¹ The earliest edition known was probably printed at Zamora about the year 1480. See Ticknor, Historia de la literatura española, Vol. i, p. 447. I have noted the following subsequent editions: Tolosa, 1489; Zaragoza, 1496; Sevilla, 1526 and 1538; Ferrara, 1554. It was republished by don Adolfo de Castro in Volume xxxvi of the Biblioteca de autores españoles. My references are to this last edition, which is very incorrect. This work furnished considerable material to Luis Mejía in the composition of his apologue, De la ociosidad y el trabajo, published in 1546. Ticknor, ibid., Vol. ii, p. 94.

² The translation of Cáceres was republished at Amsterdam in 1663. It was included in the Index of 1750. Amador de los Ríos, Historia crítica de la literatura española, Vol. vii, p. 57.

¹ The Seven Liberal Arts in the Visión Delectable of Alfonso de la Torre, Romanic Review, Vol. iv.

² Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo in his Orígines de la Novela, Vol. i, p. cxxiv, says of the Visión Delectable: “Como texto de lengua científica, no tiene rival dentro del siglo XV; la grandeza sintética de la concepción infunde respeto; algunos trozos son de altísima elocuencia, y la novedad y atrevimiento de algunas de sus ideas merecen consideración atenta, que en lugar más oportuno pensamos dedicarlas.” He adds in a note: “Por ejemplo, su teoria del profetismo, muy semejante á la de Maimónides; sus ideas sobre el entendimiento agente, más afines á las de Avempace y Algazel que á las de los escolásticos,” etc. Had Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, who was so well equipped for the task, been permitted to investigate more closely the indebtedness of Alfonso de la Torre to Maimonides, he would have found that the Guide of the Perplexed furnished far more material to the Visión Delectable than appeared on a superficial examination. The credit for the first suggestion of this indebtedness, however, belongs entirely to him.

¹ The chief works which I have used in the study of the life and works of Maimonides are: Louis-Germain Lévy, Maïmonide, Paris, 1911; J. Münz, Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), sein Leben und seine Werke, Frankfort, 1912; the articles published under the direction of Bacher, Brann, and Simonsen with the title Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben, seine Werke und sein Einfluss, by the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums, Vol. i, Leipzig, 1908; Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, Vol. v, Leipzig, 1875; Joel, Die Religionsphilosophie des Moses ben Maimon, Breslau, 1859, and Bonilla y San Martín, Historia de la filosofía española, Vol. ii, Madrid, 1911, Chap. 12-18. I am indebted to my colleague, Dr. Isaac Husik, for several excellent suggestions.

¹ See N. Brüll, Die Polemik für und gegen Maimuni im XIIIten Jahrhunderte, pub. in Jahrbücher für jüd. Geschichte und Literatur, Frankfort, 1879.

² See Joel, Das Verhältniss Albert des Grossen zu Moses Maimonides, Breslau, 1863; Guttmann, Das Verhältniss des Thomas von Aquino zum Judenthum, Göttingen, 1891; Die Scholastik des 13. Jahrhunderts in ihren Beziehungen zum Judenthum und zur jüd. Literatur, Breslau, 1902, and Der Einfluss der maimonidischen Philosophie auf das christl. Abendland, pub. in Moses ben Maimon, sein Leben, seine Werke und sein Einfluss, ed. by Bacher, Brann and Simonsen, Vol. i, Leipzig, 1908; David Kaufmann, Der “Führer” Maimuni's in der Weltlitteratur, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. xi, 1898; Isaac Husik, An Anonymous Mediœval Christian Critic of Maimonides, Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. ii, 1911.

¹ Le Guide des égarés. Traité de Théologie et de Philosophie par Moïse ben Maimon dit Maïmonide, publié pour la première fois dans l'original arabe et accompagné d'une traduction française et de notes critiques, littéraires et explicatives, Paris, 1850-66.

² See Mario Schiff, Una traducción española del “More Nebuchim de Maimónides”; notas acerca del manuscrito KK-9 de la Biblioteca Nacional, pub. in Revista crítica de historia y literatura españolas, portuguesas é hispano-americanas, Vol. ii. 1897, pp. 160-176 and David Kaufmann, ibid., Vol. xi, pp. 361-65.

³ All of my references are to Friedländer's first edition, The Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides, 3 vols., London, 1884-85. I have also used freely his Analysis of the Guide in Vol. i.

¹ In the Guide, I, Chap. xxxi, 108-9, Maimonides quotes Alexander of Aphrodisias to the effect that there are three causes which prevent men from acquiring knowledge: (1) arrogance and vain glory; (2) the subtlety and difficulty of any subject; (3) ignorance and want of capacity to comprehend. Maimonides adds as a fourth cause, habit and training. Villagers do not care for the refinements of civilized life, and in the same way a man clings to the opinions formed in his youth. The second cause of Alfonso de la Torre is taken from the Guide, I, p. 123 and constitutes one of the reasons why metaphysics can not be made popular.

¹ Maimonides shows the same love of truth, regardless of the source, in his Mishneh-Torah. See Lévy, op. cit., p. 9.

² These correspond closely to the twenty-six propositions, by the aid of which the philosophers prove the existence, unity, and incorporeality of the Primal Cause, quoted by Maimonides in the introduction to the Second Part of his work. The last proposition, Que el cielo no es engendrable ni corruptible, is only admitted as an hypothesis by Maimonides to demonstrate his own theory.

³ Pp. 11-17.

¹ This argument is found in the Guide, I, Chap, lxxxv, p. 360, as one of the propositions of the Mutakallimūn or Arabic theologians, to prove the unity of God. Maimonides, however, objects that it would not be an imperfection in either deity to act exclusively within his respective province. He treats the belief in the unity of God in the Guide, I, Chaps. l and li.

² In reality it is the twenty-fifth proposition. Cf. Guide, ii, p. 8: “Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence.”

¹ Guide, III, Chap. xvii, pp. 65-66.

² Guide, III, pp. 68-70.

¹ Guide, III, pp. 66-68.

² Guide II, Chap. xlviii.

¹ Guide, III, Chap. xvii.

² This theory is found in the Guide, III, Chap. viii, pp. 24-25, and Chap. xv.

³ Guide, II, Chap. xii, p. 57: “It is clear that whenever a thing is produced, an efficient cause must exist for the production of the thing that has not existed previously.”

¹ This doctrine of the Creatio ex nihilo is frequently discussed and approved by Maimonides.

² Maimonides states the same doctrine in the Guide, II, Chap. xiii, p. 61, in denying the existence of time before the Creation.

³ Guide, II, Chap. xvii, p. 77: “It is quite impossible to infer from the nature which a thing possesses after having passed through all stages of its development, what the condition of the thing has been in the moment when this process commenced; nor does the condition of a thing at this moment show what its previous condition has been.” The illustration of the child whose mother died in childbirth is taken from the same chapter, pp. 77-79.

⁴ Guide, II, Chap. v.

¹ Guide, ii, p. 53.

² Guide, II, Chap. vi, pp. 37-38: “Angel means ‘messenger’; hence everyone that is entrusted with a certain message is an angel.” This theory is developed at length by Maimonides in his chapters devoted to Prophecy.

³ This illustration is translated from the Guide, II, Chap. vi, pp. 39-40.

¹ The doctrine that the real essence of prophecy is perfection acquired in a dream or vision is treated by Maimonides in Part II, Chap. xxxvi. He there says that the action of the imaginative faculty during sleep is the same as at the time when it receives a prophecy, only in the first case it is not fully developed and has not yet reached its highest degree.

² These are treated in the Guide, II, Chap. xlv.

³ All of this material is borrowed from Isidore's Etymologiae, Lib. viii, Chap. ix.

⁴ This is an addition of the Spanish author. Maimonides believed that astrology is not a science at all and should be given no credence.

⁵ Maimonides, Guide, III, Chap. xiii, teaches that the universe does not exist for man's sake, in refutation of the doctrine of Aristotle. He, however, concludes that the question as to the object of the Creation must be left unanswered.

¹ The same figure is used by Maimonides in this connection, Guide, III, Chap. xiv, p. 58.

² Guide, III, Chap. xiii, p. 53: “Man is superior to everything formed of earthly matter, but not to other beings; he is found exceedingly inferior when his existence is compared with that of the spheres, and a fortiori when compared with that of the Intelligences.”

³ Guide, III, Chap. liv, pp. 300-303.

¹ This is borrowed almost literally from the Guide, I, Chap. lxxii.

² Guide, I, Chap. lxxii, p. 288: “Know that this Universe, in its entirety, is nothing but one individual being; that is to say, the outermost heavenly sphere, together with all included therein, is as regards individuality, beyond all question a single being like Said and Omar.”

³ Guide, I, p. 290.

¹ Lib. xiii, Chap. xxii.

² Guide, I, p. 303.

³ Guide, III, Chap. li.

⁴ Guide, I, Chap. lxxii, p. 303: “This attribute (of being a microcosm) has been given to man alone on account of his peculiar faculty of thinking. I mean the intellect, i. e., the hylic intellect which appertains to no other living being.”

¹ Guide, I, Chap. lx, p. 221. The first part of the Guide is devoted to an attack upon anthropomorphism. The first forty-nine chapters prepare for his theory of attributes.

¹ Lib. iv, Chap. i; Lib. v; Lib. viii, Chap. xi.

² Akiba ben Joseph, the father of Rabbinical Judaism, was a Jewish doctor of the first half of the second century, and the most remarkable rabbi produced by Judaism in Palestine.

³ Abraham ben Meïr ibn Ezra (1092?-1167) was the author of works of great value on Biblical exegesis, Hebrew grammar, religious philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.

¹ The reference is to Maimonides, who was often styled in this way by the scholastics.

² No comment is necessary to the names of Al-Fārābī, Avicenna and Al-Ghazzālī.

¹ Cáceres omitted in his version Chapter xv of the Second Part, dealing with the life of Jesus and the doctrine of the Trinity. I am indebted for this information to my colleague, Dr. Walther P. Fischer, who kindly examined the copy of Cáceres's version in the Boston Public Library.

² Ensayo de una Biblioteca de libros raros y curiosos, Vol. iv, col. 759-61.

³ This document has also been published in Vol. xiii of the Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, pp. 292-293.