The World–City Paradigm and the Macrocosmic Theory in Maimonides’ Guide

In this chapter, the paradigm of the relationship between city and world is adopted to describe the correlation between the individual and the cosmos within Maimonides’ macro-microcosmic theory. Mostly inspired by the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, the well-known image of the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm circulated also among Jewish medieval philosophers. The topic was elaborated at length in Joseph ibn Zaddik’s Book of the Microcosm, and in the Guide of the Perplexed I, 72, Maimonides treats the analogy between the universe and the human being in terms of a relationship between macrocosm and microcosm. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the macrocosm/microcosm theory as exposed in Guide I, 72 within its sources, to reconstruct the history of the dissemination of this idea. Indeed, as will be shown, in the analogy between macrocosm and microcosm found in the Guide, recurrent themes related to the cosmopolitan doctrine can be found, such as governance, order, cosmos and city.