THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT 49
verdict is down- to-earth and unambiguous: “These Karaites are not the
ones designated by the Sages as minim.”^86
Elisha ben Abuya is not the only case in which Maimonides taps into
Muslim heresiography in order to deal with problems in his own, Jew-
ish world. In his introduction to Pereq Heleq Maimonides enumerates
three classes of people in relation to the interpretation of the words of
the Sages in the midrash: 1) Those who understand them literally, and
accept them: women and the uneducated as well as the darshanim who
cater to them— and these are numerous.^87 2) Those who read them lit-
erally and reject them, and these are also a large group. 3) The small
number of people who understand that the words of the Sages contain
hidden wisdom, concealed in riddles and parables. What characterizes
the second group (those who understand the words of the Sages in a
literal manner, and reject them) is their contempt and scorn for the
words of the Rabbis and their excessive arrogance. Maimonides says of
this group:
They repeatedly mock the sayings of the Sages; they claim to be more
intelligent and brighter than the Sages, and that the Sages, peace
upon them, were simpletons who suffered from inferior understand-
ing, that they were ignorant of the entirety of Being, and understood
nothing what ever. Most of those who have stumbled into this error
are those who claim [to know] medicine and those who rave about
the decree of the stars. They claim to be cultivated men, physicians
and phi losophers. How remote they are from true humanity in the
eyes of real phi losophers.^88One might ask: who are these people, who claim to be physicians, who
deal with astrological delusions and claim to engage in philosophy, and
who scorn the words of the Sages and the Talmudic midrashim? Off-
hand, one would seek here Jewish doctors, and more than one, as Mai-
monides speaks here of a group that “are also numerous.”
In his letter to Ibn Tibbon, Maimonides refers critically to Isaac Israeli,
who is “only a physician” (and not a real phi losopher). But Isaac Israeli
is far from meeting the specifi cations given here by Maimonides, and it is
(^86) See note 67, above.
(^87) On this category, see chap. 4, below, apud notes 161– 62.
(^88) Commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10, “Introduction,” in Neziqin, 201– 2. Cf. the
translation of A. J. Wolf, in I. Twersky, ed., A Maimonides Reader (New York and Phila-
delphia, 1972), 408. A similar discrepancy between self- perception and true intellectual
level is mentioned by Maimonides regarding the Sabians, who claim to be phi losophers, but
are in fact “more remote from philosophy than any other [men].” See Guide 3.29 (Dalãla,
376:5-6; Pines, 516), and see chap. 4 and chap. 5 note 82, below.