CHAPTER 3
Efodi
The Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed
In the seventeenth century, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591–1655) reported in a letter that while in Egypt he had seen something like eighteen commentaries on the Guide, long and short. He classified four of them by reference to the four sons of the Passover haggadah. One was by “Efodi,” a variation of the name Efod that was used to refer to Duran beginning sometime in the fifteenth century. Delmedigo’s evaluation of Duran as the son “who does not ask” sounds at first negative. But in fact Delmedigo is not pleased with radical commentators, like Moses Narboni, who inquire too deeply into Maimonides’ secret positions and reveal them indiscriminately. For him, it would seem, the best commentator is one who explains the plain meaning of the text. He goes on: “Efodi, who is an honorable man, answers the unstated question [lit. answers the mute: meshiv ḥeresh] and, like Rashi, does not ask, [and he does so] briefly and clearly; he is the principal commentator [on the Guide] and he belongs in the category of mathematicians and astronomers.”1 In this description, Delmedigo has put his finger on two real characteristics of Duran’s commentary: first, his responsiveness to difficulties in the text and the central fact that many of his glosses are primarily aimed at clarification; second, the salience of Duran’s mathematical and astronomical interests.
The quality of “not asking,” which Delmedigo sees as similar to Rashi, is that Duran may respond to a problem in the text but he will not tell you explicitly what that problem is. For each comment, one might well ask: “what is bothering Efodi?” Sometimes the problem is merely one of Tibbonide awkwardness; Duran simply restates a difficult sentence in clearer syntactical form. For example, the Guide opens with these words (in Pines’s translation from the Arabic) to Joseph, the work’s addressee: “When you came to me, having conceived the intention of journeying from the country farthest away in order to read texts under my guidance….”2 In the Hebrew translation by Samuel ibn Tibbon (c. 1150–c. 1230), the text on which Duran bases his commentary, it comes out something like this: “Behold from then you came to me, and you intended from the ends of the earth to read before me….”3 Duran glosses as follows: “from then you came to me: he means from an earlier time, when it was your intention to come before me; and you intended: he explains, before you came to me, your intention was to come.”4 Here it is not a question of points of doctrine; it is merely a matter of clarifying the sometimes turgid, sometimes knotty style of the Hebrew translation.
Of course, there is more to Duran’s commentary than clarification. While he does not seem to come to the text with a fully thought out system of his own, he does make numerous substantive comments reflecting his interpretive lens. He does not hesitate in general to add information, usually in a neutral (“not asking”) voice, explaining (or enlarging on) what he thinks Maimonides truly meant to say.
As for the astronomical and mathematical interests, it is likely Delmedigo knew Duran’s scientific writings apart from the commentary on the Guide. The astronomical knowledge to be found in the commentary is of no more than minor significance, and would hardly warrant designating the author an astronomer. And while the commentary does indeed include a couple of mathematical notes of varying 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.”
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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