Maimonidean Controversy

First Stage: 1180-1204

Already in the last years of Maimonides’ life a controversy erupted based on theological grounds when he critiqued the institution of exile Judaism within which geonim (rabbinic scholars), found a comfortable living through stipends or donations. Maimonides’ view was that they – like himself – should work in a second occupation to stustain themselves. This fell into a time when Shmuel ben Ali tried to minimize the Exilarch’s power for the benefit of the geonim. In addition to his institutional critique, in the introduction to his Mishne Torah Maimonides suggested that this work would make the employment of rabbinic scholars redundant. At this stage, even though some philosophical issues were discussed, mainly Maimonides’ revolutionary view on Talmud scholarship and Jewish leadership.

First Stage in Europe

The main subject of the controversy in Europe had been the Mishne Torah, as it had been written in Hebrew. His previous works had been produced in Arabic, and so were inaccessible to European scholars who were largely ignorant of Arabic. The controversy heated up, when most of Maimonides’ works had been translated to Hebrew, most notably his More Nevuchim in 1204 by Shmuel Ibn Tibbon. Maimonides’ works had in the Jewish scholarship immersed in Arab philosophy been hardly surprising, critique was mostly limited to his social criticism and his unconventional methodology. When his works reached Christian Europe, however, they fell on largely traditional ground, in the sense that scholarship (neither Jewish nor Christian) had been largely unexposed to science or philosophy.

Maimonides didn’t provide any citations in his Mishne Torah, for which he was mainly criticized by the French RaBaD, Abraham Ben David of Posquières. His critical gloss (hasagah) to his introduction is since the 16th century included in the editions of the Mishne Torah. He also articulates a theoretical critique of Maimonides’ declaration of corporealist beliefs as heresy. Although it is never really clear whether Maimonides actually denies bodily resurrection, he is accused as such by RaBaD.

RaMaH, Rabbi Meir ben Todros HaLevi Abulafia, was initially an admirer of Maimonides. When he found, however, about charges against Maimonides being in denial of resurrection, he responded furiously and disappointedly. But when he saw Maimonides’ ambiguously apologetic Treatise on Resurrection (Maqalah fi Teḥiyat ha-Metim, 1190–91), published in response to the charges, he was calmed, convinced that Maimonides actually did believe in the bodily resurrection. After Maimonides’ death 1204, the controversy simmered down.

Second Stage: 1230-1235

Because of the aforementioned strangeness, with which the European scholars encountered Maimonides’ work, the locus of the second heating up of the controversy was Southern France. In addition, while initially Maimonides himself had been the object of controversy, in the second stage Maimonides’ work was only the platform on which the general conflict between philosophy and tradition could be contested. Maimonides’ work fell into a time of ideological formation of a Christian Europe, with the Crusades and the Spanish Reconquista. Mystical tendencies and kabbalistic circles were on the rise in Spain, philosophy had enjoyed a great flourishing also of Jewish authors under Muslim rule in al-Andalús. Maimonides’ projects to combine Jewish tradition with Greco-Arabic Aristotelianism – a problem already in the Talmud addressed as “Greek wisdom” (hokhmah yevanit).

Wolfson generalizes this to be an issue common to Latin, Arabic and Jewish traditions who all attempted “Philonic” structures to combine reason with revelation.^[1] Between Philo and Maimonides stood for instance Ibn Daud or Sa’adia Ga’on to attempt such a synthesis. Hence, what was new and provocative was not the intellectual project, but the European context in which it fell: with the fall of Constantinople, Greek texts in their original became accessible to Christian scholars, posing a threat to the dogmatic faith, as the spreading universities did to monasteries as the monopolies of scholarship. While the church was involved on fronts against Cathari and Albigense heresies, both anti-Maimonidean Rabbis and Dominican inquisitors were quick to draw connections between those belligerents of the church and Maimonides’ thought.

On basis of theological (as denying miracles, regarding prophecy as purely natural, all undermining the authority of the text), exegetical (allegorization, denying historicity) and practical (suspected laxity in observance) arguments did the Rabbis of northern France issue a ban against Maimonides’ More Nevuchim and Sefer HaMada (the introduction to his Mishne Tora that contained philosophical readings) in 1232, lead by the *Nachmanideans *Yonah ben Abraham Gerondi and *Meshullam da Piera. Letters exchanged between David Kimchi and Yuda Alfakhar are preserved in Iggeroth Qena’oth, it was suggested by S. Harvey that this served as model for Ibn Falaquera’s Epistle of Debate. Falaquera was participant in the third stage.

When, however, in 1232 Maimonides’ books were confiscated and burnt by Dominicans (although there are stories about this being initiated by anti-Maimonideans who brought the books to the attention of the authorities, the historical situation is more than unclear), the Jewish communities of the Provence, northern France and northern Spain were shocked and buried their belligerencies. Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon, Maimonides’ son, is equally outraged when he hears of the accusations brought against his father in Europe. The desecration of Maimonides’ tomb and the burning of Talmudic literature in the 1240s in Paris set the debates aside for a few decades.^[2]

Third Stage: 1288-1290

The third stage is far less significant and involved a far lesser scope. It is, however, indicative for the diverging contexts of Christian Europe and Muslim-ruled North Africa and Middle East. Shlomo Petit had immigrated to Palestine in 1288 and taught Kabbalah in Acre where he continued agitating against Maimonides’ thought. He found himself, however, in an environment long accustomed to science and philosophy (other than his native Christian Europe), and earned not only ridicule playing on his name (peti-fool) but was also banned 4 times. He also seemed to have forgotten that he fell under the Egyptian nagid’s jurisdiction, who happened to be Maimonides’ grandson. Also Ibn Falaquera in Europe sends letters of opposition.^[3]

Fourth Stage: 1300-1306

In this last controversy, the entry of philosophy into tradition was not debated anymore – Maimonidean ideas had found support even amongst the traditionalists who now sought to limit the study of philosophical works at the expense of traditional scholarship. Kabbalistic practices and esoteric exegesis had become commonplace amongst the “philosophers”, on basis of which (especially astral magic – which, ironically, had been denied reality by the RaMbaM) they were accused for idolatry.

Abba Mari Astruc HaYarḥi of Lunel approached RaShbA (Rabbi Shlomo b. Abraham Adret) of Barcelona because he saw the philosopher’s allegorical interpretations and subsidizing of the Torah’s authority with Aristotle. RaShbA himself, however, had engaged in astral magic earlier in his life, and denied that it was in any way offensive to halakha. Nonetheless, in 1305 he issued a local ban against extreme allegory and the study of philosophy under the age of 25. The bone of content thus shifted to the age under which it was not permitted because possibly harmful to study philosophy.

Menachem ben Shlomo Meiri and Yedaiah ben Abraham Bedershi HaPnini, Astruc’s main opponents, rejected these charges, as well as accusations for lax observance. Ya‘akov b. Abba Mari Anatoli (1194–1296), however, in his Malmad HaTalmidim did draw heavily on allegorical interpretation, including cosmological readings of Torah passages, ‘in the manner of the Christians’, as his opponents were quick to accuse him of.

Menachem ben Shlomo Meiri issued a counter-ban against Astruc, emphasizing that philosophy and “Greek wisdom” was as important as the study of the Torah, as long as they went hand in hand. HaPnini followed suit with a Letter of Apology (Kitav Hitnatslut), a sharp attack against the “traditionalists”. After this, the last stage of the controversy faded out, and found a shocking end in the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306.^[4]

Aftermath

Even now, the Maimonidean project is not concluded, the question about the possibility or impossibility to combine Jewish tradition and science/philosophy was never resolved. For example, in the 16th century, Moshe Isserles defended philosophy against Shlomo ben Yehiel Luria. While this continues to be debated (as it does in Christian, Muslim or secular cultures), Maimonides is today counted among the greatest of Jewish tradition. In fact, most opponents to philosophy made apologetically sure, that they could not be misunderstood in violating the authority of Maimonides.