Pirush Chamesh Megiloth [commentary to the Five Scrolls, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra & Nehemiah and Chronicles].

Auction 94 | Thursday, June 17th, 2021 at 11:00am
Rare & Excellent Hebrew Printed Books: From the Library of Arthur A. Marx

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Lot 224
JOSEPH IBN YACHYA.

Pirush Chamesh Megiloth [commentary to the Five Scrolls, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra & Nehemiah and Chronicles].

<<FIRST EDITION>>. Initial word of each chapter within decorative woodcut frame. <<Wide-margined copy.>> Censored. ff. 40, 121 (i.e. 122). Few light stains. Recent boards. Folio. Vinograd, Bologna 11.

Bologna: The Company of Jewish Silk Weavers 1538

Est: $3,000 - $4,000
PRICE REALIZED $2,800
The author took sharp exception to Maimonides’ rationalist philosophy and universalism, aligning himself with R. Judah Halevi’s doctrine of the chosenness of the Jewish People as expounded in the Kuzari. Thus, it is little wonder that Church censors found ibn Yachya’s works to be pernicious. Joseph’s son, Gedaliah ibn Yachya, author of Shalsheleth HaKabbalah, a classic of Jewish historiography, relates that after his father’s passing, Church censors burned all of the deceased’s unpublished manuscripts.