Saadia's work was carried on and expanded in a great outburst of the
Jewish genius, which showed itself most brilliantly in the
Moorish-Spanish kingdom. The general cultural conditions of Alexandria
in the first century B.C.E. were reproduced in Spain in the tenth
century. Once again the Jews found themselves politically emancipated
amid a sympathetic environment, and again they illumined their
religious tradition with all the culture which their environment could
afford. The mingling of thought gave birth to a great literature, both
creative and critical; to a striking body of lyric poetry; to a
systematic theology, and a religious philosophy.
While the study of the old Talmudic lore was maintained, the greatest
teachers developed tradition afresh by a philosophical restatement
designed to make it appeal to the mental attitude of the enlightened.
The sermon flourished again, collections of Haggadah (Yalkut) were
made as storehouses of homilies, and metaphysical treatises modelled
upon the works of the schoolmen set forth a philosophical Judaism for
the learned world. It is notable also that these last were not written
in Hebrew or in the Talmudic dialect, but in Arabic, the language of
their cultured environment; for though the missionary spirit was dead,
the controversial activity of the period impelled the Jewish
philosophers to present their ideas in the form used by the
philosophers of the general community.
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