length, with one exception they too amount to little more than clarifications. For example, Maimonides mentions someone who does not know “the measure of the cone of a cylinder.” Duran comments: “he means, [when you have a] cylinder that is equal in all of its sides to the diameter of the base of the cone, and the measure of the height of the cylinder is equal to the height of the cone, this ignoramus is ignorant of what the [ratio] is of the cone [to] the perfect cylinder.”5
The exception is a comment on two asymptotic lines, mentioned in Chapter 2.6 Maimonides, in Guide I.73, cites lines that approach each other infinitely closely but never touch as something incomprehensible to the mind, but still true. Duran’s lengthy explanation, as noted, seems to be taken from a text attributed to Jacob Bonjorn. Delmedigo claims that “[Efodi’s] wisdom can be recognized from [his] explanation of the ‘two lines’ that [Maimonides] mentions,”7 and it is possible that he saw this to be sufficient evidence to rank him “among the mathematicians.”
* * *
When Duran read the Guide and added his glosses, he drew heavily on his Perpignan predecessors Joseph ibn Kaspi8 and Moses Narboni. Maurice Hayoun has traced entire phrases to Narboni’s commentary, particularly in the portrayal of the prophet as one who draws down the divine providence on the people.9 Duran also cites the translator-scholar Samuel ibn Tibbon.10 All three men belonged to the tradition of “radical” Maimonideanism.11 In the Guide, Maimonides discusses such problematic theological issues as creation, divine will, miracles, divine providence, prophecy, and human perfection, and can often be found contrasting the “Jewish” position on these questions with the “philosophical.” For a “radical” commentator, Maimonides was in these cases concealing his real intentions and opinions, which should be seen not as congruent with the Jewish position but instead as close to or identical with those of philosophy, that is, Aristotle.12 By contrast, a camp of “moderate” philosophers generally interpreted Maimonides according to his so-called exoteric position, following more closely the “normative” Jewish theological line. An example: in Guide II.15, Maimonides asserts that Aristotle did not demonstratively prove the world’s eternity, and therefore a rational Jew may choose to adhere to the traditional Jewish belief that the universe was divinely created ex nihilo. Whereas a “radical,” despite this clear statement, might attribute to Maimonides himself a hidden belief in the eternity of the world, a “moderate” would take him at his word, as Duran does.
Profayt Duran certainly accepted the premise that Maimonides wrote the Guide at two different rhetorical levels: an exoteric and an esoteric. Pointing to part of the Guide’s complicated paratextual apparatus, Duran explicates the three brief biblical verses inserted by Maimonides between the Epistle Dedicatory and the Introduction to the First Part (Ps.143:8; Prov. 8:4; Prov. 22:17) in a running commentary that exposes his understanding of Maimonides’ purposes:
Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, whether I should walk in the way of Torah alone or in the way of Philosophy alone, for my desire is unto You.
Unto you, o men—the sages—I call, to study this book, for you will receive benefits from each chapter. Indeed the voice of my teaching will come to the sons of men without wisdom, for even they will receive benefit from some of the chapters of this treatise.
Incline thy ear and hear the words of the wise: he means, the knowledge of the early sages. And apply thy heart to my knowledge: your study of this book will be in order to know my knowledge and my intention.13
According to Duran’s reading, the first verse lays out (at least rhetorically) the dilemma of the book in terms of a stark dichotomy between reason and revelation. The Guide supposedly offers two opposing paths to God: either Torah or philosophy. The second verse shows Maimonides implicitly dividing his readers into two categories—“men” (identified as sages) and “sons of men” (the ignorant). That is to say, Maimonides is speaking to two different audiences. Both can reap advantages; presumably, the masses will benefit from a superficial reading of some of the chapters, while sages will benefit from a deep reading of all. Finally, Duran reads the last verse as describing the two kinds of material to be studied in the Guide: ancient rabbinic knowledge plus Maimonides’ own opinions. Careful study of the Guide will thus reveal two kinds of secrets: those of the early sages and those of Maimonides himself.
All of this would tend to suggest that Duran was himself a radical Maimonidean; indeed, in many cases, Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508) would lump Duran and Narboni together as outrageously radical rationalist interpreters of Maimonides. In some cases this is certainly true. For example, on the question of whether Maimonides meant to hint that the Revelation at Mount Sinai was a parable of the kinds of mental and physical preparations needed for intellectual apprehension, Duran is fully in line with Narboni’s interpretation and then offers his own impressively detailed reading of the scriptural passage.14 Still, Abravanel is overstating the case.
For “radicals” and “moderates” alike, less problematic was the implicit Maimonidean approach toward scriptural exegesis. To the degree that the creation story in Genesis, for example, can be said to contain hints and allusions that, properly interpreted, teach true knowledge about the structure, substance, and formation of the created world, then, according to Maimonides, one can undertake its exegesis by means of the intellect, armed with “the demonstrative sciences and knowledge of the secrets of the prophets.”15 In practice, this meant Aristotelian physics and metaphysics.16
Thus, in treating Maimonides’ scientific exegesis, Duran’s method is to clarify the master’s seemingly deliberate obfuscation; this may be why Abravanel viewed Duran as a radical, where Delmedigo can see him merely as an explicator. Another way of putting it is that Duran lends the reader a helping hand with the scientific explication of biblical passages on which Maimonides himself waxes particularly obscure. Regarding the scientific content of Ma‘aseh merkavah (Account of the Chariot) and Ma‘aseh bereshit (Account of the Beginning), in particular, Duran is hardly to be distinguished from the most rational interpreters of the Guide, assimilating “foreign science” into his comprehensive definition of Jewish knowledge and placing the resulting mélange at the service of biblical exegesis.
One of Maimonides’ obscure pronouncements, for example, concerns the making of the firmament and the dividing of the waters. It cannot be understood without the aid of information that Maimonides has very carefully dispersed throughout the rest of the chapter. Duran’s gloss pointedly draws together the full picture:
Maimonides (in the Hebrew): Afterwards, it was divided into three forms: a part of it was seas; a part of it was firmament; a part of it was above that firmament, and all was outside the earth.17
Duran: He means that the waters that were under the firmament were one thing and the waters that were above the firmament were a second thing and the firmament itself was a third thing, and each and every one was separate in its form. And the waters that were under the firmament were the kinds of waters that are in actu, existing among us, and the waters above the firmament are the vapor that goes upward from the coldest place of the air and from them the dew is generated and they are “waters” in potentia. And the firmament itself is the cold and moist place of the air where the vapors ascend, and there the dew is generated. When [the rabbis] said “the middle section was congealed,” they meant the cold part of the air where the dew is generated.18
Later glosses by Duran in this chapter reveal a similar understanding of the creation story as, in effect, a scientific allegory.19 For example, the figures of Adam and Eve represent form and matter.20 Duran can thus explain, on behalf of Maimonides, that the two separate accounts in Genesis of the creation
