CRESCAS, ḤASDAJ. – Jewish anti-Aristotelian philosopher, b. in Barcelona in 1340; d. in Saragossa in 1412. He enjoyed the favor of the court of Aragon, especially that of Juan I and the queen, who protected him during the persecution of the Jews in 1391, in which he lost his only son.
C. composed a vast anti-Christian work in Spanish, preserved in a partial Hebrew translation.
More important is the work Ὁρ' Ἀδθόησος, “The Light of the Lord” (Ferrara 1556). In his writings C. inveighs against the Aristotelianism of contemporary Jewish philosophers, and especially against Maimonides and the Averroists.
IBL.: N. A. Wolfson, C. Critique of Aristoteles, Cambridge Mass. 1931 (with an extensive introduction). Angelo Penna