and makes the sick man sound again. Vendidad xxii. 1-5:
Translation of J. Darmesteter.
FRAGMENT
All good thoughts, and all good words, and all good deeds are thought
and spoken and done with intelligence; and all evil thoughts and words
and deeds are thought and spoken and done with folly.
2. And let [the men who think and speak and do] all good thoughts and
words and deeds inhabit Heaven [as their home]. And let those who think
and speak and do evil thoughts and words and deeds abide in Hell. For to
all who think good thoughts, speak good words, and do good deeds,
Heaven, the best world, belongs. And this is evident and as of course.
Avesta, Fragment iii.: Translation of L.H. Mills.
AVICEBRON
(1028-? 1058)
Avicebron, or Avicebrol (properly Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol), one of
the most famous of Jewish poets, and the most original of Jewish
thinkers, was born at Cordova, in Spain, about A.D. 1028. Of the events
of his life we know little; and it was only in 1845 that Munk, in the
'Literaturblatt des Orient,' proved the Jewish poet Ibn Gabirol to be
one and the same person with Avicebron, so often quoted by the Schoolmen
as an Arab philosopher. He was educated at Saragossa, spent some years
at Malaga, and died, hardly thirty years old, about 1058. His
disposition seems to have been rather melancholy.
Of his philosophic works, which were written in Arabic, by far the most
important, and that which lent lustre to his name, was the 'Fountain of
Life'; a long treatise in the form of a dialogue between teacher and
pupil, on what was then regarded as the fundamental question in
philosophy, the nature and relations of Matter and Form. The original,
which seems never to have been popular with either Jews or Arabs, is not
known to exist; but there exists a complete Latin translation (the work
having found appreciation among Christians), which has recently been
edited with great care by Professor Baeumker of Breslau, under the title
'Avencebrolis Fons Vitae, ex Arabico in Latinum translatus ab Johanne
Hispano et Dominico Gundissalino' (Muenster, 1895). There is also a
series of extracts from it in Hebrew. Besides this, he wrote a
half-popular work, 'On the Improvement of Character,' in which he brings
the different virtues into relation with the five senses. He is,
further, the reputed author of a work 'On the Soul,' and the reputed
compiler of a famous anthology, 'A Choice of Pearls,' which appeared,
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