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Maimonides, a Twelfth Century Physician

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Maimonides, a Twelfth Century Physician MAIMONIDES,* A TWELFTH CENTURY PHYSICIAN By WALTER MENDELSON, M.D. NEW YORK, N. Y. A FOREWORD IN APPRECIATION OF SOLOMON SCHECHTER HE writer of the talk, were displayed not only his wide T following sketch knowledge, but also his broad and liberal feels that he owes thesympathy in all things human and cultural. reader a certain apolo­ Here shone too, his humor, his wit and his gia. He is only too repartee. For his mind was like a sword well aware that he and would leap forth sudden and bright, lacks the qualifica­ and before one was aware one found one­ tions for writing au­ self, and that, too, not unpleasantly, im­ thoritatively on Mai- paled upon the point of his kindly irony. monides, for he has His conversation was of such a quality that no Hebrew, no Arabic it compelled attention because of its bril­ no Greek, no Latin, nor any first-hand liant and unexpected turns. All these ele­ acquaintance with the philosophic and ments added an interest and a sparkle to theologic literature of the Middle Ages. the pleasures of an intercourse in which Alas! Die Zeiten der Vergangenheit sind philosophy and erudition were made to uns ein Buch mit sieben Siegel, as Faust mingle with gaiety and laughter. says to his famulus Wagner, and how far Dr. Schechter, a Roumanian born, came does even he penetrate who may have here from England with a long established broken but a few of these seven seals! reputation as one of the foremost rabbinical The circumstances that inspired the writ­ scholars. For some years he had held a ing of this paper were, however, of so lively readership at the University of Cambridge, and interesting a character to the writer and a professorship at the University of himself through his association with Pro­ London. At Cambridge his life was highly fessor Schechter, that he ventures to think congenial, as his friends and associates were that the following account of this man and such men as Sir James G. Frazer, author of his work will also be of interest to the the “Golden Bough,” Dr. Eriker Magnus- reader. sen, the Icelandic scholar, W. D. Buckland, In 1902 Dr. Solomon Schechter came to regius professor of law, Rendell Harris, this country to assume the presidency of the New Testament scholar, Sir Donald the then newly established Jewish Theolog­ MacAIister, later principal of Glasgow ical Seminary in New York. University, and, perhaps most important of It was my good fortune to be referred to all, Dr. Charles Taylor, master of St. John’s him and to become his physician, and from College, eminent as a Hebrew scholar, and that time, until his sudden death in 1915, one of the few who recognized the impor­ our relations were frequent and intimate. tance of that post-Biblical Jewish literature, Schechter was in many ways a remarkable to which Schechter himself had devoted man, remarkable as an authority in his so much attention. particular line of study, and remarkable It was while he was still at Cambridge, because of his interesting personality; and in 1896, that he began those remarkable it was with this side of him that I naturally literary finds the story of which I want to came most in contact. set down here, and which may well be In his home, and among congenial friends, classed as among the romances of literature. he shone delightfully. Here, in animated As told me at odd times, partly by his wife, *Read before the Charaka Club, New York and partly by himself, it came to pass in mended. This seemed his great opportunity, the manner narrated below. and his friend, Dr. Taylor, the master of It seems that the book of the Apocrypha St. John’s College, generously providing entitled Ecclesiasticus, or The Wisdom of the funds, off he set to find this literary Jesus the Son of Sirach, was known to needle in an Egyptian haystack. Could scholars in the Greek version only, but anything seem more visionary? internal evidence pointed to a Hebrew It may be proper here to state that the original. Dr. Schechter had long been word genizah means a hiding place. All interested in this book, and had often synagogues it appears have some room in expressed the thought (so Mrs. Schechter which old books, old papers, old worn-out told me) that, had he but the time and the scrolls of the law, all the superseded frag­ means, he felt sure he could find an early ments of ecclesiastical machinery are stored Hebrew version. away, and—forgotten. The origin of this At Cambridge, he had as friends two custom arose from the desire to prevent learned ladies who unwittingly moved in anything containing the word, “God’’from the “mysterious way this wonder to per­ being profaned by its falling into the dis­ form.” These ladies, two sisters, Mrs. card. But, aside from this pious purpose, Lewis and Mrs. Gibson, were in the habit it happened, too, that books considered of traveling in the Holy Land, and were heterodox, or for any other reason, objec­ much interested in collecting manuscripts. tionable, were put into those lumber-rooms About to depart on their annual trip to to get them out of harm’s way (possibly Palestine, they asked Schechter what they also to allow the elect to have a peep at could do for him there. He told them (they them “unbeknownst”). themselves were unacquainted with Hebrew) These old genizahs have, consequently, that should they chance to come across any from time to time, given up rare literary seemingly old Hebrew writings, to procure treasures to those who have had the them, on the chance that they might prove hardihood to work in the dust and dirt interesting. and decay of centuries. The genizah of On their return, they brought him a small Cairo, or rather of its synagogue, at Fostat box of manuscripts. These consisted chiefly (where, as we will learn later, Maimonides of leases, bills of sale, and similar business lived) was however, particularly noted, papers, but among them he found, mirabile and had long been known to students, for dictu, a fragment in Hebrew of Ecclesias­ manuscripts had, from time to time, found ticus. Great was his excitement, and interest, their way out of it, and had fallen into an interest shared by his wife who was the hands of dealers in antiquities. Hence always his sympathetic companion. To the genizah of Cairo had become the her he reiterated the conviction that now Genizah par excellence. he felt more than ever sure that he could On arriving at Cairo, so the story goes, find the rest of the manuscript of which Schechter visited first the Grand Rabbi and the piece he had was but a fragment. (It asked permission to delve into the ruined was not much bigger than the palm of a synagogue of Fostat. The interview was hand.) He rightly divined that not Pales­ rather amusing. “What do you want to do tine, but Egypt was the real source of the there?” said the Rabbi. “I want to hunt writing and that it had come originally for old books,” replied Schechter. “Are from the “genizah” of the old synagogue there not plenty of new books?” was the near Cairo. response. Schechter had to admit the A providential illness now came to his incontestable truth of that assertion, but aid, and, for his convalescence a sojourn in urged that at present his own particular a warm climate was fortunately recom­ fancy lay only in the direction of old ones. It ended by his getting not only permission once a Coptic church, dated from the year, to explore, but to keep all he found! 1000. There were bills of sale, leases, deeds, The genizah was at the end of a gallery marriage contracts (and alas, also decrees and had to be entered by a ladder through of divorce), letters of recommendation to a hole in the wall. Of it he says: the congregation, begging letters, and inti­ One can hardly realize the confusion in a mate and homely papers of all kinds. And, genuine old genizah until one has seen it. among these, were found some autograph It is a battlefield of books, and the literary letters of both Maimonides and of his son! productions of many centuries have their share To me it seemed a marvelous thing to in the battle, and their disjecta membra are now have seen the actual handwriting of a man strewn over its area. Some of the belligerants so famous in medicine and so long dead, a have perished outright and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space, whilst man connected in my mind, in a hazy sort others, as if overtaken by a general crush, are of way, with Saladin and, so, with Scott’s, squeezed into big, unshapely lumps, which even “Talisman.” It, somehow, with a bound with the aid of chemical appliances can no brought the Middle Ages and all the longer be separated without serious damage to romance of the Crusades to my very door. their constituents.1 I could not get the thought out of my mind, Here, in darkness and heat, and amid the and so I took to reading and delving a bit dust and confusion of ages, he worked for myself.Kind friends at Columbia University several months, and at the end sent back helped me in various ways, and thinking to Cambridge, Eng., twenty-six large pack­ that my fellow members of the Charaka ing cases of manuscripts, containing, he Club, and other professional colleagues, estimated, no less than one hundred thou­ might find a history of old Dr.
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