JEHUDAH, called in Arabic by the long name of Abulhag'ag' .ussu.zr Ibn jahja Ibn Shimun Alsabtz A lmaghrebi, a distinguished philosopher, mathemati cian, astronomer, physician, poet, and commentator, who was born at Ceuta, Arab. Sebta (Septum), about 116o. He fled from his native place about 1185, in consequence of the great sufferings which the Jews had to endure in it, and for a time settled in Alexandria, where he became a disciple and inti mate friend of the immortal Maimonides, and, by his sceptical expressions about religion and philosophy, caused this great luminary to write the celebrated Afore Nebochim (Iv= rriln Dociar_perpkxorum). Ibn A knin th en went to Syria (circ a 119o) and thence to Bagdad (1192), where he founded a Rabbinic college, and shortly after became physician to the Emir Faris ed Din Meimun el Kasri. Passing by his poetical, ethical, medical, and metaphysical writings, we notice his Comnzentary on the Song of Songs, written in Arabic, which is to be found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Pococke, 189). He espouses the notion of the Talmud, that the Song of Songs is the nzost sacred of all the twenty-four canonical books of the O. T. [SoLomoN's SoNcl, and accordingly explains it allegorically as repre senting the relationship of God to his people Israel. 'There are,' he says, three different modes of ex plaining this book ; t. The literal (LIVtht4 which is to be found in the philologians or gram marians, ex. g7-., Saadia, Abu Sacharja Jahja ben David el Fasi [CHAyuc], Abulwalid Ibn Ganach of Saragossa [IBN GANACII], the Nagid R. Samuel
Ha-Levi ben Nagdilah, Abn Ibrahim ben Baran [IsAAc b. JosEPH), Jehudah ben Balaam [IBN BALAAM], and Moses Ibn Gikatilla Ha-Cohen [GIKATELLA]. 2. The allegorical, to be found in the Midrash Chasit, the Talmud, and in some of the ancient interpretations ; and 3. The philosophical interpretation, which regards this book as referring to the active intellect [voirs 7romrtnds], here worked out for the first time, and which, though the last in point of time, is the first of all in point of merit (thn tz1)). These three different explanations correspond, in reverse order, to the three different natures of man, namely, to his physical (ii,V2t:), vital (rl'N.:1'11), and spiritual (rnt•CM) natures.' Ibn Aknin always gives the first and second explanations first, and then the philosophical interpretation. The commentaty is invaluable to the history of Biblical literature and exegesis, inasmuch as all the interpreters therein enumerated have, with the exception of Saadia, hitherto not been known as commentators of the Song of Songs. These expositors form an im portant addition to the history of interpretation given by Ginsburg (Ilirtorical and Critical Co»z mentary of the Song of Songs, Longman 1857).
Aknin died about 1226. Comp. also the masterly monograph of Munk, Notice sur yoseph Yehuda, Par. 1842 ; and the very elaborate article of Steinschneider, in Ersch lend Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopadie,s. v. Ioscph Ibn Aknin.— C. D. G.