GERSHON BEN SOLOMON OF ARLES:
Provençal philosopher; flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century; said to be the father of Gersonides. He was the author of "Sha'ar ha-Shamayim" (Venice, 1547; Rödelsheim, 1801), a sort of encyclopedia divided into three parts, treating: (1) of natural phenomena, metals, plants, animals, and man; (2) of astronomy, principally extracted from Alfergani and the Almagest; and (3) of metaphysics, taken from Maimonides' "Moreh Nebukim."
Bibliography:
- Zunz, Benjamin of Tudela, ii. 259;
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1014;
- idem, in R. E. J. v. 278;
- Sachs, Kerem Ḥemed, viii. 157;
- Monatsschrift, 1879, pp. 20 et seq.;
- Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Français, pp. 589 et seq.;
- Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 82.
