The Prophet and the Philosopher as Intersecting Types in Maimonides

Among the "perplexities" whichMaimonides¹ addressed himself to in his The Guide For The Perplexed was the definition, nature of, and classification of prophecy and prophets. Given the depth and esotericism of the text, one might wonder if it is safe to say anything definite about the issues it raises. However in the case of the requisites of prophecy it seems that Maimonides' criteria for the prophetic office are reasonably exoteric and should be capable of elucidation from a careful reading of the Guide. The problems are twofold. First, to use a Maimonidean term of art, prophecy is a highly "homonymous" term which calls for precise specification. The English words "prophet" and "prophecy" like equivalent words in other languages contain considerable ambiguity and range of meaning.² They may refer to, at one extreme, the persons of and revelations granted to the founders of world religions, and on the other extreme the people who write astrology columns in daily newspapers and their works. The second problem, apart from circumscribing a concept of prophecy, is the establishment of criteria by which true prophets may be separated from false ones. The two problems are interrelated and their solutions are mutually interdependent.

Maimonides' definition of Prophecy is as follows:

Prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man's rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty. (Guide p.225)

Obviously the definition given above is strikingly philosophical in its formulation. In his theory of prophecy, as elsewhere, Maimonides wishes both to appropriate from and define himself against philosophy. One may legitimately ask "Why?" in both cases. Or rather, what in his theory of prophecy is borrowed from philosophy and how and why does he define his theory of prophecy against philosophy?

This requires some understanding of what Maimonides means by the "Active Intellect". This conception derives ultimately from the Aristotelian "active nous" (nous = thought, reason, intellect) which received a pannoological (universal mind) interpretation in systems of many neo-Aristotelian thinkers.³ Aristotle divides the mind into an active and a receptive part, along the lines of his general distinction between efficient and formal cause. The existence of thinking is analytically distinct from its cause. If the causal element of the intellect is divine, and the receptive element is constituted among the particular minds of human individuals, it would be accurate to say that while people can have thoughts, that only God can create them.

If we consider the notion of an Active Intellect imparting itself through prophecy together with all its implications, it should be clear that prophecy is imparting to humanity not only its standards of behavior but its organnon of thought as well. In this sensewe can say that reason is not a human construction but is acquired through the interface of the Active Intellect with the prophets and the philosophers. Therefore, should we say, as some esotericists in the field of Maimonides interpretation hint, that the category of "prophet" as it appears in the Guide is the narrator of a sort of Platonic myth?⁴ Is prophecy merely an allegorical allusion to philosophy? The Guide does not seem to support such an interpretation. Although the categories prophet and philosopher intersect, they are also distinguished and ranked. Moreover, they are ranked at the expense of the philosopher. As Strauss, the founder of the esoteric school himself states:

Since in the case of prophecy, not only the intellect (as in the case of philosophical knowledge) but also the power of imagination is influenced by the Active Intellect, prophecy is, as directly following his definition of prophecy Maimonides explains: "the highest stage of man and the most extreme perfection that can be found in the human race." Even on this ground, the prophet is unconditionally superior to the philosopher, and all the more to other men. He is, however, also superior to the philosopher in his own realm, as a knower. He can know directly, without "premises and conclusions," what all other men can only know indirectly. Accordingly he has commands over insights that the man who only knows philosophically is not capable of reaching...In his philosophizing, the philosopher can orient himself according to the prophet because the prophet has command over insights that are not accessible to mere philosophical knowledge. (Strauss, quoted in Fox p. 288)

His [Aristotle's] knowledge is the most perfect that a human being can possess, aside from those who, through divine illumination, have reached the level of prophecy, the most sublime level that exists. (quoted in Heschel p. 25)

The Identification of Knowledge and Virtue

A key principle in the thought of Moses Maimonides is the unity between the intellectual and moral virtues. This principle goes a long way in explaining why Maimonides was so eager to assimilate the functions of philosopher to the that of the prophet. If Maimonides, as is commonly asserted, brought religion and philosophy into near conjunction, it can only be assumed that he thought that they were mutually complementary, the weaknesses of each being compensated for by the strengths of the other. The point of conjunction for philosophy and religion is in the figure of the prophet. But what is a "prophet"?

Maimonides notes in the Guide (II, 32, pp.219-220) that there are three general opinions regarding prophecy 1) the common view of the conventionally religious that it is an entirely receptive faculty 2) the view of the "philosophers" to the effect that it is the automatic result of attaining a certain state of perfection, 3) Maimonides own view that attaining a certain level of excellence is a necessary but not sufficient condition to receive prophecy. Thus there is in Maimonides' theory a tension between the activity and the objectivity of prophecy.

The terms of the problem assume that neither religion nor philosophy is sufficient on their own. One might, of course, question whether this was really true. After all, Kant spent his life laboring in the opposite direction, attempting to separate the two so that they could each pursue their own ends autonomously. However I think that Maimonides approach, at the level of the prophetic problem, is integralist rather than proto-Kantian. That is, he wishes to unify the moral and intellectual dimensions. I say "at the level of prophecy" advisedly, since Martin Fox has made out a strong case for interpreting Maimonides as having a "noncognitive" approach to morality.⁵ However lets follow the logic of the Guide and see if there are inadequacies in both the religious and philosophical spheres which could be remedied by a redefinition of prophets and prophecy.

In the case of religion the problems are obvious. It is a commonplace that the Guide was in large part directed at members of Maimonides' community who held ignorant, superstitious, and anthropomorphic opinions in religion. Maimonides didn't believe that "orthopraxy" based on blind imitation was enough in matters of religion. He insisted that every member of the community should have a clear understanding of the basic philosophical premises of monotheism. Anything less was impiety and an insult to God.

Maimonides attitude towards the problems of philosophy is vastly more complex. I merely wish to highlight one major dilemma within philosophy which I am sure preoccupied Maimonides, the lack of a solution to which would have been sufficient to create an unbreachable gap between the Jewish sage and his pagan and/or secular mentors.

I refer to the problem of "incontinence," the well attested phenomena of someone who's behavior is in direct opposition to their intellectually held convictions. Aristotle speaks of this in the sixth book of the Nichomachian Ethics:

The question may be raised: What kind of right conception can a man have and yet be incontinent? Some say that it is impossible for a man who knows, because it is a shocking thing, as Socrates thought, that when a man actually has knowledge in him that something else should overmaster it and 'drag it about like a slave.' For Socrates was utterly opposed to this theory, on the ground that there was no such thing as incontinence; because he said that nobody acts consciously against what is best--only through ignorance. Now this reasoning is glaringly inconsistent with observed facts... (Aristotle p.228)

As everyone is aware, scholars are not necessarily saints, or even gentle men or women. Linkage between ethical standards and fidelity to intellectual principles has ceased to bother the conscience of secular scholarship in the West since the decline of the ancient schools of ethical philosophy. Today, what is called philosophy is more often than not word-play taking place in a moral vacuum. Today few reflect very seriously on the question of "moral incontinence."

It was otherwise with Maimonides. As a 12th century rabbi and jurisconsultant, he could not tolerate any breach between moral convictions and behavior. One illustration of this, although it shows the rabbi's severe side and offends contemporary sensibilities, is his willingness to resort to moral censure in argumentation. There is plenty of evidence of this in the Guide itself. For example his characterization of a unnamed antagonist who had dared question the orthodox interpretation of the Fall as engrossed in "lusts and appetites."(I, 2).

More to the point is that for Maimonides the criteria by which false prophecy is distinguished from true is essentially moral:

Is the person who proclaimed these laws the same perfect man that received them by prophetic inspiration, or a plagiarist, who has stolen these ideas from a true prophet? In order to be enabled to answer this question, we must examine the merits of the person, obtain an accurate account of his actions, and consider his character. (Guide II, 40)

This, of course, is an ad hominem criteria which would not apply to a philosopher. Or rather, it would not apply to a philosopher today. Keep in mind that when Maimonides refers to "philosophy" he is usually setting up a ideal type. He is not referring to classical skepticism with its decent into moral ambiguity. Still less to modern subjectivism or the clouding of issues due to the dispute over the primacy of theory or practice. Maimonides is taking a "philosophy" what he understands to be its purest source and then holding up prophecy as a method of attaining the ends which philosophy is unable to reach.

If one examines the historical implications of the Aristotle's text on "incontinence" quoted above, it would appear that Socrates set a standard of congruence between noetic and moral virtues which was gradually abandoned in the post-Socratic period. For Socrates "knowing" was apparently an illumination which conveyed apodeictic certainty compelled obedience to the implications of that illumination. He was, in short, "possessed" and a prophet. It was the fading away of this inspiration which produced the mere scholar and the professional "philosopher" who could think one thing and do the other.

Excluding the Subrational

Having mentioned "possession" in reference to Socrates should alert us to another category of persons which Maimonides eliminates in circumscribing his theory of prophecy. For, in addition to incorporating what is beneficial in philosophy into the prophetic function, the subrational elements which form a connotative penumbra around the concept of prophecy are carefully excluded by him. He is careful to distinguish the deportment and behavior of the prophets he recognizes as altogether different from the ecstatic behavior characteristic of the general lot of mediums and seers. After all it is immediately apparent that the type of prophecy which Maimonides is talking about is orderly and decorous in nature, in contrast to the "...ravings of the Sabeans..." (Guide II,39). Maimonides uses the term Sabeans to sum up all non-monotheistic belief systems. He censures them, not because they failed to accurately predict future events or exercise influence over the material world, but on moral grounds. With reference to the "Sabeans" he notes, "...because these theories were then general, ignorance had spread, and the madness with which people adhered to this kind of imaginations had increased in the world. When such opinions were adopted among the Israelites, they had observers of clouds, enchanters, witches, charmers, consulters with familiar spirits, wizards, and necromancers."(Guide III, 29) ⁶

In contrast any form of monotheism is preferable to nonmonotheistic systems. Thus for him both Christianity and Islam are "progressive" developments against the background of primeval superstition. He notes, "And were it not that the theory of the Existence of God is at present generally accepted, our days would have been darker than those [pre-Abrahamitic] days."(Guide III, 29, pp. 318-319) Why? Because idolatry impedes the "twofold perfection of man." (Guide ibid.) The twofold perfection of man being the mutually interdependent moral and intellectual spheres. In contrast the system of Jewish religious legislation contains "...positive or negative precepts, which tend to improve the moral or intellectual condition of mankind,..."(Guide III, 35, p.331) It is a splitting of the moral/noetic unity which condemns pagan prophecy and points towards monotheistic religious legislation.

Setting Aside the Legislator

It is often asked whether The Guide for the Perplexed is a philosophical book or a Jewish book. Although the question may be ineluctable, I would like to propose a third alternative. Perhaps in the guide Maimonides is appearing as a representative of a theocentric style of thinking which has a universal application which transcends religious boundaries. Here I am considering Maimonides not only as a Jewish philosopher but as a representative religious thinker of the 12th century (including both the Islamic rationalists and the Christian scholastics) an age during which philosophy was both incorporated into and subordinated to religion.

Maimonides was, of course, thoroughly Jewish in his life and thinking. I take it as a given that for Maimonides the content of morality is religious legislation in its specifically Jewish form (i.e.. the Torah). For Maimonides the Torah revealed on Sinai is unique both in time and place. He is not, at least at the level of prophetic legislation, a believer in progressive revelation. For Maimonides, Moses is the single member of a special class, not to be compared with the non-Mosaic prophets. His siding with Philosophy against the Mukallamiya, the apologists of Islam, must have been in part motivated by a desire to vindicate this uniqueness.

Recognizing this, it is surprising that the Guide has nothing to say, except by implication, about Moses. Indeed, Maimonides deliberately excludes Moses from his account of prophecy (Guide II, 35, p.224). Thus the prophets spoken of in the Guide are not those who have delivered the content of legislation to the human race. Rather, they are the wise. The archetype of the "prophet" in this sense is not Moses but Abraham. In the Guide Abraham appears in a somewhat different light from the conventional Biblical figure. Maimonides portrays him as a profound thinker who, starting from scratch, discovered all the important truths of theology through independent reasoning. "Independent" but not unaided, since, as we have seen, a prophet is a philosopher who's interface with the process and object of cognition is so intimate that such may be considered the passive recipients of the action of the Active Intellect.

Since the Active intellect is universal and omnipresent it is difficult to imagine how its operation could be restricted to any one time, place or ethnic group. Its all-inclusiveness would negate any such "horizontal" distinctions. The only distinction that could possibly be made would be in a vertical direction in which degrees of participation would be ordered according to the capabilities of the recipients.

The Hierarchy of Wisdom

Maimonides' theory of prophecy contains two elements 1) an explanation of what prophecy is, and 2) a ranking of the various types of prophecy and prophecy-like phenomena. I think we can use the ranking of prophecy implicate in Maimonides to substantiate our thesis that the rationalism of Maimonides is essentially a moral rationalism.

In the forty-fifth chapter of the Guide, Maimonides puts forth a ranking of prophetic modes which is outlined below:

1. Inspired actions
2. Inspired words
3. Allegorical dream revelations
4. Auditory dream revelations
5. Audiovisual dream revelations/human speaker
6. Audiovisual dream revelations/angelic speaker
7. Audiovisual dream revelations/Divine speaker
8. Allegorical waking vision
9. Auditory waking revelation
10. Audiovisual waking revelation/human speaker
11. Audiovisual waking revelation/angelic speaker

In this schema we notice a ranking of actions, faculties, and persons which intersect to create a hierarchical prophetic order. The most fundamental distinction is that between prophecy and mere inspiration, here the criteria being authorship. Those cases where the authorship of actions or words are merely human, albeit empowered by divine sanction, do not attain the rank of prophecy. Maimonides gives the example of David's psalms which are obviously David's in a sense that Isaiah's prophecy are not Isaiah's. Note that the higher one ascends in level of inspiration the less subjective the message becomes.

Within the merely inspired category there is a ranking of speech over action. This privileged position given to language, seemingly arbitrary in this first instance, continues at the prophetic level where hearing is ranked over seeing. This is simply an acknowledgment of the semiotic clarity of language over any other system of signification. Only language is sufficient to express meanings at the noetic, as opposed to the merely emotive or impressionistic, level. Although, at the terminological level, Judaism does not speak of a "theology of the word" such as the Christian logos or Islamic kalam, in fact the intimate linkage between language and the noetic content of revelation is tacitly acknowledged as fundamental. Unsurprisingly, we find this ranking of auditory over visual revelations one of the primary criteria which, in intersection with others, ramify to articulate the various degrees in the hierarchy of prophecy.

The next criterion is whether or not a speaker appears to the receiver of the oracle or not, and, if so, the rank of the speaker. The appearance of a speaker is ranked over a nonappearance. The rankings of the speakers who appear, human, angelic, and divine, should be self-evident.

The final criteria is whether the revelation was received in a dream or during a waking state. Naturally, waking experiences are ranked over dreams. The intersection of these various criteria compounds to establish the ranking of the twelve degrees of prophecy.

This systematization of the degrees of prophecy seems logical and tidy enough, however Maimonides himself gives several indications that it is not to be taken too seriously. First, Maimonides indicates that he is, with the sole exception of Moses, somewhat skeptical of the visions attributed to prophets. Even Abraham, who ranks second only to Moses, is pictured as primarily a dream-prophet. If visions are excluded from the legitimate inventory of prophetic channels, the number of prophetic degrees contracts to eight.

Not only is the schema of prophetic degrees provisional and elastic, but a strict sorting of prophets according to rank seems to elude the system. In Guide II, 41 there is a ranking of prophetic degrees which is quite different from the one above from II, 45. It is a quaternary rather than a duodenary classification, and is put forth in surprisingly skeptical-sounding language.

There are four different ways in which Scripture relates the fact that a divine communication was made to the prophet. 1. The prophet relates that he heard the words of an angel in a dream or vision; 2. He reports the words of the angel without mentioning that they were perceived in a dream or vision, assuming that it is well known that prophecy can only originate in one of the two ways, "In a vision I will make myself known unto him, in a dream I will speak to him"(Num. xii. 6). 3. The prophet does not mention the angel at all; he says that God spoke to him, but he states that he received the message in a dream or a vision. 4. He introduces his prophecy by stating that God spoke to him, or told him to do a certain thing, or speak certain words, but he does not explain that he received the message in a dream or vision, because he assumes that it is well known, and has been established as a principle that no prophecy or revelation originates otherwise than in a dream or vision, and through an angel. (Guide II, 41)

To Abraham, whose prophetic power was great, the angels appeared in the form of men; to Lot, whose power was weak, they appeared as angels. This is an important principle as regards Prophecy...(p.162)

What is at issue here? To the modern reader of the Guide it would seem that Maimonides is setting out a rational schema of prophetic experience based on epistemological criteria. Certainly he is doing this, but this is not all that he is doing. Maimonides' interests are not primarily epistemological but moral. He is, of course, a rationalist, but his rationalism has a moral dimension which is far deeper than its epistemic dimension. It is not the vividness or energistic magnitude of the prophetic revelation which constitutes the criterion of prophetic significance. Rather it is the moral status, first, of the contents of prophecy itself and secondly, of the receiver of the revelation, which is salient.

From Maimonides' point of view the higher one ascends in the noetic hierarchy the less one can distinguish whether knowledge is discovered or received through the grace of revelation. As an Aristotelian Maimonides does not recognize the radical subject/object split which post-Kantian thinking has accustomed itself to accept.⁷ Rather, knower, known, and the act of knowing increasingly fuse together in an act of noetic participation. Thus the answer to the question of whether this illuminatory knowledge is discovered (philosophy) or received (religion) must be both. This illumination requires an openness ("passivity") to truth which is the result of effort ("activity").The effort involved is, of course, a moral effort, abridging any distinction between the moral and dianoetic virtues.

Conclusion

Although Maimonides writes at length about the mechanism of prophecy and the different media by which revelations are received, this is not what really motivates his exposition of prophecy. The legislative prophecy of Moses having been eliminated as a phenomena sui generis, it is clear that access to the Active Intellect by ordinary prophet/philosophers is graded according to the degree of moral perfection attained by the candidates to prophetic office. Although it may be the case that a perfectly prepared candidate may not be granted that office, the moral requirements remain as a necessary, though not sufficient, criteria.

The rationalism of Maimonides, which is in the first instance that of a falasifa expositing the mechanism of revelation as the operation of the Active Intellect, is in the final analysis the witness of a believer to the fact that rationality itself is a product of obedience to divine ordinances. Although in his philosophical anthropology Maimonides sees the imaginative and physical elements as inferior to the intellect, philosophy itself is powerless without imaginative and behavioral training. The absence of such obedient training is the reason why secular philosophy lost its integrity. Only by following the example of the religiously wise, those in whom the infusion of the Active Intellect penetrated down to the imaginative and physical level, is there hope of living a life of integrity. This is why Maimonides is so concerned to attest to the intimate relationship between noetic and moral virtues.

For Maimonides there is no such thing as a an adequate morality generated out of philosophical demonstration (the natural law schools), political consensus (the Greek city-states), or the ecstatic oracles of the pagan religions (the Sabaeans). The ethos of such moral systems is either imperfectly rational, since philosophy is ultimately dependent on prophecy, or out-and-out irrational, since the prophecies of the "seers" emanate not from the universal mind (active nous) but from the passionate soul (psyche) As I have endeavored to demonstrate, for Maimonides both rationality and morality emanate from the Active Intellect. Therefore morality is intrinsically rational, while rationality is intrinsically moral. Philosophy can only grasp rationality at the noetic level, it is powerless to overcome the passionate soul and thus, to use Socrates' phrase, is overmastered by it and dragged about like a slave. In prophecy the infusion of the Active Intellect is so strong that it overflows the rational faculty and penetrates down to the imaginative level, thus reorganizing the passionate soul in harmony with the dictates of reason. According to Maimonides, one who is so influenced by the Active Intellect is indeed fit to be "the means of perfection for others."

Notes

¹The philosopher Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) was an Andelusian Jew born into a family of scholars at Cordoba in 1135 AD.. Due to the intolerance of an Islamic sectarian movement he was forced to emigrate, ultimately to Egypt, where he supported himself as a practicing physician while contributing to the legal reform of his religious community, and where he died in 1204. Today he is widely respected both inside and outside of the Jewish world, and his philosophical maxims are generally considered in accord with orthodoxy. The finer nuances of his philosophy remain extremely ambiguous and controversial, whereas his legal works have never attained the status of a universally accepted codification, as he had hoped. After eight-hundred years he remains a controversial figure.

The Guide for the Perplexed, to which I refer in this paper, is Maimonides' major philosophical work. It was originally written in Arabic with the title Dalalat al-Harin. I have used M. Friedlander's English translation, second edition, 1904. As is conventional I use roman numerals to indicate sections and arabic numerals to indicate chapters of the Guide.

²In Hebrew nebu'a for prophecy and nabi' for prophet. In Arabic nubuwwa and nabi.

³The Active Intellect is an Aristotelian concept which entered into the neo-Aristotelian speculative philosophies of post-Hellenistic times. Originally it was construed as a knowing substance which through permeation of both the knowing subject and the known object established a relationship "knowledge" between them. Most contemporary philosophers feel that Aristotle did not identify the Active Intellect with the divine mind, although the historian and philosopher W.K.C. Guthrie disagrees.

Whatever Aristotle's intentions may have been, a school of thought following Alexander of Aphrodisia asserted the divinity of the active intellect. Subsequently a synthesis of Aristotle's psychology and astronomy was developed in which the active intellect was identified as one of the Celestial Intelligences inhabiting and motivating the heavenly spheres. The Active Intellect had become an angel, hence the capital letters!

⁴Did Maimonides largely concur with the philosophic world-view, using religious language and imagery as a sort of "Platonic myth?" Or had he in fact discovered in philosophy an honest justification of orthodoxy? This is where Maimonides interpretation diverges, often very radically, however this problem falls outside of the scope of this paper. That the notion that The Guide to the Perplexed is a deeply esoteric work has in recent decades been mooted about by those who follow the interpretation of Leo Strauss. It should be noted that the impeccably pious life of Maimonides requires that those who see him as a sort of proto-aufclarung are under the burden of proving their case, and not the other way around.

⁵Fox states concerning Maimonides,

Already in his Treatise on Logic, written in his youth, he treats moral ideas as not falling under the categories of truth and falsehood at all so this it is simply a logical error to speak of moral rules as true or false. Instead he thinks of moral behavior [i.e. apart from religious legislation: my note] as not falling under the categories of truth or falsehood at all, so that it is simply a logical error to speak of moral rules as true or false...In short, Maimonides holds that moral claims are never open to rational argument or demonstration. (Fox p.133)

⁶These are all value-free terms from the point of view of the modern sociology of religion, but of course, not for Maimonides. This has bearing how prophecy, in Maimonides sense, could be distinguished from divination. The natural sciences of ethnology and sociology cannot make such a distinction, since from the outset they do not recognize the sort of deontological premises which are implicit in theism. Thus prophecy is equated with shamanism, fortune-telling and other sorts of divinatory media. For Maimonides true prophecy is the revelation of God's laws, wisdom, and teachings, not prognostication.

⁷ibid. note (5)

• Fox, Marvin, Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy. 1990. Chicago U. Press: Chicago.
• Golden, Judah, The Living Talmud: The Wisdom of the Fathers. 1957. New American Press: New York.
• Guthrie, W.K.C, A History of Greek Philosophy. vol. VI: "Aristotle, An Encounter" 1981. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Heschel, Abraham J., Maimonides: The Life and Times of the Great Medieval Jewish Thinker. 1982. Doubleday: New York.
• Maimonides, Moses, The Guide For the Perplexed. (translator: M. Friedlander) 1904. Dover: New York.
• Schnadelbach, Herbert, Philosophy in Germany 1831-1933. 1984. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Steinsaltz, Adin, The Essential Talmud. (translator: Chaya Galai) 1976. Harper Collins.