favorable to Gabirol; for, as we shall see, Gabirol's system is also based upon a point of view similar to that of the so-called "Empedocles." What the Tibbonides left undone was, however, partially accomplished about a half century later by the commentator and critic Shem Tob Falaquera (1225-1290). Apparently in agreement with Abraham ibn Daud that Gabirol's profuseness in his philosophic masterpiece made it possible to reduce it to a tenth part of its size, Falaquera did not find it necessary to translate the whole of the "Mekor Hayim" into Hebrew, giving us instead a translation of selected parts, which in his estimation contained the gist of Gabirol's teaching. The absence of a complete Hebrew translation of Gabirol's philosophical work meant of course that no one who did not know Arabic could have access to Gabirol's "Mekor Hayim," and this practically excluded the majority of learned Jews after the first half of the thirteenth century. But the selections of Falaquera did not seem to find many readers either, as may be inferred from the fact that so far only one single manuscript of this translation is known.
En revanche, as the French would say, the Christian Scholastics of the thirteenth century made Gabirol their own and studied him diligently. His fundamental thesis of a universal matter underlying all existence outside of God was made a bone of contention between the two dominant schools; the Dominicans, led by Thomas Aquinas, opposing this un-Aristotelian principle, the Franciscans with Duns Scotus at their head, adopting it as their own. Ego autem redeo ad sententiam Avicembronis," is a formula in Duns Scotus's discussion of the principle of matter.83
The translation of Gabirol's philosophy into an accessible language, which was not considered desirable by Jews, was actually accomplished by Christians. About a century before Falaquera a complete translation into Latin was made in Toledo of Gabirol's "Fountain of Life," under the title "Fons Vitas." This translation was made at the instance of Raymond, Archbishop of Toledo in the middle of the twelfth century, by Dominicus Gundissalinus, archdeacon of Segovia, with the assistance of a converted Jewish physician, Ibn Daud (Avendehut, Avendeath), whose name after conversion became Johannes Hispanus or Hispalensis. Unlike the Hebrew epitome of Falaquera this translation was not neglected, as is clear from the role Gabirol's philosophy
