As Ibn-Gebirol, whilst yet a child, created the most difficult artistic forms of Hebrew poetry, and handled them with sportive ease; so while still a youth, he built up a system attempting to solve the deepest problems which concern the human understanding. What is the highest aim of man? What is the nature and origin of the soul, and whither does it go when it leaves its earthly dwelling? How is the highest Being to be conceived, and how did He, being One and perfect, bring forth the manifold, corrupt and defective things of a visible world? These and many other questions Ibn-Gebirol attempted to answer, to satisfy not the believing heart, but the critical human mind, to show it its true place in the universe, to direct its attention to the invisible spirit-world above, and to the world of matter beneath, and induce it to seek the link binding them together. In the exposition of his system Ibn-Gebirol reveals a superabundant wealth of ideas, and a depth of subtle thought, so that the thinker must concentrate all his attention in order to be able to follow out his reasoning. To him, however, these extremely complicated thoughts, encircling the whole world from its very origin, and the whole range of beings down to lifeless stone, were so comprehensible that for everything he found the most fitting word and the most suitable image. Indeed, one portion of these thoughts he poured forth in a poem in the form of a prayer (Kether Malchuth), which for sublimity, elevated tone, and truth has no equal. It is true that the leading ideas of Ibn-Gebirol's system had been expressed by earlier philosophers, but he formed into one organic whole a confused mass of scattered thoughts. He developed his system in a work entitled, "The Fountain of Life" (Mekor Chayim, Fons Vitæ), written in Arabic, which he handled with as much ease as Hebrew. A Christian emperor destroyed the temple of philosophy in Athens, and exiled its last priests. Since that time philosophy had been outlawed in Europe; at least, it was little known there, and had been compelled to find a home in Asia. The Jewish thinker, Ibn-Gebirol, was the first to transplant it again to Europe, and he built an altar to it in Spain, where it found a permanent habitation.
Like Plato of a poetical nature, Ibn-Gebirol borrowed the dialogue form of composition from the Greek philosopher. His system is developed in the course of a lively conversation between a master and his disciple. He thereby avoided the usual dryness of metaphysical studies, which makes them unenjoyable. He paid so little attention to Judaism in his system, that unless the reader knows that he was a sincere Jew, thoroughly devoted to his faith, he cannot discover it in his writings. The philosophy of Ibn-Gebirol, therefore, found little favor in Jewish circles, and exercised very little influence. Jewish thinkers found the tenor of his philosophy foreign to their own mode of thinking, and the form of demonstration too involved, the explanations too fitful, the method of presentation too lacking in system, and the whole not satisfying. Ibn-Gebirol's system aroused all the more attention among the Arabs and the Christian schoolmen. A century after its appearance, his chief work was translated into Latin by the combined labor of a Christian priest and a baptized Jew. Several prominent scholastic writers subscribed to the views of Ibn-Gebirol, whom they called Avicebrol or Avicebron. Others opposed them, but all considered them. In later times, the Kabbala borrowed some formulæ from him.
Another Jewish philosopher of this time, which was so rich in great men, pursued a course different from Ibn-Gebirol's. He stood entirely upon Jewish ground, but he also introduced foreign elements into his system. Bachya (Bechaya) ben Joseph Ibn-Pakuda (Bakuda) was a model of earnest piety and altruistic morality. He established an entirely original moral theology of Judaism. Bachya was one of those natures whose energy of spirit and powerful moral force, if favored by the circumstances of the time, effect reformations. Of the details of the life of this moral philosopher absolutely nothing is known, not even the part of Spain in which he lived. We identify him wholly with his work, "Guide to the Duties of the Heart," which he wrote in Arabic. The sum and substance of its teachings is that nothing is of so much importance as that our conduct be ruled entirely by most serious religious convictions and godlike holiness of purpose. Biblical exegesis, grammar, poetry, speculative philosophy, all the pursuits with which the scholars of the age busied themselves are, according to Bachya, subordinate branches, hardly worthy of serious attention. The study of the Talmud even has no very great merit in his eyes. Bachya Ibn-Pakuda's aim was the spiritualization of Judaism. The duties which conscience demands are of infinitely greater importance to him than the ritual duties prescribed by the legal code. Like the Christian teachers of the first century, he distinguished in Judaism between the purely religious and moral injunctions and the ceremonial laws, attaching greater importance to the first than to the second.
The complete surrender to the demands of a godly, self-denying, holy life, which is the summum bonum of Bachya, remained no abstract theory with him, but was exemplified in his whole being, changing conscientiousness in him to overscrupulousness. Too subtle spiritualization of religion led Bachya to practise rigid asceticism, which appeared to him to be the highest degree of wisdom attainable by man. Judaism, according to his view, inculcates frugality and abstemiousness. The patriarchs, from Enoch to Jacob, received no laws setting limits to their pleasure, as they were unnecessary, their souls being able to overcome the lusts of the flesh. But their descendants, the Jewish nation, were commanded to be abstemious, because they had become corrupt by their intercourse with the Egyptians, and conceived a desire for luxury, when they obtained an accession of wealth at the time of the capture of the land of Canaan. For this reason the law of the Nazarite was instituted. The more degenerate the Jewish nation became, the more certain individuals, especially the prophets, felt themselves impelled to withdraw from communion with society and from worldly affairs, and to retire into seclusion and lead a contemplative life. This example men ought to follow. It is indeed impossible that all men should relinquish the world and its activity, because utter desolation would ensue, which was never intended by God. There must, however, be a class of exemplary persons, who shall deny themselves intercourse with the world (Perushim), and who shall serve as patterns to mankind to show how the passions can be curbed and controlled. Bachya came near extolling monasticism, toward which the Middle Ages, both in the Mahometan and in the Christian world, markedly inclined. Although well versed in philosophy, he would have passed his days, a Jewish hermit, in retirement from the world and in a contemplative life of meditation, like his younger contemporary, the Mahometan philosopher Alghazali, or he would have imitated the "Mourners for Zion" among the Karaites, were it not that the basis for such extravagant excesses was wanting in rabbinical Judaism.
The first rabbinical epoch was fertile in original minds, also producing a character whose course tended to shake violently the firm basis of Judaism. Abu Ibraham Isaac Ibn-Kastar (or Saktar) ben Yasus, with the literary title Yizchaki, was a man whose profound knowledge of philosophy and medicine was also celebrated among the Arabs. Born at Toledo (982, died 1057), he was appointed physician to Mujahid, the Prince of Denia, and his son Ali Ikbal Addaula. Ben Yasus composed a Hebrew grammar, under the name of "Compositions," and another work with the title of "Sefer Yizchaki," in which he displayed remarkable boldness in his Biblical explanations. He asserted especially that the portion of the Pentateuch in Genesis which treats of the kings of Edom was not written by Moses, but was interpolated some centuries later, a critical statement unique in the Middle Ages, and not advanced until very recently.
It would be wrong to pass over in silence a poet, who, for flight of fancy, depth of thought, and beauty of expression, may claim equality with Solomon Ibn-Gebirol, but of whose poems only a single one is extant, "an orphaned song," as he himself called it. Abu Amr Joseph ben Chasdaï was probably born in Cordova. His two brothers, who were compelled by the troubles of the wars in Spain to leave home, dwelt under the protection of the statesman, Samuel Ibn-Nagrela. Respect and thankfulness towards their noble patron induced Joseph ben Chasdaï to write an elevated, artistic, and highly imaginative poem, in which he eulogized Samuel and his young son Joseph with enthusiastic warmth (about 1044–1046). Samuel, who would never accept anything, not even a gift of praise, without making some return, wrote, in praise of Joseph ben Chasdaï, a similar poem in the same meter, but not possessing the same poetical beauty. Joseph ben Chasdaï left a son, who later obtained in Saragossa a position similar to that of Ibn-Nagrela in Granada.
Samuel, the pride of the Spanish Jews, who, as his biographer says, bore four crowns, the crown of the Law, of the priesthood, of renown, and pre-eminently that of magnanimity, was the soul of the Jewish congregation for over a quarter of a century, and died deeply lamented by his contemporaries (1055). He was buried at the gate of Elvira, in Granada, and his son erected a magnificent monument to him. A still finer monument was built for him by Solomon Ibn-Gebirol in a few pregnant lines:
"Thy home is now within my heart,
Whence ne'er shall thy firm tent depart.
There I seek thee, there I find thee,
Near as my soul art thou to me."
Samuel's noble son, Abu Hussain Joseph Ibn-Nagrela (born 1031), was a worthy successor to all the honors and titles of his father. King Badis appointed him his vizir, and the Jewish community in Granada acknowledged him, although but twenty-four years of age, as their rabbi and chief (Nagid). His father had placed him under learned tutors from different countries, and in his youth he displayed extraordinary maturity of mind. Joseph, who, like his father, was well acquainted with Arabic literature, became during his father's lifetime secretary to the heir-apparent Balkin. When he was eighteen years old, his father chose a wife for him, and he did not seek her among the wealthy and noble families of Andalusia. She was the learned and virtuous daughter of the poor Nissim of Kairuan. Joseph was heir to all the greatness of his father, and though rich and surpassingly handsome, he lived, in the prime of his youth, with a moderation that presented a marked contrast to the debauchery of the Mahometan nobles. In his capacity as minister, Joseph worked for the welfare of the state, and ruled as independently as his father. He supported science and its votaries, and so great was his liberality and so lofty his nobility of soul, that even Arab poets sang his praises. "Greet his countenance," said a Mahometan of him, "for in it wilt thou find happiness and hope. Never has a friend found a flaw in him." When the sons of the last Gaon, descended from the Prince of the Captivity, fled to Spain, Joseph Ibn-Nagrela received them hospitably, and assisted them in finding a new home in Granada. The young Jewish vizir, like his father, was the head of a college, and delivered lectures on the Talmud.
In two things only did Joseph's conduct differ from his father's; he promoted his co-religionists too conspicuously to positions of state, and behaved haughtily to his subordinates. A near kinsman of his was installed in the office next beneath his own. By these acts Joseph aroused the hatred of the Berbers, the ruling population in Granada, against himself and the Jews. They envied his truly princely splendor. He had a palace which was paved with marble. Certain occurrences during his administration transformed the hatred into fierce anger. Between the heir-apparent Balkin and his former secretary Joseph there was mutual antipathy. Suddenly Balkin died, it was thought by poisoning. King Badis thereupon had some of the servants and wives of the prince executed as guilty of his death. The remainder fled in fear of a similar punishment (1064). It was popularly believed, however, that Joseph had administered the poison to the prince. An incident, in which Joseph revealed himself at once as a humane man, and as a diplomatist devoted to his master, appears to have lost him the favor of Badis. Between the Berbers who held the sovereign power in Granada and other places in Spain and the original Arabs, there raged so fierce a racial hatred that every town of mixed population was divided into two camps. On one occasion King Badis learnt that the Berber ruler in Ronda had been slain in consequence of a conspiracy of the Arabs organized by the king of Seville, and on this account he was filled with mistrust towards the Arabs of his capital. He feared at every moment that he, like his kinsman, would fall a victim to a conspiracy. He thereupon concocted a fiendish plot; he ordered his army to massacre all the Arabs of his capital during divine service on a Friday. This plan he communicated to his Jewish minister, without whose advice he did nothing, adding that his determination was so firmly made that no objections would avail to cause him to desist from his purpose, and that he expected Joseph to maintain the deepest silence about his project. Joseph, however, considered this murderous plan as a baleful political mistake, and omitted nothing whereby he might persuade the bloodthirsty monarch to abandon his design. He asked the king to consider that the plot might miscarry, and the Arabs of the town and of the suburbs might rush to arms in self-defense, and that, even if the whole Arab population were destroyed without resistance, the danger would not disappear, but rather become magnified; for the neighboring states, which, like Seville, were wholly Arab, would be excited to deadly fury, and enter upon a war of revenge against the murderers of their kinsmen. "I see them even now," said Joseph with energy; "even now do I behold them hurrying towards us, burning with rage, each one brandishing his sword over thy head, O king. Foes, countless as the waves of the sea, hurl themselves against thee, and thou and thine army are powerless." Thus spake the Jewish statesman.