Although Ibn-Janach had many enemies amongst those who belittled him, and amongst those who condemned him as a heretic on account of his scientific treatment of the Bible, yet in his work he never mentions them in anger, and, in fact, had he been the only one concerned, the world would never have known of the enmity of Samuel Ibn-Nagrela towards him. Ibn-Janach was not unacquainted with philosophy. He refers to Plato and Aristotle in a scholarly manner. He also wrote a book on logic in the Aristotelian spirit. But he was opposed to metaphysical researches into the relation of God to the world, and first principles, speculations with which his countrymen, and especially Ibn-Gebirol, concerned themselves, because he considered that such matters did not lead to any definite knowledge, and that they undermine belief. Ibn-Janach was a clear thinker, and opposed to any extravagant or eccentric tendency. He was the opposite of the third of the triumvirate of this period, his townsman Ibn-Gebirol, with whom his relations apparently were not of the pleasantest kind. CHAPTER IX. IBN-GEBIROL AND HIS EPOCH. Solomon Ibn-Gebirol--His early life--His poems--The statesman Yekutiel Ibn-Hassan befriends him--Murder of Yekutiel--Bachya Ibn-Pakuda and his moral philosophy--The Biblical critic Yizchaki ben Yasus--Joseph ben Chasdaï, the Poet--Death of Samuel Ibn-Nagrela--Character of his son Joseph and his tragic fate--Death of Ibn-Gebirol--The French and German communities--Alfassi--Life and works of Rashi--Jewish scholars in Spain--King Alfonso. 1027-1070 C. E. An ideal personage, richly endowed, a poet, and at the same time a great thinker, was Solomon Ibn-Gebirol (Jebirol), in Arabic, Abu Ayub Sulaiman Ibn-Yachya (born 1021, died 1070). His father, Judah, who lived in Cordova, appears to have emigrated with Ibn-Nagrela, during the disturbances that befell the city, to Malaga. In this place was born and bred the Jewish Plato, by whom many hearts have been warmed, and from whom many minds have gained light. It appears that Ibn-Gebirol lost his parents early, and that they left him without means. His tender, poetical soul grew sad in his loneliness; he withdrew from the outer world, and became absorbed in self-contemplation. Poetry and a faith resting upon a philosophical basis seem, like two angels, to have shadowed him with their wings, and to have saved him from despair. But they could not bring joy to his heart; his thoughts remained serious, and his songs have a mournful strain.