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Abstract
Profiat Duran ha-Levi lived at the end of the fourteenth century and a decade or so into the fifteenth century in northern Spain or "Old Catalonia." He belonged to a class of lettered physicians with a broad education in philosophy and the secular sciences as well as in advanced Jewish study. His subjects range from scientific matters like astronomy, mathematics, and medicine to anti-Christian polemic and further afield to philosophy, biblical exegesis, Hebrew grammar, even to a history of Jewish persecution. He was also forcibly converted to Christianity, and his attempts to justify his own situation as a nominal Christian still fiercely loyal to Judaism is a central focus of this thesis. Employing a fundamentally rational approach (despite a slight ambivalence toward philosophy), Duran expressed his eclectic and ultimately particularist views in philosophical language. Astronomy, mathematics, and number played a large role in his thought, as did astral influence and divine emanation. All of these provided a background for a theology based on the primacy of the Hebrew Bible. As part of his system, Duran situated inner intention as the fundamental religious standard in an original and reasoned defense of the converso experience. In addition to a discussion of these themes, the present thesis analyzes the known and probable facts of Duran's life and evaluates the manuscript and archival evidence as it relates to them; included as well is a dating, in some cases tentative, of his works.
