Yehuda ben Isaac Abravanel

Judah Leon Abravanel (also Judah ben Isaac Abravanel , shortly Abravanel or Abrabanel , Latin Leo Hebraeus , Italian Leone Ebreo , Hebrew יהודה בן יצחק אברבנאל * 1460 in Lisbon ; † after 1521 in Naples ) was a Jewish philosopher , physician and poet from Portugal who spent the second half of his life in Italy.

The name Leo or Leone ("lion"), with which he is usually referred to in modern literature, he only adopted as an adult. This is an allusion to his Hebrew name Yehudah (Judah) because Judah, the ancestor of the Hebrew tribe of Judah , in the Tanakh is compared to a lion.

Abravanel was one of the prominent representatives of Platonism in the Renaissance . He had an excellent humanistic education and was familiar with the Christian as well as the Jewish and Islamic philosophical traditions. His main work, the Dialoghi d'amore (“Dialogues on Love”), ties in with Plato's concept of the literarily artistically designed philosophical dialogue . As with Plato and in traditional didactic dialogue literature, in Dialoghi d'amore the interlocutors strive to gain knowledge together. Abravanel, however, changes the conventional concept by replacing the usual teacher-student relationship between the dialogue participants with an exchange of ideas and at the same time an intellectual battle between two equally equal interlocutors. The erotic aspect of the relationship between the two protagonists, a man in love and a skeptical woman thirsty for knowledge, creates a realistic framework for the philosophical examination of the theory of love.

Life

Origin and youth in Portugal

Coat of arms of the Abravanel family

Yehuda Abravanel was the eldest son of the philosopher and statesman Isaac Abravanel . Apparently he was born around 1460. His family belonged to the most respected Jewish families on the Iberian Peninsula ; His grandfather Yehuda (Judah) and his great-grandfather Samuel Abravanel had already performed important functions in the service of the Portuguese royal dynasty. His father Isaac was long in the service of the Jewish-friendly Portuguese King Alfonso V († 1481), in whose financial administration he was active in a leading position. Therefore Yehuda grew up in Lisbon, where he received a solid philosophical and theological education; His medical training also took place there, and in 1483 he was already working as a doctor. Alfons' successor John II , however, took a hostile attitude towards the Jews. Isaac, who was threatened with arrest because he belonged to the circle of the executed Duke Ferdinand II of Braganza and was suspected of high treason, fled to Spain in May 1483; his wife and children soon followed. He was charged in Portugal and sentenced to death in absentia on May 30, 1485.

Living in Spain

In Spain, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella I welcomed the Abravanel family, who settled in Seville , at first benevolently. Isaac took over the management of Isabella's financial administration. Yehuda became the personal physician of the royal couple and remained in this position until 1492. In Spain he married; around 1491 a son was born to him, whom he named Isaac. However, when the Spanish royal couple ordered the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the Abravanel family also found themselves in a precarious position. The royal couple put great pressure on Isaac and Yehuda to force them to be baptized; as Christians they could have stayed and held their positions. Both of them strictly refused. When Yehuda learned that his son, who was about one year old, was being kidnapped in order to baptize him and thus create a fait accompli, he had the child brought to Portugal. The Abravanel family emigrated to Italy in the autumn of 1492. In Portugal, King Manuel I ordered the compulsory baptism of Jewish children. Therefore, it was Jude's son Isaac also, who had remained there, baptized and a convent of Dominican transferred for education. He stayed in Portugal under the name Henrique Fernandes.

Living in Italy

King Ferdinand I of Naples

In Naples king was Ferdinand I , the family welcome. There, too, Isaac achieved a leading position in the royal financial administration and was able to build up considerable wealth, and Yehuda became the king's personal physician. The cultural atmosphere was stimulating because Naples was then an important center of Renaissance humanism . However, when the French King Charles VIII conquered Naples in February 1495 and then pogroms took place against the Jews there, the Abravanel family had to flee again. Yehuda moved with his wife to Genoa, where he was welcome as a doctor. But when the Republic of Genoa also took anti-Jewish measures in 1501, he was forced to leave the city.

Yehuda accepted an invitation from King Frederick I to return to Naples, but Frederick was ousted that same year. In January 1504 the Spanish general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Aguilar was appointed viceroy of Naples. He valued Yehuda and probably made him his personal physician. But as early as 1507 the viceroy was recalled, and the situation of the Jews deteriorated until finally in 1510 the authorities ordered the expulsion of all Jews. Yehuda had already moved to Venice beforehand. He later returned to Naples a third time. There the viceroy Ramón Folch de Cardona stood up for him and in 1520 persuaded Emperor Charles V to issue a decree in favor of the Jews, in which in a special paragraph Jehuda and his family were privileged by exemption from taxes. Apparently his medical competence was badly needed; she got him the position of personal physician to the viceroy. Cardinal Raffaele Riario , whose healing after a serious illness caused a sensation, was one of his prominent patients . Jehuda's younger brother Samuel and his wife Benvenida also played a prominent role in the Jewish community of Naples. In 1521 Jehuda is attested for the last time as living; the year of his death is unknown; in any case, in 1535 he had not been alive for a long time. The claim that emerged in the 1640s that he eventually became a Christian is not credible.

Works

Dialoghi d'amore , title page of the print Venice 1541 with the untrue assertion that the author had converted to Christianity

Jehuda Abravanel's main work Dialoghi d'amore (“Dialogues on Love”) consists in the preserved version of three books, each with a dialogue. A fourth book is lost. The Dialoghi emerged over the course of several years around the turn of the century, but were only published after the author's death. The dialogue partners are Sofia, who on the one hand personifies wisdom, on the other hand appears to be ignorant, and Filone, who stands for erotic passion. Filone woos Sofia, who reacts dismissively. The conversation revolves around the relationship between the two and the philosophical exploration of the phenomenon of love. The first book deals with the definition and nature of love, the relationship between love and desire and the various objects of love in humans, the second with the universality of love and its role in the cosmos outside the human realm. In the third dialogue, which makes up more than half of the work, the main metaphysical theses of the author are presented; The themes include the origin and goal of love and the essence of beauty. In the lost fourth dialogue the effects of love were discussed.

The starting point of the conversation is Filone's declaration that he loves and desires Sofia. He is based on the assumption of a togetherness of love and desire. He justifies this with the fact that both are aimed at the same object, whereby it is assumed that this exists, is known and is valued. Sofia considers love and desire to be contradicting and incompatible. She thinks you love what you have and desire what you don't have; love begins only after desire has reached its goal. Filone's attitude towards love roughly corresponds to an Aristotelian point of view, Sofia's to a Platonic one . The speaking names of the two (Filone, Greek Philon, as a lover, Sofia, Greek Sophia, as wisdom) reveal an allegorical meaning (Filone's desire directed towards Sofia as the philosopher's search for wisdom). In the course of the discussion, a differentiated determination of the possible objects of love and desire and the relationship of the lovers or desires to them emerges. The love of God is also examined in detail.

In terms of style, the Dialoghi tie in with Plato's dialogues ; in terms of content, they are influenced by the philosophy of the medieval Jewish thinker Solomon ibn Gabirol , whose main philosophical work is also designed in dialogue form. A major difference to these role models is that at Abravanel not one teacher teaches a student, but rather two largely equal interlocutors discuss, whereby both show their strengths and weaknesses. Sofia keeps the conversation going with her questions and objections and thus forces the often passive and hesitant Filone, whose drive is his infatuation, to review his positions and arguments and to deepen his understanding of the questions raised.

A correspondence with some of Plato's dialogues is that it is not a philosophical system that is being constructed, but rather that the interlocutors present an abundance of sometimes contradicting statements and points of view. In this way, the author avoids expressly making his own determination and encourages the reader to deal with the problems mentioned. The outcome of Filone's efforts to convince Sofia remains open, at least in the preserved part of the work, both on the personal and on the philosophical level. The author does not strive for a victory of the Platonic point of view over the Aristotelian one, but aims at a harmonization.

Ancient mythological materials are taken up and interpreted allegorically. Jewish prophets and sages are quoted, but the background of Jewish theology is missing. The fact that it was written in Italian suggests that the work was intended especially for an educated non-Jewish readership. However, the question in which language the author originally wrote is controversial; in research, a Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish or Latin original version has been considered. If one of these hypotheses is correct, the translation into Tuscan dialect of the first edition from 1535 could have been made shortly before going to press, after the author's death. According to another research opinion, these assumptions are untenable and must be based on an original Italian text.

Abravanel also wrote five Hebrew poems. The best-known of them is the lamentation poem “Lament over time” (Hebrew Telunah ʿal ha-zeman , Italian Elegia sopra il destino , 137 verses). In it he laments the loss of his elder son Isaac, who was taken from him, and the death of his younger son Samuel, who died in 1504 at the age of five. His complaint is directed against the fate that snatched his children away from him and that he describes as his enemy and persecutor. He wrote another lament on the death of his father. The other three poems were in honor of his father's achievements.

Abravanel's work on the heavenly harmony , which he wrote at the suggestion of the humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , has been lost since the second half of the 16th century.

Teaching

Abravanel's philosophy is syncretistic . He assumes that the teachings of the great ancient philosophers share to a greater or lesser extent a universal truth, and that this truth can also be found in the Jewish tradition in a more perfect form.

The Neoplatonic character of Abravanel's thinking is expressed, among other things, in the fact that, like ibn Gabirol, to whom he refers, he also ascribes a combination of matter and form to purely spiritual substances (universal hylemorphism ). This view comes from ancient Neoplatonism .

Love as a world principle

In the Dialoghi , Abravanel describes love as a universal principle that connects all creation and is also decisive for the relationship between man and God. With this Neoplatonic-inspired idea of ​​world unity, popular in some humanist circles, he approaches a pantheistic way of thinking in terms of content , although formally he always adheres to the strict monotheism of Judaism. He is convinced that this universe is only one of a number of parallel worlds . He regards it as an ideally proportioned unit composed of perfectly coordinated parts and as an organism. The totality of the parts - both eternal and perishable - is required for the perfection of the cosmos. The completion of the whole is thus based on the completion of all parts. Each part strives towards its perfection according to its natural disposition, which at the same time contributes to the perfection of the harmony and unity of the whole. This striving, known as love, is the enlivening principle of the entire universe, both in terms of being and in terms of becoming. As an invigorating principle, love is an effective cause ; in so far as it strives for the completion of the whole, it also fulfills the function of a goal cause .

From Abravanel's point of view, the love of the lower for the higher, with which it wants to connect and in whose greater perfection it wants to participate, needs no special justification. A love of the higher for the lower (God and the heavenly beings for humans) is, however, in need of explanation. This is especially true for God if one assumes that because of his absolute perfection he cannot have needs that are directed towards something outside of him. Plato and the Neoplatonists regard the assumption of a love of the higher for the lower as nonsensical and outrageous, since the higher in no way requires the lower. Abravanel, on the other hand, who elevates love to the world's principle of being, sees himself faced with the task of specifying a cause for God's love for creatures and making it plausible within the framework of his concept. He deals with this intensively.

He is based on his idea of ​​world unity. A lack of the lower is a lack of the unified world organism and thus also affects the higher; therefore turn the higher to the lower in love. In the cosmic order the higher cause, the lower effect. If that which caused itself were to accept a deficiency in its effects, it would tolerate an imperfection in itself. Hence, let it provide for the redemption and perfection of the lower. The ultimate goal of it all is the unified perfection of the entire cosmos. For each of the parts, both the own perfection in itself as well as the right integration into the totality and the service to the perfection of the universe should be striven for, the latter aim being the more happy one. The descent of the soul into the physical world should also be understood in this sense. Its purpose is the enlivenment and soulfulness of the lower areas of the universe, because they too should not lack divine light and divine grace. There is a cycle of love ( circolo amoroso ) from God to the world and back.

Abravanel tries to solve the problem of the love of the perfect God for imperfect creatures by distinguishing between an absolute perfection in God himself and a relative perfection of God in relation to his relationship to the world, with the relative perfection the assumption of a loving turn to creation enables. He thinks that first love came about at the same time as the world, because God created the world out of love for his own beauty.

For Abravanel, the origin of love among people lies in the beloved. He thinks that the beloved, because he creates love in the lover, is higher than the latter, and with mutual love each partner, insofar as he is loved, is higher than his quality as a lover. Even God be greater and exalted insofar as he is loved by himself than in that he loves himself. Abravanel turns against Plato, who in his Dialog Symposium represents the reverse order of the lover and the beloved. For Plato, the lover, as the active in whom the god works, is necessarily more “divine” than the beloved. Abravanel considers his contrary view to be a consequence of his metaphysical and all-encompassing conception of love.

aesthetics

In terms of aesthetics, Abravanel is convinced that all things created are somehow beautiful. The extent of the beauty of a body depends on the extent to which the form determines and fulfills it. The beauty of the idea of ​​a work of art in the artist's mind surpasses that of the actual work of art, because the addition of matter causes the form to lose as much perfection as the material object gains. The sensually perceptible beauty is the shine of the ideas, of the true beauties, in the things. Beauty is everywhere an objective fact; the diversity of the aesthetic judgments of the people results from their differently pronounced ability to aesthetic perception. Some people are easily able to see beauty, others only with difficulty, others not at all; some can do it on their own, others only thanks to their education, others are not at all capable of such an education. The inability to perceive beauty is due to the coarseness of the body's matter, which darkens the soul. With this, Abravanel moves away from the traditional interpretation of beauty as a proportion of the parts of the beautiful object, which was already dominant in the late Middle Ages. Against this definition of beauty, which was mainly advocated by Leon Battista Alberti in the Renaissance , he objects that it does not take into account the beauty of the simple, the unassembled (e.g. colors and light).

reception

French translation of the Dialoghi by Denis Sauvage: Philosophy d'amour , Lyon 1595

In 1535 the first edition of Dialoghi appeared in Rome , which also contains the poems. Other editions followed - the twelfth appeared in 1607 - as well as translations into numerous languages ​​(including three Spanish, two French, one Latin and one Hebrew). The aftermath in the Christian world was far stronger than that in Judaism. Numerous treatises and dialogues of the sixteenth century on love were based on the ideas of Dialoghi ; the Italian, French and Spanish love poetry took up Abravanel's concepts. With regard to the question of the hierarchy between lover and loved one, however, his view could not prevail against the authority of Plato. Sharp critics of Abravanel's work were Ronsard and Montaigne , who raised the charge of unnatural artifice. At the end of the sixteenth century the aftermath of Dialoghi had passed its peak. In Spain they were placed on the index of forbidden books in 1612 , after the Traduzion del indio de los tres Diálogos de amor by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was published as the third Spanish translation in 1590 ; the Portuguese Inquisition followed the ban in 1624.

Giordano Bruno apparently knew the Dialoghi and was inspired by it, but nowhere does he mention Abravanel. Even Baruch Spinoza recycled ideas from the Dialoghi .

Editions and translations

• Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'Amore. Hebrew Poems , ed. Carl Gebhardt , Winter, Heidelberg 1929 (facsimile reprint of the first edition of Dialoghi from 1535; Hebrew poems by Jehudas with German translations as well as source texts on the life story are attached)
• Leone Ebreo (Giuda Abarbanel): Dialoghi d'amore , ed. Santino Caramella, Laterza, Bari 1929 (with an Italian translation of Hebrew poems by Jehudah in the appendix)
• Leão Hebreu (Iehudah Abrabanel): Dialoghi d'amore , ed. Giacinto Manuppella, Volume 1: Testo italiano, note, documenti , Volume 2: Diálogos de amor. Versão portuguesa, bibliografia , Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica, Lisboa 1983
• Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore. Platonic love philosophy of the Renaissance and Judaism . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-631-47949-2 , pp. 148–203 (translation of the first dialogue)

literature

• Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore. Platonic love philosophy of the Renaissance and Judaism . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-631-47949-2
• Heinz Pflaum: The idea of ​​love. Leone Ebreo. Two treatises on the history of philosophy in the Renaissance . Mohr, Tübingen 1926
• João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love . Faculdade de Filosofia de Braga, Braga 2006, ISBN 972-697-180-2 (very detailed description of the life, work and teaching of Jehudah as well as the cultural background, plus a very extensive bibliography)

bibliography

• Thomas Gilbhard: Bibliografia degli studi su Leone Hebreo (Jehuda Abravanel) . In: Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin 6, 2004, pp. 113-134

Web links

• Aaron Hughes:  Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Facsimile of the Venice 1541 edition
• Facsimiles of the two French translations:
  • by Pontus de Tyard , Lyon by Jean de Tournes 1551
  • by Denis Sauvage du Parc , Paris by Claude Micard 1580 (first edition Lyon by Guillaume Rouille 1551)

Remarks

1. ↑ Genesis 49,9.
2. ↑ On the different dating approaches and their probability, see João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, pp. 181-183.
3. ↑ On the dating question see João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, pp. 220-222; Carl Gebhardt (Ed.): Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'Amore , Heidelberg 1929, p. 34.
4. ↑ João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, p. 222; Carl Gebhardt (Ed.): Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'Amore , Heidelberg 1929, p. 33 f. This view is the prevailing doctrine; Ulrich Köppen, however, takes the opposite view: The “Dialoghi d'amore” by Leone Ebreo in their French translations , Bonn 1979, pp. 9-13. See Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreos Dialoghi d'amore , Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 12, note 47.
5. ↑ See Giacinto Manuppella (ed.): Leão Hebreu (Iehudah Abrabanel): Dialoghi d'amore , Vol. 1, Lisboa 1983, pp. 555-564; it used to be believed that the fourth book was only planned but not written.
6. ↑ For the dating see Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreos Dialoghi d'amore , Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 11; João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, pp. 203-205.
7. ↑ See on this Theodore Anthony Perry: Erotic Spirituality. The Integrative Tradition from Leone Ebreo to John Donne , Alabama 1980, pp. 25-34.
8. ↑ Carl Gebhardt (Ed.): Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'Amore , Heidelberg 1929, pp. 98-100; Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreos Dialoghi d'amore , Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 4 f.
9. ^ Sergius Kodera: Filone and Sofia in Leone Ebreos Dialoghi d'amore , Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 9 f .; Ulrich Köppen: Leone Ebreo's “Dialoghi d'amore” in its French translations , Bonn 1979, pp. 17–21.
10. ↑ On this work see João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, pp. 196-198.
11. ↑ Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'amore , ed. Santino Caramella, Bari 1929, p. 258: Amando adunque la divinità la sua propria bellezza, desiderò produrre figliuolo a similitudine sua, il qual desiderio fu il primo amore estrinseco, cioè di Dio al mondo prodotto.
12. ↑ On reception in the early modern period, see Ulrich Köppen: The “Dialoghi d'amore” by Leone Ebreo in their French translations , Bonn 1979, pp. 26–47; Heinz Pflaum: The idea of ​​love. Leone Ebreo. Two treatises on the history of philosophy in the Renaissance , Tübingen 1926, pp. 138–141, 149–154; List of prints and translations by Carl Gebhardt (ed.): Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'Amore , Heidelberg 1929, pp. 111–119.
13. ↑ Santino Caramella (ed.): Leone Ebreo: Dialoghi d'amore , Bari 1929, p. 435.
14. ↑ José Antonio Mazzotti: Otros motivos para la "Traduzion": el Inca Garcilaso, los "Diálogos de Amor" y la tradición cabalística (online publication in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes without pagination), first Lima 2006, para. 4 u . Note 15.
15. ↑ On Bruno's and Spinoza's Abravanel reception, see João J. Vila-Chã: Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love , Braga 2006, pp. 978-1031.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 14, 2009 .