Tzeror Hachaim. De Termino Vitae.

MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL.

By the Author

Amsterdam

1639

Contemporary marginalia.

Coppenhagen 211; Silva Rosa 35

A discussion whether death is brought on by natural causes or divinely orrdained. The Dutch intellectual Jan van Beverwyck had opened the discussion in his work Epistolica Quaestio de Vitae Termino, fatali an mobili (Dordrecht, 1634). Our own work, Menasseh's response, argues, based on Jewish sources, that the span of life is not predetermined by the Deity but depends on constitutional, temperamental, and climatic influences.“ The book concludes with Carmen Intellectuale, a panegyric in honor of Menasseh by Jacob Rosales of Hamburg. Of all Menasseh’s Latin works, this was the most successful.” Cecil Roth, A Life of Menasseh ben Israel (Philadelphia,1945), pp. 94-95.