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320 Alba, Jacob di

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Albany

Alatrini, to the "Bt'liiniit "Olam."

Several of in the Bodleian Lil)rarv. Oxford (see Neubauer. " Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." col. CHOi. Hi.s chief work is the adaptation into Italian verse of Bahva's famous jirayer, 'L"Q3 '313 or nnsin. whieh. together with the text of the oriirinal anil a Hebrew tr.iiislalion of the Italian version by the author's jrrandson. Nathan (.ledidiah) b. Elie/.er of Orvieto. was publislied at Venice in 1628. This poem. calle<i by Angelo in a pun on the Italian fonn of his ])r;vnomen, " L'Angclica Tromba " (The Anjrel Tnnni)et), seems to have enjoyed a certain popularity in the Jewish communities of Italy. It is written in the terzarima. and it renders into graeefid and almost faultless meter the sentiment, llioui;li nut always the sense, of Bahya's prayer. In the Hebrew translation by Isaac Alatrini's grandson, called "Shir Barki Nafshi," an attempt was made to preserve in the Hebrew the metrical construction of the Italian i)oem. Bibliography: Stelnschnolder, Cat. nttlt.mh. 783. i:t07, atli; Henjac*^b, nzar ha-Si'fnrim, pp. 87, .578 Motiaiufchrift, tliiuli

liis

Hebrew poems

otluT

are iu

manuscrmt



.liii.

.

™,

Mattathiah ben Abraham Alatrini



Rabbi

Italy iluring the .second half of the tifteenth century, calU'd the "Gaon," in the preface to the " Kenaf Henanim " of Issiac Alatrini. He wrote a in

commentary on Penini's "Behinat 'Olam," a manuscript copy of which is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Mortara, " Iiidice Alfabetico," p. 2). Bibliography: Steinsctmelder. X.

llebrilischc

Bihlingraphie,

104.

ALBA, JACOB DI

M.

Italian rabbi; lived at the



end of the si.Meenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. He was rabbi in Florence, and author of homilies on the Pentateuch, entitled " Tolcdot

Ya'akob " (Generations of Jacob), Venice, 1609. Bibliography: Wolf. Bild. Hibr. i. ,580, fill; lii. 440.

.513;

Stelnscbneider. Cat. Budl. eol. 1179: Mortara, Iwllcc Alfabetico, p. 3.

W. M.

ALBAGAL. SOLOMON IBN (called

also

Don

Culema aben Albagal): A Spanish farmer of taxes who lived in Villa-Heal or Ciudad-Real, and held during the reign of Maria de Molina (1300-10). the owner of a large fulling-mill, named "Batanejo," in Giiadiana, which, when disposed of by the Knights of Calatrava. brought the sum of 1.1.000 gold'maravedis (about S.-jl.OOO, or £10,200). For many years he was in litigation with his partner. Israel Alhad.ad. with regardto alarge sum of money. office

He was

to U.

illustrated by the fact that though he was an un reserved follower of Aristotle, he showed a leaning toward the Cabala, the exces.ses of which, however, he energetically opposed, especiall}' its arbitrary Biblical interpretations based on the assumed numerical values of the letters (see 0f.m.tiiia). His most characteristic work was a translation (1202) of a part of Al Ghazzali's " Makazid al-Falasifa " (Tendencies of the Philosophers), which embraces only two parts of the original; namely, logic and metaphysics. Albalag did not conlinir himself therein to the work of a translator, but often corrected the views of other philosophers as formulated by AlGhazzali, who intended to refute them himself in his later work entitled "Tahafut al-Falasifa" (Destruction of the Philosophers). Albalag remarked that AlGhazzali did not refute the philosoi)hers. but his own errors, into which h<' had fallen by obtaining information not from Aristotle himself, but from his commi'iitators. such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and others. According to Albalag, this charge applies also to Maimonides when attempting to refute Aristotle, as, for instance, on the eternity of the world. In the compositiim of his work Albalag made it his main object to counteract the wide-spread popular prejudice that philosophy was undennining thi' foundation of religion. Religion and philosophy agree on the fundamental principles of all ])ositive religion which are " the belief in reward and puni.shment, iu immortality, in the existence of a just God, and in Divine Providence" and they both follow the .same aim namely, to render mankind hap|v. It is, no doubt, (|uite true that pliilosojihy, which addresses itself to the individual, dilTers. in its mode of establishing those truths, from religion, which appeals to the great masses. Philosojihy dcmonstratc's; religion only teaches. Albalag. liowever.bv no means asserts that the doctrines of the philosoi)hers must entirely coincide with tlio.se of religion; and it is exactly in his conception of their nuitual relation (hat his peculiar standpoint manifests itself. The idea, alreadyexpresseilby ^Iaimiinides,that the naked philosophical truth is often harmful for the mas.ses, and that therefore the Holy Scriptures had often toadapt themselves to the intellectual level of the people, was so stnmgly emphasized by him that it is ))robable he was influenced by Ibn RosIkI (Averroes), who made this idea the central point of his l)ook, "Theology is

—

—



^^.

The queen

820

tinallv referred the dispute for settlement

Asher ben Jehiel of Toledo ("Resp." §

107,

No.

The name of Albagal's wife was Joanila. Of Ihcir two children, a son, Samuel ibn Albagal, lived in Villa-Real, and a daughter, Dinah, was married to Abraham ben Xuxen (Susiin), also a farmer of taxes, and died of the plague at Toledo in the vear 1349. 6).

Bibliography



Hcvnc dcs Etudes Juivcn, xxxix.

314.

M. K.

ALBALAG, ISAAC A

philosopher of the second half of the thirteenth century, who, according to Steinschneider ("Helir. Uebers." pp. 2!)!)-3l)6). probably lived in northern Spain or southern France. Graetz, without good reason, makes him a native of southern Spain. Ills liberal views, especially his interpretations of the Biblical account of the Creation in accordance with the Aristotelian theory of the eternity of the world, stamiJed him in the eves of many as a heretic. Apart from this he showed little originality, and was eclectic iu teudenc}'. This

and Philosophy

"

— " therefore, he errs doubly who re-

jectsa philosophical truth on account of

its apparent because he misses the true meaning of Scripture; second, because thereby he declares the real arguments of philosoph}' to be inconclusive." In cases where an adju.stment is absolutely impossible Albalag brings forward a very strange solution; namely, that the teaching of the philosopher is true from the speculative standpoint, and at the same time the utterance of Scripture is true from a higher, supernatural point of view the philosophical mode of knowledge being altogether different from the ]iroplictic. And as the philosopher is only intelligible to his compeers, so the prophet can be understood only by prophets. This view resembles the theory of double truth (the theological and the l>hilosopliieal), originated and cliietly developed in the thirteenth century at the University of Paris (Lange, "Gesch. des Materialismus," 3ded., i. 181). There is no evidence, however, of any direct influence of the Parisian thinkers on Albalag, as he could liave come to his view by a more natural process; viz.. by combining the two opposite influences of Ibn Roshd and AlGhazzali. whose itiea of the difference between philosophical and prophetical knowledge

contrailiction of Scrii)ture:

first,

—