SAADIA BEN JOSEPH AL-FAYYUMI (892-942)
Saadia was the first important Jewish philosopher. Philo of Alexandria
does not come within our purview as he was not mediæval. Besides his
work is not systematic, being in the nature of a commentary on Holy
Writ. Though Philo was a good and loyal Jew, he stood, so to speak,
apart from the real centre of Jewish intellectual and spiritual
development. He was on the one hand too closely dependent on Greek
thought and on the other had only a limited knowledge of Jewish thought
and tradition. The Bible he knew only in the Greek translation, not in
the original Hebrew; and of the Halaka, which was still in the making in
Palestine, he knew still less.
It was different with Saadia. In the tenth century the Mishna and the
Talmud had been long completed and formed theoretically as well as
practically the content of the Jew's life and thought. Sura in
Babylonia, where Saadia was the head of the academy, was the chief
centre of Jewish learning, and Saadia was the heir in the main line of
Jewish development as it passed through the hands of lawgiver and
prophet, scribe and Pharisee, Tanna and Amora, Saburai and Gaon. As the
head of the Sura academy he was the intellectual representative of the
Jewry and Judaism of his day. His time was a period of agitation and
strife, not only in Judaism but also in Islam, in whose lands the Jews
lived and to whose temporal rulers they owed allegiance in the East as
well as in Spain.
In Islam we saw in the introduction how the various schools of the
Kadariya, the Mu`tazila and the Ashariya arose in obedience to the
demand of clarifying the chief problems of faith, science and life. In
Judaism there was in addition to this more general demand the more local
and internal conflict of Karaite and Rabbanite which centred about the
problem of tradition. Saadia found himself in the midst of all this and
proved equal to the occasion.
We are not here concerned with the vicissitudes of Saadia's personal
life or of his literary career as opponent of the Karaite sect. Nor can
we afford more than merely to state that Jewish science in the larger
sense begins with Saadia. Hebrew grammar and lexicography did not exist
before him. The Bible had been translated into several languages before
Saadia's day, but he was the first to translate it into Arabic, and the
first to write a commentary on it. But the greatest work of Saadia, that
which did the most important service to the theory of Judaism, and by
which he will be best remembered, is his endeavor to work out a system
of doctrine which should be in harmony with the traditions of Judaism on
the one hand and with the most authoritative scientific and philosophic
opinion of the time on the other. Israeli, we have seen, was interested
in science before Saadia. As a physician he was probably more at home in
purely physical discussions than Saadia. But there is no evidence that
he had the larger interest of the Gaon of Sura, namely, to construct a
system of Judaism upon the basis of scientific doctrine. Possibly the
example of Islam was lacking in Israeli's environment, as he does not
seem to be acquainted with the theories and discussions of the
Mutakallimun, and draws his information from Aristotelian and
Neo-Platonic sources. Saadia was in the very midst of Arab speculation
as is evident from the composition of his _chef d'oeuvre_, "Emunot
ve-Deot," Beliefs and Opinions.[37]
The work is arranged on the Mu`tazilite model. The two main divisions in
works of this character are _Unity_ and _Justice_. The first begins with
some preliminary considerations on the nature and sources of knowledge.
It proceeds then to prove the existence of God by showing that the world
cannot have existed from eternity and must have been created in time.
Creation implies a creator. This is followed by arguments showing that
God is one and incorporeal. The rest is devoted to a discussion of the
divine attributes with the purpose of showing that God's unity and
simplicity are not affected by them. The section on unity closes with a
refutation of opposing views, such as those of the dualists or
Trinitarians or infidels. The section on Justice centres about the
doctrine of free will. Hence psychology and ethics are treated in this
part of the work. To this may be added problems of a more dogmatic
nature, eschatological and otherwise. We shall see in the sequel that
Saadia's masterpiece is modeled on the same plan.
But not merely the plan and arrangement of his work give evidence of the
influence upon Saadia of Islamic schools, many of his arguments, those
for example on the existence of God and the creation of the world, are
taken directly from them. Maimonides, who was a strong opponent of the
Mutakallimun, gives an outline of their fundamental principles and their
arguments for the existence, unity and incorporeality of God.[38] Some
of these are identical with those of Saadia. Saadia, however, is not
interested in pure metaphysics as such. His purpose is decidedly
apologetic in the defence of Judaism and Jewish dogma. Hence we look in
vain in his book for definite views on the constitution of existing
substances, on the nature of motion, on the meaning of cause, and so on.
We get a glimpse of his attitude to some of these questions in an
incidental way.
The Mutakallimun were opposed to the Aristotelian theory of matter and
form, and substituted for it the atomic theory. God created atoms
without magnitude or quality, and he likewise created qualities to
inhere in groups of atoms. These qualities they called accidents, and
one of their important discussions was whether an accident can last more
than a moment of time. The opinions were various and the accidents were
classified according to their powers of duration. That is, there were
some accidents which once created continued to exist of their own accord
some length of time, and there were others which had to be re-created
anew every moment in order to continue to exist. Saadia does not speak
of matter and form as constituting the essence of existing things; he
does speak of substance and accident,[39] which might lead us to believe
that he held to the atomic theory, since he speaks of the accidents as
coming and going one after the other, which suggests the constant
creation spoken of by the Mutakallimun. On the other hand, when he
answers an objection against motion, which is as old as Zeno, namely,
how can we traverse an infinitely divisible distance, since it is
necessary to pass an infinite number of parts, he tells us that it is
not necessary to have recourse to the atomic theory or other theories
adopted by some Mu`tazilites to meet this objection. We may believe in
the continuity and infinite divisibility of matter, but as long as this
divisibility is only potentially infinite, actually always finite, our
ability to traverse the space offers no difficulty.[40] Finally, in
refuting the second theory of creation, which combines Platonism with
atomism, he argues against an atomic theory primarily because of its
implications of eternity of the atoms, but partly also on other grounds,
which would also affect the Kalamistic conceptions of the atoms.[41]
These points are not treated by Saadia expressly but are only mentioned
incidentally in the elucidation of other problems dealing with the
creation of the world and the existence of God.
Like Israeli Saadia shows considerable familiarity with Aristotelian
notions as found in the Logic, the Physics and the Psychology. It is
doubtful, however, whether he really knew Aristotle's more important
treatises at first hand and in detail. The "Categories," a small
treatise forming the first book of Aristotle's logic, he no doubt knew,
but the other Aristotelian concepts he probably derived from secondary
sources. For while he passes in review all the ten categories showing
that none of them is applicable to God,[42] we scarcely find any mention
of such important and fundamental Aristotelian conceptions as matter and
form, potentiality and actuality, the four causes, formal, material,
efficient and final--concepts which as soon as Aristotle began to be
studied by Al Farabi and Avicenna became familiar to all who wrote
anything at all bearing on philosophy, theology, or Biblical exegesis.
Nay, the very concepts which he does employ seem to indicate in the way
he uses them that he was not familiar with the context in which they are
found in the Aristotelian treatises, or with the relation they bear to
other views of Aristotle. Thus no one who knew Aristotle at first hand
could make the mistake of regarding his definition of the soul as making
the latter an accident.[43] When Saadia speaks of six kinds of motion
[44] instead of _three_, he shows clearly that his knowledge of the
Aristotelian theory of motion was limited to the little of it that is
contained in the "Categories."
We are thus justified in saying, that Saadia's sources are Jewish
literature and tradition, the works of the Mutakallimun, particularly
the Mu`tazilites, and Aristotle, whose book on the "Categories" he knew
at first hand.
Saadia tells us he was induced to write his book because he found that
the beliefs and opinions of men were in an unsatisfactory state. While
there are some persons who are fortunate enough to possess the truth and
to know that they have it and rejoice thereat, this is not true of all.
For there are others who when they have the truth know it not, and hence
let it slip; others are still less fortunate and adopt false and
erroneous opinions, which they regard as true; while still others
vacillate continually, going from one opinion and belief to another.
This gave him pain and he thought it his duty to make use of his limited
knowledge to help them. A conscientious study of his book will tend to
remove doubt and will substitute belief through knowledge for belief
through tradition. Another result of such study, not less important,
will be improvement of character and disposition, which will affect for
the better a man's life in every respect, in relation to God as well as
to his fellowmen.[45]
One may ask why it is that one encounters so many doubts and
difficulties before arriving at true knowledge. The answer is, a human
being is a creature, i. e., a being dependent upon another for its
existence, and it is in the nature of a creature as such that it must
labor for the truth with the sweat of its brow. For whatever a man does
or has to do with is subject to time; each work must be accomplished
gradually, step by step, part by part, in successive portions of time.
And as the task before him is at the beginning complex, he has to
analyze and simplify it. This takes time; while certainty and knowledge
cannot come until the task is accomplished. Before that point is reached
he is naturally in doubt.[46]
The sources of truth are three. First is that to which the senses
testify. If our normal sense perceives under normal conditions which are
free from illusion, we are certain of that perception.
The judgment is another source of truth. There are certain truths of
which we are certain. This applies especially to such judgments of
value, as that truth is good and falsehood is bad. In addition to these
two sources of immediate knowledge, there is a third source based upon
these two. This is logical inference. We are led to believe what we have
not directly perceived or a matter concerning which we have no immediate
knowledge of the second kind, because we infer it from something else
which we have perceived or of which we have immediate certainty. Thus we
believe man has a soul though we have never seen it because we infer its
presence from its activity, which we do see.
These three sources are universal. They are not peculiar to a given race
or religious denomination, though there are some persons who deny the
validity of some or all of them. We Jews believe in them and in still
another source of truth, namely, authentic tradition.[47]
Some think that a Jew is forbidden to speculate or philosophize about
the truths of religion. This is not so. Genuine and sincere reflection
and speculation is not prohibited. What is forbidden is to leave the
sacred writings aside and rely on any opinions that occur to one
concerning the beginnings of time and space. For one may find the truth
or one may miss it. In any case until a person finds it, he is without a
religious guide; and if he does find what seems to him the truth and
bases his belief and conduct upon it, he is never sure that he may not
later be assailed by doubts, which will lead him to drop his adopted
belief. But if we hold fast to the commandments of the Bible, our own
ratiocination on the truths of religion will be of great benefit to
us.[48]
Our investigation of the facts of our religion will give us a reasoned
and scientific knowledge of those things which the Prophets taught us
dogmatically, and will enable us to answer the arguments and criticisms
of our opponents directed against our faith. Hence it is not merely our
privilege but our duty to confirm the truths of religion by reason.[49]
Here a question presents itself. If the reason can discover by itself
the truths communicated to us by divine revelation, why was it necessary
to have recourse to the latter? Why was it not left to the reason alone
to guide us in our belief and in our conduct? The answer is, as was
suggested before, that human reason proceeds gradually and does not
reach its aim until the end of the process. In the meantime one is left
without a guide. Besides not everybody's reason is adequate to discover
truth. Some are altogether incapable of this difficult task, and many
more are exposed to harassing doubts and perplexities which hinder their
progress. Hence the necessity of revelation, because in the witness of
the senses all are equally at home, men and women, young and old.[50]
The most important fact of religion is the existence of God. We know it
from the Bible, and we must now prove it by reason. The proof is
necessarily indirect because no one of us has seen God, nor have we an
immediate certainty of his existence. We must prove it then by the
method of inference. We must start with something we do know with
certainty and proceed from it through as many steps of logical inference
as may be necessary until we reach the object of our search.[51]
The world and the things in it are directly accessible to our senses and
our judgment. How long has the world been in existence and how did it
come to be? The answers to these questions also we do not know through
our senses, and we must prove them by a chain of reasoning. There are
several possibilities. The world just as it is may have existed from
eternity. If so nobody made it; it just existed, and we have no proof of
God. The world in its present form might have proceeded from a primitive
matter. This hypothesis only removes the problem further back. For,
leaving aside the question how did this prime matter develop into the
complex world of our experience, we direct our attention to the prime
matter itself, and ask, Has it existed from eternity or did it come to
be? If it existed from eternity, then nobody made it, and we have no
proof of a God, for by God we mean an intelligent being acting with
purpose and design, and the cause of the existence of everything in
creation. The third alternative is that whether the world was developed
out of a primitive matter or not, it at any rate, or the primitive
matter, as the case may be, was made in time, that is, it was created
out of nothing. If so there must have been someone who created it, as
nothing can create itself. Here we have proof of the existence of God.
It follows therefore that we must first show that the world is not
eternal, that it came to be in time, and this is what Saadia does.
Here are some of his proofs. The world is finite in magnitude. For the
world consists of the earth, which is in the centre, and the heavens
surrounding it on all sides. This shows that the earth is finite, for an
infinite body cannot be surrounded. But the heavens are finite too, for
they make a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. If they were
infinite it would take an infinite time to complete a revolution. A
finite body cannot have an infinite power. This Saadia regards as
self-evident, though Aristotle, from whom this statement is derived,
gives the proof. Hence the force or power within the world which keeps
it going is finite and must one day be exhausted. But this shows also
that it could not have gone on from eternity. Hence the world came to be
in time.[52]
Another proof is based on the composite character of all things in
heaven and earth. Minerals, plants and animals are made up of parts and
elements. The heavens consist of spheres, one within the other. The
spheres are studded with stars. But composition implies a time when the
composition took place. In other words, the parts must have been there
first and somebody put them together. Hence the world as we see it now
is not eternal.[53]
A special form of composition, which is universal, is that of substance
and accident. Plants and animals are born (or sprout), grow and decay.
These manifestations are the accidents of the plant or animal's
substance. The heavenly bodies have various motions, lights and colors
as their accidents. But these accidents are not eternal, since they come
and go. Hence the substances bearing the accidents, without which they
cannot exist, are also temporal like them. Hence our world is not
eternal.[54]
Finally, past time itself cannot be eternal. For this would mean that an
infinite time has actually elapsed down to our day. But this is a
contradiction in terms. What is already accomplished cannot be infinite.
Infinity is possible only as a potentiality, for example, we may speak
of a given length as infinitely divisible. This merely means that one
may mentally continue dividing it forever, but we can never say that one
has actually made an infinite number of divisions. Therefore not merely
the world, but even time must have begun to be.[55]
It will be seen that the first three arguments prove only that the world
in the form which it has now is not eternal. The possibility is not yet
excluded of an eternal matter out of which the world proceeded or was
made. The fourth argument proves a great deal. It shows that nothing
which is subject to time can be eternal, hence not even prime matter.
God can be eternal because he is not subject to time. Time, as we shall
see later, cannot exist without motion and moving things, hence before
the world there was no time, and the fourth argument does not apply to
premundane existence.
To complete the first three arguments Saadia therefore proceeds to show
that the world, which we now know came to be in time, must have been
made by someone (since nothing can make itself), and that too out of
nothing, and not out of a pre-existing eternal matter.
If an eternal matter existed before the world, the explanation of the
origin of the world is open to two possibilities. One is that there is
nothing outside of this matter and the world which came from it. This is
absurd, for it would mean that an unintelligent dead thing is the cause
of intelligence and life in the universe. We must therefore have
recourse to the other alternative that someone, an intelligent being,
made the world out of the primitive, eternal matter. This is also
impossible. For if the matter is eternal like the maker of the world, it
is independent of him, and would not be obedient to his will to adapt
itself to his purpose. He could therefore not make the world out of it.
The only alternative left now is that the author of the universe is an
intelligent being, and that nothing outside of him is eternal. He alone
is responsible for the existence of the world, which was at one time
nothing. Whether he first created a matter and then from it the
universe, or whether he made the world outright, is of secondary
importance.[56]
There is still a possibility that instead of making the world out of
nothing, God made it out of himself, _i. e._, that it emanated from him
as light from the sun. This, as we know, is the opinion of the
Neo-Platonists; and Israeli comes very close to it as we saw before (p.
6). Saadia is strongly opposed to any such doctrine.
It is unlikely, he says, that an eternal substance having neither form,
condition, measure, place or time, should change into a body or bodies
having those accidents; or that a wise being, not subject to change or
influence, or comprehensibility should choose to make himself into a
body subject to all of these. What could have induced a just being who
does no wrong to decree that some of his parts should be subject to such
evils as matter and material beings are afflicted with? It is
conceivable only in one of two ways. Either they deserved it for having
done wrong, or they did not deserve it, and it was an act of violence
that was committed against them. Both suppositions are absurd. The fact
of the matter is that the authors of this opinion to avoid the theory of
creation _ex nihilo_ went from the frying pan into the fire. To be sure,
creation out of nothing is difficult to conceive, but this is the reason
why we ascribe this power to God alone. To demand that we show how this
can be done is to demand that we ourselves become creators.[57]
The question what existed in place of the earth before it was created
evinces ignorance of the idea of place. By place is meant simply the
contact of two bodies in which the one is the place of the other. When
there is no earth and no bodies there is no such thing as place.
The same thing applies to time. Time means the persistence of existing
things in heaven and earth under changing conditions. Where there is no
world, there is no time. This answers the objection raised by some,
namely, how is it possible that before all these bodies were made time
existed void of objects? Or the other difficulty which is closely
related, viz., Why did not God create the world before he did? The
answer to both is, there was no before and there was no time, when the
world was not.
The following question is a legitimate one, Why did God create all
things? And our answer is, there was no cause which made him create
them, and yet they were not made in vain. God wished to exhibit his
wisdom; and his goodness prompted him to benefit his creatures by
enabling them to worship him.[58]
We have now proved the existence of God as the cause of the existence of
all things. We must now try to arrive at some notion of what God is as
far as this is in our power. God cannot be corporeal or body, for in our
proof of his existence we began with the world which is body and arrived
at the notion of God as the cause of all corporeal existence. If God
himself is corporeal our search is not at an end, for we should still
want to know the cause of him. Being the cause of all body, he is not
body and hence is for our knowledge ultimate, we cannot go beyond him.
But if God is not corporeal, he is not subject to motion or rest or
anger or favor, for to deny the corporeality of God and still look for
these accidents in him is to change the expression and retain the idea.
Bodily accidents involve body.[59]
The incorporeality of God proves also his unity. For what is not body
cannot have the corporeal attributes of quantity or number, hence God
cannot be more than one.[60] And there are many powerful arguments
besides against a dualistic theory.
A unitary effect cannot be the result of two independent causes. For if
one is responsible for the whole, there is nothing left for the other,
and the assumption of his existence is gratuitous. If the effect
consists of two parts of which each does one, we have really two
effects. But the universe is one and its parts cannot be separated.[61]
Again, if one of them wishes to create a thing and cannot without the
help of the other, neither is all-powerful, which is inconsistent with
the character of deity. If he can compel the other to help him, they are
both under necessity. And if they are free and independent, then if one
should desire to keep a body alive and the other to kill it, the body
would have to be at the same time alive and dead, which is absurd.
Again, if each one can conceal aught from the other, neither is
all-knowing. If they cannot, they are not all-powerful.[62]
Having proved God's existence, unity and incorporeality, he proceeds to
discuss his most essential attributes, which are, Life, Omnipotence, and
Omniscience. These easily follow from what was said before. We cannot
conceive a creator _ex nihilo_ unless he is all-powerful; power implies
life; and the thing made cannot be perfect unless its maker knows what
it is going to be before he makes it.
These three concepts our reason discovers with one act of its thinking
effort, for they are all involved in the concept, Maker. There is no
gradual inference from one to the other. The reason we are forced to use
three expressions is because of the limitations of language. Hence it
must not be thought that they involve plurality in God. They are simply
the implications of the one expression, Maker, and as that does not
suggest plurality in God's essence, but signifies only that there is a
thing made by the maker, so the three derivative terms, Living,
Omnipotent, Omniscient, imply no more.
The Christians erred in this matter in making God a trinity. They say
one cannot create unless he is living and wise, hence they regard his
life and his wisdom as two other things outside of his essence. But this
is a mistake. For in saying there are several attributes in him distinct
one from the other, they say in effect that he is corporeal--an error
which we have already refuted. Besides they do not understand what
constitutes proof: In man we say that his life and his knowledge are not
his essence because we see that he sometimes has them and sometimes not.
In God this is not the case. Again, why only three? They say essence,
life, wisdom; why do they not add power, or hearing and seeing? If they
think that power is implied in life, and hearing and seeing in wisdom,
so is life implied in wisdom.
They quote Scripture in their support, for example, the verse in II
Samuel (23, 2), "The _Spirit_ of the Lord spoke through me, and his
_Word_ was upon my tongue." "Word" denotes, they say, his attribute of
wisdom, and "Spirit" his life, as distinct persons. But they are
mistaken. The expressions in question denote the words which God puts
into the mouth of his prophets. There are other similar instances which
they cite, and in their ignorance of Hebrew take metaphorical
expressions literally. If they are consistent, they should add many more
persons in the Godhead, in accordance with the many phrases of the Bible
concerning the hand of God, the eye of God, the glory of God, the anger
of God, the mercy of God, and so on.[63]
The above discussion, as also that of Al-Mukammas (p. 19), shows clearly
the origin of the doctrine of attributes as well as its motive. Both
Al-Mukammas and Saadia and the later Jewish philosophers owed their
interest in this problem primarily to the Mohammedan schools in which we
know it played an important rôle (see Introduction, pp. xxiii, xxvi).
But there is no doubt that the problem originated in the Christian
schools in the Orient, who made use of it to rationalize the dogma of
the Trinity.
There is extant a confession of faith attributed to Jacob Baradæus
(sixth century), the founder of the Syrian Church of the Monophysites or
Jacobites, in which the phrase occurs that the Father is the Intellect,
the Son is the Word and the Holy Ghost is Life. In the works of Elias of
Nisibis of the Nestorian Church, who lived shortly after Saadia
(975-1049), we also find a passage in which the three expressions
essence, life and wisdom are applied to the three persons of the
Trinity. The passage is worth quoting. It reads as follows: "As the
essence of God cannot receive accidents, his life and his wisdom cannot
be accidents. But whatever is not accident is either substance or
person. Hence as the essence of the Creator and his life and his wisdom
are not three substances or three accidents, it is proved that they are
three persons."[64]
Monotheism was a fundamental dogma of the Mohammedan faith. Hence it was
necessary for their rationalizing theologians to meet the Trinitarians
with their own weapons and show that the multiplicity of the divine
attributes which they could not deny, since the Koran was authority for
it, does in no way affect God's unity. The problem was quite as
important for Judaism as it was for Islam, and for the same reason.
Hence Saadia's insistence that inadequacy of language is alone
responsible for our expressing God's essential attributes in the three
words, Living, Omnipotent, Omniscient; that in reality they are no more
than interpretations of the expression Maker.
We have now shown that God is one in the two important senses of the
word. He is one in the sense that there is no second God beside him; and
he is one in his own essence, _i. e._, he is simple and not composed of
parts. His Life and his Power and his Wisdom are not distinct one from
the other and from his essence. They are all one. We have also proved
God's incorporeality. Nevertheless Saadia is not satisfied until he has
shown in detail that God cannot be compared to man in any sense, and
that the anthropomorphic expressions in the Bible must not be taken
literally. In reference to Biblical interpretation Saadia makes the
general remark that whenever a verse of Scripture apparently contradicts
the truths of reason, there is no doubt that it is figurative, and a
person who successfully interprets it so as to reconcile it with the
data of sense or reason will be rewarded for it. For not the Bible alone
is the source of Judaism, Reason is another source preceding the Bible,
and Tradition is a third source coming after the Bible.[65]
In order to show that God is not to be compared to any other thing in
creation Saadia finds it convenient to use Aristotle's classification of
all existing things under the ten categories.[66] Everything that exists
is either a substance, or it is an accident, _i. e._, an attribute or
quality of a substance. Substance is therefore the first and most
important of the categories and is exemplified by such terms as man,
horse, city. Everything that is not substance is accident, but there are
nine classes of accident, and with substance they make up the ten
categories. The order of the categories as Aristotle gives them in his
treatise of the same name is, substance, quantity, quality, relation,
place, time, position, possession, action, passion. If these categories
include all existing things and we can prove that God is not any of
them, our object is accomplished. The one general argument is one with
which we are already familiar. It is that God is the cause of all
substance and accident, hence he is himself neither the one nor the
other. Scripture supports our view, as in Deuteronomy 4, 15: "Take ye
therefore good heed of yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the
day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of
any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast
that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the
heaven; the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the
likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth: and lest thou
lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon
and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away," etc.
And tradition is equally emphatic in this regard. Our sages, who were
the disciples of the prophets, render the anthropomorphic passages in
the Bible so as to avoid an objectionable understanding. This is
particularly true of the Aramaic translation of the Targum.
Such terms as head, eye, ear, mouth, lip, face, hand, heart, bowels,
foot, which are used in relation to God in the Bible, are figurative.
For it is the custom of language to apply such terms metaphorically to
certain ideas like elevation, providence, acceptance, declaration,
command, favor, anger, power, wisdom, mercy, dominion. Language would be
a very inadequate instrument if it confined itself to the literal
meaning of the words it uses; and in the case of God we should be
limited to the statement that he is.
What was said of the nouns above mentioned applies also to other parts
of speech, such as verbs attributing human activity to God. Such phrases
as "incline thine ear," "open thine eyes," "he saw," "he heard," "he
spoke" are figurative. So the expression, "the Lord smelled," which
sounds especially objectionable, denotes acceptance.
The theophanies in the Bible, where God is represented under a certain
form, as in Ezekiel, Isaiah and Kings, do not argue against our view,
for there are meant specially created forms for the benefit and honor of
the prophet. This is what is meant by the "Glory of the Lord," and
"Shekinah." Sometimes it is simply a created light without an individual
form. When Moses asked to see God, he meant the created light. God
cannot be seen with the eye nor can he be grasped in thought or
imagination. Hence Moses could not have meant to see God, but the
created light. His face was covered so that he should not be dazzled by
the exceeding splendor of the beginning of the light, which is too much
for a mortal to endure; but later when the brightest part passed by,
the covering was taken off and Moses saw the last part of the light.
This is the meaning of the expression in Exodus 33, 23, "And I will take
away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back: but my face shall not be
seen."
Having treated of God as the creator of the world and having learned
something about his attributes, we must now proceed to the study of man,
or which is the same thing, to an investigation of God's relations to
the rational part of his creation in the sublunar world. That man is
endowed with a soul cannot be doubted, for the activities of man's soul
are directly visible. The problem which is difficult is concerning the
nature of the soul.[67] Here opinions differ, and some regard the soul
as an accident of the body, some think it is a corporeal substance like
air or fire, while others believe there is more than one soul in man. It
will be our task to vindicate our own view against these erroneous
ideas. The soul is too important in its functions to be an accident. It
is neither air nor fire because it has not the properties of these
bodies. And if the soul consisted of two or more distinct parts, the
perceptions of sense would not reach the reason, and there would be no
co-operation between these two powers. The true view is therefore that
the soul of man is a substance created by God at the time when the human
body is completed. The soul has no eternal existence before the body as
Plato thought, for nothing is eternal outside of God, as we saw before.
Nor does it enter the soul from the outside, but is created with and in
the body. Its substance is as pure as that of the celestial spheres,
receiving its light like them, but is much finer than the substance of
the spheres, for the latter are not rational, whereas the soul is. The
soul is not dependent for its knowledge upon the body, which without the
latter has neither life nor knowledge, but it uses the body as an
instrument for its functions. When connected with the body the soul has
three faculties, reason, spirit and desire. But we must not think with
Plato that these powers form so many divisions or parts of the soul,
residing in different parts of the body. All the three faculties belong
to the one soul whose seat is in the heart; for from the heart issue the
arteries, which give the body sense and motion.
The soul was put in the body because from its nature it cannot act by
itself; it must have the body as its instrument in order thereby to
attain to perfect happiness, for the soul's functions either purify or
defile it. When the soul leaves the body she can no longer repent; all
this must be done while she is in the body. Being placed in the body is
therefore a good for the soul. If she were left alone, there would be no
use in her existence or in that of the body, and hence the entire
creation would be in vain, which was made for the sake of man. To ask
why was not the soul made so as to be independent of the body is foolish
and tantamount to saying why was not the soul made something else than
soul. The soul is not in any way harmed by being with the body, for the
injury of sin is due to her own free will and not to the body. Moreover,
the body is not unclean, nor are the fluids of the body unclean while in
the body; some of them are declared in the Bible to cause uncleanness
when they leave the body, but this is one of those ordinances which, as
we shall see later, are not demanded by the reason for their own sake,
but are specially commanded for a different purpose. As for the
sufferings which the soul undergoes by reason of her connection with the
body, some are due to her own negligence, such as cold, heat, and so on,
others are inflicted by God for the soul's own good so that she may be
later rewarded.
We see here, and we shall learn more definitely later, that Saadia is
opposed to the view of the ascetics--a view Neo-Platonic in its
origin--that matter and body as such are evil, and that the constant
effort of man must be to free the soul from the taint of the body in
which it is imprisoned, and by which it is dragged down from its
pristine nobility and purity. Saadia's opposition to the belief in the
pre-existence of the soul at once does away with the Neo-Platonic view
that the soul was placed in the body as a punishment for wrongdoing. The
soul was created at the same time with the body, and the two form a
natural unit. Hence complete life involves both body and soul.
We have seen that God's creation of the world is due to his goodness.
His first act of kindness was that he gave being to the things of the
world. He showed himself especially beneficent to man in enabling him to
attain perfect happiness by means of the commandments and prohibitions
which were imposed upon him. The reward consequent upon obedience was
the real purpose of the commandments.[68]
The laws which God gave us through the prophets consist of two groups.
The first embraces such acts as our reason recognizes to be right or
wrong, good or bad, through a feeling of approval or disapproval which
God planted in our minds. Thus reason demands that a benefactor should
receive in return for his goodness either a kind reward if he needs it,
or thanks if he needs no reward. As this is a general demand of the
reason, God could not have neglected it in his own case, and hence the
commandments that we should serve him, that we should not offend or
revile him and the other laws bearing on the same subject.
It is likewise a demand of the reason that one should prevent the
creatures from sinning against one another in any way. Murder is
prohibited because it would lead to the destruction of the race and the
consequent frustration of God's purpose in creating the world.
Promiscuous association of the sexes is prohibited in order that man may
be different from the lower animals, and shall know his father and other
relatives that he may show them honor and kindness. Universal stealing
would lead to indolence, and in the end would destroy itself when there
is nothing more to steal. In a similar way we can explain all laws
relating to social dealings among mankind.
The second group of laws has reference to acts which are inherently
neither right nor wrong, but are made so by the act of God's commandment
or prohibition. This class may be called _Traditional_ in contrast to
the first, which we shall name _Rational_.
The traditional laws are imposed upon us primarily so that we may be
rewarded for obeying them. At the same time we shall find on careful
examination of these laws that they also have a rational signification,
and are not purely arbitrary. Thus the purpose of sanctifying certain
days of the year, like Sabbaths and holy days, is that by resting from
labor we may devote ourselves to prayer, to the acquisition of wisdom,
and to converse with our fellows in the interest of religion. Laws of
ceremonial purity have for their purpose to teach man humility, and to
make prayer and the visitation of holy places more precious in his eyes
after having been debarred from his privileges during the period of his
uncleanness.
It is clear that we should not know how to perform the traditional
commandments without divine revelation since our own reason would not
have suggested them. But even in the case of the rational laws the
general principles alone are known to us from our own reason but not the
details. We know in general that theft, unchastity, and so on, are
wrong, but the details of these matters would lead to disagreement among
mankind, and hence it was necessary that the rational laws also be
directly communicated to us by divine messengers.
The divine messengers are the prophets.[69] They knew that their
revelations came from God through a sign which appeared at the beginning
of the communication and lasted to the end. The sign was a pillar of
cloud or of fire, or an extraordinary bright light, as we learn in the
case of Moses.
The genuineness of a prophet's message is tested first of all by the
nature of the content, and then by his ability to perform miracles. The
Israelites would not have believed Moses, notwithstanding his miracles,
if he had commanded them to commit murder or adultery. It is because his
teaching was found acceptable to the reason that the miracles
accompanying it were regarded as a confirmation of Moses's divine
mission.
The Jewish Law[70] contains three elements, all of which are necessary
for effective teaching. First, the commandments and prohibitions, or the
laws proper; second, the reward and punishment consequent upon obedience
and disobedience; and third, examples of historical characters in which
the laws and their consequences are illustrated.
But the written law would not accomplish its purpose without belief in
tradition. This is fundamental, for without it no individual or society
can exist. No one can live by what he perceives with his own senses
alone. He must depend upon the information he receives from others. And
while this information is liable to error either by reason of the
informant being mistaken or his possible purpose to deceive, these two
possibilities are eliminated in case the tradition is vouched for not by
an individual, but by a whole nation, as in the case of the Jewish
revelation.
As Saadia's emphasis on tradition, apart from its intrinsic importance
for Judaism, has its additional motive in refuting Karaism, so the
following discussion against the possibility of the Law being abrogated
is directed no doubt against the claims of the two sister religions,
Christianity and Mohammedanism.[71]
Abrogation of the law, Saadia says, is impossible. For in the first
place tradition has unanimously held to this view, and in the second
place the Law itself assures us of its permanent validity, "Moses
commanded us a law, an inheritance for the assembly of Jacob" (Deut. 33,
4). The law constitutes the national existence of our people; hence as
we are assured by the Prophets that the Jewish nation is eternal, the
Law must be likewise. We must not even accept the evidence of miracles
in favor of a new law abrogating the old. For as we saw before, it was
not primarily Moses's miracles that served to authenticate his teaching,
but the character of the teaching itself. Now that the law of Moses
stood the test of internal acceptability and external confirmation by
the performance of miracles, its declaration of permanent validity
cannot be upset by any new evidence even if it be miraculous.
Man[72] alone of all created things was given commandments and
prohibitions, because he is superior to all other creatures by reason of
the rational faculty which he possesses, and the world was created for
him. Man's body is small, but his mind is great and comprehensive. His
life is short, but it was given him to assist him to the eternal life
after death. The diseases and other dangers to which he is subject are
intended to keep him humble and God-fearing. The appetites and passions
have their uses in the maintenance of the individual and the race.
If it is true that God gave man commandments and that he rewards and
punishes him according to his conduct, it follows that unless we
attribute injustice to God he must have given man the power to do and to
refrain in the matters which form the subject of the commandments. This
is actually the case and can be proven in many ways. Everyone is
conscious of freedom in his actions, and is not aware of any force
preventing him in his voluntary acts. The Bible testifies to this when
it says (Deut. 30, 19), "I have set before you life and death ...
therefore choose thou life," or (Malachi 1, 9), "From your hand has this
thing come." Tradition is equally explicit in the statement of the
Rabbis (Berakot 33b), "Everything is in the hands of God except the fear
of God." To be sure God is omniscient and knows how a given individual
will act in a given case, but this does not take away from the freedom
of the individual to determine his own conduct. For God's knowledge is
not the _cause_ of a man's act, or in general of a thing's being. If
that were so, all things would be eternal since God knows all things
from eternity. God simply knows that man will choose of his own free
will to do certain things. Man as a matter of fact never acts contrary
to God's knowledge, but this is not because God's knowledge determines
his act, but only because God knows the final outcome of a man's free
deliberation.
Since it is now clear from every point of view that God does not
interfere with a man's freedom of action, any passages in the Bible
which seem to indicate the contrary are not properly understood, and
must needs be interpreted in accordance with the evidence we have
adduced from various sources including the Bible itself. Thus when God
says (Exod. 7, 3) "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh," it does not
mean, as many think, that God forced Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel go.
The meaning rather is that he gave Pharaoh strength to withstand the
plagues without succumbing to them, as many of the Egyptians did. The
same method should be followed with all the other expressions in the
Bible which appear to teach determinism.
A man's conduct has an influence upon the soul, making it pure or impure
as the case may be.[73] Though man cannot see this effect, since the
soul is an intellectual substance, God knows it. He also keeps a record
of our deeds, and deals out reward and punishment in the world to come.
This time will not come until he has created the number of souls which
his wisdom dictates. At the same time there are also rewards and
punishments in this world as an earnest of what is to come in the
hereafter.
A man is called righteous or wicked according as his good or bad deeds
predominate. And the recompense in the next world is given for this
predominating element in his character. A righteous man is punished for
his few bad deeds in this world, and rewarded for his many good deeds in
the world to come. Similarly the wicked man is paid for his good deeds
in this world, while the punishment for his wickedness is reserved. This
answers the old problem of the prosperity of the wicked and the misery
of the righteous in this world.
There are also sufferings of the righteous which are not in the nature
of punishment for past conduct, but in view of the future so as to
increase their reward in the world to come for the trials they endured
without murmuring. The sufferings of little children come under this
head.
On the other hand, a sinner is sometimes well treated and his life
prolonged for one of the following reasons: To give him time to repent,
as in the case of Manasseh; that he may beget a righteous son, like
Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah; to use him as God's tool to punish others
more wicked than he--witness the rôle of Assyria as Isaiah describes it
in chapter ten of his prophecies; for the sake of the righteous who is
closely related to him, as Lot was saved for the sake of Abraham; or in
order to make the punishment more severe later, as in the case of
Pharaoh.
That there is another world after this one in which man is rewarded and
punished can be proved from reason, from Scripture and from
tradition.[74] It is not likely from what we know of God's wisdom and
goodness that the measure of happiness intended for the soul is what it
gets in this world. For every good here is mixed with evil, the latter
even predominating. No one is really content and at peace in this world
even if he has reached the top of the ladder of prosperity and honor.
There must be a reason for this, which is that the soul has an
intuitional longing for the other world which is destined for it. There
are many things from which the soul is bidden to abstain, such as theft,
adultery, and so on, which it desires, and abstention from which causes
it pain. Surely there must be reward awaiting the soul for this
suffering. Often the soul suffers hatred, persecution and even death for
pursuing justice as she is bidden to do. Surely she will be rewarded.
Even when a person is punished with death for a crime committed in this
world, the same death is inflicted for one crime as for ten crimes.
Hence there must be another world where all inequalities are adjusted.
It is also evident that the men of the Bible believed in a hereafter.
Else why should Isaac have consented to be sacrificed, or why should God
have expected it? The same applies to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,
who preferred to be thrown into the fiery furnace rather than fall down
in worship before the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar; and to Daniel who
was thrown into the den of lions for disobeying the order of the king
and praying to God. They would not have done this if they did not
believe in another world, where they would be rewarded for their
sufferings in this one.
Tradition and the Rabbinical literature are filled with reference to a
future world. We need mention only one or two. In the Ethics of the
Fathers (ch. 4) we read that this world is like the vestibule to the
other world. Another statement in the Talmudic treatise Berakot (p. 17a)
reads that "in the world to come there is no eating and drinking, nor
giving in marriage, nor buying and selling, but the righteous sit with
their crowns on their heads and enjoy the splendor of the Shekinah."
With regard to the condition of the soul after death and the nature of
reward and punishment in the next world, there is a variety of opinions.
Those who hold that the soul is corporeal or that it is an accident of
the body believe it is destroyed with the death of the body. We have
already refuted their opinion. Others, like the Platonists, the Dualists
and the Pantheists, who believe in the pre-existence of the soul either
as a separate entity or as a part of God, hold that after the death of
the body the soul returns to its original condition. Our belief as
stated above (p. 37) is opposed to this. But there are some calling
themselves Jews who believe in metempsychosis, that the soul migrates
from one person to another and even from man to beast, and that in this
way it is punished for its sins and purged. They see a confirmation of
their view in the fact that some persons exhibit qualities which are
characteristic of lower animals. But this is absurd. The soul and the
body form a natural unit, the one being adapted to the other. A human
body cannot unite with the soul of an animal, nor an animal body with a
human soul. They try to account by their theory for the suffering of
little children, who could not have sinned in their own person. But we
have already explained that the suffering of children is not in the
nature of punishment, but with a view to subsequent reward, and they
must admit that the first placing of the soul in the body and giving it
commandments is not in the nature of compensation for any past merit,
but with a view to later reward. Why not then explain the suffering of
children in the same way?[75]
As the body and the soul form a natural unit during life and a man's
conduct is the combined effort of the two constituent parts of his
being, it stands to reason that future reward and punishment should be
imposed upon body and soul in combination. Hence the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body, which is alluded to in the Bible and made
into a religious dogma by the Rabbis, has support also in the
reason.[76] Many objections have been advanced against it, but they can
be easily answered. The strongest objection might seem to be that which
attempts to show that resurrection is a logical contradiction. The
argument is that the elements making up a given body during life find
their way after the death of the person into the body of another, to
which they are assimilated and of which they form a part. Hence it is
impossible to resurrect two bodies out of the material common to both.
But this argument is untrue to fact. Every human body has its own
matter, which never enters into the composition of any other body. When
the person dies and the body decomposes, each element returns to its
place in nature, where it is kept until the resurrection.
But there is another event which will happen to Israel before the time
of the resurrection. In accordance with the promises of the Prophets we
believe that Israel will be delivered from exile by the Messiah.[77]
Reason also supports this belief, for God is righteous, and since he has
placed us in exile partly as a punishment for wrongdoing, partly for the
purpose of trying us, there must be a limit to both.
Messiah the son of David will come, will deliver Jerusalem from the
enemy and settle there with his people. When all the believing
Israelites have been gathered from all the nations to the land of
Palestine, then will come the resurrection. The Temple will be rebuilt,
the light of the Shekinah will rest upon it, and the spirit of prophecy
will be vouchsafed to all Israel, young and old, master and servant.
This blessed period will last until the end of time, _i. e._, until this
world will give place to the next, which is the place of reward and
punishment.
We describe the future habitation and status of the soul as Garden of
Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna.[78] The former expression is intended to
suggest happiness, there being nothing pleasanter in the world than a
garden. The term Gehenna is associated in the Bible with Tofteh, which
was a place of impurity not far from the Temple. In reality, however,
God will create a substance which will combine light and heat in such a
way that the righteous will enjoy the light only, while the wicked will
be tortured by the heat. All this Saadia infers from Biblical passages.
There will be no eating and drinking in the next world, and hence no
need of a heaven and an earth like ours, but there will be place and
time, since creatures cannot do without it. There will be no succession
of day and night, for these are of use only for our present life and
occupations, but will be unnecessary there. There will, however, be a
special period for worship.
Reward and punishment in the next world will both be eternal. It stands
to reason that God should _promise_ eternal reward and punishment so as
to inspire mankind with the highest possible degree of hope and fear,
that they may have no excuse for not heeding the commandments so
forcibly impressed upon them. Having made the promise, his justice
prompts him to fulfil it, and those who suffer have themselves to blame.
We have now completed in outline Saadia's system of Judaism. There are
many details which we necessarily had to leave out, especially in the
more dogmatic part of his work, that dealing with specific Jewish
doctrines, which he constructs on the basis of Rabbinical literature and
Biblical allusions interpreted so as to harmonize with the statements of
the Rabbis. Many questions specifically theological and eschatological
assumed importance in his mind by reason of his surroundings. I mean the
Mohammedan schools and sects, and the Karaite discussions which were
closely modelled after them. The most important part of his system
philosophically is that which deals with creation and the attributes of
God. His discussions of the soul and of free will are less thorough, and
the details of his doctrines of resurrection, future reward and
punishment, the redemption of Israel and the Messiah are almost purely
dogmatic. For a scientific ethic there is no room at all in the body of
his work. A man's conduct is prescribed for him in the divine
commandments, though in a general way the reason sees the right and the
wrong of the so-called rational group of laws. Still as an after thought
Saadia added a chapter to the "Emunot ve-Deot" in which he attempts to
give a psychological basis for human conduct. Noting the various
tendencies of individuals and sects in his environment to extremes in
human behavior, some to asceticism, some to self-indulgence, be it the
lust of love or of power, he lays emphasis on the inadequacy of any one
pursuit for the demands of man's complex nature, and recommends a
harmonious blending of all things for which men strive.[79]
God alone, he says, is a real unity, everything else is by the very
reason of its being a creature essentially not one and simple, but
composite and complex. So man has a love and desire for many things, and
also aversion for many things. And as in other objects in nature it
takes a combination of several elements to constitute a given thing, so
in man it is by a proper systematization of his likes and dislikes that
he can reach perfection of character and morals. It cannot be that God
intended man to pursue one object all his life to the exclusion of all
others, for in that case he would have implanted only one desire in man
instead of many. You cannot build a house of stones alone neither can
you develop a perfect character by one pursuit and one interest.
Pursuit of one thing is likely to result in harm, for example,
over-indulgence in eating brings on disease. Wisdom is therefore needed
in regulating one's conduct. The principle here is control of one's
likes and dislikes. Of the three faculties of the soul, reason, spirit
and desire, reason must be the master of the other two. If any matter
occurs to a person's imagination, he must try it with his reason to see
whether it is likely to benefit or injure him, and pursue or avoid it
accordingly. If, on the other hand, he allows the lower parts of his
soul to rule his reason, he is not a moral man.
The reader will recognize Plato in the last statement. The division of
the soul into the three faculties of reason, spirit and desire is
Platonic, as we have already seen, and the attempt to base an ethic on
the proper relation between the powers of the soul also goes back to
Plato. But Saadia tries to show that the Bible too favors this
conception.
When Ecclesiastes tells us (1, 14), "I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after
wind," he does not mean that there is nothing worth striving after, for
he would then be condemning the objects of God's creation. His meaning
is that it is vain to pursue any one thing to the exclusion of every
other. He then proceeds to name three prominent objects of pursuit,
wisdom, pleasure and worldly gain--all is vain when taken by itself. A
proper combination of all is to be recommended as is delicately hinted
in the same book (2, 3), "I searched in mine heart how to cheer my flesh
with wine, mine heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold on
folly."