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after the year 1276, probably in Montpellier. He continued to revise it and produced a longer version in 1295 in Arles. Levi was not the first Jew to engage in such an undertaking; Jews began writing encyclopedias of science in Hebrew in the first half of the twelfth century.3 Neverthe-less, Levi’s composition is in a crucial respect unique. While some of the earlier Hebrew encyclopedias of science touch also upon topics in Jewish theology, Levi’s treatise is the first we know of that offers an in-depth account of both science and Judaism in a single work.4
The general introduction to Livyat Ḥen, in which Levi undoubt-edly revealed his reasons for writing this composition, is unfortunately lost. However, we do have the introduction to the encyclopedic poem he completed in 1276, Batei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Leḥashim, which heralded and was designed to promote his later composition.5 In this introduc-tion, he writes as follows:
I saw that we possess no comprehensive composition that includes in one book all that is desired by one who wishes to arrive at the truth in ease; for the many sciences that he must first attain to reach the precious and lofty science weighs heavily upon him, leaving him for a long time in a state as though lacking a true God and pure faith.6
3 The earliest one that we have some information about is Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s Yesodei ha-Tevunah u-Migdal ha-Emunah. On this encyclopedia, see Mercedes Rubio, “The First Hebrew Encyclopedia of Science: Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s Yesodei ha-Tevunah u-Migdal ha-Emunah,” in ibid., 140-153.
4 Bar Ḥiyya intended to include Jewish subjects in addition to scientific ones, but he apparently never completed his encyclopedia. An encyclopedia that appeared well before Livyat Ḥen and included Jewish subjects is Midrash ha-Ḥokhmah, but its discussion of Judaism can hardly be called extensive and it comprises only a small part of the work. On this encyclopedia, see Resianne Fontaine, “Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen’s Midrash ha-Ḥokhmah: Its Sources and Use of Sources,” in op. cit., 191-210.
5 For the parts that were published, see below. The entire poem was published in a private publication, whose editor unfortunately ignored the wise words of Ben-Sira:
“Seek not things that are too hard for you. . . . You have no business with the things that are secrets” (Ben-Sira 3:21-22). In addition to these two compositions, Levi also wrote a polemic against Christianity that is lost, though some of the mate-rial undoubtedly was incorporated in his polemic against Christianity in Livyat Ḥen; see below.
6 Israel Davidson, “L’introduction de Lévi Ben Abraham a son encyclopédie poétique Baté Ha-Néfeš Weha-Lehašim,” Revue des études juives 105 (1940): 90.
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Without doubt the “precious and lofty science” is the divine science, or metaphysics, and Levi wrote his encyclopedia to meet what he regarded as a great need—namely, a systematic presentation in a single composi-tion of all the knowledge required to understand Judaism properly (which for Levi essentially means Maimonides’ approach to Judaism as presented in the Guide) and to attain human perfection. In a sense, more than any other single literary creation in Provence, Livyat Ḥen embodies and attempts to bring to fruition Maimonides’ pedagogical program.
While Levi’s majestic composition never achieved widespread popularity, neither was it completely ignored. On one hand, reports of some of the views and interpretations presented in this treatise aroused the ire of the Rashba (R. Shlomo Ibn Adret). He singled out Levi for condemnation in the letters accompanying his ban in 1305 against the study of philosophy prior to the age of twenty-five and against philo-sophical allegorical preaching, labeled him and anyone who possesses his writings heretics, and ordered his works burned.7 On the other hand, the Provençal scholar Isaac de Lattes, writing in the mid-fourteenth century about the rabbis of Southern France, describes Levi in glowing terms: “The great sage R. Levi ben R. Avraham ben R. Ḥayyim was erudite in every area of knowledge and composed awesome and wondrous treatises, among them the noble treatise Livyat Ḥen, an
7 The letters dealing with the controversy leading to Rashba’s ban, including those pertaining to Levi, were compiled by one of the key players in this whole affair, Abba Mari of Lunel, in his Sefer Minḥat Qena’ot. The book appears in Teshuvot HaRashba, ed. Haim Z. Dimitrovsky (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1990); see particularly 374-375, 537-548, 667-674, 732-738. For an overview of this contro-versy, see Joseph Sarachek, Faith and Reason: The Conflict over the Rationalism of Maimonides (New York: Bayard Press, 1935), 167-264. For a study of the reasons for the condemnation of Levi, see Abraham S. Halkin, “Why was Levi ben Hayyim Hounded,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34 (1966):
65-76; see also below. Rashba’s prior attacks on Levi already had an adverse effect on Levi’s social and economic situation, insofar as they led to his being ejected in 1303 from the house of Samuel Sulami in Perpignan, where he was staying. Levi made his livelihood from tutoring in a wide range of subjects.
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exceptionally noble and precious work, whose merit is known only to the few.”8