of the divine covenant
until he was in this land. Palestine was intended to be a guide for the
whole world. The reason the second Temple did not last longer than it
did is because the Babylonian exiles did not sufficiently love their
fatherland and did not all return when the decree of Cyrus permitted
them to do so.[193]

Israel is the heart among the nations. The heart is more sensitive than
the rest of the body in disease as in health. It feels both more
intensely. It is more liable to disease than the other organs, and on
the other hand it becomes aware sooner of agencies dangerous to its
health and endeavors to reject them or ward them off. So Israel is among
the nations. Their responsibility is greater than that of other nations
and they are sooner punished. "Only you have I loved out of all the
families of the earth," says Amos (3, 2), "therefore will I visit upon
you all your iniquities." On the other hand, God does not allow our sins
to accumulate as he does with the other nations until they deserve
destruction. "He pardons the iniquities of his people by causing them to
pass away in due order." As the heart is affected by the other organs,
so Israel suffers on account of their assimilation to the other nations.
Israel suffers while the other nations are in peace. As the elements are
for the sake of the minerals, the minerals for the sake of the plants,
the plants for the sake of the animals, the animals for the sake of man,
so is man for the sake of Israel, and Israel for the sake of the
Prophets and the pious men. With the purification of Israel the world
will be improved and brought nearer to God.[194]

Associated with Israel and Palestine as a third privilege and
distinction is the Hebrew language. This is the original language which
God spoke to Adam. The etymologies of Biblical names prove it. It was
richer formerly, and has become impoverished in the course of time like
the people using it. Nevertheless it still shows evidence of
superiority to other languages in its system of accents which shows the
proper expression in reading, and in its wonderful system of vowel
changes producing euphony in expression and variation in meaning.[195]

The highest type of man, we have seen, is the Prophet, for whose sake
Israel and the whole of humanity exists. He is the highest type because
he alone has an immediate knowledge of Jhvh as distinguished from
"Elohim," the concept of universal cause and power, which the
philosopher also is able to attain. Jhvh signifies, as we have seen, the
personal God who performs miracles and reveals himself to mankind
through the prophet. We wish to know therefore how Judah Halevi
conceives of the essence and process of prophetic inspiration. We are
already aware that he is opposed to the philosophers who regard the
power of prophecy as a natural gift possessed by the man of pure
intellect and perfect power of imagination. To these Aristotelians, as
we shall have occasion to see more clearly later, the human intellect is
nothing more than an individualized reflection, if we may so term it, of
the one universal intellect, which is--not God, but an intellectual
substance wholly immaterial, some nine or ten degrees removed from the
Godhead. It is called the Active Intellect, and its business is to
govern the sublunar world of generation and decay. As pure thought the
Active Intellect embraces as its content the entire sublunar world in
essence. In fact it bestows the forms (in the Aristotelian sense) upon
the things of this world, and hence has a timeless knowledge of all the
world and its happenings. The individualized reflection of it in the
human soul is held there so long as the person is alive, somewhat as a
drop of water may hold the moon until it evaporates, and the reflection
is reabsorbed in the one real moon. So it is the Active Intellect which
is the cause of all conceptual knowledge in man through its
individualizations, and into it every human intellect is reabsorbed when
the individual dies. Some men share more, some less in the Active
Intellect; and it is in everyone's power, within limits, to increase and
purify his participation in the influence of the Active Intellect by
study and rigorous ethical discipline. The prophet differs from the
ordinary man and the philosopher in degree only, not in kind. His
knowledge comes from the influence of the Active Intellect as does the
knowledge of the philosopher. The difference is that in the prophet's
case the imagination plays an important rôle and presents concrete
visions instead of universal propositions, and the identification with
the Active Intellect is much closer.

This conception of prophecy, which in its essentials, we shall see, was
adopted by Abraham ibn Daud, Maimonides and Gersonides, naturally would
not appeal to Judah Halevi. Prophecy is the prerogative of Israel and of
Palestine. The philosophers have nothing to do with it. A mere
philosopher has no more chance of entering the kingdom of prophecy than
a camel of passing through the eye of a needle.[B] Have the philosophers
ever produced prophets? And yet, if their explanation is correct, their
ranks should abound in them. Prophecy is a supernatural power, and the
influence comes from God. The prophet is a higher species of mortal. He
is endowed with an internal eye, a hidden sense, which sees certain
immaterial objects, as the external sense sees the physical objects. No
one else sees those forms, but they are none the less real, for the
whole species of prophetic persons testify to their existence. In
ordinary perception we tell a real object from an illusion by appealing
to the testimony of others. What appears to a single individual only may
be an illusion. If all persons agree that the object is there, we
conclude it is real. The same test holds of the prophetic visions. All
prophets see them. Then the intellect of the prophet interprets the
vision, as our intellect interprets the data of our senses. The latter
give us not the essence of the sensible object, but the superficial
accidents, such as color, shape, and so on. It is the work of the reason
to refer these qualities to the essence of the object, as king, sun. The
same holds true of the prophet. He sees a figure in the form of a king
or a judge in the act of giving orders; and he knows that he has before
him a being that is served and obeyed. Or he sees the form in the act of
carrying baggage or girded for work; and he infers that he is dealing
with a being that is meant for a servant. What these visions really were
it is not in all cases possible to know with certainty. There is no
doubt that the Prophets actually saw the hosts of heaven, the spirits of
the spheres, in the form of man. The word angel in the Bible (Heb.
Mal'ak) means messenger. What these messengers or angels were we cannot
tell with certainty. They may have been specially created from the fine
elementary bodies, or they belonged to the eternal angels, who may be
the same as the spiritual beings of whom the philosophers speak. We can
neither reject their view nor definitely accept it. Similarly the
expression, "The Glory of Jhvh," may denote a fine body following the
will of God and formed every time it has to appear to a prophet, or it
may denote all the angels and spiritual beings, Throne and Chariot and
Firmament, and Ofannim and Galgalim, and other eternal beings
constituting, so to speak, the suite of God.


[B] This simile represents Halevi's thought. He does not use this
expression.


Even such phrases as, "They saw the God of Israel" (Exod. 24, 10), "He
saw the form of Jhvh" (Num. 12, 8), the Rabbinic expression "Maase
Merkaba" (work of the divine chariot, _cf._ above, p. xvi), and the
later discussions concerning the "Measure of the divine stature" (Shiʿur
Komah), must not be rejected. These visual images representative of God
are calculated to inspire fear in the human soul, which the bare
conception of the One, Omnipotent, and so on, cannot produce.[196]

As Judah Halevi is unwilling to yield to the philosophers and explain
away the supernaturalism of prophecy, maintaining rather on the contrary
that the supernatural character of the prophetic vision is an evidence
of the superior nature of Israel as well as of their land and their
language, so he insists on the inherent value of the ceremonial law,
including sacrifices. To Saadia, and especially to Bahya and Maimonides,
the test of value is rationality. The important laws of the Bible are
those known as the rational commandments. The other class, the so-called
traditional commandments, would also turn out to be rational if we knew
the reason why they were commanded. And in default of exact knowledge it
is the business of the philosopher to suggest reasons. Bahya lays the
greatest stress upon the commandments of the heart, _i. e._, upon the
purity of motive and intention, upon those laws which concern feeling
and belief rather than outward practice. Judah Halevi's attitude is
different. If the only thing of importance in religion were intention
and motive and moral sense, why should Christianity and Islam fight to
the death, shedding untold human blood in defence of their religion. As
far as ethical theory and practice are concerned there is no difference
between them. Ceremonial practice is the only thing that separates them.
And the king of the Chazars was told repeatedly in his dreams that his
intentions were good but not his practice, his religious practice. To be
sure the ethical law is important in any religion, but it is not
peculiar to religion as such. It is a necessary condition of social
life, without which no association is possible, not even that of a
robber band. There is honesty even among thieves. Religion has its
peculiar practices, and it is not sufficient for an Israelite to observe
the rational commandments alone. When the Prophets inveigh against
sacrifices; when Micah says (6, 8), "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is
good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," they mean that the
ceremonies alone are not sufficient; but surely a man is not fully an
Israelite if he neglects the ceremonial laws and observes only the
rational commandments. We may not understand the value of the ceremonial
laws, the meaning of the institution of sacrifices. But neither do we
understand why the rational soul does not attach itself to a body except
when the parts are arranged in a certain manner and the elements are
mixed in a certain proportion, though the reason needs not food and
drink for itself. God has arranged it so, that only under certain
conditions shall a body receive the light of reason. So in the matter of
sacrifices God has ordained that only when the details of the
sacrificial and other ceremonies are minutely observed shall the nation
enjoy his presence and care. In some cases the significance of certain
observances is clearer than in others. Thus the various festivals are
also symbolic of certain truths of history and the divine government of
the world. The Sabbath leads to the belief in the exodus from Egypt and
the creation of the world; and hence inculcates belief in God.[197]

In his views of ethics Judah Halevi is more human than Bahya, being
opposed to all manner of asceticism. The law, he says, does not demand
excess in any direction. Every power and faculty must be given its due.
Our law commends fear, love and joy as means of worshipping God; so that
fasting on a fast day does not bring a man nearer to God than eating and
drinking and rejoicing on a feast day, provided all is done with a view
to honoring God. A Jewish devotee is not one who separates himself from
the world. On the contrary, he loves the world and a long life because
thereby he wins a share in the world to come. Still his desire is to
attain the degree of Enoch or Elijah, and to be fit for the association
of angels. A man like this feels more at home when alone than in
company of other people; for the higher beings are his company, and he
misses them when people are around him. Philosophers also enjoy solitude
in order to clarify their thoughts, and they are eager to meet disciples
to discuss their problems with them. In our days it is difficult to
reach the position of these rare men. In former times when the Shekinah
rested in the Holy Land, and the nation was fit for prophecy, there were
people who separated themselves from their neighbors and studied the law
in purity and holiness in the company of men like them. These were the
Sons of the Prophets. Nowadays when there is neither prophecy nor
wisdom, a person who attempted to do this, though he be a pious man,
would come to grief; for he would find neither prophets nor philosophers
to keep him company; nor enough to keep his mind in that high state of
exaltation needed for communion with God. Prayer alone is not
sufficient, and soon becomes a habit without any influence on the soul.
He would soon find that the natural powers and desires of the soul begin
to assert themselves and he will regret his separation from mankind,
thus getting farther away from God instead of coming nearer to him.

The right practice of the pious man at the present day is to give all
the parts of the body their due and no more, without neglecting any of
them; and to bring the lower powers and desires under the dominion of
the higher; feeding the soul with things spiritual as the body with
things material. He must keep himself constantly under guard and
control, making special use of the times of prayer for self-examination,
and striving to retain the influence of one prayer until the time comes
for the next. He must also utilize the Sabbaths and the festivals and
the Great Fast to keep himself in good spiritual trim. In addition he
must observe all the commandments, traditional, rational, and those of
the heart, and reflect on their meaning and on God's goodness and
care.[198]

Judah Halevi has no doubt of the immortality of the soul and of reward
and punishment after death, though the Bible does not dwell upon these
matters with any degree of emphasis. Other religions, he admits, make
greater promises of reward after death, whereas Judaism offers divine
nearness through miracles and prophecy. Instead of saying, If you do
thus and so, I will put you in gardens after death and give you
pleasures, our Law says, I will be your God and you will be my people.
Some of you will stand before me and will go up to heaven, walking among
the angels; and my angels will walk among you, protecting you in your
land, which is the holy land, not like the other nations, which are
governed by nature. Surely, he exclaims, we who can boast of such things
during life are more certain of the future world than those whose sole
reliance is on promises of the hereafter. It would not be correct, the
Rabbi says to the king of the Chazars, who was tempted to despise the
Jews as well as their religion because of their material and political
weakness, to judge of our destiny after death by our condition during
life, in which we are inferior to all other people. For these very
people, like the Christians and Mohammedans, glory in their founders,
who were persecuted and despised, and not in the present power and
luxury of the great kings. The Christians in particular worship the man
who said, "Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
other also. And if a man ... take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also" (Matth. 5, 39). Accordingly our worth is greater in the sight of
God than if we were prosperous. It is true that not all of us accept our
miserable condition with becoming humility. If we did, God would not
keep us so long in misery. But after all there is reward awaiting our
people for bearing the yoke of the exile voluntarily, when it would be
an easy matter for any one of us to become a brother to our oppressors
by the saying of one word.

Our wise men, too, have said a great deal about the pleasures and
sufferings awaiting us in the next world, and in this also they surpass
the wise men of other religions. The Bible, it is true, does not lay
stress on this aspect of our belief; but so much is clear from the Bible
also, that the spirit returns to God. There are also allusions to the
immortality of the soul in the disappearance of Elijah, who did not die,
and in the belief of his second coming. This appears also from the
prayer of Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my
last end be like his" (Num. 23, 10), and from the calling of Samuel from
the dead. The idea of paradise (Gan Eden) is taken from the Torah, and
Gehenna is a Hebrew word, the name of a valley near Jerusalem, where
fire always burned, consuming unclean bones, carcases, and so on. There
is nothing new in the later religions which is not already found in
ours.[199]

An important ethical problem which Judah Halevi discusses more
thoroughly than any of his predecessors is that of free will, which he
defends against fatalistic determinism, and endeavors to reconcile with
divine causality and foreknowledge. We have already seen (p. xxi) that
this was one of the important theses of the Muʿtazilite Kalam. And there
is no doubt that fatalism is opposed to Judaism. A fatalistic
determinist denies the category of the contingent or possible. He says
not merely that an event is determined by its proximate cause, he goes
further and maintains that it is determined long in advance of any of
its secondary causes by the will of God. It would follow then that there
is no way of preventing an event thus predetermined. If we take pains to
avoid a misfortune fated to come upon us, our very efforts may carry us
toward it and land us in its clutches. Literature is full of stories
illustrating this belief, as for example the story of Œdipus. Against
this form of belief Judah Halevi vindicates the reality of the
contingent or possible as opposed to the necessary. No one except the
obstinate and perverse denies the possible or contingent. His
preparations to meet and avoid that which he hopes and fears prove that
he believes the thing amenable to pains and precautions. If he had not
this belief, he would fold his hands in resignation, never taking the
trouble to supply himself with arms to meet his enemy, or with water to
quench his thirst. To be sure, we may argue that whether one prepare
himself or omit to do so, the preparation or neglect is itself
determined. But this is no longer the same position as that maintained
at the outset. For we now admit that secondary causes do play a part in
determining the result, whereas we denied it at first. The will is one
of these secondary causes. Accordingly Judah Halevi divides all acts or
events into four classes, divine, natural, accidental and voluntary.
Strictly divine events are the direct results of the divine will without
any intermediate cause. There is no way of preparing for or avoiding
these; not, that is, physically; but it is possible to prepare oneself
mentally and morally, namely, through the secrets of the Torah to him
who knows them.

Natural events are produced by secondary causes, which bring the objects
of nature to their perfection. These produce their effects regularly and
uniformly, provided there is no hindrance on the part of the other
three causes. An example of natural events would be the growth of a
plant or animal under favorable conditions. Accidental events are also
produced by secondary causes, but they happen by chance, not regularly
and not as a result of purpose. Their causes are not intended for the
purpose of bringing perfection to their chance effects. These too may be
hindered by any one of the other three causes. An example of a chance
event might be death in war. The secondary cause is the battle, but its
purpose was not that this given person might meet his death there, and
not all men die in war.

Finally, voluntary acts are those caused by the will of man. It is these
that concern us most. We have already intimated that the human will is
itself a secondary cause and has a rôle in determining its effect. It is
true that the will itself is caused by other higher causes until we get
to the first cause, but this does not form a _necessary_ chain of
causation. Despite the continuous chain of causes antecedent to a given
volition the soul finding itself in front of a given plan is free to
choose either of the two alternatives. To say that a man's speech is as
necessary as the beating of his pulse contradicts experience. We feel
that we are masters of our speech and our silence. The fact that we
praise and blame and love and hate a person according to his deliberate
conduct is another proof of freedom. We do not blame a natural or
accidental cause. We do not blame a child or a person asleep when they
cause damage, because they did not do the damage deliberately and with
intention. If those who deny freedom are consistent, they must either
refrain from being angry with a person who injures them deliberately, or
they must say that anger and praise and blame and love and hate are
delusive powers put in our souls in vain. Besides there would be no
difference between the pious and the disobedient, because both are doing
that which they are by necessity bound to do.

But there are certain strong objections to the doctrine of freedom. If
man is absolutely free to do or forbear, it follows that the effects of
his conduct are removed from God's control. The answer to this is that
they are not absolutely removed from his control. They are still related
to him by a chain of causes.

Another argument against free will is that it is irreconcilable with
God's knowledge. If man alone is the master of his choice, God cannot
know beforehand what he will choose. And if God does know, the man
cannot but choose as God foreknew he would choose, and what becomes of
his freedom? This may be answered by saying that the knowledge of a
thing is not the cause of its being. We do not determine a past event by
the fact that we know it. Knowledge is simply evidence that the thing
is. So man chooses by his own determination, and yet God knows
beforehand which way he is going to choose, simply because he sees into
the future as we remember the past.[200]

Judah Halevi's discussion of the problem of freedom is fuller than any
we have met so far in our investigation. But it is not satisfactory.
Apart from his fourfold classification of events which is open to
criticism, there is a weak spot in the very centre of his argument,
which scarcely could have escaped him. He admits that the will is caused
by higher causes ending ultimately in the will of God, and yet maintains
in the same breath that the will is not determined. As free the will is
removed from God's control, and yet it is not completely removed, being
related to him by a chain of causes. This is a plain contradiction,
unless we are told how far it is determined and how far it is not.
Surely the aspect in which it is not determined is absolutely removed
from God's control and altogether uncaused. But Judah Halevi is
unwilling to grant this. He just leaves us with the juxtaposition of two
incompatibles. We shall see that Hasdai Crescas was more consistent, and
admitted determinism.

We have now considered Judah Halevi's teachings, and have seen that he
has no sympathy with the point of view of those people who were called
in his day philosophers, _i. e._, those who adopted the teachings
ascribed to Aristotle. At the same time he was interested in maintaining
that all science really came originally from the Jews; and in order to
prove this he undertakes a brief interpretation of the "Sefer Yezirah"
(Book of Creation), an early mystic work of unknown authorship and date,
which Judah Halevi in common with the uncritical opinion of his day
attributed to Abraham.[201] Not to lay himself open to the charge of
inconsistency, he throws out the suggestion that the Sefer Yezirah
represented Abraham's own speculations before he had the privilege of a
prophetic communication from God. When that came he was ready to abandon
all his former rationalistic lucubrations and abide by the certainty of
revealed truth.[202] We may therefore legitimately infer that Judah
Halevi's idea was that the Jews were the originators of philosophy, but
that they had long discarded it in favor of something much more valid
and certain; whereas the Greeks and their descendants, having nothing
better, caught it up and are now parading it as their own discovery and
even setting it up as superior to direct revelation.

Natural science in so far as it had to do with more or less verifiable
data could not be considered harmful, and so we find Judah Halevi taking
pains to show that the sages of Rabbinical literature cultivated the
sciences, astronomy in connection with the Jewish calendar; anatomy,
biology and physiology in relation to the laws of slaughter and the
examination of animal meat (laws of "Terefa").[203]

But so great was the fascination philosophy exerted upon the men of his
generation that even Judah Halevi, despite his efforts to shake its
authority and point out its inadequacy and evident inferiority to
revelation, was not able wholly to escape it. And we find accordingly
that he deems it necessary to devote a large part of the fifth book of
the Kusari to the presentation of a bird's eye view of the current
philosophy of the day. To be sure, he does not give all of it the stamp
of his approval; he repeatedly attacks its foundations and lays bare
their weakness. At the same time he admits that not every man has faith
by nature and is proof against the erroneous arguments of heretics,
astrologers, philosophers and others. The ordinary mortal is affected by
them, and may even be misled for a time until he comes to see the truth.
It is therefore well to know the principles of religion according to
those who defend it by reason, and this involves a knowledge of science
and theology. But we must not, he says, in the manner of the Karaites,
advance all at once to the higher study of theology. One must first
understand the fundamental principles of physics, psychology, and so on,
such as matter and form, the elements, nature, Soul, Intellect, Divine
Wisdom. Then we can proceed to the more properly theological matters,
like the future world, Providence, and so on.

Accordingly Judah Halevi gives us in the sequel a brief account such as
he has just outlined. It will not be worth our while to reproduce it all
here, as in the first place Judah Halevi does not give it as the result
of his own investigation and conviction, and secondly a good deal of it
is not new; and we have already met it in more or less similar form
before in Joseph ibn Zaddik, Abraham bar Hiyyah, and others. We must
point out, however, the new features which we did not meet before,
explain their origin and in particular indicate Judah Halevi's
criticisms.

In general we may say that Judah Halevi has a better knowledge of
Aristotelian doctrines than any of his predecessors. Thus to take one
example, which we used before (p. 138), Aristotle's famous definition of
the soul is quoted by Isaac Israeli, Saadia, Joseph ibn Zaddik as well
as by Judah Halevi. Israeli does not discuss the definition in
detail.[204] Saadia and Ibn Zaddik show clearly that they did not
understand the precise meaning of the definition. Judah Halevi is the
first who understands correctly all the elements of the definition. And
yet it would be decidedly mistaken to infer from this that Judah Halevi
studied the Aristotelian works directly. By a fortunate discovery of S.
Landauer[205] we are enabled to follow Judah Halevi's source with the
certainty of eyewitnesses. The sketch which he gives of the Aristotelian
psychology is taken bodily not from Aristotle's De Anima, but from a
youthful work of Ibn Sina. Judah Halevi did not even take the trouble to
present the subject in his own words. He simply took his model and
abridged it, by throwing out all argumentative, illustrative and
amplificatory material. Apart from this abridgment he follows his
authority almost word for word, not to speak of reproducing the ideas in
the original form and order. This is a typical and extremely instructive
instance; and it shows how careful we must be before we decide that a
mediæval writer read a certain author with whose ideas he is familiar
and whom he quotes.

In the sketch of philosophical theory Judah Halevi first speaks of the
hyle (ὕλη) or formless matter, which according to the
philosophers was in the beginning of things contained within the lunar
sphere. The "water" in the second verse of Genesis ("and the spirit of
God moved upon the face of the water") is supposed by them to denote
this primitive matter, as the "darkness" in the same verse and the
"chaos" ("Tohu") in the first