David Berger - Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue - Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations-Academic Studies Press (2010)
David Berger - Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue - Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations-Academic Studies Press (2010)
David Berger - Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue - Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations-Academic Studies Press (2010)
AND DIALOGUE
Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations
JUDAISM AND JEWISH LIFE
EDITORIAL BOARD
Geoffrey Alderman (University of Buckingham, Great Britain)
Herbert Basser (Queens University, Canada)
Donatella Ester Di Cesare (Università “La Sapienza,” Italy)
Simcha Fishbane (Touro College, New York), Series Editor
Meir Bar Ilan (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Andreas Nachama (Touro College, Berlin)
Ira Robinson (Concordia University, Montreal)
Nissan Rubin (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Susan Starr Sered (Suffolk University, Boston)
Reeva Spector Simon (Yeshiva University, New York)
Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations
DAV I D BERGER
Boston
2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
— vii —
Contents
— viii —
INTRODUCTION
— ix —
Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue
which revealed a key source of Damian’s polemic against the Jews and
was published a year later in the journal of an Orthodox Jewish student
organization, served as the underpinning of my subsequent work in this
field. The readers of this collection will have more than enough data to
determine whether or not I continue to miss the point.
Since Cantor served on the admissions and fellowship committee
of Columbia University’s graduate History Department, to which I was
admitted during that academic year, the course that I took with him no
doubt had another, even more crucial effect on my subsequent career.
As a graduate student at Columbia working with the guidance of Gerson
Cohen, I wrote a Master’s thesis on Nahmanides that had nothing to do
with his disputation. But in a course with the semi-retired Salo Baron,
I wrote a paper on St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Jews modeled in
part on the article about Damian; years later, it became my first scholarly
publication after the completion of my doctorate. As I faced the daunting
task of choosing a doctoral dissertation topic, a college classmate named
Sidney Hook gave me a soft cover volume recently published for teaching
purposes at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It consisted of a photo-
offset of a medieval polemic against Christianity entitled Sefer Nizzahon
Yashan, or Nizzahon Vetus, taken from Johann Christoph Wagenseil’s
1681 collection Tela Ignea Satanae. The Nizzahon Vetus, with its intriguing
amalgam of Scriptural polemic, attacks on the New Testament and
Christian doctrine, critique of Christian morality, and uninhibited
(or almost uninhibited) vituperation, captured my attention and
imagination. The edition, translation and commentary that emerged not
only led to a PhD but launched me on a lifelong study of Jewish-Christian
interaction along the widest thematic and chronological spectrum.
1 “Identity, Ideology, and Faith: Some Personal Reflections on the Social, Cultural and
Spiritual Value of the Academic Study of Judaism.” In Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought,
ed. by Howard Kreisel (Beer Sheva, 2006), pp. 11–29. That essay, scheduled to reappear
in a companion volume published by Academic Studies Press, provides an account of the
trajectory of my scholarly interests that supplements and elaborates the brief remarks in
this Preface.
— x—
Introduction
2 Jews and “Jewish Christianity” (New York, 1978). Russian translation by Mikhail Ryzhik
(New York, 1991). Reprinted as Jews and “Jewish Christianity”: A Jewish Response to the
Missionary Challenge (Jews for Judaism: Toronto, 2002).
— xi —
Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue
— xii —
Introduction
5 These include reviews of Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity
in the Middle Ages, Association for Jewish Studies Newsletter 22 (March, 1978): 16–17,
19; Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, American Historical Review 88 (1983): 93;
Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages, Jewish
Quarterly Review 76 (1986): 253–257; Gavin Langmuir, History, Religion and Antisemitism,
American Historical Review 96 (1991): 1498–99; B. Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition
in Fifteenth-Century Spain, Commentary 100:4 (October, 1995): 55–57.
6 “Cum Nimis Absurdum and the Conversion of the Jews,” Jewish Quarterly Review 70
(1979): 41–49.
7 “The Holocaust, the State of Israel, and the Catholic Church: Reflections on Jewish–Catholic
Relations at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century” (in Hebrew), Hadoar 82:2 (January,
2003): 51–55; “A Remarkable Legacy,” Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2005; “Let’s Clarify the
Purpose of Interfaith Dialogue,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 16, 2008.
8 “Jewish-Christian Polemics,” The Encyclopedia of Religion 11: 389–395.
9 “Covenants, Messiahs, and Religious Boundaries,” a review essay of Irving Greenberg,
For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter between Judaism and Christianity,
Tradition 39:2 (2005): 66–78.
— xiii —
Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue
10 “Jews, Gentiles, and the Modern Egalitarian Ethos: Some Tentative Thoughts.” In Formulating
Responses in an Egalitarian Age, ed. by Marc Stern (Lanham, 2005), pp. 83–108.
— xiv —
ANTISEMITISM
An Overview
— 3—
Spanning the Centuries
— 4—
Anti-Semitism
the crucifixion. Hence, the same theology that accorded Jews a unique
toleration required them to undergo unique persecution.
In the early Middle Ages, it was the tolerant element in this position
that predominated. With the great exception of seventh-century Visigothic
Spain, persecution of Jews in pre-Crusade Europe was sporadic and
desultory; the regions north and west of Italy had no indigenous anti-
Semitic tradition, and Christianity had not yet struck deep enough roots
in mass psychology to generate the emotional force necessary for the
wreaking of vengeance on the agents of the crucifixion. Early medieval
Europeans worshipped Jesus, but it is not clear that they loved him enough.
This is not to say that the course of medieval anti-Semitism is to
be charted by reference to religious developments alone, although
religion is almost surely the crucial guide. The deterioration of
Jewish security in the high Middle Ages and beyond corresponds to
transformations in economic, political, and intellectual history as well;
indeed, the fact that a variety of changes that may well have affected
anti-Semitism unfolded in rough synchronism makes it difficult to
untangle the causal skeins but at the same time provides a richer and
more satisfying explanatory network.
Christian piety widened and deepened, and the spectacular outbreaks
of Jew-hatred during the Crusades were surely nourished by pietistic
excess. As mercantile and administrative experience spread through
an increasingly literate and urbanized Christian bourgeoisie, the
economic need for Jews declined precipitously; it is no accident that in
the later Middle Ages Jews were welcome primarily in less-developed
regions like thirteenth-century Spain and, even later, Bohemia, Austria,
and Poland. To make matters worse, the remaining economic activity
in which Jews came to be concentrated was a natural spawning-ground
for intense hostility: Moneylending may be a necessity, but it does not
generate affection. In the political sphere, the high Middle Ages saw the
beginnings of a sense of national unity at least in France and England;
although this fell short of genuine nationalism in the modem sense, it
sharpened the perception of the Jew as the quintessential alien. Finally,
despite the centrifugal effects of individual nationalisms, the concept
of a monochromatic European Christendom also grew, and with it came
heightened intolerance toward any form of deviation.
At a time of growing friction with ordinary Christians, Jews were
obliged to look for protection to kings and churchmen. Since riots
— 5—
Spanning the Centuries
against Jews violated the law and undermined public order, appeals for
royal protection were sometimes heeded. Of equal importance, kings
had begun to look upon Jewish holdings—and even upon the Jews
themselves—as property of the royal treasury, with the ironic result that
protection might well be forthcoming to safeguard the financial interests
of the king. Alternatively, however, the process of fiscal exploitation and
confiscation could just as easily culminate in outright expulsion.
Appeals to the clergy produced similarly mixed results. The theoretical
position of canon law concerning Jewish toleration was no longer a self-
evident assumption governing the status of the Jews in a relatively
tolerant society; it required constant reaffirmation in a Europe where it
had frequently become not only the last line of Jewish defense but also
the first. It was for this reason alone that St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who
had little affection for Jews, intervened to save Jewish lives during the
second crusade, and it is symptomatic of the new circumstances that
a Jewish chronicler considers it noteworthy that he took no money for
this intervention. Moreover, fissures were developing in the theory of
toleration itself. The Talmud was investigated in Paris and burned at the
behest of the Church; on occasion, even expulsions came to be regarded
as not altogether inconsistent with a policy of toleration, since they
fell short of the shedding of blood. Only the innate conservatism
characteristic of any system of religious law protected the core of the
position from concerted attack, so that Jews could continue to hope—
ever more wistfully—for the protection of an increasingly hostile
Church.
As the Middle Ages drew to a close, a new specter began haunting the
Jews of Europe—the specter of demonology. The growing importance
of the devil and his minions in late medieval Europe far transcends the
Jewish question. Nevertheless, plague, war, and depression created
an atmosphere, especially in northern lands, in which the explanation
for terror and tragedy was sought in the alliance between the Jewish
adversary and the Adversary himself. Jews, it was said, perpetrated
ritual murder, consuming the blood—and sometimes the hearts—of
their victims; Jews poisoned wells and Jewish doctors poisoned patients;
consecrated hosts were stolen, pierced, and beaten; the Jewish stench
and other unique illnesses and deformities underscored the alienness
and dubious humanity of the lecherous vicars of Satan. It was not only
the folk imagination that could depict a Jewish woman who gives birth
— 6—
Anti-Semitism
— 7—
Spanning the Centuries
— 8—
Anti-Semitism
— 9—
Spanning the Centuries
— 10 —
Anti-Semitism
— 11 —
Spanning the Centuries
in their unalloyed, naked form. Here again there are genuine problems
of definition, but “anti-Zionist” literature in the Soviet Union and
the widespread application to Israel of an egregious double standard
make it difficult to deny that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not
infrequently synonymous. The positions of the emancipation period
have been reversed: Jews now lay claim to a nationhood that their
enemies deny.
— 12 —
FROM CRUSADES TO BLOOD LIBELS
TO EXPULSIONS
Some New Approaches to Medieval Anti-Semitism
1 Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge,
Mass., 1992), pp. 3–4.
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The Middle Ages
2 Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London,
1987), pp. 197–210; Chazan, In the Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews (Philadelphia
and Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 127–132. In a forthcoming article on the fast of 20 Sivan,
David Wachtel has made some valuable observations on the deep impact that must
nonetheless be attributed to these events.
3 Avraham Grossman, Hakhmei Ashkenaz ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 12–13.
— 16 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
— 17 —
The Middle Ages
— 18 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
— 19 —
The Middle Ages
that animated the adoption of a more positive attitude toward Islam and
the religions of the East, the assertion that salvation is possible outside
the Church—and Nostra Aetate no. 4. One who locates the fundamental
impetus of the historic declaration on the Jews in the specifics of the
Jewish-Catholic relationship loses sight of the larger process and misses
the key point.
II
For medieval Europe, the most important recent effort to subsume the
transformation of attitudes toward Jews under the rubric of a much
broader change is R. I. Moore’s The Formation of a Persecuting Society.9
Moore’s essential argument proposes that economic, political, and
cultural developments in the eleventh and twelfth centuries produced
a new class or group of classes which needed to consolidate power in
the face of elements which posed a threat to the evolving order. Thus,
heretics, Jews, even lepers, began to face exclusion and persecution at
approximately the same time; somewhat later, male homosexuals and
witches faced a new level of hostility for similar reasons. As we shall
see, even Moore cannot refrain altogether from an analysis of certain
characteristics of medieval Jewry, if only to establish the plausibility of
a Jewish threat, but the thrust of his argument points away from the
particularities of Christian attitudes toward Judaism and Jews.
Though Nirenberg dislikes Moore’s approach as an example of the
suspect longue durée mode of historiography, his own analysis, for all its
specificity, also marginalizes the particularities of the Jewish-Christian
relationship. Through a comparative examination of the treatment of
Jews and Muslims in Aragon, he reminds us, to take a single example,
that not only the former were accused of poisoning wells. Thus, we can
see Jews as a vulnerable group whose specific Jewishness is almost
irrelevant.
In very recent years, we have witnessed the revival of a long-rejected
interpretation of eleventh-century Europe which also sees Jews as
one of several groups victimized by a larger transformation. Richard
Landes’ Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History,10 which has been
9 Oxford, 1987.
10 Cambridge, Mass., 1995.
— 20 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
— 21 —
The Middle Ages
14 See, for example, Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-
Judaism (Ithaca and London, 1982), pp. 246–247, for references to Joachite eschatology
as a possible secondary factor in the development of anti-Jewish attitudes in the
thirteenth century. For the sixteenth century, see Heiko A. Oberman, The Roots of Anti-
Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (Philadelphia, 1984; German original,
1981), pp. 118–122; Kenneth Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy 1555–1593
(New York, 1977).
15 David Berger, “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical
Literature of the High Middle Ages,” The American Historical Review 91 (1986):
576–591.
— 22 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
III
Other approaches to our problem appeal to factors which began in the
eleventh or twelfth century but persisted through the end of the Middle
Ages. There is nothing new about the view that increased piety at all
levels of society played a critical role in the rise of hostility toward Jews.
In an essay in which I shamelessly attempted to interpret the entire
history of anti-Semitism in twelve pages, I noted this point by observing
that before the eleventh century “Christianity had not yet struck deep
enough roots in mass psychology to generate the emotional force
necessary for the wreaking of vengeance on the agents of the crucifixion.
Early medieval Europeans worshipped Jesus, but it is not clear that they
loved him enough.”16
Jeremy Cohen, in a major study which has deservedly become
central to the discussion of medieval anti-Semitism, emphasized the
role of Christian belief but shifted the focus from the piety of the
masses to the theology of the elite. The Friars and the Jews17 argues
that the very foundations of toleration were undermined by growing
Christian familiarity with the Talmud. Through the efforts of Nicholas
Donin, a thirteenth-century French Jewish convert to Christianity,
Christians came to realize that (to borrow the sharp formulation of
an acquaintance of mine) the Jews are the people of the book—but the
book is not the Bible. Though Donin and others attacked the Talmud
for blasphemy and hostility to Christians, Cohen sees the primary
thrust as the argument that the Talmud was “another law.” Since one
of the cornerstones of the theology granting Jews toleration was the
assumption that they preserve the law of the Hebrew Bible not only in
their libraries but in their behavior, this argument was fraught with the
most dire consequences.
— 23 —
The Middle Ages
18 See, for example, R. Po-Chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation
Germany (New Haven, 1988), pp. 111–131.
19 See my “Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud: a Fourteenth-Century Jewish Response
to the Attack on Rabbinic Judaism,” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, ed. by Bernard
Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (Wiesbaden, 1992), pp. 115–130.
— 24 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
In other words, Jews do not commit ritual murder, ritual murder trials
are illegal, this ritual murder trial was conducted in accordance with
20 Anna Foa, “The Witch and the Jew: Two Alikes that Were Not the Same,” in From
Witness to Witchcraft, pp. 373–374. On “the persistence of traditional behavior,”
see also Stow, Alienated Minority, pp. 242–247. Alexander Patschowsky has reacted
to Cohen’s thesis by pointing to the fourteenth-century suggestion at high levels of
the Church that killers of Jews be prosecuted as heretics; see his “Der ‘Talmudjude’:
mittelalterlichen Ursprung eines neuzeitlichen Themas,” in Juden in der christlichen
Umwelt während des späten Mittelalters, ed. by Alfred Haverkampf and Franz-Josef
Ziwes (Berlin, 1992), p. 22.
21 R. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent, 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial (New Haven, 1992), p. 127.
— 25 —
The Middle Ages
22 Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed., vol 11 (New York,
London, and Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 192–201. This section of Baron’s magnum opus
summarizes a thesis that he had first proposed much earlier.
23 The Friars and the Jews, pp. 248–264 (quotation on p. 255).
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From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
IV
If only because of the prominence of the Jewish moneylender in popular
images of the Jew, economic explanations of medieval anti-Semitism
have always enjoyed considerable prominence. The central Middle Ages
witnessed the development of a profit economy. To the extent that
Jews had owned significant lands—and it is very difficult to assess
the dimensions of such ownership—they tended to become urbanized
and eventually engaged in moneylending to a degree considerably
disproportionate to their numbers. Despite the unquestionable value of
Joseph Shatzmiller’s revisionist Shylock Reconsidered, which documents
friendly relations between a beleaguered Jewish moneylender and his
Christian customers, there is no doubt that this profession was not
conducive to feelings of warmth and amity.24
Moreover, the transformation of the economic landscape was
accompanied by the growth of a literate class. We have already
encountered Moore’s emphasis on the competition that this development
engendered with the established literate class of the Jews. Even if we
hesitate to speak of fierce competition, we can certainly recognize the
impact of this change on the society’s economic or administrative need
for an increasingly marginalized minority. To the extent that even the
undeveloped economy of the early Middle Ages had some need for
an educated class—and it did—that need was partially met by Jews;
the profit economy required a greater number of educated people, but it
generated a sufficient supply from within the Christian community itself.
This consideration may well loom large in explaining the welcome granted
late medieval Jews in the economically and culturally undeveloped lands
of central and Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, well after they
had worn out their welcome in the developed countries of the West.
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The Middle Ages
V
The most widely discussed theory of medieval anti-Semitism in the last
few years is undoubtedly the one presented by Gavin Langmuir in his
very impressive twin volumes, History, Religion, and Anti-Semitism, and
Toward A Definition of Anti-Semitism.28 Here too we find a psychological
explanation, but it is rooted in much different considerations involving
a redefinition of anti-Semitism itself and careful but creative speculation
about the reaction of Christians to new developments in their own religion.
To Langmuir, hostility toward Jews before the twelfth century was
an unremarkable version of ordinary xenophobia. Like all forms of
bigotry, it exaggerated, distorted, and generalized real characteristics
of the hated group. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however,
something frighteningly special occurred: Jews came to be subjected to
accusations of a wholly chimerical sort. The entire group was stigmatized
— 28 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
— 29 —
The Middle Ages
— 30 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
inclined to think that the belief that the body of Jesus was regularly
sacrificed in Christian ritual greatly increased Christian receptivity to
the assertion that Jews sacrificed his surrogates in their own perverted
fashion. Where the belief in the “real presence” waned, the blood libel
found considerably less fertile soil.
VI
If Langmuir’s thesis has generated the broadest discussion of our issue
in the last few years, a more narrowly focused article about the ritual
murder charge has produced the most explosive one. About five years
ago, Yisrael Yuval published a lengthy Hebrew essay with the intriguing
title, “The Vengeance and the Curse, the Blood and the Libel.”34 What he
had to say generated fascination, controversy, even anger, to the point
where the journal in which the study appeared devoted a double issue to
multifaceted responses followed by the author’s rejoinder.35
In ruthlessly compressed form, Yuval’s thesis makes the following
argument:
1. The vengeance: A great divide separated Ashkenazic and Sephardic
perceptions of the fate of Gentiles at the end of days. The former
anticipated a vengeful redemption, the latter a proselytizing one. While
Sephardim envisioned a world in which all nations will recognize the
God of Israel, Ashkenazim elaborated a tradition attested in midrashic
and liturgical texts which described how the blood of Jewish martyrs
splatters and stains the royal cloak of the Lord until the time when He
will avenge that blood in a campaign of devastation and annihilation
against the Gentile world which had shed it. Despite the dearth of typical
Messianic movements among Ashkenazim, they looked forward to this
event with acute eschatological anticipation.
2. The curse: On the Day of Atonement and during the Passover Seder,
the Ashkenazic liturgy was marked by curses against the Gentiles. This
too is a manifestation of the specifically Ashkenazic vision of redemption
and should probably be seen as a quasi-magical effort to hasten the much-
awaited moment of divine vengeance. Northern European Jewry was not
without its unique form of Messianic activism.
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The Middle Ages
3. The blood: During the first crusade, some Rhineland Jews killed
their own children. While the motive of preventing forced apostasy is
self-evident, one chronicle approvingly recounts the story of a Jew who
killed both himself and his children after the crusading army had already
left as an act of atonement for his conversion during the earlier attack.
To the chronicler, personal atonement is only part of the story. A key
element in the narratives of such killings is the capacity of the victims’
blood to arouse divine vengeance and hence hasten the redemption. In
the later discourse, if not in the events themselves, the martyrs’ death
“was intended (no‘ad) not merely to sanctify God’s name but to arouse
Him to revenge.”36
4. The libel: No satisfactory explanation exists for the genesis
of the ritual murder accusation. The widely held perception that it
was born in England with the death of William of Norwich in 1144 is
erroneous. A careful examination reveals that it originated in Würzburg
in 1147 or even in Worms in 1096, that is, in Germany during the first
or second crusade, while the earliest suggestion that William was killed
by Jews did not emerge until 1149. There is good reason to speculate that
a major impetus for this false accusation was the real behavior of Jews
in killing their own children. Christians were probably aware of some
aspects of points 1, 2, and 3, and they transformed the Jewish belief
in divine eschatological vengeance and the “blood sacrifice” designed to
arouse the Lord to carry out that vengeance into a libel in which the
hostility of known child killers is directed toward more logical victims,
namely, the children of the hated Christians themselves. The accusation
of ritual murder, utterly false as it is, was extrapolated from genuine
Jewish behavior.
This is a provocative thesis provocatively formulated. “The [Christian]
narrative,” writes Yuval, “sets forth Jewish murderousness and desire
for revenge. These two motifs are not fabrications ex nihilo; rather, they
follow from a distorted interpretation of Jewish behavior during the
persecutions in 1096 and of the ritual of vengeance which was part of
the Jews’ eschatological conception. “This lie,” he concludes, playing on
a Rabbinic aphorism, “had legs.”37 It is hardly surprising that the article
evoked a sharp response.
36 “Ha-Naqam,” p. 70.
37 “Ha-Naqam,” p. 86.
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From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
Let me react, once again with ruthless brevity, to the four elements
of Yuval’s thesis.
1. The vengeance: As Yuval’s critics pointed out, and as he himself
conceded in a clarification, even Ashkenazic Jews did not envision
the complete liquidation of non-Jews at the end of days. In my view,
the subject is more complex and more interesting than either Yuval
or his critics have indicated, and I have elaborated in some detail in
a forthcoming Hebrew article.38 At the end of the day, however, the motif
of eschatological vengeance is more than strong enough to sustain the
initial step of the first element in Yuval’s argument.
Nonetheless, significant obstacles stand in the way of his use even
of this first element. To begin with, there is no concrete evidence that
twelfth-century Christians, who never mention a Jewish belief about
the eschatological destruction of Gentiles, knew anything about it.39
Moreover, the real Ashkenazic doctrine, as Yuval concedes and even
insists, was entirely passive; vengeance is the Lord’s. Yuval’s point
is that this shift from the passive expectation of divine vengeance to
active, eschatologically motivated revenge is precisely the Christian
distortion. This is surely not impossible, but a speculative connection in
the absence of any evidence that Christians even knew of the belief in
question would be considerably more plausible if the hypothesized link
were straightforward. The more distant the real conception is from its
use by Christians, the less convincing the speculation becomes.
Yuval does point to one early Christian text which indeed connects
Jewish murderousness with redemption, and it is none other than
Thomas of Monmouth’s account of the alleged ritual murder in Norwich.
Here we are told that it is recorded in ancient Jewish writings that
“without the shedding of blood the Jews can neither obtain their liberty
nor ever return to their ancestral land.” Standing alone, this sentence
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The Middle Ages
must surely capture the attention of a reader who has been introduced to
the “vengeful redemption,” though even at this point there is a sense of
profound dissonance since God’s eschatological destruction of Gentiles
is not a condition of redemption but a part of the final scenario.
Whatever connection may nonetheless be entertained is profoundly
shaken by the continuation of Thomas’s account:
Hence it was decided by them in antiquity that every year they will sacrifice
a Christian in some part of the world to the most high God to the scorn and
disgrace of Christ, so that in this fashion they will avenge their suffering on
him whose death is the reason why they are excluded from their homeland
and are exiled as slaves in foreign lands.40
By this point, we realize that the text knows nothing of a Jewish belief
that Gentiles will be killed en masse at the end of days. Though Yuval cites
Thomas’s report as a reflection of the vengeful redemption, he might
have been better advised to see it primarily as a distortion of the belief
that the death of Jewish martyrs arouses divine wrath against Gentiles,
though here too only the first sentence is even of potential value. By the
end of the passage, it becomes evident that we have no indication that
Christians knew anything of this belief.
To utilize this text, then, Yuval must assume multiple distortions:
With respect to the vengeful redemption, killing by God becomes killing
by Jews, eschatological killing becomes contemporary killing, mass killing
becomes the annual killing of one person; with respect to “the blood
ritual,” Jewish children become Christian children, and killing to arouse
divine wrath becomes killing to counteract the effect of Jesus’ death.
Again—all this is possible, but the larger the magnitude and quantity
of the distortions, the weaker the argument. It requires a monumental
stretch to maintain that even this text is evidence of Christian familiarity
with either of the Jewish beliefs in question.
2. The curse: As Yuval indicates, the earliest evidence that Christians
knew of the liturgical curses dates from 1248, a full century after the
beginning of the ritual murder accusation. It is not even clear, especially
in light of Yuval’s response to one of his critics, that in the final analysis
he even argues that this component of the “ritual of vengeance” played
40 The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, ed. by A. Jessop and M. R. James,
(Cambridge, 1896), Book 2, pp. 93–94. (I have made some modifications in Jessop and
James’s translation.) Yuval discusses the passage in “Ha-Naqam,” p. 82.
— 34 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
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The Middle Ages
— 36 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
VII
Finally, we need to look at a large question which cuts across the
boundaries of the varying interpretations that we have examined. Did
the upsurge in anti-Semitism in the latter half of the Middle Ages move
from the top down or from the bottom up? Part of the problem arises
from the difficulty of defining “top” and “bottom.” Relevant components
of medieval society include popes and kings, canon lawyers and upper
clergy, mendicant friars and parish priests, knights and bureaucrats,
merchants, serfs, and the urban poor. Cohen’s emphasis on theology
clearly points to the upper, educated end of the spectrum, while Landes
makes a point of stressing the popular nature of the eleventh-century
hostility.49 Moore has been particularly sharp in his denunciation of the
view that anti-Semitism was “popular” in origin, but because he sees
knights and lower clergy as distinct from the “populus,” his denial that
the masses played a key role in the development of Judeophobia does
not necessarily become an emphasis on society’s elite. The distinction
between the highest echelons of the Church and the lower clergy
is well illustrated by their respective attitudes to the charge of ritual
murder; the official Church resisted it, but the accusation in Norwich
as well as the first genuine blood libel, which occurred in Fulda in 1235,
48 See his gracious comment (Zion 59 [1994]: 392) acknowledging a tentative suggestion by
Ivan Marcus in Jewish History 1 (1986).
49 “The Massacres of 1010,” pp. 93–96.
— 37 —
The Middle Ages
— 38 —
From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions
children clearly had every reason to want those Jews as far removed from
their families as possible. We readily recognize that by modern times,
Jew-hatred had become so deeply ingrained that for many people, the
evaporation of old “causes” required the substitution of new ones. In
the Middle Ages as well, new resentments would naturally be directed
at familiar enemies, and these resentments would reinforce the enmity.
Precisely because causes produce effects which produce further effects,
we may be able to speak of a primary cause for an eleventh or twelfth
or thirteenth century transformation, but we cannot speak of the cause,
perhaps not even the primary cause, of the increased hostility to Jews
in a period as extensive as the late Middle Ages.
An intensification of popular piety, a changing economic reality,
political, social and economic struggle among nobility, kings, and
popular movements, Christian familiarity with post-biblical Jewish
texts, the growing prominence of the Devil and his minions, naked fear,
millenarian expectations and a triumphalist Christian mission, perhaps
the exclusiveness produced by national or Church-centered unity and
the anxiety engendered by the doctrine of transubstantiation—all
these contributed to the erosion of the security of the Jews. Of course
we need to evaluate the relative significance of one or another factor in
specific environments, whether chronological, geographic or personal,
and sometimes we may conclude that a particular proposal is simply
wrong. But embracing all those that we deem relevant is not a counsel
of despair or a failure of nerve. Not only does history resist controlled
experiments in which we can isolate one factor to see if it works; large
historical developments are rarely moved by isolated factors to begin
with. We would do well to remember Burke’s analogy—proposed for quite
different purposes—between the complexity of society and that of the
human organism. A candid look at the tangled web of our own psyches is
a salutary reminder of the humility with which we need to approach the
explanation of so durable, so protean, and so daunting a phenomenon
as anti-Semitism in medieval Christian Europe.
— 39 —
A GENERATION OF SCHOLARSHIP
ON JEWISHCHRISTIAN INTERACTION
IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 1
To what extent has research in the past three decades changed our
understanding of Jewish-Christian interaction in the pre-modern period?
To what degree has the assumption that Jewish-Christian relations
were dominated by the facts of irreconcilable theological differences, legal
discrimination, and outbreaks of violence obscured the complexities of these
relations?
How have insights from other disciplines shed new light on Jewish-
Christian interactions? In particular, how has the scholarly awareness of
differences between “high” and “low” culture contributed to interpretation of
these relations?
How have the Holocaust, on the one hand, and the founding of the State
of Israel, on the other, affected modern historiography of Jewish-Christian
relations?
Which aspects of Jewish-Christian relations remain least understood?
1 At the conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in December, 2001, I was one
of three historians of medieval Jewish-Christian relations asked to address a series of
questions about the state of the field. It is a pleasure to present a written, annotated
version of my remarks as a tribute to Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, whose learning,
commitment and stylistic flair have preserved and enhanced the tradition of this
distinguished journal.
— 40 —
A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World
state of that field three decades ago reveals a dramatically different, often
thoroughly alien landscape.
This is especially true of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. Truly
great scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—
people whose command of classical Jewish and Christian sources
renders us all ammei ha-aretz by comparison—had begun to examine the
relationship through a historical lens: Heinrich Graetz, Avraham Berliner,
David Kaufmann, Samuel Krauss, Adolf and Samuel Posnanski, and more.
By 1970, which happens to be the year I received my doctorate, Yitzhak
Baer’s work on Hasidei Ashkenaz and Northern France,2 Judah Rosenthal’s
editions and studies of polemical works,3 Solomon Grayzel’s volume
on papal documents,4 Bernhard Blumenkranz’s collection and analysis
of pre-crusade Christian materials,5 several chapters of Salo Baron’s
History, the early studies of Frank E. Talmage,6 and Jacob Katz’s seminal,
remarkably insightful, though largely impressionistic Exclusiveness and
Tolerance had begun to set a new agenda. Nonetheless, I think it is fair
to say that the prevailing impression of Northern European Jewry in the
High Middle Ages continued to be one of an insular community, hostile
to and ignorant of the society that surrounded it.
Both new information and new methodologies have produced
a significant reassessment. In the last generation, arguments have been
presented for a variety of theses that would have seemed implausible
thirty years ago: that Northern European Jews discussed biblical texts
with Christians in non-polemical contexts,7 that Jewish exegesis was
2 “Ha-Megammah ha-Datit-Hevratit shel Sefer Hasidim,” Zion 3 (1938): 1–50; “Rashi ve-
ha-Meziut ha-Historit shel Zemanno,” Tarbiz 20 (1949): 320–332, and more.
3 Jacob ben Reuben, Milhamot Hashem (Jerusalem, 1963); Joseph Official, Sefer Yosef ha-
Meqanne (Jerusalem, 1970); the studies collected in Rosenthal, Mehqarim u-Meqorot
(Jerusalem, 1967), and more.
4 The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (Philadelphia, 1933). See now the expanded
version edited by Kenneth Stow (New York, 1989).
5 Les Auteurs Chrétiens Latins du Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le Judaisme (Paris, La Haye, 1963);
Juifs et Chrétiens dans le Monde Occidental, 430–1096 (Paris, 1960).
6 “Rabbi David Kimhi as Polemicist,” Hebrew Union College Annual 38 (1967): 213–235; “An
Hebrew Polemical Treatise, Anti-Cathar and anti-Orthodox,” Harvard Theological Review
60 (1967): 323–348. These and some of his later studies have now been collected in Frank
Ephraim Talmage, Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver: Studies in Medieval Jewish Exegesis
and Polemics, ed. by Barry Dov Walfish (Toronto, 1999).
7 Aryeh Grabois, “The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations in the
Twelfth Century,” Speculum 50 (1975): 613–634.
— 41 —
The Middle Ages
8 A mini-literature has grown up around this theme. See the overall argument presented
in Elazar Touitou, “Shitato ha-Parshanit shel ha-Rashbam al Reqa ha-Mezi’ut ha-Historit
shel Zemanno,” in Iyyunim be-Sifrut Hazal ba-Mikra u-be-Toledot Yisrael: Muqdash li-Prof.
E. Z. Melamed, ed. by Y. D. Gilat et al. (Ramat Gan, 1982), pp. 48–74. For a particularly
good discussion containing some important methodological observations, see Avraham
Grossman, “Ha-Pulmus ha-Yehudi ha-Nozri ve-ha-Parshanut ha-Yehudit la-Miqra be-
Zarfat ba-Meah ha-Yod-Bet,” Zion 91 (1986): 29–60.
9 See my “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature
of the High Middle Ages,” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 576–591.
10 Avraham Grossman, Hakhmei Zarfat ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 502–503.
11 Ivan G. Marcus, Rituals of Childhood (New Haven, 1996); Yisrael Yuval, Shenei Goyim
be-Bitnekh: Yehudim ve-Nozrim—Dimmuyim Hadadiyyim (Tel Aviv, 2000), pp. 219–266.
12 See most recently Shmuel Shepkaru, “To Die for God: Martyrs’ Heaven in Hebrew and
Latin Crusade Narratives,” Speculum 77 (2002): 311–341.
13 Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 197–222.
14 See my “Al Tadmitam ve-Goralam shel ha-Goyim be-Sifrut ha-Pulmus ha-Ashkenazit,”
in Yehudim mul ha-Tselav: Gezerot Tatn’u ba-Historiah u-ba-Historiographiah, ed. by Yom
Tov Assis et al. (Jerusalem, 2000), pp. 74–91. Cf. Robert Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes and
Modern Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1997). On this and related matters, see now Ivan Marcus,
“A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz,” in Cultures of the Jews:
A New History, ed. by David Biale (New York, 2002), pp. 449–518.
15 This question has produced a significant body of historiography since the late 1960’s,
especially in the wake of B. Netanyahu’s The Marranos of Spain from the Late XIVth to
the Early XVIth Century According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources (New York, 1966). For
a brief statement of my own perspective, see my review of Netanyahu’s The Origins of the
Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York, 1995) in Commentary 100:4 (October,
1995): 55–57.
— 42 —
A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World
16 Ram Bar Shalom, Dimmuy ha-Tarbut ha-Nozrit ba-Toda‘ah ha-Historit shel Yehudei Sefarad
u-Provence (Ha-Me’ah ha-Shtem-Esreh ad ha-Hamesh-Esreh), Ph. D dissertation (Tel Aviv
University, 1996). See too my “On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against
Christianity: The Search for the Historical Jesus,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory:
Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed. by E. Carlebach, J. M. Efron, and D. N. Myers
(Hanover and London, 1998), pp. 25–39. On Jewish-Christian interaction in Spain, see
now Benjamin Gampel, “The Transformation of Sephardic Culture in Christian Iberia,”
in Cultures of the Jews (above, n. 13), pp. 389–447.
17 Eleazar Gutwirth, “Towards Expulsion: 1391–1492,” in Elie Kedourie, ed., Spain and the
Jews (London, 1992), pp. 51–73.
18 Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca and London, 1982). Cf. my review in
American Historical Review 88 (1983): 93.
19 Yisrael Yuval, “Ha-Naqam ve-ha-Qelalah, ha-Dam ve-ha-Alilah,” Zion 58 (1992/93): 33–
90, and the reactions in Zion 59:2–3 (1994).
20 R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society (Oxford, 1987).
21 Gavin Langmuir, History, Religion and Antisemitism and Toward a Definition of Antisemitism
(Berkeley, 1990). For reactions to this thesis, see Robert C. Stacey, “History, Religion
and Medieval Antisemitism: A Response to Gavin Langmuir,” Religious Studies Review
20 (1994): 95–101; Marc Saperstein, “Medieval Christians and Jews: A Review Essay,”
Shofar 8:4 (Summer, 1990): 1–10; Robert Chazan, In the Year 1096: The First Crusade
and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 143–146; David Berger, From Crusades to Blood
Libels to Expulsions: Some New Approaches to Medieval Antisemitism. The Second Victor
J. Selmanowitz Memorial Lecture, Touro College Graduate School of Jewish Studies
(1997), pp. 14–16.
22 David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence (Princeton, 1996).
— 43 —
The Middle Ages
23 On the importance of instincts in this discourse see my “Jacob Katz on Jews and
Christians in the Middle Ages,” in The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and his Work,
ed. by Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), pp. 41–63.
24 See my “Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben: A Study in the Transmission
of Medieval Polemic,” Speculum 49 (1974): 34–47.
25 G. Vajda, “De quelques infiltrations chrétiennes dans l’oeuvre d’un auteur anglo-juif du
XIIIe siècle,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 28 (1961): 15–34.
— 44 —
A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World
— 45 —
The Middle Ages
27 Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in the Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 1 (1976): 311–57.
See too Ivan Marcus, Piety and Society (Leiden, 1981).
28 See Talya Fishman, “The Penitential System of Hasidei Ashkenaz and the Problem of
Cultural Boundaries,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 8 (1999): 201–229. Cf.
my remarks in The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1979),
p. 27, and in “Al Tadmitam ve-Goralam shel ha-Goyim” (above, n. 13), pp. 78–79.
— 46 —
A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World
29 Joel Rembaum, “The Development of a Jewish Exegetical Tradition Regarding Isaiah 53,”
Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982):289–311.
30 Marcus (above, n. 10).
— 47 —
The Middle Ages
— 48 —
A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World
— 49 —
The Middle Ages
— 50 —
JACOB KATZ ON JEWS AND CHRISTIANS
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
From: The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and his Work,
ed. by Jay M. Harris (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 2002),
pp. 41–63.
1 The English version was published by Oxford University Press in 1961. The Hebrew, Bein
Yehudim le-Goyim (Jerusalem, 1960), appeared earlier but, according to the preface, was
written later and hence, says Katz, takes precedence. In a number of quite important
instances, the Hebrew is superior not because of revisions but because at that point Katz’s
command of written English was not fully adequate to the task and whoever assisted him
did not always capture the necessary nuances.
— 51 —
The Middle Ages
— 52 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
We now know that Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, the distinguished leader
of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary at the very time that Katz studied in
Frankfurt, was profoundly troubled by this problem.5
Moreover, Katz himself provides us with several indications of his
own sensitivities and sympathies. He argues that a historian has the
right to use the term “shortcoming” as an expression of moral judgment
with respect to earlier societies without violating the principle that later
values alien to those societies should not be imposed in the process
of historical assessment. His justification for this position rests on
the argument that even the medievals had some sense of a universal
humanitarian standard, although they would regularly suspend it in
the face of what they perceived to be the demands of their religion; it
is precisely their awareness of such a standard that allows a historian
to render judgment as to the degree of their fealty to it. One cannot
help but wonder if Katz would really have avoided all moral judgment
if he were studying a society that he considered bereft of any universal
humanitarian concern. He appears to be straining to find an academically
plausible argument allowing for the infiltration of an explicitly ethical
prism into his historical analysis, thereby satisfying both his moral and
his historical conscience.
In the last few lines of the preface to the Hebrew version, he allows
us a fleeting glimpse into his hope and conviction that the book is not
irrelevant to the issues of the day.
The roots of contemporary problems extend to the far reaches of the past,
and Jewish-Gentile relations even today cannot be understood without
knowing their earlier history. A historian is permitted to believe that when
he distances the reader from the present, he does not sever him from it;
rather, he provides him with a vantage point from which he can more
readily encompass even the place where we now stand.6
5 See Marc B. Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva World and Modem Orthodoxy: The Life and
Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg 1884–1966 (London and Portland, Oregon, 1909),
pp. 182–183.
6 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 8.
— 53 —
The Middle Ages
— 54 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
to the use of Gentiles for work on the Sabbath. Here again, he argues
that texts can occasionally be subordinated to “ritual instinct,” so that
ordinary Jews will ask for permission to violate serious prohibitions
that do not repel them while refraining from seeking dispensation
to engage in behavior that is less objectionable to the legal mind but
unthinkable in light of deeply entrenched emotions.
Standards tor evaluating assertions about instinct can be elusive.
Thus, I will sometimes be discussing my instinct about Katz’s instinct
about the instinct of medieval Jews. Evidence, of course, is not irrelevant
to this enterprise, nor was it irrelevant in medieval discourse. One of
Katz’s great strengths is that he recognizes this. For all his emphasis
on the primacy of emotions, instinct, and a sense of social identity, he
is not carried away by his insight. It is only on the rarest of occasions
that he loses sight of the interplay of these factors with more disciplined
intellectual pursuits, whether theological or halakhic. Except in those
rare moments, his work is a model of balance, as a supple and subtle mind
reconstructs the delicately poised interweaving of unexamined, primal
reactions, economic and social needs, and the reasoned examination of
authoritative texts.
Even Katz’s marginal, poorly informed discussion of polemic reveals
this strength. Thus, he appreciates the significance of the intellectual
dimension of what many observers have seen as static and uninteresting
ritual combat and he points to the internalizing of anti-Christian exegesis
as evidence of the deep Jewish sensitivity to Christian arguments. Thus,
he says, both R. Joseph Bekhor Shor and R. Isaac Or Zarua assert that
Deuteronomy 6:4 affirms not merely that the Lord is God but that He is our
God, thereby proclaiming that no other nation can claim Him as its own.11
Still, Katz does not regard intellectual arguments as the Jews’ primary
line of defense. They were decidedly secondary to the emotions of group
identification and the attraction of Judaism’s entrenched symbols.12
Katz underscores this approach in his more detailed discussion of
martyrdom. Ordinary Jews, he says, martyred themselves not because
of familiarity with the niceties of their halakhic obligations but because
they had been reared on stories of heroic self-sacrifice.13 Despite these
11 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 30. The English version (Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 19) is so
truncated that the point is almost completely lost.
12 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 32; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 21.
13 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 91; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, pp. 84–85.
— 55 —
The Middle Ages
14 Salo Baron expressed both reactions, the first in a general discussion of messianic figures
and the second in a more detailed account of Moses. The reasons for skepticism, he says,
are the Christian author’s emphasis on Jewish credulity and his assertion that those
saved by Christian fishermen accepted baptism. See A Social and Religious History of the
Jews (New York, London, and Philadelphia, 1960), vol. 3, p. 16, and vol. 5, pp. 366–367.
Gerson Cohen, who excluded messianic movements attested only in Christian sources
from his analysis of the messianic stances of medieval Jewish communities, remarked
during a Columbia University colloquium in the mid-1960s that his own skepticism about
the historicity of this account is rooted in the fact that the Jews’ credulousness regarding
false messiahs combined with their rejection of the true one is a standard, polemically
useful Christian topos. Cohen’s policy of excluding messianic accounts by non-Jews has
recently come under attack. See his “Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim,”
in Studies of the Leo Baeck Institute, ed. by Max Kreutzberger (New York, 1967), p. 123, n.
11, and Elisheva Carlebach, Between History and Hope: Jewish Messianism in Ashkenaz and
Sepharad. Third Annual Lecture of the Victor J. Selmanowitz Chair of Jewish History (New
York: Touro College, 1998), pp. 12–13.
15 See the references in Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1928), vol. 6,
pp. 75–79 (n. 388).
— 56 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
— 57 —
The Middle Ages
18 See Haym Soloveitchik, “Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example,”
AJS Review 12 (1987): 205–221; Avraham Grossman, “Shorashav shel Qiddush ha-Shem
be-Ashkenaz ha-Qedumah,” in Qedushat ha-Hayyim ve-Heruf ha-Nefesh: Kovetz Ma’amarim
le-Zikhro shel Amir Yekutiel, ed. by Isaiah Gafni and Aviezer Ravitzky (Jerusalem, 1993),
pp. 99–130; Israel Ta Shma, “Hit’abbedut ve-Rezah ha-Zulat al Qiddush ha-Shem: Li-
She’elat Meqomah shel ha-Aggadah be-Masoret ha-Pesiqah ha-Ashkenazit,” in Yehudim
mul ha-Zelav: Gezerot Tatn’u ba-Historiah u-ba-Historiographiah, ed. by Yom Tov Assis et
al. (Jerusalem, 2000), pp. 150–156.
19 See the following note.
— 58 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
20 Even though Bereshit Rabbah is an aggadic text, this passage has the sound and feel
of halakhah, so that Soloveitchik’s argument that suicides were justified by aggadah
pure and simple probably requires qualification. It would be going very far indeed to
expect Ashkenazic Jews to shrink from relying upon an explicitly legal formulation solely
because it appears in a non-halakhic midrash.
21 In my “Heqer Rabbanut Ashkenaz ha-Qedumah,” Tarbiz 33 (1984): 484, n. 6, I made the
point that R. Meir’s determining a halakhah on the basis of a partially original midrash
on a biblical verse is highly unusual among medieval authorities. In private conversations,
two learned scholars insisted that they do not consider such a practice strikingly atypical,
but I am not persuaded.
— 59 —
The Middle Ages
— 60 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
24 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 91. The English version (Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 84) does
not quite convey the point.
— 61 —
The Middle Ages
25 The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages, pp. 26–27, 216–218.
26 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 97, n. 41.
— 62 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
of converts. Once again, his instincts guide him very well even in the
absence of an extensive evidentiary base. He understands, of course,
the full spectrum of motivations tor Jewish conversion to Christianity,
from pragmatic interests to genuine conviction. His tendency, however,
predictably inclines toward social explanation: in a profoundly religious
age, Jews attracted by the values of Christian society would express
this attraction by embracing the religious form in which those values
expressed themselves.27 Though I would assign somewhat more force
than did Katz to the attraction of Christian arguments, I am, nonethe-
less, inclined to think that his emphasis is correct. He intuits this
psychological process despite the fact that his entire discussion of the
motivations of Jewish apostates takes place with virtually no reference
to Christian sources, which appear in one footnote containing a refe-
rence to a few pages in two secondary works.28 I have already alluded
to the fact that our one detailed personal memoir of the conversion
experience by a Jewish convert to Christianity, Herman of Cologne’s
Opuscula de Conversione Sua, is entirely absent from the analysis—an
inconceivable omission for anyone with real familiarity with Latin
materials. And yet, Herman’s account strikingly reinforces Katz’s
point, subordinating, though not ignoring, intellectual arguments, and
emphasizing an attraction to the values of simple piety.29
Similarly, Katz argues with no concrete evidence that the reason why
medieval Ashkenazic Jews persisted in converting Christians despite
— 63 —
The Middle Ages
— 64 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
33 See my “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature
of the High Middle Ages,” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 576–591.
34 “Af al Pi she-Hata Yisrael Hu,” in Halakhah ve-Qabbalah, pp. 255–269.
35 “Af al Pi she-Hata Yisrael Hu,” p. 262.
36 “Af al Pi she-Hata Yisrael Hu,” pp. 262–265.
— 65 —
The Middle Ages
37 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 60; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 51. The difference between the
Hebrew and English versions of this passage is so striking that for all Katz’s insistence
that he spurned apologetics, it is difficult to avoid the impression that he or his English
stylist softened the formulation for a non-Jewish audience. The Hebrew reads, “The vision
of the end of days signifies the overturning of the current order, when the dispersed and
humiliated people will see its revenge from its tormentors. The hope for a day of revenge
and the prayer for the arrival of that day may be considered as conflicting with a profession
of loyalty to the government . . . ” Here is the English: “A reversal of the existing order was
envisaged in the messianic age, when the dispersed and humiliated Jewish people was to
come into its own. The entertaining of such hopes, and the prayer for their fulfillment,
might well be considered as conflicting with a profession of loyalty . . . ”
On the much debated question of whether Ashkenazic Jews looked forward to Christian
conversion or annihilation at the end of days, see my “Al Tadmitam ve-Goralam shel
ha-Goyim be-Sifrut ha-Pulmus ha-Ashkenazit,” in Yehudim mul ha-Zelav (above, n. 18),
pp. 74–91.
38 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, pp. 98–99; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, pp. 93–94.
39 See my discussion and references in Gerald J. Blidstein, David Berger, Shnayer
Z. Leiman, and Aharon Lichtenstein, Judaism’s Encounter with Other Cultures: Rejection
or Integration?, ed. by Jacob J. Schacter, pp. 117–125, as well as in “Al Tadmitam ve-
Goralam shel ha-Goyim” (above, n. 37). See also Ivan Marcus, Rituals of Childhood: Jewish
Acculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven and London, 1996); Israel J. Yuval, Shenei
Goyim be-Bitnekh (Tel Aviv, 2000); and much relevant discussion in Avraham Grossman’s
Hakhmei Ashkenaz ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem, 1981) and Hakhmei Zarfat ha-Rishonim
(Jerusalem, 1995) and in Ephraim Kanarfogel, Jewish Education and Society in the High
Middle Ages (Detroit, 1992).
— 66 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
40 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 36; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 25. The formulation in the
English version is not as sharp.
41 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 46; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, p. 37.
42 So the anonymous rabbi attacked by Maimonides in his Epistle on Martyrdom; see Abraham
Halkin and David Hartman, Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership (Philadelphia,
1993), pp. 16, 21. Cf. also Hiddushei ha-Ran to Sanhedrin 61b. (The author is not Rabbi
Nissim Gerondi but a somewhat earlier Spanish talmudist.)
43 See my “Mission to the Jews” (above, n. 33).
44 Et Lahqor ve-Et Lehitbonen (Jerusalem: 1999), p. 54.
45 “Jewish-Christian Polemics,” The Encyclopedia of Religion 11: 389.
— 67 —
The Middle Ages
Christian encounter was more stressful because of both its greater intimacy
and its greater difference. Since the Hebrew Bible played a considerably
less important role in Islam than it did in Christianity, arguments
over its meaning, including, of course, the identity of True Israel, were
incomparably more significant in the Jewish-Christian interaction. With
regard to theology, it was the greater gap between Jews and Christians
that was decisive in exacerbating tensions. “Islamic monotheism left no
room for the creative rancor that produced the philosophical dimension
of Jewish-Christian discussions, which addressed such issues as trinity
and incarnation.”46 In our context, sharper terminology may be in order.
Christianity was avodah zarah; Islam was not.
A comparative dimension might also have been useful in testing one
aspect of Katz’s controversial hypothesis about the difference between
medieval Ashkenazim and their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
counterparts. Katz asserts that by the seventeenth century, Ashkenazic
Jews had spiritualized the ideal of martyrdom and were far less aggressive
in confronting Christianity. These changes, he says, resulted from greater
insularity. Christianity had become less of a psychological reality, and the
sense of spiritual threat or temptation had diminished.47
This is not the forum to address the controversy over this thesis
in detail. I think that Katz was wrong about spiritualization and right
about aggressiveness, but his reason for the decline in aggressiveness
is highly speculative. We would do well to ask why medieval Provencal,
Italian, and Spanish Jews were less aggressive than those of Northern
Europe in their anti-Christian works. Were those Jews less tempted by
Christianity? Was it less of a psychological reality for them? In these
societies, it is likely that differences in cultural attitudes and norms of
expression were at work. But then, as the Middle Ages wore on, there was
fear. This is certainly evident in late medieval Spain, where the Tortosa
disputation took place in a profoundly different atmosphere from the
one that had prevailed in Barcelona a century and a half earlier, but
there were similar transformations in Ashkenaz as well. Rabbi Yehiel
of Paris did not dare to address Nicholas Donin in the manner that his
contemporary Ashkenazic coreligionists wrote or even, I am inclined to
think, still spoke to Christians on the street. Later—but still well before
— 68 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
— 69 —
The Middle Ages
want to drink it. As Katz presents it, Rabbenu Tam permitted benefit on
the basis of an argument that should logically have permitted drinking
as well. When Ri objected by pointing to this implication, Rabbenu Tam
withdrew his argument and produced a different one that would not
lead to the unwanted conclusion. Katz points out that the Talmud itself
makes no distinction between benefit and drinking, so that only the
extra-halakhic concern prevented Ri and Rabbenu Tam from endorsing
a consistent position.50
In a footnote found only in the Hebrew version, Katz concedes that
R. Tam’s statement “can be interpreted to mean that his ruling was
reported inaccurately, but even if this is so one can still wonder why Ri
would have been upset by the conclusion that Rabbenu Tarn reached
in the form it was reported to him.”51 First of all, R. Tam’s statement
cannot just be interpreted to mean that his position was misreported;
that is the only thing it can mean. Second, although the Talmud does
not generally distinguish between deriving benefit from Gentile wine
and drinking it, in a critically relevant line in this discussion it does.
Ri objected to a permissive ruling that was both unprecedented and
contrary to accepted practice. What is really striking is R. Tam’s reaction,
“God forbid,” to Ri’s assertion in his name, a reaction that powerfully
supports Katz’s fundamental thesis about the depth of the instinct at
work here. We have already seen an instance in which Katz was acutely
sensitive to the significance of this formula. In this case he did not pick
it up, apparently because he was committed to the position that R. Tam
had changed his mind. The deep aversion of Ashkenazic authorities to
permitting the drinking of gentile wine really does emerge here, but Katz
has constructed a misleading scenario regarding both the unfolding of
R. Tam’s position and its presumed inconsistency.52
50 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, pp. 55–56; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, pp. 46–47.
51 Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 56, n. 36.
52 After writing this, I had the benefit of reading the typescript of Haym Soloveitchik’s study,
“Sahar bi-Stam Yeinam be-Ashkenaz—Pereq be-Toledot ha-Halakhah ve-ha-Kalkalah
ha-Yehudit bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim,” which will have appeared before the publication of
this article. I am grateful to Prof. Soloveitchik for providing me with this typescript,
which contains an important analysis of the exchange between Ri and Rabbenu Tam and
argues persuasively for the existence of a deeply ingrained instinctive revulsion among
Ashkenazic Jews at the prospect of drinking gentile wine.
Katz’s report of a tosafist position in another case also requires correction, but the
misleading formulation is only slightly off the mark. He tells us that Ri permitted taking
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Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
interest from gentiles beyond the requirements of bare sustenance, because Jews were
now a minority among the gentiles (Bein Yehudim le-Goyim, p. 40; Exclusiveness and
Tolerance, p. 30). This is a category Katz uses to explain a larger pattern of halakhic
adjustment. So he mobilizes it here, when in fact Ri grounded his permissive ruling
not on the numerical status of the Jews but on the related fact that they are subject to
economic persecution.
53 Halakhah, Kalkalah, ve-Dimmuy Azmi (Jerusalem: 1985), pp. 79–81.
54 “Sheloshah Mishpatim Apologetiyyim be-Gilguleihem,” in Halakhah ve-Qabbalah,
p. 284.
— 71 —
The Middle Ages
— 72 —
Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
— 73 —
The Middle Ages
60 See my “The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews,” Proceedings of the
American Academy for Jewish Research 40 (1972): 89–108.
61 Note the discussion of some of these sometimes surprising complexities in Kenneth
R. Stow, “Papal and Royal Attitudes toward Jewish Lending in the Thirteenth Century,”
AJS Review 6 (1981): 161–184.
— 74 —
INTRODUCTION TO THE JEWISHCHRISTIAN
DEBATE IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
A Critical Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with
an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary
I. ON JEWISHCHRISTIAN POLEMIC
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The Middle Ages
1 See M. D. Hooker Jesus and the Servant (London, 1959); Y. Kaufmann, Golah ve-Nekhar
(Tel Aviv, 1929/30), 1: 381–389.
2 The major anti-Jewish polemics through the twelfth century were summarized by
A. L. Williams, Adversus Judaeos (Cambridge, 1935). See also B. Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs
Chrétiens Latins du Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le Judaisme (Paris, La Haye, 1963). J. Pelikan
has remarked that as Judaism became less of a threat to Christianity, Christian writers
tended “to take their opponents less and less seriously” (The Christian Tradition, vol. 1,
The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition [100–600] [Chicago and London, 1971], p. 21).
There is some validity to this observation, but precisely this fact leads one to ask why
Christians continue to write books refuting people that they do not take seriously.
— 76 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
Were Jewish questions, then, the primary factor behind the search
for biblical testimonies to Christian truth? Was it, as one scholar
has suggested, because of Jewish arguments that Christians became
concerned with the conflict between the genealogies of Jesus in
Matthew and Luke?3 Did the incredulous inquiries of Jews inspire the
various rationales concerning the need for the incarnation, up to and
including Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo?4 The extent of Jewish influence is
difficult to determine, but it is clear that such issues would not have
been ignored in the absence of Jewish disputants. It is surely evident
that when Isidore of Seville, in a work on Leviticus, has a Jew ask why
Christians fail to bring sacrifices or observe the sabbatical year, he is
raising problems suggested by his own reading of the Bible, and yet Peter
Damian transferred these passages without change into a polemical
work against the Jews.5 Christians undoubtedly wrote books against
Judaism in response to a challenge actually raised by Jews, but they
were also motivated by the internal need to deal with issues that were
both crucial and profoundly disturbing.
One approach to the puzzling conflict between the Hebrew Bible
and Christian beliefs was a frontal attack. Marcion and other Christian
heretics rejected the Jewish Scriptures and subjected them to a wide-
ranging critique. In one respect this was a simple and straightforward
solution since the problem vanishes entirely; there was no longer any
need to engage in point by point exegesis of individual passages. On
the other hand, this radical solution of one problem created another
even more intractable difficulty. The Gospels, after all, clearly recognized
the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible; indeed, many of the biblical
testimonies central to later polemic are found in the New Testament.
The suggestion that offending New Testament passages be emended
was hardly palatable to most Christians, and mainstream Christianity
rejected the one approach that would have sharply limited the scope of
the Jewish-Christian debate.
3 See A. B. Hulen, “The Dialogue with the Jews as Source for the Early Jewish Argument
against Christianity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 51 (1932): 61.
4 On the polemical implications of Cur Deus Homo? see A. Funkenstein, “Ha-Temurot be-
Vikkuah ha-Dat she-bein Yehudim le-Nozerim ba-Me’ah ha-Yod-Bet,” Zion 33 (1968):
129–132.
5 See my “St. Peter Damian: His Attitude toward the Jews and the Old Testament,”
Yavneh Review 4 (1965): 102–104. The issue of Christian sacrifices in the Middle Ages
is raised in N. V. (pp. 207–209), but only in response to a Christian argument.
— 77 —
The Middle Ages
— 78 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
with Trypho which Marcel Simon placed on the cover of his Verus Israel.
“What?!” said Trypho. “You are Israel?!”8 After the initial shock wore
off, Jews realized that this was a direct assault against the fundamental
underpinnings of Judaism, an effort to abscond with the Bible. They
pointed with outrage to the arbitrariness of applying all favorable biblical
statements about Israel to the church and all pejorative ones to the Jews,
and by the high Middle Ages they had assembled passages from the
Bible in which favorable and unfavorable references were inextricably
intertwined. The same Israel would be exiled and redeemed, and since
the church would not suffer the former fate it could hardly lay claim to
the latter reward.9 Whatever the Jewish response, the issue was critical,
because it appeared that Christianity could lay claim to legitimacy only
by denying it to Judaism. There was no room (at least according to the
dominant view) for two spiritual Israels.
The corpus of early Christian works directed against Judaism is,
as we have already noted, rather extensive. Anti-Christian works by
Jews, on the other hand, are virtually nonexistent before the twelfth
century. One reason for this disparity is that Jews had no internal
motivation for writing polemics against Christians; in times or places
where Christianity was not a threat, we cannot expect Jews to be con-
cerned with a refutation of its claims. Moreover, during much of the
so-called Dark Ages, Jews in Christian lands produced no literature
that has survived. Consequently, aside from some largely philosophical
material in Arabic, our sources for the Jewish side of the discussion
consist of scattered references in rabbinic literature,10 the collections
of folk polemic that go by the name Toledot Yeshu11 and quotations in
Christian works.12 The last group of sources is by far the richest, but
8 Ti oun, phesin ho Tryphon, hymeis Israel este?! Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 123.
9 On the subject of verus Israel, see pp. 169–171, and the notes to p. 126. On the typology
of Jacob and Esau, see G. D. Cohen, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in
Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. by A. Altmann, pp. 19–48, and cf. the notes
to p. 55.
10 A list of such references appears in H. H. Ben Sasson’s “Disputations and Polemics,”
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971), 6: cols. 81–82.
11 See S. Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach Jüdischen Quellen (Berlin, 1902).
12 See B. Blumenkranz’s “Die Jüdischen Beweisgründe im Religionsgespräch mit den
Christen,” Theologische Zeitschrift 4 (1948): 119–147, and his Juifs et Chrétiens dans
le Monde Occidental, 430–1096 (Paris, 1960), pp. 213–289. It is likely that the brief
Sefer Nestor ha-Komer (Altona, 1875) also predates the high Middle Ages. For a short
summary of some sporadic references to other early Jewish polemics, see J. Rosenthal,
— 79 —
The Middle Ages
— 80 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
— 81 —
The Middle Ages
15 Naturally there are many scriptural arguments that resist neat classification, and not
every weak argument should be labeled “exegetical.” Nevertheless, these examples are
illustrative of Christological interpretations that hardly made any pretense of being
demonstrably true. (Isaiah 45 was in a different category during the early stages of its
polemical history; see the notes to p. 111.)
16 Some examples can be found in E. I. J. Rosenthal, “Anti-Christian Polemic in Medieval
Bible Commentaries,” JJS 11 (1960): 115–135. Jewish commentaries, of course, deal
primarily with what I have called genuine polemic.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
also does away with one of the central messianic passages in the Bible.
Polemic, then, was at least a factor in stimulating and legitimizing
an important development in medieval Jewish exegesis.17
Christians were genuinely puzzled at the Jewish failure to accept
the overwhelming array of scriptural arguments which they had
marshaled. Every major Christian doctrine could be supported by
several verses in the Hebrew Bible, and some of these appeared
utterly irrefutable. Indeed, a few verses seemed so impressive that the
persuasive force of anyone of them should in itself have caused Jews
to abandon their faith.18 Only preternatural blindness or a conscious
refusal to accept the truth could account for Jewish resistance, and both
of these explanations played a major role in the medieval conception of
the Jew.19
Jewish refutations of Christian interpretations of the Bible had
to proceed on a verse-by-verse basis. There are, nevertheless, certain
general principles that were applied time and again, and the most
important of these was the argument from context. Jews argued that
christological explanations of individual verses could rarely withstand
scrutiny from the wider perspective of the passage as a whole, and
they constantly cited adjoining verses to demonstrate this point.
Perhaps the most important use of this argument was its application
to the virgin birth explanation of Isaiah 7:14. This verse was by far
the most significant evidence for the virgin birth in the Hebrew Bible,
and its importance was enhanced by the fact that it was cited for
this purpose in Matthew. Nevertheless, it was only with the greatest
difficulty that Christians could respond to the Jewish argument that
the birth was clearly expected to take place very shortly after Isaiah’s
announcement.20 While the argument from context was not always
as effective as it was here, it was the stock-in-trade of any medieval
Jewish polemicist.
17 On Isaiah 11, see the notes to p. 108; cf. also p. 125 and the notes there. For a general
treatment of medieval Ashkenazic exegesis, see S. Poznanski, Mavo la-Perush ‘al Yehezqel
u-Terei ‘Asar le-Rabbi Eliezer mi-Balgenzi (Warsaw, 1913; reprinted Jerusalem, 1965).
18 So Peter the Venerable with respect to Proverbs 30:4; see his Tractatus adversus Judaeorum
Inveteratam Duritiem, PL 189: 519.
19 On blindness, see p. 68 and the notes there. For a possible Jewish reversal of the argument
that Jews reject what they know to be the truth, see the notes to pp. 216 and 219.
20 See the notes to p. 101.
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The Middle Ages
— 84 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
With respect to doctrinal issues, it was the Jewish side that usually
took the offensive. Jews were convinced that some of the central articles
of faith professed by Christians were not only devoid of scriptural
foundation but were without logical justification as well; to use Christian
terminology, they lacked both ratio and auctoritas.
The trinity, which was an obvious target for logical questions,
posed a peculiar problem for Jewish polemicists; they considered it so
irrational that they had trouble in coming to grips with it. Although
no Jewish writer formulates his difficulties in precisely this fashion,
it seems clear that Jews, in effect, asked themselves the following
questions: “What do they mean when they talk about a triune God?
They say that there are three, and then they say that the three are one.
But this is patent nonsense. What, then, do they really believe? Which
of these contradictory assertions am I to take seriously and which
shall I dismiss as meaningless double-talk? Since they talk about the
separate incarnation of one of the three persons, it is apparently the
assertion of multiplicity that they really mean. In that case, I shall have
to demonstrate to them that there is only one God.”
It is only some such line of reasoning that can explain the persistent
Jewish efforts to persuade Christians to accept monotheism on both
logical and scriptural grounds. Jacob ben Reuben cites philosophical
evidence that the world was created by no more than one God. The
author of the Nizzahon Vetus wants to know what will happen if one
person of the trinity makes a decision and another person reverses
it. Solomon de’ Rossi compiles a list of biblical verses which say that
there is one God. Writer after writer reminds Christians that God
proclaimed, “I, I am he, and there is no God beside me” (Deut. 32:39).
To the Christian polemicist, of course, such arguments were virtually
inexplicable and missed the point entirely. Christians, he would reply,
believe in monotheism as much as Jews; the question is only the nature
da Correggio’s Herev Pifiyyot (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 9. Cf. also his citation of several
relevant verses in his “Haganah ve-Hatqafah . . . ,” pp. 348–349. There is a non-polemical
source which may contribute to the impression that there was some degree of seriousness
in this enterprise. R. Jacob Tam, we are told, requested divine guidance in a dream to
determine whether or not Jesus and Mary are alluded to in Scripture; see A. J. Heschel,
“’Al Ruah ha-Qodesh bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim,” Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume, New York,
1950, Heb. vol., p. 182, n. 27. See also Talmage’s note in “Ha-Pulmus ha-Anti-Nozeri ba-
Hibbur Leqet Qazar,” Michael 4 (1976): 71.
— 85 —
The Middle Ages
of that one God. On this issue, Jews and Christians were operating on
different wavelengths, and the essence of the problem was the rationality
of the Christian belief.23
Christians attempted to defend the plausibility of the trinitarian
faith by analogies with physical phenomena or by the identification
of the three persons of the trinity with major attributes of God.
Such arguments raised complex philosophical questions about divine
attributes which transcended the boundaries of the Jewish-Christian
debate but did play a role in some of the more sophisticated polemical
works. Some Jews tried to undermine this type of explanation by
arguing that it could not coexist comfortably with the doctrine of the
incarnation which implied the sort of separability among the persons
of the trinity that could not be attributed to divine power, wisdom,
and will.24
The incarnation itself was subjected to a Jewish critique that
ranged from the questioning of its necessity to the contention that it is
impossible even for an omnipotent God.25 Christian works quote several
Jewish polemicists who became so carried away with the tendency to
maintain the impossibility of Christian dogmas that they made such
an assertion even with respect to the virgin birth. Here they were on
very shaky ground; Christians presented effective rebuttals, and the
extant Jewish polemics which discuss the matter concede that God
could theoretically have caused a virgin to conceive.26
One Christian doctrine that Jews attacked on moral rather than
philosophical grounds was the belief in the universal damnation which
came in the wake of original sin. They argued that such treatment is
clearly unfair and inconsistent with the mercy of God, and at least one
Jewish writer made the same argument with respect to the damnation
23 See the notes to pp. 42 (line 12) and 75. The most sophisticated Jewish discussion of the
trinity during our period is in Moses of Salerno’s Ta‘anot, and not all Jewish polemicists
based their arguments on the undefended assumption that Trinitarianism is simply
a polytheism of three. There was, nevertheless, a pervasive Jewish feeling that this is
the case. On this topic in general, see D. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against
Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York, 1977), pp. 48–104. (Lasker’s important study
appeared too late to be utilized systematically in this book; for an assessment, see my
review in the Association for Jewish Studies Newsletter 22 [March 1978]: 16–17, 19.)
24 See Appendix 5 for a detailed discussion.
25 See Appendix 2.
26 See p. 103 and the notes there.
— 86 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
— 87 —
The Middle Ages
of polemic began m the late twelfth century and reached a peak (at
least in France and Germany) in the thirteenth. Joseph Kimhi, Jacob
ben Reuben, the author of the Vikkuah le-ha-Radaq, Meir of Narbonne,
Joseph Official (Yosef ha-Meqanne) and his father Nathan, Moses of
Salerno, Mordecai of Avignon, Nahmanides, Jacob of Venice, Solomon
de’ Rossi and, finally, the anonymous author of the Nizzahon Vetus
were the representatives of a concerted Jewish effort to present the
case against Christianity. The renaissance of Christian polemic was as
much a result of a general intellectual revival as of a new concern with
Jews; the Jewish response, though somewhat delayed, was inevitable,
and in two important instances, it was imposed in the form of forced
disputations. Confrontations between Jews and Christians were on the
increase, and their frequency, their tone, and even their content were
being deeply influenced by the political, social, and economic changes
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
35 See S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York, 1965), 3: 60.
36 See Ch. Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i HaNazrut (Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 227–248.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
37 See A. Neubauer, “Literary Gleanings, IX” JQR, o.s. 5 (1893): 713–714; cf. Baron, op. cit.,
10: 63–64. See also R. Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France (Baltimore and London,
1973), pp. 149–153, for indications that this convert was Pablo C(h)ristia(ni) and that
the events may have taken place in 1269.
38 See Baron, op. cit., 10: 57 ff. On the economic and political decline of French Jewry in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries see esp. Chazan, op. cit., pp. 39–40, 63–96, 100–124,
133–141, 148, 154–186.
39 See S. Albeck, “Yahaso shel Rabbenu Tam li-Be‘ayot Zemanno” (Hebrew), Zion 19 (1954):
107–108; cf. Tosafot Bava Mezi‘a, 70b, s. v. tashikh.
40 Tosafot Avodah Zarah, 2a, s. v. velifroa‘ mehen. On Christian efforts to minimize the effec-
tiveness of documents held by Jews which proved Christian indebtedness, see S. Grayzel,
The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1933), p. 57, note 78,
and pp. 106–107, note 3. The Jewish feeling of economic insecurity is also reflected in
the texts in B. Dinur, Yisrael ba-Golah II. 1 (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1965), pp. 157–168.
— 89 —
The Middle Ages
41 On the early fourteenth century, see Y. Yerushalmi “The Inquisition and the Jews of
France in the Time of Bernard Gui,” HTR 63 (1970): 317–377. See also R. Anchel, Les
Juifs de France (1946), pp. 79–91 and Chazan, op. cit. pp. 191–205.
42 See the notes to p. 55.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
43 See Baron, op. cit., 9: 141–147. For a recent discussion of the doctrine of fullness of power
see W. D. McCready, “Papal Plenitudo Potestatis and the Source of Temporal Authority in
Late Medieval Papal Hierocratic Theory,” Speculum 48 (1973): 654–674.
44 See especially G. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany (Chicago, 1949), pp. 159–168, and
cf. Baron, op. cit., pp. 152 ff.
45 Baron, op. cit., pp. 193 ff.
— 91 —
The Middle Ages
46 There is no really good survey of Jewish-Christian polemic as a whole until the fourteenth
century. A few studies, however, do give a picture of some of the areas of interaction
between polemic and historical realia. See Ver. Israel; Auteurs; Juifs et Chrét.; J. Parkes,
The Conflict of The Church and the Synagogue (London, 1934); I. Loeb, “La Controverse
Religieuse entre les Chrétiens et les Juifs au Moyen Age,” Revue d’histoire des Religions
17 (1888): 311–337; 18 (1888): 133–156 (also printed as a separate monograph); Baron,
op. cit. 9: 55–134, 266–307; Funkenstein, op, cit., pp. 125–144.
47 N. V., p. 169.
48 Ibid., p. 68.
49 Ibid., p. 69.
50 See pp. 43, 77.
51 See the notes to p. 152.
52 Nevertheless, Rosenthal (Jewish Social Studies 27 [1965]: 121) justly rejects H. J. Schoeps’s
contention that N. V. stems from “the completely uneducated circles of German Jewry.”
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
name not be mentioned in connection with the critique for fear that
Christians would find out.53 Solomon de’ Rossi also counseled restraint
at the beginning of his ‘Edut Hashem Ne’emanah. Indeed, he suggested
that the Jewish polemicist avoid entirely such subjects as the trinity,
incarnation, host, saints, and priesthood—in short, anything that
might be offensive. Discussion should be limited to “the coming of the
Messiah, the signs of his time, the commandments of the Torah, and
the words of the prophets.” Moreover, Solomon’s advice on the tactics
of the Jewish polemicist provides a striking contrast with the above-
mentioned instructions given by the author of the Nizzahon Vetus.
“One who argues with them,” says our author, “should be strong willed
by asking questions and giving responses that deal with the specific
issue at hand and not permitting his antagonist to extricate himself
from that issue until it has been completed.”54 Solomon, on the other
hand, suggests that if the Jew sees that he is winning the argument, he
should not try to appear like the victor but should instead change the
subject.55
Our author’s practical advice to the Jewish polemicist is not the only
evidence indicating that the aggressiveness reflected in the Nizzahon
Vetus was at least partly expressed in actual debate. Agobard accused
Jews of blaspheming Jesus in the presence of Christians.56 In the
twelfth century, Jews were said to have challenged Christians to battle
in the manner of Goliath.57 Walter of Châtillon asserted that Jews not
only fail to accept the truth of Christianity but actively pose objections
to it.58 The oft-quoted remark of Louis IX that a Christian layman who
53 Mil. Hashem, p. 141. While Rosenthal is no doubt correct in suggesting that such factors
as the higher philosophical level of Mil. Hashem were largely responsible for its less
vituperative tone (introduction to Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 28), this passage shows
that fear was also a factor. These observations by Rosenthal revise his earlier judgment
that Mil. Hashem was the sharpest polemic written by a medieval Jew (introduction
to Mil. Hashem, p. 19).
54 N. V., p. 169.
55 See Solomon de’ Rossi, ‘Edut Hashem Ne’emanah, Rosenthal’s Mehqarim, 1: 378–379. Cf.
also the citations in Rosenthal’s introduction to Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 17. The contrast
between Solomon and N. V. was noted briefly by E. Urbach, “Études sur la littérature
polémique au moyen age,” REJ 100 (1935): 61.
56 PL 104: 71, quoted in Williams, p. 355.
57 The Tractatus in TNA 5: 1509 = PL 213: 749; cf. M. Guedemann, Ha-Torah ve-ha-Hayyim
bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim . . . (Tel Aviv, 1968; first printing, Warsaw, 1897), pp. 11–12.
58 Walter of Châtillon, Tractatus . . . , PL 209: 424.
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The Middle Ages
59 See Anchel, op. cit., pp. 106–107. On “the Jewish mission” through the eleventh century,
see also Juifs et Chrét., pp. 159–211.
60 See J. Shatzmiller, Recherches sur la communauté juive de Manosque au moyen age (Paris,
La Haye, 1973), pp. 123–127; cf. below, p. 223. Although I find Shatzmiller’s analysis
quite persuasive, several cautionary remarks should be added. First of all, the text is
fragmentary, and Shatzmiller’s reconstruction is based in part on the existence of the
parallel in N. V. Secondly, the Jew was subjected to a formal accusation as a result of his
remarks, and this must obviously temper any conclusions to be drawn from this incident
concerning Jewish aggressiveness and freedom of speech. Finally, the Jew denied the
charges by presenting a significantly different version of what he had said, and this denial,
as Shatzmiller indicates, cannot be dismissed with absolute certainty.
61 See Urbach, op. cit., pp. 60 ff., for a discussion of this problem. I. Levi had pointed to
several sources which reflected Jewish initiation of vigorous religious debate, but he
considered this a pre-thirteenth-century phenomenon; see his “Controverse entre un
Juif et un Chrétien au XIe Siecle.” REJ 5 (1882): 238. The view that Provencal Jews
“took advantage of their freedom of speech” to a greater extent than other Jews was
expressed by Grayzel, The Church and The Jews in the Thirteenth Century, p. 29. Baron
has even suggested that outspoken polemical remarks may have been inspired by the
Official family, and they themselves may have spoken as they did because of their roots
in Narbonne, where Jews enjoyed exceptional privileges (op. cit., 9: 277). Many remarks
of this type, however, cannot be traced to the Officials, and quite a few are attributed to
earlier Ashkenazic figures. The truth probably lies in the most straightforward reading
of the evidence, which indicates that the Jews of northern France and Germany did not
shrink from outspoken polemic, at least in private conversation, even in the dark days of
the late thirteenth century. On the assertiveness that marked Ashkenazic Jewry in the
pre-Crusade period, see I. Agus, The Heroic Age of Franco-German Jewry (New York, 1969),
especially pp. 11–20. Despite certain exaggerations, the main thrust of Agus’s portrayal
of this characteristic is valid.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
62 Yerushalmi, op. cit., pp. 362–363. The phrase eshet ha-zimmah is taken from Ezekiel 23:44.
See also Merchavia, “Ha-Shamta be-Sifrut ha-Pulmus ha-Nozerit bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim,”
Tarbiz 41 (1971): 95–115; cf. especially pp. 97, 100, where he cites the reading yihum
rather than yihus.
63 See Yerushalmi, op. cit., pp. 350 ff. In the Talmud, minim probably referred primarily to
Jewish Christians. For the charge that Jews curse Christians in prayer, cf. also Jerome
and Agobard cited in Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i ha-Nazrut, pp. 82–83. Cf. also the list
of pejorative Jewish expressions about Christianity compiled by Christians in 1239 and
summarized by Merchavia, p. 278.
64 See S. Grayzel, “The Confessions of a Medieval Jewish Convert,” Historica Judaica 17
(1955): 89–120, and cf. Yerushalmi, op. cit., pp. 328–333.
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dead; moreover, when he loses his money and he and his family remain
‘in hunger, in nakedness, and in want of all things’ (Deut. 28:48), then
he will in fact die before his time.” The culmination of this cry of anguish
is Meir’s anticipation of the day when the Gentiles will have to repay
what they stole from the Jews.65
Many other aspects of the changing historical situation were also
reflected in Jewish polemic. The growing importance of moneylending,
for example, led to considerable discussion of its ethics and its biblical
justification. Christians not only cited various time honored verses to
prove that usury is a moral offense of universal relevance, but were
apparently willing to use Jewish typology to buttress their argument.
Several Jewish works of this period cite the Christian contention that
even if Christians are Edom (a Jewish stereotype), Jews should be
forbidden to take interest from them in light of the verses which refer
to Edom and Israel as brothers. Moreover, the Jewish response did not
restrict itself solely to legalistic refutations; Christian polemicists were
charged with hypocrisy on the grounds that Christians themselves were
involved in extensive usurious activities.66
The truth is that this last accusation is but one expression of the
more general contention that Christians behave immorally. Whatever
the historical validity of such remarks may be, they are significant for
what they reveal about the self-image of the Jews and the use of polemic
to strengthen that image. One of the beliefs which sustained medieval
Jewry through centuries of adversity was the firm conviction that Jews
were clearly superior to their Gentile persecutors. No medieval Jew felt
that he was subjected to other nations because they were morally, let
alone religiously, superior to him. On the contrary, Ashkenazic Jewry in
particular developed the theory that one reason for its suffering was that
it was chosen because of its unique qualities to sanctify the divine name
through martyrdom.67 Consequently, martyrdom itself became evidence
of the outstanding qualities of the Jews of France and Germany.
Indeed, Ashkenazic Jews were hardly able to discuss the issue of
martyrdom, even in a halakhic context, without a passionate, emotional
65 Mil. Mizvah, p. 23b. See also the quotation from Meir in Chazan, op. cit., p. 123.
66 See pp. 133–134 and the notes there. For discussion of the Christian accusations that
Jews engage in extensive usury, see Kisch, op. cit., pp. 327–329.
67 See H. H. Ben-Sasson, Peraqim be-Toledot ha-Yehudim bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim (Tel Aviv,
1958), pp. 174–184. Cf. N.V., p. 70, and the notes there.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
68 Tosafot Avodah Zarah 54a, s. v. ha-bezin‘a. See J. Katz, Bein Yehudim le-Goyim (Jerusalem,
1960), p. 90. (The equivalent passage in the English version [Exclusiveness and Tolerance
(New York, 1961), pp. 83–84] presents such a bland paraphrase of the Tosafot that the
emotional force of the argument is virtually lost.)
69 R. Meir of Rothenburg, Teshuvot, Pesaqim, u-Minhagim, ed. Y. Z. Kahane (Jerusalem,
1960), 2: 54.
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The Middle Ages
while the other two ultimately lose their resolve and succumb to the
king’s threats. Both, however, choose Judaism, and “when the emperor
heard that the Jew was willing to die for his Torah and would not move
from his faith one bit, while the priest and the Muslim both denied
their vain beliefs and accepted our faith, he himself chose our religion;
he, the priest, and the Muslim were all converted and became true and
genuine proselytes.” The modification of the Kuzari story to make the
willingness to die a proof of the truth of Judaism is a truly striking
indication of the role martyrdom had come to play in the psyche of the
medieval Ashkenazic Jew.70
The one aspect of medieval Christian life that challenged the
Jewish image of moral superiority was the monastic ideal. At least
some Christians, it appeared, were leading pure and ethical lives which
could be compared favorably with those of ordinary Jews and perhaps
even of rabbinic leaders. It is possible that it was the implicit challenge
of monasticism that provoked the vigorous attacks against both the
monastic ideal and its practical implementation which are found in
Jewish polemic. The author of the Nizzahon Vetus argues that at best
monks and nuns are overcome with lustful desires that cannot be
consummated, and at worst, “they wallow in licentiousness in secret.”
Only marriage can assure that a person will remain pious and God-
fearing. Moreover, monastic orders, some of which were expanding
vigorously in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were accused of unfair
appropriation of land and portrayed as depraved and unethical. Thus,
the threat to the Jewish self-image was negated, and Jews were even
able to strengthen their conviction of ethical superiority by a partisan
examination of monasticism.71
It is significant that the relatively recent charge of ritual murder
appears in Ashkenazic polemic of the thirteenth century. Whatever the
roots of this accusation may be, official church doctrine never sanctioned
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
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— 100 —
Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
81 Cf. the reference to 1 Corinthians on p. 70. The impression of close familiarity with
the New Testament is marred by the frequent attribution of a quotation to the wrong
book of the Gospels. See, e.g., pp. 180, 183, 188. These inaccurate ascriptions may
offer a partial explanation tor the lack of a systematic order in the section of N. V. that
contains a critique of the Gospels. N. V. also contains some non-authentic quotations
from Christian literature (e.g., pp. 160, 203) which J. Wakius complained about in a late
seventeenth-century refutation. See his Teshuvat ha-Din al ha-Yehudim sive Recriminatio
Actionis in nuperos Christi Accusatores cujus pars prima agit contra . . . librum Nizzachon Vetus
(Jenae, 1699), pp. 20–21, 28–29.
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the two approaches, arguing that the Talmud contains both blasphemies
and evidence of Christian truths.82
The Jewish critique of the Gospels had a similar twofold nature.
Jews attacked the Christian Scriptures for their alleged absurdities
and contradictions, and at the same time they tried to prove that later
Christian dogmas are inconsistent with the Gospels themselves. It was,
of course, much easier to maintain both Jewish attitudes at the same
time than it was to do the same for both Christian arguments, and the
dual approach is used without hesitation throughout the latter section
of the Nizzahon Vetus.83
The knowledge of the New Testament displayed in Yosef ha-
Meqanne and the Nizzahon Vetus was at least partly firsthand since
there are a substantial number of Latin quotations in both works.84
Nevertheless, various citations of the opinions of proselytes leave no
room for doubt that some of the familiarity with Christian texts and
especially with Christian prayers, festivals, and rituals resulted from
contact with these converts; indeed, the Rome manuscript passages that
served as a source of the Nizzahon Vetus may well have been written by
a student of a proselyte’s son. Similarly, the Christian awareness of the
82 Both views were expressed in the Tortosa disputation in the early fifteenth century; cf.
the citations in Baron, op. cit., 9: 90, 91. Baron, however, does not note that two originally
disparate approaches are represented here. On medieval Christian use of the Talmud
through the Donin episode see Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i ha-Nazrut, passim. Pablo’s
approach was adopted by Raymond Martini in his classic Pugio Fidei (Leipzig, 1687),
which became a manual for Christian polemicists in late medieval Spain. For Donin’s
approach in thirteenth-century Italy, cf. C. Roth, History of the Jews of Italy (Philadelphia,
1946), pp. 99–100.
83 On the search for contradictions, see, for example, N. V., pp. 167–168 regarding the
contradictory genealogies in Matthew and Luke. The argument against Christian dogma
through Gospel citations is very common; see especially the notes to p. 183.
84 There is some discussion of Jacob ben Reuben’s Hebrew translations of Matthew in
Rosenthal’s “Targum shel ha-Besorah ‘al pi Matti le-Ya‘aqov ben Reuven,” Tarbiz 32
(1962): 48–66. On Jacob’s translation of selections from Gilbert Crispin’s Disputatio see
my “Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben: A Study in the Transmission of
Medieval Polemic,” Speculum 49 (1974): 34–47. On Jewish knowledge of Latin see also the
references in Merchavia, op. cit., p. 245. The author of the Dialogus attributed to William
of Champeaux refers to his supposed Jewish disputant as a man expert in Jewish law
and “not ignorant” of Christian literature (PL 163: 1045). Gilbert Crispin, after whose
work “William” modeled this passage, had used an even stronger expression; the Jew
“was well-versed (bene sciens) in our law and literature” (Disputatio, ed. by Blumenkranz,
p. 27). Solomon de’ Rossi lists such knowledge as one of the requirements for a Jewish
polemicist (‘Edut Hashem Ne’emanah, in Rosenthal’s Mehqarim, 1: 378).
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
Finally, we come to the Nizzahon Vetus itself. Some of the basic information
concerning the work is either unknown or uncertain, and even the very
title has been subjected to varying translations. In this context, the word
nizzahon probably means polemic rather than victory;87 the reason that
this is the “old Nizzahon” is that a more famous polemic of the same name
was written by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen at the beginning of
the fifteenth century, and the later work came to be the Sefer ha-Nizzahon
par excellence. Our Nizzahon was published in the seventeenth century
by a Christian scholar who hesitantly dated it in the twelfth century, be-
cause, he said, no one who lived after that time is mentioned in the book.88
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The Middle Ages
We now know that at least one or two later figures are named and
that the book is probably dependent upon the thirteenth-century
Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne;89 consequently, the most plausible date for the
Nizzahon Vetus is the latter part of the thirteenth century, and this is
the date that has been accepted by most modern scholars.90 Urbach
dates the work in the fourteenth century, apparently because its two
major sources are from the second half of the thirteenth; this reasoning,
however, does not preclude a late thirteenth-century date.91 In the
absence of clearer evidence, therefore, a cautious approach is advisable,
and the book must be dated either in the late thirteenth or early
fourteenth century. As we shall see, however, the bulk of its material
stems from an earlier period.
Several writers have assumed that the seventeenth-century scholar
Wilhelm Schickard reported that the author of the Nizzahon Vetus was
named R. Mattityahu; moreover, this assertion by Schickard is supposed
89 This work was probably written in the mid-thirteenth century. See the discussion and
references in Rosenthal, Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, pp. 15 ff.
90 See L. Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literatur (Berlin 1845), p. 85 (cited also in M. Stein-
schneider, Catalog der Hebräischen Handschriften in der Stadtbliothek zu Hamburg und
der sich anschliessenden in anderen Sprachen [Hamburg, 1878], p. 72); A. Posnanski,
Schiloh . . . (Leipzig, 1904), p. 148; J. Rosenthal, “Sifrut ha-Vikkuah ha-Anti-Nozerit,”
Areshet 2 (1960): 173; Baron, op. cit., 9: 294. Zunz dates the work a bit earlier than the
others. See especially Rosenthal’s introduction to Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 15.
91 Urbach, op. cit., pp. 60, 76–77. The sources are Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne and the third part
of Hebrew manuscript no. 53 in the Vittorio Emanuele library in Rome.
In an unpublished dissertation written after this book was substantially completed (The
Sefer Nizzahon: A Thirteenth Century Defense of Judaism, New York University, October,
1974), A. Ehrman has argued tor a date between 1220 and 1229 (pp. 4–5) or 1220 and
1235 (p. 163), and in a forthcoming article he has extended the final terminus to 1242.
His most important arguments are the author’s failure to mention the disputation at
Paris in the short final paragraph on the Talmud and the fact that none of the few names
that we can identify with certainty belongs to anyone who flourished in the second half
of the century. Neither of these arguments strikes me as especially persuasive. That final
passage on the Talmud in itself suggests a terminus a quo of 1240 or even a bit later,
and since the events of 1240 were in France while N. V. is largely an anthology written
in Germany, prudence would appear to dictate our allowing a decent interval after that
date for its composition. Moreover, there is no internal evidence that Yosef ha-Meqanne is
an anthology as there is with respect to N. V. (see just below), but if we date N. V. before
Yosef ha-Meqanne, we would have to assume that much of the Gospel critique in the
Rome manuscript version of the latter work was copied from N. V. or its source while
the source of N. V. is lost. Finally, our anthology would have to be credited with a whole
series of polemical firsts probably originating in lost sources. None of this is impossible,
but it hardly seems like the course to choose in the absence of compelling evidence.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
— 105 —
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95 See T. Hackspanius, Liber Nizachon Rabbi Lipmanni (Nuremberg, 1644), pp. 218–219;
J. Buxtorf, Bibliotheca Rabbinica (Herborn, 1708), pp. 145–147; J. C. Wolf, Bibliotheca
Hebraeae, vol. 1 (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1715), pp. 738–741, and cf. vol. 2 (Hamburg,
1721), pp. 1051, 1052, 1259; G. B. de Rossi, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana (Parma,
1800), pp. 63–64.
96 P. 156. Ashkenazim in this passage probably means specifically Germans: cf. the notes
there. See also Steinschneider, loc. cit.
97 Loeb, op. cit., p. 329.
98 So Zunz and Urbach, loc. cit. Posnanski, loc. cit., places the book in either northern
France or Germany.
99 Cf. below in the discussion of “The Text of the Nizzahon Vetus.”
100 Cf. note 91 and see the section on the text. Urbach (op. cit., p. 77) refers to N. V. as
“an anthology of all the [Ashkenazic] polemical literature of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.”
101 See especially pp. 48–51; 100–104.
102 See, e.g., p. 65, and cf. the notes to p. 122.
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Introduction to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
— 107 —
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— 108 —
ON THE IMAGE AND DESTINY OF GENTILES
IN ASHKENAZIC POLEMICAL LITERATURE
From: Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and Historiography,
ed. by Yom Tov Assis et al. (The Hebrew University Magnes Press: Jerusalem,
2000), pp. 74–91 (Hebrew). Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.
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3 See D. Berger, The Jewish–Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition
of the Nizzahon Vetus with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Philadelphia,
1979), pp. 20–24, 302; A. Sapir Abulafia, “Invectives against Christianity in the Hebrew
Chronicles of the First Crusade,” in Crusade and Settlement, ed. by P. W. Edbury (Cardiff,
1985), pp. 66–72. A list of several of the Jewish derogatory terms for Christian concepts
can be found in an appendix to M. Breuer’s edition of Sefer Nizzahon Yashan (Ramat
Gan, 1978), p. 195. Amos Funkenstein incorrectly states that derogatory terms towards
Christianity, which must have been common in the daily spoken language, are rare in
polemical literature and are mainly attested in sources such as Tosafot. He seems to
have come to this erroneous conclusion by comparing the extremely bitter expressions
in Ashkenazic commentaries and halakhic works, on the one hand, to those found
in polemical writings from Spain and southern France, on the other. It would have
been far more fruitful for him to have compared the expressions found in Ashkenazic
commentaries and halakhic works to those found in Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne and Sefer
Nizzahon Yashan, and similar polemical works from northern Europe. See A. Funkenstein,
Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1993), p. 171.
The general lack of acquaintance with the standard Ashkenazic derogatory terms for
Christian concepts has led scholars to misunderstand a line in a qinah (elegy) for the
Ninth of Av about the 1096 massacres. The poet writes: nit‘orer goy az doresh shuhah—
a fierce nation arose, seeking a pit; or, according to a variant text, koreh shuhah—digging
a pit. See Seder ha-Qinot le-Tish‘ah be-Av, ed. by D. Goldschmidt (Jerusalem 1968), p. 84.
Goldschmidt and others prefer the smoother reading, “digging a pit,” an expression which
is also found in other liturgical poems. Apparently, these scholars found the reading
doresh shuhah (“seeking a pit”) so difficult that even the principle of lectio difficilior was
unable to rescue it. Nevertheless, it is clear that this is the correct reading, and in fact it
is not difficult at all. The term shuhah (pit) was the standard Ashkenazic expression for
the holy sepulcher. (See, for example, The Jewish–Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages,
Hebrew section, pp. 61 and 63: the Arabs came to Jerusalem and “defiled the shuhah.”)
The crusading armies were precisely “a fierce nation, seeking the shuhah.”
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
THE IMAGE
There are many dimensions to the image of “the other,” but the first (often
neglected in scholarly literature) is the physical dimension. An oppressed
minority tends to adopt and internalize the values of the general culture
to a certain extent. The Jews of the Middle Ages attempted to resist
this tendency as far as religious and spiritual values were concerned—
but a strange, gripping passage from Yosef ha-Meqanne, which appears
in a different formulation in Sefer Nizzahon Yashan, shows that on the
aesthetic/physical plane, this process did affect the Jews:
“Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the
people” (Malachi 2:9). A certain apostate said to R. Nathan: “You Jews
are uglier than any people on the face of the earth, whereas we are very
beautiful.” He responded: “What is the color of the blossom of the shveske
which are called prunelles, which grow in the bushes?” The apostate
replied: “White.” The rabbi asked: “And what color is the blossom of the
apple tree?” The apostate replied: “Red.” The rabbi explained: “Thus, we
come from clean, white seed, so our faces are black; but you are from red
seed—from menstruants—and therefore your faces are yellow and ruddy.”
But the real reason is that we are in exile, as it says in the Song of Songs,
“Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun has gazed upon
me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper
of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept” (Song of Songs
1:6). However, when I used to keep my own vineyard, I was quite beautiful
indeed, as it is written, “And your renown went forth among the heathen
for your beauty” (Ezekiel 16:14).4
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The Middle Ages
the criteria for attractiveness are largely subjective, the Jews’ agreement
with the gentile assessment has deep psychological significance.
Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson already noted this point in connection with
the parallel passage in Sefer Nizzahon Yashan.6 However, there is a major
difference in that text:
The heretics [i.e., the Christians] ask: Why are most Gentiles fair-skinned
and handsome while most Jews are dark and ugly? Answer them that this
is similar to a fruit; when it begins to grow it is white but when it ripens it
becomes black, as is the case with sloes and plums. On the other hand, any
fruit which is red at the beginning becomes lighter as it ripens, as is the
case with apples and apricots. This, then, is testimony that Jews are pure
of menstrual blood so that there is no initial redness. Gentiles, however,
are not careful about menstruant women and have sexual relations during
menstruation; thus, there is redness at the outset, and so the fruit that
comes out, i.e., the children, are light. One can respond further by noting
that Gentiles are incontinent and have sexual relations during the day, at
a time when they see the faces on attractive pictures; therefore, they give
birth to children who look like those picture, as it is written, “And the sheep
conceived when they came to drink before the rods” [Gen. 30:38–39].7
Sefer Nizzahon Yashan retains the same aesthetic judgment as Yosef ha-
Meqanne; however, unlike Yosef ha-Meqanne, this author is unwilling to
forego the consolation of reversing the gentile’s argument even in his
second explanation. Thus, the exile disappears entirely, and the second
response provides a different version of the connection between physical
ugliness and ethical beauty. Sefer Nizahon Yashan is a very aggressive
work; in other passages, it argues that Jews are superior even on the
physical level: “This is the interpretation of the statement, ‘You have
saved us from evil and faithful diseases,’ in which we thank God for
saving us from being afflicted with impure issue, leprosy and skin disease,
as they are.”8 This comment only reinforces the impact of the passage
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
regarding beauty. The fact that this author, who is prepared to formulate
surprisingly vigorous and aggressive arguments, sees Christian aesthetic
superiority as a self-evident truth lends all the more significance to this
phenomenon.
The same effort to turn a physical defect into a spiritual asset can
be seen clearly in a unique passage which Marc Saperstein published
from Isaac ben Yeda‘ya’s commentary to Midrash Rabbah. The author of
this passage, who clearly suffered from a sexual problem, attributed this
problem to all circumcised men. He writes as a general rule that circumcised
men are unable to satisfy their wives’ sexual needs; consequently, Jewish
women do not receive much benefit from their husbands’ presence and
are willing to let them go study Torah and wisdom. This is not the case,
however, with respect to the wives of the uncircumcised, whose husbands
possess highly impressive sexually potency. Consequently, these men
expend their time and energy in such activity and remain immersed in
the vanity of the physical world.9
These attempts to make the bitter sweet sound pathetic to the
modern reader, and they were probably not particularly convincing in the
Middle Ages either. Now, from the isolated example of Isaac ben Yeda‘ya,
which deals with very private matters, it is hard to argue that many
Jews considered themselves inferior to gentiles in their sexual ability.
However, the sources about physical beauty appear quite convincing. In
the consciousness of many Jews, ethical and spiritual superiority came
at a very high physical and psychological price.
the prohibition of sleeping with a woman during her menstrual period, which . . . is the
reason that we have been saved from the horrible ailment of leprosy, which is so common
in individuals of the nations surrounding us” (‘Ezer ha-Dat, ed. by J. Levinger [Tel-Aviv,
1984], Part 1, Section 2, p. 36.) These two pieces of evidence—the Nizzahon Yashan from
Ashkenaz, and Isaac Polgar from Spain—deserve our serious attention.
9 M. Saperstein, “The Earliest Commentary on the Midrash Rabbah,” in Studies in Medieval
Jewish History and Literature I, ed. by I. Twersky (Cambridge, Mass. and London 1979),
pp. 294–297; idem, Decoding the Rabbis: A Thirteenth-Century Commentary on the Aggadah
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1980), pp. 97–102. Saperstein (p. 100) tentatively
suggested that these words might be due to a personal problem of Isaac ben Yeda‘ya: “To
what extent do passages such as this reflect the personal experience of the author . . . ?
To what extent do they seem to be an elaborate rationalization meant to solve personal
problems which bothered him greatly?” I have no hesitation in changing Saperstein’s
tentative suggestion to a definite assertion. Any Jewish man who did not personally
suffer from this problem would never have been able to create or affirm the delusional
idea that every circumcised male suffers from it.
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10 “Because our perfect Torah has forbidden us from going in vain directions, and has
prevented us from succumbing to the evil tendency alluded to in general terms by the
commandment ‘You shall not covet,’ and more specifically by our other commandments,
this means that we will necessarily be those who are oppressed, and not those who
oppress, those who are humiliated and not those who humiliate others. But because
physical desires, including this tendency, are not forbidden to the other nations, they
are necessarily the oppressors and humiliators . . . When we were on our own land, we
were elevated and sanctified above all the other nations that surrounded us. We kept the
commandments of our glorious Torah, which forbids and prevents us from indulging
all sorts of physical desires, and we broke the yoke of the evil inclination from upon
our necks; thus, we refrained from acts of oppression. Moreover, we were commanded
to spend our time delving into the Torah and studying other forms of wisdom, all day
and all night, and this weakened us physically. Moreover, we had compassion and soft-
heartedness impressed upon us at all times. We occupied ourselves with offering sacrifices
in the Temple, and forgot how to engage in war . . . But the nations that surrounded us
had exactly the opposite attributes from us; their heart was tough and cruel . . . Their
way was to tear like wild beasts, bears or lions. They did not speak kindly to us, but
gnashed their teeth at us, and gathered together and destroyed our city and our Temple,
and took us captive, such that we were spread out all over the earth, with only a few of
us surviving in each place. However, because we are certain that we have the truth, and
that all physical desire for this world and its delights is vain, we are willing to bear this
difficulty on our shoulders, and we trust our God, our rescuer, and he looks down and
rescues us, so that we are able to live among our enemies and reside in the tents of those
who seek our harm” (‘Ezer ha-Dat [see above, n. 8], Part 1, Section 5, pp. 55–56.) Needless
to say, Polgar’s words raise a theological challenge that is not present in the words of
Yosef ha-Meqanne, Sefer Nizzahon Yashan, or Isaac ben Yeda‘ya. A naturalistic explanation
for the exile of the Jewish people is considerably more problematic than a naturalistic
explanation for unattractiveness or sexual dysfunction, and Polgar himself attempts to
blunt the radical sting of his words in the subsequent paragraph in ‘Ezer ha-Dat.
On Spinoza’s claim that Judaism has led to a “softening” of the Jews’ nature, see
S. Pines, “Histabberut ha-Tequmah me-Hadash shel Medinah Yehudit le-fi Yosef ibn
Kaspi u-le-fi Spinoza,” ‘Iyyun 14–15 (1963–4): 314–315; in the same article (p. 305),
Pines provides a citation to a somewhat similar argument in a letter from Maimonides
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
to the rabbis of Marseilles; the difference is that Maimonides says that the Jews stopped
studying the art of war because they trusted in astrologically based fantasies. Pines
attempts to draw connections between the arguments of Maimonides, Polgar, and
Spinoza in another article: “Al Sugyot Ahadot ha-Kelulot be-Sefer Ezer ha-Dat le-Yitzhak
Polgar ve-Tiqbolot la-hen etzel Spinoza,” in J. Dan and J. Hacker (eds.), Studies in Jewish
Mysticism, Philosophy, and Ethical Literature (Jubilee Volume for Isaiah Tishby) (Jerusalem,
1986), pp. 423–443. The argument that the loss of the art of war among the Jews was
due to an entirely positive phenomenon is found only in Polgar. I believe that there
is a strong connection between Polgar’s argument and one of the theses that appears
repeatedly in Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah. Ibn Verga too is inclined to naturalistic
explanations of the suffering of the exile, and he too presents a description of Jews who
are unprepared to defend themselves from their enemies. For naturalistic explanations
of the suffering of the Jews, see Sefer Shevet Yehudah, ed. by A. Shochet and Y. Baer
(Jerusalem, 1947), pp. 40–44, 127–128; Ibn Verga discusses the Jews’ ignorance of
military affairs on p. 44, and their cowardice on p. 28. On the motif of Jewish cowardice,
see E. Gutwirth, “Gender, History and the Jewish–Christian Polemic,” ed. by O. Limor
and G. G. Stroumsa, Contra Judaeos (Tübingen, 1996), p. 265.
11 Sefer ha-Berit u-Vikkuhei Radaq im ha-Nazrut, ed. by A. Talmage, Jerusalem 1974, pp. 25–
28. On this passage, see B. Sh. Albert, “L’image du chrétien dans les sources juives du
Languedoc (XIIe–XIVe Siècle),” in Les Juifs à Montpellier et dans le Languedoc du Moyen Age
à nos jours, ed. by C. Iancu (Montpellier, 1988), pp. 118–119.
12 Y. Rosenthal, “Vikkuah Dati bein Hakham be-Shem Menahem u-bein ha-Mumar ve-
ha-Nazir ha-Dominiqani Pablo Christiani,” in Hagut Ivrit ba-America, ed. by M. Zohori,
A. Tartakower, and H. Ormian (Tel-Aviv, 1974), p. 67. Despite the title, the text
is not actually a debate between Pablo Christiani and a Jew named Menahem. See
the introduction to my book (above, note 3), p. 36, n. 104; and also J. E. Rembaum,
“A Reevaluation of a Medieval Polemical Manuscript,” AJS Review 5 (1980): 81–99.
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13 Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 62; The Jewish-Christian Debate, English section, p. 75.
References to the other relevant sources can be found in my notes there, English section,
pp. 257, 262–263.
14 The Jewish-Christian Debate, Introduction, p. 27.
15 See, for example, Rashi’s commentary on Jonah 1:3.
16 Sefer Shivhei ha-Besht, ed. Sh. A. Horodezky (Tel-Aviv 1947), pp. 163–164.
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
THE DESTINY
Personal destiny
The question of destiny has two dimensions. On the one hand, there
is the personal destiny of each individual Christian after death; on the
other, there is the collective destiny of “the Kingdom of Edom” and its
inhabitants at the End of Days. In general, the Ashkenazic polemical
writers answered the question of the Christian’s personal destiny
very sharply indeed: a Christian is destined to hell. There is nothing
innovative or surprising about this, but we should note the reasoning
that is given for it: the Christian deserves this punishment not because
he hates the Jews, but because he believes in the Christian faith. In
certain periods, when the ideal of tolerance began to develop, some Jews
began to consider Christians to be “righteous gentiles,” who fulfill the
seven Noahide commandments; however, Talmudic tradition includes
the prohibition of idolatry among these seven, and in accordance with
a straightforward understanding of this prohibition, it is hard to escape
the conclusion that one who worships Jesus as a god commits idolatry.
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18 The Jewish-Christian Debate, English section, p. 68. It must be emphasized that when
R. Nathan says that the worshippers of the calf believed that “the spirit of God”
entered it, he is not saying that they believed that the calf was a god. This distinction
is explicitly made in Yosef ha-Meqanne: “No one ever believed such a thing; they did not
err by saying that the calf was a god.” Nevertheless, he goes on, “See what happened to
them: ‘There fell of the people that day about three thousand men’ (Exod. 32:28), and it
is written, ‘In the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them’ ” (ibid., verse 34). And
it is written, ‘Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen
stood before him in the breach’ (Psalms 106:23) (Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 50). This passage
in Yosef ha-Meqanne does not speak of hell, but the work does speak of hell elsewhere:
“What is your fate? [The answer is,] You shall ‘be for burning, for fuel of fire’ [Isaiah 9:4].
You shall all descend to hell” ( p. 76).
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
19 B. Rosh Ha-shanah 17a, and Rashi ad loc. (See the variants in Diqduqei Soferim.)
20 MS Moscow (folio 96b) and MS Oxford (folio 10a) read: “Indeed, they have definitely been
commanded to us, and we observe (or will observe) them,” though each of these texts has
its own scribal error in its presentation of this variant.
21 Vikkuah Rabbenu Yehiel mi-Paris, ed. by R. Margoliyot (Lvov [1868]), pp. 22–23.
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“that the universe has a creator, who is one, true, primeval, and without
beginning or end, and that he watches over all his creations, to repay the
actions of each one.” The Christian responded: “Yes—we, too, believe that.”
The Jew said: “And yet, if you were to ask one who believes this who this
creator is and he would say that he is a certain man, born of a woman, who
has undergone all bodily vicissitudes including death, such a believer would
be one who denies the creator of the universe if his assertion is untrue, and
he would be condemned to hell.”22
Collective destiny
The picture is much more complicated when we look at the question of
the collective destiny of the gentiles at the end of days. Yuval’s article
paints a sharp, almost polar contrast between the “avenging redemption”
in Ashkenazic eschatology versus the “conversionary redemption”
in Sephardic eschatology.23 The Jews of Ashkenaz looked forward to
a divine campaign by the Master of the Universe wrapped in his royal
robe drenched in the blood of generations of martyrs, a campaign that
would visit utter destruction upon all the nations. By contrast, Jews of
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
C o n v e r s i o n:
We read in tractate Avodah Zarah:
It has been taught: R. Yosi says, “In the time to come, the nations of the
world will come and convert.” (But will we accept them?) Has it not been
taught: In the days of the Messiah proselytes will not be accepted, just as
they were not accepted in the days of David or Solomon?—Rather, they
will be self-made proselytes. [Rashi comments: they will convert of their
own volition, but we will not accept them, because they are converting only
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because they see the exalted position of the Jewish people]. They will place
tefillin on their foreheads, tefillin on their arms, zizit on their garments, and
a mezuzah on their doorways. When they see the battle of Gog and Magog,
they will be asked: “For what purpose have you come?” They will respond:
“Against the Lord, and against His anointed one.” As it is said: “Why do the
heathen rage, and the nations speak vainly?” (Psalms 2:1) At that moment,
each one of them will remove his religious object and leave, as it is said:
“Let us remove their chains” (Psalms 2:3). 26
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
29 B. Sanhedrin 61b. Cf. also B. Pesahim 68a, as well as the following passage: “All the gentiles
who are still on the earth at the time of the Messiah will go to the Land of Israel, and
bring grain and bread and sustenance into the houses of the Jewish people, and make
the Jews very wealthy” (Seder Eliyyahu Rabbah 20 [Ish-Shalom‘s edition, p. 113]).
30 Vikkuah Rabbenu Yehiel mi-Paris, p. 13; Hamburg ms., p. 73a. (In the manuscript, the
Talmudic passage is cited according to the variant, “This refers to those of whom it is
written,” rather than merely “It is written.” This may indicate that only a few gentiles are
expected to survive.)
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They bark their assertion that it is improper for the uncircumcised and
impure to serve Jews. Tell them: On the contrary, if not for the fact that
they serve Jews they would have been condemned to destruction, for it
is written in Isaiah, “Arise, shine, for your light has come . . . . For the
nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; yea, those nations
shall be utterly wasted” (Isa. 60:1, 12). On the other hand, as long as they
serve Israel they have some hope, as it is written, “And strangers shall
stand and tend your flock, and the sons of foreigners shall be your farmers
and vintners” (Isa. 61:5); consequently, they should serve us all the time,
so that they may fulfill the prophecy, “The elder shall serve the younger”
(Gen. 25:23). It was for this reason that the Torah said, “You shall not eat
anything that dies of itself; you shall give it to the stranger that is in your
gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a gentile” (Deut. 14:21). The
Torah told us to sell such meat to gentiles because they will serve us, and
God does not withhold the reward of any creature. This, in fact, is what we
do; we give over to them the animals which are ritually unfit for our use,
and we sell them the hind portions of animals for this same reason.31
The hope that the gentiles would serve the Jews can be found outside
Ashkenaz as well. In Grossman’s above-mentioned article, he cites
a salient example from R. Saadya Gaon’s philosophical work, which
asserts explicitly that “those who correct their behavior by entering
into the Torah of Israel” will serve the Jews at the end of days “in their
homes . . . in city and village work, . . . in the fields and in the wilderness . . .
The rest will return to their own land, but under the dominion of the
Jewish people.”32
There are, it is true, a number of sources, mainly from outside of
Ashkenaz, that speak according to their straightforward meaning of
a massive conversion to Judaism at the end of days. It is not my wish
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
to force all the numerous, varied texts that address the destiny of the
gentiles into a procrustean bed and to artificially impose ideological
agreement between them, but it is possible that even these sources are
not speaking of complete integration of the gentiles into the Jewish
people. Rav Hai Gaon, for example, writes, “The remaining nations will
convert, as it is said: ‘For then will I turn to the people a pure language,
that they may all call upon the name of the Lord’ (Zephaniah 3:9), and
it is said: ‘They will say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of
the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his
ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the
law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 2:3). When they
come before the Messiah, he will order them to end all fighting and
wars.”33 However, Rav Hai was well aware of the Talmudic passage from
tractate Avodah Zarah (“In the time to come, the nations of the world
will come and convert . . . ; they will be self-made proselytes”), and it is
quite possible that the gentiles described here are expected to retain their
separate national identity.34
Even the interesting Ashkenazic sources presented by Grossman do
not seem to be examples of texts predicting a conversion so complete
that the gentiles become “an inseparable part of the Jewish people.”
In three places, Grossman himself points out formulations indicating
that the gentiles “will not reach the high level of the Jewish people”.35
If we briefly survey the other sources, we will see that the conclusions
emerging from them do not contradict this affirmation.
33 Yehuda ibn Shmuel, Midreshei Ge’ullah (Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, 1954), pp. 139–140.
Part of this passage is quoted by Yuval, p. 45.
34 The first source that Yuval cites as an example of “conversionary redemption” is one
in which the gentiles accept the beliefs of the Jews, but it does not necessarily refer to
“conversion” in the full sense of the word. (“All the nations will accept our faith, and say
that they have inherited falsehood from their ancestors . . . for all the nations will turn
to belief in the glorious God, after having seen all the wonders that he performs when
he rescues us from this exile”—R. Simon of Narbonne, Milhemet Mizvah, Parma ms.,
pp.19b–20a; cited in Yuval, p. 34.) There is one passage in Derashot ha-Ran that seems
to say that the gentiles will become completely integrated into the Jewish people at the
end of days. Even here, I do not think that this understanding of the text is absolutely
unavoidable, but the truth is that anyone who wishes to escape this conclusion must
provide a forced interpretation. See Derashot ha-Ran, ed. by A. L. Feldman (Jerusalem,
1977), p. 121, and D. Schwartz, Ha-Ra‘ayon ha-Meshihi be-Hagut ha-Yehudit bi-Yemei ha-
Beinayim (Ramat-Gan, 1997), p. 182.
35 Grossman, p. 334 (regarding Rashi on Isaiah 42), and cf. p. 330 (regarding the liturgical
poem Eimat Nore’otekha) and p. 337 (regarding Rashi on Zechariah 9:1).
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36 Rashi appears to be referring to the passage in B. Avodah Zarah 3b, which I have already
quoted above.
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
P u n i s h m e n t:
According to the common conclusion that Yuval and Grossman have
reached at the current state of their exchange, even the Ashkenazim
did not hope for the total destruction of all gentiles. In Grossman’s
words: “The Jews did not believe that all of their gentile neighbors were
destined to be wiped out. There was a core of good people ensconced
among them, who would ultimately convert to Judaism, either personally
or through their descendants.”37
Here, too, I think that there are sources meriting renewed attention
that will not undermine this assertion entirely but will add a sharper and
more hostile perspective. Let us begin with a passage from the Tanna
de-Bei Eliyyahu:
I was once travelling from one town to another, and I found a certain
old man. He asked me: “Master, will there be gentiles at the time of the
Messiah?” I told him: “My son, all the nations and kingdoms that tormented
and oppressed the Jewish people will come and see the happiness of the
Jews, and turn to dust, and never return, as it is said: ‘The wicked shall see
it, and be grieved’ (Psalms 112:10); and it is said: ‘And you shall leave your
name for a curse unto my chosen’ (Isaiah 65:15). And all the kingdoms and
nations that have not tormented or oppressed the Jews will come and serve
as farmers and vineyard-keepers for the Jews, as it is said: ‘And strangers
shall stand and tend your flock, and the sons of foreigners shall be your
farmers and vintners . . . and you shall be called the Lord’s priests’ (Isaiah
61:5–6); and it is said: ‘For then will I turn to the people a pure language’
(Zephaniah 3:9); and it is said: ‘And he will call his servants by a different
name’ (Isaiah 65:15)—these verses refer to those gentiles worthy of living
37 Grossman, p. 340.
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in the time of the Messiah. You might think that because they are going to
remain alive in the time of the Messiah, they will also merit the World to
Come. You must, therefore, set aside the words I have just spoken and give
heed to the words of the Torah, which are more severe than the words that
I have just said. The Torah says: ‘No uncircumcised individual shall eat of
[the paschal sacrifice]’ (Exodus 12:48). If this is so of such a minor matter
as the paschal sacrifice, surely it should be so of the World to Come, which
is the holiest matter of all. No uncircumcised individual shall ever, ever
eat in it, nor ever, ever, dwell in it.”38
We see then that according to the first approach cited here, the more
“liberal” one, the nations that have oppressed the Jews will completely
perish; and according to the second, more severe approach, all of the
gentiles—or perhaps only all of the uncircumcised gentiles—will
disappear from the world.39
As an example of the avenging redemption, Yuval cites an abbreviated
version of a passage from Sefer Nizzahon Yashan that according to its
straightforward meaning describes the total destruction of all the
gentiles. Here is the full passage:
The heretics harass us by noting that God has delayed the end of this exile
longer than those of the others. But this is not surprising, for God does not
punish a nation until the measure of its sins has been filled, as it is written,
“In a measure, when it is sent forth you will contend with it” (Isa. 27:8).
Similarly, he told Abraham, “And the fourth generation shall return here,
for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete (Gen. 15:16), and I do
not wish to destroy the Amorites until their measure has been filled.”
That is why that exile lasted only four hundred years, for in that period
of time the measure of two nations—the Egyptians and the Amorites—
was filled, and they became deserving of destruction; it should be noted,
furthermore, that it took a long time for it to be filled since it dates back
to the generation when nations were separated. Now, until the generation
when the Babylonian exile ended there was no further destruction of any
38 Seder Eliyyahu Rabbah (22) 20 (Ish-Shalom’s edition, pp. 120–121). Cf. also above, n. 29.
39 Ish-Shalom (ad loc., note 13) expresses the view that the text is referring only to
uncircumcised gentiles. For another example of such a distinction, see Tosafot on Avodah
Zarah 10b, s.v. Vai lah le-ilfa. Cf. also Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 17, on Ezekiel 32. In verse 29
there, Ezekiel informs us that Edom will descend into a pit full of uncircumcised men
(“There is Edom . . . and all its princes”), and the author of Yosef ha-Meqanne points out:
“The Jews, the circumcised nation, will not be there.” Here, the distinction is clearly
between the Jewish people and the gentiles, not between circumcised and uncircumcised
gentiles.
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On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
nation, and that redemption was also not accomplished “with a high hand”;
indeed, that is why the exile lasted only seventy years. This redemption,
however, will involve the ruin, destruction, killing, and eradication of all
the nations, them, and the angels who watch over them, and their gods, as
it is written, “The Lord shall punish the heavenly host in heaven and the
kings of the earth on earth” (Isa. 24:21). Jeremiah too said, “Fear not, my
servant Jacob, said the Lord, for I am with you; for I will make a full end
of all the nations whither I have driven you, but with you I will not make
a full end” (Jer. 46:28).40
It is true that we have seen above that the author of Sefer Nizzahon
Yashan does speak of a “slight hope” for the gentiles who will serve the
Jewish people, but the book is largely an anthology of anti-Christian
arguments from various sources, and it is hard to escape the conclusion
that whoever wrote our passage looked forward to the total destruction
of all the gentiles. The author no doubt recited Ve-ye’etayu kol le-ovdekha
(see note 21) in the High Holiday service, but when he wrote these lines,
this element of the eschatological vision disappeared entirely from his
consciousness.41
Though the expectation that all the gentiles would be utterly
destroyed was rare even in Ashkenaz, the hope for the total destruction
of the Kingdom of Edom, i.e., Christendom, was undoubtedly quite
common—and not just in Ashkenaz.
40 The Jewish-Christian Debate, p. 227. It is possible that the use of the word kelayah
(“destruction”) with reference to the Egyptians, who were not completely destroyed, can
mitigate the impression created by this passage. However, the tone of the passage is so
strong that I hesitate to suggest a moderate interpretation.
41 In Rashi’s commentary on Sanhedrin 111a, s.v. amar Resh Laqish and s.v. la niha lehu,
he suggests two explanations of the Talmudic passage: one in the name of his teacher,
and one which he thinks is preferable. The first explanation raises the possibility that
all the gentiles will perish, and only (part of) the Jewish people will survive. We need to
be very careful about reaching any conclusions about the worldview of a commentator
from his remarks on a difficult passage that he is struggling to interpret. Nevertheless,
we may not completely ignore the fact that this commentary explicitly states that such
a total destruction is in the realm of possibility. (Even if Rashi is not the author of the
commentary on this chapter of Sanhedrin that is attributed to him, it was definitely
written in the Ashkenazic sphere of culture no later than the twelfth century.) See also
Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 58: “A priest from Etampes once asked me, ‘Do you really believe that
the entire population of the world will perish, and you, the smallest nation, will merit life
in the World to Come?’ I replied, ‘Is it not written: “It was not because you were more in
number than any of the peoples that the Lord set his love on you or chose you, for you
were the fewest [of all peoples]” (Deut. 7:7)?’”
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You have no shame in saying of him who spoke and the world came to be,
of him who lives forever, that he accepted death and suffering for you. Why,
Moses said in the name of God, “Lo, I raise my hand to heaven and say: As
I live forever . . .” (Deut. 32:40), and David, Elijah, and Daniel all swore by
the life of God. Moreover, it is written, “See then, that I, I am he; there is no
god beside me” (Deut. 32:39); yet you say that he has a partner, that there
are two, nay, three gods. Know clearly that God will exact revenge from you,
as it is written, “For the Lord will vindicate his people and take revenge
for his servants . . . O nations, acclaim his people! For he will avenge the
blood of his servants” (Deut. 32:36, 43). And Jeremiah said, “But fear not,
O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel . . . for I am with you;
for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven you, but
I will not make a full end of you” (Jer. 46:27–28; 30:10–11). Furthermore,
he promised us, “But fear not, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed,
O Israel, for, behold, I will save you from afar off and your seed from the
land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return and be in rest and at ease,
and none shall make him afraid” (Jer. 46:27; 30:10), but none of the house
of Esau shall remain or escape (cf. Obadiah 1:18).42
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43 Ibid., p. 127. Similarly, Yosef ha-Meqanne (p. 87) writes that the punishment of Edom,
mentioned at the end of the prophecy of Obadiah, will follow from “the afflictions and
persecutions that you impose on us in each generation.” Compare also the collection
of scriptural verses at the beginning of the book (pp. 15–25) promising consolation to
Israel and punishment to the gentiles. There is an Ashkenazic penitential poem for the
Eve of Rosh Hashanah that looks to the day when the people of Edom will be destroyed
as a consequence of both their idolatry and their persecution of the Jewish people: “May
haughty Edom and Moab be blotted out from the book of life, / for they bow before
a block of wood, and declare it divine. / Let the wicked oppressor receive no mercy; may
he be condemned to destruction, / for he has taunted the legions of the living God.” (In
D. Goldschmidt, Seder ha-Selihot ke-Minhag Lita u-Qehillot ha-Perushim be-Eretz Yisrael
[Jerusalem, 1965], p. 91.)
44 A. Marx, “Ma’amar al Shenat ha-Ge’ullah,” in Ha-Zofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael 5 (1921): 197,
cited by Yuval, pp. 44–45.
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45 P. Murciano, Simon ben Zemah Duran, Keshet u-Magen: A Critical Edition, Ph.D. dissertation,
New York University, 1975, pp. 107–108. Yuval (p. 69) points out that “as far as we can
tell, the distinction between the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim becomes progressively
smaller toward the end of the thirteenth century.” On eschatological vengeance against the
gentiles in a fourteenth-century Sephardic polemic, see Y. Shamir, Rabbi Moses ha-Kohen
of Tordesillas and his Book Ezer Ha-Emunah: A Chapter in the History of the Judeo–Christian
Controversy II (Coconut Grove, Fla., 1972), pp. 83, 84, and cf. p. 86. All the essential
components—the decree that Edom will be destroyed, the humiliation of the nations, and
their recognition of the God of Israel—appear together in an Ashkenazic liturgical poem,
but they are less explicit there. In the poem Ototekha Ra’inu by R. Simon bar Isaac, we
read that the following will take place on the day of the redemption: “He will visit complete
destruction upon Edom . . . when he makes great, eternal joy [for the Jews] . . . . He will
remove the enemy, and humiliate it, / and pastor his flock in his shadow, / and fell the
mighty horns of the gentiles. / They will tell of his loftiness and his military might, / and
all will be united to serve him, / when the universe and its fullness will praise him.” (See
J. Fränkel, Mahzor Pesah (Jerusalem, 1993), pp. 504–505.) If we take the expression “He
will visit complete destruction upon Edom” literally, then the poem is speaking of the
total destruction of the Christian world. If so, the enemy who is merely humiliated must
be understood as the Muslim world or other gentile nations. However, there is room for
one who disagrees with this understanding to argue that the expression, “He will visit
complete destruction upon Edom” is poetic exaggeration that allows for some subjugated,
monotheistic Christians to appear in the continuation of the passage.
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and harsh words and beliefs that the small horn [in Daniel’s vision],
which refers to the Pope, and the sect of the priests of Jesus, pronounce
against God, may he be blessed.”46 Abravanel continues with a stunning
interpretation of Psalms 50:16–23, a passage which he understands
as being an admonition to Christian Edom: “Who are you to declare
my statutes, or express my covenant in your mouth, seeing that you
hate instruction, and cast my words behind you?” (verses 16–17). The
Christians will be punished for their perversions of the scriptures, for
casting the words of the prophets that refer to the future redemption
“behind them,” that is, for interpreting them as referring to the past (!).
A further punishment will befall them because “You speak against
your brother; you slander your mother’s son” (verse 20), i.e., they have
persecuted the Jewish people, which is called Edom’s brother. However,
Scripture continues, “These things you have done, and I kept silent. You
thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself: I will reprove you
and confront you with charges” (verse 21). The “great punishment” will
befall Edom on account of the second, “truly monumental sin—that they
have spoken against God by attributing humanity and corporeality to
him, as if he were one of us.”47
The first three beasts in Daniel’s vision are punished in careful
proportion and measure, but the fourth beast, Edom, is punished with
“utter extinction,” “to be destroyed to the very end.” “The Kingdom
of Rome—the nation of Edom and the nation of the Ishmaelites who
have entered under their governance—will all perish from the face of
the earth, and those nations will be totally destroyed.”48 Abravanel’s
analysis does not provide a sufficient religious-ethical explanation
for why the Ishmaelite nation should be destroyed. The Muslims are
completely innocent of the decisive sin that causes the destruction of
Edom. However, to their great misfortune, Abravanel is forced to include
them in “the Kingdom of Edom,” for Daniel’s vision includes only four
beasts, and not five. It is this exegetical difficulty that sends them to
their destruction.49
46 Ma‘yenei ha-Yeshu‘ah, Ma‘ayan #8, Tamar #8, in Abravanel, Perush al Nevi’im u-Ketuvim III
(Tel Aviv, 1960), pp. 346–347.
47 P. 348.
48 P. 347.
49 Abravanel gives a historico-exegetical justification for his inclusion of Ishmael in the
Edomite nation in Ma‘ayan #2, Tamar #3, p. 290.
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50 This comparison of the Jewish eschatological vision to the Augustinian doctrine appears
in Yuval’s article in a slightly different form and is described as the position of the “non-
Ashkenazic world” alone. He explains that the survival of non-Jews is “necessary . . . in
order to prove the truth of Judaism.” If he means that it is logically necessary along
the lines of the Christian theory, it is hard to accept his statement, for in the days of
the Messiah, the truth will be completely clear without any need of external proofs.
However, if he means that it is psychologically necessary for the persecuted Jews—
whether Sephardic or Ashkenazic—I think that his statement has much truth in it.
See Yuval, p. 48. It is not impossible that the Christian position that the Jews must
be kept alive as living witnesses of the truth of Christianity sheds light on a stanza in
a penitential poem recited during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur:
“We have fallen low, and cannot arise, . . . We sit like false witnesses, / unable to raise
our heads” (Goldschmidt [see above, n. 43], p. 179.) It is indeed possible that this is
a routine simile asserting that the Jews in exile are as embarrassed as a false witness who
has been found out. However, if we read the line in light of the Augustinian doctrine,
which an educated Jews would surely have known, the line becomes an impassioned cry,
full of pathos.
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ADDENDUM
About three years after the publication of this article, Reuven Kimelman’s
excellent study of the mystical meaning of the Lekhah Dodi prayer appeared
(Lekhah Dodi ve-Qabbalat Shabbat: ha-Mashma‘ut ha-Mistit [Jerusalem,
2003]). Kimelman, who had not seen my article, devoted a chapter to
the stanza beginning, “You shall burst forth to the right and to the
left,” arguing that it expresses the expectation that Esau and Ishmael
will convert to Judaism at the end of days. (All the references cited in
this addendum can be found in that chapter.) My first impression was
that the sources that he cites provide a body of evidence demonstrating
that the expectation of full conversion was more common than I had
thought. More careful examination, however, reveals that the dominant
51 For an excellent example from the Provençal community, see J. Shatzmiller, Shylock
Reconsidered (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1970), pp. 104–122. In this context,
let me emphasize a particularly significant point that has emerged from the exchange
between Fleischer and Yuval: the vengeance that the Ashkenazim envisioned in their
apocalyptic predictions is not carried out by the Jews against their enemies; rather, it
plays itself out as an eschatological mission of the God of Israel, who avenges himself
and his people. For an evaluation of the central thesis of Yuval’s article, see my
discussion in From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions: Some New Approaches to Medieval
Antisemitism (Second Annual Lecture of the V. J. Selmanowitz Chair of Jewish History,
Touro College Graduate School of Jewish Studies, New York, 1997).
— 135 —
The Middle Ages
view in those sources is precisely that of the texts that I had analyzed:
the nations of the world will recognize the validity of Judaism without
full conversion and persist in a state of subordination to Jews.
One quotation in Kimelman’s chapter does appear to look forward
to full conversion. The late-thirteenth-century R. Moses of Burgos
writes, “All the nations will return to the worship of our Creator may
he be blessed and convert so that they will come under the wings of the
divine Presence, observing his Torah and serving him wholeheartedly as
one . . . for they will all convert for the sake of the Lord, the Eternal God.”
All the other sources, however, though often using the terms conversion
or union with Israel, tell a different story.
Thus, R. Bahya ben Asher in his commentary to Deuteronomy 30:7
asserts that Edom and Ishmael “are destined to join us by converting
and becoming one nation, and it is not even necessary to say that the
authority and the kingship will return to us.” Kimelman’s paraphrase
merely underscores the tension in this position. “All,” he writes, “will
convert, and Israel will rule.” Shem Tov ben Shem Tov appears to maintain
that only Ishmael will convert “because they are closer,” a position with
which we are of course familiar. Moses de Leon affirms that all nations—
indeed all existence—will become one, and yet he goes on to say that all
the nations will enter the holy covenant without losing their identity.
R. Shlomo Alkabetz writes that when God will subdue the “princes”
(i.e., the cosmic powers) in charge of the nations, those princes will not be
destroyed entirely. On the contrary, the nations (as Zechariah prophesies)
will come to celebrate the festival of Sukkot. They will be enveloped by
sanctity, “for the nations are branches and wings for Israel.”
The tension is even more explicit in Sefer ha-Peli’ah. “Not one of the
seventy princes will be uprooted or destroyed; rather, weakness and
dryness will develop in them, and the mistress will once again become
the mistress and the maidservant a maidservant. For if even one of the
seventy princes is uprooted, you have left no possibility for the survival
of the world. All the nations will return to bow to our God . . . after they
convert.” The nations convert—and remain maidservants. And here is ibn
Gikatilla: “Because of their great desire to cleave to the Lord may He be
blessed they will serve Israel,” and they will be united in the faith of Israel.
Thus, as in the some of the texts analyzed in my article, terms like
conversion and even union can coexist with servitude and separate
national identity.
— 136 —
On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature
— 137 —
The Middle Ages
— 138 —
ON THE USES OF HISTORY IN MEDIEVAL
JEWISH POLEMIC AGAINST CHRISTIANITY
The Quest for the Historical Jesus
From: Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim
Yerushalmi, ed. by E. Carlebach, J.M. Efron, and D.N. Myers (New England
University Press: Hanover and London, 1998), pp. 25–39.
“History” is not a simple term, and the uses of “history” are even more
diverse than its meanings. Historical investigation can mean the critical
examination of sources, often with a measure of empathy, always with
a skeptical eye, to refine our image of the personalities and events of the
past. But it can also be a didactic enterprise, accepting of unscrutinized
data, highlighting heroes and villains, mobilizing past and present in the
service of an overarching end. It is a commonplace that the first approach
is most characteristic of post-Enlightenment historiography, while the
second was the hallmark of the medieval mind.
Like most commonplaces, this one is essentially true. At the same
time, the boundaries between the approaches are hardly impermeable.
We have long abandoned—perhaps too eagerly—the historicist fantasy
that contemporary historians work in a rarefied atmosphere of wholly
objective truth. With respect to the Middle Ages, we will indeed search
in vain for a systematic application of critical historical perspectives,
but some intellectual challenges produced insights foreshadowing the
historiographical orientation that became increasingly evident first
during the Renaissance and ultimately in modern times.
Within a Jewish context, critical comments by biblical exegetes,
debates about the antiquity of kabbalistic works, historical reasons
proposed for the commandments, and halakhic approaches to changing
conditions have sharpened our awareness of medieval sensitivity
to textual, theological, and social change. Jewish polemic against
Christianity is a particularly promising field for the pursuit of this inquiry.
— 139 —
The Middle Ages
Medieval Jewry was heir to two sets of internal sources about Jesus:
a handful of scattered remarks in rabbinic texts and the various versions
of the counter-Gospel known as Toledot Yeshu.1 There is little we can say
about the image of Jesus held by early medieval Jews, although there is
no reason to doubt that many of them accepted as simple truth Toledot
1 For a list of the rabbinic passages, see H. H. Ben Sasson, “Disputations and Polemics,”
Encyclopedia Judaica 6; cols. 81–82. The standard collection and discussion of Toledot
Yeshu material remains Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach Jüdischen Quellen (Berlin,
1902).
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On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
2 Later Jews quite familiar with the Gospels had no trouble accepting this information
at face value. See the Nizzahon Vetus (henceforth N. V.) in my The Jewish-Christian Debate
in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1979; reprint, Northvale, N. J., 1996), sec. 202,
p. 202 (English) = 141 (Hebrew); sec. 205, pp. 203–204 (English) = 142 (Hebrew), and
my notes to both passages.
3 Daniel J. Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa, The Polemic of Nestor the Priest: Qissat Mujadalat
al-Usquf and Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer (Jerusalem, 1996). On the impact of this work, see
Joel Rembaum, “The Influence of Sefer Nestor ha-Komer on Medieval Jewish Polemics,”
Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 45 (1978): 155–185.
4 On violations of the Law, see Nestor, paragraphs 127, 135. On the identity of Jesus and his
Father, see paragraphs 68, 145, and cf. the assertion in paragraph 150 that he contradicted
himself on this point. On Jesus’ loyalty to the positions of Judaism, see paragraphs 35–
57, 63, 105. I have translated a version of paragraph 63 (on circumcision, Passover, etc.)
which appears only in the Hebrew section (p. 124) of Lasker and Stroumsa’s edition.
— 141 —
The Middle Ages
Despite this approach and its manifest polemical utility, Jews could
not readily embrace the simple proposition that Jesus was a perfectly
good Jew. First of all, Jewish tradition itself spoke of his sinfulness
and well-deserved execution. Second, both psychological and polemical
reasons impelled Jews to criticize Jesus rather than embrace him. Finally,
the New Testament material, with which Jews were increasingly familiar,
presented a bewildering array of conflicting evidence, particularly with
respect to the law but to some degree even with respect to the question
of divinity. Not only did this create genuine historical perplexity; it
presented an opportunity for criticizing the Christians’ sacred text no
less tempting than the chance to denounce its hero.
The polemicists of Northern Europe made no attempt to produce
a coherent portrait of Jesus but were satisfied with ad hoc criticisms. The
critique of the New Testament in the standard version of Joseph Official’s
thirteenth-century polemic consists of a series of snippets.5 The more ela-
borate discussions in the Nizzahon Vetus and an alternate version of Yosef
ha-Meqanne are far more interesting, not only because of the richness of
the argumentation but precisely because they confirm the narrow focus
and the absence of any effort to come away with a comprehensive picture.
In discussing the New Testament, the Nizzahon Vetus repeatedly
maintains that Jesus denied he was divine; in other sections of what is
admittedly an anthology, the author reiterates on several occasions that
Jesus made himself into a god.6 In one passage where the polemicist
points to Jesus’ use of the term “son of man,” his point is not primarily
that Jesus had no pretensions to divinity. It is, rather, that if Jesus were
God, it would have been wrong of him to use this term. In fact, the
passage continues, Jesus would be lying in his assertion (Luke 9:58) that
he has no place to lay his head, when the Psalmist testifies that “the earth
is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1), and Jesus himself said
elsewhere, “Dominion is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt.
5 Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, ed. by Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 125–138.
6 N. V., sec. 194, p. 200 (English) = 138–139 (Hebrew); secs. 197–199, p. 201 (Eng.) =
140 (Heb.); sec. 207, pp. 204–205 (Eng.) = 143 (Heb.). Contrast with sec. 9, p. 46 (Eng.) =
7 (Heb.); sec. 50, p. 75 (Eng.) = 34–35 (Heb.); sec. 67, p. 86 (Eng.) = 44 (Heb.). On N. V.
as an anthology (at least in part), see my discussion, Jewish-Christian Debate, pp. 35–36.
For the alternate version of the Yosef ha-Meqanne critique of the New Testament, see
Judah Rosenthal, “Bikkoret Yehudit shel ha-Berit ha-Hadashah min ha-Meah ha-Yod-
gimel,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography, History, and Literature in Honor of I. Edward Kiev,
ed. by Charles Berlin (New York, 1971). Heb. sec., pp. 123–139.
— 142 —
On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
28:18).7 To the extent that this text, which also appears in modified
form in both versions of Yosef ha-Meqanne and in another Ashkenazic
collection,8 presents a straightforward argument, it is not that Jesus did
not consider himself divine but rather that, for someone who claimed to
be God, he made some peculiarly inappropriate remarks.
An even less clear but nonetheless similar impression emerges from
a different discussion in the standard text of Yosef ha-Meqanne, which
cites two New Testament verses in which Jesus appears to deny his
divinity: the above-cited statement in Mark that only God can be called
good and a verse in John (probably 12:49). The author’s formulation does
not address Jesus’ self-perception. Rather, he asks why Jesus would say
these things if he was God (not if he thought he was God), much as he
goes on to ask why he was hungry and thirsty if he was God.9
With respect to the law, the fullest array of Northern European
arguments appears in the Nizzahon Vetus. On the one hand, we are
repeatedly presented with the evidence of Matthew 5:17–18 that Jesus
declared his intention to complete (lehashlim) or to fulfill (leqayyem)
the law, not to destroy it. The author argues that the Christian
assertion that the new covenant of Jeremiah replaces the old Torah
contradicts the Gospel passage. Despite this, Christians maintain
that Jesus “caused the Torah of Moses to be truncated by abolishing
circumcision, observance of the Sabbath, and many commandments.”10
— 143 —
The Middle Ages
— 144 —
On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
after his advent. Indeed, even this commandment was not observed from
that day on.”14
Shortly thereafter, the author criticizes Jesus for permitting work
on the Sabbath by justifying his disciples’ plucking of corn (Matt.
12:1–12) and asks how this squares with his instructions to the leper.15
Finally, along with one version of Yosef ha-Meqanne and the above-cited
Ashkenazic collection, he objects to Jesus’ instructing a man to carry
his bed on the Sabbath.16 Thus, as in the case of Jesus’ self-perception,
the polemical need, or even whim, of the moment appears to prevail.
Jesus is a loyal adherent of the law, a man awash in contradiction, or
a systematic, committed violator.
It is tempting to proffer the highly tentative suggestion that this is
precisely the sort of approach we should expect from Ashkenazic Jews in
the High Middle Ages. The genius of this culture did not lie in integrative
works. Its relative lack of interest in philosophy left its literature even
more focused on exegesis, whether biblical or talmudic, than that of other
Jewish centers. Even in works whose primary purpose was harmonization
of conflicting evidence drawn from a vast corpus, broad applications
were often avoided in the absence of a concrete motivation. The ad hoc
character of Ashkenazic pronouncements about Christianity has been
analyzed in Jacob Katz’s classic discussion, and this is only one example
of a wider phenomenon.17 In our context, the search for contradictions
that so characterized the initial step of the Tosafist approach to the
Talmud became the final step as well. There was no motive for Jews to
seek the concord of discordant passages in the New Testament even on
14 N. V., sec. 166, p. 178 (Eng.) = p. 116 (Heb.). See too Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 131; Kiev
Festschrift, p. 129. Cf. Nestor ha-Komer, par. 127.
15 N. V., sec. 171, pp. 182–183 (Eng.) = 120 (Heb.). Cf. Meir of Narbonne’s citation of the leper
story as contradicting the Christian assertion that Jesus annulled the commandments
(Milhemet Mizvah, Parma ms., p. 97b).
16 N. V., sec. 169, p. 181 (Eng.) = 119 (Heb.); Kiev Festschrift, p. 125; “Moses of Salerno,”
Posnanski ms., p. 40.
17 See Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (New York, 1961). Also see Haym Soloveitchik’s
comments in Halakhah Kalkalah ve-Dimmuy ‘Azmi (Jerusalem, 1985), p. 36, and for
a somewhat later period, the discussion on pp. 79–81, where he speaks of “Halakhic
federalism.” See also his possibly relevant observation in “Can Halakhic Texts Talk
History?” AJS Review 3 (1978): 155, n. 2. Though the sources analyzed there are primarily
Ashkenazic, the issue is the tendency of law, not just Ashkenazic halakhah, to “prefer
local definitions”; still, a culture trained primarily in law is more likely to reflect this
orientation in other contexts.
— 145 —
The Middle Ages
18 Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen, in Abraham Halkin and David Hartman, Crisis and
Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 98–99: Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot
‘Avodah Zarah.
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On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
19 Jacob ben Reuben, Milhamot Hashem, ed. by Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1963), pp. 81,
146, 148–149; cf. 151, 152–153. Joseph Kimhi’s Sefer ha-Berit was written at about the
same time as Milhamot Hashem and hence shares its distinction as a pioneering work.
20 ‘Ezer ha-Emunah, ed. by Yehuda Shamir (Rabbi Moses Ha-Kohen of Tordesillas and His
Book ‘Ezer ha-Emunah—A Chapter in the History of the Judeo-Christian Controversy, Part
II [Coconut Grove, Fla., 1972]), p. 93. Moses’ translation of adimplere is particularly
interesting in light of the fact that Jacob ben Reuben twice asserted that Jesus declared
that he had not come to add to the Torah of Moses (Milhamot Hashem, pp. 81, 148). There
are two readings of the Talmudic citation of this passage (B. Shabbat 116b): either “I have
not come to take away from the Torah of Moses or (ve-lo) to add to the Torah of Moses”
or “I have not come to take away from the Torah of Moses but (ella) to add to it.” The
first version, which corresponds to Jacob ben Reuben’s citation, is also quoted by Simon
Duran in his Keshet u-Magen (see n. 24, below), p. 4.
21 Kelimat ha-Goyim, in Kitvei Pulmus li-Profiat Duran, ed. by Frank Talmage (Jerusalem,
1981). Eleazar Gutwirth, in an article which makes the general point that polemic helped
produce a critical historical sense, discussed Kelimat ha-Goyim as his prime example;
— 147 —
The Middle Ages
respect to the law, Duran was not content to point to the well-worn
passage from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus did not come to
destroy but to fulfill. (Duran, like Nestor ha-Komer and one passage in the
Nizzahon Vetus, translates adimplere as “to complete” (lehashlim), which
stands somewhere between “to fulfill” and Moses ha-Kohen’s “to add”).
He made a concerted, impressive effort to explain all contrary evidence
from the Gospels to accord with his portrait of a nomian Jesus. To take
a particularly difficult example, the assertion that what goes into the
mouth does not defile a man (Matt. 15:11) cannot mean that forbidden
foods are permitted, since we can prove that Jesus’ own disciples refrained
from eating such food (a historical argument of continuing relevance).
Rather, Jesus must have meant that the food is not intrinsically unclean;
it is only the divine command that renders it so.22
Profiat Duran’s proof texts that Jesus advocated observance of the
law include the verse in which he instructs his disciples to do what the
scribes and Pharisees say because they sit on the seat of Moses (Matt.
23:2–3); the passage, however, is not explicitly utilized to make the point
that Jesus has thereby endorsed the oral as well as the written law.23
Influenced by Kelimat ha-Goyim, R Simon Duran repeated the citation
in his Keshet u-Magen, again without drawing the explicit conclusion
about the oral law, although several lines later he argued that Jesus’
disciples were scrupulous even about rabbinic injunctions.24 Simon’s son
Solomon, however, took this development to its logical conclusion in
a highly charged context. His Milhemet Mizvah is devoted to a defense
of the Talmud against an increasingly dangerous Christian attack. Here
the citation from Matthew demonstrates that an attack on the Talmud
is an attack on Jesus himself, and Solomon proceeds with additional
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On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
arguments that the oral law underlies several of Jesus’ legal dicta.25
The contradictory New Testament passages of Joseph Official and the
Nizzahon Vetus, the inconsistent Jesus of Milhamot Hashem, and the
partially nomian figure of Moses ha-Kohen have given way to a Jesus
thoroughly committed to the written and oral law so cavalierly rejected
by his putative medieval disciples.
To reinforce the contrast between contemporary Christians and the
founder—or presumed founder—of their faith, the later polemicists also
portrayed a strongly “Jewish” Jesus with respect to the question of his
self-perception. We have already seen the contradictory assertions of
some of the Ashkenazic authors on this issue. Here too, Profiat Duran
resolved the issue in favor of the option that is most compatible with
traditional Judaism, and he provided an overarching explanation to
account for any contrary evidence. Jesus, we know, used poetic language
and spoke in parables. Through a careful examination of specific texts,
Duran concluded that when Jesus said that he and his Father were one
or called himself Son of God, he meant to affirm nothing more than
a special relationship with God, not to describe himself as “the First
Cause and Creator of the world.”26
More subtle shifts in matters of detail also demonstrate Duran’s
changing emphasis. Jewish polemicists had regularly pointed to the
story of Jesus’ cursing the fig tree when he discovered it had no fruit as
evidence that he could not have been divine. The primary argument, of
course, was that God would have known from the outset that he would
find no fruit. Several polemicists added the rather amusing point that the
curse contradicts Jesus’ exhortation to love one’s enemies, and Meir of
Narbonne argued that instead of making the tree wither he should have
commanded it to produce fruit.27 Although one manuscript tradition
of Kelimat ha-Goyim contains the standard argument about Jesus’
ungodlike ignorance, Duran’s first (and perhaps only) use of this story
is to argue that the disciples’ amazement at the miraculous withering of
the tree demonstrates that they did not believe that Jesus was divine.28
— 149 —
The Middle Ages
Duran was surely interested in showing that Jesus was not God, but he
was more interested in the historical assertion that neither he nor his
disciples thought he was.
Simon Duran cited the arguments from Jesus’ ignorance and the
disciples’ amazement in one breath,29 and his general treatment of Jesus
is more complex and more problematic than that of Kelimat ha-Goyim.
Simon attempted a fairly ambitious reconstruction of Jesus’ life and
ideas, utilizing rabbinic as well as Christian sources. The methodology
is essentially that rabbinic information is always correct, that in many
important matters the Jewish sources correspond to what we learn
from Christian works, and that instances of irreconcilable difference
reveal errors in Christian tradition. After all, he says, even the reports
of Jesus’ disciples in the Gospels “are not in agreement with respect to
all matters; there is contradiction and difference among them whether
as a result of forgetfulness or as a result of the desire to make matters
look more attractive.”30
Occasionally, this approach can yield flashes of very interesting
historical skepticism. Simon describes the connection that Christians
made between Micah 5:1 and Jesus’ presumed birth in Bethlehem, shows
that the verse cannot refer to this, and then argues that the rabbinic name
“Jesus of Nazareth” indicates that he was not born in Bethlehem at all. The
force of the rabbinic evidence here seems weak, and it appears that Simon
uses it as a peg on which to hang a skeptical look at the Gospel report. Later,
he argues that talmudic sources indicate that Jesus indeed went to Egypt
but not under the circumstances described in Matthew 2. Finally, Simon
expends considerable effort to reconstruct Jesus’ lineage and associations
utilizing the full array of sources at his disposal. In this discussion, the
primary purpose of New Testament citations is not to criticize them but to
use them constructively to buttress and clarify rabbinic sources. The result
has much in common with Christian efforts to harmonize the Gospels,
except that one set of sources is in the final analysis not authoritative.31
The effort to coordinate rabbinic and Gospel evidence in the context
of a “Jewish” portrayal of Jesus’ views raised the question of how to
assess his overall character and mission. Needless to say, the assertion
29 Keshet u-Magen, p. 24.
30 Ibid., p. 16.
31 Ibid., pp. 15–21. I hope to examine the mixture of skepticism and credulousness with
which Jews approached Christian sources on another occasion.
— 150 —
On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
that he observed the commandments and did not consider himself God
was by no means sufficient to generate an enthusiastic evaluation, and it
was hardly feasible for medieval Jews—for reasons both emotional and
talmudic—to produce a literature of laudes Jesu.
For Jews like the Durans, one solution was to depict Jesus as
a pietistic fool (hasid shoteh). Jacob ben Reuben had already described him
as an ignoramus preaching to ignoramuses. Isaiah 30:20, which speaks of
a presumably great teacher, cannot, said Jacob, refer to Jesus, who taught
“rustics and fishermen because he was as devoid of understanding as
they.”32 To Profiat Duran, the ignorance of Jesus and his disciples is evident
from the many errors in their citations of the Bible as well as from Jesus’
apparent belief that reward and punishment in the afterlife are physical.33
The balance between a Jesus who did not affirm the key theological errors
of Christianity but was nonetheless very far from a role model appears
in particularly striking fashion in Duran’s analysis of a lengthy passage
in John (6:47–66) in which Jesus promises eternal life to whoever eats
his flesh and drinks his blood. “Although this statement points to his
foolishness and insanity, as the Jews indicated—and, in fact, many of his
students were taken aback by it—it does not necessarily follow from it that
the intention was that they actually eat his flesh and drink his blood.”34
Simon Duran repeated Profiat’s assessment, citing the same evidence
of errors in biblical citation, and described most of the Sermon on the
Mount as a quintessential example of pietistic foolishness.35 A century
and a half later, Yair ben Shabbetai da Correggio was prepared to regard
Jesus as a learned man who had studied with R. Yehoshua ben Perahiah
but continued to insist on the ignorance of his disciples: “If he taught
wisdom to his students, a negligible number actually absorbed it, because
they were not men of culture.”36
An ignorant, foolish, even insane Jesus may have satisfied the psychic
needs and resolved some of the historical questions of medieval Jews, but
a key problem remained unresolved. Ignorance, foolishness, and insanity
32 Milhamot Hashem, p. 96.
33 Kelimat ha-Goyim, pp. 49–59, 20–21, 24. See also p. 40 for the assertion that John the
Baptist, like Jesus, was a hasid shoteh. Gutwirth’s suggestion (“History and Apologetics,”
p. 237) that the term “may reflect an association with the historical sect of ‘Hasidim’
in Talmudic times” seems to me highly improbable.
34 Kelimat ha-Goyim, p. 39.
35 Keshet u-Magen, pp. 38–39, 56–61.
36 Yair ben Shabbetai, Herev Pifiyyot, ed. by Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 65.
— 151 —
The Middle Ages
are not grounds for execution. Since the Talmud as well as the Gospels
assign responsibility for Jesus’ execution to his own people, Jews were
impelled not only to acknowledge responsibility but to argue that the
decision was justified. What did a man who observed the Torah and never
claimed to be divine do to deserve his fate? For the compartmentalizing
polemicists of thirteenth-century Ashkenaz, this was no problem. Not
only was Jesus a sorcerer; he also claimed to be God. In other contexts,
as we have seen, they said that he disclaimed divinity, but this was not
the place for that position. As it happens, however, it was precisely a Jew
from thirteenth-century France who opened the door to a different, if
highly problematic solution—and then refrained from walking through
that door with more than one foot.
It is well known that when R. Yehiel of Paris was confronted in 1240
with the argument that the Talmud should be banned partly because of
blasphemies against Jesus, he maintained that the Jesus of the Talmud
and the Jesus of the Christians are two different people. The actual
presentation, however, is far more complicated. R. Yehiel was initially
confronted with a talmudic passage about a “Yeshu” who is punished in
the afterlife with boiling excrement for mocking the words of the sages.
Because the passage does not say “Jesus of Nazareth” (Yeshu ha-Nozri)
and does not mention the latter’s more serious sins, R. Yehiel denies that
the two are one and the same. He then responds to a talmudic citation
about the execution of Jesus of Nazareth for sorcery and for leading
Jews into idolatry with a concession that this is the Christian Jesus.
However, in the discussion of yet a third passage he concludes, on the
basis of chronological considerations, that the Christian Jesus is never
mentioned in the Talmud at all. Now, if his argument that the Jesus of
the boiling excrement is not the Talmud’s Jesus of Nazareth still stands,
then R. Yehiel has not two Jesuses but three, two of whom came from
Nazareth, and this is in fact strongly implied in the Christian response
recorded in the Oxford manuscript of the Hebrew text and is explicitly
stated in the Moscow manuscript.37
This position would have made it possible to argue that the execution
of the Christian Jesus was primarily the responsibility of the Roman
authorities or that only a handful of Jews were involved; in short,
all the options of modern Jewish apologetics became available once
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On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
rabbinic statements about Jesus’ villainy and execution had been made
to vanish into thin air. But R. Yehiel does nothing of the sort, and the
edited Hebrew version retains his initial statement about the Christian
Jesus as an inciter to idolatry. Whatever one thinks of the sincerity of
the multiple Jesus theory, R. Yehiel found a way to neutralize some
dangerous rabbinic statements, and yet the essential Ashkenazic
evaluation of Jesus remains even in the text of this disputation.
In the fourteenth century, Moses ha-Kohen of Tordesillas made much
stronger use of the theory of the two Jesuses in defending Judaism
and the Talmud against renewed attack. For Moses, the lack of identity
between the Talmud’s Jesus and the hero of the New Testament is
demonstrated not only by the chronological problem raised by R. Yehiel
but by an additional, striking point. The Jesus of the Talmud erected
a brick and bowed to it (B. Sanhedrin 107b), while the Jesus of the Gospels
was an uncompromising monotheist!38
And so we return to our original question. Why was an observant Jew
who made no claims of divinity executed by Jewish authorities?
Profiat Duran addressed this question only in passing as part of his
argument that Jesus did not annul the law. “If the crucifixion stories
about him are true, you will find that they condemned him to death not
for destroying the Torah but for saying that he is the son of God and the
Messiah.”39 Duran, who was not a halakhist, does not seem disturbed
by the fact that these accusations in themselves—given the assumption
that “son of God” was not meant literally—do not clearly generate
a death sentence according to Jewish law.40 It would be much too facile
38 ‘Ezer ha-Emunah, pp. 141–142. Cf. my “Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud: A Fourteenth-
Century Jewish Response to the Attack on Rabbinic Judaism,” in Religionsgespräche im
Mittelalter, ed. by Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (Wiesbaden, 1992), p. 128.
39 Kelimat ha-Goyim, p. 25, a statement repeated by Simon Duran in Keshet u-Magen,
p. 4. (The reference is to the account in Matthew 26:63–66.) Elsewhere, Profiat Duran
maintained that Jesus considered himself superior even to Moses (p. 4). Again, cf. the
reiteration of this passage by Simon Duran, Keshet u-Magen, p. 25.
40 See my remarks in “Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography: Yehezkel Kaufmann’s
Account of Jesus and Early Christianity,” in Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction
between Judaism and Other Cultures, ed. by Leo Landman (New York, 1990), p. 167:
Kaufmann argues that Jesus could properly have been executed as a false prophet,
even according to Mishnaic law, for refusing to provide a sign authenticating his
messianic claims. In fact, a person who refused to provide a sign might well forfeit
his right to be believed, but he would not forfeit his life. Only a prediction or
sign that did not materialize would be grounds for execution, and nothing in the
— 153 —
The Middle Ages
sources indicates that this had occurred. If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah but
refused to produce a sign, the only evidence strong enough to justify his execution
would be the fact that he died without redeeming the world. Jews presented that
evidence to the court of history, but it was too late to present it to a court of law.
41 Kelimat ha-Goyim, p. 63. This discussion makes it perfectly clear that Duran gave no
credence to a theory of two Jesuses.
42 Keshet u-Magen, pp. 22–25.
— 154 —
On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
— 155 —
The Middle Ages
Duran, Leone tells us that he will utilize Christian and Jewish sources
to produce his reconstruction, but the difference in both methodology
and conclusions illustrates strikingly the differences of time, place, and
author.
Leone begins with a vehement dismissal of an unnamed Jewish
version of Jesus’ career, which is surely Toledot Yeshu. “For various
reasons, it is a disgrace for any Jew to believe it.” He goes on to say
with great confidence that from perusing “our books and theirs,” he has
attained an understanding of Jesus “which I believe to be as firmly true
as if I had lived in his generation and sat with him.” Jesus observed the
Torah. If he had not done so, he would have had no credibility at all in
that society. Rather, he rejected a number of minor practices, one of the
first of which was the ritual washing of hands with a blessing, which
probably accounts for a talmudic statement that whoever is lax with
respect to this ritual is uprooted from the world (Sotah 4b).
We must remember, continues Leone, that this was a period of
sectarian diversity, which has been described in historical works
ranging from Josippon to Caroli Sigonii’s De Republica Hebraeorum.45
That Jesus himself identified with the Pharisees, who were the bearers
of the true tradition, is evident from his statement that they sit on the
seat of Moses. Despite this indication that he acknowledged both the
written and the oral law, his minor deviations alarmed the Sages, who
feared that Sadducees, Boethusians, Essenes, and others would soon
be joined by an additional sect. In response to their opposition, Jesus
strengthened himself by claiming the mantle of son of God. This is not
a claim of divinity but of a status higher than that of the prophets. Jesus
was no fool; he knew perfectly well that even the masses would have
stoned him had he made the preposterous assertion that a man who was
seen to eat, drink, sleep, and defecate was God. He certainly could not
have anticipated the incredible truth: that after his death people would
actually concoct arguments to affirm such absurdities.46
For all its spirited partisanship, this is serious history. It attempts
to account for all the evidence; it utilizes secondary as well as primary
historical literature; it dismisses contemptuously the fantasies of
Toledot Yeshu; it examines historical context; it speculates in sober,
45 Bologna, 1582.
46 Magen va-Herev, pp. 43–45.
— 156 —
On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity
47 Because Profiat Duran’s work explicitly focused on Christian sources exclusively, his
ignoring of the crucial Talmudic assertions is considerably less striking than Leone’s.
I am not suggesting that dismissing rabbinic material is the mark of a good historian.
What is genuinely significant, however, is the transformation that allowed a rabbinic
figure to place all the sources, including those in the Talmud, into the crucible of critical
historical assessment.
— 157 —
CHRISTIANS, GENTILES, AND THE TALMUD
A Fourteenth-Century Jewish Response
to the Attack on Rabbinic Judaism1
1 The writing of this article began and ended under dramatically different circumstances.
Most of the text was written when I was teaching, on two weeks notice, at the inaugural
semester [late February-early April, 1989] of the Moscow yeshiva founded by Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz, which opened as the first officially recognized institution of higher
Jewish education in the Soviet Union (The Judaica Section of the Academy of World
Civilizations). The last few pages of text were written on the plane returning to New
York, slightly after the deadline for submission of the preliminary version before the
conference [in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, where it was presented]. The only relevant books
available to me were the Bible, the Talmud, and ‘Ezer ha-Emunah, although the inspiration
provided by the extraordinary devotion of the yeshiva’s students was more than sufficient
compensation.
The footnotes, on the other hand, were written in the fall semester of 1989, when
I was a fellow in the Eden-like environment of the Annenberg Research Institute in
Philadelphia. It is a pleasure to thank the administration and staff of the Institute and
of its library for providing the conditions for a rare and rewarding experience.
2 See Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity in the Middle Ages
(New York, 1977).
— 158 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
3 See Ch. Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i ha-Nazrut (Jerusalem, 1970); Jeremy Cohen The
Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, 1982); Joel Rembaum, “The Talmud and the Popes; Reflections
on the Talmud Trials of the 1240’s,” Viator 13 (1982): 203–223; Robert Chazan, “The
Condemnation of the Talmud Reconsidered,” Proceedings of the American Academy for
Jewish Research 55 (1988): 11–30; cf. also my brief review of The Friars and the Jews in
the American Historical Review 88 (1983): 93.
4 Vikkuah Rabbenu Yehiel mi-Paris, ed. by S. Gruenbaum (Thorn, 1873). The point about
aggadah is on p. 2.
5 Kitvei Rabbenu Mosheh ben Nahman, ed. by C. D. Chavel (Jerusalem, 1963), I, p. 308;
Bernard Septimus, “Open Rebuke and Concealed Love’: Nahmanides and the Andalusian
Tradition,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in his Religious and Literary
— 159 —
The Middle Ages
Virtuosity, ed. by Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 20–22; my review of
“Maccoby’s Judaism on Trial,” Jewish Quarterly Review 76 (1986): 253–257 (esp. 254–255);
Marvin Fox, “Nahmanides on the Status of Aggadot: Perspectives on the Disputation at
Barcelona, 1263,” Journal of Jewish Studies 40 (1989): 95–109. For a general discussion
of attitudes toward aggadah, see Marc Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis (Cambridge, Mass.,
and London, 1980), pp. 1–20.
6 See Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (London, 1961), pp. 114–128; Ephraim
E. Urbach, “Shitat ha-Sovlanut shel R. Menahem ha-Meiri—Meqorah u-Migbeloteha,”
in Peraqim be-Toledot ha-Hevrah ha-Yehudit bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim u-Va-‘et ha-Hadashah—
Muqdashim Li-Professor Y. Katz (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 34–40; J. Katz, “Od al Sovlanuto
ha-Datit shel R. Menahem ha-Meiri,” Zion 46 (1981): 243–246; Yaaqov Blidstein, “Yahaso
shel R. Menahem ha-Meiri la-Nokhri—Bein Apologetiqah le-Hafnamah,” Zion 51 (1986):
153–166.
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Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
7 The text was edited in part II of Yehudah Shamir’s dissertation, Rabbi Moses Ha-Kohen
of Tordesillas and his Book ‘Ezer Ha-Emunah—A Chapter in the History of the Judeo-
Christian Controversy (Coconut Grove, Florida), 1972 (henceforth E. H.). Part I, which
contains Shamir’s analysis, was later republished with the same title (Leiden, 1975); on
the marginal value of this analysis, see Daniel J. Lasker’s review, Association for Jewish
Studies Newsletter 20 (June, 1977): 22, 24. The threat by Abner’s student is described in
E. H., p. 127.
— 161 —
The Middle Ages
Jesus himself (Yer. ‘Avodah Zarah 40d).8 The contention that the Talmud
can be scrutinized for doctrinally useful assertions despite its essential
falsehood comes into bold relief when the Christian cites the famous
view of R. Hillel that “Israel has no Messiah, for he has already been
consumed in the days of Hezekiah” (B. Sanhedrin 99a). The second half
of the statement, we are told, is untrue, but the first half demonstrates
that Jews should abandon their vain hope that the Messiah is yet to
come.9 Moreover, the Christian cites several Messianic calculations in
the Talmud which point to a period nearly a millennium earlier than the
fourteenth century (B. Sanhedrin 97a–b).10
The most interesting argument that the Talmud undermines belief in
the future advent of the Messiah comes in the citation of two enigmatic
passages from Sanhedrin (98a and 97a). The first of these asserts that
“the son of David will not come until someone searching for a small fish
for a sick person will be unable to find one,” while the other says that
he will not come until pockets will have been emptied of their very last
penny.11 Moses’ adversary argues that neither of these conditions could
ever be met, and therefore the Talmudic passages must be hinting at
a message that differs from their superficial meaning: “Just as all this
cannot happen, so the Messiah cannot come.” Since the major Jewish
line of defense was to explain aggadot non-literally, it is striking to find
a Christian polemicist exploiting precisely such an approach, even if only
to a very limited degree.
Abner’s student goes on to cite Talmudic remarks that express what
he regards as objectionable beliefs or which reflect badly on the status of
Jews. Thus, the Rabbis assert that God encourages belief in idolatry so
that He might punish idolaters (B. ‘Avodah Zarah 55a), and they allegedly
understand the scapegoat in Leviticus 16 as a sacrifice to a power other
than God (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 46). One Talmudic sage said that from
the time the Temple was destroyed, an iron barrier has separated the
people of Israel from their Father in heaven (B. Berakhot 32b), and
another passage maintains that whoever persecutes Israel attains the
highest office (B. Gittin 56b and B. Sanhedrin 104b).12
— 162 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
13 The point is not merely that Luther used Margaritha but that the material in The Whole
Jewish Faith may have helped transform his attitude toward the Jews. For a survey of
the literature on Luther and the Jews, see Johannes Brosseder, Luthers Stellung zu den
Juden im Spiegel seiner Interpreten (Munich, 1972), and for a recent analysis see Mark
U. Edwards, Jr., Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics, 1531–1546 (Ithaca, 1986).
See also the studies of Heiko A. Oberman, which tend to emphasize the continuities
in Luther’s stance (The Roots of Anti-Semitism [Philadelphia, 1984], pp. 93–137; Luther:
Man Between God and the Devil [New Haven and London, 1989], pp. 292–297). For the
argument that Luther changed his position on the Jews primarily because of the impact
of new information, see Gerhard O. Forde, “Luther and the Jews: A Review and Some
Preliminary Reflections,” in Luther, Lutherans, and the Jewish People: A Study Resource, 1977,
prepared by the American Lutheran Church, pp. 6–20. Despite the apologetic context
of the publication (which does not mention Margaritha), and despite the undoubted
relevance of other considerations, the argument deserves to be taken seriously.
— 163 —
The Middle Ages
Qamma 4:3) and to the ruling that the obligation to return a lost item is
applicable only if the owner is a Jew (M. Makhshirin 2:8; cf. B. Bava Mezi’a
24a–b). The Rabbis maintain that the best of the gentiles deserves to be
killed (Yer. Qiddushin 66c). Jews dare to call Christian holidays “days of
catastrophe” (e. g., M. ‘Avodah Zarah 1:1) while living in Christian lands;
they curse Christians, their Churches, their governments, even their
cemeteries (B. Berakhot 58b). The blessing upon seeing a Jewish king is
“Blessed is He who has granted a portion of His glory to those who fear
Him”; for Gentile kings the final phrase becomes merely “to flesh and
blood” (B. Berakhot 58a). Jews are told not to rent homes to gentiles
(M. ‘Avodah Zarah 1:8) and not to sell arms to the very people who protect
them (Tos. ‘Avodah Zarah 2:4). They compare Gentiles to dogs (Mekhilta
Mishpatim 20) and assert that the contamination that the primeval
serpent inserted into Eve was eliminated from the Jews at Sinai but not
from other nations (B. ‘Avodah Zarah 22b and B. Yevamot 103b).14
It is evident from this summary that the Christian attack was based
upon both the legal and the non-legal material in the Talmud—upon the
halakhah as well as the aggadah. Hence, if the labeling of this section of
the book as “the debates concerning the aggadot” is the work of Moses
himself rather than of a copyist, it is particularly interesting. Although
Moses never denies the authoritativeness of Talmudic halakhah, he
would like to create the impression that the entire dispute revolves
around passages that do not stand at the center of the Talmudic corpus.
The question of the binding force of aggadah had been introduced into
the Barcelona disputation by Nahmanides in an effort to undermine
the fundamental thrust of Pablo’s argument. The issue, however, is
an extremely sensitive one, since the Jewish polemicist runs the risk
of vanquishing his Christian opponent only to discover that his Jewish
audience has lost respect for the Talmudic rabbis. Moses ha-Kohen’s
polemic is an early, revealing example of the delicate line that Jews had
to tread in confronting an extraordinarily complex challenge.
Moses begins with an affirmation of faith in all of Rabbinic literature
which becomes steadily more ambiguous as his discussion continues and
ultimately encompasses sharp disagreements with Rabbinic assertions.
“I believe,” he writes, “that all the words of the sages are true. Nonetheless,
the Talmud is not a homogeneous work.” The Rabbis said that one does
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Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
not refute aggadah, and the reason is that there is no point in disagreeing
with material that does not contain binding instruction.
Moses continues with an interesting typology of aggadot and an even
more interesting application of that typology. 1. Some aggadot result
from the teacher’s desire to lift his students’ spirits before teaching them.
2. In other cases, he needed to wake them up by making astonishing
remarks, as in the observation that a single Jewish woman during the
Egyptian bondage would give birth to six hundred thousand children
(Mekhilta Beshallah, Massekhta de-Shira 9). 3. A rabbi may have wished
to make a profound observation inappropriate for the masses, and so he
cloaked it in a parable that would be taken literally by the ignorant and
figuratively by the wise. For such a genre, no less a work than the Song
of Songs serves as a legitimating precedent. 4. A sage who had a dream
bordering on divine inspiration would sometimes recount the experience
as if he had been awake. 5. Finally, the Talmud contains extravagant
stories and assertions that may have a deeper meaning or may simply be
exaggerations along the lines of the Scriptural passage that speaks of the
cities of Canaan as “large and fortified to the heavens” (Deuteromy 1:28).15
This typology is followed by a carefully calibrated, almost exquisitely
poised formulation: “With respect to all these aggadot that I have
mentioned, if it is an aggadah that appears reasonable, I will believe
it as is; if, on the other hand, it is highly unreasonable, then if I wish
I will defend its wisdom by believing that its author intended a meaning
that eludes me, and if I wish I will not believe it, since the author may
have said it for one of the reasons that I have listed above.”16 The key
point here is that disbelief is not disbelief and error is not error. The
decision not to believe is specifically placed within the framework of
the author’s typology, and none of his categories include error or even
genuine falsehood. Neither exaggerations nor parables nor intentionally
astonishing statements are unqualifiedly false, and prophetic dreams are
among the highest forms of truth. The analogies to the Song of Songs
and the verse in Deuteronomy demonstrate even to Christians that the
word of God itself contains surface falsehoods; rejection of the literal
meaning of a text hardly undermines its standing and authority. At this
stage, Moses’ concession is no concession at all.
— 165 —
The Middle Ages
— 166 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
— 167 —
The Middle Ages
— 168 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
— 169 —
The Middle Ages
24 E. H., pp. 35–36. One could imagine an assertion that if the goyim outside of the land of
Israel are not considered idolaters, this is true of Christians a fortiori. Moses, however,
would probably have been puzzled by the suggestion that genuine idolaters somehow
cease to be idolaters because of a change of location.
25 E. H., p. 136.
26 Tosafot Sanhedrin 63b, s. v. asur; Tosafot Bekhorot 2b, s. v. shemma. The best text of the
passage is in R. Yeruham b. Meshullam, Sefer Toledot Adam ve-Havvah (Venice, 1553),
17:5, p. 159b.
— 170 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
— 171 —
The Middle Ages
29 See E. H., pp. 136, 138; Exclusiveness and Tolerance, pp. 121–124.
— 172 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
only about the seven idolatrous nations.” The biblical context and the
polemical need are more than sufficient to sweep aside all ambiguity.30
Moses proceeds to introduce the seven nations even into a context
where the supporting biblical argument is considerably less clear. The
Bible recommends that non-kosher meat be given to dogs or sold to
gentiles. Since the type of meat given to the former is regarded as superior
to the type sold to the latter, a Rabbinic text draws the apparently logical
conclusion. Moses’ outraged antagonist asks why the Jews do not delete
such a passage from their literature in order to save themselves from
acute danger. Here again Moses is not content to refer the remark to
ancient idolaters in general. Both the Bible and the Rabbis, he says,
were discussing the people who are called Cananeos. It is impossible not
to speculate that the sudden use of the Latin term may be intended to
underscore the relationship between Canaanites in particular and dogs
(canes). That the biblical Canaanites, who were marked for destruction,
were the intended recipients of this food is far from self-evident, but the
genre that we are examining is hardly disinterested biblical exegesis.31
Whatever the plausibility of Moses’ biblical argumentation, the
emphasis on the Bible which we saw in the discussion of aggadah persists
in these passages as well. It is his standard practice to demonstrate that
the rabbinic statements under attack are supported by proof-texts, and
all biblical proof-texts obviously predate Christianity.32 Since the Rabbis
must have referred to the same people that the biblical author had in
mind, Christians are consistently and conveniently excluded.
Finally, no list of Talmudic passages offensive to Christianity could
be complete without reference to the assertion in B. Gittin 57a that
Jesus is being punished in boiling excrement. Here, Moses’ response is
30 E. H., pp. 145–146. See B. ‘Avodah Zarah 20a, 20b–21a. Had Moses omitted the two
reasons that he cites and restricted himself to the concern that rentals might lead to
sales, his argument that the law is restricted to Canaanites would have been far more
plausible and effective.
31 E. H., pp. 151–152, footnoted passage. See Exodus 22:30 and the Mekhilta there; Deut.
14:21. Cf. the Nizzahon Vetus in my The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages
(Philadelphia, 1979), #212, Eng. sec., p. 207 = Heb. sec., p. 145, where the author applies
the biblical text to contemporary Christians with a sense of dismissive superiority
remarkable even for that work; see also the notes ad loc. (p. 329). For a humanitarian
explanation arguing that the non-kosher food given to dogs is unhealthful to human
beings, see Ibn Ezra’s citation (to Exodus 22:30) of an earlier Moses ha-Kohen.
32 See, for example, the two citations in E. H., p. 154, and cf. p. 140.
— 173 —
The Middle Ages
— 174 —
Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud
dogs, he goes out of his way to say, “Thus, you have regarded us as dogs,
and this includes our king.”37 For his part, Moses not only responds to
such explicit charges; he too introduces references to the king where
there appears to be no compelling need to do so. The Christian use, or
misuse, of the Rabbinic statement that the best of the gentiles should
be killed can once again be traced to Donin, and Moses deals with it in
standard fashion. But his initial reaction—and one suspects that it is
based upon such a Christian understanding of the statement—is that
Jews are suspected of wanting to kill the king, who is the best of the
gentiles.38 He consequently asserts that it is inconceivable that Jews
should want to do this. Not only does the Mishnah instruct us to pray
for the welfare of the kingdom; without the protection of the king, we
are subject to slaughter and despoliation.
“God forbid,” Moses writes elsewhere, “that we should curse our king,
who serves as our shield, protector and savior from all adversity, for the
Jews have no salvation except from the Creator, may He be blessed, and
from the kings and princes. If we were in the hands of the masses who
would be without fear of the king and princes, we would not have the
slightest hope of survival or salvation.”39 Even though God has placed
a barrier between Himself and His people, he has inspired kings and
princes to feel compassion toward us.40 As for the blessings, here too
the Talmud is speaking about ancient pagan kings; indeed, since the
blessings for Jewish and gentile rulers were presumably introduced
simultaneously, the latter blessing must have been intended for gentiles
who ruled at a time when there were also Jewish kings.41 Did Moses really
recite the blessing, “Who has granted a portion of His glory to those who
fear Him” (rather than “to flesh and blood”) when seeing Christian kings?
Despite my inclination to regard his position as essentially sincere, that
would be scanned.
37 E. H., p. 151.
38 E. H., p. 134.
39 E. H., p. 136: cf. also p. 134. Note too the sentiments expressed by the Ashkenazic author
of the Nizzahon Vetus, who refused to admit that Jeremiah’s curse (17:5) against anyone
“who trusts in man” could refer to anything other than the attribution of divinity to
a human being. It is, after all, impossible not to place one’s reliance on kings and princes.
Despite the polemical usefulness of the argument, the underlying sentiment seems real
enough. See The Jewish-Christian Debate, #67, Eng. sec., p. 86 = Heb. sec., p. 44.
40 E. H., p. 158.
41 E. H., p. 144.
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The Middle Ages
— 176 —
MISSION TO THE JEWS AND JEWISHCHRISTIAN
CONTACTS IN THE POLEMICAL LITERATURE
OF THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
— 177 —
The Middle Ages
— 178 —
Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
6 Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, N.J.,
1984), esp. pp. 57–74.
7 See Lena Dasberg, Untersuchungen über die Entwertung des judenstatus im 11. jahrhundert
(Paris, 1965). Compare the remarks of Amos Funkenstein, “Basic Types of Christian
Anti-Jewish Polemics in the Later Middle Ages,” Viator 2 (1971): 377. Also see Gavin
Langmuir, “From Ambrose of Milan to Emicho of Leiningen: The Transformation of
Hostility against Jews in Northern Christendom,” Gli Ebrei nell’Alto Medioevo, Settimane
di Studio, 26 (Spoleto, 1980), pp. 313–368; and Avraham Grossman, Hakhmei Ashkenaz ha-
Rishonim (Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 12–13, 163. Compare the remarks in my review, Tarbiz 53
(1984): 480. Also see Robert Chazan, “1007–1012: Initial Crisis for Northern European
Jewry,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 39 (1972): 101–118;
and Kenneth R. Stow, The “1007 Anonymous” and Papal Sovereignty: Jewish Perceptions of
the Papacy and Papal Policy in the High Middle Ages (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1984).
8 For a vigorous argument that 1096 was not a watershed in Jewish history, see Robert
Chazan’s European Jewry and the First Crusade (forthcoming [subsequently published,
Berkeley, c. 1987]).
— 179 —
The Middle Ages
9 Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (2d edn., New York, 1965), vol. 9,
p. 101.
10 Amos Funkenstein did not take a clear position on this question in his studies of twelfth-
century Christian polemic. See “Ha-Temurot be-Vikkuah ha-Dat she-bein Yehudim le-
Nozrim ba-Meah ha-Yod-Bet,” Zion 33 (1968): 125–144, and “Basic Types,” 373–382.
— 180 —
Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
11 At one time, I regarded the influence of internal Christian developments as slightly more
central to the upsurge in polemic than I do now. See my brief remark in The Jewish-
Christian Debate, p. 16.
12 For an important summary of the evidence, see Aryeh Grabois, “The Hebraica veritas
and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations in the Twelfth Century,” Speculum 50 (1975):
613–634.
13 I discuss the state of this question later in this article.
— 181 —
The Middle Ages
The famous verse from Romans, then, predicts the futility of missionary
efforts and may even intend to discourage them; Jewish conversion is
reserved for the eschaton. Later, Adam added a further consideration:
Christians should not pollute themselves with discussions of falsehood
but should study Christian doctrines with pure heart and hands and
simple eyes.14 Since Adam could have written a brief compendium of
standard anti-Jewish arguments with little more effort than it took him
to write this letter, I doubt that he was concocting excuses for a refusal
motivated by laziness; this is a genuine, antimissionary ideology.
In one of the earliest polemics of the period, hesitation is followed by
acceptance of responsibility. Peter Damian (d. 1072) mentioned Jewish
conversion as a reason for writing polemic, but almost as an after-
thought following an exhortation to concentrate on more important
things than arguing with Jews. Damian was responding to a request
from a churchman named Honestus to provide material refuting Jewish
arguments, and he began by suggesting that, “if you wish to be a soldier
of Christ and fight for him courageously, then take up arms . . . against
the vices of the flesh, the contrivances of the devil—an enemy who
will clearly never die—rather than against the Jews, who will soon be
virtually destroyed from the face of the earth.” Nevertheless, he agreed
to provide the material because it was disgraceful (inhonestum) to remain
silent while Christianity was insulted, such silence could arouse doubts in
Christian minds, and, finally, Jews might be converted by well-presented
Christian arguments.15 A reluctant missionary indeed.
Peter of Blois (d. 1200) provided an even stronger prolegomenon
before finally acquiescing and writing his polemic. He addressed the
work to a Christian who complained that he was surrounded by Jews
14 Adam of Perseigne, Epistola ad amicum, Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (hereafter, PL)
211: 653–659. It bears noting that Adam considered a bad Christian worse than a Jew,
who acted in ignorance; ibid., 657, 659. This reference should be added to Jeremy Cohen’s
valuable discussion of the question of Jewish ignorance and culpability in Christian
thought. See Cohen, “The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from
Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983): 1–27.
15 Peter Damian, Antilogus contra judaeos, PL 145: 41. See my discussion in “St. Peter
Damian: His Attitude toward the Jews and the Old Testament,” Yavneh Review 4 (1965):
83–84. Blumenkranz’s references to this work illustrate his tendency to emphasize
missionary motivations. He first cited Damian’s hope for conversion, two pages later
he indicated the rather different need to assist Honestus, and considerably later he
referred to the Antilogus without qualification as a “missionary work;” Juifs et Chrétiens,
pp. 69, 71, 153.
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
and heretics and was unequipped to answer the tricky arguments raised
by the Jews in their disputations. It was unwise, Peter said, for someone
without good polemical aptitude to debate with a heretic or a Jew;
such disputes, in fact, tended to turn the inexperienced Christian into
a heretic himself. And it was surely absurd to debate a subject like the
Trinity. In effect, Peter argued that Christians need not worry about
educating the heretic or Jew: beasts were not permitted to touch Mount
Sinai, and pearls were not to be cast before swine.16 Moreover, if one
defeats an enemy of the cross in debate, he will in any event not convert
in his heart. As for the Jews, they cannot be converted because God has
set them an end that cannot be advanced. One might, it is true, make
an occasional convert, but the rest will persist in their stubbornness.17
Apparently, the missionary enterprise was not sufficiently justified by
the handful of souls that might be saved.
Peter, of course, did relent and write polemic, and suspicious
historians may be tempted to conclude that this introductory show of
reluctance is a disguise for missionary zeal. In determining twelfth-
century attitudes toward mission, however, what he wrote is decisive,
and underlying motives are of secondary significance as signposts of
future developments. In a sense, the point would even be strengthened,
since Peter was apparently embarrassed to be pursuing an objective that
any Christian would have been expected to applaud. It seems probable
that discouraging mission to the Jews was an ideology that arose as
a rationalization to explain centuries of relative indifference to Jewish
conversion or even as a direct reaction to protracted Jewish stubbornness.
Nevertheless, the reluctance to proselytize among Jews remains both
surprising and significant.
Peter relented, he said, because the request came from a person beset
(obsessum) by Jews and heretics. A similar defensive motive is proffered
in an anonymous twelfth-century polemic whose author maintained
that he wrote for simple people and in simple faith, not for the sake
of dialectical disputations. Jews, he said, should not be able to mock
Christian ignorance (imperitia)—those Jews “who taunt [insultant] us
all day and say with Goliath, ‘Choose someone from among you who will
16 In light of the context of this phrase in the Gospels, its use as an argument against
preaching to Jews is painfully ironic.
17 Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum, PL 207: 825–827.
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The Middle Ages
18 Tractatus adversus Judaeum, PL 213: 749. The effectiveness of Jewish debaters is also
attested in Bartholomew of Exeter’s unpublished “Dialogus contra Judaeos” (early 1180s),
which warns against engaging in public controversies with them. At the same time,
Bartholomew remarked (if only in a subordinate clause) that “we hold discussions with
them for their own salvation.” There is, then, a missionary intention blunted by fear of the
consequences of disputation. For the relevant passage, see R. W. Hunt, “The Disputation
of Peter of Cornwall against Symon the Jew,” in Studies in Medieval History Presented to
Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. by R. W. Hunt et al. (Oxford, 1948), pp. 147–148.
19 Walter of Châtillon, Tractatus sive dialogus contra Judaeos, PL 209: 424–425.
20 “Ein Briefes Chronisten Rudolph von St. Trond an Rupert von Deutz,” Neues Archiv 17
(1892): 617–618. This letter influenced the writing of De glorificatione Trinitatis and
perhaps part of De gloria et honore Filii hominis. See J. H. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), pp. 246–247, 354–355; and Hermannus quondam
Judaeus opusculum de conversione sua, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Quellen zur
Geistgeschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 4, ed. by G. Niemeyer (Weimar, 1963), p. 5 n. 3, and
pp. 41–43. Rudolph’s letter sounds like the request of a man who had read Fulbert of
Chartres’s Tractatus contra Judaeos, which deals precisely with the topics specified, and
found it inadequate in real discussions with Jews.
21 Rupert of Deutz, Anulus sive dialogus inter Christianum et Judaeum, in M. L. Arduini,
Ruperto de Deutz e la controversia tra Cristiani ed Ebrei nel secolo XII (Rome, 1979),
esp. p. 184. The work is also in PL 170: 559–610.
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
— 185 —
The Middle Ages
— 186 —
Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
28 The work of “Samuel of Morocco” may well be a pseudepigraph of the fourteenth century.
See M. Marsmann, Die Epistel des Rabbi Samuel an Rabbi Isaak: Untersuchung und Edition
(Siegen, 1971). The epistle also appears in PL 149: 337–368.
29 Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogus Petri, cognomento Alphonsi, ex Judaeo Christiani, et Moysi Judaei,
PL 157: 535–672, esp. 538.
30 Niemeyer, Hermannus quondam Judaeus opusculum de conversione sua.
31 Peter Abelard, Dialogus inter philosophum, iudaeum, et christianum, ed. by Rudolf Thomas
(Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 44–85. Richard of St. Victor’s De Emmanuele was directed against
Andrew of St. Victor’s Judaizing commentary on Isa. 7:14 and is surely not a missionary
tract. See PL 196: 601–666.
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The Middle Ages
for its striking use of Hebrew as a tool in the debate with Jews, but,
in light of the objectives of earlier polemics, the motive it suggests for
disputation is at least equally interesting. Sometime between 1139 and
1148, an obscure cleric named Odo wrote the Ysagoge in theologiam. In
the introduction to the section on Jews, he made the following assertion:
“For if it is proper for us to exhort those who are fashioned in the faith
to live better, surely we should recall the Jews from their erroneous,
disbelieving sect.”32 If such an attitude were common, this would have
been an utterly routine sentence. The editor of the Ysagoge, for example,
wrote that “the conversion of the Jews was one of the great preoccupations
of Christian intellectuals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” and
Odo was a participant in this movement.33 In fact, a statement like this
before the middle of the twelfth century was not routine but sharply
polemical; it was a pointed a fortiori argument directed against the then-
dominant view of the upper clergy that efforts at conversion of Jews
were improper or unimportant.
The later attitude of aggressive mission to the Jews is adumbrated
with particular clarity by Peter the Venerable. The reader of the prologue
to his polemic finds himself in a different, unfamiliar world. No hesitation
here, and no apology. How can Jews, he wrote, alone in all the world,
deny Jesus? They are stiff-necked, without celestial or terrestrial glory,
but, if they convert, they, too, can be saved.34 Later in the work, Peter
expressed doubts about his prospects for success. With the arrogance
and belligerence typical of this polemic, he noted that his arguments
from both authority and reason would satisfy any human being, but he
was not so sure that Jews, whose reason appeared “extinct” and “buried,”
could be called human beings and not animals.35 Whatever the tactical
wisdom of his denunciatory tone, and whether or not Peter ever had
contact with his prospective converts, there is in his work at least some
expression of a hope of conversion.36
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
37 Joachim of Fiore, Adversus Judaeos di Gioacchino da Fiore, ed. by Arsenio Frugoni (Rome,
1957), p. 3.
38 Ibid., pp. 85–89. The points in this paragraph were made by Frugoni in the introduction
to his edition (pp. xxxii–xxxvii). I hesitate to include Hildebert of Lavardin’s short sermon
“Against the Jews Concerning the Incarnation” among these exceptional polemics, despite
its apostrophe to the Jews urging their conversion. The entire work is a few paragraphs
long, was delivered to a Christian audience, and merely lists a handful of the standard
verses on the incarnation with virtually no argumentation. See PL 171: 811–814.
39 The prologue to Peter’s Liber disputationum contra Symonem Iudeum was published by
Hunt; “Disputation of Peter of Cornwall,” 153–156.
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The Middle Ages
40 Guillaume de Bourges, Livre des guerres du Seigneur, ed. by Gilbert Dahan (Paris, 1981),
pp. 66, 68.
41 Cohen, The Friars and the Jews.
42 Lévi, “Controverse,” 239.
43 See my discussion in “St. Peter Damian,” 83.
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
44 The remarks by Peter and the author of the Tractatus were noted by Lévi, and many
historians have cited Louis IX’s comment that a Christian layman approached by a Jewish
polemicist should respond by stabbing him. See Lévi, “Controverse,” 238. Also see my
brief discussion in The Jewish-Christian Debate, pp. 22–23. Compare the somewhat weaker
impression given by Peter Damian that Honestus was confronted by a Jewish challenge,
and see Bartholomew of Exeter’s comments cited in note 18, above. Guibert’s remark that
the Jews hardly dared whisper what the count of Soissons said aloud does reflect some
Jewish caution, but it must also be read in light of Guibert’s strategy to use the Jews as
a foil for the heretical count.
45 Niemeyer, Hermannus quondam Judaeus opusculum de conversione sua, p. 74. This image
appears in the work of Walter of Châtillon and, more clearly, in the polemic of Peter
the Venerable. Also see my “The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews,”
Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 40 (1972): 103.
46 Niemeyer, Hermannus quondam Judaeus opusculum de conversione sua, p. 75. Such
an argument by Christian missionaries may have partially inspired and surely lent force
to the Jewish contention that conversion to Christianity proved nothing more than the
convert’s desire to experience the pleasures of the flesh; Nizzahon Vetus, in The Jewish-
Christian Debate, p. 206, and, in the Hebrew section, p. 144.
47 Niemeyer, Hermannus quondam Judaeus opusculum de conversione sua, pp. 77–83.
48 Ibid., p. 76.
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
“These . . . are the reasons that I gave the Jew concerning the coming
of Christ, having been forced to dispute all the more subtly by certain
Christians who took the part of the Jew.”53 Thus, as in Crispin’s case,
there was an audience, and here some Christians attending were
prepared to challenge the arguments of the Christian protagonist. Even
if these Christians were advocates of an explanation of the incarnation
that differed from Odo’s, such intervention would be inconceivable
in a debate whose serious goal was the conversion of the Jew. These
confrontations were ultimately very serious indeed, but the atmosphere
appears to have been one of a duel of wits—almost a form of intellectual
entertainment.
Guibert’s polemic, which does not reflect a real confrontation, ends
with a miracle story also pertinent to this discussion. He heard an account
of a disputation in a home (in quadam domo) in which a cleric was unable
to contest the perfidious bombast of a Jew, so the cleric offered to hold
the burning part of a firebrand in order to prove his position. The Jew
made no effort to dissuade him, and the cleric grabbed hold of the flame
and did not burn. The Jew marveled but was nonetheless not impelled
to convert.54 The miracle here is not especially miraculous, and the story
could be true. Even if it is not, however, it suggests that such discussions
were routine.
Finally, both Peter of Blois and the author of the anonymous
Tractatus proffered practical advice on pinning down the slippery and
elusive Jewish disputant, who was likely to change the subject whenever
he encountered difficulty.55 Once again, works that do not record actual
disputations suggest that Jews and Christians expected to confront one
another in the field of religious combat.
Thus far, I have examined only Christian works, but the impression
created by those works is confirmed by Jewish polemics as well. This
literature does not begin until the late twelfth century, and one of the
earliest works, authored by the southern French polemicist Jacob ben
Reuben, reports an encounter whose essential historicity has never
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been questioned.56 The tone is cordial, the arguments rigorous, and the
agenda—which includes a discussion of the book of Matthew—unusually
broad. In the thirteenth century, Meir of Narbonne recorded what
were surely genuine exchanges with influential Christians on sensitive
questions,57 and Moses of Salerno described philosophical discussions
of unusual sophistication with Italian churchmen.58 These were not
formal disputations of the sort that were held in Paris and Barcelona;
Jacob, Meir, and Moses described what were for the most part informal
discussions that took place in the course of everyday life.59
Finally, there is fascinating and somewhat problematical evidence
from northern Ashkenaz in Joseph Official’s Sefer Yosef HaMeqanne60
and the anonymous Nizzahon Vetus.61 On the one hand, the sharpness
of some of the exchanges in these works invites skepticism about
their authenticity. Once again, however, the atmosphere of constant
interaction is compelling, and it is almost inconceivable that these
accounts are not essentially authentic. Most of the arguments are
introduced by phrases like “a certain cordelier” or “a certain apostate
asked.” Specific priests are identified by their towns, and arguments are
placed in specific settings.
Moreover, the aggressiveness of the tone of both works makes
it difficult to reject Christian assertions that Jews often initiated
debate. It is true that one of the most distinguished students of this
literature has urged us to differentiate between “audacity in confronting
56 Milhamot Hashem, ed. by Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1963), esp. pp. xxii, 4–5.
57 Milhemet Mizvah, Biblioteca Palatina Parma, ms. 2749. A substantial part of the manuscript
was transcribed by William Herskowitz. See Herskowitz, “Judaeo-Christian Disputation
in Provence as Reflected in Milhemet Mitzva of R. Meir HaMeili” (D.H.L. dissertation,
Bernard Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva University, 1974). On Meir’s work, see Siegfried
Stein, Jewish-Christian Disputations in Thirteenth-Century Narbonne (London, 1969). Also
see the studies by Robert Chazan in Harvard Theological Review 67 (1974): 437–457;
Hebrew Union College Annual 45 (1974): 287–305; and Proceedings of the American Academy
for Jewish Research 41–42 (1973–74): 45–67.
58 Ta‘anot, in Stanislaus Simon, Mose ben Salomo von Salerno und seine philosophischen
Auseinandersetzung mit den Lehren des Christentums (Breslau, 1931).
59 It is worth noting that in the Barcelona disputation of 1263, Nahmanides commented
that “there is not a single priest or child” who does not ask the Jews about Ps. 110. See
Kitvei Ramban, ed. by C. Chavel (Jerusalem, 1963), vol. 1, p. 317.
60 Joseph Official, Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, ed. by Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1970).
61 See The Jewish-Christian Debate. The Nizzahon Vetus was also edited by Mordechai Breuer;
Sefer Nizzahon Yashan (Jerusalem, 1978).
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
— 195 —
The Middle Ages
68 When Jewish works, for example, refute Christological interpretations that are found
only in Christian commentaries and not in polemics, we have reason to suspect that the
Jewish authors got the information from a literary source, and a systematic investigation
along these lines may well prove rewarding. For a clear-cut passage of this sort, note
the probably interpolated section in the Munich manuscript of the Nizzahon Vetus on
Psalms, with its explicit references to Christian translations and to the glossa and its
concentration on exegesis that no sensible Christian polemicist would have emphasized.
See The Jewish-Christian Debate, sects. 131–141. The extent to which Jews could have
read Latin works depends, of course, on their knowledge of Latin, and, although almost
all of the authors of polemical works surely read Latin, we cannot be certain about other
Jewish intellectuals. For an argument that the Paris disputation of 1240 was conducted in
Latin, see Ch. Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i ha-Nazrut (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 245. Grabois’s
assertion that “Rashi attested that he studied Christian biblical exegesis” is much too
strong. Of the two authorities that Grabois noted, Y. Baer presented very little evidence
for his assertion that “we may assume that Rashi knew Latin and read widely in Christian
works,” and E. Shereshevsky explicitly conceded that there is no definitive evidence that
Rashi read Latin. See Grabois, “The Hebraica veritas,” 632; Baer, “Rashi ve-ha-Meziut ha-
Historit shel Zemanno,” Tarbiz 20 (1950): 326; and Shereshevsky, “Rashi and Christian
Interpretations,” Jewish Quarterly Review 61 (1970–71): 76–86.
69 Talmage, Disputation and Dialogue, p. 240; and Commentary, June 1975, p. 23.
70 Zadoc Kahn, “Le livre de Joseph le Zélateur,” Revue des Etudes Juives 1 (1880): 222–246;
and 3 (1881): 1–38, esp. 34; Ephraim Urbach, “Etudes sur la littérature polémique au
moyen âge,” Revue des Etudes Juives 100 (1935): 50–77, esp. 60–64; and Mordechai
Breuer, Sefer Nizzahon Yashan, pp. 20–21. Also see my discussion in The Jewish-Christian
Debate, pp. 20–23.
71 See, especially, Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (New York, 1960), pp. 98–100.
Also see Grabois, “The Hebraica veritas.” For a vigorous argument, based primarily on
Jewish exegetical material, for Jewish-Christian intellectual contacts, see Elazar Touitou,
“Shitato ha-Parshanit shel ha-Rashbam al Reqa ha-Meziut ha-Historit shel Zemanno,”
in Iyyunim be-Sifrut Hazal ba-Miqra U-be-Toldot Yisrael: Muqdash Li-Prof. Ezra Zion
Melamed (Ramat Gan, 1982), ed. by Y. D. Gilat et al., pp. 48–74.
72 Peter Browe assessed the situation particularly well. See Browe, Die Judenmission im
Mittelalter und die Päpste (Rome, 1942), pp. 113, 60–64. Also see Hunt, “Disputation of
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Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts
Peter of Cornwall,” 147; and Dahan, Livre des guerres du Seigneur, pp. 33–34. Blumenkranz’s
discussion of “la mission juive” deals mainly with an earlier period; Juifs et Chrétiens,
pp. 159–211. As I noted, Blumenkranz ascribed a significant missionary motivation to
Christian polemic in his period. Elsewhere, however, he argued that the extent of what
he described as Christian defense literature demonstrates that Jews must have pursued
missionary activity; Juifs et Chrétiens, p. 209. In light of his position on the missionary
objectives of Christian polemic, this last argument is almost puzzling, and the book,
which remains of the first importance, tends to overstate the missionary intentions on
both sides.
73 See Grabois, “The Hebraica veritas.” Polemical sources are dealt with only in the two
concluding paragraphs, pp. 633–634, and on p. 624.
74 Wolfgang Giese’s vehement argument for “intensive Jewish propaganda and missionary
activity” is based solely on the existence of Christian converts to Judaism and the efforts
made in church councils to limit contacts between Jews and Christians because of the Jews’
corrupting influence. See his “In Iudaismum lapsus est: Jüdische Proselytenmacherei im
frühen und hohen Mittelalter (600–1300),” Historisches Jahrbuch, 88 (1968): 407–18. Also
see Baron’s remark that “medieval Jews had long given up any missionary aspirations”;
A Social and Religious History, p. 23.
75 Joseph Official, Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 15. See Hosea 2:2.
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[Christianity’s] central dogmas, while all Israel ‘will speak lovely words’
(Gen. 49:21).”76 A chastened Gentile with an enhanced respect for Jews
and Judaism—but a Gentile nonetheless.
— 198 —
THE BARCELONA DISPUTATION
Review Essay
From: AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies 20 (1995):
379–388.
Reviewed work: Robert Chazan. Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of
1263 and Its Aftermath. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, x,
257 pp.
1 As Chazan notes (p. 7), the basic observation was made by Isidore Loeb in his classic
article, “La Controverse de 1263 à Barcelone entre Paulus Christiani et Moise ben
Nahman,” Revue des Études Juives 15 (1887): 2.
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shows how most of the significant discrepancies between the Latin and
Hebrew versions of the disputation can be accounted for as different
perceptions of the same discussion rather than as purposeful distortions
or outright lies. While the argument here is not entirely new, Chazan’s
analysis is more systematic than that of his predecessors; he evinces
greater sympathy for the Latin account than Isidore Loeb or Yitzhak Baer
while at the same time reinforcing Loeb’s argument that this account
rarely makes factual assertions that flatly contradict Nahmanides’
narrative. In this crucial respect, the book makes a major contribution.
Despite his effort to understand both versions as essentially honest,
though highly tendentious works, Chazan cannot avoid a confrontation
with the issue of purposeful distortion or lying, and here he evinces
considerable discomfort. On the one hand, he writes that “the royal seal
[on the Latin document], . . . Nahmanides’ general stature, . . . and above
all else, the public nature of the event . . . make . . . out-and-out lying
unthinkable” (p. 14). On the following page, however, he affirms that the
matter is not so simple. The Latin version’s depiction of Nahmanides’
confusion and the latter’s description of his confident attacks on
Christianity are “embellishment and exaggeration” of a sort that “do not
seem to me to warrant the accusation of lying. If readers prefer that label
to embellishment and exaggeration, so be it.”
The problem here is not semantic alone. It goes to the heart of
Chazan’s vision of the disputation. He explicitly avoids the term “lie,”
partly because of the analytical difficulties that it would cause him, and
partly, I suspect, because he is such a quintessential gentleman. But the
brute fact is that Chazan maintains unequivocally that Nahmanides
lied about a truly fundamental aspect of the proceedings. At several
important moments in the Hebrew account, Nahmanides informs us
that he succeeded in presenting certain standard Jewish criticisms of
Christian belief, sometimes in sharp language. Chazan regards this as
virtually impossible for two reasons that we would do well to examine.
The first of these is the commonsense observation, already noted
to some degree by Baer, that it is highly implausible that Nahmanides
could have spoken in a public forum about the utter irrationality of
the incarnation, the militarism of the Spanish Christian state, the
Messiah’s future destruction of Rome, or the curses to befall Christians.
Nahmanides reports—and a Christian document confirms—that he was
granted freedom of speech, but he also reports that he gave assurances
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The Barcelona Disputation
of his “good sense to speak properly.” No grant of free speech could have
extended this far (pp. 48–49, 94–97, 138).
The second reason goes to one of Chazan’s most important insights.
He argues quite correctly that the use of the Talmud to demonstrate the
truth of Christianity provided a structure to the debate between Jews
and Christians in which the Christian side could not lose. In an exchange
about an allegedly Christological verse in the Bible, a Jew might be able to
reverse the argument by showing that the revealed text in fact contradicts
Christianity; if, however, the text is talmudic, it has no authority for
Christians, so that the Jew can do nothing more than neutralize the
citation by showing that it does not support Christian doctrine. “To
have developed such a potent new technique and then let it be readily
contravened by the Jewish protagonist further strains credulity” (p. 50,
and cf. p. 138). Indeed, adds Chazan, evidence from the later Tortosa
disputation clearly demonstrates that Christians applying Friar Paul’s
approach prevented Jews from raising issues that could disturb this one-
sided structure (pp. 53–54). Chazan’s structural insight, then, impels
him to affirm the very strong position that even had Nahmanides spoken
with consummate politeness and extreme diffidence, he could not have
presented a substantial percentage of the arguments that he reports.
Neither of these points can be dismissed easily. Nonetheless, the
second strikes me as a case of anachronistically imposing the Tortosa
model on Barcelona, and both must confront a monumental problem
that Chazan touches lightly but fails to give its due.
As Chazan indicates, indeed emphasizes, the disputation at Barcelona
was a pioneering experiment. I have argued elsewhere that many
Jewish-Christian debates of an informal sort had taken place over the
generations in an atmosphere of relatively free repartee.2 It should not be
taken for granted that thirteenth-century friars could snap their fingers
and change the ground rules abruptly and with total, immediate success
to one of ironclad control over the Jewish participant. The ultimate
authority during the debate was not the clerics who had constructed
the new approach, but the king of Aragon. The king was obviously on
the Christian side; nonetheless he may have enjoyed the spectacle of
2 D. Berger, “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature
of the High Middle Ages,” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 576–591. To be sure, the
strongest evidence comes from Northern Europe, but there is enough from the South to
sustain the point.
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— 202 —
The Barcelona Disputation
inserted inexactitudes or lies into his account. He would not have dared
to do it.”3 In Baer’s critique of the disputation, he ignored this point
entirely.4 Chazan does raise the argument and replies as follows: “The
only answer I can supply is that Nahmanides was deeply convinced of
the need for such a work and retained some confidence in the capacity of
Jewish leverage to protect him, as it eventually did” (p. 98). He goes on
to say that the silence of those who heard Nahmanides’ alleged remarks
would be more problematic than this difficulty (p. 98, and cf. p. 138).
By “silence” he presumably means failure to cut off such statements
with ruthless efficiency, since the absence of a recorded objection at
a particular point in Nahmanides’ narrative does not necessarily mean
that there was none. Moreover, in a passage that Chazan does his best to
explain away at a different point in his analysis (pp. 75–77), Nahmanides
informs us that after a day which ended with one of his aggressive
comments, he began the next morning’s proceedings by asking that the
debate be ended because Jews were fearful and Christians, including one
whom he identifies by name, had told him that it was inappropriate for
him to speak against their faith in their presence.5
Chazan is clearly uncomfortable with his reply, and the force of the
question is even more powerful than he indicates. A royal document
of 1265 reveals that Nahmanides came under attack for “vituperation”
against the Catholic faith in what he said at the disputation as well as in
what he wrote. This assertion in itself creates intractable problems for
Chazan’s position, despite his plausible conclusion in light of a papal letter
that it was the written work “that set in motion the cycle of prosecution”
(p. 98). What is particularly telling is that Nahmanides defended himself
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— 204 —
The Barcelona Disputation
— 205 —
The Middle Ages
— 206 —
The Barcelona Disputation
9 Bernard Septimus’s very brief discussion, to which Chazan makes frequent reference,
is still the best treatment of this question; see his “Open Rebuke and Concealed Love’:
Nahmanides and the Andalusian Tradition,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban):
Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity, ed. by Isadore Twersky (Cambridge,
Mass., 1983), pp. 20–22.
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The Middle Ages
10 Kitvei Ramban, p. 319. A fair reading of this assertion is, I think, quite consistent with
the sorts of changes that I believe Nahmanides did make.
— 208 —
CHRISTIAN HERESY AND JEWISH POLEMIC
IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
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century has been discussed most recently by Ch. Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i ha-Nazrut
(Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 227–248. On the burning of the works of Maimonides in the
1230s, see A. Schochet, “Berurim be-Parshat ha-Pulmus ha-Rishon al Sifrei ha-Rambam,”
Zion 36 (1971): 27–60. It is especially noteworthy that a Hebrew manuscript alleges that
a Christian missionary in 1272–73 threatened to demonstrate that the Jews have no
faith and that, like the Bougres, they deserve to be burned; see A. Neubauer, “Literary
Gleanings, IX,” JQR, o.s., 5 (1893): 714. R. Chazan’s suggestion that one of the earliest
large-scale persecutions of Jews in the high middle ages was related to the beginnings
of heresy in the West is interesting although there is no concrete documentation to bear
it out; see his “1007–1012: Initial Crisis for Northern European Jewry,” Proceedings of
The American Academy for Jewish Research 38–39 (1970–71): 101–117. For the charge
of harboring heretics as well as a more general bibliographical discussion, see S. Baron,
A Social and Religious History of the Jews (2d ed.; New York, London, and Philadelphia,
1965), pp. 9, 59, 267–268.
3 See J. Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (London, 1934; reprinted New
York, 1969) 300–303.
4 See his Liber Qui Dicitur Gratissimus, ch. 37, PL 145: 153, and his De Sacramentis per
Improbos Administratis, PL 145: 529, discussed in my “St. Peter Damian: His Attitude
toward the Jews and the Old Testament,” Yavneh Review 4 (1965): 86–87, 89–90.
5 See my study, “The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews,” Proceedings
of the American Academy for Jewish Research 40 (1972): 104–105. See also Cassiodorus,
PL 70: 74D (“Judaei vel Donatistae”); Hadrian I, PL 98: 1255–1256; Humbert, PL 143:
1093C. Cf. B. Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le Monde Occidental 430–1096 (Paris,
1960), pp. xvi–xvii, and note 11 there, and see Baron, History, pp. 58–60.
— 210 —
Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Prof. Talmage notes that “the concept (of conception through the ear)
was employed in orthodox Christianity in the patristic period,”8 but he
adds that “the absolute dualists among the heretics carried this further to
prove the noncorporeal nature of Jesus himself.” These dualists, however,
believed in exit through the ear as well, and the author of the Vikkuah
6 “An Hebrew Polemical Treatise, Anti-Cathar and Anti-Orthodox,” HTR 60 (1967): 323–
348. The article contains a translation of the treatise; the Hebrew text appears in Milhemet
Hovah (Constantinople, 1710), pp. 13a–18b and in Talmage’s Sefer ha-Berit u-Vikkuhei
Radaq im ha-Nazrut (Jerusalem, 1974). In his introduction to the Hebrew text (15–16),
Talmage reiterates the central thesis of the article.
7 Talmage’s translation, 341.
8 He refers to C. Schmidt, Histoire et Doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois 2. 41f.
— 211 —
The Middle Ages
le-ha-Radaq obviously did not know of that doctrine; hence, says Prof.
Talmage, he must have been arguing against “mitigated dualists.”9
First of all, it is difficult to see what the doctrine of aural entry as
opposed to aural exit has to do with dualism in any form. It was not
necessary to be a Docetist to believe that an incorporeal spirit had
entered Mary; only the doctrine of aural exit supported the Docetist
position. Without aural exit, aural entry seems logically irrelevant to any
heretical position.
Moreover, there is no question that the doctrine of conception
through the ear was widespread among orthodox Christians not only in
the patristic period but in the later Middle Ages as well. Many paintings
of the annunciation appear to reflect this belief rather clearly.10 More
important, there are unambiguous literary references to such a doctrine.
At least seven medieval hymns begin with the lines
It has been argued, in fact, that no less an authority than St. Bernard
refers to this belief,12 and even if symbolic interpretations can be read
into some of these remarks, it is clearly inadmissible to assume that
the Christian masses or the ordinary priest who heard such state-
ments would do anything other than take them literally.13 Consequently,
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
14 Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, ed. by J. Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 104. This section of
Joseph’s work had never been published before Rosenthal’s edition and was therefore
unavailable to Talmage. The belief that Jesus was conceived “through the brain” was also
reported by Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen in his Sefer [ha-]Nizzahon (written at the very
beginning of the fifteenth century; Amsterdam, 1709) section 8, p. 15a. He goes on to
argue that Jesus should have emerged through the same passageway, and yet no one has
ever maintained that the site of his birth was different from that of other infants.
15 See Jacob Arlow, “The Madonna’s Conception through the Eyes,” The Psychoanalytic Study
of Society 3 (1965): 13–25, esp. 20 (pointed out by my colleague at Brooklyn College, Prof.
Elizabeth Brown).
16 The work was published with a Latin translation by J. Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satanae
(Altdorf, 1681) 2. 1–260. On the date, see E. Urbach, “Études sur la littérature
polémique au moyen age,” Revue des Études Juives 100 (1935): 60, 76–77, and Rosenthal’s
introduction to Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 15. See also the introduction to my forthcoming
critical edition, translation and commentary.
— 213 —
The Middle Ages
that he was born out of the forehead of a harlot, for the verse says that he
was born out of a woman like all children; thus, your books lie when they
say that the spirit entered Mary.17
— 214 —
Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Exit through the forehead is, of course, not the same as exit through
the ear, and I am unaware of any heretical view which maintained the
former position. It is therefore highly probable that the passage in the
Nizzahon Vetus reflects a distorted awareness of the heretical doctrine of
aural exit. The distortion may be a result of Joseph Official’s reference to
entry through the forehead, or it may result from an uncontrollable urge
to use the insulting Biblical phrase “the forehead of a harlot” (Jeremiah
3:3) with respect to Mary; it is not even impossible that some heretics
could have distorted the doctrine themselves (influenced, perhaps, by the
myth of Athena’s birth) and that the Nizzahon Vetus, which is generally
quite reliable in its descriptions of Christian beliefs and ceremonies, may
be reporting such a heretical view accurately.
In any case, this passage indicates Jewish familiarity with a clearly
heretical doctrine. That such familiarity should be reflected in a late-
thirteenth-century work from Germany is somewhat surprising.
Nevertheless, heretics were to be found in northern France and Germany
in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries,20 and some of their
ideas could have become known to Jews. Otherwise, the argument may
have come north through the medium of Jewish polemic itself, but
whatever its source, it demonstrates some Jewish contact with Christian
heretics.
The second argument in the Vikkuah le-ha-Radaq which is supposed to
be directed against a heretical belief appears in the following passage:
It is well known to all, even to fools, that every woman from the age of
thirteen on undergoes menstruation, which is the period of the blood of
women in confinement which the woman experiences every month. When
she becomes pregnant, she does not have this blood, for the foetus is
nourished on this blood of confinement during the nine months he is in
the womb. Furthermore, when a woman gives birth, that menstrual blood
goes to the nipples of the woman several days later and turns into milk.
Therefore, when the child sucks the breasts of the mother, she does not
have this blood, since it went to the breasts, as we have said.
I shall make an additional point to you. Know that the menstrual blood
is a virtually fatal poison. Were a man to drink one cup of it, he would
die in a few days or succumb to leprosy, for it is blood which is foul and
impure. The wonders of the Lord are so great that the foetus is nourished
20 See A. Borst, Die Katharer (Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 103–104. Cf. also W. Wakefield and
A. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York, 1969), pp. 38–39.
— 215 —
The Middle Ages
on that blood for nine months without being harmed. However, it does
make the child somewhat weak, so that when he leaves the mother’s womb,
he does not have the strength to walk on his feet, since he was nourished
on that blood all those months he was in the womb. This is not the case
with the animals, for as soon as they leave their mother’s womb, they walk
on their feet. This is so because beasts and animals have no menstrual
blood and the foetus is nourished on the blood of the heart which is good,
healthy, clean blood. Therefore, when the [young of the animal] leaves
the womb of its mother, it walks on its feet immediately. If then Jesus’
mother conceived him by the holy spirit, so that he was not nourished in
his mother’s womb on that corrupt blood, he should have walked on his
feet the day he was born and he should have spoken and been as wise as
he was when he reached the age of thirty. Rather, he left [her body] from
the customary place, was small like other infants, and performed his needs
as do other children.21
The heretical doctrine at which this passage is allegedly aimed is the view
that Jesus did not partake of ordinary nourishment. Since this is so, he
would not have been nourished by menstrual blood and would therefore
have been born with the ability to walk and talk. Now, this interpretation
of the passage may be correct, but there exists an alternative explanation
which is at least equally reasonable that does not force us to assume any
knowledge of heretical beliefs.
The first crucial observation is that there is no intimation in this
passage that Jesus did not eat or drink after his birth. The author’s
reference to the transformation of menstrual blood into mother’s milk
is not intended to indicate that the milk is harmful or to show that Jesus’
failure to drink it (a heretical view) should have made him stronger than
the ordinary infant.22 The reason for that reference is quite different.
The author’s argument that the foetus is nourished by menstrual
blood depends upon the observation that menstruation stops during
pregnancy. He must therefore deal with the obvious objection that it
does not begin again immediately after childbirth, particularly when the
mother is nursing; his solution to this difficulty is the long-standing view
that the menstrual blood becomes milk, but there is no reason to believe
that it retains its harmful qualities after its transformation.
21 Talmage’s translation, pp. 341–342.
22 It is not quite clear to me whether Talmage understood the argument in this fashion. He
does express surprise (p. 328) that the author should consider mother’s milk harmful
when all other medieval writers praise its quality.
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
The only belief that the author assumes explicitly is that Jesus was not
nourished in the ordinary fashion while in the womb, and this, I think, was
his own deduction rather than his report of a known Christian doctrine.
The important clauses read, “If then Jesus’ mother conceived him by the
holy spirit, so that he was not nourished in his mother’s womb on that
corrupt blood . . . ” The second clause, which contains the heretical view,
is a logical inference from the doctrine that Mary conceived by the holy
spirit.23 The basis of this inference is fairly clear. Jews frequently asked
Christians why Jesus had to eat or drink if he was divine. After all, Moses
had been sustained without food by the Holy Spirit for forty days and
nights, and if Jesus possessed the Holy Spirit constantly, he should have
had no need of any physical nourishment.24 The only answer that a Jew
might grudgingly accept would be that Jesus made every effort to behave
like an ordinary mortal, and so he ate even though he did not have to do
so.25 But this makes sense only after birth; while in the womb, Jesus had
no conceivable reason for engaging in a totally useless enterprise, and the
author simply takes it for granted that Christians would recognize this.26
23 Talmage’s translation of the vav which introduces the second clause as “so that” is precisely
to the point. This is a corollary of the first clause rather than a continuing exposition of
the straightforward Christian position.
24 See Meir ben Simon of Narbonne (thirteenth century), Milhemet Mizvah, Parma
manuscript, 26b–27a, 89a–b; Nizzahon Vetus, Tela Ignea Satanae, pp. 213–215, 217–218,
224–226. The point was raised in connection with Matthew 4:2 in Jacob ben Reuben’s
Milhamot Hashem, ed. by J. Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1963), p. 144, and in the Nizzahon
Vetus, p. 200.
25 Such a Christian argument (although in a different context) is cited without direct
refutation in the Nizzahon Vetus, p. 173: “You may then argue that he prayed and cried
not because he wanted to be saved but because people normally pray when they are in
trouble; thus, he too prayed because he behaved like an ordinary mortal in every respect.”
Cf. Jerome, In Esaiam (Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 73A), p. 706.
26 For the argument that Jesus did not have to make pretenses in a private situation
involving only “himself and his Father,” see the Nizzahon Vetus, p. 60. The author there
is commenting on the Christian assertion that the addressee in Jeremiah 1 is Jesus (cf.
Cyprian’s Testimonia 15, PL 4: 691). If so, he argues, why does Jesus respond, “Ah, Lord
God, I cannot speak,” so that God must tell him, “Behold, I have put my words in your
mouth” (Jer. 1: 69)? “This implies,” he continues, “that up to that time he possessed no
such power of speech and certainly not divinity . . . Notice, then, their shame, for he was
supposed to have been divine from birth, yet Jeremiah says that the divine word was
granted him only now. If the Christian will respond by arguing that Jesus spoke this
way [reading amar ken with the Munich manuscript rather than amar lah ken] because of
his humility, refute him by asking why humility should be necessary in a conversation
between himself and his Father.”
— 217 —
The Middle Ages
27 “An Hebrew Polemical Treatise,” pp. 328–329. Cf. also H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of
the Church Fathers (2d ed.; Cambridge, Mass., 1964) 1. 364.
28 This last argument, based on Dan 8: 12 (“And it cast down the truth to the ground”),
was proposed by Meir of Narbonne, Milhemet Mizvah, Parma ms., 13b, 22b, 105b; cf.
also Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne, p. 113. For Jewish explanations of the exile in polemic, see
the additions to Joseph Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, in Milhemet Hovah, p. 36a, the Jew in the
Dialogus of Rupert of Deutz, PL 170: 606, the Nizzahon Vetus, pp. 253–257, and Solomon
de’ Rossi, ‘Edut Hashem Ne’emanah, in J. Rosenthal, Mehqarim u-Meqorot (Jerusalem,
1967) 1. 395–400 (= Sura 3 [1948]: 260–264.
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Moreover, how did he redeem the world by his advent? If you alone are
saved, a greater number than you have been damned (lit., lost), such as
29 This argument was applied to Ps 72: 11 by Jacob ben Reuben (Milhamot Hashem, p. 74),
Nahmanides (Vikkuah, in Ch. Chavel, Kitvei Ramban [Jerusalem, 1963] 1. 311), and the
author of the Nizzahon Vetus, p. 176. See also Meir of Narbonne, Milhemet Mizvah, Parma
ms., 13b, and Jacob ben Reuben, Milhamot Hashem, pp. 38–39, 114. Cf. especially the
Nizzahon Vetus, pp. 237–238.
30 “Cur etenim Deus, universitatis conditor, mundi totius gubernator . . . legem per Moysen
uni populo dedisse credatur, et non omnibus gentibus attribuisse dicatur?” Q. S. F. Tertu-
lliani Adversus Judaeos mit Einleitung und kritischem Kommentar, ed. by H. Tränkle
(Wiesbaden, 1964), p. 4 (= PL 2: 599).
31 That Christian miracles should have been more impressive was asserted in Meir of
Narbonne’s Milhemet Mizvah, Parma ms., 121a–b, in the Vikkuah le-ha-Radaq, Talmage’s
translation, pp. 345, 347, and in the Nizzahon Vetus, pp. 6, 90, 155, 159. The unfairness
of punishing someone who refused to believe in the divinity of Jesus was emphasized by
Joseph Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, Milhemet Hovah, p. 228.
32 Nizzahon Vetus, pp. 211, 234–235.
33 Ibid., p. 238.
— 219 —
The Middle Ages
Jews and Muslims who do not believe in him. Indeed, many have become
Albigensians (Albigois34) or Bogomils (Bougres), for (lit., and) they cannot
believe his shame, that he should disgrace himself by entering a woman
and having men prevail against him (lit., have power over him). The result
is that most of the world goes to hell through his advent.35
The heretical doctrines alluded to in this passage are the denial that God
entered a woman or that men prevailed against him. The pronouns are
ambiguous, and the sentence can even be read as a denial that Jesus
entered a woman or that men prevailed against him. I am quite convinced
that the first explanation is correct, but either one can yield an accurate
description of the beliefs of thirteenth-century occitanian heretics. The
Cathars believed that Jesus was not God but an angel; hence, God was
neither placed in a woman nor crucified. In a sense, these events were
not even applicable to Jesus, because his body was not real; consequently,
the crucifixion and even incarnation itself were illusions.36
Not only were these beliefs accurately perceived by Mordecai, they
are in fact at the center of heretical thought. A medieval writer could
easily have defended the statement that people became heretics because
of an unwillingness to accept demeaning doctrines about God, and here
this assertion is used against the Orthodox Church. Christians are not
only outnumbered by a combination of Jews and Muslims, but Christian
heretics must also be counted among the unredeemed. For a thirteenth-
century writer living in southern France, no argument could have been
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
37 On the date and place, see Rosenthal’s introduction to his edition of Milhamot Hashem
(Jerusalem, 1963). The problems cited by Ch. Merhavya (Kirjath Sepher 39 [1964]: 144–
148) are not sufficient, in my opinion, to cast substantial doubt upon the 1170 date in the
colophon. On the translations from Matthew, see Rosenthal’s “Targum shel ha-Besorah
‘al Pi Matti le-Ya‘aqov ben Reuven,” Tarbiz 32 (1962): 48–66, and on the translation from
Crispin, see my “Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben: A Study in the
Transmission of Medieval Polemic,” Speculum 49 (1974): 34–47.
— 221 —
The Middle Ages
their own words they believe in a God in whom there exist two principles—
good and evil. Now, one who makes evil has evil in him, as I have shown
you on the basis of their type of faith and through that which they concede
and believe. I have therefore said that your (read: their?) words have no
foundation and that faith has been lost and cut off from their mouths.38
38 Milhamot Hashem, pp. 116–117. I have tried to provide an extremely literal translation.
Despite Merhavya’s suggestion to the contrary (op. cit., pp. 146–147), it is quite clear that
this Paul, who is a contemporary of the author, is not the same as the Paul mentioned
in several earlier passages of Milhamot Hashem. Even if that Paul is not the apostle (and
he probably is), he is certainly no contemporary of the disputants since he is mentioned
along with Jerome and Augustine as one of the founders of the Christian faith (p. 5).
39 Whatever dualist elements may have influenced early Christianity (see Rosenthal’s note
ad loc.), it was clearly unacceptable for a twelfth-century Christian to say that there is evil
in God.
40 See Borst, Die Katharer, pp. 89–108. Cf. also Russell, Dissent and Reform, p. 200, and
R. I. Moore, “The Origins of Medieval Heresy,” History 55 (1970): 23.
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Paul continued and said: I truly know that the Jews believe in him who is
the Lord, God, Almighty, true, and living, as it is written, “The Lord is the
true God; he is the living God and eternal king” (Jeremiah 10:10). And
[they believe in him who is] mighty and powerful, as it is written, “Through
his great might, his might and power” (Isaiah 40:26). [They] also [believe]
in him who is “merciful and compassionate, forbearing and constant in
his love” (Psalms 145:8). Now, I know that he is not true by partaking
of truth, so that truth would be something other than he; nor does he
live by partaking of life as man does, who is alive at one time and dead
at another; nor is he powerful by partaking of power as man is, who is
powerful at one time and weak at another. The creator, blessed be he, is
not that way. Rather, his essence is truth, and his essence is life, and his
essence is power, and his essence is merciful, and his essence is God, and
his essence is Almighty, and the same is true of all the names that apply
to him. Moreover, we certainly know that the principle of strength is not
merciful, and the principle “merciful” is not strength, and the principle of
life is not truth; even though truth cannot exist without life, life exists as
a principle without truth. Thus, each of them is a principle in itself, and
each one is the basic essence of the creator, blessed be he. Since this is so,
it follows that the one in whom you believe is more than one, for his basic
essence includes all these things. Now, there is no one who does not believe
that he is the Lord, God, Almighty, merciful, compassionate, and living; and
each of these is a principle in itself. This is the truth.43
— 223 —
The Middle Ages
This second objection is only slightly less suspicious than the first.
Once again, Paul presents a position that is almost incredible coming
from an orthodox Christian and is, in fact, a common Jewish and Muslim
argument against Christianity.
In this period, Christians often explained the trinity in terms of
divine attributes. The identification of the trinity with power, wisdom,
and will, or essence, wisdom, and will, is frequently represented in the
polemical literature of the period, and Jewish writers cite this argument
all the time.44 Both Jews and Muslims responded with a philosophical
explanation of attributes designed to undermine this assertion,45 but
they also did something else which was far simpler and probably more
effective. God, they said, has more than three attributes.46
Paul’s argument, then, is once again most peculiar. He asserts that
divine attributes imply a multiplicity of some sort within God, but it
is a multiplicity of more than three. The only difference between his
argument and that of Jewish polemicists is that he purports to believe
in such multiplicity while Jews explicitly assert it just for the sake of
argument. By purporting to believe in it, Paul can claim to be attacking
the Jewish belief in the absolute unity of God, but the effect of his
argument is to undermine the standard philosophical interpretation of
the trinity as well. Now, Cathars probably did not believe in this kind of
multiplicity within God, but they did not believe in the trinity either,47
and this sort of argument may well have been designed to erode the faith
of the orthodox Christian in the trinity.48
44 See Meir of Narbonne, Milhemet Mizvah, Parma ms., 30a–b, 49b–50a, 99a–101a; Moses
of Salerno, Ta‘anot, in S. Simon, Mose ben Salomo von Salerno und seine philosophische
Auseinandersetzung mit den Lehren des Christentums (Breslau, 1932), Hebrew section,
pp. 6, 15; Nahmanides, Vikkuah, Kitvei Ramban, p. 320; Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogus, PL 157:
606ff. On the early formulation of this interpretation of the trinity, see H. Wolfson,
“The Muslim Attributes and the Christian Trinity,” HTR 49 (1956): 1–18.
45 See the references in Rosenthal’s notes ad loc. Cf. also Nahmanides’ Vikkuah, p. 320.
46 See Simon, Mose ben Salomo von Salerno (Heb. sec.), p. 6, and Nahmanides’ Vikkuah, loc.
cit. Baron (op. cit., p. 85), while incorrectly stating that Nahmanides did not use this
argument, refers to it as a “long-debated” matter. The extension of alleged Trinitarian
references in the Bible beyond three was also a rather common Jewish approach; see
appendix 1 of my forthcoming edition of the Nizzahon Vetus.
47 See the references in note 36, and cf. also S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge,
1947), pp. 148–149, and C. Thouzellier, Catharisme et Valdéisme en Languedoc à la Fin du
XIIe et au Début du XIIIe Siècle (Paris, 1966), p. 61.
48 It might be argued that all Paul meant is that Jews who maintain that there are more than
three attributes must believe in extensive multiplicity within God; he himself, however,
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Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
believes in only three hypostases. Aside from the fact that he never says this explicitly,
his final comment that “there is no one (ein ehad mi-kol ha-nivra’im) who does not believe”
in all these attributes as well as his remark that “this is the truth” make such a position
very difficult to maintain. If Paul was a concealed heretic, these last remarks might have
been insincere, but if he was an orthodox Christian, he should not have expressed himself
in such a fashion.
Moreover, it should be noted that Paul’s assertion of divine multiplicity in connection
with the attributes of God (or, if our suspicions are correct, in connection with the
attributes of the good God) is analogous to the reported views of a thirteenth-century
heresiarch with respect to the evil god; in light of this, it is altogether possible that
Paul meant what he said. According to the Summa of Rainerius Sacconi, John of Lugio
maintained that “the first principle of evil is called by many names in the Holy Scriptures.
It is called malice, iniquity, cupidity, impiety, sin, pride, death, hell, calumny, vanity,
injustice, perdition, confusion, corruption, and fornication. And he also says that all the
evils named are gods or goddesses, that they have their being from the malice which, he
asserts, is a first cause, and that this first cause is signified from time to time by the vices
named” (Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, p. 339.
49 Milhamot Hashem, p. 118.
50 In light of the paucity of heretical texts from the middle ages, it seems worthwhile to
point out explicitly that if this suggestion is correct, Jacob ben Reuben has indirectly
provided what is in effect a medieval heretical document from a relatively early period.
51 Cf. note 19.
— 225 —
The Middle Ages
Addendum 2:
For further comment on this manuscript, see note 104 of my Introduction
to The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages reprinted in this
volume.
— 226 —
GILBERT CRISPIN, ALAN OF LILLE,
AND JACOB BEN REUBEN
A Study in the Transmission of Medieval Polemic
One of the most influential medieval polemics against the Jews was
Gilbert Crispin’s Disputatio Iudaei et Christiani, which was written in
the late eleventh century and may reflect a genuine discussion between
Crispin and a Jewish disputant.1 However, the dependence of the third
book of Alan of Lille’s Contra Haereticos2 upon Crispin’s disputation has
not been widely recognized. Blumenkranz, for example, in discussing the
impact of Crispin’s work in the twelfth century, noted the resemblance
between the Disputatio and the Dialogus inter Christianum et Iudaeum
ascribed to William of Champeaux,3 but made no mention of the far closer
relationship between Crispin and Alan.4 Vasoli, in a special study of the
Contra Haereticos, also overlooked the major source of book three.5 Even
d’Alverny, who noted the relationship between the two works, did not
give a precise indication of its extent. Alan, she writes, “was inspired in
large measure by the Disputatio of Gilbert Crispin and reproduced entire
1 The work was edited by B. Blumenkranz (Utrecht, 1956) = PL 259: 1005–1086. (All refe-
rences will be to Blumenkranz’s edition.) See also Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs Chrétiens
Latins du Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le Judaisme (Paris, La Haye, 1962), pp. 279–287.
2 De Fide Catholica Contra Haereticos, PL 210: 305–480 (Liber Tertia Contra Judeaos, cc. 399–
422). On its late twelfth century date, see below, note 23.
3 PL 163: 1045–1072.
4 Disputatio, introd., p. 17. Blumenkranz’s comments are very similar to those of J. de
Ghellinck, L’essor de la Littérature Latine au XIIe Siècle (Paris, 1946), p. 164.
5 Cesare Vasoli, “Il Contra Haereticos di Alano di Lilla,” Bulletino dell’ Istituto Storico Italiano
per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano 75 (1968): 123–172, esp. 171–172.
— 227 —
The Middle Ages
passages of this work.”6 In fact, just under forty percent of Alan’s polemic
is copied almost word for word from Crispin or a previous digest of Crispin.
The following table indicates the passages which Alan copied:
Alan (PL 210) Crispin (Blumenkranz’s ed.)
Column 401. Lines 16–227 = Page 33. Lines 15–19
407.20–409.13 = 28.12–33.8
409.14–410.6 = 34.30–36.23
410.43–411.9 = 34.7–28
411.12–53 = 37.9–39.4
413.38–414.5 = 43.7–26
414.20–43 = 46.13–47.4
416.8–22 = 59.7–60.18
416.30–417.24 = 51.17–52.24
418.14–419.48 = 48.12–50.339
6 Marie-Therese d’Alverny, Alain de Lille: Textes Inédits, avec une introduction sur sa vie et ses
oeuvres (Paris, 1965), p. 161.
7 In determining line numbers in PL, the lines in chapter headings have been counted.
8 This passage contains an alleged Jewish suggestion that the famous ‘almah of Isaiah 7:14
means hidden (abscondita). See also Crispin, p. 55, and Alan, c. 415. R. Werblowsky has
presented an interesting argument that this is not a genuine Jewish interpretation and
that it raises serious questions about the genuineness of the discussion in Crispin’s work;
see his “Crispin’s Disputation,” Journal of Jewish Studies 11 (1960): 69–77. It is, of course,
not impossible that a Jew should have presented such an interpretation even though
it is not attested in Jewish sources, but it is certainly true that the references to this
interpretation in Alan and in Peter of Blois’ Contra Perfidiam Judaeorum, PL 207: 841
(neither of which is noted by Werblowsky) are a reflection of Crispin and not of actual
Jewish arguments.
9 It is possible that Alan 404.24–29 is based upon Crispin 52.26–53.2, but this may be
coincidence.
10 In the first parallel passage, for example, Alan’s “nugantes” (401.18) is probably
a corruption of the phrase in Crispin (33.16–17) in which “negando” appears. See also
below, note 32.
— 228 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
— 229 —
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Hebrew before 1170, and thus Jacob may own the twin distinctions of
being the first Jew to translate both a substantial passage of a medieval
Latin work and sections of the Latin New Testament into Hebrew.16
In his introduction, Jacob ben Reuben informs us that his Christian
interlocutor “took in his hand a book by the scholars of their early
generations who established their error (i.e., Christianity) firmly.
These were three authors; the first was Jerome, the second Augustine,
and the third Paul. These three founded, sought out, and established
(cf. Ecc. xii 9) the basis of the entire error and set it up. But Gregory
prepared instruments for them” (i.e., he added to the system founded
by the other three).17 Now, this statement could refer to a manuscript
containing three separate books, but this does not seem likely. First of
all, the reference to a book (lit., “one book”) does not really give such
an impression. Secondly, a manuscript containing a work of Jerome
followed by a work of Augustine followed by a Pauline epistle would be
rather surprising. Thirdly, the reference to Gregory leaves an ambiguity
as to whether or not he too was represented in this “book.” In addition,
Jacob ben Reuben later quotes a passage from Paul which is nowhere in
the New Testament and a passage from Jerome which neither the editor
of Milhamot Hashem nor I have been able to locate in Jerome’s works.18
— 230 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
Finally and most important, the material from Crispin shows either that
Jacob’s disputant provided him with an additional book that we were
not told about in the introduction or that the same book contained
this material as well, and there is a concrete indication that the latter
alternative is the correct one. One of the selections from Crispin is
repeated, and its second appearance (where the language is closest to
that of our Latin text) is separated from the main body of the Crispin
passage by the quotation from “Jerome” and is followed immediately
by the quotation from “Paul.”19 On balance, then, it appears likely that
the book shown to Jacob was a collection of polemical and exegetical
material taken from various authors which did not always identify
its sources and which occasionally contained inaccurate ascriptions.
The possibility that Alan of Lille used a source similar to that of Jacob
ben Reuben cannot be dismissed out of hand; in any event, there is
concrete evidence for believing that Jacob’s text sheds light on otherwise
unattested readings in Alan’s source, although the relationship between
their texts is certainly more hypothetical than the clearcut citations of
Crispin in Milhamot Hashem.
The passage translated by Jacob contains a short introduction, four
questions intended to prove the necessity of allegorical interpretation,
and a concluding paragraph.
Introductory Passage
Crispin (p. 29):
Primum itaque legem bonam et a deo datam dicimus, tenemus,
astruimus. Ac proinde, quicquid in ea scriptum est, diuino sensu intellectum
suis temporibus obseruatum et obseruandum esse sancimus. Diuino
quidem sensu legis mandata intelligenda esse dicimus, quia, si humano ea
omnia sensu et ad litteram accipimus, multa sibi inuicem aduersantia et
multum repugnantia uidemus.
— 231 —
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— 232 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
Question 1
Crispin (pp. 29–30):
Cum enim peracta creatione mundi Moyses dicat: Vidit deus cuncta
que fecerat et erant ualde bona, quomodo in discretione animalium postea
scribit hec munda et illa animalia esse inmunda, his uti permittit, illa non
solum tangere, sed eum, qui tetigerit, morte multari et puniri mandat?
Quod enim est inmundum, quomodo est ualde bonum? Vbi enim cuncta
nominauit et ualde bona esse cuncta dixit, neque hoc neque illud animal
excepit. Quomodo igitur deus cuncta creauit ualde bona animalia, et postea
uetat comedi hec uel illa animalia, et causam reddit dicens, ea esse inmunda
animalia? Nec solum ea prohibuit, que sui natura homini ad uescendum
noxia sunt, uerum et multa, que gustu iocunda et usu eque salubria ad
comedendum existunt. Aliquid ergo sacramenti hec in se continent, que
licet a deo dicta sint tamen a se ad litteram inuicem omnino dissident.
which Alan omitted, is a further indication that he did not use Contra Haereticos or any
work dependent upon it. (The fact that Alan’s work is a product of his stay in southern
France is also relevant to the suggestion of a relationship between his text and the one
used by Jacob.)
— 233 —
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very good,” once he said “very good” he did not leave anything out. Now,
if you examine the Torah according to the letter alone, you should wonder
how the creator could have made all the animals “very good” and then
declared some pure and others impure. And he did not declare those
animals impure which are harmful to man by nature; rather, he prohibited
many which are very good to eat. Consequently, we should understand
some symbol and allegory in these words. Even though God said them,
according to the letter their meanings are inconsistent with one another
in accordance with the shell of the statement. It is therefore proper for
a man to go into the matter deeply, to penetrate the depths of the intellect,
and to reach the heights of knowledge.24
— 234 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
— 235 —
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28 See the Dialogus inter Christianum et Iudaeum aschribed to William of Champeaux, PL 163:
1048–1049:
Christ. Propono te tenere nucem in manu tua.
Jud. Fiat, teneo nucem.
Christ. Si hanc nucem infractam ederes, forsitan te strangulares.
Jud. Utique cito contingeret.
Christ. Ergo nux integra non est bona ad comedendum.
Jud. Utique.
Christ. Prius ergo oportet testam frangere et sic pervenire ad nucleum.
Jud. Nullatenus aliter esse potest.
Christ. Audi igitur: non potes nucem integram edere utiliter, nec pervenire ad nucleum
nisi prius testa fragatur, sicut non potes pervenire ad novam legem nisi vetus lex
conquassetur.
29 The elimination of “invicem” does not distort the remainder of the sentence because
“a se” alone is sufficient to convey the meaning “from one another.”
— 236 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
Question 2
Crispin (p. 30):
Item scimus quia dixit deus ad Adam: Ecce, dedi uobis omnem herbam
afferentem semen super terram et uniuersa ligna, que habent in semetipsis
sementem generis sui, ut sint uobis in escam. Qua igitur ratione deus dedit
primo homini uniuersa ligna in escam et statim postea prohibuit, ne de
ligno scientie boni et mali sumat in escam? Vbi uniuersaliter uniuersa ligna
concessa homini commendat, nullum exceptum lignum fuisse insinuat.
Non igitur absque mysterio id aecipiendum est.
Alan:
Omitted.
30 Ki ken ra’inu she-katav Mosheh be-sefer Bereshit asher amar ha-bore la-adam: Mikol‘ez ha-
gan akhol tokhel, ve-ka’asher amar lo mikol ‘ez ha-gan lo shiyyer kelum velo mana‘ mimmennu
davar akh she-hittir lo ha-kol ke-hefzo. U-va-miqra ha-sheni amar elav: U-me-‘ez ha-da‘at
tov va-ra‘ lo tokhal mimmennu ki be-yom akhalekha mimmennu mot tamut. Ve-‘attah re’eh
ve-hitbonen ve-sim libbekha le-davar zeh, im lo naskil ba-miqra’ot ha-elleh akh ke-fi ha-
mikhtav, eikh tukhal leyasher et shenehem be-derekh yesharah? She-harei ‘einekha ro’ot, im
tahpoz lehodot ‘al ha-emet, ki be-emor ha-bore el ha-adam, Mi-kol ‘ez ha-gan akhol tokhel,
keivan she-amar mi-kol ha-‘ez lo hinniah‘ez ehad mi-kol ‘azei ha-gan lerabbot, ve-aharei ken
hizhiro ‘al ‘ez ha-da‘at tov va-ra‘ she-hayah bi-kelal she’ar ‘azei ha-gan she-huttar lo. Al ken
amarti she-nittenah ha-torah lehaskil ‘inyanim aherim u-panim aherot she-lo nir’eh la-‘ayin
min ha-katuv.
— 237 —
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The essential argument here is that God first gave man all trees for food
and then apparently contradicted himself by prohibiting the fruit of the
tree of knowledge. The precise texts, however, are somewhat different,
and the major difference may give us a clue as to why Alan omitted this
argument entirely.
The verse quoted by Crispin to show that Adam was given all trees for
food is Genesis 1: 29; in Genesis 2: 17, however, the tree of knowledge is
forbidden. This, Crispin argues, constitutes a contradiction. In Milhamot
Hashem, on the other hand, the verse cited to show that all trees were
permitted to Adam is Genesis 2: 16 (“You may eat of all the trees of the
garden”); the alleged contradiction is, therefore, in the very next verse,
which prohibits eating from the tree of knowledge.
There is little doubt that the text used by Jacob reflects the efforts of
an overly eager copyist (influenced, perhaps, by Crispin’s “statim postea
prohibuit”) to “improve” his text by making the contradiction come
immediately after the first verse quoted. The truth is, of course, that this
change completely vitiated whatever force the original question may have
had, because the obvious response is that Gen. 2: 17 does not contradict
but simply qualifies 2: 16. As Jacob points out in his answer, you simply
cannot write two things at the same time.31
Now, Alan of Lille was not in the habit of omitting significant sections
in the middle of a passage that he copied, and his omission of one of
Crispin’s four questions is very peculiar. This omission, however, can be
explained very easily if we assume that Alan had before him the same
text as Jacob ben Reuben. He left out this question because, in the form
in which he had it, it was simply ridiculous.
Question 3
Crispin (pp. 80–81):
In Exodo, inter alia precepta de faciendo altari, dominus Moysi ita
precepit: Altare de terra facietis mihi et offeretis super illud holocausta et
pacifica uestra. Et de qua materie alia fieri liceret et quomodo, ita subdidit:
Quod si de lapidibus illud edificare uolueris, de non sectis lapidibus illud
edificabis. In expletione autem tabernaculi et uasorum atque utensilium
tabernaculi ita legitur: Fecit Moyses altare thimiamatis de lignis sethim
habens per quadrum singulos cubitos et in altitudine duos. Et post pauca:
— 238 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
— 239 —
The Middle Ages
for what reason did he make one a cubit in length and a cubit in breadth,
foursquare, and the other five cubits in length and five cubits in breadth?
Now, this is a very difficult thing, that we should say of Moses, who was the
most faithful of all the prophets, that he did that which the creator did not
command him. If you will argue that the creator did command him to do
this but it was not recorded since Scripture is generally concise, then this
matter would be even more difficult, for we would be asserting that the
creator, blessed be he, goes back on his word. I have therefore told you that
everything is to be understood allegorically and not in accordance with the
letter at all, lest we lose our way and walk in darkness.33
The basic elements of this question are that God commanded Moses to
make an altar of earth (Exodus 20: 21–22), and yet Moses later made
altars of wood and metal (Exodus 37: 25; 38: 1–2; 40: 4–5). With some
changes in order and with the elaboration of an argument implicit in the
Disputatio, Jacob ben Reuben’s text is very close to that of Crispin. Alan’s
shorter version is probably his own condensation of the essential points
of the argument.
Question 4
Crispin (p. 31):
Rursum, cum ea omnia humanis usibus deum creasse Moyses dicat,
eaque omnia homini subdidisse comemoret, ut presit, inquit, piscibus maris,
uolatilibus celi, animantibus terre et omni reptili quod mouetur in terra,
33 ‘Od zivvah ha-bore le-Mosheh bi-she’ar ha-huqqim: Mizbah adamah ta‘aseh li ve-zavahta
‘alav et ‘olotekha ve-et shelamekha, ve-sham moreh ‘alav be-eizeh ‘inyan ya‘aseh kol ha-
mizbehot ha-aherim asher ya‘aseh, kemo she-katuv, Ve-im mizbah avanim ta‘aseh li lo tivneh
ethen gazit. Ve-ka’asher higgia‘ le-ma‘aseh ha-mishkan ba Mosheh ve-‘asah mizbah ha-zahav
umizbah ha-nehoshet. U-ba-mizbeah ha-ehad omer: Va-ya‘as et mizbah ha-qetoret ‘azei shittim
ammah orko ve-ammah rohbo ravua‘ ve-ammatayim qomato mimmennu hayu qarnotav va-
yezaf oto zahav tahor. Ve-aharei ken amar: Va-ya‘as et mizbah ha-‘olah ‘azei shittim hamesh
ammot orko ve-hamesh ammot rohbo ravua‘ ve-shalosh ammot qomato va-ya ‘as qarnotav
‘al arba‘ pinnotav mimmennu hayu qarnotav vayezaf oto nehoshet. U-mi-kol zeh ani sho’el
elekha lammah ‘asah Mosheh ken. She-kevar ra’iti she-’amar elav ha-bore, Mizbah adamah
ta‘aseh li, ve-ra’iti she-hizhiro, Ve-im mizbah avanim ta‘aseh li lo tivneh ethen gazit. Ve-aharei
ken mah ra’ah Mosheh she-‘asah et kol elleh? U-me-eizeh ta‘am ‘asah ha-ehad ammah orko
ve-ammah rohbo ravua‘, ve-ha-ehad hamesh ammot orko ve-hamesh ammot rohbo? Ve-davar
qasheh hu me’od she-nomar mi-Mosheh she-hayah navi ne’eman ‘al kol ha-nevi’im she-
ya‘aseh mah she-lo zivvahu ha-bore. Ve-im tomar she-habore zivvahu ve-lo nikhtav, ve-derekh
ha-katuv leqazzer, kol she-ken yiqsheh ha-davar yoter, ki nomar me-habore she-yahazor be-
dibburo. ‘Al ken amarti elekha she-ha-kol nittan lehavin be-‘inyan mashal ve-lo ke-fi ha-mikhtav
kelal, pen nit‘eh ba-nativ ve-nelekh ba-hoshekh.
— 240 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
cur postea uetat, ne homo aret in boue et asino? Onus aliud, quodcunque
tibi placet, asino imponere licet, et ponere iugum boui cum asino quare
non licet? Ad pascua ducere bouem cum asino licebit, in pascuis ea simul
esse et conpasci lex permittit, et arare ea simul prohibet et interdicit. Si
autem propterea uetat, quia hoc animal inmundum lex dicit, quare circa
illud cetera, que dicta sunt, permittit, solum arare excipit? Equus in lege
animal inmundum esse perhibetur et alia multa, nec tamen arare bouem
cum equo uel alio animali inmundo in lege prohibetur.
34 This passage from Milhamot Hashem is taken from the section which presumably gives
the Christian interpretation of these verses; in fact, the Christian question is reiterated
here in a form closer to that of Crispin and Alan than the form in which it first appears
in Milhamot Hashem (p. 26). Even Jacob’s initial formulation, however, is quite close to
the text given here.
35 Amar ha-bore, Lo taharosh be-shor u-va-hamor yahdav, ve-asar ha-harishah levad, u-le-‘inyan
massa aher lo has ha-bore ‘alav, akh le-’inyan ‘ol asar lekha shelo tiqshor oto ‘im ha-hamor.
Aval ka-’asher yir‘u hittir lekha she-yihyu ha-shor ve-ha-hamor yahdav, u-be-‘et ha-harishah
hu issur gadol. Ve-im ne’esar lekha ha-hamor me’et ha-bore ba‘avur she-hi behemah teme’ah,
maddua‘ hittir sheyir‘u yahdav ha-shor ve-ha-hamor? Hayah lo le’esor afilu ha-ma‘mad ve-ha-
mir‘eh, velo asar ki im ha-harishah levaddah. U-me-ha-sus amrah ha-torah she-hi behemah
teme’ah u-me-ha-pered u-mi-behemot aherot rabbot, ve-’af ‘al pi ken lo asaram ha-bore laharosh
‘im shor ve-shor ‘im behemah aheret huz me-ha-hamor.
— 241 —
The Middle Ages
In Crispin, this is a two-part argument. First of all, the Bible says that
man would rule over the animals of the earth (Genesis 1: 26), and then
it prohibits plowing with an ox and an ass together (Deuteronomy 22:
10). This is an alleged contradiction of the sort that this passage has
been discussing all along. Crispin then continues with a series of logical
arguments designed to show that the prohibition in Deuteronomy is
inherently implausible. Why is only plowing prohibited? And if an ox
may not plow with an ass because the latter is an impure animal, why
was the ass singled out? There are, after all, quite a number of additional
impure animals.
Both Jacob and Alan present only the logical arguments and omit
the contradiction entirely. Here again Jacob’s text probably reveals that
the citation of Genesis 1: 26 was missing from Alan’s source. This would
have been a reasonable conjecture even without Jacob’s translation; it
is, after all, unlikely that Alan would have omitted the contradiction on
his own since the basic character of this passage leads one to expect
the citation of contradictions. Nevertheless, it is only Milhamot Hashem
which enables us to make this assertion with some confidence.36
Concluding Passage
Crispin (pp. 31–32)
Hanc non solum in his que dicta sunt mandatis, sed in quampluribus
aliis legalibus cerimoniis contrarietatem uidemus, nisi ea conpetenti
sensu intellexerimus. Discreto itaque et diuino sensu hec discutienda et
intelligenda sunt, quia fieri non potest, ut ad litteram sumpta ea omnia
impleantur. Si uero legem debito sensu accipimus, omnia legis mandata
debita obseruatione obseruare poterimus, quedam ad litteram et sine
ullo figurarum uelamine dicta esse accipiendo, quedam uero ad figuram
et profundo figurarum uelamine adumbrata esse intelligendo. Quedam ad
tempus obseruari iussa sunt, quedam sine ulla temporum determinatione
obseruanda sunt. Que enim sacramenti alicuius prenunciatiua erant
et ueritatis future figura, suo tempore manifestata rei atque ueritatis
presentia, oportuit, ut eorum remaneret prenunciatio et figura. Nam
sicut ipso usu loquendi uerborum utimur uicissitudinibus, dicendo ‘erit’,
quamdiu futurum est, et ipsum ‘erit’ prorsus omittentes in presenti ‘est’
— 242 —
Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben
37 Ve-ki-devarim elleh she-hem teimah yesh be-rov meqomot be-torat Mosheh. ‘Al ken ya’ut
lefaresh u-lehavin me-‘omeq sekhel ha-adam, ki im lo nitbonen bo raq ke-fi ha-mikhtav, lo
yitqayyem le-‘olam. Akh im naskil ha-torah asher ya’ut lehaskil, nukhal leqayyem kol ha-mizvot
kullan ka’asher hen, ha-aherot beli shum dimyon ba-‘olam ka’asher hen ketuvot, ve-ha-aherot
— 243 —
The Middle Ages
be-mashal ve-dimyon. Ha-aherot niztavvu lishmor kol ha-yamim, she-ein lahem zeman,
ve-ha-aherot niztavvu lishmor li-zeman qavua‘. Ve-otan she-niztavvu li-zeman qavua‘, ahar
she-‘avar ha-zeman nitbattelah ha-mizvah, kemo she-adam ragil lomar mi-davar she-‘atid
lihyot “yihyeh,” she-‘adayin lo ba, ve-ahar she-ba shav ha-davar lihyot “hayah.” Ve-ken rov
ha-mizvot she-ne’emru be-torat Mosheh li-zeman qavua‘, ahar she-‘avar ha-zeman din hu
she-yevattelu otam.
38 Cf. Eucher of Lyon, PL 50: 781, and Leo the Great, PL 54: 88–89. For the Jewish argument
against allegory, see appendix 3 of my dissertation, The Nizzahon Vetus: A Critical Edition,
with an Introduction and Commentary on the First Part, Columbia University, 1970.
— 244 —
THE ATTITUDE OF ST. BERNARD OF
CLAIRVAUX TOWARD THE JEWS
— 245 —
The Middle Ages
“not a single word (in Bernard’s works) suggests the possibility of friendly
personal relations with them.”1 Stephen Harding, Bernard’s predecessor
as head of the Cistercian movement, had used rabbis to help him with
textual problems in the Hebrew scriptures, but there is no evidence at
all that Bernard continued this practice, and there are some positive
indications that he did not do so systematically.2
Consequently, his action during the one time of his life when he was
faced with a Jewish crisis is reflective of the effects of official Christian
theology rather than of any personal relationship with Jews. This action
came during the preparations for the second crusade, a crusade that
was preached by Bernard, when a Cistercian monk named Radulph
left his monastery and began encouraging the mobs to massacre Jews.
Bernard heeded an urgent appeal and wrote a number of letters opposing
Radulph; ultimately, he even preached to the mobs in order to prevent
the massacres.
Part of the texts of Bernard’s letters at this time will serve as
an excellent basis for a discussion of some of his central positions on
Jewish questions:
For the rest, not I but the Apostle warns you, brethren, not to believe every
spirit. I have heard with great joy of the zeal for God’s glory which burns
in your midst, but your zeal needs the timely restraint of knowledge. The
Jews are not to be persecuted, killed, or even put to flight. Ask anyone who
knows Sacred Scripture what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm.
‘Not for their destruction do I pray,’ it says. The Jews are for us the living
words of Scripture, for they remind us of what our Lord suffered. They are
dispersed all over the world so that by suffering for their crime they may be
everywhere the living witnesses of our redemption. Hence the same Psalm
adds, ‘only let thy power disperse them.’ And so it is: dispersed they are.
Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but ‘they only wait
for the time of their deliverance.’ Finally, we are told by the Apostle that
— 246 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
when the time is ripe all Israel shall be saved. But those who die before will
remain in death . . . . If the Jews are utterly wiped out [or ‘ground down’—
conterantur], what will become of our hope for their promised salvation,
their eventual conversion? If the pagans were similarly subjugated to us,
then, in my opinion, we should wait for them rather than seek them out
with swords. But as they have now begun to attack us, it is necessary for
those of us who do not carry a sword in vain to repel them with force. It
is an act of Christian piety both to ‘vanquish the proud’ and also to ‘spare
the subjected’, especially those for whom we have a law and a promise,
and whose flesh was shared by Christ whose name be forever blessed.3
— 247 —
The Middle Ages
this he follows the rather obvious insight of Gregory I that only preaching
can effect a sincere conversion.6 However, there is a second, less tolerant
step in the reasoning associated with this position. Two sermons later,7
Bernard adds that though faith is produced by persuasion and not by force,
it is better to coerce heretics at sword point than to permit them to “draw
away many other persons into their error.” This is similar to his argument
in Ep. 363 with regard to pagans although there he refers to military
attacks rather than pagan persuasion. Thus, the logical consideration
operates to grant toleration only to docile pagans and heretics. When they
become militant or troublesome, they are to be “coerced by the sword.”
The Jews, however, are protected not only by logical argument
but also by Biblical injunction. What, may we ask, would be the status
of a Jewish people which was attracting Christians away from their
faith? Would the Biblical requirement that Jews be tolerated also fall
before the fear that they would “draw away many other persons into
their error”? There is a passage in his De Consideratione8 where Bernard
implies that the Bible would prevail: “Let them [heretics], I say, either be
corrected by your zeal in this way lest they perish or be coerced lest they
destroy others.” He then goes on, apparently dealing with a situation in
which they might “destroy others,” and says: “But concerning the Jews,
time excuses you: They have their own end which cannot be brought
earlier. The fulness of the nations must precede it.” This is a radical
statement of extreme toleration.
Whether or not Bernard would have maintained such a position in
the face of a proselytizing Judaism is surely open to question, but the fact
remains that his actual statements in this area are extremely tolerant,
especially when we compare them with his attitude toward pagans. He
writes in a letter, “We utterly forbid that for any reason whatsoever
a truce should be made with these peoples [Eastern European pagans]
... until such a time as, by God’s help, they shall be either converted or
wiped out.”9 In another letter, after quoting the very verse about putting
away the sword which he used in letter 365 to defend the Jews, he argues
6 Gregory’s Epist. 1.47. Cf. James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue
(Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia, 1961), p. 211.
7 SCC 66.12, LTR, II, p. 187, Eales, IV, p. 407.
8 III. 1.3, Mabillon, c. 433 = PL 182: 759 = J. Leclerq & H. M. Rochais, S. Bernardi Opera III
(Rome, 1963), p. 433.
9 Epist. 467 (394, p. 467).
— 248 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
that it must sometimes be overridden. “I believe that the time has come
for both swords to be drawn in defense of the Eastern Church.”10
Bernard’s letter on the Jews, then, distinguishes them favorably from
the pagans and was at least partially effective in halting the massacres.
His activity on behalf of the Jews was not forgotten by the beneficiaries,
and both the twelfth-century Ephraim of Bonn and the sixteenth-century
Yosef ha-Kohen refer to his actions with varying degrees of enthusiasm.11
Malcolm Hay, however, has recently proferred a much less favorable
appraisal of Bernard’s action in this matter.12 He emphasizes the fact that
Bernard’s reasons for opposing the massacres were not humanitarian but
theological, and his language in condemning Radulph is scarcely as strong
as it could and should have been. When he condemned the murder of
a Christian, Master Thomas, he was far more indignant than he was on this
occasion. Furthermore, he ended his letter by freeing all crusaders from
exactions of usury,13 a “consolation,” says Hay, “for recruits who were now
forbidden to exercise their swordsmanship upon defenseless civilians.” It
should be added that there is no clearcut evidence for Graetz’ apologia
that Bernard was forced to remit the interest by Papal pressure.14
The fact is, however, that Hay’s strictures are more a condemnation
of medieval anti-Semitism generally than they are of Bernard. Few
medieval leaders waxed eloquent over their deep humanitarian concern
for Jews, and while occasional feelings of genuine sympathy do appear,
they are hardly characteristic of the period. Moreover, to the extent that
appeals to Christian mercy are made with regard to treatment of Jews,
such appeals are found in Bernard’s letters as well.15
— 249 —
The Middle Ages
he called those knights stupid, avaricious, and madly raging for trying to kill people whom
divine pietas had predestined for salvation, and in another letter he added, “God does not
enjoy the shedding of blood nor delight in the destruction of the wicked.” See PL 146:
1386–1387. For a less impressive but similar remark by Bernard, see below, note 25.
16 See H. H. Ben Sasson, Peraqim be-Toledot ha-Yehudim bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim (Tel Aviv, 1958),
pp. 31–32. Cf. also Peter Damian, whose general outlook was quite similar to that of
Bernard: “Unde per Psalmistam dicitur . . . ne occidas eos,’” Epist. 13, PL 144: 284–285.
On Damian’s attitude toward the Jews, cf. my “St. Peter Damian: His Attitude toward the
Jews and the Old Testament,” The Yavneh Review 4 (1965): 80–112.
17 PL 132: 1084–1085.
18 See PL 189: 368, and cf. Ch. Merchavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re’i HaNazrut (Jerusalem, 1970),
p. 130, and B. Blumenkranz in K. Rengstorff and S. von Kortzfleisch, Kirche und Synagoge,
I, p. 121.
19 See the citations in Carl Neumann, Bernhard von Clairvaux und die Anfänge des Zweiten
Kreuzzuges (Heidelberg, 1882), p. 35. For a fairly recent discussion of some of Bernard’s
activities in connection with the crusade, see A. Bredero, “Studien zu den Kreuzzugsbriefen
Bernhards von Clairvaux und seiner Reise nach Deutschland im Jahre 1146,” Mitteilungen
des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 66 (1958), pp. 331–343.
— 250 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
Jews; they carry it with them wherever they go, and everywhere they find
their masters.”20 Furthermore, he used the existence of this servitude as
an anti-Jewish argument. “But if that flower [of the Jews] still remains,
where, then, is the kingdom? where is the priesthood? where the prophets
and the temple? where those mighty wonders etc.?”21 This argument was
common,22 and in this literary form it is taken straight out of a sermon by
Peter Chrysologus who asked, “Where is the temple? Where is the priest?
Where is the sacrifice?”23
This serfdom is, of course, punishment for that greatest of all crimes,
the crucifixion. Bernard mentions the Jews’ “viperous venom” in hating
Jesus and the bestial stupidity and miserable blindness which caused
them to “lay impious hands upon the Lord of Glory.”24
Nevertheless, in spite of the length and severity of what Bernard
considered a richly deserved servitude, he firmly believed that the
Jews will be saved at the final judgment. The brunt of his argument
against their destruction is that such a destruction would invalidate
Scriptural prophecies, such as the oft-quoted verse (Romans 11:26)
that “all Israel will be saved.” He is so thoroughly convinced of the anti-
Scriptural character of Radulph’s preaching that he writes, “Are you
the one who makes the prophets liars and empties out the treasures of
piety and mercy of Jesus Christ?”25 This form of argument is particularly
intriguing, since it was usually used as part of anti-Jewish polemic. Thus,
— 251 —
The Middle Ages
Bernard may subtly be arguing that Radulph is no better than the Jews
whom he is attacking.26 In a sermon, he says that the judgment against
Israel is only partial (ex parte) and quotes the verse that God will not
reject them to the end, but will save a remnant (“sed nec repellet in
finem, reliquias salvaturus”).27 It would not do to press the contradiction
between “all Israel” and a “remnant”; Bernard probably felt that the entire
last generation of Jews (= all Israel) would be saved, while “remnant” has
the wider perspective of all the generations. In fact, Bernard himself
mentions both verses one after the other.28
What is especially surprising in this connection is Bernard’s use of
the verse, “The Lord is rebuilding Jerusalem, calling the banished sons
of Israel home,” as a prophecy of Jewish redemption. In many places,
Bernard understands “Jerusalem” as a spiritual term and “Israel” as
Christians. He says that at the second advent, God will “rebuild the
Jerusalem of your souls.”29 He refers to the “true Jerusalem,”30 to the
renewal of the “spiritual Jerusalem, the true holy city,”31 and to the “free
Jerusalem which is above and mother of us all.32 Indeed, this widespread
conception goes back to Galatians 4:26: “But the Jerusalem above is free,
and she is our mother.” Bernard, moreover, agrees with the universal
Christian belief that the Christians are verus Israel.33 It would seem, then,
that in order to save the Jews, Bernard suppressed what he believed to
26 For the argument that Jews, in effect, proclaim the prophets liars, see John 5: 45–47;
Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati, ed. by N. Bonwetsch (Berlin, 1910), pp. 20–21, 65 (ean
ouk elthen ho christos, pseudetai ho prophetes); Les Trophées de Damas, ed. by G. Bardy,
Pat. Orientalia 15, p. 240 (ton patriarchan pseusten epoiesas); Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogus,
PL 157: 618 (Christians believe in the incarnation because they don’t consider the
prophets liars); Rupert of Deutz, Dialogus, PL 170: 596 (“O Judaee, quaecumque loquuntur
Scripturae ut vera sunt aut non; sed dicere quis audeat quia non vera sunt ?”).
27 SCC 14.2, LTR I, pp. 76–77, Eales IV, p. 75.
28 SCC 79.5–6, LTR II, p. 275, Eales, IV, p. 486. Raban Maur also quoted the verse on all Israel
and a verse mentioning the reliquiae without noticing a contradiction. Cf. PL 110: 582.
For other references to Jewish salvation in Bernard, cf. SCC 16.15, LTR, I, p. 97, Eales,
IV, p. 94, and Epist. 467 (394, p.467).
29 “Fifth Sermon for Christmas Day,” Sermons, I, p. 42.
30 Epist. 469 (395, p. 468).
31 “First Sermon for Septuagesima,” Sermons, II, p. 60.
32 Epist. 64 (67, p. 91).
33 “Second Sermon for Christmas Eve,” Sermons, I, p. 317; “Fourth Sermon on the Virgin
Mother,” ibid., p. 114; “First Sermon for the First Sunday after the Octave of the
Epiphany,” Sermons, II, p. 37; Epist. 397 (429, p. 499); Epist. 288 (410, p. 479). On the
history of this conception, see M. Simon, Verus Israel (Paris, 1948), esp. pp. 110–111, and
B. Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins (Basel, 1946), pp. 164–175.
— 252 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
34 It is also possible that Bernard referred this verse to the Jews because of the phrase
“banished sons of Israel,” and Christians had never been banished. Indeed, this argument
was used by Jewish polemicists in connection with the Verus Israel question in general.
See the Sefer Nizzahon Yashan in J. Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satanae (Altdorf, 1681), II, p. 31,
and cf. my doctoral dissertation, The Nizzahon Vetus, Columbia Univ., 1970, pp. 31, 111.
35 The Treatise of St. Bernard Concerning Grace and Free Will (De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio),
tr. by W. Williams (London and New York, 1920), pp. 16–17.
36 “First Sermon for the Feast of All Saints,” Sermons, III, p. 338.
37 See Epist. 363, Mabillon, c. 330 = PL 182: 567 (James 391, p. 463). It must be granted
that he is not being theologically rigorous in this sentence (note his “proof-text” regarding
vanquishing the proud and sparing the subjected from the Aeneid, a work that was hardly
canonical despite Virgil’s medieval reputation as a near-prophet).
38 The Book on the Love of God (De Diligendo Dei), ed. and tr. by E. G. Gardner (London, 1915),
pp. 38, 42, 64.
39 “Second Sermon on the Virgin Mother,” Sermons, I, p. 82. This interpretation, however,
is theologically motivated and was current before Bernard.
— 253 —
The Middle Ages
40 “Third Sermon for the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul,” Sermons, III, p. 212.
41 “Fourteenth Sermon on Psalm XC,” Sermons, I, p. 278 (cf. translator’s note).
42 Epist. 363, Mabillon, c. 330.
43 SCC 14.1–2, LTR, I, pp. 75–77, Eales, IV, pp. 74–75.
44 SCC 46.5, LTR, II, p. 59, Eales, IV, p. 284: “Ita intonans [propheta] in perfidiam
Judaeorum.”
45 Epist. 311 (374, p. 445).
46 SCC 11.2, LTR, I, p. 56, Eales, IV, p. 56.
47 “Second Sermon on the Virgin Mother,” Sermons, I, pp. 86–87. For the passage from
Jerome mentioned next, cf. translator’s note, p. 85.
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The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
48 “Fifth Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension,” Sermons, II, p. 285, and “First Sermon
for Pentecost,” ibid., p. 289. There was even a Christian view that the major cause of
the punishment of the Jews was their persecution of the apostles after the crucifixion.
See Pseudo-Bede in PL 93 : 460, cited in B. Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs Chrétiens Latins
du Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le Judaisme (Paris, 1963), p. 138, and esp. Gregory I, PL 75:
862, cited in Auteurs, p. 86.
49 “Sixth Sermon for Christmas Eve,” Sermons, I, pp. 379–380.
50 “Second Sermon for the First Sunday after the Octave of the Epiphany,” Sermons, II,
p. 46.
51 “Fifth Sermon for the Feast of All Saints,” Sermons, III, p. 393.
52 Epist. 241 (317, p. 388). See L. I. Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements
(New York, 1925), pp. 134–135. Newman (p. 195) compares the following passage with
Bernard’s: “Sunt autem Burgares seu ‘Burgari’ secta Catharorum quorum Ecclesiam vel
potius Synagogam memoriat Reinerius.” Cf. also p. 230.
53 Epist. 254 (329, p. 408). The phrase “synagogue of Satan” is based on Revelations 2:9 and
3:9. Cf. also Agobard, PL 104: 88, cited in Merchavia, op. cit., p. 83.
54 “First Sermon for the Feast of the Dedication of a Church,” Sermons, II, p. 389. See also
“Second Sermon for Lent,” Sermons, II, p. 81; see sec. 65.2, LTR, II, p. 173, Eales, IV,
p. 394 (“O foolish and hard of heart, filled with the spirit of the Pharisees”). Cf. Peter
the Venerable, PL 189: 551.
— 255 —
The Middle Ages
55 Epist. 6 (7, p. 28); 94 (91, p. 141); see SCC 13.2, LTR I, p. 69, Eales, IV, pp. 67–68; “Second
Sermon on Lent,” Sermons, II, p. 91; “Third Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation,”
Sermons, III, pp. 162, 164; De Gradibus Humilitatis, tr. by G. B. Burch (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1942), pp. 152–154.
56 This, of course, was standard Christian procedure. “Second Sermon for Christmas Eve,”
Sermons, I, pp. 317–318.
57 SCC 25.9, LTR, I, p. 168, Eales, IV, p. 154 (“aemulis posse respondere Judaeis”); “Third
Sermon on the Virgin Mother,” Sermons, I, pp. 103–104; “Second Sermon for the First
Sunday after the Octave of the Ephiphany,” Sermons, II, p. 45.
58 “Sermon for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist,” Sermons, III, p. 173.
59 “Sermon for the Octave of the Feast of the Circumcision,” Sermons, I, pp. 438–439.
60 “Third Sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany,” Sermons, II, pp. 22–23.
61 “Second Sermon for the Feast of St. Andrew,” Sermons, III, p. 60.
62 Epist. 241 (317, p. 388).
— 256 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
63 St. Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 259. See SCC 60. 4–5, LTR, II, p. 144, Eales, IV, p. 362. The
old phrase “bovine intellect” was also applied to the Jews by Peter the Venerable, PL
189: 539 (cf. also c. 602); see note 76 below. On Jewish blindness, cf. also Bernard’s
epist. 365, Mabillon, c. 332 = PL 182: 571, where he refers to the Church’s prayer that
God “will remove the veil from their heart and draw them out from their darkness to
the light of truth.” Regarding this “veil,” see II Cor. 3.13–18, and cf. B. Blumenkranz,
Le Juif Medieval au Miroir de l’Art Chrétien (Paris, 1966), pp. 52–54, 64, and W. Seiferth,
Synagogue and Church in the Middle Ages (New York, 1970), pp. 95–109. On the diabolical
Jewish rejection of what they know to be the truth, see J. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the
Jews (New York, 1966), pp. 15 ff., and cf. Parkes, Conflict, p. 103.
64 SCC 60.3, LTR, II, p. 143, Eales, IV, p. 361. Jews, of course, brought no animal sacrifices
in the Middle Ages, but some Christians continued to raise this issue. See my “St. Peter
Damian . . . ,” Yavneh Review 4 (1965): 102.
65 Baron, Social and Religious History, IV, pp. 121, 301. That Bernard was the first to use
judaizare in this sense had been pointed out by S. Posener, Encyclopedia Judaica (Berlin,
1929), IV, p. 294. Cf. also Trachtenberg, op. cit., p. 190.
66 “Sermon for Spy Wednesday,” Sermons, II, p. 149.
67 Epist. 241 (317, p. 388).
— 257 —
The Middle Ages
— 258 —
The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews
— 259 —
The Middle Ages
— 260 —
ST. PETER DAMIAN
His Attitude toward the Jews and
the Old Testament1
INTRODUCTION
— 261 —
The Middle Ages
the Old Testament and its law. In Damian’s case, there is special reason
for interest, because his anti-Jewish works deal almost exclusively with
the Old Testament and because he is associated with the replacement
of “the judging, wrathful, distant God of the Old Testament . . . by the
loving, self-abnegating Son of the New Testament, with his weeping and
charitable Mother.”2 How real was this dichotomy in Damian’s own eyes,
and what were his feelings toward that part of the Bible which he shared
with the Jews? These are questions that we shall try to answer in the
second part of this paper.
The status of the Jews in eleventh century Italy was far from ideal. The
scattered references that we possess tell of a number of anti-Jewish
accusations. After an earthquake in Rome in 1020 or 1021, Jews were
savagely punished for having mocked a crucifix. Rabbi Meshullam ben
Kalonymus of Lucca wrote to R. Hai, the Gaon in Babylonia, about
an “upheaval” in his town—either a persecution or a defeat by an army.
In 1062, Jews in Aterno were accused of committing a ritual outrage
on an image of Jesus in their synagogue on Good Friday. An attempt
at a program of forced conversion in Benevento (c. 1065) drew a strong
protest from Pope Alexander II, but the attempt is significant in gauging
the attitude of Italian Christians toward the Jews.3
Earlier in this century, the rumor had spread through France and Italy
that the Jews were responsible for Moslem persecution of Christians in
the Holy Land. In France, this rumor led to a campaign of forced baptisms
(1007) which was stopped only through Papal intervention.4 Such reports
could not have passed entirely without effect in Italy, at least in the realm
of personal relations between individual Christians and Jews.
Nevertheless, three or four incidents in a century, even granted
the paucity of sources, do not constitute a bleak picture of the overall
2 Norman F. Cantor, Medieval History, The Life and Death of a Civilization (New York, 1963),
p. 308.
3 See Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (Philadelphia, 1946), p. 72, for the
information in this paragraph.
4 Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le Monde Occidental, 430–1096 (Paris,
1960) (henceforth referred to as Juifs et Chrétiens), p. 136.
— 262 —
St. Peter Damian
— 263 —
The Middle Ages
12 De Perfections Monachorum, ch. 3, PL 145 : 294. Translations from De Perf. Mon. are
taken from Patricia McNulty, St. Pietro Damiani: Selected Writings on the Spiritual Life
(London, 1959) (henceforth Spiritual Life).
13 Spiritual Life, pp. 22–23.
14 J. Gonsette, Pierre Damien et la Culture Profane (Louvain, 1956), pp. 16–17.
15 Norman T. Boggs, in Christian Saga, vol. 1 (New York, 1931), pp. 374–375, gives great
emphasis to this element in Damian’s thought.
16 St. Pierre Damien, p. 192. Quoted in J. Joseph Ryan, “St. Peter Damiani and the Sermons
of Nicholas of Clairvaux: A Clarification,” Mediaeval Studies 9 (1947): 152.
17 PL 145: 41–68. The Antilogus-Dialogus (it is basically one work) was probably composed
c. 1070. Damian writes (col. 55) that 1040 years have passed since the fulfillment of
Daniel’s prophecy. From his general treatment of the passage in Daniel it would appear
that fulfillment took place at the crucifixion.
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St. Peter Damian
“But,” he writes, “if you wish to be a soldier of Christ and fight for
him courageously, then take up arms as an illustrious warrior against
the vices of the flesh, the contrivances of the Devil—an enemy that will
indeed never die—rather than against the Jews who will soon be almost
destroyed from the face of the earth.”18
Nevertheless, he undertakes to do as Honestus requested, and he
states three reasons for doing so. First, it is disgraceful (inhonestum!)
for a churchman to hear calumnies against Christianity and remain
silent through ignorance. Second, such silence could arouse doubts in
the minds of loyal Christians. And finally, Damian expresses the hope
that Jews may be converted by well-presented Christian arguments.19
Damian keeps this third purpose in mind throughout the Antilogus
and Dialogus. At the beginning of the Antilogus, he writes, “When
someone begins a dispute about this matter, he should be warned not
to exasperate his opponent with insults or haughtiness. But he should
soothe his mind with benevolent charity and most patient gravity, for
a stony heart which was able to be all the more stubborn when bitterness
was poured forth can perhaps be softened toward belief by modest
sweetness of words.”20
Such confidence in the soft and moderate approach is not new in the
history of Christian polemic. Maxim, an Arian bishop (c. 365-c. 430),
wrote in his Tractatus Contra Judaeos, “We speak thus against them not
with a desire to harm . . . We wage a lively battle for people’s salvation . . .
We seek to save them by conversion . . . Therefore, we who seek the
truth do not look for (captious) quarrels.”21 We find a similar attitude
in Gregory the Great who said that only preaching can effect a sincere
conversion.22
At the end of the Dialogus, this hope turns into a ringing exhortation
to his fictitious Jewish opponent. “Therefore, O Jew, listen now to my
advice and you may have God, who is now angry at you, well-disposed
toward you . . . Desert the error of Jewish blindness, and direct yourself
18 “Sed si Christi miles esse, et pro eo viriliter pugnare desideras, contra carnis vitia, contra
diaboli machinas insignis bellator arma, potius corripe; hostes videlicet qui nunquam
moriuntur: quam contra Juadaeos, qui jam de terra pene deleti sunt.” PL 145: 41.
19 Loc. cit.
20 Loc. cit.
21 Quoted in “Auteurs,” REJ 9 (1948–49): 11.
22 Ep. I.47. Quoted in James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (henceforth
referred to as Conflict) (Philadelphia, 1961), p. 211.
— 265 —
The Middle Ages
to the truth of Evangelical grace . . . May the God of your fathers cast aside
the old veil of ignorance from your heart, and, with the darkness of error
dispelled, he will besprinkle you with the new light of His knowledge.”23
The basic method that Damian uses to bring about this hoped-for
conversion is the accumulation of Old Testament passages which, to
his mind, prove that Jesus is the Messiah, that God consists of three
persons, etc. “In this truly naive way,” write Vogelstein and Rieger,
“through the piling up of Biblical passages, does Damian seek to
demonstrate the truth of Christianity to the Jews.”24 Actually, this method
was the classic Christian approach in dealing with Jews, and it begins in
the Gospels themselves. The most influential medieval work of this type
was Isidore of Seville’s De Fide Catholica ex vetere et novo testamento contra
Judaeos,25 and Damian was certainly not alone in considering this the
basic method of attack.
The Jews, in fact, could be most thankful for this approach, for it
is when Christians became less optimistic and less naive that more
virulent and dangerous anti-Semitism appeared. And, indeed, not all
Christians were naive. As early as the seventh century, Julian of Toledo
felt little hope of converting the Jews and wrote against them mainly
for Damian’s second reason—confirming Christians in their faith. Julian
was closely associated with the anti-Jewish policy of seventh century
Spain and wrote in his De Comprobatione Aetatis Sextae, that the Jews
are a sick part of the body of the Spanish people.26 His attitude is most
clearly reflected by the judgment that the worst thing about France is
that it is “a brothel of Jews blaspheming our Savior and Lord.”27 Clearly,
Julian’s pessimism arose from contact with actual Jews, not merely those
mentioned in books. Did Damian retain his optimism despite contact
with Jews, or did his hopes result from ignorance?
23 “Nunc igitur, Judaee, audi meum consilium ut Deum, quem iratum habes, possis habere
propitium... Desere Judaicae caecitatis errorem, et te ad Evangelicae gratiae dirige
veritatem... Deus patrum tuorum a corde tuo vetustum ignorantiae velamen abjiciat, et,
depulsis errorum tenebris, nova te cognitionis suae luce perfundat.” PL 145: 66.
24 Herman Vogelstein and Paul Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rom (Berlin, 1896), p. 268.
25 PL 83: 449–538.
26 “Auteurs,” REJ 11 (1951–52): 34–37. This pessimistic attitude toward conversion of the
Jews is reflected in the statement of Freculphe of Lisieux (9th cent.) that the Jews are
«naturally inimical to Christian dogma» (PL 106: 1199). See “Auteurs,” REJ 13 (1954): 25.
27 “... quod pejus his omnibus (sc. malis) est, contra ipsum Salvatorem nostrum et Dominum
Judaeorum blasphemantium prostibulum habebatur.” PL 96: 766. Translation by Parkes,
Conflict, p. 342.
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St. Peter Damian
It would appear that the latter is true. Damian does not seem aware
of the implications of a polemic with Jews. It should have been obvious
to him that the Jews have their own interpretations of the verses he
quotes. Yet he writes as if no Jewish commentator had ever dealt with
the plural verb in Genesis 1:26 (“Let us make man in our image”). He
expects such evidence of the trinity as the thrice-repeated word “holy”
in Isaiah 6:3 to carry weight with Jews.
Damian almost never reaches the second stage of debate in the
exegesis of a verse. It is true that the problematic character of the
Christian case in the area of “testimonies” is partially to be blamed,
but certainly an attempt can be made to disprove some of the typical
Jewish refutations of Christian interpretations. Let us take, for example,
Genesis 49:10,28 one of the verses where a plausible case can be made for
the Christian argument. Damian spends about two or three lines on it29
without mentioning any possible Jewish explanations. When Fulbert of
Chartres, a far superior polemicist, dealt with this verse, he dwelt mostly
on the refutation of Jewish exegesis.30 In only one place did Damian
bother to refute Jewish interpretations. This is where he tried to show
that certain Psalms must refer to Jesus and not to David or Solomon.31
As a whole, then, by neglecting to deal with Jewish exegesis, Damian
must certainly have failed in helping Honestus. Furthermore, he did
not deal at all (except with regard to the Law) with questions initiated
by Jews, e.g., “How could Jesus have been the Messiah if none of the
Messianic prophecies have been fulfilled?” We must thus accuse Damian
of serious negligence or else conclude that his knowledge of Jews and
their arguments was minimal. Since none of his other writings betray
a familiarity with Jews, we are led to the conclusion that the latter
explanation is correct.
If this is true, then the use of stereotyped anti-Jewish expressions
in other theological, exegetical, or homiletical works becomes far less
significant. Gregory the Great, for example, who displayed a most
humane attitude toward the Jews in his correspondence, is vehemently
anti-Jewish in his Biblical commentaries, where Jews are symbolized
28 “The scepter shall not pass from Judah nor a lawgiver from among his descendants ad ki
yavo Shiloh.”
29 PL 145: 46.
30 See his three speeches against the Jews, PL 141: 305–318.
31 PL 145: 49–53.
— 267 —
The Middle Ages
by camels, wild asses, and serpents.32 Damian, who seems to have had
hardly any contact at all with Jews, can scarcely be blamed or considered
unusual for using phrases that, as we shall see, were a hackneyed part of
patristic and early medieval literature.
There are a number of passages in which Damian uses very harsh
language about the Jews. Perhaps the most extreme instance is in the
De Sacramentis per Improbos Administratis33 where he discusses Jewish
accusations that Jesus associated with sinners. These accusations, he
says, “are the root and entire matter whence the wild furor of Jewish
envy (or “spite”) against the Lord grew hot (unde feralis in Dominum
furor Judaici livoris incanduit); hence did the malice of their poisonous
bile conspire toward his death (hinc in mortem ejus viperini fellis malitia
conspiravit).”
A vituperative passage. But who is the primary object of attack here?
Not the Jews, but neo-Donatist Christian heretics. Damian here hit upon
a tactic which, as we shall see later, was quite common. First, he succeeds
in equating Jews—and the ancient Pharisees at that—with Donatists.
The next step is to bitterly malign the Jews (an easy and non-controversial
task in a treatise intended for Christians) and let the virulence of these
statements apply, by implication, to Donatists as well.
Furthermore, every anti-Jewish term in this passage has a “respect-
able” history in earlier writings. First, the term “feralis,” with its allusion
to wild beasts. As early as the fourth century, the Jews are referred to
as a “feralis secta.”34 In 387, this image was used by John Chrysostom
in his sermons against the Jews, where he stated that Jews are “wilder
than all wild beasts.”35
Taio of Saragossa referred to the “furor (saevitia) of the Jews against
Christ.”36 The term “livor” appears in the statement of Angelomus
of Luxeuil (died c. 855) referring to the “depravity of evil intention
which the Jewish perfidy wished to stretch forth from the quiver of its
spite (livor).37
32 Cf. Parkes’ very perceptive comments on the phenomenon in Conflict, pp. 219–221.
33 PL 145: 529.
34 Conflict, p. 185.
35 The Jews therion hapanton gegonasin agrioterai. PG 48: 852. In his sixth speech against
the Jews, Chrysostom switches the metaphor and compares himself to a wild beast who
has drunk blood (of the Jews) and cannot stop. See PG 48: 903.
36 PL 80: 778.
37 PL 115: 264. Quoted in “Auteurs,” REJ 13 (1954): 33.
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St. Peter Damian
38 “ . . . nisi ut lubricus anguis, cum captus fueris, manus evadere gestias.” Earlier he said of
this behavior, “ut vester mos est.” PL 145: 44.
39 “Asinus autem ille quo tunc utebatur Abraham, insensata erat stultitia Judaeorum.” Sermo
de Inventione Sancti Crucis, PL 144: 603. Tr. by McNulty, Spiritual Life, p. 169.
40 “Nos, nos inquietarent Judaici serpentes et Samaratinorum incredibilis stultitia.” PL 22 :
769. Tr. by Parkes, Conflict, p. 173.
41 “Erubescat Judaeus infelix, qui negat Christum de Virgine natum.” Sermo de Epiphania
Domini, PL 144: 514. I see no reason for doubting the authenticity of this sermon. Kurt
Reindel’s reason for such doubts is, to say the least, inconclusive. “Sermon one,” he
says “in contrast to Damian’s other sermons, makes a quite impersonal impression; it
is almost entirely constructed out of Biblical quotations.” “Studien zur Überlieferung
der Werke des Petrus Damiani I,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 15
(1959): 29.
42 “Qua inverecundiae mentis audacia tam claris . . . poteris assertionibus obviare.” Antilogus,
PL 145: 52.
43 PL 145: 47.
44 “Carnalis Israel non intellegit quod legit, non videt quod ostendit.” PL 54: 242. Quoted
in “Auteurs,” REJ 9 (1948–49): 23.
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45 “Concubinae . . . hi sunt qui in veteris legis custodia perseverant . . . Nec ad eos (Judaeos)
coelestis ille sponsus ingreditur, quia tanquam mulierculis a diabolo prostitutis suum
praebere contubernium designatur, eisque, quia pollute sunt per adulterium, repudii dat
libellum.” Epistola 13 [ad Desiderium Abbatem et Cardinalem], PL 144: 287.
46 “Intellige accipientes Judaeos libellum repudii, et omnino a Domino derelictos.” This
comes right after an explicit mention of Deut. 24:3.
47 “ . . . Dei sapientia, juxta fluidum mortalitatis nostrae decursum, dignata est impios
Judaeos suae praedicationis austeritate corripere, et velut infructuosas arbores a statu
rigidae superbiae desecare.” PL 144: 610. Trans. by McNulty, Spiritual Life, p. 174.
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St. Peter Damian
48 For the anti-Semitic embellishments in this sermon, see PL 144: 854, where Jews
are stupid, Satans, serpents, etc. The verses in Acts (6:9–10) which serve as the
basis of this part of the sermon simply say, “Then there arose certain people of the
synagogue . . . disputing with Stephen, and they were not able to resist the wisdom
and the spirit by which he spoke.” For the spurious sermons see Migne’s introduction
to PL 144 and J. Joseph Ryan, “St. Peter Damiani and the Sermons of Nicholas of
Clairvaux: A Clarification,” Mediaeval Studies 9 (1947): 151–161. It is most interesting
that many scholars have used these sermons in discussing Damian. McNulty even
translates one (on St. Benedict). No. 69—which lists more than seven sacraments—
has been quoted very often in Damian’s name.
49 “Judaeus itaque tanquam ratione utentibus loquitur vox angelorum, gentibus vero quasi
brutis et jumentis in campis silvae loquitur lingue sive stella coelorum.” PL 144: 507.
Tr. by McNulty, Spiritual Life, p. 148.
50 “Sancti enim apostoli... Israeliticae gentis filii sunt.” Antilogus, PL 145: 47.
51 “Judaei... nationibus pejores inveniuntur: quia illae quidem nec legem acceperunt, isti
vero post datam sibi legem, post missos ad se prophetas, etiam Dei filium occiderunt.”
PL 104: 95–96.
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St. Peter Damian
people.59 This last part of the verse (from “exterminabitur”) is not found
in Deuteronomy. The Hebrew is anokhi edrosh me-immo, the Vulgate
has “ego ultor existam,” and the Septuagint gives ego ekdikeso ex autou.
The general meaning of all three is “I (God) will punish him.” Damian’s
version, in a work intended to combat Jews, is taken from Acts 3:22–2360
where this much harsher version is found.61 Nevertheless, it would be
quite far-fetched to draw any inferences about violent action toward
Jews from this quotation. First, the extermination could be left to God,
as in Jewish tradition. Second, Damian himself does not discuss any
such implications. And finally, he may simply have been quoting from
memory, and the New Testament version stuck in his mind.
We have, moreover, an explicit statement by Damian that the Jews
must not be killed. The Jews, he says, live to carry the Old Testament
everywhere in the original, and are thus a testimony to the truth of
Christianity. “Therefore,” he writes, “it is said by the Psalmist, ‘My God,
show me good things among my enemies. Do not kill them, lest they forget
your law.’”62 The relevant part of the Hebrew text reads pen yishkehu ammi
(“lest my people forget”). There is no mention of “your law.” The Vulgate
follows the Hebrew: “populi mei.” The best manuscripts of the Septuagint,
however, give “your law” (= “legis tuae”).63 If Damian knew both versions,
then he made his choice in order to strengthen his point that the Jews
have a mission. But be that as it may, Damian is certainly quite emphatic
about not killing the Jews. The Augustinian doctrine that the Jews have
been dispersed to spread the witness of Christ was quite widespread in
Christian thought, and Damian has adopted it as one interpretation.64
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65 See G. Bareille in the article “Damien” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. IV,
col. 42–43.
66 Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I, p. 286.
67 “Illi quippe stulta ignorantia, vel forte caeca cupiditate commoti, in eorum (Judaeorum)
necem volebant saevire, quos fortasse divina pietas ad salutem praedestinavit . . . Dei
misericordia servati sunt, ut, patria libertateque amissa, . . . patrum praejudicio in
effusione sanguinis Salvatoris damnati, per terrarum orbis plagas dispersi vivant.” PL
146: 1386–1387.
68 “Noverit prudentia vestra nobis placuisse quod Judaeos qui sub vestra potestate habitant
tutati estis ne occiderentur. Non enim gaudet Deus effusione sanguinis, neque laetatur
in perditione malorum.” PL 146 : 1387.
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St. Peter Damian
We must also remember that protection of the Jews did not always
imply amicable relations with them. Ratherius of Verona (c. 890–974)
wrote, “It is sufficient if they (Christians) let them (Jews) live some-
how; they should not let them publicly blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ.
‘We shall live under your shadow,’ said the prophet of them. ‘We shall
live,’ he said, not ‘we shall enjoy ourselves.’ ‘And he gave them to mercy’—
not to exaltation, not to friendship, not to any honor.”69 Moreover,
an alternative to forced baptism was expulsion.70 One thing, however, is
clear. Damian would not have lent his authority to the massacre of Jews.
Damian’s general attitude toward the Jews of his time, as far as we
have been able to ascertain it, has been outlined. We must now try to
determine his attitude toward their future. Where do the Jews fit in to
the eschatological picture? Before we can answer this question, we must
find his attitude toward a great event in the Jewish past, for all of Jewish
history was determined by the rejection of Jesus and the crucifixion.
There were Christian thinkers before Damian who presented more
moderate statements of Jewish guilt than might be expected. Bede
maintained that though the Jews are guilty, so is every Christian sinner.
Every sinner “betrays the Son of Man.”71 Lanfranc in effect conceded
a point of many Jewish polemicists. “The sin of the Jews,” he wrote,
“enriched the world, for had they not crucified the Lord, the cross of
Christ, the resurrection and the ascension ... would not have existed in
the world.”72
Damian does not seem to have shared this attitude. He argues in
the Dialogus that the Jews have been placed in eternal exile because of
a crime which transcends all others—the murder of the Son of God.
After all, he says, the Jews committed terrible crimes recorded in the
Old Testament, yet their worst punishment was a seventy year exile.
69 “Suffecerat si eos vivere sinerent utcunque, non permitterent eos Dominum Jesum
Christum tam publice blasphemare: “Sub umbra enim tua vivemus” dicit de eis pro-
pheta. “Vivemus,” inquit, non “oblectabimur.” “Et dedit eos in misericordias”—non in
extollentias, non in amicitiam, non in ullum honorem.” Qualitatis Conjectura, PL 136: 536.
70 Leo VII wrote to archbishop Frederick of Mayence between 937 and 939 of the Jews,
“Si autem credere noluerint, de civitatibus vestris cum nostra auctoritate illos expellite,”
but “per virtutem autem et sine illorum voluntate... nollite eos baptizare.” PL 132: 1084–
1085.
71 “ . . . Filium hominis tradit.” PL 92: 271.
72 “Delictum Judaeorum ditavit mundum, quia nisi ipsi Dominum crucifixissent, crux
Christi, et resurrectio, et ascensio praedicata et credita in mundo non esset.” PL 150: 141.
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Only a truly horrible crime could explain an exile of over one thousand
years, one which Damian feels sure is eternal.73
Blumenkranz maintains that with this type of argument, Damian
introduced a new concept into medieval polemics—the concept of
an argument from reason (ratio) in addition to those from authority
(auctoritas).74 It is true that Damian states, “With the prophetic passages
having been set forth, it pleases us to contend with you by reason alone.”75
But the argument following this statement—the argument set forth in
the previous paragraph of this paper—is not novel at all.
Prosper of Aquitaine (d. c. 463) wrote that because of the great sin
of killing Christ, “grace deserted the Jews, and their land became sterile
and deserted. For all prophecy, all sacrifice and all sacraments ceased,
and they passed to the humiliation of the nations.”76 The same statement
is found in Peter Chrysologus77 and in Cassiodorus.78
Damian, then, does blame the Jews severely for the crucifixion.
What will consequently become of them? Will they ever repent and be
forgiven?
Damian introduces a reference to Zechariah 12:10 with the
remark, “ . . . where a little later is added (a verse) concerning the Jews’
damnation.”79 This is an eschatological passage; Damian would thus seem
to speak of an ultimate Jewish damnation. There certainly was such a view.
Bruno of Wurzbourg (d. 1045) wrote of the end of days: “The impious
ones and the Jews will cry out to Christ . . . He will not hear them.”80
And yet Damian could not have held such a view. The hope which
he expresses that the Jews will convert is found, as we have seen above,
73 PL 145: 65–66.
74 Juifs et Chrétiens, pp. 217–218.
75 “Libet adhuc, postpositis scilicet prophetarum exemplis, sola tecum ratiocinatione
contendere.” PL 145: 64.
76 “Judaeos deseruit gratia, et facta est terra eorum sterilis atque deserta. Quia omnis
prophetia, omne sacrificium, omna ibi sacramenta cessarunt, et ad humilitatem gentium
transierunt.” PL 51: 309.
77 PL 52: 512. Quoted in “Auteurs,” REJ 9 (1948–49): 17.
78 PL 69: 525 and 545. Quoted in “Auteurs,” REJ 9 (1948–49): 46.
79 “Ubi etiam paulo post de Judaeorum damnatione subjungitur . . . ” It is interesting that
Amolon knew that the Jews interpreted this verse in Zechariah in light of their belief in
a Messiah the son of Joseph who would precede the Messiah son of David. PL 116: 148–9.
Mentioned in “Auteurs,” REJ 14 (1955): 51.
80 “Clamabunt impii et Judaei in futuro judicio ad Christum . . . non exaudiet eos.” PL 142:
98.
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St. Peter Damian
Peter Damian was very deeply imbued with a knowledge of the Old
Testament; in fact, as McNulty says, he quotes “chiefly from the Old
Testament and the Pauline Epistles.”82 He seems extremely well-versed
in the Hebrew Scriptures, and they have left a very deep impression upon
his writings. Throughout De Perfectione Monachorum, for example, he
refers to monks as Israelites.
He seems a bit unclear as to the scope of the Jewish Bible. In the
Antilogus, he quotes a verse from Baruch (3:36) to prove to the Jews
that Jesus was the Messiah. A book of the Apocrypha would, of course,
have no authority with the Jew. Yet this mistake does not originate
with Damian, and it is possible that he either copied from a predecessor
without giving the matter much thought or else he may have had some
defense. Gregory of Tours cited this very verse to the Jew Priscus in
a disputation.83 For a possible Christian defense, we may note Gilbert
Crispin’s Disputatio of the late eleventh century where he replies to the
Jew’s objections by maintaining that Baruch was, after all, written at
Jeremiah’s dictation.84
81 PL 110: 582.
82 Spiritual Life, p. 50.
83 See Juifs et Chrétiens, p. 73.
84 See Israel Levi, “Controverse entre un Juif et un Chrétien au XIe Siecle,” REJ 5 (1882):
242.
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85 See Conflict, pp. 83–84 and 101 for the references in this paragraph.
86 “Gratia,” he says, “ . . . non ramos tantum nequitiae amputat, sed ipsas penitus radices
noxiae voluntatis evellit.” PL 49: 1214.
87 “Maledici non respuit, ut nos de maledicto legis absolveret.” PL 144: 608. Spiritual Life,
pp. 171–172.
88 PL 144: 605.
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St. Peter Damian
there are places where Damian appears much closer to this view than to
the one already described.
Perhaps the most complimentary explanation by Christians of their
ceasing to obey the Law is in Romans 7:14–25. Paul says that he is too
weighed down by sin to observe the spiritual Law.89
A second Pauline interpretation is to be found in Romans and
Galatians. The law was temporary and meant to be a guide to lead us
to “faith in Jesus Christ.”90
In some places, Tertullian seems to go even farther than Paul and
uses the Law as a norm of conduct He forbids the teaching of secular
studies, for how can a loyal Christian teach literature when the Law
prohibits the pronunciation of the names of the gods?91 He later states
that “the Law prohibits to name the gods of the nations, not, of course,
that we are not to pronounce their names the mention of which is
required by conversation.”92 And so Tertullian seems to be conducting
his life on the basis of at least some of the Law’s precepts.
This attitude is reflected in Damian in a number of his works. In
Dominus Vobiscum, he is concerned with a technical question of monastic
ritual. In making his point, he appeals to the authority of both Testaments
and then adds, “We do not take away from or add to the authority of
the Holy Scriptures because of changing circumstances, but rather the
customs of the Church are preserved in them.”93 Thus, the Old Testament
is to be appealed to not only in homiletical, but also in legal matters.
A perhaps more significant passage is the eighth chapter of De
Perfectione Monachorum.94 Here, Damian is allegorizing the first two
seven-year periods during which Jacob worked for Laban. These, he
says, are the periods which every person must pass through, for the first
seven years correspond to the seven commandments of the Decalogue
concerned with love of one’s neighbor and the last seven symbolize the
seven commandments of the Gospel which he proceeds to enumerate.
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Only after passing through these stages can one reach Rachel. It appears
from this chapter that certain parts of the Pentateuch—namely, the
moral law—are of eternal validity.
This is a time-honored Christian position. Eucher of Lyon (d. c.
450–453) wrote in his Instructiones as follows: “Question: What parts
of the Old Testament should we abandon and what parts should we
observe? Answer: We should observe commandments which pertain
to the correction of life and abandon the ceremonies and the rites of
sacrifices which brought forth the figures and the shadow of future
events.”95 We shall see later that Damian would agree completely with
both parts of Eucher’s response.
Leo the Great (c. 391–461) wrote that it is necessary to preserve
“the moral commandments and precepts (of the Old Testament) just as
they were set forth.”96 Eginhard (c. 770–840), when enjoining respect
for one’s father, wrote, “Though this is ordained in the Old Testament,
it is part of the numerous laws which the scholars of the Church have
declared as valuable to Christians as to Jews.”97
This division of the Law into two parts—the moral and the ritual—
cannot be accomplished without much difficulty, for the borderline is
extremely vague and unsteady. A similar division is found in Jewish
philosophy in R. Saadiah Gaon, the division of commandments whose
purpose is comprehensible and those which are inscrutable, and this
division is open to the same objections. There is, of course, an important
difference in the acuteness of the problem. To Saadiah, it is a question
of classification; to the Christians, it is a problem of acceptance or
rejection. Leo, for example, places the prohibition of idolatry among
the moral precepts. This could be defended. But Tertullian’s concern
with the prohibition of pronouncing the name of a foreign god is a good
indication that the division was not entirely along moral-ritual lines.
It is true that Damian does not include that part of the Decalogue
which precedes “Honor thy father and thy mother,” but this could
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St. Peter Damian
very well be because the seven years forced him to include only seven
commandments. In any event, even if Damian wanted to retain a sharp,
theoretical boundary between the moral and ritual sections of the
Law, the practical difficulties are such that such a position devolves in
a good number of instances into an acceptance of statutes one likes and
a rejection of those that are not appealing.
Thus, Damian feels that the ritual law is of course superseded. At
times, he expresses the view that it was always a curse. At other times,
he seems to imply that it was an unpleasant necessity: the instrument
of bringing justice into the world.98 In any case, the contrast between
the Old and New is quite strong in this area. We shall see presently that
through allegory, even the ritual law can be shown to have eternal value.
The moral law is still binding.
Before passing to a detailed treatment of Damian’s allegorical
explanations of ritual law, we must ask ourselves—what of the rest of
the Old Testament? Did Damian feel that the entire Old Testament is
infected by the same harshness found in a literal interpretation of the
ritual law? Is love to be found only after the advent of the Savior?
We may confidently answer that Damian was not aware of such
a dichotomy. Tears and mercy were, to Damian, the most profound
expressions of love. And in discussing the efficacy of tears, he shows
how the God of Israel was moved to compassion when he saw genuine
tears being shed. David, despite adultery and indirect murder, did not
lose his kingdom or life—because of tears.99 Hezekiah and Jerusalem
were delivered—because the king wept. “Esther ensured that God would
deliver the people of Israel from their common danger of death and that
the sentence of hanging ... should be suffered by Haman”—through tears.
He quotes Psalms 39:13, “Listen to my weeping” to show that tears are
efficacious.100
“The ark,” he writes, “was smeared with pitch within and without,
so that she should be outwardly soothed by brotherly sweetness and
inwardly united in the truth of mutual love.”101
98 “Moses, the faithful servant (“fidelis famulus”), brought the commandments of naked
justice; Christ, our truly loving (“pius”) Lord tempered the harsh severity of the Law.”
PL145: 315, Spiritual Life, p. 117.
99 Cf. Eliyyahu Rabba ch. 2.
100 De Perf. Mon., ch. 12. PL 145: 308.
101 De Perf. Mon., ch. 24. PL 145: 326. Spiritual Life, p. 134.
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102 Dominus Vobiscum, ch. 19. PL 145: 249. Spiritual Life, p. 78.
103 Dom. Vob., PL 145: 250. Spiritual Life, p. 79.
104 “Cui tamen legi si confessio crucis et Dominicae passionis mysterium copulatur, protinus
quod amarum fuerat, in spiritualis intelligentiae dulcedinem vertitur.” PL 144: 605.
105 “. . . ex antiquae legis mystica traditione descendit.” PL 145: 315–316. Spiritual Life,
p. 118.
106 De Vera Felicitate et Sapientia, PL 145: 834–836.
107 De Perf. Mon., PL 145: 307.
108 Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum—in Leviticum, PL 83: 336–39.
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St. Peter Damian
Introduction
Isidore:
Nunc vero jam de quibusdam caeremoniis quid spiritualiter in his
habeatur dicendum est. De quibus etiam et Judaei scrupulosissime
quaerunt.
Damian:
Nunc autem de quibusdam caeremoniis, super quibus saepe
scrupulosissime quaeritis... Age igitur.
Problem 1
Why do Christians not practice circumcision? Answer: Baptism takes its
place as a promise of the future; it was merely a prefiguration of Christ.
Isidore:
Quaeritur ergo curjam non circumdatur carne Christianus si
Christus non venit legem solvere, sed adimiplere. Respondetur: Ideo jam
circumciditur Christianus, quia id quod eodem circumcisione prophetabatur
jam Christus implevit. Exspoliato enim carnalis generationis quae in illo
tacto figurabatur, jam Christi resurrectione impleta est, et quod in nostra
resurrectione futuram est, sacramento baptismi commendatur.
Damian:
Quaestio 1: Si Christus non venit legem solvere, sed implere, cur carne
non circumciditur Christianus? Responsio: Imo jam se ideo Christianus
minime circumdidit quia quod circumcisione prophetabatur, Christus
implevit. Exspoliato quippe vitae carnalis, quae in veteri lege furat figurata,
in Christi jam cernitur resurrectione completa, et quod expectamus in nostra
resurrectione futurum, jam in sacri baptismatis mysterio commendatur.
Problem 2
Why don’t Christians observe the Sabbath? Answer: Christians rest in
Christ.
Isidore:
Cum quaeritur Sabbati otium cur non observet Christianus, si Christus
non venit legem solvere sed adimplere, respondetur: Imo et id propterea
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Damian:
Quaestio 2: Cur omittit Christianus Sabbatum colere, si Christus non
venit legem solvere, sed implere? Responsio: A nobis Sabbatum ideo non
servatur, quia quod tunc erat in figura praemissum per exhibitionem rei
jam videmus impletum... in illo (Christo) toto cordis amore ac devotione
quiescimus, ut ab omni vitiorum servili opere ac terranarum rerum
ambitione cessemus. Ad quod Sabbatum celebrandum ipse provocat,
dum clamat, “Venite ad me... et discite quia mitis sum et humilis corde,
et invenietis requiem animabus vestris.” Carnalis ergo Sabbati cultum
supervacuum ducimus, cum jam illud verum et salutiferum, propter quod
institulum est, celebramus.
Problem 3
Why do Christians ignore the dietary laws? Answer: We now distinguish
between clean and unclean in morality.
Isidore:
Cum quaeritur quare non observet differentiam ciborum quae in lege
praecipitur, si Christus non venit legem solvere sed adimplere, respondetur:
Imo propterea non observat eam Christianus, quia quod in illius figuris
prophetabatur Christus implevit, non admittens ad corpus (quod corpus in
sanctis suis in vitam aeternam praedestina sit) quidquid per illa animalia
in moribus hominum significatum est.
Damian:
Quaestio 3: Si Christus non venit legem solvere, sed implere, cur
Christianus negligit ciborum differentiam, quae in lege praecipitur
observari? Responsio: Imo idcirco haec a Christianis ciborum differentia
non admittitur, quoniam a Christo quod per hanc figurabatur, impletur.
Immunditia quippe quae tunc cavebatur in cibis, nunc in moribus reprobatur
humanis. Sicut enim sancti quique, ac justi transferuntur in corpus Christi:
sic ab eo reprobi et inique tanquam cibi repellantur immundi.
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St. Peter Damian
Problem 4
Why don’t Christians bring sacrifices? Answer: Jesus’ sacrifice made
them unnecessary. Furthermore, sacrifices were instituted to keep Jews
away from idol worship.109
Blumenkranz maintains that this question was introduced to instruct
Christians, for no Jew would press Christians on this matter.110 The
fact is that there was a heretical sect in eleventh century Italy that did
sacrifice.111 The whole question, however, should be applied to Isidore
rather than Damian, and actually these problems do fit more readily in
a Biblical commentary.
Isidore:
Cum quaeritur quare Christianus non, animalibus immolatis, carnis
et sanguinis sacrificium offerat Deo, si Christus etc., respondetur: . . . ea
quae talibus rerum figuris illi prophetabant immolatione carnis et sanguinis
sui Christus implevit. Nam de sacrificiis eorumdem animalium quis
nostrum nesciat magis ea perverso populo congruenter imposita, quam
Deo desideranter oblata?
Damian:
Quaestio 4: Si Christus etc. cur et animalium carnibus sacrificium Deo
Christianus non curat offerre? Responsio: . . . quidquid in illis hostiis typice
gerebatur, totum in immolatione agni, qui tollit peccata mundi, veraciter
adimpletur. . . Quis enim nesciat eadem sacrificia potius ad hoc inobedienti
populo, ne cum idolis fornicarentur, imposita, quam Deo, tanquam ipse
desideraret, oblata.
Problem 5
Why do Christians not eat unleavened bread on Passover? Answer: They
have expelled the leaven of the old life.
Isidore:
Cum quaeritur cur azyma non observet Christianus, si Christus etc.
respondetur: . . . quod expurgato veteris vitae fermento, novam viam
demonstrans implevit Christus.
109 Cf. Leviticus 17:7. This idea was made famous in Jewish circles by Maimonides. He,
however, believed that they would nevertheless be reinstituted in the time of the
Messiah.
110 “Auteurs,” REJ 17 (1958): 39.
111 Juifs et Chrétiens, p. 58.
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Damian:
Quaestio 5: Si Christus etc. cur Christianus azymam. .. non observat?
Responsio: quoniam expurgato veteris vitae fermento, nova conspersio
spiritualiter adimpletur.
Problem 6
Why do Christians not sacrifice the paschal lamb? Answer: Jesus’ sacrifice
made it unnecessary.
Isidore:
. . . Cur de carne agni Christianus pascha non celebret, si Christus etc.,
respondetur: . . . quia quo illa figura prophetabatur Agnus immaculatus
sua passione Christus implevit.
Damian:
Quaestio 6: Si Christus etc. cur Christianus paschalis agni sanguine
Pascha non celebrat? Responsio: . . . quia postquam verus ille Agnus . . .
qui significabatur, superfluus judicatur.
Problem 7
Why don’t Christians observe the New Moon? Answer: It prefigured the
new man in Christ.
Isidore:
Quam ob causam neomenias in lege mandatas non celebrat
Christianus, si, etc., respondetur: . . . Celebratio enim novae lunae
praenuntiabat novam creaturam, de qua dicit Apostolus: “Si qua igitur
in Christo nova creatura, vetera transierunt, et facta sunt omnia nova.”
(II Cor. 5:17).
Damian:
Si etc., cur lege mandatam non celebrat neomeniam Christianus?
Responsio: . . . Novae quippe lunae solemnitas novam designat in ho-
mine fieri creaturam, de qua dicit Apostolus: “Si qua. . . sunt omnia nova”
(II Cor. 5:17).
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St. Peter Damian
Problem 8
Why do Christians not perform ritual immersions? Answer: Baptism
enables us to participate in Christ’s death and resurrection.
Isidore:
. . . Cur illa singularum quarumque immunditiarum baptismata . . . non
observet Christianus, si etc., respondetur: Venit enim (Christus) consepelire
nos sibi per baptismum in mortem, ut quemadmodum Christus resurrexit
a mortiis sic et nos in novitate vitae ambulemus.
Damian:
Si Christus etc., cur Christianus illa ablutionum baptismata . . . non
observat? Responsio: Consepulti enim sumus Christo per baptismum in
morte; ut quomodo surrexit Christus a mortuis per gloriam Patris, sic et
nos in novitate vitae ambulemus.
Problem 9
Why do Christians not observe Tabernacles? Answer: The tabernacle
prefigured the Church; furthermore, Christians are the tabernacle of
God.
Isidore:
. . . Qua causa scenopegia non sit solemnitas Christianorum si etc.,
respondetur tabernaculum Dei fideles esse . . . et . . . jam Christus in
Ecclesia sua quod illa figura prophetice promittebat implevit.
Damian:
Si etc., quid rationis objicitur, ut a Christianis Scenopegiae solemnitas
non colatur. Responsio: Tabernaculum Dei societas est populi Christiani,
et . . . illud tabernaculum sanctam praefigurabat Ecclesiam.
Problem 10
Why do Christians not observe the sabbatical year? Answer: It prefigures
the last judgment.
The texts here are very lengthy. Suffice it to say that again the answers
are identical and linguistically extremely close.
Thus, Damian does believe even the ritual law to be of permanent
value, provided that it is allegorized in light of the new grace.
— 287 —
The Middle Ages
CONCLUSION
— 288 —
RELIGION, NATIONALISM,
AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Yehezkel Kaufmann’s Account of Jesus
and Early Christianity 1
From: Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction between Judaism and Other
Cultures, ed. by Leo Landman (Yeshiva University Press: New York, 1990),
pp. 149–168.
1 After this article was submitted for publication, G W. Efroymson’s translation of the
relevant section of Golah ve-Nekhar appeared under the title Christianity and Judaism:
Two Covenants (Jerusalem, 1988).
2 8 vols. Tel Aviv, 1937–56. See also Moshe Greenberg’s abridged translation, The Religion
of Israel (Chicago, 1960).
3 Tel Aviv, 1929 (hereafter cited as Golah). All references are to vol. 1 unless otherwise
indicated.
— 291 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 292 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
hanged one”: it appeared that the very figure whom Christians worshipped
had rejected the mantle of divinity and demanded observance of the
Torah (e.g., Luke 18:18–19 and Matthew 5:17–18). Medieval Jews who
utilized this argument were careful not to depict Jesus in glowing terms,
but several of them insisted upon his essential loyalty to both Jewish
theology and Jewish law. It was only the tragic distortion of Jesus’
original teaching—perhaps by Paul, perhaps by later Christians—that
had caused the fateful abyss that now separates the two faiths.6
Similar ambiguities are evident in the medieval Jewish evaluation of
Christianity. On a theoretical level, there was a need to explain the role of
the Christian faith in the divine economy, and a number of Jews—most
notably Maimonides—regarded both Christianity and Islam as means
of spreading knowledge of Torah in preparation for the messianic age.7
Although Maimonides considered anyone who accepted Christianity
an idolater, he apparently saw no impediment to the belief that God
would utilize (even initiate?) an idolatrous faith for a holy purpose.
While this position is not paradoxical in any technical sense, the positive
role assigned to Christianity could not coexist comfortably with the
assessment that Christians were idolaters, and this tension may have
contributed somewhat to a more charitable evaluation of Christian faith
by later Jews. The medieval Jew most famous for such a reevaluation,
Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri of Perpignan (1249–1316), appears to have
been motivated largely by moral considerations. Concerned about
talmudic passages that discriminated against gentiles, he argued that
they referred only to the barbaric heathens of ancient times; Christians,
who adhere to the limits imposed by the mores of civilized faiths, must
be treated in accordance with the most rigorous ethical standards. Ha-
Meiri also declared that Christians were not idolaters. These declarations,
however, are innocent of any theological analysis and appear secondary
to the ethical criteria that he established.8
6 The most important and effective expression of this argument is Profiat Duran’s Kelimat
ha-Goyim. See Frank Talmage, Kitvei Pulmus li-Profiat Duran (Jerusalem, 1981).
7 Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:4, in the uncensored version. See the discussion in
Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” Israel Academy
of Sciences and Humanities, Proceedings 4, no. 12 (1970): 240–242 = “Ha-Yehudim mul ha-
Reformazia,” Divrei ha-Aqademia ha-Leumit ha-Yisre’elit le-Madda’im 4, no. 5 (1970): 62–64.
8 On ha-Meiri’s attitude toward Christians, see Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance
(Oxford, 1961), pp. 114–128; E. E. Urbach, “Shitat ha-Sovlanut shel R Menahem ha-
Meiri—Meqorah u-Migbeloteha,” in Peraqim be-Toledot ha-Hevrah ha-Yehudit bi-Yemei
— 293 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 294 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
— 295 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
between the ethical positions of the two groups. Hence, what was once
an argument about content had now become an argument about turf. For
many Christians who had abandoned fundamentalist beliefs, the need
to denigrate Jewish ethics was especially compelling; such Christian
scholars, who tacitly and even explicitly conceded the old arguments
about dogmas and Christological verses to the Jews, needed to move the
center of gravity to the question of ethics, where they could still award
victory to Christianity.
With specific reference to the image of Jesus, Christians who had
serious doubts about his divinity were impelled to defend his unique
role by portraying him as ethical innovator par excellence. To accomplish
this, it was necessary to depict first-century Judaism in the darkest
possible hues: arid, legalistic, hypocritical, and exclusivist. The superiority
assigned to the ethics of Jesus in particular and of Christianity in general
became so central in the consciousness of nineteenth-century Christians
that it plays a crucial role not only in scholarly works but in the writings
of missionaries like Alexander McCaul13 and in the fulminations of
overt anti-Semites. The self-centered Jew, obsessed with legal minutiae
and insulated by a particularistic ethic, stood in sharp contrast to the
Christian, who was liberated from the stultifying letter and concerned
with universal salvation and a morality that taught undifferentiated love
for all mankind.
Jewish apologists responded along a broad front. Christians, they said,
had distorted the character of rabbinic Judaism out of both ignorance
and malice. There is nothing significant in Jesus’ ethical pronouncements
that cannot be found in rabbinic literature; indeed, the only real novelty
in such texts as the Sermon on the Mount is the pushing of certain
ethical doctrines ad absurdum so that no human being could realistically
be expected to comply. Moreover, Christians show no understanding
of the power of religious law to produce spiritual inspiration. One of
the great ironies in this Jewish response is that Reform Jews, who had
rejected many Jewish rituals for deficiencies not so different from those
ascribed to them by Christians, now found themselves producing
rhapsodic elegies to the spiritual beauties of talmudic law.14 Finally, Jewish
13 See McCaul’s The Old Paths (London, 1837).
14 See, for example, Israel Abrahams, “Professor Schuerer on Life under the Jewish Law,”
Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 11 (1899): 626–627. On the general debate, see the
references in Ismar Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, 1870–1914
— 296 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
(New York, 1972), p. 257, nn. 63–65. I have noted some of the points in these paragraphs
in my “Jewish-Christian Polemics” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. by Mircea Eliade
(New York, 1987), vol. 11, pp. 389–395.
15 R. H. Biers and D. L. Hollard in the introduction to their English translation, Jesus’
Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia. 1971), p. 2.
16 See, for example, the English translation, p. 93.
17 Tübingen and Leipzig, 1901.
18 London, 1910. German original, Von Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der leben-Jesu-
forschung (Tübingen, 1906).
— 297 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
who would descend with the clouds of heaven to redeem the righteous
and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. This conception does not sit well
with the belief in a national Messiah from the house of David, but it
was regarded by some as an embryonic manifestation of precisely the
tensions that culminated in the divine Messiah of mature Christianity.
19 Moreh Nevukhei ha-Zeman, chaps. 7–8, in Kitvei R. Nahman Krochmal, ed. by Simon
Rawidowicz, 2nd ed. (Waltham, Mass., 1961).
20 See Heinrich Graetz, The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays, translated, edited,
and introduced by Ismar Schorsch (New York, 1975), editor’s introduction, esp. pp. 39,
59. See also Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, p. 45.
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Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
21 On Dubnow’s views of Jewish history and his relationship to Graetz, see Robert M. Seltzer,
“From Graetz to Dubnow: The Impact of the East European Milieu on the Writing of
Jewish History,” in The Legacy of Jewish Migration: 1881 and Its Impact (New York, 1983),
ed. by David Berger, pp. 49–60. On levels of nationality, see Dubnow, Nationalism and
History: Essays on Old and New Judaism, ed. by Koppel S. Pinson (Cleveland, 1958),
pp. 86–95, and Oscar I. Janowsky, The Jews and Minority Rights (1898–1919) (New York,
1933), pp. 57–60. See also Reuven Michael, “AI Yihudan shel Toledot Yisrael be-einei
Jost, Graetz, ve-Dubnov,” in Temurot ba-Historiah ha-Yehudit ha-Hadashah (Jerusalem,
1987), pp. 501–526, which contains some additional references. On the views of Dubnow
and Ahad HaAm on national character and their relationship to Kaufmann, see the
discussion in two very similar articles by Laurence J. Silberstein, “Religion, Ethnicity
and Jewish History: The Contribution of Yehezkel Kaufmann,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 42 (1974): 516–531, and “Exile and Alienhood: Yehezkel Kaufmann
on the Jewish Nation,” in Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer on
the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday by His Students, ed. by Michael A. Fishbane and
Paul R. Flohr (Leiden, 1975), pp. 239–256.
— 299 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 300 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
— 301 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 302 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
27 Ibid., p. 384.
— 303 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 304 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
31 Golah, p. 375.
32 See, for example, ibid. pp. 407–408.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
Not only does Kaufmann insist that Jewish monotheism was the
single positive factor in the success of Christianity; he is concerned to
deny even a facilitating role to those characteristics of Christianity that
were regularly cited as evidence of its superiority to Judaism. Thus, as
we have already seen, he utterly dismisses universalism, ethics, and
the discarding of ritual. On the whole, his arguments are forceful and
often persuasive, but one of those arguments reflects a methodological
problem that besets Kaufmann’s work in a variety of contexts. He asserts
that the prevalence of ritual in Islam, including even circumcision,
constitutes decisive proof that Christianity’s deemphasis of ritual
cannot have been a major reason for its success.33 Kaufmann has often
been criticized for excessive emphasis on the power of ideas at the
expense of a careful, empirical examination of less exalted historical
forces, and this is a case in point. Islam spread from the outset in the
context of military conquest. Christianity did not. Perhaps ritual is
indeed a critical obstacle to the widespread acceptance of a new religion,
but it is an obstacle that can be overcome by the sword, Eventually,
of course, Christianity too spread through the exercise of concrete
pressure, and in a different context, Kaufmann distinguishes between
the period in which it converted individuals and the time when it began
to convert groups. He does not, however, relate this transition to the
ability of the church to mobilize the powers of the state: the distinction
between attracting individuals and converting entire groups is analyzed
solely in terms of the different ways in which they respond to the power
of an idea and to the obstacle of Jewish exile.34 Despite the probable
validity of Kaufmann’s essential point about ritual, the methodology
of his analogy to Islam reflects a disregard of the sort of specificity that
can often be achieved only by a descent from the rarefied heights of
the history of ideas into the cluttered trenches of social, political, and
military history.
In the service of his thesis, Kaufmann must downgrade the
substantive differences between Judaism and Christianity by reducing
them almost solely to the question of authority.35 Although at a later
point in his analysis he makes some brief remarks about the religious
33 Ibid., p. 285.
34 Ibid., pp. 422–423.
35 Ibid., pp. 314–333.
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Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
reasons for Jewish disbelief, the body of his discussion of the “conflict
of covenants” gives little consideration to the possibility that substantive
theological considerations can underlie the decision to reject the
authenticity of a particular Messiah. The failure to fulfill biblical prophecy
is not as incidental a concern as Kaufmann indicates; it goes to the heart
of one’s definition of the Messiah. Nor can it be asserted with serene
confidence that the doctrines of later Jewish mysticism demonstrate
Jewish flexibility of such magnitude that even belief in a divine Messiah
might have been absorbed by mainstream Judaism.36 There is much
to Kaufmann’s point that we are dealing largely with a dispute about
covenants, but his minimizing of crucial distinctions results from his
central theme: Christianity acted as the messenger of Judaism.
As for Jesus himself, Kaufmann’s analysis once again reflects
elements both old and new. Like his Jewish predecessors, Kaufmann
sees little that is new in Jesus’ ethics. Many Jews who made this point,
however, agreed with Christian scholars that ethics lay at the heart of
Jesus’ message, and we have already seen Joseph Klausner’s emphatic
reiteration of this perception. Kaufmann, on the other hand, adopted
the image of Jesus as a man obsessed with the apocalypse and his own
role in the Kingdom of God.
At this point, we must confront a characteristic of Kaufmann’s work
which is rather disturbing and is by no means isolated. Kaufmann
creates the strong impression that his analysis represents an original
break with the portrait of Jesus the ethical preacher that is maintained
almost universally by Christian scholars. It is true, he writes, that
a small minority of such scholars reluctantly recognize Jesus’
messianic claims, but even they attempt to strip those claims of any
political dimension. These brief remarks appear at the beginning of
the chapter on Christianity.37 The footnote accompanying them refers
to a concession by Wellhausen that there is a bit of truth in Reimarus’
assertion of Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness, and it continues with
the observation that “Eduard Meyer also disagrees” with those who deny
the value of the evidence for Jesus’ messianism, although he believes
that Jesus had “no political intentions.”38 And that is all. Kaufmann’s
36 Ibid., p. 315.
37 Ibid., pp. 339–341.
38 Ibid., pp. 340–341, note 1.
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— 308 —
Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
— 309 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
moral ideals. The new religion, he says, was so unconcerned with ethics
that it rejected not only Jewish ritual but also the entire corpus of
Jewish civil and criminal law—a corpus self-evidently superior to the
torture-ridden corpus iuris of the Romans with which Christians were
perfectly satisfied to live.48
The discussion of Jesus’ career and particularly his trial demonstrates
that Kaufmann had an eye for detail as well. In an important respect,
this discussion breaks with the Tendenz of modern Jewish scholarship
and apologetics and stands firmly rooted in the Jewish Middle Ages.
In Kaufmann’s view, the Jews did crucify Jesus, or at least they were
responsible for the crucifixion. Virtually all modern Jews regarded such
a position as inimical to fundamental Jewish self-interest, and Kauf-
mann’s willingness to assert it is a striking indication of remarkable
courage and independence. For all its boldness, however, the discussion
of this point is marked by a serious flaw. Kaufmann argues that Jesus
could properly have been executed as a false prophet, even according
to mishnaic law, for refusing to provide a sign authenticating his
messianic claims.49 In fact, a person who refused to provide a sign might
well forfeit his right to be believed, but he would not forfeit his life.
Only a prediction or sign that did not materialize could be grounds for
execution, and nothing in the sources indicates that this had occurred.
If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah but refused to produce a sign, the only
evidence strong enough to justify his execution would be the fact that he
died without redeeming the world. Jews presented that evidence to the
court of history, but it was too late to present it to a court of law.
In any case, Kaufmann’s Jesus died as a false prophet. He had
no unique ethical message, and neither did Christianity. He did not
deemphasize ritual, and neither, at first, did Christianity. We have already
noted Kaufmann’s explanation for the transformation of the Christian
message into a universal one, and here his crucial point was not to deny
that Christianity developed this characteristic but to insist that Judaism
had possessed it for centuries before the dawn of the new faith.
This assertion of Jewish universalism leads to a final, fundamental,
and tragic tension in Golah ve-Nekhar. Kaufmann was a committed Jewish
nationalist who saw the great Jewish mission as the dissemination of
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Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography
50 See his “Hefez ha-Qiyyum ha-Leumi,” Miqlat 4 (June-August 1920): 194, cited by
Silberstein in all three of his articles on Kaufmann. (See nn. 20 and 44 above.) See also
Golah II, p. 427.
— 311 —
THE “JEWISH CONTRIBUTION”
TO CHRISTIANITY
From the late nineteenth until the middle of the twentieth century,
Jews and their sympathizers devoted considerable research, energy,
and ingenuity to the documentation of signal Jewish contributions
to Western civilization. Whatever objections critics might have raised
regarding the extent of the Jewish role, the positive assessment of the
discipline, field, or ideal to which Jews had allegedly contributed was
not usually a matter of controversy, so that the authors of this literature
generally take the intrinsic value of the “contribution” for granted.
In 1921 an American Christian recounting what “the Jew has
done for the world” listed patriotism, the prophet Samuel’s “argument
that battered down the enslaving doctrine of Divine Right of kings,”
involvement in the discovery of America, science, mathematics,
medicine, politics, poetry, philology, and law-abiding behavior.1 Four
years later another book of this genre provided chapters on Jewish
contributions to education, folklore, literature, philosophy, the law,
scientific research, medicine, chemistry, infant welfare, art, music, drama,
athletics, Eastern exploration, and citizenship. Still, even such lists, read
at a later time, reveal unsuspected layers of complexity. Thus, a heading
that I have skipped, “Jewish Pioneers of British Dominion,” was of
course seen by the author as unequivocally positive; in our age, with
its deep reservations about imperialism, that chapter inadvertently
alerts us to the value judgments that underline and potentially bedevil
1 Madison C. Peters, Justice to the Jew: The Story of What He Has Done for the World
(New York, 1921), p. 23.
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
2 The Real Jew: Some Aspects of the Jewish Contribution to Civilization, ed. by H. Newman
(London, 1925). Needless to say, this is not the only assumption in such a book that
can render a contemporary reader uneasy. Here is a description of Jewish athletic
aptitude: “The highly emotional and excitable temperament characteristic of the Jew
is singularly adapted to enable the possessor to excel . . . . The alert Jewish mind is well
suited to boxing and sprinting. Moreover, the Jewish mentality, the morbid anticipation
that precedes competition, the almost uncanny knack of seizing opportunities are
admirable. The certainty the Jew has of rising to the occasion . . . his overwhelming
self-appreciation and confidence—what qualities can be more calculated to enable a man
to achieve high athletic distinction? The Jew born of Jewish parents possesses physical
qualities and mental qualities well suited to athletic success” (Harold M. Abrahams,
“The Jew and Athletics,” in The Real Jew, pp. 248–249). On the other hand, Charles
and Dorothea Singer, in one of the best books of the “Jewish contribution” genre,
assert—albeit with some hesitation—that there is no Jewish race. See their “The
Jewish Factor in Medieval Thought,” in The Legacy of Israel, ed. by Edwin R. Bevan and
Charles Singer (Oxford, 1927), p. 180.
3 The Hebrew Impact on Western Civilization, ed. by Dagobert Runes (New York, 1951).
— 313 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
4 Vergilius Fern, “The Fountainhead of Western Religion,” in The Hebrew Impact on Western
Civilization.
5 Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilization (Cincinnati, 1940), pp. 4–13. Leon Roth,
Jewish Thought as a Factor in Civilization (Paris, 1954), lists the messianic idea, the return
to Hebrew Scriptures in Christian Reform movements, the Psalter, even the sense of sin
and divine punishment.
— 314 —
The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
— 315 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
identified itself as the new chosen people to the exclusion and perhaps
damnation of the rest of humanity.8
The tendency of authors writing in this genre to avoid highlighting
the Jewish clash with Christianity is sharply illustrated in Louis
Finkelstein’s classic, monumental The Jews: Their History, Culture and
Religion (1949). His work is far more than an exemplar of the typical
effort to establish a Jewish contribution to civilization, but this is surely
a major component of its mission. In its four massive volumes, we look
in vain for any serious discussion of the relationship between Judaism
and Christianity. The brief allusion to Christian ethics in Mordecai
Kaplan’s contribution affirms, as we shall see, complete commonality
between the two faiths. And the editor’s own, even briefer, comment
on Jewish attitudes towards Christianity is quite remarkable: “Rabbi
Jacob Emden (1697–1771), one of the foremost teachers in the history
of Judaism, summarized the general Jewish view regarding Christianity
in the following words . . . ‘[Jesus] did a double kindness to the world by
supporting the Torah for Jews and teaching Gentiles to abandon idolatry
and observe the seven Noahide commandments’.”9 And that is all. So
does one of the most strikingly positive—and highly atypical—Jewish
assessments of Christianity ever proffered by a traditional rabbi become
“the general Jewish view.”
It is worth noting that Jewish scholars and apologists during the
period in question frequently affirmed that another atypical Jewish
view of Christianity was in fact standard. Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri of
late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Perpignan had taken the
position that Christianity is not to be seen as idolatry at all and that its
adherents are entitled to full equality with Jews in matters of civil law
because they are among the “nations bound by the ways of religions.”
Though elements of this position were shared by other medieval and
early modern authorities, it is profoundly misleading to describe it as
8 As we shall see more strikingly in our discussion of Leo Baeck, the assertion that Jews
contributed the missionary spirit to Christianity is also noteworthy and by no means
typical.
9 The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion, 4 vols, ed. by Louis Finkelstein (Philadel-
phia, 1949), IV, p. 1347. On the rarest of occasions, we find a Jewish scholar writing
during the period under discussion who exaggerates Jewish hostility to Christianity.
Thus, Samuel Krauss asserts that “Jesus’ illegitimate birth was always a firmly held dogma
in Judaism” (“The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” Jewish Quarterly Review,
o.s. 5 (1892): 143).
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
10 Cf. my observations in “Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages,” in The Pride
of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and his Work, ed. by Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, Mass., 2002),
pp. 42–44. On ha-Meiri, see Moshe Halbertal, Bein Torah le-Hokhmah: Rabbi Menahem
ha-Meiri u-Ba‘alei ha-Halakhah ha-Maimonim bi-Provence (Jerusalem, 2000). An English
translation of much of the relevant chapter appeared in the online Edah Journal, 1 (2000),
<http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalAAicle/halbertal.pdf>, accessed 11 Sept. 2006.
11 A substantial scholarly literature has developed around this confrontation, providing
analysis of the earlier part of the 19th century as well as the period of direct concern
to us. First and foremost is the brilliant work of Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in
Germany: Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 (Ithaca, NY,
1975). Susannah Heschel addressed the content and impact of a seminal Jewish
figure’s perception of Jesus in Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (Chicago, 1998).
Christian Wiese’s important study, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische
Theologie in wilhelminischen Deutschland (Tübingen, 1999) is highly relevant in its
entirety; chapter 4, which deals with particularism versus universalism, ethics versus
law, and love versus fear in the context of the debate surrounding Wilhelm Bousset’s
Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentalischen Zeitalter (Berlin, 1903), bears most
directly on our concerns. (An English translation has now been published: Christian
Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse: Jewish Studies and Protestant Theology in Wilhelmine
Germany, trans. by Barbara Harshav and Christian Wiese [Leiden, 2005]). Ismar Schorsch,
Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, 1870–1914 (Newark, 1972), pp. 169–177,
provides a succinct summary of Jewish concerns from an institutional perspective.
Overviews of modern Jewish assessments of Jesus and Christianity include Gosta
Lindeskog, Die Jesusfrage im neuzeitlichen Judentum. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Leben-
Jesu-Forschung (Uppsala, 1938); Jacob Fleischmann, Be‘ayat ha-Nazrut ba-Mahashavah
he-Yehudit mi-Mendelssohn‘ad Rosenzweig (Jerusalem, 1964); Walter Jacob, Christianity
through Jewish Eyes: The Quest for Common Ground (Cincinnati, 1974); Donald A. Hagner,
The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1984).
— 317 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
— 318 —
The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
the life of the community, but that sanctity was an entirely negative
affair.” And on and on.12
Consequently, from the late nineteenth century until the middle
of the twentieth, Jews faced the delicate, challenging task of balancing
a complex of objectives that were often in tension with one another.
They surely wanted to demonstrate that Judaism played a central role
in the rise of Christianity. After all, no Jewish contribution to Western
civilization could be clearer than this. At the same time, they did not
want to erase the line between the religions. They did not want to offend
Christians, but they did not want to absorb the indictment of Judaism
supinely. They wanted to embrace Jesus as their own without accepting
him as a Jewish authority or granting Jewish legitimacy to the religion
that he founded (or, perhaps, did not found).
In this daunting enterprise, their religious and ethical perspectives
came to be deeply engaged. One of the most intriguing aspects of
this study is the light shone by the historical and apologetic works of
these Jews on their own differing values. What some Jews considered
quintessentially Christian, others saw as a Jewish influence; what some
saw as an admirable Christian belief, others saw as an unfortunate
deviation; what some saw as central to Judaism, others saw as proble-
matic and dispensable. Nonetheless, there are also broad and deep
commonalities marking the Jewish assessments of the relationship
between the religions.
While the range of issues marking these controversies covers
a broad spectrum, several stand out in bold relief. These include the Law,
particularism and universalism, ethics, the experience and conception
of God, and the view of redemption and redeemer. It is to these that we
now turn our attention.
On one level, Jews had long argued—inconsistently to be sure—
that Jesus himself did not reject the Law.13 In the modern period, the
perception of a ‘Jewish’ Jesus became dominant, to the point where the
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Modern and Contemporary Times
14 Leo Baeck, Judaism and Christianity (Philadelphia, 1960), pp. 98–136. This volume,
published shortly after Baeck’s death in 1956, contains English translations of works
written several decades earlier.
15 Israel Abrahams, “Professor Schuerer on Life under the Jewish Law,” Jewish Quarterly
Review, o.s. 11 (1899): 626–662; Solomon Schechter, “The Law and Recent Criticism,”
Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 3 (1891): 754–766.
16 See Felix Perles, Boussets Religion des Judentums im neutestamentalischen Zeitalter kritisch
untersucht (Berlin, 1003), and the discussion and references in Wiese, Wissenschaft des
Judentums und protestantische Tbeologie, p. 161.
17 Salis Daiches, “Judaism as the Religion of the Law,” in The Real Jew.
18 Joseph Eschelbacher, Das Judentum und das Wesen des Christentums (Berlin, 1908),
pp. 27–28.
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
19 Moritz Guedemann, “Spirit and Letter in Judaism and Christianity,” Jewish Quarterly
Review, o.s. 4 (1892): 352–353. Though this article appeared in an English journal,
Guedemann resided in Vienna, where he pursued a distinguished rabbinic and scholarly
career.
20 I made this point in “Religion, Nationalism, and Historiography: Yehezkel Kaufmann’s
Account of Jesus and Early Christianity,” in Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction
between Judaism and Other Cultures, ed. by Leo Landman (New York, 1990), p. 154. See
now Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie, p. 162.
21 Joseph Goldschmidt, Das Wesen des Judentums (Frankfurt am Main, 1907), pp. 218–219.
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this crude ceremonial practice; it was left for Jesus to discern the triviality
and inappropriateness of ceremonies whose theological primitivism is
less evident. Perhaps, then, one should say not that Jesus is on a par
with Hosea but that he stands on a higher rung than the prophet on the
ladder of spiritual development.
It is a matter of no small interest that Martin Buber, who did not
have a high regard for the ceremonial law, nonetheless saw both biblical
sacrifice and the prophetic criticism directed against it through a very
different lens.
With respect to the central issue before us, Buber’s dismissive attitude
towards the legal component of Judaism placed him in agreement
with the liberal Protestant critique. He dealt with this, as Ekkehard
Stegemann has pointed out in a perceptive analysis, by identifying
Jesus as a perfectly good Jew who indeed recaptured the prophetic,
ethically resonant dimension of Judaism, while describing Paul as one
who transformed this message into ‘the sweet poison of faith’. Thus,
historic Judaism contains whatever is valuable in Christianity and justly
rejects that which is distinctively Christian.25 Through this approach,
Buber, at least in his own mind, rendered unnecessary the defense of
the ceremonial law that presented such a daunting challenge to Liberal
Jewish apologists.
24 Martin Buber, “The Two Foci of the Jewish Soul,” in Jewish Perspectives on Christianity:
Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Will Herberg, and Abraham J. Heschel, ed. by
Fritz A. Rothschild (New York, 1990), p. 126.
25 See Stegemann’s introduction to the selections from Buber in Jewish Perspectives on
Christianity, pp. 15–16.
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26 Claude G. Montefiore, “Notes on the Religious Value of the Fourth Gospel,” Jewish
Quarterly Review, o.s. 7 (1895): 46.
27 This is part of a larger analysis of the success of Christianity in Yehezkel Kauhnann, Golah
ve-Nekhar (Tel Aviv, 1929), pp. 292–301.
28 Baeck, Judaism and Christianity, pp. 177, 175, 184.
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
be annulled in the messianic age, and since the thirteenth, Jews had
struggled to show that this conclusion did not follow. Baeck adduced this
rabbinic passage along with some other evidence to establish precisely
what Christians had affirmed all along—that the messianic age is not
an age of Torah. He proceeded to argue that since this was the standard
Jewish view in antiquity, Paul’s rejection of the Law was deeply Jewish.
His only innovation was his conviction that the final age had already
arrived. In other words, Paul’s belief in Jesus’ Messiahship required
him—on Jewish grounds—to affirm the abolition of the Law. Christian
antinomianism is itself a Jewish contribution to the new faith.29
Adherence to the Law was often seen as a manifestation of Jewish
particularism. Christians had criticized Jews for this presumed failing
as early as the Middle Ages; in early modern times, the issue rose to
greater prominence, and by our period it was almost ubiquitous. A central
explanation—so it was said—of Christendom’s victory over Jewry is that
the former bore a universalistic message while the latter was concerned
only with itself. Here again Jews and their supporters demurred, but in
very different ways. One approach was to emphasize the particularism
of Jesus himself, who did not want to cast his pearls before non-Jewish
swine and who was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.30
With respect to the broader arena, a Christian writing enthusiastically
of the Jewish struggle against paganism in a book bearing a philosemitic
message would only affirm that Judaism had the potential to become
a world religion, but, he said, the rabbis robbed it of its vital force
through a policy of isolation. Thus, “the role which it might have filled
was handed over to Christianity.”31 Yehezkel Kaufmann agreed with
the final sentence but strongly rejected the reason. Judaism, he argued,
was thoroughly universalist, providing everyone the option to enter
the Jewish people through conversion. It was not particularism or even
Jewish ethnicity per se that caused Judaism to miss its opportunity.
Rather, it was the historical accident of exile that transformed this
ethnicity into an insuperable obstacle. Non-Jews would have joined
the Jewish people, but not a defeated Jewish people. It was the Jewish
message of universalist monotheism—and that message alone—that
29 Ibid., pp. 154, 161–164, 241–242.
30 See e.g. Samuel S. Cohon, “The Place of Jesus in the Religious Life of his Day,” Journal of
Biblical Literature 48 (1929): 89, citing also Joseph Klausner and Montefiore.
31 George H. Box, “How Judaism Fought Paganism,” in The Real Jew, p. 34.
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
variations of belief affect the destiny of the soul beyond the grave . . . . But
inconsistently, as we believe, with the justice of God and the universalism
of his providence, the author of the Fourth Gospel did presumably believe
that the result of true belief... is the prerogative of eternal life.36
36 Montefiore, “Notes on the Religious Value of the Fourth Gospel,” pp. 32–33.
37 Joseph Klausner, Mi-Yeshu ad Paulus (Tel Aviv, 1940), vol. 2. pp. 220–221. The full
discussion fades, as best as I can see, into near incoherence, but I hope I have captured its
recoverable essence. It is no accident that, in a quite different context, the argument from
the need for national survival was invoked by the Zionist historian to defend acts that
raise moral questions of the most serious sort. The Hasmonean expulsion of pagans and
occasional acts of forcible conversion appear unjust, says Klausner, but a different policy
would have led to the destruction of Judaea and the end of the Jewish people. Faced
with such a prospect, “the moral criterion cannot help but retreat, and in its place there
comes another criterion: the possibility of survival.” See Historiah shel ha-Bayit ha-Sheni,
2nd edn, 5 vols (Jerusalem, 1951), vol. 3, pp. 65–66. I discuss this and other aspects of
Klausner’s Zionist historiography in “Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus: The Impact of
Zionism on Joseph Klausner’s History of the Second Temple,” in Studies in Josephus and
the Varieties of Ancient Judaism: Louis H. Feldman Jubilee Volume, ed. by Shaye J. D. Cohen
and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden, 2006), pp. 15–27.
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38 Mordecai Kaplan, “The Contribution of Judaism to World Ethics,” in The Jews, vol. 2,
pp. 686–687.
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what his contemporaries taught but somehow so inspired his disciples that
they succeeded in founding a religion centered upon him. What remains
is precisely what remained for liberal Protestants in Europe a century
earlier: a depiction of Jesus as the bearer of an ethical message distinct
from that of his surroundings and markedly superior to it. While many of
those liberal Protestants went well beyond what this structural dilemma
had forced upon them, to a significant degree they had little choice.
Perhaps the most systematic—and one of the most combative—
Jewish works arguing that whatever is admirable in Jesus’ ethics is Jewish,
while the rest is not particularly admirable, was Gerald Friedlander’s The
Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount (1911).39 It is worth noting in
this connection that scholars, both Christian and Jewish, of the early
twentieth century were not unaware of a methodological issue that
has attained particular prominence in our own generation, to wit, the
problem of using rabbinic materials, which have come down to us in
a literary form that does not predate the second century, to characterize
first-century Judaism. Friedlander cites several Christians who made this
point with respect to various concepts, most notably the Fatherhood
of God, but he argues vigorously, in part by resort to New Testament
criticism, that the evidence of rabbinic texts and liturgy can justly be
used to argue for Jewish priority.40
Joseph Klausner also asserted that the key ethical categories of
Judaism are equal or superior to those of Christianity. Thus, Paul’s agape
is simply Jewish love; indeed, he may have refrained from ascribing
the principle of loving one’s neighbor specifically to Jesus (Rom. 13:
8–10; Gal. 5: 13–14) precisely because he knew that this emphasis
was already that of Hillel. At the same time, excessive emphasis on
love can eclipse justice, so that Pauline love may be appropriate for the
individual, but it cannot serve as the basis for social or national life.
I think it is fair to maintain that Klausner and other Jews saw justice as
a quintessential Jewish contribution to civilization but did not see it as
mediated through Christianity except perhaps in the technical sense that
Christians served as a conduit for the Hebrew Bible. I am tempted to say,
in a reversal of the medieval Christian assertion, that Christians served
as the book-bearers of the Jews.
39 See n. 6.
40 Friedlander, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 129–134.
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41 Kaufmann, Golah ve-Nekhar, vol. 1, pp. 405–406, noted in my “Religion, Nationalism, and
Historiography,” p. 166.
42 Baeck, Judaism and Christianity, pp. 192–193, 249–251, 256. The standard approach
of Jewish apologists in the exchange about ethics is exemplified by Moritz Lazarus, Die
Ethik des Judentums (Frankfurt am Main, 1898, 1911).
43 Eschelbacher, Das Judentum und das Wesen des Christentums, passim.
44 Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith (New York. 1951), pp. 130–131. A Christian scholar
writing in our genre also stressed that “the Fatherhood of God” is a Jewish term, but
could not refrain from adding a qualification about the fresh vitality infused into it by
Jesus. See Francis C. Burkitt, “The Debt of Christianity to Judaism,” in The Legacy of
Israel, p. 72.
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The “Jewish Contribution” to Christianity
insisted with vigor and eloquence that the doctrine of the Incarnation
was not needed to bridge the gap between God and man. Jews “from
Isaiah to Jesus and from Jesus to Mendelssohn” did not feel what
a Christian writer described as “despair at the seemingly hopeless task of
climbing the heavens and finding the unapproachable God.” Indeed, says
Montefiore in a somewhat different context, the complete incarnation
of the Logos at a particular time and place substitutes “something
mechanical, sensuous, spasmodic, magical” for the gradual unfolding of
God’s plan for the world.45
Finally, a word about eschatology. That Judaism “contributed”
to Christianity its concept of a redeemer hardly needs to be said.46
Jews through the ages concentrated on stressing the differences
between the Jewish criteria for identifying the Messiah and those
of Christianity, not the obvious commonalities. Thus, inter alia, the
Jewish Messiah is a human being, not a denizen of the heavens. But
the genre we are examining can produce, as we have already seen,
some surprising assertions of influence. In this case, Leo Baeck, while
of course rejecting the conception of a fully divine redeemer, insisted
that the concept of a supernatural Messiah was indeed borrowed
from Judaism. Baeck was convinced that the figure “like a [son of]
man” in Daniel 7 who comes with the clouds of heaven is in fact the
pre-existent Messiah. Thus, “faith had long raised the figure of the
Messiah beyond all human limitations into a supra-historical, supra-
terrestrial sphere. He was endowed with the radiance of the heavens
and transfigured above the earth.” Buber maintained that the son of
man in Daniel is a “still indefinite image,” and even this is too strong
a depiction of a figure who is almost certainly nothing more than
a symbol. But Baeck sees him as a supernatural Messiah, so that the
basic building block of the Christian messianic conception is not merely
in extra-biblical apocalypses but in the Jewish Bible itself.47 Baeck does,
however, make a point of noting that the Greek word soter, or savior,
45 Montefiore, “Notes on the Religious Value of the Fourth Gospel,” pp. 66–67, 40.
46 Burkitt, “The Debt of Christianity to Judaism,” pp. 95–96, makes the related observation
that “the reality and eternal significance of time,” the awareness that reality is a grand
drama to be played out but once, is a lesson learned from Judaism by all forms of
Christianity.
47 Baeck, Judaism and Christianity, pp. 66, 148; Buber, Two Types of Faith, p. 112.
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48 I cannot resist noting a personal experience with the term soter in the context of Jewish-
Christian relations. In 1995 the Open University in Israel distributed an eight-part video
of discussions between Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Marcel Dubois about Judaism and
Christianity that had taken place in 1992 (“In Two Octaves”). The conversations were
held in Hebrew, and the video supplied English subtitles. I was asked to comment on
two of the installments when the series was shown on a cable TV channel in New York,
and so I read the English carefully. Near the end of the second program, Leibowitz
tells Dubois that Paul did a terrible thing by denying halakhah and insisting that
everything depends on the soter. The term recurs about five times at the end of that
installment and the beginning of the third. The translator, who knew Hebrew and
English but had no understanding of theology or of Greek, recognized soter as a perfectly
good Hebrew word, and repeatedly provided the incoherent translation “refuter” or
“refutation.” When I noted this, I had to struggle to convince the moderator that the
translation was incorrect.
49 Baeck, Judaism and Christianity, pp. 284–289. We recall that Joseph Jacobs had also
included Christian missionizing in his lengthy list of Jewish influences on Christianity.
See n. 6.
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A Jewish Perspective
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Modern and Contemporary Times
well, and here, too, the call for interfaith dialogue is a prominent and
recurring feature.1
To further such contacts, both Christians and Jews have set
up institutional mechanisms whose primary function is interfaith
relations. The Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the
Jews and the Consultation on the Church and the Jewish People of
the World Council of Churches are major examples of Christian bodies
which function on a worldwide scale. In the United States, the Catholic
Secretariat for Christian-Jewish Relations, the Committee on Christian-
Jewish Relations of the National Council of Churches, and a substantial
number of national officials of individual Protestant churches deal
primarily with Jewish issues. Jews reciprocate with significant programs
for interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, Anti-
Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, Synagogue Council of
America, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and elsewhere,
while the National Conference of Christians and Jews continues to
expand its longstanding efforts. Though the scope and intensity of
such activities vary greatly from country to country, some increase in
interfaith contacts is noticeable in virtually every Western nation with
a significant Jewish population.2
This essay will concentrate on some of the substantive issues raised
by these contacts: the problem of dialogue itself, mission and covenant,
anti-Semitism, the State of Israel, and moral questions affecting public
policy. These topics may not exhaust the Jewish-Christian agenda, but
1 The major statements, both Catholic and Protestant, have been compiled by Helga Croner
in Stepping Stones to Further Jewish-Christian Relations (London and New York, 1977)
(hereafter, Croner). For highlights of the developing Catholic position, see Leonard
Swidler, “Catholic Statements on Jews—A Revolution in Progress,” Judaism 27 (1978):
299—307; and Jorge Mejia, “Survey of Issues in Catholic-Jewish Relations,” Origins
7.47 (May 11, 1978): 744–748. An excellent bibliographical survey has been provided by
A. Roy Eckardt, “Recent Literature on Jewish-Christian Relations,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 49 (1981): 99–111.
2 On the current situation in Western Europe, see the summary articles in Face to
Face 7 (Summer, 1980): 1–16. For obvious reasons, Israel provides a special, atypical
environment for Jewish-Christian discussions; in addition to such ongoing groups as
the Israel Interfaith Committee, the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity, and the
Rainbow, the Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Inter-Religious Affairs has recently
established the Jerusalem Institute for Inter-Religious Relations and Research as a public,
nongovernmental body (Christian News from Israel 27.2 [1979]: 62). In general, see Face
to Face 2 (Winter/Spring, 1977).
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they play a central role in defining both the progress and the continuing
problematic of a relationship which is nearing the end of its second
decade and its second millennium at the same time.
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4 The phrase (which Siegman does not use) is from the first sentence of the Vatican II
statement. On the impact of this asymmetry on early Jewish-Christian contacts, see my
discussion in The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1979),
pp. 4- 8.
5 Paul J. Kirsch, We Christians and Jews (Philadelphia, 1975), pp. 122–141.
6 Eugene Fisher, “A Roman Catholic Perspective: The Interfaith Agenda,” Ecumenical Bulletin
44 (November-December, 1980): 11–12.
7 Edward Flannery, “Response to Henry Siegman,” J.E.S. 15 (1978): 505. Cf. also David-
Maria Jaeger, “Catholic-Jewish Dialogue,” Christian Attitudes on Jews and Judaism 69
(December, 1979): 1–3.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
remark that “I do not think many Jews would object if the messiah when
he came again was the Jew Jesus.”10
Even with respect to the core issues of trinity and incarnation,
Thoma attempts to show from biblical, midrashic, and mystical sources
that “a Christological perception of God—apart from its historical
realization—is not un-Jewish.” On similar grounds, another Christian
theologian wants Jews to recognize that the doctrine of the trinity
“acquired its depth” from the Jewish Scriptures.11 In a more oblique
fashion, the question was raised by John Sheerin in an article whose
major thrust is to persuade Christians to modify their preconceptions
about Judaism; dialogue, he says, is made difficult if not impossible
by some of these Christian ideas. “Likewise, many Jews feel that they
cannot engage in dialogue with Christians because they see the adoration
of Jesus as sheer idolatry and they simply cannot bring themselves to
discuss it with Christians.”12 Since Sheerin’s article is not concerned
primarily with this problem, he does not say explicitly what Jews should
do about it or whether or not this makes dialogue impossible from
a Christian perspective. Nevertheless, it is clear that some Christians are
beginning to expect a measure of theological reciprocity if meaningful
dialogue is to progress.
Can Jews offer such reciprocity? In most cases, I think the answer
is no. Statements like those of Rosenzweig and Flusser about Jesus and
the Messiah are thoroughly atypical in the Jewish community, and there
is little prospect that this will change; indeed, aside from the subtle
pressures of the “dialogue” relationship, there is no moral or intellectual
reason for such change. Though many Jews are prepared to say that
classical Christian theology does not constitute idolatry for Gentiles,
there is a consensus that it is idolatry for Jews. Efforts to make the
combined doctrines of trinity and incarnation more acceptable to Jews
by citing the sefirot of the kabbalists or the shekhinah of the rabbis are
not likely to bear more fruit today than they did in the late Middle
Ages.
10 A Christian Theology of Judaism (New York, 1980), p. 134; citation from Flusser’s article
in Concilium, new series, 5.10 (1974): 71.
11 Dom Louis Leloir, “One of the More Burning Issues in Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Unity
and Trinity in God” (the title is noteworthy), Encounter Today 13 (1978): 101–110. Cf.
also note 22, below.
12 “Has Interfaith a Future?” Judaism 27 (1978): 311.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
Often Jews are simply responding to Christian questions about the effect
of certain doctrines, and on such occasions they are acting as what one
prominent rabbi has described as a resource for the Christian community.
Nevertheless, there is no obligation to answer every question; silence is
still sometimes “a hedge around wisdom” (Mishnah Avot 3:13).
The classic, extreme formulation of this position, which has theore-
tically governed official Orthodox involvement (and non-involvement)
in dialogue, is Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s argument that matters of
faith are not an appropriate subject for interreligious discussion because
they are rooted in the profoundest recesses of the religious experience
of both the individual and the faith community.16 Such Orthodox re-
servations about dialogue are reflected to a somewhat lesser extent in
the attitudes of many Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. The
dangers of dialogue for these Christians emerge with striking clarity from
an assertion by two liberal Christians whose devotion to the Jewish people
and interfaith discussion is unsurpassed. Alice and Roy Eckardt have
argued that insistence on “the divine inspiration of all Scripture . . . cannot
escape a proclivity to anti-Semitism” and makes interfaith dialogue very
difficult.17 Their theoretical goal is presumably to persuade fundamen-
talists to abandon fundamentalism, though the realistic objective is to
prevent their “achieving forms of political power and influence.” To the
extent that this approach to dialogue envisions significant changes in the
basic beliefs of the participants, it can appear especially threatening to
both Christian fundamentalists and Orthodox Jews.
The issue of Jewish relations with fundamentalist evangelicals has
become particularly acute in the United States as a result of the meteoric
rise of the Moral Majority and related groups. Jewish reactions have
varied widely, because the positions espoused by these groups can arouse
both enthusiasm and deep suspicion when examined from the perspective
of Jewish interests. On Israel their stand is exemplary. On theological
issues, they are oriented toward mission and Christian triumphalism,
and denials that they seek a Christian America, while welcome, do not
always appear consistent with the policies and behavior of local activists.
Remarks by the head of New York’s Moral Majority (for which he later
apologized) asserting that Jews control the city and the media and
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Jewish-Christian Relations
18 New York Times, February 5, 1981. Several months after this was written, the individual
involved was removed from his post.
19 Face to Face 8 (Winter, 1981) is devoted in its entirety to an important collection of
reactions to this movement by both Christians and Jews.
20 Cf. William Harter’s paper delivered to the Synagogue Council of America on December
7, 1972 (available at the library of the American Jewish Committee); William Sanford
Lasor, “An Evangelical and the Interfaith Movement,” Judaism 27 (1978): 335–339;
M. Tanenbaum, M. Wilson, and A. J. Rudin, eds., Evangelicals and Jews in Conversation
(Grand Rapids, Mich., 1978); and A. J. Rudin, “A Jewish Perspective on Baptist Ecume-
nism,” J.E.S. 17 (1980): 161–171.
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voice of Jewish blood can be heard crying from the earth? Is our common
humanity not sufficient? In any case, Christian theology is an internal
affair for Christians alone.”21
Nevertheless, most Christian and some Jewish participants in
dialogue remain interested in “internal” theological issues, and the
inner dynamic of the interfaith process may lead inexorably in the
direction of such discussions. The historical agenda does not lead to new
frontiers, so that some Christians involved in dialogue for many years
have begun to complain of discussions that review the same issues again
and again. To the extent that such a perspective is correct, progress
can be made by either involving new people or exploring new topics,
and even though reaching out to new participants is an essential goal
of interfaith programs, there remains the inexorable impulse to keep
the dialogue vibrant on all levels. Since the frontier appears to be in
the theological arena, there is reason to expect—or to fear—that the
“victory” of the Jewish agenda will turn out to be ephemeral. To some
extent this development is already evident: Clemens Thoma’s book,
which demonstrates a genuine, sympathetic understanding of Judaism,
has been the focus of a major dialogue; the March, 1981, meeting of
the National Conference of Christians and Jews dealt with a Christian
theology of Judaism and a Jewish theology of Christianity; a recently
published discussion on monotheism and the trinity was held some time
ago in Europe; and, on a practical level, the National Council of Churches
and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations have prepared
guidelines for joint worship.22
The dialogue, then, for all its accomplishments on the intellectual
and especially human levels, is facing a major challenge. The historical
agenda may be losing its freshness and vitality; the theological agenda
is fraught with problems of the most serious sort, especially from
the Jewish perspective. Advocates of dialogue will have to display
a remarkable combination of creativity and caution. An interesting
decade lies ahead.
21 Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?, ed. by Eva Fleischner (New York, 1977), p. 106. The
case for non-intervention in internal Christian theology was expressed eloquently by
Siegman in “A Decade,” p. 257.
22 See Pinchas Lapide and Jurgen Moltmann, Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian
Doctrine (Philadelphia, 1981); “Jews and Christians in Joint Worship: Some Planning
Principles and Guidelines,” Ecumenical Bulletin 44 (November-December, 1980): 36–39.
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Perhaps the most vexing question with a direct bearing on the feasibility
of dialogue is the status of the traditional Christian desire to convert the
Jews. The point was made with exceptional vigor in a recent article in The
Christian Century: “Dialogue can never be an attempt at conversion, nor
can it occur if one party assumes an objective ultimacy or a superiority
for his or her point of view. Dialogue must be an interaction in which
each participant stands with full integrity in his or her own tradition and
is open to the depths of the truth that is in the other.”23 The last sentence
is an exaggeration (a person cannot be entirely open while standing with
full integrity in a religious tradition), and if the assumption of objective
superiority makes dialogue impossible, then most believers will find it
impossible. What is, however, indubitably true is that dialogue cannot be
an attempt at conversion; if it is, it automatically becomes disputation or
polemic, which is precisely what dialogue is intended to transcend.
What is less clear is whether dialogue is impossible with people who
run a missionary program to convert you, provided that this particular
discussion is not geared to that objective. What if they hope that you will
be converted but have no missionaries? And what if that conversionary
hope applies only to the end of days? Answers will differ, but there is
certainly something uncomfortable about religious discussions with
a partner who is working actively toward the elimination of your
faith. Consequently, the “dialogue” relationship has played a role in
a reassessment by some Christians of the applicability of the missionary
ideal to the Jewish people.
Three approaches characterize Christian attitudes on this question:
missionize everyone, including Jews; missionize everyone, especially
Jews; missionize everyone except for Jews.24 The first approach
requires no explanation. The second argues that since Jews were the
original chosen people, since Jesus was of their flesh and was originally
sent to them, and since their conversion is singled out as part of the
eschatological drama (Rom. 11:25–26), they should be the special targets
of the Christian mission. The third approach is the most recent and the
23 John Shelby Spong, “The Continuing Christian Need for Judaism,” The Christian Century,
September 26, 1979, p. 918.
24 The classification is borrowed from Harold Ditmanson’s article in Face to Face 3–4 (Fall/
Winter, 1977): 7–8.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
most interesting. No one, it is true, can reach the Father except through
Jesus (John 14:6), but Jews are already with the Father. The covenant
with the original Israel has never been abrogated (Rom. 11:28–29);
hence, there is no theological necessity for Jewish conversion, at least
not before the end of history.
This so-called double-covenant theory has played a major role in
Christian discussions of the standing of the Jewish people and the
propriety of missions to the Jews. The central text in Romans leaves
room for divergent interpretations and deserves to be quoted in full:
“As concerning the Gospel, they [the Jews] are enemies for your sakes,
but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” All this text says
clearly is that the Jews are in a certain sense still chosen; it says nothing
unequivocal about Judaism. Hence, when a Christian writer says that
the Vatican II declaration “makes clear that the Jewish religion has
a continuing validity” because of its paraphrase of this Pauline passage,25
he goes beyond the evidence. On the whole, official and semi-official
Christian documents have avoided a clearcut assertion of the double-
covenant theory in a way that would ascribe anything like religious
equality to contemporary Judaism; such documents tend to remain
ambiguous or to acknowledge frankly the existence of divergent views
on this question.26 Explicit recognition that Judaism remains binding for
Jews, with its implication that Jewish conversion is not even desirable,
remains confined to a relatively small group of interfaith activists.
May Jews legitimately tell Christians that they must abandon the
belief that Christianity supersedes Judaism? One Jewish leader has
recently described Christian supersessionism as “vainglory (and) a kind
of religious arrogance that must be labeled a sin. And that sin . . . needs
to be purged from the soul of Christianity.”27 This is an exceptionally
strong statement which seems to deny any religion the right to declare
its own beliefs true and those of another religion false. As Siegman
put it, “Judaism constitutes a denial of the central Christian mystery
and its notion of salvation; it cannot at the same time demand that
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Even this carefully formulated statement does not say that the
conversion of Jews is not desirable, and in a later paragraph the
document acknowledges differences among Christians concerning the
obligations to “bear witness . . . to the Jews.” It is when the discussion
shifts from the abstract level of covenant to the more concrete plane of
“witness” and mission that matters become particularly difficult for both
Christians and Jews.
Christian witness is a rather important element in most forms of
Christianity, and, in the absence of a fairly extreme position on the
covenant question, it is difficult to see why Judaism should be excluded
as the object of such witness. At the same time, not only is dialogue made
difficult by an affirmation of missionizing, but the consciences of many
Christians are troubled by the unsavory history of missionary efforts
directed at Jews. The solution has been a distinction between witness,
which is obligatory, and proselytism, which is forbidden. What is the
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ANTISEMITISM
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47 Cf. John Oesterreicher’s reaction to Jewish support for Ruether, cited in Siegman,
“A Decade,” p. 257. For Christian denials of an inevitable link between Christology and
anti-Semitism, see Fleischner, Auschwitz, pp. 93–94, 195–197.
48 Robert Willis, “A Perennial Outrage: Anti-Semitism in the New Testament,” Christian
Century, August 19, 1970, pp. 990–992. See also note 17, above.
49 Cf. Eugene Fisher, Faith without Prejudice (New York, 1977), pp. 54–58. For a general
discussion of this issue, see also P. van Box and M. McGrath, “Perspectives: Anti-Jewish
Elements in the Liturgy,” SIDIC 10.2 (1978): 25–27.
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implication that the religion came to an end with the rise of Christianity,
remains in vogue. Klein’s chapter on “Jewish Guilt in the Death of Jesus”
is especially depressing. It is not the defensible assertion that Jews were
involved in the crucifixion; it is, rather, the motives ascribed to them
and to their descendants throughout the generations for their rejection
of Jesus. This rejection allegedly results not from understandable or
even honest error but from obstinacy, the desire to remain the chosen
people, culpable blindness, and the like. Nothing in the Gospels really
requires such assertions, and Jewish indignation need not be restrained
when confronted with this sort of antisemitic pseudo-history. It is worth
noting that the 1975 Vatican guidelines specifically state that “the Old
Testament and the Jewish tradition founded upon it must not be set
against the New Testament in such a way that the former seems to
constitute a religion of only justice, fear, and legalism, with no appeal
to the love of God and neighbor.”52 Though the Pope himself violated
this guideline in the recent encyclical, Dives in Misercordia, it remains
an important statement, and the one encouraging finding in Klein’s
book is that Anglo-American scholarship displays far greater accuracy
and sensitivity on these issues.
All the ringing denunciations of anti-Semitism and progressive
reassessments of Judaism have little importance if they are confined
to an activist elite and have no resonance among ordinary Christians.
Liturgical reform and textbook revision are, therefore, key elements
in the effort to exorcise the impact of historic Christian anti-Judaism.
With respect to liturgy, the most serious problems in at least some
churches arise in connection with Holy Week in general and Good Friday
in particular, when biblical passages commemorating the crucifixion
are read. Some of these passages inevitably convey an anti-Jewish
message, and, although thoughtful proposals for retranslation, judicious
omissions, and substantial corrective commentary have been made, they
all raise serious difficulties and face considerable obstacles.53 The Good
Friday “Reproaches” hymn, which is perhaps the most disturbing single
prayer, has now been made optional for American Catholics. In 1976, the
Liturgical Commission of the Episcopal Church recommended that the
52 Croner, p. 14.
53 John Pawlikowski has presented an excellent summary of both proposals and problems,
in Fleischner’s Auschwitz, pp. 172–178. See also Face to Face 2 (Summer/Fall, 1976):
3–8.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
hymn be adopted;54 eventually, the proposal was rejected, but the very
suggestion indicates that movement on these matters is not always in
the direction that Jews would like.
On the textbook issue, there has been considerable progress, at least
in the United States. Though various problems remain, the depiction
of Jews and Judaism in both Protestant and Catholic texts has shown
marked improvement. The Pharisees are no longer simply hypocrites,
and there are some indications that Judaism has remained a living
religion despite the advent of Christianity. Since there is a movement
away from standardized texts, it is now especially important that
teachers and preachers be trained to appreciate and transmit these
changing perceptions. This is a gargantuan task, but it is crucial if
declarations about anti-Semitism are to have a significant impact in the
real world.55
The most terrible manifestation of anti-Semitism has taken place in
our own time, and the vexing question of Christian responsibility for
the Holocaust is a brooding presence hovering over all discussions of
anti-Jewish elements in Christianity. Inevitably, assessments of this
question vary widely. Some would assign primary responsibility to
the legacy of Christian teachings; others absolve Christianity with the
argument that Nazism was a neo-pagan revolt against the Christian
past; while others take a middle position. My own view is that Nazi anti-
Semitism achieved such virulent, unrestrained consequences because it
stripped away the semi-civilized rationales which had been given in the
past for persecuting Jews and liberated the deepest psychic impulses
which had been partly nurtured but partly suppressed by those rationales.
The Nazis utilized the standard political, economic, and sometimes even
religious arguments for persecution, but their central message was that
Jews were alien, demonic creatures, subhuman and superhuman at the
same time, who threatened “Aryans” with profound, almost inexpressible
terror. Such fear and hatred have probably been a significant component
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Jewish-Christian Relations
of the antisemitic psyche for centuries, but they have not been given
free rein. The persecution of political enemies, economic exploiters,
and religious deviants must still be governed by a modicum of civilized
restraint; though this restraint must have seemed invisible to the victims
of the Crusades, it reappears, however dimly, when seen through the
prism of the Holocaust. On the other hand, malevolent demons, terrifying
aliens, and malignant vermin can only be extirpated with single-minded,
ruthless ferocity.
The key question, therefore, is what role Christianity played in
strengthening the image of Jew as demon, and the answer cannot be
unequivocal. There is no doubt that the growth of such a perception of
the Jew in the late Middle Ages was intimately connected with Christian
ideas and served as an important explanation of the Jewish rejection of
Christianity. Though this belief was manifested largely in popular anti-
Semitism, there was no shortage of clergy who endorsed and propagated
it. At the same time, such a view is fundamentally alien to the central
teachings of the medieval church, which protected Jewish life and looked
forward to both the individual and the collective conversion of Jews.
Demons, let alone vermin, are not candidates for conversion. Indeed,
one could argue plausibly that it was precisely the weakening of religious
grounds for anti-Semitism in the modern period which opened the way
for their replacement by the racial, demonic justification.
In sum, the Holocaust is not a Christian phenomenon, but it must
weigh heavily on the Christian conscience. Many observers believe that
it was this unparalleled catastrophe which led to the reexamination
of Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism manifested in the
last few decades. Several churches have even introduced ceremonies
commemorating the Holocaust to coincide with the growing Jewish
observance of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Day,56 and the subject is
a recurring theme in Jewish-Christian dialogues. It is a commonplace
that the Holocaust has deprived anti-Semitism of “respectability,” at least
temporarily, in what passes for civilized discourse, and it has served as
an important reservoir of sympathy for the State of Israel. Many Jews,
however, have begun to worry that this breathing space has passed, and
Christian attitudes toward Israel, though often supportive and sometimes
enthusiastic, have become a source of growing concern.
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the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, which has found expression . . .
in the reality of the State of Israel. Failing to acknowledge the right of
Jews to return to the land prevents any fruitful dialogue with them.”61
Just as opposition to Israel can be based on either political or theo-
logical grounds, support for the state can also be formulated in secular
or religious language. Jews have often spoken to Christians about the
religious significance of the connection between Jews and the land, and
such discussions can have two objectives. The moderate goal is to give
Christians an appreciation of the depth and intensity of Jewish feeling on
this matter; the more ambitious goal is to persuade them that Christian
theology itself demands that Christians support this manifestation of
the ongoing, unbroken covenant between God and the Jewish people.
“The gifts of God are,” after all, “without repentance” (Rom. 11:19).
For Christians who remain impervious to such persuasion, it can
sometimes arouse resentment. One Christian, for example, was moved
to make a grotesque comparison between Jewish efforts to convert
Christians to friendship toward Israel and Christian efforts to convert
Jews to Christianity, as if being asked to abandon your faith is analogous
to being asked to revise your political opinions (even when those opinions
have a theological dimension). He later modified the statement, but the
initial reaction remains eloquent testimony to the potential for friction
in this area.62
Even when Christians endorse the theological necessity of the
State of Israel, some strange and unwelcome things can happen if the
justification for its existence is made to shift almost entirely from the
political to the theological sphere. A striking example of this phenomenon
is a 1970 statement by the Synod of the Reformed Church in Holland.
God’s covenant with Israel, it says, is still in effect, and this includes the
connection between Israel and the land. “Because of the special place
61 Guidelines 5.1. The Protestant Church of the Rhineland (see note 9, above) has recently
described the creation of the State of Israel as a “sign of God’s faithfulness to his people.”
In subsequent drafts of the W.C.C. Guidelines adopted well after the completion of this
article, this passage—and the one discussed at note 29, above—have been attenuated
to a point where they no longer retain the significance I have attributed to them. From
a Jewish perspective, the discussion of Israel is no longer a step forward and is, in fact,
quite disappointing.
62 See Christianity and Crisis, October 28 and December 23, 1974. Cf. also the remark by
Willard Oxtoby in The Christian Century, October 13, 1971, p. 1193, cited in F. Talmage,
Disputation and Dialogue (New York, 1975), p. 185.
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Jewish-Christian Relations
after the Yom Kippur War in which he strongly implied that Jews must
behave differently from others and denounced their failure to do so with
the sort of scathing indignation appropriate only for acts of consummate
evil.64 Very recently, several hundred Christian clergy, including the head
of the human-rights commission of the National Council of Churches,
called for a reduction in U.S. aid to Israel because of alleged violations of
human rights. Now, Israel depends on U.S. aid for its very survival. Its
human-rights record is, by any standards, immensely superior to that of
its adversaries; considering the circumstances, that record is so good as
to be almost unbelievable. This Orwellian document is therefore urging
that a state with an excellent human-rights record be placed in jeopardy
in the face of a challenge from states with human-rights records ranging
from poor to terrible—in the name of human rights!65 The signatories,
of course, give the impression that Israel’s sins are sufficiently severe to
deserve comparison with those of notorious offenders, but this is a Big
Lie of proportions that would have done Goebbels proud and merely
underscores the application of a double standard.
Though the major Christian organizations have issued no statements
as disgraceful as this one, a number of recent declarations have aroused
considerable concern among Jews. The embrace of the Palestinian
cause by third-world nations has not left liberal Christians unaffected,
and the National Council of Churches has adopted a statement on the
Middle East which pursues evenhandedness to the point where perfectly
symmetrical demands are made of Israel and the P.L.O. Both must
cease acts of violence, and each must recognize the other (apparently
simultaneously); in Israel’s case, this recognition must include the Pa-
lestinian right to establish a sovereign state. The National Council of
Churches refused to single out P.L.O. terrorism or to make recognition of
Israel a precondition for any change in Israel’s policy. Even more recently,
an August, 1980, a statement by the Central Committee of the World
Council of Churches denounced Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem,
64 American Report, October 29, 1973. For Arthur Hertzberg’s response, see ibid., November
12, 1973. See also Robert Alter, “Berrigan’s Diatribe,” Commentary, February, 1974,
pp. 69–73.
65 New York Times, January 8, 1981. For Christian comments criticizing the double standard,
cf. Fleischner, Auschwitz, pp. 232–233; and Kirsch, We Christians and Jews, p. 119. On
Christian criticism of Israel, see Judith H. Banki’s excellent report, “Anti-Israel Influence
in American Churches” (1979), prepared for the Inter-religious Affairs Department of the
American Jewish Committee.
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Jewish-Christian Relations
69 See Rael Jean Isaac, “Liberal Protestants versus Israel,” Midstream 27 (October, 1981):
6–14, especially 12–13. [Addendum: My discussion of Palestinian statehood in this essay
reflects the prevailing consensus in 1983 that led supporters of Israel to regard a PLO-
governed state as an unacceptable danger. In the wake of the Oslo accords (which I
regarded at the time as a risk worth taking) and their tortuous aftermath, this consensus
no longer obtains. I wish I could say that the reasons for concern have in fact diminished.]
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Modern and Contemporary Times
This is not the appropriate forum to argue the merits of this moral
claim in detail. Nevertheless, the moral relevance of several well-known
factors is worth noting. There is a Palestinian Arab state named Jordan,
which is somehow not accepted as a legitimate locus for the realization
of Palestinian national aspirations. Palestinian Arab nationalism was
generated in part by the Jewish immigration and has tended to define
itself, at least to the international community, only in relation to the
territory that Jews happen to control (note the lack of interest in
a separate Palestinian West Bank before 1967); that is, once Jews control
an area, it becomes a focus of the Palestinian desire for self-determination.
In a sense, then, a specific Palestinian nationalism (as distinct from
a broader Arab nationalism) originated in resistance to Jewish national
self-expression and was nurtured in the bitterness and frustration of
a refugee status artificially prolonged by Arab states—precisely because
of hostility toward Israel. The moral standing of a nationalism both
generated and defined largely by relentless animosity toward the Jewish
national presence (not to speak of the moral questions regarding the
manner in which this nationalism is being pursued) cannot be accepted
uncritically merely because it uses the terminology of self-determination.
A positive Palestinian nationalism should be able to achieve fulfillment
in Jordan (including, perhaps, much of the West Bank); the sort of
Palestinian nationalism which is now dominant, given a mini-state
in the West Bank and Gaza, will pose a mortal danger to Israel. Moral
considerations surely require that the natural tendency of decent people
to sympathize with the powerless be tempered by a reasonable assessment
of what is likely to happen should they gain power.
Let me emphasize that this argument does not mean that Jews
have the right to express righteous indignation whenever Christians
or Christian organizations criticize Israel; Jews themselves are not
always reticent in expressing disagreement with Israeli policies, and
the self-censorship practiced by some Jews in these matters can hardly
be demanded of Christians. I think, however, that a question can be
formulated which might serve as a rough criterion for a fair Jewish
reaction to Christian statements and for self-scrutiny by Christians
professing concern for Jews: “Is this position rejected by at least ninety
per cent of Israeli Jews on the grounds of national security?”
Israel is a democracy with a diverse and opinionated population;
a positive answer to this question almost surely means that the position
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Jewish-Christian Relations
rejected is fraught with peril. Christians who find that they espouse such
a position, particularly if this occurs with any frequency, are probably
deceiving themselves about their concern for Jews; in reality, they are
prepared to face the destruction of the Jewish people (not only the State
of Israel) with relative equanimity.70 For their part, Jews can hardly
be faulted for reacting with deep disappointment when Christians
maintain such views, and the National Council of Churches’ statement
falls into this category. The usefulness of dialogue is called into question
when a major Christian body in the United States takes a stand which
jeopardizes the survival of Israel. To make matters worse, this stand
is less sympathetic than the position taken by both American public
opinion and the policy of the United States government itself. It may
be unrealistic to expect dialogue to have produced an attitude more
favorable than that of the average citizen in a given country, but if the
position of the churches is less favorable, many Jews cannot help but feel
disillusioned about the entire process of interfaith discussion.
The picture, nevertheless, is not unrelievedly bleak. Veteran inter-
faith activists such as Franklin Littell, John Oesterreicher, and the
Eckardts remain passionately devoted to the defense of Israel. For
theological reasons, many Christian fundamentalists have spoken out on
Israel’s behalf, and, although we have already seen that many Jews feel
ambivalent about this support, others have welcomed it with genuine
enthusiasm. Given the discouraging atmosphere on the Israel issue as
well as the Moral Majority’s recent efforts to shed its antisemitic image,
rejection of such support is becoming more difficult to justify, and it is
especially noteworthy that Southern Baptists were conspicuous by their
absence among the signatories of that document condemning Israel for
violating human rights.71 The irony that precisely those groups which
participate least in dialogue are the strongest supporters of Israel should
not go unnoticed, but this does not mean that dialogue has not helped
produce Christian friends of the Jewish state—some of them quite
70 After this was written, Steven E. Plaut proposed a virtually identical criterion to define
“What is ‘Anti-Israel’” (Midstream 28 [May, 1982]: 3–6).
71 See the Eckardts’ warning against relying on the theological arguments for Israel which
provide the underpinning of the evangelical position (Judaism 27 [1978]: 320). On the
other hand, support for Israel on other grounds than particularistic theology is not
unheard of among evangelicals. Cf. Carl Henry in Face to Face 3–4 (Fall/Winter, 1977):
17. See especially A. Roy Eckardt, “Toward a Secular Theology of Israel,” Christian Jewish
Relations 72 (1980): 8–20.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
Religion has something to say about social issues, but precisely what
is not always clear. Wide differences on these questions exist not only
among “religious” people in general but also among members of the
same faith or even the same denomination. For interfaith dialogue, such
a situation presents opportunities and pitfalls at the same time.
In some contexts, the existence of flexibility, divergent opinions
within a single religious tradition, and overlapping views cutting
across religious lines diminishes the adversarial relationship that can
occasionally threaten the atmosphere of dialogue. In dealing with
issues such as poverty and civil rights, all parties share the objective
of maximizing social justice in an imperfect world, and discussions can
constitute a combined effort to articulate the best means of attaining
that end. It is not always clear, however, that such discussions are
religious dialogue as much as they are a consideration of proper social
policy by individuals who happen to be religious. The fundamental ethical
principles are largely shared by all decent people, and choices must be
made on the basis of calculations that are not radically different for
the person of faith and the secular humanist. In other areas of Jewish-
Christian dialogue, theological concerns can become too prominent;
here, the specifically religious dimension can become little more than
window dressing.
With some exceptions, Jewish and Christian participants in dialogue
have tended to be theologically and politically liberal. Until fairly
recently, this has made cooperation on social issues in the United States
relatively straightforward. In the 1960s, for example, the civil rights
movement was fighting for a cause whose justice was unassailable, and
Jewish religious leaders were particularly prominent in a struggle which
exemplified prophetic ideals and evoked no hesitation or ambivalence.
Things are no longer quite so simple. For reasons involving both
ethical ideals and practical self-interest, many Jews have profound
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72 For a recent work dealing with a variety of social questions, see The Formation of Social
Policy in the Catholic and Jewish Traditions, ed. by Eugene Fischer and Daniel Polish (Notre
Dame, Ind., 1980).
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Modern and Contemporary Times
CONCLUSION
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REFLECTIONS ON CONVERSION
AND PROSELYTIZING IN JUDAISM
AND CHRISTIANITY
1 The New York Times, March 28, 2008, p. A15. For my reaction to the new text of the mass,
see “Let’s Clarify the Purpose of Interfaith Dialogue,” The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 16, 2008.
2 Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 47a.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
3 For a book-length discussion of this issue arguing that Jews did not proselytize before
the second century C.E., see Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the
Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1994).
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Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism and Christianity
At the same time, it is far from clear that medieval Jews refrained
from missionizing only or even primarily because they saw another
route to salvation for gentiles. Given the realities of the medieval
Jewish condition, many Jews so resented their persecutors that they
had no interest in their salvation; rather, they looked forward to their
damnation. While Hitler maintains so unique a position in the history
of Judaeophobia that analogies can be dangerous and even offensive, it
is nonetheless instructive to consider how Jews would have reacted in
the last months of World War II to the prospect of a suddenly repentant
Hitler who will enter the World to Come as a righteous man. Distasteful
as this analogy is, it provides a graphic means of grasping the psychology
of people who yearned for the moment when God would destroy their
oppressors and consign them to damnation.4
Complicating the issue further is the relationship between
Christianity and the requirements of the Noahide code. David Novak
has written with considerable plausibility that a case can be made that
Christianity is a quintessential fulfillment of that code since it not
only establishes the obligatory moral framework but even meets the
Maimonidean requirement that non-Jews observe the code out of belief
that it is a product of divine revelation.5 Nonetheless, this position runs
afoul of a theological point that was at the forefront of the medieval
Jewish psyche, to wit, the status of worship directed at Jesus of Nazareth
as a hypostasis of the triune God. Almost all medieval Jews saw this as
a form of avodah zarah, or worship of an entity other than God, which
prima facie violated one of the seven Noahide commandments. During
the Paris Disputation of 1240, R. Yehiel of Paris displayed considerable
unease when he was more or less forced to imply in response to a direct
4 Some forms of Christianity, at least today, take a position on forgiveness of enemies
that can be quite jarring to Jews. During a break at an international meeting in Lower
Manhattan between Catholic clergy, primarily cardinals, and Orthodox Jews arranged
by the World Jewish Congress, the group walked to ground zero, where Cardinal
Lustiger of France recited a spontaneous prayer. I was stunned when I heard the words,
“Pardonnez les assassins.” I cannot imagine a Jew who would share this sentiment,
particularly in light of the fact that the 9/11 murderers left themselves no opportunity
to repent. My discomfiture was enhanced later in the day when another cardinal spoke
of how we can learn from a Jewish Holocaust survivor who converted to Catholicism
and declared that she forgives those who tormented her in the camps.
5 “Mitsvah,” in Christianity in Jewish Terms, ed. by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak,
Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel, and Michael Signer (Boulder, Colorado, and Oxford,
2000), p. 118.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
question that Christians could be saved through their own faith; other
medieval Jews unhesitatingly answered this question in the negative.6
In sum, then, Jews in the Christian world refrained from missionizing
as a result of an extraordinarily complex constellation of theological,
historical, and psychological considerations not always consistent with
one another: The Jewish people should retain its uniqueness even in
eschatological times; non-Jews have an avenue of salvation without
joining that people (though that avenue is probably not Christianity);
missionizing was dangerous; its chances of meeting with significant
success were minuscule; and the persecutors of Israel should receive their
just punishment for all that they had done.
Despite all this, the impulse to have Christians recognize the truth
was not absent from the medieval Jewish psyche. Members of a minority
regularly mocked for their religious error and periodically pressured to
renounce it enjoyed a sense of validation and enormous satisfaction when
adherents of the majority faith recognized their own error. While this is
a point whose psychological validity is almost self-evident, here is a text
from the Nizzahon Vetus, a late-thirteenth-century Northern European
polemic that I edited several decades ago, that spells it out:
6 See my discussion in “On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical
Literature” (in Hebrew), in Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and
Historiography, ed. by Yom Tov Assis et al. (Jerusalem, 2000), pp. 80–81 [translation in this
volume].
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Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism and Christianity
take refuge under the wing of the divine presence. It is evident that they
would not do this unless they knew for certain that their faith is without
foundation and that it is all a lie, vanity, and emptiness. Consequently, you
should be ashamed when you mention the matter of proselytes.7
7 The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Nizzahon
Vetus with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia, 1979; softcover
edition, Northvale, New Jersey and London, 1996), #211, English section, pp. 206–207.
I commented on this passage in “Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages,”
in The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and his Work, ed. by Jay M. Harris (Cambridge,
Mass., 2002), pp. 52–54.
8 Tosafot to Qiddushin 70b, s.v. qashim gerim.
9 Teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. by Joshua Blau (Jerusalem, 1989), no. 149.
10 See the argument in my “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the
Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages,” American Historical Review 91 (1986):
576–591.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
their oppressors. Such a desire conflicts with the hope for eschatological
vindication, a hope that provides its full measure of psychological benefit
only if the deniers of Judaism acknowledge their error at the end of days
and proclaim, in the words of the High Holiday liturgy, “The Lord God of
Israel is King, and his kingship rules over all.”11
Jacob Katz argued that by the sixteenth century, the assertiveness
that marked medieval Jewish attitudes toward Christianity, particularly
in Northern Europe, began to wane, and that this transformation also
affected attitudes toward converts and conversion. The Jewish community
had turned inward and no longer sought to impress the Christian
world with its ability to attract outsiders. But as Jews moved toward
modernity, other considerations emerged. Significant authorities began
to affirm that Christianity is not considered avodah zarah when practiced
by non-Jews. Thus, the likelihood that Christians could attain salvation
increased exponentially. For Moses Mendelssohn, religious toleration
became an almost transcendent ideal, and he famously expressed
dissatisfaction with Maimonides’ requirement that the Noahide Code
confers salvation only upon those who accept it as revelation.12 R. Israel
Lipschutz, an important nineteenth-century commentator on the
Mishnah, asserted as an almost self-evident truth that God would not
fail to provide heavenly reward to Johannes Reuchlin for his defense of
Jewish books against those who would have destroyed them.13
If Christians can attain salvation as Christians, the motive for
a Jewish mission is markedly diminished. In modern times, this is
often taken for granted as the reason why Jews have refrained from
proselytizing. In other words, Jewish opposition to mission is a function
of a deeply held principle recognizing the salvific potential of other
religions. As we have seen, the history of Jewish attitudes regarding
this question is far more complicated, but there is an element of truth
11 For a discussion of the scholarly debate about these matters, see my “On the Image and
Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature,” pp. 74–91. Several participants
in that debate also pointed to a medieval hymn in the High Holiday liturgy that describes
in recurrent, celebratory language how all the world’s inhabitants will gather to worship
the true God. For an English translation of this hymn, see, for example, The Complete
Artscroll Machzor: Rosh Hashanah (New York, 1986), pp. 495, 497.
12 For a translation and discussion of the relevant passage, see, for example, Steven
Schwarzchild, “Do Noachides Have to Believe in Revelation?” in The Pursuit of the Ideal,
ed. by Menachem Kellner (Albany, 1990), p. 36.
13 Tiferet Yisrael to Avot 3:14 (Boaz #1).
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Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism and Christianity
14 For a detailed analysis of Christian readings of this difficult chapter, see Jeremy Cohen,
“The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis,”
Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005): 247–281.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
15 Ruth Nisse, “‘Your name will no longer be Asenath’: Apocrypha, Anti-martyrdom, and
Jewish Conversion in Thirteenth-Century England,” Speculum 81 (2006): 738–739.
16 See, for example, Robert C. Stacey, “The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in thirteenth-
century England,” Speculum 67 (1992): 263–283.
17 For a discussion of both elements constituting the tension in the Church’s position, see
Kenneth Stow, Alienated Minority (Cambridge, Mass. And London, 1992), pp. 242–273.
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Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism and Christianity
18 This is the position expressed in the controversial Catholic document Dominus Iesus.
See my analysis in “Dominus Iesus and the Jews,” America 185:7 (September 17, 2001):
7–12, also available at http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/
resources/articles/berger.htm. Reprinted in Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Iesus, ed. by
Stephen J. Pope and Charles C. Hefling (New York, 2002), pp. 39–46.
19 “Jewish-Christian Relations: A Jewish Perspective,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 20
(1983): 17–18.
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Modern and Contemporary Times
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Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism and Christianity
20 “Jews for Jesus Ad Poses Painful Choices,” The New York Times, January 9, 1988, p. 26.
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ON DOMINUS IESUS AND THE JEWS
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On Dominus Iesus and the Jews
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Modern and Contemporary Times
— 380 —
On Dominus Iesus and the Jews
become fully real.”3 Cardinal Ratzinger, then, who has also declared that
despite Israel’s special mission at this stage of history, “we wait for the
instant in which Israel will say yes to Christ,”4 is a supersessionist.
At this point, we need to confront the real question, to wit, is there
anything objectionable about this position? In a dialogical environment
in which the term “supersessionism” has been turned into an epithet by
both Jews and Christians, this may appear to be a puzzling question. We
need to distinguish, however, between two forms of supersessionism,
and in my view Jews have absolutely no right to object to the form
endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger. There is nothing in the core beliefs of
Christianity that requires the sort of supersessionism that sees Judaism
as spiritually arid, as an expression of narrow, petty legalism pursued in
the service of a vengeful God and eventually replaced by a vital religion
of universal love. Such a depiction is anti-Jewish, even antisemitic. But
Cardinal Ratzinger never describes Judaism in such a fashion. On the
contrary, he sees believing Jews as witnesses through their observance
of Torah to the commitment to God’s will, to the establishment of his
kingdom even in the pre-messianic world, and to faith in a wholly just
world after the ultimate redemption.5 This understanding of Jews as
a witness people is very different from the original Augustinian version
in which Jews testified to Christian truth through their validation of the
Hebrew Bible and their interminable suffering in exile.
For Jews to denounce this sort of supersessionism as morally wrong
and disqualifying in the context of dialogue is to turn dialogue into a novel
form of religious intimidation. As the pre-eminent Orthodox rabbinical
authority Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik understood very well, such
a position is pragmatically dangerous for Jews, who become vulnerable
to reciprocal demands for theological reform of Judaism, and it is even
morally wrong. To illustrate the point from the perspective of Orthodox
Judaism, I will not shrink from mobilizing the most telling illustration.
The cardinal theological sin in Judaism is avodah zarah, literally
“foreign worship.” I became embroiled in a controversy several years ago
when I carelessly used the usual translation “idolatry,” which is in fact
sloppy and misleading in our context. Properly understood, avodah zarah
3 P. 41.
4 National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 6, 2000.
5 Many Religions—One Covenant, pp. 104–105.
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On Dominus Iesus and the Jews
all people the truth definitively revealed to the Lord, and to announcing
the necessity of conversion to Jesus Christ and of adherence to the
Church through baptism and the other sacraments in order to participate
fully in communion with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (no. 22).
To say that this sentence, complete with its references to baptism and
conversion, does not apply to Jews is to say they are not included among
“all people” and are already “fully in communion” with the triune God.
Moreover, in an essay on dialogue dealing primarily with Jews
and explicitly including them in the key passage, Cardinal Ratzinger
wrote that missionary activity should not “cease and be replaced by
dialogue . . . . This would be nothing other than total lack of conviction . . . .
Rather, mission and dialogue should no longer be opposites but should
mutually interpenetrate. Dialogue is not aimless conversation: it aims
at conviction, at finding the truth; otherwise it is worthless.” In a world
where other people already know something about God, “proclamation
of the gospel must be necessarily a dialogical process. We are not telling
the other person something that is entirely unknown to him; rather, we
are opening up the hidden depth of something with which, in his own
religion, he is already in touch.”6
In sum, we now have an official document of the Catholic Church,
“ratified and confirmed” by the Pope himself, declaring that a key
purpose of interfaith dialogue is mission, which includes the message
that conversion is necessary to attain full communion with God. There
is overwhelming evidence that the author intended this to apply to Jews
as well. Are there any considerations capable of mitigating the impact of
such a statement sufficiently to enable a self-respecting Jew to continue
to pursue this enterprise?
The answer, I think, is yes, but it is a highly qualified yes. First,
it is very likely that a substantial majority of Catholics involved in
the dialogue disagree with this assertion in Dominus Iesus despite its
official standing. Second, Cardinal Ratzinger himself asserts in his other
writings that the teachings of the Church Fathers instruct us that before
the end of days “the Jews must remain alongside us as a witness to the
world.”7 And speaking about dialogue among religions in general, he
says that unification “is hardly possible within our historical time, and
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REVISITING “CONFRONTATION”
AFTER FORTY YEARS
A Response to Rabbi Eugene Korn
From: http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/center/
conferences/soloveitchik/Berger_23Nov03.htm.
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Revisiting “Confrontation” After Forty Years
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Revisiting “Confrontation” After Forty Years
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Revisiting “Confrontation” After Forty Years
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DABRU EMET
EMET::
SOME RESERVATIONS ABOUT
A JEWISH STATEMENT ON CHRISTIANS
AND CHRISTIANITY
From: http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/sites/partners/ccjr/
berger02.htm
Read at the first annual meeting of the Council of Centers on Jewish-
Christian Relations. Baltimore, October 28, 2002
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these issues out of an internal moral dynamic. Jews can and should
express appreciation for this, but they should do so as engaged observers,
not as aggressive participants.
Once we become accustomed to arrogating to ourselves the right to
intervene in the other’s faith, we can lose our sense of proportion even
when dealing with moral issues where some expression of opinion is
appropriate. Jewish reactions to the Catholic Church’s treatment of its
own heroic and not so heroic figures are a case in point. I do object (mildly)
to the canonization of Pius IX. I object vehemently to the proposed
canonization of Isabella, whose transformation into a saint would be
the rough equivalent of canonizing a deeply pious early-twentieth-
century Catholic who had been instrumental in carrying out lynchings.
But I do not object to the canonization of Edith Stein. I thoroughly
disapproved of Jewish pressures to open the Vatican archives in the hope
of demonstrating Pius XII’s moral deficiencies. Within the International
Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), I argued
vigorously both orally and in writing against going ahead with the joint
commission on Church behavior during World War II, a project whose
bad end should have been perfectly evident to anyone who thought the
matter through.
Despite my aversion to any gesture toward expectations of theological
reciprocity, I am of course aware that perceptions of the other are affected
by interaction. Sometimes Jewish perceptions of Christianity have
become more favorable because relations improved, sometimes even
because they became more tense. The latter point is counterintuitive,
but medieval Christian attacks on anti-Gentile discrimination in the
Talmud led Jews to insist on a legally significant distinction between
Christians and the pagans of old, a distinction some came to believe in
full sincerity—and one which I believe to be correct in the eyes of God.
Nevertheless, the expectations generated in contemporary theological
dialogue have become institutionalized, part of the structural warp and
woof of the enterprise, and they are deeply threatening to a traditionalist.
John Pawlikowski may well be correct in his appreciative comment about
Dabru Emet in a commencement address at Hebrew Union College in
Cincinnati in May, 2001: “The dialogue will be stymied if Christians affirm
a theological bonding with Jews . . . without an acknowledgement of such
bonding from the Jewish side.” To the degree that this observation is
true, however, it reinforces my concerns.
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Let us now turn to the actual content of Dabru Emet. “Jews and
Christians,” it asserts, “worship the same God. “ This statement, I believe,
is simultaneously true and false. In Christianity in Jewish Terms, the
volume that emerged out of Dabru Emet, David Novak writes, “Idolatry
is the worship of a ‘strange god’ (el zar). The wrong worship of the right
God is ‘strange service’ (avodah zarah), which means the worship of God
by humanly constructed rather than by divinely revealed means.” This is
not flatly incorrect; there are indeed rare forms of avodah zarah, notably
the worship of the golden calf according to some interpretations, that fit
this definition. Nonetheless, it is misleading. Jewish legal and theological
terminology make no use of the term el zar despite its appearance in
Psalm 81. Avodah zarah almost always refers to the formal recognition
or worship as God of an entity that is in fact not God. For one who
denies the divinity of Jesus, classical Christianity is clearly included in
this definition. Thus, it is avodah zarah not merely because of the means
of worship but also because of the object of worship.
Even medieval Jews understood very well that Christianity is avodah
zarah of a special type. The tosafists assert that although a Christian
pronouncing the name of Jesus in an oath would be taking the name of
“another god,” it is nonetheless the case that when Christians say the
word “God,” they have in mind the Creator of heaven and earth. Some
later authorities took the continuation of that Tosafot to mean that
this special type of avodah zarah is forbidden to Jews but permissible to
gentiles, so that a non-Jew who engages in Christian worship commits
no sin. One medieval authority, Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri, may even have
believed that a Jew engaging in Christian worship is not guilty of avodah
zarah, though no other rabbi of any standing endorsed this position.
In the final analysis, then, virtually all Jews understood that Christian
worship is distinct from pagan idolatry because of its belief in the
Creator of heaven and earth who took the Jews out of Egyptian bondage,
revealed the Torah at Sinai and continues to exercise his providence over
the entire cosmos. Some asserted that the association (shittuf) of Jesus
with this God is permissible for non-Jews. Virtually none regarded such
association as anything other than avodah zarah if the worshipper was
a Jew. Do Jews and Christians, then, worship the same God? The answer,
I think, is yes and no.
It bears noting that this issue is not entirely a one-way street. Some
evangelical Christians object to interfaith prayer even with monotheists
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Dabru Emet: Some Reservations about a Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity
Jews engaged in dialogue with Christians succumb all too often to the
temptation to tell Christians what to believe about their own religion.
While Christian revision of teachings that contain the potential of spawning
antisemitism is very much in the Jewish interest, Jews need to be cautious
about making demands that can create resentment and backlash and even
legitimize Christian demands for reciprocal revisions in Judaism.
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the Jewish longing for the Messiah is “valid”; they must assert that “the
messiah’s identity remains unknown, and Jesus, whom Christians believe
to be the messiah, is not waiting at the end of days for Jews to recognize
the ‘error of their ways.’” How does one believe that Jesus is the messiah
and simultaneously refrain from asserting that Jews will discover this
at the end of days?
Rabbi Rudin apparently believes that Jews have the right to demand
that Christians reject one of the core beliefs of Christianity. We have
no such right, any more than Christians have the right to demand that
traditional Jews give up their conviction that at the end of days all
the world will recognize the messiah—and that he will not be Jesus of
Nazareth.
Finally, at this delicate moment in history, I need to add something
about Dabru Emet’s passage on Israel even though I did not address it in my
initial single-paragraph reaction. “Christians,” say the authors, “can respect
the claim of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel.” This statement
is surely true, and its validity is demonstrated by the many instances
of manifest Christian enthusiasm for the Jewish state. Nonetheless,
Christian attitudes toward Israel in the current crisis have once again
raised serious questions in Jewish minds about the value of dialogue.
Support for Israel in the organized Christian community comes primarily
from those who eschew theological dialogue and support conversionary
efforts aimed at Jews. Churches and organizations most involved in
dialogue are far more ambivalent and even hostile. The very habits of mind
that produce the dialogical imperative—the desire to redress grievances
and achieve justice for the historically oppressed— produce sympathy
for Palestinians. In the view of most Jews (myself decidedly included),
this sympathy has led to an inversion of morality in which mass murder
in response to an extraordinary peace proposal, education toward jihad
in the bloodiest sense, and mass dissemination of the vilest antisemitism
evoke next to no protest or even diminution of sympathy. Rather, it is
Israel’s efforts at self-defense, usually carried out with exemplary concern
for innocent life, that arouse passionate moral disapproval.
As long as this state of affairs persists, the Jewish-Christian
relationship, at least on the level of the Jewish street, will not be
determined by theological documents on either side. It will be determined
by an assessment of who cares about the survival of a Jewish state and
the fate of its citizens—and who does not.
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JEWS, CHRISTIANS,
AND THE PASSION
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ opened on February 25, Ash
Wednesday. I planned to catch a noon showing that Friday, and I was
a nervous wreck. Even setting aside the question of anti-Semitism,
reviewers had depicted a movie so horrific, with clawed whips sending
chunks of bloodied flesh flying across the screen, that I was not sure
I could endure the experience. (In the aftermath of childhood nightmares,
I have assiduously avoided fictional horror and cinematic gore alike.)
But one can hardly undertake to write about a film whose controversial
nature rests in part on its violence and close one’s eyes when the going
gets tough. And so I entered the theater in fear and trembling.
As the film unfolded, my reactions taught me something about one of
the key issues in this entire affair—the critical role played by expectations
and prior experience in molding a viewer’s response. The Passion is
indeed saturated with anti-Jewish motifs; and yet my expectation of
anti-Semitism had been set at so high a level that I could barely muster
more than a trace of indignation. The violence is interminable, central,
and utterly graphic; but my trepidation had been ratcheted up to a point
where I emerged from the theater with a sense of relief. Essentially, a film
drenched in blood, suffused with sublime sentiments of sacrifice and
forgiveness, and replete with images of venomous Jews left me neither
uplifted nor viscerally outraged. Though I am more than capable of
leaving a movie in tears, I left this one curiously unmoved.
My reaction no doubt resulted in part from the need to steel myself
against surrendering to an experience that might rob me of sleep for
months to come. But there was more to it than that. Despite its powerful
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made to look sinister while he and his friends are depicted in lighter
tones, thus isolating Jesus and the apostles from the Jews as a group;
that “if one cannot show beyond reasonable doubt that the particular
Gospel element selected or paraphrased will not be offensive or have
the potential for negative influence on the audience . . . , that element
should not, in good conscience, be used”; and that Pontius Pilate should
be presented as the “ruthless tyrant” that we know he was.
That the screenplay of The Passion violated the Conference’s criteria in
all these particulars was self-evident. But changing it to conform to the
Conference’s official positions would have required Gibson to start over
from scratch, and there was no way he would accede to such a request.
Instead, he took the offensive. One Catholic figure who supported him
issued the preposterous statement that the screenplay did conform to
established guidelines. Another declared that everything in the film was
historically accurate. Spokesmen for the producers indicated that the film
was a faithful presentation of the Gospel accounts, so that any criticism
of the screenplay was a criticism of the Gospels themselves. Sympathetic
commentators, including several Orthodox Jews, dutifully repeated these
assertions, although very few of them had read the screenplay or seen
the film.
***
At this point in the controversy, I felt both sympathy and antipathy
toward the arguments of Gibson’s defenders. For two decades, I had
publicly expressed strong reservations about the tendency of Jews
engaged in interfaith dialogue to tell Christians what to believe about
their own religion.1 This same caveat had been issued in the 1960’s, in
the midst of the excitement surrounding the Vatican Council, by Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the renowned Orthodox scholar, who was not
only committed on principle to nonintervention but was also concerned
about the dangers of reciprocal expectations. In general, it is because
their own instincts enable them to empathize with the deep, unalterable
convictions of fundamentalists that Orthodox Jews are particularly
reluctant to propose revisions in the faith of others. By contrast,
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In short, respect for the power and history of this story requires that
it be placed in a framework that elucidates its message in light of the
teachings of contemporary mainstream Christianity, Catholic and
Protestant alike.
***
In the months leading up to the film’s release, the war of words intensified,
and with it, the anticipation. The most vocal Jewish attacks came from
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whose leader, Abraham Foxman,
became the prime target of both Gibsonites and anti-anti-Gibsonites.
In the wake of intense criticism and a more realistic assessment of
potential consequences, the ADL moderated its rhetoric. But the damage
could not be entirely undone.
This episode deserves a brief comment, if only because it continues
to provoke debate. Although the decibel level of the ADL’s initial reaction
was clearly a serious misjudgment, other factors need to be taken into
consideration. First, the organization did try to act behind the scenes,
but encountered a stone wall. Second, some of Gibson’s rhetoric, as well
as his apparent doubts concerning the large-scale gassing of Jews by the
Nazis in World War II, understandably raised Jewish hackles. Third, it
was evident early on that his assertions about the absolute fidelity of the
film to the Gospels were questionable. Finally, and despite what some of
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However much you might play at seeing his work as just another movie,
Gibson has gone outside the normal bounds of show business and into
the territory of America’s religious absolutists: John Ashcroft anointing
himself with oil, gay-hating lawmakers attempting to write Leviticus into
the Constitution, antiabortionists shooting to kill, generals declaring holy
war against the Muslim infidel. Our country has a great, great many such
people who do not consider their convictions to be open to discussion.
They maintain a significant hold on power; and since a lot of them have
an antinomian streak, I doubt the rule of law would stand in their way,
should we manage to loosen their grip. The ever-boyish and ingenuous
Gibson, with his simple faith, has made The Passion of the Christ as a gift
to such people.
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First Amendment to guard against the need to think seriously about the
consequences of music and films, and who then speak of the dangers
inherent in The Passion, may justly be denounced as hypocrites. But so
can those who routinely rail against the dangers of popular culture and
then turn a blind eye to this film’s brutality and its potential for harm.
To speak repeatedly about the psychological damage to children who
are exposed to cinematic violence, and then take high-school classes to
see The Passion, is problematic in the extreme; perhaps, indeed, a form
of child abuse. (It should be unnecessary to add that peer pressure strips
the option to stay home of any meaning.) In assessing the potential
consequences of popular culture, traditionalist Christians do not ask if
those attending a rap concert will seek out women to rape immediately
upon leaving the theater. Similarly, the question of whether crowds will
pour out of multiplexes to initiate immediate pogroms is hardly the
proper criterion for evaluating the potential effect of The Passion on
attitudes toward Jews. Those who understand the power of films to mold
behavior, and who worry about their impact upon even a minority of
susceptible viewers, should be the first to recognize the danger.
***
Finally, then, we turn to the message of the film itself. I do not believe
The Passion was made with the purpose of arousing or increasing hostility
to Jews, but it exudes indifference to this prospect. The litany of its anti-
Jewish motifs, many of them not required by the Gospel accounts and
sometimes even standing in tension with them, is lengthy and impressive.
No filmmaker who actually cared about avoiding anti-Semitism could
have produced anything resembling it.
To begin with, the high priest and his wicked associates wear costumes
that evoke contemporary prayer shawls. They are bedecked with precious
metals. Judas’s thirty pieces of silver are thrown to him in slow motion;
they scatter on the floor, and he greedily picks them up. The Jewish boys
who pursue Judas are transformed into little demons— the metaphoric
progeny, as Andrew Sullivan has noted, of Satan himself (or herself), who
flits menacingly among the Jewish crowds.
In describing Jesus’ arrest by Jews armed with swords and staves, the
Gospels themselves simply assert that he was led away—in John, bound
and led away—to the Jewish authorities. In The Passion, he is beaten
vigorously and repeatedly during his forced march to the point where he
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falls off a cliff, is brought to a sudden halt by the chain around his neck,
and must then clamber back up. It is not enough to remark that the
Gospels tell us nothing of the sort. It strains credulity to believe that the
Gospel writers could have known of such extreme mistreatment without
allowing the slightest hint of it to enter their accounts.2
Once Jesus is delivered to the high priest and his associates, the
Gospels do speak of his being buffeted, spat on, and slapped after or just
before his condemnation. Here too, though, the depiction in the film is
much stronger than that of the Gospels. Then, when he is handed over to
Pilate, the sensitive Roman governor of the movie asks: “Do you always
punish your prisoners before they are judged?” This question, which does
not appear in the Gospels, is left unanswered, but its implications are
unambiguous. If the Jews behave this way as a matter of course, they are
routinely vicious; if not, they have singled Jesus out for special cruelty.
And so we come to Pilate. Before seeing the film, I had vigorously
defended the right of believing Christians to affirm that Pilate was
reluctant to execute Jesus but was successfully pressured by a Jewish
crowd to override his own preference. I continue to adhere to that
position in principle, but the film has impelled me to moderate it. The
inner struggle ascribed to the morally conflicted governor goes beyond
what the Gospels require, and its inconsistency with what we know about
this man’s character from extra-biblical sources becomes a legitimate
basis for criticism.
In the context of the film, Pilate’s (biblically unattested) complaints
to his wife about the rotten outpost to which he has been assigned and
the stinking rabble that he must deal with appear eminently reasonable.
The viewer, then, is led to identify with a perspective that sees Judea and
its undifferentiated population, taken as a whole, through the prism of
this bloodthirsty crowd. Pilate’s moment of discomfort while viewing
the lashing his men inflict on Jesus—a reaction also unrecorded in the
Gospels—forms an acute contrast with the unmoved cruelty of the Jews.
In still another scene, both unbiblical and implausible, Pilate attempts
but fails to quiet the crowd, whereupon the high priest sarcastically
2 “And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest” (Matthew
26:57); “And they laid their hands on him, and took him . . . . And they led Jesus away to
the high priest” (Mark 14:46, 53); “Then took they him, and led him, and brought him
into the high priest’s house” (Luke 22:54); “Then the band and the captain and officers
of the Jews took Jesus and bound him and led him away” (John 18:12–13).
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Since no one could have stood erect or perhaps even lived after such
treatment, it is self-evident that the scene is untrue to the intent of the
Gospel. What this means is that the subsequent scene, in which the Jews
have one more opportunity to change their mind, takes on a dimension
that even the admittedly harsh Gospel account does not convey. The
crowd now beholds a man who has visibly been subjected to unspeakable
torment. The rabbis of the Mishnah say that Jews are “merciful people
descended from merciful people.” Not here. Not a fleeting scintilla of
mercy. “Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!”
So Pilate sends him off to be crucified. At this point, direct
responsibility for the violence shifts entirely to the Romans. And here
in large measure is the basis for my tentative assertion earlier that
Gibson did not intend to foment hostility toward Jews as such. I am
referring to the consistent bestiality of the Roman soldiers, plus a few
small but significant positive indicators of another kind.
The sadism of the Romans underscores Gibson’s consuming desire
to maximize the depiction of Jesus’ torment and to highlight the
contrast between the evil forces of the film’s villains and the pure, self-
sacrificing goodness of Jesus and his followers. When evil is embodied in
Jews, they are depicted in the worst possible light; when it is embodied
in Romans, they are.
***
For Gibson, who was raised in an anti-Semitic household, the images of
avaricious, bloodthirsty, gold-bedecked Jewish monsters are no doubt
standard means of symbolizing Jewish evil, and may be used with no
concern whatsoever for their larger impact. Perhaps, just perhaps, he
really does not understand what some of his clearly decent defenders
also do not understand—that the depiction of Jewish monsters has
a potential for evil consequences that the depiction of Roman monsters
does not. It should not be necessary to make an argument for this
assertion, but apparently it is.
We have been assured that, just as there is no reason to suppose the film
will cause hatred for Italians, there is no reason to suppose it should cause
hatred for Jews. The differences, however, are numerous and compelling.
The Roman soldiers are not the leaders of their people; the high priest
and his associates are. The depiction of the Romans does not reinforce
a hostile stereotype that has persisted over centuries; the depiction of the
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Jews does. The Italians atoned for their sin by embracing Christianity; the
Jews did not. There is no history of persecution directed against Italians
as a consequence of this story; there is a history of persecution—a long
and bloody one—against Jews. There is no longstanding theological
argument for punishing Italians for their role in these events; there is
a deeply influential one for punishing Jews. No non-Jewish Italian has
ever been called “Christ killer” while suffering a beating at the hands of
classmates or mobs; Jews—Italian and otherwise—have lived through
this experience, and sometimes failed to live through it, on countless
occasions from medieval times through the 20th century.
Even on a purely cinematic level, a profound difference obtains.
The Romans in the movie are “innocently” sadistic. They simply enjoy
smashing bones, scourging flesh, making blood flow. They cannot help
it; it is their animal nature. The Jews, by contrast, are villainous out
of conviction; theirs is a thoroughly conscious, thoroughly intentional,
thoroughly satanic evil. There is a distinction, and Gibson cannot but
make it palpable even if he does not consciously mean to.4
Why, then, am I still inclined to see the Roman monsters as
an indication that Gibson’s assault on Jews in this film results not from
intentional anti-Jewish malice but from a Manichaean vision reinforced
by the anti-Semitic stereotypes that he imbibed with his father’s milk?
What nudges me in this direction is the presence of a few touches that
are inconsistent with systematic anti-Semitism.
The most striking of these is a single word spoken by a Roman soldier
to Simon of Cyrene, the Jew forced to help Jesus carry the cross. Simon
himself is depicted more sympathetically than the Gospels require; when
he asks the Romans to show Jesus some mercy, a soldier dismisses him
with the epithet, “Jew.” Here, then, the film underscores the Jewishness
of a sympathetic character where the Gospels do not.
Another such touch appears in the very brief flashback to the Sermon
on the Mount, where some of those present wear prayer shawls, thus
reminding us of the Jewishness of Jesus’ followers. While these tiny
flourishes do not even begin to neutralize the extended anti-Jewish
motifs and images at the core of the film, they do not sit well with the
assumption that it was made with the conscious purpose of fomenting
hatred against Jews.
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critics. Unfortunately, however, the Catholic teaching that all sinners are
responsible for the crucifixion was once seen as perfectly consistent with
the doctrine that the Jewish collective, and the Jewish collective alone,
suffered specific, grave, and ongoing punishment for its role. Although
it is a comfort to know that Donohue, a mainstream Catholic holding
a responsible position, cannot even conceive of the rationality of this
position, still, the “demented” view was held by major Church authorities
through the ages and by masses of Catholics even in the United States
through the mid-20th century, and its permanent demise can hardly be
celebrated with confidence.
I was particularly interested in seeing the official review of the movie
by the USCCB’s Office of Film and Broadcasting. It was no doubt to be
expected that the movie’s great popularity among the laity would affect
the positions of Catholic leaders, and so it did. While the review contains
some mild criticisms, it is on the whole laudatory; more to the point,
it contains not a single reference to the “Criteria for the Evaluation of
Dramatizations of the Passion.”
Michael J. Cook, one of the Jewish scholars involved in the original
evaluation of the screenplay, has seen this as no less vexing than the
movie itself. “The solid bridge of trust Jews thought they had with the
Catholic Church now lies exposed as merely a drawbridge, readily placed
in raised position when it is most needed.” My own emotional reaction
is identical to Cook’s; no measure of internal communal dynamics
can justify this betrayal of decades of Catholic-Jewish dialogue. But if
Donohue’s view is too rosy, Cook’s may be too despairing. In moments
of crisis, ecumenical work can indeed be ignored in favor of larger con-
cerns, but the quotidian activity of ecumenists effects slow, gradual, deep
change. The most fervent partisans of this movie have couched their
defense as a denial that it blames the Jews. Two generations ago, certainly
three generations ago, Jewish responsibility was taken for granted.
And evangelical Christians? Despite the Catholic provenance of
the movie, and despite its concentration on themes that Protestants
have historically deemphasized, these denominations have embraced
it with unbridled enthusiasm—to the point of construing criticism of
“Mel’s” work as enmity toward them and their values. In fact, a de facto
alliance between fundamentalist Protestants and traditional Catholics
has developed around the movie, with consequences that are difficult
to foresee.
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Jews, Christians, and The Passion
and in Buchanan’s case it may even have been more than that: an effort
to create discord between Jews and evangelical Christians in the hope of
weakening the support that the evangelical community has extended to
Israel. This, after all, has been a major stumbling block to Buchanan’s ability
to achieve agreement with evangelicals across a broad range of issues.
Whether or not that was Buchanan’s intent— and I put nothing past
him—this same issue is also at the heart of Jewish concerns about the
dangers of criticizing The Passion. To be sure, some liberal Jews—liberal
in both the political and religious sense—are deeply ambivalent about
the alliance established with the evangelical community regarding Israel,
and welcome the opportunity to disengage. But more conservative Jews
regard evangelical support for Israel as a virtual lifeline, valuable in
and of itself and especially crucial at a moment when that community
forms a key constituency for a conservative Republican administration
in Washington . Many Jews worry that the moderate, potential danger
posed by The Passion has been allowed to outweigh the acute and present
danger that currently confronts the Jewish people—and who is to say
that they are wrong?
***
This brings us back to the thesis with which I began: the battles over this
film have struck deep and dangerous chords. Reflecting and intensifying
old antagonisms, they have pitted conservative Christians against
liberal ones and religious fundamentalists against secularists. They have
divided Jews along both familiar and unfamiliar lines, forcing them to
confront the paradoxes of their current engagement with the Christian
world: a world in which fundamentalists who work to convert them in
order to prevent their otherwise likely (or certain) damnation extend
desperately needed support to Israel, while many religious liberals,
recognizing the ongoing value of Judaism and sensitive to manifestations
of old-style Christian anti-Semitism, vehemently denounce almost any
efforts by Israel, no matter how manifestly necessary, to defend its
citizens against mass murder at the hands of terrorists.
In the face of the deep emotions stirred by this controversy, the
challenge of maintaining a posture of measured criticism is especially
daunting. In the Jewish case, total suppression of criticism would not
only constitute a craven abandonment of self-respect; it would betray
Christian friends who have devoted much of their lives to the welfare of
— 415 —
Modern and Contemporary Times
the Jewish people. But neither can criticism be allowed, on either side,
to descend into self-righteous condemnation of all who disagree. If amity
is to prevail, traditionalist Christians will have to force themselves to
understand that reasonable people have grounds for genuine concern
about this movie, that its critics do not necessarily hate them, and
that some like them very much indeed. Jews for their part will have to
force themselves to recognize that the fervent embrace of the film by
traditionalist Christian audiences is not necessarily a sign of hostility or
even indifference toward them, that it emerges out of positive religious
emotions as well as understandable resentments flowing from the
demonization of the religious Right by influential sectors of American
public opinion. Jews must also force themselves to continue tending
ecumenical vineyards even as the limitations of previous achievements
have become painfully evident.
The reservoirs of good will that have been painstakingly accumulated
in the last generation are being sorely tested. They cannot be allowed to
run dry.
— 416 —
INDEX OF SOURCES
— 417 —
Index of Sources
— 418 —
Index of Sources
— 419 —
INDEX
— 420 —
Index
modern nationalism and, 8 liturgy of, 31, 34, 95, 109, 110n3,
in modern times, 7-12, 398 120n23, 121n24, 129, 131n43,
national unification and, 4, 26, 39, 88 132n45, 134n50, 135
Nazi, 10-11, 354-5 martyrdom, 55-62, 68, 96-98, 109
in New Testament, 350-2, 393 polemics of, 52, 109-27, 142-5, 143n8,
in pagan times, 4 145, 149, 152-4, 176, 195-6, 198n77,
as part of larger developments, 4, 19- 213
20, 23, 39, 43 vs. Sephardim, 49, 120-1, 132, 132n45,
as pathology, 4, 8 134n50
perpetuation of, 38-39 self-image of, 111-7, 134-5
popular, 6, 10, 37-38, 48 status of, 88-92
psychological explanations for, 7, 10, view of Christians, 31, 54, 66-73, 109-
28-30, 39, 48 36; see also crusade; polemics
racial, 10, 354-5 asmakhta, 167
religious, 4-8, 10, 253-6, 354-5, 382, Association for Jewish Studies, 18, 40
403, 415 attributes of God, 86, 223-4, 224-5n48
royal protection from, 5-6 Augustine, 24-25, 134n50, 222n38, 230,
tension with Christian elite and, 19-20, 253, 273, 381
22, 27, 39, 48 aural conception, 211-3
top down, 37, 48, 49 Austria, 4
unity of Christendom and, 4, 26-27, avodah zarah (foreign worship), 54, 57, 61,
39 66-68, 71-73, 72n56, 117-19, 120n22,
and usury, 257 130-1, 131n43, 132-3, 138, 146, 152,
and Zionism, 11-12, 360-1 160, 162, 168, 170-2, 170n24, 285,
see also Bernard of Clairvaux; crusade; 292-4, 301n25, 305, 315-6, 338, 369,
expulsions; host desecration; Jewish- 371-2, 381, 389, 392-6
Christian interaction; polemics; ritual
murder; The Passion of the Christ; well B
poisoning Ba‘al Shem Tov, 116
apocalyptic tension, 21-22 badge, 18
apocrypha, 80-81, 277 Baeck, Leo, 316n8, 320, 320n14, 324-5,
apostates, Jewish 63-65, 95, 111, 119, 171, 330-2
194, 197, 370; see also heretics, Jewish; Bahya ben Asher, 136
mumar Baer, Yitzhak, 41, 66, 196n68, 200, 203,
apostles, 82, 155, 255, 255n48, 402 205n8, 291-2, 299-300
Aquinas, Thomas, 51 Baldensperger, Wilhelm, 308-9
Arabs, 11, 110n3, 356, 358, 361-2 baptism, xi, 56n14, 65, 87, 144, 147, 283,
Aragon, king of, 201-5, 204n7 287, 314, 324, 383
aristocracy, 18 baptismal water, 44
Arnulf (Bishop), 259 Barcelona disputation, 68, 164, 194, 194n59,
Ashkenazim, 195n66, 199-208, 387; see also Nahma-
authorities, 57-62, 70, 89-90 nides; Pablo Christiani; polemics
culture of, 21n39 Baron, Salo, x, 15, 26, 26n22, 41, 56n14,
eschatology of, 31-37, 62, 66n37, 109, 94n61, 102n82, 112n8, 180, 197n74,
120-37, 129n41, 135n50 224n46, 257, 259
knowledge of Christianity, 44-45 Bartholomew of Exeter, 184n18
literature of, 109, 110n3, 131, 145, Bede, 275
145n17 Bekhor Shor, Joseph, 55
— 421 —
Index
Benedict XVI (Pope), 367; see also Ratzinger, Cassian, John, 278
Joseph Cassiodorus, 272, 276
Ben Sasson, Haim Hillel, 112 Cathars, 211, 213, 220, 222, 224-5; see also
Berengarius of Narbonne, 274 heretics, Christian
Berliner, Avraham, 41 Catholicism and Catholics, xi-xiii, 19-20,
Bernard of Clairvaux, x, 6, 73-74, 87n32, 203, 314-5, 333-4, 334n1, 337, 346-7,
210, 212, 245-60 350, 353-6, 365-6, 369n4, 375n18, 378-
Berrigan, Daniel, 358-9 84, 386-7, 389-90, 394, 397-8, 403-4,
bias crimes, 16-17 412-3; see also Christians, traditional
biblical commentaries, censorship, 24, 163
Christian, 82, 285 chalice, 44
Jewish, 82-83, 82n16, 267; see also Chazan, Robert, ix, 16, 89n38, 179n8, 199-
exegesis, Christian; exegesis, Jewish; 208, 210n2
Hebrew Bible; polemics, and exegesis chosen people, Jews as 117, 121, 314-6,
biblical criticism, 301, 318 343, 353, 368
bigotry, 28 Christian, Friar Paul, see Christiani, Pablo
Biron, Reginald, 264 Christiani, Pablo, 89n37, 101, 102n82, 103,
blasphemy, 23-24, 93, 95, 101-2, 132, 159, 107n116, 115n12, 159, 199, 201, 206,
163, 203n5, 260, 266, 275, 303 208
Blidstein, Gerald, 339n15 Christianity,
blood libel, 15, 25, 31-32, 36-37, 91, 99, 103, vs. ancient paganism, 67, 138, 169-76,
377; see also ritual murder accusations 293, 394
Blumenkranz, Bernhard, 41, 177-8, 182n15, antinomianism of, 324-5
197n72, 227, 227n4, 235, 263, 277, 282, and attitude towards pagans, 78, 247-9,
285 253, 258, 258n71, 271
Bocthusians, 156 and blindness of Jews, 83, 83n19, 251,
Bogomils, 99, 210n2, 211, 218, 220, 256-7, 265, 269, 353
220n36, 226; see also heretics, Christian derision of, 93-94, 95n63, 109-10,
Bohemia, 4, 7 110n3, 163-4, 173
Boteach, Shmuley, 414 development of, 292, 302, 318
Bougres, see Bogomils eschatology of, 302-3, 331, 343
Bousset, Wilhelm, 317n11, 320, 328 ethics of, 296-7, 303, 306-7, 310, 316,
Boys, Sister Mary, xii 3317n11, 319, 327-30, 330n42
Breuer, Mordechai, 35, 110n3 historical basis of, 140-57
Brosseder, Johannes, 163n13 as idolatry or “foreign worship” (avodah
Bruno of Wurzbourg, 276 zarah), 54, 57, 61, 66-68, 71-73,
Buber, Martin, 323, 330-1 72n56, 117-9, 120n22, 130-1, 131n43,
Buchanan, Patrick J., 414-5 133, 138, 146, 160, 170-2, 170n24,
Bultmann, Rudolf, 318 292-5, 294-5n10, 304-5, 315-6,
Burke, Edmund, 39 338, 369, 371-2, 381-2, 389, 392-6
Burkitt, Frances C., 330n44, 331n46 image worship in, 315
Byzantine Empire, 99n74, 180, 210 Jewish contributions to, 313-32
and Jewish law, 278-88, 315, 319-25,
C 386
Calvinists, 315 and Jews as chosen people, 343-6
Canaanites, 173 and mission to gentiles, 303-5, 379
canon law, 6, 24, 37, 47-48, 260, 314 as monotheism, 160, 170-2, 301-6,
Cantor, Norman, ix-x 318, 325, 327, 382
— 422 —
Index
rationality of, 29-30, 48, 75, 80, 85-87, Cohen, Martin, 204n7
200, 387, 413 Cohen, Shaye, 3
role of, 293, 295, 304, 311, 325, 327, commandments, Torah, 64, 73, 93, 114n10,
337 119, 139, 141, 143-5, 145n15, 147, 151,
and salvation of Jews, 247, 250-3, 172, 232, 242n36, 243-4, 278-88, 320,
250n15, 277, 288, 336, 375, 378-9, 322, 370; see also Jewish law; Jesus, and
387, 393 Jewish law; Noahide laws
supersessionism of, 344-5, 381-2, 387, confession, 314-5
393 Confrontation, 385-91; see also Soloveitchik,
universalism of, 296-7, 302-6, 310, Joseph B.
315-7, 325-7 Contra Haereticos, see Alan of Lille
see also anti-Semitism; Catholicism; contributions, Jewish, 312-32, 313n2
conversion to Christianity; Edom; exe- conversion to Christianity, 7, 9, 18, 24, 42,
gesis, Christian; Hebrew Bible; heretics, 51, 58, 61, 88, 171-2, 265-6, 276-7, 306,
Christian; incarnation; interfaith dialo- 370, 373-4, 384
gue; Jesus; Jewish-Christian interaction; and disputants, 102-3, 103n86, 186-7,
mission of Christians; new covenant; 190
New Testament; polemics; Protestantism; eschatological need for, 374
trinity; universal damnation; verus Israel forced, 246-50, 253, 262, 275
Christians, Jacob Katz on, 62-65, 67, 372
evangelical, 337, 340-1, 347-8, 363n71, mass, 7, 306, 373-4
367, 384, 395, 405, 413, 415 motivations for, 63-64, 191-2, 191n46
fundamentalist, 340-1, 351-2, 363, prevention of, 67, 349-50, 375-6
400, 402-3, 405, 413-5 see also apostates; conversos; forced
liberal, 296, 326, 328, 330, 340, 341, apostasy; martyrdom; mumar; redemp-
359, 364-5, 400, 403, 415 tion, conversionary; mission, Christian;
traditional, 343, 397, 400, 403, 405-7, New Christians
412-13, 416 conversion to Judaism, 63-64, 102, 121-3,
see also Catholicism and Catholics; 197, 302, 311, 325, 367-72
Protestantism and Protestants conversos, xii, 7, 42, 212n13
Chrysostom, John, 91, 268, 268n35 Cook, Michael J., 413
Church and Synagogue, 90, 260 copper serpent, 84
church, 44 covenant, 133, 136, 306-7, 334, 336, 339
Chmielnicki massacres, 377 double, 344-6, 393
circumcision, 113, 113n9, 128, 128n39, 141, new, 81, 143, 146-7, 380
143-4, 147, 278, 283, 303, 306, 370 old, 343-6, 357-8, 379, 386-7, 393
Cistercians, 246; see Bernard of Clairvaux Crispin, Gilbert, 44, 87, 91, 102n84, 185,
civil rights movement, 364-5 189-90, 192, 192n52, 193, 221, 227-44,
class system, 20 265
clergy, 6, 24, 25-26, 37, 49, 178n5, 180, crucifixion, 4-5, 19, 23, 76, 153, 186, 220,
188, 190, 192, 198, 201-2, 272, 355, 359, 251, 255, 255n48, 260, 264n16, 274-6,
369n4; see also monks; nuns; preaching 288, 303, 310, 333, 339, 349-56, 403-
orders; priesthood 13; see also Jesus, execution of; passion
Cohen, Abraham, 326 plays
Cohen, Gerson, x, 56n14, 319n12 crusade,
Cohen, Jeremy, 21n14, 23-26, 37, 148n21, and anti-Semitism, 4, 10, 43
163, 178n5, 182n14, 373n14 cancellation of debts for participants
Cohen, Mark, 38n51, 349n42 in, 249-50
— 423 —
Index
first (1096), 16, 22, 32, 47, 109, 110n3, Docetists, 212; see also heretics, Christian
178-9, 179n8, 272 Dominus Iesus, 375n18, 378-84, 389-90, 397
and increased piety, 4, 88, 261 Donatists, 268-9, 272; see also heretics,
Jews killing children during, 32, 35, Christian
36n47, 45, 57-59 Donin, Nicholas, 23-24, 68, 101, 102n82,
results of, 4, 100, 103, 377 103, 118-19, 159-60, 174-5
second, 6, 32, 179, 210, 246, 259 Donohue, William, 412-3
as turning point, 42, 179n8 dualism, 211-2, 220n36, 222-3, 222n39;
see also anti-Semitism; Ashkenazim; see also heretics, Christian
Bernard of Clairvaux; martyrdom Dubnow, Simon, 298-9, 299n21
crypto-Jews, 42, 209; see also conversos; Dubois, Marcel, 332n48
marranos; New Christians Duran, Profiat, 147-21, 148n21-22, 153-7,
Cyrus, 82, 214n18 153n39, 154n41, 157n47, 293n6
Duran, Simon ben Zemah, 132, 147n20,
148, 148n21, 150-1, 153n39, 154-7
D Duran, Solomon ben Simon, 122, 148
da Correggio, Yair ben Shabbetai, 151 Durkheim, Emile, 309
d’Alverny, Marie-Therese, 227-8
Daiches, Salis, 320 E
da Modena, Leone, 155-7 Eastern religions, 20
Da‘at Zeqenim, 116 Eckardt, Alice, 340, 363
Dabru Emet, 389-90, 392-8 Eckardt, Roy, 340, 363, 363n71
Damian, Peter, ix, 77, 87, 91, 143n10, 182, economic insecurity, 89-91, 89n38, 89n40,
182n15, 185, 190, 191n44, 210, 235n26, 95-96, 103
250n16, 261-90 ecumenism, see interfaith dialogue
Daniel, 132-3, 137, 264n16 Edom, Kingdom of, 96, 117, 128n39, 129-
Dark Ages, 79 31, 131n43, 132, 132n45, 133, 133n49,
David, King, 270, 281 136-8
Davies, Alan, 350 Edut Hashem Ne’emanah, see de Rossi,
Day of Atonement, 31, 95, 116 Solomon
de Leon, Moses, 136 Edwards, Mark U., 163n13
demonology, 6, 354-5; see also anti-Semi- Eginhard, 280
tism, and associations with Satan; Devil; Ehrman, Albert, 104n91
Satan Elhanan b. Yaqar, 44
de Rossi, Azariah, 155, 157 R. Eleazar, 167
de Rossi, Solomon, 90n21, 85, 88, 93, emancipation, 8-12
102n84, 195n66 Emden, Jacob, 295, 316, 396
Derashot ha-Ran, 125n34 Emicho, Count, 377
Devil, 6, 38-39, 38n51, 48, 182, 265, 270, Endelman, Todd, 9
377, 404 Enlightenment, 7, 139; see also Haskalah
dialectical method, 47 Ephraim of Bonn, 249, 249n11
dietary laws, 284 Episcopal Church, 353-4
Disputatio Iudaei et Christiani, see Crispin, Epistle to Yemen, 146; see also Maimonides
Gilbert eremiticism, 261, 264, 282
disputation, 88, 95, 161, 199-201, 263, Esau, 130, 135, 403; see also Edom, Kingdom
343, 387; see also Barcelona disputation; of
Paris disputation; polemics; Tortosa eschatology, see apocalyptic tension;
disputation Ashkenazim, eschatology of; Christianity,
— 424 —
Index
— 425 —
Index
— 426 —
Index
host desecration, 6, 17, 18, 28-30, 30n31, interfaith prayer, 389, 392, 395, 403
43, 377 International Jewish Committee on Inter-
host, 44, 93 religious Consultations, 394
Hsia, R. Po-Chia, 25 Italy, 261-3
interest, see usury
I Isaac ben Yeda‘ya, 113-14, 113n9
ibn Ezra, Abraham, 173n31 Isabella, 394
ibn Gabirol, Solomon, 300 Ishmael, 130, 132-3, 133n49, 135-7; see
ibn Gikatilla, Moses, 136 also Islam
ibn Verga, Solomon, 115n10 Ish-Shalom, Meir 128n39
iconoclasts, 272; see also heretics, Chri- Isidore of Seville, 77, 143n10, 234, 235n26,
stian 266, 282-7
idolatry, see avodah zarah Islam,
idolatrous monotheism, 171, 294, 304 and anti-Semitism, 11
Immanuel prophecy, 108 Christian approach to, 20, 43, 178-9,
incarnation, 85-86, 92-93, 138, 184, 186, 185, 220
188n38, 192, 200, 202, 220, 221, 252n26, and Christianity, 11, 67-68, 224, 371,
331, 338, 379, 387, 393 373
Innocent II (Pope), 258 contact with, 100
Innocent IV (Pope), 25 and Jerusalem, 360
Inquisition, 90, 94-95, 209, 209n2, 222, Jewish attitude towards, 67-68, 72,
374, 377 130, 133, 132n45, 135-7, 146, 293,
interfaith dialogue, x, 333-66 371
and anti-Semitism, 349-55, 390, 397 Jews under, 11, 38n51, 327, 368
with Catholics and Protestants, 333- persecution of Christianity, 262
43, 378-84, 386-7, 389 success of, 304, 306, 311, 325
dangers of, 385-91, 392-4, 397-8, 402 Israel, Ancient, 291, 301, 301n25
evangelical nature of, xi-xii, 378-84, Israel, carnal, 253, 269, 303
390 Israel, Land of, 123n29, 170, 172, 262,
and State of Israel, 356-64, 391, 398, 299, 357, 391, 398, 403; see also State of
400 Israel
and missionary activity, 343-9, 367, Israel, State of, 12, 40, 49, 334, 336, 334n2,
375-7 337, 340-1, 345, 350, 355-64, 367, 384,
non-interventionism in, 342n21, 348, 387, 398, 400, 415
351, 375, 377, 393-4, 397-8, 402-4, Israel, True, see verus Israel
408
parameters of, 333-43, 385-91 J
polemic, 286-7 Jacob ben Reuben, 44, 85, 88, 92, 93n53,
public policy, 364-6 99-100, 102n84, 108, 146, 147n20, 151,
relativism in, 392, 397 193-95, 217n24, 219n29, 221-3, 225,
Soloveitchik on, 385-91, 402 225n50, 225-6, 227-44
supersessionism, 381-2, 387, 393 Jacob of Venice, 88
theological reciprocity, 338, 385-91, Jacobs, Joseph, 314-5, 332n49
392-4, 397-8, 402 James I, 201-5, 204n7
triumphalism, 340, 347, 377, 387, 397 Jerome, 81, 95n63, 222n38, 230-1, 230n18,
see also Jewish-Christian interaction; 255, 278
Dabru Emet; Confrontation; Dominus Iesus; Jerusalem, 110n3, 125, 131, 167, 174, 247,
The Passion of the Christ 252, 270, 281, 303, 359-60
— 427 —
Index
— 428 —
Index
— 429 —
Index
— 430 —
Index
monotheism, 68, 85-86, 138, 160, 171, 185, New York Board of Rabbis, 389
301, 301n25, 301-6, 311, 314, 318, 325, Nicholas of Clairvaux, 271
327-8, 342, 395; see also Christianity, as Nicolas II, 274
monotheism Nineveh, 116
monotheistic idolatry, 171, 294 Ninth of Av, 110n3
Montefiore, Claude G., 322, 324, 326-7, Nirenberg, David, 17-20
330-1 Nizzahon Beli Nezah sive Triumphator
Moore, R.I., 20-23, 27, 37-38 Vapulans, 104
Moral Majority, 340-1, 363 Nizzahon Vetus (Nitsahon Yashan), x, 50,
Mordecai of Avignon, 88, 107n116, 219-20, 51-52, 52n2, 62, 64, 75-76, 82, 84-85,
220n36, 225-6 88, 91-110, 111-8, 123, 128-31, 142-4,
Moses, 118, 205, 281 148-9, 175n39, 194, 196n68, 197, 213-5,
Moses of Salerno, 86n23, 88, 108, 108n118, 217n25-38, 218, 219n29, 224n46, 225,
116, 143n8, 194 370-1; see also polemics
Moses ha-Kohen of Tordesillas, 73n57, Noahide covenant, see Noahide laws
147-9, 147n20, 148-9, 153, 161-76 Noahide laws, 73, 117, 119-20, 122, 169,
Moses of Burgos, 136 295, 297, 316, 368-9, 372, 396
Moses of Crete, 56 Nostra Aetate no. 4, 19-20, 333, 386-7
Mühlhausen, Yom Tov Lippmann, 69, 103, Novak, David, 369, 395-7
105, 213n14 Novatian, 234
mumar, 65 nuns, 98, 116, 192
Muslims, see Islam
mysticism, 300, 307 O
Oberammergau passion play, 352, 405
N Oberman, Heiko A., 163n13
Nahmanides, ix, x, 88, 107n116, 116, 159-60, Odo, 188-19, 188n36
164, 176, 194n59, 195n66, 199-208, 203n5, Odo of Cambrai, 186, 192-3
204n7, 205n8, 219n29, 224n46; see also Official, Joseph, 30n31, 69, 87n33, 88,
Christiani, Pablo; Barcelona disputation 94n61, 142, 149, 194, 197, 213-5; see also
Napoleonic Sanhedrin, 50 Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne
National Council of Churches, 334, 342, Official, Nathan, 88, 118, 118n18
359, 361, 363 Old Testament, see Hebrew Bible
nationalism, Jewish, 292, 298-302, 310-1, Opuscula de Conversione Sua, 63
327, 356, 358; see also Zionism Or Zarua, Isaac, 55
Nazism, 10-11, 354-5, 380, 392 original sin, 86, 314-15
New Christians, 7, 374; see also conversos; Orthodox Judaism, 49, 52, 320-1, 365-6,
Judaizers; marranos 369n4, 373, 381, 384, 389-91, 400,
Newman, L.I., 209n1, 255n52 402-3, 406
New Moon, 286 Otto, Rudolph, 309
New Testament, 44, 77, 100-2, 101n91,
141-55, 221, 229, 273, 346, 350-3, 379- P
80, 393 paganism, 4, 67, 78, 89, 137-8, 169, 171-2,
Hebrew translation of, 229-30 175, 177, 247-9, 253, 258, 258n71,
modern scholarship of, 292, 297, 301-2, 304-5, 325, 327n37, 354, 367,
308-9, 329 379, 382, 394-6
see also anti-Semitism, in New Testament; papal sovereignty, 21n13
Gospels; Hebrew Bible; polemics, use of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
New Testament 359
— 431 —
Index
Palestinians, 358, 361, 361n69, 362, 398, and argument from success of
400; see also Arabs; Palestine Liberation Christianity, 100, 218-9
Organization authenticity of, 190-6, 200-8, 263,
parhesia (in public), 62 269n41
Paris disputation, 6, 51, 73, 101, 104n91, and Christian heresy, 99-100, 103,
110, 118-9, 123, 152-3, 159, 194, 196n68, 209-25, 209n1
369; see also R. Yehiel of Paris and conception of the Jew, 83
particularism, 315, 317n11, 319, 325-7 converts as disputants in, 102-3,
paschal sacrifice, 128, 286 103n86, 161
pashtanim, 46 as defense against Jewish questions,
Passion, 22 180-4, 190-1, 194
The Passion of the Christ, 399-414 derogatory references to Christianity
passion plays, 352, 401-2, 405; see also The in, 93-94, 95n63, 110, 110n3
Passion of the Christ derogatory references to Jews in,
Passover seder, xii, 31, 314-5 251n22, 268-9
Pastoureaux, 90 destiny of Christians in, 117-38,
patriarchs, 61 123n29, 129n41
patriotism, 8-9 dialogue as, 343, 352, 386-7
Paul, 222n38, 229-31, 253, 277, 279, 293, discrepancies in records of, 200, 203n5,
295, 321, 323-5, 329-30, 332, 332n48, 205, 205n8
355, 350 about doctrinal issues, x, 80-81, 85-87,
Pawlikowski, John, 353n53, 394 140, 158, 211-21
penances, 46 early, 79-80, 79n12, 263
Perles, Felix, 320, 328 effect of realia on, 91-92, 92n46, 95-96,
Peter Chrysologus, 251, 272, 277 99, 108, 110, 134
Peter of Blois, 87, 182-4, 190-1, 191n44, and ethical superiority, 111-7, 117n17,
193, 228n8 134, 218
Peter of Cornwall, 189 and exegesis, x, 46-47, 55, 76-84, 87,
Peter the Venerable, 83n18, 87, 188-9, 91, 140, 158, 173, 196, 196n68, 201,
188n36, 191n45, 250, 257n63, 259, 228, 266-73, 282-7
259n76 and exile, 218, 218n28
Peter, 44, 92 folk, 92
Petuchowski, Jacob, 348 in France, 88-89, 195
Pharisees, 148, 156, 256, 268, 354, 368 and freedom of speech, 200-6
Philip the Bold, 90 use of Hebrew, 188, 190, 188n36
Philip the Fair, 90 use of history, 139-57, 147n21
Philo, 324 about Jesus, 139-57, 211-7, 217nn25-
piety, 4, 23, 39, 46, 49, 88, 245, 261, 288 38, 219, 267-8
Pines, Shlomo, 114-5n10 Jewish defense against, 82-83, 159-
Pius IX (Pope), 394 76
Pius XII (Pope), 394 Jewish initiation of, 42, 84-85, 94,
pogroms, 15, 17-18, 407 94n61, 181-2, 190-1, 194-8
Poland, 4 and Jewish law, 76, 84, 87, 141-9,
polemical literature, see polemics 153-6, 159, 191, 219, 229, 232,
polemics, 239-44, 257, 262, 267, 270-1, 277-
ad hoc arguments in, 146-7 88, 293, 310
as apologia for conversion, 187 and Jewish self-image, 111-7, 124,
apologies for writing, 180-7 134-5
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lack of missionary intent in, 180-7, Pontifical Commission for Religious Rela-
190-3, 197-8, 266 tions with the Jews, 334, 401
limitations on, 200-5 Pontius Pilate, 402-3, 408-10, 412
on martyrdom, 97-98, 103 Posnanski, Adolf, 41, 107n116, 220n35,
missionary purpose of, 188-90, 226
197n72, 197n74, 198, 198n77, 265, Posnanski, Samuel, 41
288 post-colonial age, 19
modern, xi, 376-7 power, divine, 86
and monasticism, 98, 98n71, 103, 116 Prager, Dennis, 400
and moral issues, x, 86-87, 87n33, 96, preaching orders, 180; see also missionary
98 activity
and New Testament, 100-3, 101n81, priesthood, 44, 93, 116, 133
102n83-96, 104n91, 141-57, 221 profit economy, 27-28
objective assessment of, 199, 201, prophets, 93, 132-3, 137, 144, 156, 165, 167,
207-8 240, 251, 252n26, 271-2, 276, 301n25,
pre-crusade, 176-7, 180, 288 302, 318, 322-3, 330, 358, 364, 396
and prophets, 251-2, 252n26 proselytism, see mission; conversion to
and reason (ratio), 87, 276 Christianity; conversion to Judaism
and ritual murder accusations, 98-99, Prosper of Aquitane, 276
103 Protestantism and Protestants, 333-4, 350,
roots of, 76-77, 88, 180-1, 181n11, 354, 356, 404
197 evangelical, 337, 340-1, 347-8, 363n71,
in Spain, 107n116, 114, 117n17, 366-7, 384, 395, 405, 413, 415
130-2, 132n45, 147, 176, 198n77 liberal, 9, 295-6, 318, 323, 328-30
to strengthen Christian belief, 180-4, see also Christians, fundamentalist;
266, 288 Christians, liberal; Christians, traditional
use of Talmud, 101-3, 150-7, 158-76, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 11
188n36, 199, 201, 208 Provence, 94n61, 110n3, 146, 220-2, 228,
tone of, x, 64-65, 75, 88, 91-94, 94n61, 232n23
176, 194-5, 195n63, 198, 198n77, Pugio Fidei, see Martini, Raymond
202, 203n5, 265, 267-8 punishment, divine, 19, 62, 127-38, 131n43,
traditions of, 108, 263 314n5; see also vengeful redemption;
translation of Latin, 229-44, 230n16 polemics, destiny of Christians
and trinity, 224, 224n46, 265, 267
and true religion, 110, 115 Q
and twelfth-century renaissance, Qara, Joseph, 126
180-1
about usury, 96, 84n66, 103 R
see also Alan of Lille; Ashenazim, pole- Raban Maur, see Maur, Raban
mics of; Barcelona disputation; Damian, rabbinic Judaism, 49, 296-7, 303, 306, 309-
Peter; Crispin, Gilbert; disputation; 10, 317-8, 317-21
Hebrew Bible; Jacob ben Reuben; Jewish- Rabbinical Council of America, xii, 387,
Christian interaction; Moses ha-Kohen 392
of Tordesillas; mission; Nizzahon Vetus; Radulph, 246, 249-52
Paris disputation; Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne; Rashbam (R. Shmuel b. Meir), 47
Tortosa disputation; verus Israel Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzhaki), 47, 65, 95, 119,
Polgar, Isaac, 112-3n8, 114, 114-5n10 121, 126, 129n41, 170, 196n68
political development, 20 Ratherius of Verona, 263, 275
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