172 CHAPTER SIX
the resurrection, problems the discussion of which does not respond to
the Gaon’s treatise. In reading Maimonides’ treatise in the context of the
two other essays it becomes clear that Maimonides responds to his stu-
dent’s arguments at least as much as to the treatise the student was trying
to refute. Moreover, even when Maimonides does react to the Gaon’s
text, he seems to know it only through Joseph’s epistle. Several argu-
ments raised by the Gaon are completely ignored by Maimonides.^67 On
the other hand, all those arguments of the Gaon that Maimonides does
refute are also quoted and refuted by Joseph in his epistle. In other words,
Maimonides’ treatise refers only to those parts of the Gaon’s work that
were quoted in the Silencing Epistle. There are no indications that, be-
fore writing his own treatise, Maimonides has seen the Gaon’s treatise in
any other form than through the extensive quotations in his student’s
work.^68 It therefore seems that when Maimonides mentions in his letter
to Joseph the treatise of the Gaon that Joseph had sent him, he is actually
referring only to the extensive quotations from this treatise that Joseph
had included in his Silencing Epistle. Furthermore, even if we were to as-
sume that Maimonides did read the Gaon’s treatise in it’s entirely, we
must note the fact that he chose to respond to it only as it was refl ected
in his student’s epistle.
This impression is further strengthened by the fact that Maimonides
refers in his work to some positions of the Gaon that have left no trace in
the Gaon’s work, and that he could have derived solely from Joseph’s
epistle. For example, Maimonides states that in his treatise that the Gaon
quotes Abu al- Barakat al- Baghdadi’s al-Kitab al- mutabar, a text that,
Maimonides adds with certain sarcasm, was written “in their place, in
Baghdad (indahum fi baghdad).” The Gaon, however, does not mention
the source of the quotation, and it is only Joseph who identifi es it in his
epistle. Abu al- Barakat’s work was quite infl uential in contemporary Is-
lamic philosophical circles, and in all likelihood, Maimonides could have
(^67) For example, the Gaon claims that the suffering of the righ teous in this world obliges us
to believe that they will fi nd their reward in the world to come, a reward that can only be
given after the soul returns to the body (see Langermann, “Samuel ben Eli’s Epistle on Res-
urrection,” 71– 72). Joseph repeats the biblical verses cited by the Gaon and reinterprets
them. Maimonides, on the other hand, does not refer to any of these verses, and examines
instead verses that seem to deny the idea of resurrection, and that are not cited by the Gaon
or reexamined by Joseph.
(^68) There is thus no need to postulate an additional document of marginal notes to the
Gaon’s treatise, written by Joseph and read by Maimonides, Joseph’s treatise itself being, in
fact, such marginal notes; cf. Langermann, “Samuel ben Eli’s Epistle on Resurrection,” 58;
and Friedberg, “Maimonides’ Reinterpretation,” 245n3. Maimonides mentions in another
(probably later) letter that he has already seen the Gaon’s treatise, and that he had already
responded by writing his own; see Epistles, 394.