spheres, which bodies are substrata to permanent forms in such a way that a form subsisting in them does not go over from one substratum to another and that a substratum is immutable in its essence; and the third, by the bodies subject to generation and corruption, which have one matter in common. It is further to show that governance overflows from the deity, may He be exalted, to the intellects according to their rank; that from the benefits received by the intellects, good things and lights overflow to the bodies of the spheres; and that from the spheres — because of the greatness of the benefits they have received from their principles — forces and good things overflow to this body subject to generation and corruption.
Know that in the case of every being that causes a certain good thing to overflow from it according to this order of rank, the existence, the purpose, and the end of the being conferring the benefits, do not consist in conferring the benefits on the recipient. For pure absurdity necessarily would follow from this assumption. For the end is nobler than the things that subsist for the sake of the end. It would, however, necessarily follow from the above-mentioned assumption that the existence of what is the highest, the most perfect, and the most noble, is for the sake of what is inferior. No one who is intelligent can imagine this. The matter is rather as I shall describe it. In effect a thing that is perfect in some kind of perfec¬ tion sometimes possesses this perfection within such limits that it perfects the thing itself; perfection does not, however, pass over from it to something else. Sometimes its perfection is within such limits that a residue of per¬ fection is left over from it for something else. It is as if you said, by way of example, that there is an individual who has wealth sufficing only for his own necessities, no residue being left over from it from which someone else might receive a benefit; and that there is another individual who has enough wealth for a residue to be left over from it sufficient for the enrichment of many people, so that this one may give a measure of it to another individual through which | this second would also become rich, while a residue is left over from it that suffices for the enrichment of a third individual. The case of being is similar. For the overflow coming from Him, may He be exalted, for the bringing into being of separate intellects overflows likewise from these intellects, so that one of them brings another one into being and this continues up to the Active Intellect. With the latter, the bringing into being of separate intellects comes to an end.
Moreover a certain other act of bringing into being overflows from every separate intellect until the spheres come; to an end with the sphere of 2 "]6 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 11 [ i\b the moon. After it there is the body subject to generation and corruption, I mean the first matter and what is composed of it. Furthermore, forces from every sphere enter the elements until their overflow is completed with the completion of generation and corruption.
We have already explained that all these views do not contradict anything said by our prophets and the sustainers of our Law. For our community11 is a community that is full of knowledge and is perfect, as He, may He be exalted, has made clear through the intermediary of the Master who made us perfect, saying: Surely, this great community is a wise and understanding peopled 2 However, when the wicked from among the ignorant13 communities ruined our good qualities, destroyed our words of wisdom and our compilations, and caused our men of knowledge to perish, so that we again became ignorant, as we had been threatened because of our sins — for it says: And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid;** when, furthermore, we mingled with these communities and their opinions were taken over by us, as were their morals and actions — for just as it says regarding the similarity of actions: They mingled themselves with the communities and learned their works, 15 it says with regard to the adoption by us of the opinions of the ignorant: And they please themselves in the children of strangers, 16 which is translated17 by Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him: And they walk according to the laws of the gentiles; when, in consequence of all this, we grew up accustomed to the opinions of the ignorant, these philosophic views appeared to be, as it were, foreign to our Law, just as they are foreign to the opinions of the ignorant. | However, matters are not like this.
As the overflow from the deity and from the intellects has been mentioned repeatedly in our discourse, we must explain to you its true reality, I mean that of the subject that is designated as overflow. After that I shall start upon the discourse concerning the world’s being produced in time.
li. mill a. The word also means “nation.” 12. Deut. 4:6.
13. jdhiliyya. The word derives from the verb jahila (to be ignorant), and is applied ordinarily to the pre-Islamic Arabs because of their paganism. Certainly Maimonides did not wish to suppress this shade of meaning when speaking a little further on of the Jews of his day having become jdhiliyya. However, the biblical verse that follows refers to their ignorance, and for this reason the translation “ignorant” was chosen, even though it does not render an essential element of the meaning. It should be borne in mind that whenever the term “ignorant” appears in this paragraph, it corresponds to jdhiliyya in the Arabic text.
16. Isa. 2:6.
17. Into Aramaic.
CHAPTER 12 It is clear that everything produced in time has of necessity an efficient cause that causes it to be produced after not having been existent. This proximate agent must either be a body or not a body. A body, however, does not act through being a body; rather does it accomplish a particular act through being a particular body. I mean through its form. I shall speak about this in what shall come after.
This proximate agent, which produces in time the thing that is produced in time, may itself also be produced in time. This, however, cannot go on to infinity. For of necessity there is no doubt for us that, if there is a thing produced in time, we finally must come to something eternal and not produced in time that has caused that thing to be produced in time. Accordingly the question remains why it has produced the thing at one particular moment and not before, as it itself was existent before. Now of necessity there can be no doubt that the impossibility that the act produced in time could come about before it was produced is due either to the absence of a certain relation between the agent and the object of the action — if the agent is a body — or to the absence of the requisite preparation of matter — if the agent is not a body. All these preliminary remarks are in accordance with what in natural speculation is established as an obligatory doctrine, without any attention being given at present to the question of the eternity of the world or its being produced in time. For that is not the subject of the present chapter.
It has been made clear in natural science that every | body that acts in some manner upon another body does this only through encountering it or through encountering something that encounters it, if this agent acts through intermediaries. For instance, this particular body, which at present has grown hot, was heated either because a body of fire had en¬ countered it or because fire had heated the air and the air surrounding that particular body had heated it; thus the proximate agent that has heated that particular body is the hot air. Even a magnet exerts an attraction upon iron at a distance through a force, spreading out from it in the air, which encounters the iron. For this Reason this particular fire does not exert an attraction at every distance, whatever that may be, but only at a distance in which the air between it and the thing heated undergoes a change through the instrumentality of the force of the fire. If, however, the 2j8 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 12 [ 256 air heated by that fire1 stops short and does not reach a candle, the latter is not melted by the heat. This is the case also with regard to what attracts. Now something that was not hot and then grew hot must necessarily be provided with a cause produced in time that caused it to be heated. This might be either a fire produced in time or one that had been at a certain distance from that particular object. In that case that distance was sub¬ sequently changed 5 and consequently a relation between the fire and the heated object, which had been nonexistent, was produced in time. Similarly we shall find that the causes of everything that, within that which exists, is produced in time is the mixture of the elements, which are bodies acting upon one another and acted upon by one another. I mean to say that the cause of the production of that which is produced in time is the nearness of a body to a body or the remoteness of a body from a body. As for the things produced in time that we find are not consequent upon the mixture of the elements, namely all the forms, they also must indubitably have an agent — I mean the giver of the form, which giver is not a body. For the agent that produces the form is another form, which is not in matter, as | has been explained in various passages in which this explanation was appropriate. We also have drawn attention to the proof for this in what has preceded.2 This also can be made clear to you through the fact that every mixture of elements is capable of receiving an increase and a decrease and is produced gradually, whereas the forms are not like this, for they are not produced gradually. Accordingly there is no motion in them. They invari¬ ably are produced or pass away in no time. Accordingly they do not come about through the action of the mixture, but the mixture only prepares matter for the reception of the form, whereas the agent that produces the form is a thing that is not capable of being divided, for that which is pro¬ duced by its act belongs to the same species as itself. Hence it is clear that the agent that produces a form — I mean to say its giver — must of necessity be a form, namely, one that is separate. Now it is absurd that any preference accorded by this agent, which is not a body, should be due to a certain relation.5 For it is not a body and accordingly cannot draw near or recede or have a body draw near to or recede from it, for there is no relation of distance between a body and that which is not a body. Accordingly the cause of the nonexistence of a particular action4 is the nonexistence of the pre¬ paration of that particular matter to receive the action of the separate 1. Literally: the heat of the air from that fire. 2. Cf. II 4.
3. A relation between the agent and what it acts upon is meant.
4. An action of the above-mentioned agent is meant.
26c ] The Guide of the Perplexed II ■ 12 279 agent. Accordingly it has become clear that the action of bodies upon one another, in respect of their forms, necessitates the preparation of the various kinds of matter with a view to the reception of the act of that which is not a body, these acts being the forms. Considering that the effects produced by the separate intellect are clear and manifest in that which exists — being everything that is produced anew, but does not result solely from the mixture of elements itself— it is necessarily known that this agent does not act either through immediate contact or at some particular distance, for it is not a body. Hence the action of the separate intellect is always designated as an overflow, being likened to a source of water that overflows in all directions and does not have one particular direction from which it draws while giving its bounty to others. For it springs forth from all directions and | constantly irrigates all the directions nearby and afar. Similarly the intellect in question may not be reached by a force coming from a certain direction and from a certain distance 5 nor does the force of that intellect reach that which is other than itself from one particular direction, at one particular distance, or at one particular time rather than another. For its action is constant as long as something has been prepared so that it is receptive of the permanently existing action, which has been interpreted as an overflow. Similarly with regard to the Creator, may His name be sublime; inasmuch as it had been demonstrated that He is not a body and had been established that the universe is an act of His and that He is its efficient cause — as we have explained and shall explain — it has been said that the world derives from the overflow of God and that He has caused to overflow to it everything in it that is produced in time. In the same way it is said that He caused His knowledge to overflow to the prophets. The meaning of all this is that these actions are the action of one who is not a body. And it is His action that is called overflow.
This term, I mean “overflow,” is sometimes also applied in Hebrew to God, may He be exalted, with a view to likening Him to an overflowing spring of water, as we have mentioned. For nothing is more fitting as a simile to the action of one that is separate from matter than this expression, I mean “overflow.” For we are not capable of finding the true reality of a term that would correspond to the true reality of the notion. For the mental representation of the action of one who is separate from matter is very difficult, in a way similar to the difficulty of the mental representation of the existence of one who is separate from matter. For just as the imagination cannot represent to itself an existent other than a body or a force in a body, the imagination cannot represent to itself an action taking place otherwise 280 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 12 [ 26 b than through the immediate contact of an agent or at a certain distance and from one particular direction. Accordingly when it was established as true among some belonging to the multitude that the deity is not a body or that He does not draw near to that which He does,5 they imagined that He gives commands to the angels and that they accomplish the actions in question through immediate contact and the drawing near of one body to another, as | we do with regard to what we act upon. They also imagined that the angels were bodies. Some6 of them believe that He, may He be exalted, gives a command to a particular thing by means of speech similar to our speech — I mean through the instrumentality of letters and sounds — and that in consequence that thing is affected. All this follows imagination, which is also in true reality the evil impulse. For every deficiency of reason or character is due to the action of the imagination or consequent upon its action.
This, however, is not the object of this chapter, for its purpose is to understand the notion of overflow used •with regard to God and the intellects, I mean to say the angels, because of their not being bodies. It also is said with regard to the forces of the spheres that they overflow toward that which exists. Thus the overflow of the sphere is spoken of, though its actions proceed from a body. Hence the stars act at some particular distances $ I refer to their nearness to or remoteness from the center or their relation to one another.7 From there astrology8 comes in.
As for our remark that the books of the prophets likewise apply figuratively the notion of overflow to the action of the deity, a case in point is the dictum, They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters 9 — which refers to the overflow of life, that is, of being, which is life without any doubt. Similarly the dictum, For with Thee is the fountain of life,10 signifies the overflow of being. In the same way the remaining portion of this verse, In Thy light do we see light, has the selfsame meaning — namely, that through the overflow of the intellect that has overflowed from Thee, we intellectually cognize, and consequently we receive correct guidance, we draw inferences, and we apprehend the intellect. Understand this. | 5. Or: “makes,” or “acts.” 6. Or: one. 7. I.e., with regard to position in space.
8. Literally: the judgments of the stars. g. Jer. 2:13. 10. Ps. 36:10.
CHAPTER 15 There are three opinions of human beings., namely, of all those who believe that there is an existent deity, with regard to the eternity of the world or its production in time.
The first opinion, which is the opinion of all who believe in the Law of Moses our Master, peace be on him, is that the world as a whole — I mean to say, every existent other than God, may He be exalted — was brought into existence by God after having been purely and absolutely nonexistent, and that God, may He be exalted, had existed alone, and nothing else — neither an angel nor a sphere nor what subsists within the sphere. Afterwards, through His will and His volition, He brought into existence out of nothing all the beings as they are, time itself being one of the created things. For time is consequent upon motion, and motion is an accident in what is moved. Furthermore, what is moved — that is, that upon the motion of which time is consequent — is itself created in time and came to be after not having been. Accordingly one’s saying: God “was” before He created the world — where the word “was” is indicative of time — and similarly all the thoughts that are carried cdong in the mind regarding the infinite duration of His existence before the creation of the world, are all of them due to a supposition regarding time or to an imagining of time and not due to the true reality of time. For time is indubitably an accident. According to us it is one of the created accidents, as are blackness and whiteness. And though it does not belong to the species1 of quality, it is nevertheless, generally stated, an accident necessarily following upon motion, as is made clear to whoever has understood the discourse of Aristotle on the elucidation of time and on the true reality of its existence.
We shall expound here a notion | that, though it does not belong to the purpose that we pursue, is useful with regard to it. This notion is as follows. What caused the nature of time to be hidden from the majority of the men of knowledge so that that notion perplexed them — like Galen2 and others — and made them wonder whether or not time had a true reality in that which exists, is the fact that time is an accident subsisting in an accident. For the accidents that have a primary existence in bodies, as for instance colors and tastes, can be understood at the outset and a mental representation can be had of their notions. But the nature of the accidents l. nawc in Arabic. One would have expected a term signifying genus or category.
2. Galen’s views on time are known from various quotations.
14 282 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 15 [ 28a whose substrata are other accidents, as for instance the glint of a color and the curve and circularity of a line, is most hidden — more particularly if, in addition, the accident that serves as a substratum has no permanent state, but passes from one state to another. For in consequence the matter becomes even more hidden. In time both characteristics are conjoined. For it is an accident concomitant with motion, the latter being an accident in that which is moved. Moreover, motion has not the status of blackness and whiteness, which constitute a permanent state. For the true reality and substance of motion consist in its not remaining in the same state even for the duration of the twinkling of an eye. This accordingly is what has rendered it necessary for the nature of time to be hidden. The purpose however is that, according to us, time is a created and generated thing as are the other accidents and the substances serving as substrata to these accidents. Hence God’s bringing the world into existence does not have a temporal beginning, for time is one of the created things. Consider this matter thoroughly. For thus you will not be necessarily attached to objections from which there is no escape for him who does not know it. For if you affirm as true the existence of time prior to the world, you are necessarily bound to believe in the eternity [of the world]. For time is an accident which neces¬ sarily must have a substratum. Accordingly it follows necessarily that there existed some thing prior to the existence of this world existing now. But this notion must be avoided.
This | is one of the opinions.3 And it is undoubtedly a basis of the Law of Moses our Master, peace be on him. And it is second to the basis that is the belief in the unity [of God]. Nothing other than this should come to your mind. It was Abraham our Father, peace be on him, who began to proclaim in public this opinion to which speculation had led him. For this reason, he made his proclamation in the Name of the Lord, God of the world f he had also explicitly stated this opinion in saying: Maker of heaven and earth.5 The second opinion is that of all the philosophers of whom we have heard reports and whose discourses we have seen. They say that it is absurd that God would bring a thing into existence out of nothing. Furthermore, 5. I.e., one of the three opinions mentioned above concerning the eternity a parte ante of the world or its production in time.
4. Gen. 21:33. This is the invocation with which Maimonides begins each of the three parts of The Guide of the Perplexed. As has been stated in the notes, the correct translation is “God of Eternity.” However, in current Hebrew the word colam (eternity) very often means “world.” This is clearly the signification that Maimonides has in mind here.
5. Gen. 14 22.
5. Gen. 14 22.
28 b ] The Guide of the Perplexed II • 15 28) according to them, it is likewise not possible that a thing should pass away into nothing; I mean to say that it is not possible that a certain being, endowed with matter and form, should be generated out of the absolute nonexistence of that matter, or that it should pass away into the absolute nonexistence of that matter. To predicate of God that He is able to do this is, according to them, like predicating of Him that He is able to bring together two contraries in one instant of time, or that He is able to create something that is like Himself, may He be exalted, or to make Himself corporeal, or to create a square whose diagonal is equal to its side, and similar impossi¬ bilities. What may be understood from their discourse is that they say that just as His not bringing impossible things into existence does not argue a lack of power on His part — since what is impossible has a firmly established nature that is not produced by an agent and that consequently cannot be changed — it likewise is not due to lack of power on His part that He is not able to bring into existence a thing out of nothing, for this belongs to the class of all the impossible things. Hence they believe that there exists a certain matter that is eternal as the deity is eternal; and that He does not exist without it, nor does it exist without Him. They do not believe that it has the same rank in what exists as He, may He be exalted, but that He is the cause of its existence; and that it has the same relation toward Him as, for instance, clay has toward a potter | or iron toward a smith; and that He creates in it whatever He wishes. Thus He sometimes forms out of it a heaven and an earth, and sometimes He forms out of it something else. The people holding this opinion believe that the heaven too is subject to gener¬ ation and passing-away, but that it is not generated out of nothing and does not pass away into nothing. For it is generated and passes away just as the individuals that are animals are generated from existent matter and pass away into existent matter. The generation and passing-away of the heaven is thus similar to that of all the other existents that are below it.
The people belonging to this sect are in their turn divided into several sects. But it is useless to mention their various sects and opinions in this Treatise. However, the universal principle held by this sect is identical with what I have told you. This is also the belief of Plato. For you will find that Aristotle in the “Akroasis”6 relates of him that he, I mean Plato, believed that the heaven is subject to generation and passing-away. And you likewise will find his doctrine plainly set forth in his book to Timaeus.7 But he does not believe what we believe, as is thought by him who does not examine 6. Cf. Physics viii.i.2gibi7 ff.
7. On the Arabic interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus, cf. Translator’s Introduction.
2 84 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 13 [ 29a opinions and is not precise in speculation; he [the interpreter] imagines that our opinion and his [Plato’s] opinion are identical. But this is not so. For as for us, we believe that the heaven was generated out of nothing after a state of absolute nonexistence, whereas he believes that it has come into existence and has been generated from some other thing. This then is the second opinion.