Paul the Apostle and Maimonides on Seeing Through a Glass Darkly

It’s always interesting to discover how Jewish Paul could be. This often is revealed when one immerses himself headlong in other Jewish thinkers. As I have been reading the “Eight Chapters,” Maimonides’ famous introduction to the tractate Pirqei Avot in his Commentary on the Mishnah, I found his discussion of the veils in Chapter Seven particularly enlightening when recalling Paul. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul talks about seeing through a glass darkly, and it is important to note that not only is this not simply an original metaphor, but it is part of a larger rabbinic tradition.

The controversy here in modern times is that the Greek phrase blepomen gar arti di esoptrou en ainigmati in 1 Co. 13:12 may not be the best translation, for which the KJV translates the word esoptron as “glass.”

The associated term found in Jewish literature  אספקלריה (aspaklaria) actually does not originate in the Hebrew, but is a translation of the Latin specularia. It appears to represent a reflective surface, such as that of a polished stone or a mirror. The problem however is that when one finds this in rabbinic literature, there is often no sense of a mirror in which the person looking into it only sees himself. The specularia is found as early as the second century by Judah ben Ilai who noted, “All the prophets had a vision of God as He appeared through nine specula…Moses saw God through one speculum.” The Babylonian Talmud also notes that all the prophets’ visions were obscured by specula. Only Moses saw through a speculum that shines.”

If one understands the function of a mirror, it is hard to see what the rabbi and the Talmud describes functions similarly.  While I grant Maimonides comes centuries after Paul, it is interested to note that the mirror does not give us a clear sense of what Maimonides sees represented either. For Maimonides at least, the context comes with regard to Moses seeing God in the Torah through a diaphanous veil. In Exodus 33: 18-23, God tells Moses he cannot look on him directly, and therefore he is only given a glimpse of his back. Moses is of course greater than anyone before or after him in Maimonides’ view and the concept of the veil is synonymous with human vices that prevent us from the true ethical perfection necessary to know God (it’s just that Moses veil was “thinner” than anyone else’s).  

Maimonides calls this veil sefaqlaria (from the Arabic translation). For both Paul (see 1 Corinthians 13) and Maimonides (Eight Chapters, Chapter 7 and The Guide to for the Perplexed, Chapter 54), this passage and the surrounding subject matter have to do with how one knows God and what is and is not permissible in that knowing due to one’s epistemological limits. The greatest difference being here is that where both diminish the role of the prophet (who for Maimonides is of greater value than even the pious or holy man), where Maimonides holds up Moses, Paul ignores the rabbinical tradition that elevates Moses’ place in this context in his own letter to focus on the limits that prevent us all.