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References
A history of “Hebrew Scholasticism” in the fifteenth century is yet to be written. As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of “Hebrew Scholasticism” is usually neglected even in general studies about the relationship of Christian and Jewish cultures in the late Middle Ages (cf. e.g., the recent book by H. Santiago Otero [ed.], Diálogo filosófico-religioso entre Cristianismo, Judaísmo e Islamismo durante la Edad Media en la peninsula iberica, Turnhout 1994, where only a very short mention of it can be found on pp. 376–377). Generally speaking, as Daniel Lasker correctly points out, “the study of the Christian impact on late medieval, especially Iberian, Jewish philosophy remains in its infancy” (D.J. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity on Late Iberian Jewish Philosophy, in B.D. Cooperman [ed.], In Iberia and Beyond. Hispanic Jews Between Cultures, Newark 1998, 175–190, p. 175). However, some of the most recent historical sketches of fifteenth century Jewish philosophy and of its relationship with Scholastic philosophy contain timely references to “Hebrew Scholasticism” and to the role played by its chief figures: H. Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity, in D.H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), History of Jewish Philosophy, London-New York 1997, 499–573, especially pp. 504–505, 514–516; T.M. Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism upon Jewish Philosophy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and A. Ackerman, Jewish Philosophy and the Jewish-Christian Philosophical Dialogue in Fifteenth-Century Spain, in D.H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge University Press 2003, 345–390, especially pp. 348–350, 380–382. A sketch of “Hebrew Scholastic logic” has been recently published by Ch.H. Manekin, Scholastic Logic and the Jews, “Bulletin de philosophiemédiévale” 41 (1999), 123–147. For a short, tentative bibliographical overview of “Hebrew Scholasticism”, see M. Zonta, The Relationship of European Jewish Philosophy to Islamic and Christian Philosophies in the Late Middle Ages, “Jewish Studies Quarterly” 7 (2000), 127–140, especially pp. 138–140; see also Id., The Autumn of Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Latin Scholasticism in Late 15th-Century Hebrew Philosophical Literature, in J.A. Aertsen and M. Pickavé (eds.), “Herbst des Mittelalters”? Fragen zur Bewertung des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, “Miscellanea Mediaevalia” 31, Berlin-New York 2004, 474–492—part of which has been recast in this introduction.
See C. Rigo, Per un’identificazione del “sapiente cristiano” Nicola da Giovinazzo, collaboratore di rabbi Mošeh ben Šelomoh da Salerno, “Archivum fratrum praedicatorum” 69 (1999), 61–146.
See J.B. Sermoneta (ed.), Book of the Retributions of the Soul by rabbi Hillel ben Samuel of Verona (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1981, pp. 4–26 (for passages from Gundisalvi), 35–145 (for passages from Thomas).
Cf. M. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher, Berlin 1893 (reprint Graz 1956), p. 467.
See C. Rigo, Un passo sconosciuto di Alberto Magno nel Sefer ‘esem ha-shamayim di Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano, “Henoch” 11 (1989), 295–318; J.-P. Rothschild, Un traducteur hébreu qui se cherche: R. Juda b. Moïse Romano et le De causis et processu universitatis, II, 3, 2 d’Albert le Grand, “Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age” 59 (1992), 159–172; C. Rigo, Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore di Alberto Magno (commento al De Anima III, II, 16), “Henoch” 15 (1993), 65–91; Ead., Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, “Henoch” 17 (1995), 141–170, pp. 157–161.
See G. Sermoneta, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opusculum de ente et essentia a Rabbì Jehudàh ben Mošèh ben Dani’èl Romano primum hebraice redditum (saec. XIV incipiente) (in Hebrew), in A.Z. Bar-On (ed.), From Parmenides to Contemporary Thinkers: Readings in Ontology (in Hebrew), Vol. 1, Jerusalem 1978, pp. 184–214; Id., Jehudah ben Moše ben Daniel Romano, traducteur de Saint Thomas, in G. Nahon and Ch. Touati (eds.), Hommage à Georges Vajda. Études d’histoire et de pensée juive, Louvain 1980, 235–262 (some complements to the latter work are found in Rigo, Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, pp. 165–169).
See C. Rigo, Egidio Romano nella cultura ebraica: le versioni di Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano, “Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale” 5 (1994), 397–437. Among the above mentioned Egidian or pseudo-Egidian minor works, there are the De plurificatione intellectus possibilis, and two short writings on the faculties of the human soul and on the generation of syllogisms.
See Rigo, Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano traduttore degli Scolastici latini, pp. 161–164.
An edition of this work is found in C. Rigo, Il De substantia orbis di Averroè: edizione della traduzione latino-ebraica con commento di Yehudah b. Mosheh Romano, doctoral thesis (unpublished), 2 vols., Università di Torino 1992.
Cf. C. Rigo, Un’antologia filosofica di Yehuda b. Mosheh Romano, “Italia” 10 (1993), 73–104.
Cf. G. Sermoneta, Pour une histoire du Thomisme juif, in G. Verbeke and D. Verhelst (eds.), Aquinas and Problems of His Time, “Mediaevalia Lovaniensia” s. 1, Vol. 5, Leuven-The Hague 1976, 130–135, and Id., Per una storia del Tomismo ebraico, in Tommaso d’Aquino nella storia del pensiero, 2 vols., Napoli 1976, Vol. 2, 354–359. On Judah Romano as representative of this “Hebrew (or “Jewish”) Thomism”, cf. G. Sermoneta, La dottrina dell’intelletto e la “fede filosofica” di Jehudáh e Immanuel Romano, “Studi Medievali”, s. III, Vol. 6, fasc. 2 (1965), 3–78; cf. also W.Z. Harvey, Knowledge of God in Aquinas, Judah Romano and Crescas (in Hebrew), “Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought” 14 (1998), 223–238.
Onthis point, see M. Zonta, La filosofia antica nel Medioevo ebraico. Le traduzioni ebraiche medievali dei testi filosofici antichi, Brescia 1996, p. 233.
The first, pioneering study on this topic is: S. Pines, Scholasticism after Thomas Aquinas and the Teachings of Hasdai Crescas and His Predecessors, first published in Hebrew in 1967 (see the most recent and complete re-edition, in Alfred L. Ivry’s English translation, in S. Pines, Studies in the History of Jewish Thought, eds. W.Z. Harvey and M. Idel, “The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines” V, Jerusalem 1997, pp. 489–589); this study, however, focuses its attention not on “Hebrew Scholasticism”, but on looking for implicit traces of Latin Scholasticism in the works of some major Jewish philosophers of the fourteenth century.
Cf. G. Vajda, Isaac Albalag, averroïste juif, traducteur et annotateur d’al-Ghazâlî, Paris 1960, pp. 246–266.
On Gersonides’s contacts with the papal court (which are certain in the last decade of his life, but might have started earlier), see J.L. Mancha, Gersonides’ Astronomical Work: Chronology and Christian Context, in C. Sirat, S. Klein-Braslavy and O. Weijers (eds.), Les méthodes de travail de Gersonide et le maniement du savoir chez les scolastiques, Paris 2003, 39–58.
See Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 497–500.
See S. Harvey, Did Gersonides Believe in the Absolute Generation of First Matter? (in Hebrew), “Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought” 7 (1988), 307–318, especially pp. 317–318.
See R. Glasner, Gersonides’s Theory of Natural Motion, “Early Science and Medicine” 1 (1996), 151–203, especially pp. 201–203.
See R. Glasner, On the Question of Gersonides’ Acquaintance with Scholastic Philosophy, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les méthodes de travail de Gersonide, pp. 281–287. The Quaestiones in octo libros Physicorum that Glasner ascribes to Duns Scotus (p. 285 and note 6) are certainly not by Scotus; they are possibly the work of Marsilius of Inghen (cf. Pines, Scholasticism, p. 495 note 7).
Cf. Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 493–496, 519–524, 582–584 (where Pines compares Gersonides’s and Thomas Aquinas’s views about determinism). S.Möbuss, Die Intellektlehre des Levi ben Gerson in ihrer Beziehung zur christlichen Scholastik, Frankfurt a.M.-Bern-New York-Paris 1991, especially p. 133, notes a relationship between the theology of Gersonides and theories found in contemporary Latin “Averroism” (Siger of Brabant, John of Jandun) and in some representatives of the Franciscan School (William Ockham); in particular, Möbuss tries to highlight the relationship between Gersonides’ and Ockham’s doctrines of universals (see pp. 77–82).
Cf. Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 547–553.
For example, Glasner has shown the similarity between Yedayah’s doctrine of void and that found in two works ascribed to Duns Scotus: the authentic Quaestiones quodlibetales and the Quaestiones in octo libros Physicorum (by Marsilius of Inghen? See above, note 19). See R. Glasner, Yeda‘aya ha-Penini’s Unusual Conception of Void, “Science in Context” 10 (1997), 453–470, especially pp. 466–468.
See R. Glasner, A Fourteenth Century Scientific Philosophic Controversy. Jedaiah Ha-Penini’s Treatise on Opposite Motions and Book of Confutation (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1998.
The Treatise on Personal Forms is preserved in the ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, hébreu 984, ff. 66r–93v. For a summary and discussion of its contents, with reference to Scotus’s thought, see S. Pines, Individual Forms in the Teaching of Yeda‘aya Bedershi (in Hebrew), in Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1965, Hebrew section, 187–201, as reprinted in S. Pines, Studies in the History of Jewish Philosophy: The Transmission of Texts and Ideas (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1977, 263–276, especially pp. 270–274; cf. also the sketch in Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, pp. 356–357 and notes.
See M. Zonta, Una disputa sugli universali nella logica ebraica del Trecento. Shemuel di Marsiglia contro Gersonide nel Supercommentario all’Isagoge di Yehudah ben Ishaq Cohen, “Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale” 11 (2000), pp. 409–458.
See S. Pines, Joseph Ibn Caspi’s and Spinoza’s Opinion on the Probability of a Restoration of a Jewish State (in Hebrew), “Iyyun” 14 (1964), 289–317, as reprinted in S. Pines, Studies in the History of Jewish Philosophy. The Transmission of Texts and Ideas (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1977, 277–305, especially p. 283.
W. Z. Harvey, Nissim of Gerona and William of Ockham on Prime Matter, “Jewish History” 6 (1992), 87–98.
Cf. C. Sirat, Un recueil de questions, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les méthodes de travail de Gersonide, 149–157.
These facts have been noted by Gad Freudenthal in the case of Gersonides, but they hold true for most of the authors in question: see G. Freudenthal, Gersonide, génie solitaire. Remarques sur l’évolution de sa pensée et de ses méthodes sur quelques points, in Sirat, Klein-Braslavy and Weijers (eds.), Les m’ethodes de travail de Gersonide, 291–317.
See Ch.H. Manekin, When the Jews Learned Logic from the Pope: Three Medieval Hebrew Translations of the Tractatus of Peter of Spain, “Science in context” 10 (1997), 395–430.
See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 123–129, 138–139.
The “non-citation” of Christian sources in Jewish philosophical texts before the fifteenth century (with the exclusion of the Italian authors mentioned above) is traditionally explained as a sort of “literary custom”: see Pines, Scholasticism, p. 51. Very recently, Gad Freudenthal has questioned this explanation, by pointing out that some fourteenth century Provençal Jewish authors did occasionally refer to Christian scholars as “the sages of the nations” or in similar ways (although they never called them by name, and mentioned them only in the context of personal oral contacts); consequently, the fact that some authors (in particular, Gersonides) did not even mention Christian scholars in these terms seems to indicate that either they had no real contacts with them qua philosophers and scientists, or, more plausibly, that such contacts were not determining for the development of their own thought: see Freudenthal, Gersonide, génie solitaire, pp. 314–315.
On this point, cf. Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, p. 353.
See W.Z. Harvey, Hasdai Crescas and Bernat Metge on the Soul (in Hebrew), “Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought” 5 (1986), 141–154; Id., L’ánima: un tema com ú a Rabí Hasday Cresques i Bernat Metge, “Calls” 4 (1990), 53–68.
W. Z. Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas, “Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought” 6, Amsterdam 1999, p. 138.
Pines, Scholasticism, p. 501.
Pines, Scholasticism, pp. 502–532. Cf. also Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics, pp. 118, 145–146, who claims that Crescas’s doctrine of the divine will should be traced back to an evident Scotist influence.
See A. Ravitzky, Crescas’ Sermon on the Passover and Studies in His Philosophy (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1988, pp. 49–60.
See Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics, pp. 23–29.
Cf. Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, p. 360 and note 81.
See Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, p. 362.
See Ravitzky, Crescas’ Sermon, pp. 38–43.
Pines, Scholasticism, p. 510.
R. Hasdai Crescas, Sefer bittul iqqarei ha-Nozrim, trans. by Joseph Ben Shem Tov, ed. D.J. Lasker, Ramat-Gan-Beer Sheva 1980. In the notes to this edition, Lasker gives many references to medieval Christian theological sources (mostly to passages of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologica and Summa contra Gentiles); but none of these references corresponds to a literal quotation of a Latin text in Crescas’s work.
See, e.g., the unorthodox doctrine of Jesus’ “glorified body”, which Crescas might have taken from Bonaventure, Albert the Great or William of Auvergne (cf. Hasdai Crescas, Sefer bittul, ed. Lasker, p. 72 note 16), or the doctrine about the sin of the demons (cf. ibidem, p. 90 note 4). On this and other similar cases, cf. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, pp. 178–180.
Cf. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 179.
Cf. Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 181, quoting F. Talmage, The Polemical Writings of Profiat Duran, “Immanuel” 13 (1981), 69–85.
See J. Shatzmiller, Etudiants juifs à la faculté de médecine de Montpellier, dernier quart du XIVe siècle, “Jewish History” 6 (1992), 243–255, pp. 248–252.
However, some isolated traces of “Hebrew Scholasticism” have been recently discovered also in late fifteenth century Provence. Some instances of an “encounter between Arab and Scholastic logic in Hebrew writings” have been detected in a series of comments on Averroes’s Compendium of the Organon, sometimes ascribed to Moses Narboni, but actually written by the Provençal physician Mordecai Natan (fl. 1450–1470): see Ch.H. Manekin, Some Aspects of the Assertoric Syllogism in Medieval Hebrew Logic, “History and Philosophy of Logic” 17 (1996), 49–71, pp. 66–67.
See, e.g., R. Lerner, Natural Law in Albo’s Book of Roots, in J. Cropsey (ed.), Ancients and Moderns, New York 1964, 132–147, who points out Albo’s use of Thomas Aquinas’s fourfold division of law (in his Summa theologica and in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics); cf. also Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 182 and notes 53–55.
See below, chapter 1, list of Bibago’s works, on number 15.
See below, chapter 3.
See S. Heller-Wilensky, The Philosophy of Isaac Arama in the Framework of Philonic Philosophy (in Hebrew), Jerusalem-Tel Aviv 1956, pp. 64 note 7, 186 note 9, 190 note 13a, 218–219 note 69 (most of these references concern Thomas Aquinas).
See, e.g., Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 80 note 238 (on Abravanel’s quotations of Paul of Venice) and p. 486, §297, no. 7 (on his quotations of Thomas Aquinas and other Christian authors); B.Z. Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel. Statesman and Philosopher, Philadelphia 1982, pp. 295–316, various notes (on Abravanel’s apparent dependence on Thomas’s works, in particular on his Summa theologica); A. Melamed, Abravanel and Aristotle’s Politics: A Drama of Errors (in Hebrew), “Daat” 29 (1992), 69–82 (on Abravanel’s reading of Aristotle’s Politics through the mediation of Scholastic commentaries on the Politics). For a general historical overview of this literature, see C. Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press 1985, pp. 345–397; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 500–512.
See the many examples given by Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, pp. 176–177.
See, e.g., the marginal corrections of the Hebrew translation of pseudo-Aristotle’s Economics, found in some fifteenth century Spanish manuscripts, pointed out in M. Zonta, La tradizione ebraica degli scritti economici greci, “Athenaeum” 84 (1996), 549–554; cf. also Id., La filosofia antica, pp. 135–136, 260–262.
Cf. below, chapters 2 and 3. There still exists a Hebrew-Latin philosophical glossary, written in Spain in the fifteenth century and preserved in the ms. Moscow, Rossiskaia Gosudarstvennaia Bibliotheka, Günzburg 264, ff. 111–112: see J.-P. Rothschild, Remarques sur la tradition manuscrite du glossaire hébreuitalien du commentaire de Moïse de Salerne au Guide des égarés, in J. Hamesse and D. Jacquart (eds.), Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique (Moyen Age-Renaissance), Turnhout 2001, 49–88, pp. 59, 75 (number 27).
Cf. the analysis of his introduction to the Hebrew translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (as published in L.V. Berman, The Latin-to-Hebrew Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics [in Hebrew], “Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought” 7 [1988], 147–168, pp. 157–158) in Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 83–85.
See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 131–132: Bonafed wrote that a student of his contemporary and countryman Isaac Arondi employed a Christian scholar to teach him logic in Latin; he himself admitted the superiority of Scholastic logic over the old Arabic logic (see Sh. Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology in Jewish Philosophy in the 14th Century, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1973, pp. 37–38). Cf. also M. Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context: Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries, in Frank and Leaman (eds.), History of Jewish Philosophy, 294–330, p. 318 note 55, p. 320 note 79.
See below, chapter 3.
Garçon’s ambiguous mention of attendance at the yeshivat ha-hokmot hahissuniyyot, lit. “the academy of external sciences” (quoted in J. Hacker, On the Intellectual Character and Self-Perception of Spanish Jewry in the Late Fifteenth Century [in Hebrew], “Sefunot” 17, n.s. 2 [1983], 21–95, pp. 55–56), may refer either to a Christian school, or to a Jewish academy where philosophy and other “profane” sciences were taught (as recently suggested by C. Sirat, Looking at Latin books, understanding Latin texts. Different attitudes in different Jewish communities, paper read at the international colloquium Hebrew to Latin-Latin to Hebrew. The Mirroring of Two Cultures in the Age of Humanism, The Warburg Institute, London, October 18th–19th, 2004).
Cf. the overview by Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context, pp. 305–306, who, however, seems rather skeptical about the “institutional” status of these schools.
See M. Saperstein, “Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn”: Themes and Texts in Traditional Jewish Preachings, “Monographs of the Hebrew Union College” 18, Cincinnati 1996, pp. 83–86, 200–207. These sermons belong to the literary genre of the “collection of philosophical sermons”, widespread in fifteenth century Spanish Judaism: see Ackerman, Jewish Philosophy, p. 382.
Cf. Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, p. 503 (quoting D. Boyarin, Sephardi Speculation: A Study in Methods of Talmudic Interpretation [in Hebrew], Jerusalem 1989, pp. 47–68).
Cf. H. Tirosh-Rothschild, Human Felicity—Fifteenth-Century Sephardic Perspectives on Happiness, in Cooperman (ed.), In Iberia and Beyond, 191–243, pp. 205–206; cf. also J.-P. Rothschild, Les philosophes juifs d’Espagne au XVe siècle, l’Ethique à Nicomaque et le projet philosophique de Joseph Ibn Shem Tob (étude preparatoire), in J.M. Soto Rabanos (ed.), Pensamiento medieval hispano. Homenaje a Horacio Santiago Otero, 2 vols., Madrid 1998, Vol. 2, 1289–1316.
Cf. on the latter A.R.D. Padgen, The Diffusion of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy in Spain, ca. 1400–ca. 1600, “Traditio” 31 (1975), 287–313.
See L.V. Berman, Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics in Medieval Hebrew Literature, in J. Jolivet (ed.), Multiple Averroès, Paris 1978, 287–321.
Berman, however, argues that the supercommentary was possibly written in a philosophical circle of followers of Samuel of Marseilles, active in Provence around 1350 (see A.Z. [L.V.] Berman, A Manuscript Named “Shoshan Limmudim” and its Relationship to a Provençal “Circle of Scholars” [in Hebrew], “Kiryath Sepher” 53 [1978], 368–372, p. 372).
See A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford 1886, c. 508, no. 1426 (Opp. 591); cf. also M. Beit-Arié and R. May, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library. Supplement of Addenda and Corrigenda to Vol. I (A. Neubauer’s Catalogue), Oxford 1994, c. 237. The supercommentary is also preserved in the mss. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. ebr. 556, and Leiden Bibliotheek der Rijks Universiteit, Or. 4786 (Warner 48).
Cf. L.V. Berman, The Hebrew Versions of Book Four of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 1981, p. 16.
Cf. J.-P. Rothschild, Le dessein philosophique de Joseph Ibn Shem Tob (flor. 1442–1455), “Revue des études juives” 162 (2003), 97–122.
Cf. Tirosh-Rothschild, Human Felicity, pp. 212–224. Tirosh-Rothschild has pointed out striking similarities between Ibn Shem Tov’s analysis of human felicity in the first pages of his work, and the Summa contra Gentiles, book III, chapters 18–25. Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 487, had already noted traces of Ibn Shem Tov’s apparently direct knowledge of Thomas Aquinas’ works, as well as of Peter Lombard’s Sententiae. On Ibn Shem Tov’s critique of Scholastic casuistry, with references (not always correct!) to Ockham and Raymond Lull, see Manekin, Scholastic Logic, p. 131, who mentions a passage of Ibn Shem Tov’s commentary on Profiat Duran’s Alteca Boteca (as quoted in Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, p. 45).
See the text of the supercommentary in the ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, hébreu 967, ff. 205r–343v, in particular f. 341r, where a quotation of “Thomas” (T. omas) might refer to Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Physicorum, book VIII, lectio 21, §2.
See ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, hébreu 967, ff. 172r–204v, on f. 181v.
See ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, hébreu 967, ff. 110r–171v, on f. 112r (the text of this supercommentary is also preserved in the ms. New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, microfilm 2341, ff. 317r–352r).
On Joseph and Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov’s dependence on Scholastic literary genres for some of their philosophical works (a sort of auctoritates and a tabula of the Nicomachean Ethics), see also Zonta, La filosofia antica, p. 262.
See L.M. de Rijk, The Commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in O. Weijers and L. Holtz (eds.), L’enseignement des disciplines à la Faculté des Arts, Turnhout 1997, 303–312, p. 312: in Christian universities, only books I–II, IV–X and XII of the Metaphysics were part of the official curriculum.
On these fifteenth century translations, see the historical skech in Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 258–262, 269–274.
Cf. T. Carreras y Artau and J. Carreras y Artau, Historia de la filosofia española. Filosofia cristiana de los siglos XIII al XV, 2 vols., Madrid 1939–1943, Vol. 2, pp. 564–585.
See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo’s works, on numbers D.3.1. and D.3.2.
I owe this observation to prof. Kent Emery, Jr. (University of Notre Dame, Indiana).
The unique manuscript of this translation has been now rediscovered. See the Hebrew text of Ibn Nahmias’s introduction as published by Senior Sachs in “Kerem Hemed” 8 (1854), pp. 110–111 note; see also Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, pp. 485–486, and Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 156–157. Ibn Nahmias’s translation may be one of the sources of the anonymous Hebrew commentary on the Metaphysics in the ms. Leiden Bibliotheek der Rijks Universiteit, Or. 4796 (Warner 58). The latter is almost completely preserved (only the beginning is lost) and was probably written in Spain in the fifteenth century (cf. M. Steinschneider, Catalogus codicum Hebraeorum Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, Lugduni Batavorum 1858, p. 264); it consists in a sort of Scholastic expositio of the Metaphysics, and includes several quaestiones in which “Thomas” (Tomas) is quoted as a source (cf. f. 29v, last line). A possible quotation from Ibn Nahmias’s translation is contained in one of Isaac Aboab’s rabbinical sermons, written in 1490–1493: see Saperstein, “Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn”, p. 79 note 17.
See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo’s works, on numbers D.1.1. and D.1.2.
See below, chapter 3, on numbers D.1.4. and D.1.3. According to Moses Almosnino (Greece, sixteenth century), Isaac Abravanel translated into Hebrew Thomas’s Quaestio de spiritualibus creaturis, but this translation is now apparently lost (see Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, p. 295 note 72; cf. Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 487).
See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo’s works, on number D.2.
See Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 468.
See Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 267–268 and note 25. This translation—undertaken by an anonymous scholar probably active in Spain before 1460–1470, and preserved in the mss. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, hébreu 1004, ff. 106r–117r, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Reggio 44, ff. 30r–39v—is different from the one found in the ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Michael 288, ff. 112r–126r, completed in 1537 in Italy by Elijah Nolano (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 476): see Zonta, La filosofia antica, 269. The same translator translated into Hebrew a book De anima falsely ascribed to Robert Grosseteste, which has no parallel in the Latin tradition: see Zonta, La filosofia antica, p. 268 and note 26, and Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, pp. 476–477.
As for Albert of Orlamünde and the (pseudo?)-Marsilius, both translated by Abraham Shalom, see below, chapter 3.
On this translation, found in a unique manuscript, see A. Melamed, The anonymous Hebrew translation of Aegidius’ De Regimine Principum: an unknown chapter in medieval Jewish political philosophy, “Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale” 5 (1994), 439–461. This translation was possibly produced in early-fifteenth century Spain, shortly after two previous Iberian translations of Giles’s work (one in Castilian around 1350, and the other in Catalan at the end of the fourteenth century).
See below, chapter 3, list of Habillo’s works, on number D.4.3.
See Zonta, La filosofia antica, pp. 262–267; Id., Le origini letterarie e filosofiche delle versioni ebraiche del De consolatione philosophiae di Boezio, in F. Israel, A.M. Rabello and A.M. Somekh (eds.), Hebraica. Miscellanea di studi in onore di Sergio J. Sierra per il suo 75° compleanno, Torino 1998, 571–604, especially pp. 572–585; cf. also F. Ziino, The Catalan Tradition of Boethius’s De consolatione: a New Hypothesis, “Carmina Philosophiae. Journal of the International Boethius Society” 10 (2001), 31–37.
Cf. Ackerman, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 380–381; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 504–505.
See below, chapter 3.
See Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 130–133.
See, e.g., Lasker, The Impact of Christianity, p. 183, according to whom “the more involved a Jewish author was with anti-Christian polemics, the more impact Christianity had on his works”. Lasker’s thesis has been judged as “trop systematique” by Rothschild, Remarques, p. 63 note 18.
Giuseppe Sermoneta (in his La dottrina dell’intelletto, pp. 75–76 note 159) has very aptly compared early fourteenth century “Hebrew Scholasticism” in Italy with late fifteenth century “Hebrew Scholasticism” in Spain, and has defined Habillo “the Spanish Judah Romano”.
See Ackerman, Jewish Philosophy, p. 381; Manekin, Scholastic Logic, p. 131: “One may even speak of a coalition of interests between Christian and Jewish philosophy, both increasingly theologically conservative, against the philosophical naturalism of an earlier age”. On the “conservative” tendency of fifteenth century Jewish philosophy in Spain, see H.A. Davidson, Medieval Jewish Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century, in B.D. Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts-London 1983, 106–145, p. 112.
One can consider, e.g., some statements found in Abraham Ibn Nahmias’s introduction to his translation of Thomas’s commentary on the Metaphysics: Abraham criticises some contemporary Jews for their hostility to philosophy, and attributes it to their lack of understanding of the relationship between philosophy and religion. He praises Christian scholars (hakmey ha-Noserim) for their results in this field, thus emphasising the necessity of studying their philosophy (cf. Sachs’s article cited above [note 82], p. 110; cf. Steinschneider, Hebraeischen ÜUbersetzungen, p. 485).
See the remarks in M. Zonta, Einige Bemerkungen über “hebräische Scholastik” im 15. Jahrhundert in Spanien und Italien, “Im Gespräch” 7 (2003), 52–60, pp. 53–56.
See M. Zonta, Arabic and Latin Glosses in Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical Texts and Their Relation to Hebrew Philosophical Dictionaries, in Hamesse and Jacquart (eds.), Lexiques bilingues, 31–48, pp. 44–48; Id., The Relationship between Hebrew and Latin Philosophical Vocabularies in the Late Middle Ages, in J. Hamesse and C. Steel (eds.), L’elaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au Moyen Age, Turnhout 2000, 147–156.
Cf., e.g., the references to Thomas Aquinas in the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by Baruch Ibn Ya’ish’s school: see below, chapter 2.
In the list of glossaries in Rothschild, Remarques, pp. 70–88, only the ms. Warsaw, Zydowsky Instytut Historyczny, no. 255 (containing Latin translations of Hebrew philosophical and scientific terms of Abraham Ibn’ Ezra’s Reshit hokmah) can surely be ascribed to this period (1460) and area (the Tuscan town of Lucca) (see ibidem, p. 88, number 90)
Cf. Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context, p. 301 and note 46; Rudavsky, The Impact of Scholasticism, p. 350; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, p. 512 (cf. also the bibliography quoted there, especially Robert Bonfil’s writings on this subject). On the Jewish attendance at university courses in fifteenth century Italy, see also Shatzmiller, Etudiants juifs, pp. 244–246; J. Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1994, pp. 27–35. In fifteenth century Italian Jewish authors there is also some possible evidence of the knowledge of contemporary university practices, such as, e.g., the so-called disputationes circulares in Bologna: see Zonta, Una disputa, p. 412.
On Messer Leon’s academy, see Saperstein, The Social and Cultural Context, p. 306 and note 78; see also the data provided below, chapter 4.
Cf. A.L. Ivry, Remnants of Jewish Averroism in the Renaissance, in Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought, 243–265, pp. 243–245; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 512–519.
For a general historical overview of “Humanism” in fifteenth century Italian Jewish philosophy, see Sirat, A History, pp. 398 ff.; Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 519–525. Cf. also H. Tirosh-Rothschild, In Defence of Jewish Humanism, “Jewish History” 3 (1988), 31–57.
On the sources of The Honeycomb’s Flow, see Judah Messer Leon, Nofet Zufim On Hebrew Rhetoric, ed. R. Bonfil, Jerusalem 1981, pp. 54–69; see also A. Altmann, Ars Rhetorica as Reflected in Some Jewish Figures of the Italian Renaissance, in Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought, 1–22, pp. 5–13.
On the diffusion of Scholastic logic in fifteenth century Italian Jewish culture, see Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 134–138.
See Zonta, Einige Bemerkungen, p. 56.
See Manekin, When the Jews, p. 423, who points out three features of Judah’s translation: “Great commitment to the Latin original (...); linguistic accuracy, even to the extent of the Hebrew syntax mirroring the Latin; the adoption of new Hebrew philosophical terms, or new meanings for old ones that better capture the Latin”.
See Zonta, The Relationship, pp. 152–153.
On Judah Messer Leon as a “Hebrew Schoolman”, see the sketch in Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 514–515; Manekin, Scholastic Logic, pp. 137–138 (where he is defined as “a scholastic logician writing in Hebrew”); see also below, chapter 4.
On these sources, see M. Zonta, Scholastic Commentaries in Hebrew: Some Notes About Judah Messer Leon (Italy, 15th Century), in G. Fioravanti, C. Leonardi and S. Perfetti (eds.), Il commento filosofico nell’Occidente latino (secoli XIII–XV), Turnhout 2002, 379–400; see also below, chapter 4.
See below, chapter 4. Thomas’s works were not totally neglected by fifteenth century Italian Jewish authors: see, e.g., Elijah del Medigo’s explicit reference to the Summa contra Gentiles (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 487 note 149), or the quotation of Thomas’s commentary on the Metaphysics (Tomaso be-ve’uro le-Mah she-’ahar) in the anonymous commentary on some parts of Avicenna’s Canon, book I, preserved in the ms. Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana, Pluteo LXXXVIII no. 26, folios 81r–91r, f. 81r (copied in fifteenth century Italy).
On this translation, see Manekin, When the Jews, pp. 422–425; Id., Scholastic Logic, pp. 136–137.
Bonafous Bonfil Astruc’s translation, written in 1423 in Macerata Feltria (now in the Italian province of Pesaro-Urbino), was published by S. Sierra, Boezio De consolatione philosophiae. Traduzione ebraica di’ Azaria ben r. Joseph Ibn Abba Mari..., Turin-Jerusalem 1967. On its possible sources (not only Boethius’ original work, but also two Scholastic commentaries on it, by the pseudo-Thomas Aquinas and by Nicholas Trevet), see Zonta, Le origini, pp. 586–604.
This translation was inserted by an anonymous scribe into the text of Abraham Avigdor’s Hebrew version of the Tractatus: see the ms. Paris, Biblioth’eque Nationale de France, hébreu 929, written in 1472 (Manekin, Scholastic Logic, p. 135).
This translation, preserved in the unique ms. New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, microfilm 2312, was completed in Senigallia (province of Pesaro-Urbino) in 1474. See Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, pp. 475–476; Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, p. 107.
This work was translated into Hebrew by Moses Ibn Habib (d. c. 1505), a Jewish physician, philosopher and grammarian from Lisbon, probably around the end of the fifteenth century (see Steinschneider, Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, pp. 776–777). There is evidence that from c. 1480 onwards Ibn Habib lived in Italy, first in Naples and then in Bitonto and Otranto (in Puglia): see A. David, Ibn Habib, Moses ben Shem Tov, in Encyclopaedia Judaica, CD Rom Edition. Version 1.0, Judaica Multimedia (Israel) 1997.
On Farissol, see D.B. Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, Cincinnati 1981; cf. also below, chapter 4, note 3.
See M. Idel, The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance, in Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought, 186–242 (about Alemanno’s role); H. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds. The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon, Albany 1991; cf. also Ead., Jewish Philosophy, pp. 515, 525–529.
On Elijah del Medigo’s works and thought, see D.M. Geffen, Faith and Reason in Elijah Del Medigo’s Behinat Ha-Dat and the Philosophic Backgrounds of the Work, Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1970 (non vidi); Id., Insight into the Life and Thought of Elijah Del Medigo Based on His Published and Unpublished Works, “Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research” 41–42 (1973–1974), 69–86; cf. also J.J. Ross’ introduction to Eliyyahu Del Medigo, Sefer behinat ha-dat, ed. and trans. J.J. Ross, Tel Aviv 1984, 11–61, and Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 515–517.
On del Medigo’s Averroism, see the overview in Ivry, Remnants, pp. 250–261; see also S. Feldman, The End and Aftereffects of Medieval Jewish Philosophy, in Frank and Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion, pp. 414–445, pp. 416–420.
Del Medigo’s Hebrew versions of the above mentioned philosophical works, which are still unpublished, appear to differ from their Latin originals only in some passages, concerning autobiographical data and references to religious questions. See K.P. Bland, Elijah del Medigo’s Averroist Response to the Kabbalahs of Fifteenth-Century Jewry and Pico della Mirandola, “The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy” 1 (1991), 23–53; Id., Delmedigo, Elijah, in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 10 vols., London and New York 1998, Vol. 2, 861–863.
See J.B. Sermoneta, Scholastic Philosophic Literature in Yosef Taitazak’s Porat Yosef (in Hebrew), “Sefunot” 11 (1971–1978), 137–185.
See Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, pp. 531–545; see also Ead. (under the name H. Tirosh-Samuelson), The Ultimate End of Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature, in B.R. Gampel (ed.), Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, 1391–1648, New York 1997, 223–254, 351–380, pp. 232–233 and notes (about Almosnino’s Scholastic sources in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics), and Ead., Happiness in Premodern Judaism. Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being, “Monographs of the Hebrew Union College” 29, Cincinnati 2003, pp. 423–438; cf. also below, chapter 2.
See Tirosh-Rothschild, Jewish Philosophy, p. 518; see also Ead. (under the name H. Tirosh-Samuelson), Theology of Nature in Sixteenth-Century Italian Jewish Philosophy, “Science in context” 10 (1997), 521–570, especially pp. 524–536. Cf. also R. Bonfil, The Doctrine of the Soul and Holiness in the Teachings of Obadia Sforno (in Hebrew), “Eshel Beer Sheva” 1 (1976), 200–257. Bonfil points out the similarities between a question about the immortality of the soul in Sforno’s The Light of the Nations (’Or ‘ammim) and Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologica, I, q. 75 (De homine), a. 6. Bonfil stresses the “Hebrew Scholastic” character of The Light of the Nations, which was even translated into Latin by the author: in Renaissance Italy, “Hebrew Schoolmen” like Sforno and Elijah del Medigo were apparently eager for their Christian colleagues to know the results of their work.
Among the best few recent works on this subject, one should mention Jean-Pierre Rothschild’s study of some of Eli Habillo’s “Scholastic” philosophical questions: cf. below, chapter 3, note 9.
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(2006). Introduction. In: Hebrew Scholasticism in the Fifteenth Century. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3716-3_1
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