Download PDF - Carlos F. Fraenkel

38 carlos fraenkelit takes religion to coincide with philosophy. On another level it takesreligion to be philosophy’s handmaid. Philosophy in this context meansthe pursuit of knowledge with the ultimate goal to attain knowledgeof God. This gives rise to an obvious question: What does religionin this sense have in common with the literal content of a traditionalreligion—with the narratives of Scripture, its pious exhortations, areligious law-code, or individual and communal forms of worship?According to proponents of a philosophical religion, all of these thingsare components of a pedagogical-political program, devised by philosophersfor the guidance of nonphilosophers. This program is conceivedas an imitation of philosophy that allows nonphilosophers to share asmuch as they can in the philosopher’s perfection. Albeit daring, theinterpretation of traditional religions as philosophical religions was byno means marginal. It was set forth by pagan, Jewish, Christian, andMuslim philosophers in a wide range of contexts from antiquity to theearly modern period. Since this interpretation has not yet been systematicallyexamined, an exhaustive account of its history is not possibleat this point. In what follows, my goal is to explain how the patternworks in a number of representative authors in late antiquity and in theearly Middle Ages. Plato’s political philosophy in the middle and latedialogues provided the conceptual framework for this interpretation,although concepts from other intellectual traditions were integrated intoit, most importantly Aristotelian and Stoic concepts, and, in Spinoza’scase, early modern concepts as well. Besides discussing Plato’s politicalphilosophy as it informs the philosophical interpretation of traditionalreligions, I examine three contexts that I argue are conceptually andhistorically related as parts of the reception history of Plato’s politicalthought: Firstly, the interpretation of Judaism and Christianity asphilosophical religions in ancient Alexandria, focusing on the Jewishand Christian philosophers Philo (d. ca. 50 CE), Clement (d. 215), andOrigen (d. ca. 254). Then the interpretation of Islam and Judaism asphilosophical religions in the Middle Ages. Here I will look mainly atal-Fârâbî (d. 950), Averroes (d. 1198), and Maimonides (d. 1204). 1111The close connection between Philo of Alexandria and the Christian PlatonistsClement and Origen has been well established. See van den Hoek 1988 and 2000,Runia 1993 and the special section in Studia Philonica 1994. Al-Fârâbî was the founderof the philosophical school, of which Averroes and Maimonides were the last twoimportant representatives in Muslim Spain. The model he proposed for describing therelationship between philosophy and religion was applied by Averroes to Islam andby Maimonides to Judaism. In addition to being good examples for illustrating this