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60 carlos fraenkelOne last implication of the turn from Socratic politics to Plato’slater political thought must be noted. A nonphilosopher in the bestcity possesses only an imitation of philosophical knowledge, that is,notions of justice and goodness derived from stories about gods, demonsand heroes. He would, therefore, neither be able to defend them in aSocratic elenchos, nor derive any benefit from the insight that he does notreally know what he thought he knew, given his incapacity to replacethe refuted notions through knowledge. In this sense the Socratic projectas presented in the Apology is not only judged inadequate given thereality of the human soul; it is also dangerous, because it potentiallyleads to the moral corruption of the nonphilosopher who is left withoutphilosophy’s imitation while being unable to reach philosophy itself.In the Republic Plato, in fact, explicitly criticizes the use of the elenchosfor testing the beliefs of nonphilosophers: because it will cause themto loose the traditional beliefs established by “the lawgiver” in whichthey were brought up and because they lack the ability to “discover thetrue ones.” After having been “law-abiding,” therefore, they “becomelawless.” 96 Although philosophy still holds the key to the best life, Platonow thinks that it should be practiced outside the public sphere.* * *How did Plato’s later political philosophy become useful to philosopherslike Philo, Clement, and Origen in late antiquity, and al-Fârâbî,Averroes, and Maimonides in the early Middle Ages for integratingtheir religious traditions into a philosophical framework? In a somewhatschematic way the basic pattern can be described as follows: Theexcellence of the religious tradition, according to these philosophers,is due to the fact that it makes the members of the religious communitybetter by leading them to aretê. They adopt the fundamentaldivision of humankind into philosophers and nonphilosophers thatresulted from the development of Plato’s psychology. The foundersof the religion—Moses, Christ, and Muhammad—are presented asaccomplished philosophers. They can, therefore, convey knowledge tothe philosophically talented members of the religious community. Butthey are also prophets, lawgivers, and teachers, and as such devised apedagogical-political program for the guidance of nonphilosophers. Theliteral content of the religious tradition is interpreted as this pedagogical-96See the entire passage in Plato 1900–1907, Republic 538c–539a.
concept and history of philosophical religions 61political program, functioning as a preparation to philosophy for not-yetphilosophersand as a replacement of philosophy for nonphilosophers.Like Plato’s program, it consists of religious stories, exhortations, laws,and religious practices. But in contrast to what Plato does with Homerand Hesiod in the Republic, the philosophers here considered integratethe foundational texts of their religious traditions into a philosophicalframework by attributing to them an allegorical content coinciding withphilosophy. This content in turn can be uncovered through allegoricalexegesis. Moreover, Plato’s view that philosophy should be keptout of the public sphere, because it can lead to the moral corruptionof nonphilosophers, is used by the philosophers considered here, asan explanation for the absence of philosophy from their respectivereligious traditions. Maimonides, for instance, claims that in antiquityphilosophy was transmitted only orally from one generation of Jewishphilosophers to the next until the unfavorable circumstances of theDiaspora interrupted the chain of transmission. 97 The supposed interruptionin turn is used as a justification for studying philosophy fromnon-Jewish sources. Since the religious tradition is an imitation ofphilosophy, it contains philosophy only as its allegorical content whichcannot be apprehended without the prior study of philosophy. Also inthis sense, therefore, studying philosophy becomes a religious practice,for it is essentially the same as the study of the allegorical content ofa religious tradition.All the components of the pedagogical-political program are part ofthe code of divine nomoi set forth in the Laws. There is, moreover, awell established scholarly tradition of interpreting the Laws as a religioustext. Andrea Nightingale, for instance, describes it as a “sacredtext.” 98 For André Laks it is “le premier traité théologico-politique.” 99The Laws can, in fact, be read as both a programmatic statement aboutwhat the nature of a divine law-code must be and as the philosophicalreconstruction of a historical law-code in light of this program. Platoargues that what makes nomoi divine is that they aim to lead the citizensto “hê megistê aretê ”—the highest virtue which consists in the fourcardinal aretai that Plato defined in the Republic: courage, self-control,wisdom, and justice. 100 These in turn are identified as the “divine goods”97See Maimonides 1931, 1.71.98Nightingale 1993.99Laks 2005, 22.100Plato 1900–1907, Laws 630b–c.
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