Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/147

101 — THE

101

Abraham, Bernard

JEWLSII ENCYCLUI'EDIA

13H, vlll. 147, xll. 11-' Koliak, Jt«ihuni/i. vl. Ulil, whi-ri' Atiruhiuu i-ulis !i1m father AchftchUir or Aclt»clrct'i. TUls iiiuiic may inLiprlnl. be u jj jj

his

Abraham ibu Daud

whole sj'stem ("Emunah Uamah,"

]i.i)H;

(German

On

of them bein;; in the Aramaic liiniruaire. Several of the poems were written for friends, (jr suir.irested by public events, ])apal oppressions, or jirevalent sickness and one of them is in honor (jf his cousin Iladassiih, whom he married in l.");ii). A maiuiscript collection of his prayers in the liodleian Library, O.xford, bears the title "Sefer lia-Vashar" (The Hook (jf the Wsrhteous).

the other hand, hisattitude toward Gabirol is entirely antaironistic, and even in the pref" Kmunah Kaniali " he iiitilessly condemns ace to his Gabirol's "Fountain of Life." See Kaufmam!."Studien iiber Solomon ilin Gabirol." IJudapest. 1^99. Heinjj the lirst strict Aristotelian among the .lews who considered Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, Alfarabi and Ibn Sina. to be the only true philosophers ((7/. pp. 2;:!, 50, 0'^; German trans., pp. 30, G.5, 78) Ibn Daud feels him.self provoked to constant opposition by the doctrines of Gabirol. who represents the Xeo])lalonic philosophy. Impartial enough to accord to childlike faith its full ri.i:hts. Ibn Daud desires also to defend the rights of reason, and, consequently, resists with the utmost energy any attempt to set bounds to science; regarding this as a culpable encroachment upon the ])lan of the Divine Uuler, who did not endow man with the faculty of

BiHi.iinMiAi'HV

thought wilhout

ABRAHAM CONaUE OF HEBRON. See (Ci Ai;kiiam. ABRAHAM BEN DANIEL Poet rabbi I'.Mji

i;

iiF

]).

lIi:i;i;i>N.



C'i)M;i

!iii<l



i''(ir si-vt-ral years lie was Ijiiiii at Mii.lcnu in l"ill. a tutor at Viadaiia. iliHlciia, IJivarolo, Are/.zo. ami Forii, ami finally lie became rabbi at Ferrani. From 133(5 to lo.Vi, (les])ite unceasiiis? bodily ailments, he composed over a thousand jioetical prayers in vari-

ous meters and forms,

six



li'iill.

II, hr.



Ziinz. Lit* ratuiyi:Hth. p.

MSS.

'^J-t;

Neuliaiicr, t'nt.

ABRAHAM IBN DAUD aU'p

r.'illeil

(

= DAVID) HA-

Ben Daud (erronc'ously Daur, Dior);

RABaD,

from the initials of liis name, and I lo distini;uisli liim from Aiikaiia.m hk.n

RABaD

NahhonM': (K.VHal) II.) BKN David <iK I'(isiif;iti:s (K.VBal) Is.vAC (JF

AnitAiiAM Spanish l)orn jit To-

anil

III.):

a.strononier, historian, and |)hiloso]iher; ledo about 11 lb; died, aceoiclins; toconunon rejiorl. a martyr, about llso.
 * is mother belonu-ed to a

family famed for its leai'uin,!;. His chronicle, a work written in IHil imder the title of "Sefer haKabbalah " (IJook of Tradition) in which he fiercely attacked the contentions of Karaism and justith'd rabbinital .Judaism by the cstablishmetit of a chain of traditions from Jloses to his own time, is reidete with valuable jreiiend inbirmation, especially relatini,' to the time of the (ieonim and to the history of the .lews in Spain. An astronomical work written by him in lK(t is favondily noticed by Isaac Israeli the Youn!,'er(" Yesod Olam." iv. IK). 1 lis philosophical work, "Al-'akidah alHatiyah" (The Sublimit Faith), written in 11(!H, in Arabic, has been preserved in two Hebrew translations: one l)y Solomon 1). l.abi. with till' title " Kmunah l{;imah "; the oilier by Samuel .Motot. Labi's translation was r<'translateil into (Jernian and published by Simson Weil. ,

Ibii

Diiild

was by no means an

he produce a

orii,'inal

new philosophy;

thinker,

but he was the lirst to introduce that phase of His Posi- .lewish jihilosophy which is fienerally tion as Phi- attributed to .Slaimonides and which losopher. dilTers from former systems of jihilosophy mainly in its more thoroiiirh systematic form derived from .iislolle. Ac<drd in);ly. Hasdai Crescas meiilions Ilin Dauil as the onlv .lewish philosopher amonir the jiredecessors of Maimonides ("Or Adonai. chap, ). Hut havinir been completely overshadowed by Maimonides' classical work, the " .Mon'h Ni-bnkim." Abniham ibii Dauil's " KmiiTiah Kaniah " (Sublime Faith), n work to which .Mainioniihs himself was indebted for many valuable sui;i;estioiis, received scant notice from later philosophers. Till' only .lewish philosophical works that Ibn Daud had before him, accordinir to his own statement (" Kimiiiah Ifamah." p. 'J, or in (iermaii trans., )i Fountain of I.ile" by Solomon ibn fiabirol. On the one Imnd, he fully nconnizes the merits of Saailiii, althoUi;h he does not adopt his views on the freedom of the will, not withslandiii.i; that the solution of this problem was to be the chief aim and luupose of nor
 * !), were Saadias " Kmmiot we De'ol." and "The

<liil

—

intent.

True iihilosophy, according

N,.. IISI.

M. K.

LEVI;

trans., p.ia.'i).

'

i

to Ibn Daud, does not entice us from religion; it tends ratlicT to strengthen and solidify it. Jloreover, it is the duty of every thinking .lew to become acijuaintcd with the harmony existing between the fundamental doctrines of .ludaism and those of philosophy, and, wherever they seem to contradict one another, to seek a mode of reconciling them. Ibn Daud insists that, however highly Jihilosophy may be valued, the religion of .Judaism is jireferable. Iviiowled.ire. which had been aci|uii-ed by jihilo.sojihers through the evolution of sc'Veial thousands of years, and aft<'r overcoming the gravest errors, had been beslowed ujion .ludaLsm from the beginning through revelation iili. As to moral truths, it j>. (i'i; German trans., j). 79). may be even assumed as jirobable that the jihilosojihers did not attain to them through indejiendent study, but rather under the intluence of the doctrines (if Holy Scrijiture (/A. ji. HH German trans., jv 13(1). It is true that on certain jioints llin Daud could not alwaysavoid conllict with the doctrines of Aristotle: this wasesjiecially true in re.irard to the rbn Daud hitter's theory of the Creation. Acand cording to Aristotle, all coming into Aristotle, being results from the fusiiai of matter intoacertain form; matter, therefore, is the neces.sary basis for any genesis; jirimary matter itself, as the subslaiiee common to all thin.irs existent, must, therefore, lu' without beginning and must Hut the accejilance of jircexistent and be eternal. eternal matter can n<it be reconciled with the Hiblical history of creation, which implies a creation out of From this conllict, nothing, and subject lo time. which later caus<'d Maimonides lo disjiule tlu' authority of Aiistolle in all matters transcendental, Ibn Daud was not able to extricate him.self; and. therefore, he rather tries to glide over the existing For lie represents ditlicidties than to solve Ihem. the course of creation as a series of creative acts; which recalls Gabirol's doctrine concerning the sucHut lie hims<-lf cession of the various substances. sub.seiiuently admits that this was only a hyjiolhesis to satisfy the need of giving an archilectonie linisli lo our notions, intended to mark thai gradual jiroci'.ss of things which would result, had creation reallv gone throngh all the stages of ixisleni-e. from primary mailer, w hicli is inijiercejitible lo us, toall individual things. thoUirli some of these sla.ires may be regarded as jwirlly existing only in abstract notions. To concede the jiossibility of such a gradinil jiroci'ss of creation, however, would be, ai'cording to Ibu Daud, a conlriidicliou of our coucejilion of God's mode of acting. As to tlio doclriuo of Owl, Abnihaiu ibu Daixl,