 Second, there is no reason to conclude, as many do, that Strauss himself wrote esoterically. For instance, Laurence Lampert’s view that “It is reasonable to suspect that a partisan of esoteric philosophy [i.e. Strauss] would himself write esoterically” (Lampert 2009, p. 63) simply does not follow from Strauss’s own claims. In Strauss’s words, “The only presentations of an author’s views which can be accepted as true are those ultimately borne out by his own explicit statements” (PAW, pp. 26–27). While Maimonides announces in the introduction to the Guide that he will write esoterically, Strauss makes no such statement. So too, in Strauss’s words, “the problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things” (TM, p. 13). Strauss tells us that the theologico-political predicament is his focal issue. Why should we, on the basis of Strauss’s own terms, think otherwise?