[2] Born in southern France, perhaps in Marseille, Anatoli had an interest in literary activity that was stimulated early by his learned associates and relations at Narbonne and Béziers.
[1] He accordingly interprets the Bible and the Haggadah in a truly Maimonistic spirit, rationalizing the miracles and investing every possible passage in the ancient literature with philosophic and allegoric significance.
This evoked the opposition of the anti-Maimonists, whose number was large in southern France; and probably Anatoli's departure for Sicily was hastened by the antagonism he encountered.
He soon, however, recovered and wrote, for the benefit of his two sons, his Malmad ha-Talmidim, a name which, involving a play on words, was intended to be both a Teacher of the Disciples and a Goad to the Students.
As a curious specimen of his method, it may be mentioned that he regards the three stories of Noah's ark as symbolic of the three sciences mathematics, physics, and metaphysics.
For instance, he does not hesitate to reproach the rabbis of his day for their general neglect not only of the thorough study, but even of the obligatory perusal, of the Bible, charging them with a preference for Talmudic dialectics.
He, likewise, deplores the contemporary degeneracy in the home life and the religious practises of his people, a circumstance which he thinks due largely to the imitation of surrounding manners.
Scientific investigation he insists upon as an absolute necessity for the true comprehension of religion, despite the fact that his contemporaries regarded all the hours which he was accustomed to spend with his father-in-law, Samuel ibn Tibbon, in mathematical and philosophic study as mere waste of time.
If, however, a non-Jew devotes himself to serious search after divine truth, his merit is so much the more significant; and whatever suggestion he may have to offer, no Jew dares refuse with levity.
[1] An example of such intellectual catholicity was set by Anatoli himself; for, in the course of his "Malmad," he not only cites incidentally allegoric suggestions made to him by Frederick II., but several times—Güdemann has counted seventeen—he offers the exegetic remarks of a certain Christian savant of whose association he speaks most reverently, and whom, furthermore, he names as his second master besides Samuel ibn Tibbon.
This Christian savant was identified by Senior Sachs as Michael Scot, who, like Anatoli, devoted himself to scientific work at the court of Frederick.
It is rather as a translator that Anatoli deserves a distinguished place in the scientific realm; for it is he and Michael Scot who together, under the influence of Frederick II, opened to the western world the treasure-house of Arabic learning.
Upon the ending of the first division he desired to go over the ground again, to acquire greater proficiency, and, for some reason unknown, he never resumed his task, which was completed by another after a lapse of eighty years.
[1] Besides this, Anatoli translated, between the years 1231 and 1235, the following works: (1) The Almagest of Ptolemy, from the Arabic, though probably the Greek or Latin title of this treatise was also familiar to him.