Abstract
He tries to teach humbly some of his knowledge, and is not like other arrogant philosophers. If we can change the things, things change us. Adaptation to the world is very important. Stoic tradition is to avoid pain as much as possible, without big issues or extremes in our conduct. Fortune changes all, everything changes in life, and those who are on the top may later be at the bottom; thus, we need to change. His philosophy should not be disregarded because he is Jewish, as in what seems to be worst is sometimes the best, a rose between thorns. Truth comes not from Authority, but from unexpected places. Quality, although low, can be stronger than quantity.
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Notes
- 1.
Ibidem, 35.
- 2.
Ibidem, 36.
- 3.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 37.
- 4.
In the modern version of Carl Orff: “Oh Fortune, as a moon of variable state, always rising and then waning (...), Fortune’s wheel turns and I go down while another rises high”.
- 5.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit. 40–41.
- 6.
Ibidem, 42.
- 7.
Ibidem, 44.
- 8.
Ibidem, 47–48.
- 9.
Ibidem, 50–51.
- 10.
Ibidem, 52.
- 11.
Perry points out that it is a proverb from the Talmud about how bad parents can have pious children: “Stein refers to Shir ha-Shirim Rabba I; it also occurs in Yalkut Shumuel, no. 134. T. A. Perry, The Moral proverbs of Santob de Carrión (Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain), Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 68–69.
- 12.
Luis M. Girón-Negrón, “La rosa y el espino de Santob de Carrión: Breve nota sobre un motivo filosófico”, in Pedro Manuel Piñero Ramírez (Editor), Dejar hablar a los textos: Homenaje a Francisco Márquez Villanueva, Seville, Universidad de Sevilla, 2005, p. 251.
- 13.
T. A. Perry, The Moral proverbs of Santob de Carrión (Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain), Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 6, like a topos, at the same simulated humility, says Perry, and Jewish self-scorn.
- 14.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., p. 252.
- 15.
Wolberus, “Comentary on the Song of Songs”, en Patrología Latina, 195, col. 1094: “Sicut ego inter Judaeos, quos expectavi ut facerem uvam, fecerunt autem spinas... Vel sicut mea secundum carnem mater Maria quae est. lilium candore virginitatis et odore sanctitatis, inter Synagogae filias, quae veluti spinae eam pungebat.” Quoted by T. A. Perry, The Moral proverbs of Santob de Carrión (Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain), Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 70–71.
- 16.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., p. 253.
- 17.
Ibidem, p. 254.
- 18.
Ibidem, p. 255.
- 19.
T.A. Perry, The Moral proverbs of Santob de Carrión (Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain), Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 66–67.
- 20.
See Francisco Márquez Villanueva, Investigaciones sobre Juan Álvarez Gato, Madrid, Real Academia Española, 1960, p. 194. Márquez also speaks about how some verses by Álvarez Gato seem to be inspired by Santob, e.g. “por naçer en ell espino/ no valen las flores menos” and also points out other coincidences (pp. 194 and following, and also when he speaks of the proverbs of the Rabbi from Carrion, saying that he probably knew them: “puesto que sus ecos no eran raros como símbolo de la cultura hebrea en el siglo XV (...) el famoso rabí, cuyo nombre llegaba a ser antonomásico del judaísmo.” p. 195. He points out other coincidences on pp. 241, 285, 291 and 312.
- 21.
Pedro Alfonsi, Disciplina Clericalis, edition and transcription of Ángel González Palencia, Madrid, CSIC, 1948, p. 15.
- 22.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 55–57.
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Galán Díez, I. (2017). Prologue. In: The Birth of Thought in the Spanish Language. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50977-8_12
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