## 1. Life




Not very much is known of Falaquera's life, apart from his
writings. Most scholars believe that Falaquera was born and lived in
Spain, but even this is not known with certainty (see Jospe, *Torah
and Sophia*, 2-4). His approximate year of birth is
calculated from his comment in *Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh* (9;
trans. 2), written in October-November 1263 (Heshvan 5024), that he
had passed the midpoint of seventy years and was approaching his
fortieth year. His year of death is estimated from references in his
last known writing, the letter in defense of Maimonides' *Guide of
the Perplexed*. The "midpoint" of life, mentioned by
Falaquera in *Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh*, may have had some
significance for him. He explains there (11; trans. 5):



> 
> 
> After his middle years, the rational soul awakens in him and converses
> with him. At that time, the life of the body is on the decline and, as
> physical existence approaches complete extinction, it descends lower
> and lower, while the soul rises higher and higher. Then the flames of
> confusion are extinguished, and the sun of the eternal soul shines
> forth.




Whether or not Falaquera himself went through some sort of mid-life
crisis, he tells us that his book is a "bill of
divorcement" from the poetry of his youth - an art in which,
by his own account, he excelled and composed some 20,000 stanzas of
rhymed verse, about half of which he wrote down. In the same breath he
announces his betrothal to wisdom, with the implication that a
bigamous attachment to both poetry and wisdom is not desirable and
should not be tolerated. Falaquera's new attitude toward poetry
reflects the concern with this art shared by ancient and medieval
philosophers: Poetry is dangerous because it persuades men not by its
content and its truth, but by its beauty and eloquence (on Falaquera's
attitude toward poetry, see Harvey, *Falaquera's* Epistle,
128-132). While Falaquera seems, for the most part, indeed to
have abandoned writing poetry, he was hardly faithful to her, even in
his youth. He openly acknowledges his flirtation with wisdom in
*Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh*, listing seven works that he calls
"the progeny of my thoughts during my early years" (12;
trans., 7-8). It is hard to know how seriously to take such
proclamations, although it is certainly true that Falaquera's two
lengthy philosophic works, the encyclopedic *De'ot
ha-Filosofim* and his commentary on Maimonides' *Guide of
the Perplexed*, are not listed among these writings. The latter
work was written in 1280 (5040) (*Moreh ha-Moreh*, 365), and is
one of his most mature writings. Steinschneider wrote of
this work that the "abundance of its citations was sufficient to
confer on those who copied from it the appearance of great
erudition" (*Hebraeischen Ubersetzungen*, 422), and
the same can be said regarding the *De'ot
ha-Filosofim*. An additional point of interest for Falaquera's
biography is his plaint in *Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh* (11-12; trans.,
7-8) of the "difficult times under the powerful hand of the
non-Jewish nations who prevailed over us." This is a theme found
in several of his works, and apparently the subject of his lost
*Megillat ha-Zikkaron*. It is a stark reminder today of the
background against which medieval Jewish thinkers such as Falaquera
engaged in their writing and study.




Jospe makes a reasoned attempt at a chronology of Falaquera's
writings, based in part on Falaquera's listing in *Sefer
ha-Mevaqqesh*, but it is not completely convincing (*Torah and
Sophia*, 31-33). For example, it is not clear that
Falaquera's listing of books is itself chronological and
complete. Moreover, it is possible that a reference in one book to
another may be a later addition and not necessarily an indication of
which book was written first. An important factor that must be
considered in any future attempt to fix the chronology of Falaquera's
writings is the technical terms he uses and the wording of his
translations from other authors. As Jospe himself points out in his
book, Falaquera paid great attention to terminology and chose his
philosophic terms carefully (18-29). He also, in the course of
his career, changed his preference for certain Hebrew words that
translate key Arabic philosophic terms. This can be seen most clearly
by comparing his different translations in different works of the same
Arabic passages. Consider, for example, *Shelemut
ha-Ma'asim*, the first six chapters of which comprise an
abridged Hebrew version of the *Summa Alexandrinorum*, an
epitome of Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics*. The language here
differs from Falaquera's citations from the *Summa* in his
youthful *Sefer ha-Ma'alot*. On the other hand,
Falaquera's citations from the *Summa* in the *Moreh
ha-Moreh* seem to be drawn from his own *Shelemut
ha-Ma'asim*. Thus the *Sefer ha-Ma'alot* was
written before the *Shelemut ha-Ma'asim*, which was
written before the *Moreh ha-Moreh*.


## 2. Falaquera as popularizer




Scholars of the past century have, in general, been quick to dismiss
Falaquera as a mediocre and unoriginal thinker, and thus hardly worthy
of our attention. While it is no doubt true that Falaquera himself did
not seek originality, research of the past decades has shown him
to be a remarkably industrious, well-read, and impressive scholar.
Moreover, in certain respects, as we shall see, Falaquera was quite
original. That Falaquera did not seek originality is clear from his
own statements. For example, he writes in his introduction to
*Reshit Hokhmah* (9):



> 
> 
> Most of my words concerning the sciences in this book are the words of
> the leading philosophers and experts. I have myself not added anything
> new other than to gather [their words] from their books.




What then was he trying to do in such compilations? Falaquera's
agenda is clearly seen in his delightful little treatise, *Iggeret
ha-Vikkuah* (The Epistle of the Debate), whose subtitle is:
"In Explanation of the Agreement that Exists between the Law and
Wisdom." At the outset of this treatise he makes known that its
purpose is "to explain that the study of the true sciences by
whoever is worthy of them and whom God in his mercy has favored with
an intellect to discover their depths is not prohibited from the point
of view of our Law, and that the truth hidden in them does not
contradict a word of our belief" (56; trans., 14-15)
Unlike the first two great Jewish Aristotelian philosophers of the
century before him, Abraham Ibn Daud and Maimonides, who sought in the
introductions to their philosophico-theological works to dissuade the
unworthy from reading on, Falaquera wished to awaken his
co-religionists to the importance of philosophy. Falaquera, like his
distinguished predecessors, realized that philosophy is not for
everyone. He explicitly stated that it "is not necessary for all
men, but for the one who is meticulous in his faith and endeavors to
ascend the rank of the perfect man and to conceive what he conceives
by way of the intellect, not by way of the imagination. As for the
others who do not perceive this degree, tradition without their
knowing the reason is sufficient" (65; trans., 29). Yet, there
is a definite sense that Falaquera believed that philosophy could be
of benefit to a far greater percentage of Jews than Ibn Daud or
Maimonides thought. His *Iggeret ha-Vikkuah*, which is intended
as an introduction to philosophy, provides a good indication of
this. It is a dialogue between a scholar and a pietist, both observant
Jews, in which the scholar - who investigates the secrets of
wisdom and studies the philosophic books - tries to persuade the
pietist - who considers such books a stumbling-block and cause of
heresy and therefore forbidden - of the permissibility and
desirability of philosophic study. The pietist is not perplexed and
would certainly not be considered by Maimonides among the few for whom
he intended the *Guide*, yet he is the type of reader Falaquera
seeks to win over to philosophy. There may have been an additional
reason for Falaquera's interest in persuading the pietist. Falaquera
wrote during the respite between the Maimonidean controversy of the
1230s and the controversy that culminated in 1305 with the ban issued
by Solomon ibn Adret against the study of Greek philosophy and science
by anyone under the age of twenty-five. In writing the *Iggeret
ha-Vikkuah*, he was influenced by the epistolary debate of the
former controversy between David Kimhi and Judah Alfakhar, and
apparently sought in his dialogue to have his scholar accomplish what
Kimhi and the other Maimonideans could not. Perhaps he hoped that if
he could counter in his debate the real objections of the
anti-Maimonideans with sensitive convincing responses, he could
persuade future anti-rationalists of the religious importance of
philosophy and the sciences and that the study of them was permissible
and required of those who had the intellectual ability to undertake it
(Harvey, "Maimonidean Controversy of the 1230s"). If he
wished thereby to prevent future such controversies, he did not
succeed (cf. in this connection, his much later *Mikhtav 'al
Devar ha-Moreh*, in defense of Maimonides' *Guide*). In any
case, by the end of the dialogue, the scholar indeed convinces the
pietist, and promises to write for him three books: *Reshit
Hokhmah*, *Sefer ha-Ma'alot*, and *De'ot
ha-Filosofim*. Falaquera in fact wrote this trilogy. These works
condense into three volumes the finest writings of the Greco-Islamic
philosophic tradition and offer the Hebrew reader a rich program of
education, beginning with a classification of the sciences and
culminating with an encyclopedia of Aristotelian natural science and
metaphysics. For Falaquera, philosophy and science are necessary for a
complete and true understanding of the Divine Law and for the
attainment of ultimate human felicity. His goal in the trilogy seems
to have been to interest his fellow Jews in philosophy and science and
then to educate them by making available to them the choicest fruits
of the philosophic tradition in a form and language they could
understand. The *Iggeret ha-Vikkuah* was one attempt at
leading his readers to philosophy and the path to perfection. Another
attempt - quite well known to students of Hebrew
literature - whose *maqamah* form bespeaks the
author's desire to reach a wide audience and popularize philosophy,
was his *Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh*, the tale of a young man's search
for wisdom. The search concludes with the seeker's encounter with a
philosopher.


## 3. Falaquera as paraphraser




Falaquera sought to make available in Hebrew the most important
writings of the Greek and Islamic philosophers. Interestingly,
Falaquera rarely simply translated a text and rarely identified his
precise source. A good illustration of this is Falaquera's *Reshit
Hokhmah*. His intention in this book is to treat concisely
"whatever the seeker of wisdom needs to apprehend at the
beginning of his studies" (9). He divides it into three parts.
Part one is on the moral virtues, for as Falaquera explains,
"Whoever wishes to engage in the study of science and to
apprehend its truth must begin to accustom himself to the moral
virtues" (10). This part blends Biblical verses and rabbinic
sayings with short passages from the *Summa Alexandrinorum* and
concludes with a pseudo-Aristotelian letter. The second part is an
enumeration of the sciences, which is primarily an abridged version of
Alfarabi's *Ihsa' al-'ulum*
(Enumeration of the Sciences), but also incorporates other writings by
Alfarabi such as his *Kitab al-huruf* (Book of
Letters) and small sections from Avicenna's *Fi aqsam
al-'ulum al-'aqliyyah* (On the Division of the
Rational Sciences). Falaquera integrates these texts into his version
of Alfarabi's enumeration of the sciences in order to make a new
coherent work, which provides important material not present in his
primary text. Thus, for example, chapters 2 and 4 from part 2 of
*Reshit Hokhmah*, "On How Language Originates in a
Nation" and "On How the Sciences Originate among
Men" - the two selections from the *Kitab
al-huruf* - introduce respectively chapters 3 on
language and chapters 5-9 on logic and the sciences - chapters 
translated from *Ihsa'
al-'ulum*. For another example, a section on
political science from Avicenna's division of the sciences follows the
parallel discussion in Alfarabi, and provides the reader with the
traditional Aristotelian division of practical science into governance
of the city, governance of the household, and governance of oneself or
ethics. Part 3 of *Reshit Hokhmah*, on explaining that
philosophy is necessary for the attainment of true happiness, is an
abridged translation of Alfarabi's trilogy on the philosophy of Plato
and Aristotle. In this part, Falaquera focuses on the Alfarabian texts
he is presenting and incorporates no other texts, but through a
judicious choice of what to translate and what not, Falaquera is able
to adapt the works to suit his own purposes. Thus, he omits from his
paraphrase Alfarabi's controversial statements on the relation between
philosophy and religion, such as those that suggest that philosophy
*alone* is necessary for human happiness and perfection, and
that religion is an imitation of philosophy that is useful for
teaching and governing the multitude, but does not contribute to the
perfection of the philosopher's intellect (see Harvey,
"Falaquera's Alfarabi"). Another aspect of Falaquera's
paraphrasing of texts is his occasional Judaizing of his sources
through the insertion of Biblical or Talmudic citations and references
or the addition of Jewish material. An example of the latter is in the
beginning of *Reshit Hokhmah*, part 2, where he adds to
Alfarabi's list of benefits of an enumeration of sciences that it
makes clear that these sciences do not contradict the Torah and that
it is permissible for Jews to study them. It may be added that
Falaquera's Hebrew abridgements of Alfarabi's books in parts two and
three are not attributed to their author; Falaquera simply explains
that all "these words on the sciences are the words of Aristotle
or those philosophers of his school" (61). Falaquera's
selective translation of texts and his not mentioning his sources give
him the leeway to alter the content and message of those texts in ways
that are not possible for faithful translators.




While in books like *Reshit Hokhmah* (particularly parts 2 and
3), Falaquera basically pieces together abridged versions of books by
others without mentioning their names, the *Sefer
ha-Ma'alot* - the book that follows *Reshit
Hokhmah* in the trilogy - is filled with numerous short
quotations, most of which are attributed to an author, such as Plato,
Aristotle (although often in connection with citations from the
*Summa Alexandrinorum* and the Pseudo-Aristotle, *Theology
of Aristotle*), Alfarabi, and Maimonides, or to the Philosopher
(by which he usually means Ibn Bajjah) or to the Scholar (by
which he usually means Averroes). This work is also replete with
quotations from the Bible and rabbinic literature


## 4. Falaquera as an encyclopedist




Falaquera's use of his sources is a bit different in his
*De'ot ha-Filosofim*, one of the first Hebrew
encyclopedias of science and philosophy, and the third book of the
trilogy. Falaquera states his goals and methods in his encyclopedia in
his introduction.



> 
> 
> I endeavored to translate these opinions [of the philosophers] from
> Arabic to Hebrew, and to compile them from the books that are
> scattered there, so that whoever wishes to grasp these [opinions] will
> find them in one book, and will not need to weary himself by reading
> all the books [on these subjects], for all the opinions [of the
> philosophers], general and particular, on natural science and divine
> science are included in this composition. ... There is not a word
> in this entire composition that I say of my own; rather all that I
> write are the words of Aristotle as explained in the commentaries of
> the scholar Averroes, for he was the last of the commentators and he
> incorporated what was best from the [earlier]
> commentaries.




Falaquera's goal in the encyclopedia, his longest work, was to make
possible the serious study of the sciences by his fellow Jews. The
encyclopedia is divided into two parts, one on the natural beings and
one on the divine ones. The first part basically follows the
traditional order of Aristotle's books on natural science. When
Falaquera writes that there "is not a word in this entire
composition that I say of my own," he is hardly
exaggerating. His main source in the work is usually the middle
commentaries of Averroes or his epitomes when the middle commentaries
were not available. These texts are often translated literally, but
with no hesitation to abridge them and to blend them with other
sources, in particular other commentaries by Averroes, for the sake of
clarification or completeness. Short passages from other works and
other authors are inserted when it suits Falaquera's purposes. But
apart from connecting phrases, references to other parts of the book,
and occasional attributions, there is indeed hardly a word that is
Falaquera's own. It is thus remarkable that Falaquera was often able
to improve upon his sources and even intentionally part from them
solely through his combining of texts. It has been shown, for example,
that "by advisedly and creatively combining [Averroes']
commentaries [on the *Meteorology*]," Falaquera was able
to present an account of Aristotle's teachings clearer than that of
either of Averroes' commentaries [Fontaine, "Why Is the Sea
Salty?" 213-218], and that by inserting a brief passage
from Avicenna into his abridged paraphrase of Averroes' *Epitome of
the Parva naturalia*, he was able to provide a response to
Averroes' argument therein that theoretical knowledge cannot be
acquired in dreams [Harvey, "Falaquera's *De'ot
ha-Filosofim*," 232-233]. Other such examples abound, but
can usually be detected only through a careful comparison of the
encyclopedia with its sources. Falaquera's intended reader, who did
not know Arabic, would thus have been unaware of his skill and
particular goals in weaving together his sources, but this would not
have bothered Falaquera. He had a far greater goal in mind. The
*De'ot ha-Filosofim* presents the reader with an
ambitious and comprehensive account of Aristotelian science and
philosophy, indeed the first full in-depth treatment of Aristotelian
science in Hebrew.


## 5. Falaquera as a commentator




Reference has been made to Falaquera's *Moreh ha-Moreh*, one of
the first commentaries on Maimonides' *Guide of the
Perplexed*. The commentary is not on the entire book, but on only
a little over a quarter of its chapters. Yet Maimonides had urged
readers of the *Guide* "not to comment upon a single word
of it and not to explain to another anything in it." Falaquera
was aware of this plea, but also knew that people were already
misreading and misinterpreting the text. His own commentary is the
first scholarly study of Maimonides' philosophic sources, a topic that
continues to engage scholars to this day. The knowledge of these
sources - usually cited by Falaquera by name or epithet -
and Maimonides' agreement or disagreement with them is essential for a
proper understanding of the *Guide*. Like the
*De**'**ot ha-Filosofim*, most of the
commentary is pieced together from translated passages from other
works, although here in the commentary he allows himself to comment,
usually briefly and in his own name, on these passages. In addition to
translating these sources, Falaquera retranslated his selections from
the *Guide*.




It is noteworthy that Falaquera speaks explicitly in his own name in
the commentary, but rarely in most of his other works. Shiffman
characterizes Falaquera in the commentary as a "critical thinker
who does not hesitate to disagree with those he cites, accepting only
those opinions which he considers philosophically sound"
("Falqerah As Interpreter," 7 [219]). On occasion
Falaquera disagrees with and even criticizes Maimonides. At times the
sources cited by Falaquera strengthen Maimonides' views and at
times they part from them. In one instance, in his commentary
on *Guide* I, 68, Falaquera uncharacteristically adds a word
(*ha-maskil*, the intellecting Subject) in his citation of the
Arabic translation of *Metaphysics* L, perhaps in order
for it to agree exactly with Maimonides' statement with
reference to God that He is Intellect, intellecting Subject, and
Object of intellection [Harvey, "Notes on Maimonides'
Formulations"]. The idea to explain the *Guide* and its
teachings through citations of Maimonides' possible sources is
the great innovation of the commentary. Usually these passages speak
for themselves with only short comments added by Falaquera.
Occasionally he is more verbose, but even when not, there is a sense
that he is considering the passage at hand carefully to determine to
what extent Maimonides followed its teachings and to what extent he
himself should. This is one of Falaquera's last writings and
likely the most useful of his books for discerning his own views on
theological-philosophical matters, such as creation from eternal
matter; God's will; the negation of corporeality, privation, and
potentiality with regard to God; the nature of prophecy; the
possibility of conjunction with the Active Intellect; and the ultimate
and intermediate causes in nature, will, and chance.


## 6. Falaquera as an exegete




Falaquera in his various writings shows great familiarity with the
Bible and rabbinic literature. It is possible to understand quite a
bit from these books on how Falaquera read the Bible. In general,
Falaquera repeatedly states that he views the Torah as a source of
truth, and that its teachings are in accord with the true teachings of
philosophy and science for which there are demonstrative proofs. In
other words, if the Torah seems to contradict something that has been
proven demonstratively, the passage in the Torah needs to be
interpreted. Indeed, for Falaquera, philosophy is at times necessary
for the correct interpretation of Scripture. The correct
interpretation of it is not always apparent, but philosophy can help
us to uncover it. Moreover, for Falaquera, Scripture is replete with
scientific teachings and allusions (*Iggeret ha-Vikkuah*,
69-71; trans., 34-37). On the other hand, he never tires of
reiterating in almost all his works that if a statement of the
philosophers contradicts something from the Torah, we reject it. A
close examination of Falaquera's proof texts in his various writings
reveals his methods of Biblical interpretation. For example, the
allegorical interpretation of Prov. 27:26 and Song of Songs 4:11 as
referring to the need to conceal certain profound matters from the
many (*Iggeret ha-Vikkuah*, 74; trans., 42); or the reading of
Jer. 9:22 as referring to man's confusing the pseudo-perfections for
the true one (*Reshit Hokhmah*, 72); or the understanding of
Prov. 25:5 as teaching that man needs divine help in order to attain
the truth (*Iggeret ha-Halom*, 488); or simply taking
Ps. 31:20, 27:13, and 69:29 to each be referring to man's eternal life
(*Sefer ha-Ma'alot*, 15).




A clearer picture of Falaquera as an exegete may be drawn from the
recent editions and translations of extant passages from his lost
commentaries on the Bible (Jospe, *Torah and Sophia*,
468-484, and Jospe and Schwartz, "Falaquera's Lost Bible
Commentary," 186-200).




Here one can see Falaquera's focus on understanding the meaning of
certain equivocal terms in Scripture; on explicating certain ambiguous
terms; on providing scientific explanations of certain terms; on
pointing out that certain verses must be taken metaphorically; and on
suggesting the inner meaning (*'inyan penimi*) when
appropriate. At times Falaquera strove to understand and explain the
literal meaning of the verse, while at other times he sought to
uncover its allegorical interpretation and secret meaning.


## 7. Conclusion: Falaquera as a philosopher




Shem-Tov Falaquera sought to interest his fellow Jews in philosophy
and science and to make available to them in Hebrew the most important
teachings of the ancient Greek and medieval Islamic philosophers. As
is clear from his encyclopedia of science, he was an Aristotelian, and
like virtually all post-Maimonidean Jewish Aristotelians, his two
leading philosophic authorities were Averroes and Maimonides.
Nonetheless, he had an open mind and seems to have been influenced
also by Neoplatonic writings. This is most evident from his decision
to prepare Hebrew versions of Ibn Gabirol's *Fons vitae* and
Pseudo-Empedocles' *Five Substances*, and from his many
citations from Ibn Gabirol in his *Moreh ha-Moreh* (see
Shiffman's intro., 83-85). He knew the works of the Islamic
*falasifah* better than any Jewish thinker of his time,
and made many of them available to the Hebrew reader - often
without attribution (as in *Reshit Hokhmah*); yet he was not
hesitant to modify unobtrusively their texts when it suited his
purposes. In this way, for example, he turned Alfarabi's account of
the origin of philosophic religion into a discussion of the origin of
the virtuous city (Harvey, "Falaquera's Alfarabi,"
104-109).




Falaquera did not seek originality, yet was quite creative in his
presentation of philosophy and science. He was, for example, one of
the first Hebrew authors to write a philosophic dialogue, an
encyclopedia of science and philosophy, a commentary on the *Guide
of the Perplexed*, and poetic philosophic tales. His method of
seamlessly blending various philosophic texts together to form a
coherent whole is perhaps unique to him. But the fact is that his most
important works are comprised of Hebrew versions of the writings of
others. We have seen that his personal views on
theological-philosophical matters may be discerned from his *Moreh
ha-Moreh*, particularly when he speaks in his own name. Yet even
in his earlier works, he often asserted his personal views, but he
usually let his sources do the talking. When proper care is taken in
the study of these works not to jump to conclusions regarding his
views on the basis of his translations, it is possible to uncover his
own theology. The role played by his occasional critical comments in
his commentary is played by the selection, blending, and abridgment of
sources in the earlier works. The theology derived from such careful
study of his translations and from his commentary may not always
accord completely with that expressed in his more popular independent
treatises (such as the *Iggeret ha-Vikkuah* and *Iggeret
ha-Halom*), where he explicitly maintains the existence and unity
of God, His knowledge of particulars, His providence over human
individuals, His creation of the world, divine prophecy, miracles,
reward and punishment, and eternal life, which is the World to
Come. Scholars will no doubt debate his views on particular topics,
but the thinker who emerges from virtually all his writings is a
moderate Maimonidean, committed to the essential harmony between the
true teachings of Torah and those of philosophy.




The problem of creation of the world is a good illustration of a topic
where Falaquera seems to convey different opinions in different
works. In his popular introductory works, Falaquera writes that among
the true opinions of the Torah is that God "brought into
existence the rest of the existents from non-existence"
(*Iggeret ha-Halom*, 489), that it is the "root of the
Torah to believe that there is a Creator of the world ... and He
brought into existence all the created beings from nothing, and to
believe that the world is produced and is not eternal"
(*Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh*, 65), and that while most of the
philosophers disagree with our beliefs concerning creation, some of
them actually do "believe in the production [of the world], but
not in the way that we believe in it" (*Iggeret
ha-Vikkuah*, 77; trans., 46). He thus seems to propound a view of
creation *ex nihilo*, while acknowledging that most
philosophers believe in eternity, although some believe in creation,
but in a way different than we do, that is perhaps, creation from
eternal matter. Falaquera does state in these works that knowledge of
the true sciences is needed to comprehend the secrets of the Torah
(e.g., *Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh*, 70-72). One could wonder that if
knowledge of philosophy and science is necessary for understanding the
secrets of the Torah and if creation is one of these secrets, why the
philosophers do not believe in it "in the way that we believe in
it." In the *Moreh ha-Moreh*, Falaquera clearly states
that among the divine secrets is "how God, may He be exalted,
created the created beings" (116). In this commentary, perhaps
of all Falaquera's writings the least likely to be read by the
multitude, he reveals his own opinion that the world is not created
from nothing. His precise view is debated, but he seems to hold that
the world is created from eternal matter, a view that Maimonides had
ascribed to Plato. In his introduction, he suggests that Plato's view
that the world is created and never destroyed derives from the Sages,
but since the Sages knew the true interpretation of the Torah, this
would seem to mean that Plato's view was the true one (117). Later in
the commentary, he repeats this view and writes that it appears to him
that "Plato's opinion inclines toward the opinion of our holy
Torah" (259, on *Guide* II, 13). A bit later in the
chapter he writes explicitly (261):



> 
> 
> It appears to me that there is no need to say that the Creator, may He
> be exalted, brought into existence the existent from non-existence
> [*me-ha-he'der*], but rather that he brought it into
> existence *after* complete non-existence, for this is possible
> according to our faith. Therefore, those that say that He, may He be
> exalted, brought [the world] into existence from nothing [do] not
> [express] a precise belief; rather, He brought it into existence after
> nothing, that is, He brought it into existence after the thing did not
> exist.




In other words, Falaquera in the context of his commentary on
Maimonides' *Guide* reveals his own view on creation of the
world, one of the secrets of the Torah. This view differs from the one
commonly held in the Jewish community of his time, which he himself
called a root and true opinion of the Torah in his more popular works.
The view presented in the commentary - for Falaquera, the true
interpretation of the teaching of the Torah and a precise formulation
of it - still speaks of God's creation, not ex *nihilo*,
but rather *after* non-existence (*ahar
ha-he'der*) or after privation of form. In other words, it
appears that for Falaquera, creation is through informing prime matter
(cf. Shiffman, "Falqerah As Interpreter," 7-14
[220]). This interpretation of Falaquera's teaching is strengthened by
his explanation of 'creation' (*beri'ah*) in
his *Commentary on the Torah*: "The word
'creation' teaches creation of the substance and quiddity
of the thing, through which it is what it is ... for the giving
of the spirit to the bodies of this world is called
'creation'. ... [God] gives all creatures substantive
form, that is, specific form, by which the thing is distinguished from
something else" (Jospe, *Torah and Sophia*, 468). For
Falaquera then, some of the philosophers do share a view of creation
of the world precisely "in the way that we believe in
it."




The importance of Falaquera for the history of philosophy is not,
however, in his personal beliefs regarding theological-philosophical
subjects. It is rather in his broad and profound knowledge of the
teachings of the ancient and medieval philosophers, his mastery of
their science, his commitment to the ultimate accord between their
true teachings and the correctly interpreted teachings of the Torah,
and his life-long effort to interest his fellow Jews in science and
philosophy and to make their teachings available to them. To
accomplish his goals, as we have seen, Falaquera, perhaps more than
any other medieval Jewish philosopher, employed a wide variety of
different literary forms (see further, Hughes and
Robinson 2019).