I have already explained to all the four differences by which the prophecy of Moses our Master is distinguished from the prophecy of the other prophets, and I have proved it and made it manifest in the Commentary on the Mishnah 1 and in Mishneh Torah.2 Accordingly there is no need to repeat it; moreover it does not enter into the purpose of this Treatise. I will let you know that everything I say on prophecy in the chapters of this Treatise refers only to the form of prophecy of all the prophets who were before Moses and who will come after him. As for the prophecy of Moses our Master, I shall not touch upon it in these chapters with even a single word, either in explicit fashion or in a flash. For to my mind the term prophet used with reference to Moses and to the others is amphibolous. The same applies, in my opinion, to his miracles and to the miracles of others, for his miracles | do not belong to the class of the miracles of the other prophets. The proof taken from the Law as to his prophecy being different from that of all who came before him is constituted by His saying: And I appeared unto Abraham, and so on, but by My name, the Lord, I made Me not known to them} Thus it informs us that his4 apprehension was not like that of the Patriarchs, but greater— nor, all the more, like that of others who came before. As for the difference between his prophecy and that of all those who came after, it is stated by way of communicating information in the dictum: And there hath not arisen a prophet since in 7. Cf. Exod. 40:38; Num. g:i5 and 16.
1. Cf. Commentary on Sanhedrin X (Pereq Heleq), Introduction, seventh article of faith. 2. Yesodei ha-Torah, VII 6. 3. Exod. 6:3. 4. I.e., Moses’.
j68 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 35 [ 77^ Israel Like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.5 Thus it has been made clear that his apprehension is different from that of all those who came after him in Israel — which is a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,6 and in whose midst is the Lord1 — and, all the more, from the apprehension of all those who came in other religious communities.8 As for the difference between his miracles in general and those of every prophet in general, it should be said that all the miracles worked by the prophets or for them were made known to a few people only. Thus, for instance, the signs of Elijah and Elisha: Do you see that the King of Israel inquired about them, asking Gehazi to communicate to him informa¬ tion about them? For he says: Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done. And it came to pass, as he was telling, and so on. And Gehazi said: My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life? The same holds good for the signs of all the prophets except Moses our Master. For that reason Scripture makes it clear, likewise by way of information with reference to him, that no prophet will ever arise who will work signs both before those who are favorably and those who are unfavorably disposed toward him, as was done by Moses. This is the meaning of the dictum: And there hath not arisen a prophet since, and 50 on, in all the signs and wonders, and so on, in the sight of all Israel?0 For here it establishes a connection and a tie between the two notions, namely, that there will not arise either someone who will have an apprehension similar to his or one who will perform actions similar to his. | Thereupon it makes it clear that these signs were worked in front of Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land — who were unfavorably disposed to him — and also in the presence of all Israel— who followed him: in the sight of all Israel. This was a thing that had not happened to any prophet before him. Prior to that,11 there occurred this truthful announcement that it will not happen to anyone else. You should not be led astray by what is said with regard to the light of the sun standing still for Joshua for certain hours — namely, And he said in the sight of Israel 12 — for it does not say all Israel, as is said with reference to Moses. Similarly Elijah on Mount Carmel performed his actions before a small number of men.15 I said “certain hours,” because it appears to me that the words kayyom tamim [ about a whole day]1* mean: as the longest day that may happen. For tamim means perfect. It is as if it said that the day of Gibeon ?8a ] The Guide of the Perplexed II 56 was for them as the longest of the days of the summer that may occur there.
After the prophecy and the miracles of Moses have, in accordance with my injunction, been set apart in your mind — seeing that the extra¬ ordinary character of his apprehension is similar to the extraordinary character of his actions — and after you have come to believe that his is a rank that we are incapable of grasping in its true reality, you shall hear what I say in all these chapters about prophecy and about the degree of the prophets- in respect of prophecy — all these degrees being after this degree [of Moses]. This was the purpose of this chapter.
CHAPTER 36 Know that the true reality and quiddity of prophecy consist in its being . an overflow overflowing from God, may He be cherished and honored, through the intermediation of the Active Intellect, toward the rational faculty in the first place and thereafter toward the imaginative faculty. This is the highest degree of man and the ultimate term of perfection that | can exist for his species; and this state is the ultimate term of perfection for the imaginative faculty. This is something that cannot by any means exist in every man. And it is not something that may be attained solely through perfection in the speculative sciences and through improvement of moral habits, even if all of them have become as fine and good as can be. There still is needed in addition the highest possible degree of perfection of the imaginative faculty in respect of its original natural disposition. Now you know that the perfection of the bodily faculties, to which the imaginative faculty belongs, is consequent upon the best possible tempera¬ ment, the best possible size, and the purest possible matter, of the part of the body that is the substratum for the faculty in question. It is not a thing whose lack could be made good or whose deficiency could be remedied in any way by means of a regimen. For with regard to a part of the body whose temperament was bad in the original natural disposition, the utmost that the corrective regimen can achieve is to keep it in some sort of health; it cannot restore it to its best possible condition. If, however, its defect derives from its size, position, or substance, I mean the substance of the j jo The Guide of the Perplexed II • 56 [ 78* matter from which it is generated, there is no device that can help. You know all this; it is therefore useless to explain it at length.
You know, too, the actions of the imaginative faculty that are in its nature, such as retaining things perceived by the senses, combining these things, and imitating them. And you know that its greatest and noblest action takes place only when the senses rest and do not perform their actions. It is then that a certain overflow overflows to this faculty according to its disposition, and it is the cause of the veridical dreams. This same overflow is the cause of the prophecy. There is only a difference in degree, not in kind. You know that [the Sages] have said time and again: A dream is the sixtieth part of prophecy} | No proportion, however, can be established between two things differing in their species. One is not allowed to say, for instance, that the perfection of a man is a certain number of times greater than the perfection of a horse. They reiterated this point in Bere- shith Rabbah, saying: Dream is the unripe fruit [ nobeleth ] of prophecy} This is an extraordinary comparison. For unripe fruit [ nobeleth ] is the indi- vidual fruit itself, but one that has fallen before it was perfect and before it had matured. Similarly the action of the imaginative faculty in the state of sleep is also its action in the state of prophecy; there is, however, a deficiency in it and it does not reach its ultimate term. Why should we teach you by means of the dicta of [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, and leave aside the texts of the Torah? If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord do make Myself known unto him in a vision, I do speak with him in a dream } Thus He, may He be exalted, has informed us of the true reality and quiddity of prophecy and has let us know that it is a perfection that comes in a dream or in a vision [ mar0 eh ]. The word mar0 eh [vision] derives from the verb red oh [to see]. This signifies that the imaginative faculty achieves so great a perfection of action that it sees the thing as if it were outside, and that the thing whose origin is due to it appears to have come to it by the way of external sensation. In these two groups, I mean vision and dream, all the degrees of prophecy are included, as shall be explained.
It is known that a matter that occupies a man greatly — he being bent upon it and desirous of it — while he is awake and while his senses function, is the one with regard to which the imaginative faculty acts while he is asleep when receiving an overflow of the intellect corresponding to its disposition.* It would be superfluous to quote examples of this and to expatiate on it as this is a manifest matter that everyone knows. It is similar to the 1. B.T., Berakhoth, 57b. 2. Genesis Rabbah, XVII and XLIV.
3. Num. 12:6. 4. I.e., the disposition of the imagination.
apprehension of the senses with regard to which no one whose natural dis¬ position is healthy disagrees.
After these preliminary propositions, you should know5 that the case to be taken into consideration is that of a human individual the substance of whose brain at the origin of his natural disposition is extremely well proportioned because of the purity of its matter and of the particular temperament of each of its [that is, the brain’s] parts and because of its size and position, and is not affected by hindrances due to temperament, which derive from another part of the body. Thereupon that individual would obtain knowledge and wisdom6 until he passes from potentiality to actuality and acquires a perfect and accomplished human intellect and pure and well-tempered 7 human moral habits. Then all his desires will be directed to acquiring the science of the secrets of what exists and knowledge of its causes. His thought will always go toward noble matters, and he will be interested only in the knowledge of the deity and in reflection on His works and on what ought to be believed with regard to that. By then, he will have detached his thought from, and abolished his desire for, bestial things — I mean the preference for the pleasures of eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, and, in general, of the sense of touch, with regard to which Aristotle gave a clear explanation in the “Ethics,” saying that this sense is a disgrace to us.8 How fine is what he said, and how true it is that it is a disgrace! For we have it in so far as we are animals like the other beasts, and nothing that belongs to the notion of humanity pertains to it. As for the other sensual pleasures — those, for instance, that derive from the sense of smell, from hearing, and from seeing — there may be found in them sometimes, though they are corporeal, pleasure for man as man, as Aristotle has explained. We have been led to speak of things that are not to the purpose, but there was need for it. For most of the thoughts of those who are outstanding among the men of knowledge are preoccupied with the pleasures of this sense,9 are desirous of them. And then they wonder how it is that they do not become prophets, if prophecy is something natural. It is | likewise necessary that the thought of that individual should be 5. Literally: You should know that if an individual...These words begin a long period that is grammatically rather incoherent.
6. Or: science and philosophy. 7. I.e., observing the golden mean.
8. Cf. Nicomachean Ethics iii. 10.1 Ii8b2 ff. The passage referring to the sense of touch reads as follows in Rackham’s translation: “Hence the sense to which profligacy is related is the most universal of the senses; and there appears to be good ground for the disrepute in which it is held, because it belongs to us not as human beings but as animals.”
9. I.e., the sense of touch.
yj 2 The Guide of the Perplexed II • 56 [ 8o« detached from the spurious kinds of rulership and that his desire for them should be abolished — I mean the •wish to dominate or to be held great by the common people and to obtain from them honor and obedience for its own sake. He should rather regard all people according to their various states with respect to which they are indubitably either like domestic animals or like beasts of prey. If the perfect man who lives in solitude thinks of them at all, he does so only with a view to saving himself from the harm that may be caused by those among them who are harmful if he happens to associate with them, or to obtaining an advantage that may be obtained from them if he is forced to it by some of his needs. Now10 there is no doubt that whenever — in an individual of this description — his imaginative faculty, which is as perfect as possible, acts and receives from the intellect an over¬ flow corresponding to his11 speculative perfection, this individual will only apprehend divine and most extraordinary matters, will see only God and His angels, and will only be aware and achieve knowledge of matters that constitute true opinions and general directives for the well-being of men in their relations with one another. It is known that with regard to these three aims set forth by us — namely, the perfection of the rational faculty through study, the perfection of the imaginative faculty through natural disposition, and the perfection of moral habit through the turning-away of thought from all bodily pleasures and the putting an end to the desire for the various kinds of ignorant and evil glorification — there are among those who are perfect very many differences in rank; and on the differences in rank with regard to these aims there depend the differences in rank that subsist between the degrees of all the prophets.
You know that every bodily faculty [ sometimes grows tired, is weakened, and is troubled, and at other times is in a healthy state. Now the imaginative faculty is indubitably a bodily faculty. Accordingly you will find that the prophecy of the prophets ceases when they are sad or angry, or in a mood similar to one of these two. You know their saying that prophecy- does not descend [ during a mood of] sadness or of languor;*2 that prophetic revelation did not come to Jacob our Father during the time of his mourning because of the fact that his imaginative faculty was preoccupied with the loss of Joseph;** and that prophetic revelation did not come to Moses, peace be on him, after the disastrous incident of the spies and until the whole generation of the desert perished, in the way that revelation used to 10. This is the conclusion of the period whose beginning is indicated above, n. 5.
13. Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, XXXVIII.
come before,14 because — seeing the enormity of their crime — he suffered greatly because of this matter. This was so even though the imaginative faculty did not enter into his prophecy, peace be on him, as the intellect overflowed toward him without its intermediation. For, as we have men¬ tioned several times, he did not prophesy like the other prophets by means of parables. This will be made clear later on, for it is not the purpose of this chapter. Similarly you will find that several prophets prophesied during a certain time and that afterwards prophecy was taken from them and could not be permanent because of an accident that had supervened. This is indubitably the essential and proximate cause of the fact that prophecy was taken away during the time of the Exile. For what languor or sadness can befall a man in any state that would be stronger than that due to his being a thrall slave in bondage to the ignorant15 who commit great sins and in whom the privation of true reason is united to the perfection of the lusts of the beasts? And there shall he no might in thine hand.16 This was with what we have been threatened. And this was what it meant by saying: They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.* 7 And it also says: Her king and her princes are among the nations, the Law is no more $ yea, her prophets find no vision from the Lord.*6 This is true, and the cause thereof is clear. For the instrument has ceased to function. This also will be the cause for prophecy being restored | to us in its habitual form, as has been promised in the days of the Messiah, may he be revealed soon.
CHAPTER 57 It is fitting that your attention be aroused to the nature of that which exists in the divine overflow coming toward us, through which we have intellectual cognition and through which there is a difference of rank between our intellects. For sometimes something comes from it to a certain individual, the measure of that something being such that it renders him perfect, but has no other effect. Sometimes, on the other hand, the measure 15. jdhiliyya, which is the word used in the text, derives from the verb jahila (to be ignorant), and designated Pagans and idolaters, especially those of pre-Islamic Arabia. Maimonides may have had this meaning in mind.
The Guide of the Perplexed 11-37 [ 8ia of what comes to the individual overflows from rendering him perfect toward rendering others perfect. This is what happens to all beings: some of them achieve perfection to an extent that enables them to govern others, whereas others achieve perfection only in a measure that allows them to be governed by others, as we have explained.
After this, you should know that the case in which the intellectual overflow overflows only toward the rational faculty and does not overflow at all toward the imaginative faculty — either because of the scantiness of what overflows or because of some deficiency existing in the imaginative faculty in its natural disposition, a deficiency that makes it impossible for it to receive the overflow of the intellect — is characteristic of the class of men of science engaged in speculation. If, on the other hand, this overflow reaches both faculties — I mean both the rational and the imaginative — as we and others among the philosophers have explained, and if the imagina¬ tive faculty is in a state of ultimate perfection owing to its natural disposi¬ tion, this is characteristic of the class of prophets. If again the overflow only reaches the imaginative faculty, the defect of the rational faculty deriving either from its original natural disposition or from insufficiency of training, this is characteristic of the class of those who govern cities, | while being the legislators, the soothsayers, the augurs, and the dreamers of veridical dreams. All those who do extraordinary things by means of strange devices and secret arts and withal are not men of science belong likewise to this third class. You ought to obtain knowledge of the true reality, which is that some people belonging to this third class have — even while they are awake — extraordinary imaginings, dreams, and amazed states, which are like the vision of prophecy so that they think about themselves that they are prophets. And they are very much pleased with what they apprehend in these imagin¬ ings and think that they acquired sciences without instruction 5 and they bring great confusion into speculative matters of great import, true notions being strangely mixed up in their minds with imaginary ones. All this is due to the imaginative faculty, to the weakness of the rational faculty, and to its not having obtained anything — I mean thereby that it has not passed into actuality.
It is known that in each of these three classes there are very many differences of degree and that each of the first two classes is divided into two parts, as we have explained. For the measure of the overflow that comes to each of these two is either such as only to render the individual who receives it perfect and to have no other effect, or such that from that indi¬ vidual’s perfection there is something left over that suffices to make others 82a ] The Guide of the Perplexed II - 37 j perfect. With regard to the first class — that of the men of science — the measure of the overflow that reaches the rational faculty of the individual is sometimes such that it makes him into a man who inquires and is endowed with understanding, who knows and discerns, but is not moved to teach others or to compose works, neither finding in himself a desire for this nor having the ability to do it. And sometimes the measure of the overflow is such that it moves him of necessity to compose works and to teach. The same holds good for the second class. Sometimes the prophetic revela¬ tion that comes to a prophet only renders him perfect and has no other effect. And sometimes the prophetic revelation that comes to him | compels him to address a call to the people, teach them, and let his own perfection overflow toward them.
It has already become clear to you that, were it not for this additional perfection, sciences would not be set forth in books and prophets would not call upon the people to obtain knowledge of the truth. For a man endowed with knowledge does not set anything down for himself in order to teach himself what he already knows. But the nature of that intellect is such that it always overflows and is transmitted from one who receives that overflow to another one who receives it after him until it reaches an individual beyond whom this overflow cannot go and whom it merely renders perfect, as we have set out in a parable in one of the chapters of this Treatise.1 The nature of this matter makes it necessary for someone to whom this additional measure of overflow has come, to address a call to people, regard¬ less of whether that call is listened to or not, and even if he as a result thereof is harmed in his body. We even find that prophets addressed a call to people until they were killed — this divine overflow moving them and by no means letting them rest and be quiet, even if they met with great misfortunes. For this reason you will find that Jeremiah, peace be on him, explicitly stated that because of the contempt he met with at the hand of the disobedient and unbelieving people who lived in his time, he wished to conceal his prophecy and not to address to them a call to the truth, which they rejected, but he was not able to do it. He says: Because the word of the Lord is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day. And if I say: I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name,• then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot.z This is also the meaning of the words of the other prophet: The Lord God hath spoken, who shall not prophesy?5 Know this. | i. Cf. II li. 2. Jer. 20:8—9. 3. Amos 3:8.
CHAPTER 38 Know that in every man there is necessarily the faculty of courage.
W ere this not so, he would not be moved in his thought to ward off that which harms him. Among the faculties of the soul, this faculty is to my mind similar to the faculty of repulsion among the natural faculties. This faculty of courage varies in strength and weakness, as do other faculties, so that you may find among people some who will advance upon a lion, while others flee from a mouse. You will find someone who will advance against an army and fight it, and will find another who will tremble and fear if a woman shouts at him. There also must necessarily exist a tempera¬ mental preparation in the original natural disposition, which may increase through the passage of that which is potential into actuality — a passage effected in consequence of an effort made with a view to it and in accordance with a certain opinion. It may also diminish through a deficiency of exercise and in accordance with a certain opinion. The abundance or the weakness of this faculty in the young is made clear to you from their infancy.
Similarly the faculty of divination exists in all people, but varies in degree. It exists especially with regard to things with which a man is greatly concerned and about which his thought turns. Thus you will find in your soul that so and so spoke or acted in such and such a manner in such and such an episode,1 and the thing is really so. You will find among people a man whose conjecturing and divination are very strong and habitually hit the mark, so that he hardly imagines that a thing comes to pass without its happening wholly or in part as he imagined it. The causes of this are many — they are various anterior, posterior, and present circumstances. But | in virtue of the strength of this divination, the mind goes over all these premises and draws from them conclusions in the shortest time, so that it is thought to happen in no time at all. In virtue of this faculty, certain people give warnings concerning great future events.