Isaac Israeli ben Solomon | |
|---|---|
| יצחק בן שלמה הישראלי | |
 De febribus | |
| Born | |
| Died | c. 932 Kairouan,Abbasid Caliphate (now Tunisia) |
| Era | Medieval philosophy |
| Region | Jewish philosophy |
| School | Neoplatonism Correspondence theory of truth[1] (according toAquinas) |
Isaac Israeli ben Solomon (Hebrew:יצחק בן שלמה הישראליYitzhak ben Shlomo ha-Yisraeli;Arabic:أبو يعقوب إسحاق بن سليمان الإسرائيليAbu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Suleiman al-Isra'ili;c. 832 –c. 932), also known asIsaac Israeli the Elder andIsaac Judaeus, was a Jewish physician and philosopher. He was one of the foremost Jewish academics living in theArab world of his time, and is regarded as the father of medieval JewishNeoplatonism.[2] His works, all written inArabic and subsequently translated intoHebrew,Latin, andSpanish, entered the medical curriculum of European universities in the early 13th century and remained popular throughout the rest of theMiddle Ages.[3]
Little is known of Israeli's background and career. Much that is known comes from the biographical accounts found inThe Generations of the Physicians, a work written by the Andalusian Arab authorIbn Juljul in the second half of the 10th century, and inTabaqāt al-ʼUmam (Categories of Nations) bySa'id of Toledo, who wrote in the mid-11th century.[4] In the 13th century,Ibn Abi Usaybi'a also produced an account, which he based on Ibn Juljul as well as other sources, including theHistory of the Fatimid Dynasty by Israeli's pupilIbn al-Jazzar.[5]
Israeli was born in around 832 into a Jewish family inEgypt. He lived the first half of his life inCairo where he gained a reputation as a skillfuloculist. He corresponded withSaadya ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (882–942), one of the most influential figures in medieval Judaism, prior to his departure from Egypt. In about 904, Israeli was nominated court physician to the lastAghlabid prince,Ziyadat Allah III. Between the years 905–907 he travelled toKairouan where he studied general medicine underIshak ibn Amran al-Baghdadi, with whom he is sometimes confounded ("Sefer ha-Yashar," p. 10a). Later he served as a doctor to the founder of theFatimid Dynasty of North Africa,'Ubaid Allah al-Mahdi, who reigned from 910–934. The caliph enjoyed the company of his Jewish physician on account of the latter's wit and of the repartees in which he succeeded in confounding theGreek al-Hubaish when pitted against him. In Kairouan his fame became widely extended, the works which he wrote in Arabic being considered by theMuslim physicians as "more valuable than gems." His lectures attracted a large number of pupils, of whom the two most prominent wereAbu Ja'far ibn al-Jazzar, a Muslim, andDunash ibn Tamim. Israeli studiednatural history,medicine,mathematics,astronomy, and other scientific topics; he was reputed to be one who knew all the "seven sciences".
Biographers state that he never married or fathered children. He died atKairouan,Tunisia, in 932. This date is given by most Arabic authorities who give his date of birth as 832. ButAbraham ben Hasdai, quoting the biographerSanah ibn Sa'id al-Kurtubi ("Orient, Lit." iv., col. 230), says that Isaac Israeli died in 942.Heinrich Grätz (Geschichte v. 236), while stating that Isaac Israeli lived more than one hundred years, gives the dates 845–940; and Steinschneider ("Hebr. Uebers." pp. 388, 755) places his death in 950. He died inKairouan.
In 956 his pupil Dunash Ibn Tamim wrote an extensive commentary onSefer 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 inToledo transmitted many Arabic works of science and philosophy into Latin. One of the translators,Gerard of Cremona, rendered Israeli'sBook of Definitions (Liber de Definicionibus/Definitionibus) andBook on the Elements (Liber Elementorum) into Latin. Israeli's work was quoted and paraphrased by a number of Christian thinkers includingGundissalinus,Albertus Magnus,Thomas Aquinas,Vincent de Beauvais,Bonaventura,Roger Bacon andNicholas of Cusa. 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 toMoses Ibn Ezra (c. 1060–1139) who quotes Isaac Israeli without attribution in his treatiseThe Book of the Garden, explaining the meaning ofMetaphor andLiteral Expression. The poet and philosopherJoseph Ibn Tzaddiq ofCordoba (d. 1149) authored a workThe Microcosm containing many ideas indebted to Israeli.
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.
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 1515Opera Omnia Isaci was published inLyon,France, and the editor of this work claimed that the works originally written in Arabic and translated intoLatin in 1087 byConstantine of Carthage, who assumed their authorship, were a 'plagiarism' and published them under Israeli's name, together in a collection with works of other physicians that were also and erroneously attributed to Israeli. Those works translated by Constantine of Carthage were used as textbooks at theUniversity of Salerno, the earliestuniversity in WesternEurope, where Constantine was a professor of medicine, and remained in use as textbooks throughout Europe until the seventeenth century.
He was the first physician to write abouttracheotomy in Arabic. He advised a hook to grasp the skin in the neck asPaulus of Aegina did and afterwardsAvicenna andAlbucasis.[6]
Eliakim Carmoly ("Ẓiyyon," i. 46) concludes that the Isaac who was so violently attacked byAbraham ibn Ezra in the introduction to his commentary on thePentateuch, and whom he calls in other places "Isaac the Prattler", and "Ha-Yiẓḥaḳ," was none other than Isaac Israeli. But if Israeli was attacked by Ibn Ezra he was praised by other Biblical commentators, such as Jacob b. Ruben, a contemporary of Maimonides, and by Ḥasdai.
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.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Richard Gottheil andMax Seligsohn (1901–1906)."Israeli, Issac ben Solomon". InSinger, Isidore; et al. (eds.).The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
