Philosophy

Maimonides

1138–1204 · Sephardi Jewish; born in Córdoba, lived in Egypt

Medieval Jewish rationalism; Aristotelianism

Moses ben Maimon, known by the acronym Rambam and in Europe as Maimonides, was the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and legal codifier of the Middle Ages, and physician to the court of Saladin's vizier. He codified the whole of Jewish law in clear Hebrew, formulated thirteen principles of faith, and in his great philosophical work argued that God can be described only by negations. His rationalism provoked centuries of controversy and shaped Christian scholastics as well as later Jewish thought.

How to spot them

▸Moses ben Maimon; the acronym Rambam; the epitaph "From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses"
▸The fourteen-book legal code nicknamed "the strong hand"; the Thirteen Principles of Faith
▸Negative theology: we can say only what God is not
▸Born Córdoba, fled the Almohads, settled at Fustat (Old Cairo); buried at Tiberias
▸Court physician to al-Qadi al-Fadil, vizier to Saladin; the eight degrees of charity

Key works

A work in three parts, written in Judeo-Arabic for a single troubled young student, which sets out to reconcile scripture with philosophy and opens by insisting that the Torah speaks in the language of men (c. 1190)

Dalalat al-Ha'irin, in Hebrew Moreh Nevukhim — The Guide for the Perplexed, written for his pupil Joseph ben Judah

A code of the whole of Jewish law in fourteen books, the only one composed in clear Mishnaic Hebrew rather than Aramaic, nicknamed "the strong hand" because its Hebrew numeral for fourteen also spells "hand" (1180)

Mishneh Torah, also called Yad ha-Chazakah

A commentary whose introduction to one tractate's tenth chapter lists thirteen articles of belief, later versified as a hymn sung in synagogue (1168)

The Commentary on the Mishnah; the Thirteen Principles appear in the introduction to Perek Helek, and are versified as the hymn Yigdal

A letter of consolation to a community ordered to convert or die, arguing that an outward profession made under duress is not apostasy (c. 1165)

Iggeret ha-Shemad, the Epistle on Martyrdom, written for Jews under Almohad persecution

A letter to a distant community in the south of Arabia, calming its messianic excitement and steadying it under persecution (c. 1172)

Iggeret Teiman, the Epistle to Yemen

Ten medical treatises written for a sultan's court, among them works on asthma, on haemorrhoids and on poisons and their antidotes (c. 1190s)

His medical writings, composed in Arabic while serving as a court physician in Cairo

Key ideas

Negative theology: no positive attribute can be predicated of God; we can say only what God is not, and every affirmation is really a denial of a defect
The Thirteen Principles of Faith, beginning with the existence of a Creator and ending with the resurrection of the dead
Prophecy is a natural perfection of intellect and imagination, granted by God but requiring preparation — Moses alone prophesied without imagination
Scripture must be read allegorically where its plain sense contradicts demonstrated truth; anthropomorphism is the great error
The eight degrees of charity, the highest being to help a person become self-supporting so that they need no charity at all
Creation cannot be demonstrated either way, but belief in creation in time is preferable to belief in an eternal world

Quick-fire facts

•His family fled Córdoba after the Almohad conquest of about 1148, living in Fez and briefly in Palestine before settling at Fustat, Old Cairo
•His brother David, a gem merchant, drowned in the Indian Ocean with the family fortune; the grief left Maimonides ill for a year
•He then earned his living as a physician, serving al-Qadi al-Fadil, vizier to Saladin
•He served as Nagid, or head, of the Egyptian Jewish community
•The Guide was written in Judeo-Arabic and translated into Hebrew in his lifetime by Samuel ibn Tibbon, with whom he corresponded
•His rationalism set off the Maimonidean controversy, in which opponents had his works burned in the 1230s
•He died in 1204 and is buried at Tiberias, where his tomb remains a place of pilgrimage
•His epitaph runs "From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses"

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Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Maimonides
Moses Maimonides, trans. Shlomo Pines — The Guide of the Perplexed