ALBO, JOSEF. — Spanish Jewish apologist and theologian. He lived successively in Daroca (province of Saragossa) and Soria (Castile); d. in 1444. He took part in the disputation promoted by the antipope Benedict XIII at Tortosa and San Mateo, where he defended (in 1414) the Talmûd against the attacks of Geronimo da Santa Fé (before his conversion: Josué Lorki).
His work, completed in 1425, Séfer ha-'iqqārīm («Book of Principles and Dogmas»; ed. Husik), is apologetic in character. The book sets forth the «principles or foundations», the «roots», and the «branches». The first two contain the fundamental truths and others deduced from them (revealed doctrine), which constitute the basis of every divine religion: the unity of God, his incorporeality, his independence from time, and his supreme perfection; from these derive God’s omniscience, the truth of prophecy, and the legitimacy of God’s messenger. The «branches», that is, general theses whose denial no longer entails the sin of heresy, are: creation from nothing, Moses as the supreme prophet, belief in the coming of the Messiah, and the conviction that fulfillment of a single precept is sufficient to ensure participation in the life to come. The whole is inspired by the principle that, in the different religions, legislative provisions may vary, but not dogmas. Therefore, the dogmas proper to Christianity (e.g. the Trinitarian concept of God) cannot represent an absolute religious truth. In this polemic of his, A. draws inspiration, even in terminology, from Al-Gazali. His anti-Christian tendency was emphasized by Gilberto Genebrardo (1566) and by G. Bern. De Rossi, Dizionario storico, Parma 1802, pp. 43-44, and Bibliotheca Iudaica anticristiana, Parma 1800, p. 14 ff. Jewish authors, beginning with I. Abrabanel, noted his, albeit apparent, indifference concerning the messianic question.