VII

Introduction.

D. B. Haneberg believed he could complete Munk's evidence regarding the sources of Ibn Gabirol and demonstrate traces of influence from the encyclopedia of the "Brethren of Purity and Faithful Friends" original German: lauteren Brüder und treuen Intimen; Arabic: Ikhwân al-Safâ, a secret society of Muslim philosophers in 10th-century Basra within the Source of Life Latin: Fons Vitae.^1

A characterization and delimitation of the influence of the Source of Life on Scholasticism The medieval school of philosophy and theology taught in European universities that goes beyond Munk's explanation has not yet been undertaken. Recently, J. Bach has illuminated Albert the Great's position toward Ibn Gabirol.^2

Sharing the fundamental Neoplatonic A tradition of philosophy following Plato that emphasizes a single source of all existence direction of Ibn Gabirol's speculation, but otherwise not comparable to the Source of Life in terms of its own significance, content, or scope, the book On Causes Latin: de causis nevertheless found a far more extensive use in both Christian and Jewish philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages; in particular, it experienced much greater agreement and recognition, and generally enjoyed much greater authority. For this very reason, this book never disappeared from the horizon or went missing in the same way that happened to the Source of Life. The Latin translation used by the Scholastics—setting aside for now the various translations into Hebrew—exists today in an almost inexhaustible series of manuscripts; it was also printed as early as 1482 and has been reprinted again and again since then.

With regard to this Latin translation, B. Hauréau suggested that, concerning the book On Causes, it would not be difficult to satisfy Jourdain’s call for action. But with only a summary table of contents for the individual chapters, as Hauréau—

...of Judaism, Years 1857–1859; reprinted in the Contributions to the History of Philosophy by M. Joel (Breslau 1876, 2 Vols.), in the appendix of the first volume, pp. 1–52.

For a critique of this treatise, cf. the remarks on Ibn Gabirol in D. Kaufmann's History of the Doctrine of Attributes in Jewish Religious Philosophy of the Middle Ages from Saadia to Maimonides (Gotha 1877) p. 95 ff.

1 On the relationship of Ibn Gabirol to the Encyclopedia of the Ikhwân al-Safâ: Proceedings of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. Year 1866. Vol. II. pp. 73–102.

2 Albertus Magnus’s Relationship to the Epistemology of the Greeks, Latins, Arabs, and Jews. A Contribution to the History of Noetics. Vienna 1881. pp. 163–173.