Sepher Ha’emunoth [“Book of Beliefs”]

SHEM TOV IBN SHEM TOV

Abraham ibn Usque

Ferrara

1556

FIRST EDITION. Title set within woodcut architectural arch with the printer’s device of an armillary sphere resting on a scroll a verse from Psalm 130:5 (Yaari no. 22). Device repeated at end.

Vinograd, Ferrara 37; not in Adams

A work that opposes the philosophy of Jewish rationalists such as Abraham ibn Ezra, Levi b. Gershom (RaLBa’G) and Isaac Albalag - but especially that of Maimonides. A witness to the persecutions and conversions of late 14th- and early 15th-century Spain, Shem Tov believed that the philosophical approach was fundamentally incompatible with religious tradition. He viewed Maimonidean intellectualism to be responsible for facilitating apostasy. This anti-Maimonidean polemic was vehemently attacked by Moses Alashkar in his work Hassagoth (1557). See EJ, VIII, col.1198 and Carmilly-Weinberger, p.44.