Maimonides

邁蒙尼德

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, better known to later writers by the name of Maimonides, was nine years younger than Averroes. He left his birthplace, Cordoba, when thirteen. Muslim Spain, which had provided a tolerant environment for Jews hitherto, was overrun by the fanatical Almohads, and Maimonides’ family migrated to Fez and later to Palestine. For the last forty years of his life he lived in Egypt, and he died in Cairo in 1204.

拉比摩西·本·邁蒙，后來的作家們更熟悉他的名字是邁蒙尼德，比阿維洛伊小九歲。他十三歲時(shí)離開了他出生地科爾多瓦。慕斯琳西班牙，迄今為止為猶太人提供了一個(gè)寬容的環(huán)境，被狂熱的穆瓦希德派所占領(lǐng)，邁蒙尼德一家遷移到了非斯，后來又到了巴勒斯坦。在他生命中最后四十年里，他住在埃及，并于1204年在開羅去世。

Maimonides wrote copiously, in both Hebrew and Arabic, on rabbinic law and on medicine, but as a philosopher he is known for his book The Guide for the Perplexed, which was designed to reconcile the apparent contradictions between philosophy and religion which troubled believers. Much of the Bible, he thought, would be harmful if interpreted in a literal sense, and philosophy is necessary to determine its true meaning. We cannot say anything positive about God, since he has nothing in common with creatures like us. He is a simple unity, and does not have distinct attributes such as justice and wisdom. When we attach predicates to the divine name, as when we say ‘God is wise’, what we are really doing is saying what God is not; we mean that God is not foolish. (Foolishness, unlike divine wisdom, is something of which we have ample experience.) The meaning of ‘knowledge’ the meaning of ‘purpose’ and the meaning of ‘providence’, when ascribed to us, are different from the meanings of these terms when ascribed to Him. When the two providences or knowledges or purposes are taken to have one and the same meaning, difficulties and doubts arise. When, on the other hand, it is known that everything that is ascribed to us is different from everything that is ascribed to Him, truth becomes manifest. The differences between the things ascribed to Him and those ascribed to us are expressly stated in the text Your ways are not my ways. (Isaiah 55: 8)

邁蒙尼德用希伯來文和阿拉伯文寫了大量關(guān)于拉比法和醫(yī)學(xué)的著作，但作為一個(gè)哲學(xué)家，他以他的《迷惘者指南》一書而聞名，這本書旨在調(diào)和哲學(xué)和宗教之間的明顯矛盾，這些矛盾困擾著信徒。他認(rèn)為，圣經(jīng)的很多部分如果按照字面意義解釋會(huì)是有害的，哲學(xué)是必要的，以確定其真正的含義。我們不能對老天爺說任何肯定的話，因?yàn)樗c我們這樣的生靈沒有任何共同之處。他是一個(gè)簡單的統(tǒng)一體，沒有諸如正義和智慧之類的不同屬性。當(dāng)我們把謂詞附加到神圣的名字上，比如當(dāng)我們說“老天爺是智慧的”時(shí)，我們真正做的是說老天爺不是什么；我們的意思是老天爺不是愚蠢的。（愚蠢，不像神圣的智慧，是我們有充分經(jīng)驗(yàn)的東西。）當(dāng)歸于我們時(shí)，“知識(shí)”、“目的”和“天意”的意義，與當(dāng)歸于他時(shí)這些術(shù)語的意義是不同的。當(dāng)兩個(gè)天意或知識(shí)或目的被認(rèn)為具有相同的意義時(shí)，困難和懷疑就會(huì)產(chǎn)生。另一方面，當(dāng)人們知道歸于我們的一切與歸于他的一切是不同的時(shí)，真理就會(huì)顯現(xiàn)出來。歸于他和歸于我們之間的差異在經(jīng)文中明確地表達(dá)出來：你們的道路不是我的道路。（以賽亞書55:8）

This ‘negative theology’ was to have great influence on Christian as well as Jewish philosophers.

這種“否定神學(xué)”對喵咪教和猶太教的哲學(xué)家都有很大的影響。

The only positive knowledge of God which is possible for human beings – even for so favoured a man as Moses – is knowledge of the workings of the natural world which is governed by him. We are not to think, however, that God’s governance is concerned with every individual event in the world; his providence concerns human beings individually, but concerns other creatures only in general.

對人類來說，唯一可能的對老天爺?shù)目隙ㄐ灾R(shí)——即使是對像摩西這樣受到恩寵的人——是對自然界的運(yùn)作的知識(shí)，而自然界是由他所統(tǒng)治的。然而，我們不要認(rèn)為老天爺?shù)慕y(tǒng)治關(guān)心世界上的每一個(gè)個(gè)別事件；他的天意關(guān)心人類個(gè)體，但只關(guān)心其他生靈的一般情況。

Divine providence watches only over the individuals belonging to the human species, and in this species alone all the circumstances of the individuals and the good and evil that befall them are consequent upon their deserts. But regarding all the other animals and, all the more, the plants and other things, my opinion is that of Aristotle. For I do not at all believe that this particular leaf has fallen because of a providence watching over it . . . nor that the spittle spat by Zayd has moved till it came down in one particular place upon a gnat and killed it by a divine decree. . . . All this is in my opinion due to pure chance, just as Aristotle holds.

神圣的天意只關(guān)注屬于人類物種的個(gè)體，而且僅在這個(gè)物種中，個(gè)體的所有境遇以及降臨在他們身上的善與惡都是根據(jù)他們的功過而定。但是關(guān)于所有其他動(dòng)物，更不用說植物和其他東西了，我的觀點(diǎn)是亞里士多德的觀點(diǎn)。因?yàn)槲腋静幌嘈胚@片特定的葉子是因?yàn)橛幸粋€(gè)天意在看著它而掉下來的……也不相信扎伊德吐出的唾沫移動(dòng)到了一個(gè)特定的地方，落在一只蚊子身上并用神圣的命令殺死了它……所有這些在我看來都是純粹的偶然，就像亞里士多德所認(rèn)為的那樣。

Maimonides’ account of the structure and operation of the natural world was indeed taken largely from Aristotle, ‘the summit of human intelligence’. But as a believer in the Jewish doctrine that the world was created within time to fulfil a divine purpose, he rejected the Aristotelian conception of an eternal universe with fixed and necessary species. It is disgraceful to think, he says, that God could not lengthen the wing of a fly.

邁蒙尼德對自然界的結(jié)構(gòu)和運(yùn)作的描述確實(shí)很大程度上取自亞里士多德，“人類智力的頂峰”。但作為一個(gè)相信猶太教教義，即世界是在時(shí)間內(nèi)為了實(shí)現(xiàn)一個(gè)神圣目的而創(chuàng)造出來的信徒，他拒絕了亞里士多德關(guān)于一個(gè)永恒、具有固定和必然種類的宇宙的概念。他說，認(rèn)為老天爺不能延長一只蒼蠅的翅膀是可恥的。

The aim of life, for Maimonides, is to know, love, and imitate God. Both the prophet and the philosopher can come to the knowledge of whatever can be known about God, but the prophet can do so more swiftly and surely. Knowledge is to lead to love, and love finds expression in the passionless imitation of divine action which we find in the accounts of the prophets and lawgivers in the Bible. Those who are not gifted with prophetic or philosophical knowledge have to be kept under control by beliefs which are not strictly true, such as that God is prompt to answer prayer and is angry at sinners’ wrongdoing.

對于邁蒙尼德來說，生活的目的是認(rèn)識(shí)、愛和效仿老天爺。先知和哲學(xué)家都可以得到關(guān)于老天爺?shù)囊磺锌梢灾赖臇|西的知識(shí)，但先知可以更快更肯定地做到這一點(diǎn)。知識(shí)要引導(dǎo)愛，而愛在冷靜地模仿神圣行為中得到表達(dá)，我們在《圣經(jīng)》中關(guān)于先知和立法者的敘述中找到了這種模仿。那些沒有先知或哲學(xué)知識(shí)的天賦的人必須被一些不嚴(yán)格真實(shí)的信念所控制，比如老天爺會(huì)迅速回應(yīng)祈禱，對罪人的不義感到憤怒。

Like Abelard among the Christians and Averroes among the Muslims, Maimonides was accused by his co-religionists of impiety and blasphemy. Such was the common fate of philosophical speculation by religious thinkers in the twelfth century. Christendom in the thirteenth century will offer something new: a series of philosophers of the first rank who were also venerated as saints in their own religious community.

就像喵咪教中的亞伯拉德和慕斯琳中的阿維洛伊一樣，邁蒙尼德也被他的同宗教者指控為不虔誠和褻瀆神明。這是十二世紀(jì)宗教思想家進(jìn)行哲學(xué)思辨的共同命運(yùn)。十三世紀(jì)的喵咪教世界將提供一些新東西：一系列既是第一流的哲學(xué)家，又被他們自己的宗教團(tuán)體尊為圣人的人。