Aristotle and Eretz Yisrael

From the Jewish Encyclopedia:

In his first book on Sleep, he relates of Aristotle, his master, that he had a discourse with a Jew; and his own account was that what this Jew said merited admiration and showed philosophical erudition. To speak of the race first, the man was a Jew by birth and came from Cœlesyria (ארץ ישראל). These Jews are derived from the philosophers of India. In India the philosophers call themselves Kalani, and in Syria (the Entire Levant) – Yehudim, taking their name from the country they inhabit, which is Yehudah; the name of their capital is rather difficult to pronounce: they call it Ierusalim. Now this man, who had been the guest of many people, had come down from the highland to the seashore (Pergamos). He was a Greek not only in language, but in soul; so much so that, when we happened to be in Asia in about the same places whither he came, he conversed with us and with other persons of learning in order to test our wisdom. And as he discourse with a large number of sages, he imparted to us more knowledge of his own.”

This is Aristotle’s own account as recorded by Clearchus, and he adds more specific observations regarding his great and wonderful fortitude in diet and continent mode of living. Obviously it was the Jew’s strict observance of the dietary laws that struck Aristotle.

 Gutschmid (pp. 579-585) thinks that the Jew here spoken of is the same wonder-working magician (exorcist; see Josephus, “Ant.” viii. 2, § 5) who, by some sort of hypnotism, drew the soul out of the body of a sleeping child and brought it back again with his rod in the presence of Aristotle (Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Republic, x.), which part of the narrative Josephus intentionally omitted.