FREUDENTHAL, JACOB

FREUDENTHAL, JACOB (1839–1907), German philosopher. His scholarly investigations were in the areas of Greek and Judeo-Hellenistic philosophy and the philosophy of Spinoza. Freudenthal was born in Hanover. In 1863 he taught at the Samson School in Wolfenbuettel and from 1864 lectured on classical languages and the history of religious philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau. From 1875 he also taught at the Breslau University. He married a daughter of Michael *Sachs, the famous Berlin preacher and scholar.

Freudenthal was a foremost authority on Aristotle and published a series of works on his philosophy. In his studies of Xenophanes Freudenthal opposed the then prevalent opinion that Xenophanes was a consistent monotheist. His writings include Hellenistische Studien (1875–79); Flavius Josephus beigelegte Schrift: Ueber die Herrschaft der Vernunft (1869); Zur Geschichte der Anschauungen ueber die juedisch-hellenistische Religionsphilosophie (1869); "Spinoza und die Scholastik," in: E. Zeller, Philosophische Aufsaetze (1887), 85–138; Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza's in Quellenschriften… (1899); Spinoza, sein Leben und seine Lehre, vol. 1 (1904), vol. 2 (1927).

bibliography:

Baumgartner, in: Chronik der Universitaet Breslau, 22 (1907/8); Baumgartner and Wendland, in: Jahresbericht ueber die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft; vol. 136, p. 152–63; M. Brann, Geschichte des Juedisch-theologischen Seminars in Breslau (1904), 129–30; B. Muenz, in: Ost und West, 7 (1907), 425–8; G. Kisch (ed.), Das Breslauer Seminar (1963), 322–3.

[Joseph Elijah Heller]