The minister of state and rabbi, Ibn-Nagrela, also occupied himself with researches into the structure of the holy language, but this was his weak point. He did not get beyond the rules laid down by Chayuj. He was so partial to this master that he could not appreciate new efforts. Samuel composed twenty-two theses on Hebrew grammar. Only one, however, Sefer-ha Osher, the "Book of Riches," is worthy of mention. The rest were only polemic treatises directed against the great Hebrew linguist, Ibn Janach, towards whom Samuel was unfriendly. Ibn Janach, the greatest Hebraist of his time--no less an ornament of Spanish Judaism than the vizir Ibn-Nagrela--deserves a special page in Jewish history, more especially because for a long time he was unknown and then misunderstood. Jonah Marinus (in Arabic, Abulvalid Mervan Ibn-Janach, born about 995, died 1050), was educated in Cordova, where after the death of Chasdaï all hearts were filled with enthusiasm for knowledge and a devoted love for the holy language. Isaac Ibn-G'ikatilia, of the school of Menachem, taught him Hebrew grammar, and Isaac Ibn-Sahal was his teacher in prosody. He studied medicine in the high school of Cordova, founded by the Caliph Alhakem. In his youth Ibn-Janach, like everybody at that period, made verses, which even later on, when his taste was developed, did not appear to him entirely bad. But he gave up versifying in order to devote himself entirely to the study of the Hebrew language in all its ramifications. He lived entirely for this study, and obtained such mastery of it that up to the present day he has not been surpassed. Posterity has learnt much from Ibn-Janach, but students of the Hebrew language can yet learn much more. Like his opponent Ibn-Nagrela, he also was compelled to leave Cordova after its destruction by Suleiman of Barbary (1013), when he settled in Saragossa. The Jews of Saragossa were for the most part still laboring under the delusion that rabbinical Judaism would be injured by research, and especially by grammatical investigations. Ibn-Janach nevertheless devoted himself to the study of the structure of the Hebrew language and to the explanation of the text of the Bible. He also pursued the study of medicine both theoretically and practically; but his chief attention was directed to a thorough exegesis of the Bible, and grammatical research with him was not an end in itself, but simply the means for a better comprehension of Holy Writ. Ibn-Janach, in his researches, reached conclusions not discovered by Chayuj. The alterations which on this account he necessarily had to make in the grammatical system of Chayuj, were made modestly and with due recognition of its merits. He had the greatest admiration for the founder of Hebrew philology, but like Aristotle, "his love of truth was greater than his love of Plato." This independence of Chayuj's teaching aroused the anger of the latter's followers, chief amongst whom was