Spinoza Maimonidean

A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean

Warren Harvey

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Number 2, April 1981,pp. 151-172 (Article)

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A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean

W A R R E N Z E V H A R V E Y

I

IN WHAT FOLLOWS, I try to sketch a portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, as the last major representative of a tradition that mightily dominated Jewish philosophy for almost five centuries following the appearance of the Guide o f the Perplexed. The portrayal of Spinoza as a Maimonidean is admittedly controver- sial. To be sure, it is well known that as a young man Spinoza had been exposed to mediaeval Hebrew philosophic texts and that in particular he had studied Maimonides. It is also well known that one can rummage through Spinoza's writings and come up with a fair amount of Maimonidean borrowings. Indeed, ever since the pioneering researches of Manuel Jo~l more than a century ago, I much has been written on Spinoza's relationship to the mediaeval Jewish philosophers, the most prominent of whom was Maimonides. However, it generally has not been held that there was a distinctive Maimonidean influence on Spi- noza's philosophy.

To my knowledge, the only modern scholar to argue systematically for a distinctive Maimonidean influence on Spinoza was Leon Roth in his Spinoza, Descartes, and Maimonides. 2 In this incisive little book, Roth presented Spinoz- ism as a Maimonidean critique of Cartesianism and concluded: "Where Spinoza rejected the lead of Descartes, he not only followed that of Maimonides, but based his rejection on Maimonides' arguments, often, indeed, on his very words . . . . Maimonides and Spinoza speak throughout with one voice. ''3 The case for distinctive Maimonidean influence on Spinoza also may be recon- structed out of various writings of the eminent Maimonidean scholar Shlomo Pines. 4 While Roth and Pines are the two scholars who have supplied the frame-

1 Spinozas theologisch-politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen gepri~ft (Breslau, 1870); Zur Gene- sis der Lehre Spinozas (Breslau, 1871); ef. his Don Chasdai Creskas' religionsphilosophische Lehren (Breslau, 1866).

2 (Oxford, 1924; New York, 1963). See also his Spinoza (London, 1929, 1954), and his The Guide for the Perplexed: Moses Maimonides (London, 1948). Cf. his contributions to Chronicon Spinoza- hum, I (1921), pp. 278-282; II (1922), pp. 54-56; and his "Jewish Thought in the Modern World," in E. R. Bevan and C. Singer, eds., The Legacy oflsreal (Oxford, 1927, 1965), pp. 433-472.

3 pp. 143-144. 4 See his "Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Maimonides and Kant," in Scripta Hiero-

[151]

152 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

work for the present portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, the notion of a distinctive Maimonidean influence on Spinoza also appears occasionally in the writings of other scholars. Mention, for example, may be made of Arthur Hy- man, who developed concisely "some similarities in Maimonides' and Spinoza's philosophy of man and in their philosophy of the state."5

The prevalent view, however, has been that there was no distinctive Maimon- idean influence on Spinoza's philosophy. Moreover, this view has been prevalent not only among the generality of Spinoza scholars, but also among those scholars who--not unlike Roth, Pines, and Hyman--came to Spinoza after having studied the mediaeval Jewish philosophers. It was, indeed, the view of the late Harry Austryn Wolfson, the distinguished Harvard Hebraist and historian of philosophy, whose approach to the problem of Spinoza's relationship to his mediaeval Jewish sources is today doubtless the best known and the most influential.

Wolfson, it is true, counted Maimonides, together with Aristotle and Des- cartes, among the three philosophers who had "a dominant influence upon the philosophic training of Spinoza a n d . . , guided him in the formation of his philosophy. ''6 However, seeing mediaeval philosophy as "homogeneous, ''7 Wolf- son made it a methodological rule n o t to distinguish between the influences of individual mediaeval philosophers on Spinoza. s In discussing Spinoza's sources, he accordingly treated Maimonides not as a personality in his own fight, but as a representative of homogeneous mediaeval philosophy. As Wolfson saw it, mediaeval philosophy was "the common philosophy of the three religions with cog- nate Scriptures, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." This "triple scriptural religious philosophy," according to his theory, had been "ushered in" by Philo of Alexandria, who revolutionized Greek philosophy by interpreting it in the light of Scripture; and it was "ushered out" by Spinoza, "the last of the mediaevals," who by his campaign to free philosophy from Scripture became also "the first of

solymitana, XX (1968), pp. 3-54; his "A Note on Spinoza's Conception of Human Freedom and of Good and Evil," in Spinoza, His Life and Work (forthcoming); and cf. his "The Philosophic Sources of The Guide of the Perplexed," in his English translation of the Guide (Chicago, 1963), pp. lvii- cxxxiv (references to Spinoza on pp. xcvi, xcviii, c).

s "Spinoza's Dogmas of Universal Faith in the Light of Their Mediaeval Jewish Background," in A. Altmann, ed., Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 183-195 (p. 186). Cf. also, e.g., S. Rubin, Spinoza und Maimonides (Vienna, 1868); K. Pearson, "Maimonides and Spi- noza," Mind, VIII, 29 (1883), pp. 338-353 (reprinted in his The Ethic of Freethought [London, 1888, 1901], pp. 125-142).

6 The Philosophy of Spinoza (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), I, p. 19. ' Religious Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. v; "Philo Judaeus," in The Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (New York, 1967), VI, p. 155 (reprinted in his Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, I [Cambridge, Mass., 1973], p. 70). Wolfson held a much different position in his early essay, "Maimonides and Haievi," Jewish Quarterly review, n.s., II, 3 (1912), pp. 297-337 (reprinted in his Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, II [Cambridge, Mass., 1977], pp. 120-160).

s The Philosophy of Spinoza, I, pp. 14-18. "[The] passages quoted [as sources of Spinoza] are only representative of common views which were current in the philosophic literature of the past" (p. 18). "To Spinoza these three literatures, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic, represented a common t r ad i t i on . . . [and] were in fact one philosophy expressed in different languages, translatable almost literally into one another" (ibid., p. 10). Cf. "Some Guiding Principles in Determining Spinoza's Mediaeval Sources," Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., XXVII, 4 (1937), pp. 333-348 (reprinted in Studies, II, pp. 577-592).

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA 153

the moderns." In Wolfson's view, "the philosophy of S p i n o z a . . . is primarily a criticism o f . . . this triple religious philosophy," which is "properly to be called the Philonic philosophy. ''9 According to Wolfson's approach, therefore, Spi- noza's relationship to the mediaeval Jewish philosophers is not qualitatively different from his relationship to the mediaeval Christian and Muslim philosophers, although it is of course quantitatively different. Owing to accidents of birth and education, Spinoza had studied the mediaeval Jewish philosophers more than he had studied the mediaeval Christian or Muslim philosophers, but the Philonic philosophy he found in the former he could as well have found in the latter. Similarly, according to Wolfson's approach, Spinoza had studied Mai- monides more than he had studied any other mediaeval Jewish philosopher simply because of all mediaeval Jewish philosophic works Maimonides' Guide is "the most excellent depository of mediaeval philosophic lore" and contains "the most incisive analyses of philosophic problems, the most complete summaries o f philosophic opinions, the clearest definitions of terms, all these couched in happy and quotable phrases. ''10 But, Wolfson insists, the Philonic philosophy Spinoza found in Maimonides he could as well have found elsewhere.

Now, there is much to say for Wolfson's approach. It is evident that mediaeval philosophy (or, if you will,, Philonic philosophy) was indeed a "triple religious philosophy," that is, it was common to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and not split neatly along confessional lines. Thus, Maimonides' philosophic position was closer to the Muslim Alfarabi's than to the Jewish Judah Halevi's, and Aquinas's philosophic position was in turn closer to Maimonides' than to Augustine's. But the very mention of such disparate thinkers as Augustine, Alfarabi, Halevi, Mai- monides, and Aquinas gives the lie to Wolfson's subthesis that mediaeval philosophy was "homogeneous." Can it be, as Wolfson's approach indicates, that there is no way to distinguish meaningfully between Maimonides' influence on Spinoza and the influence of other mediaeval philosophers on him? It goes without saying that Wolfson's general thesis concerning a "triple religious philosophy" ushered in by Philo and ushered out by Spinoza need not be any the worse after that philosophy has been duly recognized as heterogeneous.

The tendency to see Spinoza's mediaeval philosophic sources as one homogeneous block is by no means unique to Wolfson. It is, for example, characteristic also of Leo Strauss, who, like Wolfson, wrote significantly on both Maimonides and Spinoza. 11 In his overarching concern to understand the conflict between religion and philosophy ("Jerusalem and Athens"), Strauss tended to see all "philosophy" from the Greeks until the rise of modern historicism as fundamen- tally one and the same thing. Accordingly, he explicitly criticized Roth's view of

9 Religious Philosophy, loc. cit.; "Philo Judaeus," Ioc. cit.; Philo (Cambridge, Mass., 1947, 1968), II, pp. 445,457-460; The Philosophy of Spinoza, I, pp. vii, 10.

1o The Philosophy of Spinoza, I, p. 14. t, See, e.g., his Spinoza's Critique of Religion (New York, 1965; German original, 1930); his

Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, I11., 1952), chs. 3 and 5; and his "How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed," in Pines's translation of the Guide, pp. xi-lvi. Cf. his What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, II1., 1959), p. 230: "Spinoza was much more original.., than was Maimonides; but Maimonides was nevertheless a deeper thinker than Spinoza."


Spinoza's relationship to Maimonides. "Roth ," he contended, "over-estimates the importance in intellectual history of Spinoza's relationship to Maimonides, which is doubtless important in Spinoza's philosophic development. Roth does not sufficiently take into account that the theories regarding which Spinoza stands with M a i m o n i d e s . . . are for the most part not peculiar to Maimonides, but are the common property of the 'philosophers'. ''~z Strauss, like Wolfson, was thus of the opinion that Spinoza was critically influenced by his reading of Maimonides but that this influence was not distinctively Maimonidean.

That there was no distinctive influence of Maimonides' philosophy on Spi- noza was held also by Jacob Klatzkin, who, like Wolfson, was a Hebraist and a savant in mediaeval Hebrew philosophic literature and who is known to students of that literature as the author of the four-volume Thesaurus Philosopohicus lin- guae Hebraicae. z 3 Klatzkin set down his thoughts on the relationship of Spinoza to Maimonides and to the other mediaeval Jewish philosophers in his Hebrew book on Spinoza ~4 and in the preface to his still standard Hebrew translation of Spinoza's Ethics. ~s Although he held that the mediaeval Jewish philosophers, including Maimonides, did not appreciably influence Spinoza's thought, he claimed that they did appreciably influence his language. Indeed, it was his extra- ordinary argument that since Spinoza's early exposure to philosophy was in Heb- rew, and since he never properly mastered Latin, a Hebrew translation of the Ethics not only should be expected to express Spinoza's thought more accurately than the various German, French, or English translations, but it should be ex- pec t ed -a t least in some instances--to express it more accurately than Spinoza's Latin itselfl. "There is necessarily an advantage to a Hebrew translation [of the Ethics] over the translations in the languages of the West," he wrote in the preface to his own Hebrew translation of the Ethics. "Sometimes," he continued, "i t is even superior to the Latin text, which is in this sense itself a translation." Klatz- kin was making the bizarre claim that, in a certain sense, his Hebrew translation is the original of the Ethics, and Spinoza's own Latin a translation! Spinoza, as it were, thought his philosophy in Hebrew, even when he wrote it in Latin: to translate the Ethics into Hebrew, thus, is really to restore it into Hebrew. Not shying from the implications of his claim, Klatzkin concluded that future translations of the Ethics into Western languages would have to be made only after consultation of his Hebrew version! ~6 Be that as it may, what follows from Klatz- kin's view is that the only distinctive influence the Guide of the Perplexed had on Spinoza was not that of Maimonides but that of Samuel ibn Tibbon, in whose Hebrew translation from the Arabic Spinoza read the Guide.

Now, although Klatzkin has surely overstated his case, his argument ought not to be dismissed out of hand. It should not surprise us to find instances where

12 Spinoza's Critique, p. 297, n. 238. 13 Leipzig, 1928-1933. 14 Baruch Spinoza (Leipzig, 1923). ~5 Torat ha-Middot (Leipzig, 1924). Cf. Rosenzweig's review of this translation in N. N. Glatzer,

ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York, 1953, 1961), pp. 263-71 (original in his Kleinere Schriften [Berlin, 1937], pp. 220--27).

16 Torat ha-Middot, pp. xvii-xx.


Spinoza's philosophic Latin is influenced by mediaeval philosophic Hebrew, and perhaps in particular by that of Ibn Tibbon's translation of the Guide. It might, however, be surprising if a philosophic literature that left its imprint on Spi- noza's language did not also leave an imprint on his philosophy.

No matter the enormous differences in their approaches, Klatzkin and Wolf- son (and Strauss) ageed fully on two points: (1) the mediaeval Hebrew philosophic literature in general, and Maimonides in particular, exercised a significant formative influence on Spinoza, but (2) it did not exercise a distinctive influence on his philosophy. Moreover, I think that it is fair to say that these two points are explicitly or implicitly accepted by most Spinoza scholars today--by those who are familiar with the mediaeval Hebrew philosophic tradition as well as by those who are not. Yet how reasonable is the second point in the light of the first? The question of Spinoza's relationship to the mediaeval Jewish philosophers, and to Maimonides in particular, demands further clarification.

The clarification of Spinoza's relationship to the mediaeval Hebrew philosophic literature properly begins with the clarification of his relationship to Mai- monides. Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed made such an impact on the mediaeval Hebrew philosophic literature that all subsequent mediaeval Jewish philosophers philosophized under its influence, even when--like Hasdai Crescas--they attacked it. Certainly it would make little sense to try to ascertain the possible distinctive influence of post-Maimonides Jewish philosophers such as Gersonides, Crescas, or even the Renaissance Platonist Leone Ebreo on Spinoza without first having clarified the Maimonidean influence on him, since much of what can be found in Gersonides, Crescas, and Leone Ebreo is itself Maimonidean.

In sketching the following portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, I obviously do not mean to deny that there are other no less convincing portraits that may be sketched of him. However, I do mean to show that fundamental elements of Maimonides' philosophy recur as fundamental elements in Spinoza's.

II

At the conclusion of his Notes on the Guide of the Perplexed, Leibniz re- marks: "Maimonides distinguishes exce l l en t ly . . , between intellect and imagination. ''17 This distinction of Maimonides' between intellect and imagination is a suitable place for us to begin our discussion of Spinoza's Maimonideanism.

According to Maimonides, it is in virtue of the intellect alone that we distinguish between true and false, while it is in virtue of the imagination alone that we fall into error. 18 Spinoza, similarly, holds that it is in virtue of knowledge of the

i~ "Praeclare distinguit passim Maimonides inter intellectionem et imaginationem" (Leibnitii Observationes a d . . . Doctor perplexorum, published with a French translation in Louis Foucher de Cariei, Leibniz, la philosophie juive et la Cabale [Paris, 1861], pp. 44-45 [English translation by L. E. Goodman, Journal of Jewish Studies, XXXI (1980), p. 236]). Cf. Leibniz on Guide, 1, 47; I, 71; I, 73, 10th; III, 15.

is Guide, I, 2, pp. 24-26; I, 73, 10th, pp. 209-211; II, 12, p. 280. Page references to the Guide are to the Pines translation, cited in n. 4 above. In quotations, Pines' translation will sometimes be modified. When the Guide is quoted in Hebrew, it will be from the Samuel ibn Tibbon translation (from the original Arabic) in which the Guide was usually studied by the mediaeval Jewish philosophers, and in which it was studied by Spinoza.


second and third kinds (i.e., ratio and scientia intuitiva) alone that we distinguish between true and false, and that it is in virtue of knowledge of the first kind (opinio vel imaginatio) alone that we fall into error. ~9 By knowledge of true and false, Maimonides and Spinoza both mean knowledge of what exists, and both hold that a true idea (de'ah amittit = idea vera) is one that corresponds with what exists, z~ Both also proclaim that God is Truth. 21

The intellect, according to Maimonides, is man's "substantial form, ''zz but it is also "the bond" between God and himfl 3 "the divine intellect conjoined to him, ''z4 and thus man knows God by means of the selfsame intellect by which God knows him. zs Spinoza, similarly, writes: "The essence of man is constituted

~9 Ethics, II, 40-42. Translations from the Ethics will generally be based on Elwes (New York, 1883; Dover ed., New York, 1951) and White-Stiding-Gutmann (Hafner ed., New York, 1949). Where page and line references are given to any of Spinoza's writings, the reference is to C. Gebhardt [G.], ed., Spinoza Opera, 4 vols. (Heidelberg, 1925).

Spinoza's three kinds of knowledge seem to correspond to the three kinds of knowledge indi- cated in Maimonides' distinction betwen those who grope in the darkness, those whose darkness is illumined by something like a polished stone, and those whose darkness is illumined by lightning flashes (Guide. I, Introduction, pp. 7-8); that is, between imaginative knowledge, intellectual knowledge derived from demonstrations based on empirical data, and intellectual knowledge by direct apprehension of the Active Intellect; that is, between the vulgar, the scientist, and the pro- phet. See Roth, Spinoza, Descartes, & Maimonides, pp. 129-134; Pines, "The Philosophical Sources," pp. civ-cvi; idem, "The Limitations of Human Knowledge according to AI-Farabi, ibn Bajja, and Maimonides," in I. Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 87-90; and Lawrence V. Berman, lbn Bdjl'ah and Maimonides (Ph.D. dissertation, in Hebrew with English summary, The Hebrew Univer- sity of Jerusalem, 1959), pp. 30--34. In Guide, I, 62, p. 154, the apprehension of the Active Intellect is identified with divine science or metaphysics.

zo "[D]eviation from t r u t h . . , a belief about a thing different from what it is" (Guide, I, 36, pp. 82-83); "false . . . no existent corresponds to it [Io yishveh Io nims. a]" (I, 73, 10th, p. 209); el. I, 50, p. 49; I, 60, p. 146. Cf. Samuel ibn Tibbon, "Glossary of Unfamiliar Tetras" (included in standard Hebrew editions of the Guide), s . v . erect: "I t is said of ideas [de'ot] and beliefs that they are true when their existent [nims.a] outside the mind corresponds [shaveh] to what the mind believes of them; and, in general, truth is that to which existence corresponds [mah she-yishveh Io ha-me.si- 'ut] ." According to Spinoza, "A true idea is related to a false idea as being [ens] to non-being [non-ens]" (Ethics. If, 43, sch. [G., II, p. 124, l 1.28-30l; cf. IV, 1), and "idea vera debet cure suo ideato convenire" (I, ax. 6; cf. Cogitata Metaphysica, l, 6 [G., l, p. 246, II. 27-31]; Epistle 60 [to Tschirnaus] [G., IV, p. 270, I I. 16-17]). Spinoza's unusual use ofideatum is explained by Klatzkin as a translation of the Hebrew muskal (Baruch Spinoza, pp. 103-104; Torat ha-Middot, pp. xvii-xix, 204-205). Klatzkin's arguments are even stronger ifideatum is taken as a translation of the Hebrew yadu' a, and idea of the Hebrew de'ah.

zt Maimonides, Book of Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 1:4 (The Book of Knowledge is the philosophizing first volume of Maimonides' fourteen volume Code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah. An available English translation of the Book of Knowledge is by M. Hyamson [New York, 1937; Jerusalem, 1962]; but the French translation by V. Nikiprowetzky and A. Zaoui, Le livre de la conaissance [Paris, 1961], is more reliable, is helpfully annotated, and contains an important preface by Pines, pp. 1-19). Spinoza, Short Treatise, II, 5 (G., I, p. 63, 11. I-2) and 15 (p. 79, I 1. 15-17); but cf. Cogitata Metaphysica, I, 6 (G., I, p. 247, 11. 1-3).

22 Guide, I, l, p. 22; cf. l, 7, p. 32; III, 8, p. 431; cf. Book of Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 4:8; and Eight Chapters, l (two good English translations of the Eight Chapters are available: The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics, trans., J. I. Gorfinkle [New York, 1912, 1966]; Ethical Writings of Maimonides, trans., R. L. Weiss and C. E. Butterworth [New York, 1975], pp. 59-104).

23 Guide. I11, 51, pp. 620, 621; il i , 52, p. 629. z4 Ibid., I, I, p. 23; cf. Ill, 17, pp. 471-472. z5 Ibid., il, 12, p. 280, and III, 52, p. 629, on "in Thy light do we see light" (Psalms 36:10); of.

Ill, 21, p. 485. Cf. also I, 68; l, 72.

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA I57

by certain modes of the attributes of God, namely by modes of thought . . . . Hence, it follows that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; and thus when we say that the human mind perceives this or that, we say nothing else than that G o d . . . has this idea or that. ''2~

Perhaps the first thing that should be said about the imagination, according to Maimonides and Spinoza, is that it is not the intellect. The act of the imagination, writes Maimonides, is "the contrary" of that of the intellect. 27 "One may take any view one likes of the imagination," allows Spinoza, "so long as one acknowledges that it is not the intellect. ''2s The imagination, according to Mai- monides, is the power "which recalls the impressions of sensibly perceived objects after they have vanished from the immediacy of the senses which perceived them. ''29 Spinoza, similarly, describes the imagination as the power "to contemplate external bodies by which the human body was once affected as if they were present, even though they are not in existence nor present. ''3~ Mai- monides emphasizes that "the imaginative faculty is indubitably a bodily faculty ''3s and that its objects are bodily affections (hi tpa'a luyyot ) . 32 Spinoza, following Maimonides but in disagreement with Descartes, holds that all rerum imagines are corporis humani af fec t iones . 33 Moreover, Maimonides and Spi- noza, again in contradistinction to Descartes, assert that the imagination is in no way able to conceive the i n c o r p o r e a l ) 4 If the intellect is for Maimonides and Spinoza man's divine cognitive power, the imagination is his animal o n e ) s

2s Ethics, II, 11, dem. and cot. (G., II, p. 94, 11. 17-19, 30-32; p. 95, 11. 1-2). Cf. 1, 30; lI, 47, sch. (knowledge of the third kind is per Deum) (p. 128, 11. 14-15); V, 29-31.

27 Guide, I, 73, 10th, p. 209. The contrariety of intellect and imagination is suggested by several passages in Alfarabi. Cf., e.g., his Political Regime, in R. Lerner and M. Mahdi, ed., Medieval Political Philosophy (Glencoe, IU, 1963), p. 41; and his Plato's Laws, in Lerner and Mahdi, p. 89.

z8 De lntellectus Emendatione, w (C.H. Bruder, ed. [Leipzig, 1844]) (G., I, p. 32, l 1.9-11) (in Dover Ethics, p. 32; in Harrier Ethics, p. 29 [see n. 19 above]).

29 Eight Chapters, L Cf. Guide, I, 73, 10tfl, pp. 209-210. Maimonides" definition of imagination derives from Alfarabi. See, e.g., Wolfson, "Maimonides on the Internal Senses," Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., XXV (1935), pp. 441-467 (reprinted in his Studies, I, pp. 344-370); and H. Davidson, "Maimonides' Shemonah Peraqim and Alfarabi's Fus.M aI-Madani," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, XXX (1962), pp. 35-50 (esp. p. 38).

30 Ethics, II, 17, cor. (G., II, p. 105, 11.2-4). sJ Guide, II, 36, p. 372, cf. p. 369; and cf. also I, 73, 10th, p. 209. 32 Ibid., III, 51, p. 623; of. "all sensation is affection" (I, 44, p. 95). ~ Ethics, II, 17, sch. (G., II, p. 106, 11. 7-9). According to Descartes, the imaginatio is an

"applicatio facultatis cognoscitivae," an "acies mentis" or "la force et rapplieation interieure de mon esprit," "une particuli~re contention d'esprit," etc. Although Descartes holds that in imagining the mind "turns toward the body," he affirms that the idea of corporeal nature which he has in his imagination is an idea distincta (Meditations, VI [Adam and Tannery Latin], pp. 72-73). Moreover, he even attributes imagination to God (Ili, p. 50; IV, p. 57). Cf. Roth, Spinoza. Descartes, & Maimonides, pp. 125-128.

34 Guide, I, 73, 10th, pp. 209-210. De lntellectus Emendatione, w (G., I, p. 33, 11. 15-17) (Dover, p. 33; Hafner, p. 30). Descartes not only holds that the imagination, independent of the senses, can have an idea of the triangle (Meditations, V, p. 64), but he also includes the idea of God among the rerum imagines (III, p. 37).

~s "[T]he imagination exists in most a n i m a l s . . . Accordingly, man is not distinguished by the imagination" (Guide, I, 73, 10th, p. 209; cf. 11, 4, p. 255). Cf. Aristotle, De Anima, III, 10-1I, 433a- b; of. Ill, 3,428a; De Memoria, I, 3,449b--450a. Spinoza acknowledges that animals "feel" (Ethics, III, 57, sch. [G., 11, p. 187, 11.7-8]; IV, 37, sch. 1 [p. 237, 11.6-7]).

158 H I S T O R Y O F P H I L O S O P H Y

It is a d i s t i nc t ive and s t r ik ing a6 v i ew o f M a i m o n i d e s ' , i nhe r i t ed f rom him b y S p i n o z a , t ha t g o o d and evi l , as o p p o s e d to t rue and fa l se , a re no t i n t e l l ec tua l c o n c e p t s , b u t a re n o t i o n s tha t a r i s e o n l y as a r e su l t o f the ac t o f the imag ina - t ion . A c c o r d i n g to th is v i ew o f M a i m o n i d e s ' , i f k n o w l e d g e o f t rue a n d fa l se is k n o w l e d g e o f w h a t ex i s t s , k n o w l e d g e o f g o o d and evi l is k n o w l e d g e o f w h a t is su i t ab l e , a g r e e a b l e , o r useful . " G o o d , " a c c o r d i n g to M a i m o n i d e s ' de f in i t ion , is " t h a t w h i c h c o n f o r m s to [or " s u i t s , " o r " a g r e e s w i t h " ] o u r in ten t [or " p u r - p o s e " o r " a i m " ] " (mah she-ye'ot le-khavvanatenu), a n d " e v i l " o r " b a d " is tha t w h i c h d o e s no t c o n f o r m to it. a7 A c c o r d i n g to S p i n o z a , " g o o d " is t ha t w h i c h is " n o b i s . . . u t i l e , " o r t ha t w h i c h hits o u r t a rge t , o r t ha t w h i c h a g r e e s wi th t h e exemplar we have se t b e f o r e us , a n d " e v i l " o r " b a d " is tha t w h i c h p r e v e n t s us f rom a t ta in ing s o m e g o o d , m i s s e s o u r t a rge t , o r d o e s n o t ag ree wi th o u r exemplar, as

F r o m the o b v i o u s fac t tha t m e n d i f fer wi th r e g a r d to the i r i n t en t s , t a rge t s , and exemplaria, it f o l lows , a c c o r d i n g to the M a i m o n i d e a n - S p i n o z i s t i c def in i t ions o f " g o o d " and " e v i l , " t ha t the q u e s t i o n o f w h a t th ings a re to be c o n s i d e r e d g o o d o r evi l is a t b o t t o n a sub j e c t i ve o n e , tha t is , it is r e l a t i ve to our o w n in ten t s , t a r g e t s , a n d exemplaria, as N o w , a c c o r d i n g to M a i m o n i d e s and S p i n o z a , m e n do n o t d i f fer a b o u t wha t t hey k n o w b y m e a n s o f the i r c o m m o n d iv ine in te l l ec t to be t r u e a n d f a l s e ( e . g . , p r o p o s i t i o n s o f m a t h e m a t i c s a n d p h y s i c s ) , a n d s u c h k n o w l e d g e is ca l l ed b y t h e m k n o w l e d g e o f " t h e n e c e s s a r y . ' '4~ W h e n , a c c o r d i n g to t h e m , m e n d o di f fer a m o n g t h e m s e l v e s , i t is a s a resu l t o f the i r d i f fer ing b o d i l y

36 "The inferiority of judgments based on these notions [of good and evil] to propositions which deal with truth and falsehood is dwelt upon [in the Guide] with a vehemence which as far as I can see has no parallel in the Aristotelian tradition prior to Maimonides" (Pines, "A Note," cited in n. 4 above). As for Descartes, he does not seem to distinguish between the epistemology of true and false and that of good and evil (see, e.g., Meditations, IV, p. 58; the disclaimer in the Synopsis, p. 15, is only a decoy).

~ Guide, III, 13, p. 453; cf. 1I, 30, p. 354 (good = "manifest utility"); and III, 12. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I, 1, 1094a 3.

~8 Ethics, IV, praef. (G., II, p. 208, 11.8-22) and defs. 1-2. Cf. I, 33, sch. 2 (p. 76, 11.24-30); I, app. (p. 81, 1.25-p. 83, 1.26); Short Treatise, I, 10 (G., I, p. 49, II. 21-23); Cogitata Metaphysica, I, 6(G., I, p. 247, I1.23-32).

~9 Maimonides' thirteenth-century commentator, Joseph ibn Kaspi, sums up the Master's view in a comment on Guide, III, 13: "for 'good' is s a i d . . , in relation to him for whom it is good" (Commentaria hebraica, ed., S. Werbluner [Frankfort, 1848], p. 125). Cf. Spinoza, Cogitata Meta- physica, I, 6 (G., I, p. 247, 11.26-32) and Ethics, I, app. (G., II, p. 82, 1.36-p. 83, 1. 1); IV, praef. (p. 208, 11. 11-14). To avoid a common misunderstanding, it should be noted here that while Maimonides and Spinoza hold a relativistic definition of the term "good," they are not themselves moral relativists. As we shall observe presently (section III, below), both philosophers teach un- equivocally that a man ought to make the intellectual knowledge of God his one ultimate goal. It thus follows that from the moral standpoint of Maimonides and Spinoza something is "'good" only if it leads to the intellectual knowledge of God or is itself that knowledge. Clearly, there is no moral relativism in such a position. In short, the relativism of Maimonides and Spinoza with regard to the notion "good" is not a relativism in ethics, but in meta-ethics alone.

4 o "With regard to what is of necessity there i s . . . only the false and the true" (Guide, I, 2, p. 25); "in all things whose true reality is known through demonstration there is no dispute" (I, 31, p. 66); " regard ing . . . in te l lects . . , all are one" (I, 74, 7th, p. 221). "It i s . . . of the nature of reason [ratio] to contemplate t h i n g s . . , as necessary" (Ethics, II, 44); "insofar as men live b y . . . reason, they always necessarily agree in nature" (IV, 35); "they f o r m . . , one mind and one body" (IV, 18, sch. [G., II, p. 223, 1. 12]). Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, IV, 3, 1139b 20.

M A I M O N I D E S A N D S P I N O Z A 159

a f fec t ions . 4t K n o w l e d g e o f good and evi l , t he r e fo re , mus t be a c c o r d i n g to t h e m a func t ion o f ou r b o d i l y a f fec t ions 42 and m u s t be in the p r o v i n c e o f t he imagina- t ion , no t the in te l lec t . " T h r o u g h the i n t e l l e c t , " wr i tes M a i m o n i d e s , " o n e d is t in- gu i shes b e t w e e n t rue and f a l s e , " bu t " g o o d and e v i l . . , b e l o n g to t he p o p u l a r l y a c c e p t e d n o t i o n s , " and man has " n o f a c u l t y " o f knowi ng t h e m unt i l he inc l ines t o w a r d the " d e s i r e s o f the i m a g i n a t i o n and the p l e a s u r e s o f his c o r p o r e a l s enses . ' '43 In S p i n o z a ' s t e r m i n o l o g y , k n o w l e d g e of g o o d and evi l is k n o w l e d g e o f the first k ind , tha t is, opinio o r imaginat io , 44 and g o o d a n d evi l a r e entia, non rationis, sed imaginat ionis . 45 It o f c o u r s e fo l lows i r r e p r e s s i b l y f r o m this Mai - m o n i d e a n - S p i n o z i s t i c ana lys i s o f " g o o d " and " e v i l " t ha t if t he re w e r e such a man w h o was ru led who l ly by his in te l l ec t , tha t is, no t in a n y w a y ru l ed b y his a f fec t ions , tha t m a n w o u l d n o t - - a n d could not!----enter tain the no t i ons o f g o o d and evi l . 46 The no t i ons w o u l d be for h im e i t he r m e a n i n g l e s s ( s ince t he re is no sub j ec t i v i t y in in te l l ec tua l kno wl e dge ) o r r e d u n d a n t ( s ince if " g o o d " a n d " e v i l " had any mean ing for h im, t hey w o u l d be s y n o n y m o u s wi th " t r u e " a n d " f a l s e , "

4, "The cause of [the difference between individuals of the human species] is the difference of temperament [i.e., mixture of humors]" (Guide, II, 40, p. 381). "Men can differ in nature insofar as they are assailed by affections, which are passions" (Ethics, IV, 33).

42 Cf. Ethics, IV, 8. 43 Guide, I, 2, pp. 24-25. Although the Hebrew ha-mefursamot (like the Arabic al-mashtirdt) is

used as a translation of the Greek ta endoxa, I translate it as "the popularly accepted notions" in accordance with the root of the Hebrew (and the Arabic) term. Cf. S. Munk's translation of the Guide, Le Guide des ~gar~s (Paris, 1856-66), I, pp. 39-40, note; and Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, II, pp. 119-120.

Ethics, II, 40, sch. 2; II, 41, dem.; IV, 68, dem. 4s Ibid., I, app. (G., II, p. 83, 1. 15). Yet in Short Treatise, I, 10 (G., I, p. 49, 11.2-26) (cf. I, 6

[p. 43, 11.31-32]), Spinoza had referred to good and evil as entia rationis, and this discrepancy has puzzled some scholars (of., e.g., C. DeDeugd, The Significance of Spinoza's First Kind of Knowledge [Assen, 1966], pp. 40-49). The discrepancy, however, is a result of an equivocal use of terms, and is not substantive. According to Spinoza, good and evil are indeed notions produced by the imagination, and thus entia imaginationis, but since ratio may be used to make judgments with regard to these imaginative notions, such judgments are indeed entia rationis. In other words, it is possible to have an adequate idea of the relationship of inadequate ideas. In the passage from the Short Treatise, Spinoza's expression entia rationis clearly refers to judgments of good and evil, not to the notions of good and evil in themselves. Thus, he asserts: "when we [including Spinoza himself] say something is good, we only mean that it conforms well to the general Idea which we have of such things" (Wolf trans., London, 1910) (G., I 1.21-23). The judgment of whether the thing conforms to the general Idea may be rational, but the general Idea itself is certainly a thing of the imagination (of. Short Treatise, I, 6 [p. 42, I. 23-p. 43, 1. 17]; Cogitata Metaphysica, H, 7 [G., I, p. 262, 1. 30-p. 263, 1.9]; Ethics, I1, 40, sch. 1 [G., 1I, p. 120, I. 26--p. 121, 1. 35]). In calling such judgments entia rationis, Spinoza distinguishes them from entia realia, but does not thereby identify them with entia imaginationis, although they are auxilia imaginationTs (cf. Epistle 12 [to Meyer] [G., IV, p. 57, 11. 15, 18, 37; p. 58, I1. 17-18, 19, 35]; Cogitata Metaphysica, I, 1 [G., I, p. 233, 11.29- 31]; see Martial Gueroult, Spinoza, I [Paris, 1968], pp. 413-425). In the passage from the Ethics, on the other hand, Spinoza is speaking not about judgments of good and evil ready by us, but about the notions in themselves as held by the vulgar. Spinoza's position, according to which the notions of good and evil are imaginative, while judgments regarding them may be rational, is the same as Maimonides' position (cf. his Treatise on Logic, XIV [English translation by I. Efros, New York, 1938]; and Eight Chapters, I). See my essay, "Maimonides and Spinoza on the Knowledge of Good and Evil" (in Hebrew), iyyun, XXVIII (1979), pp. 167-185 (English summary, pp. 224-225).

46 However, such a perfectly intellectual man is no more than hypothetical, since man is by necessity always subject to passions (Maimonides, Eight Chapters, VII, of. Guide, III, 9; Spinoza, Ethics, IV, 4, of. IV, 68, sch. [G., II, p. 261, II. 21-24]).

160 H I S T O R Y O F P H I L O S O P H Y

inasmuch as noth ing but t ru th is " u s e f u l " o r " a g r e e a b l e " to the per fec t man o f intellect). 47 Maimonides and Spinoza , in fact , bo th explici t ly affirm that a man led whol ly by his intellect cou ld no t enter ta in the no t ions o f good and evil. 4s

To illustrate his d is t inc t ive and striking view on the oppos i t ion o f the knowledge o f g o o d and evil to tha t o f t rue and false, Ma imonides presents an original al legorical in te rpre ta t ion o f the biblical s to ry o f the Ga rden o f Eden . Accord ing to this in terpre ta t ion , A d a m (or " m a n " ) originally l ived by his intellect a lone, knowing t rue and false but having no inkling o f g o o d and evil; then he " s i n n e d " by inclining t o w a r d his imaginat ion and his co rporea l senses (i.e., he ate o f the t ree o f knowledge o f g o o d and evil), and hav ing the reby lost his intellectual perfect ion, he k n e w good and evil fo r the first t ime (suddenly his nakedness seemed to him " e v i l " ) ; and c o n c o m i t a n t to the a t t a inment o f this knowledge he was r educed to the level o f " t h e beas ts tha t speak n o t " (Psalms 49:13), tha t is, the irrational animals. 49 A d a m ' s " s i n " and " p u n i s h m e n t " were , accord ing to Maimonides , therefore one: forsaking the divine life o f the intellect for the animal life o f the imaginat ion, and thus forsaking the knowledge o f t rue and false for that o f g o o d and evil. Sp inoza il lustrates his own Maimonidean view on the oppos i t ion o f the knowledge o f g o o d and evil to tha t o f t rue and false with an adap ta t ion o f this v e r y phi losophic a l legory o f Ma imon ides ' . s~

In sum: Sp inoza ' s unde r s t and ing o f the intellect , the imaginat ion, and the oppos i t ion be tween them, is Maimonidean in its fundamenta l s ; and his v iew on

4~ Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 2, I139a 27. Of course, in accordance with the Maimonidean-Spinozistic analysis, if "'good" and "evil" are taken as synonyms of "true" 'and "false," they forfeit their original raison d'etre, which was to designate, in contradistinction to "true" and "false," the relative as opposed to the necessary. Nonetheless, both Maimonides and Spinoza believe that there is heuristic justification to use the word "good" to designate the true, true knowledge, or that which leads to true knowledge. Maimonides, for example, explains that the use of "good" (instead of "true") to designate existence in the first chapter of Genesis ("And God saw that it was good") is an instance of the rule, "The Torah [for heuristic reasons] speaks according to the lan~,uage of men," i.e., according to the imagination of the multitude" (Guide, III, 13, p. 453; I, 26, p. 56). Spinoza, similarly, justifies his own use of "good" and "bad" on heuristic grounds: "For since we desire to form an idea of man as an exemplar of human nature to which we may look, it will be useful to us to retain the t e rms . . . " (Ethics, IV, praef. [G., II, p. 208, 11. 15-18]). To be sure, the hypothetical perfectly intellectual man, like God (I, 33, sch. 2 [p. 76, 11. 27-33]), would not have to look to any exemplar, or to aim at any target. Maimonides writes of Moses (the idealized lawgiver, not the historical personality) that he did not have "to aim his mind" (Book of Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 8:6).

Finally, it should be clear that it is only for heuristic reasons (and not owing to a sudden Platonic turn) that Maimonides and Spinoza identify God with the Good. AcCording to them, we justifiably call GOd "good" because He is useful to us by virtue of "His bringing us into existence" (Guide, III, 12, p. 448) or His "conserving the being of each and every one [of us]" (Cogitata Metaphysica, I, 6 [G., I, p. 247, 11.32-34]; cf. Short Treatise, II, 7 [G., I, p. 68, 11. 17-20]).

4+ Guide, I, 2, p. 25; Ethics, IV, 68. Although IV, 68, follows necessarily from Spinoza's epistemology, its strangeness to those unfamiliar with the Maimonidean philosophic tradition has led some interpreters of Spinoza to conclude that he could not really have meant it. Cf., e.g., William K. Frankena, "Spinoza on the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Philosophia, VII (1977), pp. 38--41.

49 Guide, I, 2, p. 26. Cf. n. 35 above. 5o Ethics, IV, 68, sch.; cf. Theologico-Political Treatise [T-PT], IV; Political Treatise, II, 6; and

Epistle 19 (to Blyenbergh). It is, of course, the imagination which, according to Spinoza, led Adam "to imitate the affections of the brutes" (see Ethics, III, 27). Cf. T-P/', praef. (G., III, p. 8, I 1.24- 26), where Spinoza speaks of "'praejudicia which reduce men from rational beings to brutes," and prevent them "from distinguishing between true and false."


the opposition of the knowledge of good and evil to that of true and false is not only Maimonidean in its fundamentals, but is even illustrated by a Maimonidean allegory.

III

Maimonides and Spinoza thus hold that men who live in accordance with their imaginations have differing intents, whereas men who live in accordance with their divine intellect have one and the same intent, namely, the intellectual knowledge of God. It is, in fact, a heuristic aim of both the Guide o f the Per- plexed and the Ethics to convince the reader that all his efforts ought to be toward this one intent and toward no other; that his intellect ought to be exercised for the purpose of achieving its own end, and not one of the imaginary ends; that his intellect, in other words, ought to be liberated from the bondage of the bodily affections and the imagination. 5~

Over and again, Maimonides emphasizes that the ultimate perfection (shele- mut) and true happiness (hasla.hah) of man, and the end (takhlit) he ought to pursue, is intellectual knowledge of true ideas, that is, knowledge of God and "the actions which proceed from Him" (ha-pe'ulot ha-ba'ot me-it to), and that it is through this intellectual knowledge that he achieves eternity. 52 Spinoza's view is essentially Maimonides'. For example, he writes: "In life it is before all things useful to perfect the intellect or reason [intellectum seu rationem . . . perficere] as far as we can, and in this alone consists man's highest happiness or blessed- ness [felicitas seu beatitudo] . . . . Now, to perfect the intellect is nothing but to know God, God's attributes, and the actions which proceed from the necessity of His nature [Deum, Deique attributa, & actiones quae ex ipsius naturae neces- sitate consequuntur, intelegere]. Wherefore, the final end [finis ultimus] of a man led by r e a s o n . . , is that by which he is brought to conceive a d e q u a t e l y . . . all things which can fall under his intelligence. ''s3 And this knowledge, "the third kind of knowledge," is eternal. 54

51 See, e.g., Guide, I, Introduction; 1II, 8, 12, 51, and 54; the aim is found also in the Eight Chapters (see ch. V) and in the Book of Knowledge (e.g., Character Traits 3:2-3, Repentance 10). See, e.g., Ethics, IV, praef, and app.; V, praef.; V, 42, sch.; the aim is found also in the Short Treatise and in the De lntellectus Emendatione. Openly heuristic, both the Guide and the Ethics claim to show the reader "the way" (e.g., Guide, epigrams, pp. 2, 5; Ethics, V, praef. [G., II, p. 277, 1.8]; 42, sch. [p. 308, 1.23]).

It may be remarked that both Maimonides and Spinoza justify the (apparently unnessary and hence detrimental) enjoyment of the pleasant (e.g., seasoned foods, music, art) on the therapeutic grounds that it restores strength to body and soul (Eight Chapters, V; Ethics, IV, 45, cor. 2, sch.); i.e., it is in truth a necessary means to the end, viz., the intellectual knowledge of God. Cf. also Maimonides, Book of Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 7:4.

5~ E.g., "A m a n . . , should take as his end that which is the end of man qua man: namely, solely the mental representation of the intelligibles [s. iyyur ha-muskalot], the most certain and the noblest of which being the apprehension, in as far as this is possible, of God a n d . . 9 his actions [pe'ulotav]. Such men are eternally [tamid] with GOd" (Guide, I l i , 8, pp. 432-433); " true happ iness . . , is the knowledge of GOd" (III, 23, p. 492); "the true human perfection consists i n . . . the mental representation of the intelligibles, to learn from them true ideas [de'ot amitiyyot] concerning divine things. This is the ultimate end, and it is what gives man true p e r f e c t i o n . . , and eternal perdurance [qayyamut . . . nish. i], and through it man is man" (III, 54, p. 635). The phrase "the actions proceeding from God'" is used and explained in I, 54.

s3 Ethics, IV, app. 4. Cf. IV, 28, and T-PT, IV (G., III, p. 59, 1.29-p. 60, 1.20). 54 Ethics, V, 31-33.


Spinoza's phrase "the actions which proceed from the necessity of His nature" seems to have approximately the same force as Maimonides' phrase "the actions which proceed from Him." Maimonides' phrase is used by him to designate the natural world, that is, "all existing things" (ha-nims. a 'o t kul lam), ss Spi- noza's phrase, similarly, may be described as designating natura natura ta . 56 The question of whether Maimonides held that the actions "which proceed" from God proceed from Him ex ips ius naturae neces s i t a t e is open to some dispute, although it seems to me legitimate to infer that he did hold this position, s7 In any case, both Maimonides and Spinoza maintain that true knowledge of the actions proceeding from God is knowledge of their causal interconnection. 5s

The view that the knowledge of "the actions" of God is knowledge of nature is typically Maimonidean. s9 It has, in fact, been suggested that Maimonides' expression "the divine actions, that is, the natural actions" lies beneath Spi- noza's famous phrase "Deus sive Natura. ''6~ Be that as it may, Maimonides and Spinoza do unquestionably concur that man must take as his one and only goal not some figment of the imagination, but rather the intellectual knowledge of D e u s s ive Na tura .

IV

With gusto Maimonides reviled what he considered to be the errors of the imagination. Among his favorite targets was anthropocentrism. "Every ignora-

ss Guide, I, 54, p. 124. s6 Cf. Ethics, I, 29, dem. and sch. s7 Maimonides ascribes to Aristotle the view that the universe proceeds necessarily from God,

but he ostensibly dissociates himself from it, claiming that the universe proceeds from God "in virtue of a purpose [kavvanah]" (Guide, II, 19-20). There are, however, good reasons to think that the dissociation is no more than ostensible. Thus, Maimonides makes a point of stating that the word "purpose" is used equivocally when applied to the purposes of man and God (III, 20, p. 483; cf. II, 21, p. 315), and in general he holds that God's purpose, will, wisdom, and essence are one (I, 53, p. 122; I, 69, p. 170; If, 18, p. 302; III, 13, p. 456). He also affirms that "the actions [pe'ulot] of G o d . . . are of necessity permanently estabfished as they are, for there is no possibility of something calling for a change in them" (II, 28, p. 335; cf. III, 13 and 25); and that God, through knowing His own immutable essence, knows "the totality of what necessarily derives from all His actions" (III, 21, p. 485). Moreover, Maimonides' explanation of Aristotle's view, according to which the world proceeds from God as " the inteUectum from the intellect" (II, 20, p. 313), seems to correspond to his own position in I, 68. Therefore, it seems to me that on this issue Maimonides' esoteric view is identical with the view he ascribes to Aristotle, i.e., with Spinoza's. (On Maimonides' esotericism, see Guide, I, Introduction, pp. 15-20; and cf. Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, ch. 3, and "How to Begin to Study The Guide" [see n. I1 above]).

s8 "Hiqqashram qe.satam be-cle.sat" (Guide, I, 54, p. 124; cf. II, 28, p. 336; III, 25, p. 505); "ordo et conaexio" (Ethics, II, 7).

s9 On the difference between Maimonides' view and Aquinas' via causalitatis, see Wolfson, "St. Thomas on Divine Attributes," M~langes offerts ~i Etienne Gilson (Paris, 1959), pp. 673-700 (reprinted in Studies, II, pp. 497-524 [see n. 7 above], and in J. I. Dienstag, Studies in Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas [New York, 1975], pp. 1-28); and Seymour Feldman, "A Scholastic Misinter- pretation of Maimonides' Doctrine of Divine Attributes," The Journal of Jewish Studies, XIX (1968), pp. 23-39 (reprinted in Dienstag, pp. 58-74). Aquinas' position concerning knowledge of God by means of knowledge of nature is certainly influenced by Maimonides' identification of divine actions with nature, but it also manifestly reflects his dissatisfaction with the implied anti-superaaturalism of Maimonides' view. See, e.g., Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 2, art. 2; q. 12, arts. 12-13; q. 13, art. 2.

60 Pines, "The Philosophical Sources" (see n. 4 above), p. xcvi, n. 66; preface to Le livre de la connaissance (see n. 21 above), p. 5.


m u s , " he w r o t e , " i m a g i n e s tha t all that ex i s t s ex i s t s wi th a v i ew to his i nd iv idua l sake! ' '6t " ' I t is t h o u g h t [by the ignorant ] tha t the f inal i ty o f all t ha t ex i s t s is so le ly the e x i s t e n c e o f the h u m a n s p e c i e s so tha t it s h o u l d w o r s h i p God . ' '62 M a i m o n i d e s ' o w n p o s i t i o n is u n e q u i v o c a l : " I t shou ld no t be b e l i e v e d tha t all th ings ex i s t for the s ake o f the e x i s t e n c e o f man . O n the c o n t r a r y , all o t h e r be ings too have b e e n i n t e n d e d for the i r o w n s a k e s and no t for the s ake o f some th ing e lse . ' '63 S p i n o z a , e c h o i n g M a i m o n i d e s ' r e p o r t o f the a n t h r o p o c e n t r i c v iew, wr i tes : " I t is c o m m o n l y s u p p o s e d . . , tha t all th ings in na tu re w o r k to- w a r d some e n d . . , for it is sa id tha t G o d m a d e all th ings for man , and m a n tha t he might w o r s h i p H im. ' '64 F o r his o w n pa r t , S p i n o z a f la t ly s t a t es tha t all final c a u s e s are f i g m e n t a . 6s

Both M a i m o n i d e s and S p i n o z a den i ed the no t ion tha t the un ive r se has any final end ou t s i de o f i t s e l f (or G o d ) , and bo th m a i n t a i n e d tha t it was owing to the p r e jud i ce o f a n t h r o p o c e n t r i s m that the no t i on had e v e r g a i n e d c u r r e n c y . 66 Fu r - t h e r m o r e , both a rgue aga ins t the u n i v e r s e ' s hav ing a f inal end on the dual g rounds tha t it m a k e s no sense to speak a b o u t the pe r f e c t G o d ' s need ing to w o r k e i the r t h rough m e a n s 67 o r for an end . 6s

61 Guide~ Ill, 12L p. 442. 6z Ibid., III, 13, p. 451. 63 Ibid., p. 452.

Ethics, I, app. (G., II, p. 78, l I. 2-6)_ "~ Ibid. (p. 80, I. 4). In calling all final causes figmenta, Spinoza possibly goes further than

Maimonides. See Pines, "The Philosophical Sources" (see n. 4 above), p. Ixxi, n. 29. 66 Ethics. I, app.; Guide, III, 13. In I, 6% Maimonides describes God as the efficient, formal,

and final causes of the universe; and in III, 13, pp. 449-450, he cites in Aristotle's name the principle that in natural things these three causes are one in species. Cf. Aristotle, Physics, II, 7, 198a, De Generatione Animalium, I, 1,715a.

67 Maimonides challenges the anthropocentdst: surely, the perfect God could have brought man into existence without needing to have created "preliminaries"; therefore, "what is the utility for Him of all these things [in the heaven and on the earth] which are in themselves not the final end, but exist for the sake of a thing that could have existed without all of them?" (Guide, III, 13, p. 451). Spinoza formulates the principle: "that effect is the most perfect which is produced immediately by God, and that which requires many intermediate causes to be produced is to that extent imperfect" (Ethics, I, app. [G., II, p. 80, 11. 16-18]). Both Maimonides and Spinoza thus implicitly insist that when the anthropocentrist says that man is the final end of the universe, he commits himself willy-nilly to the proposition that everything el~e in it is a necessary condition of man's existence. Such logic seemed extreme to some anthropocentrists. For example, Isaac Arama, a fifteenth century Jewish philosopher, criticized Maimonides thus: "We do believe that God, may He be blessed, was able to create man without heavens and stars, and without these plants and animals, but his existence would not have been so fine and praiseworthy as it is according to th E way he was created; and He, may He be blessed, saw fit to bring him into the most perfect and praiseworthy existence" ('Aqedat Yi.sh. aq, XVIII; cf. Sarah Heller Wilensky, The Philosophy of Isaac Arama [Hebrew] [Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, 1956], pp. 109-112).

6s "For He, may He be exalted, would not acquire greater perfection if He were worshipped by all that He has c r e a t e d . . , nor would He be attained by a deficiency if nothing whatever existed except Him" (Guide, III, 13, p. 451). "If God acts toward an end, He necessarily desires something He lacks" (Ethics, l, app. [G., II, p. 80, 11. 22-23]). This anti-teleological argument--that if the creation has a final cause, the Creator must have a need, i .e , an imperfection---received its classical (though often misunderstood) Latin formulation by Aquinas: "to act for an end seems to imply need of an end. But God needs nothing." Aquinas, to be sure, rejected the argument, explaining that GOd acts not out of need but out of goodness (Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 44, art. 4; cf. Summa Contra Gentiles, IIl, 19). Cf. Peter Brunner, Probleme der Teleologie bei Maimonides, Thomas von Aquin und Spinoza (Heidelberg, 1928), p. 66. Aquinas' reply to the argument appears, with variations, in

164 HISTORY OF P H I L O S O P H Y

A biblical proof- text denying the anthropocentr ic view is found by Maimon- ides in Proverbs 16:4. He gives two exegeses of this verse, both antianthropocentric. According to the first, the verse translates: " the Lord hath made everything for i ts sake ," not for the sake of man. According to the second, it translates: " the Lord hath made everything for His sake ," that is, " fo r the sake of His essence. ''69 Spinoza alludes to this verse when he criticizes " theologians and metaphysic ians" who "confess that God has made everything for His own sake, not for the sake of the created things. ''7~ Whatever theologians or meta- physicians Spinoza had in mind, Maimonides could not fairly be the butt of his criticism here. For according to Maimonides ' first exegesis, the verse says explicitly that God did make everything for its own sake; and his second exegesis gives an interpretation to "H i s own sake" which in the final analysis is in complete agreement with Spinoza's doctr ine that God per se is the cause of all things. 7t

Maimonides and Spinoza both at tack anthropocentr ism as an error of the imagination, and both hold that this er ror is at the bottom of man 's futile search for teleological explanations of the universe. These resemblances between Mai- monides and Spinoza are particularly striking in light of the fact that Maimo- nides' strong antianthropocentric and antiteleological views had (as far as I am aware) no parallel in the mediaeval philosophic literature, nor were they shared by Descartes. ~2

v

To be sure, Spinoza 's God is not precisely Maimonides ' God. On the other hand, there is much in Shlomo Pines 's suggestion that Maimonides ' God is "per i lously close to Spinoza 's attribute of thought (or to his Intellect of God). ''73 Following up Pines's suggestion, we might say that Spinoza's move was to add the attribute of extension to the God he inherited from Maimonides. There is, moreover , evidence that Spinoza was aware of this relationship of his God to Maimonides ' .

Thus, in Guide, I, 68, Maimonides develops the Aristotelian thesis that God is the Knower , the Known, and the Knowledge itself? 4 Maimonides begins this chapter of the Guide as follows:

You already know the fame of the dictum which the philosophers stated with reference to God, may He be exalted: the dictum being that He is the Intellect [ha-sekhel], the intellectually cognizing Subject [ha-maskil], and the intellectually cognized Object

C_,-ersonides (Mil.hamot Adonai. Via, 18, 9th), Crescas (Or Adonai, II, 6, 5), Abraham Bibago (Derekh Emunah, I, 1), and Isaac Arama ('Aqedat Yis. h. aq, XVIII, XXXVIII).

6~ Guide, III, 13, pp. 452-453. Hebrew has no neuter pronoun; hence, the equivocacy. To Ethics, l, app. (G., II, p. 80, 1 I. 24-26). 7t Ethics, I, 16, cor. 2. Cf. Cogitata Metaphysica, II, 10. Cf. Guide, I, 53-54, 64. ~2 Cf. Gueroult, Spinoza, I (see n. 45 above), pp. 399-400. ~3 "The Philosophic Sources" (see n. 4 above), p. xcviii. ~( Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII, 7, 1072b 19-23; 9, 1075a 10--I1; cf. De Anima, III, 7,431a 1-2,

431b 17-19. Cf. Pines, Ioc. cir.


[ha-muskal], and these three notions in Him, may He be exalted, are one single notion in which there is no multiplicity. ~s

I t is in re fe rence primari ly to this passage in the Guide tha t Sp inoza wr i tes :

A mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, but expressed in two modes; which seems to have been seen as if through a cloud by certain of the Hebrews, who state to wit: God, the Intellect of God, and the things [known] by that same Intellect, are one and the same [Deum, Dei intellectum, resque ab ipso intellec- tas, unum & idem esse; i.e., God is the maskil, the sekhel, and the muskal]. TM

In compar ing the passage f r o m Maimonides with that f rom Spinoza , it will be not iced that bo th thinkers a t t r ibute the d ic tum to a group. Maimonides attributes it to " t h e ph i l o sophe r s , " and Sp inoza to " ce r t a in a m o n g the H e b r e w s . " Maimonides , o f course , knew the theory as Ar is to t le ' s , and cer ta inly not " H e - b r e w . " Sp inoza k n e w the theo ry as Ma imon ides ' (and Ibn Ez ra ' s ) , and therefore " H e b r e w , " a l though p re sumab ly not sufficiently d e a r and dist inct to be con- s idered " p h i l o s o p h i c . " N o w , Sp inoza is saying in effect tha t Ma imon ides ' thesis that God is bo th Intel lect and Intelligible is basical ly cor rec t , b u t - - a l a s ! - - n e b u - lous. Ma imonides saw the t ruth " a s if t h rough a c l oud , " but did not pursue the logic o f his o w n thesis. Had he done so, he wou ld have real ized that if ex t ended space is intel lectually cognized b y God , then G o d - - b e i n g the intellectually cognized Object---4nust be ex tended!

Le t me give some fur ther ev idence that Sp inoza was aware o f the relat ionship o f his God to Ma imon ides ' , and m o r e prec ise ly that he cons ide red his God to be Ma imon ides ' plus the at tr ibute o f extens ion , tha t is, Ma imon ides ' God clear ly represen ted .

In his ph i losophic and popu la r writ ings alike, Maimonides never tired o f r epea t ing tha t G o d is " n o t a b o d y . ' '77 " T h e r e is no p r o f e s s i o n o f un i ty

7s cf. Maimonides' other formulations: "He is the Knowledge [ha-madda'], He is the Knower [ha-yode'a], and He is the Known [ha-yadu'a]" (Eight Chapters, VIII [Samuel lbn Tibbon trans.]); "He is the Knower [ha-yode'a], He is the Known [ha-yadu'a], and He is the Knowledge [ha-de'ah] itself, all is one" (Book of Knowledge [written by Maimonides in Hebrew], Foundations of the Law 10:2). The thesis appears often in mediaeval Arabic and Hebrew texts, and with the thirteenth century also in Latin texts. Abraham ibn Ezra---whom Spinoza praises as liberioris ingenii Vir, & non mediocris eruditionis (T-PT, VIII [G., III, p. 118, 11.20-21J)----had mentioned it several times, most provocatively in his Commentary on Exodus, ad 34:36: "'And the L o r d . . . proclaimed, "the Lord, the Lord,' etc. Be not astonished that the Lord calls 'the Lord,' for He alone is Knower [yode'a], Knowledge [ve-da'at], and Known [ve-yadu'a]!" Aquinas refers to the thesis (which he accepted in a modified form) often: e.g., Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 18, art. 14: "In Deo autem est idem inteUectus et quod inteUigitur et ipsum intelligere ejus." Hasdai Crescas, however, rejected the thesis as absurd (OrAdonai, I, 3, 3; II, 2, 2; II, 6, 1; IliA, 2, 2; IV, 11; IV, 13).

~6 Ethics, II, 7, sch. (G., II, p. 90, 11.8-12). The cloud metaphor is Maimonidean, and there is thus irony in Spinoza's use of it to describe (in effect) Maimonides' own knowledge of GOd. Accord- ing to Guide, III, 9, man cannot apprehend God truly, but only through a "cloud," i.e., through the veil of human matter (of. Eight Chapters, VII).

7~ Maimonides did not merely urge the denial of God's corporeality as a correct metaphysical doctrine, but went so far as to set down in his Code of Jewish Law (Book of Knowledge, Repentance 3:7), that anyone who says that God is a body is---together with the atheist, the polytheist, the denier of God's ontic priority, and the idolater--an infidel! Cf. Guide, I, 35, p. 81, where belief in God's corporeality is again bracketed with atheism, polytheism, the denial of God's ontic priority and idolatry.


[monotheism] unless the doctrine of God's corporeality is denied," he insisted. "For a body cannot be one, but is composed of matter and form, which by definition are two; it is also divisible, subject to partition. ''Ts Spinoza certainly has Maimonides in mind when he speaks about those who have in some way "contemplated the divine nature" but deny that God is a body. He complains that " they remove altogether from the divine n a t u r e . . , corporeal or extended substance, and state that it was created by God." Then he exclaims with monotheistic indignation worthy of Maimonides: "By what divine potentia it could have been created they are altogether ignorant, so that it is clear that they do not understand what they themselves s a y . ' '79 Spinoza's exclamation must be understood against the backdrop of another Maimonidean teaching: that in God "there is absolutely no potentia. ''8~ Spinoza may thus be understood as addressing Maimonides as follows: You do not understand what you are saying, for if you say that there is absolutely no potentia in God, how can you say that he created body and extension? Spinoza argues, in effect, that what Maimonides has said about intellect must--according to Maimonides' own monotheistic p remises ! - be true about everything. "Besides God, no substance can be nor be conceived," and thus "extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God." Quicquid est, in Deo est! sl Spinoza thus seems to have seen himself as pushing Maimonides' metaphysical monotheism to its logical conclusion. He thought---or imagined--that what Maimonides had seen "as if through a cloud," he now saw clearly and distinctly.

Spinoza explains that his "adversaries" who hold that God is not a body do so because they suppose that corporeal substance must be finite and measurable. The battery of mathematical and physical counterarguments he brings against these suppositions will not excite the student of mediaeval Maimonideanism, since they are for the most part appropriated from Maimonides' radical critic Hasdai Crescas, whose brilliant arguments against Aristotelian physics--some two and a half centuries before Spinoza---contributed to the revolution of mod- em science, s2 While Crescas had shown Spinoza how to argue against the im- possibility of an infinite corporeal magnitude, he did not himself hold that God is extension. But then, again, he also did not hold that God is intellect. By rejecting Maimonides' description of God as Intellect-Intelligible, Crescas broke more severely with Maimonides than did Spinoza, who, after all, was only trying to carry the Maimonidean position to its proper conclusion.

7s Guide, Ioc. cit. ~9 Ethics, I, 15, sch. (G., II, p. 57, 11. 15-17). According to Maimonides' ontology, there is

nothing but God and the totality of things He has created (Guide, I, 34, p. 74; el. I, 71, p. 183). s o Guide, I, 68, p. 165: "ve-eyn koal) bo kelal." This is the chapter in which God is, as it were,

described as the attribute of thought. st Ethics, I, 15. se Ibid., sch. (G., II, p. 57, 1.23 to p. 60, 1.15). Cf. Epistle 12(to Meyer) (G., IV, p. 55, 11.16,

33, and seq.). In Or Adonai, 1, 1, 1, Crescas explains the Aristotelian arguments for the proposition that the existence of any infinite magnitude is impossible, and in I, 2, 1, he presents his refutations of these arguments. The Hebrew text and an English translation of these chapters appear in Wolfson, Crescas' Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), pp. 135-217, with annotations on pp. 327- 476, of. also pp. 36--37. See his The Philosophy of Spinoza (see n. 6 above), I, oh. 8, of. also p. 16.


VI

Even with regard to the question of the true worship of God Spinoza followed Maimonides. His discussion in the Theologico-Political Treatise, Chapter IV, of the divine Law and the summum bonum is composed almost entirely of Maimo- nidean propositions. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that it is a prrcis of the first four chapters and the last chapter of the Book of Knowledge. s3 Like Maimonides, Spinoza affirms that all knowledge depends on knowledge of God; that without God nothing could exist or be conceived to exist; that knowledge of nature involves knowledge of God; that the true worship of God is the love of him; that the love of him is in accordance with the knowledge of him; and that one must love God not out of fear of any punishment or desire of any reward, but solely because of the knowledge of God itself. It of course goes without saying that for both Maimonides and Spinoza the knowledge of God by which one loves him is intellectual, not imaginative. Nonetheless, Maimonides, toward the end of the Guide, and Spinoza, toward the end of the Ethics, each make a special point of stating this explicitly. "The exhortation [to know God]," writes Maimonides, "always refers to intellectual apprehensions, not to imaginings . . . . The aim of the [intellectual] apprehension [of G o d ] . . . is to apply intellectual thought in passionately loving Him always."s4 Spinoza, similarly, writes that the love of God is not of the imagination, but is amor Dei intellectualis, as

Spinoza's definition of "religion" in the Ethics as "whatever we desire and do, of which we are the cause insofar as we possess the idea of God, or insofar as we know God ''s6 echoes Maimonides' description in the Guide of "the worship of him who has apprehended the true realities," that is, the worship "which can only be engaged in after apprehension has been achieved. ''sT Again, Spi- noza's definition of "piety" in the Ethics as "the desire of w e l l d o i n g . . , gener- ated on account of our living in accordance with the rule of reason ''88 echoes Maimonides' description at the conclusion of the Guide of the excellent individual who, on account of his having apprehended GOd to the extent that this is possible, walks in the ways of "loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness. ''89 For Maimonides and Spinoza, true religion is the love that attends to the intellectual knowledge of God; and true piety is the performance of acts of benefi- cience that results from that knowledge.

s3 Compare especially G., 1II, p. 59, I. 25-p. 61, 1.5, with Foundations of the Law 1:1-4; 2:1- 2; 4:12; Repentance 10.

s4 Guide, III, 51, p. 621. ss Ethics, V, 32, cor. (G., II, p. 300, 11.25-27). M. Idel has recently remarked on the similarity

between Spinoza's phrase and the Hebrew ahabah elohit sikhlit ("intellectual divine love") found in Abraham Abulafia and Abraham Shalom (Hebrew section, AJSreview, IV [1979], p. 6, n. 18).

86 ibid., IV, 37, sch. 1 (G., I1, p. 236 , 11. 17-19). s7 Guide, Ioc. cit., esp. pp. 618, 620, 621. 88 Ethics, Ioc. cir. (11.20-21). 89 Guide, III, 54, p. 638.


VII

The Malmonidean elements in Spinoza's psychology, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics had, as might be expected, ramifications in his political theory. However, it is more difficult to distinguish Malmonidean elements in Spinoza's political theory than it is in those other areas. This is for two reasons. First, while Maimonides' positions in psychology, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics usually contrast sharply with those of Spinoza's contemporaries, and in particular with Descartes's, and thus are easily distinguished from them, his position in political theory is often close to Hobbes 's and thus is easily confused with it. Second, while in psychology, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics Spinoza often arrives at Maimonidean conclusions on the basis of Maimonidean premises, in political theory he generally runs his Maimonidean premises to decidedly un-Maimonidean conclusions. I should like here merely to call atten- tion to two elements in Spinoza's political theory that are definitely not Hobbes- ian and that seem to me to reflect an evident Maimonidean influence.

The first element concerns the political importance of the distinction between the intellectuals and the vulgar. For Hobbes, the distinction has no political importance. 9~ For Spinoza, as for Plato and Maimonides, it has great political importance. Thus, a critical difference between Spinoza's political theory and Hobbes 's is that for Hobbes the state of nature is one of basic equality among all men (with respect to wisdom even more so than with respect to strength), 91 whereas for Spinoza there is a significant distinction in it between the wise, who live according to ratio, and the vulgar, who live according to appetitus.92 Ac- cording to Hobbes, furthermore, the movement out of the state of nature is the same for all men and requires of them all the very same changes and sacrifices. 93 However, according to Spinoza, there is no such equality. The state of nature, according to him, is dissolved by the agreement of all men " to be guided by ratio alone, ''94 which effectively means: the wise agree to continue to live according to the same principle by which they had lived all along, while the ignorant agree to renounce the principle by which they hitherto had lived and to subject themselves henceforth to that of the wise. This inequalitarianism of Spinoza's may, I believe, be traced to Maimonides. According to Maimonides, men by nature differ enormously with regard to their passions, and as a consequence of this it is a necessity o f nature for the wise to legislate political law in order to restrain the

90 He ridicules it as deriving from "a vain conceipt of ones owne wisdome, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the Vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few others, whome by Fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve" (Leviathan, I, 13; and cf. his comments about Aristotle in I, 15).

9: Leviathan, I, 13, cf. 15. Cf. De Cive, I, 1. 92 T-PT, XVI (G., III, p. 190, 11.6--10); Political Treatise, II, 5 (G., III, p. 277, 11.24-30). Cf.

Spin0za's comment about Hobbes and himself in Epistle 50 (to Jelles) (G., IV, p. 238, 1.24-p. 239, 1.4, and 11. 19-24).

93 De Cive, I, 1-3; Leviathan, I, 13-15. 94 T-PT. loc. cit. (p. 191, !1.28-29).


agressive passions of the vulgar and to get them to live according to reason. 95 Maimonides' political distinction between the intellectuals and the vulgar, it is relevant to observe, is rooted in his epistemological distinction between intellect and imagination, a distinction which, as we have seen, was adopted by Spinoza. The distinction between the intellectuals and the vulgar figures significantly throughout Spinoza's political thought, as it does throughout Maimonides', but this is not the place to elaborate.

The second element is related to the first in that it too concerns the political implications of the theory of the intellect. In Spinoza's ideal political community, the passions cease to be a moving force in human behavior, and the diver- sity of human purposes (i.e., individuality) is replaced by intellectual unity. 96 This ideal has, of course, no parallel in Hobbes. 97 However, it follows clearly from premises held by Maimonides and inherited from him by Spinoza. Accord- ing to these premises, if all men lived in accordance with their intellect, not their imaginations and passions, they would have no differences betwen them, would therefore never quarrel or harm one another, and would indeed be one man.gS For Spinoza, as for Maimonides, the solution to the political problem is the same as the solution to the ethico-psychological problem: to live in accordance with the intellect, not the imagination.

v i i i

Often historians of philosophy suppose Maimonides' influence on Spinoza to have been merely "youthful ," or at best "formative." This is misleading. While it is of course true that it was as a young man that Spinoza first studied Maimon- ides intensively, it is also true that he was exercising himself with the Guide even during his mature years when he was writing the Ethics. There is documen- tary proof of this in his explicit references (including one long Hebrew quotation) to the Guide in his Theologico-Political Treatise, which was published in 1670 in the midst of his working on the Ethics. 99

Although throughout his works Spinoza again and again adopts concepts, insights, and arguments from Maimonides, his mentions of him by name are almost exclusively antagonistic. In the Theologico-Political Treatise, he uses Mai- monides as his example of those who subject theology to philosophy: he attacks his method of philosophical exegesis of the Bible as "noxious, useless, and absurd," and he accuses him of being "concerned with nothing other than to extort from Scripture Aristotelian trifles and [his] own figments," a practice than which

95 Guide, II, 40; III, 27; cf. Logic, XIV (see n. 45 above). 96 Ethics, IV, 18, sch. (G., II, p. 223, 11.4-18): IV, app. 12. But such a community is, according

to Spinoza, unrealizable; cf. IV, 37, sch. 2 (p. 237, 11.29-31); Political Treatise, I, 5 (G., III, p. 275, 11.21-25); II, 5 (p. 277, 11. 13-14); and cf. n. 46 above.

97 According to him, the possibility of man's coming out of the state of nature is "partly in the Passions, partly in his Reason," the foremost passion being fear (Leviathan, 1, 13, cf. 14; of. De Cive, I, I). In effect, Spinoza is arguing against Hobbes in Ethics, IV, 63 (and cf. IV, app. 16).

98 See n. 40 above. On Maimonides' theory of the unity of the intellect, see also Guide, II, Introduction, 16th, p. 237; III, 12, ist, pp. 443-444; and on the utopian implications of the theory, cf. III, 11, p. 441.

99 Cf. Roth, Spinoza, Descartes, & Maimonides, pp. 63-66; Spinoza, pp. 34-35.


"nothing seems more ridiculous. ''1~176 If there is a note of ingratitude in Spinoza's attitude toward the Master, there is also a note of hypocrisy in his attack on him. After all, Spinoza himself is guilty of the very kind of philosophizing exegesis of the Bible for which he criticized Maimonides (e.g., his adaptation of Maimo- nides' philosophical allegory of the Garden of Eden story; and see below regarding Christ); and, furthermore; Spinoza's criticisms of Maimonides are directed against his exoteric doctrine and ignore his esoteric doctrine, of which he must have been more aware than he pretends, t~

Beyond his explicit attack on Maimonides in the Theologico-Political Trea- tise, Spinoza broke irreparably with him by breaking with the Synagogue. He broke with the Synagogue by rejecting the authority of the Law of Moses. He refered to the Scriptures of Israel as antiqui vulgi praejudicia, 102 and taught that in any case the Law of Moses was abrogated with the fall of the Jewish king- dom. 1~ The Jewish religion, according to him, is not only obsolete but also effeminating. ~~ It was evidently this explicit denial of the validity of the Law of Moses that in 1656 led the Jewish community of Amsterdam to place Spinoza, then twenty-four, under the ban. tos He would not likely have been placed under the ban for his ethical, epistemologieal, physical, or metaphysical theories, which--even in the ripe form they were to take in the Ethics--were no more subversive to Judaism than those of Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, or a good many other mediaeval Jewish philosophers.~~

Not only did Spinoza denigrate traditional Judaism, but, although he never formally converted to Christianity, he embraced its claim to have superseded

ioo T-PT, XV (G., III, p. 181, I. 1), VII (p. 116, 1. 10), I (p. 19, 11. 31-33); cf. Epistle 43 (to Ostens) (G., IV, p. 225, 1 I. I-4, 20-23).

~o~ On both counts, see Pines, "Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" (see n. 4 above). Regarding Spinoza's philosophizing of Scripture, cf. Isaac Husik, "Maimonides and Spinoza on the Interpretation of the Bible," Journal o f the American Oriental Society, supplement no. 1 (1935), pp. 38-40 (reprinted in his Philosophical Essays [Oxford, 1952], pp. 157-159); and Sylvain Zac, Spinoza et l'interprdtation de l'Ecriture (Paris, 1965), pp. 167-174 ("Salomon et Patti, spinozistes?"), 190- 199 ("Le Christ est-il le 'Philosophe par excellence'?"). Regarding Maimonides' esotericism, see n. 57 above.

i0~ T-PT, XV (G., III, p. 180, 1. 30). Cf. Strauss, Spinoza's Critique, p. 254 (see n. 11 above). toJ T-PT, praef. (G., Ill, p. 10, 11.3-4); lII (pp. 47, 11.26t1".); cf. XVII. io4 Ibid., III (p. 57, 1.4). los According to The Oldest Biography of Spinoza, ed. A. Wolf (London, 1927), Spinoza was

excommunicated because of his "contempt for the Law" (pp. 48, 100) or his "want of respect for Moses and for the Law" (pp. 53, 106).

Discussion of Spinoza's excommunication must take into account the circumstances of seven- teenth-century Amsterdam Jewry, which was concerned internally with the reintegration of Marranos into Jewish life, and externally with maintaining its newly won political and economic status in the Dutch republic. That the Jewish community of Amsterdam was worried about heterodox opinions concerning the authority of the Bible, the Talmud, and the rabbinical courts may be gathered from Orobio de Castro's Epistola Invectiva, written in 1663 or 1664 against Spinoza's fellow heretic Dr. Juan de Prado (1. S. Rrvah, Spinoza et le Dr. Juan de Prado [Paris, 1959], pp. 126-127, cL pp. 15-16).

~0~ Cf. Roth's contributions to Chronicon Spinozanum (see n. 2 above), and his Spinoza, pp. 224-225. To be sure, there were indeed mediaeval Jews who did consider the theories of Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and other Jewish philosophers to be subversive to Judaism. Nevertheless, it is on the whole true that since Judaism, essentially a religion of deeds not beliefs, has no official list of dogmas, the mediaeval Jewish philosophers were able to allow themselves a broader freedom to philosophize than were their Christian counterparts.


Judaism. ~~ The nature of Spinoza's Christianizing will be illustrated by two examples concerning problems we have already discussed. The first example concerns the Garden of Eden story, which according to Maimonides' allegory is--as we recall--the story of man's forsaking his intellect for his imagination. Now, according to Maimonides, man can regain what he lost simply by forsaking his imaginings for his intellect, that is, by pursuing knowledge of God. This pursuit, according to Maimonides, is the aim of the Law of Moses, whose first commandment, according to him, is to know God. l~ Spinoza, having accepted Maimonides' allegory, gives it a Christologicai twist: the idea of God that frees man from the bondage of his imagination is, according to Spinoza, " the spirit of Christ. ''1~ The second example also concerns the intellect and the imagination. According to Maimonides, all the prophets prophesied by means of their imagination, except for Moses, whose prophecy was wholly intellectual. ~ ~0 Spinoza, in his Theologico-Political Treatise, follows Maimonides in his analysis of the phenomenon of prophecy but again betrays him with a Christological twist: "no one except Christ," writes Spinoza, "received the revelations of God without the aid of the imagination. ''tl~ The sum of both examples is the same: Spinoza (despite his avowed anti-Maimonidean methodology of Bible interpretation) appropriated Maimonides' philosophic exegeses of the Bible, but where Maimon- ides had spoken about Moses and his Law, Spinoza substituted Christ.

I do not, to be sure, mean to suggest that Spinoza truly believed that historical Christianity was superior to historical Judaism. Certainly, both religions in their historical forms were considered by him to be superstitions. 112 Moreover, there even is some indication that he had more sympathy for the teachings of Moses than for those of Jesus. ~13 His decision to present his own universal religion in the costume of a reinterpreted Christianity was evidently dictated by contemporary socio-political considerations, and this decision required him to translate his Maimonidean exegeses from Judaism into Christianity.

JOT See Hermann Cohen, "Spinoza iiber Staat und Religion, Judentum und Christentum," Jiidische Schriften (Berlin, 1924), lII, pp. 290-372; Strauss, Spinoza's Critique, pp. 1-31; Emmanuel I_,6vinas, "Le cas Spinoza," Difficile Libertd (2nd ed., Pads, 1976, pp. 142-147).

los Book o f Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 1:1; cf. his earlier work, Sefer Ha-Mi.svot ("The Book of the Commandments"), positive commandment no. 1. On the connection between the Law of Moses and the sin of Eden, see Guide, II, 30, p. 357. In his well-known Commentary on the Guide, ad Ioc., the fourteenth century Maimonidean Profiat Duran ("Ephodi") writes: "'When the Serpent came to Eve, it cast pollution into her, i.e., when the imaginative faculty became imprinted in the soul of man, it cast pollution into it so that it be drawn after bodily lusts. The pollution of[ the sons of] Israel who had been present at Mount Sinai came to an end, as they received the commandments and were purified with true ideas . . . . "

~o9 Ethics, IV, 68, sch. (G., II, p. 262, I. 6). Cf. Epistle 73 (to Oldenburg) (G., IV, p. 308, l 1. 10-15, 27-32).

Ho Guide, II, 45, p. 403; cf. If, 35, pp. 367-368. See also Book o f Knowledge, Foundations of the Law 7:6.

iij T-PT, I (G., IH, p. 21, 11.23-24). 1~2 Cf., e.g., Epistle 67 (to Burgh). i]3 Thus, e.g., he writes: "Moses labored to institute a good republic . . . . [ T h e ] doctrine of

C h r i s t . . . of tolerating injuries has [no] p l a c e . . , in a good republic" (T-PT, VII [G., III, p. 104, 11. 2-9]); "Christ told his disciples to fear not those who kill the body (vide Matthew 10:28). If this were said to everyone, government would be founded in vain" (XIX [p. 232, 11.35-p. 233, 1.2]).


IX The Spinoza who has been sketched (and, I admit, only sketched) in the

preceding portrait was a Maimonidean in the sense that fundamental elements of Maimonides' philosophy recur as fundamental elements of his philosophy. This is true, as I have tried to show, with regard to questions of psychology, epistemology, ethics, anthropology, politics, metaphysics, and true religion; that is with regard to Spinoza's philosophy as a whole, including his speculations about God and the true worship of him.

Spinoza's radical break with Maimonides was not on a point of philosophy and not on a point of the true service of God, but on a point concerning popular religion, namely, on the question of the utility of traditional Jewish (biblical and rabbinic) Law. Maimonides had held that the Law of Moses (properly interpreted) legislates a popular religion that leads men to the true intellectual service of God; and Spinoza rejected this proposition. It may be that Spinoza thought that Mai- monides' arguments on behalf of the Law of Moses had been valid given the socio-political conditions of the twelfth century, but were no longer valid in seven- teenth-century Europe; and it may be that he thought that they had not been valid even in the twelfth century. This question will not concern us here.

Spinoza has been hailed as the harbinger of many modern ideas and move- ments. Seen as a Maimonidean, however, he represents the end of a tradition. He was the last of the mediaeval Maimonideans. He was, if you will, a decadent Maimonidean, as one might expect from the end of the line, but he was nonetheless a Maimonidean.~4

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

t~4 This essay is based on a paper read in Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 1977, at a meeting sponsored by the Harvard Hillel Foundation and the department of philosophy of Harvard in commemoration of the tricentennial of Spinoza's death.

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