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 of Maimonides. This suggests that he had either studied Gersonides before approaching the Guide, was reading the two authors together, or would simply turn to The Wars of the Lord at appropriate points (perhaps guided by a teacher, or by another commentary).
Duran refers to Gersonides on key questions of epistemology, divine knowledge of particulars, and divine providence.42 On astronomical issues, there is no clear evidence that Duran had yet read and absorbed the highly technical astronomical sections of The Wars of the Lord. Still Duran does cite Gersonides twice in his comments on Guide II.24, where Maimonides discusses the problem of contradictions between Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic mathematical astronomy (to which we will return at greater length in Chapter 5). Maimonides asserts that a “true perplexity” is the fact that the mathematical models of Ptolemy, which employ epicycles and eccentric orbs, come into conflict with the physics of Aristotle, which states that celestial matter is constrained to move in perfect circles of constant motion about a fixed point, namely, the center of the earth.43 This particular issue is picked up on by Duran:
Maimonides: If epicycles exist, theirs would be a circular motion that would not revolve about an immobile thing.
Duran: He means that it has already been explained in natural science that all that moves must move with respect to an immobile thing, and this epicycle, if we posit that it exists, would move with respect to the sphere which is something not immobile. And the solution to this doubt is not difficult, for the premise made there, that everything that moves does so with respect to an immobile thing does not mean that that which moves does so with respect to a body that is primarily immobile, but it means to explain that it is not possible for there not to be an immobile body with respect to which it revolves, [even if] it moves with respect to a thousand moving bodies one after the other, so that all of them require that it be immobile. And the proof of this is that a man moves with respect to a boat and it moves, indeed, because the waters are immobile. It has already been verified that the man moves upon an immobile thing and that is the water. And thus explained ha-rav R. Levi of blessed memory: even though the epicycle moves with respect to the sphere, and it moves, since the larger [sphere] moves around something fixed [namely, the center of the earth], therefore the epicycle moves with respect to an immobile thing.44
Duran here seems to be defending, to some extent, the practice of mathematical astronomy against Maimonides’ view that one of its central features, epicycles, is fundamentally at odds with the principles of Aristotelian motion. In doing so, he is drawing on Gersonides’ exceptionally thorough discussion of the objections to epicycles in his Wars of the Lord.45 Another objection to Ptolemaic astronomical systems adduced by Maimonides in this same chapter concerns the issue of how the epicycles can move in reality without transferring their motion to the spheres they touch—if, as assumed, there is no vacuum in space. Again in Wars of the Lord, Gersonides posits a substance—a fluid left over from creation—that he calls “the body that does not keep its shape,” and in his gloss Duran invokes this celestial matter, in Gersonides’ name, as another answer to Maimonides.46
In Guide II.24, Maimonides seems to note with some resignation that the most we can know about the heavens is “a tiny part of what is mathematical.” Duran, however, might interpret Maimonides’ assertion as said not resignedly but optimistically; we may not be able to know the essence and nature of the celestial realms, because we cannot touch them or experience them directly, but we can construct mathematical models of them that tell us something about their Creator, and we can speculate about them with our intellects in a constructive way.
Scholars today are divided on the issue of Maimonides’ view of the knowability of the celestial realms and its ultimate consequences for our ability to know the divine,47 but Duran does not hesitate to attribute to Maimonides the “skeptical” view that the separate intellects are beyond human apprehension, even for Moses. When Maimonides in Guide I.54 asserts that Moses “grasped the existence of all [God’s] world with a true and firmly established understanding,” Duran interprets this to mean that “Moses our master did not apprehend perfectly the separate intellects; even the agent intellect he did not apprehend perfectly, for it is permitted to corporeal beings only to apprehend the existence of His world, that is to say, the corporeal [world]; to apprehend the essence of the matter of the celestial sphere is something that is not within the power of any sage or philosopher.”48
With respect to knowledge of the sublunar world, Duran’s comments seem to bring Maimonides closer to Gersonides. As Duran formulates the point, with some caveats, “If you wish to apprehend that He is the principle of all existent things, persevere and contemplate and intelligize all existents. Then you will know demonstratively that the Lord is the principle of all existents and you will apprehend Him as much as you are able to apprehend, for knowledge of His essence is impossible. Therefore, whoever wishes to apprehend Him, as much as can be apprehended, let him apprehend and intelligize all the particulars of existents. And according to what he intelligizes of the particulars of the existent things, he will intelligize Him, for all existents are stamped by Him, with a spiritual, formal stamp.”49 As the potter leaves the marks of his fingers in the clay, God has left his stamp in every detail of his creation. By examining these details, the forms of the world, one can learn something about the Maker. By apprehending the “spiritual, formal stamp” of