His son Judah Leo Abarbanel (1470-1530)[442] is the author of a philosophical work in Italian, "Dialoghi di Amore," (Dialogues of Love), which breathes the spirit of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy. It is under the influence of Plato and Plotinus and identifies God with love, which is regarded as the essential principle of all life and activity in the world, including even the inorganic natural processes. There is no attempt made to construct a Jewish philosophy, and though all evidence is against it, some have made it out that Judah Abarbanel was a convert to Christianity.
In the same country, in Italy, Judah ben Yechiel Messer Leon of Mantua[443] (1450-1490) made a name for himself as a student of Cicero and of mediæval Latin scholasticism. He wrote a rhetoric in Hebrew based upon Cicero and Lactantius, and composed logical works based upon Aristotle's Latin text and Averroes. As an original student of philosophy he is of no importance.
Two members of the Delmedigo family of Crete, Elijah (1460-1498) and Joseph Solomon,[444] are well known as students of philosophy and writers on philosophical and scientific subjects.
Thus the stream of philosophical thought which rose among the Jews in Babylonia and flowed on through the ages, ever widening and deepening its channel, passing into Spain and reaching its high water mark in the latter half of the twelfth century in Maimonides, began to narrow and thin out while spreading into France and Italy, until at last it dried up entirely in that very land which opened up a new world of thought, beauty and feeling in the fifteenth century, the land of the Renaissance. Jewish philosophy never passed beyond the scholastic stage, and the freedom and light which came to the rest of the world in the revival of ancient learning and the inventions and discoveries of the modern era found the Jews incapable of benefiting by the blessings they afforded. Oppression and gloom caused the Jews to retire within their shell and they sought consolation for the freedom denied them without in concentrating their interests, ideals and hopes upon the Rabbinic writings, legal as well as mystical. There have appeared philosophers among the Jews in succeeding centuries, but they either philosophized without regard to Judaism and in opposition to its fundamental dogmas, thus incurring the wrath and exclusion of the synagogue, or they sought to dissociate Judaism from theoretical speculation on the ground that the Jewish religion is not a philosophy but a rule of conduct. In more recent times Jewry has divided itself into sects and under the influence of modern individualism has lost its central authority making every group the arbiter of its own belief and practice and narrowing the religious influence to matters of ceremony and communal activity of a practical character. There are Jews now and there are philosophers, but there are no Jewish philosophers and there is no Jewish philosophy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[D]
GENERAL WORKS
Solomon Munk, Mélanges de Philosophie Juive et Arabe, Paris 1859, pp. 461-511. A brief historical résumé of philosophical authors and books. German translation by Beer, Philosophie und philosophische Schriftsteller der Juden, Leipzig, 1852. English translation by Isidor Kalisch, Philosophy and Philosophical Authors of the Jews, Cincinnati, 1881.
A. Schmiedl, Studien über jüdische, insonders jüdisch-arabische Religionsphilosophie, Wien, 1869.
Moritz Eisler, Vorlesungen über die jüdischen Philosophen des Mittelalters (3 parts), Wien, 1870-84.