It is not remarkable that a man of such pure integrity and deep appreciation of wisdom and religion should spread blessings around him, should advance science and poetry, and should support learning with princely generosity. Samuel was in communication with the most prominent men of his time, in Irak, Syria, Egypt, and Africa, especially with the last of the great Geonim, Haï and with Nissim. He gave rich gifts to the learned, he had copies of books made to be presented to poor students, arousing dormant talents and becoming the protector of his countrymen, far and near. The greatest poet of the time, Ibn-Gebirol, he comforted in his distress. A writer of the following generation aptly describes him in the words, "In Samuel's time the kingdom of science was raised from its lowliness, and the star of knowledge once more shone forth; God gave unto him a great mind which reached to the spheres and touched the heavens, so that he might love knowledge and those that pursued her, and that he might glorify religion and her followers."

The position of the Jews in a country in which one of them held the reins of government was naturally high. In no country of the world did they enjoy so complete an equality as in the city of Granada. It was as a ray of sunshine after days of gloom. They were, in fact, more highly favored by the ruling race, the Berbers, than the Arab population, who bore the yoke of the Sinhajas with silent anger, and whose glances were always directed to the neighboring city of Seville, in which a king of pure Arab race wore the crown.

The minister of state and rabbi, Ibn-Nagrela, also occupied himself with researches into the structure of the holy language, but this was his weak point. He did not get beyond the rules laid down by Chayuj. He was so partial to this master that he could not appreciate new efforts. Samuel composed twenty-two theses on Hebrew grammar. Only one, however, Sefer-ha Osher, the "Book of Riches," is worthy of mention. The rest were only polemic treatises directed against the great Hebrew linguist, Ibn Janach, towards whom Samuel was unfriendly. Ibn Janach, the greatest Hebraist of his time—no less an ornament of Spanish Judaism than the vizir Ibn-Nagrela—deserves a special page in Jewish history, more especially because for a long time he was unknown and then misunderstood. Jonah Marinus (in Arabic, Abulvalid Mervan Ibn-Janach, born about 995, died 1050), was educated in Cordova, where after the death of Chasdaï all hearts were filled with enthusiasm for knowledge and a devoted love for the holy language. Isaac Ibn-G'ikatilia, of the school of Menachem, taught him Hebrew grammar, and Isaac Ibn-Sahal was his teacher in prosody. He studied medicine in the high school of Cordova, founded by the Caliph Alhakem. In his youth Ibn-Janach, like everybody at that period, made verses, which even later on, when his taste was developed, did not appear to him entirely bad. But he gave up versifying in order to devote himself entirely to the study of the Hebrew language in all its ramifications. He lived entirely for this study, and obtained such mastery of it that up to the present day he has not been surpassed. Posterity has learnt much from Ibn-Janach, but students of the Hebrew language can yet learn much more. Like his opponent Ibn-Nagrela, he also was compelled to leave Cordova after its destruction by Suleiman of Barbary (1013), when he settled in Saragossa. The Jews of Saragossa were for the most part still laboring under the delusion that rabbinical Judaism would be injured by research, and especially by grammatical investigations. Ibn-Janach nevertheless devoted himself to the study of the structure of the Hebrew language and to the explanation of the text of the Bible. He also pursued the study of medicine both theoretically and practically; but his chief attention was directed to a thorough exegesis of the Bible, and grammatical research with him was not an end in itself, but simply the means for a better comprehension of Holy Writ. Ibn-Janach, in his researches, reached conclusions not discovered by Chayuj. The alterations which on this account he necessarily had to make in the grammatical system of Chayuj, were made modestly and with due recognition of its merits. He had the greatest admiration for the founder of Hebrew philology, but like Aristotle, "his love of truth was greater than his love of Plato." This independence of Chayuj's teaching aroused the anger of the latter's followers, chief amongst whom was Samuel Ibn-Nagrela, and the disputes that arose ended in bitter personalities. The two chief exponents of the Jewish culture of this period, the noble-minded prince and the master of the Hebrew language, thus became bitter, irreconcilable enemies.

Feeling the approach of old age, which with Plato he calls "the mother of forgetfulness," Ibn-Janach devoted himself to his greatest work, wherein he summed up his researches, and deposited the treasures of his soul life. Ibn-Janach was not only the creator of the science of Hebrew syntax, but he also developed it almost to perfection. None before him, and but few since his time, have entered into all the niceties of the holy language with so much discrimination as Ibn-Janach. He first drew attention to the ellipses, and to the misplacement of letters and verses in the Holy Scriptures, and he was sufficiently daring to explain that various dark and apparently inexplicable expressions were due to the change of a letter or a syllable. He explained over two hundred obscure passages by means of the supposition that the writer had substituted an inappropriate word for a more fitting one. By the insertion of the correct word, Ibn-Janach often gives the intended meaning to a number of verses which up to his time had been interpreted in a childish way. He was the first rational Bible critic. Although convinced of the divinity of Holy Writ, he did not, like others, rate the language so highly as to accept sheer nonsense; but he assumed that, even though inspired, words addressed to mankind must be interpreted according to the rules of human language. Ibn-Janach did not, indeed, assert that the copyists and punctuators had altered or corrupted the holy literature from want of understanding, but that being human they had erred. He justly called his chief work (which with five others he wrote in Arabic) "Critique" (Al Tanchik), and divided it into two parts—into grammar with exegesis ("Al-Luma', Rikmah"), and lexicon ("Kitab Al-Assval").

Although Ibn-Janach had many enemies amongst those who belittled him, and amongst those who condemned him as a heretic on account of his scientific treatment of the Bible, yet in his work he never mentions them in anger, and, in fact, had he been the only one concerned, the world would never have known of the enmity of Samuel Ibn-Nagrela towards him. Ibn-Janach was not unacquainted with philosophy. He refers to Plato and Aristotle in a scholarly manner. He also wrote a book on logic in the Aristotelian spirit. But he was opposed to metaphysical researches into the relation of God to the world, and first principles, speculations with which his countrymen, and especially Ibn-Gebirol, concerned themselves, because he considered that such matters did not lead to any definite knowledge, and that they undermine belief. Ibn-Janach was a clear thinker, and opposed to any extravagant or eccentric tendency. He was the opposite of the third of the triumvirate of this period, his townsman Ibn-Gebirol, with whom his relations apparently were not of the pleasantest kind.

[CHAPTER IX.]
IBN-GEBIROL AND HIS EPOCH.

Solomon Ibn-Gebirol—His early life—His poems—The statesman Yekutiel Ibn-Hassan befriends him—Murder of Yekutiel—Bachya Ibn-Pakuda and his moral philosophy—The Biblical critic Yizchaki ben Yasus—Joseph ben Chasdaï, the Poet—Death of Samuel Ibn-Nagrela—Character of his son Joseph and his tragic fate—Death of Ibn-Gebirol—The French and German communities—Alfassi—Life and works of Rashi—Jewish scholars in Spain—King Alfonso.

1027–1070 C. E.