AVICEBRON. – Jewish poet and philosopher of the 11th century. It is only a century ago (1846) that, thanks to S. Munk, it became possible to identify the mysterious A. (or Avencebron) of the scholastics with the Hispano-Jewish poet Šelômôh ibn Gèbîrôl, who lived around the years 1020–1059 (or 1070?). His thought, already announced in the brief poem La corona regale, assumed systematic form in the work Fons Vitae, which is a lengthy dialogue between master and disciple concerning true wisdom. Since the original Arabic text seems to have disappeared, there survive extensive extracts from the Hebrew version by ibn-Falaqera, discovered and published by Munk, as well as the medieval Latin version by Giovanni Ispano and Gundissalino in the first half of the 12th century, now published in its entirety by Cl. Baeumker.
Judging from the title (Liber Fontis Vitae, de prima parte sapientiae i. e. scientia de materia et forma universali), the treatise constituted the first part, devoted to the creature, of a more extensive work that was supposed to have two further parts devoted to the science of the will and of the divine essence, but of which no trace has remained. The Fons Vitae consists of five treatises arranged as follows: I, De materia et forma universali; II, De substantia quae continet corporeitatem mundi; III, De assertione substantiarum simplicium; IV, De inquisitione materiae et formae in substantia simplicibus; V, De materia universali et forma universali per se. The division into chapters is Baeumker’s. Perfect agreement has not yet been reached concerning the immediate sources and the specific character of A.’s thought, whether it should be regarded as Aristotelian (Neumark), Neoplatonic (Charles, Joel), or creationist (Masnovo); in reality, it is a grandiose speculation that is not directly connected with any particular school and that takes upon itself the most varied and conflicting aspects, fused into a new synthesis that must be taken as it stands: an exaggerated realism, filtered through a decadent Neoplatonism against the background of rigid Jewish monotheism, even though not a single verse of the Bible or quotation from the Talmûd appears anywhere in the work.
The medieval thinkers attributed the following doctrines to A.: the universality of matter, the multiplicity of substantial forms, the denial of the activity of bodies, and voluntarism. Only God is the One, an absolutely pure and absolutely simple spiritual essence. Every created substance, on the other hand, consists of two “essences,” matter and form (I, 5), that is, of a principle in which all creatures agree and which serves as their bond, and of a principle that differentiates them (I, 6), of one sustaining and one sustained principle (IV, 1). What matters most is the distinction among matters, which in this philosophy constitute the true pillars of reality: 1) a particular natural matter, common to artificial bodies; 2) a universal natural matter, common to natural bodies; 3) a universal corporeal matter, common to the elements and natural bodies; 4) and an incorruptible matter, common to celestial bodies. A characteristic feature of A.’s philosophy is the admission of a fifth matter, “spiritual matter,” common to souls and separated substances. The decisive argument is drawn from the philosopher’s exaggerated realism, according to which there is a direct correspondence between the logical order of concepts and that of the constituents of the reality of things (D. “Quod est signum quod intellectus non apprehendit nisi rem constantem ex materia et forma?”. M. “Signum huius est quod ultimum ad quod intellectus apprehendendo pervenit, hoc est apprehensi generis et differentiae; et in hoc est signum quod materia et forma sunt finis rerum”, IV, 6; cf. III, 18). The hierarchy of matters corresponds to a hierarchy of forms which, each uniting with its respective matter, actualize the five degrees of finite reality: universal matter, universal form, universal nature, universal soul, and universal intelligence. Above everything stands the “divine will.” Indeed, the union of matter and form produces substance, and the lower substance is as matter in relation to the higher form on which it depends for its being and activity; the ultimate form would be the divine essence, but God cannot enter into any contact with the creature. Hence the intermediary of the “divine will”: the divine power that first creates matter and form and then binds them together, diffused everywhere, moving and ordering all things (V, 38–42).
Its modes are “movement” in bodies and the “intelligible word” in spiritual substances, and movement is included in the word just as every lower causality is included in the higher (V, 35), in a universe of concentric circles penetrated by the divine will, the universal energy that A. assimilates to light. A.’s influence on Jewish thought was negligible (Ḥasda) Crescas, Leone Ebreo), when it was not also sharply criticized (Ibn Dâwud, Almosnimo). It was different in the Latin world, where his appearance was decisive for the formation and differentiation of the most prominent speculative systems (Augustinianism, Thomist Aristotelianism).
BIBLI: S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie arabe et juive, Paris 1859, reprinted 1927; J. Guttmann, Die Philosophie des Salomon ibn Gabrid (A.), Gortinga 1889; Cl. Baumker, Avencebrolis Fons Vitae, Münster in Vest. 1892–95 (also containing extensive comparisons with the Hebrew version by Falagera); D. Neumark, Geschichte der jüd. Philosophie, 3 vols., Berlin 1910–28; H. A. Wolfson, Crescas' Critique of Aristotle, Cambridge 1920. For what has so far been written of importance on A.’s philosophy, V. S. Klausner, in Encyclopædia Judaica, VII, Berlin–Leipzig 1931, cols. 22–23; I. Husik, A History of Jewish Medieval Philosophy, 5th ed., Philadelphia 5706 (1946); G. Vajda, Introduction à la pensée juive du moyen âge, Paris 1947. Cornelio Fabro