Guide for the Perplexed · 95 of 194

Part 2: Chapter III

CHAPTER III THE theory of Aristotle in respect to the causes of the motion of the spheres led him to assume the existence of Intelligences. Although this theory consists of assertions which cannot be proved, yet it is the least open to doubt, and is more systematic than any other, as has been stated by Alexander in the book called The Origin of the Universe. It includes maxims which are identical with those taught in Scripture, and it is to a still greater extent in harmony with doctrines contained in well-known genuine Midrashim, as will be explained by me. For this reason I will cite his views and his proofs, and collect from them what coincides with the teachings of Scripture, and agrees with the doctrine held by our Sages.

Insight · 2

The spheres have a desire to become similar to the ideal comprehended by them. The sentence is one of the most consequential in the whole Guide. Rambam is repeating, in Hebrew, the doctrine Aristotle states at Metaphysics Lambda 7: the Prime Mover moves the cosmos kinei hos eromenon — as the beloved moves the lover. Motion in the heavens is desire, eros, the longing of the lesser intelligence to be like the higher. The doctrine arrived in the Arabic schools through Themistius's commentary and was elaborated by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina into the full emanationist cosmology Rambam adopts here. Aquinas will inherit it through both Maimonides and the Arabic intermediaries and use it to anchor his account of the angels as movers of the spheres (Summa Theologiae I.110). The whole medieval cosmos is held together by desire for a God who never reaches down.Aristotle, Metaphysics Lambda 7 (1072b3, kinei hos eromenon); Themistius, Paraphrasis of Metaphysics Lambda; al-Farabi, al-Madina al-Fadila ch. 1-4; Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.110.

The Active Intellect (sekhel ha-poel, al-aql al-faal). The doctrine Rambam imports here is the structural keystone of medieval philosophy. The Active Intellect is the lowest of the ten separate intelligences, the one in immediate contact with the sublunary world. It is the source of all intelligible forms in human knowledge — the human intellect moves from potentiality to actuality only because the Active Intellect actualises the intelligibles in it. The doctrine is al-Farabi's (Risala fi al-Aql) and Ibn Sina's (al-Shifa, De Anima V); Aquinas will translate it as intellectus agens and locate it inside the human soul rather than outside it (Summa Theologiae I.79.4), opening a centuries-long Latin debate about whether one Active Intellect serves all minds or each mind has its own. Rambam stands with the Arabic majority: one Active Intellect, separate, communicating with every prepared mind that turns toward it.al-Farabi, Risala fi al-Aql (Letter on the Intellect); Ibn Sina, al-Shifa, De Anima V; Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.79.4 (intellectus agens, the Latin reception).

Context

The Intelligences are identical with the angels. Rambam states it almost in passing, but the identification is one of the boldest moves in the Guide. The biblical-rabbinic angelology — Michael, Gabriel, the seraphim, the chayot — is being folded into the Aristotelian-Avicennian system of separated intellects that move the celestial spheres. Every angel becomes a cosmic intelligence; every cosmic intelligence becomes an angel. The Christian Latin tradition, through the Aristotle-and-Aquinas synthesis, will arrive at the same identification (Aquinas treats angels as separate substances assimilated to the movers of the spheres in De Substantiis Separatis and Summa I.50-64). The Kabbalists from the thirteenth century onward will sharply refuse the identification — for them angels remain persons, not intellectual functions — but the philosophical line from Plotinus through al-Farabi through Maimonides through Aquinas is unbroken on this point.Aquinas, De Substantiis Separatis and Summa Theologiae I.50-64 (angels as separate intellectual substances); the Kabbalistic counter-statement is concentrated in Cordovero, Pardes Rimmonim, Sha'ar 24.