Bachja ibn Pakuda

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bachja ben Josef ibn Pakuda (also: Bahya ibn Paquda ) was an important representative of Jewish philosophy . He lived in the second half of the 11th century and wrote the first Jewish system of ethics, “Duties of the Heart”.

life and work

Little is known of his life other than the fact that he lived in Muslim Spain , probably in Zaragoza . He was known as the author of Piyutim ; about 20 liturgical poems, some of which are written in regular metrical form, bear his signature. His main work, however, is Kitāb al-Hidāya ilā Farā'iḍ al-Qulūb . It was written around 1080 and translated into Hebrew by Jehuda ibn Tibbon in 1161 under the title Chowot ha-Levavot ("Duties of the Heart"). This version quickly became popular and had a major impact on subsequent Jewish literature. Even Joseph Kimchi translated a part of the work, but his version was unpopular and has not been printed to date. Ibn Tibbon's Hebrew translation was summarized several times and in turn translated into several languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Yiddish, English, French and German (“Textbook of the Duties of the Heart”, translated by M. Stern, 1856) The book of Bachja is the first important work on Jewish ethics . It is based on numerous non-Jewish sources, including Islamic mysticism , Arabic Neoplatonism, and perhaps Hermetic writings.

In the introduction to his work, Bachja differentiates between “duties of the members of the body” in the religious commandments . H. ritual commandments such as keeping the Sabbath , prayers and charity , and on the other hand "duties of the heart", d. H. Commandments that presuppose belief in the existence and unity of God. This includes trust in God, love and reverence for God, repentance and the prohibition on revenge and resentment. Bachja explains that he wrote his book because his predecessors neglected the human inner workings. "Duties of the Heart" can be seen as a complementary counterweight to the halachic compilations of his predecessors and contemporaries.

The structure of "duties of the heart" follows the works of Islamic mysticism, which aim to lead the reader through various ascending levels of human inner life (see Nafs ) to spiritual perfection and unity with God . The book is divided into ten chapters, here called Sha'arim ("gates"):

  1. Confirmation of the oneness of God (through the Shema Israel prayer )
  2. Knowledge of the world as a revelation of the works of God
  3. church service
  4. Trust in God
  5. honest attitude ("sincerity of purpose")
  6. humility
  7. Buses
  8. Self-knowledge
  9. asceticism
  10. Love of God .

In accordance with Platonic teachings, Bachja explains that the human soul , of divine origin, is transferred to the body by divine decision, where it runs the risk of forgetting its origin and task. In order to achieve the goal of union with God, the soul receives help from the intellect and the revealed law . To explain this point, Bachja uses the Mutazilites' distinction between rational and traditional commandments.

Pseudo-Bachja

The Neoplatonic treatise Kitāb maʿānī al-nafs ("On the essence of the soul"), which was published in 1907 by Ignaz Goldziher , does not come from Bachja ibn Pakuda, as was sometimes assumed, but from an unknown contemporary called Pseudo-Bachja becomes.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As early as 1774 a German partial translation from Hebrew, possibly created by David Friedrich Megerlin and edited by the musician and radical pietist Johann Daniel Müller from Wissenbach / Nassau under the pseudonym "Elias", appeared ( The Book of the Duties of the Hearts , "Tore", ie Chapter, 1 - 4).
  2. ↑ Ignaz Goldziher: Book of the essence of the soul . From an unnamed. Treatises of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class. New episode. Volume IX, Nro. 1. Berlin 1907 digitized
personal data
SURNAME Bachja ibn Pakuda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish moral philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 11th century
DATE OF DEATH 11th century or 12th century