Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Jehuda ibn Gabirol, kurz Solomon ibn Gabirol, Salomon ibn Gabirol, Schlomo ibn Gevirol (geboren 1021 oder 1022 in Málaga; gestorben um 1070 in Valencia), jüdischer Philosoph und Dichter im muslimischen Spanien. Schrieb hebräische Lyrik in arabischen Versmaßen.

latinisiert Avicebron, Avencebrol

Englisch: Solomon ibn Gabirol; Solomon ben Judah

Hebräisch: שלמה בן יהודה אבן גבירול‎ Shlomo Ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol

Arabisch: أبو أيوب سليمان بن يحيى بن جبيرول‎ Abu Ayyub Sulayman bin Yahya bin Jabirul, Abū Ayyūb Sulaimān ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ǧebīrū

Links

Meyers 1905

[201] Avicebron (Avencebrol, Salomon Ibn Gabirol), jüd. Dichter und Philosoph in Spanien, geb. um 1020 in Malaga, gest. gegen 1070, erwarb sich durch seine religiösen Gesänge für die Synagoge hohes Ansehen und wird als Philosoph besonders wegen seines in arabischer Sprache verfaßten Werkes: »Fons vitae« (lat. Übersetzung von Bäumker, Münster 1892–95), geschätzt, das die Scholastiker kannten, aber einem arabischen Philosophen zuschrieben, und das auf die spätere Kabbala eingewirkt hat. In seiner Lehre verband er jüdische Anschauungen mit neuplatonischen, auch aristotelischen Elementen. Alle Dinge in der Welt, auch die geistigen, bestehen nach ihm aus Materie und Form, mit Ausnahme von Gott. Vgl. Guttmann, Die Philosophie des S. I. Gabirol (Götting. 1889); Kaufmann, Studien über Salomon Ibn Gabirol (Frankf. 1899).

Quelle: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Band 2. Leipzig 1905, S. 201. Permalink: http://www.zeno.org/nid/20006276857

Brockhaus 1911

[636] Gabirol, Salomo ben Jehuda, jüd. Dichter, geb. um 1020 in Córdoba oder Málaga, gest. um 1070, bekannt aus Heines Romancero, dichtete »Keter Malchut« (Königskrone), ist identisch mit dem oft von den Scholastikern genannten Philosophen Avicebron (Avencebrol).

Quelle: Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, fünfte Auflage, Band 1. Leipzig 1911., S. 636. Permalink: http://www.zeno.org/nid/20001126199

Encyclopedia Britannica 1911

IBN GABIROL [SOLOMON BEN JUDAH}, Jewish poet and philosopher, was born at Malaga, probably about 1021. The early part of his troublous life was spent at Saragossa, but few personal details of it are recorded. His parents died while he was a child and he was under the protection first of a certain Jekuthiel, who died in 1039, and afterwards of Samuel ha-Nagid, the well-known patron of learning. His passionate disposition, however, embittered no doubt by his misfortunes, involved him in frequent difficulties and led to his quarrelling with Samuel. It is generally agreed that he died young, although the date is uncertain. Al Harizi 1 says at the age of twenty-nine, and Moses b. Ezra 2 about thirty, but Abraham Zaccuto 3 states that he died (at Valencia) in 1070. M. Steinschneider 4 accepts the date 1058.

His literary activity began early. He is said to have composed poems at the age of sixteen, and elegies by him are extant on Hai Gaon (died in 1038) and Jekuthiel (died in 1039), each of which was written probably soon after the death of the person commemorated. About the same time he also wrote his Anaq, a poem on grammar, of which only 97 lines out of 400 are preserved. Moses ben Ezra says of him that he imitated Moslem models, and was the first to open to Jewish poets the door of versification,' meaning that he first popularized the use of Arabic metres in Hebrew. It is as a poet that he has been known to the Jews to the present day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of his work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in. France and England in the early 19th century. Besides his lyrical and satirical poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the liturgy (some of them with the acrostic "Shelomoh ha-gaton"), which are widely different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyetanim. The best known of his longer liturgical compositions are the philosophical Kether Malkuth (for the Day of Atonement) and the Azharoth, on the 613 precepts (for Shebhu`oth). Owing to his pure biblical style he had an abiding influence on subsequent liturgical writers.

Outside the Jewish community he was known as the philo sopher Avicebron (Avencebrol, Avicebrol, &c.) The credit of identifying this name as a medieval corruption of Ibn Gabirol is due to S. Munk, who showed that selections made by Shem Tobh Palqera (or Falgera) from the Megor Hayyim (the Hebrew translation of an Arabic original) by Ibn Gabirol, corresponded to the Latin Fans Vitae of Avicebron. The Latin version, made by Johannes Hispalensis and Gundisalvi about one hundred years after the author's death, had at once become known among the Schoolmen of the 12th century and exerted a powerful influence upon them, although so little was known of the author that it was doubted whether he was a Christian or a Moslem. The teaching of the Fons Vitae was entirely new to the country of its origin, and being drawn largely from Neoplatonic sources could not be expected to find favour with Jewish thinkers. Its distinctive doctrines are: (1) that all created beings, spiritual or corporeal, are composed of matter and form, the various species of matter being but varieties of the universal matter, and similarly all forms being contained in one universal form; (2) that between the primal One and the intellect (the y olk of Plotinus) there is interposed the divine Will, which is itself divine and above the distinction of form and matter, but is the cause of their union in the being next to itself, the intellect, in which Avicebron holds that the distinction does exist. The doctrine that there is a material, as well as a formal, element in all created beings was explicitly adopted from Avicebron by Duns Scotus (as against the view of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas), and perhaps his exaltation of the will above the intellect is due to the same influence. Avicebron develops his philosophical system throughout quite independently of his religious views - a practice wholly foreign to Jewish teachers, and one which could not be acceptable to them. Indeed, this charge is expressly brought against him by Abraham ben David of Toledo (died in 1180). It is doubtless this non-religious attitude which accounts for the small attention paid to the Fons Vitae by the Jews, as compared with the wide influence of the philosophy of Maimonides. The other important work of Ibn Gabirol is .141äh al-akhlaq (the improvement of character), a popular work in Arabic, translated into Hebrew (Tigqun middoth ha-nephesh) by Judah ibn Tibbon. It is widely different in treatment from the Fons, being intended as a practical not a speculative work.

The collection of moral maxims, compiled in Arabic but best known (in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon) as Mibhar ha-peninim, is generally ascribed to Ibn Gabirol, though on less certain grounds.

Bibliography. - Texts of the liturgical poems are to be found in the prayer-books: others in Dukes and Edelmann, Treasures of Oxford (Oxford, 1850); Dukes, Shire Shelomoh (Hanover, 1858); S. Sachs, Shir ha-shirim asher li-Shelomoh (Paris, 1868, incomplete); Brody, Die weltlichen Gedichte des... Gabirol (Berlin, 1897, &c.).

"Avencebrolis Fons Vitae" (Latin text) in Clemens Baumker's Beiträge zur Gesch. d. Philosophie, Bd. i. Hefte 2-4 (Münster, 1892); The Improvement of the Moral Qualities [Arabic and English] ed. by S. S. Wise (New York, 1901); A Choice of Pearls [Hebrew and English] ed. by Ascher (London, 1859).

On the philosophy in general: S. Munk, Mélanges (quoted above); Guttmann, Die Philosophie des Sal.-ibn Gabirol (Göttingen, 1889); D. Kaufmann, Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol (Budapest, 18 99); S. Horovitz, "Die Psychologie Ibn Gabirols," in the Jahresbericht des jiid. theol. Seminars Fr¢nckel'scher Stiftung (Breslau, 1900); Wittmann, "Zur Stellung Avencebrols ..." (in Baumker's Beiträge, Bd. v. Heft 1, Münster, 1905). (A. CY.)

1 Jud. Har. Macamce, ed. Lagarde (Göttingen, 1883), p. 89, 1.61. See the passage quoted by Munk, Mélanges de philosophee arabe et juive (Paris, 1859), pp. 264 and 517.

3 Liber Juchassin, ed. Filipowski (London, 1857), p. 217.

4 Hebr. Übersetzungen (Berlin, 1893), § 229, note 70; cf. Kaufmann, Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol (Budapest, 1899), p. 79, note 2. See Munk, op. cit. pp. 515-516, transl. on pp. 263-264. Metre had been already used by Dunash.

Eisler Phiilosophen-Lexikon 1912

[38] Avicebron (Avencebrol). Der von den Scholastikern so genannte (für einen Araber gehaltene) jüdische Philosoph und Dichter Salomo ben Jehuda ben Gebirol (Gabirol). geb. um 1020 in Malaga, lebte zuerst in Saragossa und dann in verschiedenen spanischen Städten, gest. um 1069 in Valencia.

Avicebrons Philosophie ist eine von Aristoteles beeinflußte, stark neuplatonisch gefärbte Emanationslehre, welche ihrerseits die Kabbala beeinflußt hat (in manchem Punkte auch christliche Scholastiker, besonders Duns Scotus). Das Wichtigste ist seine Lehre von der Materie und vom göttlichen Willen. Er nimmt (wie schon Plotin) an, daß (mit Ausnahme Gottes) alles Seiende (auch die Seele) aus Form und Materie bestehe; neben der sinnlichen, körperlichen gibt es auch eine geistige Materie, d.h. eine Grundlage der Gestaltung und des Wirkens. Form und Materie werden durch die Bewegung verbunden. Die Materie existiert nur durch die Form, denn die Existenz rührt von der Form her; daher bewegt sich die Materie, um die Form zu empfangen, um aus dem Schmerz der Nicht-Existenz herauszukommen. Die Materie ist eins, die Verschiedenheit rührt von der Form her. Materie und Form sind vom göttlichen Willen abhängig. Es gibt neben der allgemeinen Form eine allgemeine, universale Materie, ferner eine Weltvernunft, eine Weltseele und eine Natur, welche alle aus Gott emanieren, wobei das Körperliche im Geistigen sein Urbild hat.

Gott, der alles Sein überragt und seinem ureigensten Wesen nach unfaßbar ist, wirkt in der Welt durch den aus ihm emanierenden schöpferischen Willen, aus dem weitere Kräfte emanieren. Dieser Wille ist eine göttliche Schöpferkraft, welche alles bewegt und von der alles abhängig ist, da er in allem ist. Alle Dinge streben nach Vereinigung. Der Wille ist der Erzeuger von Form und Materie, die er mit einander verknüpft. Die menschliche Seele ist eine Emanation des Weltgeistes.

SCHRIFTEN: Hauptwerk: Mekor chajjim (Fons vitae), von Schem Tob ibn Falaquera ins Hebräische übersetzt, bei Munk, Mélanges 1857; lateinisch 1892-95 (ed. Baeumker). – Vgl. J. GUTTMANN, D. Philos. d. Sal. Ibn Gabirol, 1889, ferner die historischen Arbeiten von D. KAUFMANN, M. EISLER, M. JOËL, D. NEUMARCK.

Quelle: Eisler, Rudolf: Philosophen-Lexikon. Berlin 1912, S. 38. Permalink: http://www.zeno.org/nid/20001816187