Levi ben Gershon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Levi ben Gershon (also Levi ben Gerson or Levi ben Gerschom , Latin Leo Hebraeus , Leo de Balneolis or Gersonides ; born in 1288 in Bagnols-sur-Cèze (southern France); died probably on April 20, 1344 in Perpignan ) was a Jewish mathematician , Philosopher, astronomer and Talmud scholar.

Little is known about his résumé. He was descended from a family of scholars, lived for a time in Orange , later in Avignon and Perpignan, and had contact with influential Christians. Although he was also called " Rabbi Levi ben Gershon", he never served as a leader of a Jewish community. As a young man he was introduced to all branches of philosophy of his time.

Fonts

At the age of barely 30 he began his work Sefer milhamot Adonai (“Fights of God”, 1317–1329), his most important work, which aroused some theological opposition and was sometimes referred to by critics as “Milhamot in Adonai” (“Fights with God “) Was quoted. In 1319 he wrote Sefer ha-hekkesh ha-yashar ("Book of the correct syllogism"), a treatise on problems of Aristotelian logic influenced by Averroes (Ibn Ruschd). His main mathematical work Maaseh Hoshev (Practical Art of the Calculator), also called Sefer ha-mispar (Book of Numbers ), has been preserved in two different editorial offices from 1321 and 1322. The first part of the two-part work is a collection of 68 theorems and proofs on arithmetic , algebra and combinatorics ; the second part deals with basic arithmetic , square and cube roots , ratios and proportions , and adds an extensive collection of mixed up problems.

In 1342 he dedicated an excerpt from the astronomical chapters of Milhamot Adonai intended as an introduction to trigonometry in a Latin translation by Petrus de Alexandria under the title De sinibus, chordis et arcubus (Of the circular arcs, circular cuts and arcs) to Pope Clement VI. This work not only contained sines with up to five digits accuracy, but also a novel derivative of the Sinustheorems, also consisting Milhamot Adonai accepted treatments of the camera obscura and Jakob rod (a device for measuring the angular distance of stars, the one in the subsequent period to important navigational instrument of European seafaring).

In 1343, a year before his death, at the instigation of Philip von Vitry , the Bishop of Meaux, he wrote the music theory treatise De numeris harmonicis , which has only survived in Latin . There are also glosses on the first five books of the elements of Euclid and a text Hibbur hokhmat ha-tishboret (On the science of geometry) with a demonstration of the fifth postulate (postulate of parallels) Euclid, as well as an astrological script, a prognosticon on the conjunction of the year 1345 .

Levi ben Gershon was also the exegete of the Bible, who combined the historical-literal explanation with moral applications (to'aliyot) of the Bible text. His exegetical work includes comments on the Pentateuch , to books of the prophets ( Perush al Nevi'im rishonim ) and most books of hagiographers ( Proverbs , Job , Song of Songs , Ruth , Ecclesiastes , Esther , Daniel ), of which his commentary on Book of Job was one of the first books printed in Hebrew language and script (1477 in Ferrara ) and in 1543/44 in Venice it was also printed in a rhymed short version by Zerah Barfat.

In addition to these scientific and exegetical writings, Levi ben Gershon also left liturgical poems ( pizmonim ) and prayers ( viddui ), as well as two astronomical poems - one of them about the staff of Jacob - and two Purim parodies, including a book “about the bottle of the Propheten ”( Sefer ha-baqbuq ha-navi ), in which one suspects a source of inspiration for the character poem on the wine bottle in the posthumous Cinquième libre by Rabelais (edition of 1564).

philosophy

Levi ben Gershon - although not a rabbi - has been approached several times for advice on questions of halacha . In his philosophical writings he emphasized the practical application of his views.

He was an Aristotelian and strongly influenced by Ibn Ruschd ; Neoplatonic arguments are not found with him. On the other hand, he was always an independent thinker. As the only one of the Jewish Peripatetics , he dared to defend the Aristotelian system as a whole (even if it contradicted one or the other doctrine of Jewish theology). But he was also not afraid to express an opinion that differed from Aristotle (or Ibn Ruschd).

Its central theme was a synthesis of biblical (Talmudic) and philosophical (Aristotelian) doctrines. In this sense, his main work Sefer milhamot Adonai deals in six sections with natural-philosophical problems that his predecessors (especially Maimonides ) had not dealt with adequately. These were in particular the essence of matter, the immortality of the soul, prophecy and dreams, the omniscience of God and divine providence, as well as the heavenly spheres and the nature of the stars.

From Levi's point of view, God is the supreme thought and at the same time the highest form principle of being. God created the world, but from an eternal and therefore inexhaustible matter. For him, God's knowledge was not all-encompassing, but limited to the laws of the cosmos. In this sense, God's work as creator is sufficient, he denied any present influence of God on the world. He considered the "active" part of the soul to be immortal.

He developed an astronomical theory that contained considerable deviations from the traditional worldview of Ptolemy . His views - shown in the fifth section of Sefer milhamot Adonai - he underpinned by his own observations, which he continued until around 1340.

reception

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola quoted Levi's astronomical writings several times in the Disputationes in Astrologiam ; nor Johannes Kepler did his best, a copy of Clemens VI. to get the astronomical-mathematical part translated into Latin.

Along with Saadia Gaon , Abraham ibn Daud and Maimonides, Levi ben Gershon is considered the most important medieval philosopher of Judaism. He was often criticized for his language of expression and his unconventional ideas (even denounced as a heretic , as Maimonides did). It influenced philosophical thinking until the 19th century.

The lunar crater Rabbi Levi is named after him.

Editions and translations

  • Michela Andreatta (Ed.): Gersonide: Commento al Cantico dei Cantici nella traduzione ebraico-latina di Flavio Mitridate (= Studi Pichiani , vol. 14). Olschki, Firenze 2009, ISBN 978-88-222-5905-9 (critical edition)
  • Bernard R. Goldstein (Ed.): The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson (1288-1344). A critical edition of chapters 1-20 with translation and commentary. Springer, 1985.
  • Gerson Lange (Ed.): The practice of the calculator. A Hebrew arithmetic work by Levi Ben Gerschom from 1321. Golde, Frankfurt a. M. 1909 (Hebrew text with German translation by Maaseh Hoshev)
  • Charles H. Manequin (translator): The logic of Gersonides. A Translation of Sefer ha-Heqqesh ha-Yashar (The Book of the Correct Syllogism). Kluwer, Dordrecht 1989

literature

  • Maximilian Curtze : Levi Ben Gerson's treatises on trigonometry and the Jacob's rod. Bibliotheca Mathematica, Volume 12, 1898, pp. 97–112 ( digitized version )
  • Gilbert Dahan (Ed.): Gersonide et son temps. Peeters, Löwen / Paris 1992 ( content ).
  • Gad Freudenthal (Ed.): Studies on Gersonides. Brill, Leiden 1992.
  • Bernard R. Goldstein: The astronomical tables of Levi Ben Gerson (= Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences , Volume 45). 1974.
  • Bernard R. Goldstein: Levi ben Gerson's Lunar Model. Centaurus, Volume 16, 1972, pp. 257-283.
  • Bernd Kettet:  Levi ben Gershon. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 1572-1576.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Charles H. Manequin: The logic of Gersonides, an analysis of selected doctrines, with a partial edition and translation of "The book of the correct syllogism". Kluwer, Dordrecht 1992.
  • Julio Samsó: Levi ben Gerson . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 8 : Jonathan Homer Lane - Pierre Joseph Macquer . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1973, p. 279-282 ( online ).
  • Susanne Möbuß : The intellectual doctrine of Levi ben Gerson in its relation to Christian scholasticism . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, New York and Paris 1991, ISBN 978-3-631-44011-7 .
  • Julio Samsó: Levi ben Gerson. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 5. Artemis, Munich 1991, Sp. 1923 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Levi ben Gershon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levi ben Gerson; Leo de Bagnols; Gersonides
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and Talmud scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 1288
PLACE OF BIRTH Bagnols-sur-Cèze (South of France)
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1344
Place of death Perpignan