Philosopher
Elijah Delmedigo
c. 1458 – c. 1493
Also known as Elijah Del Medigo, Elia del Medigo
Cretan Jewish philosopher who taught Averroes to Pico della Mirandola and other Christian scholars in Italy, and defended philosophy within Judaism in his Examination of Religion.
Elijah Delmedigo was born in Candia (now Heraklion) on Crete, then a Venetian colony, in 1458 or a little earlier. Around 1480 he went to Venice and Padua, where he taught philosophy to Christian scholars such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, staying with Pico in Florence in 1484–1485 and writing several works at his request, including one that sided with Averroes against Avicenna on being and essence.
He returned to Crete and wrote Examination of Religion in Hebrew for one of his students. He died in Candia around 1492 or 1493. He stands out for working on both sides of a divide: in Jewish thought and in the Latin Averroism of northern Italy.
Key ideas
- Philosophy within Judaism
- His Examination of Religion sets out to legitimise philosophy within Jewish religious life, discussing how rational argument relates to revealed religion. It leans, without saying so, on Averroes’ Decisive Treatise.
- Averroes for Latin readers
- In Italy he translated and commented on Averroes for his Christian patrons, and played a central part in the Averroist tradition of the Latin West.
- No creation from nothing
- Following his Averroist Aristotelianism, he denied in his physical and psychological works and in letters to Pico that the world could have been created from nothing.
- Tradition
- Jewish
- Region
- Crete, Venice, Padua and Florence
- Themes
- Faith and reason
Influences
Where these links come from
- Elijah Delmedigo drew on Averroes. Source: Michael Engel, Elijah Delmedigo, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Examination of Religion (Behinat ha-Dat)
- On Being, Essence and the One (De ente et essentia et uno)
Sources
- Michael Engel, Elijah Delmedigo, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy