Is a Harmony of Cultures Possible? Part II – Rising Tide Foundation

(This is the second installment to a lecture I gave to the Rising Tide Foundation in January 2023. For Part I refer here.)

Before we go further into Lessing’s and Mendelssohn’s role and what they were intervening on philosophically, scientifically, artistically and politically in Germany, Austria, and Europe more broadly, I want to go over this question of:

In order to answer this question, I want to do a broad overview of a bit of history that I think is really important for people to know and that probably a lot of people are not aware of – I certainly wasn’t until I read the works of Muriel Mirak Weissbach. These are some references I used for the rest of this lecture.

I want to talk a little bit about the period of Al-Andalus which was at its peak in 719 AD. You had Muslims ruling most of Spain, this was during the Islamic Golden Age. You also have the Muslim Córdoba period in 1000 AD which had a major influence on European culture and was really a center point in science and philosophy.

Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, ‘al-Andalus was a centre of learning, and the city of Córdoba, the second largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry, astronomy, surgery, pharmacology, and agronomy. Al-Andalus became a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea (i.e. Northern Africa) as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.’ (1)

To quote from Muriel Weissbach’s wonderful paper “Andalusia, Gateway to the Golden Renaissance”:

So Al-Andalus had Christians, Muslims and Jews living together, and it was a real center of ecumenism as well. It wasn’t that everyone had to be Muslim in order to participate in Al-Andalus.

The image below (top right) is really great, and showcases that the people of Al-Andalus travelled around a huge chunk of Northern Africa, the Mediterranean, Southwest Asia and beyond. This was the Islamic Renaissance that affected the entire civilized world at that time, such that all three continents of Europe, Africa and Asia were very much influenced by the Islamic Renaissance, including India.

So Muriel writes:

Muriel continues:

‘One chronicler reports that in Córdoba alone, there were 800 schools. In addition, a large orphanage was builtin Córdoba, as in many other towns. Thus, “the majority of Muslims could read and write.” The German philologist Gustav Diercks remarked that “there were even in the smallest villages, public schools and schools for the poor in such numbers, that one has good reason to assume that under al-Hakem II, at least in the province of Córdoba, no one was ignorant of reading and writing.” Al-Hakem was himself a scholar, who had read many of the 400,000 books which filled his famous library, as indicated by his marginal notations. Books originally written in Persia and Syria, became known first in Andalusia (Al-Andalus). The city produced 60,000 books a year, facilitated by the use of paper, an invention the Arabs had taken from the Chinese, and developed in factories in every major city.

The greatest wonder of Andalusia, however, was the advancement of learning. None of its wealth in industry and trade would have been possible without a conscious state policy promoting science, as the driving force behind technological progress and overall economic growth. As with the policy pursued under the Abbasids in Baghdad, the Andalusian rulers promoted learning and patronized the arts as a means of raising the cultural level of the population. ‘Abd al-Rahman I started building the great mosque in 785, an immense public-works project, which established the religious and educational center of the capital. It was enlarged and extended by his successors ‘Abd al-Rahman II and ‘Abd al-Rahman III, and completed by al-Hakem II.’

So there is more than one House of Wisdom and House of Science, there are many learning centers geographically during the Islamic Renaissance. So there is a House of Wisdom in Al-Andalus, as well as the famous House of Wisdom in Baghdad, as well as other locations.

Since the time of Mohammed, the mosque had functioned as “the Islamic educational institution par excellence”…In the Ninth and Tenth centuries, the mosque schools evolved into universities, the first in Europe, which flourished in every city, drawing Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars and students like magnets, from all over the world. Finally, there were the academies, separate from the mosques, the most famous of which were the House of Wisdom (Dur al-Hikmah) and the House of Science (Dur al-’Ilm), which were libraries, translation centers, and astronomical observatories. In the Tenth and Eleventh centuries, the madrasah, a state-sponsored educational institution, appeared in Persia and Baghdad, as well as in Andalusia.

There is also the interesting phenomenon that was at the beginning of Islam anyway, the art of asking questions, a tolerance of permanent disagreement.

Which is very Platonic, I think, in its essence, it shares with that idea and Jews are also very much encouraged with this art of asking questions. It is a good exercise in dialogue where you do not take anything for granted but rather that Knowledge must come to be known, or understood through Reason.

This is a very interesting painting that I have no idea who did or when it was painted unfortunately. I found it on an Arabic website that did not have the details of who painted it, so if anyone knows please let us know.

But, I think very telling, the left side that is kept from the original Raphael painting of the School of Athens retains Plato (the original has Aristotle beside Plato).

This presentation of Plato and Aristotle shows, I think, a bit of friction there between their viewpoints. Thus, interesting that this Muslim painting is inspired by the School of Athens. The Islamic Renaissance was very instrumental in translating both Plato and Aristotle and many other Greek philosophers.

The House of Wisdom was a translation center, an academy, an astronomical observatory and was one of the richest libraries in the world, I believe in Baghdad. Directing a team of 90 translators, who translated a great deal of European works that probably would have been lost if it hadn’t been for the Islamic Renaissance, including the classical Greek works, notably that of Plato.

So in other words, the poetry in which the Koran was written was within a musical geometry, you could say, that contained within it the proof. The Koran is not promoting literary truths, where you dictate a rule or a law and it is to be obeyed, but rather the proof is within the geometry of the poetry, which is not something literal, but you can reach a higher truth through, you could say, what includes a metaphorical understanding. This appears to partake in the Motivführung principle.

The following excerpt is just to make the point that the search for Wisdom is very much at the center of the Koran and that this is necessary in order to divert someone away from evil and towards uplifting the soul.

Notice in the above image (bottom right) the design within the horse is actually the poetry of the Koran.

Interestingly, Al-Andalusia ends up becoming “Christianised” or at least it comes under the rule of these two Christians, Alfonso the Wise and Frederick II Hohenstaufen. (See my paper “The French Connection: The Knights of Malta, the Scottish Rite & the Rise of the Mafia Brotherhoods Part II” for more on Frederick II.)

The French Connection: The Knights of Malta, the Scottish Rite & the Rise of the Mafia Brotherhoods Part II

Muriel remarks:

So Muriel makes a very strong case in her paper of the clear role that the Arab culture, Arab language and even Islam played in the formation and cultivation of higher works within Europe, including Italy which spurred the Italian Renaissance!

And instead of possibly feeling threatened by that, it should actually be again, another demonstration of how these religions are intertwined, it is a brotherhood. There is a common bond within humankind. And the thing that is linking the better natures of these different religions is this union in language, culture and poetry which moves us with storytelling.

So, I think it is a very nice idea. The Muslim religion followed after Christianity, which followed after Judaism, none are thus isolated from the other, or can exist on its own as an island. In fact, each religion has influenced the other at some point in history, and none exist today or even as a cultural phenomenon that you could say is completely separate from influence of the other and I think that is a really beautiful idea that they are constantly intertwining – there is as well a clash when these religions are not displaying wisdom and their true teachings, but they are actually in harmony in their true form. And they have existed in harmony for great lengths of time in many periods of history (including that of Syria for example) but we are just not taught about this.

In the case of Al-Andalus, this is such a massive chunk of European history that is just not talked about and so you have to conclude that this is done somewhat on purpose. That these parts of our history, are not some sort of dreamy idealism or romanticism, but were real concrete examples of harmonious periods of successful ecumenism that were occurring.

So, we will skip ahead now to Gotthold Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn and the birth of German Classicism.

Interestingly as well, with the Arab culture very much influencing the Italian Renaissance, Moses Mendelssohn who was intervening on many things, including what the Jewish faith had become during his time. He was also stressing the fact that Germany didn’t really have its own developed language (a language that could be used in the sciences and the arts), recall in the first instalment to this lecture that French was the language spoken in Germany (as well as Russia) since the Germans did not have a language that could communicate the level of idea content required in the sciences and arts.

And so, Moses Mendelssohn, along with his close friend Lessing, were the originators, the spiritual fathers of German Classicism. It is interesting that an orthodox Jew, Moses Mendelssohn was highly influential in the development of Christian German Classicism, again showcasing how ultimately, all of these religions are in harmony with each other when they are at their best.

Moses Mendelssohn lived between 1729 and 1786. He was a German philosopher and he very much revived the ideas of Plato and Leibniz, which were both coming under heavy attack in Germany at the time. His family and him also played a crucial role in keeping the music of JS Bach, and the rest of the Bach family composers, alive since Bach was also being censored in Germany at the time. Moses’ grandson Felix Mendelssohn did a very historical performance which was the first performance of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion in almost 100 years, during which time Bach had been heavily censored and pretty much banned. I don’t have time to go through that amazing story but for those who want to read more on this they can refer to the Fidelio Journal of Poetry, Science and Statecraft.

Very notably, the man Moses Mendelssohn would study under was Israel ben Moses Ha’Levi Samoscz who was the “last representative of the rabbinico-philosophical synthesis that had its heyday in medieval Spain” this is a direct reference to Al-Andalus a beacon of the Golden Islamic Renaissance, and which in turn influenced the Italian Renaissance. How fitting that Moses Mendelssohn would also be influenced by this!

Moses Mendelssohn sees there has been a decline in what Judaism was during the time of Al-Andalus, where Jewish scholars would travel to the learning hubs, the Schools of Wisdom during the Islamic Renaissance, this in comparison to Moses’s time, where illiteracy was rampant and philosophy and secular learning had come under attack chiefly from the influence of the Kabbala. Thus, according to David Shavin, the Kabbala does not represent the true teachings of Judaism and in fact was directly opposed to it.

It is interesting that the “old spirit” of Judaism, its true spirit, is described as having flourished during the days of Al-Andalus.

Moses Mendelssohn saw the solution to the problem of the decline in Jewish scholarship and philosophy to be the same as what was needed to uplift the German culture and language.

Moses Mendelssohn was a scholar of the Hebrew Pentateuch (the Torah, or Five Books of Moses), the book of law upon which he based his belief in Judaism. As a young boy, he mastered the Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides, and later the Theodicy of Leibniz. Moses had studied Homer, Plato and Leibniz. He had translated the first three books of Plato’s Republic into German and as part of his project in translating Plato’s Phaedo, Moses actually writes his own “Phaedon, or Immortality of the Soul” using the teachings of Leibniz (who was also a follower of the Platonic School) to add to what Plato had initially put forward in his original dialogue.

Leibniz vs Newton: A Clash of Paradigms

Moses Mendelssohn would come to be known as “Berlin’s Plato” or the “Jewish Socrates.” Mendelssohn’s life activity directly shaped what would become the greatest republican minds of the day in Germany: the poets Gotthold Lessing, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller – the great poet of universal freedom, and the scientist-statesmen Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, are among the most prominent (Moses Mendelssohn was also a scientist).

Steven P. Meyer writes in “Moses Mendelssohn and the Bach Tradition”:

“During the last period of his life, Mendelssohn devoted himself to the emancipation, both civil and intellectual, of Europe’s ghettoized Jewish community. The condition of the Jews, over the preceding several centuries, with few exceptions, had been horrendous. Jews were forced to live in squalid, crowded ghettoes; special taxes were levied upon them, including taxes for celebrating the holy Sabbath and congregating for religious prayer service; they were banned from the skilled trades and most professions and could not own land. There was little secular education. There were even laws enacted to reduce their total numbers—only first-born sons were allowed to marry and have children. In effect, through religious, social, and financial oppression, there were efforts to exterminate Judaism. Any Jew could step away from this nightmare— but only by converting to Christianity.”

Part of the problem was that rabbis during that time were not encouraged, if not outright banned, from any education outside of narrow religious teachings. And illiteracy ran rampant in the Jewish ghettoes. This was something Mendelssohn was trying to intervene on and that a secular education was also important (meaning an education in the sciences and the arts and so forth).

Meyer continues:

“In Jerusalem—a work written for Christians, Moslems, and Jews alike—Mendelssohn detailed the separate roles of Church and State, and defined Mosaic law to be coherent with Reason as defined by Plato, a concept which was to revolutionize Judaism. He translated the Jewish Torah and other sacred writings, as well as the traditional daily prayer book, from Hebrew into German, so that Jews would learn pure German as the gateway to other Classical subjects. He helped found the Berlin Free School, a secular school where impoverished Jewish children could learn the natural sciences, languages, and philosophy…Mendelssohn’s writings became the basis for the modernizing tendency within Judaism, known as the Reform Movement, which spread for several generations throughout Europe and Russia, and into the United States (it is known in the U.S. today as both Reform and Conservative Judaism).”

Mendelssohn stressed that Reason must be the ultimate guide to everything in life including religion.

And just to showcase how much Mendelssohn and Lessing were at the forefront of this battle, the Berlin Academy was being organised to be anti-Leibniz, Voltaire already had his attack on Leibniz with his ridiculous book “Candide (or Optimism)” which was a cheap attack on Leibniz’s optimism as if all optimism partook in foolishness, and the Berlin Academy was getting on this bandwagon.

Leibniz vs Newton: A Clash of Paradigms

In 1754, Mendelssohn composes an essay on the “Sublime and Naive and the Science of Beauty” against Voltaire’s influence. It is one of the deepest studies of Leibniz.

Again, just showcasing how much Leibniz influenced Moses Mendelssohn, Leibniz who was in turn greatly influenced by Plato. So this is a very consistent philosophical line that is being carried forward and we see the quality of its effects which is its best testament.

So Phaedon, which again is Mendelssohn’s work continuing Plato’s Phaedo but with the additions of Leibnizian thinking into it, this endeavour was a huge success. It was published and translated throughout Europe into Dutch, French, Italian, Danish, Russian, English, Hebrew and was read by Goethe, Schiller, and Mozart among many prominent thinkers. It was phenomenally influential and Mendelssohn started to get attacked because of this great success, which I will talk about a little later on.

One of the people who responded to Mendelssohn’s Phaedon was the 82 year old Jew, Raphael Levi Hannover, who opened a discourse with Mendelssohn. Levi was a mathematician and astronomer who as a young man had been Leibniz’s pupil and secretary and had lived for six years in Leibniz’s household. Alexander Altmann (biographer of Mendelssohn) writes that it was Levi who “was the only mourner at Leibniz’s unceremonious funeral in 1716, and it was through him that the exact location of Leibniz’s grave could be established later.”

Leibniz had received a rather suspect rushed burial without notifying any of his family or friends of his funeral or the whereabouts of his grave which was left, quite incredibly, unmarked! And it was only through Levi that the grave was able to be identified and found later on. Schiller would also receive a rather suspect burial and was thrown into a mass grave before any of his family (except for his wife) and friends could attend.

David Shavin writes in “Philosophical Vignettes from the Political Life of Moses Mendelssohn”:

“Mendelssohn’s success made him the central target of Venetian operations. The initial attack came, July 1767, from Duke Ludwig Eugen of Württemberg. Mendelssohn, in featuring Socrates’ love of virtue and obedience to the Creator’s laws, had written that Socrates had known the Creator “in the most vivid manner by the purest light of reason.” The Duke objected that Socrates, a pagan, could be capable of knowing God in a supreme way. Mendelssohn insisted upon the power of reason to lead men to virtue, and to a “love of the good and noble.” It was as clear to him as the eternal laws of God’s workings were from looking up at the heavens.”

So again, you see here how Mendelssohn, just like Lessing (who was attacked for writing “Nathan the Wise”), is talking about how it is ultimately through Reason that we can come to know the Creator, and thus a pagan can access this just as well as, for example, a Christian, if that individual has access to Reason. Since it is through Reason, or Wisdom, that we can access our most Noble self and that this is not achieved through religious doctrine, according to both Mendelssohn and Lessing. It is not to say that religion itself is the problem, but how you are approaching your concept of Truth, whether it is through rigid doctrine, revelation or Reason.

Remember, Mendelssohn begins to come under heavy attack after writing the Phaedon and the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater publishes a challenge in 1769 for Moses Mendelssohn to either refute Christianity or convert! This kind of pressure continued until Mendelssohn’s death.

Shavin writes in his “Philosophical Vignettes”:

“Mendelssohn would face hypocritical arguments of the form: ‘If you are right in your reasoning about universal truths, then you could not really be a Jew, or at least what we’ll have a Jew be; so, why don’t we drop the substance of your argument, and you be honest and convert’.

Lavater claimed that Socrates would have refuted Christianity or convert, and so should Mendelssohn—this despite Mendelssohn’s explicit argument that Socrates had refused to undermine the secondary aspects of another’s faith unless there was evil to be rooted out that was standing in the way of good to be accomplished. Mendelssohn held that proving there were imperfections in others was simply a vain exercise for the ego.”

Thus, Mendelssohn was making the point, it is not his place to judge another religion (unless there is evil to be rooted out) just as the judge in Lessing’s play “Nathan the Wise” who is presiding over which of the three religions holds the true ring, i.e. the true lordship over the others, had also taken the stance that he was in no position to judge this matter but that the question should be revisited after a thousand thousand years with a wiser judge and until then they should each focus on their good works to showcase the best of their religion and merit that title. Thus, Mendelssohn takes a similar stance, that he is in no position to judge who is the better religion and that the only reason to refute another’s faith is if it is rooted in evil. If it is not rooted in evil, then why would you even want to undermine that person’s belief system or faith?

Mendelssohn held that proving that there were imperfections in others was simply a vain exercise for the ego.

Lavater was somewhat obsessed and had convinced himself that his salvation lay in his conversion of the Jews and he was particularly obsessed with the mission to convert Mendelssohn.

Shavin continues:

“When Lavater admitted to Mendelssohn, March 1770, that he was wrong, and that he had desired to please his Swiss friends, others stepped forward. One, Koelbele, wrote two public attacks on Mendelssohn’s “deism.” Koelbele had earlier prepared an unpublished work called Antiphaedon, because, ‘Herr Mendelssohn furnishes an erroneous history of Socrates. … I know the soul’s immortality from revelation. But Herr Mendelssohn? Let him reflect.’ Mendelssohn’s challenge to go beyond “reflection” and to deliberate, to take up the Creator’s divine gift of reason to do moral work, made some lazier minds nervous. The agitated Koelbele had been elected an honorary member of the British Royal Society in 1752, whence he explicitly thanked them with his dumbed-down exposition, Outline of Religion (1764), presented in the form of the “letters to a young girl” fad. Dealing with immortality by actually acting in this world, as Socrates had, from the standpoint of eternity, was not in Koelbele’s book.”

I think that was very well said by Moses Mendelssohn and is again, very much along the theme of “Nathan the Wise.”

Recall, Moses Mendelssohn was intervening on, you could say, the lack of lustre, in both the Jewish and German level of literacy and education.

“Nathan the Wise” by 1779 was banned in Vienna and as we are going to talk about later on, Mozart’s famous opera, “Abduction from the Seraglio,” was very much inspired by Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise.”

Lessing, as already mentioned, lived a hard life in poverty, his wife and child had died which was a huge blow for him. Lessing and Mendelssohn were close friends for their entire life and had about a 25 year long friendship which started when they were about 25 years of age.

So again, a very close friendship and successful, even though Lessing had a bit of a sad end, they were successful in their intervention and they spearheaded the German Classical Movement, especially Weimar Classicism, which wouldn’t have been possible without Lessing and Mendelssohn.

Refer to the Third Part of this lecture here.