1. Maimonides, , The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Pines, S. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 620Google Scholar; all quotations from the Guide are taken from this translation, and page numbers refer to this edition.

2. Ibid., 621.

3. Ibid., 634.

4. Scholars have discussed at length the questions of which philosophers influenced Maimonides in this ranking and the differences between Maimonides's hierarchy and those of his predecessors. See: A. Altmann, “Maimonides’ Four Perfections,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972): 15–24; Abraham Melamed, “Philosophical Commentaries to Jeremiah 9:22–23 in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 4, nos. 1–2 (1984): 31–82; Lawrence V. Berman, “Maimonides on Political Leadership,” in Kinship and Consent, ed. Daniel J. Elazar (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Rubin Mass, 1991), 113–25, n. 4. These scholars noted that both Plato and Aristotle distinguish three types of perfection: external, physical, and spiritual; but in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle divides spiritual perfection into moral perfection and intellectual perfection. (Berman refers specifically to Ethics 1103a3, but this distinction is also stated explicitly in book 10 of the Ethics, which is a direct source of Maimonides's discussion in the last chapter of the Guide: Ethics 1177a18, 1178a9, 1178b33–36.) It was Ibn Bajja who, following Aristotle, created the four-part distinction, and apparently Maimonides referred to him in his remarks about later philosophers.

5. Maimonides, Guide, 635.

6. Ibid., 637–38.

7. It is obvious, however, that it is by no means an offhand remark. Consider that in III 53 Maimonides explains the meaning of “loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment,” and concludes, “In interpreting the meaning of these terms, it was our purpose to prepare the way for the chapter that we shall bring after this one” (trans. Pines, 632).

8. Although I found no such explicit reference to the contradiction in III 54, the conjecture is plausible, considering the centrality of this approach for understanding the many contradictions in the core issues of the Guide. As is known, this approach is based on Maimonides's statement in the introduction to the Guide, where he describes the seventh reason for the contradictions in various texts and says that it lies behind the contradictions in his book. Many commentators on Maimonides, both early and modern, have understood this to mean that he intentionally inserted contradictions in order to conceal the truth from the masses, for social-political reasons. See Leo Strauss, “The Literary Character of The Guide of the Perplexed,” in Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 68–70; Strauss, “How to Begin to Read The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. S. Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), xi–lvi; Aviezer Ravitzky, “Samuel Ibn Tibbon and the Esoteric Character of the Guide of the Perplexed” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 10 (1983): 19–46; Ravitzky, “The Secrets of the Guide of the Perplexed: Between the Thirteenth and Twentieth Centuries” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 23–69; Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Its Philosophical Implications, trans. Jackie Feldman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). See also the literature referenced in Menachem Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 68n1. For a contrary view, see Yair Lorberbaum, “Maimonides on the Seventh Cause of Contradictions” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 69 (2000): 211–37, who asserts that the intent was to hide the dialectical character of the philosophical discussion rather than to hide its conclusions on specific issues. For other scholars who take the same line, see Aviezer Ravitzky, “Maimonides: Esotericism and Philosophical Education” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 53 (2004): 43–62, n. 54. For a discussion of esoteric writing in the Middle Ages, see Dov Schwartz, Contradiction and Concealment in Medieval Jewish Thought [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2001), esp. 11–24, 258–71.

9. For a discussion in this direction, see Steven Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan's Palace,” in Perspectives on Maimonides, ed. J. L. Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 47–75; W. Z. Harvey, “Between Political Philosophy and Halakhah in Maimonides’ Thought” [in Hebrew], ʿIyyun 29 (1980): 211–12. Melamed claims that here Maimonides, following al-Farabi, added a fifth level to Aristotle's hierarchy—that of imitating God's attributes in practice after recognizing them (“Philosophical Commentaries,” 45–46).

10. Several explanations have been made for this line of reasoning. One is that the perfect sage recognizes his inability to comprehend God through the intellect, and thus seeks to cling to God by the attributes of His activity. See Shlomo Pines, “The Limitation of Human Knowledge according to Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja and Maimonides,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 89–102. For an overview of the criticism of this position, see Ravitzky, “Maimonides: Esotericism and Philosophical Education,” 59–60. Goldman offers a different explanation: before intellectual knowledge is full, Creation is understood as the product of God's judgment (which is His nature); after it is complete, God is known through His autarkic Self-knowing nature. Therefore, the act of Creation becomes an act of loving-kindness, and the wise man imitates the deity by his own intellectual activity, but as an act of loving-kindness also engages in political leadership. I see this explanation as problematic, because there is no indication in Maimonides's text that imitatio Dei through acts of loving-kindness is more important than that through judgment and righteousness. Either way, Goldman presents the two forms of comprehending God as in tension, and it is not clear whether one is better than the other or merely follows it temporally. See Eliezer Goldman, “The Special Work in Apprehending Truths: Interpretive Notes on Guide for the Perplexed, III 51–54]” [in Hebrew], Sefer ha-shanah shel Universitat Bar-Ilan 6 (1968): 60–86. Aviezer Ravitzky, “Philosophy and Leadership in Maimonides” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 57–59 (2006): 31–59, offers several explanations for why the masses, and the wise man at the beginning of his path, must distance themselves from political leadership; but after the latter has achieved perfection, his life of study and his political leadership must exist in parallel and in permanent tension.

Another explanation views the last chapter as expressing Maimonides's position that, after achieving intellectual perfection, the wise man should observe the Torah precepts and Halakhah from a stance of intellectual-contemplative awareness. See Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, especially 34–39, which clarifies (according to this explanation) the importance of the start of III 54—its discussion of the various senses in which the Torah is called wisdom. See also David Hartman, Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986).

Some have thought that the conclusion of the Guide represents Maimonides's true position, which prefers the virtues to the intellect; e.g., Hermann Cohen, ʿIyyunim be-yahadut u-vi-beʿayot ha-dor: Perakim mitokh ketavim yehudiyim, trans. Zvi Weislevsky (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1977), 17–59. For a similar interpretation of the chapter, see Julius Guttmann, On the Philosophy of Religion (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1976), but Guttmann saw this as a deviation from Maimonides's broader approach. See also Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, 69n3, and D. H. Frank, “The End of the Guide: Maimonides on the Best Life for Man,” Judaism 34 (1985): 485–95.

11. See, for example, the passages in Plato that emphasize the strong tension between the philosopher, on the one hand, and public leadership and politics, on the other hand, but which also make clear why Plato believes that in an ideal state the philosopher must harness his wisdom to lead the state: Republic 7.514–21; 7.540–41; 9.592; Apology 31–32. For a short discussion of this tension and the motivations behind it throughout the generations, see Ehud Luz, “Leo Strauss ke-hogeh yehudi” [Leo Strauss as a Jewish thinker], in Leo Strauss, Yerushalayim ve-ʾAtunah—Mivkhar ketavim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2001), 5–16.

12. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross, revised by J. O. Urmson, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). All quotations from the Ethics are taken from this translation.

13. For a description of his position, see Steven Harvey, “The Place of the Philosopher in the City according to Ibn Bajja,” in The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi, ed. Charles E. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 199–233. See also Raphael Jospe, “Negating Moral Virtue as the Ultimate Human End” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 93–112; Jospe claims that Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera held this position in a more extreme manner than Maimonides. Aviezer Ravitzky makes a similar assertion regarding Ibn Tibbon in “Political Role of the Philosopher: Samuel Ibn Tibbon versus Maimonides” [in Hebrew], in Maimonides: Conservatism, Originality, Revolution, vol. 2, Thought and Innovation, ed. Aviezer Ravitzky (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2008), 557–78.

14. Hillel Fradkin, “The Political Thought of Ibn Tufayl,” in Butterworth, Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, 234–61.

15. A common position in the recent literature avoids taking Aristotle's statements in Ethics 10 about a life of contemplation as a summary of his position; scholars have proposed various ways of making them compatible with the rest of the Ethics. See, e.g., Richard Kraut, “Aristotle on the Human Good: An Overview,” in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79–104, esp. 86–90, 94; Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,” in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 377–94; Gabriel Richardson Lear, Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

16. See also 1282b14: “In all sciences and arts the end is a good, and the greatest good and in the highest degree a good in the most authoritative of all—this is the political science of which the good is justice, in other words, the common interest.”

17. In the Politics itself (book 3), Aristotle holds that the wise man will occupy a key position in the ideal state. Although he believes that “we maintain that the true forms of government are three” (with the common denominator being action of behalf of the state rather than on behalf of the rulers), he concludes that “the best must be that which is administered by the best, and in which there is one man, or a whole family, or many persons, excelling all the others together in excellence,” and thus “the excellence of the good man is necessarily the same as the excellence of the citizen of the perfect state,” and “the same education and the same habits will be found to make a good man and a man fit to be a statesman or king” (1288a–b, trans. Jowett). See also Ethics 8.10, 1160a35, and the description of the three types of constitution, of which the “best of these is monarchy.” These passages made it clear that Aristotle accepted Plato's position that the philosopher-king is the ideal regime, even while viewing other forms as legitimate.

18. See above.

19. Goldman, “Ha-‘avodah ha-meyuḥedet,” 70–71; Altmann, “Maimonides’ Four Perfections.”

20. See Melamed, Abraham, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo be-maḥshavah ha-yehudit bimei ha-benayim u-vi-tekufat ha-renesans” [Aristotle's Politics in Jewish thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance], Peʿamim (1992): 30–32Google Scholar; Harvey, Steven, “The Sources of the Quotations from Aristotle's Ethics in the Guide of the Perplexed and the Guide to the Guide” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 14 (1998): 99–101Google Scholar.

21. For a discussion of the principle of imitatio Dei in philosophy, and the attempt to explain Maimonides's conclusion in the context of his deviation from Aristotle on this matter, see Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, 41–45, 54–60, and the literature cited there (81nn2, 4). For an attempt to explain this principle in Maimonides's writings through the concept of shefaʾ (afflux), see Kreisel, Howard, “Imitatio Dei in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed,” AJS Review 19, no. 2 (1994): 169–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These scholars did not consider the contradiction addressed between the last chapter of the Guide and Ethics 10.

22. Maimonides, Guide, 637.

23. Ibid.

24. For many sources for this assertion, in reference to both al-Farabi and Maimonides, see Melamed, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo,” n. 1; Harvey, “Sources of the Quotations,” n. 1. It is worth noting that scholars have pointed out a specific similarity between Plato's cave parable and the conclusion of the Guide where the sage is required to return to earthly politics. In my opinion, the evidence I brought for the literary similarity of the chapter to Aristotle's text, and Maimonides's general position favoring Aristotle over Plato, are decisive supports for my interpretation.

25. See an overview of these criticisms in Melamed, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo,” n. 4. Melamed does not accept these criticisms, but this is because he assumes that Aristotle placed a greater weight on the wise man's need to withdraw from political affairs. However, as we have seen above, it is far from obvious that this was Aristotle's position. On the other hand, we have also seen the clear tension in Plato between the philosopher and engagement in politics.

26. This confusion is based on the sources above. It is also part of a much broader issue that goes beyond the topic of this article and pertains to the history of the understanding of the differences between Plato and Aristotle regarding politics and other issues.

27. Maimonides, Guide, III 51, p. 624.

28. For previous scholarly discussions of this passage, see Ravitzky, “Philosophy and Leadership,” 48; Ravitzky, “Political Role of the Philosopher,” 560–63. This discussion does not refer to the Aristotelian source of Maimonides's statement about the importance of concern for the nation.

29. For a similar formulation of Maimonides's statement here, see Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Avodah Zarah 1:3.

30. This does not contradict an additional aspect of an explicit disagreement about Aristotle expressed in the conclusion, regarding divine providence, which goes beyond the scope of the present article. For Maimonides (III 54, p. 637): “This [is] a pivot of the Law. For matters are not as the overbold opine who think that His providence, may He be exalted, terminates at the sphere of the moon and that the earth and that which is in it are neglected: The Lord hath forsaken the earth [Ezek 9:9]. Rather is it as has been made clear to us by the Master of those who know: That the earth is the Lord's [Exod 9:29]. He means to say that His providence also extends over the earth in the way that corresponds to what the latter is, just as His providence extends over the heavens in the way that corresponds to what they are. This is what he says: That I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth [Jer 9:23].” For a discussion of the meaning of this section according to his approach, see Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection.