The Opposition against Maimuni—Maimunists and anti-Maimunists—Meïr Abulafia—Samson of Sens—Solomon of Montpellier—Excommunication of the Maimunists—David Kimchi's energetic Advocacy of Maimuni—Nachmani—His Character and Work—His Relations to Maimuni, Ibn-Ezra, and the Kabbala—Solomon of Montpellier calls in the aid of the Dominicans—Moses of Coucy—Modern date of the Kabbala—Azriel and Ezra—Doctrines of the Kabbala—Jacob ben Sheshet Gerundi—The Bahir—Three Parties in Judaism—Last flicker of the Neo-Hebraic Poetry—The Satirical Romance: Al-Charisi and Joseph ben Sabara.
1232–1236 C. E.
As misfortunes never come singly, but draw others after them, so besides the insults and humiliations which the Jews suffered from without, there now arose alarming disunion within their ranks. Remarkably enough, this intestine war was associated with Maimuni, whose aim, during his whole life, had been to effect union and complete finality in Judaism. But in undertaking to explain philosophically the intellectual side of Judaism, he established principles which did not by any means bear a Jewish stamp on them, nor were they in consonance with the Bible, and still less with the Talmud. Those scholars whose learning was entirely confined to the Talmud ignored the philosophical discussion of Judaism, considered it sinful to be occupied with other branches of knowledge, even when applied to the service of Judaism, and took their stand, right or wrong, on the Talmudical saying, "Withhold your children from excessive reflection." Even intelligent men, and such as were philosophically trained, recognized that Maimuni, in his endeavor to reconcile religion with the philosophy of the age, had made the former subservient to the latter, and had made the mistress over the mind a slave. Articles of belief and Scriptural verses, which do not admit of philosophical justification, have no value according to Maimuni's system. Miracles were not inevitable in Maimuni's philosophy; but attempts were made to reduce them as far as possible to natural causes, and to interpret in a rationalistic manner the Biblical verses which contain them. Prophecy and direct communication with the Deity, as it is taught in the Bible, Maimuni refused to accept, but explained them as subjective occurrences, as effects of an over-heated imagination, or as dream-phenomena. His doctrine of immortality was not less in contradiction with the belief of Talmudical Judaism. It denies the existence of a paradise and a hell, and represents the purified soul as becoming fused with the original spirit. His method of explaining many ceremonial laws especially provoked contradiction, because, if accepted, these laws would lose their permanent value, and have only temporary importance. And the manner in which Maimuni expressed himself on the Agada, a constituent part of the Talmud—which he either explained away or rejected—was in the eyes, not only of the strict Talmudists, but also of more educated men, an heretical attack upon Judaism, which they believed it was their duty to energetically repel. Thus, besides enthusiastic worshipers of Maimuni, who religiously adopted his doctrine as a new revelation, there was formed a party, which assailed his writings, and combated particularly the "Guide of the Perplexed" (Moré), and the first part of his Code (Madda). The rabbis and the representatives of the Jewish congregations in Europe and Asia, consequently became divided into Maimunists and opponents to Maimuni (Anti-Maimunists). Such of the latter as were his contemporaries, still full of the powerful impression which Maimuni's individuality and activity had produced, fully acknowledged his genius and piety, and blamed or criticised his views only, and the writings which contained them.
The opposition to his philosophical doctrines had begun during Maimuni's life, but it remained quiet and timid, unable to assert itself against the enthusiasm of his admirers. A young, intellectual, and learned man, Meïr ben Todros Halevi Abulafia, of Toledo (born about 1180, died 1244), had, at an early period, expressed his religious objections to Maimuni's theory in a letter to the "wise men of Lünel," which was intended for publication. Maimuni's doctrine of immortality forms the central point of Abulafia's attack. He made, however, but little impression by this letter, for although Meïr Abulafia was descended from a highly respectable family, and enjoyed considerable authority, still his hostile attitude towards science, and his tendency towards an ossified Judaism, isolated him even in his own circle. Apart from this, he was possessed of overweening arrogance, a quality not calculated to win adherents and organize a party. Instead of finding supporters, Meïr met with a sharp rebuff from the learned Aaron ben Meshullam, of Lünel, who was master of the sciences and the Talmud, and a warm adherent of Maimuni. He charged him with presumption in venturing, though unripe in years and wisdom, to pass an opinion on the greatest man of his time. The Talmudists of northern France, led by Samson of Sens, to whom every letter of the Talmud was an embodiment of the highest truths, and who would not countenance any new interpretations, thoroughly concurred with the inquisitor Meïr Abulafia. Meïr was looked upon in his time as chief of the Obscurantists. The aged Sheshet Benveniste, of Barcelona, ever a warm friend of free research, composed a sarcastic epigram upon him:
"You ask me, friends, why this man's name,
Seeing he walks in darkness, should be Meïr.[4]
I answer, the sages have called the night 'light,'
This, too, is an example of the rule of contraries."
Another poet directed the arrows of his wit against Abulafia, but its points are untranslatable. The Maimunists were generally vastly superior to their adversaries in knowledge and speech, and they could expose the enemies of light to ridicule.
The hostility against Maimuni appeared also in the East, but not so strongly. A learned Talmudist, Daniel ben Saadiah, a disciple of the Samuel ben Ali who had conducted himself so maliciously against the sage of Fostat, had settled in Damascus, and animated by the spirit of his master against the Maimunist tendency, he conceived it his duty to continue to make it the target of his hostility. Daniel, in the first place, impugned Maimuni's Talmudical decisions in order to weaken the position on which his commanding influence rested, for it was through Maimuni's acknowledged rabbinical authority that his philosophical, or according to his opponents, his heretical, doctrines found such dangerous and general acceptance. Daniel, however, thought it advisable to maintain a respectful tone towards him; he even sent his polemic to Abraham Maimuni for examination. Afterwards Daniel, in an exegetical work, allowed himself to make veiled attacks upon Maimuni's orthodoxy, and curiously enough reproached him with not believing in the existence of evil spirits. His main argument, however, was not strictly concerned with the existence or non-existence of demons, but sought to demonstrate that Maimuni was a heretic, because he had refused to acknowledge unconditionally, as correct and true, utterances which occur in the Talmud. Maimuni's admirers, however, were greatly exasperated at these attacks of Daniel, and Joseph Ibn-Aknin, Maimuni's favorite pupil, urged Abraham Maimuni to pass sentence of excommunication on Daniel ben Saadiah. Abraham, however, who had inherited his father's disinterestedness and love of justice, would not hear of it. He expressed himself on the subject with meritorious impartiality, saying that he did not think it right to excommunicate Daniel, whom he considered a religious man of pure belief, who had only made a mistake in one point; moreover, that as he was a party in this controversy, he did not feel himself empowered to excommunicate an antagonist in a matter that was to some extent personal. Maimuni's admirers, and especially Joseph Ibn-Aknin, were not, however, disposed to take the same view. They labored to induce the Exilarch David of Mosul to exclude from the community the blameless and esteemed scholar of Damascus, until he should humbly recant his strictures upon Maimuni. Daniel was excommunicated, and died of grief, and all opposition to Maimuni in the East was silenced for a long time. The Asiatic Jews were still so overpowered by the glamour of his name, that they could not think of him as a heretic. Nor were they learned enough to grasp the range of Maimuni's ideas, and to perceive their incompatibility with the spirit of the Talmud. It may also be that his admirer, Jonathan Cohen, who had emigrated to Palestine, had won the pious to his side, and had defeated the party of Samson of Sens, which was inimical to him.
Very different was the state of affairs in Europe, especially in the south of France and in Spain. Here Maimuni's theories had taken root, and dominated the minds of the learned and of most of the influential leaders of congregations; henceforth they regarded the Bible and the Talmud only in the Maimunist light. The pious Jews of Spain and Provence endeavored to reconcile the contradictions between Talmudical Judaism and Maimuni's system, by a method of interpretation. The less religious used his system as a support for their lukewarmness in the performance of their religious duties; they expressed themselves more freely about the Bible and the Talmud, practically neglected many precepts, and were bent on re-organizing Judaism on a rationalistic basis. Among the Jews of southern Spain, this lukewarmness towards the Law went so far that not a few contracted marriages with Christian and Mahometan women. The excessively pious, whose whole life was absorbed by the Talmud, mistaking cause for effect, considered these distressing occurrences as a poisonous fruit of the philosophical seed, and prophesied the decay of Judaism, if Maimuni's theories should gain the ascendancy. Nevertheless considerable time elapsed before any one ventured to make a decisive stand against them. The rabbis of northern France, who were of the same way of thinking as Samson of Sens, knew little of Maimuni's philosophical writings and their effects, while the rabbis of southern France and of Spain, who were guided absolutely by the Talmud, may have thought it dangerous and useless to try to stem the overwhelming flood of free thought.
It was, therefore, looked upon as a most audacious step, when a rabbi of the school which followed the Talmud with unquestioning faith, openly and recklessly declared war against the Maimunists. This was Solomon ben Abraham, of Montpellier, a pious, honorable man, learned in the Talmud, but of perverted notions, whose whole world was the Talmud, beyond which nothing was worthy of credence. Not only the legal decisions of the Talmud were accepted by him as irrefutable truths, but also the Agadic portions in their naked literalness. He and his friends conceived the Deity as furnished with eyes, ears, and other human organs, sitting in heaven upon a throne, surrounded by darkness and clouds. Paradise and Hell they painted in Agadic colors; the righteous were to enjoy, in the heavenly garden of Eden, the flesh of the Leviathan and old wine, stored up from the beginning of the world in celestial flasks, and the godless, the heretics, and the transgressors of the Law were to be scourged, tortured, and burnt in the hell-fire of Gehenna. The rabbis of this school believed in the existence of evil spirits; it was in a manner an article of faith with them, for the Talmudical Agada recognizes them as existing.
Adopting a theory so gross and anthropomorphic, Solomon of Montpellier could not help finding nearly every word in Maimuni's compositions un-Jewish and heretical. He felt it incumbent on him to make reply; he saw in the toleration of the Maimunist views the dissolution of Judaism, and he entered the lists against their exponents and champions. But with what weapons? The Middle Ages knew of no more effective instrument than excommunication to destroy ideas apparently pernicious. He attempted to compel men, who towered head and shoulders above their contemporaries, and held different opinions on religion from the thoughtless crowd, to seal up their ideas in themselves, or to recant them as vicious errors, by shutting them off from all intercourse with their co-religionists. At about the same time Pope Gregory directed the University of Paris, the upholder of the free philosophical spirit till the rise of the Dominicans and Franciscans, to adhere strictly in its curriculum to the canon of the Lateran Council, and on peril of excommunication, to avoid using those philosophical writings which had been interdicted by it. This precedent, together with his bigoted, passionate nature, may have induced Solomon of Montpellier to introduce a censorship of thought into the Jewish world, and to crush the Maimunist heresy by excommunication. But to appear single-handed against the Maimunists, whose number was large, and who ruled public opinion, could but ruin his cause. Solomon sought for allies, but could not find a single rabbi in southern France who was ready to take part in the denunciation of the Maimunist school. Only two of his pupils came to his aid—Jonah ben Abraham Gerundi (the elder) of Gerona, a blind zealot like his master, and David ben Saul. These three pronounced the ban (beginning of 1232) against all those who read Maimuni's compositions, especially the philosophical parts (Moré and Madda), against those who studied anything except the Bible and the Talmud, against those who distorted the plain literal sense of Holy Writ, or, in general, expounded the Agada differently from Rashi. Solomon and his allies explained the reasons for their sentence of excommunication in a letter to the public, and laid special stress on the point that Maimuni's line of argument undermined Talmudical Judaism. They did not hesitate even to vilify the venerated sage: it might be true, they said, that he had once lived strictly in accordance with the Talmud, yet instances were known in which still greater men had become renegades from the Law in their old age. Solomon at first thought of invoking the secular power of the Christian authorities to aid him in oppressing free thought. For the present, however, he looked for supporters among the rabbis of northern France. These, belonging to the acute but one-sided Tossafist school, and having grown hoary in the Talmud, did not for a moment appreciate the necessity of establishing Judaism on a rational and scientific basis, and nearly all of them adopted Solomon's opinion, and took sides against the Maimunists.