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With all due respect therefore to the philosophers, who are the most reliable guides in matters not conflicting with revelation, we must leave them if we wish to learn the truth concerning those matters in which they are incompetent to judge. This characterization of Judah Halevi's attitude is brief and inadequate.
The human mind is not really so all-competent as to be able to answer all questions of the most difficult nature. It is slightly more complicated in Ibn Daud, who speaks of the treble nature of the emanations after the first Intelligence an intelligence, a soul and a sphere whereas in Halevi's account there were only two elements, the soul not being mentioned.
The heart was the best part of man, the fount of life; hence Jehudah Halevi's well-known saying, "Israel is to the world as the heart to the body." An intimate connection was also established, by Jews and Greeks alike, between the physical condition of the heart and man's moral character. It was a not unnatural thought that former ages were more pious than later times.
We must point out, however, the new features which we did not meet before, explain their origin and in particular indicate Judah Halevi's criticisms. In general we may say that Judah Halevi has a better knowledge of Aristotelian doctrines than any of his predecessors. Israeli does not discuss the definition in detail.
And the period in which they lived was practically the same. Judah Halevi's birth took place in the last quarter of the eleventh century, whereas Ibn Daud is supposed to have been born about 1110, a difference of some twenty-five or thirty years. The philosopher whom Judah Halevi presents to us as the typical representative of his time is an Aristotelian of the type of Alfarabi and Avicenna.
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.
Amy Levy's renderings of some of Jehudah Halevi's love songs are quoted by Lady Magnus in the first of her "Jewish Portraits." Dr. J. Egers discusses Samuel ha-Nagid's "Stammering Maid" in the Graetz Jubelschrift , pp. 116-126. Moses Mendelssohn befriended Maimon, in so far as it was possible to befriend so wayward a personality. Maimon made real contributions to philosophy.
We do not determine a past event by the fact that we know it. Knowledge is simply evidence that the thing is. So man chooses by his own determination, and yet God knows beforehand which way he is going to choose, simply because he sees into the future as we remember the past. Judah Halevi's discussion of the problem of freedom is fuller than any we have met so far in our investigation.
He just leaves us with the juxtaposition of two incompatibles. We shall see that Hasdai Crescas was more consistent, and admitted determinism. We have now considered Judah Halevi's teachings, and have seen that he has no sympathy with the point of view of those people who were called in his day philosophers, i. e., those who adopted the teachings ascribed to Aristotle.
By a fortunate discovery of S. Landauer we are enabled to follow Judah Halevi's source with the certainty of eyewitnesses. The sketch which he gives of the Aristotelian psychology is taken bodily not from Aristotle's De Anima, but from a youthful work of Ibn Sina. Judah Halevi did not even take the trouble to present the subject in his own words.
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