De Lacy O'Leary

“ Amongst the Jews, indeed, there arose a strong Averroist school, which later on was the chief means of introducing Ibn Rushd's theories to Latin scholasticism. As we shall see later the transmission of philosophy from Arabic to Latin surroundings falls into two stages: in the earlier the Arabic material passes directly, and the works used are those which had attained a leading importance in Islam, but in the later stage the Jews were the intermediaries, and thus the choice of text-books and authorities was largely influenced by an existing Jewish scholasticism. ”

“ He is essentially and necessarily one, and attributes cannot be so used as to imply plurality: only those attributes which describe activity are admissible, not those which imply relations between God and the creature. ”

“ In the course of the 14th century A.D. the Hebrew commentators on Ibn Rushd begin. Chief amongst these was Lavi ben Gerson, of Bagnols, who wrote a commentary on Ibn Rushd's Ittisal on the doctrine of the union of the soul with the Agent Intelligence, and on Ibn Rushd's treatise "on the substance of the world." Levi's teaching reproduces the Arabic Aristotelianism much more freely and frankly than was ventured by Maimonides; he admits the eternity of the world, the primal matter he describes as substance without form, and creation meant only the impress of form on this formless substance. ”

“ About this time Frederick II. was strongly desirous of introducing the Arabic writers to the knowledge of the West, a matter to which we shall refer again when we come to consider the translation of the Arabic philosophical works into Latin, and so we find him protecting and pensioning Yaqub ben Abba Mari, a son-in-law of Samuel ben Tibbon, at Naples, and this Yaqub employed in preparing a Hebrew translation of Ibn Rushd's commentaries on the Aristotelian Organon. ”

“ He opposes also the attempt of the Mutakallimin to reconcile philosophy and theology as tending to undermine the truths of revealed religion, so that he takes a more reactionary position than al-Ghazali. ”