Isaac Israeli ben Solomon
Isaac Israeli ben Solomon | |
|---|---|
| Yitzhak ben Shlomo ha-Yisraeli | |
 De febribus | |
| Died | c. 932 |
| Era | Medieval philosophy |
| Region | Jewish philosophy |
| School | Neoplatonism Correspondence theory of truth[1] (according to Aquinas) |
| Part of a series on |
| Jewish philosophy |
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Isaac Israeli ben Solomon (
Life
Little is known of Israeli's background and career. Much that is known comes from the biographical accounts found in The Generations of the Physicians, a work written by the Andalusian author
Israeli was born in around 832 into a Jewish family in
Biographers state that he never married or fathered children. He died at
Influence
In 956 his pupil Dunash Ibn Tamim wrote an extensive commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, a mystical work of cosmogony which attributes great importance to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their combinations in determining the structure of the universe. In this work he cites Israeli so extensively that a few nineteenth-century scholars misidentified the commentary as Israeli's.
Israeli's medical treatises were studied for several centuries both in the original Arabic and in Latin translation. In the eleventh century, Constantine Africanus, a professor at the prestigious Salerno school of medicine, translated some of Israeli's works into Latin. Many medieval Arabic biographical chronicles of physicians list him and his works.
Israeli's philosophical works exercised a considerable influence on Christian and Jewish thinkers, and a lesser degree of influence among Muslim intellectuals. In the twelfth century, a group of scholars in
. Isaac Israeli's philosophical influence on Muslim authors is slight at best. The only known quotation of Israeli's philosophy in a Muslim work occurs in Ghayat al-Hakim, a book on magic, produced in eleventh-century Spain, translated into Latin and widely circulated in the West under the title Picatrix. Although there are passages which correspond directly to Israeli's writings, the author does not cite him by name.His influence also extended to
As Neoplatonist philosophy waned, in addition to the Galenic medical tradition of which Israeli was a part, the appreciable influence of Isaac Israeli diminished as well.
Claimed works
A number of works in Arabic, some of which were translated into Hebrew, Latin and Spanish were ascribed to Israeli, and several medical works were allegedly composed by him at the request of al-Mahdi. In 1515 Opera Omnia Isaci was published in
He was the first physician to write about
Medical works
- Kitab al-Ḥummayat, The Book on Fevers, in Hebrew Sefer ha-Ḳadaḥot, ספר הקדחות, a complete treatise, in five books, on the kinds of fever,[7] according to the ancient physicians, especially Hippocrates and Galen. The Book on Fevers appeared in the Articella.[8]
- Kitab al-Adwiyah al-Mufradah wa'l-Aghdhiyah, a work in four sections on remedies and aliments. The first section, consisting of twenty chapters, was translated into Latin by Constantine under the title Diætæ Universales, and into Hebrew by an anonymous translator under the title Ṭib'e ha-Mezonot. The other three parts of the work are entitled in the Latin translation Diætæ Particulares; and it seems that a Hebrew translation, entitled Sefer ha-Mis'adim or Sefer ha-Ma'akalim, was made from the Latin.
- Kitab al-Baul, or in Hebrew Sefer ha-Shetan, a treatise on urine, of which the author himself made an abridgement.
- Kitab al-Istiḳat, in Hebrew Sefer ha-Yesodot and Latin as De Elementis, a medical and philosophical work on the elements, which the author treats according to the ideas of Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen. The Hebrew translation was made by Abraham ben Hasdai at the request of the grammarian David Kimhi.
- Manhig ha-Rofe'im, or Musar ha-Rofe'im, a treatise, in fifty paragraphs, for physicians, translated into Hebrew (the Arabic original is not extant), and into German by David Kaufmann under the title Propädeutik für Aerzte (Berliner's "Magazin," xi. 97-112).
- Kitab fi al-Tiryaḳ, a work on antidotes. Some writers attribute to Isaac Israeli two other works which figure among Constantine's translations, namely, the Liber Pantegni and the Viaticum, of which there are three Hebrew translations. But the former belongs to Mohammed al-Razi and the latter to 'Ali ibn 'Abbas or, according to other authorities, to Israeli's pupil Abu Jaf'ar ibn al-Jazzar.
Philosophical works
- Kitab al-Ḥudud wal-Rusum, translated into Hebrew by Nissim b. Solomon (fourteenth century) under the title Sefer ha-Gebulim weha-Reshumim, a philosophical work of which a Latin translation is quoted in the beginning of the Opera Omnia. This work and the Kitab al-Istiḳat were severely criticized by Maimonides in a letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon (Iggerot ha-Rambam, p. 28, Leipsic, 1859), in which he declared that they had no value, inasmuch as Isaac Israeli ben Solomon was nothing more than a physician.
- Kitab Bustan al-Ḥikimah, on metaphysics.
- Kitab al-Ḥikmah, a treatise on philosophy.
- Kitab al-Madkhal fi al-Mantiḳ, on logic. The last three works are mentioned by Ibn Abi Uṣaibi'a, but no Hebrew translations of them are known.
- Sefer ha-Ruaḥ weha-Nefesh, a philosophical treatise, in a Hebrew translation, on the difference between the Ha-Karmel(1871, pp. 400–405). The editor is of opinion that this little work is a fragment of a larger one.
- A philosophical commentary on Genesis, in two books, one of which deals with Genesis i. 20.
Attributed works
Another work which has been ascribed to Israeli, and which more than any other has given rise to controversy among later scholars, is a commentary on the "Sefer Yeẓirah." Steinschneider (in his "Al-Farabi," p. 248) and Carmoly (in Jost's "Annalen," ii. 321) attribute the authorship to Israeli, because Abraham ibn Ḥasdai (see above), and Jedaiah Bedersi in his apologetical letter to Solomon ben Adret ("Orient, Lit." xi. cols. 166–169) speak of a commentary by Israeli on the "Sefer Yeẓirah," though by some scholars the words "Sefer Yeẓirah" are believed to denote simply the "Book of Genesis." But David Kaufmann ("R. E. J." viii. 126), Sachs ("Orient, Lit." l.c.), and especially Grätz (Geschichte v. 237, note 2) are inclined to attribute its authorship to Israeli's pupil Dunash ibn Tamim.
Notes
- Arthur N. Prior, Macmillan, 1969, pp. 223–4.
- ^ "Isaac ben Solomon Israeli". Britannica.
- ^ Jacquart and Micheau, "La Médecine Arabe et l'Occident Médiéval", Paris: Editions Maisonneuve et Larose, 1990, p.114
- ^ Stern, "Biographical note", pp. xxiii-xxiv
- ^ Stern, "Biographical note", p. xxv.
- S2CID 3121262.
- ISSN 1570-0674.
- .
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Richard Gottheil and Max Seligsohn (1901–1906). "Israeli, Issac ben Solomon". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.- Stern, S. M. (2009) [1958]. "Biographical note". In ISBN 978-0-226-01613-9.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0-226-01613-9.
- Older sources
- Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: Ibn Abi Usaibia, Uyun al-Anba, ii. 36, 37, Bulak, 1882;
- 'Abd al-Laṭif, Relation de l'Egypte (translated by De Sacy), pp. 43, 44, Paris, 1810;
- Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Literaturgesch. der Araber, iv. 376 (attributing to Israeli the authorship of a treatise on the pulse);
- Wüstenfeld, Geschichte der Arabischen Aerzte, p. 51;
- Sprenger, Geschichte der Arzneikunde, ii. 270;
- Leclerc, Histoire de la Médecine Arabe, i. 412;
- Eliakim Carmoly, in Revue Orientale, i. 350-352;
- Heinrich Grätz, Geschichte 3d ed., v. 257;
- Haji Khalfa, ii. 51, v. 41, et passim;
- Moritz Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. cols. 1113-1124;
- idem, Hebr. Bibl. viii. 98. xii. 58;
- Dukes, in Orient, Lit. x. 657;
- Gross, in Monatsschrift, xxviii. 326: Jost's Annalen, i. 408.
External links
- Isaac Israeli, Stanford University.
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