Meister Eckhart Reading Ibn Gabirol’s Fons vitae

Abstract

The High Scholastic German Dominican Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) is renowned for his innovative philosophy that dared to break the mould of the accepted Scholastic worldview of his days.2 Some of the heterodox elements of his thought also seem to have originated from his favourable view of Jewish philosophical sources. The celebrated Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135/38–1204) immediately comes to mind since his Judaeo-Arabic Aristotelianism exerted a formative impact on Eckhart.3 However, Maimonides is not the only Jewish philosopher to have shaped Eckhart’s body of thought. A further philosophical source requiring scholarly attention is Fons vitae by the eleventh-century Jewish Andalusian Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1020/21–58), generally denoted in Scholasticism as Avicebron or as Avencebrol. Eckhart, who was not aware of Avicebron’s Jewish faith, approvingly invokes his philosophical authority on several occasions. His treatment of Fons vitae’s metaphysical assertions represents a constructive way of approaching Gabirolean thought which deviates from his Dominican predecessors, the ardent Aristotelians Albertus Magnus (c. 1200– 80) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). These two thirteenth-century Scholastics are rather notorious for their critical attitude towards Avicebronian hylomorphism.4