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IBN GABIROL [SOLOMON BEN JUDAH]

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 221 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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IBN GABIROL [See also:SOLOMON See also:BEN See also:JUDAH] , Jewish poet and philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Malaga, probably about 1021. The See also:early See also:part of his troublous See also:life was spent at See also:Saragossa, but few See also:personal details of it are recorded. His parents died while he was a See also:child and he was under the See also:protection first of a certain Jekuthiel, who died in 1039, and afterwards of See also:Samuel ha-Nagid, the well-known See also:patron of learning. His passionate disposition, however, embittered no doubt by his misfortunes, involved him in frequent difficulties and led to his quarrelling with Samuel. It is generally agreed that he died See also:young, although the date is uncertain. Al See also:Harizi 1 says at the See also:age of twenty-nine, and See also:Moses b. See also:Ezra' about See also:thirty, but See also:Abraham Zaccuto3 states that he died (at See also:Valencia) in 1070. M. See also:Steinschneider' accepts the date ro58. His See also:literary activity began early. He is said to have composed poems at the age of sixteen, and elegies by him are extant on See also:Hai See also:Gaon (died in 1038) and Jekuthiel (died in 1039), each of which was written probably soon after the See also:death of the See also:person commemorated. About the same See also:time he also wrote his 'Anag, a poem on See also:grammar, of which only 97 lines out of 400 are pre-served.

Moses ben Ezra says of him that he imitated Moslem See also:

models, and was the first to open to Jewish poets the See also:door of versification,' meaning that he first popularized the use of Arabic metres in See also:Hebrew, t is as a poet that he has been known to the See also:Jews to the esent See also:day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of his See also:work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in See also:France and See also:England in the early 19th See also:century. Besides his lyrical and satirical poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the See also:liturgy (some of them with the See also:acrostic " Shelomoh ha-qaton "), which are widely different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyetanim. The best known of his longer liturgical compositions are the philosophical Kether Malkuth (for the Day of See also:Atonement) and the Azharoth, on the 613 precepts (for Shebhu'oth). Owing to his pure biblical See also:style he had an abiding See also:influence on subsequent liturgical writers. Outside the Jewish community he was known as the philosopher Avicebron (Avencebrol, Avicebrol, &c.) The See also:credit of identifying this name as a See also:medieval corruption of Ibn Gabirol is due to S. Munk, who showed that selections made by See also:Shem Tobh Palgera (or Falgera) from the Megor IIayyim (the Hebrew See also:translation of an Arabic See also:original) by Ibn Gabirol, corresponded to the Latin Funs Vitae of Avicebron. The Latin version, made by Johannes Hispalensis and Gundisalvi about one See also:hundred years after the author's death, had at once become known among the Schoolmen of the 12th century and exerted a powerful influence upon them, although so little was known of the author that it was doubted whether he was a See also:Christian or a Moslem. The teaching of the Fans Vitae was entirely new to the See also:country of its origin, and being See also:drawn largely from Neoplatonic See also:sources could not be expected to find favour with Jewish thinkers. Its distinctive doctrines are: (1) that all created beings, spiritual or corporeal, are composed of See also:matter and See also:form, the various See also:species of matter being but varieties of the universal matter, and similarly all forms being contained in one universal form; (2) that between the primal One and the See also:intellect (the vows of See also:Plotinus) there is interposed the divine Will, which is itself divine and above the distinction of form and matter, but is the cause of their See also:union in the being next to itself, the intellect, in which Avicebron holds that the distinction does exist. The ' See also:Jud. Har. Ilfacamce, ed.

See also:

Lagarde (See also:Gottingen, 1883), p. 89, 1. 61. z See the passage quoted by Munk, Melanges de philosophic arabe et juive (See also:Paris, 1859), pp. 264 and 517. ' See also:Liber Juchassin, ed. Filipowski (See also:London, 1857), p. 217. Hebr. Ubersetzungen (See also:Berlin, 1893), § 219, See also:note 7o; cf. See also:Kaufmann, Studien fiber Sal.-ibn Gabirol (See also:Budapest, 1899), p. 79, note 2. s See Munk, op. cit. pp.

515-516, transl. on pp. 263-264. See also:

Metre had been already used by See also:Dunash.See also:doctrine that there is a material, as well as a formal, See also:element in all created beings was explicitly adopted from Avicebron by See also:Duns Scotus (as against the view of Albertus See also:Magnus and See also:Thomas See also:Aquinas), and perhaps his exaltation of the will above the intellect is due to the same influence. Avicebron develops his philosophical See also:system throughout quite independently of his religious views—a practice wholly See also:foreign to Jewish teachers, and one which could not be acceptable to them. Indeed, this See also:charge is expressly brought against him by Abraham ben See also:David of See also:Toledo (died in 118o). It is doubtless this non-religious attitude which accounts for the small See also:attention paid to the See also:Fens Vitae by the Jews, as compared with the wide influence of the See also:philosophy of See also:Maimonides. The other important work of Ibn Gabirol is Isldh al-akhldq (the improvement of See also:character), a popular work in Arabic, translated into Hebrew (Tigqun middoth ha-nephesh) by Judah ibn Tibbon. It is widely different in treatment from the Fens, being intended as a See also:practical not a speculative work. The collection of moral See also:maxims, compiled in Arabic but best known (in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon) as Mib, ar ha-peninim, is generally ascribed to Ibn Gabirol, though on less certain grounds. Avencebrolis Eons Vitae" (Latin See also:text) in Clemens Baumker's Beitrage zur Gesch. sl. Philosophie, Bd. i. Hefte 2-4 (See also:Munster, 1892) ; The Improvement of the Moral Qualities [Arabic and See also:English] ed. by S.

S. See also:

Wise (New See also:York, 19ot); A Choice of Pearls [Hebrew and English] ed. by Ascher (London, 1859). On the philosophy in See also:general : S. Munk, Melanges (quoted above) ; Guttmann, See also:Die Philosophie See also:des Sal.-ibn Gabirol (Gottingen, 1889) ; D. Kaufmann, Studien Ober Sal.-ibn Gabirol (Budapest, 1899); S. Horovitz, " Die Psychologie Ibn Gabirols," in the Jahresbericht des jfid. theol. Seminars Franckel'scher Stiftung (See also:Breslau, Igloo); Wittmann, " Zur Stellung Avencebrols (in Biiumker's Beitrage, Bd. v. Heft 1, See also:Monster, 1905). (A.

End of Article: IBN GABIROL [SOLOMON BEN JUDAH]

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