Restorer of Neoplatonism
Gabirol was one of the first teachers of Neoplatonism in Europe. His role has been compared to that of Philo. Philo had served as the intermediary between Hellenic philosophy and the Oriental world; a thousand years later Gabirol Occidentalized Greco-Arabic philosophy and restored it to Europe. The philosophical teachings of Philo and Salomon Ibn Gabirol were largely ignored by their fellow Jews; the parallel may be extended by adding that Philo and Gabirol alike exercised a considerable influence in extra-Jewish circles: Philo upon early Christianity, and Salomon Ibn Gabirol upon the scholasticism of medieval Christianity. Gabirol's service in bringing the philosophy of Greece under the shelter of the Christian Church, was but a return for the service of the earlier Christian scholars, who had translated the chief works of Greek philosophy into Syriac and Arabic.
"Fons Vitę" (i.e., ; Ps. xxxvi 10) is a philosophical dialogue between master and disciple. The book derives its name from the fact that it considers matter and form as the basis of existence and the source of life in every created thing. It was translated from the Arabic into Latin in the year 1150.
Identity with Avicebron
In 1846 Solomon Munk discovered among the Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliothčque Nationale, Paris, a work by Shem-?ob Palquera, which, upon comparison with a Latin manuscript of the "Fons Vitę" of Avicebron (likewise found by Munk in the Bibliothčque Nationale), proved to be a collection of excerpts from an Arabic original of which the "Fons Vitę" was evidently a translation.
Munk concluded that Avicebron or Avencebrol, who had for centuries been believed to be a Christian scholastic philosopher, was identical with the Jew Salomon Ibn Gabirol ("Orient, Lit." 1846, No. 46).
The "Fons Vitę"
Gabirol in the "Fons Vitę" aims to outline but one part of his philosophical system, the doctrine of matter and form: hence the "Fons Vitę" also bore the title "De Materia et Forma." The manuscript in the Mazarine Library is entitled "De Materia Universali."
The "Fons Vitę" consists of five tractates, treating respectively of (1) matter and form in general and their relation in physical substances ("substantię corporeę sive compositę"); (2) the substance which underlies the corporeality of the world ("de substantia quę sustinet corporeitatem mundi"); (3) proofs of the existence of "substantię simplices," of intermediaries between God and the physical world; (4) proofs that these "substantię simplices," or "intelligibiles," are likewise constituted of matter and form; (5) universal matter and universal form.
The chief doctrines of the "Fons Vitę" may be summarized as follows:
(1) All created beings are constituted of form and matter.
(2) This holds true of the physical world, of the "substantiis corporeis sive compositis," and is not less true of the spiritual world, of the "substantiis spiritualibus sive simplicibus," which latter are the connecting-link between the first substance, "essentia prima," that is, the Godhead, and the "substantia, quę sustinet novem prędicamenta," that is, the substance divided into nine categoriesin other words, the physical 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 the "Fons Vitę" is that all that exists is constituted of matter and form; one and 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.
Salomon Ibn Gabirol holds that everything that exists may be reduced to three categories: the first substance, God; matter and form, the world; the will as intermediary. Gabirol derives matter and form from absolute being. In the Godhead he seems to differentiate "essentia," being, from "proprietas," attribute, designating by "proprietas" the will, wisdom, creative word ("voluntas, sapientia, verbum agens"). In reality he thinks of the Godhead as being, and as will or wisdom, regarding the will as identical with the divine nature. This position is implicit in the doctrine of Gabirol, who teaches that God's existence is knowable, but not His being or constitution, no attribute being predicable of God save that of existence.
Reconcliing Neoplatonism with Jewish theology
It is held by some schlars that Salomon Ibn Gabirol set out to reconcile Neoplatonism with Jewish theology. Geiger finds complete harmony between Gabirol's conception of the Deity and the historical Jewish conception of God; and Guttmann and Eisler hold that in Gabirol's doctrine of the will there is a departure from the pantheistic emanation doctrine of Neoplatonism and an attempted approach to the Biblical doctrine of creation.
A suggestion of Judaic monotheism is found in Gabirol's doctrine of the oneness of the "materia universalis." The Neoplatonic doctrine that the Godhead is unknowable naturally appealed to Jewish rationalists, who, while positing the existence of God, studiously refrained from ascribing definite qualities or positive attributes to God.
Salomon Ibn Gabirol strived to keep "his philosophical speculation free from every theological admixture." In this respect Gabirol is unique. The "Fons Vitę" shows an independence of Jewish religious dogma; not a verse of the Bible nor a line from the Rabbis is cited. For this reason Gabirol exercised comparatively little influence upon his Jewish successors, and was accepted by the scholastics as a non-Jew, as an Arab or a Christian. The suspicion of heresy which once clung to him prevented Salomon Ibn Gabirol from exercising a great influence upon Jewish thought. His theory of emanation was held by many to be irreconcilable with the Jewish doctrine of creation; and the tide of Aristotelianism turned back the slight current of Gabirol's Neoplatonism.
Effect upon his successors
Moses ibn Ezra is the first to mention Gabirol as a philosopher. He speaks of Gabirol's character and attainments in terms of highest praise, and in his "'Aruggat ha-Bosem" quotes several passages from the "Fons Vitę." Abraham ibn Ezra, who gives several specimens of Gabirol's philosophico-allegorical Bible interpretation, borrows from the "Fons Vitę" both in his prose and in his poetry without giving due credit.
Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, in the twelfth century, was the first to take exception to Gabirol's teachings. In the "Sefer ha-Kabbalah" he refers to Gabirol as a poet in complimentary phrase. But in order to counteract the influence of Salomon Ibn Gabirol the philosopher, he wrote an Arabic book, translated into Hebrew under the title "Emunah Ramah," in which he reproaches Gabirol with having philosophized without any regard to the requirements of the Jewish religious position, and bitterly accuses him of mistaking a number of poor reasons for one good one.
Occasional traces of Ibn Gabriol's thought are found in some of the Kabbalistic literature of the thirteenth century. Later references to Salomon Ibn Gabirol, such as those of Eli ?abillo, Isaac Abarbanel, Judah Abarbanel, Moses Almosnino, and Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, are based upon an acquaintance with the scholastic philosophy, especially the works of Aquinas.
Though Gabirol as a philosopher not studied by the Jewish community, Gabirol as a poet kept alive the remembrance of the ideas of the philosopher; for his best-known poem, "Keter Malkut," is a philosophical treatise in poetical form, the "double" of the "Fons Vitę." Thus the eighty-third line of the poem points to one of the teachings of the "Fons Vitę"; viz., that all the attributes predicated of God exist apart in thought alone and not in reality.
1 -[Salomon Ibn Gabirol]
2 -[Salomon Ibn Gabirol : Works]
3 -[Salomon Ibn Gabirol : Influence on Scholasticism]
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