‫)*(‪Spinoza and Jewish Averroism:‬‬

‫‪The Textual Evidence‬‬

‫‪Dr. Ashraf Hassan Mansour‬‬

‫‪Professor, Faculty of‬‬
‫‪Arts, University of‬‬
‫‪Alexandria, Egypt‬‬

‫)*( ﺑﺤﺚ أﻟﻘﺎد اﻷﺳ ﺘﺎذ اﻟ ﺪﻛﺘﻮر‪ /‬أﺷ ﺮف ﺣﺴ ﻦ ﻣﻨﺼ ﻮر – أﺳ ﺘﺎذ اﻟﻔﻠﺴ ﻔﺔ اﻟﺤﺪﯾﺜ ﺔ واﻟﻤﻌﺎﺻ ﺮة ﺑﻘﺴ ﻢ اﻟﻔﻠﺴ ﻔﺔ – ﺟﺎﻣﻌ ﺔ‬
‫اﻹﺳﻜﻨﺪرﯾﺔ‪ ،‬وذﻟﻚ ﻓﻲ ﻣﺆﺗﻤﺮ "اﻟﺮﺷﺪﯾﺔ ﺑﯿﻦ اﻟﻘﺮﻧﯿﻦ اﻟﺨﺎﻣﺲ ﻋﺸﺮ و اﻟﺴﺎﺑﻊ ﻋﺸﺮ"‪ ،‬ﺑﺠﺎﻣﻌﺔ أوﻟﻮﻣﻨﺰ ﺑﺪوﻟﺔ اﻟﺘﺸﯿﻚ‬
‫ﻓﻲ ﻧﻮﻓﻤﺒﺮ ‪.٢٠١٦‬‬
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Abstract:
Several scholars have pointed out the impact of Jewish
Philosophy on Spinoza (1632 – 1677), and the role of Jewish
intellectual history from the late middle ages to the Renaissance in
shaping his philosophy, but the influence of Jewish Averroism on
Spinoza is still debatable and was continuously contested. In this
article I will concentrate on the presence of some of the Jewish
opponents and proponents of Averroism in the works of Spinoza,
namely: Jehuda Al-Fakhar (early thirteenth century, d.1235), Levi ben
Gershom (1288- 1344), Hasdai Crescas (1340 – 1411), and Joseph ibn
Shem Tob (1400 – 1460). These are the Jewish thinkers that were
mentioned by Spinoza in polemical contexts, refusing the positions of
Al-Fakhar and Joseph ibn Shem Tob concerning the subordination of
Reason to Scripture and the subordination of rational morality to
scriptural precepts respectively, defending the opposite position that
was identical to Averroes’; and on the other hand accepting some of
the ideas of Ben Gershom and Crescas that were identical with
Averroes like the concept of circular infinity in Crescas that was a
restatement of Averroes’, and the eternity of matter in Ben Gershom
that was his compromising Averroes’ eternity of the world with
creationism.
The aim of my investigation is to prove that Spinoza was well
informed of Averroes’ system from those philosophers, and he even
put himself in the middle of the Jewish anti-Averroean debates, taking
sides with the opposite positions of the Jewish opponents of
Averroism. Spinoza, openly or tacitly, refused all the counter
arguments of Al-Fakhar, Crescas and ibn Shem Tob against Averroes,
and thereby adopting the Averroean positions that they attacked,
without mentioning Averroes himself. This silence of Spinoza to the
name of Averroes among all his writings while refusing the arguments

85
of Averroes’ Jewish opponents makes Spinoza’s final position tacitly
Averroean, so we can say that there is an Averroean subtext in the
works of Spinoza that we can reveal by analyzing his dealings with
Jewish anti-Averroism.

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Introduction:
Spinoza never mentioned Averroes by name in all of his writings,
but this does not mean that he never knew Averroes’ system, nor that
there was no Averroean influence on him. I suggest in this article that
Spinoza knew very well Averroes’ philosophy in detail, via his wide
reading of the opponents and proponents of Averroism among Jewish
philosophers. Licata and Fraenkel pointed out the impact of the
Renaissance Averroist Elijah de Medigo on Spinoza, who kept a copy
of his book “Behinat Ha-dat/ Examination of Religion” in his
library(1); that work was a restatement of Averroes’ Fasl Al Maqal,
and its impact in Spinoza’s differentiation between Philosophical –
Demonstrative discourse and Religious discourse is present in
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico Philosophicus. It is remarkable that
Spinoza never mentioned any strict Jewish Averroist like Moses
Narboni or Del Medigo himself, and that all those he mentioned were
the opponents of Averroism: Jehuda Al-Fakhar (early thirteenth
century), Levi ben Gershom (1288- 1344), Hasdai Crescas (1340 –
1411), and Joseph ibn Shem Tob (1400 – 1460).
Al Fakhar’s Opposition to the Philosophical (Averroist)
Interpretation of Scripture:
In one of his central chapters of the Tractatus, Spinoza enters in a
hot debate with the thirteenth century Toledian Rabbi, Jehuda Al-
Fakhar, opposing sharply his method of interpreting Scripture literally,
that subordinates Reason to the literal meaning of the Bible. Spinoza
discusses Al-Fakhar’s method in the context of exposing two methods
of interpreting Scripture: the first one subordinating Scripture to
Reason, and the second on the contrary subordination Reason to
Scripture. The first position is Maimonides’ and the second one is Al-

1) Geffen, David M., Faith and Reason in Elijah Del Medigo’s Behinat ha-dat and the
Philosophic Background of the Work. PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 1970.

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Fakhar’s. We can assume confidently that those two positions were
being held during the time of Spinoza, and that he did not enter into a
discussion of a bygone trend in dealing with sacred texts; he is just
mentioning the most well known representative of those two stances
in Bible interpretation; that is why he notices immediately after
mentioning Al-Fakhar’s name that his position is the one adopted by
the Rabbis. The debate between the literalists and the rationalists on
Scriptural interpretation was still alive in Spinoza’s time (Seventeenth
century Netherlands). Notice that this debate was a continuation of the
same debate that was first initiated in Islam between the Mu’tazillah
and the Ashaarits, the Philosophers and the traditionalists.
Spinoza’s discussion of Al Fakhar came after presenting his
position toward the relation between reason and theology. In this
context, Spinoza declares that the very question on the priority of one
to the other is not a proper question, and that it was being asked by
those who cannot differentiate between philosophy and theology. And
what makes philosophy and theology not in conflict, is that Scripture
is being adapted to the understanding of the common people, and in
this regard we (the philosophers) must understand it; so that any
interpretation of Scripture that puts meaning and intentions into it, not
in line with the multitude, is not legitimate, because it deals with
Scripture as if it was a book for the philosophers, whereas it is
especially meant for the common people. It is on the basis of this
differentiation between philosophy and theology that Spinoza
discussed Al Fakhar’s literal interpretation of Scripture, which
accepted all that seems contradicting reason in it, on the basis of the
infallibility of revelation and the subordinating of reason to it. This
differentiation between philosophy and Scripture on the basis of the
Scripture being written especially for the common people and that this
is what makes it in no conflict at all with philosophy or reason, is the
position Averroes took in his Fasl Al Maqal, where he said: “Now

88
since this religion is true and summons to the study which leads to
knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslim community know definitely
that demonstrative study does not lead to [conclusions] conflicting
with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but
accords with it and bears witness to it”.(1)
The aim of Spinoza in presenting those two positions of the
relation between Reason and Scripture is to refute them both, and
defending instead his own position, that “theology should not be
subordinated to reason, nor reason to theology, but rather that each
has its own domain. For reason, as we said, reigns over the domain of
truth and wisdom, theology over that of piety and obedience” (190)(2).
By refusing those two positions, Spinoza returned, implicitly, to the
“Averroistic” position in Averroes’ Fasl al Maqal, that is, the
separation between reason and theology; and what made it an
exclusively Averroistic position is that it was first initiated by
Averroes himself, thereby differentiating himself from the previous
positions of Al Farabi and Avicenna that attempted a reconciliation
between reason and religion. It is well known now, after the studies by
Fraenkl(3) and Licata(4), that the Averroean position on the relation

1) Averroes, The Decisive Treatise, in Arthur Hyman, James J. Walsh & Thomas
Williams, Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic and Jewish
Traditions 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2010, p. 292.
2) On the Averroistic origin, and the Averroistic understanding of the differentiation of
the two domains, cf. Wolfson, Harry Austryn: “The Double Faith Theory in Clement,
Saadia, Averroes and St. Thomas, and Its Origin in Aristotle and the Stoics”, The
Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Oct., 1942), pp. 213-264.
3) Fraenkel, Carlos: “Could Spinoza Have Presented The Ethics as the True Content of
the Bible?”, in Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (eds.), Oxford Studies in Early
Modern Philosophy, 4, 2008; Fraenkel, Carlos: “Spinoza on Philosophy and Religion:
The Averroistic Sources”, in C. Fraenkel et.al. (eds), The Rationalists: Between
Tradition and Innovation. (Springer, B.V. 2011), pp. 27-43; Fraenkel, Carlos:
“Reconsidering the Case of Elijah Del Medigo’s Averroism and its Impact on
Spinoza”, in Akasoy, Anna, & Giglioni, Guido, Renaissance Averroism and its
Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe. (Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New
York, London: Springer, 2013)
4) Licata, Giovanni, La via della ragione: Elia del Medigo e l'averroismo di Spinoza.
Macerata: EUM, 2013.

89
between reason and scripture was known by Spinoza from Elijah del
Medigo’s Behinat ha Da’at.
The question that poses itself upon us in this regard is: Did each
position have any representatives in Spinoza’s time? Yes, but not
directly mentioned by Spinoza, and those were: Samuel da Silva
(1570 – 1631) who wrote a refutation of Uriel da Costa’s denial of the
immortality of the soul, and Saul Levi Morteira (1596 – 1660) who
was a member of the mahamad that excommunicated Spinoza in
1656, both were on the side of the literal meaning of the Bible,
subordinating thereby reason to Scripture, and Ludwig Meir on the
side of subordinating Scripture to reason, especially Meir’s
“Philosophy the Interpreter of Scripture”(1).
It is obvious that Spinoza’s position, differentiating the two
realms, was unique in his lifetime, although it is the revival of del
Medigo’s Averroean position that was itself in line with previous
positions by famous Jewish Averroists: Shem Tob ibn Falaquera (ct),
and Moses Narbony. It is remarkable that Gersonides didn’t belong to
this strictly Averroean line, and perhaps this fact is behind Spinoza’s
refusal of his Bible interpretation, allegorizing Biblical stories, and
that means a non Averroean stance towards those stories, by extending
allegorical interpretation to a field never intentioned by the authors to
be allegorical. But Spinoza is very respectful, even grateful, to
Gersonides’ philosophical writings(2), that mentioned Averroes a lot.
Mention the Hebrew translation of Fasl Al Maqal, its impact on
Jewish Anerroism, besides the Latin’s lack of knowledge of this book.
Al Fakhar was one of the first initiators of the so-called
Maimonidean Controversy, opposing Maimonides’ allegorical

1) Preus, J. Samuel, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority. (Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)
2) Spinoza, Theological – Political Treatise. Edited by Jonathan Israel, translated by
Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel. (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp.
265 – 266.

90
interpretation of the Bible by defending its literal meaning(1).
Maimonides’ method of a philosophical interpretation of the Bible
was in conformity with Al Farabi, Avicenna, and Al Gazaly’s
interpretation of Quranic verses depending on Neo-platonism. This
method intended to prove that the immanent meaning of Scripture is
in conformity with Reason and a Rational system of the World, that is
Neoplatonism. Spinoza refused this method of interpretation and
regarded it as submitting Scripture to Reason. On the other hand, the
Islamic philosophers’ allegorical interpretation of the Quran was
supposed to be esoteric, and that was mainly the position of Averroes.
The fault of Maimonides was that in making this esoteric reading
exoteric, despite his many warnings on the contrary. Maimonides
transgressed Averroes’ warnings that he himself repeated in his Guide,
and that was what ignited the controversy.
Spinoza’s Critique of the Anti-Averroean Position of Joseph
ibn Shem Tob on Rational Ethics
Joseph ibn Shem Tob belonged to an age that witnessed the
waning of Rationalism, and especially of Aristotelian-Averroean
radical naturalism among the Jews, in comparison to the previous age
(Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries) that saw the flourishing of
Jewish Averroism. That age began by the first confrontation to
Averroism on purely philosophical grounds by Hasdai Crescas (1340
– 1410/11). Joseph’s father, Shem Tob ibn Shem Tob, was one of the
leading orthodox opponents of Averroism.
Joseph’s Kevod Elohim (The Glory of God), the work Spinoza
mentioned in his Tractatus, was the basis of his Commentary on
Aristotle’s Nicomachian Ethics that contained his critique of
Averroes’ middle commentary on the same work; in both works
Joseph deals with religious morality that is opposed to an Aristotelian

1) Sarachek, Joseph, Faith and Reason: The Conflict Over The Rationalism of
Maimonides. (New York: Hermon Press, 2nd ed. 1970), pp. 97 – 103.

91
Philosophical system of ethics, defending the first against the second.
The question that Joseph answers in both works was: Is a purely
rational philosophical morality all that a virtuous man needs, or are
religious precepts and rites indispensable? Joseph answered this
question by announcing that in order to reach moral perfection, a
would-be virtuous man needs religious morality, because it is his only
means for salvation and for gaining a part in the world to come.
Averroes and all Jewish Averroists insisted repeatedly that religious
morality was suitable only for the multitude, that need religious
guidance and a strict system of rituals and ceremonial laws to keep
them in line by binding their desires, and that religion gives us only a
minimum of ethics, whereas rational ethics, based on philosophical
virtue and completely rational principles is the true means to moral
perfection; the distinction between religious morality and rational
ethics was based among the Averroists on a social distinction between
the multitude and the philosophically educated elite (that was also the
view of the Muslim Falasefa: Al Farabi, Avicenna, Avimpace,
Aventofl, and had its echo in the Jewish Averroists: Al Balag(1), Shem
tob ibn Falaquera(2), Moses Narboni(3); the opposite view of Joseph
had its predecessors in Hasdai Crescas and his critique of the
Averroian theory of the rational perfection by the Acquired Intellect in
his Or Adonai(4); Crescas was the first serious critic of Averroes on
philosophical grounds, despite his borrowings from Al Gazzali.

1) Eliezer Schweid, The Classic Jewish Philosophers: From Saadia through the
Renaissance. Translated by Leonard Levin. (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. 320 –
321.
2) Harvey, Steven, Falaquera's Epistle of the Debate: An Introduction to Jewish
Philosophy. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).
3 ) Sirat, Colette, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985/1996), pp. 336 – 337.
4) Warren Harvey, Hasdai Crescas’ Critique of the Theory of the Acquired Intellect.
(PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 1973)

92
 The true aim of Joseph’s commentary on the Nicomachean
Ethics was to confront Averroes’ previous commentary on the same
work. The opposition between rational ethics and religious morality
was not an aim in Aristotle’s work; it was Averroes, according to
Joseph, who interpolated this opposition in his commentary. And that
was what made Joseph turn to Aristotle’s original text to re-interpret it
to do away with Averroes’ opposition(1).
Joseph iben Shem Tob was in conformity with the orthodox view
of his age that states that philosophy without the guidance of Scripture
is dangerous to the Jews, because it constitutes a threat to the
traditional belief in their religion. He even parts with some of the
fiercest attackers of Averroism, blaming the spread of its heretical
ideas among the Jews for Jewish unbelief, loss of faith among their
multitude, and neutrality towards all religions that facilitated mass
conversions to Christianity; Joseph in this regard made a commentary
on Crescas’ “Refutation of the Christian Principles”, but surprisingly
made use of some of Averroes’ philosophical ideas on the unity of
God to confront Christian Trinitarianism(2).
Spinoza is remarkably harsh in criticizing Joseph ibn Shem Tob’s
denial of the sufficiency of rational ethics for salvation: “However,
the Jews hold completely to the opposite view. They think that true
opinions and a true conception of life make no contribution to
happiness whenever people receive them by the natural light of reason
alone and not as teachings prophetically revealed to Moses… Rabbi
Joseph ben Shem Tov, in his book entitled Kevod Elohim, or Glory of

1) Meir Neria, Chaim, “It Cannot be Valued by the Gold of Ophir’ (Job 28:16): Rabbi’s
Joseph b. Shem Tob’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Sources and
Analysis. (PhD dissertation: The Faculty of Divinity School, The University of
Chicago, 2015), p. 6.
2) Hasdai Crescas, The Refutation of the Christian Principles. Translated with
introduction and notes by Daniel S. Lasker. (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992), pp. 42-43, 46, 52-54.

93
God, adds that Aristotle (who he supposes has written the supreme
Ethics, and whom he esteems above all others) missed nothing that
was relevant to true morality and expounded it all in his Ethics and
would have put it all conscientiously in to practice. Nevertheless, he
adds, this would not have helped him towards salvation, since he did
not receive these teachings as divine doctrine prophetically revealed,
but derived them from the dictate of reason alone. I think it is evident
to anyone who reads this attentively that all this is mere fabrication
and does not rest upon the authority of the Bible, and hence one need
only expound it in order to refute it”(1).
Joseph ibn Shem Tob participated in the wide-held opinion
among the rabbis of his age that pointed out the dangerous effect of
philosophy, and especially Averroes’, on Jewish faith, and he was in
line with them in blaming Averroism for the mass conversion of the
Jews to Christianity, based on a previous loss of faith in their original
religion that facilitated their conversion to Christianity.
He put the responsibility on Averroean philosophy that made
many Jews indifferent to all religions. His attack involved Moses
Narboni’s stance toward the Bible, that regards it as just a political
book for the masses according to their own manner of thinking and
imagining. Joseph rightly pointed out that this view of Narboni
regarding the Bible was a restatement of the same opinion of Averroes
regarding all sacred texts(2). Joseph described this opinion as fallacious
and heretical, based on a wrong conception of the Bible and its
peculiar way to happiness and salvation.
Joseph’s attack on the ethics of reason as the only true way to
happiness and moral perfection was part of his overall strategy of
confronting the influence of Averroes on the Jews in previous ages.

1) Spinoza, Theological – Political Treatise, p. 79.

2) Meir Neria, Chaim, “It Cannot be Valued by the Gold of Ophir”, p. 18.

94
The most important point in this regard is that Joseph didn’t oppose
Aristotelian ethics as such, because the Nicomachean Ethics never
oppose the ethics of reason to religious ethics, and that this idea was
Averroean, and it made its obvious appearance in Averroes’ middle
commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
This is the reason why Joseph re-interpreted Aristotle’s book: to
show that the Averroean opposition between the ethics of reason and
religious morality is not an issue in Aristotle’s work, and that it was an
interpolation by Averroes into that work by his commentary(1). This
was the principal aim of Joseph in his commentary.
Spinoza on Maimonides’ Position on the Eternity of the
World:
Maimonides refused to decide on the problem of the eternity of
the world; his position was intentionally perplexing in spite of his
book’s title (Guide of the Perplexed); it is Maimonides’ book that was
perplexing to the uninitiated in philosophy, and that was one of his
techniques in esotericism (Strauss et al, Spinoza’s Critique of
Religion). Spinoza didn’t take Maimonides’ Guide as an esoteric text,
and took Maimonides’ announced position literally on withholding
the decision on the eternity of the world at face value, criticizing his
exoteric position. So the conclusion that we can reach at this point is
that Spinoza took the side of those philosophers that proclaim
eternalism, and Averroes was among the leading of those
philosophers. In his Ethics, Spinoza’s system parts with eternalism,
besides his early writings and especially in the text that he announced

1) Joseph is clear and straightforward in announcing that his intention in writing a

commentary to Aristotle’s work is confronting Averroes’ previous commentary: “And
while we have received from Averroes a topical commentary, without a literal
commentary, in many cases the book is very far from Aristotle’s intention, is not in
agreement with his literal meaning, and in some cases, one could not understand a
fitting intention without great labor and duress. And he omitted much of the value and
learning of this book…”, Ibid: p. 57.

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that he is in agreement with those ancient Hebrews who defended
eternalism.
This is another textual evidence for Spinoza’s parting with
Jewish Averroism which defended eternalism: Al Balag, Falaquera,
Moses Narbony, Elijah del Medigo.
It is likely that Spinoza knew eternalism, and even the eternal
creation, via Uriel da Costa, who was influenced by Averroes or
Jewish Averroism, according to some recent studies(1), and previously
by Rivera. Notice: Alcala de Hinares, a center for secret academic
Averroism in Spain, that saw the presence of Joseph ben Shem Tob,
da Costa, and maybe de Prado and some other important figures,
Averroists and counter Averroists.
Spinoza blamed Maimonides for being indecisive on the issue of
the eternity of the world. Maimonides announced clearly that he
would accept eternalism if he could find a clear and straightforward
proof of it in Aristotle, but he never found such a proof. At the same
time, Maimonides’ proof for the existence of God explicitly assumes
the eternity of motion, and he even says that this is the only way for
basing a proof capable of demonstrating God’s existence. How then
could he refuse eternalism in a certain part of his Guide, and announce
clearly in another part that the eternal motion of heavens is the only
way to prove the existence of God, the first mover? This indecision,
that is really a kind of esotericism, is what made Spinoza criticize
Maimonides in the Tractatus. The real opinion of Maimonides was
eternalism, but this was his esoteric teaching, and he tried to hide it by
using ways of esoteric techniques that he himself announced in his
introduction. One way of hiding an opinion that was mentioned

1) Cf. Proietti, Omero: “Creazione eterna, ordine della natura, miracolo in Uriel da
Costa », in Licata, Giovanni, Filippo Magnini, L’averroismo in eta moderna “1400 –
1700”. (Macerata: Qoudllibet, 2013), pp. 67 – 124.

96
clearly by him was by putting contradictory proofs to the same theory,
another by announcing his refusal of an opinion, that is eternalism,
and at the same time depending on that same view, that is the eternal
motion of the spheres, in his central proof of the existence of God.
Eternalism was the opinion of Averroes, and he defended it
explicitly in many of his works, not esoterically like Maimonides. But
Maimonides had to be more cautious than Averroes and esoteric, and
that was the reason behind his made-up reluctance on the issue of
eternalism. This hesitation was not real, it was one of his techniques of
hiding his true opinions. But this hesitation, even though it was an
esoteric technique, was the object of Spinoza’s criticism; Spinoza
sticks to eternalism exoterically and clearly from early on, and that
was obvious from his first works. In the final analysis, Spinoza’s view
of the relation between God and the world was clearly Averroean (see
his refusal of the eternity of a prime matter that God imposed a form
on it, and that was the theory of Gersonides and its origins go back to
Plato), announcing that eternalism does not do any harm to religious
faith (remember that this conclusion was the central aim of his
Tractatus, so the misunderstood harm that is not really a harm for
faith or civil peace is the eternity of the world, and that was exactly
the opinion of Averroes, that was adopted by a number of Jewish
philosophers: Al Balag (first but denying the theory after that),
Falaquera, Narboni, Del Medigo. All those philosophers held the view
that eternalism is not in conflict with religious piety, hence not a
heresy.
Spinoza’s Adoption of the Averroean Concept of Circular
Infinity via Hasdai Crescas
When Spinoza mentioned Crescas in his 12th letter to Meyer on
the infinite, it was in the intention of using Crescas’ theory of the
possibility of the actual infinite as an aid to Spinoza’s own theory. By

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the literal meaning of Spinoza’s words, we cannot decide that Crescas
was his main source for his own theory of the actual infinite, because
it is obvious that Spinoza is just using Crescas as a previous historical
example of a philosopher that admitted the actual infinite, and not the
source for his own theory that he had proved independently from the
beginning of the letter. The other source would be del Medigo’s
Averroist theory of the eternity of the world. This theory that appeared
in its clear Averroist version in del Medigo, declares the possibility of
the actual infinity of causes and effects, and the dependence of the
sum-total of it on a first cause.
However, Crescas’ main point is that the opposition of the
philosophers between those who prove the existence of the first cause
from the impossibility of a regression of causes ad infinitum, and
those who prove it from the opposite assumption, is irrelevant, and
that we may prove the existence of the first cause either way. And that
means, according to Crescas’ strategy in Or Adonai, that Reason
cannot prove the existence of God, because even though each one of
those theories is based on a true demonstration and thereby in a clear
opposition towards the other, the existence of God is proved
nevertheless, because his existence is naturally beyond Reason. That
is the reason of his declaration “That there must exist a first cause,
which is uncaused by anything else, regardless of the view whether its
effects, when they are one the cause of the other, are infinite on
finite”(1)
And here Crescas defends an infinity of causes and effects and
the dependence of the whole on a first cause (but he didn’t mention
the reason of their lack of a first cause even though there is an actual
infinite mutual dependence among them that may make them

1) Wolfson, Harry A., Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle. Problems of Aristotle’s Physics in

Jewish and Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), p. 229.

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sufficient among themselves, and this is the problem that Averroes
solved in his commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics): “… it must be
admitted that the emanation of an infinite number of effects from one
single cause would not be impossible…”. This idea is based on the
omnipotence of God, i.e, that his power is infinite and is capable of
producing infinite effects although it is just a single power. The idea
of infinite effects from a single cause that is the power of God, an
infinite cause himself (so that the infinite cause is the producer/
emanatory, of an infinity of effects) appeared in Averroes’ Tahafut al
Tahafut. In this idea of an infinite cause producing infinite effects we
find the origin of Spinoza’s same theory, and its origin is Averroes,
via del Medigo, the only possible transmitter of this theory to Spinoza.
On the infinity of God’s effects that is based on God’s infinite
power, Spinoza says: “From the necessity of the divine nature there
must follow infinite things in infinite ways (modis)” (Ethics I, pr. 16).
Spinoza then explains in the proof that this is based on the infinity of
God’s attributes. In the same direction, proposition 22 says:
“Whatever follows from some attribute of God, insofar as the attribute
is modified by a modification that exists necessarily and as infinite
through that same attribute, must also exist both necessarily and as
infinite”. This proposition is based on the idea that an infinite cause
could not produce finite effects, and that the infinity of God must
necessarily produce infinite effects, otherwise it will contradict the
essential nature of God. This idea also has its Averroean origin in the
Tahafut, also in The Middle Commentary in De Caelo, although its
main source is Proclus.
Crescas then posits his idea about an infinity of causes and
effects, wherein the one effect is the cause of another effect that is a
cause of another effect ad infinitum, and at the same time the
dependence of all the causes and effects on one common cause, and

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that is exactly Averroes’ idea about the infinity of change among the
elements within the world (fire from air, air from water, water from
earth, cf., Generation and Corruption), and also his idea of the
dependence of an infinite circular motion on a first mover in Physics
VIII). Crescas says: “… in as much as it is evident that there can be an
infinite number of effects, despite there all being dependent upon a
common cause, it must follow that the assumption of a common cause
for more than one effect would not make it impossible for those
effects to be infinite in number. This being the case, assuming now a
series of causes and effects wherein the first is the cause of the second
and the second of the third and so on for ever, would that I knew why,
by the mere assumption of a common cause for the series as a whole,
the number of causes and effects within that series could not be
infinite? That their infinity is impossible on the ground of the
dependence of the entire series upon a first cause is without any
justification… no impossibility will happen if we assume those
infinite effects to be each successively the cause of the other”(1). We
must notice that all those possibilities of an actual infinite and an
infinite series of causes and effects that all depends on a common
cause is just a statement of mere possibility without any proof from
Crescas; he posits it as a conceptual and theoretical possibility on the
basis of the principle of non-contradiction (every statement that is not
in contradiction to reason is possible), and that Averroes was the one
who provided the proof. Notice also that this concept of an infinite
that needs a first cause is not possible except as the concept of the
circular infinite that Averroes proved that it is the only infinite
conceivable, and that it is due to the infinite circular motion of the
heavenly spheres. Crescas here put the Averroean theory of infinity
dogmatically without its Averroean proof, and without its Physical –
Cosmological context; and that is exactly how the same theory

1) Wolfson, Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle, pp. 225 – 227.

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appeared in Spinoza. It is remarkable that this same theory of circular
infinity appeared in Hegel’s Science of Logic(1), where he said that the
image of the true infinite is the circle, and in Cantor’s set theory.
Spinoza’s infinity of Substance is exactly this circular kind of infinity,
the holistic kind.
Melamed couldn’t notice the similarity between Spinoza’s and
Crescas’ position on the infinite, although this was the main purpose
of his article. All that Melamed put his hand upon, is that Crescas and
Spinoza agree on the circular relation between causes and effects ad
infinitum, and at the same time the necessity of a first cause of this
circular infinity, that is God(2).
It is Averroes that demonstrated that the eternal circular motion
of the spheres makes the world an infinite enclosed whole that its parts
form a system of circular causality. This circular infinite causality
among finite things is the idea that appeared in Spinoza’s 28th
proposition in part I of Ethics, when he said: “Every individual thing,
i.e., anything whatever which is finite and has a determinate existence,
cannot exist or be determined to act unless it be determined to exist
and to act by another cause which is also finite and has a determinate
existence, and this cause again cannot exist or be determined to act
unless it be determined to exist and to act by another cause which is
also finite and has a determinate existence, and so ad infinitum”. We
can obviously trace the origin of this idea in Averroes’ theory of the
eternity of the world: the world is contingent in its parts, eternal in its
whole (comm.. Meta, Lamm, comm. On generation and corruption).

1) Hegel, The Science of Logic. Translated and Edited by George di Giovanni

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 108 – 121, especially 119. But
notice that the circle is not just an image as Hegel said, nor is it not a metaphor, for it
is actually the circular motion of the Sphere, a circle itself.
2) Melamed, Yitzhak Y.: “Hasdai Crescas and Spinoza on Actual Infinity and the
Infinity of God’s Attributes”. Steven Nadler, Spinoza and Medieval Jewish
Philosophy. (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 204 – 215.

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This circular infinity of the parts of the world as causes and effects to
each other does not rule out the necessity of a first and final cause
outside this whole, that is the cause of the circular infinity as such,
that is, the eternal circular motion of the spheres, due to the eternal
power of the first cause. Notice that this Averroean – Spinozan theory
of an enclosed circular infinity in an enclosed, all-comprehensive
whole, whether it is the universe in Averroes, or the Substance in
Spinoza, reappears in Cantor’s set theory, who read Spinoza, see
Russell).
The copy of the Guide that was in Spinoza’s library was printed
with the commentaries of Shem Tob ben Joseph ben Shem Tob and
Profiat Duran(1). We cannot rule out all Averroean influences on those
two commentaries, especially the first’s, who differed from his
family’s traditional opposition to Averroes. Notice also that he had his
own super-commentaries on Averroes.
In fact, Harry Wolfson tried to trace the presence of the ideas of
Crescas and Gersonides in Spinoza’s philosophy, but he forgot to
notice that this presence means the implicit transference of Averroean
ideas to Spinoza by those philosophers, that makes a kind of trace, not
direct influence, and I borrow the concept “trace” from Althusser.
The most important idea in Crescas’ theory of the actual infinite,
is that this actual infinity between causes and effect do not rule out the
dependence of the whole on a first cause; he expressed this idea in
another way by his peculiar theory of the preponderance, the theory
that we also find in Averroes, and in Spinoza. This preponderance that
was mentioned by Crescas is not the Kalamic preponderance between
the existence and the non-existence of a thing or of the whole world,

1) Freudenthal, Jacob, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas (Leibzig: Veit, 1899), p. 276,

cited in Adler, Jacob: “Mortality of the soul from Alexander of Aphrodisias to
Spinoza”, in Steven Nadler, Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy, pp. 13 – 35, at
23.

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but it is the preponderance of the dependence against the non-
dependence of the infinite series of causes and effects on a first cause,
that is, the eternity that needs a first cause against an eternity that is
sufficient in itself(1).

1) Warren Zev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas. (Amsterdam: J.C.
Gieben, 1998), p. 97.

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