Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History by Jeffrey A. Bernstein (review)

Ever since Tertullian famously asked, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?,” numerous philosophers and theologians throughout history have struggled to answer this question. In this thought-provoking analysis of Leo Strauss’s famous yet problematic attempt to answer Tertullian’s challenge, Jeffrey A. Bernstein employs the metaphor of the “border” as the best way to comprehend the relation between the two founding cities of Western civilization. If Bernstein is right, Strauss is the only philosopher “who uses the entire history of philosophy as a lens through which to illustrate order and freedom as modes of the human soul.” Strauss is doubly unique for living on the “border” between Athens and Jerusalem. More specifically, he is “a citizen of Athens on the border of Jerusalem.” Lest this wording imply any serious opposition, Bernstein adds: “my approach has been one of synchrony on the border of diachrony.”

This last statement prepares the reader for Bernstein’s close (philosophical and historical) analysis of what “Athens” and “Jerusalem” mean and how they relate to each other on this “border.” Before Bernstein discusses the substance of this relation, he first explains, closely following Strauss’s hermeneutic, how they differ from each other. “Jerusalem refers to the way of life based on obedience to divine law, while Athens refers to the way of life based on the human search for wisdom.” Moreover, “‘Jerusalem’ is the name that indicates the desire to live a life based in the mercy characteristic of obedience to (divine) law,” whereas “‘Athens’ is the name that indicates the desire to live a life based in free human inquiry and contemplation—that is, in thought and speech.” Yet this fundamental difference need not lead to absolute opposition, since they are both committed to answering the question “what is the best or most just life.” Moreover, the philosophers of Athens need Jerusalem, so that they can understand just how different the lives of the philosopher and the believer happen to be. This lesson, according to Bernstein, should be drawn from Strauss’s sharp distinction between Athens and Jerusalem. Even though Jerusalem is not philosophical, it must be made philosophically intelligible by the heirs of Athens. “That Strauss was not himself a believer does not mean that he took the possibility of Jerusalem to be philosophically insubstantial.” In his illuminating discussion of Strauss’s lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during Strauss’s stay there from 1954 to 1955, Bernstein notes that it was Strauss’s mission to enact “in Jerusalem the classical political philosophical stance par excellence.” What, then, does this “philosophical stance” teach about the proper relation between Athens and Jerusalem?

More specifically, can a self-respecting philosopher reject the fantastic claims of revelation while acknowledging “the necessity of (and even the need for) Jerusalem?” Why is there any necessity here at all? Although Bernstein shows how opposed Strauss was to the competing attempts of Martin Buber and Carl Schmitt to synthesize politics and theology (see ch. 4), he ultimately admits that, in Strauss’s view, the most intelligent philosophers (Maimonides, Spinoza) looked to biblical religion to provide a morality for non-philosophers.

I certainly agree with Bernstein that philosophers should study the Bible (and that theologians should study philosophy), but this attempt at dialogue does not easily set aside major differences between Athens and Jerusalem. One striking example from Bernstein’s own discussion comes to mind. The philosophers of Athens “reject a way of life that takes its departure from the primacy of Creation and a personal deity.” In other words, as Strauss and Hermann Cohen well understood, the God of Aristotle is not equivalent to the personal God of Jerusalem. This difference is so stark that Strauss rejected any attempt to synthesize the two traditions (as Thomism does) as doomed to failure. As Strauss argues in his essay “Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections” (1967), the God of Aristotle...