And the temptation of Eve by the snake is a symbolic account of the dangerous power exercised over our intellectual life by the imaginative faculty of the soul.22
As for the “Account of the Chariot,” said by Maimonides to be “divine science” or metaphysics, Duran explicates Maimonides’ description of the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of four creatures (Ez. 1:5–25) in terms of the celestial order and divine governance of the world.23 To summarize Duran’s glosses on this section of the Guide: The four “living creatures” represent the four celestial spheres: the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere of the five planets, the sphere of the sun, and the sphere of the moon.24 Their four faces are the four sublunar elements, moved by the four celestial spheres, such that each sphere is particular to an element. Each sphere is made to correspond with a “form,” namely, the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human (rational). These forms are impressed on sublunar matter by the celestial intellects. The four wings are equated with the four causes of the motion of the spheres, and the two hands attached to each represent the two faculties, one of generation and one of preservation, emanated from each orb to the generated things. Even though these two faculties come from the orbs, it is the separate intellects that emanate the forms of generation and preservation, while the forces that prepare sublunar beings for the reception of these forms come from the celestial bodies. Each orb is one simple body. The orbs never cease moving, nor do they speed up or slow down. Each orb has its own particular motion, due to the individual separate intellect that moves it. There is no empty space between the orbs, which are luminous because of the stars in them. The “body” under the living creatures is “first matter,” clothed by the four elemental forms. The “form of the four wheels” is the corporeal form.25
The “metaphysics” here is concerned with the divine forces that govern the earth by means of the celestial motions and the emanation of the elemental and corporeal forms. Much of it can be found already in Guide I.72 and II.10. Duran himself notes in a gloss on II.10, much of which is taken up with a description of the heavenly bodies and their earthly influences: “the secret is that all that [Maimonides] is saying now is introduction and notes for his explanation of the Account of the Chariot of Ezekiel.”26 As Gad Freudenthal has argued, “[w]hereas in his early writings Maimonides had repeatedly identified [the Account of the Chariot] with the most sublime metaphysics, according to the interpretation just considered, the point of Ezekiel’s Chariot visions was merely the universally accepted and quite banal idea of governance of the sublunar world by the heavenly bodies.”27 But while, not too surprisingly, Duran is at ease in revealing these banal “secrets” of the Torah—that is, Maimonides’ philosophical and scientific interpretation of the scriptural text—he is slightly less comfortable attributing the problematic philosophical opinions suggested by radical commentators to Maimonides himself. In some cases, he does report the opinions of his radical predecessors without comment of his own, but in other cases he seems to try to moderate their claims.28 An instance of the latter is the issue, mentioned earlier, of whether Maimonides believes in the eternity of the world.
The question comes up in Duran’s treatment of the “seventh type” of internal contradiction—the one that, according to Maimonides, is employed by an author bent on concealing “very obscure matters” from the masses. In some cases, writes Maimonides, such an author will “conceal some parts” and “disclose others”; in others, he will conduct his discussion in one place “on the basis of a certain premise” and elsewhere will “proceed on the basis of another premise contradicting the first one.”29 A putative example of such a contradiction occurs in two passages, Guide I.9 and Guide II.26. It is, for Duran, the prime example of the seventh type of contradiction; he adduces it in his gloss on Maimonides’ definition of this kind of contradiction. As Duran explains: “Out of necessity the author of the book needs to posit one premise for the sake of the masses and in another place he will posit another premise, contradicting the first, for the individual and understanding philosophers. And this hints at the explanation of the verse: ‘Thou, O Lord, sittest for all eternity, Thy throne is from generation to generation’ (Lam. 5:19), since in the chapter ‘Throne’ (I.9), he explains that it is the attribute of His grandeur and greatness, and in Pirqei de R. Eliezer, he posited that it is a description of the heavens. And the first of them is for the masses and this hints at the understanding of his words.”30 In other words, in Guide I.9, Maimonides notes that in some verses the term “throne,” as in “throne of glory,” means the heavens; just as a terrestrial throne indicates the grandeur of the human king who sits on it, the heavens too indicate the grandeur of the King. Then, pointing to two biblical verses where the word “throne” cannot, in context, have the meaning of “heaven,” Maimonides asserts that there is a “wider” meaning to the word, namely, the attribute of “greatness and sublimity.”31 One of those two verses is Lam. 5:19: “For it states explicitly: ‘Thou, O Lord, sittest for all eternity, Thy throne is from generation to generation’ (Lam. 5:19), whereby it indicates that it is a thing not separate from Him. Hence the term throne signifies in this passage…. His sublimity and greatness that do not constitute a thing existing outside His essence.”32 As Duran glosses, “the verse has revealed that the throne of God may He be blessed is not separate from Him…. [I]t indicates that it means His grandeur and greatness.”33 If the Lord and his throne “are not separate,” “throne” here must be nothing other than an inseparable attribute of God, namely, his greatness.
However, in Guide II.26, in discussing the phrase “throne of glory” as it appears in Pirqei de R. Eliezer, Maimonides reasons that the term “throne” must refer to a created body, for any other reading would create “a great incongruity.”34 Then Maimonides adds: “the throne’s eternity a parte post [existing infinitely into the future] is expressly stated: ‘Thou, O Lord, sittest for all eternity, Thy throne is from generation to generation.’ Now if Rabbi Eliezer believed in the eternity a parte ante [having existed infinitely in the past] of the throne, the latter must have been an attribute of God and not a created body.”35 As Duran glosses there: “he means to say, that indeed the orb of Aravot [the outermost sphere] that was created from nothing is eternal in the future; this is explained from scripture (Lam. 5:19).”36 As Duran sees it, Maimonides’ interpretation of the verse here is his true opinion, as opposed to that expressed in I.9, “for the masses.”
In his “esoteric” commentary on the Guide, Joseph ibn Kaspi gives a “radical” reading of the two incompatible interpretations. In Guide I.9, he says, “if ‘Thy throne’ had hinted at the heavenly body, such that Scripture equated the everlastingness of this body with His everlastingness, it would have taught [the] eternity [of the universe] according to the opinion of Aristotle, and [Maimonides] rejects this [teaching] here.”37 Since, as far as ibn Kaspi is concerned, Maimonides does hold (secretly) that the word “throne” refers to the celestial orb, and therefore teaches that the orb is eternal just like God, the seventh cause is duly invoked to explain the seeming contradiction.38
But Duran, because he does not think that Maimonides believes in the eternity a parte ante of the world, accepts that there is a contradiction but draws the sting from it: “Perhaps he meant that it is possible that the heavens will be destroyed according to the Torah given to us in truth, and that the everlastingness of the world is not necessitated; [but] in chapter II.26 [Maimonides] explains this verse about the world’s being everlasting; it contradicts the explanation he makes here. And the solution to this is that he is behaving according to the seventh cause, and here he had to contradict.”39 Duran’s suggestion—that the hidden doctrine here is the everlastingness, not the eternity, of the universe—means that the “secret” turns out to be thoroughly anodyne.40
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What is particularly interesting, at least for the purposes of this discussion, is that Duran cites, though sparingly, both The Wars of the Lord and the Commentary on Job of Gersonides (1288–1344), who was a “critical admirer”41
