Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook (review)

First published in 1963, with Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi as editors, this collection was the only anthology of medieval political philosophy that included texts from all three monotheistic religious traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a claim which the present editors still make. The second edition of Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, revised by Joshua Parens and Joseph C. Macfarland, uses the medieval corpus to explore various approaches for understanding the relation between religion and politics, as well as the relation of medieval political thought to that of classical political philosophy. Writers in all three traditions wrestled with the question of how their monotheism challenged aspects of classical thought, and in turn, religious doctrine was influenced by this engagement with classical philosophy.

In their general introduction, the editors stress the difference between the Jewish and Muslim emphasis on jurisprudence and the prophet as legislator, and that of Christianity, which focused on the divine text as a guide to right understanding and moral discernment, with Jesus as a teacher and moral counselor rather than law-giver. This distinction led to a natural affinity for Plato as the classical political model for Jewish and Muslim thinkers, while Aristotle’s emphasis on ethical teaching fit well in the Christian context. Other themes that the editors identify as running throughout these works are the division of the sciences, the idea of the solitary, prophets as philosopher-kings, and the concept of natural law versus revealed law.

The Sourcebook is divided into three sections on Muslim, Jewish, and Christian writings, respectively. At first glance, the separation of the texts by religious tradition seems to emphasize differences rather than connections. The connections are significant: the thinkers of these three traditions were focused on similar problems, adapted the works from the other traditions, and were sometimes members of the same societies. However, this apparent division is remedied by the introductions to each text, which provide information about the translation history (when an Islamic text was available in Hebrew, for example), as well as a brief discussion of the responses and influences of these texts on other writers. In addition, this second edition provides a bibliography for further reading.

The three sections are also organized chronologically, which enables the reader to follow development of shared philosophical themes across religious lines. Broadly summarized, Islamic intellectual debate sparked by Alfarabi (ca. 870–950) eventually had a strong influence on Jewish philosophy, particularly for those on the Iberian peninsula, and therefore the section on Judaism follows that on Islam. Later, the Christian debate on these themes flourished from the thirteenth century, a period when Christian thinkers had access to the philosophy of the ancients and of the Muslim and Jewish traditions. With the spread of universities and of the Scholastic tradition, the effort to reconcile Christian theology with classical philosophy yielded a number of texts significant for the development of European intellectual thought and religious practice.

The first section contains translated excerpts from works by Alfarabi (five selections), Avicenna, Alghazali, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl, and Averroes, spanning the tenth to the twelfth centuries; major themes that these thinkers examine include law and jurisprudence, the proper division of the sciences, and the solitary life. The second section of the Sourcebook concentrates on the Jewish religious thinkers Saadya Gaon, Judah Haleri, Maimonides (represented by four texts), Isaac Polgar, and Abravanel, which range from the tenth to the fifteenth century. The themes of the solitary and the division of the sciences are continued in these texts, as well as the importance of jurisprudence (talmud). Jewish philosophers were also concerned with the idea of the philosopher-king as prophet, although they stressed the uniqueness of Mosaic prophecy. Another area of debate was whether there was such a thing as natural law, or only revealed law. Although Judaism was older than Islam, medieval political philosophy emerged later in the Jewish tradition. Thus, the work of Maimonides owed some debt to Alfarabi and Ibn Bajja, and that of Polgar to Alfarabi and Averroes. Ideas...