nce to the Hebrew
text, his method is nearly as artificial and his thought as extraneous
to the text as the method and thought of Philo. The content of their
philosophies is, indeed, strikingly alike, save that the one is a
Platonist, the other an Aristotelian. This involves not so much a
difference of philosophical views as a difference of temper and of
objective. The followers of Plato are mystics, yearning for the love
of God; the followers of Aristotle are rationalists, seeking for the
abstract knowledge of God. Hence in Maimonides there is less soaring
and more argument than in Philo. Everything is deduced, so far as may
be, with exactitude and logical sequence--according to the logic of
the schoolmen--and everything is formalized according to scholastic
principles. But the subjects treated are the same--the nature of God
and His attributes, His relation to the universe and man, the manner
of the creation, and the way of righteousness.

Maimonides, who is in form more loyal to Jewish tradition, is to a
larger degree than Philo dependent on authority for the philosophical
ideas which he applies to religion. To a great extent this is due to
the spirit of his age, for in the Middle Ages not only was the matter
of thought, but also its form, accepted on authority, and Aristotle
ruled the one as imperiously as the Bible ruled the other. The
differences of form and substance do not, however, obscure the
essential likeness with Philo's interpretation of Judaism. With him
Maimonides holds that the essential nature of God is incognizable.[332]
No positive predication can properly be applied to Him, but we know
Him by His activities in relation to man and the world, _i.e._, by His
attributes or by what Philo called His powers. Maimonides does not
preserve the absolute monarchy of the Divine government, but places
between God and man intermediate beings with subordinate creative
powers--the separate intelligences of the stars, which are identified
with the angels of the Bible.[333] But he maintains inviolate the sole
causality of God and His immanence in the human soul. Maimonides, like
Philo, gives in addition to a metaphysical theology a philosophical
exposition of the law of Moses, which has the same guiding principle
as the books on the "Specific Laws." Moses was the perfect
legislator,[334] whose ordinances are [Hebrew: tsdikim], _i.e._, perfectly
equitable, attaining "the mean"--the Aristotelian conception of
excellenc