Tzeror HaChaim. De Termino Vitae

MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL.

By the Author

Amsterdam

1639

Title within architectural columns.

J.H. Coppenhagen, Menasseh Ben Israel: A Bibliography (1990), 211; Silva Rosa 35.

A discussion instigated by the Dutch intellectual Jan van Beverwyck in his work Epistolica Quaestio de Vitae Termino, (Dordrecht, 1634), questioning whether death is brought about by natural causes, or is Divinely ordained. Menasseh’s response, based on Jewish sources, argues that the span of life is not predetermined by the Deity but depends on constitutional, temperamental, and climatic influences. “Of all Menasseh’s Latin works, this was the most successful” (C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh ben Israel [1945], p. 95.)