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Updated: June 25, 2025
Shem Tob ibn Falaquera, in the brief introduction which he appends to his epitome of the "Mekor Hayim" says, "It seems to me that Solomon ibn Gabirol follows in his book the views of the ancient philosophers as we find them in a book composed by Empedocles concerning the 'Five Substances. This book is based upon the principle that all spiritual substances have a spiritual matter; that the form comes from above and the matter receives it from below, i. e., that the matter is a substratum and bears the form upon it."
Sidi Habismilk had at first presented a grave problem; but Mr Brackenbury, who secured the passages on the steamer, arranged also for the Arab to be slung aboard the Steam-Packet. On 3rd April the whole party, including Hayim Ben Attar and Sidi Habismilk, boarded the Royal Adelaide bound for London.
'Bring lights hither, O Hayim Ben Attar, son of the miracle! And the Jew of Fez brought in the lights, for though it was midday I could scarcely see in the little room where I was writing. . . . "A dreary summer and autumn passed by, and were succeeded by as gloomy a winter.
I shall give you . . . a hint to publish your whole adventures for the last twenty years." But Hayim Ben-Attar, son of the miracle, had already brought lights, and The Bible in Spain had been begun. Ford's counsel was invariably sound and sane. "I am delighted to hear," he wrote, "that you meditate giving us your travels in Spain.
The absence of a complete Hebrew translation of Gabirol's philosophical work meant of course that no one who did not know Arabic could have access to Gabirol's "Mekor Hayim," and this practically excluded the majority of learned Jews after the first half of the thirteenth century.
As a source of information on schools and opinions of Arabs and Karaites, the "Ez Hayim" is of great importance and interest. But it cannot in the least compare with the "Guide" as a constructive work of religious philosophy. It has not the same originality or any degree remotely approaching it.
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