Abstract
The prime target of the anti-philosophic fundamentalists in the Second Maimonidean Controversy (1303–1305) was Rabbi Levi ben Abraham ben Ḥayyim. He was born in about 1235 in Ville-franche-de-Conflent in the province of Roussillon, and died after 1305.1 He was one of the more interesting Maimonidean philosophers in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. His knowledge of philosophy, science, and biblical exegesis is impressive, and he wrote two encyclopedias: Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim (Brooches and Charms) and Livyat Ḥen (Chaplet of Grace).
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See Ernest Renan, Les Rabbins français du commencement du quatorzième siècle (Paris, 1877), 628–47. Levi was apparently over forty in 1276 when he wrote Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim (see below, n. 36). In his Complaint against Fate, appended to Book 1 of that work (Israel Davidson, “The First Book of Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim” [Hebrew], Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 5 [1939]: 42, 1. 248), he calls himself “young” (ani ‘ul yamim shanai ṣe’irim), but the Complaint could have been written before 1276. The oft-repeated assertion that he was in Aries in 1315 is based on a misreading of the colophon quoted below in n. 10.
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS, héb. 978 (Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem [IMHM], 33985). More than a dozen MSS are known. The introduction and Books 1 and 7 have been edited by Israel Davidson. See his “L’Introduction de Levi ben Abraham à son encyclopédie poétique, ” Revue des études juives 105 (1940): 80–94; idem, “The First Book” (above, n. 1), 3–42 (and see his “Researches in Medieval Hebrew Poetry, ” Jewish Quarterly Review 29 [1939]: 386–7); and idem, “Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayyim: A Mathematician of the XHIth Century, “ Scripta Mathe-matica 4 (1936): 57–66. Lifted out of its context in Isaiah, the phrase battei ha-nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim (brooches and charms) could be translated as “Stanzas on the Soul and on Divine Secrets.” In his introduction, Levi explains: “I called these stanzas [battim] Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim, for their aim is to speak about the true nature of the souls [ha-nefashim] and about the secrets of the Creator [laḥashei ha-bore’] and His holy Names, and the mysteries of His creations, ” etc. (Davidson, “L’Introduction, ” 89, 11. 140–142). Cf. the Rabbinic expression “endowed with understanding of laḥash” (bHag 14a); see Maimo-nides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago 1963), I, 34, 78; Davidson, “The First Book, ” 38, 1. 226.
Davidson, “L’Introduction, “ 88, 11. 150–73.
Ibid., 86, 11. 57–58. Cf. Maimonides, Guide I, introduction, 5; 55, 129; 68, 166; 73, 209.
Ibid., 86, 11. 76–80. Levi admits “poetry is not my art” (89, 1. 118), and despite his effort to achieve lucidity, some of his distichs are opaque. Davidson, however, considers him “a true poet, ” attributes his admission to humility, and the problematic distichs to the intrinsic difficulty of putting science into verse (“First Book, ” 7–8).
Davidson, “L’Introduction, “ 84, 11. 25–26 (alluding to Isa. 48:16).
Ibid., 85, 1.45.
Ibid., 87, 11. 83–87. Cf. Ezek. 1:4; 2:9, et al.; Zech. 4:1; Ezek. 2:1, 3, et al; and Num. 23:5 (with irony).
Davidson, “L’Introduction, ” 90, 11. 182–183.
See Colette Sirat, “Les différentes versions du Liwyat Ḥen de Levi ben Abraham,” Revue des études juives 122 (1963): 167–77; Gad Freudenthal, “Sur la partie astronomique du Liwyat Ḥen de Lévi ben Abraham ben Ḥayyim, “ Revue des études juives 148 (1989): 103–12. As for the name Livyat Hen, it is clear from Prov. 1:9 and 4:9 that livyah (a cognate of “Levi”) refers to an ornament for the head (chaplet, coronet, garland); cf. also 1 Kings 7:29–30, 36. The name may be translated “The Chaplet of Grace, “ “The Fair Garland, “ etc. In Proverbs, livyat Ḥen is applied to Wisdom; in the Mishnah (Avot VI, 7), it is applied to the Law. Regarding the revisions of the Livyat Ḥen, Levi apologizes: “I confess to every scholar that when I recently made this copy of the book, I changed certain passages, altered the order of many topics, made some corrections, and added many new things, as I have done on previous occasions [ke-fa’am be-fa’am]. This copy was completed in the city of Aries at the end of the year 5055 [= 1295]&. I request of anyone who has come into possession of one of the previous versions that he correct it according to this last version [be-zot ha-nusḥa ha-aharonah], or replace it with this one, giving her royal estate to another that is better than she [cf. Esther 1:19]” (Livyat Ḥen, Vatican MS Ebr. 192 [IMHM 246], colophon, fol. 147r). Even after the 1295 recension, Levi continued his revisions. A passage in I, 3, 20 (Vatican MS Ebr. 383 [IMHM 484], fol. 103v) gives the current date (ha-’et she-anaḥnu bo) as 5059 (= 1299). See Freudenthal, “Partie astronomique du Liwyat Ḥen, “ 106.
The fragment from Livyat Ḥen, I, 2 is preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS héb 1050 (IMHM 14646), fols. 48v–50r, which mentions “the Part on Geometry” (be-ḥeleq ḥokhmat ha-tishboret). At the beginning of I, 3, Vatican MS 383 (above, n. 10), lr, there is a reference to a discussion in I, 2 on “some propositions of geometry” (qeṣat kolelim min ha-middot). See Freudenthal, “Partie astronomique du Lirvyat Ḥen, ” 104.
Book 3 is found in Vatican MS 383 and other MSS. Its division into two parts is clear, but not made explicitly. See Freudenthal, “Partie astronomique du Liwyat Ḥen, “ 104–12.
At the end of Livyat Ḥen, I, 3, Cambridge, MS Add. 1563 (IMHM 17475), fol. 81v, there is a reference to the following “Book 4 on physics” (ba-Ḥokhmah ha-ṭiv’it). See Freudenthal, “Partie astronomique du Lirvyat Ḥen, ” 104.
The text from the short version is found in Oxford, Bodleian MS Michael 519 (= Neubauerl285) (IMHM 22099), fols. lr-15v; the one from the long in Paris MS 1050 (above, n. 11), fols. 60r–65r. See Sirat, “Les différentes versions du Limyat Ḥen, 170.
An early recension of II, 6, 1–2, is found in Oxford MS (above, n. 14), fols. 17v–108v. A late recension of all three parts of Book 6 is found in Munich MS hebr. 58 (IMHM 23117), fols. 2r-155v. Parma MS 1346 (= De Rossi 2904) (IMHM 13797), fols. lr-194v, contains a later recension of II, 6, 1; and Vatican MS 192 (above, n. 10), fols. lr-76r, contains a later recension of II, 6, 3. See Sirat, “Les différentes versions du Liwyat Ḥen, 170–3.
Vatican MS 192, fols. 84r–147v. See Sirat, “Les différentes versions du Lirvyat Ḥen” p. 173.
Parma MS (above, n. 15), fols. 171r–l77r. A similar (but less detailed) interpretation of Jacob’s wells is found in an explanatory comment Levi wrote on Battei ha-Nefesh, 1, 1. 230 (Davidson, “The First Book, “ 38–9). Cf. Maimonides’ division of the sciences in his Treatise on Logic, chap. 14.
Vatican MS 383, fol. 5r.
Davidson, “L’Introduction, ” 88, 11. 156–157.
Ibid., 84, IL 10–11.
Livyat Ḥen, II, 6, 2, 9 (“On the Creation of the World”), Munich MS (above, n. 15), fol. 87v: “God brought everything into existence after nonexistence and nothingness” (aḥar ha-he’der ve-ha-efes). Levi uses the phrase “after nonexistence, “ as opposed to “ex nihilo” (min ha-he’der), since the latter may refer to the eternal production of the world out of matter (= nihil). See Leo Back, “Zur Charakteristik des Levi ben Abraham ben Chajjim, ” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des fudentums (1900): 160–1; cf. my “A Third Approach to Maimonides’ Cosmogony-Prophetology Puzzle,” Harvard Theological Review 74 (1981): 289, n. 9 (reprinted in Maimonides, ed. Joseph A. Buijs [Notre Dame, 1988], 81, n. 9). Levi’s Aristotelianism is also compromised by Neoplatonism. Senior Sachs argued that Levi’s metaphysics is not Maimonidean, decisively influenced by Ibn Ezra, and similar to Friedrich Schelling; see Sachs, “Corrections, Omissions, and Additions” (Hebrew), in Kerem Chemed 8 (1854): 198–204.
See Abraham S. Halkin, “Why Was Levi ben Ḥayyim Hounded,” Proceedings of the American Academy f or Jewish Research 34 (1966): 65–76.
See Abba Mari of Lunel, Minḥat Qena’ot, in Teshuvot ha-Rashba, I, ed. Chaim Zalman Dimitrovsky (Jerusalem 1990), chaps. 28–35, 60–61, pp. 358–399, 524–548. Cf. Halkin, “Why Was Levi ben Ḥayyim Hounded, “ 66–7.
Back, “Zur Charakteristik des Levi ben Abraham ben Chajjim,” 28; Charles Touati, “La Controverse de 1303–1306 autour des études philosophiques et scientifiques,” Revue des études juives 127 (1968): 30–2 (reprinted in his Prophètes, talmudistes, philosophes [Paris 1990], 210–2).
Levi himself complained that the stars were at war with him (bi mi-mesillotam loḥamim) (Davidson, “First Book, 42, 11. 249–251). Perhaps believing in Levi’s unluckiness, Eliakim Carmoly speculated that his leaving Villefranche at the age of eighteen was due to an unrequited love for a fair damsel (La France Israélite [Paris 1858], 46).
Abraham Geiger lauded Levi as one of the first to reveal Maimonides’ esoteric views: “He was almost the first who with bold spirit fathomed the profound words of Maimonides, removed the veil spread over them, and revealed their secret” (“An Essay on Rabbi Levi bar Abraham bar Ḥayyim and Some of His Contemporaries” [in Hebrew], He-Ḥaluṣ 2 [1853]: 21). Colette Sirat brands Levi’s philosophy “strident and aggressive” (A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages [Cambridge 1985], 247). Dov Schwartz suggests that Levi was hounded because he held extreme views regarding astral magic (see his Astrologyah u-Magyah (Ramat Gan, 1999), 260); cf. below, n.52.
Joseph Kaspi (b. 1279), Gersonides (b. 1288), and Moses Narboni (b. 1300?) were young during the Second Maimonidean controversy; even Jedaiah ben Abraham of Béziers (b. 1280?), who participated in it, was not yet renowned as a philosopher. Moses ibn Tibbon was no longer alive. On Levi’s significance and influence, see Geiger (“Essay on Rabbi Levi, “ 22–3). Cf. Rabbi Isaac de Lattes, Sha’arei Ṣiyyon (c. 1372), gate 1: “The great scholar Rabbi Levi ben Abraham ben Ḥayyim was wise in every science, and composed awesome and wonderful compositions, among them the exceedingly noble and precious book Livyat Ḥen, whose virtue is known only to the few” (in Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri, Seder ha-Qabbalah, ed. S.Z. Havlin [Jerusalem and Cleveland 1995], addenda, 178).
According to Crescas Vidal of Perpignan, a correspondent of Rashba’s, Levi was a formidable Talmudist, but was teaching foreign books and languages to anyone who would hire him (sefer vi-leshon Kasdim le-khol sokher oto), from the elderly to the juvenile (Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 30, 369–370, 11. 56–57, 69–71). Rashba wished he were teaching “Gemara and Mishnah” (chap. 34, 393, 1. 45).
But cf. Davidson, “The First Book, ” 38, 11. 226–7. Levi eventually became cautious. WḤen Crescas Vidal asked to see a copy of his book (apparently Livyat Ḥen), he replied he had none (Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 30, 369, 11. 61–62). Vidal reported: “He is subtle [‘arum], and no one can plumb his intent or his mind, save his comrades who are like him; for wḤen he speaks with a [pietistic] individual & he is exceedingly subtle [‘arom ya’rim], “ and one knows not if he is a criminal or a saint (Ibid., 11. 57–61).
Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 34, 393, 11. 47–50. Levi’s letter to Rashba is unfortunately lost, not having been included in Minḥat Qena’ot.
Ibid., 393–394, 11. 40–41, 52–53. Rashba uses the word riṣpah (burning coal), which appears only once in the Bible. In Isaiah (6:6), a seraph touches the lips of the prophet with a riṣpah, removing his iniquity. If we extend the allusion, the philosophers are angels, philosophy removes iniquity, but pupils not of the caliber of Isaiah may get burned.
Ibid., 393, 1. 40; 394, 1. 53; cf. chap. 33, 384, 11. 146–147.
Ibid., chap. 99, 723, 11. 14–15 (Rashba, Responsa, old ed., no. 415). There were actually three bans (chapters 99–101 [nos. 415–417]): one for Barcelona and environs; one for all Jewish communities; and a third condemning allegorization.
Ibid., chap. 52, 479, 11. 149–151.
Ibid., chap. 99, 724, 11. 23–25; chap. Ill, 793, 11. 76–79.
Davidson, “First Book, “ 26, 1. 127. See Moshe Idel, “On the History of the Interdiction against the Study of Kabbalah before the Age of Forty” (Hebrew), AJS Review 5 (1980): 4–6; cf. Daniel Jeremy Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean Controversy (Leiden 1965), 41–5. If Levi heeded his own advice, he could not have composed Battei ha-Nefesh (in 1276) before the age of forty.
Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 101, 734, 1. 29. See Livyat Ḥen, II, 6, 1, 29 (“On the Story of Abraham”), Parma MS (above, n. 15), fol. 167r: Scripture “called Abraham’s excellent pure matter ‘Sarah, ‘ according to the sense of ‘you have been as a prince with angels’ [Gen. 32:29].” Abraham is explained to represent intellect or form (intellect = angel). Cf. II, 7, 2, Vatican MS 192 (above, n. 10), fol. 139r-v.
Minḥat Qena’ot, loc. cit., 11. 30–31. See Livyat Ḥen, he. cit., fol. 165v: “The War of the Kings & is a parable [mashal] about the human faculties. Although the simple meaning [peshaṭ] of Scripture is true, and one learns from it fine virtues, e.g., the virtue of bravery, and of compassion for one’s relatives, and the virtue of frugality, nonetheless it is possible to say, by way of heuristic exegesis [semekh] or homily [derash], that Scripture is making an allusion. The Four Kings are the are the four humors [or preferably] the four corporeal faculties ruling the body, namely, the vegetative, the vital, the particular sensitive, viz., the senses, and the general sensitive, viz., the common sense; or we could consider the sensitive faculty as one and include the imaginative faculty& . The Five Kings, who could not stand up against them, are the five faculties of the soul: memory, appetite, and the three rational faculties.” The Five Kings are victorious only wḤen led by Abraham, the Intellect. The apologetic second sentence (“Although” etc.) is absent in the earlier recensions of Livyat Ḥen (Oxford and Munich MSS), and found only in the later recension (Parma MS). It seems that wḤenever that later recension was made, Levi was already being hounded.
Minḥat Qena’ot, loc. cit., 11. 29–30. See Livyat Ḥen, loc. cit., chap. 26 (“The Vestments of the High Priest”), fol. 154v: “the Twelve Tribes are for the twelve constellations.” Levi attributes the identification of Jacob’s sons and the zodiac to the Mekhilta. Although not in our editions of the Mekhilta, it is in other Rabbinic works, e.g., Pesiqta Rabbati, 4; see Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 60, 534, 11. 128–132, and the editor’s notes ad loc. Cf. Israel Zinberg, A History ofjexvish Literature, trans, from Yiddish by Bernard Martin (Philadelphia 1973), 65: “While the sages of the Talmud saw in the twelve constellations an allusion to the twelve tribes of Israel, the author of Livyat Ḥen saw in the twelve tribes an allusion to the twelve constellations.”
Minḥat Qena’ot, loc. at., 1. 32. See Livyat Ḥen, loc. cit., fol. 153v. Levi cites this view in the name of Abraham ibn Ezra and Moses ibn Tibbon. See Ibn Ezra, Commentary on the Pentateuch, on Ex. 28:6 and Deut. 32:8; Moses Nahmanides, Commentary on the Pentateuch, on Ex. 28:30; Samuel ibn Ṣarṣah, Meqor Ḥayim (Mantua 1559), on Ex., ad loc; and Isaac Abrabanel, Commentary on the Pentateuch, ad loc.
Minḥat Qena’ot, loc. cit., 735, 11. 42–44. According to bShab 104a, the letters on the Tables were chiseled through the stone, and visible from both sides. Since the mem and samekh are closed letters (like the “o”), their insides would have fallen out unless suspended by miracle (or artifice). In mentioning the condemned interpretation of the mem and the samekh, the ban alludes unmistakably to Levi’s Livyat Ḥen, stating: “the master of these [allegorists] wrote” (rabban shel elu kalav). See Livyat Ḥen, loc. cit., chap. 9 (“The Tables”), fols. 66r-v: The dictum that “the mem and the samekh on the Tables stood by miracle” means that they were connected to the Tables by a thin peg (tag), “and close to tailing.” It does not refer to a supernatural miracle, for such miracles are performed only for a great need (le-ṣorelth gadol) and at a particular moment (le-fi sha’ah). Similarly, the Rabbis taught: “the bodies of the [two] cherubim [in the Temple sanctuary] stood by miracle” (bYoma 21a, bMeg 10b, bBB 99a). This refers to the fact that the cherubim’s spread wings were connected precariously to their bodies, and (lose to falling. Their wings had to be connected precariously, for their bodies were cramped underneath them owing to lack of room in the sanctuary (for the combined span of the two cherubim’s two wings was twenty cubits, and the length of the sanctuary was twenty cubits). This naturalistic text in the Livyat Ḥen deeply irked Rashba. He had written that even if “in all that he wrote in his compositions” Levi had made just this one error, it would be enough to condemn him, for it amounts to a denial of all miracles, since it derives from the subversive philosophic proposition (enunciated by Maimonides, Guide 111, 15, 459) that “the impossible has a permanent nature” (Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 61, 541–542, 11. 62–63; 546, 11. 126–133; cf. 296–297, 11. 192–195).
E.g., Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 60, 524–537. See Abraham S. Halkin, “Yedaiah Bedershi’s Apology,” in Jexvish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 165–184.
See Rashba, Perushei ha-Haggadot, ed. Leon A. Feldman (Jerusalem 1991), editor’s preface, 4–10.
E.g., Minḥat Qena’ot, chap. 101, 734, 1. 29: “from Creation through the Revelation of the Law, everything is a parable [mashal].” Cf. Rashba’s allusions to Maimonides, Guide 111, 15 (above, n. 41).
Levi probably would not have been condemned for Battei ha-Nefesh or for the First Pillar of Livyat Ḥen (Jachin). His radical interpretations are mostly in Boaz.
Parma MS (above, n. 15), fol. 73r.
Ibid. See Maimonides, Guide 11, 39, 380. Cf. his Commentary on the Mishnah, Avot, introduction (= Eight Chapters), chap. 4; and his Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot i.
Livyat Ḥen, loc. cit. See Maimonides, Guide, loc. cit. Pines translates al-rahbâniyyah and al-siyâhah as “monastic life and pilgrimage.” Ibn Tibbon’s revised translation of al-rahbâniyyah is paraphrastic: “the worship of one who isolates himself [mitboded] in the mountains and denies himself meat, wine, and many necessities of the body.” Cf. Maimonides’ criticism of ascetics in his Hilkhot De’ot iii.1, and Eight Chapters, loc. at. Cf. also Davidson, “The First Book,” 14, 1. 37. In Livyat Ḥen II, 6, 1, 12 (“On the Christian Religion”), Levi criticizes Christianity for its asceticism. The chapter was removed from the Parma MS (see Sirat, “Les différentes versions”, 174). It was published on the basis of the Munich MS by Joseph I. Kobak, Jeschurun 8 (1875): 1–13. Cf. Nachman Falbel, “On a Heretic Argument in Levi ben Abraham ben Chaiim’s Critique on Christianity,” in Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies (1977): History of the Jews in Europe (Jerusalem, 1981), 35–6.
On this dogma, cf. my survey in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Torah, Eternity (or Non-abrogability).”
Cf. my “The Mishneh Torah as a Key to the Secrets of the Guide” (forthcoming in a volume dedicated to the memory of Isadore Twersky).
See Rose S. Marx, “A 13th century Theory of Heat as a Form of Motion,” Isis 22 (1934–35): 19–20. In LivyatḤen, I, 3, 12, Levi explains that “motion generates heat and stimulates it.” It is the rapid motion of the arrow that causes the lead arrowhead to melt, and the rapid motion of the rays emitted by the sun that heats the earth (contra Aristotle, On the Heavens II, 7, 289a). Cf. Gad Freudenthal, “Providence, Astrology, and Celestial Influences on the Sublunar World in Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera’s De’ot ha-Filosofim,”in the present volume, 340ff.
See Dov Schwartz, Astrologyah u-Magyah (above, n. 26), 245–261. The allusion to the Philistines and the quotation are from Livyat Ḥen, II, 7, 2, Vatican MS 192, fol. 121r; the discussion of Jewish law is found there at fol. 126r. From his analysis of these and other texts, Schwartz concludes that “the service of God,” for Levi, “is a kind of means for bringing down the ruḥaniyyot for the purpose of curing or protection,” i.e., it is “a positive theurgic means for producing the emanation from the stars” (Ibid., 248). See also Sachs, “Corrections, Omissions, and Additions” (see above, n. 21), 195–205. Sachs emphasized that Abba Mari of Lunel and his cohorts attacked Levi and the other Provençal philosophers not only for their Aristotelianism, but also for their astrology, and in this respect and in others, they were the Maimonideans, and the philosophers the anti-Maimonideans.
Cambridge MS (above, n. 13), fol. 104r. See Abraham bar Hiyya, Megillat ha-Megalleh, ed. A. Poznanski (Berlin 1924), gate 5, 151–5. Cf. Bernard R. Goldstein, “Levi ben Gerson’s Astrology in Historical Perspective, “ in Gersonide en son temps, ed. Gilbert Dahan (Paris 1991), 292–6.
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Harvey, W.Z. (2000). Levi Ben Abraham of Villefranche’S Controversial Encyclopedia. In: Harvey, S. (eds) The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9389-2_9
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