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)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/hph.2008.0351
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A Portrait of Spinoza
as a Maimonidean
WARREN ZEV HARVEY
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 of the
Perplexed. The portrayal of Spinoza as a Maimonidean is admittedly controversial. 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 Spinoza'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 Spinozism 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 reconstructed out of various writings of the eminent Maimonidean scholar Shlomo
Pines. 4 While Roth and Pines are the two scholars who have supplied the frame1 Spinozas theologisch-politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen gepri~ft (Breslau, 1870); Zur Genesis 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 Spinozahum, 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 Hyman, 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 Maimonidean 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 Descartes, 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 Wolfson 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 cognate 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. lviicxxxiv (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 Spinoza," 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 a d i t i o n . . . [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, Spinoza'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 Maimonides 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, Maimonides, 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 fundamentally 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 Maimonideswas nevertheless a deeper thinker than Spinoza."
154
Spinoza's relationship to Maimonides. " R o t h , " 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 Spinoza 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 linguae Hebraicae. z3 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 extraordinary argument that since Spinoza's early exposure to philosophy was in Hebrew, 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 exp e c t e d - 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, "it is
even superior to the Latin text, which is in this sense itself a translation." Klatzkin 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 Klatzkin'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
n o t 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.
155
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 Spinoza's language did not also leave an imprint on his philosophy.
No matter the enormous differences in their approaches, Klatzkin and Wolfson (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 Maimonides. 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 remarks: "Maimonides distinguishes e x c e l l e n t l y . . , 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.
156
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 indicated 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 prophet. 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 University 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: "It 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; ili, 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 A N D 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 Maimonides, 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~ Maimonides emphasizes that "the imaginative faculty is indubitably a bodily faculty ''3s and that its objects are bodily affections ( h i t p a ' a l u y y o t ) . 32 Spinoza, following Maimonides but in disagreement with Descartes, holds that all rerum
i m a g i n e s are corporis humani a f f e c t i o n e s . 33 Moreover, Maimonides and Spinoza, 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, 433ab; 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
It is a d i s t i n c t i v e a n d s t r i k i n g a6 v i e w o f M a i m o n i d e s ' , i n h e r i t e d f r o m h i m b y
S p i n o z a , t h a t g o o d a n d evil, a s o p p o s e d t o t r u e a n d f a l s e , a r e n o t i n t e l l e c t u a l
concepts, but are notions that arise only as a result of the act of the imaginat i o n . A c c o r d i n g to this v i e w 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 r u e a n d f a l s e is
k n o w l e d g e o f w h a t e x i s t s , k n o w l e d g e o f g o o d a n d e v i l is k n o w l e d g e o f w h a t is
s u i t a b 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 ' d e f i n i t i o n , 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 i n t e n 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
t h a t w h i c h d o e s n o t c o n f o r m to it. a7 A c c o r d i n g t o S p i n o z a , " g o o d " is t h a t
w h i c h is " n o b i s . . .
u t i l e , " o r t h a t w h i c h hits o u r t a r g e t , o r t h a t w h i c h a g r e e s
w i t h t h e exemplar w e h a v e s e t b e f o r e us, a n d " e v i l " o r " b a d " is t h a t w h i c h
prevents us from attaining some good, misses our target, or does not agree
w i t h o u r exemplar, as
From the obvious fact that men differ with regard to their intents, targets,
and exemplaria, it f o l l o w s , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e M a i m o n i d e a n - S p i n o z i s t i c d e f i n i t i o n s
of "good" and "evil," that the question of what things are to be considered
g o o d o r evil is at b o t t o n a s u b j e c t i v e o n e , t h a t is, it is r e l a t i v e to o u r o w n i n t e n 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 a n d S p i n o z a , m e n d o
not differ about what they know by means of their common divine intellect to be
true and false (e.g., propositions of mathematics and physics), and such
k n o w l e d g e is c a l l e d 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 differ a m o n g t h e m s e l v e s , it is a s a r e s u l t o f t h e i r differing 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 Metaphysica, 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 unequivocally 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); " r e g a r d i n g . . . intellects.., 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.
MAIMONIDES
AND SPINOZA
159
a f f e c t i o n s . 4t K n o w l e d g e o f g o o d a n d evil, t h e r e f o r e , m u s t b e a c c o r d i n g to t h e m a
f u n c t i o n o f o u r b o d i l y a f f e c t i o n s 42 a n d m u s t b e in the p r o v i n c e o f t h e i m a g i n a tion, not the intellect. "Through the intellect," writes Maimonides, "one disting u i s h e s b e t w e e n t r u e a n d f a l s e , " b u t " g o o d a n d e v i l . . , b e l o n g to t h e p o p u l a r l y
a c c e p t e d n o t i o n s , " a n d m a n has " n o f a c u l t y " o f k n o w i n g t h e m u n t i l he i n c l i n e s
t o w a r d t h e " d e s i r e s o f t h e i m a g i n a t i o n a n d t h e p l e a s u r e s o f his c o r p o r e a l
s e n s e s . ''43 I n 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 o f g o o d a n d evil is k n o w l e d g e
o f t h e first k i n d , t h a t is, opinio o r i m a g i n a t i o , 44 a n d g o o d a n d evil a r e entia, non
rationis, s e d imaginationis. 45 It o f c o u r s e f o l l o w s i r r e p r e s s i b l y f r o m this M a i m o n i d e a n - S p i n o z i s t i c a n a l y s i s o f " g o o d " a n d " e v i l " t h a t if t h e r e w e r e s u c h a
m a n w h o w a s r u l e d w h o l l y b y his i n t e l l e c t , t h a t is, n o t in a n y w a y r u l e d b y his
a f f e c t i o n s , t h a t m a n w o u l d n o t - - a n d c o u l d not!----entertain t h e n o t i o n s o f g o o d
a n d evil. 46 T h e n o t i o n s w o u l d b e f o r h i m e i t h e r m e a n i n g l e s s ( s i n c e t h e r e is n o
s u b j e c t i v i t y in i n t e l l e c t u a l k n o w l e d g e ) o r r e d u n d a n t ( s i n c e if " g o o d " a n d " e v i l "
had any meaning for him, they would be synonymous with "true" and "false,"
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, 11.2931]; 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
i n a s m u c h as n o t h i n g but truth is " u s e f u l " o r " a g r e e a b l e " to the p e r f e c t m a n o f

intellect). 47 M a i m o n i d e s a n d S p i n o z a , in fact, b o t h explicitly affirm that a m a n
led w h o l l y by his intellect c o u l d n o t entertain the n o t i o n s o f g o o d a n d evil. 4s
T o illustrate his distinctive and striking view on the o p p o s i t i o n o f the
k n o w l e d g e o f g o o d a n d evil to that o f true and false, M a i m o n i d e s p r e s e n t s an
original allegorical i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f the biblical s t o r y o f the G a r d e n o f E d e n .
A c c o r d i n g to this interpretation, A d a m (or " m a n " ) originally lived b y his intellect alone, k n o w i n g true a n d false but having n o inkling o f g o o d and evil; then he
" s i n n e d " b y inclining t o w a r d his imagination a n d his c o r p o r e a l senses (i.e., he
ate o f the tree o f k n o w l e d g e o f g o o d a n d evil), a n d h a v i n g t h e r e b y lost his
intellectual perfection, he k n e w g o o d and evil f o r the first time (suddenly his
n a k e d n e s s s e e m e d to him " e v i l " ) ; and c o n c o m i t a n t to the a t t a i n m e n t o f this
k n o w l e d g e he w a s r e d u c e d to the level o f " t h e beasts t h a t s p e a k n o t " (Psalms
49:13), that is, the irrational animals. 49 A d a m ' s " s i n " and " p u n i s h m e n t " w e r e ,
a c c o r d i n g to M a i m o n i d e s , therefore one: forsaking the divine life o f the intellect
for the animal life o f the imagination, and thus forsaking the k n o w l e d g e o f true
and false f o r that o f g o o d a n d evil. S p i n o z a illustrates his o w n M a i m o n i d e a n
view on the o p p o s i t i o n o f the k n o w l e d g e o f g o o d a n d evil to t h a t o f true and false
with an a d a p t a t i o n o f this v e r y philosophic allegory o f M a i m o n i d e s ' . s~
In sum: S p i n o z a ' s u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f the intellect, the imagination, and the
o p p o s i t i o n b e t w e e n t h e m , is M a i m o n i d e a n in its f u n d a m e n t a l s ; and his view 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 r m s . . . " (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 1.2426), where Spinoza speaks of "'praejudicia which reduce men from rational beings to brutes," and
prevent them "from distinguishing between true and false."
161
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 Perplexed 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 (shelemut) 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-itto), 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 blessedness [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 necessitate 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, Ili, 8, pp. 432-433); "true
h a p p i n e s s . . , 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.
162
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 kullam), ss Spinoza's phrase, similarly, may be described as designating natura naturata. 56 The
question of whether Maimonides held that the actions "which proceed" from God
proceed from Him ex ipsius naturae n e c e s 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 Spinoza'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 sive N a t u r a .
IV
With gusto Maimonides reviled what he considered to be the errors of the

imagination. Among his favorite targets was anthropocentrism. " E v e r y ignorass 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
" H o w 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 Misinterpretation 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.
MAIMONIDES
AND SPINOZA
163
m u s , " he w r o t e , " i m a g i n e s t h a t all that e x i s t s e x i s t s w i t h a v i e w to his i n d i v i d u a l

s a k e ! ''6t "'It is t h o u g h t [by the i g n o r a n t ] t h a t t h e finality o f all t h a t e x i s t s is
s o l e l y the e x i s t e n c e o f t h e h u m a n s p e c i e s so t h a t it s h o u l d w o r s h i p G o d . ''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 s h o u l d n o t b e b e l i e v e d t h a t all
t h i n g s e x i s t for t h e s a k e o f t h e e x i s t e n c e o f m a n . O n t h e c o n t r a r y , all o t h e r
b e i n g s t o o h a v e b e e n i n t e n d e d for t h e i r o w n s a k e s a n d n o t for t h e s a k e o f
s o m e t h i n g else. ''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 t h e a n t h r o p o c e n t r i c
v i e w , w r i t e s : " I t is c o m m o n l y s u p p o s e d . . ,
t h a t all t h i n g s in n a t u r e w o r k toward some end..,
f o r it is s a i d t h a t G o d m a d e all t h i n g s f o r m a n , a n d m a n t h a t
he m i g h t w o r s h i p H i m . ''64 F o r his o w n p a r t , S p i n o z a flatly s t a t e s t h a t all final
c a u s e s are f i g m e n t a . 6s
Both Maimonides and Spinoza denied the notion that the universe has any
final e n d o u t s i d e o f i t s e l f ( o r G o d ) , a n d b o t h m a i n t a i n e d t h a t it w a s o w i n g to the
p r e j u d i c e o f a n t h r o p o c e n t r i s m that the n o t i o n h a d e v e r g a i n e d c u r r e n c y . 66 F u r t h e r m o r e , b o t h a r g u e a g a i n s t t h e u n i v e r s e ' s h a v i n g a final e n d o n t h e d u a l
g r o u n d s t h a t it m a k e s no s e n s e to s p e a k a b o u t the p e r f e c t G o d ' s n e e d i n g to w o r k
e i t h e r t h r o u g h m e a n s 67 o r f o r an e n d . 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
A biblical proof-text denying the anthropocentric view is found by Maimonides in Proverbs 16:4. He gives two exegeses of this verse, both antianthropocentric. According to the first, the verse translates: " t h e L o r d hath made everything for its s a k e , " not for the sake o f man. According to the second, it translates: " t h e L o r d hath made everything for H i s s a k e , " that is, " f o r the sake o f
His essence. ''69 Spinoza alludes to this verse when he criticizes "theologians
and metaphysicians" who " c o n f e s s that G o d has made everything for His own
sake, not for the sake o f the created things. ''7~ Whatever theologians or metaphysicians Spinoza had in mind, Maimonides could not fairly be the butt o f 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 s a k e " which in the final analysis is in
complete agreement with Spinoza's doctrine that God per se is the cause o f all
things. 7t
Maimonides and Spinoza both attack anthropocentrism as an error o f the
imagination, and both hold that this error is at the bottom of m a n ' s futile search
for teleological explanations of the universe. These resemblances between Maimonides and Spinoza are particularly striking in light of the fact that Maimonides' 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' G o d is
"perilously close to Spinoza's attribute o f 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 G o d he inherited from Maimonides. T h e r e is,
m o r e o v e r , evidence that Spinoza was aware of this relationship of his G o d to
Maimonides'.
Thus, in Guide, I, 68, Maimonides develops the Aristotelian thesis that God
is the K n o w e r , the K n o w n , and the Knowledge itself? 4 Maimonides begins this
chapter o f the G u i d e 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, 1I. 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.
165
[ha-muskal], and these three notions in Him, may He be exalted, are one single notion in
which there is no multiplicity. ~s
It is in r e f e r e n c e primarily to this p a s s a g e in the Guide that S p i n o z a w r i t e s :
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 intellectas, unum & idem esse; i.e., God is the maskil, the sekhel, and the muskal]. TM
In c o m p a r i n g the p a s s a g e f r o m M a i m o n i d e s with that f r o m S p i n o z a , it will
be n o t i c e d that b o t h thinkers attribute the d i c t u m to a group. M a i m o n i d e s attributes it to " t h e p h i l o s o p h e r s , " a n d S p i n o z a to " c e r t a i n a m o n g the H e b r e w s . "
M a i m o n i d e s , o f c o u r s e , k n e w the t h e o r y as A r i s t o t l e ' s , a n d certainly not " H e b r e w . " S p i n o z a k n e w the t h e o r y as M a i m o n i d e s ' (and Ibn E z r a ' s ) , and therefore
" H e b r e w , " a l t h o u g h p r e s u m a b l y not sufficiently d e a r a n d distinct to be c o n sidered " p h i l o s o p h i c . " N o w , S p i n o z a is saying in effect that M a i m o n i d e s ' thesis
that G o d is b o t h Intellect and Intelligible is basically c o r r e c t , b u t - - a l a s ! - - n e b u lous. M a i m o n i d e s s a w the truth " a s if t h r o u g h a c l o u d , " but did not p u r s u e the
logic o f his o w n thesis. H a d he d o n e so, he w o u l d have realized that if e x t e n d e d
space is intellectually c o g n i z e d b y G o d , t h e n G o d - - b e i n g the intellectually cognized Object---4nust be e x t e n d e d !
L e t m e give s o m e further e v i d e n c e that S p i n o z a was a w a r e o f the relationship
o f his G o d to M a i m o n i d e s ' , and m o r e p r e c i s e l y that he c o n s i d e r e d his G o d to be
M a i m o n i d e s ' plus the attribute o f extension, that is, M a i m o n i d e s ' G o d clearly
represented.
In his p h i l o s o p h i c and p o p u l a r writings alike, M a i m o n i d e s n e v e r tired o f
r e p e a t i n g t h a t G o d is " n o t a b o d y . ''77 " T h e r e is n o p r o f e s s i o n o f u n i t y
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. According 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.
166
HISTORY OF P H I L O S O P H Y
[monotheism] unless the doctrine of God's corporeality is denied," he insisted.

" F o r 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: " B y 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 r e m i s e s ! 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 mode m science, s2 While Crescas had shown Spinoza how to argue against the impossibility 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. 327476, of. also pp. 36--37. See his The Philosophy of Spinoza (see n. 6 above), I, oh. 8, of. also p. 16.
167
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 Maimonidean 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, Spinoza's definition of "piety" in the Ethics as "the desire of w e l l d o i n g . . , generated 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 beneficience 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; 2:12; 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.
168
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 attention to two elements in Spinoza's political theory that are definitely not Hobbesian 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 According 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 " t o 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).
169
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 diversity 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. According 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.
viii
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 Maimonides 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 documentary 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 Maimonides 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.
170
"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 Maimonides' 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 Treatise, 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 kingdom. 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, 1I. 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 of 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?"), 190199 ("Le Christ est-il le 'Philosophe par excellence'?"). Regarding Maimonides' esotericism, see n.
57 above.
i0~ T-PT, X V (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 seventeenth-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.
171
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: " n o
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 Maimonides 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, " L e 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]).
172
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 Maimonides' 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 seventeenth-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 movements. 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 HillelFoundationand the departmentof philosophyof Harvard in
commemorationof the tricentennialof Spinoza's death.

Spinoza Maimonidean

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A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Number 2, April 1981,

For additional information about this article

IN WHAT FOLLOWS, I try to sketch a portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, as

work for the present portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, the notion of a

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

the moderns." In Wolfson's view, "the philosophy of S p i n o z a . . . is primarily a

Spinoza's relationship to Maimonides. " R o t h , " he contended, "over-estimates

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

Spinoza's philosophic Latin is influenced by mediaeval philosophic Hebrew, and

by certain modes of the attributes of God, namely by modes of thought . . . .

i n a s m u c h as n o t h i n g but truth is " u s e f u l " o r " a g r e e a b l e " to the p e r f e c t m a n o f

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

With gusto Maimonides reviled what he considered to be the errors of the

m u s , " he w r o t e , " i m a g i n e s t h a t all that e x i s t s e x i s t s w i t h a v i e w to his i n d i v i d u a l

~3 "The Philosophic Sources" (see n. 4 above), p. xcviii.

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

[monotheism] unless the doctrine of God's corporeality is denied," he insisted.

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

The Malmonidean elements in Spinoza's psychology, epistemology, ethics,

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

Often historians of philosophy suppose Maimonides' influence on Spinoza to

"nothing seems more ridiculous. ''1~176

MAIMONIDES AND SPINOZA

Judaism. ~~ The nature of Spinoza's Christianizing will be illustrated by two

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

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