SHEM TOV IBN SHEM TOV

Abraham ibn Usque

Ferrara

1556

Sepher Ha’emunoth [“Book of Beliefs”]. Owners signatures on the title and elsewhere: Abraham b. Mahri HaKohen, plus a number of extensive marginal notes of a kabbalistic nature in the same precise Ashkenazic hand. * Bound with: ALASHKAR, MOSES BEN ISAAC, Hassagoth [“Critique.” Polemic/ philosophy]. ff. 16

Vinograd, Ferrara 37 and 46

The first work 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 the attached work, Hassagoth, which demonstrably supported the philosophical views of both Levi b. Gershon (RaLBa’G) and Maimonides. See EJ, VIII, col.1198 and Carmilly-Weinberger, p.44