Yoav Meyrav

Medieval Jewish philosophers approached the human body and being in a body from various aspects: ontological, ethical, psychological, and eschatological. Thinkers from many different geographical and philosophical backgrounds nonetheless all shared a common point of reference: Judaism as an “embodied religion.” Jewish day-to-day practice (“mitzvot”) and Jewish law (“halakha”) have much to do with the regulation and moderation of the body, in this life as well as after the resurrection (if taken literally). This creates potential tension with the different philosophical and theological traditions many Jewish philosophers responded to. Passages from the writings of—among others—Saadya Gaon, Judah Halevi, Bahya ibn Paquda, Maimonides, and Abraham ibn Daud, are analyzed and assessed, exhibiting a wide scope of opinions and approaches, all of which have some affinity to the “embodiment” of the Jewish religion, which perhaps reduces the ontological distance between the realm of body and the realm of mind.

RésuméLa «Concession à Avicenne», également connue sous le nom de septième chapitre du De substantia orbis, est l’une des nombreuses tentatives philosophiques d’Averroès visant à concilier la corporéité des corps célestes et leur éternité. La «Concession» contient un bref et rare clin d’oeil d’approbation à Avicenne, d’où le titre sous lequel elle a été diffusée. L’ouvrage, perdu en arabe, nous est parvenu grâce à la traduction hébraïque de Ṭodros Ṭodrosi datant de 1340, à partir de laquelle la traduction latine d’Abraham de Balmes a été réalisée au début du xvie s. La présente contribution propose, pour la première fois, une édition du texte hébreu et de sa traduction latine originale (avant sa révision éditoriale pour l’editio princeps de 1525), ainsi qu’une introduction, une analyse philosophique, une traduction anglaise et un glossaire.

This is the only commentary on Aristotle's theological work, Metaphysics, Book 12, to survive from the first six centuries CE – the heyday of ancient Greek commentary on Aristotle. Though the Greek text itself is lost, a full English translation is presented here for the first time, based on Arabic versions of the Greek and a Hebrew version of the Arabic. In his commentary Themistius offers an extensive re-working of Aristotle, confirming that the first principle of the universe is indeed Aristotle's God as intellect, not the intelligibles thought by God. The identity of intellect with intelligibles had been omitted by Aristotle in Metaphysics 12, but is suggested in his Physics 3.3 and On the Soul 3, and later by Plotinus. Laid out here in an accessible translation and accompanied by extensive commentary notes, introduction and indexes, the work will be of interest for students and scholars of Neoplatonist philosophy, ancient metaphysics, and textual transmission.