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Updated: May 10, 2025
We have seen that Ibn Ezra holds that the events of the sublunar world and the destinies of men are governed by the positions and motions of the heavenly bodies, which in turn are determined by the Intelligences or angels.
Now as the Active Intellect knows the order of sublunar existence in its unity, and the movers of the respective spheres know the order of their effects through the motions of the heavenly bodies, it follows that as all things in heaven above and on the earth beneath are related in a unitary system, there is a highest agent who is the cause of all existence absolutely and has a knowledge of all existence as a unitary system.
But the knowledge already acquired, which, we have shown above, is identical with the conceptions of sublunar nature in the Active Intellect, is indestructible. For these conceptions are absolutely immaterial; they are really the Active Intellect in a sense, and only the material is subject to destruction.
At last he told me he would write his particular Sentiments of this whole Affair in a Letter to me, which he would so order as it should effectually open mine Eyes; which indeed it did, and so I believe it will the Eyes of all that read it; to which purpose I have obtain'd of the Author to assist me in the Translation of it, he having some Knowledge also in our Sublunar Languages.
Elijah's removal from earth, so far being an interruption to his relations with men, rather marks the beginning of his real activity as a helper in time of need, as a teacher and as a guide. At first his intervention in sublunar affairs was not frequent. Seven years after his translation, he wrote a letter to the wicked king Jehoram, who reigned over Judah.
The principle peculiar to Gabirol is that not merely the material objects of the sublunar world, but that the intelligible or spiritual substances also are composed of matter and form. Whenever two things have something in common and something in which they differ, that which they have in common is the matter, that in which they differ is the form.
The elements are followed by the things composed of them. And among these too there is a certain order. Plants come before animals, aquatic animals before aerial, aerial before terrestrial, and the last of all is man, as the most perfect of sublunar creatures. All this he reads into the account of creation in Genesis.
Man was also endowed with reason and purpose, which enable him whenever he chooses to counteract the order of the heavenly bodies. In the main the heavenly bodies by their positions and motions and the consequent predominance of certain elemental qualities in the sublunar world over others affect the temperaments of man in a manner tending to his welfare.
In the fashion of Philo he sees in Eden a representation of the higher world of the divinity, in the Garden the intermediate world of the spheres and Intelligences, in the river issuing from the Garden the substance of the sublunar world, in the four heads into which the river divides the four elements, and so on.
This is a most wonderful Engine, and performs admirably, and my Author gave me extraordinary Accounts of the good Effects of it; and I cannot but tell my Reader, That our Sublunar World suffers Millions of Inconveniencies, for want of this thinking Engine: I have had a great many Projects in my Head, how to bring our People to regular thinking, but 'tis in vain without this Engin; and how to get the Model of it I know not; how to screw up the Will, the Understanding, and the rest of the Powers; how to bring the Eye, the Thought, the Fancy, and the Memory, into Mathematical Order, and obedient to Mechanick Operation; help Boyl, Norris, Newton, Manton, Hammond, Tillotson, and all the Learned Race, help Phylosophy, Divinity, Physicks, Oeconomicks, all's in vain, a Mechanick Chair of Reflection is the only Remedy that ever I found in my Life for this Work.
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