O redeem the vineyard which thou hast planted, And sweep thence the strangers, and save us now! O regard the covenant which thou hast sealed in us! O remember for us the father who knew thee, To whom thou, too, didst make known thy love, And save us now! O deal wondrously with the pure in heart That thy providence may be seen of men, and save us now! O lift up Zion's sunken gates from the earth, Exalt the spot to which our eyes all turn, And save us now! Such hymns won for Kalir popularity, which, however, is now much on the wane. BIBLIOGRAPHY KALIR AND JANNAI. Graetz.--III, 4. Translations of Poems in Editions of the Prayer-Book, and _J.Q.R._, VII, p. 460; IX, p. 291. L.N. Dembitz,--_Jewish Services_, p. 222 _seq._ CHAPTER VIII SAADIAH OF FAYUM Translation of the Bible into Arabic.--Foundation of a Jewish Philosophy of Religion. Saadiah was born in Fayum (Egypt) in 892, and died in Sura in 942. He was the founder of a new literature. In width of culture he excelled all his Jewish contemporaries. To him Judaism was synonymous with culture, and therefore he endeavored to absorb for Judaism all the literary and scientific tendencies of his day. He created, in the first place, a Jewish philosophy, that is to say, he applied to Jewish theology the philosophical methods of the Arabs. Again, though he vigorously opposed Karaism, he adopted its love of philology, and by his translation of the Bible into Arabic helped forward a sounder understanding of the Scriptures. At the age of thirty-six Saadiah received a remarkable honor; he was summoned to Sura to fill the post of Gaon. This election of a foreigner as head of the Babylonian school proves, first, that Babylonia had lost its old supremacy, and, secondly, that Saadiah had already won world-wide fame. Yet the great work on which his reputation now rests was not then written. Saadiah's notoriety was due to his successful championship of Rabbinism against the Karaites. His determination, his learning, his originality, were all discernible in his early treatises against Anan and his followers. The Rabbinites had previously opposed Karaism in a guerilla warfare. Saadiah came into the open, and met and vanquished the foe in pitched battles. But he did more than defeat the invader, he strengthened the home defences. Saadiah's polemical works have always a positive as well as a negative value. He wished to prove Karaism wrong, but he also tried to show that Rabbinism was right.