FONS VITAE

[This entry about the philosopher-poet Solomon ibn Gabirol (1020-1057), uses the title of his major work Fons Vitae as its own title. Originally written in Arabic (there are no extant texts of the original), its Latin translation was made a century after its author’s death, in 1150, and only afterwards found its way into Hebrew, as a translation from Latin! Jewish scholars have shown little interest in Gabirol as a philosopher, but all have honored him as a poet and the genius author of the hymn Adon Olam. (See my Adon Olam entry earlier in this section.)]

There were several notable Jewish philosophers during the time between the closure of the Talmud and the coming of Rambam (Maimonides). Some of them will be mentioned in the historical subsection, later on in this section; others are of lesser interest to me, and therefore are not going not be mentioned at all. But one of them in particular needs a special mention, perhaps not so much as a philosopher as a case of some curiosity in the history of the often uneasy coexistence between the Jews and the Christian world.

Solomon ibn Gabirol (1020-1057), known in Latin to Christian scholars as Avicebron, is considered a neo-Platonist philosopher, and several later Jewish scholars have used this “offense” against him, complaining about his “Gentile” leanings, and his lack of interest in Res Judaica proper. It is hard to imagine, however, that the great author of Adon Olam could ever be accused of a deficiency in Jewish zeal! Much more likely, as a philosopher, he had taken it upon himself to reconcile Jewish thought with Gentile philosophy, finding such a mission to be more in tune with his philosophical aspirations, and, generally speaking, more useful to Res Judaica than the normal occupation of a Jewish scholar, working in complete isolation from the outside non-Jewish world.

Ironically, Gabirol’s apparent preoccupation paid off with the Gentile posterity, when his works, particularly his Fons Vitae, in Latin translation, were mistaken for works of some Christian scholastic philosopher. One of his chief admirers was none other than Duns Scotus, a dedicated Platonist. On the Aristotelian side of the purely Christian controversy over Gabirol’s philosophical legacy were such luminaries of Christian thought as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.

To be honest, Gabirol’s philosophy is rather too scholastic, and there is little point in writing about matters scholastic any more than they have already been treated in my philosophical sections. But a brief detached summary of Gabirol’s philosophy may be in order, once we have used Fons Vitae as our title anyway.

(Quoted from the Wikipedia.) “Fons Vitae consists of five tractates, treating of (1) matter and form in general, and their relation in physical substances; (2) the substance that underlies the corporeality of the world; (3) proofs of the existence of substantiae simplices, of intermediaries between God and the physical world; (4) proofs that these are likewise constituted of matter and form; (5) universal matter and universal form.

The chief doctrines of the Fons Vitae may be summarized as follows:

(1) All created beings are constituted of form and matter.

(2) This holds true of the physical world, and is not less true of the spiritual world.

(3) Matter and form are always, and everywhere, in the relation of sustinens and sustentatum, propriatum and proprietas, substratum and property or attribute.

The main thesis of Fons Vitae is that all that exists is constituted of matter and form; the same matter runs through the whole universe from the highest limits of the spiritual down to the lowest limits of the physical, excepting that matter the farther it is removed from its first source becomes less and less spiritual. Gabirol insists over and over again that the materia universalis is the substratum of all that exists.”

Those who are familiar with Duns Scotus, can easily deduce that it was materia universalis which caught his attention in particular, in Fons Vitae. But I would assume that Duns promoted Fons Vitae (presumed to be a Christian work, remember!) not so much for its intrinsic merit, as to promote his own original views, using Fons Vitae as a vehicle, after the saying that there is safety in numbers.