  While God's creative act is described by Ibn Gabirol as a creation ex nihilo (see Fons Vitae 3.3, p. 79, line 18; FV 3.25, p. 139, lines 24–25) a view normally seen in opposition to doctrines of emanation, he also uses common emanation metaphors—the  flow of light and the flow of water—to describe the origins of the cosmos. For example, drawing on the Psalms 36:10 image of a “fountain of life,” in the very title of his Fons Vitae  text[18] Ibn Gabirol seems to at least beckon to Greek and Muslim Neoplatonic visions of an emanating  God.[19] Similarly stressing an emanating cosmos (though not necessarily the idea of an emanating God per se), Ibn Gabirol—in  what appears to be part of a commentary on Genesis—likens  the material core of being (to which we will return in section 5) to a river. Allegorically rendering the Garden of Eden waters to the pure matter which sits at the root of the unfolding cosmos, Ibn Gabirol envisions the pulse of existence as a River of Life—a  vibrant outpouring which links all of existence to a single overflowing source (see Sirat 1985, p. 79). Of course, this particular image does not necessarily suggest that God Himself emanates (i.e. the idea that existence emanates forth from matter is still consistent with God creating that matter ex nihilo, and not via emanation).