Against Rapoport, Guttmann has shown (Monatsschrift, p. 201, note 2) that Naḥmanides read and used the Hegyon ha-Nefesh, though occasionally differing from it; but while Saadia is elsewhere quoted by Abraham b.
Unlike the latter, Bahya did not devote his attention to Talmudic science, but to Biblical exegesis, taking for his model Rabbi Moses ben Nahman who is known as Nahmanides or Ramban, the teacher of Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, who was the first to make use of the Kabbalah as a means of interpreting the Torah.
In the Tur, an early code of Jewish law, the author brings forth the views of Nahmanides and Maimonides, and concurs with Nahmanides (Yoreh Deah 179).
This assumption of Friedmann's was subsequently confirmed by the publication of a geonic responsum (A. Harkavy, Teshubot ha-Ge'onim, p. 107, No. 229, Berlin, 1888), where a baraita from the Sifre de-Be Rab to Exodus is quoted, which is the same passage as that cited by Naḥmanides from the Mekilta de-R. Shimon b. Yoḥai, in his commentary on Ex. xxii.
Further, Naḥmanides (in Torat ha-Adam, p. 102c) cites it as "Midrash Shir ha-Shirim"; so does his pupil (teacher?) Azriel, in the commentary on Canticles generally ascribed to Naḥmanides himself; Abraham, son of Maimonides (see A. Neubauer, Ḳobeẓ 'Al Yad, iv. 63, Berlin, 1888), calls it "Agadat Shir ha-Shirim"; Recanati, in his commentary on the Pentateuch (on Beha'aloteka), cites the same passage quoted by Judah b. Barzilai.