in which Nachmanides worked less after given types. These reveal to us
more of his inner being, and offer us some insight into his theological
system. The great problem which seems to have presented itself to
Nachmanides’ mind was less how to reconcile religion with reason than how
to reconcile man with religion. What is man? The usual answer is not
flattering. He is an animal that owes its existence to the same instinct
that produces even the lower creatures, and he is condemned, like them, to
go to a place of worm and maggot. But, may not one ask, why should a
creature so lowly born, and doomed to so hapless a future, be burdened
with the awful responsibility of knowing that he is destined “to give
reckoning and judgment before the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be
He”? It is true that man is also endowed with a heavenly soul, but this
only brings us back again to the antithesis of flesh and spirit which was
the stumbling‐block of many a theological system. Nor does it help us much
towards the solution of the indicated difficulty; for what relation can
there be between this _materia impura_ of body and the pure intellect of
soul? And again, must not the unfavourable condition in which the latter
is placed through this uncongenial society heavily clog and suppress all
aspiration for perfection? It is “a house divided against itself,” doomed
to an everlasting contest, without hope for co‐operation or even of
harmony.
The works _The Sacred Letter_ and _The Law of Man_ may be considered as an
attempt by Nachmanides, if not to remove, at least to relieve the
harshness of this antithesis. The former, in which he blames Maimonides
for following Aristotle in denouncing certain desires implanted in us by
nature as ignominious and unworthy of man, may, perhaps, be characterised
as a vindication of the flesh from a religious point of view. The contempt
in which “that Greek,” as Nachmanides terms Aristotle, held the flesh is
inconsistent with the theory of the religious man, who believes that
everything (including the body, with all its functions) is created by God,
whose work is perfect and good, without impure or inharmonious parts. It
is only sin and neglect that disfigure God’s creations. I cannot enter
into any further details of this work, but I may be permitted to remark
that there is a very strong similarity between the tendency of the _Sacred
Letter_ and certain leading ideas of Milton. Indeed, if the first two
chapters of the former were a little condensed and put into English, they
could not be better summarised than by the famous lines in the _Paradise
Lost_:—
Whatever hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity, and place, and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all,
Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man?
Hail, wedded love, mysterious law!...
Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets.
The second of these two works, the _Law of Man_, may be regarded as a
sanctification of grief, and particularly of the grief of griefs, death.
The bulk of the book is legalistic, treating of mourning rites, burial
customs, and similar topics; but there is much in the preface which bears
on our subject. For here again Nachmanides takes the opportunity of
combating a chilling philosophy, which tries to arm us against suffering
by stifling our emotions. “My son,” he says, “be not persuaded by certain
propositions of the great philosophers who endeavour to harden our hearts
and to deaden our sensations by their idle comfort, which consists in
denying the past and despairing of the future. One of them has even
declared that there is nothing in the world over the loss of which it is
worth crying, and the possession of which would justify joy. This is an
heretical view. Our perfect Torah bids us to be joyful in the day of
prosperity and to shed tears in the day of misfortune. It in no way
forbids crying or demands of us to suppress our grief. On the contrary,
the Torah suggests to us that to mourn over heavy losses is equivalent to
a service of God, leading us, as it does, to reflect on our end and ponder
over our destiny.”
This destiny, as well as Reward and Punishment in general, is treated in
the concluding chapter of the _Law of Man_, which is known under the title
of _The Gate of Reward_.(81) Nachmanides does not conceal from himself the
difficulties besetting inquiries of this description. He knows well enough
that in the last instance we must appeal to that implicit faith in the
inscrutable justice of God with which the believer begins. Nevertheless he
thinks that only the “despisers of wisdom” would fail to bring to this
faith as full a conviction as possible, which latter is only to be gained
by speculation. I shall have by and by occasion to refer to the results of
this speculation. Here we must only notice the fact of Nachmanides
insisting on the _bodily_ resurrection which will take place after the
coming of the Messiah, and will be followed by the _Olam Habba_(82) (the
life in the world to come) of which the Rabbis spoke.
Irrational as this belief may look, it is only a consequence of his
theory, which, as we have seen, assigns even to the flesh an almost
spiritual importance. Indeed, he thinks that the soul may have such an
influence on the body as to transform the latter into so pure an essence
that it will become safe for eternity. For, as he hints in another place,
by the continual practising of a thing the whole man, the body included,
becomes so identified with the thing that we call him after it, just as
the Holy Singer said: I am prayer,(83) so that—
Oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,
Till all be made immortal.
But if even the body holds such a high position as to make all its
instincts and functions, if properly regulated, a service of God, and to
destine it for a glorious future of eternal bliss and rejoicing in God, we
can easily imagine what a high place the soul must occupy in the system of
Nachmanides. To be sure it is a much higher one than that to which
philosophy would fain admit her. A beautiful parable of the Persian poet
Yellaladeen (quoted by the late Mr. Lowell) narrates that “One knocked at
the beloved’s door, and a voice asked from within, ‘Who is there?’ and he
answered, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice said, ‘This house will not hold me and
thee,’ and the door was not opened. Then went the lover into the desert
and fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he returned and
knocked again at the door, and again the voice asked ‘Who is there?’ and
he said ‘It is thyself’; and the door was opened to him.” This is also the
difference between the two schools—the mystical and the philosophical—with
regard to the soul. With the rationalist the soul is indeed a superior
abstract intelligence created by God, but, like all His creations, has an
existence of its own, and is thus separated from God. With the mystic,
however, the soul is God, or a direct emanation from God. “For he who
breathes into another thing (Gen. ii. 7) gives unto it something of his
own breath (or soul),” and as it is said in Job xxxii. 8, “And the soul of
the Almighty giveth them understanding.” This emanation, or rather
immanence—for Nachmanides insists in another place that the Hebrew term
employed for it, _Aziluth_,(84) means a permanent dwelling with the thing
emanating—which became manifest with the creation of man, must not be
confounded with the moving soul (or the _Nephesh Chayah_),(85) which is
common to man with all creatures.
It may be remarked here that Nachmanides endows all animals with a soul
which is derived from the “Superior Powers,” and its presence is proved by
certain marks of intelligence which they show. By this fact he tries to
account for the law prohibiting cruelty to animals, “all souls belonging
to God.” Their original disposition was, it would seem, according to
Nachmanides, peaceful and harmless.
About them frisking played
All beasts of earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den.
It was only after man had sinned that war entered into creation, but with
the coming of the Messiah, when sin will disappear, all the living beings
will regain their primæval gentleness, and be reinstituted in their first
rights.
The special soul of man, however, or rather the “over‐soul,” was pre‐
existent to the creation of the world, treasured up as a wave in the sea
or fountain of souls—dwelling in the eternal light and holiness of God.
There, in God, the soul abides in its ideal existence before it enters
into its material life through the medium of man; though it must be noted
that, according to Nachmanides’ belief in the Transmigration of souls, it
is not necessary to perceive in the soul of every new‐born child, “a fresh
message from heaven” coming directly from the fountain‐head. Nachmanides
finds this belief indicated in the commandment of levirate marriage, where
the child born of the deceased brother’s wife inherits not only the name
of the brother of his actual father, but also his soul, and thus
perpetuates his existence on earth. The fourth verse of Ecclesiastes ii.
Nachmanides seems to interpret to mean that the very generation which
passes away comes up again, by which he tries to explain the difficulty of
God’s visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children; the latter
being the very fathers who committed the sins. However, whatever trials
and changes the soul may have to pass through during its bodily existence,
its origin is in God and thither it will return in the end, “just as the
waters rise always to the same high level from which their source sprang
forth.”
It is for this man, with a body so superior, and a soul so sublime—more
sublime than the angels—that the world was _created_. I emphasise the last
word, for the belief in the creation of the world by God from nothing
forms, according to Nachmanides, the first of the three fundamental dogmas
of Judaism. The other two also refer to God’s relation to the world and
man. They are the belief in God’s Providence and his _Yediah_.(86)
Creation from nothing is for Nachmanides the keynote to his whole
religion, since it is only by this fact, as he points out in many places,
that God gains real dominion over nature. For, as he says, as soon as we
admit the eternity of matter, we must (logically) deny God even “the power
of enlarging the wing of a fly, or shortening the leg of an ant.” But the
whole Torah is nothing if not a record of God’s mastery in and over the
world, and of His miraculous deeds. One of the first proclamations of
Abraham to his generation was that God is the Lord (or Master) of the
world (Gen. xviii. 33). The injunction given to Abraham, and repeated
afterwards to the whole of Israel (Gen. xvii. 2, and Deut. xviii. 13), to
be perfect with God, Nachmanides numbers as one of the 613 commandments,
and explains it to mean that man must have a whole belief in God without
blemish or reservation, and acknowledge Him possessed of power over nature
and the world, man and beast, devil and angel, power being attributable to
Him alone. Indeed, when the angel said to Jacob, “Why dost thou ask after
my name” (Gen. xxxii. 29), he meant to indicate by his question the
impotence of the heavenly host, so that there is no use in knowing their
name, the power and might belonging only to God.
We may venture even a step further, and maintain that in Nachmanides’
system there is hardly room left for such a thing as nature or “the order
of the world.” There are only two categories of miracles by which the
world is governed, or in which God’s Providence is seen. The one is the
category of the manifest miracles, as the ten plagues in Egypt, or the
crossing of the Red Sea; the other is that of the hidden miracles, which
we do not perceive as such, because of their frequency and continuity. “No
man,” he declares, “can share in the Torah of our Teacher, Moses (that is,
can be considered a follower of the Jewish religion), unless he believes
that all our affairs and events, whether they concern the masses or the
individual, are all miracles (worked by the direct will of God),
attributing nothing to nature or to the order of the world.” Under this
second order he classes all the promises the Torah makes to the righteous,
and the punishments with which evil‐doers are threatened. For, as he
points out in many places, there is nothing in the nature of the
commandments themselves that would make their fulfilment necessarily
prolong the life of man, and cause the skies to pour down rain, or, on the
other hand, would associate disobedience to them with famine and death.
All these results can, therefore, only be accomplished in a supernatural
way by the direct workings of God.
Thus miracles are raised to a place in the regular scheme of things, and
the difficulty regarding the possibility of God’s interferences with
nature disappears by their very multiplication. But a still more important
point is, that, by this unbroken chain of miracles, which unconditionally
implies God’s presence to perform them, Nachmanides arrives at a theory
establishing a closer contact between the Deity and the world than that
set forth by other thinkers. Thus, he insists that the term _Shechinah_,
or _Cabod_(87) (Glory of God), must not be understood, with some Jewish
philosophers, as something separate from God, or as _glory created_ by
God. “Were this the case,” he proceeds to say, “we could not possibly say,
‘Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place,’ since every mark of
worship to anything _created_ involves the sin of idolatry.” Such terms as
_Shechinah_, or _Cabod_, can therefore only mean the immediate divine
presence. This proves, as may be noted in passing, how unphilosophical the
idea of those writers is who maintain that the rigid monotheism of the
Jews makes God so transcendental that He is banished from the world. As we
see, it is just this assertion of His absolute Unity which not only
suffers no substitute for God, but also removes every separation between
Him and the world. Hence also Nachmanides insists that the prophecy even
of the successors of Moses was a direct communion of God with the prophet,
and not, as others maintained, furnished through the medium of an angel.
The third fundamental dogma, _Yediah_, includes, according to Nachmanides,
not only the omniscience of God—as the term is usually translated—but also
His recognition of mankind and His special concern in them. Thus, he
explains the words in the Bible with regard to Abraham, “For I know him”
(Gen. xviii. 19), to indicate the special attachment of God’s Providence
to the patriarch, which, on account of his righteousness, was to be
uninterrupted for ever; whilst in other places we have to understand,
under God’s knowledge of a thing, his determination to deal with it
compassionately, as, for instance, when Scripture says that God knew
(Exod. ii. 25), it means that His relation to Israel emanated from His
attribute of mercy and love. But just as God knows (which means loves) the
world, He requires also to be recognised and known by it. “For this was
the purpose of the whole creation, that man should recognise and know Him
and give praise to His name,” as it is said, “Everything that is called by
my name (meaning, chosen to promulgate God’s name), for my glory have I
created it.”
It is this fact which gives Israel their high prerogative, for by
receiving the Torah they were the first to know God’s name, to which they
remained true in spite of all adversities; and thus accomplished God’s
intention in creating the world. It is, again, by this Torah that the
whole of Israel not only succeeded in being real prophets (at the moment
of the Revelation), but also became _Segulah_,(88) which indicates the
inseparable attachment between God and His people, whilst the righteous
who never disobey His will become the seat of His throne.
The position of the rest of humanity is also determined by their relation
to the Torah. “It is,” Nachmanides tells us, “a main principle to know
that all that man contrives to possess of knowledge and wisdom is only the
fruits of the Torah or the fruits of its fruits. But for this knowledge
there would be no difference between man and the lower animated species.
The existence of the civilised nations of the world does not disprove this
rule both Christians and Mahometans being also the heirs of the Torah. For
when the Romans gained strength over Israel they made them translate the
Torah which they studied, and they even accommodated some of their laws
and institutions to those of the Bible.” Those nations, however, who live
far away from the centre of the world (the Holy Land) and never come into
contact with Israel are outside the pale of civilisation, and can hardly
be ranked together with the human species. “They are the isles afar off,
that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory.”
What Nachmanides meant by maintaining that all knowledge and wisdom were
“the fruits of the Torah, or the fruits of these fruits,” will be best
seen from his _Commentary on the Pentateuch_. I have already made use of
this Commentary in the preceding quotations, but, being the greatest of
the works of Nachmanides, it calls for some special attention by itself.
Its general purpose is edification, or as he says, “to appease the mind of
the students (labouring under persecution and troubles) when they read the
portion on Sabbaths and festivals, and to attract their heart by simple
explanations and sweet words.” The explanations occupy a considerable
space. As Dr. Perles has shown in his able essay on this work of
Nachmanides, our author neglected no resource of philology or archæology
accessible in his age which could contribute to establish the “simple
explanations” on a sound scientific basis. The prominent feature of this
Commentary, however, is the “sweet words.” Indeed, how sweet and soothing
to his contemporaries must have been such words as we read at the end of
the “Song of Moses” (Deut. xxxii.): “And behold there is nothing
conditional in this Song. It is a charter testifying that we shall have to
suffer heavily for our sins, but that, nevertheless, God will not destroy
us, being reconciled to us (though we shall have no merits), and forgiving
our sins for his name’s sake alone.... And so our Rabbis said, Great is
this song, embracing as it does both the past (of Israel) and the future,
this world and the world to come.... And if this song were the composition
of a mere astrologer we should be constrained to believe in it,
considering that all its words were fulfilled. How much more have we to
hope with all our hearts and to trust to the word of God, through the
mouth of his prophet Moses, the faithful in all his house, like unto whom
there was none, whether before him or after him.” A part of these sweet
words may also be seen in the numerous passages in which he attempts to
account for various laws, and to detect their underlying principles.
For though “the Torah is the expression of God’s simple and absolute will,
which man has to follow without any consideration of reward,” still this
will is not arbitrary, and even that class of laws which are called
_chukkim_(89) (which means, according to some Jewish commentators,
motiveless decrees) have their good reasons, notwithstanding that they are
unfathomable to us. “They are all meant for the good of man, either to
keep aloof from us something hurtful, or to educate us in goodness, or to
remove from us an evil belief and to make us know his name. This is what
they (the Rabbis) meant by saying that commandments have a purifying
purpose, namely, that man being purified and tried by them becomes as one
without alloy of bad thoughts and unworthy qualities.” Indeed, the soul of
man is so sensitive to every impurity that it suffers a sort of infection
even by an unintentional sin. Hence the injunction to bring a _Korban_
(sacrifice) even in this case; the effect of the _Korban_, as its
etymology (_Karab_)(90) indicates, is to bring man back to God, or rather
to facilitate this approach. All this again is, as Nachmanides points out,
only an affluence from God’s mercy and love to mankind. God derives no
benefit from it. “If he be righteous what can he give thee?” And even
those laws and institutions which are intended to commemorate God’s
wonders and the creation of the world (for instance, the Passover festival
and the Sabbath) are not meant for His glorification, or, as Heine
maliciously expressed it:—
Der Weltkapellenmeister hier oben
Er selbst sogar hört gerne loben
Gleichfalls seine Werke....
“For all the honour (we give to Him), and the praising of His work are
counted by Him less than nothing and as vanity to Him.” What He desires is
that we may know the truth, and be confirmed in it, for this makes us
worthy of finding in Him “our Protector and King.”
The lessons which Nachmanides draws from the various Biblical narratives
also belong to these “sweet words.” They are mostly of a typical
character. For, true as all the stories in the Scriptures are, “the whole
Torah is,” as he tells us (with allusion to Gen. v. 1.), “the book of the
generations of Adam,” or, as we should say, a history of humanity written
in advance. Thus the account of the six days of the creation is turned
into a prophecy of the most important events which would occur during the
succeeding six thousand years, whilst the Sabbath is a forecast of the
millennium in the seventh thousand, which will be the day of the Lord.
Jacob and Esau are, as in the old Rabbinic homilies generally, the
prototypes of Israel and Rome; and so is the battle of Moses and Joshua
with Amalek indicative of the war which Elijah and the Messiah the son of
Joseph will wage against Edom (the prototype of Rome), before the Redeemer
from the house of David will appear.(91) Sometimes these stories convey
both a moral and a pre‐justification of what was destined to happen to
Israel. So Nachmanides’ remarks with reference to Sarah’s treatment of
Hagar (Gen. xvi. 6): “Our mother Sarah sinned greatly by inflicting this
pain on Hagar, as did also Abraham, who allowed such a thing to pass; but
God saw her affliction and rewarded her by a son (the ancestor of a wild
race), who would inflict on the seed of Abraham and Sarah every sort of
oppression.” In this he alluded to the Islamic empires. Nor does he
approve of Abraham’s conduct on the occasion of his coming to Egypt, when
he asked Sarah to pass as his sister (Gen. xii.). “Unintentionally,”
Nachmanides says, “Abraham, under the fear of being murdered, committed a
great sin when he exposed his virtuous wife to such a temptation. For he
ought to have trusted that God would save both him and his wife.... It is
on account of this deed that his children had to suffer exile under the
rule of Pharaoh. There, where the sin was committed, also the judgment
took place.” It is also worth noticing that, in opposition to Maimonides,
he allows no apology for the attack of Simeon and Levi on the population
of Shechem (Gen. xxxiv. 25). It is true that they were idolaters, immoral,
and steeped in every abomination; but Jacob and his sons were not
commissioned with executing justice on them. The people of Shechem trusted
their word, therefore they ought to have spared them. Hence Jacob’s
protest, and his curse against their wrath, which would have been quite
unjustified had he looked on the action of his sons as a good work.
Besides these typical meanings, the matters of the Torah have also their
symbolical importance, which places them almost above the sphere of human
conception; they are neither exactly what they seem to be nor entirely
what their name implies, but a reflex from things unseen, which makes any
human interference both preposterous and dangerous. Of “the things
_called_ Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge,” Nachmanides tells us that
their mystery is very great, reaching into higher worlds. Otherwise, why
should God, who is good and the dispenser of good, have prevented Adam
from eating the fruit (of the latter), whilst in another place he says:
“And if thou wilt be worthy, and understand the mystery of the word
_Bereshith_(92) (with which the Torah begins), thou wilt see that in truth
the Scripture, though apparently speaking of matters here below (on
earth), is always pointing to things above (heaven);” for “every glory and
every wonder, and every deep mystery, and all beautiful wisdom are hidden
in the Torah, sealed up in her treasures.”