MAIMONIDES, mi-mOn'l-dez, properly MOSES BEN MAIMON BEN JOSEPH (Arabic, Abu Amram Musa ibn Maimun Obeid Allah al Kortobi), Jewish scholar: b. Cordova, Spain, 30 March 1135; d. 13 Dec. 1204. At an early period he developed a taste for the exact sciences and for philosophy. He read with zeal not only the works of the Mohammedan scholastics, but also those of the Greek philosophers in such dress as they had been made accessible by their Arabian translators. In this way his mind, which by naturo ran in logical and systematic grooves, was strengthened in its bent; and he acquired that distaste for mysticism and vague ness so characteristic of his literary labors. He went so far as to abhor poetry, the best of which he declared to be false, since it was founded upon pure invention — and this too in a land which had produced such noble expres sions of the Hebrew and Arab muse. It is strange that this man, whose character was that of a sage, and who was revered for his person as well as for his books, should have led such an unquiet life, and have written his works so full of erudition with the staff of the wanderer in his land. For his peaceful studies were rudely disturbed in his 13th year by the invasion of the Almohades, or Mohammedan Unitarians, from Africa. They not only captured Cordova, but set up a form of religious persecution which happily is not always characteristic of Islamic piety. Maimonides' father wandered to Almeria on the toast; and then (1159) straight into the lion's jaws at Fez in Africa,— a line of conduct hardly intelligible in one who had fled for the better exercise of the dictates of conscience. So pressing did the importunities of the Almohad fanatics become, that together with his family Maimonides was compelled to don the turban, and to live for several years the life of an Arabic Marrano. This blot upon his fair fame— if blot it be—he tried to excuse in two treatises, which may be looked upon as his (Apologia vita sue: one on the subject of conversion in general (1160), and another addressed to his coreligionists in southern Arabia on the coming of the Messiah. But the position was untenable and in 1165 we find Maimonides again on the road, reaching Accho, Jerusalem, Hebron and finally Egypt. Under the milder rule of the Ayyubite caliphs, no sup pression of his belief was necessary. Maimon ides settled with his brother in old Cairo or Fostat, gaining his daily pittance first as a jeweler, and then in the practice of medicine, the while he continued in the study of philos ophy and the elaboration of the great works upon which his fame reposes. In 1177 he was recognized as the head of the Jewish com munity of Egypt, and soon afterward was placed upon the list of court physicians to Saladin. When he died, his body was taken to
Tiberias for burial.
Perhaps no fairer presentation of the prin ciples and practices of rabbinical Judaism can be cited than that contained in the three chief works of Maimonides. His clear-cut mind gathered the various threads which Jewish the ology and life had spun since the closing of the Biblical canon, and wove them into such a fabric that a new period may fitly be said to have been ushered in. The Mishnah had be come the law-book of the Diaspora; in it was to be found the system of ordinances and prac tices which had been developed up to the century A.D. In the scholastic discussions in which the Jewish schoolmen had indulged their wit and their ingenuity, much of its plain mean ing had become obscured. At 23 Maimonides commenced to work upon a commentary to this Mishnah, which took him seven years to com plete. It was written in Arabic, and very fitly called The here the philo sophic training of its author was brought to bear upon the dry legal mass, and to give it life as well as light. The induction of philos ophy into law is seen to even more peculiar ad vantage in his Torah) (Repeated Law). The scholastic discussions upon the Mishnah had in the 6th century been put into writing, and had become that vast medley of thought, that kaleidoscope of schoolroom life, known by the name of Talmud. Based upon the slender framework of the Mishnah, the vast edifice had been built up with so little plan and symmetry that its various ramifications could only be followed with the greatest diffi culty and with infinite exertion. In turn, the Talmud had supplanted the Mishnah as the rule of life and the directive of religious observ ance. Even before the time of Maimonides, scholars had tried their hand at putting order into this great chaos; but none of their efforts had proved satisfactory. For 10 years Mai monides worked and produced this digest, in which he arranged in scientific order all the material which a Jewish jurist and theologian might be called upon to use. Though this di gest was received with delight by the Jews of Spain, many were found who looked upon Maimonides' work as an attempt to crystalize into unchangeable law the fluctuating streams of tradition. The same objection was to his attempt to formulate into a creed the purely theological ideas of the Judaism of his day. His 'Thirteen Articles' brought on a war of strong opposition; and though in the end, the fame of their author conquered a place for them even in the Synagogue Ritual, they were never accepted by the entire Jewry. They re mained the presentation of an individual scholar.