What was poison to Judah Halevi is meat to Abraham Ibn Daud. We must, he says, investigate the principles of the
Jewish religion and seek to harmonize them with true philosophy. And in order to do these things properly a preliminary
study of science is necessary. Nowadays all this is neglected and the result is confusion in fundamental principles, for a
superficial and literal reading of the Bible leads to contradictory views, not to speak of anthropomorphic conceptions of
God which cannot be the truth. Many of our day think that the study of philosophy is injurious. This is because it
frequently happens in our time that a person who takes up the study of philosophy neglects religion. In ancient times also
this happened in the person of Elisha ben Abuya, known by the name of Aher. Nevertheless science was diligently
studied in Rabbinic times. Witness what was said concerning Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, Samuel and the
Synhedrin.[221] It cannot be that God meant us to abstain from philosophical study, for many statements in the Bible,
such as those relating to freedom of the will, to the nature of God and the divine attributes, to the creation of the world,
and so on, are a direct stimulus to such investigation. Surely mental confusion cannot be the purpose God had in mind
for us. If he preferred our ignorance he would not have called our attention to these matters at all.[222]
This, as we see, is decidedly a different point of view from that of Judah Halevi. The difference between them is not due
to a difference in their age and environment, but solely to personal taste and temperament. Toledo was the birthplace of
Ibn Daud as it was of Halevi. And the period in which they lived was practically the same. Judah Halevi's birth took place
in the last quarter of the eleventh century, whereas Ibn Daud is supposed to have been born about 1110, a difference of
some twenty-five or thirty years. The philosopher whom Judah Halevi presents to us as the typical representative of his
time is an Aristotelian of the type of Alfarabi and Avicenna. And it is the same type of philosophy that we meet in the
pages of the "Emunah Ramah" (Exalted Faith), Ibn Daud's philosophical work.[223] Whereas, however, Judah Halevi was
a poet by the grace of God, glowing with love for his people, their religion, their language and their historic land, Ibn
Daud leaves upon us the impression of a precise thinker, cold and analytical. He exhibits no graces of style, eloquence
of diction or depths of enthusiasm and emotion. He passes systematically from one point to the next, uses few words and
technical, and moves wholly in the Peripatetic philosophy of the day. In 1161, the same year in which the Emunah
Ramah was composed, he also wrote a historical work, "Sefer Hakabala" (Book of Tradition), which we have; and in
1180, regarded by some as the year of his death, he published an astronomical work, which is lost. This gives an index
of his interests which were scientific and philosophic. Mysticism, whether of the poetic or the philosophic kind, was far
from his nature; and this too may account for the intense opposition he shows to Solomon Ibn Gabirol. On more than one
occasion he gives vent to his impatience with that poetic philosopher, and he blames him principally for two faults.
Choosing to devote a whole book to one purely metaphysical topic, in itself not related to Judaism, Gabirol, we are told
by Ibn Daud, gave expression to doctrines extremely dangerous to the Jewish religion. And apart from his heterodoxy, he
is philosophically incompetent and his method is abominable. His style is profuse to the point of weariness, and his logic
carries no conviction.[224]
While Abraham Ibn Daud is thus expressly unsympathetic to Gabirol and tacitly in disagreement with Halevi (he does not
mention him), he shows the closest relation to Maimonides, whose forerunner he is. We feel tempted to say that if not for
Ibn Daud there would have been no Maimonides. And yet the irony of history has willed that the fame of being the
greatest Jewish philosopher shall be Maimonides's own, while his nearest predecessor, to whose influence he owed
most, should be all but completely forgotten. The Arabic original of Ibn Daud's treatise is lost, and the Hebrew
translations (there are two) lay buried in manuscript in the European libraries until one of them was published by Simson
Weil in 1852.[225]
Abraham Ibn Daud is the first Jewish philosopher who shows an intimate knowledge of the works of Aristotle and makes
a deliberate effort to harmonize the Aristotelian system with Judaism. To be sure, he too owes his Aristotelian knowledge
to the Arabian exponents of the Stagirite, Alfarabi and Avicenna, rather than to the works of Aristotle himself. But this
peculiarity was rooted in the intellectual conditions of his time, and must not be charged to his personal neglect of the
sources. And Maimonides does nothing more than repeat the effort of Ibn Daud in a more brilliant and masterly fashion.
The development of the three religious philosophies in the middle ages, Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan, followed a
similar line of progression. In all of them it was not so much a development from within, the unfolding of what was implicit
and potential in the original germ of the three respective religions, as a stimulus from without, which then combined, as
an integral factor, with the original mass, and the final outcome was a resultant of the two originally disparate elements.
We know by this time what these two elements were in each case, Hellenic speculation, and Semitic religion in the shape
of sacred and revealed documents. The second factor was in every case complete when the process of fusion began.
Not so the first. What I mean is that not all of the writings of Greek antiquity were known to Jew, Christian and
Mohammedan at the beginning of their philosophizing career. And the progress in their philosophical development kept
equal step with the successive accretion of Greek philosophical literature, in particular Aristotle's physical, psychological
and metaphysical treatises, and their gradual purgation of Neo-Platonic adhesions.
The Syrian Christians, who were the first to adopt Greek teachings, seem never to have gone beyond the mathematical
and medical works of the Greeks and the logic of Aristotle. The Arabs began where their Syrian teachers ended, and
went beyond them. The Mutakallimun were indebted to the Stoics,[226] the Pure Brethren to the Neo-Platonists; and it
was only gradually that Aristotle became the sole master not merely in logic, which he always had been, but also in
physics, metaphysics and psychology. Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes represent so many steps in the Aristotelization of
Arabic philosophy.
Christian mediæval thought, which was really a continuation of the Patristic period, likewise began with Eriugena in the
ninth century under Platonic and Neo-Platonic influences. Of Aristotle the logic alone was known, and that too only in
small part. Here also progress was due to the increase of Aristotelian knowledge; though in this case it was not gradual
as with the Arabs before them, but sudden. In the latter part of the twelfth and the early part of the thirteenth century,
through the Crusades, through the Moorish civilization in Spain, through the Saracens in Sicily, through the Jews as
translators and mediators, Aristotle invaded Christian Europe and transformed Christian philosophy. Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam are the results of this transformation.
The same thing holds true of the Jews. Their philosophizing career stands chronologically between that of their Arab
teachers and their Christian disciples. And the line of their development was similar. It was parallel to that of the Arabs.
First came Kalam in Saadia, Mukammas, the Karaites Al Basir and Jeshua ben Judah. Then Neo-Platonism and Kalam
combined, or pure Neo-Platonism, in Bahya, Gabirol, Ibn Zaddik and the two Ibn Ezras, Abraham and Moses. In Judah
Halevi, so far as philosophy is represented, we have Neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism. Finally in Ibn Daud and
Maimonides, Neo-Platonism is reduced to the vanishing point, and Aristotelianism is in full view and in possession of the
field. After Maimonides the only philosopher who deviates from the prescribed path and endeavors to uproot Aristotelian
authority in Judaism is Crescas. All the rest stand by Aristotle and his major domo, Maimonides.
This may seem like a purely formal and external mode of characterizing the development of philosophical thought. But
the character of mediæval philosophy is responsible for this. Their ideal of truth as well as goodness was in the past.
Knowledge was thought to have been discovered or revealed in the past,[227] and the task of the philosopher was to
acquire what was already there and to harmonize contradictory authorities. Thus the more of the past literature that came
to them, the greater the transformation in their own philosophy.
The above digression will make clear to us the position of Ibn Daud and his relation to Maimonides. Ibn Daud began
what Maimonides finished—the last stage in the Aristotelization of Jewish thought. Why is it then that so little was known
about him, and that his important treatise was neglected and practically forgotten? The answer is to be found partly in
the nature of the work itself and partly in historical circumstances.
The greatest and most abiding interest in intellectual Jewry was after all the Bible and the Talmud. This interest never
flagged through adversity or through success. The devotion paid to these Jewish classics and sacred books may have
been fruitful in original research and intelligent application at one time and place and relatively barren at another. Great
men devoted to their study abounded in one country and were relatively few in another. The nature of the study applied
to these books was affected variously by historical conditions, political and economic; and the cultivation or neglect of the
sciences and philosophy was reflected in the style of Biblical and Talmudical interpretation. But at all times and in all
countries, under conditions of comparative freedom as well as in the midst of persecution, the sacred heritage of Israel
was studied and its precepts observed and practiced. In this field alone fame was sure and permanent. All other study
was honored according to the greater or less proximity to this paramount interest. In times of freedom and of great
philosophic and scientific interest like that of the golden era in Spain, philosophical studies almost acquired independent
value. But this independence, never quite absolute, waned and waxed with external conditions, and at last disappeared
entirely. If Ibn Daud had made himself famous by a Biblical commentary or a halakic work, or if his philosophic treatise
had the distinction of being written in popular and attractive style, like Bahya's "Duties of the Hearts," or Halevi's "Cusari,"
it might have fared better. As it is, it suffers from its conciseness and technical terminology. Add to this that it was
superseded by the "Guide of the Perplexed" of Maimonides, published not many years after the "Emunah Ramah," and
the neglect of the latter is completely explained.
Abraham ibn Daud tells us in the introduction to his book that it was written in response to the question of a friend
concerning the problem of free will. The dilemma is this. If human action is determined by God, why does he punish, why
does he admonish, and why does he send prophets? If man is free, then there is something in the world over which God
has no control. The problem is made more difficult by the fact that Biblical statements are inconsistent, and passages
may be cited in favor of either of the theories in question. This inconsistency is to be explained, however, by the
circumstance that not all Biblical phrases are to be taken literally—their very contradiction is a proof of this. Now the
passages which require exegetic manipulation are in general those which seem opposed to reason. Many statements in
the Bible are in fact intended for the common people, and are expressed with a view to their comprehension, and without
reference to philosophic truth. In the present instance the objections to determinism are much greater and more serious
than those to freedom. In order to realize this, however, it is necessary to investigate the principles of the Jewish religion
and seek to harmonize them with true philosophy. This in turn cannot be done without a preliminary study of science. A
question like that of determinism and freedom cannot be decided without a knowledge of the divine attributes and the
consequences flowing from them. But to understand these we must have a knowledge of the principles of physics and
metaphysics.[228] Accordingly Abraham Ibn Daud devotes the entire first part of the "Emunah Ramah" to general physics
and metaphysics in the Aristotelian conception of these terms.
Concerning the kind of persons for whom he wrote his book, he says, I advise everyone who is perfectly innocent, who is
not interested in philosophical and ethical questions like that of determinism and freedom on the ground that man cannot
grasp them; and is entirely unconcerned about his ignorance—I advise such a person to refrain from opening this book
or any other of a similar nature. His ignorance is his bliss, for after all the purpose of philosophy is conduct. On the other
hand, those who are learned in the principles of religion and are also familiar with philosophy need not my book, for they
know more than I can teach them here. It is the beginner in speculation who can benefit from this work, the man who has
not yet been able to see the rational necessity of beliefs and practices which he knows from tradition.
That the principles of the Jewish religion are based upon philosophic foundations is shown in Deuteronomy 4, 6: "Keep
therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, which shall hear all
these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." This cannot refer to the ceremonial
precepts, the so-called "traditional" commandments; for there is nothing in them to excite the admiration of a non-Jew.
Nor can it refer to the political and moral regulations, for one need not profess the Jewish or any other religion in order to
practice them; they are a matter of reason pure and simple. The verse quoted can only mean that the other nations will
be seized with admiration and wonder when they find that the fundamental principles of the Jewish religion, which we
received by tradition and without effort, are identical with those philosophical principles at which they arrived after a great
deal of labor extending over thousands of years.[229]
Ibn Daud is not consistent in his idea of the highest aim of man. We have just heard him say that the purpose of
philosophy is conduct. This is true to the spirit of Judaism which, despite all the efforts of the Jewish philosophers to the
contrary, is not a speculative theology but a practical religion, in which works stand above faith. But as an Aristotelian,
Ibn Daud could not consistently stand by the above standpoint as the last word in this question. Accordingly we find him
elsewhere in true Aristotelian fashion give priority to theoretical knowledge.
Judging from the position of man among the other creatures of the sublunar world, we come to the conclusion, he tells
us, that that which distinguishes him above his surroundings, namely, his rational soul, is the aim of all the rest; and they
are means and preparations for it. The rational soul has two forms of activity. It may face upward and receive wisdom
from the angels (theoretical knowledge). Or it may direct its attention downwards and judge the other corporeal powers
(practical reason). But it must not devote itself unduly or without system to any one occupation. The aim of man is
wisdom, science. Of the sciences the highest and the aim of all the rest is the knowledge of God. The body of man is his
animal, which leads him to God. Some spend all their time in feeding the animal, some in clothing it, and some in curing it
of its ills. The latter is not a bad occupation, as it saves the body from disease and death, and so helps it to attain the
higher life. But to think of the study of medicine as the aim of life and devote all one's time to it is doing injury to one's
soul. Some spend their time in matters even less significant than this, viz., in studying grammar and language; others
again in mathematics and in solving curious problems which are never likely to happen. The only valuable part here is
that which has relation to astronomy. Some are exclusively occupied in "twisting threads." This is an expression used by
an Arabian philosopher, [230] who compares man's condition in the world to that of a slave who was promised freedom
and royalty besides if he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and celebrated there. If he made the journey and was prevented
from reaching the holy city, he would get freedom only; but if he did not undertake the trip he would get nothing. The
three steps in the realization of the purpose are thus: making the preparations for the journey, getting on the road and
passing from station to station, and finally wandering about in the place of destination. One small element in the
preparation for the journey is twisting the threads for the water bottle. Medicine and law as means of gaining a livelihood
and a reputation represent the stage of preparing for the journey. They are both intended to improve the ills of life,
whether in the relations of man to man as in law; or in the treatment of the internal humors as in medicine. Medicine
seems more important, for on the assumption of mankind being just, there would be no need of law, whereas the need
for medicine would remain. To spend one's whole life in legal casuistry and the working out of hypothetical cases on the
pretext of sharpening one's wits, is like being engaged in twisting threads continually—a little is necessary, but a great
deal is a waste of time. It would be best if the religious man would first learn how to prove the existence of God, the
meaning of prophecy, the nature of reward and punishment and the future world, and how to defend these matters
before an unbeliever. Then if he has time left, he may devote it to legalistic discussions, and there would be no harm.
Self-examination, in order to purify oneself from vices great and small, represents the second stage of getting on the road
and travelling from station to station. The final stage, arriving in the holy city and celebrating there, is to have a perfect
knowledge of God. He who attains this is the best of wise men, having the best of knowledge, which deals with the
noblest subject. The reader must not expect to find it all in this book. If he reads this and does not study the subject for
himself, he is like a man who spent his time in reading about medicine and cannot cure the simplest ailment. The
knowledge of God is a form that is bestowed from on high upon the rational soul when she is prepared by means of
moral perfection and scientific study. The prophet puts all three functions of the soul on the same level, and gives
preference to knowledge of God. "Thus saith the Lord," says Jeremiah (9, 22), "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom
[rational soul], neither let the mighty man glory in his might [spirited soul], let not the rich man glory in his riches [nutritive
soul]: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me...." Jeremiah also recommends (ib.)
knowing God through his deeds—"That I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness"—in order that man may imitate
him.[231]
We have now a general idea of Ibn Daud's attitude and point of view; and in passing to the details of his system it will not
be necessary to rehearse all the particulars of his thought, much of it being common to all mediæval writers on Jewish
philosophy. We shall confine ourselves to those matters in which Ibn Daud contributed something new, not contained in
the writings of his predecessors.
Following the Aristotelian system, he begins by describing substance and accident and gives a list and characterization
of the ten categories. This he follows up by showing that the classification of the ten categories lies at the basis of the
139th Psalm. It needs not our saying that it must be an extraordinary mode of exegesis that can find such things in such
unusual places. But the very strangeness of the phenomenon bears witness to the remarkable influence exerted by the
Aristotelian philosophy upon the thinking of the Spanish Jews at that time.[232]
From the categories he passes to a discussion of the most fundamental concepts in the Aristotelian philosophy, matter
and form. And here his method of proving the existence of matter is Aristotelian and new. It is based upon the discussion
in Aristotle's Physics, though not necessarily derived from there directly. Primary matter, he says, is free from all form.
There must be such, for in the change of one thing to another, of water to air for example, it cannot be the form of water
that receives the form of air; for the form of water disappears, whereas that which receives the new form must be there.
Reason therefore leads us to assume a common substrate of all things that are subject to change. This is primary matter,
free from all form. This matter being at the basis of all change and becoming, could not itself have come to be through a
similar process, or we should require another matter prior to it, and it would not be the prime matter we supposed it to be.
This last argument led Aristotle to the concept of an eternal matter, the basis of becoming for all else besides, itself not
subject to any such process. It is an ultimate, to ask for the origin of which would signify to misunderstand the meaning of
origin. All things of the sublunar world originate in matter, hence matter itself is the unoriginated, the eternal.
Ibn Daud as a Jew could not accept this solution, and so he cut the knot by saying that while it is true that matter cannot
originate in the way in which the composite objects of the sublunar world come to be, it does not yet follow that it is
absolutely ultimate and eternal. God alone is the ultimate and eternal; nothing else is. Matter is a relative ultimate;
relative, that is, to the composite and changeable objects of our world; but it is itself an effect of God as the universal
cause. God created it outright.
Prime matter, therefore, represents the first stage in creation. The next stage is the endowment of this formless matter
with corporeality in the abstract, i. e., with extension. Then come the specific forms of the four elements, then their
compounds through mineral, plant and animal to man. This is not new; we have already met with it in Gabirol and Ibn
Zaddik. Nor is the following significant statement altogether new, though no one before Ibn Daud expressed it so clearly
and so definitely. It is that the above analysis of natural objects into matter, universal body, the elements, and so on, is
not a physical division but a logical. It does not mean that there was a time when prime matter actually existed as such
before it received the form of corporeality, and then there existed actually an absolute body of pure extension until it
received the four elements. No, nothing has existence in actu which has not individuality, including not only form, but
also accidents. The above analysis is theoretical, and the order of priority is logical not real. In reality only the complete
compound of matter and form (the individual) exists.
Allusion to matter and form is also found in the Bible in Jeremiah (18, 1ff.), "Arise and go down to the potter's house....
Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought his work on the wheels.... Behold as the clay in the
potter's hand...."[233]
The next important topic analyzed by Ibn Daud is that of motion. This is of especial importance to Ibn Daud because
upon it he bases a new proof of the existence of God, not heretofore found in the works of any of his predecessors. It is
taken from Aristotle's Physics, probably from Avicenna's treatises on the subject, is then adopted by Maimonides, and
through his example no doubt is made use of by Thomas Aquinas, the great Christian Scholastic of the thirteenth
century, who gives it the most prominent place in his "Summa Contra Gentiles."
Ibn Daud does not give Aristotle's general definition of motion as the "actualization of the potential qua potential" (cf.
above, p. xxxii), but his other remarks concerning it imply it. Motion, he says, is applied first to movement in place, and is
then transferred to any change which is gradual, such as quantitative or qualitative change. Sudden change is not called
motion. As the four elements have all the same matter and yet possess different motions—earth and water moving
downward, fire and air upward—it cannot be the matter which is the cause of their motions. It must therefore be the
forms, which are different in different things.
Nothing can move itself. While it is true that the form of a thing determines the kind of motion it shall have, it cannot in
itself produce that motion, which can be caused only by an efficient cause from without. The case of animal motions may
seem like a refutation of this view, but it is not really so. The soul and the body are two distinct principles in the animal;
and it is the soul that moves the body. The reason why a thing cannot move itself is because the thing which is moved is
potential with reference to that which the motion is intended to realize, whereas the thing causing