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If the contingent exists for God also, it follows that he is not the complete master of nature and the world. To say as Ibn Daud does that God made the contingent, i. e., made it to be contingent, sounds like a contradiction, and reminds one of the question whether God can make a stone so big that he cannot lift it himself.
He is praised as a Talmudic scholar by his countryman Moses ibn Ezra, and as a poet by Abraham ibn Daud and Harizi, though we have no Talmudic composition from his pen, and but few poems, whether liturgical or otherwise. His fame rests on his philosophical work, and it is this phase of his career in which we are interested here.
The explanation of Ibn Daud it was not original with him, as we have already seen the non-religious philosopher in Halevi's Cusari giving utterance to the same idea, and in Jewish philosophy Israeli touches on it the explanation of Ibn Daud is grounded in his psychology, the Aristotelian psychology of Avicenna.
Accordingly Ibn Daud takes pains to refute the most important of these phenomenalistic theories, that of Hippocrates and Galen. Their theory in brief is that the functions which we attribute to the soul are in reality the results of the various combinations of the four elementary qualities, hot, cold, moist, dry.
Instead of first proving the existence of God and then discussing his nature and attributes, as Saadia, Bahya, Ibn Daud and others did before him, he treats exhaustively of the divine attributes in the first book, whereas the proof of the existence of God does not appear until the second book. This inversion of the logical order is deliberate. Maimonides's method is directed ad hominem.
How could he think otherwise, when he heard Iskender offer to defray the cost of horses, and saw him daily bring some present in his hand? Now he would learn the truth. Elias was standing in the doorway talking to Daûd son of Mûsa when his friend came out. He noticed his glum looks, and asked the cause.
Again and again it seemed impossible that Daūd could escape, but Grimani's Fabian policy delivered the enemy out of his hands, and when finally the Turkish fleet sailed triumphantly into the Gulf of Patras, where it was protected by the Sultan's artillery at Lepanto, the Grand Prior of Auvergne, who commanded the French squadron, sailed away in disgust at the pusillanimity of his colleague.
The above digression will make clear to us the position of Ibn Daud and his relation to Maimonides. Ibn Daud began what Maimonides finished the last stage in the Aristotelization of Jewish thought. Why is it then that so little was known about him, and that his important treatise was neglected and practically forgotten?
Gabirol was forgotten, Ibn Zaddik and Ibn Daud were neglected, and Jewish learning continued the even tenor of its course.
To the Christians the action was known as "the deplorable battle of Zonchio," from the name of the old castle of Navarino, beneath which it was fought. In spite of his success at Zonchio, Daūd Pasha had still to fight his way up to Lepanto. The Venetians had collected their scattered fleet, and had been reinforced by their allies of France and Rhodes; it was clear they were bent on revenge.
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