Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: Leo Strauss’s “Muslim” Understanding of Greek Philosophy Rémi Brague Phitosophy, Paris 7 Abstract The contrast “Athens vs. Jerusalem” played a major part in the late work of Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His scholarly career, from the outset, can be described asa motion from Jerusalem (Spinoza, Msimonides) to Athens (Plato, Xenophon), Nevertheless, a third city, Mecca, and what it stands for, unspokenly synthesizes the first two. For instance, Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is grounded on Farabi's view of philosophical style, His rediscovery of exotericise— that is, of the possibility of a silent oral teaching—depends on an Islamic conception of Revelation, which opposes the Christian one: Athens and Jerusalem meet in Mecca, but they are at loggerbeads im Rome. The Athens and Jerusalem Theme ‘The second-century church father Tertullian may have been the first to de~ clare, What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?, but it was not until the Rus- sian philosopher Leo Shestov used the two city names as the title of'a book (1951, posthumous) that they became a kind of catchword for the opposi- ‘Some words on the Isbyrinthine history of the present text: A first version was prepared in ‘English and sent to symposium that, for reasons of health, I could not attend. Its pro~ ceedings were due to be published but finally were not. My article was later translated into French (Brague ig8ga). The present version takes advantage of remarks by the lave David R. ‘Lachterman (Lachterman 1991: 298-45). Poetics Teday 19:2 (Summer 1998) Copyright @ 1998 by the Porter Institute for Poetics and ‘Semiotics.236 ~— Poetics Today 19:2 tion between Hellenism and Hebraism. Among the people who took up Shestov’s yoked pair, Leo Strauss must probably be given pride of place. Leo Strauss (1899-1973) began his career in Germany as a student of Jewish and Muslim philosophy. In the 1930s, he fled to France, Britain, and finally settled in the United States, where he taught first in New York, then in Chicago. He in famous for his attempt at reviving the idea of Natural Right, to which he devoted one of his most well-known books, as well as for his rediscovery of the classical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, which he contended to be still relevant for our time and age, if we read them as they wanted to be read. Strauss put the theme of “Athens and Jerusalem” at the very core of his later thought, from the late 19408, hence, before he could have read Shestov’s book. This theme is voiced at a relarively late date in Strauss’s progress. But the thing is present from the outset in his writings, if we take the phrase in its broadest meaning —that is, the relationship between both cities that stand for two “cultures,” two “worldviews,” and so on, whose conflict is supposed to be the backbone of European history.’ As for the formula, the earliest occurrence 1 know of is a letter to Karl Lawith, dated from August 15, 1946 (Strauss 1g8ga: 108, 111). It only announces a lecture by the same title, to be held in November 1946. In 1951, Strauss wrote: “Classi- cal authors bore witness to the fact that truly human life, life of acience, is the life that is devoted to knowledge and looking for it. From the vantage- point of the Bible, the hen enagksion [the only necessary thing] is totally different. One reaches no plausible aim by covering up this contrast, by denegating the tertiun non datur. Every synthesis is in fact a choice either for Jerusalem or for Athens” (Voegelin et al. 1993: 30)- ‘The theme was firat made public in 1952: “The iasue of traditional Juda- iam versus philosophy is identical with the issue Jerusalem versus Athens” (Strauss 1952: 20). On the content of this contrast, Strauss gives ua brief hints only. The same complex of ideas received a full treatment in a series of lectures given in Chicago in 1952 and partially published two years later, in a Hebrew translation (Strauss 1979). But there the names of Athens and Jerusalem are missing. They make their first, very stealthy appearance in 1954, on the occasion of a paper given in Jerusalem (!); There the faithful city stands for prophecy, and Athens for political philosophy. Finally, some years before 1964, Strauss began a lecture on Thucydides with a staterient of the theme: 1. See the quotation by Goethe in Strauss 1959: 5, probably alluded to in Stranm 1995: 28. g. Strauss 1959: 9-10. with a quotation without references to Isaiah 1: 261.Brague + Leo Strauss's “Muslim” Understanding of Greek Philosophy 237 [Western] tradition has two roots. It consists of two heterogeneous elements, of two elements which are ultimately incompatible with each other—the Hebrew element and the Greek element. We speak, and we speak rightly, of the an- tagoniam between Jerusalem and Athens, between faith and philosophy. Both philosophy and the Bible assert that there is ultimately one thing, and one thing only, needful for man. But the one thing needful proclaimed by the Bible is the very opposite of the one thing needfill proclaimed by Greek philosophy. According to the Bible, the one thing needful is obedient love; according to phi- losophy, the ane thing needful is free inquiry. The whole history of the West can be viewed aa an ever repeated attempt to achieve a compromise or a synthesis between the two antagonistic principles. But all these attempts have failed, and necessarily so. . . . The Western tradition does not allow of a rynthesis of ita two elements, but only of their tension: this is the secret of the vitality of the West. (Scrauss 1989: 72-73) Unfortunately, though, some lines afterwards, we read an important craliicetion, not to iy a recantation: Speaking ofthe Wester traction ax Strauss did is “impossible . . . in the last analysis,” and acceptable, nay eurary, only “as eng. as we speak polisally ic, crudely” By tie oben, wwe cannot ascertain to what exent Straus macau his own statement seri ously. The theme finally becomes central in 1967, on the occasion of the publication of the proceedings of'a conference given in the same year under this very title (Strauss 1989b).* Again, we are at a loss how to understand a text that does not claim to be more than “preliminary reflections" and whose content is highly cryptic. It has already puzzled several scholars,’ so a frank avowal of perplexity might be the least dishonorable evasion. Between Athens and Jerusalem: To and Fro ‘The main discovery that Strauss made, or claimed to have made, is a for- gotren way of reading‘ Unfortunately for our present purpose, he rediscov- ered an art of writing, too: Since “people write as they read” (Strauss 1959: 144), he wrote in the same way as the authors he studied are supposed to have done, and he concealed what he believed to have found. Hence such sentences as: “Let us then keep them (sc. Machiavelli‘s blasphemics) under 3+ Strum 1999: 72-75, On the date, see ibid: xxxt-anunii. 4 This text may be the same as the one referred to in Strauss 1983a. On the “classical. ‘Struggle in the Middle Ages,” ace ibid: 165. 5 See Momigfiano 2987: 197 n. 29, 198. A useful introduction appears in Sales 1 Coderch and Montserrat i Molas 1991. 6. On Straum’s hermeneutics, see Brague 1991, which the present cmay presupposes and completes, and Rosen 1987: 107~98. On Strauss's thought in general, the best overview I knew of is Marshall 1985 (which has exceptionally rich foomotes).