Article contents
Leo Strauss: Between Athens and Jerusalem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
Harold Bloom, the Yale literary critic, once described Leo Strauss as “political philosopher and Hebraic sage.” This always seemed to me unusually prescient. For Strauss is most frequently understood as an interpreter and critic of a number of thinkers, both ancient and modern, who belong to the history of political philosophy. But far less often is he regarded as a contributor to Jewish thought. It is neither as a historian nor as a philosopher but as a Jew that I want to consider him here.
At first blush this approach to Strauss seems relatively unproblematical. Even a superficial perusal of his major works shows that Jewish themes were a continual preoccupation of his from the earliest times onwards.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1991
References
1. Harold Bloom, “Forward” to Yerushalmi, Yosef H., Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (New York: Schocken, 1989), p. xiii.Google Scholar
2. Strauss, Leo, Die Religionskritik Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschaft (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1930); English translation by Sinclair, E. M., Spinoza's Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken, 1965).Google Scholar
3. Strauss, Leo, Philosophie und Gesetz: Beitrage zum Verstständnis Maimunis und seiner Vorläufer (Berlin: Schocken, 1935)Google Scholar; English translation by Baumann, Fred, Philosophy and Law: Essays Toward an Understanding of Maimonides and his Predecessors (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1987.Google Scholar
4. Strauss, Leo, “Jerusalem and Athens: Some Introductory Reflections,” Commentary 43 (1967): 45–57Google Scholar; reprinted in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, ed. Pangle, Thomas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 147–73Google Scholar; see also “The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” Independent Journal of Philosophy 3 (1979): 111–18Google Scholar; “Progress or Return?” Modern Judaism 1 (1981): 17–45Google Scholar; reprinted in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Pangle, Thomas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 227–70Google Scholar; “On the Interpretation of Genesis” L'Homme 21 (1981): 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Strauss, Leo, “Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion,” Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (New York: Basic Books, 1968), pp. 224–59. In a letter to Gershom Scholem dated 2 December 1962, Strauss explained his decision to publish this autobiography as follows: “When studying Hobbes, I observed that what he said and did not say was a function of the heresy laws obtaining at the time of publication of his various works. But then I saw that in one of his works published at the time of considerable restriction he was more outspoken than ever before. I was baffled until I noted that this book was published when he was already very old, with one foot in the grave and I learned that this condition is conducive to courage. As for me I have had my first two heart attacks, Ergo.” I would like to thank Professor Joseph Cropsey for allowing me access to the Strauss-Scholem correspondence.Google Scholar
6. “Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion,” p. 224.
7. Strauss, Leo, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar
8. “Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion,” p. 230.
9. Strauss, Leo, New Preface to Hobbes politische Wissenschaft (Berlin: H. Luchterhand, 1965), p. 7.Google Scholar
10. Spinoza's Critique of Religion, p. 194; City and Man, p. 241.
11. “Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” p. 113; “Progress or Return?” p. 270.
12. Strauss, Leo, What Is Political Philosophy and Other Studies (New York: Free Press, 1959), p. 11.Google Scholar
13. “Progress or Return?” p. 246.
14. Ibid., p. 251.
15. Ibid., pp. 253–54; see also History of Political Philosophy, ed. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 2–3.Google Scholar
16. “Progress or Return?” pp. 246–47.
17. Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 130Google Scholar; see also On Tyranny (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), p. 205.Google Scholar
18. “Progress or Return?” pp. 247–48.
19. City and Man, pp. 1–12; Liberalism: Ancient and Modern, pp. v–ix; “The Crisis of Our Time,” The Predicament of Modern Politics, ed. Spaeth, Harold (Detroit: University of Detroit Press, 1964), pp. 41–54.Google Scholar
20. On Tyranny, p. 190.
21. What Is Political Philosophy? p. 28.
22. Natural Right and History, p. 15.
23. Philosophy and Law, pp. 11–12; What Is Political Philosophy? p. 45; see also Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 297–98.Google Scholar
24. Philosophy and Law, pp. 3–20.
25. “Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious” (Burke, Edmund, cited in Natural Right and History, p. 169).Google Scholar
26. Natural Right and History, pp. 81–83; City and Man, p. 241.
27. Natural Right and History, p. 169; emphasis mine.
28. Spinoza's Critique of Religion, pp. 172–82.
29. Descartes, René, Discourse on Method, Part VI.Google Scholar
30. Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Smith, Norman Kemp (New York: St. Martin's, 1965): “Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit” (p. 9).Google Scholar
31. Philosophy and Law, p. 18.
32. Bloom, Alan, “Leo Strauss,” Political Theory 4 (1974): 383Google Scholar, speaks of “three phases” in Strauss's development while Benardete, Seth, “Leo Strauss' ‘The City and Man,’” Political Science Reviewer 8 (1978): 1, speaks of a “fundamental change” taking place in his thought.Google Scholar
33. Strauss, Leo, “Der Zionismus bei Nordau,” Der Jude 7 (1922–23): 657–60Google Scholar; English translation by Neugroschel, Joachim “Zionism in Max Nordau,” The Jew: Essays from Martin Buber's Journal “Derjude” 1916–1928, ed. Cohen, Arthur (University: University of Alabama Press, 1980), pp. 120–26.Google Scholar
34. Ibid., p. 124.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., p. 125.
37. Ibid., p. 126.
38. Strauss, Leo, “Introductory Essay,” in Cohen, Hermann, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. Kaplan, Simon (New York: Ungar, 1972); reprinted in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, p. 246.Google Scholar
39. Cohen, Hermann, “Spinoza uber Staat und Religion, Judentum und Christentum,” Jüudische Schriften, ed. Strauss, B. (Berlin: Schwetschke, 1924) 3: 290–372.Google Scholar
40. Ibid., pp. 298, 360.
41. Ibid., pp. 371–72.
42. Ibid., p. 361.
43. Strauss, Leo, “Cohens Analyse der Bibelwissenschaft Spinozas,” Der Jude 8 (1924)): 295–314.Google Scholar
44. Ibid., p. 298.
45. Ibid., p. 299.
46. Ibid., p. 302.
47. Ibid., pp. 309, 311.
48. See especially, Cohen, Hermann, Kants Begründung der Ethik (Berlin: F. Dummlers, 1877), pp. 272–73.Google Scholar
49. Kant, Immanuel, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Greene, T. M. and Hudson, H. H. (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 116.Google Scholar
50. Kant, Immanuel, Der Streit der Facultäten, Werke, ed. Cassier, Ernst et al. (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1922), 7: 375.Google Scholar
51. Mendelssohn, Moses, Jerusalem or on Religious Power and judaism, trans. Arkush, Allan (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1983), p. 94.Google Scholar
52. Spinoza, Baruch, A Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. Elwes, R. H. M. (New York: Dover, 1951), p. 27.Google Scholar
53. Ibid., pp. 38–39.
54. Ibid., p. 46.
55. Schriften, Jūdische 1: 105–24Google Scholar; partial English translation Eve Jospe, Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), pp. 122–27.Google Scholar
56. Ibid., 2: 319–27, 328–40; Reason and Hope, pp. 164–71.Google Scholar
57. Jūdische Schriften, 2: 73.Google Scholar
58. Ibid., pp. 310–11; see also Jerusalem, p. 133ff.Google Scholar
59. Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, p. 28Google Scholar; for a sustained examination of Rosenzweig's relation to Heideggerian existentialism see Lowith, Karl, “M. Heidegger and F. Rosenzweig or Temporality and Eternity” Philosophy and Phenomenalogical Research 3 (1942): 53–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Strauss's relation to Löwith see their “Correspondence Concerning Modernity,“ reprinted in Independent Journal of Philosophy 4 (1983): 111–18.Google Scholar
60. Rosenzweig, Franz, The Star of Redemption, trans. Hallo, William (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), pp. 176–77.Google Scholar
61. Ibid., p. 213.
62. Ibid., p. 213: “The [Kantian] moral law is necessarily purely formal and therefore not only ambiguous but open to an unlimited number of interpretations. By contrast the commandment to love one's neighbor is clear and unambiguous in content.” The classic of this critique of Kant is still Hegel's, Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox, T. M. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), para. 135, pp. 89–90.Google Scholar
63. Star of Redemption, p. 217.Google Scholar
64. See Glatzer, Nahum, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York: Schocken, 1961), pp. 190–208.Google Scholar
65. “Preface to Spinoza's Ctiritque of Religion,” p. 237.Google Scholar
66. Jüdische Schriften 1: 306–30Google Scholar; Reason and Hope, p. 76.Google Scholar
67. Pirke Aboth, III, 2Google Scholar; see also “Cohens Analyse,” p. 305Google Scholar; “Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion” p. 247.Google Scholar
68. “Jerusalem and Athens“ p. 168.Google Scholar
69. Strauss, Leo, “How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Pines, Shlomo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. xiGoogle Scholar; for some of Strauss' other writings see “Quelques remarques sur la science politique de Maimonide et de Farabi,” Revue des Etudes Juives 100 (1936): 1–37Google Scholar; “Maimonides' Statement on Political Science,” What Is Political Philosophy? pp. 155–69Google Scholar; “The Literary Character of the ‘Guide of the Perplexed,’“ Persecution and the Art of Writing (New York: Free Press, 1952), pp. 38–94.Google Scholar
70. Philosophy and Law, pp. 82–83.Google Scholar
71. Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 36Google Scholar: “This literature is essentially related to a society which is not liberal.”
72. See ibid., pp. 22–37.
73. See Drury, Shadia, The Political Ideas ofLeo Strauss (New York: St. Martin's, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
74. Tarcov, Nathan, “Philosophy and History: Tradition and Interpretation in the Work of Leo Strauss,“ Polity 16 (1983): 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
75. Guide of the Perplexed, p. 6.Google Scholar
76. Ibid., pp. 6–7.
77. “How to Begin to Study the Guide’ pp. xiii, xiv.Google Scholar
78. See Pagels, Elaine, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 57–72.Google Scholar
79. Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1961), pp. 40–79.Google Scholar
80. Jonas, Hans, The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), pp. 320–40Google Scholar; for some of the literary uses of Gnosticism see Cantor, Paul, Creature and Creator: Myth-Making and English Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
81. Scholem, Gershom, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays in Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1971), pp. 78–141.Google Scholar
82. See Twersky, I., Introduction to the Code of Maimonides: (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Hartman, David, Maimonides: Tbrah and Philosophic Quest (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1976)Google Scholar; Brague, Remi, “Leo Strauss et Maimonide,” Maimonides and Philosophy, ed. Pines, S. and Yovel, Y. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), pp. 246–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
83. See Holzhey, Helmut and Zimmerli, Walther C., eds., Esoterik und Exoterik der Philosophie. Beiträg zur geschichte und Sinn philosophischer Selbstbestimmung (Basel: Schwabe, 1977).Google Scholar
84. Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 55Google Scholar; emphasis mine.
85. What Is Political Philosophy? p. 17.Google Scholar
86. Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 56Google Scholar; for the possibility of an esoteric commentary see Ravitzky, Aviezer, “Samuel Ibn Tibbon and the Esoteric Character of the ‘Guide of the Perplexed,’” AJS Review 6 (1981): 87–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
87. Strauss, Leo, “On Collingwood's Philosophy of History,” Review of Metaphysics 5 (1952): 585.Google Scholar
88. Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 37.Google Scholar
89. Natural Right and History, pp. 74–76Google Scholar; Philosophy and Law, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar
90. What Is Political Philosophy? p. 50.Google Scholar
91. “Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion,” p. 225.Google Scholar
92. “Progress or Return?“ p. 232.Google Scholar
93. Ibid., p. 233.
- 1
- Cited by