A DIVISION OF OPINIONS

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, just a few years after Maimonides' death, his Hebrew translator Samuel Ibn Tibbon sketched a critical and incisive picture of his contemporaries and their response to Maimonides' philosophic teaching. None of the readers or interpreters of the Guide were omitted. On the one hand, he wrote, “Many of our generation revile his words and called his light darkness.” They vilified Maimonides' writings and found them religiously defective. On the other hand, there are people who support Maimonides, but they too betray his original intention. They accept his teaching only because they have not understood its full import: “Had they however fully understood the profound intention of the Master, they would have undoubtedly acted just as their [anti-Maimonidean] colleagues, and only a very few would remain [Maimonidean].” The community was thus divided between critics, who attacked Maimonides for his audacity, and supporters, many of whom ignored it. Only a precious few succeeded in plumbing the depths of his doctrine, and only these were worthy of being called his true followers.