Arama was the very prototype of the Spanish-Jewish scholar of the second half of the fifteenth century. First of all he was a Talmudist. The study of the Talmud was of the utmost importance to him; so that he lamented deeply when his rabbinical pupils could not follow him from Zamora to Tarragona, because the latter community was unable to support them. In the next place, he was a philosopher. The study of philosophy was so universal in Spain at that period that no one could assume a public position who had not devoted himself to it. Arama had paid particular attention to Maimonides; but independent philosophical thought is hardly to be found in his work. His remarks concerning the nature of the soul ("Aḳedah", chapter 6) are noteworthy. After a detailed account of the various theories about the soul which had prevailed, he comes to the conclusion that the first germ of the soul, common to the whole human race, has its origin with and in the body. His theory is that of Alexander of Aphrodisias—that the soul is the "form" of the organic body—but Arama is able to adduce support for it from Talmud and Kabalah. The third element in Arama's mental composition was Kabalah as expounded in the Zohar, which he believed to have been written by Simeon bar Yohai. He did not, however, occupy himself so much with the mystical side of Kabalah as with its philosophy.