Whether or not he returned to Spain before his death in 1204, he was certainly known to the western world of learning. In 1194 he wrote a letter on the subject of astrology in response to inquiries which he had received from Jews of Marseilles.[622] In it he tells them that his Repetition of the Law (Iteratio legis) has already spread through the island of Sicily. But he apparently was still in Cairo, where in July, 1198, he wrote his treatise on Poisons for the Cadi Fadhil.[623] After his death, however, it was between the conservative and liberal parties among the Jews of France and Spain that a struggle ensued over the orthodoxy of his works, which was finally settled, we are told, by reference in 1234 to the Christian authorities, who ordered his books to be burned. His Guide for the Perplexed, first published in Egypt in Arabic in 1190, had been translated into Hebrew at Lunel in southern France before the close of the twelfth century, and then again by a Spanish poet.[624] But the rabbis of northern France opposed the introduction of Maimonides’ works there and, when they were anathematized for it by those of the south, are said to have reported the writings to the Inquisition. The Maimonist party then accused them of delation and several of them were punished by having their tongues cut out.[625]
His works in Latin.
If certain Christian authorities really did thus burn the books of Maimonides, their action was unavailing to check the spread of his writings even in Christian lands, and certainly was not characteristic of the attitude of Christian Latin learning in general. The Guide of the Perplexed had already been translated into Latin before 1234,[626] and we find Moses of Cordova cited by such staunch churchmen as Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus,[627] Thomas Aquinas, and Vincent of Beauvais. It was for Pope Clement V himself that Ermengard Blasius of Montpellier translated at Barcelona Maimonides’ work on Poisons at the beginning of the fourteenth century from Arabic into Latin.[628]
Attitude to science and religion.
It was not surprising that Albert and Aquinas should cite Maimonides, for he did for Jewish thought what they attempted for Christian, namely, the reconciliation of Aristotle and the Bible, philosophy and written revelation. If he anteceded them in this and perhaps to some extent showed them the way, we must remember that William of Conches, who was earlier than he, had already faced this difficulty of the relations between science and religion, the scriptures and the writings of the philosophers, although he of course did not know all the books of Aristotle. As for Maimonides, continuing the allegorical method of Philo, he tried to discover in the Old Testament and Talmud all the Aristotelian philosophy, and was convinced that the prophets of old had received further revelations of a philosophical character, which had been transmitted orally for a time but then lost during the periods of Jewish wandering and persecution.[629] He defended Moses from the slurs of Galen who had charged the lawgiver with an unscientific attitude.[630] He denied the eternity of matter[631] and of the heavens,[632] but held that the celestial bodies were living animated beings and that the heavenly spheres were conscious and free.[633] He spoke of belief in demons as “idle and fallacious,” holding that evil is mere privation and that the personal Devil of Scripture was an allegory for this, while the possession by demons was merely the disease of melancholy.[634] Yet he believed that God does nothing without the mediation of an angel and that belief in the existence of angels is only second in importance to a belief in God.[635] Thus the rationalism and scepticism which modern Jewish admirers have ascribed to Maimonides had their decided limitations.
Attitude to magic.
An interesting discussion of magic occurs in the Guide for the Perplexed[636] in connection with the precepts of the Mosaic law against idolatry. Maimonides holds that magicians and diviners are closely akin to idolaters, and this part of his discussion is very similar to patristic treatments which we have already encountered. He goes on, however, to say that astrology and magic were especially characteristic of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Canaanites, and to distinguish three varieties of magic: one employing the properties of plants, animals and metals; a second determining the times when these works should be performed; a third employing gesticulations, actions, and cries of the human operator himself. Thus he recognizes the three elements of materials, times, and rites in magic. He sees that they may be combined in one operation, as when an herb is plucked when the moon is in a specified degree. He notes that magic is largely performed by women, towards whom men are more merciful than towards their own sex. He also notes that magicians claim to do good or at least to ward off evils such as snakes and wild beasts or the blight from plants. But the lawgiver forbade “all those practices which contrary to natural science are said to produce utility by special and occult virtues and properties, ... such forsooth as proceed not from a natural cause but a magical operation and which rely upon the constellations to such a degree as to involve worship and veneration of them.”[637]
Towards empiricism.
But then Maimonides goes on to say that “everything is licit in which any natural cause appears.” And he goes farther than that. He says that the reader need not feel uneasy because the rabbis have allowed the use in suspensions of a nail from the yoke worn by criminals or the tooth of a fox. “For in those times they placed faith in these things because they were confirmed by experience and served in the place of medicine.” Similarly in Maimonides’ own day Galen’s remedy of the suspension of a peony from the patient’s neck was employed in cases of epilepsy, dog’s dung was used against pustules and sore throat, and so forth. “For whatever is proved by experience to be true, although no natural cause may be apparent, its use is permitted, because it acts as a medicine.” Thus he condemns magic, but approves of empirical medicine as well as of natural science, and evidently does not regard the employment of occult virtues as necessarily magical and forbidden.
Abuse of divine names.