Philo’s Heirs: Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas 9781618116314

Citation preview

Philo’s Heirs: Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cortest, Luis, author. Title: Philo's heirs : Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas / Luis Cortest, The University of Oklahoma. Description: Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017012866 (print) | LCCN 2017027277 (ebook) | ISBN 9781618116314 (e-book) | ISBN 9781618116307 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Philo, of Alexandria—Influence. | Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204. | Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274. Classification: LCC B689.Z7 (ebook) | LCC B689.Z7 C675 2017 (print) | DDC 181/.06—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017012866 © Academic Studies Press, 2017 ISBN 978-1-61811-630-7 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-61811-631-4 (e-book) Book design by Kryon Publishing Services (P) Ltd. www.kryonpublishing.com Published by Academic Studies Press in 2017 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA P: (617)782-6290 F: (857)241-3149 [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Philo’s Heirs: Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas LUIS CORTEST

Boston 2017

Acknowledgement of Outside Financial Support

I

wish to thank the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Oklahoma for their generous support in the preparation and publication of this book.

For Rachel

Contents Preface vii

Chapter 1 The Marriage of Athens and Jerusalem: Philo of Alexandria

01

Chapter 2 Christian Philosophy after Philo

20

Chapter 3 The Rabbi and the Friar at a Glance

33

Chapter 4 The Divine Attributes

40

Chapter 5 In the Beginning

54

Chapter 6 Divine Providence

66

Chapter 7 Natural Law

80

Chapter 8 Prophecy 100 Conclusion 111 Bibliography 113 Index 120

Preface

I

t was the great Harry Austryn Wolfson who first argued that Philo Judaeus (ca. 20 BC–ca. 50 AD) had established the foundational model that subsequent religious philosophers would imitate in the three monotheistic traditions. In his monumental study of Philo, Wolfson concluded that Philo had added a new dimension to Greek philosophy when he utilized its principles to analyze scripture. In so doing, Philo created a new kind of religious philosophy that would serve as the standard for seventeen centuries: This fundamental departure from pagan Greek philosophy . . . appears first in Hellenistic Judaism, where it attains its systematic formulation in Philo. Philo is the founder of this new school of philosophy, and from him it directly passes on to the Gospel of St. John and the Church Fathers, from whom it passes on to Moslem and hence also to mediaeval Jewish philosophy. Philo is the direct or indirect source of this type of philosophy which continues uninterruptedly in its main assertions for well-nigh seventeen centuries, when at last it is openly challenged by Spinoza.1

This bold claim, though accepted by many scholars in Wolfson’s time, has been challenged by Philo scholars in recent years. David T. Runia, one of the most important contributors to our knowledge of Philo and his legacy, has been very critical of Wolfson’s methodology.2 Runia has also described Wolfson’s view of the history of philosophy as “Judaeo-centric” since Wolfson believed that Philo and Baruch Spinoza served as two “turning-points” in the history of philosophy.3 While it is true that Wolfson Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 2:457.  2 David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1993), 50­–55.  3 Ibid., 53.  1 Harry

viii

Pr e face

was especially interested in describing the philosophical contributions of these two Jewish thinkers, his general claim concerning Philo’s method and its impact on religious philosophers, as well as his thesis that Spinoza’s philosophy represents a radical break with the past, are views that many contemporary scholars still accept. Indeed, it would be hard to argue that Philo and Spinoza are not “turning-points” in the history of philosophy if one understands Philo’s role in the transformation of religious philosophy and is willing to acknowledge the fact that Spinoza must be regarded as one of the most important thinkers in the cultural shift from the early modern period to the Enlightenment.4 Even if one disagrees with Runia, however, it is clear that Runia and others have provided much-needed clarification on the question of Philo’s influence on subsequent philosophers and theologians. In some ways the work of these scholars helps fill in the gaps left by the broad strokes painted by Wolfson. While Wolfson was firmly convinced that Philo’s philosophical approach would guide philosophers up to the time of Spinoza, he spent less time tracking down the indirect and often obscure references to Philo found throughout the Middle Ages. If we examine Runia’s careful remarks about Philo’s medieval legacy, we get a good idea of the difference between the scholarly approaches of Runia and Wolfson: Throughout this period Philo was considered the author of one of the semi-canonical books of the Bible. As we saw in our account of the survival of Philo’s writings, during the Middle Ages a slender liber Philonis was in circulation, containing the notice on Philo from Jerome’s De viris illustribus, the Pseudo-Philonic Liber antiquitatum, and the Old Latin translation of Quaestiones in Genesim IV and De vita contemplativa. The history of this manuscript tradition has been traced with a fair degree of probability to the Abbey of St. Riquier in Western France, where it is mentioned in a catalogue dated 831. No doubt it was brought there by the founder of the Abbey  4

In fact, a number of important studies have appeared in recent years in which this claim is made; one of the most important is that of Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Although his work has an entirely different focus than that of Jonathan Israel, Carlos Fraenkel’s Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) must also be mentioned. Fraenkel studies the history of philosophical religions from the time of Plato and includes a careful examination of the contribution of Philo. Once again, his study shows quite convincingly that the philosophy of Spinoza represents an important break with the religious philosophy produced before his time.

Pr e face

in 790, Angilbert, who made three journeys to Italy and gave 200 mss. to the Library of the Abbey.5

Obviously, from the evidence presented here by Runia, it is clear that Philo, as an author, was known by at least some writers in the Middle Ages. If Wolfson was known as a bold scholar, who sought most of all a comprehensive and convincing interpretation of the history of philosophy, Runia must be considered a very meticulous and careful scholar by modern standards. Runia finds the records and connects authors by time and place. Wolfson was especially concerned with the survival of ideas. The central claim of this book is that Philo’s philosophical method survived at least into the High Middle Ages. I argue that Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas were both intellectual heirs of Philo. Although Philo is almost never mentioned by name by either philosopher, both follow a path that was first cleared by Philo in Alexandria. Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides stand as two giants in the history of religious philosophy. In their respective religious communities, both are considered great masters who expressed the doctrine of their religious tradition in philosophical terms. Though both of these teachers lived in different places at different times, their philosophical projects were in some ways quite similar. Indeed, both thinkers were convinced that the most profound religious truths could be expressed philosophically without compromising the content. The philosophical vocabularies of both masters are strikingly similar since both utilize principles derived from medieval forms of Aristotelianism. Moses Maimonides, who died in 1204, wrote his most important philosophical text, the Guide for the Perplexed, in Arabic because, even though he was a Jew, he was born and lived in a cultural world shaped by the great Islamic thinkers. That tradition itself had inherited many of the most important ideas from Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic philosophy. Thomas Aquinas, who died in 1274, adopted a Christianized form of Aristotelian philosophy shaped by Neoplatonic incursions.6 Aquinas developed his system within the context of the medieval European university curriculum, where, long before his time, philosophy had been studied by the masters of theology. Although many important sources can be identified in his works, his own Philo in Early Christian Literature, 331. a discussion of these same “Neoplatonic incursions,” see Luis Cortest, “Was St. Thomas Aquinas a Platonist?” The Thomist, 52, no. 2 (April 1988): 209–19.

 5 Runia,  6 For

ix

x

Pr e face

teacher, Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–1280), a key figure in the reception of the works of Aristotle in the Christian West, should be considered of primary importance. Thomas wrote his works in Latin, the language of philosophy in those same universities. His readership included students and masters of theology from the religious orders of his day. The subject of the present book, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides as understood within the tradition first established by Philo, must also include a very brief examination of the history of philosophy in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought before the time of these two great teachers. This is so because neither Maimonides nor Aquinas created their respective philosophical systems ex nihilo. One of the most important points I wish to show in this book is that both of these thinkers, even though they belonged to different traditions, inherited a list of standard philosophical topics. I argue that these topics (divine attributes, creation ex nihilo, divine providence, etc.) were first developed as philosophical/religious questions by Philo. Philo was the first major philosopher to utilize the language and methods of philosophy to examine the truths established by revealed religion. Even though Philo was a Jew, his philosophical approach was quickly adopted by Christian writers in Alexandria. These same writers (in particular, Clement of Alexandria and Origen) would become the first great philosophical theologians in the history of the Christian church. Whether it is true that Philo had little impact on subsequent Jewish thinkers (as so many scholars believe), his influence on Christian thought was vast. In effect, he taught Christian writers how to read allegorically and how to use the language and methods of philosophy to explicate Christian doctrine. In this book, I have called both Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas “heirs of Philo.” It would be overstating the case to call these two thinkers direct heirs since neither quotes directly from any of Philo’s works. What both philosophers inherit from Philo indirectly is a method, a way of doing philosophy, and a list of the most important questions that religious philosophers must address. Maimonides inherited this method and these questions from his Islamic predecessors; Aquinas inherited the same method and questions from the Christian p ­ hilosophers who came before him and from Maimonides.

Chapter  1 The Marriage of Athens and Jerusalem: Philo of Alexandria

I

n order to begin our discussion, we must go back to an earlier time, when Philo of Alexandria (ca. 25 BC–ca. 50 AD) so brilliantly examined the truths of revealed religion in the language of Greek and Roman philosophy. Long before the time of Philo, however, philosophers had already developed a vocabulary to discuss things divine and subjects that would in later centuries be thought of as purely theological. Indeed, if we take a close look at the works of Plato and Aristotle, we encounter many important discussions of these subjects. In Plato’s Timaeus we find an extensive description of the creation of time and the universe: Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time.

In the same text, we find an account of how all these heavenly bodies were created by God: Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had

2

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving—in seven orbits seven stars. (Timaeus, 38)1

It is especially noteworthy that the sun, the moon, and these same “planets” are described as having been “created by him.” One can easily imagine how attractive the language of this text must have been to Philo and the early Christian writers influenced by Philo, who could readily see the similarities between this account and that of Genesis. Perhaps more importantly, these same authors could see that in the works of Plato the creation of the universe was addressed as a philosophical question. In this same passage one finds two key components in future debates concerning the eternity of the world: creation ex nihilo and the role that God plays in this creation. In Aristotle’s Metaphysics (book 12, chapter 7) the discussion of thought thinking itself leads into a very impressive theological discussion of the nature of God: And thought thinks itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the substance, is thought. And it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the latter rather than the former is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better state this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s essential actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God. (Metaphysics, 1072b, 20 –31)2

This movement from a consideration of the relationship between thought and object to an examination of “God’s essential actuality” as “life most good and eternal” to the conclusion that “God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to Timaeus, in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), 2:19–20.  2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1695. All subsequent quotes from Aristotle will be taken from this edition.  1 Plato,

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

God; for this is God” is a natural transition for Aristotle. For the modern reader, a discussion of this type concerning the nature of God would most probably be called theological rather than philosophical; however, for Plato and Aristotle this kind of discussion was not outside the range of philosophy. On the contrary, the examination of the nature of the divine was central to ancient Greek philosophical inquiry. Philo, who lived in Hellenized Alexandria, would have been quite familiar with the most important teachings of the Greek philosophers who had lived before him. When Philo examined the truths of his own religious tradition utilizing the methods and vocabulary of Greek philosophy, he was describing a revealed religion in the language of speculation that was the accepted standard in his time. Philo himself belonged to a Greek philosophical tradition that had existed from the time of Plato. In fact, most scholars today would say that Philo belonged to the school of philosophers we now call the “Middle Platonists.”3 It should be pointed out, however, that one of the most important Philo specialists, David T. Runia, does not agree with this categorization. Indeed, Runia sees Philo as a philosopher working in the Greek tradition, but within the parameters of an overarching biblical tradition: In his expository task Philo exploits the ideas of various philosophical traditions, but most of all Platonism, which has led some scholars to call him a Middle Platonist, a label I can understand but would personally resist. Philo’s originality lies in the creative way in which he relates the Greek intellectual tradition to the—for him authoritative—biblical tradition. This, above all, is what he bequeathed to later Patristic thought.4

This question of where we place Philo in the history of philosophy is of major importance for us today. If we see him strictly as a Middle the best exposition of this philosophical tradition see John Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977).  4 David T. Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1995), 189. Mark Edwards goes a step further than Runia on the question of whether Philo should be called a Middle Platonist. Edwards states: “There was never a school of Middle Platonism, as there were schools of Neoplatonism; the term is a convenient designation for those philosophers who wrote before Plotinus and exhibit an important debt to Plato. These authors, for the most part, would appear to have been unknown to one another, and no thought that occurs in one should be treated as the property of all. All the admitted Platonists whose work survives in quantity were born after Philo’s death, and, even where they coincide with him in thought or language, we cannot deduce immediately that they point to Philo’s model.” Mark J. Edwards, “Justin’s Logos and the Word of God,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 264.  3 For

3

4

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Platonist, we are placing him into a group of philosophers who lived and wrote during the same period. This classification gives us some idea of the historical context of his works and perhaps who his principal sources must have been. However, when we see Philo this way, we are less likely to appreciate that which is truly different in his thought. If we focus on Philo’s uniqueness, we see him in an entirely different light. Philo, who brings together the Greek philosophical tradition and revealed religion, is no longer merely a member of a philosophical school; he is rather an original thinker who came to Greek philosophy from a religious tradition he had inherited and embraced as a religious Jew. It is possible that Philo was a representative of a school of Jewish philosophers that flourished in Alexandria. There is, however, no evidence that a Jewish school of this type ever existed. David Winston has pointed out that both Aristobulus and Pseudo-Aristeas utilized Greek philosophy to examine scripture before Philo.5 However, neither of these philosophers left anything resembling the body of work that Philo produced. There can be no question that Philo was the most important philosopher of his time, at least among those whose works have survived and whose philosophy combined the teachings of Athens and Jerusalem. In On the Universe we again encounter a very revealing passage in which Aristotle describes the ordering of the universe: For God is to us a law, impartial, admitting not of correction or change, and better, I think, and surer than those which are engraved upon tablets. Under his motionless and harmonious rule the whole ordering of heaven and earth is administered, extending over all natural things through the seeds of life in each both to plants and to animals, according to genera and species. (On the Universe, 400b, 27–33)6

Obviously, the idea that God is “to us a law” would have been extremely appealing to any religious philosopher. A Jewish philosopher might have found the second part of the sentence— “surer than those which are engraved upon tablets”—slightly problematic; however, he would have understood that these laws “engraved upon tablets” refer not to the commandments handed down to Moses but rather to laws ordered and fashioned by men. One can also see how this text could easily have been interpreted as an David Winston, Philo of Alexandria, in The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1:239.  6 Aristotle, On the Universe, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 1:639.  5

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

affirmation of the doctrine of one immutable God by Jewish, Christian, or Islamic philosophers. Philo’s knowledge of the pagan philosophers goes far beyond an impressive familiarity with a series of texts that inspired him; his cultural world was shaped by Greek philosophy. It is not an exaggeration to state that Philo even understood Jewish scripture in Greek terms. It must be remembered that in Philo’s time, Greek was not only the language of philosophy but also it was the language of the Septuagint, the biblical texts most familiar to the Jewish community of Alexandria. Philo’s particular way of understanding biblical texts can be observed in his work On the Life of Moses. Early in the text Philo describes Moses as a ruler and lawgiver in terms that clearly remind the reader of Plato’s description of the philosopher king: For some persons say, and not without some reason and propriety, that this is the only way by which cities can be expected to advance in improvement, if either the kings cultivate philosophy, or if philosophers exercise the kingly power. But Moses will be seen not only to have displayed all these powers—I mean the genius of the philosopher and of the king—in an extraordinary degree at the same time, but three other powers likewise, one of which is conversant about legislation, the second about the way of discharging the duties of high priest, and the last about the prophetic office . . .7

Clearly, Philo believed that Moses could exercise “kingly power” in a way similar to the Platonic philosopher king. Indeed, for Philo, Moses was the greatest of the philosopher kings. This is because Moses carried out the duties of the philosopher king and, in addition, served as the great legislator for his people while “discharging the duties of high priest.” Beyond this role, Moses was also a prophet, the title reserved only for those who have attained the highest wisdom. Philo was convinced that Moses was not only the greatest of the prophets; he was also greatest of all those who seek wisdom. Moreover, for Philo, working within a tradition of Roman natural  7

Philo Judaeus, The Life of Moses, in The Essential Philo, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 230. Abraham Melamed has, in fact, observed that Philo was the first Jewish philosopher to discuss the notion of the philosopher king. Melamed states: “Philo identifies Moses as the prototype of the Platonic philosopher king, and is the first to connect philosopher, king, prophet, lawgiver, and even priest.” See Abraham Melamed, The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 23.

5

6

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

law, Mosaic Law also embodies the law of nature. As David Winston has observed: Philo’s espousal of Stoic natural law theory profoundly shaped his concept of Torah law and his subsequent ability to sing its praises unstintingly and amply justify its controlling influence over his own life and that of his people. Moses, he says, began with an account of creation in order to demonstrate the complete harmony between the cosmos and the law and thus that one who follows the law is acting in consonance with the rational purpose of nature.8

Winston continues his analysis, informing us that in Philo’s system, the patriarchs and Moses are “the living embodiments of natural law.” For those who are not philosophers and cannot understand these truths on the highest philosophical level, Moses “formulated rules and precepts that may be derived from the archetypal actions of the sages.”9 Near the end of On the Life of Moses, Philo describes the character of those who follow the example of Moses and pursue a life of meditation. The language of this description could easily have come directly from a manual of Stoic philosophy: But, if I must tell the truth, the most sacred company of prudence, and temperance, and courage, and justice seeks the society of those who practice virtue, and of those who admire a life of austerity and rigid duty, devoting themselves to fortitude and self-denial, with wise economy and abstinence; by means of which virtues the most powerful of all the principles within us, namely, reason, improves and attains to a state of perfect health and vigour.10

The life of meditation or contemplation is reserved exclusively for those who are strong enough to follow the example of the great teacher. Reason must be accompanied by the virtues that prepare the soul for meditation through self-denial and abstinence. Although Philo was not a Stoic, he understood that the teachings of the Stoics concerning self-discipline and austerity could be very useful for his purposes. Obviously, by the time Philo was writing, a well-established philosophical/theological vocabulary already existed. What makes Philo David Winston, “Philo and Rabbinic Literature,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 244.  9 Ibid., 245. 10 On the Life of Moses, 269.  8

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

different from the other philosophers in the Greek tradition in the same period is not that he was the first to discuss the divine or the gods, but rather that he was the first to develop an elaborate system in which biblical texts were analyzed in terms of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic philosophical principles. While it is true that the Greek philosophers before Philo had talked about the gods and divine things, Philo understood his own revealed religion as the principal source of true wisdom. The other Greek philosophers did not understand religion in this way, as Harry Wolfson noted so many years ago: Greek philosophers, even those who did apply the allegorical method of interpretation to the poets, never believed that the works which they undertook to interpret allegorically were divine revelations in the sense in which Scripture was considered by Philo as a divine revelation. [. . .] The general attitude of Greek philosophers toward the popular beliefs as embodied in the poets was that they constituted a primitive and rather lower form of knowledge, far inferior to the knowledge attained by philosophers through reason.11

Philo embraced a completely different view; he was absolutely convinced that his religion embodied the highest truths and pure wisdom. For Philo, this was true even in the case of religious ceremony and practice. The other Greek philosophers rejected this view completely. Wolfson continues: Nor did the Greek philosophers consider the popular form of religious worship as being divinely ordained and of intrinsic merit. Plato indeed recommends the maintenance of the popular forms of religious worship, as does also Aristotle, and, of course, the Stoics and even the Epicureans. But this recommendation was dictated only by practical considerations, such as the preservation of the stability of social institutions.12

No doubt, Philo would have understood that religious worship and teachings are very important for the stability of human society; the difference is that he was also convinced that, in the case of Judaism, these same practices were based on principles of the highest order. Indeed, for Philo, every aspect of his religion was divinely ordained. Aristotle had a Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 1:138–39. 12 Ibid. 11

7

8

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

particularly negative view of popular religious beliefs. We find this attitude clearly expressed in his Metaphysics (book three, chapter 4): For if the gods taste nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, these are in no wise the causes of their existence; and if they taste them to maintain their existence, how can gods who need food be eternal?—But into the subtleties of the mythologists it is not worth our while to inquire seriously . . . (Metaphysics, 1000a 16–19)13

For Aristotle, popular religion is an invention of “the mythologists.” As we have already seen, Aristotle was very serious about the philosophical discussion of God and divine things (especially theology in his Metaphysics); what he could not take seriously was popular religion. Philo was absolutely convinced that the teachings of scripture were true and that they constituted the highest form of wisdom. Philosophy for Philo became the handmaid of scripture. As Wolfson observed: The subservience of philosophy to wisdom or the Law is explained by him in a passage in which he says that “philosophy teaches the control of the belly and the control of parts below the belly and the control also of the tongue,” but while all these qualities are “desirable in themselves,” still “they will assume a grander and loftier aspect if practiced for the honor and service of God”; for the service and worship of God, as we have seen, constitutes wisdom, and wisdom is the revealed Law embodied in Scripture. When, therefore, Philo speaks of philosophy as being the bondwoman or handmaid of wisdom, he means thereby that it is the bondwoman or handmaid of Scripture.14

For Philo, revealed truths are the highest truths; philosophy is the language of reason used to examine and discuss them. He then transforms the teachings of the Greek philosophers, ascribing new religious meanings to many of the basic teachings of these same philosophers. One clear example of this transformation is Philo’s treatment of the Platonic Ideas, as Giovanni Reale explains: The Ideas went from being ungenerated to being created by God in the act of thinking them, and thus were archetypes of the sensible world. They become, in this way, the thoughts of God, in the sense that God creates them by thinking them, but they are not exhausted in the simple activity of being 13 14

The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2:1580. Wolfson, 1:150.

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

thought. They become likewise beings, that is, realities in the sense that we have seen. The “place of the Ideas” becomes the Logos which includes them in their totality as an “intelligible cosmos” (an expression unknown to Plato and—as it seems—coined by Philo).15

In this way, Philo established a new form of philosophy in which the revealed truths of scripture became the first principles of a new Greek ­philosophical tradition. Reale has argued that the key difference between Philo and the previous Greek masters is precisely his philosophical understanding of God: The center of the Philonian system is established by a rational attitude and a conception of God radically new with respect to the preceding Greek tradition. . . . First, he distinguishes in an extremely clear way, especially on the theoretical level, with more detail than was done by his predecessors, two different problems: (a) that of the demonstration of the existence of God and (b) that of the determination of his nature and essence. The first problem, he says, is not difficult; the second, instead, not only is difficult, but is even insoluble. In other words, according to our philosopher, the existence of God is understandable; his essence, on the contrary, is incomprehensible to man.16

All the philosophical conclusions that belong to this new system begin with the claim that a clear demonstration of the existence of God is possible. Without this foundation, the entire system collapses. For Philo, however, God can neither be reduced to the status of a first mover nor be defined as a vague abstraction. Nevertheless, the same philosopher who can demonstrate that God exists cannot define God’s essence; this knowledge is beyond the scope of human comprehension. Here, in the philosophical system of Philo, we find the beginning of the discussion concerning the divine attributes that would continue to our own time. At the end of Philo’s treatise On the Creation of the World he summarizes the teaching of Moses, providing the reader with the five basic lessons that we have received from the greatest prophet: “In the first place, for the sake of convicting the atheists, he teaches us that the Deity has a real being and existence.”17 This teaching of Moses goes far Giovanni Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, ed. John R. Catan (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 4: 194. 16 Ibid., 4:183. 17 All subsequent quotations regarding the lessons from Moses are found in: Philo Judaeus, 15

9

10

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

beyond a basic affirmation that God exists. It asserts that not only does God exist, but also that God has a “real being and existence.” Although Philo could never have known this, this lesson from Moses as described in this passage would have a tremendous impact in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas centuries later. Philo then describes two different kinds of atheists who have denied this teaching: “Now, of the atheists, some have only doubted of the existence of God, stating it to be an uncertain thing; but others, who are more audacious, have taken courage, and asserted positively that there is no such thing; but this is affirmed only by men who have darkened the truth with fabulous inventions.” The first of these groups would also include those whom we would now call agnostics. The second group, the more courageous, includes the bold ones who have “asserted positively that there is no such thing.” The reason we are told that men dare deny this lesson is that these same men “have darkened the truth with fabulous inventions.” Thus, the true atheists are those who have affirmed positively that God does not exist. Ironically, it is these same atheists who have found it necessary to resort to “fabulous inventions” to explain away the existence of God. Philo continues his summary of the teachings of Moses: “In the second place he teaches us that God is one; having reference here to the assertors of the polytheistic doctrine; men who do not blush to transfer that worst of evil constitutions, ochlocracy, from earth to heaven.” Without question, the oneness of God is the most fundamental teaching of Mosaic Law. Philo here warns his readers of the dangers of “polytheistic doctrine” and of the danger that can result when “that worst of evil constitutions” is transferred “from earth to heaven.” Philo insists that these “evil constitutions” are a form of “ochlocracy” or mob rule. The defenders of polytheism are those who transfer this kind of thinking from their consideration of earthly things to their conclusions concerning matters divine. The third lesson is that “the world was created; by this lesson refuting those who think that it is uncreated and eternal, and who thus attribute no glory to God.” Here the target would seem to be the Aristotelians, who defend the doctrine of the eternity of the world. This Aristotelian idea would have an enormous impact on later thought. It would be disputed over and over again by medieval thinkers (in the three monotheistic traditions) and early modern philosophers. Philo makes it clear that he rejects this Aristotelian idea from the start. On the Creation of the World, in The Essential Philo, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 40–41.

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

In the fourth lesson “we learn that the world also which was thus created is one, since also the Creator is one, and he, making his creation to resemble himself in its singleness, employed all existing essence in the creation of the universe.” Again, this discussion of the Creator and his creation goes far beyond the teaching of mainstream Greek philosophy. Philo then explains why this lesson is so important: “For it would not have been complete if it had not been made and composed of all parts which were likewise whole and complete.” The argument is from design; the world would be incomplete if it were not like its maker, single and complete. Philo then explains that some people believe in the existence of many worlds: “For there are some persons who believe that there are many worlds, and some who even fancy that they are boundless in extent, being themselves inexperienced and ignorant of the truth of those things of which it is desirable to have a correct knowledge.” Philo was convinced that these people are simply “inexperienced and ignorant of the truth.” For Philo, it is absolutely essential that there be only one world, because the world itself reflects its Creator, the one, true God. The fifth and final lesson taught by Moses is that “God exerts his providence for the benefit of the world. For it follows of necessity that the Creator must always care for that which he has created, just as parents do also care for their children.” In this last lesson, Moses confirms the existence of divine providence. It is important to note that this providence exists “for the benefit of the world.” This last lesson is perhaps the most difficult for the philosopher to accept, because it includes a description of a God who acts with the care of a parent looking after a child. Nevertheless, this last lesson taught by Moses is extremely important for the philosopher who is also a believer. Any philosopher writing after Philo who takes revealed religion seriously must be able to address this important question. We are also reminded by Philo that all these lessons have been given to us to convince the atheists and defend the truth. In the conclusion to his magisterial study, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, David T. Runia has summarized quite succinctly the centrality of Mosaic thought in Philo’s system: In Philo’s philosophical economy the central place is occupied by the Law of Moses. . . . Philonic thought is Mosaic thought. The modern reader who wishes to penetrate to Philo’s intentions and the fundamental assumptions underlying his works must force himself to undergo a mental readjustment which makes great demands on his imagination and credence, a kind of Copernican revolution in reverse. Philo’s universe of thought does not have

11

12

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Greek philosophy at its centre but Scripture, it is not Plato-centered but Moses-centered.18

The teachings of Moses are far more important for Philo than the philosophical principles of Plato or Aristotle. Moses is the true teacher, the prophet/philosopher. At the same time, for Philo, the teachings of the philosophers are embedded in scripture. Runia continues: The numerous ideas and motifs which we have seen Philo take over from the Timaeus are not, in his view, read into scripture or used to illustrate Mosaic ideas, but are genuinely present in the sacred word and must be brought to light in the exegetical process. The distinction which we today are inclined to make between exegesis as explanation of the contents of a text and philosophy as reflection and argument on the nature and meaning of reality is entirely foreign to Philo’s way of thinking.19

Within Philo’s system, philosophy and exegesis go hand in hand; the philosopher uses exegesis to discover the “meaning of reality.” In the same way, Philo tried to bring together this philosophical understanding with the Laws of Moses. He did this because he firmly believed that the people of Moses, his own people, would play a decisive role in the future of mankind. As Peder Borgen argues: Philo combined the cosmic and universal dimensions with a particularistic understanding of the people of the Laws of Moses. Since the cosmic principles are made manifest in the Laws of Moses, those who keep these Laws are the true human beings. Thus, even when the future blessing is related to the animal world and to nature, the people of the Laws of Moses will play the central role.20

With this understanding and purpose, Philo created a philosophy that was not only universal but also particular in scope, in that it considered the special role played by the Jews in human history. David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1986), 535. 19 Ibid. Another excellent examination of Philo’s use of Plato’s Timaeus can be found in Jaroslav Pelikan, What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem? (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1997), 67–87. 20 Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1997), 287. 18

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

Philo’s influence on subsequent thinkers would be hard to overstate. Giovanni Reale has shown that this impact would have been especially strong in Christian circles: Philo himself is the thinker who first gave an interpretation of the relation between philosophy (reason, the human word) and revelation (the divine word) in terms of an “ancillary subordination” of the former to the latter. He formulated a doctrine which through the Fathers of the Church will pass on to the Scholastics and to Western thought and which will remain canonic for centuries.21

Nevertheless, this same philosopher is said to have had no direct influence on medieval Jewish thought. In fact, Seymour Feldman states: “For over a millennium Philo was unknown to his coreligionists until he was rediscovered by Italian Renaissance Jews.”22 How then does one explain the fact that in his Guide for the Perplexed Moses Maimonides discusses almost all the same questions that Philo addresses? While there may, indeed, be no firm historical evidence supporting a direct connection between the two philosophers, the questions examined by both philosophers (in particular, creation ex nihilo, divine attributes, prophecy, and divine providence), the very similar method utilized by both thinkers in biblical commentary as a means of approaching the most important philosophical issues, and the shared philosophical interpretation of the significance of biblical figures (particularly Moses), leads at least some readers to question the conclusion that Philo had no influence on Maimonides. There are far too many similarities between the two philosophers to rule out the possibility that Maimonides knew many of Philo’s ideas (at least indirectly) and was conversant with his philosophical method. The Christian fathers were quite familiar with Philo’s allegorical mode of biblical interpretation; Origen and Clement of Alexandria were close enough in time and place to fully appreciate the value of this new way of reading for biblical exegesis. Maimonides, writing centuries later as a Jewish philosopher, would find himself addressing the same fundamental issues and coming to the same conclusions as the first of the great Jewish philosophers. A far more reasonable thesis would seem to be A History of Ancient Philosophy, 4:179. Seymour Feldman, “The End and Aftereffects of Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 429.

21 Reale, 22

13

14

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

that when Maimonides was writing the Guide for the Perplexed (ca. 1190), the philosophical method first introduced by Philo was well established. In book one, chapter 71 of the Guide, Maimonides offers what might be described as a brief history of Jewish philosophical teaching. At the beginning of the chapter Maimonides tells his readers that he believes that the philosophical sciences were once cultivated by Jewish thinkers, but that because of persecution these sciences were lost. Know that many branches of science relating to the correct solution of these problems, were once cultivated by our forefathers, but were in the course of time neglected, especially in consequence of the tyranny which barbarous nations exercised over us. Besides, speculative studies were not open to all men . . . only the subjects taught in the scriptures were accessible to all.23

This passage is most provocative because a series of questions can now be posed. In the first place, which “branches of science” were cultivated by Maimonides’s Jewish forefathers? Would these have been different areas of speculative thought? Perhaps Maimonides is here referring to schools of philosophical thought later neglected by Jews for centuries. In the second place, does the “tyranny which barbarous nations exercised” over the Jewish people refer specifically to the tyranny of Rome and the peoples who would rule parts of the Empire after the fall of Rome? We do know that many of these same nations would adopt strong anti-Semitic laws. Would Maimonides include the tyranny of the Almohad Caliphate in this judgment? After all, it was because of the fanaticism of this group that Maimonides’s own family would be compelled to leave Cordoba. One of the direct consequences of this long history of persecution might be that Jewish scholars turned inward, limiting their studies to those subjects directly related to the study of scripture. Could Maimonides have known that Philo proposed solutions to many of the most important philosophical problems for Jews centuries earlier? Shlomo Pines, one of the great scholars of Maimonides, argues in the introduction to his translation of the Guide that this passage was probably a “convenient fiction.” The fact that, relatively speaking, Maimonides had so little recourse to Jewish philosophic literature is significant. It implies inter alia that he had no use for a specific Jewish philosophic tradition. In spite of the convenient 23

Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. Max Friedländer (New York: Dover Publication, 1956), 107–8.

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

fiction, which he repeats, that the philosophic sciences flourished among the Jews of antiquity, he evidently considered that philosophy transcended religious or national distinction. Qua philosopher he had the possibility to consider Judaism from the outside.24

Is it really the case that these sciences did not flourish among Jews in antiquity? Clearly, it is not a “convenient fiction” to state that Philo not only knew the schools of ancient philosophy but also that he was deeply committed to the speculative sciences. How could Shlomo Pines, who knew so much about the thought of Maimonides, imagine that Maimonides considered “Judaism from the outside”? Maimonides expresses the views of a Jewish philosopher on every page of the Guide, a book written for Jews by a great Jewish teacher. In a more recent study, Sarah Stroumsa states very clearly that Philo’s legacy did not survive in Jewish circles during the Middle Ages: “Philo, the only pre-medieval Jewish thinker to have offered a systematic philosophical thought, strongly influenced Christian thought, but had no direct impact on Jewish thought and remained, on the whole, unfamiliar to medieval Jewish thinkers.”25 The standard answer to the question of Philo’s influence on medieval Jewish philosophers is given by Steven Harvey in his essay “Islamic Philosophy and Jewish Philosophy”: From Philo to the ninth century, there are no writings that may be considered Jewish philosophy. Moreover, although Wolfson can speak of the recurrence of Philonic views in post-Philonic Islamic and Jewish p ­ hilosophy, Philo—as far as we know—was not translated into Arabic or Hebrew and accordingly had no direct influence upon Jewish philosophers until the Renaissance.26

The majority of scholars working today on medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy would probably agree with this assessment. However, not everyone accepts this view. Gershom Scholem, in his classic study Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, argued that Philo’s doctrine of the logos was adopted by certain “fringe” groups during the Middle Ages. Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), cxxxiii–cxxxiv. 25 Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 26. 26 Steven Harvey, “Islamic Philosophy and Jewish Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 349. 24

15

16

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Philo thought that the logos, the divine “word” acted as an intermediary in the process of Creation. This Philonic doctrine of creation was developed by these sectarians, who for a long time moved on the fringe of rabbinic Judaism, in a somewhat crude form which, incidentally, had been ascribed already in earlier writings to isolated heretics. . . . This discovery of an echo of Philonic thought need not surprise us. Although not many traces of it are to be found in Talmudic and early rabbinic literature, there can be no doubt, since Poznanski’s researches on the subject, that the ideas of the Alexandrian theosophist somehow spread even to the Jewish sectarians in Persia and Babylonia who as late as the tenth century were in a position to quote from some of his writings.27

It should be noted that Scholem made this observation long ago (his book was first published in Israel in 1941), based in part on the seminal work of Samuel Poznanski.28 This mention of Philo’s doctrine of the logos is particularly important since the notion of an intermediary power between God and the created universe was adopted by many philosophers and theologians after Philo. We see different versions of this idea as well as Philo’s doctrine of negative theology in the teachings of the Neoplatonists.29 This philosophy would have an enormous impact on Christian, Islamic, and Jewish thinkers up to the time of Maimonides. One of the most influential Neoplatonic works in the Middle Ages is the ninth-century Theology of Aristotle. Falsely attributed to Aristotle, this text is in fact the longest Arabic version of the Enneads of Plotinus. The Theology is best described as an adaptation, rather than a translation, because the text is full of interpolations.30 The sections from the Enneads that appear in the text are passages from books four, five, and six—that is to say, from the second half of the work. In the Theology, we also find discussions of the divine attributes and negative theology. This section of the text may have Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 114. 28 Samuel Poznanski, “Philon dans l’ancienne litterature judéo-arabe,” Revue des Études juives 50 (1905): 10–31. 29 Philo’s possible influence on Plotinus has been addressed in a remarkable essay by Roberto Radice, “The ‘Nameless Principle’ from Philo to Plotinus: An Outline of Research,” in Italian Studies on Philo of Alexandria, ed. Francesca Calabi (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2003), 167–82. 30 The best introduction to the work is probably Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages: The Theology and Other Texts, eds. Jill Kraye, William F. Ryan, and Charles B. Schmitt (London: The Warburg Institute, 1986). See also Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle (London: Duckworth, 2002). 27 Gershom

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

been inspired by the teachings of Philo, who was the first philosopher in the Platonic tradition to address these ideas within the context of revealed religion. The influence of the Theology is easily detected in the works of the tenth-century Jewish writer Isaac Israeli.31 Both al-Kindi and Avicenna also knew the work well. The Theology is also an important source for the Liber de causis, an extremely important source for Thomas Aquinas, who would later prepare a commentary on the text.32 While it may indeed be the case that Philo had very little impact on mainstream Jewish thought in the medieval period, other scholars agree with Scholem that Philo’s influence can be detected in the works of authors from minor sects, such as the Maghariyya.33 In a short but superb essay published in 1996, Elliot Wolfson, citing the previous research of Abraham Harkavy, Hartwig Hirschfeld, and Samuel Poznanski, observed that at least some of Philo’s teachings may have survived among the Karaite authors.34 More recently, Louis Feldman has also suggested that Philo’s ideas influenced one of the most important Karaite authors, Jacob Qirqisani.35 Bolder than Feldman, Wolfson proposed that echoes of Philo’s teachings can be found in the works of Saadiah Gaon and Judah Halevi, two of the most well-known medieval Jewish authors.36 If Wolfson’s observation is correct, it is easy to understand how Maimonides inherited Philonian ideas since he knew the works of Saadiah Gaon and Judah Halevi well. In his now classic study of the teachings of Ibn Masarra, Miguel Asín Palacios observed that Philo’s influence could be seen in the works of the Arabic Pseudo-Empedocles, one of the key sources for Ibn Masarra.37 Clearly, See Alexander Altmann and Samuel Miklos Stern, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 149–50. 32 See James A. Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1983), 383. 33 See Three Jewish Philosophers, eds. Alexander Altmann, Isaak Heinemann, and Hans Lewy (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 14. 34 Elliot R. Wolfson, “Traces of Philonic Doctrine in Medieval Jewish Mysticism: A Preliminary Note,” Studia Philonica Annual 8 (1996), 100. 35 Louis H. Feldman, “Philo and the Dangers of Philosophizing,” in Maven in Blue Jeans: A Festschrift in Honor of Zev Garber, ed. Steven Leonard Jacobs (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009), 156–57. 36 Elliot Wolfson, “Traces of Philonic Doctrine,” 101. 37 Miguel Asín Palacios, The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers, trans. Elmer H. Douglas and Howard W. Yoder (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1978), 62–63. This book was first published in Madrid in 1914 as Abenmasarra y su escuela: Orígenes de la filosofía hispano-musulmana. 31

17

18

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

traces of Philo’s ideas can be observed in these writers, despite the fact that we have no specific textual evidence that would establish direct influence. The Greek fragments of Philo’s work (and the many spurious texts falsely attributed to Philo) have been studied very carefully by James Royse.38 From this research one can see clearly that Philo was an author widely recognized in late antiquity. Indeed, Philo is an author of such importance that quite a number of fragments are wrongly attributed to him. The question, however, must be asked: How is it possible for Philo to influence non-Jewish thinkers for centuries after his death while having no direct impact on mainstream Jewish thought for fifteen hundred years? Perhaps the best answer to this question is that Philo’s influence survived because it was embraced so readily by Christian writers. David Winston has argued that Philo’s legacy would not have survived if it had been limited to Jewish circles. Had it been left to Jewish tradition, Philo’s work would undoubtedly have perished. The Jewish Middle Ages had access at best only to a partial translation of Philo’s works in either Arabic or Syriac, and it was not until the sixteenth century that Philo was rediscovered by Azariah dei Rossi. Philo thus had virtually no direct influence on the Jewish philosophical tradition. Yet Philo was the only Jewish philosopher who possessed an unmediated knowledge of the original Greek texts, both literary and philosophical, and had elaborated a philosophy of Judaism that radically transformed its inner structure.39

We cannot know what would have happened if Philo’s works had been contained exclusively within Jewish tradition. What we do know is that Jewish philosophers have always borrowed from other traditions, making use of all that was available to them from their cultural surroundings. These same partial translations of Philo’s works that Winston mentions were surely very important in the transmission of Philo’s ideas. In a recent study, Olga Vardazaryan has shown that Philo was widely known among Armenian Christians during the Middle Ages. In fact, Vardazaryan has argued that “the popularity of Philo among Armenian medieval intellectuals far surpassed James R. Royse, The Spurious Texts of Philo of Alexandria: A Study of Textual Transmission and Corruption with Indexes to the Major Collections of Greek Fragments (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1991). 39 Philo Judaeus, Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections, trans. David Winston (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 36. 38

The Mar r iage o f At hens and Jer u salem Ch a p t e r 1

his popularity in other Christian cultures.”40 This fact is not insignificant; it reveals that Philo’s works were known in the centuries leading up to the time of Maimonides. Even if we do not have specific examples of Philo’s works cited by Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages, it is obvious that his philosophical method is the model followed by Maimonides in the Guide. Somehow Maimonides was familiar with a style of philosophy that included an idiosyncratic, philosophical/allegorical interpretation of scripture, and a list of fundamental issues that was first introduced by Philo.

40

Olga Vardazaryan, “The ‘Armenian Philo’: A Remnant of an Unknown Tradition,” in Studies on the Ancient Armenian Version of Philo’s Works, eds. Sara Mancini Lombardi and Paola Pontani (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011), 192.

19

Chapter  2 Christian Philosophy after Philo

I

f it is, in fact, true that Philo had little impact on subsequent Jewish thought, his impact on Christian thinkers would be hard to overestimate. As we saw in the previous chapter, Philo’s use of Greek philosophy to understand and explain revealed truths served as a model for Christian writers for centuries after his death. One of these authors was Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215), who was a pioneer among Christian ­writers in his understanding of the role of philosophy in the explication of Christian doctrine, as Jean Daniélou has shown: For philosophy in this sense Clement does acknowledge a role, a subordinate one certainly, but genuine even for the Christian. The issue here is in fact a particular case of the general problem of the value which the Christian is to set upon secular culture; and in this debate Clement takes a very positive position. He is the first Christian author to press the claims of the heritage of ancient culture—the first Christian author, because Philo, to whom he specifically refers in this connection, had put forward the same view (cf. Strom. I, 5:30, 1–32).1

But philosophy is much more than mere “secular culture”; it contains, rather, the principles and the method for understanding the universe: Philosophy in the sense which Clement attaches to it—and it is this which gives him a very special significance—is an achievement of secular culture  1

Jean Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, ed. and trans. John Austin Baker (London: Westminster Press, 1973), 305.

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

which enables men to arrive at a scientific knowledge of the ultimate principles of the universe. It is this scientific character which distinguishes it from ordinary knowledge.2

Daniélou then explains how Clement transformed a more general ­“philosophy” into theology: Clement retains this sense of the term “philosophy,” but he transposes it into the realm of faith . . . For him faith has not only its own principles, but also its own methods of proof. But the transition from simple faith to considered faith, or gnosis, is in his mind analogous to the transition from opinion to knowledge in philosophy, and he employs the language of philosophy in order to express it. In some sense, therefore, Clement may be seen as the founder of theology.3

Clement’s great innovation would transform Christian thought. Although there had been Christian writers before Clement who had been knowledgeable about philosophy, Clement was the author who would take this knowledge and turn it into a science of gnosis, a special knowledge of higher religious truths. In Miscellanies, book seven, chapter 1, Clement informs his readers of how one identifies the gnostic: Thus he is before all things a lover of God. For as he who honours his father is a lover of his father, so he who honours God is a lover of God. Hence too the gnostic faculty seems to me to reveal itself in three achievements: (1) in the knowledge of the facts of the Christian religion, (2) in the accomplishment of whatever the Word enjoins, (3) in the capacity to impart to others after a godly manner the hidden things of truth.4

From this text it is clear that the gnostic must not only know the “facts of the Christian religion,” but must also be able to teach the truths (even when hidden) of this religion. In book seven, chapter 3 of the Miscellanies, Clement offers a far more extensive explanation of the life and knowledge of the gnostic: Being ruler therefore of himself and of all that belongs to him the ­gnostic makes a genuine approach to truth, having a firm hold of divine Gospel, 307–8. Gospel, 308.  4 Henry Chadwick, ed., Alexandrian Christianity (London: Westminster Press, 1954), 95.  2 Daniélou,  3 Daniélou,

21

22

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

science. For the name science would fitly be given to the knowledge and firm hold of intellectual objects. Its function in regard to divine things is to investigate what is the First Cause and what that through which all things were made and without which nothing has been made, what are the things that hold the universe together partly as pervading it and partly as encompassing it, some in combination and some apart, and what is the position of each of these, and the capacity and the service contributed by each.

The first part of this description shows us how the theological, metaphysical, and physical parts of this knowledge work together. In the first place, the gnostic “makes a genuine approach to truth.” That is to say, he seeks the highest truth, never losing sight of “divine science” which grounds this search. He investigates “the First Cause and what that through which all things were made.” Having studied the first principles of creation, he can proceed with the study of those “things that hold the universe together.” Clement continues with a description of the moral and ethical dimensions: [A]nd again in things concerning man, to investigate what he himself is, and what is in accordance with, or is opposed to his nature; how it becomes him to act and be acted on, and what are his virtues and vices, and about things good and evil and the intermediates and all that has to do with manhood and prudence and temperance, and the supreme all-perfect virtue, justice. Prudence and justice he employs for the acquisition of wisdom, and manhood not only in enduring misfortunes, but also in controlling pleasure and desire and pain and anger, and generally in withstanding all that sways the soul either by force or guile.5

In this text, we see the all-important role that the virtues play in this system. Clement mentions prudence and temperance and then the “supreme all-perfect virtue, justice.” Justice occupies a higher place than the other virtues because it has a much broader scope than the other virtues; its domain reaches far beyond the realm of the individual. Prudence and temperance help regulate the conduct of the individual and help the gnostic act in accord with his nature. Prudence and justice also guide the gnostic in the “acquisition of wisdom.” At the end of this passage one can clearly see the Stoic influence on Clement’s thought. After the gnostic has investigated  5 Chadwick,

Alexandrian Christianity,103.

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

the virtues and vices and good and evil, he learns to control pleasure, desire, pain, and anger— all that “sways the soul either by force or guile.” Clearly, the training of the gnostic is multifaceted and rigorous. The acquisition of wisdom in itself is not enough to form the true gnostic; this knowledge must be coupled with the firm control of the passions. While it is the case that Clement learned a way of talking about God and divine things from Philo, one cannot help but be struck by how far Clement goes in transforming the simple paradigm of Philo into a highly complex theological science. Philo was the thinker who taught those ­religious thinkers who came after him how to talk about God philosophically; Clement revealed to Christians how this new theological science should proceed. Alexandria was the home (at least for a time) of Philo, Clement, and one of the most influential of all early Christian thinkers, Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254). In one of his many impressive works, Contra Celsum, Origen addressed the attack upon Christianity prepared by the pagan writer, Celsus. In his response to Celsus, Origen defends the uniqueness of Jewish law and the “deeper wisdom” of the Jews: Accordingly, if the Jews observe their own law it is not because they follow the same principles as the other nations. For they would be at fault and guilty of failure to understand the superiority of their laws if they imagined that they had been written like the laws of all other nations. Though Celsus will not agree, the Jews do possess some deeper wisdom, not only more than the multitude, but also than those who seem to be philosophers, because the philosophers in spite of their impressive philosophical teachings fall down to idols and daemons, while even the lowest Jew looks only to the supreme God.6

In order to defend Christian revelation, Origen must also defend the revealed truths found in Judaism. Perhaps what is most important in this passage is the mention of the “deeper wisdom” of Jewish teaching. Origen did not write his response to Celsus out of ignorance of philosophy; his knowledge of pagan philosophy is very impressive and readily apparent throughout this entire work. However, Origen is convinced that the teachings of the philosophers or of “those who seem to be philosophers” are tarnished by an imperfect knowledge of the “supreme God.” In this way Origen’s approach to philosophy is similar to Philo’s. Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 298.

 6 Origen,

23

24

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Not surprisingly, Origen defends the teachings of Moses against the attacks of Celsus. Origen not only defends Moses, but also he argues that Moses’s teachings concerning God and providence are far superior to those of even the most famous Greek philosophers. When Origen addresses the accusation that the doctrine of Moses already existed among other peoples (i.e., the Egyptians), he demonstrates his knowledge of different philosophical traditions: My reply to this is that supposing we grant to him [Celsus] that Moses heard an older doctrine and passed this on to the Hebrews, if he heard a doctrine that was untrue and neither wise nor holy, and if he accepted it and passed it on to the Hebrews, he is open to criticism. But if, as you say, he accepted wise and true doctrines and educated his own people by them, what did he do deserving of criticism? I wish that Epicurus and Aristotle, who is less irreverent about providence, and the Stoics who maintain that God is a material substance, had heard of this doctrine, that the world might not be filled with a doctrine that abolishes providence, or limits it, or introduces a corruptible first principle which is corporeal. According to this last view, of the Stoics, even God is a material substance, and they are not ashamed to say that he is capable of change and complete alteration and transformation . . . But the doctrine of Jews and Christians which preserves the unchangeable and unalterable nature of God has been regarded irreverent, since it is not in agreement with those who hold impious opinions about God.7

Origen is here taking on the philosophers on their own terms. He is attacking the views of the Epicureans and the Stoics, who defend a “first principle which is corporeal,” concerning providence. Origen is also challenging the Stoics for their doctrine that God is “capable of change and complete alteration and transformation.” Although he was not the first of the great Christian teachers who was versed in philosophy, he certainly stood as a tower of wisdom in his day. It should also be remembered that Origen was writing at a time when the defenders of Christianity were a small minority. One reason why the number of defenders was small was that it was dangerous to take this side. It is not a mere accident of history that he would later be imprisoned and ­tortured for his religious beliefs.8 Contra Celsum, 1.21. Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 24.

 7 Origen,  8 See

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

One of the most important features of Celsus’s argument is his historical attack on the life of Jesus, claiming that Christians believe that “a man who lived a most infamous life and died a most miserable death was a god” (Contra Celsum, book seven). Origen responds to this criticism, showing that Celsus’s claim is unsupported by evidence and that Celsus knows little about the life of Jesus: He did not dwell on each action in his life which he supposes to be most infamous. When he says this, he seems not only to be making unsupported assertions, but also to be pouring abuse on someone he knows nothing about. If he had quoted those actions which seemed to him to be instances of his most infamous life, we would have dealt with each one of those which he thought to be such.

Origen reduces the accusations of Celsus to mere suppositions. He then continues by challenging the claim that Jesus died a miserable or disgraceful death: The charge that Jesus died a most miserable death could be applied both to Socrates and Anaxarchus, whom he mentioned a little earlier, and to thousands of others. Or was the death of Jesus most miserable, but not theirs also? Or was their death not most miserable, while that of Jesus was such? Here also, you see, it was Celsus’ object to pour abuse on Jesus, being impelled, I suppose, by some spirit which was overthrown and conquered by Jesus, that it may no longer have burnt-offerings and blood. For nourished by these it used to deceive people who seek for God in earthly images and do not look up to the real supreme God.9

Besides the inconsistencies that Origen underscores in Celsus’s arguments, he continues his defense with a discussion of the sacrifices, the “burnt-­ offerings and blood,” that the pagan philosophers offer to their gods. One of the most important points addressed by Celsus is that the Christians have abandoned the gods of the Romans. For Celsus, this is not a small matter; he is defending the religion of the state. He is convinced that when Christians refuse to practice the religion of the state, they become a source of decadence in Roman society. Origen boldly states that these older religious practices have been “overthrown and conquered by Jesus.” The same intimate link between philosophy and theology is especially evident in the writings of the Cappadocian fathers. These fourth-century  9

Contra Celsum, 7.442.

25

26

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

authors, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyssa, had a profound knowledge of the Greek philosophers. Later, they would develop their own special kind of philosophical theology, as Jaroslav Pelikan observes: Used in this sense, “philosophia” could stand for “the full range” and scope of divine revelation. Since sophia could be either “theoretical” or “practical,” as Aristotle had recognized, Christian “philosophia” could participate in the nature of sophia by being either practical or theoretical . . . As theoretical philosophy, it was contemplative. Within the oeuvre of the Cappadocians, one of the masterpieces of this contemplative “philosophia” was the Accurate Exposition of the Song of Songs . . . by Gregory of Nyssa . . . The Book of Ecclesiastes was another compendium of the sophia of Israel’s philosopher-king. Because part of the “philosophia” of Ecclesiastes was the admonition, “God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few,” the Solomonic philosophy was seen as one of apophatic restraint.

Indeed, although the Cappadocians were contemplatives who could examine these biblical texts with great mystical insight, they would also eventually turn their attention to a more practical theology. Pelikan continues: By the time the Cappadocians had worked out their reinterpretation of “philosophia,” they were also willing to reverse the polarity of the theoretical and the practical, paying special attention to “the philosophical way of life” exemplified by Moses. When Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “One branch of philosophy is too high for me,” he explained that he was talking not about contemplation or speculation but about “the commission to guide and govern souls.”10

The emphasis was still on Moses, but Moses had become a philosopher of a different type. Now, Moses the philosopher had become the model for the best possible life. In his Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa describes Moses as the perfect servant of God: What does the history say about this? That Moses the servant of Yahweh died as Yahweh decreed, and no one has ever found his grave, his eyes were undimmed, and his face unimpaired. From this we learn that, when one has accomplished Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 180–81.

10 Jaroslav

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

such noble actions, he is considered worthy of this sublime name, to be called servant of Yahweh, which is the same as saying that he is better than all others. For one would not serve God unless he had become superior to everyone in the world. This for him is the end of the virtuous life, an end wrought by the word of God.11

Moses was still a philosopher, because he understood better than anyone else the “end of the virtuous life.” Now, however, the emphasis is on the life of the servant of God, rather than on the philosopher who knows the most profound truths. It is very important to note here that the model for Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is Philo’s own De vita Mosis. Perhaps the most well-known critic of Christianity during this period was Porphyry, whose works written against Christianity have been lost for the most part. The great student and biographer of Plotinus held a prominent place among the philosophical enemies of Christianity in his day: What Scipio Africanus was to Carthage and Hadrian to Jerusalem Porphyry was to the church—blood, plow, and salt. Until the end of Mediterranean antiquity, Against the Christians was not merely feared by Christian bishops, it was burned fearfully by Christian emperors. As a result, Christian Rome gave Porphyry a prominence he could never have imagined possible. Apart from emperors, remembered for their cruelty toward the faith, Porphyry was disliked by Christians as much as the “spine-chilling” Julian. Julian was known as the apostate; Porphyry was simply blasphemous.12

A critic as powerful as Porphyry required a response from the most learned of Christian theologians. The most important Christian writer to take on the challenge of Porphyry was Augustine, bishop of Hippo. In book ­nineteen, chapter 23, of The City of God, Augustine quotes Porphyry concerning the worship of God: While pretending to worship God, they do not perform those acts by which alone God is adored. For God, as being the Father of all, has indeed no lack of anything: but it is well for us when we adore him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, making our life itself a prayer to him by imitating him and seeking to know him. For seeking to know him purifies us, while imitation of him deifies us by bringing our disposition in line with his. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, ed. and trans. by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 135. 12 Robert M. Berchman, Porphyry against the Christians (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2005), 114. 11

27

28

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Noteworthy here, is the fact that Porphyry does not deny the existence of God, or even the need for appropriate worship; what he attacks is the specific way that Christians worship God. Augustine then responds to Porphyry’s argument: Porphyry certainly did well in thus proclaiming God the Father, and in telling of the conduct by which he is to be worshipped; and the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full of such precepts, when the life of holiness is commanded or praised. But in respect of the Christians, Porphyry’s mistakes, or his calumnies, are as great as the demons (his supposed gods) could desire. He seems to assume that anyone would have difficulty in recalling the obscenities and indecencies which were performed in the theatre as acts of homage to the gods, and in observing what is read and said and heard in our churches, or what is offered to the true God, and in realizing, from this comparison, where the building up of moral character is to be found, and where its ruin. Who told him or suggested to him such a groundless and obvious lie as that the Christians revere, instead of hating, the demons whose worship was forbidden to the Hebrews?13

For Augustine, Porphyry is not only mistaken in his judgment of Christian worship, but is, in fact, guilty of believing what someone else has told him about Christian practice. Augustine’s response to Porphyry is similar to Origen’s answer to Celsus. In both cases, a very impressive enemy of Christian doctrine is shown to rely on hearsay and false claims in his attacks on the faith. Augustine also accuses Porphyry of calumny and willful ignorance. Like Origen, Augustine reminds his opponent of the obscene practices that characterized the older religion of the Roman state. Later, in the same work (book twenty-two, chapter 27), Augustine argues that if one combined the teachings of Plato with those of Porphyry one could arrive at the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body: Thus, if Plato had communicated to Porphyry the truth he had seen, namely that even the souls of the just and wise, after complete purification, will return to human bodies, and if Porphyry, on his part, had communicated to Plato the truth that he had seen, that holy souls will never return to the miseries of the perishable body; if, that is, those were not beliefs peculiar to each of them, but held jointly by both, then, I imagine, they would see that it followed that souls would return to bodies, and would receive the kind of 13 Augustine,

Concerning the City of God (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 888.

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

bodies in which they might live in bliss and immortality. For even holy souls, according to Plato, will return to human bodies, while Porphyry maintains that holy souls will not return to the evils of this world. Let Porphyry, then, join Plato in saying “They will return to bodies”; and let Plato say, with Porphyry, “They will not return to evils.” Then let them agree that they will return to the kind of bodies in which they will suffer no evils. Such bodies can only be those which God promises when he says that blessed souls will live forever with their own flesh.14

The mention of Plato in this passage in not insignificant, because, earlier in The City of God (book eight, chapter 4), Augustine identifies Plato as the greatest Greek philosopher. He then explains how the followers of Plato have discovered profound philosophical truths: There are thinkers who have rightly recognized Plato’s pre-eminence over the pagan philosophers and have won praise for the penetration and accuracy of their judgement, and enjoy a widespread reputation as his followers. It may be that they have some such conception of God as to find in him the cause of existence, the principle of reason, and the rule of life. Those three things, it will be seen, correspond, to the three divisions of philosophy: natural, rational, and moral.15

Obviously, Augustine saw in these philosophers the great potential they have for the application of their ideas to Christian learning. He was even willing to consider the possibility that they might have entertained a philosophical “conception of God” that included a “cause of existence,” a “principle of reason,” and a “rule of life.” It is not an accident that of all the Greek philosophers, Philo most respected Plato. Augustine begins chapter 6 of the same book by reiterating his great admiration for the Platonists because of their teachings: These philosophers, as we have seen, have been raised above the rest by a glorious reputation they so thoroughly deserve; and they recognized that no material object can be God; for that reason they raised their eyes above all material objects in their search for God. They realized that nothing changeable can be the supreme God; and therefore in their search for the supreme God, they raised their eyes above all mutable souls and spirits. They saw also that in every mutable being the form which determines its being, its mode 14 Augustine, 15 Augustine,

Concerning, 1079–80. Concerning, 304.

29

30

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

of being and its nature, can only come from him who truly is, because he exists immutably.

Augustine speaks of these philosophers as if they were Christian theologians. He admires them in much the same way as Philo admired Plato. Augustine then provides an impressive theological application of the same principles: For him (God) existence is not something different from life, as if he could exist without living; nor is life something other than intelligence, as if he could live without understanding; nor understanding something other than happiness, as if he could understand without being happy. For him, to exist is the same as to live, to understand, to be happy.16

Clearly, Augustine, who was not formally trained as a philosopher, had read the works of at least some of the Platonists very well and could see how easily many of the teachings of these authors could be applied to Christian theology. It is not a mere coincidence that both Augustine and Philo shared a great admiration for the Platonists, both could readily see that Platonic philosophy was quite compatible with theistic natural theology.17 David Runia summarizes the Christian writer most influenced by Philo as follows: No Christian author ever made more extensive borrowings from Philo than Ambrose, bishop of Milan—they have been estimated as above 600 in number. Yet there is but one single (and in fact rather critical) mention of Philo by name in his whole corpus of writings (and about seven anonymous references). Ambrose thus continues the Clementine practice of quiet plagiarism and in fact takes it to a new height. In five exegetical treatises, mainly on the interpretation of Genesis, his usage is so extensive that the Philonic material can be regarded as the basic framework on which his own exegesis is draped. In a number of letters he uses the same method but on a lesser scale. Unlike the Antiochenes, Ambrose embraces allegorical exegesis and he mines Philo as a valuable exegetical resource. At the same time, he is well aware that Philo is a Jew and is ever vigilant in what he takes over.

Concerning, 307–8. Although there is little textual evidence that links the two thinkers, a good case has been made that Augustine had direct knowledge of at least one of Philo’s works in translation. See David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1993), 320–30.

16 Augustine, 17

Chr i st ian Phi l o so phy af ter Ph i lo Ch a p t e r 2

Sometimes censorship is applied; at other times the material is reworked so that it conforms with Christian orthodoxy.18

It is not insignificant that Ambrose made such extensive use of Philo’s ideas because Ambrose had an enormous impact on subsequent Christian thought; indeed, one of the authors he influenced most was Augustine. This willingness to make Philo’s ideas compatible with Christianity should not surprise us. Jerome (ca. 342–420), perhaps the greatest Christian scholar in Ambrose’s day, paints a very sympathetic portrait of Philo in his De viris illustribus, arguing at one point that Philo had known Peter in Rome.19 Still another Christian writer, perhaps best understood as a transitional figure between the patristic period and the time of Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas, was John Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570). Philoponus himself had been a student of the Neoplatonist, Ammonius, in Alexandria. Although he is mentioned only once in the Guide for the Perplexed in book one, chapter 71, and there as John the Grammarian, his works were wellknown among the Arab philosophers. His commentary on Aristotle’s De anima was also known by Thomas Aquinas.20 Philoponus was one of the key participants in the debates concerning the eternity of the world in the Middle Ages. Richard Sorabji has observed that Philoponus wrote about this subject in passing in two of his Aristotelian commentaries (Physics and Meteorology) and more extensively in four other books, including the De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum in 529.21 Perhaps the greatest contribution of Philoponus to later thought is his rejection of several Aristotelian scientific principles. He knew Aristotle’s system very well, but he was perfectly willing to challenge Aristotle on several important points, including the question of whether the universe had a beginning, his theory of motion, his theory of “natural space,” and his theory of the fifth element (i.e., ether). Philoponus may, in fact, have been the most important challenger to the Aristotelian system until the dawn of the early modern period.22 While it David T. Runia, “Philo and the Early Christian Fathers,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 223. 19 Jerome, On Illustrious Men, trans. Thomas P. Halton (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 23. 20 Charles Schmitt, “Philoponus’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics in the Sixteenth Century,” in Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, ed. Richard Sorabji (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 215. 21 Richard Sorabji, “Infinity and the Creation,” in Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, ed. Richard Sorabji (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987),167. 22 See Richard Sorabji, Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, 6–40. 18

31

32

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

is true that Philoponus was one of the most innovative scientific thinkers of his time, his influence in Christian circles was rather limited because of his controversial theological views. In the Islamic world, however, his ideas concerning the beginning of the universe were very influential, as Sorabji has shown: But the Arab conquests proved favourable to his ideas. A particularly well documented example is provided by his arguments for a beginning of the universe, which were repeated again and again, with elaborations, by Islamic and Jewish thinkers.

In the Christian world Philoponus’s ideas would have an impact as well, but often Christian thinkers would refer to his theories without mentioning his name. Sorabji continues: However, when Bonaventure propounded them in Latin in the thirteenth century, with Philoponus’ own examples, he did not mention Philoponus and may well not have known of his authorship. Because of this, it has been thought that Bonaventure invented the arguments. Only the de Anima commentary is known to have been translated into Latin in the thirteenth century, and it has been doubted whether more than a small part of that was translated. Admittedly, as we have seen, many of Philoponus’ other ideas filtered through, but the main work of translation into Latin was postponed until the sixteenth century.23

It is precisely because of his wide acceptance in Islamic and Jewish circles that Maimonides was familiar with Philoponus’s ideas. Both Maimonides and Thomas had some sense of the importance of John Philoponus. What makes Philoponus particularly important for this study is that he is an author who knew and cited the works of Philo directly and was himself known to both Maimonides and Thomas.

23

Philoponus and the Rejection, 33–34.

Chapter  3 The Rabbi and the Friar at a Glance

I

n years past, many historians of philosophy simply referred to Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides as “medieval Aristotelians.” In fact, neither philosopher can be described accurately as a “pure” Aristotelian since both were also heavily influenced by other philosophical traditions. It is, however, true that Maimonides adopts the version of Aristotelian philosophy he finds in the works of Alfarabi (ca. 872–951).1 Thomas Aquinas takes an already existing scholastic Aristotelian philosophy to a higher level of critical application in his comprehensive explanation of the fundamental teachings of Roman Catholicism in his Summa Theologiae and Summa contra Gentiles. His mastery of the Aristotelian system can also be seen in his commentaries of several of Aristotle’s most important works.2 Careful readers of the Thomistic corpus have known for a long time that Thomas cites the Guide for the Perplexed of Moses Maimonides quite frequently. In recent years scholars have noted that Thomas sometimes addresses positions defended by Maimonides without identifying his source by name, as Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., observes: Thomas clearly makes use of Maimonides for the demonstration of the existence of God (in the third way) or when discussing the eternity of the For a discussion of Maimonides’s indebtedness to Alfarabi, see Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 113–15.  2 See Joseph Owens, “Aquinas as Aristotelian Commentator,” in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974; Commemorative Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974), 213–38.  1

34

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

world, yet does not cite him. On the contrary, with respect to the divine names, to the divine knowledge of particulars, to Providence, and to the nature and number of separated substances, he discusses his position as that of an adversary. This presence of the Jewish thinker, found only in the area of theology, is modest but consistent (82 references in all of Thomas’s work; 18 in the Summa).3

If Thomas cites Maimonides eighty-two times directly and there are many other instances in which Thomas discusses issues raised by Maimonides without citing him, it is abundantly clear that Thomas considered Maimonides a very important participant in the philosophical debates concerning key theological questions. This is so even though Thomas is well aware of the fact that Maimonides is a Jew. Before any discussion of Thomas’s use of the Guide can begin, however, one must understand that Maimonides’s text cannot be taken or interpreted at face value. Beneath what might appear to some readers as a simple surface, are buried layers of tradition. It would be very difficult to determine how well Thomas understood many of the implications of the text. Obviously, Thomas took the Guide seriously as a work of natural theology and challenged many of Maimonides’s most important conclusions, but clearly Thomas did not understand the work in the same way that Jewish commentators of the Guide would have understood it. While the Guide can be classified as a work of philosophical theology, it should be observed that much of the text has as its focus biblical commentary of a very particular type. James T. Robinson has described Maimonides’s project in these terms: In the preface to the Guide, Maimonides himself suggests that his work is primarily exegetical: his purpose is to explain equivocal terms that appear in the Bible and allegories not identified as such. But his explication of biblical words and passages does not follow any traditional form. The Guide is not a straightforward commentary on the Bible, explaining verse after verse, book after book. It is not a (conventional) midrashic compilation or (conventional) grammatical-rhetorical explication of words and literary structures. What Maimonides does instead in the Guide is identify and single out key biblical  3

Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception, trans. by Benedict M. Guevin, O.S.B. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 84.

The R abb i an d t he Fr iar at a Glance Ch a p t e r 3

texts, and allude to their meanings in an indirect way, by using hints and allusions, the juxtaposing of words and texts, the citing of suggestive rabbinic sources, and the explanation of the various meanings of a word used in a biblical text . . . But by singling out these biblical verses, stories, and books, and directing the reader allusively to their philosophical meaning, he established the foundations for what would become a commentary tradition.4

In simple terms, what Maimonides does in the Guide is construct a philosophical mode of biblical commentary. When Maimonides utilizes the vocabulary of the philosophers to elucidate biblical passages he is b ­ ringing together the two traditions he wants to reconcile in the Guide: Torah and philosophy. In other words, Maimonides puts together a philosophical text very similar to the works of Philo. Both begin with biblical commentary and build systems with the philosophical vocabulary they know best. The Guide was written precisely for the person who was struggling to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory traditions. While it is true that Maimonides did not invent this type of analysis, he was, nevertheless, the greatest medieval Jewish expositor of traditional Jewish teachings in philosophical terms. In a letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Maimonides listed the works of ­philosophy that were the most important to him. Sarah Stroumsa has argued that a close examination of this letter combined with the references to philosophical texts found in his other works gives us a good idea of the works that Maimonides had studied: This letter, complemented by occasional remarks culled from Maimonides’ other writings, presents a picture of a well-stocked philosophical bookshelf. The basis of this bookshelf is Greek philosophy: first and foremost Aristotle, while Plato, too, is mentioned, although with a certain reluctance and reserve. The philosophical tradition of Late Antiquity is represented by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, whose works were already part of the teaching in Alexandria. Not surprisingly, the name of Plotinus is never mentioned by Maimonides; this omission is in line with the Arab Aristotelian tradition, where a paraphrase of Plotinus’s Enneads circulated under the title “The Theology of Aristotle” or as the sayings of “the Greek Sage.” The role of the Christians in the transmission of Aristotelianism  4 James

T. Robinson, “The Construction of a Jewish Tradition of Philosophy,” in Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence, ed. Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 292–94.

35

36

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

is also acknowledged by Maimonides, although he had little respect for the Christian theologians as philosophers . . . The final layer constituting Maimonides’ philosophical heritage is that of the Arab-Muslim world: the tenth-century Abū Nasr al-Fārābī, who lived in Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus (d. 951); Ibn Sīnā (Latin, Avicenna, d. 1037), who lived in Iran; and the twelfth-century Andalusian philosophers Ibn Bājja, Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185), and Averroes.5

Maimonides does not mention the works of Philo in this letter; h ­ owever, he does mention the works of other important philosophers in the Alexandrian tradition. Although Maimonides himself may have indicated to Ibn Tibbon that he had studied the works of Aristotle and Plato, this remark should not be taken at face value. Herbert Davidson has argued that a closer look at Maimonides’s works reveals a very different picture: Motifs of Neoplatonic provenance play a role in his thought only insofar as they were appropriated by the Arabic Aristotelian school, woven into the Arabic Aristotelian quilt, and mistakenly regarded by Maimonides as authentically Aristotelian . . . As for Aristotle, the philosopher par excellence, there is no reliable evidence that, by the age of 40, Maimonides had read a single line of any of his works. The Moreh nevukhim and other writings from Maimonides’ later period do reveal a direct knowledge of a number of Aristotle’s compositions, yet key works, notably the Metaphysics, are still absent. Even for the later period, there is no reliable evidence that he read any of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle.6

Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 15–16. The importance of Ibn Tibbon, however, goes far beyond his role as the recipient of this important letter from Maimonides. In addition to being the translator of the Guide, Ibn Tibbon was a key figure in the transmission of Maimonides’ philosophy to Jewish thinkers in Western Europe, as Carlos Fraenkel has observed: “Ibn Tibbon was not the first to introduce works, which, broadly speaking, may be characterized as philosophical, into the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, but the translation and dissemination of Maimonides’ philosophical writings represent a turning point in the process. For one thing, these writings, and especially the Guide, provided a systematic justification for the study of philosophy within a religious culture.” Carlos Fraenkel, “From Maimonides to Samuel Ibn Tibbon: Interpreting Judaism as a Philosophical Religion,” in Traditions of Maimonideanism, ed. Carlos Fraenkel (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2009), 180.  6 See Herbert A. Davidson, Maimonides the Rationalist (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011), 270–71.  5 Sarah

The R abb i an d t he Fr iar at a Glance Ch a p t e r 3

Even if one is not as skeptical as Davidson regarding Maimonides’s knowledge of Aristotelian texts, it is noteworthy that the Guide does not include any direct reference to a work as important as the Metaphysics. Like Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides prepared the outline for the philosophical and religious debates that would continue for centuries after his death. Unlike Thomas, however, who was working in a well-established tradition within his own religious community, Maimonides was a pioneer in Jewish circles. Daniel H. Frank states: No one before Maimonides so clearly understood and interpreted Judaism, the biblical and rabbinic tradition, as a root expressive of philosophical truth. No one before Maimonides gave a set of canonical problems besetting Judaism such a definite philosophical shape. After him, and because of him, Jewish philosophers would argue interminably about the nature of divine language and divine providence, and about the nature and scope of prophecy and the human good. In sum, perhaps Maimonides’s true greatness as a philosopher lies not in the answers he gave to specific problems, but rather in the form in which he set the questions and the interrelations he revealed between seemingly disparate subjects.7

The subjects that Jewish philosophers addressed after the time of Maimonides are relatively well-known because many of the texts have survived. What is much more difficult to determine are the questions Jewish thinkers considered before the time of Maimonides. Even if it is true that Maimonides addressed religious questions that had received little attention by Jewish thinkers since the time of Philo, it was Philo who had first developed this “set of canonical problems” that religious philosophers would later address in the three great monotheistic traditions. Most assuredly, Maimonides takes as his model the treatises of the Islamic philosophers, who had been writing about similar religious questions long before his time. One of the most important of these writers was al-Kindi. Dimitri Gutas has argued that al-Kindi was, in fact, the first of the Islamic philosophers: The introduction of philosophy into the Islamic world is indelibly linked with the name of al-Kindi (died ca. 870), the first philosopher in Arabic, and the circle of scientists and collaborators that he gathered around him. To understand this development, it is important, first of all, to keep in mind and Medieval Jewish Aristotelianism,” in the Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 146.

 7 “Maimonides

37

38

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

that al-Kindi was not a philosopher in the sense that he was only or primarily a philosopher. He was a polymath in the translated sciences and as such very much a product of his age . . . al-Kindi’s goal was to approach mathematical accuracy in his argumentation and he held mathematical or geometrical proof to be the highest order . . . al-Kindi’s originality resides in his attempt to apply this approach to the theological and religious discussions of his time. In order to do so, he tried to gain access to the most “scientific,” i.e., methodologically rigorous, discipline in these subjects, philosophy, and accordingly he had numerous translations of primarily metaphysical Greek texts made, foremost among which are Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the selections from Plotinus and Proclus in Arabic known as the Theology of Aristotle and The Pure Good.8

Islamic religious philosophy was infused with Greek thought from the beginning. From Gutas’s remarks it is clear that both the Aristotelian and the Neoplatonic traditions were foundational for this philosophy. Many of the most important Islamic thinkers were also Aristotelian commentators. One of these commentators was Alfarabi (ca. 870–ca. 950), perhaps the key source for Maimonides’s political philosophy.9 His ideas concerning the relationship between philosophy and religion were also very influential for subsequent thinkers. Alfarabi argued that within a political community practical philosophy could provide the demonstrative proofs for practical religion in the same way that speculative philosophy could offer demonstrative proofs for theoretical religion.10 Rather than imagine that philosophy and religion were totally separate, Alfarabi strongly defended the principle that philosophy could provide a rational foundation for both practical and theoretical religion. Maimonides may not have read all of Alfarabi’s works, but he was quite familiar with many of his most important texts. The philosophical tradition that Maimonides inherited was, indeed, rich and varied. The key philosophical issues had been identified by Philo, and the medieval Islamic philosophers had developed the language and form (Avicenna in metaphysics and Alfarabi in political philosophy) that Maimonides would Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Bagdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries) (New York: Routledge, 1998), 119–20.  9 See Shlomo Pines, translator’s introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed, by Moses Maimonides (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), lxxviii–xcii. 10 See Alfarabi, The Political Writings, trans. Charles E. Butterworth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 97–98.  8

The R abb i an d t he Fr iar at a Glance Ch a p t e r 3

use to address these philosophical and religious questions from the Jewish point of view. Thomas Aquinas was interested in many of the same philosophical issues. His task may not have been as difficult as that of Maimonides because he was writing as a theologian in a well-established university setting. The philosophical blueprint that Thomas would follow had already been designed by Peter Lombard (ca. 1095–ca. 1160). In his Four Books of the Sentences (ca. 1158), Lombard had compiled and addressed the core issues that theologians would study in medieval universities. However, even though Thomas had inherited the model of the Sentences, he would go far beyond Peter Lombard in his analysis of these same questions. While there are many reasons why this is so, two are of particular importance. First of all, Thomas lived in a time when many outstanding philosophers and theologians were active. Even if Thomas was the greatest of these thinkers, there were many others writing at the same time, and this fact surely contributed to the level of the philosophical debate in his day. The complexity and sophistication of thirteenth-century theological debates would be impressive in any age. Secondly, Thomas was, if not the first, certainly one of the first theologians to make full use of Aristotelian philosophical principles in his works. Thomas was a contemporary of William of Moerbeke (ca. 1215–86), who produced many new translations of the works of Aristotle. Thomas had access to these translations.11 Indeed, if there is some question about how familiar Maimonides was with the works of Aristotle, there can be no question about Thomas’s knowledge of the Aristotelian corpus. Even though Thomas knew the works of Aristotle only in Latin translation, his careful analysis and interpretation of those texts, especially a work as complex and difficult as the Metaphysics, have served as models for subsequent commentators. In fact, many scholars writing today, would still consider Thomas the greatest of the Christian Aristotelian commentators.

11

The fact that Thomas used these new translations does not mean that he used these texts exclusively. In fact, Thomas used older translations as well. For a discussion of Thomas’s use of the Moerbeke translations, see James A. Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas d’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1983), 149–52.

39

Chapter  4 The Divine Attributes

T

he philosophical and theological discussion concerning the possibility of determining divine attributes has a long, complex history. For the most part, this discussion has led philosophers and theologians to conclude that these attributes are best described in negative terms. That is to say, these same writers have determined that it is preferable to approach this question starting with a consideration of terms and notions that show how God cannot be described rather than with those that reveal how God can be described. One of the most important participants in the long history of this question was Philo. Jean Daniélou has shown how Philo established the terms of the discussion within the broader context of a consideration of divine transcendence: It was no longer enough to demonstrate, in opposition to popular paganism, that God was spiritual; it was also necessary to prove his transcendence in order to combat philosophic rationalism. In this field Philo made a considerable contribution to the creation of a vocabulary for use in negative statements about God, either by adapting to the subject of God terms originally used for other purposes, or by inventing new ones. That which differentiates this terminology from the kind already considered is its technical character, deriving as it does from an eclectic philosophical vocabulary, predominantly that of the Aristotelian and Stoic schools which had provided the language of logic and physics.1  1

Jean Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, ed. and trans. John Austin Baker (London: Westminster Press, 1973), 326.

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

It is not insignificant that Philo had already developed the philosophical vocabulary for this discussion over one thousand years before the time of Maimonides. Although neither Thomas nor Maimonides ever refer to Philo by name in their discussions of this question, it is clear that both philosophers inherited the philosophical vocabulary to address this issue indirectly from Philo. It is obvious from Maimonides’s discussion of the divine attributes in the Guide that this issue had been examined at length by writers Maimonides knew well. One of the most important of these authors was the tenth-century philosopher and rabbi, Saddya Gaon, who, in his Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, described three logical aspects of God that reason can discover from the notion that God is the Creator: By means of our faculty of ratiocination it becomes clear to us that creation is impossible without power, and that power is impossible without life, and that well-ordered creation presupposes an intelligence which knows in advance the result of its activities. Our reason discovers these three aspects of the notion of a Creator in a single flash of intuition, as one reality. For the very idea that God is the Creator involves the attribution to Him of Life, Power, and Wisdom, as I explained. Reason can in no way find one of these three aspects prior to the other, but arrives at all of them at one stroke, since it cannot possibly conceive of God as Creator without conceiving of Him as endowed with Life and Power, and it cannot think of a complete and well-ordered creation otherwise than as the product of an intelligence capable of knowing in advance the result of its activities.2

The philosophical sophistication with which Saddya discusses this subject makes it obvious that this is not a question that he is considering for the first time. In fact, he is working within a tradition that already exists among Muslim philosophers. However, Saddya’s description of the way in which reason “in a single flash of intuition” grasps the attributes of life, power, and wisdom is his own. In effect, what Saddya is really describing is how reason understands God’s essence, not in itself, but as an expression of these three aspects. Unlike many writers who write on this question, Saddya describes the power of reason in a way that is positive. His treatment of the divine attributes is also different  2

Saddya Gaon, Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, ed. Alexander Altmann, in Three Jewish Philosophers (New York, Atheneum, 1969), 82. For a very concise discussion of Saddya and the question of the divine attributes see Harry A. Wolfson, “Saadia on the Problem of Attributes,” in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974), 2:1009–21.

41

42

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

from the view defended by Maimonides. This point, however, should not surprise us since Maimonides was often quite negative in his assessment of writers who belonged to the tradition of Jewish kalam.3 In order for us to understand Maimonides’s view on this crucial issue we need to take a closer look at his treatment of this subject in the Guide for the Perplexed. In Guide, book one, chapter 53, Maimonides informs his readers that men have long since believed in the existence of divine attributes because they read the Bible literally: The circumstance which caused men to believe in the existence of divine attributes is similar to that which caused others to believe in the corporeality of God. The latter have not arrived at that belief by speculation, but by following the literal sense of certain passages in the Bible. The same is the case with the attributes; when in the books of the Prophets and of the Law, God is described by attributes, such passages are taken in their literal sense, and it is then believed that God possesses attributes.

Maimonides, however, who is above all else resistant to an interpretation of the Bible which is limited to the literal sense, does not agree with these readers. He, like Philo, is very reluctant to acknowledge that we can know any positive attributes regarding God’s essence. In the following chapter (Guide, book one, 54), Maimonides tells us that Moses himself taught that the only kinds of divine attributes that we could know were attributes of action: The wisest man, our Teacher Moses, asked two things of God, and received a reply respecting both. The one thing he asked was, that God should let him know His true essence; the other, which in fact he asked first, that God should let him know His attributes. In answer to both these petitions God promised that He would let him know all His attributes, and that these were nothing but His actions.4

Later in the same chapter, Maimonides specifies which of the works of God are those that constitute his attributes of action: Consequently the knowledge of the works of God is the knowledge of His attributes, by which he can be known. The fact that God promised Sarah Stroumsa, “Saadya and Jewish Kalam,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 88–89.  4 Maimonides, Guide, 75.  3 See

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

Moses to give him a knowledge of His works, may be inferred from the circumstance that God taught him such attributes as refer exclusively to His works, viz., “merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness,” etc., (Exod. 34, 6). It is therefore clear that the ways which Moses wished to know, and which God taught him, are the actions emanating from God. Our Sages call them middot (qualities), and speak of the thirteen middoth of God.5

Maimonides cannot deny that these attributes of action are a way for us to know God; however, these attributes are known by tradition rather than by philosophical disputation. Another way of making this point is to say that these middoth are known through divine revelation rather than by philosophical proofs. In Guide, book one, chapter 56, Maimonides states that no qualifying attribute can be ascribed to the divine essence: Thus those who believe in the presence of essential attributes in God viz., Existence, Life, Power, Wisdom, and Will, should know that these attributes, when applied to God, have not the same meaning as when applied to us, and that the difference does not only consist in magnitude, or in the degree of perfection, stability, and durability. It cannot be said . . . that His existence is only more stable, His life more permanent, His power greater, His wisdom more perfect, and His will more general than ours, and that the same definition applies to both. This is in no way admissible, for the expression “more than” is used in comparing two things as regards a certain attribute predicated of both of them in exactly the same sense, and consequently implies similarity [between God and His creatures]. When they ascribe to God essential attributes, these so-called essential attributes should not have any similarity to the attributes of other things, and should according to their own opinion not be included in one of the same definition, just as there is no similarity between the essence of God and that of other beings.6

The point that Maimonides insists on here is that when we compare human existence, life, power, wisdom, or will with these same attributes as they apply to God, we are comparing apples and oranges. At the root of the problem is the notion that God’s essence is unlike that of any other being. One of the best explanations of this doctrine is provided by Julius  5  6

Ibid., 75–76. Ibid., 79.

43

44

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Guttmann, who has shown that Maimonides’ teaching is perfectly consistent with his understanding of God: The critical portion of Maimonides’ doctrine of attributes, his demonstration of the impossibility of predicating positive attributes of God, is essentially only an explication of the logical consequences implicit in his concept of God. Inasmuch as the dualism of subject and object in every proposition involves a plurality of conceptual determinations, the absolute simplicity of God excludes any predicative propositions. This basic idea is rendered fully evident by illustrating, with concrete examples, the various possibilities of positive statements about God. The properties which we predicate of God cannot be essentially different than his essence; if they were, the unification of essence and properties would imply plurality in God. Neither can they be considered part of the divine essence, for then this essence itself would contain a plurality of determinations.

If all of this seems far too complicated, Guttmann provides a very clear summary of this complex issue: A definition of the divine essence is impossible on two grounds: a strict definition, the reduction of the defined concept to its conditions, can apply only to a contingent being, which God is not; whereas a definition listing individual characteristics can apply only to a composite entity. No positive statement about God can thus go beyond the mere tautology that God is God.7

Therefore, according to Maimonides, any predication of God that violates this principle of the divine simplicity is false. All positive attributes are thus excluded from our understanding of God’s essence. In traditional theological terms, our approach to God must be through negative or apophatic theology, as Joel Kraemer states: When essential attributes are ascribed to God, they must be thought of as ascribed in a negative sense. When we say that God exists, we mean that his nonexistence is impossible. To say that he is living means that he is not nonexistent. This approach is the via negativa, the “negative way,” which denies that God can be described by positive attributes, such as “alive” and “knowing,” but only by saying what he is not, as in “God is not ignorant.” Nothing about God can be expressed in language; he is ineffable.8 Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig, trans. David W. Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), 159.  8 Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 382.  7

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

While it is true that the via negativa has a long theological history, this approach presents special problems when it is employed within the context of a religious tradition which is historical by its very nature. The God of Abraham and Moses is not presented in purely negative terms in biblical texts. This God is a God who acts, who performs miracles, who can sometimes even become angry. When Maimonides tells his readers that this same God must be understood philosophically in exclusively negative terms a transformation takes place, as Alfred Ivry argues: In as thorough a manner as possible, Maimonides removes every human and personal aspect of the Deity, every attribute by which he is conceived and depicted. Maimonides does this in the belief that predicating attributes of God introduces plurality and corporeality into the unique simplicity of God, thereby returning Judaism to the pagan world from which it came. Maimonides has a philosophical animus against idolatry, which for him equals false beliefs about God. This animus drives his exegetical engine ruthlessly and for the most part turns the historic God of Israel into an ahistoric Deity.9

This is not an insignificant point. In an attempt to avoid idolatry, Maimonides turns the God of Israel into what almost sounds like an impersonal abstraction. Unless one understands what Maimonides is trying to accomplish in this section of the Guide, one might get the impression that Maimonides defends a form of agnosticism. Thomas Aquinas does not agree with Maimonides on this question. In fact, in Summa Theologiae I, question 13, article 2, where Thomas discusses whether affirmative attributes such as goodness can be applied to God, he mentions Rabbi Moses: Some have said that sentences like “God is good,” although they sound like affirmations are in fact used to deny something of God rather than to assert anything. Thus for example when we say that God is living we mean that God is not like an inanimate thing, and likewise for all such propositions. This was the view of the Rabbi Moses.10 Alfred Ivry, “The Guide and Maimonides’ Philosophical Sources,” in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, ed. Kenneth Seeskin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 64. 10 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.13, art. 2. Translation taken from Blackfriars ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964).  9

45

46

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Clearly, Thomas was quite familiar with the standard arguments that had been proposed on this question and had studied the position defended by Maimonides. The solution offered by Thomas is quite revealing: We shall suggest that such words do say what God is; they are predicated of him in the category of substance, but fail to represent adequately what he is. The reason for this is that we speak of God as we know him, and since we know him from creatures we can only speak of him as they represent him. Any creature, in so far as it possesses any perfection represents God and is like to him, for he, being simply and universally perfect, has pre-existing in himself the perfections of all his creatures . . . But a creature is not like to God as it is like to another member of its species or genus, but resembles him as an effect may in some way resemble a transcendent cause although failing to reproduce perfectly the form of the cause—as in a certain way the forms of inferior bodies imitate the power of the sun . . . Thus words like “good” and “wise” when used of God do signify something that God really is, but they signify it imperfectly because creatures represent God imperfectly. (ST I, q. 13, art. 2)

In this complex explanation of how these attributes must be understood, Thomas clearly distinguishes between God as He exists in himself, and God in “as we know him.” Thomas also explains how we know God through the perfections of creatures, which represent God through his effects as a kind of likeness. This knowledge is imperfect, but it is, nevertheless, knowledge of God. In his discussion of these attributes in the Guide, Maimonides says nothing of God’s effects on creatures. For him, these attributes are only names when applied to God. That is to say, these terms are names and nothing else. We are not privy to the knowledge of God which Thomas believes we are able to perceive, although indirectly, through our observation of creatures. On the question of how we are to characterize this ­knowledge of God through his effects, John Wippel has argued that: In the case of God . . . [t]his likeness is neither specific nor generic but only analogical in the way the act of being (esse) itself is common to all things. It is in this way that God’s effects, insofar as they are beings (entia), are like or similar to him as the first and universal principle of all (other) being (esse).

Wippel is drawing a parallel between our knowledge of God through his effects in ontological terms. We know God’s effects in the same way as we

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

know the act of being, analogically. Wippel then informs us of the limitations that characterize this kind of knowledge: Consequently, while he has defended the possibility of our arriving at some kind of knowledge of God which is not purely negative but which may be described as proper, substantial, and analogical, Thomas would have us never forget the considerable limitations to which such knowledge is subject. It will of course never be comprehensive or, in this life, quidditative. It will always be subject to the need to deny of God the creaturely modus significandi we employ in predicating names of him. It will never enable us to apply names univocally to God and creatures but only analogically, at best.11

Here I am not convinced by Wippel’s argument. His view, that our knowledge of God is only analogical “at best,” is very similar to the position defended by Maimonides. Indeed, if this knowledge is “at best” analogical, what kind of knowledge is it? Wippel has stated very clearly that such knowledge can “never be comprehensive or, in this life, quidditative,” but what kind of knowledge can we have? In Guide, book one, chapter 56, Maimonides states that “there is, in no way or sense, anything common to the attributes predicated of God, and those used in reference to ourselves; they have only the same names, and nothing else is common to them.”12 If Wippel and Maimonides share this view, Thomas certainly does not. For Thomas, our intellects know God from creatures because “[a]ny creature, in so far as it possesses any perfection, represents God and is like to him, for he, being simply and universally perfect, has pre-existing in himself the perfections of all his creatures.” Our intellects know much more than mere names. As Thomas states, these same c­ reatures resemble God “as an effect may in some way resemble a transcendent cause, although failing to reproduce perfectly the form of the cause.” David Burrell has observed that this relationship between creatures and God is the key to understanding Thomas’s position in this discussion. Burrell states that Thomas focuses on the ordering that relates creature with Creator, and suggests that certain words may be especially useful to articulate that order—namely,

Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 574–75. 12 Maimonides, Guide, 80. 11 John

47

48

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

those that express the perfections that accrue to creatures from their source, and orient rational creatures to that same source as their goal.13

Wippel is correct when he underscores the importance of the analogical character of this knowledge; Thomas himself stresses the importance of analogical knowledge throughout question 13. It is also true that we do perceive a kind of likeness; nevertheless, Thomas is more willing to accept our knowledge of the divine attributes than Maimonides, because for Thomas the knowledge we perceive from creatures is more than analogous knowledge. In creatures we perceive the divine perfection. Yes, our knowledge is imperfect, but it is ultimately an indirect knowledge of the divine substance. Our use of these terms is, therefore, appropriate yet imperfect. We are thus able to capture an aspect of the divine perfection with our human language. Burrell further clarifies this point: Aquinas can then insist that terms can “signify what God is although they do so imperfectly” and show as well how their distinct meanings do not imply a plurality of features in God. Attention to language, coupled with explicit reliance on the order following upon creation, enables him to clarify issues that so vexed Islamic thinkers: “since we know God from creatures, we understand him through concepts appropriate to the perfections creatures receive from him.” I would argue that this same difficulty was the very problem that so vexed Maimonides, who had inherited so much of his philosophical knowledge from his Islamic sources. Burrell continues: The language of perfections must outstrip itself, as we have seen, so we are entitled to project it responsibly to its transcendent source while renouncing any claim to thoroughly understanding that use: “such terms signify what God is . . . imperfectly.” One reason we cannot attain an adequate grasp of the transcendent application of these terms is that such perfections must “pre-exist in God in a simple and unified way,” since asserting that God is just is not so much to discover that God is characterized by justice, or even to celebrate God as the source of justice, but to encourage us to reflect on how such a source itself might exist, even when its mode of existence will escape our characterization.14 David Burrell, “Aquinas’s Debt to Maimonides,” in A Straight Path: Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman—Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture, Ruth Link-Salinger et al. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 40. 14 David Burrell, “Aquinas and Jewish and Islamic Authors,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 71–72. 13

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

Our understanding of God expressed in these terms is, indeed, an imperfect knowledge of God’s perfection through our knowledge of creatures. Nevertheless, it is positive knowledge, though of a very limited kind. When we work our way back to God through the perfections of creatures we eventually arrive at an indirect glimpse of perfection itself. Although we can never achieve a full or complete knowledge of God’s essence, we can attain an imperfect knowledge of God as Creator through the perfections of these same creatures. In Summa Theologiae I, question 13, article 6, Thomas directly addresses the question of the analogical use of terms: Whenever a word is used analogically of many things, it is used of them because of some order or relation they have to some central thing. In order to explain an extended or analogical use of a word it is necessary to mention this central thing. Thus you cannot explain what you mean by a “healthy” diet without mentioning the health of the man of which is the symptom of that health. The primary application of the word is to the central thing that has to be understood first; other applications will be more or less secondary in so far as they approximate to this use. Thus all words used metaphorically of God apply primarily to creatures and secondarily to God. When used of God they signify merely a certain parallelism between God and the creature.

After this brief explanation, Thomas returns to the question at hand, of whether words like “good” or “wise” describe something real about God: When we say he is good or wise we do not simply mean that he causes wisdom or goodness, but that he possesses these perfections transcendently. We conclude, therefore, that from the point of view of what the word means it is used primarily of God and derivatively of creatures, for what the word means—the perfection it signifies—flows from God to the creature. But from the point of view of our use of the word we apply it first to creatures because we know them first. (ST 1, q. 13, art. 6)

These words do signify, in the most profound sense of the terms, something real about the perfection of God. They describe the perfection that “flows from God to the creature.” Our use of the terms is first applied to creatures “because we know them first” through sensory knowledge. In Summa Theologiae I, question 13, article 11, Thomas offers a further elaboration of how our language can be used to describe something real about God. In this article Thomas considers the question of whether He

49

50

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Who Is (Qui Est) is the most appropriate name for God. His answer is that this name indeed is the most appropriate. The first reason Thomas gives is because of the meaning of the expression Qui Est: Firstly because of its meaning; for it does not signify any particular form, but rather existence itself. Since the existence of God is his essence and since this is true of nothing else, as we have shown, it is clear that this name is especially appropriate to God, for the meaning of a name is the form of the thing named.

This expression best describes the essence of God, because its meaning describes existence itself. In no other case does the existence of a being express its essence. Thomas continues with his second reason: Secondly because of its universality. All other names are either less general or, if not, they at least add some nuance of meaning which restricts and determines the original sense. In this life our minds cannot grasp what God is in himself; whatever way we have of thinking of him is a way of failing to understand him as he really is. So the less determinate our names are and the more general and simple they are, the more appropriately they may be applied to God . . . any other name selects some particular aspect of the being of the thing, but He Who Is (Qui Est) fixes on no aspect of being but stands open to all and refers to him as to an infinite ocean of being. (ST I, q. 13, art. 11)

In the same way that being covers “an infinite ocean,” this expression (Qui Est) is most appropriate because of its generality. Thomas concludes this article with an observation about the verb tense of est: “Thirdly it is appropriate because of its tense: for it signifies being in the present and this is especially appropriate to God whose being knows neither past nor future, as Augustine says.” While this last point might seem trivial at first, it is actually extremely important. The verb form est has profound meaning for Thomas, not only for the ontological reality that it describes, but also because the complete expression Qui Est can be understood to provide the most accurate philosophical description of the divine essence that our human language can possibly express.15 Obviously, this description of God comes from Exodus 3:14. Maimonides knew this text long before Thomas, and in the Guide, book 15

This same point was made by Etienne Gilson many years ago. In fact, Gilson considered this passage one of the foundational texts for Thomas’s philosophy of being. For an example of Gilson’s interpretation, see his Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1961), 33.

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

one, chapter 63, he explains both the linguistic and the philosophical implications of the expression: Then God taught Moses how to teach them, and how to establish amongst them the belief in the existence of Himself, namely, by saying Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, a name derived from the verb hayah in the sense of “existing,” for the verb hayah denotes “to be,” and in Hebrew no difference is made between the verbs “to be” and “to exist.” The principal point in this phrase is that the same word which denotes “existence,” is repeated as an attribute . . . The first noun which is to be described is ehyeh; the second, by which the first is described, is likewise ehyeh, the identical word, as if to show that the object which is to be described and the attribute by which it is described are in this case necessarily identical. This is, therefore, the expression of the idea that God exists, but not in the ordinary sense of the term; or, in other words, He is “the existing Being which is the existing Being,” that is to say, the Being whose existence is absolute. The proof which he was to give consisted in demonstrating that there is a Being of absolute existence, that has never been and never will be without existence.16

In his very careful exegetical explanation, Maimonides stresses the ontological dimension of the passage when he clarifies the meaning of the “Being whose existence is absolute.” Surely, Thomas knew this section of the Guide. The question we must ask is whether Thomas based his own philosophical interpretation of this passage on this one presented by Maimonides in the Guide. Thomas’s reading of the passage is slightly different, but it seems reasonable to assume that his brilliant philosophical interpretation of the text was based, at least in part, on the explanation that Maimonides had already offered. In Summa Theologiae I, question 13, article 11, Thomas returns to the question of which name is the most appropriate for God. Again, Thomas discusses the meaning of Qui Est (He Who Is). In his answer to the first objection (i.e., that He Who Is is not the most appropriate name for God), Thomas offers a further clarification: “He Who Is” is more appropriate than “God” because of what makes us use the name in the first place, i.e., his existence, because of the unrestricted way in which it signifies him, and because of its tense, as we have just said. But when we consider what the word is used to mean, we must admit that “God” is more appropriate for this is used to signify the divine nature. Even more appropriate is the Tetragrammaton which is used to signify the incommunicable and, if we could say such a thing, individual substance of God. (ST I, q. 13, art. 11) 16 Maimonides,

Guide, 94–95.

51

52

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

While Qui Est is the name that best captures the philosophical description of God (the unity of his existence and his essence), the most appropriate name for God is expressed in the Tetragrammaton. Maimonides discusses this same point in much greater detail in the Guide, book one, chapter 61. He begins with an explanation of the meaning of the term: It is well known that all the names of God occurring in scripture are derived from His actions, except one, namely, the Tetragrammaton, which consists of the letters yod, hé, vau and hé. This name is applied exclusively to God, and is on that account called Shem ha-meforash “The nomen proprium.” It is the distinct and exclusive designation of the Divine Being; whilst His other names are common nouns, and are derived from actions, to which some of our own are similar, as we have already explained.17

Maimonides follows this linguistic description with an explanation of the historical context of the term and then with an explication of the possible philosophical and theological meaning: This sacred name, which, as you know, was not pronounced except in the sanctuary by the appointed priests, when they gave the sacerdotal blessing, and by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, undoubtedly denotes something which is peculiar to God, and is not found in any other being. It is possible that in the Hebrew language, of which we have now but a slight knowledge, the Tetragrammaton, in the way it was pronounced, conveyed the meaning of “absolute existence.” In short, the majesty of the name and the great dread of uttering it, are connected with the fact that it denotes God Himself.18

Maimonides was convinced that this term was the most accurate name because it refers to God himself. He also stressed the importance of “absolute existence” as a core meaning of the Tetragrammaton. Thomas Aquinas, who knew no Hebrew, more than likely learned about the Tetragrammaton from the Guide. The literal meaning of this term from Greek is “four letters.” The most common transliteration into Latin is YHWH. Traditionally, the Tetragrammaton is so sacred for religious Jews that it is not to be uttered or written in full. Philo, in his beautiful explication of the symbolic 17 18

Ibid., 89. Ibid., 90.

The D i v i n e Attr i bu tes Ch a p t e r 4

­ eaning of the vestments of the high priest in his Life of Moses, refers to m the Tetragrammaton obliquely: [A]nd a golden leaf was wrought like a crown, having four names engraved on it which may only be mentioned or heard by holy men having their ears and their tongues purified by wisdom, and by no one else at all in any place whatever. And this holy prophet Moses calls the name, a name of our letters, making them perhaps symbols of the primary numbers, the unit, the number two, the number three, the number four: since all things are comprised in the number four, namely, a point, and a line, and a superficies, and a solid, and the measure of all things and the most excellent symphonies of music, and the diatessaron in the sesquitertial proportion and the chord in fifths, in the ration of one and a half to one, and the diapason in the double ratio, and the double diapason in the fourfold ration.19

Only those “holy men having their ears and their tongues purified by wisdom” may utter or even hear this most holy name. Moses, however, calls out this name. Moses is allowed to do this because he is the greatest of the prophets. Obviously, Philo had a profound grasp of the symbolism of the four-lettered name. Without mentioning the name itself, he reveals the mathematical and musical dimensions of the “name of names.”

19

Philo Judaeus, Life of Moses, in The Essential Philo, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 253.

53

Chapter  5 In the Beginning

A

lthough the Guide for the Perplexed is a very complex work, as we stated earlier, one of the most important facets of the text is the author’s attempt to elucidate many of the central doctrines of Judaism in philosophical terms. Thus, a biblical passage like the Genesis account of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden is explained as a change from the time before the Fall, when human beings could understand God and the world in purely speculative terms to the time after the Fall when the “purity” of the speculative intellect would be clouded by the veil of sin and human beings would understand the world through the lens of the practical intellect. After the Fall, Adam and Eve understand that they are naked, and they are forced to live in a world of good and evil where the consideration of moral questions becomes the major concern: When Adam was yet in a state of innocence, and was guided solely by reflection and reason . . . he was not at all able to follow or to understand the principles of apparent truths; the most manifest impropriety, viz., to appear in a state of nudity, was nothing unbecoming according to his idea: he could not comprehend why it should be so. After man’s disobedience, however, when he began to give way to desires which had their source in his imagination and to the gratification of his bodily appetites, as it is said, “And the wife saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to the eyes” (Gen. iii. 6), he was punished by the loss of part of that intellectual faculty which he had previously possessed. He therefore transgressed a command with which he

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

had been charged on the score of his reason; and having obtained a knowledge of the apparent truths, he was wholly absorbed in the study of what is proper and what improper. Then he fully understood the magnitude of the loss he had sustained, what he had forfeited, and in what situation he was thereby placed. (Guide 1.2)1

From Maimonides’s remarks it is clear that this entire commentary is philosophical. The expulsion from the garden is understood as an epistemic change, with the corresponding change in self-awareness. This kind of allegorical and philosophical interpretation is what most characterizes the biblical commentary found in the Guide, as Alfred Ivry has shown: To Maimonides . . . allegory opens the door to appreciating the Bible as a philosophical document. This does not mean that the Bible offers philosophical arguments, simply that it assumes and exemplifies the conclusions of such arguments. When read correctly, the Bible for Maimonides is c­ ompatible with philosophy, or rather with that portion of philosophy that has established itself as incontrovertible. In this way, the Guide not only legitimates philosophy for the believer, it legitimates the Bible for the philosopher.2

This allegorical reading does, indeed, open the door to a new way of reading biblical texts. Maimonides’s philosophical interpretation of the Fall in the Guide did not go unnoticed by his readers.3 Maimonides is committed to a philosophical understanding of theological matters in the Guide; he must, therefore, defend the notion that philosophical principles and scientific proofs are valid tools for understanding religious truths. We see this approach at work in Guide, book two, chapter 25 in Maimonides’s discussion of one of the most vexatious problems for the religious philosopher, the eternity of the Universe: Owing to the absence of all proof, we reject the theory of the Eternity of the Universe; and it is for this very reason that the noblest minds spent and will spend their days in research. For if the Creation had been demonstrated Guide, 15. Alfred L. Ivry, “The Guide and Maimonides’ Philosophical Sources,” in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, ed. Kenneth Seeskin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 66.  3 Although there is a vast literature in which this very controversial section of the Guide is discussed, one especially helpful essay is that of Shlomo Pines, “Truth and Falsehood Versus Good and Evil. A Study in Jewish and General Philosophy in Connection with the Guide of the Perplexed, I, 2” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 95–157.  1 Maimonides,  2

55

56

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

by proof, even if only according to the Platonic hypothesis, all arguments of the philosophers against us would be of no avail. If, on the other hand, Aristotle had a proof for his theory, the whole teaching of Scripture would be rejected, and we should be forced to other opinions. I have thus shown that all depends on this question.4

Maimonides states that no philosophical argument has been proposed that proves conclusively that the universe was created. He argues that if this point “had been demonstrated by proof, even if only according to the Platonic hypothesis,” the philosophical dispute would be settled. While Maimonides is often not as impressed with Platonic theories as he is with the Aristotelian, he does take this Platonic hypothesis seriously. He then states that the existence of an Aristotelian proof on this crucial question would negate “the whole teaching of Scripture.” This is, indeed, a remarkable statement; however, we must not underestimate the importance that the established scientific theories of his day had for Maimonides. Charles Manekin writes: Maimonides definitely does not want to undermine Aristotelianism as the preeminent scientific theory of the way the world works. What he does want to undermine is a certain metaphysical and theological conclusion that had been drawn from Aristotelianism, namely, that God lacks the power to alter or vary the world of which He is First Cause. To do this he maintains that the thesis of the world’s eternity is not entailed by Aristotle’s scientific principles, or at least by his scientific principles worth accepting. By focusing on the issue of the entailment of the world’s eternity, he preserves his reader’s confidence in the principles themselves. Or to put this another way: Aristotle’s principles offer the best scientific explanation we have for the way the world operates, especially . . . in the sublunary realm. But we must be careful not to draw far-reaching and insufficiently-supported conclusions from those principles.5

On this crucial question Maimonides cannot simply disregard the most widely accepted scientific principles of his time. If he had decided to ignore the Aristotelian thesis he would have defeated his purpose in the Guide. His strategy must be to argue logically and scientifically that the thesis that the universe had a beginning is just as plausible as the theory that the universe is eternal. Otherwise, his project has failed. The best and most convincing way to achieve this goal is for Maimonides to show that Aristotle defends Guide, 200. Charles H. Manekin, On Maimonides (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), 43.

 4 Maimonides,  5

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

the “eternity thesis” as a plausible theory, rather than a proven conclusion. He must then demonstrate that the “creation thesis” is also plausible. In order to make his case, Maimonides first presents Aristotle’s thesis: Aristotle maintains . . . that a corporeal object cannot be produced without a corporeal substance. He goes, however, farther, and contends that the heavens are indestructible. For he holds that the Universe in its totality has never been different, nor will it ever change: the heavens, which form the permanent element in the Universe, and are not subject to genesis and destruction, have always been so; time and motion are eternal, permanent, and have neither beginning nor end; the sublunary world, which includes the transient elements, has always been the same, because the materia prima is itself eternal, and merely combines successively with different forms; when one form is removed, another is assumed. This whole arrangement, therefore, both above and here below, is never disturbed or interrupted, and nothing is produced contrary to the laws or the ordinary course of Nature. (Guide 2.13)6

Maimonides then explains the core issue in terms that are far more theological, turning Aristotle into a religious thinker who conceives of God in anthropomorphic terms: He further says—though not in the same terms—that he considers it impossible for God to change His will or conceive a new desire; that God produced this Universe in its totality by His will, but not from nothing. Aristotle finds it as impossible to assume that God changes His will or conceives a new desire, as to believe that he is non-existing, or that His essence is changeable. Hence it follows that his Universe has always been the same in the past, and will be the same eternally. (Guide 2.13)7

Maimonides’s task is now clear. In order to demonstrate that the first part of the account is suspect he must show that the universe is subject to change and that time and motion are neither eternal nor permanent. The argument that Maimonides uses to prove his point is that we cannot assume from the condition of the universe now that it was always the same. After giving a few specific examples of things that change in the world around us, he states the following: In short, the properties of things when fully developed contain no clue as to what have been the properties of the things before their perfection.  6 Maimonides,  7

Ibid., 173.

Guide, 173.

57

58

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

We therefore do not reflect as impossible the opinion of those who say that the heavens were produced before the earth, or the reverse, or that the heavens have existed without stars, or that certain species of animals have been in existence, and others not. (Guide 2.17)8

Once Maimonides has convinced us that the universe is subject to change, the notion of the eternal universe becomes suspect. In order to refute the second part of this account (which is of more crucial theological importance) Maimonides must show that it is possible for God to “conceive a new desire”; that is to say, that it is possible for God to will something new. He will also need to demonstrate that this change does not constitute a change in God’s essence. The best way to show that the will of God can change is to show how corporeal beings and spiritual beings function differently. Maimonides will then argue that corporeal beings act in accord with external causes, while spiritual beings act out of pure will: The true essence of the will of a being is simply the faculty of conceiving a desire at one time and not conceiving it at another. In the case of corporeal beings, the will which aims at a certain external object changes according to obstacles and circumstances. But the will of an absolutely spiritual being which does not depend on external causes is unchangeable, and the fact that the being desires one thing one day and another thing another day, does not imply a change in the essence of that being, or necessitate the existence of an external cause [for this change in the desire]. It is now clear that the term “will” is homonymously used of man’s will and of the will of God, there being no comparison whatever between God’s will and that of man. (Guide 2.18)9

In Guide, book two, chapter 26, Maimonides offers an additional solution to the question of the eternity of the universe following the teachings of Rabbi Eliezer (one of the teachers of Rabbi Akiva). The solution to the problem proposed is that there are, in fact, two kinds of substance: one from heaven, “belonging to God,” which is, therefore, eternal, and one from earth, which is inferior. To make his point Maimonides quotes from Bereshit Rabba (chapter 12): “R. Eliezer says, The things in the heavens have been created of the heavens, the things on earth of the earth.” One might get the impression that Maimonides wants to have it both ways. That is to say, that he wants to be able to defend the notion of the eternity of the universe by pointing out that heavenly substances “have been created of the heavens,”  8  9

Ibid., 180. Ibid., 183.

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

and are, therefore, eternal, while the “things of the earth” follow the rules that apply to earthly substances and are thus perishable. However, the fact that Maimonides would turn to the teachings of R. Eliezer to resolve this most difficult problem should not surprise the reader. The purpose of the Guide is to help the student understand the teachings of Judaism in a way that is compatible with a philosophical outlook. The solution to the problem of the eternity of the universe must, therefore, be consistent with the logical rigor of philosophy and yet remain in accord with the traditional teachings of the sages. It would be hard to imagine a better solution than this one proposed by the great Rabbi Eliezer. Thomas Aquinas also had to wrestle with the problem of the eternity of the universe. Before Thomas does this, however, he must explain how creation from nothing is possible. Obviously, this question must be answered if one is to resolve the problem of the eternity of the universe. Thomas resolves this problem by addressing the question of the universal cause of existence: Among all effects the most universal is existence itself, which should accordingly be the proper effect of the first and most universal cause, which is God. So then we read in the De causis that neither intelligence nor the noble soul gives existence except as operating with divine activity. Now to produce existence absolutely, not merely of this thing or of that sort of thing, belongs to the meaning of creation. Manifestly creation is the proper action of God himself. (ST I, q. 45, art. 5)

Thomas’s solution is very simple: the most universal effects have to be produced by the most universal causes. The most universal effect is existence. The universal cause of existence is God. God is, therefore, the cause of all existence. In Summa Theologiae I, question 46, Thomas addresses three questions: 1) “Whether creatures have always existed,” 2) “Whether it be an article of faith that there was a beginning to them,” and 3) “How we are to understand the statement that in the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Even though Thomas does not mention Maimonides by name in this section, it is clear that arguments and points that appear in Guide, book one, chapters 73 and 74, and Guide, book two, chapters 13, 14, and 15, also appear in this section of the Summa. Although Thomas did not base his arguments directly on those found in the Guide, it is clear that the same Aristotelian texts (especially Physics, books one, two, three, four, six, and eight; On the Heavens, book one; Metaphysics, books five and nine; and

59

60

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Meteorology, books one and fourteen) and the works of the Aristotelian commentators were common sources for both Thomas and Maimonides. Thomas answers his first question (“Whether creatures have always existed”) in this way: Nothing apart from God has been from all eternity. And this is not to assert the impossible. We have shown that God’s will is the cause of things. So then the necessity of their being is that of God’s willing them, for, to appeal to Aristotle, the necessity of an effect depends on that of the cause. Next it has been established that, to speak without qualification, there is no need for God to will anything but himself. Hence there is no necessity for God to will an everlasting world. Rather the world exists just so long as God wills it to, since its existence depends on his will as on its cause. Therefore its existing always is not from inner necessity, and hence all eternity; everything else exists only because God has willed it. Only the existence of God is necessary. (ST I, q. 46, art. 1)

Only God has always existed. If a creature exists, it because God has willed that it exists. “God’s will is the cause of things.” Therefore, unless God has willed that something exist, is has no cause. In the same article Thomas tells us that Aristotle’s arguments in favor of the eternity of the universe are not absolute, but rather demonstrations of how the view of previous philosophers were false: “Nor do the arguments advanced by Aristotle strictly demonstrate the thesis itself; their force is limited to countering the reasons put forward by the ancients for a beginning to the world in ways veritably out of the question.” This kind of distinction is extremely important for Thomas, whose point is not that Aristotle was wrong, but rather that an absolutely true demonstration of the eternity of the universe is impossible. The arguments of the ancients defending the claim that the world began in time have been shown to be false by Aristotle; this does not mean, however, that Aristotle has shown conclusively that the universe is eternal. In article 2, Thomas continues his treatment of this subject with his response to the second question (“Whether it be an article of faith that there was a beginning to them”): We hold by faith alone, and it cannot be proved by demonstration, that the world did not always exist . . . The reason for this is that the newness of the world cannot be demonstrated from the world itself. For the principle of demonstration is the essence of a thing. Now everything according to the

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

notion of its species abstracts from here and now . . . Hence it cannot be demonstrated that man, or heaven, or a stone did not always exist. Likewise neither can it be demonstrated on the part of the efficient cause, which acts by will. For the will of God cannot be investigated by reason, except as regards those things which God must will of necessity, and what he wills about creatures is not among these . . . But the divine will can be manifested to man by revelation, on which faith rests. Hence that the world began to exist is an object of faith, but not of demonstration or science. (ST I, q.46, art. 2)

Having established this point, Thomas continues his answer to this question with a warning to those who would presume to demonstrate scientifically that the world had a beginning: And it is useful to consider this, lest anyone, presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, should bring forward reasons that are not cogent, so as to give occasion to unbelievers to laugh, thinking that on such reasons we believe things that are of faith. (ST I, q. 46, art. 2)10

We must never make use of arguments that are not “cogent.” Violating this principle leaves us open to the ridicule of unbelievers. In the third and final article of this section (question 46), Thomas offers a fascinating discussion of the nature of time. The question to be answered in this article (“Whether the creation of things was in the beginning of time”) provides Thomas with an excellent opportunity to consider the meaning of time. The article begins with a very difficult objection: For what is not in time is not in any part of time. Now the creation of things is outside time, for through it their substance was brought into existence. Time, however, is not the measure of substance, especially not that of bodiless things. Creation, therefore, was not at the beginning of time. (ST I, q. 46, art. 3)11

Thomas’s reply to this first objection is very simple, but also very impressive: “The phrase about things being created in the beginning of time 10

Here I have not used the Blackfriars edition translation, which I find to be misleading. In this edition, the Latin “Demonstrationis enim principium est quod quid est” is translated “For the principle for demonstrating an object is its definition.” This translation makes Thomas sound like a modern analytical philosopher. I have used instead the translation found in Great Books of the Western World series. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Chicago, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 1952), 1:253–54. 11 Blackfriars, v.8, 85–86.

61

62

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

means that the heavens and earth were created together with time; it does not suggest that the beginning of time was the measure of creation.” The most important point here is that time is not “the measure of creation.” Thomas’s argument is that when heaven and earth were created, time was also created. Thomas is not trying to measure the age of the universe like a modern astronomer, rather he is showing us that only after the heavens and the earth were created could we begin to understand the world in terms of time. Thomas’s response to the third and final objection in this article can be understood as a continuation of his response to the first objection. Thomas’s response is formulated in this way: “Further, even time itself is created. But time cannot be created in the beginning of time, since time is divisible, and the beginning of time is indivisible. Therefore, the creation of things was not in the beginning of time.” The reply to the objections addresses the nature of how we perceive time: “Nothing is made except as it exists. But nothing exists of time except now. Hence time cannot be made except according to some now; not because there is time in the first now, but because from it time begins.”12 Once again, Thomas is showing us how time works. In the first place, our understanding of anything that exists is an understanding of it as it exists now. Secondly, time begins only after something exists. If nothing existed, time would not exist. In the century before Thomas Aquinas, the same strong commitment to finding philosophical solutions to revealed truths made Maimonides a controversial writer among many of his coreligionists. The philosophical (i.e., Aristotelian) character of the Guide has been the subject of intense debate for centuries. Some writers have noted how different the teachings of the Guide are from those of other, more religious works of Maimonides. Jacob Emden (1697–1776), the noted polemicist from the eighteenth century, argued that in order to protect the reputation of Maimonides it was the “duty” of traditional Jewish readers to conclude that Maimonides was not, in fact, the author of the Guide. Emden was convinced that the author of the Mishneh Torah could not also have been the author of the Guide for the Perplexed.13 More recently, Charles Manekin has shown quite convincingly that 12

13

Great Books, 255. See Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 420–22.

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

the Guide and the Mishneh Torah bear great similarities even in matters of cosmology: Yet a comparison of what Maimonides has to say in the first four chapters of the Mishneh Torah and the Guide reveals more similarities than differences, not only in matters of philosophical theology, but also in matters of cosmology and celestial physics. In places where Maimonides appears to be skeptical of the possibility of metaphysical knowledge in the Guide, he expresses that same skepticism, albeit in an abbreviated form, in the Mishneh Torah. His views on the celestial spheres and stars in the Mishneh Torah are, with one or two interesting and important exceptions, reproduced in the Guide in the beginning of Part Two. Maimonides does not believe that humans can apprehend God in his true reality either in the Mishneh Torah or in the Guide, but it would be hard to find a medieval philosopher to disagree with him on that point.14

Still other participants in this debate have tried to show that the Guide is a text that must first be decoded to be fully understood. These scholars defend the notion of an “esoteric” message that was hidden from the masses by the author. Foremost among the modern defenders of this way of reading the Guide is Leo Strauss.15 It should be noted that the tradition of esoteric writing and interpretation has a long history before the time of Maimonides.16 The claim that the Guide was written for the very sophisticated reader who would know how to decipher the meaning of the text also has a long history. Aviezer Ravitsky has traced this tradition of interpretation back to the time of Samuel Ibn Tibbon (ca.1165–1232), the first translator of the Guide into Hebrew.17 One of the first important commentators of the Guide also defended an esoteric reading. Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240–ca.1291) wrote three commentaries on the text in which he listed the “secrets” of the work that had been passed on 14

Charles H. Manekin, “Possible Sources of Maimonides’ Theological Conservatism in His Later Writings,” in Maimonides after 800 Years (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 213. 15 See Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, IL: Free Press 1952). 16 Guy G. Stroumsa has traced this tradition in Christian texts from the time of Philo through the patristic era. See Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2005). 17 Aviezer Ravitsky, “The Secrets of the Guide to the Perplexed: Between the Thirteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 159–207.

63

64

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

to him by his teachers. Moshe Idel has described this aspect of Abulafia’s commentaries: All three include the same thirty-six secrets, always arranged in exactly the same order. I have no idea who exactly Abulafia’s masters are who transmitted the list of secrets to him; the single known teacher of Abulafia who was mentioned by him as his teacher of the Guide was R. Hillel of Verone, but nowhere did R. Hillel refer to an oral tradition concerning thirty-six secrets hinted at in the Guide. Nevertheless, I assume that Abulafia’s assertions that such a tradition existed and reached him is to be accepted as reliable.18

This Kabbalistic interpretation of the Guide is itself quite remarkable when one considers the early negative reaction that the work produced in those mystical circles.19 Nevertheless, Abulafia’s commentaries had a powerful impact on many future Kabbalists.20 At the very least, it is clear that the Guide is a complex work in which the reader frequently encounters what seem to be contradictory statements, as Joel Kraemer has noted: “The Guide is a polyvalent text in which contradictory discourses, allusive digressions, and equivocal terms continually intersect to thwart a univocal conclusion of meaning.” Kraemer then offers a possible explanation for this writing style: “In his life, Maimonides had to don a mask and play the game of taqiyya, or prudent dissimulation, feigning Islam on the outside and being a Jew within.”21 Obviously, Kraemer would agree, at least in part, with the esoteric reading of the Guide. Clearly, the search for a philosophical explanation for the creation of the world has a long history in Jewish thought. It should not surprise anyone to discover that Philo, in his philosophical and allegorical commentary on the book of Genesis examines this question at length. In this magnificent commentary, we see Philo addressing many of the same issues that Maimonides and Thomas would consider centuries later. One such issue is the question of whether the creation of the world took place in time: Moses says also: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”: taking the beginning to be, not as some men think, that which is according Moshe Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 59. 19 Ibid., 50. 20 Ibid., 63–70. 21 Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 10. 18

In t h e B eg inning Ch a p t e r 5

to time; for before the world time had no existence, but was created either simultaneously with it, or after it; for since time is the interval of the motion of the heavens, there could not have been any such thing as motion before there was anything which could be moved; but it follows of necessity that it received existence subsequently or simultaneously. It therefore follows also of necessity, that time was created either at the same moment with the world, or later than it—and to venture to assert that it is older than the world is absolutely inconsistent with philosophy.22

Philo’s solution reminds us very much of the explanation proposed by Thomas. On the question of the creation of the world, Philo, who knew the Aristotelian, Platonic, and Stoic traditions well, seems to have been most influenced by the Platonic account in the Timaeus and Plato’s theory of the Ideas. There can be no question but that Philo in philosophical orientation is closest to Plato. Philo, however, did not simply take the Platonic theory of the Ideas and apply it to his philosophical account of creation. He modifies the doctrine, so that the Ideas become the ideas of God. Roberto Radice has explained how important this doctrine was for Philo and how he transformed it: Why does Philo attribute so much significance to this doctrine? The answer to this question probably lies in the theory of creation as articulated in the De opificio, which as we have asserted many times, is the nucleus of Philo’s philosophy. According to that theory the Platonic Ideas are the archetype or perfect forms of the physical world, set to leave their imprint, or rather, to project their image, onto matter. However, while according to Plato the Ideas are eternal and ontologically autonomous, Philo, as we have seen, feels they are created by God-as-architect and are in some sense His thoughts concerning the creation of the world (and later of man and moral values).23

Philo’s theory is, therefore, based to a large extent on Plato’s Ideas, but Philo’s account protects the biblical text by making God the creator of these ideas as well. What we discover here again is that Philo’s way of doing philosophy, where the biblical texts guide philosophical analysis, is the same method later utilized by Maimonides and Thomas.

Philo Judaeus, On the Creation of the World, in The Essential Philo, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 6–7. 23 Roberto Radice, “Philo’s Theology and Theory of Creation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 142. 22

65

Chapter  6 Divine Providence

T

he philosophical debate about providence (the fundamental question of whether God or the gods control or determine what occurs in the world and what happens to human beings) must be considered one of the most fascinating issues in the history of philosophy. Long before the birth of Christianity, pagan philosophers had addressed this question in great detail. The Stoic tradition in particular included pagan authors who composed very important treatises on the question of providence. One of the most well-known of these works is De providentia, authored by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (the younger) (4 BC–65 AD). In this text Seneca defends the notion that providence does, indeed, exist: I am not under duress, I do not submit against my will, I am not god’s slave but his follower, and the more willingly because I know that all things proceed according to a law that is fixed and eternally valid. Fate directs us, and the first hour of our birth determines each man’s span. Cause is linked with cause, and a long chain of events governs all matters public and private. Everything must therefore be borne with fortitude, because events do not, as we suppose, happen but arrive by appointment.1

For Seneca, there is no question in this matter. Providence functions like a long series of causes in which one cause follows another like the links of  1

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca, trans. Moses Hadas (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958), 41.

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

a chain. This process is described as “fixed and eternally valid.” Those who are convinced that providence works in this way believe that it proceeds according to a fixed law. In the same work Seneca explains why good men must suffer bad fortune: Prosperity can come to the vulgar and to ordinary talents, but to triumph over the disasters and terrors of mortal life is the privilege of the great man. To be lucky always and to pass through life without gnawing of the mind is to be ignorant of the half of nature. You are a great man, but how can I know, if Fortune has never given you a chance to display your prowess? You have entered the Olympic games but have no rival; you gain the crown but not the victory.2

It is clear for Seneca that we can never know the greatness of a man who has never had to endure suffering. Therefore, sometimes what we perceive as bad fortune, may in reality be good fortune, because it is necessary for men to overcome difficulties to become truly great. If one is committed to a philosophical explanation of the teachings of either Christianity or Judaism, one must be able to offer a satisfactory interpretation of how this works in philosophical terms. Maimonides addresses this question at length in the Guide. An especially important discussion of this issue begins in Guide, book three, chapter 17. Maimonides describes five different schools of thought concerning the operation of providence. In the first group he includes philosophers like the Epicureans who teach that “there is no providence at all.” The second group includes those who hold that “[w]hilst one part of the Universe owes its existence to Providence, and is under the control of a ruler and governor, another part is abandoned and left to chance.” Aristotle is said to belong to this group. Maimonides then states that Aristotle “holds that God controls the spheres and what they contain” and also that governs species, but this governance does not extend to the individual members. The individual member of the species is left to protect itself by the use of reason: The portion of the materia prima which is still more refined, and is endowed with the intellectual faculty, possesses a special property by which each ­individual, according to the degree of his perfection, is enabled to manage, to calculate, and to discover what is conducive both to the temporary existence of the individual and to the preservation of the species. All other m ­ ovements,  2

Ibid., 36.

67

68

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

however, which are made by the individual members of each species are due to accident; they are not, according to Aristotle, the result of rule and management. (Guide 3.17)3

Ultimately, the individual protects himself and the species to which he belongs with his intellectual faculties. Having examined Aristotle’s position, Maimonides informs us that: Aristotle sees no difference between the falling of a leaf or a stone and the death of the good and noble people in the ship; nor does he distinguish between the destruction of a multitude of ants caused by an ox depositing on them his excrement and the death of worshippers killed by the fall of the house when its foundations give way; nor does he discriminate between the case of a cat killing a mouse that happens to come in her way, or that of a spider catching a fly, and that of a hungry lion meeting a prophet and tearing him. (Guide 3.17)4

Obviously, the great admiration that Maimonides has for Aristotle does not prevent him from ridiculing the philosopher on this crucial question. If one does not defend the idea that providence extends to the individual members of a species, one must accept the possibility that many of the greatest tragedies that happen to individual human beings are either inexplicable or must be explained away as matters of chance or bad fortune. The point is that even though Maimonides is a great admirer of Aristotle, he is quick to point out that Aristotle was clearly wrong about this most important issue. The third group includes those who believe that “there is nothing in the whole Universe, neither a class nor an individual being, that is due to chance; everything is the result of will, intention, and rule.” Justice is received in the afterlife in this system. Here, providence extends all the way to particular things, eliminating the possibility of chance. In the fourth group Maimonides places those who defend the notion that “[m]an has free will; it is therefore intelligible that the Law contains commands and prohibitions, with announcements of reward and punishment.” The problem for Maimonides is that the members of this group believe that everything that happens is determined by God; man’s free will is thus greatly diminished. According to Maimonides,  3 Maimonides,  4

Ibid., 283.

Guide, 283.

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

this same group believes in a series of absurdities. One example is the following: The fact that some persons are born with defects, although they have not sinned previously, is ascribed to the wisdom of God, it being better for those persons to be in such a condition than to be in a normal state, though we do not see why it is better; and they do not suffer thereby any punishment at all, but, on the contrary, enjoy God’s goodness.5

The members of this group also believe that God is absolutely just. In this system “the slaughter of the pious is explained as being for them the source of an increase of reward in future life.” Maimonides attributes these views to the Mu’tazilites, and considers them less reasonable than those of the previous three groups. The fifth view of providence is the view defended by Maimonides himself. He begins his explanation with two extremely important claims: The theory of man’s perfectly free will is one of the fundamental principles of the Law of our Teacher Moses, and of those who follow the Law. According to this principle man does what is in his power to do, by his nature, his choice, and his will; and his action is not due to any faculty created for the purpose. All species of irrational animals likewise move by their own free will. This is the Will of God; that is to say, it is due to the eternal divine will that all living beings should move freely, and that man should have power to act according to his will or choice within the limits of his capacity.

Man by his very nature is free to act. This is so because God has created living beings with this special capacity. Even irrational animals “move by their own free will.” Man, therefore, has the power to act freely “within the limits of his capacity.” Maimonides continues: Another fundamental principle taught by the Law of Moses is this: Wrong cannot be ascribed to God in any way whatever; all evils and afflictions as well as all kinds of happiness of man, whether they concern one individual person or a community, are distributed according to justice; they are the result of strict judgment that admits no wrong whatever. (Guide 3.17)6

 5  6

Ibid., 284. Ibid., 285.

69

70

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Man has free will and no wrong can be ascribed to God. Maimonides continues: “Even when a person suffers pain in consequence of a thorn having entered into his hand, although it is at once drawn out, it is a punishment that has been inflicted on him [for sin], and the least pleasure he enjoys is a reward [for some good action].” Later, in this same chapter (Guide 3.17), Maimonides informs us that the intellect has a crucial role in the action of divine providence: I hold that Divine Providence is related and closely connected with the intellect, because Providence can only proceed from an Intelligent being, from a being that is itself the most perfect Intellect. Those creatures, therefore, which receive part of that intellectual influence, will become subject to the action of Providence in the same proportion as they are acted upon by the Intellect.7

Even though Maimonides was critical of Aristotle’s view, both philosophers place a strong emphasis on the role of the intellect for our understanding of providence. In Guide, book three, chapter 18, Maimonides takes this last point a step further and informs us that divine providence acts in proportion to the intellectual perfection of each individual: The relation of Divine Providence is therefore not the same to all men; the greater the human perfection a person has attained, the greater the benefit he derives from Divine Providence. This benefit is very great in the case of prophets, and varies according to the degree of their prophetic faculty; as it varies in the case of pious and good men according to their piety and uprightness. For it is the intention of the Divine intellectual influence that has inspired the prophets, guided the good in their actions, and perfected the wisdom of the pious. In the same proportion as ignorant and disobedient persons are deficient in that Divine influence, their condition is inferior, and their rank equal to that of irrational beings . . . This belief that God provides for every individual human being in accordance with his merits is one of the fundamental principles on which the Law is founded. (Guide 3.18)8

If we examine this view carefully we can see that for Maimonides whatever happens to a just man happens in accord with that man’s just “deserts.” At the same time, we see that God rewards men in accord with the “human perfection a person has attained.” Those who are “ignorant and disobedient” will  7  8

Ibid., 288. Ibid., 289.

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

have less recourse to “Divine influence.” Julius Guttman has observed that for Maimonides human perfection is more intellectual than ethical in nature: Divine providence does not, therefore, mean interference with the external course of nature, but is transferred to the inner life of man, where it is founded on the natural connection between the human and divine spirit. This naturalistic interpretation of providence realizes its aim only imperfectly, since the intellectual character of the connection between man and God makes the strength of this link dependent on the level of knowledge of the individual human being. Intellectual and not ethical factors are decisive for the rule of Divine Providence.9

Maimonides does not believe in tragic accidents; he believes in a principle of reward and punishment as a result of freely chosen actions. In this system there is neither chance nor injustice; all actions are freely chosen and all result in either reward or punishment. For Maimonides, “ethical factors” are, indeed, less important than intellectual factors for determining how one will be affected by divine providence. This is why he is absolutely convinced that divine providence protects those who are most committed to a knowledge of God. The clearest expression of this principle appears in Guide, book three, chapter 51: “Providence watches over every rational being according to the amount of intellect which that being possesses. Those who are perfect in their perception of God, whose mind is never separated from Him, enjoy always the influence of Providence.”10 Thus, this knowledge of God functions as a protection for those who embrace it: Divine Providence is constantly watching over those who have obtained that blessing which is prepared for those who endeavor to obtain it. If man frees his thoughts from worldly matters, obtains a knowledge of God in the right way, and rejoices in that knowledge, it is impossible that any kind of evil should befall him while he is with God, and God with him. When he does not meditate on God, when he is separated from God, then God is also separated from him; then he is exposed to any evil that might befall him; for it is only that intellectual link with God that secures the presence of Providence and protection from evil accidents. (Guide 3.51)11 Julius Guttman, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig, trans. David W. Silverman (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), 171. 10 Maimonides, Guide, 388. 11 Ibid., 389.  9

71

72

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

It is extremely important to note that this “link with God” is “intellectual.” Providence protects those who have this special kind of ­intellectual knowledge of God. This is what Maimonides means when he refers to those who have obtained “a knowledge of God in the right way.” Providence does, indeed, apply to specific individuals, but only those who possess this special knowledge are protected by divine providence. Thomas Aquinas embraces an entirely different view. In Summa Theologiae I, question 22, article 2, he offers his own explanation of how divine providence works. He begins by stating that: “Certain persons totally denied the existence of providence, as Democritus and the Epicureans, maintaining that the world was made by chance.” Thomas continues with a very brief summary of a second view: “Others taught that incorruptible things only were subject to providence, and corruptible things not in their individual selves, but only according to their species.” This version of providence is the Aristotelian doctrine described by Maimonides. Thomas then informs us that “Rabbi Moses, however, excluded men from the generality of things corruptible, on account of the excellence of the intellect which they possess, but in reference to all else that suffers corruption he adhered to the opinion of the others.” Thomas then offers his own solution to the question: “all things are subject to Divine Providence, not only in general, but even in their own individual selves. This is made evident thus. For since every agent acts for an end, the ordering of effects towards that end extends as far as the causality of the first agent extends.”12 Clearly, this explanation is a metaphysical explanation. Although Maimonides also defended a philosophical understanding of providence, his doctrine is very d ­ ifferent from the metaphysical doctrine Thomas describes. Thomas continues: “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to the principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles; not only of things incorruptible, but also of things corruptible.” Obviously, Thomas is pointing out that he disagrees with the Aristotelian view of providence. Thomas proceeds, underscoring his metaphysical understanding of divine providence: “Since, therefore, the providence of God is nothing less than the type of the order of 12

Throughout this section I will use the English translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province found in Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), 1:129.

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

things towards an end . . . it necessarily follows that all things, as in so far as they participate in being, must likewise be subject to Divine Providence.” Thomas concludes his reply with an examination of divine foreknowledge: It has been shown (ST I, q. XIV, a. II) that God knows all things, both universal and particular. And since His knowledge may be compared to the thing as the knowledge of art to the object of art . . . all things must of ­necessity come under His ordering, just as all things wrought by art are subject to the ordering of that art. (ST I, q. 22, art. 2)13

The problem of divine providence cannot be separated from the question of how divine foreknowledge operates. The metaphor of the artist and the object of art helps us understand this extremely complex problem. Now that Thomas has explained how divine providence works, he must show how this doctrine affects human beings. Or, to put the matter differently, we need to know why bad things happen to good people. Thomas addresses this concern in his reply to the second objection: One who provides universally allows some defect to remain, lest the good of the whole should be hindered. Hence, corruption and defects in natural things are said to be contrary to some particular nature; yet they are in keeping with the plan of universal nature, since the defect in one thing yields to the good of another, or even to the universal good; for the corruption of one is the generation of another, by which means the species is conserved. Since God, then, provides universally for all beings, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects, that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered, for if all evil were prevented much good would be absent from the universe. (ST I, q.22, art. 2)14

Thomas brings home his point with a striking example: “there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution of martyrs.” Clearly, Thomas understands that bad things do happen to good and even holy people. Where Thomas differs most from Maimonides is in his view that this sad state of affairs does not exist because these good people are being punished for sins they have committed, but rather so that a greater good may be achieved. Thomas also differs from Maimonides in the way 13 14

Ibid., 129. Ibid., 130.

73

74

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

in which he explains our perception of unforeseen events. Leo Elders has explained how what we perceive as “chance” functions in this system: God is the First Cause, whose causality extends to all beings in their individual characteristics. Hence all things are directed by God to their ends. The fact that everything is subject to God’s providence does not do away with chance at the level of created causality. Certain things may happen which to man are fortuitous, because they are outside his intention, while they are foreseen and intended by God’s encompassing causality.15

It is very important to note here that “God’s encompassing causality” reaches far beyond the level of individual persons. This explanation puts the individual in a much larger context in which God’s providence orders the entire universe. In Summa Theologiae I, question 22, article 4, Thomas offers a further clarification with regard to the operation of divine providence: Divine Providence imposes necessity upon some things, not upon all, as some have believed. For to providence it belongs to order things towards an end. Now after the divine goodness, which is an end separate from all things, the principal good in things themselves is the perfection of the universe, which would not be, were not all grades of being found in things. Hence it pertains to divine providence to produce every grade of being. And thus it has prepared contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the condition of their proximate causes.16

With divine providence, a natural ordering of things takes place. Each thing is ordered to the “perfection of the universe.” In order for providence to work effectively, both necessary and contingent causes are required. In this same article, Thomas mentions Boethius in his third objection. Here, Thomas quotes from The Consolation of Philosophy as if to show that providence imposes a necessary result for human action: “Boethius says (De Consol. Iv, 6) ‘Fate from the immutable source of providence binds together human acts and fortunes by the indissoluble connection of causes.’ It seems therefore that providence imposes necessity upon things foreseen.”17 This objection makes perfect sense if one understands human Leo J. Elders, The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1990), 263. 16 The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 131–32. 17 Ibid., 131. 15

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

actions only in terms of necessary causes. In his reply to this objection, however, Thomas explains: That indissolubility and unchangeableness of which Boethius speaks pertain to the certainty of providence, which does not fail to produce its effect . . . but they do not pertain to the necessity of the effects. We must remember that necessary and contingent are properly consequent upon being as such. Hence the mode both of necessity and of contingency falls under the provision of God, who provides universally for all being, not under the provision of causes that provide only for some particular order of things. (ST I, q. 22, art. 4.)18

This difficult text might be explained in the following way. While it is true that divine providence exists and that it functions always, its effects are not always the same. God provides universally for all being. The specific effects produced are conditioned by the order of being; ultimately, God determines the mode of necessity and contingency for all being. This entire discussion of divine providence is formulated in philosophical, or more specifically, metaphysical terms. In his last reply in question 22, article four, Thomas reminds us that God himself “provides universally for all being.” Therefore, the doctrine of divine providence must be understood as much more than a purely abstract system of necessary and contingent causes. God is spoken of as a provider—“Unde modus contingentiae et necessitatis cadit sub provisione Dei, qui est universalis provisor totius entis”—not as a mere first cause followed by a chain of effects. The term “provisor” selected by Thomas is the perfect word choice here since the “provisor” is both the provider and the one who foresees (provideo).19 In the Summa contra Gentiles, a work that was written to address the concerns of non-Christians as well as Christians, Thomas again takes up the question of divine providence. In book three, chapter 94, he explains how the certainty of providence is linked to God’s perfection: Moreover, Divine Providence must consist in the highest perfection, since He is absolutely and universally perfect . . . So, in the function of providential foresight, by means of the sempiternal meditative act of His wisdom, he orders all things, no matter how detailed they may appear; and whatever things perform any action, they act instrumentally, as moved by Him. And they obediently serve as his ministers in order to unfold in things the order of providence, which has been thought out, as I might say, from eternity. 18 19

Ibid., 132. The Latin text is from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (London: Blackfriars, 1963).

75

76

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

But, if all things able to act must serve as ministers to Him in their action, it is impossible for any agent to block the execution of divine providence by acting in opposition to it. Nor is it possible for divine providence to be hindered by the defect of any agent or patient, since every active and passive power is caused in things in accord with divine disposition. It is also impossible for the execution of divine providence to be impeded by a change in the provident Agent, since God is altogether immutable . . . The conclusion remains, then, that divine foresight is utterly incapable of being frustrated.20

Thomas describes the perfection of divine providence as a reflection of God who is “absolutely and universally perfect.” He then addresses the role of individual agents, informing us that it is simply “impossible for any agent to block the execution of Divine Providence.” This is so because “the order of providence” has been thought out from eternity. While it is absolutely clear that providence extends to all creatures, in book three, chapter 3, Thomas explains that this same providence applies to human beings as rational creatures in a particular way: Yet we must note that there is a special meaning for providence in reference to intellectual and rational creatures, over and above its meaning for other creatures. For they do stand out above other creatures, both in natural perfection and in the dignity of their end. In the order of natural perfection, only the rational creature holds dominion over his acts, moving himself freely in order to perform his actions. Other creatures, in fact, are moved to their proper working rather than being the active agents of these operations . . . and in the dignity of their end, for only the intellectual creature reaches the very ultimate end of the whole of things through his own operation, which is the knowing and loving of God; whereas other creatures cannot attain the ultimate end except by a participation in its likeness.21

This key distinction between rational beings and other creatures is noted by Thomas, but he does not defend the notion, defended by Maimonides, that a select group of human beings can through intellectual excellence or rational superiority somehow protect themselves from the onslaught of providence. We are all subjected to the overarching workings of divine providence even if we are able to achieve the highest perfection through our “own operation, which is the knowing and loving of God.” In the Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 3:54. 21 Ibid., 114. 20

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

same chapter, Thomas explains further how divine providence works differently when it is applied to rational beings as opposed to nonrational creatures: Now, the formal character of every work differs according to the diversity of the end and of the things which are subject to the operation; thus, the method of working in art differs according to the diversity of the end and of the s­ ubject matter. For instance, a physician works in one way to get rid of illness and in another way to maintain health, and he uses different methods for bodies differently constituted. Likewise, in the government of a state, a different plan of ordering must be followed, depending on the varying conditions of the ­persons subject to this government and on the different purposes to which they are directed. For soldiers are controlled in one way, so that they may be ready to fight; while artisans will be managed in another way so that they may successfully carry out their activities. So, also, there is one orderly plan in accord with which rational creatures are subjected to divine providence, and another by means of which the rest of creatures are ordered.22

Clearly, rational creatures are ordered in a different way than other creatures, yet all are subject to divine providence; the “orderly plan” must work in accord with the kind of creature that is directed. The examples utilized by Thomas to illustrate this point are very striking. Providence is said to work like art in the first instance; it is then compared to the work of the physician, and then to function like government. In each instance an orderly plan is established which “differs according to the diversity of the end and of the things which are subject to the operation.” In Guide, book three, chapter 23, Maimonides offers an explanation of the book of Job as a parable about the different views of providence. After Maimonides shows how each one of the characters in the text defends a different view of providence, he informs us that Elihu is the character who provides the key to understanding how providence works. In the text, Maimonides underscores the importance of Elihu’s words: “For His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.” Maimonides then provides this commentary on the book as a whole: In the same manner, as there is a difference between works of nature and productions of human handicraft, so there is difference between God’s rule, 22

Ibid., 114–15.

77

78

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

providence and intention in reference to all natural forces, and our rule . . . This lesson is the principal object of the whole Book of Job; it lays down this principle of faith, and recommends us to derive a proof from nature, that we should not fall into the error of imagining His knowledge to be similar to ours, or His intention, providence, and rule similar to ours. When we know this we shall find everything that may befall us easy to bear; mishap will create no doubts in our hearts concerning God, whether He knows our affairs or not, whether He provides for us or abandons us. On the contrary, our fate will increase our love of God. (Guide 3.23)23

In the end, this same understanding of the nature of the universe leads us to a greater appreciation of the ways of God to man, according to Maimonides. Joel Kraemer makes this very point in his reading of the Guide: It is love of God by contemplating his works that makes us joyful. If we are aware that God’s governance is ultimately mysterious, we will bear every misfortune lightly, and misfortune will not add to our doubts concerning God and providence. God’s speech to Job shifts the ground from human suffering to the nature of the universe. It is only when we contemplate the entire universe that we begin to understand human suffering.24

Maimonides’s comments about how we must understand human suffering within the context of the universe as a whole remind us of the way that Philo explained providence in his own work on this subject: Earthquakes, pestilence, thunderbolts and the like though said to be visitations from God are not really such. For nothing evil at all is caused by God, and these things are generated by changes in the elements. They are not works of nature but a sequel of her essential works, attendant primary circumstances to the primary. If some persons of a finer character participate in the damage which they cause, the blame must not be laid on God’s ordering of the world, for in the first place it does not follow that if persons are considered good by us they are really such, for God judges by standards more accurate than any which the human mind employs. Secondly providence or forethought is contented with paying regard to things in the world of the most importance, just as in kingdoms and commands of army it pays Guide, 303. Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 394–95.

23 Maimonides, 24

D i v i n e Prov idence Ch a p t e r 6

regard to cities and troops, not to some chance individual of the obscure and insignificant kind.25

This passage, in which we are informed that “nothing evil at all is caused by God,” reminds us that if we are to understand the work of providence we must think in terms of the “ordering of the world” rather than on the relative good of particular individuals. The focus here also reminds us of Thomas’s explanation; both Thomas and Philo place the greatest emphasis on “God’s ordering of the world.” It is not an accident that Philo had already addressed the key questions regarding the operation of divine providence. Philo would have known the solutions to the problem of providence proposed by most of the Greek philosophers. He would also have been familiar with the philosophical debates about this subject in his own time. What makes Philo’s explanation different from those of the philosophers who had come before him is that he describes God as a judge who “judges by standards more accurate than any which the human mind employs.” Philo’s God is the God of scripture, not the god of Aristotle or the Stoics. It is precisely this way of talking about God and his ordering of the universe that Christian and Jewish writers learned from Philo.

On Providence, trans. F. H. Colson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941), 9:493–95.

25 Philo,

79

Chapter  7 Natural Law

I

f the teachings of Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas are different on the question of divine providence, the differences with regard to the doctrine of natural law would seem to be even more striking. In Guide, book two, chapter 40, within the context of a discussion of the nature of prophecy, Maimonides observes that there are different types of law: You will find that the sole object of certain laws, in accordance with the intention of their author, who well considered their effect, is to establish the good order of the state and its affairs, to free it from all mischief and wrong; these laws do not deal with philosophic problems, contain no teaching for the perfecting of our logical faculties, and are not concerned about the existence of sound or unsound opinions. Their sole object is to arrange, under all circumstances, the relations of men to each other, and to secure their well-being, in accordance with the view of the author of these laws. These laws are political . . . You will also find laws which, in all their rules, aim, as the law just mentioned, at the improvement of the material interests of the people; but, besides, tend to improve the state of the faith of man, to create first correct notions of God, and of angels, and to lead the people, by instruction and education, to an accurate knowledge of the Universe; this education comes from God; these laws are divine. (Guide 2.40)1  1 Maimonides,

Guide, 233–34.

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

Maimonides clearly distinguishes between human law and divine law. The primary purpose of human or political law is to establish “the relations of men to each other, and to secure their well-being.” Divine law teaches people “correct notions of God, and of angels,” and also “accurate knowledge of the Universe.” It is important to note that divine law not only teaches correct opinions about God and angels but also about the universe. Divine law is, therefore, not limited to theological matters, but includes also scientific and philosophical truths. In Guide, book three, chapter 27, Maimonides states that “The general object of the Law is twofold: the well-being of the soul, and the well-being of the body. The well-being of the soul is promoted by correct opinions communicated to the people according to their capacity.” These “correct opinions” are not expressed to all people in the same way, but rather “according to their capacity.” This point is very important for our understanding of how Maimonides understands his audience. Clearly, he believes that not all truths can be stated plainly to all peoples. We see this as Maimonides continues: “Some of these opinions are therefore imparted in a plain form, others allegorically; because certain opinions are in their plain form too strong for the capacity of the common people.”2 This allegorical mode of expression would not be an appropriate way of expressing the dictates of traditional natural law because unless a law (or dictate of reason) can be understood by anyone, it cannot be called a precept of natural law. That is to say, the precepts of natural law must not only have a universal application, but also they must be intelligible to all. If one were to consider only what is said in this section of the Guide, one would have to rule out the possibility that Maimonides could embrace traditional natural law. But this matter is far more complex when one considers what is related in other sections of the Guide. Maimonides states that the welfare or perfection of the body “is established by a proper management of the relations in which we live one to another.” Maimonides then informs us how this “proper management” is achieved: This we can attain in two ways: first by removing all violence from our midst; that is to say, that we do not do every one as he pleases, desires, and is able to do; but every one of us does that which contributes towards the common welfare. Secondly, by teaching every one of us such good morals as must produce a good social state. (Guide 3.27)3  2

Ibid., 312.

 3 Ibid.

81

82

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

From this passage one does get the impression that Maimonides is describing a form of natural law because he is describing rules of conduct that apply to all that must be observed for the common good. Maimonides then returns to the question of the “well-being of the soul.” He states that this objective is actually higher in rank than the first; however, the second objective must be accomplished first even though the first objective is higher in rank: Of these two objects, the one, the well-being of the soul, or the communication of correct opinions, comes undoubtedly first in rank, but the other, the well-being of the body, the government of the state, and the establishment of the best possible relations among men, is anterior in nature and time. (Guide 3.27)4

The well-being of society must be established before these correct ­opinions can be communicated to the society as a whole because a stable government is required for the “well-being of the body.” It is not insignificant that Maimonides states that this stability comes first “in nature and time.” Once again, one gets the impression that Maimonides is describing a law that is both universal and natural. Maimonides informs us that “[o]ne man alone cannot procure all this; it is impossible for a single man to obtain this comfort; it is only possible in society, since man, as is well known, is by nature social” (Guide 3.27).5 The law of the community is neither the work of one man nor a law that only one person must observe, but rather a law for the “best possible relations among men.” This set of regulations sounds very much like a description of a universal or even natural law. The rules concerning the perfection of the soul are very different in character from the rules that govern the well-being of the community, because the perfection of the soul is accomplished by each individual: The second perfection of man consists in his becoming an actually intelligent being; i.e., he knows about the things in existence all that a person perfectly developed is capable of knowing. This second perfection certainly does not include any action or good conduct, but only knowledge, which is arrived at by speculation, or established by research. (Guide 3.27)6

 4 Ibid.  5  6

Ibid., 313. Ibid., 313.

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

This second and higher perfection is less political and more metaphysical in character. It is important to note here that knowledge comes before action; that is to say, the speculative will guide the practical intellect. Maimonides continues: The true Law, which as we said is one, and beside which there is no other Law, viz., the Law of our teacher Moses has for its purpose to give us the twofold perfection. It aims first at the establishment of good mutual relations among men by removing injustice and creating the noblest feelings. In this way the people in every land are enabled to stay and continue in one condition, and every one can acquire his first perfection. Secondly, it seeks to train us in faith, and to impart correct and true opinions when the intellect is sufficiently developed. Scripture clearly mentions the twofold perfection and tells us that its acquisition is the object of all the divine commandments. (Guide 3.27)7

Clearly, for Maimonides the law includes both a political philosophy, which teaches us how to preserve and protect a political community and, by extension, the individuals in that community, and a metaphysical theology which teaches us “correct opinions” concerning higher truths. All law is contained within the true law, which is the Law of Moses. Marvin Fox summarizes Maimonides’s position in this way: Finding no rational ground for moral distinctions, Maimonides avoids the dangers of social chaos by turning to the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinic tradition. Here he finds all that human beings need to learn to live in such a way that they can move from the lower perfection of a decent bodily existence to the ultimate perfection of true metaphysical knowledge. This scheme of salvation is dependent on God’s law to provide its essential external conditions. That law is viewed as absolutely authoritative because it is divine; it protects people from debilitating bodily passions; it orders the relations between them in society so as to prevent mutual destruction; it implants in even the most simple-minded correct opinions about the highest matters and protects them from serious theological error; and it frees human reason in everyone so that all can rise to the highest level of self-realization, to that knowledge of God that is true salvation.8

 7

 8

Ibid., 313. Marvin Fox, Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 149.

83

84

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Law is understood as a teaching that comes directly from God, protecting men from error. This emphasis on divine law, Fox argues, diminishes the reliance on a natural law of any sort. His view is that for Maimonides there is only “God’s law” which, because it is divine, is “absolutely authoritative.” Fox also points out that natural law, as such, is never mentioned by Maimonides in the Guide: For Maimonides, the Jew, salvation depends on good works, leading to a life devoted to the rational apprehension of the highest truth. There is no natural moral law, only the law of God, which teaches us to live our lives in such way that we are worthy of our claim to have been created in His image. This, in turn, creates the circumstances under which we can develop our intellect in such way as to become as nearly divine as finite human beings can ever be.9

This question, however, as we have seen, is actually not so simple. The fact that Maimonides does not refer specifically to a natural law, does not mean that he did not think that political and social laws have a universal rational foundation or that he denied that basic rules of conduct exist for all human beings. One way of defining natural law is as a set of basic rules of human conduct, based on a close examination of how things exist and function, which guide human beings to do good and avoid evil. These “rules” show all of us as human beings how to live together. Clearly, Maimonides believed that rules of this sort exist for all of us. The belief in these legal principles has a long history in Jewish thought. In a recent examination of natural law and medieval Jewish thought, Tamar Rudavsky has shown that a universalist strain of thought can be observed in the Noahide Laws and in the thought of Saadiah Gaon and Ibn Ezra. With regard to the Noahide Laws, Rudavsky writes: The Noahide laws, discussed in Sanhedrin 56–60 and Melakhim 8:10; 10:12, represent the minimal moral duties enjoined by the Bible upon all human beings: prohibitions of idolatry, blasphemy, bloodshed, sexual sins, theft and eating from a live animal, as well as an injunction to establish a legal system. They are derived ultimately from divine commands addressed to Adam (Genesis 2:16) and Noah (Genesis Rabbah 34; Sanhedrin 59b), and are generally regarded by the rabbis as universally applicable. Do these Noahide laws present a natural law underpinning to Jewish thought? In Yoma 67b we have  9

Ibid., 150.

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

the suggestion that “they would have been made mandatory even had they not been revealed,” thus suggesting a universally applicable, natural component. Further, the fact that six of the laws were revealed to Adam suggests a universalistic thrust.10

Since these laws could be applied to all peoples, it seems reasonable to assume that they served as a kind of natural law within the context of Jewish thought. Rudavsky also argues that Maimonides was working in a tradition already established by Saadiah Gaon and Ibn Ezra in which human beings were understood as having a natural or intuitive sense of right and wrong. In this same tradition, the Jewish philosopher was expected to try to uncover the rational foundation of even the divinely revealed commandments.11 The point here is that for the Jewish philosopher, revealed tradition is also a rational tradition and that what has been revealed, and is known first of all as “tradition,” also guides the rational approach of these same thinkers. What Rudavsky does not mention, however, is that this same way of understanding the rational foundation of revealed truths is especially evident in the thought of Philo. Philo, the great admirer of Plato’s legal thought, had a very complex understanding of law. In his own works, he combined different traditions of Greek philosophy in his analysis of Jewish laws.12 In an attempt to widen the audience for his ideas, Philo also addressed some of his legal texts to non-Jews. The most important group of these works falls under the heading, “Delineation of the Mosaic Legislation for Non-Jews.”13 Philo’s discussion of legal questions reveals that he was very proud of the recognition that Jewish laws had received from other nations. In fact, in his Life of Moses, he was even willing to state that these same laws were respected almost universally: Not only Jews but almost every other people, particularly those which take more account of virtue, have so far grown in holiness as to value and honour our laws. In this they have received a special distinction which belongs to no other code. Here is the proof. Throughout the world of Greeks and Tamar Rudavsky, “Natural Law in Judaism: A Reconsideration,” in Reason, Religion, and Natural Law from Plato to Spinoza, ed. Jonathan A. Jacobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 96. 11 Ibid., 103. 12 See Fred D. Miller, “The Rule of Reason in Plato’s Laws,” in Reason, Religion, and Natural Law: From Plato to Spinoza, ed. Jonathan A. Jacobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 53. 13 For a description of the works that form this group see Emil Schürer, The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), 338–47. 10

85

86

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

­ arbarians, there is practically no state which honours the institutions of any b other. . . . It is not so with ours. They attract and win the attention of all, of barbarians, of Greeks, of dwellers on the mainland and islands, of nations of the east and the west, of Europe and Asia, of the whole inhabited world from end to end.14

Philo places the laws of the Jews above those of any other nation. It is important to note that Hugo Grotius found the teachings of Philo on natural law especially attractive. In fact, Grotius cites Philo over one hundred times in his De jure belli.15 In Every Good Man Is Free, Philo examines human freedom and slavery at length. In this discussion one finds several references to a universal law of nature. One very clear example is his description of fathers and sons who are captured in battle: Again, anyone who thinks that people put up for sale by kidnappers thereby become slaves goes utterly astray from the truth. Selling does not make the purchaser a master, nor the purchased a slave. Fathers pay a price for their sons and sons often for their father if they have been carried off in raids or taken prisoners in war, and that such persons are free men is asserted by the laws of nature which have a more solid foundation than those of our lower world.16

From this passage, we can easily see that Philo believed in a law of nature that is far superior to written laws. In the same work Philo describes the Jewish community of the Essenes. Philo tells us that in this group, which includes more than four thousand persons, there are no slaves. In fact, he states that the practice of slavery is condemned by the Essenes because it violates the law of nature: Not a single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging services with each other, and they denounce the owners of slaves, not merely for their injustice in outraging the law of equality, but also for their impiety in annulling the state of Nature, who mother-like has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers not in mere name, but in very reality, though this kinship has been put to confusion by the triumph of De vita Mosis, trans. F. H. Colson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941), 6:459. 15 See: Meirav Jones, “Philo Judaeus and Hugo Grotius’s Modern Natural Law,” Journal of the History of Ideas 74, no. 3 (July 2013), 344. 16 Philo, Every Good Man is Free, trans. F.H. Colson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941), 9:31–33. 14 Philo,

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

malignant covetousness, which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity instead of friendship.17

Philo here sounds almost like an abolitionist, arguing that nature has created men as “genuine brothers,” pointing out at the same time that slavery has wrought nothing but confusion brought about by “the triumph of malignant covetousness.” The ideas expressed in this passage are very different from those found in book one of Aristotle’s Politics. In Aristotle’s text, we encounter perhaps the most important and influential defense of the doctrine of natural servitude in the history of Western thought. Whether it is true that the community of the Essenes defended the position attributed to them by Philo, it is obvious that Philo considered the practice of slavery an affront to the law of nature. John W. Martens has argued that Philo links unwritten law to the law of nature and then goes a step further, arguing that many of the patriarchs were themselves the embodiment of certain kinds of unwritten law. Martens states: Philo is unique in two major respects: he links the unwritten law directly to the law of nature; and he claims, in an idiosyncratic use of the term, that certain people are unwritten laws. Though scholars today, beginning with Rudolph Hirzel, often connect the law of nature with the unwritten law, and it is clear there are connections between the two concepts, only Philo did so explicitly in the ancient world. He, too, is the only one who designated people as “unwritten laws.”18

If Abraham and the other patriarchs are themselves the embodiment of unwritten law, this law is, nevertheless, a law of nature. This is so because this law is by its nature rational. It is, therefore, applicable to all rational human beings. Jonathan A. Jacobs has observed that for medieval Jewish thinkers reason and revelation work together in much the same way that natural law works with theology within Christian tradition: Jewish thinkers agreed with Christian thinkers on many ethical principles and agreed that they are known to reason, though Jewish thinkers did not regard fundamental principles as having the status of natural law. It might seem odd 17

18

Ibid., 57. John W. Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and GrecoRoman Law (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2003), 88.

87

88

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

to suggest that tradition had a place in the moral epistemology of Jewish thinkers similar to the place of natural law for Christian thinkers—apparently odd because the naturalness of natural law might appear to contrast sharply with tradition. Yet, as I have tried to show, the Jewish thinkers articulated a conception of rational tradition or, we might say, tradition suited to rational agents, though those agents were not the sole author of the tradition.19

Christian authors would not have imagined that they were the sole authors of their own tradition. All that formed part of revelation was revealed by God. Natural law itself did not stand alone for the medieval Christian authors; rather, it was understood as an extension of divine law. Christian theologians have believed at least from the time of the patristic period that revelation guides reason. The fact that an article of faith or a doctrine of the church has been revealed does not mean that it has no connection to reason; quite the contrary, these same “truths” are carefully examined and confirmed (in so far as this is possible) by speculative thought. In this way, Christian theologians use the methods of philosophy to understand and explain truths that have been revealed. This intellectual tradition, which is still quite vibrant today, was the dominant philosophical tradition in the time of Thomas Aquinas. Even though Thomas had a mastery of Aristotelian philosophy—his great commentaries on Aristotle’s works confirm this judgment—and was quite conversant with other schools of secular philosophy (e.g. Stoic, Neoplatonic, etc.), his most important works (the two Summae) were texts of doctrinal theology in which he provided philosophical explanations of revealed truths. His philosophy, therefore, was at least in spirit like that of Maimonides. Both thinkers were most concerned with the philosophical examination of truths that had been revealed and formed part of a well-established tradition. For Thomas Aquinas, there is, indeed, a natural law, which exists for everyone just as reason exists for everyone. This is so because natural law is as natural to human beings as reason itself. This very point is explained by Thomas in these words: “Those things to which a man is inclined naturally pertain to the natural law, and among these it is proper to man to be inclined to act according to reason” (ST I­–II, q. 94, art. 4). Thomas does not mean, however, that reason and natural law are the same thing or that they produce the same results. 19

Jonathan A. Jacobs, “The Reasons of the Commandments: Rational Tradition without Natural Law,” in Reason, Religion, and Natural Law from Plato to Spinoza, ed. Jonathan A. Jacobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 128–29.

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

At the core of Thomas’s account of how natural law works is a very complex analysis of how the practical intellect interacts with the speculative. The first point that must be understood in this analysis is that the operation of the practical intellect cannot be understood as separate from the speculative intellect in Thomas’s system. Indeed, the speculative intellect guides the practical by first establishing the truth. This same truth is then understood by the practical intellect as a good which is desired. Thomas addresses the question of how the speculative and the practical intellect work together in Summa Theologiae I, question 79, article 11: The speculative and practical intellects are not distinct powers . . . Now, to a thing apprehended by the intellect, it is accidental whether it be directed to operation or not, and it is according to this [that] the speculative and practical intellects differ. For it is the speculative intellect which directs what it apprehends, not to operation, but to the consideration of truth, while the practical intellect is that which directs what it apprehends to operation. And this is what the Philosopher says, that “the speculative differs from the practical in its end.” Hence each is named from its end; the one speculative, the other practical.20

Perhaps a simple analogy can help us understand this complex relationship. The practical and speculative intellects are like the two sides of a single coin. Although both faces of the coin provide different images, they are both faces of the same coin. The coin includes both sides. This is to say, the coin cannot be just one side; it must include both sides. Both faces constitute the coin. However, even though there are two sides to the coin, there are not two coins but rather one.

20

Because of the highly technical nature of Thomas’s discussion of this subject, the Latin texts will be provided in this section of the chapter. “Dicendum quod intellectus practicus et speculativus non sunt diversae potentiae . . . Accidit autem alicui apprehenso per intellectum quod ordinetur ad opus vel non ordinetur. Secundum hoc autem differunt intellectus speculativus et practicus. Nam intellectus speculativus est qui quod apprehendit non ordinat ad opus, sed ad solam veritatis considerationem; practicus vero intellectus dicitur qui hoc quod apprehendit, ordinat ad opus. Et hoc est quod Philosophus dicit quod speculativus differt a practico fine. Unde et a fine denominatur uterque: hic quidem speculativus, ille vero practicus, idest operativus” (Blackfriars v. 11, 186). All Latin quotes are taken from this edition of the Summa. The English translation is from The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas v.1, 425.

89

90

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

In the same article, in his reply to objection 2, where it is argued that “the speculative and practical intellect are distinct powers.” Thomas offers a further clarification: Truth and good include one another; for truth is something good, otherwise it would not be desirable; and good is something true, otherwise it would not be intelligible. Therefore just as the object of the appetite may be something true, as having the aspect of good, for example, when someone desires to know the truth, so the object of the practical intellect is good directed to operation, and under the aspect of truth. For the practical intellect knows truth just as the speculative, but it directs the known truth to operation.21

From this passage, we discover that the “object of the practical intellect is good directed to operation.” But this good must include the true, and it is the speculative intellect that identifies the true (“For it is the speculative intellect which directs what it apprehends, not to operation, but to the consideration of truth”), not the practical. While it is the case that “the practical intellect knows truth just as the speculative,” the practical intellect learns the truth from the speculative, whose object is truth itself. So, the question for us is, what is the difference between the true and the good? Are these two faces of the coin the same thing or are they distinct? One of the best illustrations of the relationship between the true and the good is found in Summa Theologiae I, question 16, article 4, where Thomas answers the question of whether good is logically prior to the true: Although the good and the true are convertible with being, as to suppositum, yet they differ logically. And in this manner the true, speaking absolutely, is prior to good, as appears for two reasons. First, because the true is more closely related to being, which is prior, than is good. For the true regards being itself absolutely and immediately, while the nature of good follows being in so far as being is in some way perfect; for thus it is desirable. Secondly, it is evident from the fact that knowledge naturally precedes appetite. Hence, since the true regards knowledge, but the good regards the appetite, the true must be prior in idea to the good.22 21

“Ad secundum dicendum quod verum et bonum se invicem includunt. Nam verum est quoddam bonum, alioquin non esset appetibile, et bonum est quoddam verum, alioquin non esset intelligibile. Sicut ergo objectum appetitus potest esse verum inquantum habet rationem boni, sicut cum aliquis appetit veritatem cognoscere, ita objectum intellectus practici est bonum ordinabile ad opus sub ratione veri. Intellectus enim practicus veritatem cognoscit, sicut et speculativus, sed veritatem cognitam ordinat ad opus” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 11, 186; English text, Summa Theologica v.1, 425). 22 “…verum et bonum supposito convertantur cum ente, tamen ratione differunt; et s ­ ecundum

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

Our problem is here resolved if we remember that the true comes before the good because the true “regards being itself absolutely and immediately.” The good is by its very nature appetitive. The knowledge of being “naturally precedes appetite.” The good follows the true. Therefore, the speculative guides the practical intellect. Here also a functional argument might provide additional clarification. The speculative intellect and the practical intellect stand together and function much like the intellect and the will. At the most basic level, the intellect moves the will. The question of the relationship between the i­ntellect and the will is addressed by Thomas in Summa Theologiae I–II, question 9, article 1: “Whether the Will Is Moved by the Intellect.” Thomas begins his explanation as follows: Now good in general, which has the nature of an end, is the object of the will. Consequently, in this respect, the will moves the other powers of the soul to their acts, for we make use of the other powers when we will. For the end and perfection of every other power is included under the object of the will as some particular good, and always the act or power to which the universal end belongs moves to their acts the acts or powers to which belong the particular ends included in the universal end. Thus the leader of an army, who intends the common good—that is, the order of the whole army—by his command moves one of the captains, who intends the order of one company.23

Up to this point, it would seem that those who would defend the p ­ rimacy of the will (or, by analogy, the practical intellect) are correct in their hoc, verum absolute loquendo prius est quam bonum. Quod ex duobus patet. Primo quidem ex hoc, quod verum propinquius se habet ad ens, quod est prius, quam bonum; nam verum respicit ipsum esse simpliciter et immediate; ratio autem boni consequitur esse secundum quod est aliquo modo perfectum; sic enim appetibile est. Secundo apparet ex hoc quod cognitio naturaliter praecedit appetitum. Unde, cum verum respiciat cognitionem, bonum autem appetitum, prius erit verum quam bonum secundum rationem” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 4, 84–86; English text, Summa Theologica v.1, 97). 23 “Bonum autem in communi, quod habet rationem finis, est objectum voluntatis; et ideo ex hac parte voluntas movet alias potentias animae ad suos actus. Utimur enim aliis poentiis, cum volumus. Nam fines et perfectiones omnium aliarum potentiarum comprehenduntur sub objecto voluntatis sicut quaedam particularia bona. Semper autem ars vel potentia ad quam pertinet finis universalis movet ad agendum artem vel potentiam ad quam pertinet finis particularis sub illo universali comprehensus; sicut dux exercitus, qui intendit bonum commune, scilicet ordinem totius exercitus, movet suo imperio aliquem ex tribunis, que intendit ordinem unius aciei” (Latin text, Blackfriars v.17, 64; English text, Summa Theologica v.1, 658).

91

92

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

i­nterpretation of Thomas’s teaching; however, as the text continues the picture becomes clear: On the other hand, the object moves by determining the act, after the manner of a formal principle, by which in natural things actions are specified, as heating by heat. Now the first formal principle is universal being and truth, which is the object of the intellect. And therefore by this kind of motion the intellect moves the will, as presenting its object to it.24

The intellect moves the will by “presenting its object to it.” This is so because the object of the intellect is “universal being and truth”; that is to say, universal being and truth provide the object, the formal principle of the action. Those who defend the singularity of the operation of the practical intellect “one’s single intelligence directed towards answering the questions of what is to be chosen and done” would lead one to believe that the practical intellect both selects the object and then acts.25 The practical intellect would then subsume the speculative in this process. This claim reminds us very much of the third objection addressed by Thomas in this same article, where it is argued that the will moves the intellect. The objection runs as follows: “Further, the same is not mover and moved in respect to the same thing. But the will moves the intellect, for we use our intellect when we will. Therefore the intellect does not move the will.”26 In Thomas’s reply to this objection he offers a further explanation of how the intellect and will function in this process: The will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act, since even the true itself which is the perfection of the intellect is included in the universal good, as a particular good. But as to the determination of the act, which the act derives from the object, the intellect moves the will, since the good itself is apprehended under a special aspect as contained in the universal true.27 24 “Sed

objectum movet determinando actum ad modum principii formalis, a quo in rebus naturalibus actio specificatur, sicut calefactio a calore. Primum autem principium formale est ens et verum universale, quod est objectum intellectus; et ideo isto modo motionis intellectus movet voluntatem sicut praesentans ei objectum suum.” (Latin text, Blackfriars v.17, 64; English text, Summa Theologica v.1, 658). 25 Robert P. George, “Kelson and Aquinas on the Natural Law Doctrine,” in St. Thomas Aquinas and The Natural Law Tradition, eds. John Goyette, Mark S. Latkovic, and Richard S. Myers (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 248. 26 “Praeterea, idem respectu ejusdem non est movens et motum. Sed voluntas movet intellectum; intelligimus enim quando volumus. Ergo intellectus non movet voluntatem” (Latin text, Blackfriars v.17, 62; English text, Summa Theologica v.1, 658). 27 “. . . voluntas movet intellectum quantum ad exercitium actus, quia et ipsum verum, quod est perfectio intellectus, continetur sub universali bono ut quoddam bonum particulare. Sed quantum ad determinationem actus, quae est ex parte objecti, intellectus movet voluntatem, quia et ipsum bonum apprehenditur secundum quamdam specialem rationem

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

Thomas makes it clear that “even the true itself which is the perfection of the intellect is included in the universal good, as a particular good.” However, “the act derives from the object.” The object is provided by the intellect, which moves the will. So, what does this mean? What does it mean for the intellect to move the will by providing its object? The answer is that before the will can move it must have an object. Before the will can move us to do the right thing, there must be something true that provides the foundation for action. Here again, Thomas himself provides the explanation: Good and bad in actions should be discussed like good and bad in things, since action springs from each thing according to the sort of thing it is. Now the degree of good it possesses matches its degree of real existence, for “good” and “being” are convertible terms. . . . Accordingly we should say that every action inasmuch as it has something real about it has something good about it; and that inasmuch as it fails to have the full reality a human act should possess then it falls short of goodness, and so is referred to as bad: thus, for example, when it fails to meet the measure of what is reasonable or is out of place or exhibits some such shortcoming. (ST I–II, q. 18, art. 1)28

Early on in the Summa (I, question 5, article 1) we discover that the good is what is desired, but that which makes anything good is its perfection. Now things are perfect only in so far as they exist. Therefore, being and good are “convertible,” as Thomas says. Practical wisdom is best understood not as separate from but rather an extension of speculative wisdom, as Jan A. Aertsen has observed: Theoretical reason and practical reason are not “two branches” of knowledge. They are not distinct powers but differ only in their ends: theoretical reason is directed solely to the knowledge of truth, whereas practical reason directs truth to action. Its end is the operation. Practical reason knows truth, just as theoretical reason does, but regards the known truth as the norm (regula) of action. The striking term through which Thomas characterizes the relation comprehensam sub universali ratione veri” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 17, 66; English text, Summa Theologica v. 1, 658). 28 “Dicendum quod de bono et malo in actionibus oportet loqui secut de bono et malo in rebus, eo quod unaquaeque res talem actionem producit, qualis est ipsa. In rebus autem unumquodque tantum habet de bono quantum habet de esse; bonum enim et ens convertuntur . . . Sic igitur dicendum est quod omnis actio, inquantum habet aliquid de esse intantum habet de bonitate; inquantum vero deficit ei aliquid de plenitudine essendi quae debetur actioni humanae intantum deficit a bonitate, et sic dicitur mala; puta, si deviciat ei vel determinata quantitas secundum rationem, vel debitus locus, vel aliquid hujusmodi” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 18, 4–6; English text, Blackfriars v. 18, 5–7).

93

94

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

between theoretical and practical reason is “extension”: theoretical reason becomes practical only per extensionem.29

In this system, we, as rational beings, make informed choices. Our intellect guides our will. Moreover, only human beings are capable of acts of moral volition since acts of this kind require knowledge that human beings alone can possess, as Thomas states: A being of rational nature alone is capable of such knowledge. Partial knowledge of an end consists merely in perceiving it without appreciating it in terms of purpose and the adaptation of activity to that purpose. This is the sort of knowledge encountered in animals through their senses and natural instinct. Full knowledge of an end goes with voluntary activity in the complete and proper sense of the term; it is present when someone, having apprehended and deliberating about an end and the steps to be taken, can be moved to it or not.30 (ST I–II, q. 6, art. 2)

Human beings by their nature are capable of making these moral choices because they are able to apprehend and deliberate about an end and then take the appropriate action. When human beings do not deliberate about the end of their actions, they act more like animals than human beings. At this point one might ask, what does all of this have to do with natural law? First of all, law by its very nature is a reflection of reason. As Thomas states in Summa Theologiae I–II, question 90, article 1: Law is a rule and measure of acts, by which man is induced to act or is restrained from acting; for lex (law) is derived from ligare (to bind), because it obliges (obligare) one to act. Now the rule and measure of human acts is reason, which is the first principle of human acts . . . for it belongs to reason 29

Jan A. Aertsen, “Thomas Aquinas on the Good: The Relation Between Metaphysics and Ethics, in Aquinas’s Moral Theory,” in Aquinas’s Moral Theory, eds. Scott MacDonald and Eleonore Stump (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 250. See also ST I, q. 79, art. 11. 30 “. . . et talis cognitio finis competit soli rationali naturae. Imperfecta autem cognitio finis est quae in sola finis apprehensione consistit, sine hoc quod cognoscatur ratio finis et proportio actus ad finem; et talis cognitio finis reperitur in brutis animalibus per sensum et aestimationem naturalem. “Perfectam igitur cognitionem finis sequitur voluntarium secundum rationem perfectam, prout scilicet apprehenso fine aliquis potest deliberans de fine et de his quae sunt ad finem, moveri in finem vel non moveri” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 17, 12; English text, Blackfriars v. 17, 13).

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

to direct to the end, which is the first principle in all matters of action, according to the Philosopher. Now that which is the principle in any genus, is the rule and measure of that genus; for instance, unity in the genus of numbers, and the first movement in the genus of movements. Consequently it follows that law is something pertaining to reason.31

Law itself pertains to reason, “the rule and measure of human acts.” Now natural law includes judgments about nature, more specifically human nature. Lawrence Dewan has clarified this point as follows: The notion “the true,” as we have seen, presupposes the grasp of things as “beings,” and the notion “the good” presupposes the notion of “being” and “the true.” This means that we do grasp human nature, in its primary feature . . . right from the start, and it is in the light of that conception of oneself, as a being with such a power, that the original notion of “the good” (the seed of our own and of all other practicality) is born in us. Natural law presupposes a natural knowledge of nature and of human nature.”32

To understand how natural law works in Thomas’s system, it might be best to take a look at one of the foundational texts on this question, Summa Theologiae, I­–II, question 91, article 2: “Whether There Is in Us a Natural Law.” As usual, Thomas begins by denying the proposition with a series of objections. The second of these is of particular interest for us: By the law man is ordered in his acts to the end . . . But the ordering of human acts to their end is not a function of nature, as is the case in irrational creatures, which act for an end solely by their natural appetite; but man acts for an end by his reason and will. Therefore no law is natural to man.33 31

“. . . lex quaedam regula est et mensura actuum, secundum quam inducitur aliquis ad agendum vel ab agendo retrahitur. Dicitur enim lex a ligando, quia obligat ad agendum. Regula autem et mensura humanorum actuum est ratio, quae est principium primum actuum humanorum, ut ex praedictis patet. Rationis enim est ordinare ad finem, qui est primum principium in agendis secundum Philosophum. In unoquoque autem genere id quod est primum principium est mensura et regula illius generis; sicut unitas in genere numeri, et motus primus in genere motuum. Unde relinquitur quod lex sit aliquid pertinens ad rationem” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 28, 6; English text, Summa Theologica v. 2, 205). 32 Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Wisdom, Law, and Virtue (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 211. 33 “. . . per legem ordinatur homo in suis actibus ad finem . . . Sed ordinatio humanorum actuum ad finem non est per naturam, sicut accidit in creaturis irrationalibus, quae solo appetitu naturali agunt propter finem, sed agit homo propter finem per rationem et voluntatem. Ergo non est aliquia lex homini naturalis” (Latin text, Blackfriars, v. 28, 20; English text, Summa Theologica v. 2, 209).

95

96

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

In his reply Thomas resolves this apparent difficulty: Every operation of reason and will in us is based on that which is according to nature . . . for every act of reasoning is based on principles that are known naturally, and every act of appetite in respect of the means is derived from the natural appetite in respect of the last end. And so also the direction of our acts to their end must be in virtue of the natural law.34

Thomas’s reply shows us that the existence of natural law in us is as fundamental as the movement from intellect to will or the movement from known principles to acts of appetite with respect to an end. This description of the interaction of known principles and natural ends is another way of describing philosophically the operation of natural law. This law exists for everyone just as the practical intellect and the speculative exist for everyone. This is so because natural law is as natural to human beings as reason itself. Thomas does not mean, however, that reason and natural law are the same thing or that they produce the same results. The knowledge of how natural law works, or its operation, is not the same as knowing the precepts of natural law. For anyone interested in the application of natural law principles to the reality of daily life, an adequate and convincing explanation of the place of the good must be found in this system. As we have seen, for Thomas, the apprehension of the good is the end of the practical reason. One of the clearest statements of this notion is again found in Thomas’s discussion of natural law in Summa Theologiae I–II, question 94, article 2: “Whether the Natural Law Contains Several Precepts, or One Only?” It is extremely important that we note in this explanation that Thomas introduces his discussion of the good with a consideration of ontological principles: Now a certain order is to be found in those things that are apprehended by man. For that which, before anything else falls under apprehension, is being, the understanding of which is included in all things whatsoever a man apprehends.35 34

“. . . omnis operatio rationis et voluntatis derivatur in nobis ab eo quod est secundum naturam . . . Nam omnis ratiocinatio derivatur a principiis naturaliter notis, et omnis appetitus eorum quae sunt ad finem derivatur a naturali appetitu ultimi finis; et sic etiam oportet quod prima directio actuum nostrorum ad finem fiat per legem naturalem” (Latin text, Blackfriars, v. 28, 22–24; English text, Summa Theologica v. 2, 209). 35 “In his autem quae in apprehensione hominum cadunt quidam ordo invenitur. Nam illud quod primo cadit sub apprehensione est ens, cujus intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis apprehendit” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 28, 80; English text, The Summa

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

The apprehension of being pertains to the realm of the speculative intellect. We must not forget that this understanding comes before our understanding of the good. After this clarification, Thomas can move on to a consideration of the good: Now as being is the first thing that falls under the apprehension absolutely, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action; for every agent acts for an end, which has the aspect of good.36

From this point in the discussion it very easy to move to the first precept of natural law, as Thomas continues: Consequently the first principle in the practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, namely, that the good is what all desire. Hence this is the first precept of law, that good is to be pursued and done, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this, so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good belongs in the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.37

Clearly, practical reason is the foundation of natural law; however, if we consider only the operation of the practical reason, we can imagine a natural law without an ontological dimension. That is to say, if we begin our discussion of natural law with the first principles of practical reason, we miss the first part of Thomas’s explanation, which includes the ontological foundation. Even though the dictates of natural law pertain to the realm of practical reason rather than to speculative reason, we must not forget that both the practical and the speculative are essential in this system. In order Theologica v. 2, 222). “Sicut autem ens est primum quod cadit in apprehensione simpliciter, ita bonum est primum quo cadit in apprehensione practicae rationis, quae ordinatur ad opus. Omne enim agens agit propter finem, qui habet raitonem boni” (Latin text, Blackfriars, v. 28, 80; English text, Summa Theologica v. 2, 222). Although there are many excellent commentaries on this section of the Summa, one of the very best is that of John Knasas in Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 248–83. 37 “Et ideo primum principium in ratione practica est quod fundatur supra rationem boni; quae est, bonum est quod omnia appetunt. Hoc est ergo primum praeceptum legis, quod ‘bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum’; et super hoc fundatur omnia alia praecepta legis naturae, ut scilicet omnia illa facienda vel vitanda pertineant ad praecepta legis naturae quae ratio practica naturaliter apprehendit esse bona humana” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 28, 80; English text, Summa Theologica, v. 2, 222). 36

97

98

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

to clarify this point, we must remember how Thomas explains how speculative reason differs from practical reason: For, since the speculative reason is busied chiefly with necessary things which cannot be otherwise than they are, its proper conclusions, like the common principles, contain the truth without fail. The practical reason, on the other hand, is busied with contingent matters, about which human actions are concerned; and consequently, although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail the more frequently we encounter defects. Accordingly then in speculative matters truth is the same in all men, both as to principles and as to conclusions, although the truth is not known to all as regards the conclusions, but only as regards the principles which are called “common notions.” But in matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all as to matters of detail, but only as to the common principles; and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all. It is therefore evident that as regards the common principles, whether of speculative or practical reason, truth or rectitude is the same for all, and is equally known by all. (ST I–II, q. 94, art. 4)38

Speculative reason is concerned with necessary things, its conclusions, therefore, “contain the truth without fail.” With speculative reason, the principles and the conclusions are the same for all men. Practical reason concerns itself with contingent matters; therefore, its conclusions can differ among different peoples in matters of detail. This distinction is extremely important; the common principles of both the speculative and the practical reason are the same for all; however, the specific conclusions and the details of the practical reason can and do often differ. Natural law has its f­oundation in 38

“Aliter tamen circa hoc se habet ratio speculativa et aliter practica; quia enim ratio speculativa praecipue negotiatur circa necessaria, quae impossibile est aliter se habere, absque aliquo defectu invenitur veritas in conclusionibus propriis sicut et in principiis communibus. Sed ratio practica negotiatur circa contingentia, in quibus sunt "operationes humanae; et ideo, si in communibus sit aliqua necessitas, quanto magis ad propria descenditur tanto magis invenitur defectus. “Sic igitur in speculativis est eadem veritas apud omnes tam in principiis quam in conclusionibus, licet veritas non apud omnes cognoscatur in conclusionibus, sed solum in principiis, quae dicuntur ‘communes conceptiones’. In operativis autem non es iadem veritas vel rectitudo practica apud omnes quantum ad propria, sed solum quantum ad communia, et apud quos est eadem rectitudo in propriis non est aequaliter omnibus nota. “Sic igitur patet quod quantum ad communia principia rationis, sive speculativae sive practicae, est eadem veritas seu rectitudo apud omnes, et aequaliter nota” (Latin text, Blackfriars v. 28, 86–88; English text, Summa Theologica, v. 2, 224).

Natu ral L aw Ch a p t e r 7

reason, which is common to all human beings, but its conclusions are not necessarily universal; only the common principles are universal. Thomas may never have had any intention of developing an elaborate system of natural law theory; nevertheless, he described the principles of natural law in a clear and concise way. He defends a universal natural law because he believes that men have a common rational nature. This same nature inclines human beings to the discovery of common rational principles, which serve as a foundation in both speculative and practical matters. Thomas’s relatively short description of natural law principles has had an enormous impact on natural law theorists since his death. In fact, it would be difficult to name an author who has had a greater impact on natural law theory historically than Thomas Aquinas.39 Even though Maimonides did not clearly delineate a doctrine of natural law, he believed that men have the rational capacity to discover universal rules of human conduct. In this way, he is also a defender of natural law. Although few scholars today identify Philo with natural law, he described the rational principles of a universal law long before the time of Maimonides or Thomas. Indeed, these same principles described by Philo are very similar to the universal rational principles that form the foundation for the natural law principles described by later thinkers. Philo was writing at a time when many other authors were writing about legal theory. Perhaps the most important of these theorists was Cicero, the author of De legibus. While few scholars today remember Philo as a proponent of natural law, his treatment of the Noahide Laws and his discussion of natural servitude make it abundantly clear that he was a very sophisticated legal thinker and a strong defender of natural law. In fact, Philo may have been the most impressive natural law theorist of his time.

her impressive study, Ultimate Normative Foundations: The Case of Aquinas’s Personalist Natural Law (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), Rose Mary Hayden Lemmons provides an excellent description of the impact of Thomas’s thought on the history of natural law theory over the centuries.

39 In

99

Chapter  8 Prophecy

O

ne of the key questions that Maimonides addresses in the Guide is the nature of prophecy, or, more specifically, the particular kind of knowledge that the prophet possesses. In Guide, book two, chapter 36, Maimonides gives us some idea of how he understands this exalted state: Prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man’s rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty; it is the highest degree and greatest perfection man can attain; it consists in the most perfect development of the imaginative faculty. Prophecy is a faculty that cannot in any way be found in a person, or acquired by man, through a culture of his mental and moral faculties; for even if these latter were as good and perfect as possible, they would be of no avail, unless they were combined with the highest natural excellence of the imaginative faculty.1

One should note from the beginning that prophecy comes to the prophet from God through the active intellect. This is not an insignificant detail. The nature of prophecy is rational and intellectual for Maimonides. We are informed that prophecy comes “through the medium of the Active Intellect” in the form of an emanation that comes first “to man’s rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty.” Both the rational and the imaginative faculties are required for prophecy. Although Maimonides tells  1 Maimonides,

Guide, 225.

Proph ec y Ch a p t e r 8

us that both of these faculties are a part of prophecy, he states very clearly that the rational faculty receives the emanation first. He then states that the imaginative faculty achieves its highest development in the prophet. Without the perfection of the imaginative faculty, prophecy is impossible. This “natural excellence of the imaginative faculty,” however, must also be accompanied by “mental perfection acquired by training.” The prophet must “have studied and acquired wisdom, so that his rational faculty passes from a state of potentiality to that of actuality; his intellect must be as developed and perfect as the human intellect can be.”2 Prophecy, therefore, does not come to the prophet as a purely spontaneous acquisition; it comes to the prophet after his intellect has been properly prepared. In his very thorough study of prophecy in the works of Maimonides, Howard Kreisel has observed that: The “emanation” of prophecy does not consist of God or the Active Intellect giving the individual particular information that God “desires” to convey ­specifically to him. Rather, it represents the strengthening of the activity of the individual’s already perfect rational and imaginative faculties, enabling the individual to reach theoretical and practical intellectual heights that the individual would otherwise not reach. Prophecy in general, including the ­prophetic mission, Mosaic prophecy in particular, including the Torah that is the outcome of this prophecy, are to be understood as resulting from the impersonal workings of the world order. The supernatural approach is important for the observance of the masses. The philosophers understand the true nature of these phenomena and appreciate the inherent value of the divine Law.3

For Maimonides, prophetic vision is a way of understanding the world, and it is not limited to dreamlike visions. The prophet is one who understands the way the world works in a very special way because he has attained an ability to see the world with theoretical and practical insights that other individuals simply do not possess. This special understanding brings the prophet closer to God. In one of the most famous sections of the Guide in book three, chapter 51, Maimonides uses his parable of the king and his palace to explain the intellectual understanding of God. Obviously, the king in the parable represents God. The relative distance of each group symbolizes the distance  2

Ibid., 226. Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 307.

 3 Howard

101

102

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

from the truth concerning God. Those most distant from the palace are those who understand God and divine things least. In the parable, these are the people who live abroad. As Maimonides explains, these people “are all those that have no religion, neither one based on speculation nor one received by tradition.”4 As one can see, speculation is mentioned here as one of the two key components (along with tradition) in one’s closeness to the palace. The second group includes those people who live in the same country but have their “backs turned towards the palace.” These are the people “who possess religion, belief, and thought, but happen to hold false doctrines, which they either adopted in consequence of great mistakes made in their own speculation, or received from others who misled them.”5 Here also, speculation is a key component in the parable. This second group remains far from God because an error has been made. The third group includes those people who “arrive at the palace, but go round about it.” These are the people “who devote themselves exclusively to the study of the practical law; they believe traditionally in true principles of faith and learn the practical worship of God, but are not trained in the philosophical treatment of the principles of the Law.”6 Once again, we see the importance of speculative thought for this closeness to God. Those who are not trained in philosophical principles cannot enter the inner part of the palace. They have only a practical understanding of the law. The fourth group constitutes the group that has moved into the place where the king lives: Those who undertake to investigate the principles of religion, have come into the ante-chamber; and there is no doubt that these can also be divided into different grades. But those who have succeeded in finding a proof for everything that can be proved, who have a true knowledge of God, so far as a true knowledge can be attained, and are near the truth, wherever an approach to the truth is possible, they have reached the goal, and are in the palace in which the king lives. (Guide, 385)

This fourth group includes those who are closest to God. They have attained the highest level of truth. Maimonides then explains the specific kind of knowledge that represents the pinnacle of knowledge: There are some who direct all their mind toward the attainment of ­perfection in Metaphysics, devote themselves entirely to God, exclude from  4 Maimonides,  5

Ibid., 384.  6 Ibid., 384.

Guide, 384.

Proph ec y Ch a p t e r 8

their thought every other thing, and employ all their intellectual faculties in the study of the Universe, in order to derive therefrom a proof for the existence of God, and to learn in every possible way how God rules all things; they form the class of those who have entered the palace, namely, the class of prophets. (Guide 3.51)7

The prophets possess the summit of knowledge for Maimonides. This knowledge, as described by Maimonides, includes “the attainment of perfection in Metaphysics.” This science is here understood as the science that leads to the knowledge of God and the universe in order to derive the proofs for the existence of God. Prophetic knowledge also includes an understanding of “every possible way how God rules all things.” When one achieves this kind of knowledge, one’s knowledge puts one in the same class as the prophets. The prophet is, therefore, the master of this science. In addition to this intellectual vision, Maimonides informs us earlier in the Guide that the prophet must also have achieved “moral perfection produced by the suppression of every thought of bodily pleasures, and of every kind of foolish or evil ambition.” He then describes what the prophet perceives when he experiences prophetic vision: A man who satisfies these conditions, whilst his fully developed imagination is in action, influenced by the Active Intellect according to his mental training,—such a person will undoubtedly perceive nothing but things very extraordinary and divine, and see nothing but God and His angels. His knowledge will only include that which is real knowledge, and his thought will only be directed to such general principles as would tend to improve the social relations between man and man. (Guide 2.36)8

If we focus only on the first part of this passage one might get the impression that the prophet lives in a universe totally separate from the world of practical activity. Indeed, one might be led to think that the prophet has no connection with political life and sees only “God and his angels.” However, in the second part of the passage one discovers that the prophet not only enjoys a special perception of the divine but is also able to make use of this knowledge to improve the “social relations between man and man.” This ability adds a very important political dimension to the role of the prophet. Indeed, for Maimonides, the prophet (and in particular Moses) is also a  7  8

Ibid. 385. Ibid. 226.

103

104

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

political leader. Rémi Brague has argued that Maimonides was the first Jewish thinker to observe this aspect of prophecy: Maimonides is the first figure within Judaism to see the prophet as one who realizes the perfect city, governed by the perfect Law that he himself gives to it. The prophet is a man whose intellectual and moral perfection puts him into contact with the agent intellect, which suffuses him with its emanation.9

Although Rémi Brague has identified this very important aspect of Maimonides’s understanding of prophecy, I cannot agree with his contention that Maimonides was the first thinker within Judaism to understand the prophet’s role in these terms. As we have seen, Philo also stresses this political dimension of the prophecy of Moses. Indeed, the legislative activity of Moses is of primary importance for Philo. We see this point clearly illustrated in Philo’s Life of Moses: It becomes a king to command what ought to be done, and to forbid what ought not to be done; but the commanding what ought to be done, and the prohibition of what ought not to be done, belongs especially to the law, so that the king is at once a living law, and the law is a just king. But a king and a lawgiver ought to pay attention not only to human things, but also to divine ones, for the affairs of neither kings nor subjects go on well except by the intervention of divine providence; on which account it was necessary that such a man as Moses should enjoy the first priesthood, in order that he might with perfectly conducted sacrifices, and with a perfect knowledge of the proper way to serve God, entreat for a deliverance from evil and for a participation in good, both for himself and for the people whom he was governing, from the merciful God who listens favourably to prayers.10

It is precisely this role as a lawgiver and leader of his people that distinguishes Moses from the other prophets. Philo understood this point long before the time of Maimonides. The point here is not that Philo had a direct influence on Maimonides, but rather that the same idea concerning the prophecy of Moses is found in both authors. If one were to seek to identify a more direct source for Maimonides’s ideas concerning prophecy, Rémi Brague, The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 198. 10 Philo Judaeus, The Life of Moses, in The Essential Philo, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 230.  9

Proph ec y Ch a p t e r 8

the obvious place to start would be the teachings of Alfarabi. It is wellknown that Maimonides knew Alfarabi’s works. In fact, Howard Kreisel has argued that Maimonides adopts much of his own teaching on the nature of prophecy from doctrines found in the works of Alfarabi: He (Maimonides) essentially attempts to steer a middle course between Alfarabi’s approach to “revelation” (wahy) and his approach to “prophecy” (nabū’a) by conflating these two approaches. Alfarabi’s approach to revelation as an emanation to the intellect allows Maimonides to identify prophecy with intellectual perfection. This provides him with the basis for distinguishing prophets from others possessing a perfect imagination, and to treat the prophet as a type of “philosopher-king.” Alfarabi’s approach to prophecy as an emanation to the imagination provides Maimonides with the basis for distinguishing Mosaic prophecy from non-Mosaic. Many of the ambiguities in his approach result from the desire to locate prophecy in the middle ground between the pure intellectual prophecy of Moses, and the prophetic-like experiences of those with a developed imagination but a non-perfect theoretical intellect.11

While there may be some ambiguity in the way Maimonides describes the different levels of prophecy, he is quite unambiguous when he tells his readers that the prophecy of Moses is far superior to all others: We have given the definition of prophecy, stated its true characteristics, and shown that the prophecy of Moses our Teacher was distinguished from that of other prophets; we will now explain that this distinction alone qualified him for the office of proclaiming the Law, a mission without a parallel in the history from Adam to Moses, or among the prophets who came after him; it is a principle in our faith that there will never be revealed another Law. Consequently we hold that there has never been, nor will there ever be, any other divine Law but that of Moses our Teacher. According to what is written in Scripture and handed down by tradition, the fact may be explained in the following way: There were prophets before Moses . . . but of these none said to any portion of mankind that God sent him to them and c­ ommanded him to convey to them a certain message or to prohibit or to command a certain thing. Such a thing is not related in Scripture, or in authentic ­tradition. (Guide 2.39)12 11 Kreisel,

Prophecy, 246. Guide, 231.

12 Maimonides,

105

106

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

Both Philo and Maimonides stress the unique place that Moses occupies among the prophets. Moses’s role as a lawgiver and teacher places him far above all the other prophets for both of these Jewish philosophers. Thomas Aquinas was also very interested in the nature of prophecy. Thomas understands prophetic knowledge as a kind of light: “Now as prophecy pertains to a knowledge which surpasses natural reason, it follows that prophecy calls for a certain light which surpasses the light of natural reason.” This light, however, is not understood as something permanent. That is to say, prophecy is not understood as something that is acquired in the same way that intellectual knowledge is acquired. In fact, Thomas tells us that the prophet can and usually does lose this special faculty: “Now prophetical light does not inhere in the mind of a prophet as a permanent form---for then the prophet would always have the faculty of prophesying, which is patently false” (ST II–II, q. 171, art. 2).13 Clearly, Thomas and Maimonides disagree on the question of how prophetic knowledge is acquired. Nevertheless, Thomas, like Maimonides, explains prophecy in terms of the intellectual and imaginative faculties. On the question of which of these two faculties is superior in prophecy, Thomas agrees with Maimonides that intellectual vision is superior to imaginative: The excellence of means is principally assessed from the end. Now the end of prophecy is the manifestation of some truth which surpasses the faculty of man. The more this manifestation is effective, the greater is the prophecy to be esteemed. Now it is clear that manifestation of divine truth which derives from a bare contemplation of the truth itself is more effective than that which derives from images of bodily things. Sheer contemplation is in fact nearer to the vision of heaven, according to which truth is gazed upon in the essence of God. So it follows that a prophecy which enables some supernatural truth to be perceived, starkly, in terms of intellective vision, is more to be prized than that in which supernatural truth is manifested by likenesses of bodily things in terms of imaginative vision. (ST II­–II, q. 174, art. 2)14

The “intellective vision” described here is more effective because it is a more direct knowledge of divine truth. Imaginative vision is characterized by v. 45, 11. All quotes from the Summa in this section are from Summa Theologiae, vol. 45 (London: Blackfriars, 1970). 14 Ibid., 75. 13 Blackfriars

Proph ec y Ch a p t e r 8

manifestations of “likenesses of bodily things.” It is, therefore, an inferior kind of vision because it is less direct. In his response to the second objection, Thomas offers a further clarification of this point: “Now imaginative vision in prophetic knowledge is not required for its own sake, but for the manifestation of intellectual truth. So all the more effective is prophecy when it has less need of imaginative vision” (ST II­–II, q. 174, art. 2).15 Thomas devotes an entire article of the Secunda secundae (question 174, article 4) to the question of whether Moses was the greatest prophet. His conclusion puts him in agreement with Maimonides on this question: In prophecy . . . we must consider first the knowledge, both by intellectual and by imaginative vision, secondly the proclamation, and thirdly the confirmation by miracles. Moses excelled others first in intellectual vision, seeing that he gazed upon God’s very essence, as St. Paul did in ecstasy, according to Augustine. Hence he beholds the form of the Lord. Secondly, as regards imaginative vision. This was his, as it were at his command, not only hearing words but seeing the speaker, even in the form of God— and this not only while asleep but also while awake. Hence Exodus, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” Thirdly, in the matter of proclamation: because his it was to speak to the whole body of believers as God’s mouth piece, as it were newly propounding the law. But other prophets spoke to the people on God’s behalf, as it were urging them to observe the law of Moses: “Remember the law of my servant Moses.” Fourthly, as for working miracles, he wrought these on a whole people of unbelievers. (ST II–II, q. 174, art. 4)16

One cannot help but be surprised by the fact that Thomas’s arguments supporting the claim that Moses was the greatest prophet are strikingly similar to those proposed by Maimonides and by Philo. Maimonides’s explanation of how the perfection of the imaginative and rational faculties defines the prophet did not go unnoticed by later thinkers. In his 1670 Theological-Political Treatise, Baruch Spinoza challenged this very notion defended by Maimonides, as Seymour Feldman has shown: Spinoza begins his analysis by assuming Maimonides’ distinction between imagination and intellect and his contention that prophets use imagination. 15 16

Ibid., 77. Ibid., 83–85.

107

108

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

But he vigorously denies that they have access to intellectual apprehensions of the truth. For if they had, they would not have uttered falsehoods, as when Joshua commanded God to stop the sun from moving. Indeed, the prophets differed among themselves, and this is also an indication that prophetic ­discourse is not the product of an intellectual act.17

Spinoza’s critique goes right to the heart of the matter; the intellectual apprehension is precisely the aspect that Maimonides stressed most in his description of prophetic knowledge. On this question, as on so many others, Spinoza systematically attacks the teachings of Maimonides, who was for Spinoza, the most important voice of intellectual Judaism.18 Spinoza also rejected the superiority of Moses over the other prophets, arguing that the “face-to-face” vision of Moses was inferior to the “mindto-mind” apprehension of Jesus: Nowhere have I read that God appeared to Christ or spoke with him, but that God was revealed to the Apostles through Christ, that Christ is the way of salvation, that the ancient law was transmitted through an angel, not directly by God and so on. Therefore, if Moses spoke with God face to face as a man may do with his fellow (that is, through the medium of their two bodies), then Christ communed with God mind to mind.19

Spinoza’s remarks here show how far removed his thoughts were from traditional Judaism. Obviously, his words would have been very offensive to his Jewish readers. In the same way, his brief but extremely important observations concerning the book of Job in chapter 10 of the Theological-Political Treatise show how strongly he disagreed with Maimonides: With regard to the book of Job, and Job himself, there has been considerable controversy among writers. Some think that Moses wrote the book, and that Seymour Feldman, “Maimonides—A Guide for Posterity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, ed. Kenneth Seeskin (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), 352. 18 This rejection of Maimonides goes far beyond a mere disagreement. Some scholars have argued that even when Spinoza quotes Maimonides directly he often presents the text in terms that do not correspond to Maimonides’s intention. See Joshua Parens, Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 15. 19 Baruch Spinoza, The Theological-Political Treatise, in Spinoza: Complete Works, trans. Samuel Shirley, ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2002), 398–99. 17

Proph ec y Ch a p t e r 8

the whole story is nothing but a parable. This is the view of certain Rabbis in the Talmud, and is also favoured by Maimonides in his More Nebuchim. Others have believed that the story is true, of whom some have thought that Job lived in the time of Jacob and married his daughter Dinah. But Ibn Ezra, as I have previously said, asserts in his commentary on this book that it was translated into Hebrew from another language. I wish he could have demonstrated this more convincingly, for we might therefrom conclude that the Gentiles, too, possessed sacred books. I therefore leave the question unresolved, but I would surmise that Job was a Gentile, a man of great steadfastness who experienced first of all prosperity, then calamity, and finally the utmost good fortune; for he is so named among others by Ezekiel chapter 14,14. I believe that the vicissitudes of Job and his steadfastness gave occasion for much discussion concerning God’s providence, or at least induced the author of this book to compose his dialogue. The contents of the book, and likewise its style, seem not to be the work of a man wretchedly ill, lying amid ashes, but of one meditating at ease in a library. I am also inclined to agree with Ibn Ezra that this book is a translation from another language, for its poetic style seems to be characteristic of the Gentiles. The Father of the gods twice summons a council; Momus, who is here called Satan, criticizes God’s words with the utmost freedom and so on. But these are mere conjectures, and not firmly founded.20

This passage again reveals how far Spinoza’s views are from traditional Jewish teaching. It is not an accident that Spinoza cites as an important source Ibn Ezra. By the time Spinoza was writing his Theological-Political Treatise, Ibn Ezra had become an important source for those who insisted that biblical commentary be limited to one sense, thus downplaying the traditional rabbinic interpretations, as Jay Harris notes: In the modern period, many Jews sought to develop new patterns of Jewish identity and religious commitment; this often involved a rejection of Talmudic authority in favor of a more direct and “natural” attachment to the teachings of the Bible. In seeking to create an aura of legitimacy for these commitments, Ibn Ezra’s Bible commentary was frequently invoked as an important precedent of rejection of rabbinic reading. While Ibn Ezra himself did not intend for his commentary to undermine the practical demands of the rabbinic legal system, Spinoza and those who came after him insisted that there could be but one level of meaning to the Bible and honesty 20 Ibid.,

492–493.

109

110

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

demanded that one reject extensions of biblical law that did not correspond to that level of meaning. As a result, Ibn Ezra’s theoretical strictures directed against rabbinic reading were cited in support of a practical program of religious reform; he was turned into a proto-reformer of Judaism.21

To Spinoza it mattered little that Ibn Ezra had no intention of undermining traditional Jewish teachings; he used his commentaries for his own purposes. In particular Spinoza could use the commentaries to undermine rabbinic tradition. It is well-known that early in his life Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community. What perhaps is not as well-known is the fact that he was also criticized during his own time by many non-Jews. Two of his more important English critics were Henry More and Anne Conway, who considered Spinoza a pantheistic materialist.22 Curiously, both of these philosophers were also great admirers of Philo.23 It is not an accident that our study ends with these observations concerning Spinoza’s method of biblical commentary. In order for Spinoza to break away from the tradition he had known as a Jew it was necessary for him to reject the way of reading scripture that he had inherited from Maimonides and rabbinic tradition. Harry Wolfson firmly believed that with Spinoza, the philosophical tradition first established by Philo came to an end.24 Whether Wolfson’s thesis is true, it is clear from our study that while Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas were still working in the Philonic tradition, Spinoza turned that tradition on its head and led the philosophers in his own day and those that came after him in a radically new direction.

See Jay M. Harris, “Ibn Ezra in Modern Jewish Perspective,” in Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Polymath, eds. Isadore Twersky and Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 143. 22 Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 173–76. 23 Ibid., 159–60. 24 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), v.2, 459-60. 21

Conclusion

O

ne of the most important points reiterated in this book is that Philo of Alexandria changed forever the course of religious philosophy. After Philo, the writers coming to philosophy from the three great monotheistic traditions followed the model he established. In this sense, Philo is not just one of the many important philosophers whose work has survived from the classical period; he is, rather, the thinker who established the philosophical model and prepared the syllabus of key issues that would be addressed by subsequent philosophical theists for over 1500 years after his death. This is precisely the claim first made by Harry A. Wolfson so many years ago. As we saw early in this study, philosophers had written about God and things divine long before the time of Philo, but when Philo used the language and principles of Greek philosophy to examine revealed religion, he transformed philosophy. In a recent article, Dragos Giulea has described this change brought about by Philo as the beginning of the “noetic turn” in Jewish thought. Giulea explains this notion as follows: Arguably one of the most important paradigm shifts of late antiquity, if not the most important in terms of theological vocabulary and conceptual instruments, the noetic turn denotes the translation of the ontological and epistemological categories of the apocalyptic discourse into noetic categories.1

This great shift in philosophical discourse is also at the very core of the transition from ancient prophetic writings to the theological treatises of the early church fathers. But, as Giulea points out, this change is initiated by a Jew: “It is, however, in Philo of Alexandria in the first century C.E.,  1

Dragos A. Giulea, “The Noetic Turn in Jewish Thought,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 42 (2011): 26.

112

Ph i l o’s He i r s: Mo ses Ma i m o n i d es an d Tho mas Aqu inas

that we find for the first time a coherently developed noetic ontology and a noetic epistemology.”2 Giulea then describes exactly what constitutes this profound change: As in certain biblical passages and the apocalyptic literature, Philo still maintains heaven as the preeminent geography of divine indwelling. The human being who intends to reach that realm has to ascend to those heights (Leg. 1.1). Nevertheless, in what concerns the access to that realm and the access to God, Philo advances a clearly innovative method: the noetic perception, the noesis. While still conceiving of ascension as the favored method of accessing God, Philo alters the nature of this ascension. Instead of transportation to heaven, dream vision or other methods, he has the intellect perform the ascent.3

In effect, when Philo described this new way of accessing God, utilizing philosophical principles, he created the science that in Christian circles would later be called natural theology. Thomas Aquinas describes the components of this science in the first question of the Summa Theologiae. It is one of the great ironies of intellectual history that this same science, called by Christians the “Queen of the Sciences” for centuries, was first developed by a Jew in Alexandria. The key issues examined in this book in the works of Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas (divine attributes, natural law, divine providence, creation, and prophecy) were all subjects addressed by Philo. In other words, Philo’s method and approach to philosophy and the subjects he chose to consider were still the standard models for medieval Christian writers (in both East and West) and medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophers during the High Middle Ages. Maimonides and Aquinas may never have had any direct knowledge of the works of Philo, but both can be called his heirs. Although it is clear that much more work needs to be done on the legacy of Philo, our conclusion from this examination of texts confirms in a general way Harry Wolfson’s thesis concerning Philo’s crucial role in the history of Western philosophy.

 2  3

Ibid., 33. Ibid., 37.

Bibliography

Adamson, Peter. The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle. London: Duckworth, 2002. Adamson, Peter, and Richard C. Taylor, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Alesse, Francesca, ed. Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2008. Alfarabi. The Political Writings. Translated by Charles E. Butterworth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Altmann, Alexander, and Samuel Miklos Stern. Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. Altmann, Alexander, Isaak Heinemann, and Hans Lewy, eds. Three Jewish Philosophers. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa contra Gentiles. 4 vols. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. 60 vols. New York: Blackfriars in conjunction with McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1970. Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Asín Palacios, Miguel. The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers. Translated by Elmer H. Douglas and Howard W. Yoder. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1978. Augustine. Concerning the City of God against the Pagans. Translated by Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Avicenna. The Metaphysics of the Healing. Edited by Michael E. Marmura. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005. Badawi, ‘Abdurrabmān. Histoire de la philosophie en Islam. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1972. ­­———. La Transmission de la philosophie grecque au monde arabe. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1968. Brague, Rémi. The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007.

114

Biblio g r a p h y

Berchman, Robert M. Porphyry against the Christians. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2005. Blackwell, Constance, and Sachiko Kusukawa, eds. Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999. Boguslawski, O.P., Steven C. Thomas Aquinas on the Jews. New York: Paulist Press, 2008. Bokser, Ben Zion. The Legacy of Maimonides. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. Borgen, Peder. Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1997. Buijs, Joseph A., ed. Maimonides: A Collection of Critical Essays. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Burrell, David. Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Calabi, Francesca, ed. Italian Studies on Philo of Alexandria. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2003. Calabi, Francesca. God’s Acting, Man’s Acting: Tradition and Philosophy in Philo of Alexandria. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2008. Chadwick, Henry, ed. Alexandrian Christianity. London: Westminster Press, 1954. Cohen, Jonathan. Philosophers and Scholars: Wolfson, Guttmann, and Strauss on the History of Jewish Philosophy. Translated by Rachel Yarden. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. Colish, Marcia L. Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400– 1400. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Cortest, Luis. “Was St. Thomas Aquinas a Platonist?” The Thomist 52, no. 2 (April 1988): 209–19. Daniélou, Jean. Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture. Edited and translated by John Austin Baker. London: Westminster Press, 1973. Daniélou, Jean and Henri Marrou. The Christian Centuries. Vol. 1 of The First Six Hundred Years. Translated by Vincent Cronin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Davidson, Herbert A. Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. ———. Maimonides the Rationalist. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011. ———. Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Davies, Brian and Eleonore Stump, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. The Dialogues of Plato. Translated by B. Jowett. 2 vols. New York: Random House, 1937. Dienstag, Jacob I., ed. Studies in Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1975. Dillon, John. The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–274 BC). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. —–—. The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Biblio g r a p h y

———. The Platonic Heritage: Further Studies in the History of Platonism and Early Christianity. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012. Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit. Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995. Edwards, Mark J. “Justin’s Logos and the Word of God.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995): 261–80. Elders, Leo J. The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1990. Feldman, Louis H. Philo’s Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Fox, Marvin. Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. Fraenkel, Carlos. Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion, and Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Fraenkel, Carlos, ed. Traditions of Maimonideanism. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2009. Frank, Daniel H., and Oliver Leaman, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Gerson, Lloyd P., ed. The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Gerson, Lloyd P. God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology. London: Routledge, 1990. Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers. 2nd ed. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1961. ———. History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. New York: Random House, 1955. Gilson, Etienne, ed. St. Thomas Aquinas 1274–1974: Commemorative Studies. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974. Giulea, Dragos A. “The Noetic Turn in Jewish Thought.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 42 (2011): 23–57. Goodenough, Erwin R. An Introduction to Philo Judaeus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962. Goodman, Lenn E., and Heidi M. Ravven, eds. Jewish Themes in Spinoza’s Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002. Goodman, Lenn E., ed. Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992. Goodman, Lenn E., James Allen Grady, and Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, eds. Maimonides and His Heritage. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009. Goyette, John, Mark S. Latkovic, and Richard S. Myers, eds. St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Green, Kenneth Hart. Leo Strauss and the Rediscovery of Maimonides. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. ———. Leo Strauss on Maimonides: The Complete Writings. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.

115

116

Biblio g r a p h y

Greenspahn, Frederick E., Earle Hilgert, and Burton L. Mack, eds. Nourished with Peace: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism in Memory of Samuel Sandmel, Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984. Gregory of Nyssa. The Life of Moses. Edited and translated by Everett Ferguson and Abraham J. Malherbe. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. Grotius, Hugo. The Rights of War and Peace. Edited by Richard Tuck. 3 vols. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Bagdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries). New York: Routledge, 1998. Guttmann, Julius. Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig. Translated by David W. Silverman. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964. Hanke, Wayne. J. God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Harris, Jay M. ed. Be’erot Yitzhak: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Harris, Jay M. ed. Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Hasselhoff, Görge K., and Otfried Fraisse, eds. Moses Maimonides (1138–1204): His Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Wirkungsgeschichte in Different Cultural Contexts. Würzburg, DE: Ergon Verlag, 2004. Hayden Lemmons, Rose Mary. Ultimate Normative Foundations: The Case for Aquinas’s Personalist Natural Law. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. Hood, John Y. B. Aquinas and the Jews. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. Hutton, Sarah. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Israel, Jonathan I. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Jacobs, Jonathan A., ed. Reason, Religion, and Natural Law from Plato to Spinoza. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Jacobs, Steven Leonard, ed. Maven in Blue Jeans: A Festschrift in Honor of Zev Garber. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009. Jaffa, Harry V. Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1952. St. Jerome. On Illustrious Men. Translated by Thomas P. Halton. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999. Jones, Meirav. “Philo Judaeus and Hugo Grotius’s Modern Natural Law,” Journal of the History of Ideas 74, no. 3 ( July 2013): 339–59. Kamesar, Adam, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Philo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Kenny, Anthony. The God of the Philosophers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

Biblio g r a p h y

Klibansky, Raymond. The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages. London: Kraus International Publications, 1981. Knasas, John F.X. Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003. Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Kraemer, Joel L., ed. Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Kraye, Jill, William F. Ryan, and Charles B. Schmitt, eds. Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages: The Theology and Other Texts. London: The Warburg Institute, 1986. Kreisel, Howard. Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001. Leaman, Oliver. Moses Maimonides. London: Routledge, 1990. Link-Salinger, Ruth, Jeremiah Hackett, Michael Samuel Hyman, R. James Long, and Charles H. Manekin, eds.. A Straight Path: Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman—Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988. Lombardi, Sara Mancini, and Paola Pontani, eds. Studies on the Ancient Armenian Version of Philo’s Works. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011. Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. 2nd ed. Translated by M. Friedländer. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. ———. The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963. Melamed, Abraham. The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003. Manekin, Charles H. On Maimonides. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Martens, John W. One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and GrecoRoman Law. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2003. McGinn, Bernard. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Melamed, Abraham. The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Political Thought. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003. Miller, Jon, and Brad Inwood, eds. Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Morgan, Michael A., ed. Spinoza: Complete Works. Translated by Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2002. Nadler, Steven. Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001. Niehoff, Maren. Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture. Tübingen, DE: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Novak, David. Talking with Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005. Origen. Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. Translated by Ronald E. Heine. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of American Press, 1982.

117

118

Biblio g r a p h y

Parens, Joshua. Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Parker, Emily, and Alexander Treiger. “Philo’s Odyssey into the Medieval Jewish World: Neglected Evidence from Arab Christian Literature.” Dionysius 30 (Dec. 2012): 117–46. Pelikan, Jaroslav. Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. ———. What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?: Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1997. Philo. Translated by F. H. Colson. 10 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941. Philo Judaeus. The Essential Philo. Edited by Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. ———. Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections. Translated by David Winston. New York: Paulist Press, 1981. Poznanski, Samuel. “Philon dans l’ancienne litterature judéo-arabe,” Revue des Études juives 50, (1905): 10–31. Reale, Giovanni. A History of Ancient Philosophy. Edited and translated by John R. Catan. 4 vols. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990. Royse, James R. The Spurious Texts of Philo of Alexandria: A Study of Textual Transmission and Corruption with Indexes to the Major Collections of Greek Fragments. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1991. Rudavsky, Tamar M. Maimonides. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Runia, David T. Philo and the Church Fathers. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1995. ———. Philo in Early Christian Literature. Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1993. ———. Philo of Alexandria: An Annotated Bibliography 1987–1996 with Addenda for 1937–1986. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2000. ———. Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato. Leiden, NL: Brill, 1986. Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume. 2 vols. Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974. Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1995. Schürer, Emil. The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. Seeskin, Kenneth, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca. Translated by Moses Hadas. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958. Sorabji, Richard, ed. Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987. Sorabji, Richard. Time, Creation, and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. Strauss, Leo. Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought. Edited by Kenneth Hart Green. Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1997.

Biblio g r a p h y

———. Persecution and the Art of Writing. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952. Stroumsa, Guy G. Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2005. Stroumsa, Sarah. Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 2 vols. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952. Szilágyi, Krisztina. “Christian Books in Jewish Libraries: Fragments of Christian Arabic Writings from the Cairo Genizah.” Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006): 107–62. Torrell, O.P., Jean-Pierre. Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception. Translated by Benedict M. Guevin, O.S.B. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Twersky, Isadore, and Jay M. Harris, eds. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Polymath. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Twersky, Isadore, ed. Studies in Maimonides. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Weisheipl, O.P., James A. Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1974. Wippel, John F. The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000. Wolfson, Harry Austryn. Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948. ———. Religious Philosophy: A Group of Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. ———. Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. ———. Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion. Vol 1. Edited by Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Wolfson, Elliot R. “Traces of Philonic Doctrine in Medieval Jewish Mysticism: A Preliminary Note.” Studia Philonica Annual 8 (1996): 99­–106.

119

Index

A

Abraham, patriarch, 87 absolute existence, 52. see also tetragrammaton abstinence, 6 Abulafia, Abraham ben Samuel, 63, 64 Accurate Exposition of the Song of Songs (Gregory of Nyssa), 26 Active Intellect, 100, 103 Aertsen, Jan A., 93, 94n29 agnostics, 10 Akiva, Rabbi, 58 Aleppo, 36 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 35 Alfarabi, 33, 36, 38, 105 al-Kindi, 37, 38 Almohad Caliphate, 14 Ambrose (Bishop of Milan), 30 allegorical exegesis, 30 Christian thought, 31 Philo, exegetical resource, 30 Antiochenes, 30 Aquinas, Thomas, xviii–ix, 17, 31, 33, 34, 37, 39, 45–52, 59–62, 64, 65, 72–77, 79, 80, 87–99, 106, 107, 110, 112 Aristobulus, 4 Aristotle, 2–4, 7, 26, 31, 33, 35–39, 57, 67–68, 70, 72, 87–88 Armenian Christians, 18–19 attributes of action, 42 Augustine (Bishop of Hippo), 27–30, 50 Averroes, 36

B

Bereshit Rabba, 58 biblical commentary, 13, 34, 35, 55, 109, 110 Boethius, 74

Book of Doctrines and Beliefs (Saadya Gaon), 41 Borgen, Peder, 12 Brague, Rémi, 104 Burrell, David, 47, 48

C

Cappadocian fathers, 25–26 causality of God, 72 Celsus (pagan writer), 23–26 Christian philosophy, 20–32 Cicero, 99 The City of God (Augustine), 27, 29 Clement of Alexandria, 13, 20–23 acquisition of wisdom, 22, 23 founder of theology, 21 moral and ethical dimensions, 22 philosophy, 20, 21 prudence and justice, 22 science of gnosis, 21 temperance, 22 common notions, 98 The Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius), 74 Contra Celsum (Origen), 23–25 Conway, Anne, 110

D

Damascus, 36 Daniélou, Jean, 20, 21, 40 Davidson, Herbert, 36, 37 De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum (Philoponus), 31 De anima (Aristotle), 31 De jure belli (Grotius), 86 De legibus (Cicero), 99

I n de x

“Delineation of the Mosaic Legislation for Non-Jews” (Philo), 85 Democritus, 72 De opificio (Philo), 65 De providentia (Philo), 66 De vita Mosis (Philo), 27 Dewan, Lawrence, 95 divine attributes, 40–53 divine commandments, 83 divine disposition, 76 divine essence, 43, 50 definition of, 44 divine foreknowledge, 73 divine intellectual influence, 70 divine law, 81, 84, 88, 101, 105 divine perfection, 48 divine providence, 11, 66–79 divine science, 22 divine transcendence, 40

E

Edwards, Mark, 3n4 Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, 51 Elders, Leo, 74 Eliezer, Rabbi, 58, 59 Elihu, 77 Emden, Jacob, 62 Enneads (Plotinus), 16, 35 Epicureans, 7, 24, 67, 72 esoteric message, 63 Essenes, 86, 87 eternity thesis, 57 Every Good Man Is Free (Philo), 86 evil constitutions, 10 Exodus, 107 3:14, 50 Ezekiel 14, 14, 109

F

fabulous inventions, 10 Feldman, Louis, 17 Feldman, Seymour, 13, 107, 108 Four Books of the Sentences (Lombard), 39 Fraenkel, Carlos, 36n5 Frank, Daniel H., 37 full knowledge, 94

G

Gaon, Rabbi Saddya, 17, 41, 85 Garden of Eden, 54

Genesis, 2, 30, 54, 64 Gentiles, 109 genuine brothers, 87 genus of movements, 95 Gilson, Etienne, 50n15 Giulea, Dragos, 111, 112 God of Israel, 45 God of scripture, 79 God’s essential actuality, 2 God’s law, 83, 84 Gregory of Nazianzus, 26 Gregory of Nyssa, 26 Grotius, Hugo, 86 Guide for the Perplexed (Maimonides), 14, 15, 19, 33–35, 36n5, 41, 42, 45, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55, 62, 63, 100 Gutas, Dimitri, 37, 38 Guttmann, Julius, 43–44, 71

H

Halevi, Judah, 17 handmaid of wisdom, philosophy, 8 Harkavy, Abraham, 17 Harris, Jay, 109 Harvey, Steven, 15 Hillel, Rabbi, 64 Hirschfeld, Hartwig, 17 Hirzel, Rudolph, 87 human perfection, 71 human suffering, 78

I

Ibn Bājja, 36 Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Abraham, 85, 109–110 Ibn Sīnā, 36 Idel, Moshe, 64 imaginative faculty, 100, 101 imaginative vision, 106–107 intellectual vision, 106 intelligible cosmos, 9 Islamic religious philosophy, 38 Israeli, Isaac, 17 Ivry, Alfred, 45, 55

J

Jacobs, Jonathan A., 87 Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., 33 Jewish kalam, 42 Job, Book of, 77, 78 John the Grammarian. see Philoponus, John

121

122

I n de x

Judaeus, Philo. see Philo of Alexandria Judaism, 7, 18, 37, 54, 59, 104, 108 Julian, 27

N

K

Kabbalistic interpretation, 64 Kraemer, Joel, 44, 64, 78 Kreisel, Howard, 101, 105

natural law, 80–99 judgments, nature, 95 operation of, 96 precepts of, 81 Noahide laws, 84, 99 noetic epistemology, 112 noetic ontology, 112 nomen proprium, 52

L

O

laws of Moses, 6, 10–12, 69, 83, 107 Liber de Causis, 17 Life of Moses (Gregory of Nyssa), 26, 27 Lombard, Peter, 39

M

Maimonides, Moses, ix–x, 13–19, 31–39, 41–48, 50, 51, 55–58, 60, 62–73, 76–78, 80–85, 99–108, 110, 112 anthropomorphic terms, God, 57 divine essence, attributes, 43 doctrine of attributes, 44 Guide for the Perplexed, 14, 15, 19, 33–35, 37, 41–45, 47, 50–51, 54–58, 62–64, 68–71, 77, 78, 80–84, 100–103, 105 linguistic description, 52 philosophical tradition, 38 political philosophy, 38 prophecy of, 101, 103, 105 teachings of, 9, 10, 12, 24, 80 malignant covetousness, 87 Manekin, Charles, 56, 62 Martens, John W., 87 Masarra, Ibn, 17 materia prima, 57, 67 Melamed, Abraham, 5n7 Middle Platonists, 3 middoth of God, 43 Miscellanies (Clement), 21 Mishneh Torah, 62, 63 modus significandi, 47 Momus (Satan), 109 More, Henry, 110 Moses, Rabbi. see Maimonides, Moses

ochlocracy, 10 On the Creation of the World (Philo), 9 On the Life of Moses (Philo), 5, 6, 53, 85, 104 On the Universe (Aristotle), 4 ontological principles, 96 ordering of world, 79 Origen of Alexandria, 13, 23 Celsus and, 25 deeper wisdom of Jews, 23 life of Jesus, 25 philosophy, approach, 23

P

Palacios, Miguel Asín, 17 partial knowledge, 94 Pelikan, Jaroslav, 26 Philo of Alexandria, 1–19 Aristotelian idea, rejection, 10 biblical tradition, 3 Christian thinkers, impact, 20 divine transcendence, 40 doctrine of logos, 15, 16 doctrine of negative theology, 16 exegesis, 12 Greek language and, 5 Greek philosophy, use, 20 legacy, 18 Middle Platonist, 3–4 Moses Maimonides and, 13 philosophical tradition, 3, 4 philosophy, 12, 13 polytheistic doctrine, dangers, 10 prophecy of Moses, 104 religious tradition, 3, 4 Stoic natural law theory, 6 teachings of Moses, 10, 12

I n de x

tetragrammaton, 53 treatment of Platonic Ideas, 8 Philoponus, John ( John the Grammarian), 31, 32 philosophical sophistication, 41 Pines, Shlomo, 14, 15, 55n3 pinnacle of knowledge, 102 planets, creation of, 1–2 Plato, 1, 28–30, 35, 65, 85 Platonic hypothesis, 56 Platonism, 3 Plato’s theory of Ideas, 65 Plotinus, 16 polytheism, defenders, 10 polytheistic doctrine, 10 popular religion, 8 Porphyry, 27–29 positive knowledge, 49 Poznanski, Samuel, 16n28, 17 practical intellect, 90, 92, 96 practical reason, 98 practical wisdom, 93 prophecy, 100–110 prophetic faculty, 70 prophetic knowledge, 103, 108 providence, 66–68, 70–72. see also divine providence order of, 76 Pseudo–Aristeas, 4 Pseudo–Aristotle, 16n30 Pseudo–Empedocles, 17

Q

Qirqisani, Jacob, 17 Queen of the Sciences, 112 Qui Est, 50–52

R

Radice, Roberto, 16n29, 65 rational creatures, 77 rational faculty, 100, 101 Ravitsky, Aviezer, 63 Reale, Giovanni, 8, 13 Robinson, James T., 34, 35n4 Rossi, Azariah dei, 18 Royse, James, 18 Rudavsky, Tamar, 84, 85 Runia, David T., vii–ix, 3, 11, 12, 30, 31n18

S

Saddya Gaon, Rabbi, 17, 41, 85 Scholem, Gershom, 15, 16 secular culture, 20 self-denial, 6 self-realization, 83 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 66, 67 Septuagint, 5 servant of Yahweh, 27 Shem ha-Meforash, 52 Sorabji, Richard, 31, 32 speculative intellect, 9–98 Spinoza, Baruch, 107, 109, 110 Stoic philosophy, 6 Stoics, 6, 7, 24 Strauss, Leo, 63 Stroumsa, Sarah, 15, 35, 36n5 Summa contra Gentiles (Aquinas), 33, 75–77 Summa Theologiae (Aquinas), 33, 34, 45, 46, 49–51, 59–61, 72–75, 88–98, 106, 108, 112

T

Talmud, 109 Genesis Rabbah 34, 84 Melakhim 8:10; 10:12, 84 Sanhedrin 56–60, 84 Yoma 67b, 84 taqiyya, 64 tetragrammaton, 52, 53 Themistius, 35 Theological-Political Treatise (Spinoza), 107–109 Theology of Aristotle, 16, 38 Tibbon, Samuel Ibn, 35, 36n5, 63 Timaeus (Plato), 1, 65 time, creation of, 1 Torah, 35, 101 traditional rabbinic interpretations, 109 Tufayl, Ibn, 36

U

universal cause of existence, 59 universal rational principles, 99 universe, creation of, 1

123

124

I n de x

V

Vardazaryan, Olga, 19n40 via negativa, 44, 45

W

well-being of body, 82

of soul, 81, 82 William of Moerbeke, 39 Winston, David, 4, 6, 18 Wippel, John, 46–48 Wolfson, Elliot, 17 Wolfson, Harry A., vii–ix, 7, 8, 110–112