on the nature of the soul led to the degradation of reason in Jewish
thought, is superficial. Maimonides, according to him, “laid down what
we must believe and what we must not believe,” whereas before his time
there was no rigid dogma, “and there was no ban on opinions to prevent
each thinker from believing what he thought true.”[151] Now this is not
the place to show how far Luzzatto was from historical accuracy when he
credited pre-Maimonidean Judaism with freedom of thought. To understand
the true nature of that freedom we need only remember how Maimonides’
opponents—who were certainly faithful to the older Judaism—spoke and
acted in the period of conflict. But as regards Maimonides himself,
Luzzatto overlooks the fact that, while his psychological theory no
doubt led him to regard certain opinions as obligatory, he placed the
source of the obligation no longer in any external authority, but
precisely in human reason. That being so, the obligation could not
involve a ban on opinions. For as soon as other thinkers are persuaded
that human reason does not make these particular opinions obligatory,
they are bound, _in conformity with Maimonides’ own system_, to believe
each what he thinks true, and not what Maimonides erroneously thought
true. In other words: if we wish to judge Maimonides’ system from the
point of view of its effects on Judaism, we must look not at the
Thirteen Articles which he laid down as obligatory principles in
accordance with that system, but at the one principle which underlies
all others—that of the supremacy of reason. A philosopher who frees
reason from authority in general must at the same time free it from his
own authority; he cannot regard any view as obligatory except so long as
it is made obligatory by reason. Imagine a man put in prison and given
the key: can he be said to have lost his liberty?[152]
IV
Here ends what I wished to say about the supremacy of reason in
Maimonides’ system; and here I might conclude this Essay. But I should
like to add some remarks on another supremacy—on that of the national
sentiment. In these days we cannot discuss the thought of one of our
great men, even if there are seven hundred years between him and us,
without wanting to know whether and to what extent his thought reveals
traces of that sentiment which we now regard as the most vital element
in the life of Judaism.
But this question really contains two different questions, which have to
be answered differently so far as Maimonides is concerned. The first
question is: Did Maimonides recognise the supremacy of the national
sentiment in the spiritual life of his people, and allow it consciously
and of set purpose an important place in the teaching of Judaism? The
second is: Do we find traces of the supremacy of the national
sentiment—as an unconscious and spontaneous instinct—in the mentality of
Maimonides himself?[153]
The first question cannot be answered in the affirmative: the evidence
is rather on the negative side. Had Maimonides recognised clearly the
strength of the national sentiment as a force in Jewish life, and its
importance as a factor in the development of Judaism, he would
undoubtedly have used it, as Jehudah Halevi did, to explain the numerous
features of Judaism which have their origin in the national sentiment.
At any rate, he would not have endeavoured to invest those features with
a universalistic character. For instance, in seeking reasons for the
commandments he could easily have found that many of them have no
purpose but to strengthen the feeling of national unity; and he would
not have said of the Festivals that they “promote the good feeling that
men should have to each other in their social and political
relations.”[154] Nor would he have said, in dealing with the future
redemption, that “the wise men and the prophets only longed for the days
of the Messiah in order that they might be free to study the _Torah_ and
its wisdom, without any oppression or interference, and so might win
eternal life.”[155] No doubt we do sometimes find in his Letters, and
especially in those that were written to encourage his people in times
of national trouble, feeling references to the fortunes and the mission
of the Jewish people.[156] But despite these isolated and casual
references, only one conclusion can be drawn from the general tenor of
Maimonides’ teaching: that he did not recognise the value of the
national element in Jewish life, and did not allow that element due
weight in his exposition of Judaism.[157] On the other hand, various
indications show that in Maimonides himself the national sentiment was,
without his knowledge, a powerful force: so much so, that it sometimes
actually drove him from the straight road of logic and reason, and
entangled him—of all men—in contradictions which had no ground or
justification in his theory. We shall always find in the psychology of
even the most logical thinker, despite his efforts to give to reason the
undivided empire of his thought, some remote corner to which its sway
cannot extend; and we shall always find a rebel band of ideas, which
reason cannot control, breaking out from that point of vantage to
disturb the order of its realm. Of this truth Maimonides may serve as an
example. It is particularly evident in regard to the dogmas of Judaism
which he laid down, accompanied by a declaration that “if any man
rejects one of these fundamental beliefs, he severs himself from the
community and denies a principle of Judaism: he is called a heretic and
an unbeliever, and it is right to hate him and to destroy him.”[158] As
we have already seen, it is an inevitable consequence of Maimonides’
teaching that the dogmas of religion must be formulated clearly and made
obligatory on the whole people. But in strict accordance with his system
Maimonides ought to have included among the dogmas only those “true
opinions” without which religion could not have been maintained or have
fulfilled its function. And in fact all his dogmas are of that
character, except only the two last—those which assert the coming of the
Messiah and the resurrection. How, then, did he come to include these
two?
This question was raised soon after Maimonides’ own time (especially in
regard to the belief in the Messiah); and his critics rightly pointed
out that before laying down dogmas one must define exactly what is meant
by a dogma, so that we may know how to distinguish between what may and
what may not be properly so called.[159] It is indeed strange that
Maimonides forgot so elementary a rule of logic, and still more strange
when we remember that elsewhere, in enumerating the six hundred and
thirteen commandments of the Law, he was fully alive to the necessity of
explaining first of all “the principles which it is proper to take as a
criterion,” in order to select from the multitude of ordinances in the
_Torah_ those capital commandments from which the rest are derived. For
this reason he fell foul of the earlier enumerations, which he regarded
as ignorantly made and full of mistakes; and for his own part he first
laid down fourteen “principles,” and then proceeded to enumerate the
commandments according to those principles.[160] But if this procedure
was necessary in dealing with the practical commandments, surely it was
even more necessary in the case of the dogmas of faith. How, then, did
it happen that Maimonides embarked on so important a task as the
enumeration of dogmas without first laying down some principle by which
to guide himself?
It seems to me that we have to do here not with a casual mistake, but
with one of those facts which indicate that the national sentiment was
strong enough in Maimonides to conquer even logic. If Maimonides had set
out to define the term “dogma” in its purely religious sense, he could
not have found the slightest justification for regarding the national
belief in a future redemption as a dogma. But he felt that a national
hope was necessary to the existence of the nation; and without the
existence of the nation the continuance of its religion is unthinkable.
It was this feeling that made him for once oblivious of logic, and
prevented him from clearing up in his own mind the nature of religious
dogmas in general, so that he might be able to include among them that
national belief on which the nation depends for its existence, although
it has no direct relation to the maintenance of religion as such.[161]
So also with the belief in resurrection, by which our people has always
set great store in its exile. Every individual Jew has suffered the pain
of exile not merely in his own person, but as a member of his people;
his indignation and grief have been excited not by his private trouble
only, but by the national trouble. He could find personal consolation in
the hope of eternity in paradise; but this did not blunt the edge of the
national trouble, which demanded its consolation in the prospect of a
bright future for the nation. In those days the individual Jew was no
longer, as in ancient times, keenly conscious that successive
generations were made one by the organic life of the nation; and he
could not therefore find consolation in the happiness which awaited his
people at the end of time, but which he himself would not share. Hence
he clung to the belief in resurrection, which offered what he required—a
reward to himself for his individual share of the national grief. Just
as every Jew had participated, during his own lifetime, in the national
sorrow, so would every Jew be privileged in the future to see with his
own eyes the national consolation and redemption.[162] Thus the belief
in resurrection was complementary to the belief in the Messiah. United,
they gave the people heart and strength to bear the yoke of exile and to
battle successfully against a sea of troubles, confident that sooner or
later the haven would be reached. When, therefore, Maimonides found it
written in the Mishnah (beginning of chapter _Chelek_) that he who
denies resurrection forfeits eternal life, he did not feel any need to
explain this statement in a sense opposed to its literal meaning, as he
usually did when his system so demanded, but took it just as he found
it, and made it a dogma. He satisfied his heart at the expense of his
head.
Strangely enough, Maimonides himself was perplexed over the question of
resurrection, and could not explain why he clung to a belief which it
was not easy to combine with his own theory of the soul and the future
life. When he formulates the dogmas in his Commentary on the Mishnah, he
passes hurriedly over this one, and dismisses it in a few words, as
though he were afraid that if he lingered at this point logic would
catch him up and ask awkward questions. In the _Mishneh Torah_, again,
he does not explain this dogma at all, either at the beginning of the
book, where he deals with the Foundations of the Law, or at the end,
where he discusses the Messianic Age. This omission led some of his
critics to suspect that he did not really believe in a literal
resurrection of the body, but explained it in the sense of the rebirth
of the soul hereafter (on which he enlarges very often). This suspicion
made him very indignant, and he wrote a whole treatise to prove that he
had never intended to take resurrection in any but its literal sense. On
the contrary, he maintained that the belief must be accepted literally,
and that it was in no way inconsistent with what he had written or with
his general view.[163] But the arguments in this treatise are all very
weak, and the general impression which it leaves is that he did not
clearly understand his own mind. He felt instinctively that he could not
give up this belief, though it was foreign to his system; but it was
only with great difficulty that he could explain why he allowed it such
importance. It was, of course, impossible for a man like Maimonides to
admit to himself that he was following feeling rather than reason. He
tried therefore to justify his standpoint on rational grounds, but
without success.[164]
We find the same struggle between philosophical system and national
sentiment in Maimonides’ attitude to the Hebrew language. From the point
of view of his system he naturally saw no difference between one
language and another: what matters is the idea, not its external dress.
Hence he lays it down that speech “is not to be forbidden or allowed,
loved or despised, according to the language, but according to the
subject. That which is lofty may be said in whatever language; that
which is mean may not be said in any language.”[165] Practising what he
preached, he wrote most of his books not in Hebrew, but in Arabic,
because he thought that by being written in the ordinary language of his
age and his surroundings they would be of greater use from the point of
view of their subject-matter. The only book that he wrote in Hebrew was
the _Mishneh Torah_; and here also he was guided by practical
considerations. He chose the language of the Mishnah because he wanted
his people to regard the book with respect as a kind of second Mishnah.
The beautiful Mishnaic language would carry off the “true opinions,”
which needed the help of a sacred language to make them holy and bring
them under the ægis of religion. Thus far Maimonides the philosopher.
But in his letters we find clear indications that after he had finished
his work his national sentiment proved stronger than his philosophy, and
he regretted that he had not written his other works in Hebrew as well.
Not only that, but he actually thought of translating them into the
national language himself, so as “to separate that which is precious
from that which is defiled, and to restore stolen goods to their
rightful owner.” But the decline of his powers in old age did not permit
him to carry out this intention, and the Hebrew translation had to wait
for other hands. Some of it was done in his lifetime; and his letter to
the translator of the _Guide_ shows how pleased he was.[166]
But there is really no need to look for the influence of the national
sentiment in particular parts of Maimonides’ work. His work as a whole
cannot be fully understood unless we allow for this sentiment. Of
course, as we have seen, Maimonides’ efforts to improve religion were
the result of his philosophy, which taught him that religion must be
made fit to fulfil its function in the spheres of theory and practice;
and for his own part he certainly believed that he was actuated solely
by this conviction, and was doing, as needs he must, what reason
demanded of him. But we, who look at things in the light of modern
psychology, which tells us that intellectual conviction is not
sufficient to produce sustained effort unless it is accompanied by a
strong emotion, whereby the will is roused to conquer all obstacles—we
cannot conceive the possibility of arduous work without a compelling
emotion. And when we look for the emotion which is most likely to
furnish an explanation in this particular case, we shall find none
except the national sentiment.
For we know, on the one hand, that religious laws were for Maimonides
nothing but an instrument of education—a means of confirming people in
true beliefs and good habits of life. Moreover, he regarded many of them
(sacrifices and the ceremonial associated with sacrifices) as merely a
necessary evil, designed to restrict a bad practice which had taken root
in the national life at an early period, and could not be abolished
entirely; and even this justification applied only to the laws as a
whole, while their details, as we saw above, were in his opinion wholly
without meaning or significance. And yet, holding such views, he worked
day and night for ten years to collect all these laws and arrange them,
with meticulous exactness, down to their smallest details. Whoever
realises the enormous labour that it required to get together the mass
of legal prescriptions, scattered over an extensive literature, must
admit that no man can be qualified for the work (even if he recognises
its usefulness from a certain point of view) unless the work itself has
a strong attachment for him. To see the usefulness of the work is not
enough; it must be a real labour of love. What then can have kept
Maimonides to his task if not the national sentiment, which made him
love his people’s Law and ancient customs even where his philosophy did
not attach to them any particular importance?
And on the other side, Maimonides could not have laboured to turn
Judaism into a pure philosophy without the help of the national
sentiment. We can understand the religious philosopher who tries to
effect a compromise between religion and philosophy. The impelling force
is his religious feeling: anxious to save religion from the danger
threatened by rationalism, he adopts the familiar expedient of dressing
religion in the trappings of philosophy, so as to safeguard its
essential meaning. But when a philosopher starts, as Maimonides did,
with the conviction that there is no room for compromise, but that
religion is compelled, willy-nilly, to teach only what reason approves
and when he labours indefatigably to purify religious belief of all
super-rational elements, and to turn its essential content into a pure
philosophical system, and all this by long and devious methods, which
reason cannot always approve: then we are bound to ask what emotion it
was that gave him the strength and the will-power required for so
difficult a task. Religious emotion certainly gained nothing from a
process by which religion was driven from its own throne and deprived of
its letters patent as a guide to eternal happiness along a private road
of its own. Philosophical emotion—if the term may be used—might have
gained more if Maimonides had accepted and prescribed the method adopted
by free-thinkers before and after him—that of leaving faith to the
believing masses and being satisfied for his own part with reason alone.
But the national sentiment did gain a great deal by the transformation
of the Jewish religion—the only national inheritance which had survived
to unite our scattered people in exile—into philosophical truth, firmly
based on rational and (as Maimonides sincerely believed) irrefragable
proofs, and consequently secure for all time against assault.
So we come finally to the conclusion that Maimonides, too, like the
other Jewish thinkers, had as the ultimate aim of his great work (though
perhaps he did not realise it clearly) the shaping of the content and
form of Judaism into a fortress on which the nation could depend for its
continuance in exile. There is only this difference: that whereas his
predecessors held Judaism secure because it was _above_ reason,
Maimonides came and said: “No! Judaism is secure because it _is_
reason.”
Footnote 86:
[Maimonides died on the 13th December, 1204.]
Footnote 87:
[Jewish Law.]
Footnote 88:
[Allusion to well-known speeches at Zionist Congresses.]
Footnote 89:
_Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Law_, chaps. i.-iv.
Footnote 90:
_Ibid._, chap. iv. 1.
Footnote 91:
_Guide_, Part I., chap. i. [In rendering quotations from the _Moreh
Nebuchim_ (_Guide for the Perplexed_) the translator has used Dr.
Friedländer’s English version so far as possible.]
Footnote 92:
_Foundations of the Law_, _ibid._, 7.
Footnote 93:
In the upper world Aristotle’s philosophy postulates the existence of
forms divorced from matter: they are the “separate Intelligences,”
which emanate one from another and are eternal (see _Foundations of
the Law_, _ibid._, and _Guide_, Part II., chap. iv.).
Footnote 94:
_Guide_, Part III., chap. viii.
Footnote 95:
_Foundations of the Law_, _ibid._, 8 and 9.
Footnote 96:
_Eight Chapters_, chap. i.
Footnote 97:
See Munk, _Le Guide des Egarés_, I., pp. 304-8 (note).
Footnote 98:
_Guide_, Part I., chaps. lxx. and lxxii. and _passim_. For details see
Munk (_ibid._), and Dr. Scheyer’s monograph, _Das Psychologische
System des Maimonides_, Frankfort a/M, 1845.
Footnote 99:
_Foundations of the Law_, chap. iv., 8, 9.
Footnote 100:
There is some ground for thinking that Maimonides thought of the
eternal existence after death of the possessors of “acquired
intellect” not as personal, but as a common existence in which they
are all united as a single separate being. See _Guide_, III., chap.
xxvii., and _Foundations_, _ibid._, and chap. ii., 5-6. This has been
pointed out by Dr. Joel in _Die Religionsphilosophie des Mose ben
Maimon_, Breslau, 1876 (p. 25, note).
Footnote 101:
_Guide_, I., chap. lxviii.
Footnote 102:
According to the division of the sciences current in those days, all
this knowledge of true Being is contained in Physics and Metaphysics.
Footnote 103:
All this teaching is scattered up and down Maimonides’ works, partly
in explicit statements and partly in hints (see, _e.g._, _Guide_,
III., chap. li.). Dr. Scheyer was the first to work out these
definitions in detail (_ibid._, chap. iii.). In general it must be
remembered that Maimonides nowhere explains his whole system in
logical order, and we are therefore compelled, if we would understand
his system as it was conceived in his mind, to make use of scattered
utterances, hints, and half-sentences written by the way, to explain
obscure statements by others more precise, and to resort freely to
inference.
Footnote 104:
_Guide_, III., chap. xiii., and Introduction to _Commentary on the
Mishnah_, section _Zera’im_.
Footnote 105:
Introduction cited in last note.
Footnote 106:
_Ibid._
Footnote 107:
_Guide_, III., chap. li. Maimonides does not there emphasise the
difference between practical studies on the one hand and mathematics
and logic on the other, because this is not germane to his purpose at
the moment. But the distinction is necessarily implied.
Footnote 108:
_Guide_, III., chaps. xxvii. and liv.; _Hilchoth De’oth_, chaps. iii.
and iv.
Footnote 109:
Introduction to _Zera’im_.
Footnote 110:
Maimonides’ attitude to perfection of character is most clearly
revealed by the fact that he calls it “bodily perfection,” in contrast
to “perfection of the soul,” which is _intellectual_ perfection
(_Guide_, III., chap. xxvii.).
Footnote 111:
See _Hilchoth De’oth_, chap. i.; _Eight Chapters_, chap. iv.
Footnote 112:
_Guide_, III., chap. liv.
Footnote 113:
See _Eight Chapters_, end of chap. iv. and beginning of chap. v.
Lazarus (_Ethik des Judentums_, I., chap. xiv.) fails to notice this
difference between Aristotle and Maimonides, and therefore finds it
strange that Maimonides introduces Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean
into Jewish ethics.
Footnote 114:
Introduction to _Zera’im_.
Footnote 115:
See _Guide_, III., chaps. xxvii., xxxiv. Maimonides is not explicit on
the relation of the minority to social morality; but his view on this
question is evident from what he says in the chapters quoted, and
_passim._
Footnote 116:
_Eight Chapters_, chap. v.
Footnote 117:
_Guide_, II., chap. xxv.
Footnote 118:
_Guide_, II., chaps. xxv. and xvi.
Footnote 119:
Maimonides explains his views on the methods of divine revelation and
the nature of prophecy in general, and of the prophecy of Moses in
particular, in several places: especially in _Guide_, II., chaps.
xxxii.-xlviii., and in _Mishneh Torah_, section _Foundations of the
Law_, chap. vii. But for our present purpose we need not enter into
these speculations. It suffices to say that here also he was true to
his own system. The Prophet is for him the most perfect “actual man”;
and the divine inspiration reaches the Prophet through that separate
Intelligence (“active intellect”) which is, according to the
philosophical system adopted by Maimonides, charged with the guidance
of the world and with the raising of all forms (including the form of
the soul) from potentiality to actuality.
Footnote 120:
See _Guide_, III., xxvi.
Footnote 121:
_Ibid._, chaps. xxiii. and xxviii.; see also II., chaps. xxxiv. and
xl.
Footnote 122:
See _Guide_, II., chaps. xxxix. and xl.; and especially the _Iggereth
Teman_.
Footnote 123:
All this is explained in many passages throughout Maimonides’ books,
which are too numerous to be particularised.
Footnote 124:
For the “reasons of the commandments” see _Guide_, III., chaps.
xxvi.-xlix.
Footnote 125:
For instance: there is a reason for sacrifices in general. “But we
cannot say why one offering should be a lamb, whilst another is a ram;
and why a fixed number of them should be brought.... You ask why must
a lamb be sacrificed and not a ram? but the same question would be
asked, why a ram had been commanded instead of a lamb, so long as one
particular kind is required. The same is to be said as to the question
why were seven lambs sacrificed and not eight; the same question might
have been asked if there were eight.” _Guide_, III., chap. xxvi.
Footnote 126:
Introduction to _Zera’im_.
Footnote 127:
_Guide_, II., chap. xxxix., and III., chap. xxxiv.
Footnote 128:
See _Guide_, II., chap. xxix.; _Eight Chapters_, chap. viii.
Footnote 129:
Introduction to _Zera’im_; see also _Foundations of the Law_, chaps.
ix. and x.
Footnote 130:
_Guide_, III., chap. li.
Footnote 131:
See R. Shem-Tob’s Commentary on the _Guide_, _loc. cit._
Footnote 132:
_Ibid._
Footnote 133:
Maimonides himself describes the contemporary state of culture among
his people in several places. See, for instance, the _Treatise on
Resurrection_.
Footnote 134:
_Emunoth v’ Deoth_, Preface.
Footnote 135:
R. Jehudah Halevi, despite his profound knowledge of contemporary
philosophy, says categorically: “He who accepts this [the Law]
completely, without scrutiny or argument, is better off than he who
investigates and analyses” (_Cuzri_, II., xxvi. [Dr. Hirschfeld’s
translation]).