In and Around Maimonides: Original Essays 9781463243302, 1463243308

Citation preview

In and Around Maimonides

Judaism in Context

25 Series Editors Rivka Ulmer Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman Elisheva Carlebach Jonathan Jacobs Naomi Koltun-Fromm David Nelson Lieve Teugels

Judaism in Context provides a platform for scholarly research focusing on the relations between Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture and other peoples, religions, and cultures among whom Jews have lived and flourished, from ancient times through the 21st century. The series includes monographs as well as edited collections.

In and Around Maimonides

Original Essays

Y. Tzvi Langermann

gp 2021

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2021 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܗ‬

1

2021

ISBN 978-1-4632-4330-2

ISSN 1935-6978

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

In Memoriam Herbert Alan Davidson (1932–2021) Mark Steiner (1942–2020)

Two great scholars of Maimonides Two dear friends

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ......................................................................... v Preface ........................................................................................ vii Chapter One. Against whom is Maimonides arguing in Guide I, 68? ........................................................................... 1 Chapter Two. Configuring the Soul: Maimonides on the Improvement of Moral Character ....................................... 33 Chapter Three. Why is there no discussion of the equivocal term ʾor (‘light’) in The Guide of the Perplexed? .................. 71 Chapter Four. The Face of God in the Thought of Moses Maimonides and the Arabophone Maimonideans .............. 91 Chapter Five. An Extensive Marginalium on the Expression, ‘Humans are social by nature’, in a Yemeni commentary to Maimonides’ Guide ....................................................... 113 Chapter Six. ‘The Most Difficult of all the Premises’: A Yemeni Commentary to Maimonides’ Guide, Book II, Proposition 16 .................................................................. 129 Chapter Seven. In Search of Ancient Authority: The Appeal to Plato at Critical Junctures in Halevi’s Cuzari and Maimonides’ Guide ........................................................... 143 Chapter Eight. The Vocabularies of ‘Religion’ in the writings of Halevi and Maimonides ............................................... 167 Bibliography ............................................................................. 199 Index......................................................................................... 217

v

PREFACE This book is a collection of new and original studies in and around Maimonides. ‘In’ Maimonides signifies research into Maimonides’ texts in their original languages, which is for the most part Judaeo-Arabic. ‘Against whom is Maimonides arguing in Guide I, 68?’ presents a fresh look at one of the most scrutinized chapters in the Guide of the Perplexed. The paper focuses on several pivotal statements in the opening paragraph which previous scholarship has ignored. ‘Moral Improvement’ seeks to answer the question, how much room to maneuver do we have with regard to our ethical qualities? When preaching to the general public Maimonides will surely be encouraging; however, a close look at some of his scientific (in line with the science of his day, one must always add) analyses of the ‘configuration’ (hayʾa) of the soul reveals that our latitude for altering our innate dispositions is most often not very wide. A third paper looks at light (or in Hebrew), certainly one of if not the most widely used (and abused) terms (whether as ‘real’ light or as a metaphor) in religious discourse, and asks: ‘Why is there no Discussion in the Guide of the Equivocal Term or (light)?’ ‘Around’ Maimonides begins with his family. Moses’ father Maimun was an important scholar in his own right, and Moses was blessed with five generations of descendants, beginning with his son Abraham, all of whom were devoted to learning and writing. We are fortunate to possess the disquisitions of three generations—Maimun, Moses, and Abraham—on the profound theophany recorded in Exodus 33. Moses’ interpretations stand out in sharp contrast to those of his father and his son. This insight and more comprise ‘The Face of God in the Thought vii

viii

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

of Moses Maimonides and the Arabophone Maimonideans’. Next we look at some passages from an as yet unpublished commentary to the Guide from the Yemen. About half of the extent manuscripts and nearly all of the commentaries to the Dalāla (Guide) are from the Yemen. This does not mean that the Yemeni readings of the Guide reflect better Maimonides’ authorial intent at every point. Their enthusiasm for the emanation theories circulating within ‘Islamic neoplatonism’ seems not be in line with Maimonides’ thinking. On the other hand, some elements of Shiʿite political philosophy do resonate well with passages from the Guide. These are some of the features explored in two papers, ‘A Yemeni Marginalium on the Phrase, “Man is a Political Animal” (Guide of the Perplexed II, 40)’ and ‘A Yemeni Marginalium on the Sixteenth Premise (Guide of the Perplexed, Preface to Book II)’. We expand the compass of ‘around Maimonides’ even further to bring in the great poet, Yehuda Halevi (c. 1075–1141). The latter died just a few years before Maimonides was born; I have not seen any convincing evidence that Maimonides was familiar with Halevi’s great exposition of his personal view of Judaism, the Cuzari. Halevi and Maimonides are generally regarded as polar opposites and hence their views are often contrasted. I do not contest that approach; however, I think that there are a variety of reasons to compare the two thinkers. For example, their appeals to Plato. Maimonides openly endorsed ‘philosophy’, though he thought that Aristotle’s achievements had made Plato basically irrelevant. Halevi mocked ‘philosophy’. Yet at critical junctures in their arguments, both found recourse in Plato, as I explain in ‘In Search of Ancient Authority: The Appeal to Ancient Sources in Halevi’s Cuzari and Maimonides’ Guide’. ‘Around’ Maimonides is enlarged even further in ‘The Vocabularies of “Religion” in the writings of Halevi and Maimonides’. Maimonides and Halevi serve as the richest and most interesting sources of words whose meaning approximates the term ‘religion’ as used in the discourse of our own day. ‘In’ and ‘around’ apply as well to the ancient thinkers whose views are cited, especially Plato and Aristotle. My interest (and my expertise, such as it is) are limited to those Arabic pas-

PREFACE

ix

sages attributed to the two giants of philosophy which bear upon the issues scrutinized in some of the papers. The authenticity of those passages, the transformation that opinions have undergone in the course of translation, or the fit or misfit of the content of those passages with the ethical or other views of those thinkers as they have been debated over the centuries, are simply not of interest to this book. I acknowledge the tradition of summarizing the views of those thinkers conveyed in the Greek originals, as well as the interpretations that they received in late antiquity and the early Islamic period, before discussing their avatars in the thought of Maimonides. I have the greatest respect for scholars such as Harry Wolfson, Shlomo Pines, and Herbert Davidson, whose incredible breadth allowed them to do this. However, I am not part of that tradition, and the interested reader would fare better with the accounts given by the scholars just mentioned, and not a few others as well. My focus is fixed upon the specific passages, all in Arabic, that were on or around Maimonides’ desk when he wrote his works. The reader will have no difficulty in detecting my preference for older research: Harry Wolfson, Shlomo Pines, Herbert Davidson. I do not see this as a fault at all. New interpretations of Maimonides abound; the present book makes use of those studies, new and old, deemed directly relevant to the topic at hand. The massive amount of research on Maimonides notwithstanding, I believe that I have something new to add to knowledge in and around Maimonides. Chapters three and five have previously been published in Hebrew (Mesorat li-Yosef 9 (2016), 329–338 and Daat 83 (2017), 95–103, respectively) but appear here in English for the first time. I extend my thanks to Josef Stern and Roslyn Weiss, each of whom agreed to criticize one essay, and to Eli Shaubi, who gave important feedback on several. None of the above bear any responsibility for the views expressed in this book. I also acknowledge the excellent work of Leigh Chipman, an outstanding scholar in her own right, in copy-editing the final manuscript. Finally, I record here the support of the Israel Science Foundation and their generous grant 1499/18.

CHAPTER ONE. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68? INTRODUCTION

Chapter 68 of the first part of Maimonides’ Guide has attracted much interest. 1 The chapter opens with the ‘dictum of the philosophers’ which states, ‘He is the intellect as well as the intellectually cognizing subject and the intellectually cognized object’. The dictum, when interpreted as meaning that ‘those three notions form in Him, may He be exalted, one single notion in which there is no multiplicity’ is ‘one of the foundations of our Law’ and, for that reason, Maimonides included it in Mishneh Torah, ‘our great compilation’. 2 Anyone chasing down that reference would notice immediately that that, indeed, is the interpretation given to the ‘dictum’ in Mishneh Torah and, for that matter, elsewhere in Maimonides’ early writings. Yet in Guide I, 68, Maimonides offers an entirely different interpretation of the dictum. Odd, isn’t it, that Maimonides would make one of the few references to his ‘popular’ legal code in a chapter devoted to As usual, one can find useful bibliography in the first note to Schwarz on the chapter. Some additional references will be supplied towards the end of this chapter. For more recent discussions see Davies, Method and Metaphysics; Stern, Form and Matter. 2 All citations from Pines, p. 163; concerning the citation in Mishneh Torah, see below. 1

1

2

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

sublime philosophical issues, where he is about to propose a different understanding of the dictum than the one he gives in the book which he self-references? Shortly thereafter in the opening paragraph, Maimonides directs a barb at ‘anyone who has not studied the books that have been composed concerning the intellect’. The dictum will appear to that ignoramus ‘as if we had said that whiteness, that which has become white, and that which whitens, are one and the same thing. How many ignoramuses there are who hasten to refute us by means of this and similar examples…’. Did Maimonides have any specific individual in mind when he voiced these stinging remarks? Did anyone ever suggest something like the simplistic misunderstanding that Maimonides puts in the mouth of the ‘ignoramus’? Despite the near-obsession with uncovering ‘sources’ for the Guide, even when there does not appear to be (to me at least) any compelling reason to do so, no one to the best of my knowledge has attempted to identify even one of the ‘many ignoramuses’ against whom Maimonides rails. Apparently, it has been taken by all students of the Guide to be a rhetorical ploy whose only purpose is to set the stage for the epistemological analysis and its metaphysical ramifications that Maimonides wishes to present. The present paper is devoted to exploring these two features of the opening paragraph: the change in interpretation of the dictum, and the polemical scoffing at a certain misinterpretation of the dictum. I propose to identify the person whose misunderstanding of the dictum Maimonides mocks rather harshly. I will also probe the major shift in Maimonides’ deployment (though not necessarily his personal understanding) of the maxim. 3 Finally, I will suggest that there are grounds to suggest that one significant, if unstated, objective of Maimonides in this chapter concerns the afterlife. With this plan in mind, I believe that I am approaching the chapter in an entirely new way. 3 I mean to say that Maimonides does not retract his earlier understanding of the dictum; instead, he has offered a new appreciation in line with some specific goals to be outlined in this paper.

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

3

Heeding Maimonides’ advice not to overreach one’s intellectual capacities, I will not deign to plunge into the learned discussions of the implications of the chapter for Maimonides’ metaphysics and epistemology. At the end of this chapter I will propose an alternative to the mainstream academic conversation, not just surrounding this chapter, but about the Guide’s intent in general.

MAIMONIDES’ SHIFT IN THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DICTUM

I have already remarked that Maimonides cites the dictum in both the Guide and Mishneh Torah. In the former the dictum features in Arabic, using forms of ʿaql, ‘intellect’; in the latter, the phrase appears in Hebrew, and the forms are based on the root y.d.ʿ., which would ordinarily denote ‘knowledge’, though Maimonides does employ deʿah to mean intellect as well. In yet a third citation, however, in his ‘Eight Chapters’, Maimonides expresses the idea through a trio of Arabic forms of the root ʿ.l.m., which clearly denotes ‘knowledge’. The employment of the two roots (ʿ.q.l and ʿ.l.m.) connect, though not in a strict, one-to-one correspondence, to the two very different, indeed, almost contradictory contexts within which the dictum takes on its meanings in Maimonides’ writings. The forms based on ʿ.l.m. are used to describe God’s absolute unity, meaning that nothing can be predicated of Him, and that He has no attributes; in this regard, the deity is distinguished clearly from all that exists, including, of course, humanity. The forms built on ʿ.q.l, by contrast, are employed to describe intellectual cognition, a process or, more precisely, an event, which occurs correspondingly in God and in man. There are differences, of course; in God the unity of the three elements whose coalescence is stated in the dictum is never-ending; God is always an intellect in actu. For humans, the coalescence that produces intellectual knowledge occurs from time to time, requires a motion from potentiality to actuality, and involves ob-

4

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

jects that are exterior to the human. 4 Maimonides employs the dictum using both Arabic roots and with both of the meanings just outlined. Though I cannot prove this, the context of Maimonides’ invocation of the dictum using forms of ʿilm—the problem of God’s knowledge of particular human actions discussed in the last of his ‘Eight Chapters’—indicates to me that that Arabic word refers to God’s knowledge of changing events and as such corresponds to the kalam attribute of knowledge and its analogue in the tenth of Maimonides’ pillars of the faith, whose opening phrase is ‘that He, exalted is He, knows (yaʿlam) the deeds (afʿāl) of humans …’ 5 I should think that ʿaql, intellect, applies to the apprehension of concepts and ideas rather than individual actions. I will argue that Maimonides deliberately shifted his interpretation of the doctrine in order to suit the purpose of Guide I, 68. 6 As noted above, there is a third citation in one of Maimonides’ earliest writings: the introduction to his commentary on the tractate Avot (‘Ethics of the Fathers’), commonly referred to as ‘Eight Chapters’. This figures in his youthful commentary on the Mishnah, written when Maimonides was in his twenties and still dwelling in the Maghreb. The topic announced in the title to the eighth and final chapter of that introductory essay is fī al-fiṭra alinsāniyya, which we may translate ‘On human innate disposition’. In fact, fiṭra is a loaded and important concept in Islamic theology, but Maimonides’ discussion here is of an entirely different orientation. 7 Maimonides is concerned here to establish that humans have no innate disposition to doing wrong or right; Since time is included in the definition of motion, the difference between the ontological transition from potentiality to actuality and the temporal dimension of human knowledge seems to me to be moot. 5 The critical passage in ‘Eight Chapters’ where the dictum is constructed upon forms of ʿilm is found in Commentary to the Mishnah, Neziqim, p. 405; the tenth pillar is expounded in Commentary to the Mishnah, Neziqim, p. 216. 6 If I am correct, then we may have all the more reason to wonder about Maimonides’ choice of a piece of wood as the object of intellection in Guide I, 68. 7 On the term in Islamic theology, see Hoover, ‘Fiṭra’. 4

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

5

we are instead free to choose our own actions and determine our own course. The chapter is a long and involved defense of human freedom, a doctrine which Maimonides more than once asserts to be a proven fact, though I do not know that he ever displayed a proof. It is difficult, of course, to reconcile human freedom with divine omniscience. 8 If God knows everything, then He surely knows what I will do tomorrow, which, so it seems, makes my ‘choice’ of what to do not free at all. Maimonides consistently avoids or evades this dilemma by calling up God’s absolute unity, which means, inter alia, that there is no way of distinguishing between God’s essence and God’s knowledge; and just as God’s essence is beyond human ken, so also is His knowledge. 9 It is in this connection that he cites the dictum, noting—in stark contradiction to his position in Guide I, 68—the sharp contrast between the human and the divine: ‘It has been shown in the divine science, I mean metaphysics, that God Most High does not know through the medium of knowledge (bi-ʿilm), nor is He alive through the medium of vitality, so that He and His knowledge would be two things, as they are with regard to the human and his knowledge. For the human is not knowledge, nor is knowledge the human; they are two. Were God to know through the medium of knowledge, that would entail pluraliNear the beginning of the last of his ‘Eight Chapters’ Maimonides describes the fact that ‘all of the actions of the human being are at his disposal (maṣrūfa ilayhi) is something that is agreed upon by our Law and Greek philosophy, as it has been validated by true arguments (ḥujaj al-ḥaqq)’ (Commentary to the Mishnah, Neziqim, p. 397). I have set forth my position on this controversial topic in Langermann, ‘Maimonides’ Repudiation’, pp. 151–157. For more recent discussions see Davidson, Moses Maimonides, p. 307; Ivry, Philosophical Guide, pp. 16– 17 and passim; Davies, Method and Metaphysics, pp. 96, 184; Stern, Matter and Form, p. 51; and the publications cited in those works. 9 Note, however, the important observation of Manekin, On Maimonides, p. 72, that Maimonides does not appeal to God’s unknowable essence in order to forestall philosophical speculation. Instead, ‘the appeal to the agnostic argument always comes after we have reached a philosophical impasse’. 8

6

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES ty, and the eternal things would be many—God and the knowledge through whose medium he knows; and so also with regard to all of His attributes. I have first mentioned here only a simple argument which is easier for all people to understand. Ultimately, though, the arguments and corroborations which refute this [idea that human life is predetermined] are very strong and demonstrative. Hence, it is true that He Most High is His attributes, and His attributes are He. So one says that He is the knowledge, He is the knower, and He is the known …’ 10

In effect, then, the well-known dictum is just one of many trilogies that describe the complete identity between the deity and His presumed attributes. 11 Mishneh Torah was written in Hebrew and about halfway through that span of Maimonides’ life stretching from his writing the commentary to the Mishnah to the publication of the Guide; roughly speaking, he wrote—better said, completed and released for circulation—the Commentary in his twenties, the law code in his forties, and the Guide in his sixties. In the second chapter of the very first section of Mishneh Torah, ‘Laws concerning the Foundations of the Torah’, paragraph 10, we read: ‘… but as for the Creator, He, His knowledge, and His vitality are one from every aspect (pinnah). Were He to be alive through the medium of vitality, and to know through the medium of knowledge, there would be many divinities—He, His vitality, and His knowledge—but the matter is not so. Rather is He one from every aspect and every angle and by every manner of uniCommentary to the Mishnah, Neziqim, p. 405; my translation from the Arabic. According to Harry Wolfson (‘Maimonides on the Unity’, p. 119), this particular formulation was made by Maimonides ‘having again in mind Ghazālī’s rejection of the philosophic principle that “God is the knower and the knowledge and the known, and that all the three are one”’; it is one in a series of statements in that chapter of Mishneh Torah which, Wolfson contends, directly target rival opinions. Al-Ghazālī rejects the dictum (citing it, however, with forms built upon the root ʿ.q.l., i.e., in the language of the philosophers) in his Tahāfut; the passage will be cited in full presently.

10 11

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

7

ty. Hence you say, He is the knower, He is the known, and He is knowledge itself’. That statement is a fair paraphrase of the passage cited above from ‘Eight Chapters’. Hence I am of the opinion that the Hebrew deʿah means knowledge in the passage cited, rather than intellect. It is a restatement of Maimonides’ counter to the kalam. Elsewhere in Mishneh Torah, for example, ‘Laws of Repentance’ 8:2, the same Hebrew word surely has the more restricted meaning of intellectual knowledge, an acquired intellect if you like. Who knew better than Maimonides the multivalent quality of Hebrew vocabulary, and how this may be exploited for theological and didactic ends! I will suggest a motivation for the shift in interpretation so evident in Guide I, 68, further on in this paper.

THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE IGNORAMUS

Before suggesting my candidate for Maimonides’ ignoramus, I propose to first have a look at al-Ghazālī, a major thinker believed by many to have ‘influenced’ Maimonides. The rejection of the dictum in his Tahāfut has nothing in common with the simplistic arguments which Maimonides ridicules. According to al-Ghazālī, some philosophers cite the dictum as a way of avoiding an analogy between eternal and temporal knowledge, thereby steering clear of the multiplicity that a conscious, temporal creation of which the Creator could not be ignorant would seemingly demand with regard to the deity. Maimonides brazenly endorses such an analogy in the chapter under discussion here— with some provisos and qualifications—when he argues for the identity between God and man in the act of intellection. 12 AlGhazālī thus views the dictum as a near-last-gasp attempt by the The dictum is Maimonides’ escape hatch for preserving God’s knowledge of His handiwork without recognizing knowledge as an essential attribute. He comes as close as he can to such a recognition by making God’s knowledge one of the thirteen foundations of the faith. However, this is the function of the dictum when the term inserted is ʿilm, ‘knowledge’. More on all of this in the appendix to this chapter.

12

8

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

philosophers to avoid one of the difficulties raised by their rejection of creation. Here are his words: ‘What difference is there between you and your opponents when they say to you, “We know by necessity the impossibility of someone’s statement that one essence knows all the universals without this necessitating multiplicity [in the essence], without [this] knowledge’s being [an attribute] additional to the essence, and without knowledge’s becoming multiple with the multiplicity of the object of our knowledge”—this being your doctrine regarding God, which, in relation to us and our own sciences, is the ultimate in impossibility. But then you say, “Eternal knowledge is not to be compared with created [knowledge]”. A group among you, however, becoming aware of the impossibility [we indicated], said, “God knows only Himself, so that He is the intellectual apprehender, the intellect and the intelligible, all of these being one and the same”. Now, if one were to say [to this], “The union of the intellect, the intellectual apprehender, and the intelligible is known necessarily to be impossible, since the supposition of a Maker of the world who does not know His handiwork is necessarily impossible; and if the Eternal—may He be greatly exalted over what all the deviants [from the truth] say—knows only Himself, He would not know His handiwork at all”, [what would you say?]’. 13

However, I have found one example of a mocking rejection of the dictum which looks very much like the type of misapprehension that Maimonides has in mind. Moreover, the author of the rejection is a thinker whose major work Maimonides claims to have known, and thought very little of, even though he is now considered by many to be one of the most incisive and creative thinkers of his time; I refer to Abū-l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (1080– 1165) and his al-Muʿtabar. In his Letter on Resurrection Maimoni13 Marmura, Incoherence, pp. 17–18. Compare the citation of this passage in Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut, p. 7.

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

9

des disparages the essay on the resurrection of the dead by his rival, Samuel ben ʿEli. Among his other faults, Samuel is accused of borrowing teachings from ‘the Muʿtabar, which they have in Baghdad, which he [Samuel] mistook for purely philosophical doctrines’. 14 Clearly—and obviously in stark contrast to the contemporary appreciation of Abū-l-Barakāt—Maimonides would have characterized the latter as an ignoramus who has not internalized, if he understood at all, the books of the philosophers. I will argue that Abū-l-Barakāt may well have been the intended target of Maimonides’ barb. The pieces of argumentation that I will display from Abū-lBarakāt’s al-Muʿtabar all take their place within a radical and highly sophisticated critique of the Aristotelian tradition, especially as reformulated by Ibn Sīnā, leading to the construction of knowledge along new principles and in new manners of organization. We are concerned here in particular with intellect and intellection. Maimonides was overall not very receptive to Ibn Sīnā, but in this case, my enemy’s enemy is not my friend. 15 My translation of Shilat, vol. 1, p. 325. It may well have been the case that Maimonides’ disciple, Joseph ben Judah, identified al-Muʿtabar as the source of the theory of the soul professed by Maimonides’ rival, Samuel ben ʿEli, and communicated this information to Maimonides. I disagree with Davidson who writes (Maimonides, 523) that Maimonides did not realize that Abū-l-Barakāt was the source. If I am correct in identifying Abū-l-Barakāt as the target of Maimonides’ barb in Guide I, 68, then we can be sure that Maimonides had known of alMuʿtabar well before he wrote the ‘Letter on Resurrection’. See in particular the (consistently) rich and valuable—and, unfortunately, still underappreciated— remarks of Pines, ‘Poetics and Metaphysics’, pp. 120–123 and notes. 15 On Maimonides’ attitude towards Ibn Sīnā, see Pines, ‘Sources’, pp. xciii–ciii, who characterizes Maimonides’ attitude as one of reservation and distrust and concludes (p. cii) that whatever influence Avicenna may have exerted over Maimonides ‘did not essentially modify Maimonides’ fundamental position’. Davidson, Maimonides, pp. 102–103, 113, observes that significant elements of the physics and metaphysics that Maimonides presents as Aristotelian are really Avicennan. In a much more recent publication (‘Maimonides and the Almohads’, p. 10), however, Davidson concludes ‘that there are thus no grounds for concluding that Maimonides read anything by Avicenna’, and that Avicennan notions which may be discerned in Maimonides’ thought were culled from an intermedi14

10

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

Clearly, Maimonides saw Abū-l-Barakāt as a mutakallim who rejected the philosophical tradition altogether; perhaps this is why Maimonides debates with him (if I am correct in identifying him as the butt of Maimonides’ scorn) in the series of chapters that are largely devoted to his critique of the kalam. 16 The salient points for the purposes of this paper to be taken from Abū-lBarakāt’s project are (1) Abū-l-Barakāt’s placing the whiteness of an individual on a par with that person’s intellection, exactly as Maimonides describes the ignoramus as doing; (2) his mocking rejection of the dictum of the philosophers; and (3) his project to establish the individual human soul as a self-subsisting substance and as such immortal. 17 Whiteness features in this key passage, translated by Shlomo Pines in one of his seminal essays on Abū-l-Barakāt: ‘For whiteness, redness, heat, cold and all other objects which may be perceived by the senses have a form in the mind, [a form] which has a relation to many things in such a way that it may ary, most likely al-Ghazālī. On the other hand, Ivry, Philosophical Guide, p. 44, notes that ‘his (highly selective) indebtedness to Avicenna is widely recognized’ in contemporary scholarship. (The ‘selections’ from Ibn Sīnā were listed by Pines, p. cii, as ‘negative theology … the distinction between existence and essence, and … various particulars of Avicenna’s prophetology and theory of the worship of God’). 16 Though the really intense critique begins only in Guide I, 71, which chapter opens with Maimonides’ account of the history and method of the kalam, in fact, Maimonides’ assault on the theory of attributes, which begins (approximately) in Guide I, 36, is, for all practical purposes, a critique of the kalam as well; the mutakallimūn were the ones who insisted that attributes are a necessary and legitimate, if problematic, feature of theology. I hope to expand upon this in a future publication. 17 For a concise and critical presentation of Ibn Sīnā’s arguments for the soul’s substantiality and immortality, see Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, pp. 8–12; Abū-l-Barakāt’s stance is stated succinctly by Pines, ‘La Conception’, p. 94; concerning Abū-l-Barakāt’s position and its relation to that of Avicenna, see Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, p. 160. A later medieval critique of Avicenna, which is influenced by Abū-l-Barakāt, is the subject of Shihadeh, Doubts; see esp. p. 64 concerning Abū-l-Barakāt’s location of intellection in the rational soul.

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

11

be said of each of them that it is it. Thus it may be said of cotton, camphor, and snow, that each of them is white, and it may be said both of Zayd and of ʿAmr that each one of them is a man endowed with knowledge and intellect (ʿaql). Now whiteness is apprehended by the senses, whereas humanity, understanding and knowledge are not’. 18 Whiteness bears the identical relation to snow as does intellect and knowledge to Zayd. (We recall that Maimonides cites the dictum with regard to both intellect and knowledge.) We can do no better here than to cite from Pines’ remarks on the page which follows: ‘… he [Abū-l-Barakāt] does not differentiate between the intellect and the soul (or indeed between the various psychic faculties). Consequently the act of intellection, which has a privileged status in Aristotelian epistemology, can have no place at all in his psychological doctrines, for the good reason that according to the latter the intellect as a separate entity does not exist’. It is precisely the ‘privileged status’ of the intellect in the triad ensconced in the dictum which Maimonides wishes to uphold. Abū-l-Barakāt, however, thinks little of it, as we can see in our next citation. 19 In al-Muʿtabar, part three, chapter 24 (‘On the distinction between hyle, soul, and intellect, with regard to what inheres within them of forms and accidents’), we read: ‘…but they [the “ancients”] said that the rational soul, which is the human soul, is a hylic intellect and an intellect in potentia, and its business is to become an intellect in actu when it represents to itself the forms of the items of knowledge. Before that, however, she is the soul that sets the Pines, ‘Studies in Abū’l-Barakāt’. The citation is from the Hyderabad edition, vol. 2 , p. 410. 19 Maimonides may have taken Abū-l-Barakāt’s remarks out of context. I would not expect him to have presented a detailed analysis of Abū-l-Barakāt’s thoughts on substance and form and all the attendant details. He had a low opinion of Abū-l-Barakāt, whom he did not take seriously as a philosopher, and he was piqued by the analogy, however superficial, between whiteness and intellect, and appropriated it for his polemic. 18

12

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES body in motion. It is as if they called her a hylic intellect because she should acquire the forms after they had not been attained (ḥāṣila) by her and been within her. The upshot is that the hyle that has within her a permanent form, abiding forever, as the heavens do, is not hyle. But they did not say this; they rather said that the things that abide forever possess a hyle whose form does not separate from them. But the corruptible things that come about have a hyle which replaces one form by another through generation and corruption. They called both of them hyle. If this indeed is the situation, then the intellect, and the soul as well, are hyle for the intellectually apprehended (maʿqūl), cognitive (ʿilmiyy) forms! ‘They said, “No! When the intellect apprehends something intellectually, then that intellectually apprehended thing is a form abstracted from hyle; intellect ensconces it (yaktinnuhu) 20 [the item of knowledge] within her [the form]. Thus, he [what is intellectually apprehended] becomes she [the form] and she, he. Thereby, the intellect, the intellectually apprehending subject (al-ʿāqil), and what is apprehended intellectually (al-maʿqūl) are one”. This is quite marvelous! That which becomes, it—I mean that which becomes something [else]—transforms (yastaḥīl) into that thing, just as air transforms into fire. But how can this become that and that, this, simultaneously (maʿan)? Is it by means of substitution (istibdāl), insofar as the air is carried over into (yantaqilu) fire and fire [into] air, and the two of them are combined together, and thus the aggregate of the two of them is an aggregate of fire and air, just as they were before the transformation and substitution? Or does the fire remain just as it

This is how the word, unusual in this genre, is written and pointed in the edition and in MS Fatih 3224, fol. 123a; the unpointed ‘seats’ for this word in MSS Laleli 2553, fol. 383b and Fatih 3226, fol. 137a, fit yaktinnuhu; in MS Zahiriyya 6789, page 219 of the pdf, I read muktasaba, a passive participle, feminine and hence modifying ṣūra, and meaning ‘acquired’.

20

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68? was, fire; and the air transforms into it, and thus the air becomes fire and the fire becomes [scilicet, remains] fire; one of them transforms into the other, but the other does not transform into it. Hence, that becomes this, but this does not become that. How can one represent to oneself that this becomes that, and that, this, but the aggregate of the two of them is one? Do you see what that “one” is? If it is the intellect, then the thing apprehended by the intellect has transformed; but if it is the thing apprehended by the intellect, then the intellect has transformed! ‘The truth is that intellect has transformed in this event (maqām), if that is what it [the “dictum”] means; but if the meaning is something else, then what can be understood from this discourse? Whether or not it was altered in that transferal (naql), we truly judge (nuḥaqqiq) that the intellect is not the thing apprehended by the intellect, nor is the thing apprehended by the intellect, the intellect. Otherwise, when an apprehending subject apprehends by means of the intellect a horse, it becomes a horse, and the horse becomes an intellect. Likewise when he apprehends by the intellect any other thing; and when he apprehends many things, he becomes many things, [though] all the while he is one and the same thing (wāḥid bi-ʿaynihi), as it was at first. So he is a human, a horse, a donkey, a tree, and other things; yet he is not any of them. What is the difference between him, before he apprehended by the intellect, and after he apprehended by the intellect? ‘If intellect is the substrate (maḥall), then it is [also the] hyle, and the thing apprehended by the intellect is form. However, if the thing apprehended by the intellect is the substrate, then the thing apprehended by the intellect is prior to the intellect, and that which resides (al-ḥāll) is not prior to the substrate [which is the proper state of affairs; hence intellect must be the substrate, leading to the absurdity at the end of the discussion]. Indeed, if the substrate is one, prior in existence to the inherence of that which resides within it, and many things reside within it, sharing in the [act of] inher-

13

14

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES ence within it; and the substrate is shared by them; and such is the case of the intellect with regard to the things apprehended by the intellect—then it is hyle for them, just as the soul is for the forms which it learns and knows. In that case, by what criterion is this called hyle, and that intellect, with no restrictions (muṭlaqan)?’ 21

There is a lot to unpack in this passage, which offers more than a glimpse of Abū-l-Barakāt’s unorthodox views on a slew of key issues. An analysis is far beyond the purview of this paper. 22 What we must take away from the passage for the purposes of my argument is Abū-l-Barakāt’s derisive rejection of the ‘dictum’; according to him, the inevitable conclusion of the ‘dictum’ is that a person ‘intellectizing’ a horse would quite literally become a horse. 23 Finally, Abū-l-Barakāt affirms that human souls live on individually after the death of the body in several places in alMuʿtabar. 24 For example, near the very end of the book and the Hyderabad edition, vol. 3, pp. 142–143. The brilliant studies of the late Shlomo Pines remain the most authoritative and comprehensive work on Abū-l-Barakāt; they are conveniently assembled in Pines, Collected Works, vol. 1. Moshe Pavlov, Abū’l-Barakāt, is a recent book length study which must be read with caution; see Griffel, ‘Review: Abū’lBarakāt al-Baghdādī’s Scientific Philosophy’. For a recent study locating Abū-lBarakāt in the history of twelfth century Islamicate philosophy, see Griffel, ‘Between al-Ghazālī and Abū l-Barakāt’. 23 Abū-l-Barakāt’s complaint that if the identity claimed by the ‘dictum’ is a true identity, then, for example, the person apprehending a horse should actually become a horse, was a major problem in Latin philosophy. This is just one of many insights which Josef Stern shared with me in his comments on an early draft of this paper; on Maimonides’ solution to the problem raised in the preceding sentence, see Stern’s Matter and Form, p. 196. Rather than reproduce his full comments, I encourage Stern to publish his interpretations in some future publication of his own. For a very recent study relevant to this topic, see Benevich, ‘Perceiving things’. As I have noted already, and pace Pines, perhaps now Stern, and a number of other stellar historians of philosophy, Maimonides does not seem to have thought much of Abū-l-Barakāt as a philosopher. 24 For example, Hyderabad ed., vol. 2, pp. 440; see also the following note, and Pines, ‘La conception’, p. 94. 21 22

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

15

culmination of his discourse, he declares that ‘Each of the human souls has a distinct abode (maqām maʿlūm) in the hereafter and a ranking among the divine beings defined by its agent cause—that is what it has by dint of its innate potential (qūwwa gharīziyya)’. On top of that, the souls have additional blessings based on whatever they have acquired by means of (ethical) training (irtiyāḍ) and (good) habit (ʿāda); the best of these are habituated qualities (malakāt) of learning and practice that are very similar to those of the angels and celestial beings. 25

THE DICTUM TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT IN GUIDE I, 68

Let us now walk through Guide I, 68. We will look first at the wider context, that is, the topic(s) of Guide I, 68 in relation to the chapters which precede and follow. Nearly every chapter in the Guide presents a transition; after all, Maimonides is not laying down the law, but rather guiding those of us who are perplexed. One of the main points of the Guide is that redeeming knowledge is achieved by an arduous process which each and every seeker must undergo on his/her own. Similarly, most chapters contain hints that can be appreciated only if one has understood, and can recall, earlier chapters and/or clues that will prove useful as one moves through the book. Guide I, 68, follows up on Maimonides’ negative theology (chapters 58–60); discussions of the divine name, those found in Scripture as well as in post-Scriptural rabbinic sources, again with the main point being that these names predicate nothing of the deity (chapters 61–63); explanations in the same vein of biblical placements of the divine name in construct formation, as well as verbs, mainly denoting speech, writing, and work, for which the deity is the subject (chapters 64–67). In Guide I, 68, focusing on the dictum, as well as Guide I, 69, focusing on the ‘first cause’, Maimonides turns his attention to epithets for the deity employed by the philosophers, which are acceptable when

25

Hyderabad ed., vol. 3, p. 213.

16

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

properly understood. 26 Guide I, 70 continues the same discourse, here addressing God’s designation as ‘mover of the heavens’, and, significantly, adding some remarks on the afterlife towards the end of the chapter. With Guide I, 71 Maimonides begins his long and detailed critique of the kalam, which takes him to the end of the first book of the Guide. In view of this flow of the chapters, we would expect Maimonides to home in on the truth, and importance, of the dictum as a statement of God’s being an entity that does not allow of any multiplicity. Indeed, chapter 68 opens with a rare reference to the Mishneh Torah, where Maimonides makes that point precisely, which truth, he says, is ensconced in the ‘dictum’. Ostensibly, in Guide I, 68, Maimonides must first confront the ‘many ignoramuses’ who reject the dictum. Their difficulty with the dictum is due to their ignorance of the nature of intellection. Maimonides therefore embarks on a detailed description of the process in humans, using the (deliberately?) banal example of a person intellectizing a piece of wood; his analysis is founded, as Pines emphasizes, on an identity between human and divine intellection as an operation. In particular, the numerical unity of intellect, intellectizer, and intellected (excuse the neologisms introduced for brevity) holds good for every intellect, and not just for God. The differences between the human and the divine reduce to these two features: (1) the deity can only be an intellect in actu and (2) the subject of the deity’s intellection is its own essence. 27 Maimonides concludes the chapter by asserting that his intention had been ‘to affirm that that which pertains solely to Him, may He be exalted, and that which is specific to Him is His being constantly an intellect in actu and that there is no impediment either proceeding from His essence or from another than For a different suggestion concerning the placement of Guide I, 68, see Stern, Matter and Form, pp. 232–233. 27 For a more detailed account of these truisms, see Stern, ‘Agendas’, pp. 216– 217, and the literature cited there. For all their intrinsic interest, those more recent contributions do not affect my arguments as to the aims of Guide I, 68. 26

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

17

might hinder His apprehending’. 28 Nonetheless, the discussion in the chapter has focused on human intellection, thus removing the dictum from the context of the analysis of divine names and epithets, topics covered in the chapters which precede. The chapter concludes with this remark: ‘I do not consider that you might confuse intellectual representation with imagination and with the reception of an image of a sense object by the imaginative faculty, as this Treatise has been composed only for the benefit of those who have philosophized and have acquired knowledge of what has become clear with reference to the soul and all its faculties’. 29 We shall presently explore the possible ‘true’ aims of the chapter; let us return to the dictum. In Guide I, 68, there is a sharp and unmistakable shift in Maimonides’ interpretation and utilization of the dictum. In the commentary to the Mishnah and later again in the Mishneh Torah, the dictum is taken as a pithy statement of the deity’s absolute unity and concomitant freedom from any and all attributes. As such the dictum can and is applied to a list of other attributes, notably vitality; there is nothing special about knowledge—and the dictum in these early instantiations speaks of knowledge rather than intellect. However, applying the dictum specifically to knowledge is useful insofar as it allows one to counter, or dodge, the difficulty which divine omniscience poses for the doctrine of human freedom, which should be compromised by God’s foreknowledge of even the most mundane human actions. 30 As such, it vaguely calls to mind al-Ghazālī’s claim that ‘the philosophers’ resorted to the Pines, p. 166. Pines, p. 166. 30 Maimonides was deeply troubled throughout his life with the problem of God’s knowledge. In a talk delivered (via video) at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies on 2 November 2020, I argued that Maimonides’ inclusion of God’s knowledge as one of the thirteen foundations that make up his famous creed was the equivalent, for all practical purposes, of recognizing knowledge as an essential (in the sense of indispensable) divine attribute. See the appendix to this chapter for a brief restatement. 28 29

18

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

dictum in order to extricate themselves from the objection that God’s knowledge of all universals necessarily entails multiplicity within the deity. In both cases, the dictum serves as a refuge. Maimonides accepts the dictum, at least as a useful first approximation to a full (but likely unattainable) solution, whereas, addressing a different issue, al-Ghazālī sees it as only leading the philosophers into a more severe impasse. Given the place of the chapter near the end of a series of mostly polemical chapters directed squarely at the kalam theory of attributes, it would seem fitting indeed for Maimonides to interpret the dictum in Guide I, 68, precisely as he expounded it in his earlier writings. However, in Guide I, 68, the approach is very different. True, Maimonides begins by noting that ‘His life is not something other than His essence, as we have made clear when speaking of the negation of attributes’ [p. 163]. However, the chapter proceeds to speak only of intellection; and the goal of the chapter is to show that intellection is a process which, never forgetting the qualifications already noted, is identical in humans and the deity. 31 Though, as we have seen in the passage quoted above, he does highlight some features of divine intellection that belong to the deity alone near the end of the chapter, Maimonides has invested the great bulk of the chapter in an explanation of human intellection; and, in the course of doing so, he has to some degree blurred the distinction between divine intellection and human intellection. For what reason did Maimonides swerve from attributes and divine names, the theme of the chapters surrounding Guide I, 68, in order to speak about human intellection, and to violate It is pertinent and instructive to quote here the fine observation of A.H. Armstrong, ‘Plotinus and India’, p. 27: ‘…this belief that knowledge is due to a community of nature between subject and object persisted in later Greek thought. It is, for the Platonist, because man has something divine in him that he is able to know God. And Aristotle’s psychological theory of assimilation, of the actualization of the potentiality of the knowing subject by the object known (with its combination of the theories of “knowledge of like by like” and of “unlike by unlike”), is a more refined example of the same idea’.

31

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

19

his avowed adherence to ‘negative theology’ to boot? Was this simple sloppiness, of the sort leading to the sixth type of contradiction? Some medieval Yemeni readers thought this to be the case. 32 To be sure, Maimonides’ Guide is a collection of discrete chapters (fuṣūl) written over a very long period of time, but Maimonides surely went over the entire project before releasing it for circulation. Whereas I do consider it possible that his mysterious ghost reference in Guide I, 6, to a chapter on the equivocal term ‘son’ may be an oversight, it is well-nigh inconceivable that the deliberate shift in theme, from divine names to human intellection, the concomitant shift in the interpretation of the dictum, and the brazen departure from ‘negative theology’ were anything but deliberate moves. So, then, what was the point? I suggest two replies: a more limited goal, for whose sake Abū-l-Barakāt’s mocking remarks—and the doctrine that lies behind them—must be confounded; and a broader goal, namely a warning and wake-up call, to all who would read the Guide— against Maimonides’ instructions—as a manual in philosophy. The limited goal connects to Maimonides’ understanding of the afterlife, which was very different from that of Abū-lBarakāt. The latter, following Ibn Sīnā, holds, as we have seen, that the soul is a self-subsisting substance and as such inherently immortal. 33 In order to buttress the point, and to connect individual immortality with intellectual attainment, Abū-l-Barakāt shifted intellection to the soul. His mocking rejection of the ‘dictum of the philosophers’ is an important move in this direction— and it depends upon the epistemological interpretation of the dictum. It is for this reason, I submit, that Maimonides chose to shift his interpretation in Guide I, 68, from theology to epistemology; in much more radical fashion, he swerved a full one hundred and eighty degrees, from reading the dictum as a statement of the absolute inimitability of divine unity, as he had See note 10 above. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, p. 160, speaking of Abūl-Barakāt, writes: ‘Like Avicenna, he deduces the intrinsic immortality of the human soul from the proposition that the soul is an incorporeal substance’.

32 33

20

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

done in earlier writings, to one affirming that in the act of intellection, there is no difference between God and human. 34 The hint—clearly it is no more than that—should be clear, and it hearkens back to the final sentence of the first, programmatic chapter of the Guide: ‘It was because of this something, I mean because of the divine intellect that was conjoined with man, that it is said of the latter that he is “in the image of God and in His likeness” …’ 35 The only common ground (a gross expression but I cannot think of a better one) between the human and the deity is intellect. This remains true even after acknowledging the significant differences between divine intellection and the human sort mentioned above. Therefore, the only hope for any sort of immortality lies in the cultivation of the intellect. The immortal, pre-existent soul of Abū-l-Barakāt is a delusion. Maimonides was tight-lipped on the after-life. He does aver twice, in the paraphrase of Herbert Davidson, that ‘Possessing actual intellect at the level of “perfection” is … the “sole … cause” of human immortality’. 36 Intellect in actu is the distinctive feature of ‘the immortals’, and it has nothing to do with the soul. 37 The isomorphism obtaining between intellection in the deity and in the human allows for some sort of human immortality. Maimonides does not want to say, or even hint, more than this. However, it is enough to see why the dictum in its epistemological reading is important, inter alia, for dismissing alternative notions, such as that of Abū-l-Barakāt. Consider these Again, the identity applies to the process of intellection, in which the three elements named in the ‘dictum’ become one; there remain the significant differences between divine intellection and human intellection named at the end of Guide I, 68, which we have already mentioned. 35 Pines, p. 23. 36 Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, p. 202, citing Guide III, 27 and II, 27. For some other attempts at ferreting out Maimonides’ ideas on the subject, see Schwartz, ‘Avicenna and Maimonides’; Stroumsa, ‘“True Felicity”’. 37 The word chosen by Maimonides, al-azāliyūn, ‘the immortals’, appears nowhere else in the Judaeo-Arabic corpus posted at the Friedberg Genizah Site, nor does it have an entry in Blau’s Dictionary. The choice of this term, which clearly echoes the Greek athanatoi, is food for thought. 34

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

21

remarks, made near the end of Guide I, 70—the last in the group of chapters to which Guide I, 68 belongs: ‘For the souls that remain after death are not the soul that comes into being in man at the time that he is generated. For that which comes into being at the time a man is generated is merely a faculty consisting in preparedness, whereas the thing that after death is separate from matter is the thing that has become actual and not the soul that also comes into being …’ 38

Now to the broader goal: just what is the Guide all about? The most recent summation of the mainstream academic conversation on Guide I, 68, is found in an essay by Kenneth Seeskin, regarded by many as a major authority on Maimonides. 39 Seeskin avers that our chapter figures in ‘what may well be the central issue of Maimonides’ metaphysics: how to reconcile the negative theology asserted in I, 51–59 with the theory of intellection set forth at I, 68’. 40 According to Seeskin, Shlomo Pines hinted that Maimonides’ professed negative theology may be a mere ‘smoke screen’; in thinking so, ‘Pines was in good company’. On the other hand, if the views expressed on divine intellection in Guide I, 68, are taken seriously, then—with some tweaking—they bring Maimonides dangerously close to Spinoza. These intuitions also produced a ‘school of thought’. 41

Pines, pp. 173–174. Eli Shaubi rightly pointed out to me that Maimonides makes this remark in the course of unpacking a midrash, and so he uses the language of the midrash. For his part, Maimonides would prefer to speak of the ‘thing’ that remains after death, which is not a soul. 39 Seeskin, ‘Shlomo Pines’. 40 Ibid., p. 389 (emphasis is Seeskin’s). 41 Ibid., pp. 390–391. Though he doesn’t directly address Guide I, 68, Charles Manekin offers many pertinent insights to the basic issues raised here in his ‘Belief, Certainty and Divine Attributes’, especially n. 43 on pp. 130–131, where he situates Pines’ position in the context of the earlier, prolonged dispute between Harry Wolfson and Julius Guttmann. My solution is close to the one suggested by Manekin; more on this below. 38

22

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

Seeskin’s most important point is that Pines—and along with him many others, most of whom rely heavily or exclusively on Pines’ translation for their study of the Guide—has reached an impasse. It is hard to argue with that conclusion; as I have already mentioned, Maimonides appears to go out of his way in Guide I, 68 to present an interpretation of the ‘dictum’ that flies in the face of the negative theology he had advocated just a few chapters earlier. It seems that we have but a few choices. We can decide that one of the views is Maimonides’ ‘true position’, while the other is a smokescreen inserted in the Guide for tactical reasons of one sort or another. This is the view that Seeskin ascribes to Pines and company. Alternatively, we can accuse Maimonides of sloppy thinking; this is the view of the Yemeni copyists and commentators who assert that Maimonides is displaying a contradiction of the sixth kind—a move that he announces in their (clearly faulty) manuscript copies of the Guide! 42 The purpose of the Guide is not to propose any tightly coherent metaphysics or epistemology. 43 In my humble opinion— truly humble in the face of the awesome scholarship from which my own views depart—it is a fatal error to impose upon the Guide a rigor or punctiliousness that it does not possess. Maimonides wishes to be our guide, our murshid (see Guide III, 51, opening paragraph) towards achieving the worship that is the ghāya, the telos, ‘the end of man’. 44 Indeed, Maimonides deNotice should be given to reasoned attempts at averting such as impasse, for example in the fourth chapter of Daniel Davies’ commendable Method and Metaphysics. 43 Manekin stresses this point in his ‘Belief, Certainty and Divine Attributes’, p. 117: ‘One who reads it [the Guide] in the expectation of encountering a technical treatise on philosophy is apt to be disappointed … the work was not intended by Maimonides to be a book of philosophy’. 44 Pines, p. 618. The chasm which separates our approaches across the board notwithstanding, I am very sympathetic (in the sense of, ‘having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings’) to the views expressed by Stern, Matter and Form, pp. 7–8, concerning Maimonides’ advocacy of philosophy as a way of life. However, I do not fully accept Stern’s reading on page 8 of Guide III, 51; the ‘exercises’ 42

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

23

scribes ‘negative theology’ as a method of guiding, or directing, the mind (irshād al-dhihn) ‘toward that which must be believed of Him, may He be exalted’. 45 But one cannot worship the notmultiple, the not-bodily; Maimonides knows full well that our intellects must be in a certain ‘state (ḥāl)’ when we desire to apprehend God—and this ‘state’ must have some affirmative description of the object of our apprehension, apprehension being the highest form of worship. And so, in the same chapter (Guide I, 58), Maimonides allows that this object of apprehension exists and has the relation the world like that which the captain has towards his ship. Immediately, though, Maimonides retreats; this is not a true relation; it has rather been suggested only ‘to lead the mind’—irshād al-dhihn again! After dropping a few more affirmative hints—God governs the existing things and watches over their order—Maimonides promises that ‘this notion will be made more completely than it is here’. 46 Oddly enough, the only student of the Guide who dared suggest just where Maimonides makes ‘this notion’ more complete— meaning, as I take it in context, affirmative remarks that will enable the intellect to attain the ‘state’ in which it may apprehend (and thus worship) Him—was Adolf Weiss, in his German translation of the Guide published in 1923–24; his reference to Guide II, 12, and III, beginning with chapter17, is cited by Michael Schwarz in a note to his own Hebrew translation. 47 I dare say that Guide I, 68, may also be considered relevant, though it

which involve attempting to maintain one’s focus on every word of the daily prayers—something which Maimonides seems to think to be nearly impossible— are part of a thinly disguised polemic against Sufi practices, especially the dhikr. Note, for example, his criticism of ‘someone who thinks and frequently mentions (yadhkur) God’ (Pines, p. 620), in other words, mindlessly mumbles. In my view, the truly important ‘exercise’ that Maimonides recommends is to exploit to the maximum those ‘precious times’ (Pines, p. 623; I would prefer ‘precious instants’, al-awqāt al-ʿazīza), at the very moment that a person awakens. 45 Guide I, 58; Pines, p. 135. 46 Pines, p. 137. 47 Schwarz, p. 146, n. 26.

24

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

does not at all answer to the promise to make the notion more complete. Let me return, however, to the main point I am making here: in the very chapter where he promotes his negative theology, Maimonides, our murshid in the topic of true worship, states explicitly that both negative theology and whatever can be granted by way or affirmation serve only as tools for irshād al-dhihn. I cannot overemphasize this point. Maimonides argues forcefully, and at length, that ‘the description (waṣf) of God … by means of negations is the correct description’; the meager affirmations, with more promised (but possibly not delivered) later, fill only a few paragraphs. 48 Nonetheless, in the final analysis both paths—the via negativa and the via positiva—have exactly the same status: both are fully and sufficiently characterized as irshād al-dhihn. Neither can offer more than direction and guidance. Josef Stern observes that irshād signifies ‘guidance’ towards different objectives for Maimonides. In the parable of the ruler (Guide I, 46) it signifies guidance to the belief that something exists, whereas the irshād of negative attributes constitutes ‘a step in the right direction’, that is, in the direction of ‘the kind of understanding of true reality that constitutes epistemē, scientific knowledge’. 49 I do not find any discussion in his book of the irshād provided by the ‘state’ achieved by the mind by the hints given in Guide I, 58; nor does he refer to Maimonides’ taking on See above. One should add here the three attributes that feature prominently in the first of ‘Eighteen Benedictions’ recited thrice daily in Jewish prayer are legitimate, having been certified by Scripture and ratified by the ancient sages; see Guide I, 59, near the end of the chapter (Pines, p. 142). This allowance bears comparison with the remarks of the early Ismaʿili theologian Abū Yaʿqūb alSijistānī, as reported by Walker, ‘An Ismaili Answer’, 15: ‘…all notions and names, either as language or thought are defective unless certified valid in respect to any realm beyond that for which and in which they were created. Human language is valid when talking about the human realm but only God can tell humans how to talk about Himself since their language is insufficient’. 49 Matter and Form, p. 206; Stern unpacks the parable with his usual insightful analysis on pp. 170–171. 48

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

25

the role of murshid in Guide III, 51, though I have already noted his account of the ‘spiritual exercises’ Maimonides presents there. 50 But none of this matters for the point I am making. Just like the case—and I take the liberty of viewing the case as a parable in addition to being proven geometrical theorems—of the hyperbola and its asymptote (which Maimonides deploys in his polemic against the kalam; see below), one of the lines is curved and the other is straight; what is significant is the fact that they continually approach each other without ever meeting. Moreover, it is demonstrably true that the hyperbola and its asymptote draw closer together; so also I would maintain that the reader can be assured that following the two ‘guidances’ will bring her closer to the apprehension of the deity, even if full apprehension is unattainable. In another parable, that of the ruler’s palace at the beginning of Guide III, 51, Maimonides speaks of individuals’ greater or lesser ‘distance from the ruler’s habitation’. 51 There may be different forms of guidance towards true apprehension; the point is that they combine to lead us closer to an unreachable goal. I conclude, then, that the seeker must utilize both paths in the wisest, and most careful manner; each path must serve as a check on the other. True apprehension, and true worship, can be achieved—to the extent that they are humanly possible—only through a dialectical approach of suggestive description followed by the negation of any element of that description that entails materiality; that is, a dialectic of advance and retreat, an image that Maimonides’ invokes, at the beginning of the second chapter of ‘Laws concerning the Foundations of the Torah’, as the proper understanding of the rabbinic pair of ‘fear’ and ‘love’. 52 See note 45 above. Pines, p. 619. 52 I believe that my understanding is close to Manekin’s proposal (‘Belief’, especially pp. 135–137) concerning ‘fine-tuning’ our knowledge of God’s existence by weeding out attributes that must be denied of Him; Manekin’s presentation is certainly developed in a more philosophical idiom than my own, but I sense that 50 51

26

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

It was not merely in order to confute the kalam that Maimonides adduced the property of the two lines which continually approach each other but never meet. 53 That demonstrably true phenomenon is useful as a model outside of mathematics. It describes the acquisition and refinement of apprehensions concerning the deity, whose proper combination will bring the adept closer to ‘knowing God’, without ever fully attaining that objective. One acquires information concerning the deity through the study and contemplation of divine handiwork, especially the heavens and the human body; but then the apprehensions that we arrive at when processing these data must be reviewed critically, and any materiality that has crept into our conception must be negated. The two processes will never coalesce into a single, true and complete conception of the deity. This process does not contradict the imperative to cultivate our intellect—in fact, it goes hand in hand with it. Intellect is our only possible means of bonding to the deity; and we are charged with ‘thickening’ that bond (wuṣla). 54 However, Maimonides is writing a guide, not a textbook; a guide can, at times must, tell the reader first to go that way, then the other way, then back to the first way. This indeed is the fifth sort of contradiction mentioned in the introduction to the Guide, which is a method of instruction. 55 The truer one adheres to the instructions, the closer one may come. There is often if not always a moral message—a message telling us how to live our lives—lurking beneath Maimonides’ philosophical pronouncements. I am doing my best to follow his instructions.

we are on the same page. I also suspect that I am not the first to notice the resemblance between Maimonides’ fear and love and the Sufi pairing of khawf and rajāʾ. 53 Guide I, 73; Pines, p. 210. He had in mind, of course, mathematics and the asymptote to the hyperbola. 54 Guide III; 51, Pines, p. 621; Pines translates tughalliẓ by ‘fortify’ but I follow Rabbi Qafih in preferring the more literal ‘thicken’. 55 See Pines, pp. 17–18; I thank Josef Stern once again for this important insight.

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

27

APPENDIX: MAIMONIDES’ CREED: FINDING A ‘WORKAROUND’ FOR DIVINE ATTRIBUTES, ESPECIALLY THE ATTRIBUTE OF KNOWLEDGE

In the course of this paper we have seen that Maimonides utilized the ‘dictum’, especially in his earlier writings, as a philosophical escape hatch for treating qualities of the deity that the kalam identified as essential attributes; these qualities include knowledge, vitality, and power. In all three cases, the ‘dictum’ can be used to show that there is no distinction between the divine essence and the purported attribute. This formal solution, I have suggested, may work to fend off difficult questions, but it is unsatisfying in the extreme to the religious intuition and the religious ethos, particularly with regard to divine knowledge. Nor is the legitimate, negative formulation, i.e., ‘God is not ignorant’, enough. I believe that Maimonides worked his way around this conundrum by making God’s knowledge one of the thirteen foundations (qawāʿid) of Judaism. Maimonides’ famous list of thirteen principles that every Jew should accept as true—he introduces them as uṣūl sharīʿatinā wa-qawāʿiduhā, ‘the roots of our Law and their foundations’—was originally embedded in a long introductory essay to his commentary to the tenth chapter of the tractate Sanhedrin. 56 It has ever since carried on in various extremely condensed Hebrew redactions, which function as a catechism of sorts. Many Jews recite them daily at the end of the morning prayer. Much has been written about Maimonides’ creed, and more can be said. 57 My remarks here concern one aspect of the creed that Commentary, Neziqim, pp. 210–216. On this creed, its influences and afterlife, see Kellner, Dogma, pp. 10–65; Kraemer, Maimonides, pp. 176–182; Davidson, Maimonides, pp. 157–159. Maimonides occasionally labels as a ‘foundation’ other propositions that are not included in his creed. Even in the same essay where the creed is displayed, Maimonides states that ‘Performing the commandments out of love is the telos of the revealed scripture (sharʿ) and the foundation of the conviction of the wise’ (Commentary, Neziqim, p. 199); I am collecting these references for some future study. Stroumsa, Maimonides, pp. 82–83, sees in Maimonides’ emphasis upon dogma a 56 57

28

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

is directly relevant to this chapter and which, to the best of my knowledge, has not yet been explored. Consider Guide of the Perplexed I, 58. Maimonides, having thoroughly repudiated positive attributes, presents his ‘negative theology’, wherein we try to articulate what God is not. He illustrates this method by means of eight qualities or attributes, showing how each ought to be formulated as negations of some privation or defect in the deity. 58 Four of these are the first four of the principles in his creed—God’s existence, unicity, being uncaused or eternal, and freedom from matter. The other four are attributes which most mutakallimūn consider to be essential, as Maimonides reports in Guide I, 53: living, powerful, knowing, and willing. 59 This numerical parity already hints at some parallelism between the leading items in the creed and the most essential (in the sense of indispensable) of the essential (in the sense of being predicated of God’s essence) attributes. But there is more: three of the first four principles in Maimonides’ creed feature as attributes in Baḥya Ibn Paquda’s (c. 1050–1120) Duties of the Heart. A paper by Harry Wolfson alerted me to the connection between Baḥya and Maimonides’ creed. Wolfson writes: ‘As the subject of his discussion of the negative interpretation of predicates he [Maimonides] takes the terms “existence”, “unity”, and “firstness”, the last of which is the scriptural term for “eternity” in the specific sense of eternity a parte ante. The initial selection of these three terms as examples of predicates which are to be explained negatively is due to historical precedents. Before him Baḥya, for instance, clear sign of the influence of Ibn Tūmart (1077–1130), the ‘spiritual founder’ of the Almohads, under whose rule Maimonides lived in the Maghreb. 58 Pines, pp. 135–136; Stern, Matter and Form, p. 207. 59 Pines, p. 121. We must bear in mind that Maimonides identifies his opponents as ‘those who believe in the existence of attributes belonging to the Creator’ (Pines, p. 119), but he undoubtedly has in mind the Muslim mutakallimūn and their Jewish followers. This is clearly reflected in the excellent notes of Schwarz to Guide I, 53, especially notes 24 and 26.

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

29

who similarly explained predicates as either actions or negations, selected as the subject of the latter kind of explanation the same predicates of “existence”, unity”, and “firstness”. But in order to show that these are not the only predicates which can be explained as negations, Maimonides, in the midst of his discussion of this list of these three predicates, slips into it three of the four other predicates, namely “life”, “power” and “knowledge”, which have previously been explained by him as actions’. 60

I dissent from Wolfson’s phrase ‘similarly explained’. In one version of his book—this is the one preserved in MS Oxford-Bodley, Pococke 96, and used by Judah Ibn Tibbon for his Hebrew translation—Baḥya begins the chapter by introducing two types of attributes, essential (dhātiyya) attributes and attributes of action. 61 ‘Existence’, ‘unicity’, and ‘firstness’ (to keep to Wolfson’s terminology) are named as the essential attributes, and Baḥya accepts them as such. Only after explaining what they mean and why they are needed for theology, as well as offering some concise evidence for their truth, does he instruct the reader to understand them as negations, or rather, to understand them as denying their negation: predicating the existence of God denies His non-existence. 62 Baḥya then anticipates in some way Maimonides’ deployment of the ‘dictum’ in the service of attribute theory; he asserts that the three essential attributes all aim at a single idea, but we have no way of expressing that one idea without recourse to these three terms. 63 Though one may correctly state, as Wolfson does, that ultimately Baḥya rejects essential attributes, I do not think that Maimonides would have Wolfson, ‘Negative Attributes’, p. 413. Concerning the manuscripts, translations, and printings, see Manekin et al., Moritz Steinschneider, pp. 74–82. 62 Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, an eleventh century Ismaʿili philosopher, expressed a somewhat similar conception of attributes as negations of negations; see Walker, ‘An Ismā’īlī Answer’, pp. 17–18. 63 Baḥya, Torat Ḥovot ha-Levavot, pp. 73–78; see the convenient summation in Husik, History, pp. 93–96. 60 61

30

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

been pleased with Baḥya’s presentation, which, in my reading, leaves essential attributes as a legitimate feature which must be understood properly. 64 In the version preserved in MS Paris BnF héb 756, cited and translated by Rabbi Qāfiḥ in a note to his edition and translation, Baḥya states off the bat that the chapter will discuss the interpretation (sharḥ) of the attributes, and the way that they are to be negated and confirmed (thibāt) of Him. I believe that this version would have been more to Maimonides’ liking. 65 Closing in on my main point: Maimonides has indeed craftily ‘slipped in’ the second group of predicates. They have been deliberately inserted here in order to put the key kalam attributes on a par with Maimonides’ first four ‘foundations’, which also align with Bahya’s three essential attributes. Baḥya is missing Maimonides’ third foundation, the only one that is defined in negative terms—nafy al-jismāniyya, the denial of materiality or corporeity—and hence ab initio is a negative attribute. We are now ready to ask: which of the kalam attributes in the list displayed in Guide I, 58, features in Maimonides’ creed as a foundation of the Law or principle of the faith? Only one— divine knowledge, the tenth foundation. It seems to me that the question of divine knowledge, especially as it impacts upon notions of human freedom, troubled Maimonides throughout his life. The assertions that God’s knowledge is indistinguishable from God’s essence, and that God’s essence cannot be known, lead inexorably to the conclusion that we cannot know anything about God’s knowledge Wolfson, Repercussions, p. 26, includes Baḥya in a list of Jewish philosophers who ‘make their denial of real attributes clear … by their statements, in various ways, as to what they mean by terms attributed to God’. 65 Baḥya, Torat Ḥovot ha-Levavot, p. 73 n. 11*. Confirmation (thibāt) is not predication; rather, we confirm that our negation is sound. Rabbi Qāfiḥ (p. 9) considers this version to be later, and I concur; Steinschneider (Manekin et al., Moritz Steinschneider, p. 75) thinks it to be the earlier version. It seems that Baḥya tightened his strictures on essential attributes, though again, perhaps not sufficiently from Maimonides’ perspective. 64

1. AGAINST WHOM IS MAIMONIDES ARGUING IN GUIDE I, 68?

31

(other than the fact that He knows). This offers a formal solution to the problem which simply does not satisfy the mind. It begs the question rather than answering it. Consider, for example, Maimonides’ discussion of freedom of choice: if God, in His knowledge, knows that a certain person will be wicked, then that person should not be held accountable for freely choosing to do evil. Near the very end of his ‘Eight Chapters’, the short treatise on ethics which forms part of his youthful commentary on the Mishnah, he finesses this most difficult of problems by appealing to the identity of God’s knowledge with the divine essence. ‘It has been established in divine science, I mean metaphysics, that God does not know through the instrumentality of knowledge … were God to know through the instrumentality of knowledge, that would entail multiplicity, and the eternal ones would be many … I have given you an easily accessible proof, accessible in the first place for the understanding for the general public … It has been clear to you, then, that He—may He be exalted—is His attributes, and His attributes are He; it has even been said that He is the knowledge, He is the Knower, and He is the thing that is known …’ 66 Maimonides fills in the blanks in the ‘dictum’ with knowledge, vitality and the other attributes considered to be critical by the kalam. However, I do not know that Maimonides was ever troubled by divine vitality; of all the attributes, the only one that seems to recur again and again in problematic contexts is knowledge. Phrased as a negative attribute, we are enjoined to believe that God is not ignorant, which must mean that He knows. Yet the dissolution of God’s knowledge within His inscrutable, infinite being may give the opposite impression, namely, that the statement ‘God knows’ is meaningless. Hence Maimonides includes both formulations in the tenth foundation: ‘He knows the actions of man and He is not unaware of them’.

66

Commentary, Neziqim, p. 405.

32

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

He offers no argument, only scriptural support. 67 This does not solve the problem of human free will, or determinism in history, or any other issue that is bound up with divine knowledge. It does, however, barricade the truth of divine knowledge, which is indispensable for the robust conception of the deity demanded by Judaism. In my view, such fortification of essential beliefs is one of the motivations for identifying divine attributes; and if the predication of attributes is ruled out of court, then they will be re-admitted into theology by way of a creed. I refer to the thirteen foundations as a creed, but this is in some way misleading. The foundations are almost all reasonable propositions whose truth can be shown in some way: some, like the first set, are, in Maimonides’ view, demonstrably true, while others are susceptible to less rigorous forms of verification. 68 Others, such as the tenth, divine knowledge, have a stature reminiscent of Euclid’s postulates: propositions which seem to be true, and which are vital for the system of thought, but which cannot be proven. We have noted that Maimonides is satisfied with bringing only scriptural evidence in support of the tenth foundation. Maimonides invests the greatest effort in establishing foundations seven, eight, and nine, which are central to the creed in both senses of the word: they lie in the middle, and they are paramount. They assert, respectively, the uniqueness of Moses’ prophecy, the divine nature of Moses’ revelation, which includes the ‘oral’ Torah as well as the written one, and the rejection of naskh, the abrogation of the Torah which was a potent argument in favor conversion to Islam. Their purpose—and, by extension, I would argue the purpose of the creed in its entirety—is to solidify the distinctiveness of Judaism in the face of Muslim conversion pressures. Elaborating upon that point is a challenge that I hope to take up in a future publication. Commentary to the Mishnah, Neziqim, 216. I say ‘almost all’ because most scholars do not consider the thirteenth foundation, which is the resurrection of the dead, to be reasonable. I will leave that can of worms closed. 67 68

CHAPTER TWO. CONFIGURING THE SOUL: MAIMONIDES ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF MORAL CHARACTER § INTRODUCTION: FORMULATING OUR QUESTION

Can we improve our moral character, and if so, to what extent? Let me be clear: I am not asking about freedom of choice or freedom of will. Assume for the sake of argument that there are no restrictions at all on those freedoms; the question remains, can I improve my moral character? After all, I can freely choose to lift the Empire State Building with one hand, or freely decide to jump over the moon. Clearly, though, those tasks are impossible for me, no matter how freely I choose them or how strongly I will them. There are natural constraints, laws of physics and biology if you will, which make such actions impossible. The question I am asking here is, do constraints of this sort exist with regard to our moral character? If so, how much do they constrain us? Take, for example, anger, which is regarded by many as an ethical failing, especially when it manifests itself as an ingrained character trait and not a pre-meditated performance set in motion by a specific situation in which the person chooses to de-

33

34

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

ploy it for pedagogic or other purposes. 1 Is anger a product, or byproduct, of an innate ‘temperament’? I choose the Hippocratic-Galenic term because I will be examining the question I pose from the standpoint of medieval philosophy and science. However, mutatis mutandis, the question remains, and I believe it will remain, relevant no matter what biology we adopt. Indeed, some very modern thinkers use the ancient medical terminology. 2 Most if not all of the character traits that are judged to be negative—anger, jealousy, cowardice, lust, greed—have some biological foundation. I would expect this situation would be seen these days as giving us some evolutionary advantage. I think it also to be self-evident that these traits vary from person to person. The question then comes down to the control that an individual has over the traits, the initial states of which are his or her innate gift. Pressing the issue, I ask whether or not I can instill changes so that new and better traits become an integral part of my personality, displacing inferior traits that are causally related, at least in part, to the temperament given to me at birth. Given, for example, that I can resist a piece of chocolate cake at one point in time, I still ask whether I can make this reMaimonides (Mishneh Torah, Deʿot 2:3) justifies such feigned anger when used for legitimate ends, such as educating children. 2 Here is one lengthy example drawn from my own recent reading. Jeffrey A. Bernstein’s Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy and History (Albany: SUNY, 2015), p. 13, states that, according to Strauss, an individual’s choice to align himself with Jerusalem or Athens depends upon ‘the particular makeup or proportion of desires comprising an individual’s soul’. Martin Kavka in his essay review of Bernstein (JQR 108:2, p. 256) responds that ‘The freedom—“right” seems like too strong a term—to decide on an identity on the basis of one’s idiosyncratic temperament (a stance reminiscent of William James) helps to explain why Strauss was always insistent … that the absolute problems of both human existence and Jewish existence are insoluble’. Temperament is a key scientific term in the medieval discussion, and the influence that the temperament of the body had on the soul was accepted by the generality of medieval thinkers. This affects the individual’s moral duty (‘right’ here is too weak a term) to configure his soul with the ethically proper temperament, which is the temperament that will produce almost automatically virtuous behavior, as we shall see in this chapter. 1

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

35

straint a part of my personality, so that my initial reaction when confronted with a piece of cake will be to pass it up? Maimonides expresses his views on these questions in a number of places. Notable in particular is the intimate relationship between ethics and medicine manifest across the gamut of issues to be discussed here that are evident in his writings. This relationship is not limited to therapeutics (ridding oneself of bad habits and ingraining good habits, important for bodily health as well as moral character), but in the scientific concepts that underly the etiology and description of the human condition at large and the differences that obtain between individuals. Taken in their medieval context, Maimonides’ views are not exceptional. 3 Even so, it is certainly worth our while to have a close look at the Great Eagle’s pronouncements, which is precisely what I hope to do in this chapter. I will begin by looking at some key passages from al-Fārābī, whose influence on Maimonides no one—least all Rabbi Moses—would dispute. Inter alia, al-Fārābī would be the vehicle for Maimonides’ acquaintance with some relevant pronouncements of Plato and Aristotle. Following that, I will discuss the passages from Maimonides’ writings, especially the Guide of the Perplexed, that address the questions raised at the beginning of this chapter. The conclusions that seem warranted will be displayed at the end of the paper. 4

§ ARISTOTLE VS. PLATO IN AL-FĀRĀBĪ’S HARMONIZATION

A passage from al-Fārābī (or, at least, attributed to him) gives some helpful background. In The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle, al-Fārābī lists the major disagreements which were thought to exist between Plato and Aristotle, then resolves or harmonizes them by showing that, upon close inspection, the disagreement is negligible or Two good, recent accounts are McGinnis, ‘Islamic Ethics’, and Rudavsky, ‘Ethics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy’. 4 For a sustained discussion on the constraints matter may place on intellectual attainment, see Stern, Matter and Form, pp. 124–131. 3

36

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

non-existent. 5 Only one issue pertaining to ethics is discussed, and it is the question that stands at the focus of this paper. Although there is no evidence that Maimonides read this book, he does display an important citation from al-Fārābī’s lost commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics which, in my view, confirms the position ascribed to Plato in the Harmonization. 6 That passage will be discussed much later on in this paper. Here is al-Fārābī’s presentation of the controversy in the Harmonization: ‘Another instance is the moral habits of the soul and their presuming that Aristotle’s opinion about them differs from Plato’s opinion. That is because Aristotle explicitly declares in his Nicomachean Ethics (Kitāb Nīqūmākhīyā) that all moral habits (akhlāq) are habits (ʿādāt), 7 that they undergo change, that none of them is nature, and that a human being is capable of moving from one to the other by habituation. Plato explicitly declares in the Republic and especially in the Statesman that nature prevails over habit; that whenever the mature become naturally inclined to a certain moral habit, it is difficult for them to break it; and that when they do intend My citations will be drawn from the translation of Butterworth, Alfarabi, The Political Writings. Extensive bibliography on this treatise and the controversy concerning its authorship down to 1997 is available in Bertolacci, ‘On the Arabic Translations’, note 57 on p. 259. The most recent challenge to al–Fārābī’s authorship is Rashed, ‘On the Authorship’. Gutas (Avicenna , n. 3 on p. 23) observes that Avicenna knew al-Fārābī’s Harmonization. Al-Fārābī’s authorship would certainly give the treatise immense prestige, but even as a pseudoepigraph it is very instructive regarding the issues that were on the agenda of early Islamicate philosophers. Indeed, Rashed holds that the treatise was written by someone aligned with the thought of the Christian philosopher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī but still, if I understand correctly, places the work at the center of Arabophone philosophy in the tenth century. 6 Pines (‘Philosophic Sources’, lxxviii) writes, ‘After Aristotle, al-Fārābī is the philosopher whom … Maimonides held in the highest esteem’; Maimonides’ attitude towards al-Fārābī was clarified further in the classic study of Berman, ‘Maimonides, the Disciple’. Nonetheless, there is no evidence that Maimonides saw the Harmonization. 7 More literally, things that have been ingrained by habit, by repeated practice. 5

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

37

to break that moral habit they become more embedded in it. To illustrate this, he cites the example of a tree that has intruded upon a road by its inclination and crookedness: If one intends to clear the road, it must be pulled in the other direction; otherwise, if we leave it to its course, it will take more from the road than it already has. No one who hears these two discourses will doubt that there is a difference between Aristotle and Plato on the issue of moral habits’. 8

Al-Fārābī’s resolution of the apparent disagreement is not directly relevant to our question, and I can summarize it briefly. According to al-Fārābī, both thinkers address, in different ways, the change in behavior demanded by and imposed upon the individual by human society. Clearly, if transformation were not at all possible, law codes would be of no use. Aristotle, speaking of the general run of people, avers that ‘no moral habit … is by nature exempt from change and transformation’. 9 Plato, for his part, studies those who bring about political regimes; some find it easier to govern than do others. In sum, according to Plato, ‘…anyone reared in a certain moral habit will have great difficulty breaking it’; but what is difficult is not impossible. Aristotle does not deny that for some people and some individuals it is easier to transfer from one ethical trait 10 to another and for others it is harder, as he explicitly declared in his book known as the Nicomachea minor. 11 He enumerated the reasons for the diffiI cite from Butterworth, Alfarabi, The Political Writings, p. 147, adding in parentheses the Arabic terms; cf. Akasoy and Fidora, The Arabic Version, p. 11, for a partial transcription and translation of the passage. I prefer ‘ethical traits’ to Butterworth’s ‘moral habits’ for akhlāq; Akasoy-Fidora’s ‘ethical qualities’ is also acceptable. Much more will follow on the Arabic terminology and my preferred translations. Particularly in ethics, one cannot insist too stubbornly on uniform translations of key terms; the context will dictate the most appropriate English words. In this connection see the insightful remarks of Najjar, ‘Al‐ Fārābī’s Harmonization’, pp. 36–37. 9 Butterworth, Alfarabi, The Political Writings, p. 148. 10 Or ‘moral habit’, see above. 11 Butterworth (note 59) suggests that al-Fārābī may be referring to the Eudemian Ethics. Akasoy-Fidora discuss the issue on pp. 13–15. The identification of this 8

38

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

culty and ease of transferring from one ethical trait to another— ‘how many they are, what they are, how each one of these reasons [functions], and what are their remedies and their impediments’. 12 Al-Fārābī thus assures his readers that even if ‘surface readings’ of the two sages may give the appearance of a disagreement, studying each statement within its own contexts will reveal that there is no difference. He concludes with an interesting, and seemingly novel, way of understanding what Plato means when he speaks of ethical traits as ‘nature’. Things are made of matter and form; when a new form arises in the thing, the earlier combination of matter and form becomes the matter for the new form, and so on. For example, wood is a combination of matter and form; it is the matter out of which planks are made when the new form of planks arises in it. Similarly, the planks (wood+form of planks) are matter for the bed, when the newer form of a bed arises in the planks. ‘So, too, whenever the soul is shaped by a given ethical trait (‘moral habit’) and then undertakes to acquire a new ethical trait (‘moral habit’), the ethical traits (‘moral habits’) it already has are like things natural to it while the newly acquired ones are habitual’. Therefore, ‘whenever you see Plato or anyone else saying that some moral habits are natural and others are acquired, know what we have mentioned concerning this and understand the tenor of their statements, lest you find the mattext has no bearing on the present study, and I will have nothing more to say about it. 12 Butterworth, pp. 148–149. The last phrase is my own translation. Butterworth has, ‘and what facilitates or impedes them’. Akasoy-Fidora, p. 13, give ‘what the indications and what the impediments are’, but that is due to their choosing ʿalāmāt (‘indications’) rather than ʿilājāt (‘remedies’). Butterworth’s translation is elegant, but I prefer the more literal rendering displayed above, mainly to emphasize the medical analogy. The sickness and health of the soul is a welltraveled trope, found also in al-Fārābī’s Aphorisms of the Statesman and Maimonides’ Eight Chapters, as well as Plato, Aristotle, Philo, and more; see Davidson, ‘Shemonah Peraqim’, p. 42. See also below for the role of the physician in curing ethical malfunctions.

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

39

ter problematic and presume that some ethical traits (‘moral habits’) are truly impossible to break. For that is very repugnant, and the utterance itself is self-contradictory if you reflect upon it’. 13 Both sages, then, have in mind political regimes, whose law codes are founded on the possibility of moral improvement. Within a strictly political context, neither could have taken character traits as fixed natures incapable of transformation. When Plato speaks of a character trait as a nature, he has in mind whatever trait or form of character had settled in the soul as a habitus, and which will serve as the matter or nature to be transformed by a newer form. 14 In terms of the disagreement displayed in the opening paragraph of this chapter from the Harmonization, al-Fārābī clearly sides with Aristotle; character traits are amenable to change, apparently unlimited change. However, as we shall see from the citation from his commentary to the Nicomachean Ethics preserved by Maimonides, al-Fārābī understood Plato—pace the harmonization of this opinion with that of Aristotle—to believe that radical change in ethical character is well-nigh impossible. Al-Fārābī has established to his satisfaction that, at least in the political sphere, both sages agree: character traits are malleable, even if transformation may be difficult. 15 However, the disparity between the two positions is not trivial, especially Butterworth, pp. 149–150. I place Butterworth’s ‘moral habit’ in parentheses, preferring my own ‘ethical trait’. 14 To be sure, Maimonides agreed that laws are necessary; but their main goal is to restrain the inevitable violence that would result from humans living together—something they must do biologically. This point is established quite clearly in Guide of the Perplexed II, 40. For further reading on Maimonides’ political philosophy see, e.g., Macy, ‘The Rule of Law’. See also ‘A Yemenite Gloss’ in this volume. I thank Eli Shaubi for reminding me that there is definitely an individual level as well, in which character traits are transformed for the purposes of moral improvement. 15 Berman, ‘Ethical Views’, p. 14, writes: ‘An underlying theme of the Ethics is that the happiness of the individual is ensured by proper laws which habituate the individual to proper behavior in accordance with man’s nature’. 13

40

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

when we move beyond the minimal moral improvement needed to function within society, to the radical change demanded of those in search of perfection. Is the full range of character traits open to all individuals? What role does biology play in this mix? Can a habitus set in so firmly that it is, for all practical purposes, not susceptible of further alteration? Lawrence Berman reminds us that ‘from the Aristotelian point of view, ethics is considered a part of political science’.16 Ethics as a set of norms aimed at guiding the ideal man to achieve happiness within society may be a critical underlying principle of Maimonides’ theorizing on the subject; this is the aspect of the topic covered by Berman in his pioneering study. My slant is different. I see Maimonides’ ideals—call them philosophical, religious, or ethical—as being addressed to the individual; more precisely, to those few individuals capable and willing to devote their entire beings to the pursuit of perfection. Political regimes can impose their codes with much greater force than the individual can with regard to his own personal regimen. In extreme cases, for example, people who cannot control their own violence, society will simply destroy the deviants. The norms that are ensconced in Jewish law, or in the laws of the Islamic states within which Maimonides lived, serve to restrain people from harming one another and, to perhaps a lesser degree, from harming themselves. But some people—those rare individuals in search of direction for whom Maimonides wrote his Guide—will not be satisfied with that. Can an individual set her bar at the highest position and expect to meet it? Or are there innate, individual biological constraints that even the most dedicated individual cannot overcome, at least, not under normal circumstances? In a number of places Maimonides takes up the controversy that we have met in al-Fārābī’s Harmonization. Near the beginning of the eighth of his Eight Chapters (the long introduction to his commentary on the Mishnaic tract Avot) he states: 16

Berman, ‘Ethical Views’, p. 14.

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

41

‘I have explained all of this to you only so that you do not hold to be true those fantasies that are invented by the astrologers, that is, that the nativities of people make them into those who possess virtues or vices…But you should know that our Torah and the philosophy of Greece both agree that all of a person’s actions are within his own hands; there is no compulsion or external agent that pulls him in the direction of a virtue or a vice. There may be a temperamental readiness which, as we explained, may make things harder or easier. However, in no way at all is anything compelled or denied’. 17

Aristotle is not named, but he can be assumed to be the paragon of ‘the philosophy of Greece’ who endorses the person’s full capacity for ethical improvement. 18 However, Maimonides identifies the claim that character is fixed not with Plato but with the astrologers. A number of reasons may be suggested for this. He may have read the Harmonization and been convinced by alFārābī’s exegesis of Plato’s position, concluding thereby that Plato, too, allowed for change—even radical change—in one’s ethical disposition. However, his citation from al-Fārābī’s commentary (to be discussed below) presents a Platonic position which, in my interpretation, is not all that different from the belief in fixed natures and thus should indicate that al-Fārābī—if he is the author of the Harmonization—felt that Plato’s ‘true’ position all but denied the possibility of radical change. Alterna17 Commentary to the Mishnah, ed Y. Qafih, pp. 396–397; cf. his great legal code, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 5:4. In both places Maimonides attacks not astrology (which he refutes elsewhere) but rather the insipid, idiotic practitioners of the art, whom he derides quite severely in the latter source. This is no opening at all for the art of astrology, which he soundly refutes in a number of places. There is an unbridgeable chasm between Maimonides’ acknowledgement, on the macro level only, of the effect of the celestial forces, and the arrogant claim to know in advance the ethical limitations of a given individual that these forces will determine. 18 Rabbi Qafih’s edition displays falsafat Yūnān ‘the philosophy of Greece’. One might have expected falāsifa Yūnān, ‘the philosophers of Greece’.

42

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

tively, his exposition may reflect the ‘astrologization’ of the cosmos described by Gad Freudenthal; the fixity of human character, even if it is biological, has an underlying astral cause. 19 Above and beyond these reasons, we should recall that ‘the astrologers’ are a favorite target of Maimonides, especially—but not only—when preaching to the general public. 20 Clearly, writers whose aim is to spur readers to make the maximum effort to improve their character must exercise great discretion when broaching the possibility that there are limits to the alteration that one’s character can undergo. As it is, we are all too ready to make excuses for not undertaking the necessary improvements in our moral character; there is no reason to give us a ‘scientific’ excuse, namely that radical change is impossible or nearly so. Moreover, even if we each have limits imposed by our individual temperaments, none of us is likely to have pushed virtue to his or her personal maximum value. Hence it is easy to understand why Maimonides, speaking as preacher, denies any limits. It is much like parents encouraging children that with hard study they can become another Einstein. The limits that Maimonides does recognize come from neither Plato nor Aristotle but from the Galenic medical tradition; more on this later. Al-Fārābī addresses our question directly in another treatise of his, al-Fuṣūl al-Madanī (Aphorisms of the Statesman), § 15: ‘It is unlikely, or rather impossible, that a man exists created with a disposition (mafṭūr ‘alā istiʿdād) towards certain actions, and is then unable to do the opposite of those actions. Rather any man created with a state (hayʾa) and disposition towards the actions of a virtue or vice is able to resist and do an action issuing from the opposite disposition. But that is difficult for him, until it is facilitated by habit and becomes easy, just as in the case of what is established by habit. For leaving off what he has become accustomed to and doing the opposite is possible, though difficult till he accustoms himself to it, as we have said’. 21 Freudenthal, ‘Astrologization’. Langermann, ‘Maimonides’ Repudiation’. 21 Dunlop, Aphorisms of the Statesman, pp. 34 (English), 115 (Arabic). 19 20

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

43

Here too I observe that this statement is made in a work of political philosophy. As such it is strikingly consonant with alFārābī’s (or pseudo-al-Fārābī’s) resolution of the proclaimed contradiction between Plato and Aristotle. In this reading, alFārābī is saying here that no change of behavior mandated by the laws imposed on society is impossible for the citizen. These laws and the changes they may require are needed to ensure a functioning society, but are not, as a rule, intended to bring any particular individual to perfection. Al-Fārābī admits that people do have innate dispositions. However, he continues, anyone can do an action that issues from the opposite disposition. Note carefully the sequence: actions issue from dispositions. To put the matter somewhat differently, we exercise our free choice in acquiring dispositions. Any given action—which we may possibly identify here with an emotional response, be it an angry look or a generous donation—‘issues’, seemingly automatically, from the disposition that we have acquired. This is an important facet of medieval ethics in both the Christian and Islamic realms; in both environments, Aristotle’s notion of ‘habit’ decisively informed ethical thinking. 22 Moreover, the compass of psychic configuration extends far beyond ethics. A professional skill such as carpentry is also the product of a specific hayʾa that the soul has acquired; it too is ingrained by a long process of exercise and training. Maimonides makes this point in Guide I, 52, when speaking of the four genera of qualities: ‘There is no difference between your saying a carpenter or your saying a learned man or a sage, all of them being dispositions of the soul … For all arts, sciences, and settled moral characters (khulq mutamakkin) are dispositions (hayʾa) subsisting in the soul. All this is clear to whoever has occupied himself even to the slightest extent with the art of logic’. 23 For some pertinent and insightful remarks see Rega Wood, Ockham on the Virtues (West Lafayette, IN, 1997), p. 192. 23 Pines, pp. 115–116. Note Maimonides’ assignment of these clarifications to ‘the art of logic.’ 22

44

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

Since Maimonides’ discussion takes place in an Islamicate context, or, more precisely, within Jewish thought in an Islamicate context, I will illustrate this point with quotations from two thinkers who flourished about a century after him, the first Jewish, the second Muslim. Ibn Kammūna (d. 1284), a Jewish philosopher from Baghdad who worked under the Mongols, gives this definition: ‘A character trait is a [certain] configuration of the soul, from which action readily issues, without deliberation or constraint; constraint may in fact be a path towards the acquisition of the character trait, by means of habituation’. 24 Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274), an acquaintance of Ibn Kammūna, opens the second division of the first discourse on his Ethics with a similar pronouncement: ‘Disposition is a habit of the soul, necessarily effecting the easy procession of an action therefrom, without need of any reflection or deliberation’. 25 Dispositions are acquired by habit; this, as we shall see, is also the view of Maimonides, who regards habit as perhaps the strongest post-natal variable in shaping human character, for better or for worse. 26 Al-Fārābī asserts that performing acts that are opposed to one’s innate disposition become easy once the opposite tendency has been habituated. We shall see that Maimonides disagrees: he explicitly remarks that behavior that runs against one’s innate disposition will always be difficult. I am not entirely comfortable with Dunlop’s translation of key terms in the passage from al-Fārābī cited above. Istiʿdād may be better, and more literally, rendered ‘readiness’. I also prefer not to use ‘state’ for hayʾa; I reserve that English word for ḥāl. When used in astronomy (which includes geography, or hayʾat al-arḍ, in many medieval tracts), hayʾa means configuration, that is, the dimensions, precise arrangement, and inter-workings of Langermann, Subtle Insights, p. 119. al-Ṭūsī, Ethics, p. 74. 26 See Guide I, 31 (Pines, pp. 66–67), where Maimonides adds to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ list of three causes for disagreement a fourth cause, ‘habit and upbringing’, which blinds people to the apprehension of the true realities. 24 25

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

45

the parts that make up a complex system. In astronomy and geography, it is clear what the components that must be configured are. Hayʾa is also used in biology (though the writers of the period would call it medicine) to characterize bodily organs; however, it is far less apparent how the components (mostly humors) are configured in three dimensions. When speaking of the soul, I am unable to depict just what elements are being configured or how, even though medieval writers do speak, at least figuratively, of the ‘parts of the soul’. The dictionary definitions of ‘disposition’, for example, ‘inherent qualities of mind and character’ or ‘the way in which something is placed or arranged’, are certainly a good fit for hayʾa. One must always bear in mind, however, that in the medieval—certainly in the Maimonidean—conception, behavior is a product of the inherent qualities which in turn are a function of the way the soul is ‘configured’. Moral betterment begins with, and ultimately depends upon, conferring upon the soul a configuration from which the desired type of action ensues. It seems clear enough that, with very few exceptions—so exceptional that they may be deemed miraculous—one can only tweak the innate configuration; redesigning the soul, giving it an entirely new and different configuration, seems to be well beyond human capacity. The reader will remark that I have paid no attention to the Greek antecedents of the terms discussed in the preceding paragraph. I will have something to say about that aspect of the issue later on. However, as I am interested in elucidating Maimonides’ position, I will be interested in the meanings that key terms take on within the critical passages of his writing. Whatever the choices of the Arabic translators may have been for an Arabic equivalent to a word in Aristotle, that Arabic word brought along with it connotations and other baggage that the word had acquired in Arabic usage, which only increased as time went on; the ‘Greek’ sciences took on a new life in an Arabophone, Islamicate setting, and the so-called technical terms as a rule are but a reflection, often a weak reflection, of the Greek words that are their antecedents. For example, I have already mentioned that hayʾa, perhaps the most important ‘technical term’ for our topic, was a very

46

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

important term in astronomy as well. Maimonides was well aware of this, and the hayʾa of the heavens receives a great deal of attention in the Guide. 27 Hexis, if this the Greek antecedent of hayʾa when used in the science of the soul, is not part of the vocabulary of Ptolemaic astronomy. 28 In Islamicate civilization hayʾa features prominently in both astronomy and psychology. Now, as to the meanings of these terms, especially as they may differ from Maimonides. I call attention to the phrase, ‘any man born with a natural inclination towards (mafṭūr ʿalā) a state (hayʾa) and disposition (istiʿdād) towards the actions of a virtue or vice’. As we shall see, Maimonides does consider istiʿdād an innate, hence hardly malleable, characteristic. The same does not apply, as far as I am aware, with regard to hayʾa. To be sure, there must be some initial configuration or state; Maimonides does mention the ‘temperamental preparation in the original natural disposition (tahayyuʾ mizājiyy fī aṣl al-jibla)’. 29 I believe that Maimonides chooses that expression—wherever he may have found it, if it is not his own—because it highlights the material aspect of the initial conditions. Temperament (mizāj) is a certain proportion obtaining between the humors, which are the material constituents of the body and its organs (including the brain, heart, and various types of pneuma, all of which play a role in emotion). It features in the title of the very influential treatise by Galen, That the Faculties of the Soul are Consequent upon the Temperament of the Body (Fī anna quwā al-nafs tābīʿa limizāj al-badan). 30 Jibla, from the root meaning ‘to knead’, calls to mind Adam’s formation from clay, and has an unmistakably material connotation. Especially in Guide II, 24. Hayʾa features in the Leiden manuscript of the Arabic Almagest as the translation of skhesis; see the online glossary at https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/glossary, accessed 29 October 2018. 29 Guide II, 38; Pines, p. 376; and see below. 30 An English translation (under the title ‘The Soul’s Dependence on the Body’) is available in Singer, Galen: Selected Works, pp. 150–176; the Arabic version has been edited and translated by Biesterfeldt, Galens Traktat. 27 28

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

47

Let us return to Plato, Aristotle, and al-Fārābī. Even if Maimonides did not see the Harmonization, he knew well the position ascribed therein to Plato from al-Fārābī’s commentary to the Nicomachean Ethics. In Guide III, 18 Maimonides supplies us with a precious fragment from that lost commentary. I present an extended quotation so as to preserve the context: ‘The texts that occur with regard to this notion are so numerous that they cannot be counted; I refer to the notion of providence watching over human individuals according to the measure of their perfection and excellence. The philosophers too mention this notion. Abū Naṣr [al-Fārābī] says in the Introduction to his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean [Ethics]: Those who have the capacity of making their soul pass from one moral quality (khulq) to another are those of whom Plato has said that God’s providence watches over them to a higher degree’. 31

Pines, p. 476. As far as I know, no one has identified the source of the passage quoted from Plato. When I presented a version of this paper at the International Congress on the Nicomachean Ethics, organized by Michele Curnis and held in Madrid, 24–25 October 2018, Douglas Hutchinson suggested that I look at the very end of the Meno. Socrates states there (100B), ‘whoever has virtue gets it by divine dispensation (moira)’ (trans. Guthrie, Collected Dialogues, p. 384). Munk (Guide, III, 139, n. 2; the manuscript he cites is now BnF héb 399) calls our attention to glosses by Joseph ben Shem Tov, translator into Hebrew and commentator to the Nicomachean Ethics, and his son Shem Tov, author of a commentary to Maimonides’ Guide, expressing surprise that Maimonides has chosen to cite Plato (by way of al-Fārābī) rather than Aristotle directly, who says pretty much the same thing in the Nicomachean Ethics X, 8, 1179a22–32. Joseph’s son Shem Tov, in his printed commentary to Guide III, 18, presses the point, wondering if Maimonides ever saw Aristotle’s Ethics: ‘It is utterly stupefying that our teacher [Maimonides] should cite Abū Naṣr [al-Fārābī], from the beginning of his commentary to the Ethics, and not instead adduce support from ‘the first in the sciences’ [Aristotle], who stated in the Ethics that a person who behaves according to reason … should be loved by God …it may be the case that he [Maimonides] did not see this treatise [the Ethics], and the citations that he brings from Aristotle are passages that the commentators have quoted’. The apparent contradiction with Metaphysics XII, 7–9 ‘has baffled interpreters’, 31

48

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

Impetuous though it may be to claim a context for a passage which is the sole remnant of an introduction to a lost work, nonetheless, I suggest that Maimonides has pulled this quotation out of context. Evidently, al-Fārābī made this point in the introduction to his commentary in the context of a discussion on the possibility of ethical improvement. Maimonides seizes upon the end of the sentence for evidence that ‘the philosophers’ agree with him that divine providence over individuals is a function of the perfection of those individuals. Why, then, did Plato mention divine providence? It seems to me that Plato intended the following: radical change in character is so difficult, and so rare, that, when achieved, it is a sign, post facto, of divine providence. It is almost a miracle in the person, of the sort one might expect of a prophet. Plato, as cited by al-Fārābī and preserved by Maimonides—and as interpreted by me—holds that such radical improvement is nearly impossible. Therefore, someone who has achieved it has certainly been blessed with divine guidance.

§ MAIMONIDES

I have dwelt till now mostly on Maimonides’ predecessors and presumed ‘sources’—Plato, Aristotle, and al-Fārābī—inserting, from time to time, some of Maimonides’ own statements. In this section I sharpen my focus on Maimonides’ position. I do not know that he ever settled on a firm and unequivocal answer to the questions that I posed at the beginning of this paper, and I am wary of trying to impose one on him by way of a close analysis of what he wrote. Moreover, I have already suggested that with regard to this issue in particular, Maimonides had to emphasize the possibility of radical improvement when writing for a general audience. It is clear enough that he regards biology as a strong variable, whose resistance to change increases as a virtue approaches its maximum, i.e., perfection. However, it is no less evident that one can make only qualitative statements about who offer a number of solutions; see Broadie and Rowe, Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, p. 448.

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

49

these factors; there is no way to quantify them. With all of this in mind, I will display and discuss relevant passages in Maimonides’ writings. I will, however, stop short of firm conclusions, bearing in mind Maimonides’ retort to the person who wanted to prove creation by drawing an analogy between the cosmos and the soul: ‘To this, the proverb well known among the Syrians may truthfully be applied: Your guarantee needs another guarantee. It is as if he had already possessed a demonstration of the permanence of the souls and as if he knew in what form they last and what thing it is that lasts, so that he could make use thereof for drawing inferences…’ 32

Much of what concerns the soul remains hidden, and I do not know that Maimonides ever urged a deep study of the soul the way he did emphasize the importance of understanding the human body, the laws of physics, and the structure and motion of the heavens. The key technical term for our discussion will be hayʾa; I have already said something about this word and its translations in commenting upon Dunlop’s translation of al-Fārābī. In the Nicomachean Ethics hayʾa is one of the words used to translate the Greek hexis, as we shall shortly see; in Galen’s The Soul’s Dependence, hexis is matched to ḥāl. 33 In the following I will leave the Arabic term untranslated. Significantly for our discussion, hayʾa straddles the body-mind divide with regard to the human being. All bodily organs, as well as their constituent parts, have a particular hayʾa, and so does the soul. The initial hayʾāt are innate; giving them the configuration of virtue is our moral duty. Just how much control the individual has over the hayʾa of her soul is the central question of this paper. Actions, laudable and condemnable, ensue almost automatically from the hayʾa that the soul has at a given point in time. Therefore, ethical perGuide I, 74; Pines, p. 221. The ‘Syrian’ (scilicet Aramaic) proverb is a Talmudic expression; see Sukkah 26a and Gittin 28b. 33 Biesterfeldt, Galen’s Traktat, 234. 32

50

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

fection, or improvement, is a function of the person’s ability to give his/her soul the proper hayʾa. We will begin with Maimonides’ most extensive exposition of his ethics, the introduction in eight chapters to his commentary on the Mishnaic tractate Avot, widely referred to as the Eight Chapters. The commentary to the Mishnah is his earliest major work, written while Maimonides was in his twenties and still residing in the Maghreb. Herbert Davidson has shown that Eight Chapters bears a strong imprint of the Nicomachean Ethics, though by way of al-Fārābī’s Aphorisms of the Statesman. 34 At the beginning of the third chapter Maimonides defines the health of the soul as a hayʾa of the soul as a whole and all of its parts, from which ensue good things. In other words, the soul, like other complex bodily organs, has a ‘healthy’ hayʾa, as do each of its parts (the health or optimal state of the hayʾa possibly varying from part to part). Its health is manifest in the good actions that are done by the person inhabited by the soul— these are actions that may be judged to be good or bad. Do we have control over this hayʾa? Apparently, we do; in his comment to Avot 2:13, ‘Do not be easily angered!’, Maimonides writes: ‘Do not configure your soul to fault-finding and anger’. The verb constructed from the same root as hayʾa is used here in the second, transitive conjugation, with the sense of ‘to configure’, ‘to impose a configuration upon’. Hence, we can configure our souls, indeed, we are morally obliged to do so. However, biology cannot be ignored. Towards the end of the same gloss to Avot 2:13 Maimonides—following upon the words of the Mishnah— urges one to instill the proper hayʾa while young; in old age the hayʾa becomes a malaka, an acquired characteristic, and it is then extremely resistant to change. Here it may be instructive to refer to the Nicomachean Ethics and make some additional observations on terminology. According to the Graeco-Arabic glossary in the edition of AkasoyDavidson, ‘Shemonah Peraqim’. However, some interesting passages in ‘Eight Chapters’ have no connection at all to al-Fārābī; see Langermann, ‘An Early Maimonidean Conundrum’. 34

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

51

Fidora, p. 598, hexis is rendered by either ḥāl or hayʾa, with the exception of 1098b 33, where malaka is employed. There Aristotle proclaims (in the Arabic version, p. 138), ‘Presumably the difference is not slight between the belief that the chief good is in acquisition (qunya) and possession (malaka) and the belief that it is in use and in act …’. In one of their notes to this sentence (n. 75), Akasoy and Fidora observe that ‘The Greek offers two pairs of contrasting terms’ but in the Arabic ‘these have been rearranged and are no longer alternatives’. In other words, hexis and ktēsis have been taken to be synonymous and therefore translated as qunya and malaka. The source of the misunderstanding, Akasoy and Fidora add, is probably a misunderstanding of hexis. Yet the translator seems all along to be familiar enough with hexis, to the point of using two different Arabic words in its place, ḥāl and hayʾa. (At first blush one would think that ḥāl is employed when the context indicates a temporary state, and hayʾa for a disposition that is more stable; but this must be investigated further.) I am not quite sure what Akasoy and Fidora mean by ‘alternatives’; in any case, the intent of the Greek is clear enough, as we see in the translation of Broadie-Rowe, p. 103: ‘But perhaps it makes no little difference whether we suppose the chief good to be located in the possession of excellence, or in its use, i.e. in a disposition or in a form of activity’. As I see it, then, the Arabic translator correctly observed that ktēsis and hexis were being used synonymously in this passage, and decided accordingly that neither ḥāl, which he had used to this point, nor hayʾa, which he would use later as alternative to ḥāl, will do here as the Arabic equivalent of hexis; neither convey the sense of permanence of ktēsis. 35 Therefore, he chose—for this one instance only—to use malaka, a literal translation of ktēsis. Now that the text has established that hexis can be permanent, or

My analysis is based on Akasoy-Fidora’s informative glossary, p. 598; the first usage of hayʾa occurs on at 1103a 9. 35

52

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

nearly so, the translator began to use hayʾa as its Arabic match, wherever the context indicates a more stable disposition. 36 The point of this somewhat involved tracking of terms is that the configurations of the soul vary in their stability; some are transient, some stable though not quite fixed, and some so fixed that they can be considered to be an integral part of the personality. With this in mind, I suggest that Maimonides— perhaps following other Arabophone ethicists whose works I have not seen—may have recognized three states of a character trait and given each one its own name: a temporary, fleeting manifestation, such as a fit of rage or a splurge on a rich dessert, which he would call ḥāl; then hayʾa, a more stable characteristic, such as irascibility; and finally malaka, which is a fixed, entrenched trait—crabbiness, for the sake of example. For Maimonides, this last, fixed state would that of the biblical Pharaoh and those like him, whose hearts were hardened; they were not able to repent because it was too late for them to overcome the character defects that had become irrevocably entrenched. I understand in this vein Maimonides’ interpretation of Job 33:14–15: ‘…it is an attested and well-known thing that when a man is ill to the point of death and when he is despaired of, if an angel intercedes for him—regardless of what angel—his intercession is accepted and he is raised from his fall … and restored to the best of states. However, this does not continue always, there being no continuous intercession going on forever, for it only takes place two or three times’. 37 I understood from the oral teachings of the late Rabbi Yosef Qafih that Maimonides is speaking here of ‘the interceding angel’ that urges us to repent; we might call it our conscience. In the verse from Job cited above, Elihu is speaking of spiritual or moral health, and the 36 I find some support for this suggestion in another writing of al-Fārābī, Fuṣūl Muntazaʿa, where hayʾa has the sense of ‘habitus’; for this concept the Fez manuscript (our source for the Arabic version of the Nicomachean Ethics) uses ʿāda. See Akasoy, ‘The Arabic and Islamic Reception’, on p. 100. 37 Guide III, 23; Pines, p. 495; cf. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86; Maimonides interprets the verse differently in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 3:5.

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

53

limited window of opportunity that we have to restore it. Note that Maimonides speaks of the invalid being restored ‘to the best of states’. Further clarification concerning some of these terms is available from Guide I, 52 and the discussion there of divine attributes. This should come as no surprise: Maimonides intends there to explain why we cannot ascribe human qualities to the deity. To do this properly, one must have a clear understanding of the qualities which they describe, and why they are human and in no way attributable to the deity. The topic leads Maimonides to elaborate upon the four genera of qualities. The first is a speculative or moral malaka, or a hayʾa ‘subsisting in him qua an animate being’. 38 Both malaka and hayʾa belong to the same genus (jins); the difference between them is one of magnitude. In a passage already cited in this paper Maimonides speaks of ‘every art, every science, every moral character (khulq) that is ensconced (mutamakkin) is a hayʾa within the soul’. 39 Malaka, then, is a term describing a hayʾa that has become firmly embedded in the soul. The configurations of the soul from which our activities spring—moral, artisanal, intellectual—are all considered to be hayʾāt. The qualities, when positive, are the virtues: ʿālim, ʿafīf, and so on. Maimonides groups together malaka and hayʾa because both are acquired, the former being more firmly in the possession of the person who has it. In the second group, ‘natural capacity’ (qūwa ṭabīʿiyya) and ‘readiness’ (istiʿdād) are used synonymously. No moral qualities are offered as examples. The third group consists of what we call 38 Pines, p. 115. The Arabic terms are translated by Pines ‘habit’ (malaka) and ‘disposition’ (hayʾa). 39 My translation from the Arabic. Pines, p. 116, has taken some liberties; he writes: ‘For all arts, sciences, and settled moral characters are dispositions subsisting in the soul’. Note that Pines (and so also Michael Schwarz) takes the adjective mutammakin to modify only the last of the three subjects, moral character. I follow Rabbi Qafih in taking the adjective to modify all three; the context seems to dictate this, since an art or a science, even more than a moral character, must be firmly ensconced in the soul before the person can truly be called an artisan or sage.

54

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

emotional reactions. 40 Here, interestingly enough, Maimonides presents a list of human qualities, most of which can develop into vices: a person who is ‘irascible, irritable, timid or merciful’ (Pines, p. 116) which parallel, in the inanimate material world, the objects of human sensation—color, taste, smell—as well as the four fundamental physical qualities: hot, cold, dry, and wet. I suspect that Maimonides lists here merciful (raḥīm) as a vice, or proto-vice, in line with his sweeping generalization that ‘every [emotional] reaction is evil (kull infiʿāl sharr)’. 41 If I am correct, he is speaking here of those who are merciful to those evildoers who must be eliminated, in line with another dictum of his: ‘…pity for wrong-doers and evil men is tantamount to cruelty with regard to all creatures’. 42 Note also that these ‘affective’ qualities parallel features that are without doubt innate and biological: the four elemental qualities that determine one’s temperament (hot, cold, dry, wet), skin color, perhaps also smell. These ‘affections’, then, form part of the package one receives at birth. 43 They will produce what Maimonides calls elsewhere a ḥāl or temporary state, but if they settle in, they become bad features of the personality, that is, bad hayʾāt. 44 The hayʾāt, which can develop into malakāt, are features of the personality that are malleable to some extent; they are responsible for the virtues and vices for which are we are judged. Maimonides mentions both (following here Pines’ translation, 116) kayfiyya infiʿāliyya ‘passive quality’ and infiʿālāt ‘affections’. 41 Guide I, 64; Pines, p. 126: ‘all passions are evil’. 42 Guide III, 39; Pines, p. 554. 43 These manifestations in the physical characteristics of the body are the basis of the science of physiognomy; they are reported favorably by Aristotle in the first book of his History of Animals (491b–492a) and endorsed by Galen in The Soul’s Dependence (trans. Singer, pp. 163–164). 44 See Rav Qafih’s Hebrew translation, p. 120, note 19, criticizing Ibn Tibbon’s translation for not paying attention to the distinction between these affections and the dispositions mentioned in the first example. According to Rabbi Qafih, anger as disposition is directed at a certain person, whereas anger as affection is not directed at anyone; it is a global reaction to an event that annoys the person. 40

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

55

Al-Fārābī makes a similar point, using somewhat different language, in his Aphorisms of the Statesman : ‘This natural disposition (istiʿdād ṭabīʿiyy) is not spoken of as a virtue … but when a natural disposition is towards the actions of a virtue and those actions are repeated, become habitual and are established by habit, till there appears in the soul a state (hayʾa) from which precisely those actions proceed, the state established from the habit is said to be a virtue. The natural state is called neither a virtue nor a vice, even if there proceed from it actions of the single type only’. 45 I find it unfortunate that Dunlop chose to translate hayʾa by ‘state’, even more so that in the sentence which follows, he translates the single word, al-ṭabīʿiyya, nature or perhaps Nature, by ‘the natural state’, even though hayʾa (nor any other word, such as ḥāl) does not appear in the phrase. AlFārābī goes on to say: ‘The natural state has no name, and if anyone calls it a virtue or a vice, this is simply because of homonymy, not that the meaning of the one is the meaning of the other. It is for the state which is due to the habit that a man is blamed or praised. He is neither praised nor blamed for the other’. Nature is amoral, it is neither good nor bad; but the person has the responsibility of affirming any positive natural tendency and weakening if not neutralizing any negative one, and for that we are judged. I find further confirmation for my analysis two chapters later in the Guide (Guide I, 54). Maimonides is still dwelling on the topic of the divine attributes. These attributes resemble human moral qualities (akhlāq), and the similarity leads many to mistakenly believe that God possesses such qualities. Maimonides accordingly instructs the reader: ‘The meaning here is not that He possesses moral qualities, but that He performs actions resembling the actions that in us proceed from moral qualities— I mean from aptitudes of the soul (hayʾāt nafsāniyya); the meaning is not that He, may He be exalted, possesses aptitudes of the

45

Ed. Dunlop, pp. 32 (English), 109–110 (Arabic).

56

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

soul’. 46 Pines has introduced some confusion by translating hayʾa here by ‘aptitude’, the same word he used in I, 34, to translate istiʿdād, and which, as we have seen, is a discrete, innate capacity. He repeats the same translation later on in the same chapter: ‘… actions similar to those that proceed from us from a certain aptitude of the soul—namely jealousy (ghayra), holding fast vengeance (al-akhdh bi-l-thār), hatred (ḥaqr), or anger (ghaḍab) —proceed from Him, may He be exalted, because of the deserts of those who are punished , and not because of any passion (infiʿāl) at all…’. 47 From the passages just cited we learn two important facts relevant to our inquiry: (1) that hayʾa is, in effect, synonymous with khalq, moral quality, the vices and virtues that we are charged to rid ourselves of or acquire, as the case may be; (2) that our actions ‘proceed’ (ṣadara) from the hayʾa that our soul has developed. 48 This second point is emphasized in the introductory essay (Eight Chapters) to the commentary on tractate Avot. For example, at the beginning of the fourth chapter, speaking of degenerate hayʾāt, Maimonides clearly states: ‘The virtues are psychic hayʾāt and malakāt that are midway between two defective (rādiyy) hayʾas, the one excessive and the other deficient’. The virtues are identical with the hayʾāt, or with a hayʾa that is so firmly entrenched as to have become a malaka; they are virtues because virtuous actions ensue from them, as it were automatically. Moral training, moral betterment, consists in configuring the soul properly, in giving it the best hayʾa we can. Our actions will proceed almost automatically from whatever hayʾa our soul has obtained. Clearly, the hayʾa is susceptible to some willful alteration on our part. It is no less clear from other Pines, p. 124. Pines, p. 126. 48 Ṣadara is the verb used to denote emanation of all sorts, including the emanation of the universe in neoplatonic-like cosmogony. The similarity with human ethics is non-trivial. Just as the material universe eventually proceeds from higher, immaterial entities, so human actions in the physical universe proceed from the soul in the particular configuration which she has attained. 46 47

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

57

passages in Maimonides that innate qualities put a limit on every individual’s capacity for change. I believe that in holding to these notions Maimonides was in line with the philosophy of his epoch. For example, Galen, whose book on ethics survives only in Arabic and may be thought to have had some impact upon Islamicate civilization, begins with this definition of khulq, ethical trait or character (the word which, in the plural, means ‘ethics’): ‘The ethical trait is the state of the soul which calls upon the person to perform the actions of his soul without inspection or examination’. 49 In other words, ethical traits produce spontaneous actions; we might call them today emotional reactions. 50 Thought comes into play in molding character, in establishing within the soul the proper, virtuous tendencies; the actual response, for which we are judged, flows spontaneously from the trait that we have acquired. Later on Galen explains: ‘The praiseworthy states of the soul are called “virtue” and the blameworthy, “vice”. These states divide into two divisions: those that are produced by the soul after thought, inspection, and discernment, and they are called knowledge, opinion, or view, and those that occur to the soul without thought, and they are called ethical traits’. 51 Some remarks of value for our inquiry are found in Guide I, 34, where Maimonides discusses at length the five causes which forbid even ‘the commencement of instruction’ in divine science to the multitude. The fourth cause concerns, again in Pines’ translation (p. 76), ‘natural aptitudes (istiʿdādāt)’. I have already suggested that istiʿdād should perhaps be more literally translatKraus, ‘Kitab al-Akhlāq’, p. 25; the translations from the Arabic are my own. I do not think that ‘spontaneous emotional reaction’ is an anachronistic translation. The Arabic infiʿāl conveys the precise sense of the English phrase, that is, an unthinking response to a given stimulus whose nature is determined by the personality that the individual has developed. 51 Kraus, ‘Kitab al-Akhlāq’, p. 28. In the sentence preceding the citation above, Galen expresses his personal doubt that someone who by nature is cowardly and lustful in the extreme can, by training, reach the heights of bravery and restraint. 49 50

58

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

ed ‘readiness’. In any case, we are certainly speaking here of innate abilities. These inborn qualities do not suffice to make one eligible for instruction; even the person gifted with natural aptitude requires ethical grooming. In the same sentence, though, Maimonides specifies additional requirements. ‘Perfect rationality’ can be achieved only by ‘a man thoroughly trained with respect to his morals and endowed with the qualities of tranquility and quiet’. 52 The phrase ‘endowed with the qualities of tranquility and quiet’ expands upon three words in the Arabic, dhī hadwin wa-sukūn, literally ‘possessing tranquility and peacefulness’. It is not obvious to me whether this possession is the result of a natural endowment. Age, however, is a strong variable: a bit later, while still dwelling on the fourth cause, Maimonides informs us that tranquility and quiet can be achieved only after ‘the flame of growth’ which occupies the young and ‘gives rise to perplexity’ has extinguished. Maimonides immediately places a lower bound on ‘natural aptitudes’: ‘There are, moreover, many people who have received from their first natural disposition [the preceding three words all render the Arabic fiṭra] a complexion of temperament (hayʾa mizājiyya) with which perfection is in no way compatible. Such is the case of the one whose heart is naturally exceedingly hot; for he cannot refrain from anger, even if he subjects his soul to a very stringent training. This is also the case of one whose testicles have a hot and humid temperament … it is unlikely that such a man…should be chaste…’. 53 Maimonides puts ‘perfection’ out of reach for such people. He is speaking here about offering instruction in divine matters, which is reserved only for those whose natural endowment meets some minimum standards; he is not talking about moral improvement in general. However, I think it not too rash to suppose that such people,

Pines, p. 77. Pines trans., p. 77; in note 21 to the phrase ‘complexion of temperament,’ Pines writes, ‘More or less literally: a temperamental disposition’; cf. Galen, The Soul’s Dependence, Arabic (Biesterfeldt) 32:11, English (Singer), p. 167. 52 53

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

59

even with stringent training, would fall far short of the mark expected of ordinary people. Another important discussion is found in Guide III, 8, which presents a wider context for the biblical commandments, whose rationale will be treated in detail later on in this same third part of the Guide. 54 Maimonides presents a general theory of form and matter; the problems ensuing from the placing of the intellect (ṣelem elohim) within the human body; and the divine ruse— or so it seems to me—of giving humanity the power to rule, compel, or subjugate matter with its unending, promiscuous urge to swap forms. So much for the human condition in general; Maimonides then proceeds to classify humans into different rankings; note carefully that a person’s position in this system is due to both personal choices and innate capabilities. I have made some revisions to Professor Pines’ translation: ‘For if it so happens that the matter of some man is excellent, and compliant, neither dominating him nor corrupting his orderliness, in that case that [bodily matter] is a divine gift. In general, it is easy, as we have mentioned, to control compliant matter. But if it [the bodily matter] is not compliant, it is still not impossible for someone who is trained to restrain it. For this reason, Solomon—both he and others— inculcated all these exhortations. Also, the commandments and prohibitions of the Law are intended to quell the impulses of matter’. 55

A few remarks on the translation: I render mutaʾattiyy ‘compliant’; Pines chooses ‘suitable’. The Arabic word suggests cooperation, not raising difficulties, going along gently, and the like. I translate niẓām ‘orderliness’, which, I admit, is less elegant than Pines’ ‘constitution’ but, I think, more precise. A person’s constitution, in (quaint) English, in my understanding, refers among other things to the proper arrangement of its parts and the reguFor a different perspective on Guide III, 8, see Stern, Matter and Form, pp. 356– 360. 55 Pines, p. 433, considerably revised. 54

60

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

larity of their functioning in good order. Niẓām, ‘order’, is a positive judgment on Maimonides’ part, and the concept plays an important role in a number of facets of his thought. 56 The person Maimonides is speaking of has put her personality in order, and the minimal demands made by the compliant matter of the body do not disrupt this order. Note that the compliance or lack thereof of a person’s bodily matter is a chance happening. To receive the best, scilicet, most compliant and least demanding bodily matter, is a ‘divine gift’. That observation resonates strongly with the remark ascribed to Plato which Maimonides cites by way of al-Fārābī. 57 For the great majority of us, our matter will not be fully compliant, and we will need to exert ourselves to restrain it. Success is ‘not impossible’; still, it will most likely not be full and complete. Our training—for which purpose we have both Solomon’s ‘exhortations’ as well as biblical legislation—and the degree of innate compliance in our bodily matter are thus the two variables that determine our moral character. Beyond naming these variables, no more precise indication can be given as to the projected success of a regimen or its limits even in a best-case scenario. Maimonides does not mention here freedom of choice or will, though the concept surely plays an important role in his teaching. Instead, however, he nods twice to its social instantiation, ‘free men’ (aḥrār). ‘The sin of him who does an injustice through making an ignorant slave serve him is not like the sin of him who makes a free man who is excellent serve him’. 58 People who tame their bodily urges in order to focus their thought on divine matters are free, while those sunk in the pursuit of bodily pleasures are slaves; and thought itself is free and should not be pressed into the service of bodily lusts. Langermann, ‘Moses Maimonides and Judah Halevi on order and law.’ See above, apud n. 26; for a different perspective on this issue, including the citation from Plato, developed in the context of a different research question, see Freudenthal, ‘Biological Limitations’, pp. 147–148. 58 Pines, p. 435; see also ‘Free men would act in this manner’ (Pines, p. 432). 56 57

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

61

I think that the passages that I have cited allow us to draw some additional indications, if not conclusions, about Maimonides’ approach. The role of nature, of innate tendencies and insurmountable obstacles, must be recognized. These are, moreover, directly related to the body: a heart that is exceedingly hot and testicles that are hot and humid. Indeed, excessive anger was widely recognized as a medical problem in Maimonides’ cultural setting. Kanz al-ḥukamāʾ wa-maṭlab al-aṭibbāʾ wa-alʿulamāʾ, an interesting composition by one Abū Saʿīd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Mutaṭabbib al-Maghribī, who seems to have been Maimonides’ contemporary, offers an interesting perspective on these issues. 59 An entire section of this book is devoted to ‘Conditions that arise in the human body and persist as symptoms (aʿrāḍ) or illnesses (amrāḍ); 60 and the physician will be asked about them’. This chapter clearly responds to a social reality: people will present these problems to their medical practitioner, even if some physicians may not consider them to fall within their professional expertise. (Perhaps ‘health care provider’ is not anachronistic here.) The tenth chapter of this section (fol. 107a–b) concerns ‘The cause of anger, and the shame and tremor that accompany anger’. Patients seem to have been more worried about the visible manifestations of anger, such as getting red in the face, than in its ethical drawbacks. They wanted the physician to explain why their body reacts in this way; they do not ask for a remedy. Al-Maghribī describes anger as a hayʾa that the body adopts in response to certain stimuli which the soul detests and feels incaI consulted the manuscript held at Yale University Library; the catalogue description can be accessed at Worldcat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/kitabkanz-al-hukama-wa-matlab-al-atibba-wa-al-ulama-1612/oclc/849897988 (accessed 27 January 2020). Another copy is found in the Parliament (Majlis) Library in Tehran, no. 4601. 60 The author devotes a chapter (fol. 64b) to the distinction between these two categories. Illnesses (amrāḍ) have a clear medical etiology, for example, fevers whose cause is the decay of superfluities within the body; symptoms (aʿrāḍ) are complaints such headache or thirst. 59

62

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

pable to repel; the body heats up as means of increasing its strength, and this causes blood to rush to the surface. We will see that Maimonides, following Galen, will offer advice on medical regimens that can alleviate the cause of (though, one must add, not cure) the irascibility of someone who is ill-tempered from birth. Since ethical traits depend to some extent on the temperament of the body, it is not just the initial conditions, that is, the innate qualities, that must be reckoned with. Diet can affect ethical traits, particularly in children. In his Medical Aphorisms, XVII, 26, Maimonides notes that wine is very harmful for children; inter alia, ‘it corrupts the ethical qualities of their souls’. 61 However, as a general rule, a bad diet, and bad sensory input, is not good for anyone’s ethical character: ‘One’s moral character is impaired by bad habits in food, drink, exercise, sights, and sounds’. 62 In his The Soul’s Dependence Galen confronts some misinterpreters of Plato, arguing forcefully that the soul’s temperament can be regulated by various means, such as diet. 63 Nonetheless, he too recognizes limits on our ability to regulate, as Plato is said to have held in the citation from al-Fārābī with which this paper opened. In doing so, Galen considers himself a faithful follower of Plato, who acknowledges in his Timaeus (187B) that some conditions are ‘completely outside … control’; yet ‘We should try wherever possible to use nurture, training and education in order to avoid evil and choose good’. 64 Maimonides, Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 16–21, pp. 27–28, citing Galen’s De sanitate tuenda, book one. 62 Maimonides, Medical Aphorisms, Treatises 16–21, pp. 25–26, again citing Galen’s De sanitate tuenda, book one. 63 ‘But there are certain self-styled Platonists who think that the soul … performs its functions without assistance or hindrance from the body provided the latter is healthy’ (Singer, p. 168; the passage in the title of chapter nine in the Arabic version, ed. Biesterfeldt, 32:13–14; the arguments continue over the course of several pages). 64 Singer, pp. 171–172; Biesterfeldt, p. 38. 61

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

63

Indeed, of all the five reasons for denying access to instruction in the divine science, the fourth receives by far the greatest amount of space. Maimonides reiterates several more times the indispensable need for certain innate qualities in order to be worthy of instruction in the divine science. ‘Now these are matters that undoubtedly require a natural predisposition (tahayyuʾ ṭabīʿiyy) … Among men there is also found one who is naturally (bi-l-ṭabʿ) full of understanding and perspicacity and capable of giving concise and coherent expression to the most hidden notions … Consider how … they laid down as conditions of the perfection of the individual … and withal his possessing natural perspicacity and understanding (dhakāʾ ṭabʿ wa-fahm) and the gift of finely expressing himself in communicating notions in flashes’. 65 To reiterate: Maimonides’ purpose in this passage, in keeping with the goals of the Guide, is to establish the minimum requirements for someone to be worthy of instruction in—though not necessarily attaining in actu—the divine science, a science whose acquisition is the desideratum of the ‘perfect’ individual. Perfection means here the telos of humanity, which is the full actualization of the ṣelem elohim. I take away from this discussion the general impression that for Maimonides, nature weighs in heavily with regard to the capacity of the individual for improvement, including—even if this is not the topic of Guide I, 34—the moral improvement which all humanity must strive for. Maimonides has a lot to say on our question in his theory of prophecy, which he elaborates at the end of the second part of his Guide. We must bear in mind that prophecy, hence schoolGuide I, 54;; Pines, p. 78. There is nothing in the Arabic corresponding to Pines’ ‘gift (of finely expressing himself in communicating notions in flashes)’. I propose the following translation of the end of the passage: ‘along with a limpid nature, understanding, and a fine manner of conveying ideas by means of flashes’. The word for ‘flash’, talwīḥ, features in a key passage at the beginning of the Guide, where he remarks that the truth ‘flashes and is hidden again’ (Pines, p. 7); it is one of many pregnant expressions used by Maimonides that have not received due attention in scholarship. 65

64

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

ing in prophecy, is available only to those who have already met the demanding innate qualities discussed above. The philosophers, Maimonides writes, aver ‘that prophecy is a certain perfection in the nature of man’. This perfection must be actualized by training and instruction. However, the necessary initial conditions are here, too, due to ‘nature’. Hence Maimonides closes his presentation of the position of the philosophers with an analogy from biology: ‘… it is not possible that an individual should be fit for prophecy and prepared for it and not become a prophet, except to the extent to which it is possible that an individual having a healthy temperament should be nourished with excellent food, without sound blood and similar things being generated from that food’. 66 According to Maimonides, there is only one difference between the position just outlined and that of ‘the Law’: Judaism maintains that divine will may block someone fit for prophecy from prophesying. The ‘disciples of the prophets were always engaged in preparation (tahayyuʾ)’. 67 Pay close attention to Maimonides’ choice of words: the preparation spoken of here—tahayyuʾ— must mean ‘obtaining the proper hayʾa’, the proper moral disposition from which good acts will ensue. A few lines down Maimonides notes that Jeremiah ‘trained (rāḍa), taught (‘allama), and prepared (hayyaʾa)’ his star pupil, Baruch ben Neriya. Training, usually irtiyāḍ, is common to the language of philosophy and Sufism; hayʾa, as we have seen, straddles the mind-body divide with regard to the human person. Whether there is a significant difference between the two, or whether Maimonides chose language from two disciplines in order to stress the need for intense training, whichever path one chooses, I cannot say. Nonetheless, we see quite clearly that hayʾa can be modified, and a better hayʾa obtained and, moreover, that this may be achieved under the guidance of a teacher. Guide II, 32; Pines, p. 361. Pines, p. 362. I display Pines’ translation though again I am not totally comfortable with it.

66 67

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

65

On the other hand, we find an extreme position in favor of innate nature at the beginning of Guide II, 36, again in connection with Maimonides’ theory of prophecy: ‘Now you know that the perfection of the bodily faculties, to which the imaginative faculty belongs, is consequent upon the best possible temperament, the best possible size, and the best possible matter, on the part of the body that is the substratum for the faculty in question. It is not a thing whose lack could be made good or whose deficiency could be remedied in any way by a regimen. For with regard to a part of the body whose temperament was bad in the original natural disposition (aṣl al-jibla), the utmost that the corrective regimen can achieve is to keep it in some sort of health; it cannot restore it to its best possible condition (afḍal haʾyatihi)’. 68 Maimonides’ remarks apply to all of the bodily faculties, which are consequent upon the temperament. It places an upper limit on what can be achieved by a ‘corrective regimen’ (tadbīr); regimen cannot produce perfection in a character that is deficient from birth. But how much correction can be achieved? Two chapters later, in Guide II, 38, Maimonides draws a clear analogy between psychic faculties, such as bravery or courage, and corporeal faculties such as repulsion or expulsion (of bodily superfluities by sweating, defecating, and so forth). Every person has this faculty, but its strength varies greatly from one to another. Another factor is ‘temperamental preparation in the original natural disposition (tahayyuʾ mizājiyy fī aṣl al-jibla)’. Though these capacities can strengthen or weaken in a given individual, their abundance or weakness manifests itself from infancy. 69 The argument from infants and small children is important. Galen, in his Ethics, finds strong evidence for the innate character of ethical traits from the very different behaviors of small children. He goes so far as to compare their ethical traits with those of irrational animals. For example, if one of a group

68 69

Pines, p. 369. Pines, p. 376.

66

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

of children gets hurt, some will take pity and offer help, whereas others may laugh and increase her torment. 70 Maimonides goes on to list shuʿūr, which means here, in my view, ‘awareness’ or ‘discernment’, later named together with ḥads, ‘intuition’ (Pines: ‘conjecturing’), as a faculty that shares in these characteristics: variation among individuals, an innate strength or weakness which is evident from infancy, and the capacity of that innate ability to weaken or strengthen. 71 Of the faculties that he mentions there, only that of bravery or courage would belong to the ethical virtues, even if Maimonides speaks of iqdām, rather than shujāʿ. 72 Nonetheless, I believe it to be correct that all of the ethical virtues depend in one way or another on psychic faculties whose description matches those of the three faculties discussed by Maimonides. Two factors, disposition and training, the latter completely in the hands of the human, the former hardly (so it seems) under her control, determine the ability of the human to warrant divine providence, in the form of a greater portion of the divine ‘overflow’ (fayḍ): ‘… when any human individual has obtained, because of the disposition of his matter (tahayyuʾ mādatihi) and his training (riyāḍatihi), a greater portion of this overflow than others, providence will of necessity watch more carefully over him than over others’. 73 Maimonides has switched here from the language of medicine and politics (tadbīr) to that of Sufism and practical ethics (riyāḍa). That is not significant, insofar as all of Ed. Kraus, pp. 28–30. Pines, following Munk (who gives the French cognate), translates shuʿūr by ‘divination’. I disagree; divination fits the context of prophecy, but as Pines knew well, shuʿūr does not generally refer to divination. It is a faculty possessed by irrational animals as well as humans. See Pines’ insightful discussion in his masterful essay, ‘La conception de la conscience de soi’, pp. 30–31, where he renders shuʿūr ‘aperception’ in a sense close to that which it has in the work of Leibnitz. 72 See Munk, vol. 2, n. 4 on pp. 294–295 on this translation. Iqdām may be rendered almost literally as ‘stepping up’; ‘stepping up’ to a powerful adversary seems to me to be a display of courage and bravery. 73 Guide III, 18; Pines, p. 475. 70 71

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

67

the ‘terms’ employed denote programs of restrictions and exercises that are employed in a wide range of settings. The constant here is matter and its disposition or configuration, which, even if susceptible to some change, evidently sets insurmountable limits on perfection for most of us, and this is something that we must accept. However, excessive pessimism should also be avoided. A tale related by Maimonides in his youthful Commentary on the Mishnah illustrates how much control a hayʾa can exercise over the soul, if one trains oneself and configures the soul properly. In this episode, an individual remained indifferent even when he was urinated upon by another passenger on the ship on which they were traveling. Though he said nothing, this meek individual was astonished at the insolence some people have. The despicable behavior that he endured was due to the hayʾa of effrontery that had seized control over the offender’s soul: ‘I was amazed at the control (taḥakkum) that the hayʾa of effrontery (qiḥa) exercised over his soul!’. 74 What, then, should Maimonides’ message be to the general public? Given people’s tendency to settle early on in their lives into habits and to resist any serious, stressful exertion to change them, it would not be a good idea to inform them that, from the start, there are limits to what they may accomplish in the sphere of moral improvement, try as they might. Moreover, judging from what he writes in a passage to be cited presently, Maimonides’ viewed his audience as being swayed by foolish notions of a divine decree which fixes their character. These insipid notions must be combated by an equally extreme assertion that anyone can match the achievements of Moses. For these reasons, I submit, he worded the following halakhah from his Laws of Repentance as he did: ‘Don’t let the following thought pass through your mind, that which is stated by the fools of the nations and most of the 74 Commentary to the Mishnah, vol. 4, p. 438. For those keeping score: neither the tale nor the term taḥakkum is found in al-Fārābī’s Aphorisms of the Statesman.

68

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES Children of Israel who are uneducated, namely that the Holy One, Blessed is He, decrees that a person, at the beginning of his formation, will be righteous or evil; the matter is not so. Each and every person is capable of being righteous like our teacher Moses or evil like Jeroboam; wise or foolish; merciful or cruel; stingy or generous; and so on, with regard to the other moral qualities (dēʿōt). No one forces him or decrees for him, nor is there anyone who pulls him in either of the two directions. Instead, he himself, and of his own mind, tends towards whichever path he wishes…’

It is this freedom to choose, and to carry through on one’s choice, that places upon the person full responsibility for his actions, as Maimonides goes on to explain: ‘Since the matter is so, this sinner has brought loss upon himself. He ought to wail and bemoan what he has done … We ought to repent, abandon our evil, because we have the capacity to do so…’. In his philosophical writings, Maimonides talks about the capacity for improvement and how this can be achieved; he discusses at length innate dispositions that may make the road more difficult for some. However, in the Mishneh Torah he is preaching; he remarks that there is no limit to how good a person can become, but, as it seems to me, he is mainly urging us to take responsibility for our shortcomings.

CONCLUSIONS

I am convinced that, in Maimonides’ view, the individual human body places barriers—perhaps ‘limits’ is too strong a term to use here, but perhaps it is not—on the ethical character of the person who inhabits that body, and in two ways. First, it presents a set of initial conditions that the person must reckon with, if and when she undertakes moral improvement. If her physical constitution is hot, she will perforce have a harder time restraining her anger than someone with a moderate or cool temperament. Second, it seems that the material constitution will place an upper bound on the degree of perfection that the person can achieve. Maimonides states this clearly with regard to the imagination, which is not necessarily an ethical virtue, but it is a highly valued psychic faculty. Having established these two

2. CONFIGURING THE SOUL

69

rules, we must add that there exists no scale upon which the range of ethical characteristics or dispositions can be measured precisely. Moreover, there are good pedagogical reasons not to even attempt to do this; the person should be instructed to aim for full perfection, and should not be allowed even the slightest excuse for striving for anything less. There really is no way for you to know if you have reached the maximum set by your physical constitution. Most likely, you—and I and everyone else—have not. The prophet is not only an historical reality, the prophet is also a human ideal. The person who seeks perfection will eo ipso be seeking to be suited for prophecy. Maimonides demands that the prophet be ‘perfect’ in the intellectual virtues. However, the prophet may have some minor shortcomings in the ethical virtues. Again, this answers to historical reality: Moses, the greatest prophet ever, was not able to restrain his anger at ‘the incident of the rock’. 75 In light of the evidence displayed in this paper, I submit that that incident represents another human reality: there is a limit to the degree that one may alter one’s innate emotional tendencies. The prophet is certainly expected to be virtuous, but absolute faultlessness in ethics may simply be beyond reach.

75

See Numbers 20:7–13.

CHAPTER THREE.

WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR (‘LIGHT’) IN THE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED? Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Nine of Joseph Albo’s Sefer haʿIqqarim (‘Book of Principles’) begins as follows: ‘The word or (light) is applied first to light which is perceived by the senses, as in the expressions, “Who giveth the sun for a light by day” [Jeremiah 31:34]; “As soon as the morning was light” [Genesis 44:3]. And inasmuch as light shows a person the way, the name is applied also, metaphorically, to denote guidance and leading, as in the verse, “And nations shall walk at thy light” [Isaiah 60:3], which means, shall live by the guidance which they receive from thee. It is also used to denote divine guidance, as in the expression, “Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord” [Isaiah 2:5]. For this reason the Torah is called light, “For the commandment is a lamp, and the Torah (teaching) is light” [Proverbs 6:23], because it guides and leads one to eternal happiness’. 1

Approximately the first third of Maimonides’ Guide, part one, is devoted to biblical terms and their meanings, especially figurative extensions. This leads me to ask, why is there no discussion 1

Albo, Principles, vol. 2, p. 187.

71

72

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

of the multiple meanings of ʾor in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed? One can scarcely find another word that been so exploited, appropriated, or mobilized for religious discourse since time immemorial. To be sure, veritable cultural, linguistic, and philosophical chasms separate Maimonides, the twelfth-century Arabophone legist and religious thinker, from Albo, the fifteenth-century student of Hasdai Crescas and resident of Christian Spain; so great are the differences that perhaps one may say that there is no reason to expect them to address the same issues. However, the ubiquity of light in religious discourse is such that I think that the question is legitimate. As an historian I have little taste for asking why something didn’t happen. In the case of the Guide, however, which devotes a good part of book I to the equivocal meanings of Hebrew words, especially those applied to the deity, the absence of any reference to ʾor is striking; one ought to at least attempt to understand why this is so. Even if we cannot provide any sure answers, we will at the very least be able to produce a survey of the places where Maimonides has something to say about light in the context of a discussion that bears upon his religious philosophy. We may ask whether natural light or metaphysical light (a real component of pre-modern cosmologies, not a metaphor!) is intended, or, perhaps, light is used as a metaphor or simile. In brief, we offer an exposition of light in the religious discourse of Moses Maimonides, which may reveal some clues as to why he chose not to devote a chapter to the Hebrew term. As a rule, light is not the topic of discussion in the passages that we will looking at; light is introduced in the course of a discussion focusing on some other topic. Each of Maimonides’ individual references to light will be examined within its own context, with the help of variant readings preserved in manuscript and in consultation with some of the translations of the Guide. The tentative conclusion that emerges from this project is the following. His engagement on critical issues with Islamic philosophers and mutakallimūn of his own day notwithstanding, Maimonides’ involvement with light as reality or symbol in religious discourse is directed at Jewish thought from an earlier age, particularly with the view that identified the deity with

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 73 light tout court. Apparently Maimonides saw in that opinion a challenge even in his own day; we may cautiously suggest that those ideas still had adherents among Maimonides’ contemporaries. The utilizations of light in religious discourse are many and varied. With reference to pre-Maimonidean Judaism we should mention the cult of theos hupsistos (the supreme God, equivalent to Hebrew ʾel ʿelyon), whose Jewish connection is undisputed, though the nature of this connection is not entirely clear. In this cult the deity was identified with light. 2 Neoplatonic spiritualities accorded to light a prominent role in the hypobasis from the One (or what lies beyond the One) down to our lower world. This hypobasis or emanation is interpreted by some as a gradual materialization of light. Theories of this sort were well received by Jewish thinkers in antiquity and the early Middle Ages, both philosophers and proto-kabbalists. To be more precise, ideas of the degradation of light were popular before the parting of the ways between philosophy and kabbala; the reception of Maimonides’ Guide played a critical role in that momentous watershed. 3 The circle associated with the Sefer ʿIyyun (‘Book of Contemplation’), Abraham Bar Hiyya of Barcelona, and later the author of Doresh Reshumot, are all significant exemplars of this interest. 4 Bar Hiyya is particularly important; like Maimonides, he is also in conversation with much earlier strands of Jewish thought. It seems to me that Maimonides treated the issue of light’s divinity delicately. On the one hand, he would have hesitated to reject out of hand a ‘metaphysical’ understanding of light as some sort of manifestation of the deity. After all, one of the primary objectives of the Guide, and Jewish religious thought in general according to Maimonides, is to divest the conception of the deity of all materiality. The theories that we are speaking of here held that light was immaterial, or, at the very least, immaSee also Langermann, ‘A Great Light’. Langermann, ‘An Early Jewish Defence’. 4 Verman, The Books of Contemplation; Langermann, ‘Gradations of Light’; Langermann, ‘Cosmology and Cosmogony’. 2 3

74

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

terial as long as it remains in its numinous abode. So from this side of the issue, conceiving of the deity as light achieves (to some degree) the desired goal of stripping the deity of all bodily characteristics. On the other hand, Maimonides also aims at purifying our conception of God from all extraneous, or foreign, accouterments, even if they are not necessarily corporeal. God is neither light nor intellect, immaterial though the two of them may be. With this is mind, two complementary reasons why Maimonides presents no discussion of the equivocal term light may be considered: 1. There simply was no need to suggest figurative meanings for light since those who identified the deity with light already did so with the immateriality of light in mind. Believing that the deity is light is not the same as believing that He has fleshy eyes with which He sees. 2. Accepting the identification of the deity with light—even ‘metaphysical’ light—would mean that the process of purifying the deity of any and all traits, as well as all attributes that suggest corporeality, stops when the deity is seen to be identical with light. Maimonides held that the deity is sui generis in the strictest sense of the term and absolutely unworldly; cleansing one’s conception of the deity is a life-long task. Regarding the deity as light may be a giant step in the right direction, but it is not the final truth. The wavering of sorts that I detect here is reflected in Maimonides’ hesitant acceptance of nūr makhlūq, or ‘created light’; Saʿadya Gaon held that the deity displays a ‘created light’ to prophets as a visible sign of His presence. 5 Maimonides includes no such signs in his prophetology; however, he does not consider the idea to be harmful to those who cannot do without it. I

5 On Saʿadya’s created light or created glory, see Kreisel, Prophecy, pp. 60–66. We shall see presently that Maimonides knows of ‘created light’ as an epithet for the Shekhina in ancient, pre-Saʿadyanian theology.

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 75 believe that the immateriality of light is the main consideration behind this quasi-acceptance. Maimonides does assign to light an important role in mediating between the deity and the cosmos. He describes the following chain in Guide II, 11: the deity overflows or emanates ‘governance’ (tadbīr) onto the intellects; the intellects emanate ‘good things and lights’ onto the heavenly bodies; and the heavenly bodies emanate ‘good things and forces’ onto the sublunar world. Neither ‘governance’ nor ‘lights’ is material; the critical step in the transmutation of the divine bounty from immaterial blessings into something tangible occurs at the level of the heavenly bodies. The latter are material, and they convert the ‘lights’ into ‘forces’ that are capable of acting by direct physical contact of one body with another, the only allowable means of transferring forces in the Aristotelian physics which is endorsed by Maimonides. 6 I suspect that Maimonides hints at some forgotten Jewish theory of the gradations of light at the very end of book I of the Guide. In chapter seventy-six, the final chapter of book I, Maimonides engages with the second method of proof used by the mutakallimūn in order to show that the deity is not a body. This method is based on ‘the impossibility of resemblance’ between God and any of His creatures. By this token, were God a body, He would then resemble other bodies. Maimonides finds this to be a very weak argument, because it is possible to conceive of a theology in which the deity is a body but still different from all other bodies. The kalām has no answer to this possibility. One such ‘doctrine of corporeality’ which the method of the kalām cannot refute has its roots in Jewish thought. Maimonides presents it in these words: ‘The proclaimer of the doctrine of corporeality does not concede that all bodies are composed of particles resembling each other. On the contrary, he says that God is the creator A different discussion of the connection between celestial lights and forces, found in Guide I, 72, will be discussed below.

6

76

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES of all these bodies and that they differ in respect of their substance and true reality. And just as he holds that the body of dung (al-ʾawrāth) is not identical with the body of the sphere of the sun, so he says that the body of created light—I mean the Indwelling (Shekhina)—is not identical with the body of the heavenly spheres and of the stars; and that the body of the Indwelling or the created Pillar of the Cloud (ʿamud he-ʿanan) is not identical with the body of the deity, may it be exalted, in his opinion. On the contrary, he says that this body is the perfect and noble essence, which was never composed or changed and which cannot possible be changed’. 7

We recognize here a gradation of bodies. The lowest grade is ‘dung’, a derogatory tag for the world of sub-lunar bodies. It stands below the ‘body of the sphere of the sun’; above the latter, or perhaps identical with it, we find ‘the body of the heavenly spheres and of the stars’; moving up to the next level, we have the body of the Shekhina, which is also called the Pillar of the Cloud; and, above them all, the deity. This is a material world, from the bottom-most rung up to and including the deity, but it is graded; at the top is the body of the deity which, so it is claimed, does not resemble any other body. The mentioning here of the Shekhina, and especially of the Pillar of the Cloud, two Hebrew terms embedded in Maimonides’ Arabic prose, proves that we have here a Jewish theory—that is to say, a theory that had some currency in Jewish circles, even if its origins lay elsewhere. Note that the Pillar of the Cloud plays an important role in chapter twenty-four of Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira), which parallels in many ways the first chapter of Genesis. The kalām has no way of refuting this conception. Does Maimonides have one? Does he need one? I simply dangle these questions before the reader, and move on to a closer look at the passage. Two (or three) of the four (or five) grades in this system are luminous: the sphere of the sun, and the created light, 7

Pines, p. 229.

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 77 also called the Shekhina and the Pillar of the Cloud. However, with regard to the lowest grade (‘dung’), some manuscripts exhibit instead al-nuriyyāt, jism al-nūr, or al-anwār, all of which indicate luminosity. 8 According to some versions of his translation, Samuel Ibn Tibbon followed one of these variants, and in place of ‘dung’ he wrote ‘sparks’ (nitzotzot). 9 If we accept any of these variants as the correct reading—and I think that they deserve serious consideration—then, at the lowermost level, we have the faintest traces of light (‘sparks’). The grades above possess greater luminosity. What about the deity? All that we know is that it is a body, different from all other bodies. However, bodies may differ in the quality or nature of their light. Therefore, the possibility that the deity is some kind of sublime, uncreated light cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is difficult to determine how many Jews in Maimonides’ day—if there were any at all—identified God with light. Joseph Ibn Ṣadīq of Cordoba, Maimonides’ birthplace, who lived two generations earlier, polemicizes against the belief that God is light. Basing himself on the science that he accepted, Ibn Ṣadīq argues that such a belief ascribes corporeality or worse to the deity: ‘One sect maintains that He is light, and they worship Him in the belief that He is light. But light is an accident born by a luminous body whose nature is light’. 10 Recall that there is solid evidence of Jews, or Judaizers, in antiquity who worshiped light. Were remnants of this sect still active in twelfth-century Andalusia? The religious landscape in that time and place was indeed rich and diverse, even if our sources do not provide much detail. 11 There is, however, considerable evidence for the impact of a tantalizing statement on the The first two variants are listed in Munk-Joël, p. 480, to 161,3; the third is recorded by Qafih, I, p. 249 n.9, from two manuscripts. Other variants as well are listed in both editions. 9 Munk, I, p. 455 n. 1. 10 Ed. S. Horowitz, Breslau, 1902, p. 46. 11 On Karaites in Iberia see Lasker, ‘Karaism’; on the ʿIsawiyya presence, which may have been significant, see Langermann, ‘Masīḥ’, esp. pp. 290–291. 8

78

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

connection between God and light in the ‘Chapters’ ascribed to Rabbi Eliezer. 12 Maimonides’ own handling of that passage will be scrutinized in the last section of this chapter. In any event, it is not at all strange that Maimonides exploits an ancient and half-forgotten theory for his assault on the kalām. The hypothetical possibility of a materialist theology such as the one described above poses a serious challenge to the kalām notions that Maimonides wishes to refute. That challenge does not disappear even if—perhaps—the adherents of that particular theology are no longer to be found. I note in passing that this theology—at least in Maimonides’ interpretation—makes use of the notion of ‘created light’, but, in my estimation, it fulfills there a different role than the one it plays in Saʿadya’s prophetology. Some other scattered remarks by Maimonides take on added interest in light of the present discussion. The description of the theophany at Mount Sinai in ‘Epistle to Yemen’ contains several references to light, and I do not think that Maimonides’ account is strictly figurative: ‘It [the verse in Deuteronomy 33:2] describes the event at Mount Sinai. It states that when the light was revealed on Sinai, it did not descend from the heaven on Sinai the way lightning flashes descend; it rather advanced gently, becoming gently visible from the peaks of the mountains, from peak to peak, until it settled on Sinai. Thus it says, “The Lord came from Sinai and shone forth from Seʿir to them; He appeared from Mount Paran” [Deut. 33:2]. Note that it says “to them”, intending Israel; note also that regarding Paran, which is further away, it says “appeared”, but regarding Seir, which is closer to it, [it says] “shone forth”; and regarding Sinai, which is the standard for comparison, and upon which the light settled,—as it says, “The Glory of the Lord dwelled

12

Langermann, ‘Cosmology and Cosmogony’, pp. 212–215.

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 79 on Mount Sinai” [Exodus 24:16]—it says, “came from Sinai”’. 13

This passage surely must be given a healthy discount. The intensity of the light at the different mountains is a metaphor for the weaker, pre-Sinaitic revelations. Maimonides cites the Sages to this effect, in their interpretation of Deborah’s description, which, Maimonides says, conveys the same message—but without reference to light—as the verse in Deuteronomy. 14 Similarly, one might—perhaps one should—see Maimonides’ explicit statement a few pages in earlier in the same epistle, that ‘an entire nation heard the speech of God Most High and saw His light with their eyes (ʿayānan)’ 15 as a concession to the Yemenites’ Saʿadyanan, sub-Maimonidean, prophetology. But this need not be not the only way to understand the passage; one cannot definitively rule out the possibility that Maimonides meant his remark to be taken literally. Another significant if subdued reference is found in Guide I, 72. Here again we must turn to manuscript variants in the original language. Maimonides distinguishes between two types or species of light; his observation, however, has been all but lost to scholarship due to faulty translations and manuscript transmission. The issue here, reminiscent of the point made above concerning Guide II, 11, concerns the mechanism of divine governance by means of powers that are transmitted via the celestial bodies down to the terrestrial realm. For the purposes of analysis I must present here the critical statement in my own translation, which is more literal than that of Professor Pines: ‘Know that, as has been made clear, the forces that come from the orb (al-falak) to this world are four … All this takes place through the intermediary of the illumination (ḍawʾ)

Ed. Shailat, vol. 1, pp. 94–95; the translation is my own. Ibid., p. 95. Deborah’s description is found in Judges 5:4; the Sages’ homily cited by Maimonides is found in Hammer, Sifre, p. 352. 15 Ed. Shailat, vol. 1, p. 90. 13 14

80

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES and darkness [on earth] resulting from their/her light (nūrihā) and their/her revolution (dawratihā) about the earth …‘ 16

Two of the Guide’s modern translators, the Professors Pines and Schwarz, have duly chosen different equivalents for the two Arabic terms, ḍawʾ and nūr. Only Rabbi Qafih, however, considers the choice of words significant enough to warrant a substantive footnote. (Munk has a long note on the passage, but it does not concern the two different words used here for light; see below). The distinction is lost in Harizi’s medieval Hebrew version, for which the poet is called out in a long note by his editor, Schlossberg. It appears that Ibn Tibbon as well used the Hebrew ʾor to render both terms. 17 However, Ibn Tibbon seems to have his own issues with the function(s) of light in cosmology. We shall see presently how he angrily rejects some Hebrew synonyms for ʾor that were proposed by his rival Harizi. Let us begin with Rabbi Qafih’s note: ‘Our master [Maimonides] distinguished clearly between the words. He first wrote ḍawʾ, ʾor [in Rabbi Qafih’s Hebrew translation], and now nūr, zohar [again, in Rabbi Qafih’s Hebrew translation]. He intends that the light (ʾor) that reaches us is but the reception of the sun’s zohar by the “mists that arise from the earth” [cf. Genesis 2:6], as he explained in his commentary to [Mishnah] Berakkhot 1:1 … in other words, light and darkness are not self-standing but rather a byproduct of the sun’s zohar in the course of her orbit’.

Illumination on earth (ḍawʾ, ʾor), which Maimonides names as the intermediary for the heavenly forces responsible for processes on earth, is itself a by-product of the sun’s light (nūr, zohar). Terrestrial physics is not set in motion directly by the sun’s light—perhaps because its ontological ranking is too high for Ed. Qafih, pp. 201–202; cf. Pines, p. 187. See the end of the long note in Munk, I, p. 362, correcting the incomprehensible yoshram in the standard printings to oram on the basis of the editio princeps and ‘the manuscripts’. 16 17

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 81 this—but only by the illumination caused by the diffusion (and degradation) of this light within the atmosphere. All of this is, of course, not explicit in Maimonides, but I consider it to be a very reasonable extrapolation of the master’s terse exposition. If this analysis is correct, then Maimonides agrees with Ibn Ṣadīq that our terrestrial illumination is an accident attached to the material vapors. In any event, Rabbi Qafih is spot on with regard to Maimonides’ distinguishing between the terms. In the gloss to the first Mishnah of Berakhot Maimonides writes: ‘ʿAmud ha-shaḥar, which is the “pillar of dawn” (ʿamūd al-fajar), the light (ḍiyāʾ) that appears in the direction of the east about one and one-fifth equatorial hours before sunrise. It is due to the proximity of the sun’s light (nūr) cone to the thick vapors that are always rising from the earth. Their height above the earth is fifty-one mīl, as has been demonstrated in mathematical science’. 18 Both Rabbi Qafih and Professor Schwarz have chosen zohar as another Hebrew term for light, which can be used together with ʾor in order to reflect the terminological distinction in the Guide’s original Arabic. I do not know if either of the modern translators was aware of the precise meanings ascribed to zohar by Bar Hiyya and others who wrote in Hebrew on the theory of light. On the other hand, Ibn Tibbon chose not to preserve the terminological distinction; in the more accurate versions of his translation, noted by Munk, both Arabic words are rendered by ʾor. This is not by chance; in the lexicon of ‘foreign words’ that he introduced in his translation of the Guide, s.v. zohar, he refers back to the letter beit, where, s.v. bahir, he discusses mazhir as well; perhaps he felt that their roots are so close that they can be considered to be identical. 19 According to him, both mazhir Commentary to the Mishnah, Seder Zeraʿim, pp. 59–60. Interestingly enough, Maimonides’ value of 51 mīl is close to that arrived at by the Islamic astronomers whose calculations were studied by Saliba, ‘The Height of the Atmosphere’; their values ranged from about 51.5 to close to 52 mīl. 19 On Ibn Tibbon’s lexicon see Robinson, ‘Ibn Tibbon’s “Peruš”’. I consulted the version appended to Ibn Tibbon’s often reprinted translation of the Guide. 18

82

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

and bahir function as adjectives describing bodies that lack color and are translucent, such as water, precious stones and more. The nouns are behirut and zohar; he lashes out at al-Harizi (hamashgeh, ‘he who leads astray’), who said that bahir means luminous. There is a grammatical issue with the passage under discussion which bears on its possible interpretations. In the phrase which states, ‘All this takes place through the intermediary of the illumination (ḍawʾ) and darkness [on earth] resulting from their/her light (nūrihā) and their/her revolution (dawratihā) about the earth’, the pronomial suffixes -hā are feminine, which means that they refer either to a singular feminine noun, or to a plural form of either gender. However, in the sentence constructed by Maimonides, the only word to which they may possibly refer is al-falak, ‘the orb’ (Pines prefers ‘heaven’), which is named at the beginning of this exposition as the source of these forces—and al-falak is masculine singular. Munk addresses this issue in a long note (n. 2 on p. 362), suggesting that this is the reason for Ibn Tibbon’s purported emendation to the plural form, ha-galgalim, ‘the orbs’. Pines’ intervention (which is not footnoted) is even greater: ‘… resulting from the light in heaven and from heaven’s motion round the earth …’ (p. 187). Rabbi Qafih, and I believe Efodi as well, solve the problem by viewing al-shams (‘the sun’) as the unseen, feminine singular referent. This does make more sense, since the sun is a/the source of light. However, it may be that, grammar aside, Maimonides has in mind al-falak, meaning one particular orb, as we shall suggest below. The views expressed in the passage that has been analyzed in the preceding paragraphs are not at all incompatible with the theory of light’s progressive degradation and materialization as it becomes more distant from its divine source, a theory that I have outlined earlier. Another passage from the closing paragraphs of Guide I, 72, presents the same notion clearly and unambiguously: ‘For whenever the bodies are near the center, they grow dimmer and their substance coarser, and their motion becomes more difficult, while their light and their transparency

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 83 disappear because of their distance from the noble, luminous, transparent, moving, subtle and simple body—I mean heaven (al-falak). On the other hand, whenever bodies are near the latter, they acquire some of these characteristics because of their proximity to it and achieve a certain superiority over what is lower than they’. 20

What does Maimonides intend when he says (in the translation of Professor Pines), ‘the noble, luminous, transparent, moving, subtle and simple body—I mean heaven (al-falak)’? How are we to interpret this, bearing in mind that one of Maimonides’ key proofs for divine voluntarism in creation is the fact that not all parts of ‘the heaven’ are luminous or transparent? 21 It seems to me that here al-falak does not refer to ‘heaven’, in the sense of the celestial realm with its different planets and stars, but rather, and specifically, to the highest, all-encompassing orb, the outer limit of the material world, the engine for all celestial motions, and, so it seems, the ultimate source within the cosmos of all light. Moreover, I surmise that its light is not of its own manufacture; it is transparent as well as luminous. This orb lets through—but likely degrades by that very act—radiation from some higher, extra-cosmic source. This is the orb that Maimonides identifies with the Talmudic ʿAravot. ʿAravot features no less than eleven times in Guide I, 70, the last of the chapters on multivalent Hebrew words. The chapters which follow begin Maimonides’ systematic discussion of theology and cosmology, first by engaging the unacceptable views of the kalām, and then, in the first part of book II, laying down the Aristotelian world-view that Maimonides does accept, and then tackling the problematic doctrine of the eternity of the universe, which Maimonides doubtlessly rejects. It seems significant, then, that the last of the Hebrew words he brings up for discussion is rokheb. The primary meaning of this verb is ‘to ride upon’; in theological contexts, its meanings are extended to in20 21

Pines, p. 192; ed. Qafih, p. 205. Guide II, 19; Pines, p. 310.

84

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

clude ‘to possess’, ‘to overpower’, or ‘to dominate’. The entity which the Bible describes figuratively as ‘riding upon’ (rokheb) the heavens, then, is, in reality, mustawlin (dominating) and governing or ruling (ḥākim) over them. 22 ʿAravot, the highest and swiftest orb, which demarcates the material from the divine, and accordingly serves as the instrument for the conferral of the divine bounty onto the material world, as well as divine domination, is, not surprisingly, the real center of attention in this chapter. God is described in Psalms 68:5 as ‘riding upon’ ʿaravot, which, Maimonides explains, ‘is the highest orb, encompassing everything’. Maimonides insists that the deity rules over the highest orb, but does not dwell within it; that would be the ‘Sabean’ view, namely that the deity is ‘the spirit of the orb’. Maimonides musters in support of his view the description of ʿaravot in the Talmud (Hagigah 12b) and especially Pirqei di-Rebbe Eliezer (chapter 18) which identifies ʿaravot with the throne of divine glory. In Guide I, 70, Maimonides says nothing about light; however, his identifying ʿaravot with ‘the orb’ furnishes, I submit, an unmistakable hint concerning his intention two chapters later. The reference to Pirqei di-Rebbe Eliezer brings us back to light and its role in cosmology and cosmogony. That compilation of ‘Chapters’ is now considered to be late, for the most part post-Islamic. 23 Like all other medieval Jewish thinkers Maimonides voiced no doubt about its ascription to the first-century CE tanna, R. Eliezer the Great, and hence on a par with the most revered and ancient Rabbinic sources. In the middle of his extended, delicate discussion of the difficult question of the world’s creation in time, Maimonides inserts a chapter (Guide II, 26) whose trigger is a loaded passage from these ‘Chapters’. 24 Maimonides dubs the passage ‘the strangest (aghrab) statement I See the opening paragraph of Guide I, 70; Pines, p. 171. See Keim, ‘Cosmology as Science’, and the bibliography cited there. 24 Once again, the reader is referred to the asterisked first note to the chapter in Professor Schwarz’ translation for bibliography. See also the chapter ‘In Search of Ancient Authority’ in this volume. 22 23

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 85 have seen made by one who follows the Law of Moses’. 25 The passage, taken from the third chapter, reads: ‘Wherefrom were the heavens created? From the light of his garment. He took some of it, stretched it like a cloth, and thus they were extended continually, as it is said, “Who coverest Thyself with light as a garment. Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain” [Psalms 104:2]. Wherefrom was the earth created? From the snow under the throne of His glory. He took some of it and threw it, as it is said, “He saith to the snow, Be thou earth” [Job 37:6]’. 26

Maimonides puzzles at length over this passage. From what were the ‘light of the garment’ and the ‘snow’ created? Or are they uncreated? Does the author agree with the view of the Law, that the world was created from nought? Or does he rather accept Plato’s view—a compromise between the Law and Aristotle, which, however, Maimonides will not accept—that the deity fashioned the cosmos out of uncreated matter? Maimonides’ wily exposition can support, or retort, any number of opinions concerning his ‘true stance’ on creation. Our focus here remains upon light. Indeed, Maimonides declares that the strangest (aʿjab) part of this strangest statement is the phrase, ‘the light of his garment’, adding that ‘No persuasive figurative interpretation with regard to it has become clear to me. I have only mentioned it to you in order that you should make no mistake about it’. 27 For the rest of the chapter, Maimonides squeezes from ‘the 25 Pines, p. 330; the sentence literally says, ‘I have never seen anything stranger in the discourse (kalām) of someone who follows the Law of Moses’. Gharīb, whose comparative form aghrab features in the sentence, is better translated ‘amazing’ or ‘marvelous’, the two equivalents given in Blau, Dictionary, p. 476. Gharīb is not necessarily a mark of criticism, but rather a teaser, intended to pique the reader’s interest. 26 I cite the passage in Pines’ translation, p. 330. 27 Pines, p. 331. Pines and R. Qafih apparently see no real difference between gharīb and ʿajīb and use the same word to translate both; Schwarz chooses two different words. It may be the case that ʿajīb is a stronger expression of wonder. Note that a few lines earlier, Maimonides states, ‘As for the throne of glory

86

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

strangest statement’ irrefutable evidence that the stuff of the heavens is different from the stuff of the earth, a cardinal point in his cosmology, and a lesson that readers should take away from the ‘Chapters’, whatever their view on creation may be. Medieval Maimonideans picked up on Maimonides’ enticing references to the passage. Some saw in ‘the strangest of phrases’ a hint at the theory of emanation which they had already taken to be the true cosmogony and, for that reason, the cosmogony of the great master. Consider, for example, Ḥoṭer ben Shlomo, a most prolific philosophical writer from fifteenthcentury Yemen. Like his countrymen at the time, he was a firm Maimonidean—according to his own interpretation of Maimonides, of course. However, in one of his philosophical questions and answers where Maimonides’ name does not appear, he does establish that ʾor (‘light’) is used in two senses. Significantly, he begins with what one would think to be the figurative sense: ‘the spiritual forms that overflow throughout reality, one after the other’ (al-ṣuwar al-rūḥāniyya al-mutʿāqib fayḍihā bi-l-wujūd)’. We shall see that others have different names for this emanation. Still, there is a consensus that light is used to denote the divine efflux or blessing that suffuses all that exists. The second meaning is visible light, an ʿarḍ or accident (in the medieval sense of by-product) of the sun’s rays. Recall that this definition, drawn from medieval physics, was used by Joseph Ibn Ṣadīq to refute the sectarian identification of God with light. Here are the question and answer in Ḥoṭer’s words: ‘Question: What is the meaning of His statement, ‘God called the light, day; but the darkness, he called night [Genesis 1:5]’? ‘Answer: Know that when He said: “Let there be light and there was light”, light is here multivalent. It is said of the spiritual forms that overflow throughout reality, one after

belonging to the created things, the Sages state this expressly, but in a strange (ʿajīb) manner’.

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 87 the other. The prophet spoke of this emanation when he said, “In Your light we see light” [Psalms 36:10]; and they said, “Let us go forth in the light of God” [Isaiah 2:5]. It is [also] said of the sensible accident that happens in reality on account of the sun’s rays. For the nature of the lower world is dark and thick, because it is composite and made of contraries, [hence] removed from light. This light that happens is an accident’. 28

Two questions later Ḥoṭer addresses the passage from the ‘Chapters’ of R. Eliezer, but there he does not mention light at all. The passage is read as a highly abbreviated cosmogony in which creation begins with a simple, perfect spiritual substance which contains within it the forms of all things. These forms then flow out, becoming progressively thicker and coarser the further they move from their source. Clearly the reader is expected to identify the light of the ‘Chapters’ with these forms. However, the light of the ‘Chapters’ is named as the source of the heavens, but not as the first thing created. Ḥoṭer explains that there are finer forms which precede them, but the ‘Chapters’ skip over them due to the difficulty human minds have in comprehending such matters. 29 ʿAmram ben Shelomo al-Qafāʿī, who wrote an extensive and learned commentary to the poem that Maimonides placed at the head of his commentary to the Mishnah, has this to say: ‘The reality that issues forth from the One who Arranges (almurattib) is intellect, soul, and nature. By nature I mean here the divine nature that He decreed on the basis of His— Exalted is He—wisdom. From it came the spherical form in general. The spherical form required a different nature, which is the concept of rotational motion forever and ever Question no. 6; ed. and Hebrew translation Rabbi Yosef Qafih, p. 187. The text has been edited, translated, and commented upon by Blumenthal, Philosophical Questions. Due to COVID restrictions at time of writing I was unable to consult Blumenthal’s book. 29 Question no. 8; Rabbi Qafih, p. 189. 28

88

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES (sarmad bi-sarmad). From these four [intellect, soul, nature or the sphere, and rotational motion] there came about the shape of the orb, its form and its matter, in accordance with the divine decree [or: divine necessity]. This is what R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus spoke about [when declaring] “Wherefrom was heaven created? From the light of his garment”’. 30

ʿAmram makes no attempt to ferret out specific referents for either light or garment; the phrase packs within it some fairly standard medieval Islamic neoplatonic teachings. Some medieval Jewish philosophers in the West understood the passage in a similar fashion. Levi ben Ḥayyim, for example, writes: ‘It means that the orbs were fashioned from the overflow of the intellects which is called “the light of the garment of the Holy One, Blessed is He”’. 31 A highly original attempt at a Maimonidean reading of the passage is found in Bayit Gadol, a commentary on the R. Eliezer’s ‘Chapters’ by R. Avraham Aharon Brode (d. ca. 1820). 32 A prolific scholar and scion of a family of distinguished Lithuanian rabbis, Brode seems to have had a good knowledge of the science of his day. 33 The ‘wherefrom’ that opens the passage is two words in Hebrew, me-eizeh maqom, ‘from which place’.34 Brode astutely recalls that in Guide I, 8, Maimonides establishes that one of the extended meanings of maqom (‘place’) is ‘ranking’. Hence, R. Eliezer is asking, ‘From which of the rankings of the existents was their generation drawn, and who made them— was it God Himself, without an intermediary, or the unattached Qafih, ‘Beiʾur’, pp. 1346–1349; my translation differs significantly from the rabbi’s Hebrew version. 31 Levi ben Ḥayyim, The Quality of Prophecy, pp. 77–78. 32 Printed in the margins of Pirqei di-Rebbe Eliezer, Vilna 5598/1838, and reprinted several times since; I consulted the edition published by Ohel Rabbeinu Yonoson Ublima Foundation, Jerusalem, 5765/2005, pp. 24–25. 33 See the entry in Markovitz, Shem ha-Gedolim, p. 58. 34 So indeed in the text quoted by Maimonides, see Munk-Joël, p. 231 l. 1. Other versions of the chapter display mi-heykhan, e.g. the version glossed by Ibn Malka, in Fenton, ‘ Judeo-Arabic Commentary’, p. 132. 30

3. WHY IS THERE NO DISCUSSION OF THE EQUIVOCAL TERM ʾOR 89 intellects?’ The reply, says Brode, is that they were made by God directly. ‘Garment’, like ‘place’, is used figuratively for ranking; prooftexts are Psalms 93:1 and Isaiah 59:7. 35 ‘Light’ is used figuratively for ‘will’ (Hebrew ratzon), a novel interpretation as far as I can see; prooftexts are Psalms 44:4 and Numbers 6:26. The full reply, then, is that ‘the heavens were created from the divine will and the overflow of his middot, in a manner similar to “the world was constructed by ḥesed” [Psalms 89:3]’. I surmise that Brode intends by middot the sefirot of the kabbala, one of which is ḥesed. I think that Maimonides might have been pleased with this reading, even if he could not have accepted it in all of its detail. What might ‘the light of His garment’ mean for Maimonides? This paper has explored various usages of ‘light’ in religious discourse which Maimonides encountered and thought to be deserving of mention. It appears to me that Maimonides does not reject, and perhaps even adopts, the idea of the degradation and concomitant thickening or condensation of light as it descends through the cosmos; light plays a key role in the transformation of the divine bounty into a form that can interact with the material universe. However, he seems to keep his distance from the figurative application of light in the description of the divine. It may be acceptable for those who must employ their imagination in the dangerous and delicate quest for some understanding of the divine to think of God as some sort of illumination. Nonetheless, God is not light.

35 Brode does not take into account Maimonides’ explanation of the ‘garment’ in Mishneh Torah; see the chapter in this book on ‘The Face of God’.

CHAPTER FOUR. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MOSES MAIMONIDES AND THE ARABOPHONE MAIMONIDEANS Humans have faces; they are the most recognizable feature of the individual. Indeed, one of the more frightening features of our modern world is the faceless bureaucrat or security apparatus. The ‘face of God’ is a common anthropomorphism in many religious traditions. Philosophically minded monotheists, and even some believers who were not all that inclined to philosophize, took the ‘face of God’ to be a figure of speech and labored to uncover the meanings hidden behind the phrase. Those efforts expanded to include a slew of usages of ‘face’, depending, of course, on the language in which these writers expressed themselves as well as the writ to whose sanctity and inviolability they were committed. In addition to functioning as a noun which denotes the front part of the head, ‘face’ also functions as a verb. In that capacity, its most common sense, in Hebrew and Arabic as in English, is directional, meaning to be positioned towards someone or something. In this chapter I will explore the interpretations given to ‘face’, especially the ‘face of God’, in a small but highly distinguished and influential set of writers clustered around Moses Maimonides (d. 1204). The other ‘Maimonideans’ include family members—Moses’ father Maimon and his son Abraham—as well as Moses’ followers in the Arabic-speaking world. These thinkers are almost all Jewish and the writings are almost all in Arabic. The notable exceptions are Moses Maimonides’ great legal com91

92

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

pilation, Mishneh Torah, written in Hebrew, and a translation of some passages from that book into Arabic accompanied by an extensive commentary in that language by a Muslim, ʿAlā al-Dīn al-Muwaqqit. 1 The discussion will center upon the appearances of the critical passages of Exodus that follow upon the episode of the Golden Calf. Two main conclusions will emerge from this study. First, Moses Maimonides diverges significantly in his interpretation of the passages from the teachings of his father, which are very much in line with rabbinic tradition. Moses’ son Abraham, for all of his philosophical learning and Sufi inclinations, will keep to the tradition of his grandfather. Second, the interpretations of Maimonides do not easily transfer to an Arabic-Islamic context, because the biblical ‘face of God’ is most often joined to the images of God’s ‘back’ and ‘garment’, neither of which figure in the imagery of Islamic discourse. Indeed, one of the aims of this paper is to advocate some restraints on that trend of current research which sees a pervasive and omnipresent influence of Islamic thought on Jewish writers. The bulk of the paper concerns the variety of interpretations given to these chapters within a small segment of Arabic speakers, and the difficulty evident in the efforts of one non-Jew to participate in the conversation. In a brief afterword I offer some thoughts on the limits of comparative studies of the allegorization of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾan. Jews and Muslims may have been able to exchange ideas on the techniques, and limitations, of interpretation; when turning to the actual work with texts, however, the different corpora of imagery—imagery which is embedded in clear narrative contexts—forced the hand of the interpreters in choosing appropriate meanings for their respective scriptures. We will begin with Moses Maimonides, whose writings lie at the center of this chapter. He pays a good deal of attention to the figurative meanings of ‘face’ in two chapters of his Guide of As we shall see, it is possible that a direct descendant of Maimonides collaborated with al-Muwaqqit.

1

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

93

the Perplexed (Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn). Guide I, 37, is devoted entirely to the multiple significations of the Hebrew panim, ‘face’. It is one in a series of chapters found in the first part of the Guide that are devoted to one or more Hebrew words, most of which are applied anthropomorphically to the deity in the Hebrew Bible. The main purpose of these chapters is to establish that those words have multiple meanings; the reader must choose the meaning most appropriate in a given verse. Maimonides will argue forcefully that the deity must be divested of all material attributes—this, in my opinion, is the single most important principle of belief for Maimonides (beyond, of course the existence of God) and the true meaning of tawḥīd for him—and, therefore, the reader will understand that the meaning selected for panim, or any other Hebrew word applied to the deity, must not have any association with matter. Guide I, 54, discusses in great depth the dialogue between the biblical Moses and God in Exodus 33, especially verses 11– 23. Different forms of panim feature some six times in those verses. Most critical for Maimonides is what, on the face of it, is a give-and-take between Moses and the Creator concerning the former’s request to see God’s kavod, His ‘glory’. That request is denied, because, as God explains, ‘My face shall not be seen’ (verse 23). This exchange is of pivotal importance for Maimonides’ project in the Guide. Removing the anthropomorphism is not at all a concern in chapter 54; that has already been done in chapter 37. Instead, Maimonides finds in the passage, which he unpacks in Guide I, 54, concentrated and invaluable biblical statements concerning what humans can and cannot possibly apprehend, as well as the soteriological merit of true knowledge. Moreover, these verses present an opportunity to begin an investigation into the knotty question of divine attributes, which Maimonides will develop in the chapters that follow (55–60). Most of the Maimonidean texts that will be brought up for discussion in this paper relate to the issues investigated in Guide I, 54. However, it is Maimonides’ method to disperse his disquisition on critical topics over several, non-consecutive chapters in the Guide. Only the student who is patient and committed, and blessed as well with a good memory, will be able to piece to-

94

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

gether the scattered remarks and derive from them their full import. With this in mind, we will first have a look at Guide I, 21, where Maimonides reviews at length some possible interpretations of the theophany in Exodus 33–34. Following that, we will examine I, 37, which, as noted, is devoted to the Hebrew term for face. Finally, we turn our attention to I, 54, which displays the most sustained analysis of that same theophany. The topic of Guide I, 21, is the Hebrew verb ʿabor, ‘to pass’. As usual, Maimonides surveys a list of meanings that the verb has taken on. The last of these is ‘one has been caused to miss one objective and thereupon aimed at another objective and at another goal. Thus: He shot an arrow, causing it to pass by’ [I Samuel 20:36]. 2 In the verse that Maimonides has chosen to illustrate this last meaning, Jonathan has deliberately overshot the target, so as to achieve his true aim: to convey the secret code he has agreed upon with David. Maimonides then announces that this seems to him to be the correct meaning of ʿabor in ‘And the Lord passed by His face’ [Exodus 34:6]. In order to understand the verse properly, it is also stipulated that the ambiguous pronomial suffix in panav, ‘His face’, refers back to ‘the Lord’, and not to Moses; this, Maimonides assures us, is the opinion of the ancient Jewish sages. 3 Moses asked for a certain apprehension, designated by the Torah as God’s face, but was promised only an inferior apprehension. God’s deliberate missing of the target of Moses’ request is conveyed by the Hebrew verb ʿabor; the verse designates the inferior apprehension, which, like Jonathan’s errant arrow, was Pines, p. 48. Earlier commentators with whom Maimonides may have been familiar, such as Saʿadya Gaon and Abraham Ibn Ezra, are silent on the referent of the suffix, presumably because the context seems to indicate clearly that it refers back to Moses. Onqelos seems rather clear about this, stating in Aramaic: ‘God caused His Shekhina to pass over his face’. The interpretation of Onqelos meets with Maimonides’ approval (Pines, p. 49) because it was ‘a created thing’, not the deity, which passed before Moses. Modern commentators find rabbinic approbation for having ‘his face’ refer to God in the Talmudic homily (Rosh haShanah 17b): ‘God wrapped Himself like a leader in prayer’. 2 3

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

95

intended ab initio, by ‘back’: ‘And thou shall see My back’ [Exodus 33:23]. Maimonides reveals a good more detail: God’s ‘back’ refers to ‘the acts ascribed to Him, may He be exalted’ [Pines, p. 49], i.e., the divine attributes of action; moreover, the initial request was denied not because Moses was unworthy, but rather because ‘this apprehension is hidden and inaccessible in its very nature’ [Pines, p. 49]. Maimonides adds: Moreover every perfect man—after his intellect has attained the cognition of whatever in its nature can be grasped— when longing for another apprehension beyond that which he has achieved, cannot but have his faculty of apprehension deceived or destroyed … unless divine help attends him. 4

Clearly, this divine help can only save him from perdition; the requested apprehension remains absolutely inaccessible. Guide I, 37, begins by noting the primary meaning of panim, namely the biological visage, and a few verses are cited by way of illustration. Next, Maimonides notes that panim frequently denotes anger, especially divine wrath. He does not elaborate here. Clearly, when applied to the deity it cannot mean an emotion, since emotions are properties of material beings. It must then have the sense of directing, that is, directing the divine attention to a certain individual or group, which is how we humans would interpret the punishment that is meted out upon them. To be more precise, it is how we interpret as punishment the misfortunes that befall them. This topic is better left for the discussion of divine providence. The third meaning is ‘the presence and station of an individual’. 5 Here Maimonides does expand a bit, referencing, in particular, the verse in Exodus 33:11, ‘the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face’, as well as Exodus 33:22, ‘My face shall not be seen’. In addition, Maimonides alludes to the two key meanings the word has in philosophical theology. ‘Face to face’ means ‘without an intermediary’; in the 4 5

Pines, p. 49. Pines, p. 85.

96

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

case of a theophany, that go-between which is not present would be called an angel. The ‘face of God’ may also mean ‘the true reality of My existence as it is veritably’. 6 Next, Maimonides turns to ‘face’ being used as a different part of speech. It may be used as an adverb of place, meaning, for example, ‘in the presence of’. (Maimonides expresses this meaning of the Hebrew phrase in Arabic, which uses the phrase bayna yadayhi, ‘between his hands’.) It is also used as an adverb of time. Finally, it is used to denote ‘protection and providence’. 7 Note that the first definition refers to the human or animal face. Maimonides senses the need to list this meaning first in order to gain the reader’s credibility. Since this chapter is dealing as much with lexicography as it is with philosophy, he cannot ignore ‘simple’ meanings. (Note that some Jewish dictionaries from Spain, for example that of Ibn Janāḥ (990–1055), combine philology and philosophy.) For the Maimonideans who flourished in medieval Yemen, such an exercise seemed superfluous; it was clear to them that the ‘face’ as visage has no place in philosophy. They rather picked up where Maimonides left off. In this vein, Zekharya ha-Rofé rewrites several of the chapters from the first part of the Guide. 8 With regard to I, 37, he begins by citing Jeremiah 30:6, ‘all faces are turned to paleness’, the first verse cited by Maimonides in that chapter of the Guide, and one that Maimonides takes to refer to the human countenance. Zekharya, however, interprets ‘face’ to mean ‘direction’ or ‘orientation’ (ittijāh), and the verse to mean ‘they reset their orientation towards vileness’; he then adds, ‘after you know that the correct opinion is called panim (face; front) and the incorrect opinion is aḥor (back)’. The verse can thus be rephrased in two ways, but with the same message: they reset their orientation, or they reset their notion of ‘correct opinion’, to identify with vileness or error. Next he cites a phrase from the evening service, 6 7 8

Pines, p. 86. Pines, p. 87. Concerning his commentary see Langermann, ‘Sharh al-Dalala’.

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

97

‘and break the evil instinct (ha-saṭan) ahead of us and behind us’, which hints at the same idea—but, Zekharya cautions, we must remember that panim (here ‘front’ seems more apt) and aḥor designate form and matter respectively. Note that he has expanded the corpus of texts that accept this sort of interpretation to include the prayer book, something that Maimonides does not do in his Guide, to the best of my recollection. He offers no further explanation, stating instead: ‘I have already informed you that it is not my intent here to collect words, but rather that for which conciseness will suffice.’ Clearly, Zekharya understands the line cited to be a prayer that ‘Satan’ neither sabotage our correct opinions (‘form’, ‘front’) nor arouse our bodily desires (‘matter’, ‘back’). Note that Zekharya’s discussion builds heavily on the opposition between panim and aḥor. Indeed, Maimonides places a short chapter on the term aḥor immediately after the chapter on panim. This pairing of opposites, which is so laden with meanings for Jewish philosophers, has no parallel in Islamic thought. Wajh, ‘face’, is an important word in religious imagery, and so also the phrase ‘the face of God’. However, it is not coupled to a second term whose meaning is ‘back’. I have already remarked that the uses of panim in the thirty-third chapter of Exodus are of the greatest import for Maimonides’ philosophy, and they receive extended treatment in Guide I, 54. The chapter in Exodus mentioned above describes one of the most critical moments in Jewish history. The Israelites have sinned by worshiping the golden calf and have already met with severe punishment. Moses has moved his tent far from the camp of the Israelites, and those seeking the Lord must now leave the camp in order to seek his counsel. God speaks to Moses ‘face to face’ (Exodus 33:11). A new dialogue begins in verse 12. Despite the grave sin, Moses is still instructed to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. He now requests that God inform him of ‘His ways, so that I may know You and find favor in Your eyes’ (verse 12). God replies cryptically, ‘My face will go, and I will give you rest’. Maimonides observes that Moses made two requests. First, he asked to know ‘His attributes’. This request was granted in

98

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

the form of the thirteen attributes (middot) listed in Exodus 34:6–7. These came to play an enormous role in Jewish theology and prayer; their efficacy in supplications is stressed in the interpretation of the verse by Maimonides’ father, Rabbi Maimon, as we shall soon see. Maimonides, however, views them as attributes that are particularly relevant to political leadership and governance. The episode of the Golden Calf had revealed that Moses was clearly in need of instruction in those matters. Moses then made a personal request to ‘know His essence and true reality’—in the words of the Torah, ‘Show me, now, Your glory’ [Exodus 33:18]. God’s ‘glory’ (kavod) is here entirely synonymous with His ‘face’; both signify ‘essence (dhāt) and true reality (ḥaqīqa)’. 9 This request was denied. In its stead, Maimonides was granted a view of God’s ‘back’ (aḥor) [Exodus 33:23]. That word marks a comprehensive knowledge of creation that was then given to Moses and which ‘has not been apprehended by anyone before him nor will it be apprehended by anyone after him’. 10 Maimonides is not totally oblivious to the Torah’s placement of this dialogue in the context of the Golden Calf and its aftermath. He notes in one brief sentence that Moses successfully pleaded that the nation be forgiven. Other than that one brief remark, however, the lengthy discussion concerns the timeless philosophical question of what is attainable and what is not attainable with respect to the knowledge of God. Knowledge of God’s true essence, ‘seeing’ His ‘face’ or ‘glory’, is simply impossible for any material being. On the other hand, some approximation to knowledge of God, namely apprehension of the manifold manifestations of divine governance in the cosmos, the biblical ‘back’, is not only possible but praiseworthy. Indeed, in one of several subtle digs at popular religiosity, Maimonides avers, ‘…his [Moses’] saying, “That I may find grace in Thy sight” [Exodus33:13] indicates that he who knows God finds grace in His 9 Ten chapters later, in Guide I, 64, Maimonides explicitly states that the ‘glory’ in this verse refers to God’s dhāt and ḥaqīqa. 10 All quotations in this paragraph are drawn from Pines, p. 123.

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

99

sight and not he who merely fasts and prays, but everyone who has knowledge of Him’. 11 It would be no exaggeration to observe that Maimonides’ reading of this chapter in the Torah seems out of place. The Jewish people had come to within a hair’s breadth of annihilation; it was up to Moses to attempt to save them from the divine wrath. Yet Maimonides sees in the ensuing exchange with God not an attempt at expiation, but rather an inquiry into the limits of human knowledge. Moses successfully petitions for a knowledge of the divine attributes, and then asks to see the divine ‘glory’ or ‘face’. Yes, the Israelites have been forgiven, but that seems like a minor side-issue. We can appreciate how far out of step Maimonides is from traditional approaches by looking at the interpretations of the same chapter put forth by members of his own family. His son Abraham wrote a commentary on the Torah, portions of which survive—including his discussion of the relevant verses from Exodus. Moreover, someone has fortuitously inserted into the sole manuscript of Abraham’s commentary a long essay on the same chapters from Exodus by Rabbi Maimon, father of Maimonides. 12 According to Rabbi Maimon’s reading of the story, Moses is requesting information that is critical for his attempt to save the Jewish people. Specifically, Moses needs to know the thirteen divine attributes of mercy whose recitation in prayer may assuage the attribute of stern justice. 13 At that critical moment he Pines, p. 123. See the Judaeo-Arabic text (with a facing Hebrew translation by S.D. Sasson) in Wiesenberg, Perush, pp. 464–471. The unique manuscript, Oxford, Huntington 166, is thankfully accessible online via the Bodleian Library or National Library of Israel websites. 13 In viewing the thirteen attributes of mercy as instrument of expiation Rabbi Maimon is clearly following ‘the rabbis’; see, e.g., Urbach, The Sages, pp. 396– 407, 413, and 428; see also the following note. Long ago Goldziher, Richtungen, pp. 210–219, called attention to some allusions to the attributes of mercy and justice in Islamic sources; I have been collecting additional relevant texts, and I hope to contribute to this fascinating topic. 11 12

100

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

still did not know them, and, therefore, he had no other recourse in his first attempt than to the memory of the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, in the ensuing conversation, God confided to Moses some information about those attributes. According to Rabbi Maimon, the grace that Moses sought to find is not a personal closeness to God, which is a function of one’s knowledge of God, but rather knowledge of the ways to propitiate the deity by offering a more powerful prayer. The power and effectiveness of Moses’ prayer for forgiveness were a function of Moses’ learning of God’s ‘ways’. Those ‘ways’ are not, however, items of knowledge which allow the supplicant to draw closer to God, as Rabbi Maimon’s son would have it, but rather instruments of expiation. Just any prayer will not do; for prayer to be successful, one needs the knowledge to recite a certain formula, in this case, one which mentions the thirteen ‘ways’. 14 This is a distinctly non-Maimonidean belief. The key philosophical terms essence (dhāt) and true reality (ḥaqīqa) do not figure in R. Maimon’s analysis. 15 Moses also asked that the divine presence (shekhina) remain with the people. Only at the very end of the dialogue—Moses’ second request, according to Moses Maimonides, the third according to his father—does Moses appear to ask for knowledge. 16 Moses’ request for special knowledge is only briefly broached at the end of Rabbi Maimon’s long essay. To return to the theme of this Rabbi Maimon surely has in mind the Babylonian Talmud, Rosh ha-Shanah 17b, where God is said to have told Moses that whenever the Israelites sin, he should recite the thirteen attributes, and they will be forgiven. 15 ḥaqīqa does feature adverbially at the bottom of Wiesenberg, Perush, p. 469; it is not related to God’s ‘face’. 16 Maimonides opens Guide I, 54, with some (to me) confusing remarks about the order of Moses’ requests. Moses is said to have put his second request first; but that request is not second in the order of the Torah’s exposition, but rather secondary in rank, since it demands less than the request for knowledge of God’s true essence. Maimonides’ odd discussion of the order of requests seems to be influenced by his father’s much more involved discussion of the numbering of the requests and the order of the verses here, but I am not sure exactly how or why. 14

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

101

essay: R. Maimon evinces no interest at all in the anthropomorphic phrase, ‘the face of God’. Abraham, the son of Maimonides, acknowledges two avenues of interpretation and attempts a compromise solution, which combines both approaches. He says nothing about the ‘face of God’; his attention is focused instead on the divine promise to allow a glimpse of His ‘glory’ (which, as we have seen, is synonymous with ‘face’ in these verses, according to Maimonides) and the proper understanding of the anthropomorphic divine ‘hand’ which will shield Moses in that revelatory experience. The ‘glory’ refers either to a ‘created light’, a visual sign accompanying prophecy which was introduced into medieval Jewish thought by Saʿadya Gaon, or to ‘the passage of a glance at the exalted essence (khuṭūr lamḥ al-dhāt almuʿaẓẓama)’. 17 The first is closer to the literal sense of Scripture, says Rabbi Abraham, but the second is closer to its deeper meaning. The divine ‘hand’ is a metaphor for a cloud (whose purpose is presumably to shield the prophet from the glare of the ‘created light’) if we interpret the ‘glory’ as ‘created light’; it signifies protection if we take ‘glory’ to refer to ‘a mental glance (lamḥ dhihnī) and theoretical apprehension (idrāk naẓarī)’. R. Abraham adds, ‘Everything that my father and teacher, may his memory be for a blessing, mentioned about these matters suits the eminence of the problem and the transmission to the student; that which others have noted is closer to the wording [of the Torah]’. Put simply, Abraham’s grandfather stuck to the words of the Torah, whereas his father elucidated their real intent which, so I understand, may be transmitted only to the properly prepared student. 18 It was Maimonides who identified On Sa‘adya’s ‘created light’ see Kreisel, Prophecy, pp. 63–69 and passim; and see above, page 74. 18 Wiesenberg,p. 471 n. 96, suggests that ṭālib (student) refers either to Maimonides’ prize pupil, Joseph Ibn Shamʿūn (Wiesenberg follows an older, mistaken identification of the pupil with Ibn Aqnīn), or else to Maimonides himself, in which case ṭālib would mean investigator. My understanding encompasses both of these possibilities and more. 17

102

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

the ‘glory’ with the divine essence, and R. Maimon (among others) who identified it with a created light. Note also that Rabbi Abraham views the latter interpretation as being close to the literal sense, even though there is no mention at all of light, created or not, in the relevant chapter of Exodus. For his part, Rabbi Abraham proposes a compromise: there was a sensory vision, or ‘sensible semblance to the luminosity of the created [light]’ (tashabbuh ḥissiyya li-nūriyyat al-makhlūq)’ which aided Moses’ intellectual apprehension. 19 The hesitation in this odd formulation is clear enough. Abraham understandably did not want to align himself with either his father or grandfather, whose interpretations of the verses were so very far apart. The theophany centering on the thirteen middot and Moses’ request for a glimpse of the divine ‘glory’ or ‘face’ was sufficiently important for Maimonides to include it in his Hebrewlanguage law code, Mishneh Torah. Unlike the Guide, which was written expressly only for those whose full philosophical and scientific training had led them to be perplexed by certain biblical and rabbinic texts, Mishneh Torah was intended to be accessible to all. Yet the presentation in Mishneh Torah was of a high enough philosophical quality that Maimonides cross-referenced it in Guide I, 21, as we have seen. The very first section of Mishneh Torah, ‘Laws concerning the Foundations of the Torah’, presents, as the title indicates, the basic philosophical, scientific, and theological information which Maimonides deemed necessary for every Jew to acquire. Maimonides writes there [‘Foundations’ I:10–11]: 20 ‘[10] What did Moses wish to apprehend when he said, “Please show me Your glory” [Exodus 33:18]? He wished to know the true nature of the Holy One Blessed is He’s being Wiesenberg, p. 473, top line. I can understand the phrase by inserting al-nūr: nūriyyat [al-nūr] al-makhlūq. This understanding is reflected in the facing Hebrew translation by Sasson. 20 The translations are my own based on the synoptic edition accessible online at https://rambam.genizah.org/Global/home. There are only minor differences in spelling between the various printings and manuscripts displayed there. 19

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

103

in such a way that it would be known in his heart just like the knowledge of an individual whose face he saw and whose form was inscribed in his heart. In this way, that individual would be distinct in his mind (daʿat) from all other (sheʾar) people. 21 So did Moses request that the being of the Holy One Blessed is He be distinct in his heart from the being of all other beings, and so he would thus know the true nature of His being exactly as it is. God replied that it is beyond the capacity of the knowledge of a living human, who is compounded of body and soul, to apprehend the truth of this thing perfectly. ‘[11] The Blessed One let him know what no one before him had known, nor will anyone coming after him know; he apprehended something of the true nature of His being by means of which the Holy One Blessed is He was distinct in his mind from all other beings, the way a person is distinct in his mind from other people when one has seen him from behind and apprehended his entire body and garment. Scripture alluded to this by saying, “and you will see My back, but My face shall not be seen” [Exodus 33:23]’.

The ‘Foundations’ were translated into Arabic and supplied with a rich commentary in the same language by ʿAlā al-Dīn Ibn Tibghah al-Hanafī al-Muwaqqit, who died in his city of Aleppo in 1391. This unusual work by a Muslim scholar has a close direct connection to the Maimonidean dynasty. David ben Joshua, a direct fifth-generation descendant of Maimonides (dates uncertain, fl. approximately 1335–1410) relocated from Egypt to Aleppo. We have reports of a manuscript of al-Muwaqqit’s translation and commentary in the hand of David ben Joshua (who was a prolific copyist). It has been suggested that it was David It is well known that Hebrew has no equivalent for the Arabic dhihn, ‘mind’. I suggest that Maimonides (who thought in Arabic even as he wrote in Hebrew) had dhihn in mind here when he wrote daʿat. Similarly, I believe that he imparted to the Hebrew sheʾar one of the meanings of its Arabic homonym, sāʾir, ‘all’.

21

104

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES

who commissioned al-Muwaqqit to undertake the project; he may also be the author of some marginal glosses that are inserted into the text in the surviving manuscripts. 22 Of the two surviving manuscripts, only MS London Add. 27294 preserves the portion of the ‘Foundations’ of concern here. 23 We are interested particularly in al-Muwaqqit’s translations. Maimonides used the biblical imagery, namely the ‘face’ and ‘back’ of God, and alluded to the rabbinic image of ‘garment’. However, as we remarked at the beginning of this paper, only the ‘face’ of God is used in Islamic discourse, where it takes on a variety of figurative meanings. 24 Al-Muwaqqit can handle the ‘face’ well enough on his own (or with the help of David Maimonides or some other collaborator), but for the verse mentioning the ‘back’, he falls back upon Saʿadya’s translation. This may lead to some confusion, as we shall see. For ‘garment’ he simply writes the Arabic homonym. The meaning that Maimonides assigns to the theophany in his ‘popular’ Mishneh Torah is exactly the same as that ascribed to it in the Guide. However, in the Mishneh Torah, perhaps because the book is aimed at a general audience, Maimonides does clarify why ‘face’ and ‘back’ are appropriate metaphors for the two types of knowledge described. Knowing someone’s face is to have a clear, distinct recognition of that person, in a way that that person will not be confused with anyone else. On the other hand, seeing someone’s back and garment produces knowledge that is less precise, less marked, and not as unmistakable. ‘Garment’ (malbush) is of course a very well-known metaphor for visible manifestations of the divine. 25 Fenton, ‘Literary Legacy’, pp. 42–3. The other copy is MS St Petersburg, National Library of Russia EVR-ARAB I 1426. 24 See the final section of this paper for a few examples, certainly insufficient for a serious comparison, but this paper is not a comparative study of Jewish and Islamic religious thought. 25 Concerning the divine garment see Loewe, ‘Divine Garment’. In his youthful commentary to the Mishnah, Maimonides mentions Shiʿur Qomah favorably, but 22 23

4. THE FACE OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF MAIMONIDES

105

Here are the key features of al-Muwaqqit’s translations: 26 1) The ‘Your glory’ that Moses asks to see in the verse cited in the Mishneh Torah is rendered ḥaqīqatu dhātika, ‘the true reality of Your essence’, the same two terms used by Maimonides in interpreting the verse in Guide I, 54. In the Guide the two nouns are conjoined; al-Muwaqqit binds them in a construct formation, following the same grammatical construction in Maimonides’ Hebrew Mishneh Torah, amitat himaṣʾo (‘the true nature of [His] being’). The phrase ḥaqīqatu dhātika, ‘the true reality of Your essence’, features as the translation of ‘Your glory’ in the biblical verse, not its figurative interpretation (for which see the next item on this list). Al-Muwaqqit seems unaware or uninterested that Saʿadya translated this ‘glory’ as light; this point will prove to be significant, as we shall see. 2) In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides explains that Moses asked to know the ‘true nature of the Holy One Blessed is He’s being’; al-Muwaqqit uses here māhiyya, ‘quiddity’. It may be the case that having already used two ponderous terms to render ‘glory’, he felt that he could do here with just one somewhat equivalent word. 3) The most striking translations are found in 1:11. For God’s ‘back’ (aḥor), al-Muwaqqit chooses qafā. From the standpoint of lexicography this choice is unremarkable; that Arabic word denotes ‘the back’, especially the back of the head. However, unlike the Hebrew aḥor, qafā has

later in life he completely rejected that tract. In II, 26, one of the most puzzling chapters of his Guide, Maimonides grapples with the ‘light of the [divine] garment’ mentioned in Pirqei de-Rebbe Eliezer, a post-Islamic midrash which Maimonides and many others took to be tannaitic. See the chapter, ‘Why is there no chapter on the equivocal term “light” in the Guide of the Perplexed?’ in this book. 26 The translation of 1:10 is found on fol. 35b, that of 1:11 on fol. 37a.

106

IN AND AROUND MAIMONIDES no extended meanings or figurative usage in Islamic thought. That noun does not feature at all in the Qur’an. 4) The Hebrew malbush, ‘garment’, is rendered by the Arabic homonym, malbūs. Here again, the Hebrew term has important significations in ancient rabbinic literature, and Maimonides was not unaware of them. However, as far as I know, malbūs of the deity does not feature in Islamic thought, Sufism included. 5) The most intriguing translation is that of the verse cited at the end of this paragraph, ‘and you will see My back, but My face shall not be seen’ [Exodus 33:23], for which al-Muwaqqit chooses: fa-tanẓuru awākhira >al