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A Heretic from a Good Family? A New Look at Why Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim Was Hounded

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

Tamar Ron Marvin*
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Abstract

Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim, a popularizer of rationalist philosophy active around 1300 in Occitania, was identified as a transgressor by proponents of a ban on the study of philosophy. The nature of Levi's transgressive activities and the reasons why he was targeted have remained elusive, though a consensus view suggests that his socioeconomic standing and genuinely radical ideas contributed to his being singled out. In fact, a careful reassessment of the extant sources demonstrates that Levi, as an established member of the elite class, was an inadvertent target, identified in the course of a misunderstanding between Solomon Ibn Adret and his confidant in Perpignan, Crescas Vidal. No more radical than others and one of many popularizers of rationalism, Levi became a convenient exemplar and test case for ban proponents. They struggled to define the nature of Levi's potentially dangerous effects on his students, however, and Levi remained an equivocal figure even to his detractors. Though vilified and forced out of the home of his patron, Levi was accorded basic respect and often defended; he was never subject to excommunication, censure, or any type of halakhic prosecution.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2017 

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Footnotes

I wish to thank Benjamin R. Gampel, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Eitan P. Fishbane, James T. Robinson, and Joel Kaye for their insightful feedback on the research upon which this article is based, and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful suggestions.

References

1. These descriptions come from the letters preserved in the compilation Minḥat kenaʾot. Minḥat kenaʾot has been printed in two editions in the modern era, once in Pressburg in 1838 by Mordecai Leib Bisliches (under the approbation of the Ḥatam Sofer) and again in Jerusalem in 1991, edited, annotated, and with a critical apparatus by H. Z. Dimitrovsky. The Pressburg text has been reprinted in whole or in part several times and is based on a lost manuscript; Dimitrovsky's apparatus includes all eight extant manuscripts. Here, the Pressburg edition is abbreviated MQp, and the Dimitrovsky edition MQd. References are given as edition, chapter, page number, and, for MQd, line numbers. Unless otherwise noted, my translation follows Dimitrovsky's critical text.

Respectively, these unflattering and accusatory descriptions of Levi occur in MQp 12, p. 47 / MQd 30, p. 367, l. 38; MQp 12, p. 46 / MQd 30, p. 365, l. 6; MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 370, l. 79; and again MQp 12, p. 46 / MQd 30, p. 365, ll. 4–5.

2. Minḥat kenaʾot also includes a variety of other voices from communities in Occitania and Iberia, mostly those of supporters of the ban efforts, though it is worthy of note that Abba-Mari pledges at one point to compile an analogous anthology of the letters of his opponents: MQp 97, pp. 176–77 / MQd 117, p. 824, ll. 1–8.

3. Because Minḥat kenaʾot includes a theological introduction by Abba-Mari (numbered sequentially in MQd), nonletter chapters, letters broken up or combined into a chapters, and accretions of noncontemporary documents at the end, the letter count is inherently subjective.

4. Few of the letters are dated, but enough explicit and relative dates are given that it is possible to reconstruct an approximate timeline of events. The first date given, 29 Elul, occurs in MQp 19 / MQd 37, while the year 5064/1304 is first mentioned in MQp 21 / MQd 39. Because Abba-Mari, in his editorial notes, mentions a break in correspondence between Sukkot and the first letters dated to 1305 (MQp 60 / MQd 69), this places the letters surrounding the accusation of Levi in August–September 1304. The latest mention of Levi occurs in MQp 42, pp. 93–96 / MQd 61, pp. 537–48, Ibn Adret's response to Samuel b. Reuben's defense of Levi, a close relation.

5. A. S. Halkin, “Why Was Levi ben Ḥayyim Hounded?,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34 (1966): 65–76. Halkin posited that Abraham was targeted because of his low socioeconomic status vis-à-vis his colleagues; see discussion below.

6. In several places in Minḥat kenaʾot the act of writing a letter is described using the trope of “girding oneself with words” as one would with a sword, familiar from Hebrew literary conventions. Among many, examples include: Abba-Mari in his general introduction, “Because of these [transgressions], my heart shall wield the sword of rhetoric” (ʿal ken libi ḥerev ha-meliẓah yenofef, MQp intro., p. 3 / MQd intro., p. 226, l. 15); Abba-Mari in his initial letter to Ibn Adret, “Gird your sword upon your thigh … and let it be the sword of your rhetoric [ḥerev meliẓatkha], flashing in the faces of the scholars of this land” (MQp 1, p. 20 / MQd 19, p. 273, ll. 44–47); and referring to Ibn Adret, “the Rabbi girded his rhetoric upon his thigh” (ḥagar ha-rav meliẓato ʿal yarekh, MQp 10, p. 44 / MQd 28, p. 359, l. 3–4). Based on biblical precedent (e.g. Judges 3:16, in which Ehud girds his double-edged sword beneath his clothing and uses it in a surprise attack on the king of Moab), rhetoric as swordplay is a trope that appears in medieval Hebrew poetry.

7. The word ʿarum, which I have translated as “cunning,” generally carries a negative connotation; it is not just subtlety or cleverness, but cunning used for deception. However, Dimitrovsky suggests that it is here used in the positive sense of subtle, careful speech, citing the rabbinic discussion in B. Pesaḥim 3a, which uses Job 15:5, “Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your lips testify against you,” to argue (paradoxically) for the importance of care and purity of speech in all matters. However, it seems to me that Crescas is making a point about Levi's power of persuasion: he explains that he was able to mislead many precisely because he was learned and clever.

8. MQp 12, p. 47 / MQd 30, p. 369, ll. 55–62.

9. Gregg Stern suggests that ẓurot is a Hebrew translation of the technical Latin term Figurae; I have followed this suggestion in my translation. See his The Crisis of Philosophical Allegory in Languedocian-Jewish Culture (1304–6),” in Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, ed. Whitman, Jon (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 195–96Google Scholar.

10. There is some confusion about the identity of Samuel ha-Sulami, in particular about the origins of his place-name and his relationship to another prominent Occitan Jew bearing a similar name. Many towns have been nominated for Escaleta, from Iberia to central France, and numerous variations of d'Escaleta occur, including d'Escalita, de l'Escalette, Sescaleta, and others, morphing into d'Escola, Sescola, and other variations—which, unlike Escaleta, which was Hebraized semantically as sulami on the analogy of “ladder,” would be Hebraized semantically as kenesi on the analogy of “school,” as in the fourteenth-century Occitan astronomer Samuel b. Simon ha-Kenesi / Astruc d'Escola. In addition, there are contemporary records of a Samuel Sekili in Narbonne—whose daughter was married to Crescas Vidal's son; see Stern, Gregg, Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Interpretation and Controversy in Medieval Languedoc (New York: Routledge, 2009), 154–56Google Scholar. It has been argued that Sekili was an alternate name for ha-Sulami. It has also been argued that Sekili was a different individual. Most sources on ha-Sulami return to the research of Gross, Heinrich, Gallia Judaica: dictionnaire géographique de la France d'après les sources rabbiniques, trans. Bloch, Moïse (Paris: L. Cerf, 1897; rprt., with supplementary material by Simon Schwartzfuchs, Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1969), 430–31Google Scholar, and Renan, Ernest, “Les Rabbins français du commencement du XIVe Siècle,” in Histoire Littéraire de la France 27:430–734 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1877), 700701 Google Scholar; and see also Baer, Yitzhak, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, trans. Schoffman, Louis, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992), 1:292Google Scholar.

What is known definitively about Samuel ha-Sulami is that he was a prominent intellectual: a poet, talmudic scholar, and well-versed philosopher. He is identified as such by the fifteenth-century intellectual Jacob Provençali (in his “Responsum on the Matter of Studying the Sciences,” in Sefer divrei ḥakhamim, ed. Ashkenazi, Eleazar [Metz, 1849], 70Google Scholar) and by Menaḥem ha-Meʾiri (in Simon b. Joseph, Ḥoshen ha-mishpat, printed in Kaufmann, David, ed., “Simeon B. Josefs Sendschreiben an Menachem B. Salomo: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jüdischen Exegese und Predigt im Mittelalter,” in Jubelschrift zum Neunzigsten Geburtstag des Dr. L. Zunz, Heb. sec., 143–51 [Berlin: Louis Gerschel, 1884], 163)Google Scholar. On Provençali's citation, see Einbinder, Susan L., No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 3334 Google Scholar. In addition, it is reasonably conjectured that ha-Sulami was a moneylender by profession, and he lived primarily in Narbonne. Richard Emery's research in the Perpignan archives is, in fact, dominated by two Jews engaged in mercantile activities, one of whom is Salamon Sullam da Porta (and variations, e.g. Samiel Sullam, Solam da Porta). This same financier is to be found in Latin documents from Aragon, which place his birthplace (or family center) at Villefranche, from where Levi b. Abraham hailed. The records, furthermore, place Samuel's principal place of residence at Narbonne, not Perpignan. See Emery, Richard W., The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century: An Economic Study Based on Notarial Records (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 1719 Google Scholar. This is supported by a responsum unrelated to the controversy, regarding devalued coinage, which was addressed to ha-Sulami in Narbonne by Ibn Adret (cited by Renan and preserved in MS Bodl. 781, Oxford and published by Zaleznik, Aharon, ed., Sheʾelot u-teshuvot ha-Rashba ha-ḥadashot mi-ketav yad [Jerusalem: Mekhon ‘Or Ha-mizraḥ, 2005], 46Google Scholar, no. 74); discussed by Roth, Pinchas, “Regional Boundaries and Medieval Halakhah: Rabbinic Responsa from Catalonia to Southern France in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Jewish Quarterly Review 105, no. 1 (2015): 8485 Google Scholar. Ha-Sulami is assumed to have been living in Narbonne at the time of the controversy, when he boarded Levi. As to his birth date, Gross identifies ha-Sulami in a manuscript dated 1255, which suggests that he was born around 1235, making him a contemporary of Ibn Adret and Jacob b. Makhir. This accords with Emery's findings as well.

11. Though styled as a direct quotation, ha-Sulami's statement is clearly elevated by Crescas for rhetorical purposes, as the high register and density of biblical allusions in it reveal.

12. In the context of rabbinic literature, “Chaldeans” usually refers to Greeks, but here the term seems to be more broadly applied. Crescas most likely means that Levi was teaching Greco-Islamic philosophy in Hebrew translation.

13. MQp 12, pp. 47–48 / MQd 30, pp. 369–70, ll. 62–70.

14. MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 380, ll. 82, 84–85.

15. I.e., they are compelled to report what they know to be true.

16. MQp 15, p. 53 / MQd 33, p. 389, ll. 44–50.

17. MQp 16, p. 54 / MQd 34, p. 391, ll. 19–20.

18. In MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 380, ll. 82, 84–85. Cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Sefer ʾahavah: hilkhot tefillah 10:1.

19. MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 381, ll. 97–99. Specifically, Ibn Adret curses Levi because Levi reportedly taught that Abraham and Sarah rotted away after death, in contradiction to rabbinic traditions as codified in B. Bava Batra 17a. However, Ibn Adret addresses this remark about Levi to Crescas Vidal, not Levi himself, whom he approaches with lesser bile. Though he admonishes Levi sternly—“You should wonder why I haven't yet ascended a steep mountain with a shofar strapped to my chest and blasting-trumpets in my hands, shouting in writing and aloud,” Ibn Adret writes to Levi (MQp 16, p. 54 / MQd 34, p. 392, ll. 30–31)—this hardly approaches the sting of “may your name be obliterated.” Ibn Adret also addresses Levi as a fellow gentleman and a man of intelligence. In fact, this is part of the reason for Ibn Adret's ire: that Levi should know better.

The conventional curse Ibn Adret levies upon Levi in the letter to Crescas is abbreviated as yesh”u. It should be emphasized that Ibn Adret says this conditionally: if indeed Levi is responsible for what his detractors claim he has done, he should be so cursed. Compare this to Ibn Adret's harsh words about a convert to Christianity, whom he identifies only by the rabbinic epithet of anonymity, ploni, in his letter to Samuel ha-Sulami. There Ibn Adret wishes death upon Ploni and his son for attempting to subvert Jews. See MQp 17, p. 56 / MQd 35, p. 398, ll. 45–52.

20. An allusion to the story of Samson and the lion, told in Judges 14; Samson's collection of the honey from the lion is a positive act, and functions here as an underhanded compliment: while Levi may manage to extract goodness from a dangerous situation, he is in peril doing so.

21. I have translated the last word in this sentence according to the textual variant parashta, “you left” as opposed to pirashta, “you interpreted,” as Dimitrovsky prefers, since it seems to me a more sensible parallel to nikhnasta, “you entered”; but in either case, the import is that Levi has deviated from the way of the Torah.

22. MQd 16, p. 55 / MQd 34, p. 393, ll. 41–47. Ibn Adret is here citing the rabbinic interpretive principle de-hi’ mukma’ ’a-nafsheih, leaving aside a forced literal meaning in favor of a contextual reading, e.g. as used in B. Pesaḥim 59b.

23. MQd 16, p. 55 / MQd 34, p. 393, ll. 47–51. The last sentence in this selection is based on Isaiah 28:20, “The couch is too short for stretching out and the cover too narrow for curling up.” The midrashic reading of this verse suggests that the latter clause refers to Manasseh bringing an idol into the temple, as recounted in 2 Chronicles 33:7 (as Rashi notes in contradistinction to his own reading); it seems that the midrashic sense is what Ibn Adret has in mind here, and that he is likening philosophy to idolatry—if only in a literary sense.

24. Certainly he could not have been untouched by knowledge of very real Christian machinations against heresy, including heresy within the ranks of Christianity, which rent Occitania in the 1220s and prompted the institution of a papal inquisition. Nor could he have forgotten the increasing charge against Jews of anti-Christian blasphemy, invoked by the mendicant movement and in popular anti-Jewish libels throughout the thirteenth century. But see Jacob b. Makhir's lack of concern over Christian involvement, and his praise for Christians’ assimilation of Greek knowledge into their educational curriculum in his letter, MQp 39, p. 85 / MQd 58, p. 510, ll. 54–60.

25. MQp 14, p. 56 / MQd 32, p. 383, ll. 123–24.

26. MQp 20, p. 61 / MQd 38, p. 412, l. 55. Some manuscripts have ve-yaʿanishu ʾotam ʿal ha-goyim ha-kofrim rather than ve-yaʿanishu ʾotam kol ha-goyim ke-kofrim, possibly indicating that the line is to be read, “They should be condemned above the heretic gentiles” (MS Mich. 596, Bodleian Library, Oxford [ב in Dimitrovsky's apparatus] and MS héb. 970, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris [ד in Dimitrovsky's apparatus]—as well as MQp). One manuscript has va-yaʿanishu ʾotam ʿal ha-goyim ke-koferim, “They should be condemned as heretics more so than gentiles” (MS Gruenzburg 63, Russian State Library, Moscow [ג in Dimitrovsky's apparatus]).

27. MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 381, ll. 92–96. This letter is Ibn Adret's response to Crescas Vidal's report about Levi.

28. This seems to be a doubly significant reference to ha-Sulami's sheltering of Levi and to the allegorizers’ synogogal sermons.

29. MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, p. 381, ll. 102–4. This is an instance in which goy clearly refers to a Christian rather than a non-Jew generically, as it is juxtaposed to ’Ishmael, “Muslim.” The expression “cutting down the shoots” refers to the transgression of Elisha b. Abuyah, occurring in the rabbinic story of the four who entered the orchard, recorded in the pericope extending from B. Ḥagigah 14b through 15b, with parallels in Y. Ḥagigah 2:1 (77b), T. Ḥagigah 2:1–7, and in the hekhalot corpus. For a structural outline of the pardes story, see Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 232Google Scholar.

30. MQp 14, p. 51 / MQd 32, pp. 380–81, ll. 86–87. The antecedent is not entirely clear, but this occurs in the context of Ibn Adret's response to Crescas Vidal, in which Crescas suggests that perhaps Samuel ha-Sulami agreed to board Levi in order to better understand Levi's views and refute any heretical ones (in MQp 12, p. 47 / MQd 30, p. 368, ll. 50–51).

31. MQp 14, p. 52 / MQd 32, pp. 383–84, ll. 132–34.

32. MQp 14, p. 56 / MQd 32, pp. 382–83, ll. 115–20.

33. In context, this seems to be the meaning of nimus (as in Bereshit Rabbah 65:20 and B. Megillah 12b), as pointed out by Dimitrovsky (p. 734, n. to l. 34).

34. That is, this man harbored transgressive ideas because he was convinced of them intellectually, not because of a congenitally wicked nature. Possibly, this line is a reference to Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim, who was in fact defended by “wise men”; see chapter 5.

35. Here and elsewhere, the proponents of the ban are concerned about the class of axiomatic laws known as ḥukkim, which includes, for example, the laying of tefillin and the avoidance of wearing shaʿatnez. See, inter alia, MQp ch. 2, p. 6 / MQd 2, p. 232, ll. 21–27; MQp 81(a), p. 153 / MQd 101, pp. 734–37, ll. 28–42, 54–59, 68–69. The ḥukkim are an ancient categorization developed extensively in the medieval period, by rationalists in particular—Sa‘adiah Gaon, Judah ha-Levi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides.

36. This is one of the adulteress's seduction tactics, according to B. Sotah 9a. In other words, the author(s) are saying here that all these allegations against the rationalists are the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

37. While “literal” is a reductionist translation of peshat, it fits the meaning here: that such rationalists reject any implication of actual, performative obligation derived from Scripture.

38. MQp 81(a), p. 153 / MQd 101, pp. 734–35, ll. 28–42.

39. I.e., they will not merit to enter the world to come.

40. MQp 14, p. 56 / MQd 32, p. 383, ll. 120–23.

41. Bate ha-nefesh, Levi's first work, is composed of ten treatises (maʾamarim) written in rhymed prose that cover a range of topics at the heart of the rationalist enterprise: ethics, logic, creation, psychology (i.e., the properties of the soul), prophecy, mysticism, mathematics, astronomy, physics and metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology. Levi records that he completed Bate ha-nefesh in 1276, in Montpellier, in the colophon to MS héb. 978, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; see Harvey, Warren Zev, “Levi Ben Abraham of Villefranche's Controversial Encyclopedia,” in The Medieval Jewish Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy, ed. Harvey, Steven (Boston: Kluwer, 2000), 171Google Scholar. Parts of it have been printed in critical editions; Israel Davidson published various sections of the former. The text of Levi's introduction appears in Davidson's, L'introduction de Lévi ben Abraham a son Encyclopédie Poétique Baté Ha-Néfeš Weha-Lehašim ,” Revue des études juives 105 (1940): 8094 Google Scholar. The first section of Bate ha-nefesh, along with an anonymous commentary, appears in Davidson's, The First Book of Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Laḥashim ,” Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 5 (1939): 242 Google Scholar; and the seventh section of the work in his article Levi ben Abraham ben Hayim: A Mathematician of the Thirteenth Century,” Scripta Mathematica 4 (1936): 5765 Google Scholar. More recently, Howard Kreisel published an edition of treatise 5 of Bate ha-nefesh in Livyat Ḥen: The Work of Creation (Book Six, Part Three) (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2004)Google Scholar. The work is monorhymed, all of its lines ending with the syllable -rim. Levi took the title for Bate ha-nefesh from Isaiah 3:20, a passage that describes the adornments of the daughters of Zion. However, Levi states that the title is to be understood according to the decontextualized meaning of the phrase, “stanzas on the soul and the divine secrets”: “I called these stanzas bate ha-nefesh ve-ha-laḥashim because their purpose is to discuss the true nature of souls [ʾamitat ha-nefashim] and the secrets of the Creator [laḥashei ha-bore’] and His holy names, and the mysteries of His prophets [raze neviʾav] whom He guides with intention” (Davidson, “L'Introduction,” 89, ll. 140–42). As Davidson points out, laḥashim is to be understood according to its rabbinic connotation in B. Ḥagigah 14a.

42. Levi’s magnum opus, Livyat ḥen, on which he worked continually from at least 1295, was a vast expansion of Bate ha-nefesh. Parts of the extant sections have been published in critical edition by Howard Kreisel, including the introduction, part 1 and part 3 of treatise 6 (from the “Boaz” section), both long and short recensions, as Livyat Ḥen: The Work of Creation (Book Six, Part Three) (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2004)Google Scholar and Livyat Ḥen: The Quality of Prophecy and the Secrets of the Torah (Book Six, Introduction and Part One) (Hebrew) (Be'er Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. The colophon found in Vatican MS ebr. 192, f. 147r, records that the work was completed in Arles in 5055 (1295); see Sirat, Colette, “Les Différentes versions du Livyat Ḥen de Lévi b. Abraham,” Revue des études juives 122 (1963): 167–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The 1295 version is conventionally known as the “short version,” while subsequent expansions are termed the “long version.” However, the first version that we have must not have been the first version of Livyat ḥen, since Levi notes in its colophon that he has made substantial revisions to the work, and requests of those in possession of earlier versions to replace them with the revised edition (see W. Z. Harvey, “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 173–74; and Freudenthal, Gad, “Sur la partie astronomique du Livyat Ḥen de Lévi ben Abraham ben Ḥayim,” Revue des études juives 148 [1989]: 106Google Scholar).

The work is divided into two sections, named for the twin bronze pillars in Solomon's temple, Yachin and Boaz (described in 1 Kings 7:15–22); “Yachin,” itself subdivided into at least five treatises, deals with knowledge attained by reason (ha-muskal) while “Boaz,” divided into at least seven treatises, explores knowledge attained through received tradition (ha-mekubal). Each of the treatises (maʾamarim) that make up the two central “pillars” (ʿammudim) is itself subdivided into parts (ḥalakim) and then again into chapters (perakim), although, as W. Z. Harvey points out, the Treatise on Astronomy (pillar 1, treatise 3) is further subdivided into subchapters (sheʿarim, literally “gates” but here a calque of the Arabic term bāl, as pointed out to me by Raymond Scheindlin) and paragraphs (simanim). This schema of pillar: treatise: part: chapter: subchapter reflects the magnitude of Levi's project and has often confused those who cite it. The treatises are numbered consecutively, with treatises 1 through 5 composing pillar 1 and treatises 6 and 7 composing pillar 2, which is known to be incomplete. See W. Z. Harvey's remarks and a helpful schematic of Livyat ḥen’s known contents in “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 174.

43. Levi's astrological treatise survives in a unique manuscript, Cambridge MS Add. 1563.3, ff. 92r–104v, in which it is attributed to “R’ Levi bar Gershom baʿal bate ha-nefesh ve-ha-laḥashim”; see Reif, Stefan C., ed., Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library: A Description and Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 335–36Google Scholar (SCR 597). It appears the scribe here mistakenly refers to Levi b. Abraham as Levi b. Gershom. Levi's poem, the incipit of which is “ʾAni meʿir ʾele ḥakham,” is often referred to as the “Complaint” due to the headnote, apparently composed by Levi, which appears in the manuscript as “be-hitnaẓluti ve-telunati ʿal ha-zeman / ve-lehakkhish ʾen kol ḥadash hayiti mezuman.” This short poem of twenty-four lines is appended to Bate ha-nefesh and has been published by Davidson along with the first book of Bate ha-nefesh in “The First Book of Battei ha-Nefesh,” 40–42.

44. Davidson, “L'Introduction,” 86, ll. 76–80, 89, ll. 116–18. Levi stresses his initial reluctance and caution about popularizing rationalism. It is only due to a dream-vision that he was finally emboldened to undertake the work. Levi writes, “Finally the worries of my heart and my perplexity lulled me to sleep, and I saw, there, a man speaking to me … he said to me, ‘Man, awake and arise and be strengthened in your task, and do not fear; produce what your heart demands and that which your soul is capable of. Do so and you will accomplish [these demands]’” (Davidson, “L'Introduction,” 87, ll. 83–85). Levi clearly felt that his first work was both too small and too opaque to serve his purpose of making philosophy available to the seeker. He began Livyat ḥen after finishing Bate ha-nefesh, as an expansion of the task begun in the latter (recorded in the colophon). The title, which references Levi's name in the medieval fashion, is lifted from Proverbs 1:9, 4:9 and appears to be a reference to wisdom, due to the association of the livyat ḥen with wisdom in Proverbs as well as in M. Avot 6:7.

45. They survive in fifteen and eighteen manuscript copies respectively. Bate ha-nefesh garnered several commentaries in the fourteenth century, one by Frat Maimon, the leader of a circle of philosophical study in postexpulsion Occitania: MS héb. 981, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, includes a commentary by one “Solomon” (mentioned on fol. 75v), who has been identified with Frat Maimon, whose Hebrew name was Solomon b. Menaḥem. Sections of this commentary have been published by Kreisel: on treatise 3 of Bate ha-nefesh, in Livyat Ḥen (2004), 425–34, and on treatise 5, in Livyat Ḥen (2007), 951–65. A long and short anonymous commentary is to be found, following each stanza, in MS Evr. I 463, Russian National Library, St. Petersburg; Vatican MS Urbinati ebr. 43, Vatican City; MSS héb. 978, 979, and 990, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; MS hebr. 200, Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; and MS Mich. 63, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Kreisel published the long and short versions of the anonymous comments on treatise 3 of Bate ha-nefesh in Livyat Ḥen (2004), 425–34, 450–54; and on treatise 5 in Livyat Ḥen (2007), 911–46, 966–70. Several manuscripts also bear marginal comments, dating from as early as the fourteenth century, and MS Parm. 3589, Biblioteca Palatina, Parma, a fourteenth-century manuscript, includes extensive marginalia that incorporates parts of the anonymous commentary. This places the composition date of the anonymous commentary in the fourteenth century.

46. Kreisel, Livyat Ḥen: The Work of Creation, 4–5.

47. Shaʿarei ẓiyon,” in Menaḥem ha-Me'iri, Sefer seder ha-kabbalah, rev. ed., ed. Havlin, S. Z. (Jerusalem: Ofeq Institute, 1995), 178Google Scholar, cited in Kreisel, Livyat Ḥen: The Work of Creation, 3.

48. The terminology is W. Z. Harvey's in “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 177; but see also Sirat, Colette, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1985), 245–55Google Scholar and Halkin, “Why Was Levi b. Ḥayim Hounded?,” 74–75.

49. Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 1:292.

50. Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 245–46. See also Dov Schwartz's assessment, in which he calls some of Levi's allegories “quite radical”: ‘Greek Wisdom’: A Reexamination in the Period of the Controversy over the Study of Philosophy,” Sinai 104 (1989): 148Google Scholar.

51. Though these slogans reflected ideas found in rationalist literature, their uniformity and the number of times each is repeated indicates that they were reductionist. In addition to these refrains caricaturing the ideas of their opponents, ban proponents also charged their opponents directly with denying four distinct theological positions: the existence of miracles, prophecy, divine providence, and the world's createdness. In his headnote to the first public circulatory letter sent between Barcelona and Montpellier, for example, Abba-Mari explains that this letter was intended to advise rationalists on how to deal with the “two or three” radicals in their midst, “who deny [koferim] the miracles of the Torah [mofte ha-Torah], do not believe in providence [bilti maʾaminim ba-hashgaḥah], and interpret the principles of the Torah [ʿikarei ha-Torah] as trite” (MQd 38, p. 409, ll. 6–7). Abba-Mari once described Ibn Adret thus: “He [Ibn Adret] wages war with Aristotle and his allies who believe in the eternality of the universe [ha-kadmut], deniers of the miracles [makḥishei ha-moftim] who diminish the divine, deniers of providence [koferim ba-hashgaḥah] who do not give ear” (MQd 23, p. 65 / MQd 42, p. 427, ll. 16–18). Later, in writing the theological introduction to Minḥat kenaʾot, Abba-Mari would propose a creed of three principles that emphasized God's supremacy, the creation of the world, and divine providence. (See especially MQp ch. 4, p. 7 / MQp 4, pp. 235–36, as well as MQp chs. 5, 10, 13, and 15 / MQd chs. 5, 13, and 15. The only one of these principles elaborated upon in Sefer ha-yareaḥ is divine providence, but within the context of discrediting Aristotle, not as a creedal principle in and of itself; see ch. 7 of Sefer ha-yareaḥ MQp, p. 127 / MQd 77, p. 654.)

52. MQp 16, p. 54 / MQd 34, p. 392, ll. 27–28. In another letter, he complained of careless rationalists, “They falsified the Torah and its commandments [samu ha-Torah u-miẓvoteiha plaster], so that it became for them a sanctioned release from obligation [heter]” (MQp 10, p. 45 / MQd 28, p. 360, ll. 18–19).

53. The order is always given as “matter and form,” for the sake of the Hebrew rhyme—Avraham ve-Sarah / ḥomer ve-ẓurah—although Abraham was identified with form (ẓurah) and Sarah with matter (ḥomer). See Ram Ben-Shalom, “Communication and Propaganda between Provence and Spain: The Controversy over Extreme Allegorization (1303–1306),” in Communication in the Jewish Diaspora: The Pre-Modern World, ed. Sophia Menache (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 181–82.

54. MQp 49, p. 105 / MQd 68, p. 578. l. 28.

55. Touati, Charles, “La controverse de 1303–1306 autour des études philosophiques et scientifiques,” Revue des études juives 117 (1968): 3031 Google Scholar. These appear in treatise 6; Touati cites the “short version” of Livyat ḥen preserved in MS Mich. 519, Bodleian Library, Oxford, in which these allegories occur on ff. 38v, 68v, and 71v, respectively.

56. In the long version of Livyat ḥen, treatise 6, part 1, chapter 32 (in pillar 2, “Boaz”); published in Livyat Ḥen: The Quality of Prophecy and the Secrets of the Torah (Book Six, Introduction and Part One) (Hebrew), ed. Kreisel, Howard (Beʾer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2007), 703–4Google Scholar.

57. Kreisel, ed., Livyat Ḥen: The Quality of Prophecy, 704.

58. Kreisel, ed., Livyat Ḥen: The Work of Creation, 5, n. 15.

59. Kreisel, ed., Livyat Ḥen: The Quality of Prophecy, 305. Cf. Shemonah perakim 4 and Moreh II, 39. In addition to these characteristics, Levi's magnum opus displays originality at times. Consider a passage in which Levi addresses the use of figurative language in Hebrew, in which he adds the term harḥavah, similar but distinct from guzmaʾ (hyperbole) (Livyat Ḥen: The Quality of Prophecy, 103). This rare term, which Levi may have used following an unattributed text, seems to be an unusual, perhaps original suggestion.

60. There are other examples of “textbooks” from the period. Midrash ha-ḥokhmah (Exposition of wisdom), an encyclopedia by Judah b. Solomon ha-Kohen Ibn Malkah of Toledo (b. c. 1215), was originally written in Arabic but translated by Judah himself into Hebrew while at the court of Frederick II in Lombardy. Like Levi's encyclopedias, Midrash ha-ḥokhmah encompasses natural philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, and metaphysics (which constitute each of its three parts). It was quite popular, judging from the twenty extant manuscripts (Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 250–55). Gershom b. Solomon of Arles (fl. second half of the thirteenth century), wrote a similar tripartite encyclopedia, Shaʿar ha-shamayim (Gateway to the heavens), which Steven Harvey has called “the most popular thirteenth-century encyclopaedia” (see his Shem-Tov Falaquera, A Paragon of an Epigone,” in Studia Rosenthaliana 40 [2007–8]: 6174 Google Scholar). Perhaps best known today are the popularizing works of Shem-Tov Ibn Falaquera. His major work is the encyclopedia Deʿot ha-filosofim, which has never been published in its entirety from the two extant manuscripts. Ibn Falaquera produced two more “little encyclopedias,” as Sirat terms them (History of Jewish Philosophy, 234): Reshit ḥokhmah (The beginning of wisdom) and Sefer ha-mevakesh (The book of the seeker). Both works are extant in a large number of manuscripts—Reshit ḥokhmah in seven, as well as one Latin translation, and Sefer ha-mevakesh in nine—attesting to their popularity. Ibn Falaquera's ’Iggeret ha-vikuaḥ (Epistle of debate) is also a guidebook for young students interested in philosophy; it too is well preserved (extant in seventeen manuscript copies). In addition, one of Yedayah ha-Penini Bedersi's youthful works—written at the age of seventeen, he states—was an ethical work in encyclopedic format, titled Sefer ha-pardes (Book of the orchard), published by J. Luzzato in ’Oẓar ha-sifrut 3, no. 6 (1889/90): 1–17. This makes the composition date of Sefer ha-pardes almost exactly contemporaneous to that of Levi's Bate ha-nefesh.

61. In addition to encyclopedic works, another genre that had become popular in the region in Levi's time, aggadic and midrashic commentary, sought to explain these core texts of Jewish tradition in nonliteral terms. Among these works is Ibn Adret's own Perushe ha-haggadot (extensively cited in Jacob Ibn Ḥabib's later aggadic compilation and commentary, the ʿEin Yaʿakov); Moses Ibn Tibbon's Sefer ha-peʾah; Yedayah ha-Penini Bedersi's Perush ha-midrashim; Shemaryah b. Elijah ha-ʾIqriti’s ʾElef ha-magen, a commentary on the aggadot of tractate Megillah; and Isaac b. Yedayah's commentaries on talmudic aggadah and on Midrash Rabbah, in which he often notes the distinction between his own rationalistic explanations and those of the sages. Such commentaries were part of the Maimonidean project of explaining the Torah's secrets, as well as, significantly, a counterpolemical response to contemporary Christian missionizing strategies. Further comparison of methodologies between these aggadic-midrashic commentaries and philosophical-allegorical biblical interpretation in thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Iberia and Occitania is a desideratum. See Saperstein, Marc, Decoding the Rabbis: A Thirteenth-Century Commentary on the Aggadah (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Saperstein, , “R. Isaac B. Yeda'yah: A Forgotten Commentary on the Aggadah,” Revue des études juives 138 (1979): 1745 Google Scholar, and Yedaiah Bedersi's Commentary on the Midrashim,” World Congress of Jewish Studies 8, no. 3 (1982): 5965 Google Scholar; Horowitz, Carmi, “ʿAl perush ha-ʾaggadot shel Rashba: Bein kabbalah le-filosofiah,” Daʿat 18 (1987): 1525 Google Scholar; Lehman, Marjorie, The En Yaaqov: Jacob Ibn Ḥabib's Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Kreisel, Haim, Sirat, Colette, and Israel, Avraham, eds., Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Ibn Tibbon (Beʾer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Walfish, Barry, Esther in Medieval Garb: Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Esther in the Middle Ages (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 3334 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chazan, Robert, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and the Jewish Response (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 8688 Google Scholar.

62. The public reading occurred in Montpellier after Minḥah on Shabbat Parah (following Purim). Shelemyah de Lunel, who helped to spearhead the event and his supporters pledged to do so every following Shabbat as well: MQp 68, p. 139 / MQd 87, p. 692, ll. 39–42.

63. Halkin, “Why Was Levi ben Ḥayyim Hounded?,” 68–70; Bäck, Leo, “Zur Charaktersitik des Levi ben Abraham ben Chajjim,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 44 (1900): 2830 Google Scholar; and see also Touati, “La Controverse de 1303–1306.” See also Sirat, who suggests that Levi was an ideal scapegoat for yet more illustrious men, including Maimonides and the Tibbonides, precisely because he represents the end of an intellectual epoch, having taken the methodology of the post-Maimonideans to its logical conclusion. This is Sirat's response to the consensus view that Levi was targeted due to his personal poverty (see below), of which she writes, “There is certainly some truth to this hypothesis” (History of Jewish Philosophy, 246).

64. MQp 12, p. 48 / MQd 30, pp. 369–70, l. 69.

65. See Kanarfogel, Ephraim, Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), 2531 Google Scholar; however, most of Kanarfogel's sources pertain to northern Europe specifically, and many to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

66. Davidson, “Introduction to Battei ha-Nefesh,” 40, l. 237. It is difficult to know how seriously to take Levi's complaint, however, considering the well-worn literary genre of complaint poetry.

67. According to the colophon of Bate ha-nefesh in MS héb. 978, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; see W. Z. Harvey, “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 171.

68. The colophon to one of the long versions of Livyat ḥen records, “This copy was completed in the city of Arles at the end of the year 5055” (Vatican MS ebr. 192, fol. 147r). Another long version bears the date 1299, though without a location (Vatican MS ebr. 383, fol. 103v).

69. It is in the latter half of 1304 that Crescas Vidal first reports about Levi's whereabouts there (MQp 12, pp. 46–48 / MQd 30, pp. 365–72), and several other letters, all dating from 1304, mention him. The year 1304, then, is the last date attested for Levi. Though it has often been asserted that Levi is attested at Arles in 1315, I was unable to find a source for this. W. Z. Harvey thinks it is a misreading of the colophon found in Vatican MS ebr. 192; see “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 171, n. 1.

70. The political separation between Barcelona and Montpellier was at a sensitive point at this juncture, and heightened the already extant boundaries among Jewish communal authorities. See Saperstein, Marc, “The Conflict over the Rashba's Ḥerem on Philosophical Study: A Political Perspective,” Jewish History 1, no. 2 (1986): 2738 Google Scholar.

71. MQd 16, p. 55 / MQd 34, pp. 394–95, ll. 66–71.

72. W. Z. Harvey suggests that in 1276, when he completed his first encyclopedia, Levi was over forty, since he wrote explicitly that one should not delve into maʿaseh bereʾshit and maʿaseh merkavah until attaining that age, following Maimonides and rabbinic precepts: see his “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 181. If Harvey is correct, this would make Levi at least sixty-eight in 1304. In any case it is probable that Levi was elderly at the time of the controversy.

73. Two of the four kerovot include acrostics: one bears the acrostic “Abraham bar Ḥayim” and another “Abraham.” See Zunz, Leopold, Die Literaturgeschichte der Synagogalen Poesie (Berlin: L. Gerschel, 1865), 418Google Scholar; Renan, Ernest, “Les Rabbins français du commencement du XIVe Siècle,” in Histoire Littéraire de la France, 27:430–734 (Paris, 1877), 629Google Scholar; and Gross, Gallia Judaica, 421. Shabbat Parah is one of the four additional Torah portions (’arbaʿah parshiyot) read during Shabbat services in the month preceding Passover. These include Shabbat Shekalim, Shabbat Zakhor, and Shabbat ha-Ḥodesh in addition to Shabbat Parah, and are thematically preparatory for the holiday. Shabbat Parah occurs on the Shabbat following Purim.

74. See Bet ha-beḥirah le-Rabbenu Menaḥem ben Rav Shelomo le-vet Meʾir ha-mekuneh ha-Meʾiri, ed. Dikman, Shmuel, 20 vols. (Jerusalem: Makhon ha-Talmud ha-Israʾeli ha-Shalem, 1964)Google Scholar. The general preface is not to be confused with ha-Meʾiri's preface to his commentary on Avot, a celebrated part of Bet ha-beḥirah on account of its shalshelet ha-kabbalah that is known as Magen ʾavot.

75. This is assumed based on the fact that Abraham is mentioned by others as being active in Narbonne, but that Levi states that he was born in Conflent.

76. Ernest Renan gives the probable date of Levi's birth as 1245–50, though he derives this from two questionable sources: Levi's statement that he is young in a work of unknown date, and a description of Levi as elderly in Minḥat kenaʾot, which I have not been able to find in the place Renan indicates, MQp 12, pp. 46–47 (this is Crescas Vidal's first letter to Barcelona, quoted at length below); see “Les Rabbins français du commencement du XIVe Siècle,” 630–31. Renan's date is the most frequently cited in subsequent scholarship. In contrast, W. Z. Harvey argues, based on evidence that Levi observed the prohibition on studying metaphysics before age forty, that Levi was born earlier, c. 1235: see “Controversial Encyclopedia,” 181. If Harvey is correct, Levi would be precisely the same age as Jacob b. Makhir and Ibn Adret. I am unconvinced that a definitive date of birth can be determined for Levi.

77. For this reason, Levi is often cited as Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim or even Levi b. Ḥayim; at times an even longer pedigree is provided for him. There is some confusion over Levi's grandfather's name, which is either Ḥayim b. Reuben or Ḥayim b. Abraham. Two Oxford manuscripts (MSS Mich. 602 and Mich. 63) have Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim b. Reuben and two Paris manuscripts (MSS héb. 978 and 979, Bibliothèque Nationale) have Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim b. Abraham b. Reuben.

78. While Levi does not state that Reuben is his uncle, this is presumed from his relationship with Samuel b. Reuben de Béziers. It is also supported by patronymics: Abraham b. Ḥayim (Levi's father), Reuben b. Ḥayim, Samuel b. Reuben.

79. Also in the preface to Bet ha-beḥirah.

80. Manoaḥ’s Mishneh Torah commentary is known as Sefer ha-menuḥah or Sefer ha-manoaḥ and was cited by Isaac b. Jacob Lattes (fl. mid-fourteenth century) in Shaʿarei Ẓiyon, the first part of his presentation of the oral law, Kiryat sefer; and, later by Joseph Karo in Bet Yosef and also in Kesef mishneh, Karo's commentary on the Mishneh Torah.

81. MQp 41, p. 90 / MQd 60, p. 526, ll. 26–27; cf. Dimitrovsky's reading of this phrase, p. 526, n. 27. Ibn Adret continued to maintain a close connection with the family even after Levi became the target of accusations of heresy—and after seeing Samuel b. Reuben's signature in support of the Montpellier rationalists: see MQp 42, p. 93 / MQd 61, p. 538, ll. 15–16.

82. This commentary, which is not extant, is attributed by Azaryah de Rossi to a Reuben b. Ḥayim; see Meʾor ʿenayim, ed. Cassel, David (Vilna, 1864–66; rprt., Jerusalem: Makor, 1970), 127Google Scholar. This is pointed out by Ernest Renan in “Les rabbins français du commencement du XIVe siècle,” 631–32.

83. In Livyat ḥen Levi calls his cousin Reuben b. Samuel de Béziers ʾadoni, which Halkin reads as “father-in-law”; if Halkin's reading is correct, then Levi was married to his second cousin, the famed Reuben b. Ḥayim's granddaughter.

84. MQp 41, p. 91 / MQd 60. p. 532, ll. 100–101.

85. It is uncertain, but the relative rarity of the names Levi, Reuben, and Ḥayim may indicate that Levi was related to several prominent Occitans. The two most promising candidate is Abraham b. Ḥayim (fl. twelfth century), to whom Abraham Ibn Ezra dedicated his Sefer ha-Shem (along with Abraham b. Meir of Beziérs and Isaac b. Judah): see Sepher Haschem: Oder das Buch über den vierbuchstabigen Namen Gottes, ed. Lippman, Gabriel Hirsch (Fürth: D. I. Zürndorff, 1834)Google Scholar, Heb. sec. א1. Other possible relatives include the important early Occitan figure Moses ha-Darshan (fl. first half of the eleventh century), who had a brother named Levi; Jacob b. Reuben (c. 1136 – c. after 1170), author of an anti-Christian polemic titled Milḥamot ’Adonai; and Levi b. Moses b. Todros (d. c. 1220) and the son of a Narbonne nasi’ who was praised by Judah al-Ḥarizi in the Taḥkemoni for his philanthropic activities. David b. Levi (fl. late thirteenth – early fourteenth century), author of the important halakhic work Ha-mikhtam and a signatory of some of Ibn Adret's halakhic decisions, was probably not a relation, as he was a contemporary of Levi's, though he moved in the same elite circles in central Occitania as did Levi's confirmed family members.

86. Though it has not been addressed by subsequent scholarship, Joseph Jacobs and Max Schlessinger conjectured in their article about Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia (ed. Singer, Isidore et al. [New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–6]Google Scholar, 8:22–24) that Levi was the maternal grandfather of Levi b. Gershom (Ralbag; Gersonides); and by Israel Davidson in his 1939 edition of the first book of Bate ha-nefesh, which includes a family tree in the introduction (The First Book of Bate ha-nefesh ve-ha-laḥashim ” [Hebrew], Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem 5 [1939]: 34 Google Scholar). Few details about Gersonides's life are known definitively, and the identity of both of his parents is disputed. For our purposes, it is unimportant whether his father was Gershom b. Solomon of Arles, author of Shaʿar ha-shamayim, as recorded by Abraham Zacuto in Sefer yuḥasin (see Filipowski, H., ed., Liber Juchasin [London: Ḥevrat meʻorere yeshenim, 1857]Google Scholar, 224a) and repeated by Gedalya Ibn Yaḥya in his Shalshelet ha-kabbalah (see Shalshelet ha-kabbalah [Venice, 1587], 61a)—or whether his father was the talmudist Gershom b. Solomon de Béziers, as contended by Charles Touati and Seymour Feldman, inter alia, on the basis of details reported by Isaac b. Jacob Lattes in Kiryat sefer: see Touati, Charles, La pensée philosophique et théologique de Gersonide (Paris: Les Éditions de minuit, 1973)Google Scholar and Feldman, Seymour, ed., The Wars of the Lord by Levi Ben Gershom, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984–99), 3:4–5Google Scholar. Either way, if Levi b. Abraham's daughter was indeed Gersonides's mother, she would have married into a prominent family—although considering Levi's age, this marriage would have taken place before the controversy and would thus not reflect his continued good standing in the community.

However, the identity of Gersonides's mother is even more problematic and is the determinant of whether he was related to our Levi. According to Zacuto (and others who followed him), Naḥmanides, not Levi, was Gersonides's maternal grandfather, but this is contradicted by a remark Gersonides himself makes: he quotes his maternal grandfather as Levi ha-Kohen in his comment on Exodus 34:9 (Mantua, 1480, 114a). Since Gersonides himself is not known to be a kohen, this Levi ha-Kohen would have had to be his maternal, rather than paternal, grandfather—thus precluding Naḥmanides from being Gersonides's maternal grandfather. Of course, Levi b. Abraham was not known to be a kohen either, so it would seem, in the final analysis, that our Levi b. Abraham was not the grandfather of the preeminent and controversial Jewish philosopher of the fourteenth century.

87. Emery, Jews of Perpignan, 1–10.

88. Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 1:292, 442 (n. 45). Baer suggests that the father of Crescas and his brother Bonafos was Vidal Solomon, bailiff to James I of Aragon. As he notes, Crescas Vidal is mentioned in Régné, Jean, History of the Jews in Aragon: Regesta and Documents, 1213–1327, ed. Assis, Yom Tov (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978)Google Scholar, nos. 2344, 2416, and, along with his brother, no. 1932; Bonafos is also mentioned in nos. 1634, 1709, 1932, 2034, 2048, 2122, and 2330. These documents place Crescas in Barcelona at least until 1291. See also Ta-Shma, Israel, “Vidal, Crescas,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., ed. Berenbaum, Michael and Skolnik, Fred (Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 20:516Google Scholar.

89. MQp 11, pp. 45–46 / MQd 29, pp. 362–65.

90. Ha-Sulami's letter to Ibn Adret is not included in Minḥat kenaʾot and does not survive, but ha-Sulami's defense of Levi is clearly indicated by Ibn Adret's response to ha-Sulami, MQp 17, p. 56 / MQd 35, pp. 396–97, ll. 16–25.

91. In addition, while living with ha-Sulami, Levi corresponded personally with Ibn Adret, as we have seen; the exchange was largely respectful (Levi's letter is not preserved, but is known from Ibn Adret's response to it, which is extant in Minḥat kenaʾot): MQp 16, p. 54 / MQd 34, p. 390, ll. 1–4.

92. This is described by Abba-Mari in the headnote to MQp 17, p. 55 / MQd 35, p. 395, ll. 1–8.

93. Ha-Sulami's words do not survive; this is Abba-Mari's report (in the headnote to MQp 17, p. 55 / MQd 35, p. 395, ll. 1–8).

94. Samuel b. Reuben, the son of Levi's paternal uncle, almost certainly lived in Montpellier. It is commonly assumed that he lived in Béziers, probably due to his name, which, however, is most likely an inherited place-name rather than an indication of where Samuel lived. In his letter to Ibn Adret (MQp 41, pp. 89–93 / MQd 60, pp. 524–37), Samuel b. Reuben constantly references events occurring in Montpellier. The letter is primarily intended as a peacemaking apology for signing with the rationalists—very likely a reference to the missive sent by the Montpellier rationalists to Barcelona (MQp 23, pp. 66–68 / MQd 43, pp. 431–40). Thus it would seem that in the fall of 1304, Levi went to live with Samuel b. Reuben in Montpellier.

95. See below for a detailed discussion of the particulars of Crescas's report.

96. “The land” here is a term referring to Occitania. Medieval Jews, both inhabitants of this region and those addressing its inhabitants, most frequently refer to the region generically as ha-ʾareẓ (the land) or ʾareẓekhem (your land), and as ʾereẓ provinẓah—that is, “Provence.” See Goss, Gallia Judaica, 489–93; Shlomo Pick, “The Jewish Communities of Provence” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 1996), 20–28; and Roth, “Regional Boundaries,” 72–74. “The slopes of Amnon” constitute the northern boundary of the Land of Israel in the discussion in B. Gittin 8a; here this may be a reference to Montpellier, a city perched on a mountain, as Dimitrovsky suggests: see his note to l. 28 on p. 364.

97. Lifted from 1 Samuel 10:12.

98. MQp 11, p. 46 / MQd 29, p. 364, ll. 25–32.

99. An example of extreme allegorization can be found in another letter by Crescas Vidal, in which he reports on the transgressive ideas contained in a book he had heard about, but did not personally examine: “I can also report to you, my lords, that when I passed through Montpellier, the leader En Todros de Beaucaire told me that one of the philosophizers had written a Torah commentary in the manner of Greek wisdom, and did not include in his commentary an iota of the plain meaning of the Torah, making of everything Matter and Form. From what he [Todros] told me, it reached that point that he [the rationalist commentator] maintained that Armafel and the kings of his coalition imply the four elements—just think what will follow from this” (MQd 12, p. 48 / MQd 30, pp. 370–71, ll. 72–87). King Armafel of Shinar was part of an eastern coalition of four kings that included King Khederlaomer of Eilam, King Tidal of Goim, and King Ariokh of Ellasar, described in Genesis 14. Here Crescas alludes to the complete allegorization of the Torah (“making of everything Matter and Form”) and the transmutation of certain prophecies from political foretelling into scientific symbolism. (“Armafel and the kings of his coalition imply the four elements.”)

100. Again, this is why Crescas's response to Ibn Adret's initial query, apart from identifying Levi as the provocateur whom Ibn Adret was asking about, was in general nuanced and responsible rather than absolute and alarmist.

101. MQd 12, p. 48 / MQd 30, pp. 370–71, ll. 74–87.