Sefer ha-'Emunot ve-ha-De'ot, Saadiah ben Joseph Gaon, Constantinople: Solomon ben Isaac Jabez, 1562

88 leaves (8 x 5¾ in.; 203 x 146 mm). Title mounted, water-stained throughout, heavier at the beginning, leaves 9-13, 26-27, 50-51, 85-88 supplied and loosely inserted. Nineteenth-century green half cloth, ms. title and shelfmark labels on spine; rubbed.

17c ms. exlibris on title — Jüdisch Theologische Seminar in Breslau (circular library stamp on front endpaper and on title)

Vinograd, Constantinople 222; Yaari, Constantinople 164, Mehlman 1215; Steinschneider 6855.2; Heller v. 2, 537

88 leaves (8 x 5¾ in.; 203 x 146 mm). Title mounted, water-stained throughout, heavier at the beginning, leaves 9-13, 26-27, 50-51, 85-88 supplied and loosely inserted. 19th-century green half cloth, ms. title and shelfmark labels on spine; rubbed.
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First edition. The author of this rare philosophical treatise, Saadiah ben Joseph Gaon (882–942), was an important leader of Babylonian Jewry and the greatest Jewish scholar and author of the geonic period. Originally written in Arabic as Kitab al-Amanat wa-al-Itiqadat, this work was translated into Hebrew by the twelfth-century Spanish scholar, Judah ibn Tibbon under the title Sefer ha-'Emunot ve-ha-De'ot. It is the earliest work of medieval Jewish philosophy to have survived intact.

After a general presentation of the causes of infidelity and the essence of belief, Saadia describes the three natural sources of knowledge—namely, the perceptions of the senses, the light of reason, and logical necessity, as well as the fourth source of knowledge possessed by those that fear God, the "veritable revelation" contained in the Scriptures. He shows that a belief in the teachings of revelation does not exclude an independent search for knowledge, but that speculation on religious subjects rather endeavors to prove the truth of the teachings received from the Prophets and to refute attacks upon revealed doctrine, which must be raised by philosophic investigation to the plane of actual knowledge.

In the scheme of his work Saadia closely followed the philosophical school of the Mu'tazilites (the rationalistic dogmatists of Islam, to whom he owed in part also his thesis and arguments), but it is evident that he was also influenced by Aristotelianism, Platonism, and Stoicism. He, in turn, influenced Jewish Neoplatonists, such as Bahya ibn Paquda, Moses ibn Ezra, and Abraham ibn Ezra. The influence of Saadiah declined with the appearance of the Guide of the Perplexed, in which Maimonides attacks this philosophical approach, alluding to Saadiah, although never mentioning him by name. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, Maimonides' philosophical opponents drew upon Saadiah's work. Sefer ha-Emunot ve-ha-De'ot remained influential until the Haskalah period.