into Judaism more rational principles, which they had derived from
Arabic philosophy. But these attempts only affected details; the
cardinal principle remained untouched. Reason remained subordinate to
the written word; its truths were still discarded for the higher truth
of religion. The Gaon Saadiah, the greatest of the earlier Jewish
religious philosophers, explains the relation of reason to religion by
the following simile: “A man weighs his money, and finds that he has a
thousand pieces.” He gives different sums to a number of people, and
then, “wishing to show them quickly how much he has left, he says that
he has five hundred pieces, and offers to prove it by weighing his
money. When he weighs the money—which takes little time—and finds that
it amounts to five hundred pieces they are bound to believe what he told
them.” But there may be among them a particularly cautious man, who
wants to find the amount left over by the method of calculation—that is,
by adding together the various amounts distributed and subtracting their
sum from the original amount.[134] Religion, of course, is the weighing
process, which gives us the truth at once, by a method which is direct
and cannot be questioned. Reason corresponds to calculation: a cautious
man with plenty of time may use it to establish a truth which has
already been proved to him by the short and certain method of weighing.
But obviously calculation cannot change the result which weighing has
already given; and if there is any difference in the results, the
weighed money will neither be increased nor diminished, and the mistake
must be in the calculation. This way of regarding reason and its
relation to religion was common to all the Jewish thinkers who laboured,
before Maimonides, to reconcile religion and philosophy. They regarded
their labour only as a necessary evil. They shouldered the burden
because they saw that it had to be done; but in their heart of hearts
they were wholly on the side of religion, and it never occurred to them
to give reason precedence.[135] In this respect they were like the
Arabic religious philosophers; and like them they chose the
philosophical views which confirmed their religious faith rather than
those which were confirmed by reason. “They did not investigate,” writes
Maimonides, jeering at “philosophers” of this kind, “the real properties
of things; first of all they considered what must be the properties of
the things which should yield proof for or against a certain creed.”
They forgot “that the properties of things cannot adapt themselves to
our opinions, but our opinions must be adapted to the existing
properties.”[136]
If we remember that this was the general attitude of mind, we cannot
help asking how it could happen that in such a period and in such an
atmosphere Maimonides arrived at the doctrine of the supremacy of reason
in its most uncompromising form. No doubt, if we care to be satisfied
with any answer that comes to hand, we may say that Maimonides, starting
out with a predisposition in favour of the Arabic version of the
Aristotelian philosophy, and a sternly logical mind, could not stop
half-way, or fail to see the logical consequences of Aristotelianism.
But when we observe how, with a devotion far greater than that of his
non-Jewish teachers, he set himself to develop and extend the idea of
the supremacy of reason till it became a complete, all-embracing theory
of life; and when we remember also his love for the teachings of
Judaism, which ought to have induced in him a disposition not to extend
the empire of reason, but to restrict it: we are forced to confess that
logic alone could never have produced this phenomenon. There must have
been some psychological force, some inner motive power, to make
Maimonides so extreme and uncompromising a champion of reason.
We shall discover what this motive power was, I think, if we take
account of the political position of the Jews at that time.
It was a time when religious fanaticism was rife among the Moslems. In
many countries to profess another religion meant death, and large
numbers of Jews, who could with difficulty change their place of abode,
accepted Mohammedanism, though but outwardly. One of these countries was
Southern Spain, the birthplace of Maimonides, who was a boy of thirteen
when religious persecution broke out in that country. It may or may not
be true, as recent historians maintain, that he and his father and the
whole family changed their religion under compulsion: the question has
not yet been definitely settled. But there is no doubt that even if he
was saved by some means from an open change of faith, he was at any rate
forced to conceal his Judaism, for fear of oppression, so long as he
lived in Spain and in Fez (where religious persecution first started,
and fanaticism had its stronghold). It was only in Egypt that his
troubles ceased, and when he reached Egypt he was already about thirty
years of age. This, then, was the terrible position in which Maimonides
spent his years of development. He was surrounded by lying and religious
hypocrisy; Judaism had to hide from the light of day; its adherents had
to wear a mask whenever they came out of their homes into the open. And
why? Because Mohammed had called himself a prophet, had performed
miracles, according to his followers, to win their faith, and by virtue
of his prophetic power had promulgated a new Law and revealed new
truths, which all men were bound to believe, although they were contrary
to reason. This state of things was bound to make a profound impression
on a young man like Maimonides, with his fine nature and his devotion to
truth. He could not but feel every moment the tragedy of such a life;
and therefore he could not but become violently opposed to the source of
religious fanaticism—to that blind faith in the truth of prophecy which
relies on supernatural “evidence,” and despises the evidence of reason.
It was this blind faith that led the Moslems to force the Jews into
accepting the teaching of the new prophet; and it was this that led many
of these very Jews, after they had gradually become accustomed to their
new situation, to doubt of their Judaism and ask themselves why they
should not be able to believe in Mohammed’s prophecy, just as they
believed in that of Moses. If Moses had performed miracles, then surely
Mohammed might have done the same; and how could they decide between the
one teaching and the other with such certainty as to pronounce one true
and the other false?[137]
These impressions, which were constantly influencing Maimonides’
development in his childhood and youth, were bound to swing him
violently over to the other side, to the side of reason. Ultimately he
was led to subject man—and God too, if one may say so—to that supreme
ruler: because Judaism could trust reason never to allow any new prophet
with his new teaching to work it harm. When once Judaism had accepted
the supremacy of reason and handed over to reason the seal of truth, it
would never again be difficult to show by rational proof that the first
divine religion was also the only divine religion, never to be displaced
or altered till the end of time; and then, even if ten thousand prophets
like Mohammed came and performed miracles beyond telling, we should
never believe in their new teaching, because one proof of reason is
stronger than all the proofs of prophecy.[138]
Perhaps, too, Maimonides’ rationalism is traceable to yet another cause,
which lies like the first in the situation of the forced converts of
that period. These men were no doubt able to observe the Jewish law
within their own homes; the Moslems did not, like the Christians later,
invent an Inquisition to pry into every hole and corner. None the less,
Maimonides himself makes it clear that the Jews were often compelled to
break the commandments of their Law, when they could not observe them
without arousing suspicion in the minds of the authorities. This
naturally caused the unfortunate Jews great distress, and drove some of
them to despair. What, they asked themselves, was the use of remaining
true to their ancestral faith at heart, if they could not in practice
keep clear of transgressions both great and small, and must in any case
merit the pains of hell?[139] It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose
that this painful feeling also helped to lead Maimonides—though
unconsciously—towards the doctrine of the supremacy of reason, which
teaches that man’s “ultimate perfection does not include any action or
good conduct, but only knowledge”[140]—thus implying that man may win
salvation by attaining to true opinions, though he is sometimes forced
in practice to transgress the commands of religion.
However that may be, whether for these reasons or for others, we do find
that Maimonides had his system perfected and arranged in all its details
even in his early days, when he first came out of his study into public
life, and that he made scarcely any change in it from that time till the
day of his death.[141] All his efforts went to the propagation of his
teaching among his people, and to the endeavour to repair by its means
all the shortcomings which he found in contemporary Judaism.
These shortcomings were great indeed. Judaism, as Maimonides found it,
was by no means fulfilling its function as “the divine religion.” It was
not “true opinions” that the people derived from Judaism: on the
contrary, they had come, through a literal acceptance of all that it
taught, to hold false ideas about God and man, and had therefore by its
means been removed still further from perfection. Even the practical
duties of morality and religion could not easily be learnt by the people
generally from their religious writings. For in order to deduce practice
from theory it was necessary to navigate the great ocean of the Talmud,
and to spend years on minute and tangled controversies—a task for the
few only, not for the masses. Here, then, was an odd state of things.
The whole purpose of religion was to improve society at large, to speak
to the masses in a language which they understood; but if the masses
could not understand the language of religion, and could learn from it
neither true opinions nor practical duties, then religion was not
fulfilling its function in society, and its existence was useless.
This state of affairs produced in Maimonides, while he was still young,
an ardent desire to stand in the breach and make Judaism fit to fulfil
the double function—theoretical and practical—which it had as the only
“divine religion.” For this purpose it was necessary on the one hand to
show the whole people, in a form suited to its comprehension, the “true
opinions” contained in the _Torah_, and on the other hand to rescue the
practical commandments from the ocean of Talmudic disputation and to
teach them in a short and simple manner, so that they should be easily
remembered and become familiar to the people.
But in those early days Maimonides had not the courage to strike out a
new line and to present the whole content of religion in an entirely
fresh manner in conformity with his philosophical system. Hence he chose
a line which was already familiar, and decided to supply the need of his
own age by the help of a book which in its time had been intended to
fulfil a somewhat similar purpose—the Mishnah. Thus it was in the form
of a Commentary on the Mishnah that he tried to give his contemporaries
what they lacked: to wit, clear doctrine and a plain rule of practice.
Wherever the Mishnah leaves a point in doubt, he gives the decision laid
down in the Talmud; and wherever the Mishnah hints at some theoretical
opinion, he takes advantage of the opportunity to explain the “true
opinions.”[142] This latter process was, of course, especially important
to him; and he sometimes expatiates on the subject at much greater
length than is usual in a Commentary of the ordinary kind.[143] Thus he
was able to introduce into his Commentary, besides a mass of scattered
notes, complete essays on questions of faith and philosophy in the form
of Introductions to different sections of the Mishnah.[144]
Maimonides gave a great deal of work to this Commentary, which he began
and finished in his years of trouble and wandering. In the result he
produced a masterpiece, which remains to this day superior to all later
Commentaries on the Mishnah. But he did not achieve the principal object
for which he took so much trouble: he did not make religion effective.
His Commentary did not become widely known, and made no great
impression; still less did it bring about a revolution in popular
opinion, as its author hoped that it would. And it failed of its object
on the practical as well as on the theoretical side. Many of the later
laws, which have no basis in the Mishnah, could not be included in it;
and those that were included were scattered about in no proper order,
because the Mishnah itself has no strict order.
But as Maimonides grew older and reached middle life, years brought him
wider knowledge and greater confidence in himself. This self-confidence
gave him courage and decided him to approach his goal by another road.
He would produce a work of striking originality, such as no Jew had ever
produced before.
So he set to work on his _Mishneh Torah_. Instead of a Commentary on the
Mishnah of R. Jehudah, Maimonides now produced a Mishnah of his own, new
in content as in arrangement.[145] Here he sets forth all the practical
laws of religion and morality and all the “true opinions” in the form
best adapted to the understanding of ordinary men, in beautiful and
clear language and in perfect logical order. Everything is put in its
right place; decisions are given without hair-splitting arguments;
opinions are set out untrammelled by arguments or proofs. In a word, the
book presents all that the divine religion ought to give in order to
fulfil its function, and presents it in precisely the right manner.[146]
This time Maimonides was justified in supposing that he had fulfilled
his duty to his people and his religion, and had attained the end which
he had set before himself. Within a short time this great book spread
through the length and breadth of Jewry, and helped considerably not
only to make the practical commandments more widely known, but also to
purify and transform popular religious notions. Views distinguished by
their freedom and their antagonism to current religious ideas appeared
here in the innocent guise of canonical dicta; and as they were couched
in the language of the Mishnah and in the familiar terminology of the
old religious literature, people did not realise how far they were being
carried, but swallowed the new ideas almost without resistance. If the
dose was accepted not as pure philosophy, but as religious dogma, that
was precisely what Maimonides intended: for according to his system
religion was to teach philosophical truth to the masses in the guise of
“divine” truth which needed no proof.
But Maimonides’ work was not yet completed. In the _Mishneh Torah_ he
had reformed religion so far as its social function was concerned: that
is to say, so far as the needs of the common people demanded. He had
still to reform it from the point of view of the function of society
itself: that is to say, to meet the needs of the chosen few. For the
common people it was necessary to clothe philosophical truth in
religious garb; for the few it was necessary to do just the reverse—to
discover and expose the philosophical truth that lay beneath the
religious garb. For this minority, consisting of those whom “human
reason had attracted to abide within its sphere”—who had learnt and
understood the prevailing philosophy of the time with all its preambles
and its proofs—could not help seeing the deep gulf between philosophy
and Judaism in its literal acceptation. It was impossible to hide the
inner contradiction from such men by means of a superficial gloss, or to
harmonise discrepancies of detail by a generalisation. What then should
one of these men do if he were not only a philosopher, but also “a
religious man who has been trained to believe in the truth of our Law”?
He must always be in a state of “perplexity and anxiety.” “If he be
guided solely by reason ... he would consider that he had rejected the
fundamental principles of the Law; ... and if, instead of following his
reason, he abandon its guidance altogether, it would still appear that
his religious convictions had caused him loss and injury. For he would
then be left with those errors [_i.e._, those derived from a literal
interpretation of Scripture], and would be a prey to fear and anxiety,
constant grief and great perplexity.”[147]
If we remember Maimonides’ conception of the “actualisation” of
intellect, and how it obtains independent existence through
understanding the Ideas, we shall see that he was bound to regard this
perplexity of the “perfect individuals” as being in itself not merely
something undesirable, but a grave danger from the point of view of the
supreme end of mankind. For how could these perplexed men attain to the
summit of perfection, to “acquired intellect,” if they doubted the truth
of reason because it did not square with the truths of religion, with
the result that subject and object could not be united in them and
become a single, indivisible whole? If the divine teaching itself brings
“loss and injury” to the chosen few, the harm that it does more than
outweighs the good that it has done in improving the multitude and thus
removing social obstacles from the path of the few.
This grave evil required a remedy; the “perplexed” had to be satisfied
that they could devote themselves peacefully to the acquisition of the
Ideas, without being disturbed by the thought that in so doing they were
rejecting the fundamental principles of the Law. This was the task which
Maimonides set himself in his last book, the _Guide for the Perplexed_.
The book is in a way his own confession of faith; it shows his perplexed
pupils the method by which he has succeeded in escaping from his own
perplexity. After what has been said above, we need not here deal with
this book at length. The “true opinions” which it contains have already
been explained in outline; the method by which these opinions are
discovered in the _Torah_ has been broadly indicated, and the details
are not essential to our present purpose. It does not matter to us _how_
Maimonides subordinated religion to reason; the important thing is that
he did subordinate it. From this point of view we may put the whole
teaching of the _Guide_ in a single sentence. “Follow reason and reason
only,” he tells the “perplexed,” “and explain religion in conformity
with reason: for reason is the goal of mankind, and religion is only a
means to the end.”
Had Maimonides written the _Guide_ before he wrote the _Mishneh Torah_,
he would certainly have been pronounced a heretic, and his book would
have made no deep impression either in the orthodox camp or in that of
the doubters. The orthodox would have turned their backs on it and have
striven to blot out its memory, as they did with so many other books
which they thought dangerous to their faith; and the doubters would not
have accepted its views as a perfect doctrine, but would have regarded
it as merely an attempt on the part of one of their fellow-doubters to
escape from his perplexity, and an attempt which in many details had
failed and could not give entire satisfaction.
But in fact the _Guide_ was written after the _Mishneh Torah_, when
Maimonides was already considered the greatest exponent of the Law, and
enjoyed an unequalled reputation throughout the Diaspora. Hence even the
_Guide_ could not dethrone him from his eminence. Willingly or
unwillingly, his contemporaries accepted this further gift at his hands.
The believers stormed and raged among themselves, but did not dare to
attack Maimonides openly so long as he lived. The doubters welcomed the
book with open arms; they did not stop to test or criticise, but drank
eagerly of the comforting draught for which their souls had been
thirsting. It was not some sophist, but the greatest sage in Israel, the
light of the Exile, who went before them like a pillar of fire to
illumine their path. How could they but be satisfied with such a guide?
But things changed when Maimonides’ death freed the zealots from the
restraint of fear. A fierce conflict broke out about him, and raged for
a hundred years. The religious leaders, long accustomed to ban every
book that did not suit their views, could not possess their souls in
silence when they saw, for the first time in Jewish history, that
revolutionary books like the _Guide_ and the _Book of Science_ were
spread abroad without let or hindrance, and were more popular and more
esteemed by the people at large than almost any of the other books which
the teachers and sages of Israel had placed in the treasury of
Judaism.[148] The details of this conflict are familiar to scholars, and
it is not my intention here to write the history of that period. But it
is worth pointing out that most of Maimonides’ opponents at that time
did not recognise clearly the fundamental change which he had introduced
into Judaism. No doubt they all felt that his teaching meant a complete
revolution in the national outlook; but they did not all understand what
was the pivotal issue of the revolution. For the most part they merely
pointed to certain details in which they found heresy, such as the
denial of resurrection, of hell and paradise, and so forth. Only a few
of them understood that Maimonides’ teaching was revolutionary not
because of his attitude on this or that particular question, but because
he dethroned religion altogether from the supreme judgment-seat, and put
reason in its place: because he made it his basic principle that
“whenever a Scripture is contradicted by proof we do not accept the
Scripture,” but _explain_ it in accordance with reason.[149]
This emancipation of reason from its subordination to an external
authority is the great and eternal achievement which has so endeared
Maimonides to all those of our people who have striven after knowledge
and the light. The theoretical system at which Maimonides worked so hard
from his youth to the end of his life has long been swept away, together
with the Arabic metaphysics on which it was based. But the practical
consequence of that system—the emancipation of reason—remains, and has
left its mark on the history of Jewish thought up to the present day.
Every Jew who has left the old school and traversed the hard and bitter
road that leads from blind faith to free reason must have met with
Maimonides at the beginning of his journey, and must have found in him a
source of strength and support for his first steps, which are the
hardest and the most dangerous. This road was traversed not only by
Mendelssohn, but also by Spinoza,[150] and before and after them by
countless thinkers, many of whom won golden reputations within Judaism
or outside it.