Intellectual Culture in the Early Medieval World

The Rise of Islam and the Spread of Greco-Arabic Thought

Over the first seven centuries of the Common Era, the Greek intellectual heritage was translated into Syriac and, from the ninth century on, into Arabic, often from the Syriac. At first, large-scale translation of texts into Arabic focused on fields like linguistics, theology, and history. But between the ninth and tenth centuries, efforts expanded to include astronomy, mathematics, medicine, astrology, and other aspects of the Greek philosophical tradition. A Greco-Arabic scientific and philosophical synthesis came to influence the vast intellectual landscape of the Islamicate world and shaped what grew into the normative medieval scientific view of the cosmos.

The rapid rise and spread of Islam across the Near East and North Africa and into parts of Europe meant that many of the oldest and most important centers of Jewish life in these centuries were located within the Islamic realm. The Jewish embrace of Arabic exposed Jews to these new ideas and literary currents, which in turn had a fruitful impact on internal Jewish cultural production. Both the study of Hebrew grammar and the rise of new forms of Hebrew poetry were by-products of Jewish engagement with Arabic literature. The same might be said for the fields of ethics, philosophy, science, and medicine. All these areas of intellectual endeavor, which fall outside the traditional subjects of Jewish law and Bible study, were shaped by the increasing influence of Greco-Islamic rationalist thought, in particular by an impulse toward analysis and systematization.

Ethical Literature 

A body of wisdom literature inherited from the ancient and late antique world formed the basis for ethical writing among Jews. Works such as the biblical book of Proverbs and the apocryphal book of Ben Sira provided literary models for Jewish authors, who then came to read these books in light of the Greco-Arabic ethical tradition. Also drawing from the deep well of gnomic proverbs circulating, likely in oral form, and offering general moral and health-related advice—in most cases, with no specifically Jewish content—Jews composed Hebrew collections of these proverbs. Some of these appear in very straightforward literary forms, whereas others are more rhetorically complex; some were versified, and along with verse adaptations of the book of Ben Sira, suggest a milieu of both oral and written transmission. 

Early medieval ethical texts also included practical philosophy, moralizing letters, testamentary instructions for children, and proverbs.

The Reception of Pirke Avot 

Related in form and purpose, but more identifiably Jewish, were the ethical admonitions that appear in the mishnaic tractate Chapters of the Fathers (Pirke Avot), written within a purportedly legal framework. These became yet another source of inspiration, resulting in elaborate versions such as the Chapters of the Fathers according to R. Nathan (Avot de-Rabbi Natan), written in the seventh or eighth century as a sort of gemara to Pirke Avot, or simple extensions of the tradition, like the ninth-century Short Tractate on Correct Behavior (Derekh erets zuta). Another approach, of course, which suggests a more reverential attitude toward the talmudic corpus, involved writing commentaries on Pirke Avot.

The Greco-Arabic Ethical Tradition

Eventually, under the influence of the theoretical Greek ethical-philosophical tradition, Jews began to write more analytic, systematic works, drawing on Aristotle and Galen, as well as on Muslim authors. Most early works offer nuggets of good advice, but in the eleventh century, Jews composed more systematic explanations of—and guides to—what it means to be a good person. Arabic philosophical texts, like Se‘adya Ga’on’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions and Baḥya Ibn Paqūda’s Sufi-influenced The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, addressed ethical questions as part of their larger projects. But independent works like Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Improvement of the Moral Qualities, written in Arabic, and the twelfth-century Joseph Ibn ‘Aqnīn’s The Book of Ethics, composed in Hebrew, were also devoted to exploring the elements, both spiritual and physical, involved in performing good (and evil) actions. 

Jewish Ethics and the Wisdom Tradition

Much Jewish writing thus navigated the tension between the universalist tradition of wisdom literature and the highly specific system of Jewish legal and ethical traditions. The meaning of the commandments and their relation to the moral life of “man,” construed generally, were also issues of interest. Systematic Hebrew treatises that discussed ethics (known as sifre musar) became popular in the thirteenth century, after the period covered in this volume, but the seeds of this kind of writing can be seen in these works, as well as in Moses Maimonides’ introduction to Pirke Avot, one of a few discrete, discursive introductions found within his extensive Judeo-Arabic Commentary on the Mishnah. This work, neatly plucked from its original setting, was translated into Hebrew and, under the title “Eight Chapters,” was transmitted as an independent treatise in later centuries.

Jewish Ethics in Northern Europe

In the northern European Christian world, too, ethical and philosophical teachings were transmitted and incorporated into Hebrew works, sometimes explicitly so, as in the works of Berekhiah ha-Nakdan, who, in the late twelfth century, translated excerpts from both Se‘adya and Baḥya. A Hebrew paraphrase of Se‘adya’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions influenced the Hasidei Ashkenaz, a group of Jewish pietists who flourished in thirteenth-century Germany. Even before then, in the eleventh century, scientific and philosophical texts by Jews in the Byzantine-Arab orbit seem to have been transmitted through Italy into the Rhineland. In southern France, too, the ethics of the Greco-Arabic world were absorbed by Jewish scholars with avid interest. These were some of the earliest texts translated from Arabic into Hebrew, whetting the appetite of Provençal Jewish scholars for the religious and philosophical thought of Jewish al-Andalus and North Africa.

New Philosophical Trends: Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, and Kalām

Jewish philosophy blossomed in the early medieval period, the result of an intensive engagement with three important philosophical movements: Neoplatonism (“new” Platonism, a term now used to describe a philosophical school of thought, which flourished from the third to the sixth century, that expanded on and synthesized Platonic philosophy with Christian and Gnostic concepts), Aristotelianism, and Islamic rationalist theology, called kalām, which employed philosophical methods and concepts to justify and elucidate religious doctrine. Throughout the medieval period, knowledge of Aristotle was mediated by his early commentators. These included Alexander of Aphrodisias (late second to early third century), Themistius (317–ca. 388), and two important Neoplatonists, Plotinus (204/5–270) and the Christian Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570). Some works by Plato, Arabic paraphrases of sections of Plotinus’ Enneads (e.g., the part known, confusingly, as The Theology of Aristotle), and the writings of other Neoplatonists circulated as well. Aristotelian thought, especially metaphysics, was therefore infused early on with Neoplatonic ideas, and the disparate elements influenced medieval philosophers to a greater or lesser extent.

Among the early medieval works that try to describe, understand, or explicate the existence and nature of God and the rest of the incorporeal realms, some adhere to a particular school of philosophical thought, while others are mystical or even midrashic. Together they illustrate the variety of Jewish approaches to the divine and spiritual worlds during this period.

Greek and Arabic Philosophers

Aristotelian ethics, logic, physics, and metaphysics were absorbed and developed by Arabic philosophers (often referred to as falāsifa) such as al-Kindī (d. ca. 866), al-Fārābī (d. 950), Ibn Sīnā (known in the West as Avicenna; d. 1037), and Ibn Rushd (known as Averroes; d. 1198). Other scientific and philosophical fields were also associated with major Greek thinkers. Astronomy, with some exceptions, followed Ptolemy (ca. 100–ca. 170), mathematicians looked to the work of Euclid (325–265 BCE), and so on.

Kalām Thinkers

While in theory the falāsifa studied philosophy on its own terms, kalām thinkers, called mutakallimūn, used philosophical principles for apologetic purposes, namely, to investigate and defend religious dogma. Two influential branches of Muslim kalām were the Mu‘tazilī and Ash‘arī schools. The former was more strictly rationalist in its approach to metaphysics than the latter, focusing on the oneness and transcendence of God and affirming both God’s justice and human free will. Jews too could be considered kalām thinkers as, for example, was Se‘adya. Apart from his Book of Beliefs and Opinions, which is roughly patterned on a kalām genre and develops many of the themes just mentioned, his commentary on the biblical book of Job, called The Book of Theodicy, reads Job as an expression of the Jewish doctrine of divine justice.

Early Translations into Hebrew

Eventually, from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, many Arabic and occasionally Latin scientific and philosophical texts were translated into Hebrew, sometimes directly, and other times as paraphrases or translated excerpts in larger collections. Individual Jewish scholars, including Abraham Ibn Ezra, Berekhiah ha-Nakdan, and Judah Ibn Tibbon and his son Samuel Ibn Tibbon, took it upon themselves to communicate the science and philosophy of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic culture to the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, whose primary language of scholarship was Hebrew. 

Religion and Philosophy: Still Friends

During the early medieval period, reconciling traditional religious ideas about God and the world with Aristotelian philosophy shaped much Jewish thought. Outright conflict between the two fields of thought was still relatively muted. The culmination of this trend was perhaps the work of Maimonides, who included Aristotelian principles in the first book of the Mishneh Torah, his codification of Jewish law; knowing the basics of contemporary science and philosophy, it would seem, was commanded of every Jew. In the more philosophically technical Guide of the Perplexed, however, Maimonides pointed out a number of apparent conflicts between the two bodies of knowledge and tried to resolve them. But it was only in the thirteenth century, with the Maimonidean controversies, that rabbinic figures publicly and vociferously objected to the philosophical interpretation of Jewish tradition.

Jewish Scientific Activity

The development and flourishing of Arabic science inspired Jews to write scientific works, which they did at first in Arabic as well. The first strictly scientific works, written according to Greco-Arabic theories, do not appear in Hebrew until early in the twelfth century. But from fragmentary remains in the Cairo Geniza, it is evident that both Arabic scientific works, transcribed into Hebrew characters, and original works in Judeo-Arabic by Jewish authors were circulating among Jews in the Islamic world. These writings were fully integrated into the contemporary Greco-Arabic philosophical and scientific discourse that came to dominate Jewish scientific writing.

Natural and Mystical Cosmologies

Still, some early, anonymous writings in Hebrew attempted to describe the universe and the natural world, reworking preexisting rabbinic statements about the heavens and earth into extended, systematic cosmographies. The eighth- or ninth-century midrash collection called the Tanḥuma includes a schematic view of the universe with the Temple in Jerusalem at the center, while the Chapters of R. Eliezer, written around the same time, describes a heavenly tent stretched over the four-cornered earth, with the northern corner open or incomplete. They may represent attempts to describe the cosmos and its workings using only “authentically Jewish” material. Several works of the Hekhalot (“palaces”) corpus, mystical literature that likely emerged in late talmudic and early geonic Babylonia, also describe the celestial or metaphysical realms, sometimes including the experiences or prayers of rabbis who traveled through and witnessed these heavenly palaces.

Scientific Thought in the Form of the Mishnah

In addition, some texts were being written in mishnaic-style Hebrew: the medical Book of Asaf (Sefer Asaf); the mathematical Treatise of Measures (Mishnat ha-middot); the astronomical and astrological Teaching of Samuel (Baraita de-Shemu’el); the embryological Formation of the Embryo (Yetsirat ha-walad); and the vastly influential work traditionally ascribed to the patriarch Abraham, the Book of Creation (Sefer yetsirah). Likely composed in the eighth or ninth century in the Middle East, some of these texts made their way as far as Ashkenaz, through Italy.

Reconciling Traditional Jewish Texts with Greco-Arabic Science

By the tenth century, Arabic science had advanced, and the consolidation and diffusion of Arabic culture was peaking, encompassing Jews as well. The emergence of several scientific commentaries on the Book of Creation and the Teaching of Samuel reflects the need to reconcile these traditional texts with the new worldview of Greco-Arabic science. The late-medieval Maimonidean controversies over the place of science and rationalism within Jewish religious thought had not yet broken out, but some of the same issues were already beginning to make themselves felt.

The Greco-Arabic Medical Tradition: Galen and Avicenna

During the medieval period, rationalist medical theory, like science and philosophy, was based on Greek sources, especially Galen (129–ca. 200). Galen had systematized a rather unwieldy group of texts attributed to Hippocrates, culling those he thought were wrongly attributed and harmonizing the rest. This material was supplemented by a few texts that covered topics not sufficiently dealt with by Galen, such as Soranus’ second-century Gynecology. Physicians of all religions in the Islamicate world (and, later, in the Christian world) based their practice on this system. Perhaps most famous of them, Ibn Sīnā, wrote the most systematic and comprehensive medical text of the medieval period, the Canon of Medicine (Qānūn fī ’l-ṭibb; 1025), which was studied by Jews in both the original Arabic and in several Hebrew translations. Ibn Sīnā labored to demarcate spheres of authority between Aristotle (physics and natural science) and Galen (medicine), a task mandated by Galen’s adoption of non-Aristotelian principles.

Medical Theory and Empirical Practice

Galenic medical theory was generally accepted as providing the conceptual background for learned medicine. In this tradition, scientific works were written on diagnosis of the pulse or the state of the patient’s urine, or included head-to-toe descriptions of the various diseases and illnesses that might affect the body as well as suggestions for healing. They provided handy guides to both diagnosis and cure. Medicine, however, had long been practiced by both learned and nonlearned healers, many of whom had never read Galen, although they may have recognized his name. A body of pharmacological knowledge had been accumulated and was transmitted in texts listing the empirically observable effects of particular herbs and substances, describing the effects, and detailing which plants were helpful for which ailments. Some pharmacological texts attempted to harmonize these traditions with Galenic theory. Early medieval Jews also inherited a body of fragmentary texts, some incorporated into the Talmud, others in midrashic form, that preserved traditional Jewish healing activities such as writing amulets or whispering charms over wounds that often employed normative Jewish texts—in particular, the book of Psalms—in quasi-magical ways.

Medicine in the Cairo Geniza

Written evidence of medicine practiced by Jews has been preserved in the Cairo Geniza, including prescriptions given to patients, letters exchanged between physicians discussing treatment, and questions sent to doctors from their patients asking for follow-up information. Physicians used a surprising range of techniques to determine whether the patient would recover and when, including having astrological horoscopes drawn up, casting lots, and examining the physiognomy of the patient. 

Medical ethics (or at least those guidelines for behavior written by doctors for their colleagues) strongly suggested not taking a case if it was determined to be hopeless. Inducing a family to pay for a cure that did not work was not easy and could sometimes escalate into claims of malpractice. In any case, patients’ deaths were not helpful for a physician’s reputation. Medical texts consider the body, its nature, and its divinely ordained purpose, as well as the theory and practice of medicine.