Saadias-Gaon

, or Saadias the Excellent, a learned rabbi, the chief of the academy of the Jews, was born at Pithom in Egypt, about the year 892. In the year 927, he was invited by David Ben- Chair, the prince of the captivity, to preside over the academy at Sora, near Babylon, where one of his first objects was to explode the doctrine ofthe transmigration of souls, which was very prevalent, even among the Jews. But having refused to subscribe to a new regulation, which appeared to him to be repugnant to the Jewish laws, a breach arose between David and Saadias, which after some years was made up, and Saadias was restored to his professorship, in which he continued with great reputation till his death, in the year 942. His principal works are, “Sepher Haemunah,” or a treatise concerning the Jewish articles of faith, in ten chapters; but we have only a translation of it from the original Arabic into Hebrew, which was printed at Constantinople in 1647, and often reprinted. “A Commentary on the Book Jezira,” printed, with other Commentaries on that book, at Mantua, in 1592; “An Arabic translation of the whole Old Testament,” of whjch the Pentateuch is inserted in Jay’s and Walton’s Polyglotts, accompanied with the Latin version of Gabriel Sionita; “A Commentary on the Song of Songs,” in Hebrew, printed at Prague in 1609, 4to “A Commentary on Daniel,” likewise in Hebrew, inserted in the great rabbinical bibles of Venice and Basil “A Commentary on Job,” in Arabic, the ms. of which is in the Bodleian library at Oxford and a commentary on illicit alliances, mentioned by Aben Efra. ¹