Chasdaj Crescas

Chasdaj Crescas ( Chasdai Creskas ; Don Chasdai Crescas ; born around 1340 ; died around 1410 in Saragossa ) was a Spanish-Jewish scholar and religious philosopher .

life and work

Crescas was a member (familiaris) of the Aragonese royal court and thus holder of high state offices, rabbis and leader of the Jews of Aragon . Among other things, he wrote a refutation of the basic teachings of Christians ( bittul iqqre ha-notzrim ). It dealt with the doctrine of the Trinity , the sonship of God , incarnation , original sin , the abolition of the Torah , descent, baptism and messianship of Jesus as well as the virgin birth .

Crescas was a critic of Jewish Aristotelianism , influenced by Jewish mysticism , Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno . Its importance for Spinoza , especially its determinism, was emphasized by Manuel Joël , who has made a contribution to the philosophical and historical appreciation of the Cresca.

The main work is or adonai ("Light of God"), the last great work of Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages. Crescas had wished that this would replace the More Nebukhim des Maimonides . A halachic continuation of or adonai planned by Crescas , which was to become the counterpart to the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, could no longer be realized by Crescas.

Literature (selection)

• Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography. Vol. I, Druckerei Orient, Czernowitz 1925, pp. 607–608.
• Georg Herlitz, Bruno Kirschner : Jewish Lexicon . Vol. I, Jüdischer Verlag, Berlin 1927, columns 1449-1450.
• Manuel Joël : Don Chasdai Creskas' religious-philosophical teachings. Breslau 1866 ( digitized ).
• Meyer Kayserling : The missive of Don Chasdai Creska again. In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism 8 (1867), pp. 311-316 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Shalom Sadik:  Hasdai Crescas. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Literature by and about Chasdaj Crescas in the catalog of the German National Library