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Updated: May 2, 2025
He still read Hebrew, and he had seen in the shop a copy of the Hebrew translation of the Moreh Nevochim of Maimonides, which he greatly coveted, but could not afford to buy.
His chief work, which entitles him to brief notice here, is the "Tagmule ha-Nefesh" just mentioned. He does not offer us a system of philosophy, but only a treatment of certain questions relating to the nature of the soul, its immortality and the manner of its existence after the death of the body, questions which Maimonides passes over lightly.
Having given an outline of the fundamental principles of the Mutakallimun and criticised them, Maimonides next gives their arguments based upon these principles in favor of creation in time and against eternity.
In the doctrine of attributes Aaron ben Elijah likewise maintains the views of the Muʿtazilite Karaites against the philosophers, and especially against Maimonides. The general problem is sufficiently familiar to us by this time, and we need only present the salient points in the controversy.
Aristotle has very little to say about God's attributes, it is true, but there seems no warrant in the little he does say for such an absolutely transcendental and agnostic conception as we find in Maimonides. To Aristotle God is pure form, thought thinking itself. In so far as he is thought we may suppose him to be similar in kind, though not in degree, to human thought.
Maimonides entirely spiritualised the idea, and his example was here decisive. The conception of the Resurrection had other consequences. As the scene of the Resurrection is to be Jerusalem, there grew up a strong desire to be buried on the western slope of Mount Olivet. In fact, many burial and mourning customs of the Synagogue originated from a belief in the bodily Resurrection.
Against Maimonides were produced such Talmudic utterances as the following: 'Said Rabbi Chiya b. The popular fancy, in its natural longing for a personal existence after the bodily death, certainly seized upon the belief in Resurrection with avidity. It had its roots partly in the individual consciousness, partly in the communal. Thus popular theology adopted many ideas based on the Resurrection.
Maimonides, as we know, based his proofs of the existence, unity and incorporeality of God upon twenty-six philosophical propositions taken from the works of Aristotle and his Arabian interpreters. As he was not writing a book on general philosophy, Maimonides simply enumerates twenty-five propositions, which he accepts as proved by Aristotle and his followers.
We rested under a grove of fig-trees, in a garden surrounded by the most magnificent scenery; the spot might well have been termed, 'a garden of Eden, a very Paradise." We amused ourselves by discussing the writings of Hillel the elder, and reading extracts from the works of Maimonides. At two we proceeded on our journey till six.
It was the strongest fortress and probably the richest town of Galilee in Christ's day, but so far as we know He never entered it. After the fall of Jerusalem, strangely enough, the Jews made it their favourite city, the seat of their Sanhedrim and the centre of rabbinical learning. Here the famous Rabbis Jehuda and Akîba and the philosopher Maimonides taught.
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