Table Of ContentTHE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED
VOLUME I
THE GUIDE
OF THE
PERPLEXED
Moses Maimonides
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
SHLOMO PINES
With an Introductory Essay by
LEO STRAUSS
VOLUME I
THE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
PRESS
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1963 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1963.
Published with the aid of the Bollingen Foundation
Designed by Andor Braun
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 12 13 14 15 16
ISBN: 0-226-50230-9 (Vol. 1, paperback)
0-226-50231-7 (Vol. 2, paperback)
LCN: 62-18113
e The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
SPONSORS
*
CHARLES AARON SAMUEL N. KATZIN
MAXWELL ABBELL SAM LAUD
BARNEY BALABAN NATHAN SCHWARTZ
LESTER SELIG
MICHAEL BRAUDE
MARVIN N. STONE
MORRIS DeWOSKIN
MORTON B. WEISS
MORRIS FEIWELL
RABBI MARTIN M. WIRTZ
MIRIAM AND
HAROLDB. FUERSTENBERG ABE WINTER
JOSHUA B. GLASSER SAMUEL WOLBERG
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
*
T
o Professor Ralph Lerner of the University of Chicago we wish to express our
deepest thanks for the most valuable editorial task he has performed. He has
contributed greatly to giving this translation an English style that reflects Mai
monides' subtle prose. This contribution involved repeated recourse to both the
Arabic and Hebrew versions of the Guide in order to verify the consistency and
clarity of the translation. While we must absolve him of any responsibility for
such defects as may still exist, we are very much obliged to Professor Lerner for
his devoted labors, skill, patience, and wise understanding of the problems.
Shlomo Pines
Leo Strauss
PREFACE
*
EVERYO~E connected with the production of this translation of Maimonides'
Guide of the Perplexed has long felt that such a new translation was necessary.
The legitimate demand that must be made of any translation is not satisfied by
any of the existing modern language translations of the Guide. We rightly demand
that a translation should remain as close as is practicable to the original, that
within the limits of the possible it should give the reader an impression - both in
general and in detail-resembling the impression offered by the original. In the
present translation, pains have been taken to meet this demand. As far as was
compatible with intelligibility, every Arabic technical term has been rendered by
one and the same English term. Wherever the original is ambiguous or obscure,
the translation has preserved or attempted to preserve that very ambiguity or
obscurity. A special effort has been made to reproduce the artful interplay of
Maimonides' Arabic text with his Hebrew and Aramaic quotations from the classic
Jewish sources. Besides, considerable progress has been made, within the last
generation, in the understanding of the Guide. These advances have, of course,
been based on a close study of the original text, and as always in such cases, by
virtue of these advances the existing translations prove now to be less adequate
than they had appeared to be before. In other words, to the extent that earlier
translators. were not sufficiently sensitive to certain facets of the Guide, their
translations failed to disclose those facets. A single example must suffice: where
Maimonides speaks of "political," previous translators speak of "social"; where
Maimonides says "city," they translate "state"; where Maimonides speaks of
"political civic actions," they speak of "social conduct." A moment's reflection
shows that an entirely different perspective is provided when the political is
mentioned, rather than the social.
The present translation is based on the Arabic text established by S. Munk
(Le Guide des Egares; 3 vols.; Paris, 1856-66) and edited with variant readings
Preface
by Issachar Joel (Dallilat al-l}lPirin; Jerusalem: J. Junovitch, 5691 [1930/31]).
Where the readings adopted by Munk and Joel have not been followed, this has
been noted. The pagination of the Munk edition is indicated by thin vertical lines
in the body of the text and by bracketed numerals in the running head. These
numerals refer to those pages of the Arabic text whose beginnings are denoted by
the first and last vertical lines occurring on the two facing pages. Italic type in the
text has been reserved to indicate Maimonides' use of words that are clearly
identifiable as being Hebrew or Aramaic. The division of the text into parts and
chapters is Maimonides'. The Arabic text has no paragraphing, very little punctua
tion, and, of course, no capitalization; the translator is responsible for such features
in this volume.
Shlomo Pines
Leo Strauss
CONTENTS
*
VOLUME I
How To Begin To Study THE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED
by LEO STRAUSS Xl
Translator's Introduction lvii
THE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED
PART I: 1
VOLUME II
PART II: 233 PART III: 413
Glossary 639
Indexes 643
BIBLICAL PASSAGES APPEARING IN THE TEXT 645
RABBINIC PASSAGES APPEARING IN THE TEXT 655
SECTS, COMMUNITIES, AND NONBIBLICAL
WRITERS AND WRITINGS 657
