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Heresy and the Nature of Faith in Medieval Jewish Philosophy*

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Heresy and the Nature of Faith in Medieval Jewish Philosophy* HERESY AND THE NATURE OF FAITH IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY* Menachem Kellner Two very different conceptions of the nature of heresy and the question of who is a heretic are to be found in medieval Jewish texts.1 I wish to suggest here that these different conceptions reflect (not surprisingly) different answers to the question “Who is a Jew?”, and that these different answers reflect in turn different conceptions of the nature of religious faith. In other words, the controversy over the nature of heresy was a dispute not over what Jews were expected to believe (the content of faith) so much as over what it means to say that a person is a believer (the nature of faith). We may say that the question is less one of theology than of epistemology. Maimonides, as is well known, laid down thirteen specific doctrines2 which every Jew qua Jew had to accept.3 Failure to accept even one of these doctrines caused a person to be excluded from the community of Israel, both in this world and in the next. This is what he says: * This article is based upon my book Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought (Oxford, 1986). Here I focus on one issue, drawing together material treated in the book in a variety of contexts. 1 By “heresy” I refer to the idea usually expressed in Hebrew by terms such as kefirah, minut, and ʾepiqorsut. I cannot define the term further at this point since in this paper I hope to prove, inter alia, that the exact meaning of the term was a matter of dispute in the Middle Ages. The issue of heresy usually arose in the medieval period in the context of discussions of dogma. On that subject see my “Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: A Biblical Survey,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 15 (1984): 5–21. I have dealt with some of the issues raised in the present study in my essay “What is Heresy?,” Studies in Jewish Philosophy 3 (1983): 55–70. In that article I explored some of the contemporary implications of the issues treated here. The purely historical portions of that article were published in Hebrew in Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 3 (1983): 393–404. 2 Maimonides’ text may be most easily found in English on pp. 417–23 of I. Twersky (ed.), A Maimonides Reader (New York, 1972). 3 I purposely use the term “accept” since the question of whether Maimonides insisted on knowledge of the principles or belief in them is a vexed one. See my Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought (henceforth: Dogma), chapter 1, n. 160 (p. 233). This essay was first published as, “Heresy and the Nature of Faith in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” The Jewish Quarterly Review (1987): 299–318. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsyl- vania Press. 36 HERESY AND THE NATURE OF FAITH When all these foundations4 are perfectly understood and believed in by a person, he enters the community of Israel, and one is obligated to love and pity him and to act towards him in all ways in which the Creator has com- manded that one should act towards his brother, with love and fraternity. Even were he to commit every possible transgression, because of lust and because of being overpowered by the evil inclination, he will be punished according to his rebelliousness, but he has a portion [in the world to come]; he is one of the sinners in Israel. But if a man doubts any of these founda- tions, he leaves the community [of Israel], denies the fundamental,5 and is called a sectarian,6 an ʾepiqoros,7 and one who “cuts among the plantings.”8 One is required to hate him and destroy him. About such a person it was said, Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate Thee? (Ps. 139:21).9 This statement teaches a number of important lessons:10 first, that entry into the community of Israel depends upon the perfect understanding and acceptance of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles;11 second, that a person who accepts these principles is thereby rendered worthy of all the benefits of being a Jew;12 third, that sinning (i.e., violating specific precepts of the Torah) does not cost one either one’s membership in the community of Israel or one’s portion in the world to come; fourth, that an individual who doubts any one of the principles excludes himself or herself from the community of Israel and by implication from the world to come;13 fifth, that such a person must be hated and destroyed.14 4 I.e., Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles. 5 Kafar be-ʿiqqar. 6 Min. 7 On this term see B. Sanh. 99b–100a. 8 A reference to Elisha ben Abuyah; see B. Ḥag. 14b. 9 My translation here is based upon the text presented by Rabbi Joseph Qafiḥ in his dual (Arabic and Hebrew) edition of Mishnah ʿim Perush Rabbenu Mosheh ben Maimon (Jerusalem, 1965), 4:217. 10 I ought to emphasize that in this article I deal only with the “public” Maimonides, ignoring altogether the question of whether or not he had a “secret doctrine.” This is entirely legitimate, since the other medieval thinkers with whom I will be dealing were responding to the public Maimonides. 11 Maimonides seems to accept the halakhic implications of this contention; see his codification of the laws of conversion, discussed below. 12 Maimonides codifies the obligation to love a fellow Jew in “Laws of Moral Qualities” (6.3). 13 It is implied by the fact that the mishnah on which Maimonides is commenting here (see below) deals precisely with the question of who does and who does not merit a share in the world to come. Maimonides makes the point explicitly in “Laws of Repentance” 3 and in his commentary on Sanh. 10.2 and 11.3. 14 See “Laws of Idolatry” 10.1, “Laws of Testimony” 9.10, and “Laws of the Murderer” 13.14..
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