Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/137

99 To speak of the race first, the man was a came from Coelesyria [Palestine]. These Jews are derived from the philosophers of

sophical erudition. Jew by birth and

Fragment of Clearchus.

India. In India the philosophers call themselves Kalanl, and in Syria Jews, taking their name from the country they Inhabit, which is Judea ; the name of their capital is rather di-

fficult to pronounce they call it Jerusalem. Now this man, who had been the guest of many people, had come down from the highland to the seashore [Pergamus] He was a Greek not only In language, but in soul so much so that, when we happened to be in Asia In about the same places whither he came, he conversed with us and with other persons of learning In order to test our wisdom. And as he had had intercourse with a large number of sages, he imparted to us more knowledge of his own."

.



This

Aristobulus of Paueas Aristotle in Jewish Literature

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

99

is

Aristotle's

own

account as recorded by Clear-

and he adds more specific observations regarding his great and wonderful fortitude in diet and continent mode of living. Obviously it was the Jew's chus,

observance of the dietary laws that struck Aristotle. Gutschmid (pp. 579-585) thinks that the Jew here spoken of is the same wonder-working magician (exorcist; see Josephus, "Ant." viii. 2, § 5) who, by some sort of hypnotism, drew the soul out of the body of a sleeping child and brought it back again with his rod in the presence of Aristotle (Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic, x.), which part of the narrative Josephus intentionally omitted. In the circles where the antagonism of Judaism and Hellenism was known and understood, Aristotle was reported by tradition to have said " I do not deny the revelation of the Jews, seeing that I am not acquainted with it I am occupied with human knowledge only and not with divine" (Judah ha-Levi, "Cuzari," iv. 13; v. 14). But when Aristotelianism became harmonized with Judaism Regarded by Maimonides, it was an easy step as a Jew. to make Aristotle himself a Jew. Joseph b. Shem-Tob assures his reader that he had seen it written in an old book that Aristotle at the end of his life had become a proselyte ("ger zedek"). The reputed statement of Clearchus is repeated by Abraham Bibago in the guise of the information that Aristotle was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Jerusalem, and belonging to the family of Kolaiah (Neh. xi. 7). As authority for it Eusebius is cited, who, however, has merely the above statement of Josephus. According to another version, Aristotle owed his philosophy to the writings of King Solomon, which were presented to him by his royal pupil Alexander, the latter having obtained them on his conquest of Jerusalem. "With this legend of Alexander is assostrict





ciated the celebrated " Letter of Aristotle " to that monarch. Herein Aristotle is made to recant all his

previous philosophic teachings, having been convinced of their incorrectness by a Jewish sage. He acknowledges as his chief error the claim that truth is to be ascertained by the reasoning faculty only, inasmuch as divine revelation is the sole way to truth. This " letter " is the conclusion of an alleged book of Aristotle, " two hands thick, " in which he withdraws, on the authority of a Jew, Simeon, his views with regard to the immortality of the soul, to The the eternity of the world, and similar tenets. existence of this book is mentioned for the first time about 1370 by Hayyim of Briviesca, who expressly declares that he heard from Abraham ibn Zarza that the latter received it from the vizir Ibn al-Khatib (d.

He

does not state whether this apocrypha in Arabic or Hebrew the Hebrew " Letter," as received, does not appear like a translation. It is safe to assume with Hayyim, that the Simeon mentioned was none other than Simeon the Just, about whose supposed relations to Alexander the Great the oldest Jewish sources give us information (Yoma, 69a; see Alexander the Great). Identical with this letter is the prayer of Aristotle which the Polish Bahurim had in their prayer-books during the sixteenth century (Isserles, Responsa No. 1370).

was written

6; ed.



Hanau,

A second

10a.

" Letter "

by Aristotle to Alexander contains wise counsel on politics; he advises the monarch that he must endeavor to conquer the hearts, and not simply the bodies, of his subjects (preface to " Sod ha-Sodot "). See Samter, " Monatsschrift," (1901) p. 453.

The essay Aristotle,

entitled " The Apple, " also ascribed to tinged with a similar tendency. In it

is

Noah and

to Abraham, " the first these spurious writings of Aristotle which gained for him the esteem of the cabalists, as evidenced by the very flattering utterances of Moses Botarel (Commentary on "Yezirah," 26J). The story of the love-affair between Aristotle and Alexander's wife, in which the former comes off very badly current in the Middle Ages (see Peter Alfonsi, "Disciplina Clericalis, " vii.) and originating

Aristotle refers to

philosopher."

It

was

—

Hindoo fable (see "Pantschatantra,"ed. Benfey, was also told in Jewish circles, and exists in manuscript by Judah b. Solomon Cohen (thirteenth in a ii.

462)

—

century), in Spirgati's catalogue, No. 76 (1900), p. 18.

Bibliography: Abraham Bibago, Derek Emuna, p. 46; AzaGedaliah ria de Rossi, Meor 'Enayim, ed. Benjacob, p. 236

ibn Yahyah, ShaUhelet ha-lyahhala, ed. Warsaw,1889, pp. 139, Steinschnelder, 140, under the beading of IJaltme Yawan Hebr. Uehers. i. 229-273, contains an almost complete list of the pseudo-Aristotelian writings Modlinger, Hayye Aristo. Vienna, 1883 A. J. Glassberg, Zihron Berit, pp. 280, 281.





L. G.

k.

ARISTOTLE IN JEWISH LITERATURE One thousand years



after his death, Aristotle, as his

pupil Alexander had aforetime done, began to conquer the East, and finally ascended to the supreme rulership of the entire realm of medieval thought. Many writings of the Stagirite were translated from their Greek originals or from their Syrian versions into Arabic (especially by the Nestorian Christian Honein ibn IshSk [809-873], and his son Ishak), in which language they were eagerly studied by Jews Aristotle's influin all Arabic-speaking countries. ence upon Jewish thinkers, however, varied in difAbraham ibn Daud (1160) was the first ferent ages. Jewish philosopher to acknowledge the supremacy Earlier thinkers unquestionably of Aristotelianism. were acquainted with Aristotle's philosophy, but the systems of Plato and other pre-Aristotelian philosophers then held the field. From Abraham ibn Daud until long after Maimonides' time (1135-1204), Aristotelian philosophy entered and maintained the foreground, only again to yield its position gradually to Platonism,

under the growing influence of

the Cabala. Aristotle's name is found in the scanty details that have been handed down of the philosophy of David

al-Mokammez (about 920), whom the Karaites include