Eschatological Themes in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Aquinas Lecture)

140 Pages·2002·1.41 MB·English

by  Arthur Hyman

Eschatological
Themes
in
Medieval
Jewish
Philosophy

The Aquinas Lecture, 2002
Eschatological
Themes
in
Medieval
Jewish Philosophy
Arthur Hyman
Under the auspices of the
Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyman, Arthur, 1921-
Eschatological themes in medieval Jewish philosophy / by
Arthur Hyman.
p. cm. — (The Aquinas lecture ; 2002)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87462-169-0
1. Eschatology, Jewish. 2. Philosophy, Jewish.
3. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Title. II. Series.
B757.E72 H96 2002
181’.06—dc21
2001008624
All rights reserved.
© 2002 Marquette University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Prefatory
The Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau,
the International Honor Society for Philosophy at
Marquette University, each year invites a scholar to
deliver a lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The 2002 Aquinas Lecture, Eschatological Themes
in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, was delivered on
Sunday, February 24, 2002, by Arthur Hyman,
Dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School and
Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at
Yeshiva University. Previously Professor Hyman
had been University Professor of Philosophy at
Yeshiva University from 1972 to 1991, Professor
of Philosophy from 1967 to 1972, and Associate
Professor from 1961 to 1967. Prior to coming to
Yeshiva, Professor Hyman had taught at Dropsie
University and at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Hereceived an M.H.L. from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America in 1955, a Ph.D. in 1953
and an M.A. in 1947 from Harvard University,
and a B.A. from St. John’s College, Maryland,
in 1944.
Hehas been Visiting Professor of Jewish Philoso-
phy at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1969-1970,
and at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, in the
summer of 1970. He has also been Visiting Profes-
sor of Philosophy at Columbia University, the
University of California, San Diego, Yale University,
and The Catholic University of America, as well
as the Lady Davis Visiting Professor at Hebrew
University.
Professor Hyman has received honorary degrees
from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
6 Arthur Hyman
Religion in 1994 and from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America in 1987. He received the Award
for Textual Studies from the National Foundation
for Jewish Culture in 1999. He has served on the
executive committee and as president of the Society
for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy. He was
elected a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish
Research in 1968 and served as its president from
1992 to 1996.
Professor Hyman’s publications include four
volumes of Maimonidean Studies, which he edited,
a critical edition of the Hebrew text and an English
translation of Averroes’ De Substantia Orbis, and
Essays in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy,
which he edited while contributing an essay. He
has also edited with others the Salo W. Baron Jubilee
Volume and the Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume
and coauthored Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The
Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions. Among
the most recent of his thirty some articles there
are: “Maim onide, partisan du libre arbitre ou
déter ministe?” in Actes du Colloque Maïmonide,
“Averroes’ Theory of the Intellect and the Ancient
Commentators,” in Averroes and the Aristotelian
Tradition,“Spinoza on Possibility and Contingency,”
in Meetings of the Minds: The Relations between
Medieval and Classical Modern European Philosophy,
and “Medieval Jewish Philosophy as Philosophy, as
Exegesis, and as Polemic,” in Miscellanea Mediae-
valia.
To Professor Hyman’s distinguished list of
publications, Phi Sigma Tau is pleased to add:
Eschato logi cal Themes in Medieval Jewish Philosophy.
Eschatological
Themes
in Medieval
Jewish Philosophy
Introduction
This volume, written on theoccasion of the Aquinas
lecture at Marquette University, had a twofold
origin. Having taught history of philosophy and,
especially, the history of Jewish philosophy for a
number of years, I became intrigued by problems of
eschatology—problems which lie at the borderline
of philosophy and Jewish tradition. This interest
grew so much so, that I decided to offer a course
on “Jewish Eschatology” as one of my graduate
offerings at Yeshiva University. This course I have
now given regularly over a number of years. A
second interest which motivated this volume was an
interest in Aristotle’s psychological theories and their
interpretation by the Hellenistic commentators,
Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, and the
Muslim commentators, Avicenna and, especially,
Averroes. It was the theories of these commentators
that influenced the conceptions of the afterlife
8 Arthur Hyman
which were formulated by those philosophers who
were followers of Aristotelian philosophy.
More immediately this volume was occasioned
bya discussion which appeared at the end of Rabbi
Moses ben Nah.man’s (1194-1270), or Nah.manides’
The Chapter on Reward (sha‘ ar ha-gemul), which
forms part of a larger work known as Torat ha-
Adam. In the larger work Nah.manides deals with
matters pertaining to sickness, death, burial, and
mourning customs, but in the Chapter on Reward
he deals at length with matters of eschatology. He
presents and criticizes the opinions of Ibn Gabirol
and Maim onides (though he shows great respect for
the latter) and then presents his own opinion and
mentions approvingly the opinion of a predecessor,
Saadiah Gaon. As Nah.manides sees it there are two
divergent opinions concerning eschatological topics.
There are the opinions of those whose theories are
based on philosophic psychology and then there are
the opinions of those who consider eschatology as a
continuation of history in some fashion. In addition,
these varying theories emphasize different aspects
of eschatology. While those who base themselves on
philosophical psychology are primarily interested
in the ultimate state of the intellect, which they
identify with immortality, those who see the fate of
the soul after death as part of a historical process are
more interested in the resurrection of the dead and
the state of the soul immediately after death.
The Nah.manides passage that motivated this
volume reads as follows: