‘Ishq, ḥesheq, and amor Dei intellectualis

There are many parallels between Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, III.51, and Spinoza’s Ethics, Part Five, propositions 21–42. My remarks in this chapter are about some of them, and in particular about the connection between the Arabic ‘ishq, the Hebrew ḥesheq, and the Latin amor Dei intellectualis. Guide, III.51, begins the climactic conclusion of the work. It treats of the intellectual knowledge of God, its attendant pleasure and love, and eternal life. These are also the topics of the climactic concluding propositions of the Ethics. In his prefatory comments to Guide, III.51, Maimonides states that the chapter is “a kind of conclusion,” adding nothing not discussed in previous chapters, save guidance regarding the intellectual knowledge of God and the eternal life of the intellect. In his prefatory comments to Ethics Vp21-p42, Spinoza similarly states that he has already said everything he wishes to say about “this life,” and the concluding propositions will deal with “the duration of the mind without relation to the body.” Although the Guide is on the whole an Aristotelian book, it is characterized by the wide stylistic diversity of its chapters. Yet III.51 stands out even amid such diversity. It is non-Aristotelian, poetic, and spiced with allusions to mystical literature.