Aristotle's Politics was almost unknown in medieval Jewish philosophy, which in its political thought was mainly based upon Plato's Republic as transmitted by the Muslim commentators. This is why Abravanel's apparent usage of the Politics in his antimonarchist interpretation of I Samuel, 8 seems to be such a breakthrough in medieval Jewish political philosophy. Such a breakthrough seems conceivable when we take into consideration the influence exerted on Abravanel by scholastic political philosophy, which was heavily influenced by the Politics ever since the text was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century.
