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Updated: June 24, 2025
That Saadia read the works upon which Christian theologians relied, is certain; and a fragment in which he refers to the teaching of Judah the Alexandrian also unearthed from the Cairo Genizah goes some way to support the suggestion.
Karaism was only a sect and never showed after the days of Saadia anything like the life and enthusiastic activity of the great body of Rabbanite Judaism, which formed the great majority of the Jewish people. The Karaites had their important men in Halaka as well as in religious philosophy and Biblical exegesis. But they cannot be compared to the great men among the Rabbanites.
The principle upon which Philo, Saadia, Maimonides, and in fact the whole line of Jewish philosophical exegetes have worked, is that the "words of the law are fruitful and multiply"; or, as the Bible phrase runs, "The Torah which Moses commanded unto us is the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob."
We are not to judge him, however, from Maimonides's point of view. In his own day and generation he was surpassed by none as a physician; and Saadia alone far outstrips him as a Jewish writer, and perhaps also David Al Mukammas, of whom we shall speak later.
Unlike Saadia, who tacitly accepts some of their methods and views, al-Basir is an avowed follower of the Kalam and treats only of those questions which are common to Jew and Mohammedan, avoiding, for example, so important an issue as whether it is possible that the law of God may be abrogated a question which meant so much to Saadia.
But the greatest work of Saadia, that which did the most important service to the theory of Judaism, and by which he will be best remembered, is his endeavor to work out a system of doctrine which should be in harmony with the traditions of Judaism on the one hand and with the most authoritative scientific and philosophic opinion of the time on the other.
It constitutes a never-failing antidote to forgetfulness, and, for aught I know, may be quite as efficacious as some of the quack mnemonic systems extensively advertised nowadays. "The following hath been tried and found reliable, and Rabbi Saadia ben Joseph made use of it.
But not merely the plan and arrangement of his work give evidence of the influence upon Saadia of Islamic schools, many of his arguments, those for example on the existence of God and the creation of the world, are taken directly from them.
Saadia found himself in the midst of all this and proved equal to the occasion. We are not here concerned with the vicissitudes of Saadia's personal life or of his literary career as opponent of the Karaite sect. Nor can we afford more than merely to state that Jewish science in the larger sense begins with Saadia. Hebrew grammar and lexicography did not exist before him.
These have been so interpreted by our ancient sages as to remove the corporeality from God by substituting the "Glory of God" for God as the subject of the movement or act in question. Saadia deals with this matter at length in his "Emunot ve-Deot," in his commentary on Genesis, and on the book "Yezirah." So there is no need of going into detail here.
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