Abstract
The twelfth century was an outstanding period for medieval Hebraism and is subsequently the subject of far more research than is the thirteenth. The Christian Hebraists are known for their use of Jewish exegesis as a major source for their own literal commentaries, and are seen as belonging to a general trend of Christian interest in Jewish texts that marked the twelfth-century renaissance, as part of the f lowering of Christian literal exegesis.1 In contrast, in this chapter I will take a closer look at developments in Christian Hebraism during the thirteenth century in Europe, highlight its main characteristics, and describe how it differed from the previous century. In addition, I will demonstrate the connection between these thirteenth-century developments and Jewish-Christian relations during that time. When I refer to the Hebraist movement, I have in mind the broad sense of “Hebraism,” meaning not just Christians who could read Hebrew but all those who were interested in Jewish texts and wanted to become acquainted with them—whether to learn or to find material that would be useful for the purpose of disputations.
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Notes
On the Victorines and Jewish sources, see: Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1983), 102–106, 149–172;
Reiner Berndt, André de Saint Victor (d. 1175), exégète et théologien, Bibliotheca Victorina 2 (Paris, 1991), 221–226; Frans Van Liere, Introduction to Andrew of St Victor, Commentary on Samuel and Kings, Corpus Christianorum in Translation 3 (Turnhout, 2009), 13–16;
On Herbert of Bosham: Deborah L. Goodwin, “Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew,” Herbert of Bosham’s Christian Hebraism (Leiden, 2006);
Raphael Loewe, “Herbert of Bosham’s Commentary on Jerome’s Hebrew Psalter,” Biblica 34 (1953): 48–58;
Beryl Smalley, “A Commentary on the Hebraica by Herbert of Bosham,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiéval 18 (1951): 29–65.
See, for example: Hieronymus, Hebraicae Quaestiones in Libro Geneseos, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 72, eds. Marc Adriaen, Germain Morin, and Paul de Lagarde (Turnhout, 1959), 1–2;
Hieronymus, Epistulae, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 54, ed. Isidore Hilberg (Vienna, 1996), Ep. 20.2, p. 105 and Ep. 34, p. 259–264. On this issue see: C. T. R. Hayward, trans., Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis (Oxford, 1995), 92–99;
Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship and the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 1993), 41–81.
For example, in the introduction to his literal commentary on the Bible, when he declared his intention to quote Jewish sources, Nicholas of Lyra relied on Jerome and his guidance with regard to the need to employ Jewish sources for the criticism of the biblical text and for literal exegesis. See Biblia sacra cum glossis interlineari et ordinaria, Nicolai Lyrani postilla et moralitatibus, Burgensis additationibus et Thoringi replicis (Lugdunum, 1545), 1 :3G. For English translation see Alastair J. Minnis and A. Brian Scott, eds., Medieval Literary Criticism and Theory (Oxford, 1988), 270.
With regard to familiarity with Jewish sources until the middle of the eleventh century—the start of the twelfth-century renaissance—we can mention figures such as Rabanus Maurus (ca. 776–856), who quoted Jewish commentaries (see Avrom Saltman, “Rabanus Maurus and the Pseudo-Hieronymian Quaestiones Hebraicae in Libros Regum et Paralipomenon,” Harvard Theological Review 66 (1973): 43–76) and Theodulf of Orléans (d. 821), who made use of the Hebrew text in the edition of the Bible he compiled for Charlemagne,
see Pseudo-Jerome, Quaestiones on the Book of Samuel, ed. Avrom Saltman (Leiden, 1975), 4–11. In addition, there are pseudo-Jerome commentaries from the Carolingian Age, in which the strong influence of Jewish sources is evident. In most cases, however, there was no direct contact with Jews or study of Jewish texts, but only citation of Jewish texts from previous Christian writings (ibid).
To this list we can add Peter Comestor, who included a significant number of Jewish interpretations in his Historia Scholastica. Unlike the other names in the list, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish materials he cites come from early Christian works. See Louis H. Feldman, “The Jewish Sources of Peter Comestor’s Commentary on Genesis in His Historia Scholastica,” in Begegnungen Zwischen Christentum und Judentum in Antike und Mittelalter, Festschrift für Heinz Schreckenberg, ed. Dietrich A. Koch and Hermann Lichtenberger (Göttingen, 1993), 93–121;
Chen Merchavia, Ha-talmud bi-re’i ha-natsrut (Jerusalem, 1970), 167–193;
Ari Geiger, “Historia Judaica: Petrus Comestor and His Jewish Sources,” in Pierre le Mangeur ou Pierre de Troyes, maître du XIIe siècle, Bibliothèque d’histoire culturelle du moyen âge 12, ed. Gilbert Dahan (Turnhout, 2012), 125–145.
Deanna Copeland Klepper, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the later Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 2007), 14–30.
Ibid., 14–15. Langton’s commentary includes Jewish material. He also composed Hebrew-Latin glossaries. See Avrom Saltman, Introduction to Stephen Langton, Commentary on the Book of Chronicles (Ramat Gan, 1978), 29–39. See there some examples from Langton’s text;
Gilbert Dahan, “Les interprétations juives dans les commentaires bibliques des maîtres parisiens du dernier tiers du XIIe siècle,” Michael, On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora 12 (1991): 85–110.
Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 15. See Raphael Loewe, “Alexander Neckam’s Knowledge of Hebrew,” in Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda, ed. William Horbury (Edinburgh, 1999), 207–223.
Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 18–20. Robert Grosseteste exerted a major influence on Bible study by the Franciscans. He advocated that theology be learned directly from the Bible and not from Peter Lombard’s Sentences (as was the custom of the time in Paris and for some teachers in Oxford as well). He spoke of the need to master Hebrew and Greek and to apply knowledge gained from textual criticism. On Grosseteste and Bible study, see: Beryl Smalley, “The Biblical Scholar,” in Robert Grosseteste: Scholar and Bishop, ed. Daniel A. Callus (Oxford, 1955), 70–97.
On his knowledge of Hebrew and the Hebrew texts he owned, see also Raphael Loewe, “The Medieval Christian Hebraists of England, the Superscriptio Lincoleniensis,” Hebrew Union College Annual 28 (1957), 205–252, esp. 211–213.
Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 18–23; Smalley, Study, 329–332. On Roger Bacon’s attitude toward Jewish texts and Hebrew language, see: Smalley, Study, 329–333; Samuel A. Hirsch, “Early English Hebraists: Roger Bacon and His Predecessors,” in Samuel A. Hirsch, A Book of Essays (London, 1905), 1–72;
Horst Weinstock, “Roger Bacon’s Polyglot Alphabets,” Florilegium 11 (1992): 160–178.
Ibid., 47–57. See also Weinstock, “Roger Bacon’s Polyglot Alphabets,” 174 nn. 13–14; Edmond Nolan and Samuel A. Hirsch, The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon and a Fragment of His Hebrew Grammar (Cambridge, 1902), 197 ff.
Karlfried Froehlich, “Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament in the High Middle Ages,” in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, The History of Its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sӕbø (Göttingen, 1996), 1:509–510.
See M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First The Bow Is Bent in Study,” Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998), 3–54.
See Froehlich, “Christian Interpretation,” 512–517; Smalley, Study, 264–265; Bert Roest, A History of Franciscan Education (circa 1210–1517) (Leiden, 2000), 130–133; Mulchahey, “First The Bow,” 480–526.
Smalley, Study, 253–263; Froehlich, “Christian Interpretation,” 510; Phyllis Barzillay-Roberts, Stephanus de Lingua-Tonante, Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto, 1968), 95–108.
For example, the correctoria of William de la Mare and Gerard de Huy. See: Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 22–23; Gilbert Dahan, “La connaissance de l’hébreu dans les correctoires de la Bible du xiiie siècle. Notes préliminaires,” Revue théologique de Louvain 23 (1992): 178–190. For a list of the correctoria manuscripts we know of (most of which made use of the Hebrew text), see “Correctoires de la Bible,” in Dictionnaire de la Bible 2 (Paris, 1899), 1022–1026.
See Gilbert Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1990), 256, 267. An example of such a trilingual dictionary is Ramsey: Dictionnaire hébreu-latin-français de la Bible hébraįque de l’Abbaye de Ramsey (XIIIe s.), Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis in-4° 4, eds. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger et al. (Turnhout, 2008) and see as well Smith, chapter 1 in this volume.
For lists and short descriptions of these manuscripts, see Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Les manuscrits hébreux dans l’Angleterre médiévale: Étude historique et paleographique (Paris, 2003), 147–302;
Raphael Loewe, “Hebrew Books and ‘Judaica’ in Medieval Oxford and Cambridge,” in Remember the Day, Essays on Anglo-Jewish History Presented to Cecil Roth, ed. John M. Shaftesley (London, 1966), 36–48;
Raphael Loewe, “Latin Superscriptio MSS on Portions of the Hebrew Bible other than the Psalter,” Journal of Jewish Studies 9 (1958): 63–71.
See Olszowy-Schlanger, Les manuscrits hébreux; Idem., “Rachi en Latin: les gloses latines dans un manuscrit du commentaire de Rachi et les études hébraïques parmi des chrétiens dans l’Angleterre médiévale,” in Héritages de Rachi, ed. René S. Sirat (Paris, 2006), 137–150; Gilbert Dahan, “Deux psautiers hébraïques glosés en latin,” Revue des études juives 158 (1999): 61–87;
Gilbert Dahan, “Un dossier latin de textes de Rashi autour de la controverse de 1240,” Revue des études juives 151 (1992): 321–336; Loewe, “The Medieval Christian Hebraists”; Loewe, “Latin Superscriptio MSS.”
Sarah Kamin and Avrom Saltman, eds., Secundum Salomonem: A Thirteenth Century Latin Commentary on the Song of Solomon (Ramat Gan, 1989).
Here are several examples: For Andrew of St. Victor, see Michael Signer, Introduction to Andreas de Sancto Victore, Expositio in Ezechielem, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 53E (Turnhout, 1991), 25–26;
Van Liere, Introduction to Andrew of St. Victor, 14–15; for Stephen Harding, see Michael Signer, “Polemic and Exegesis: The Varieties of Twelfth-Century Hebraism,” in Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, eds. Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (Philadelphia, 2004), 23–24; For Herbert of Bosham, see Goodwin, “Take Hold…”, 137–141, 164–167.
Gilbert Dahan, “La connaissance de l’exégèse juive par les chrétiens du XXIIe au XIV siècle,” in Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge, eds. Glbert Dahan, Gérard Nahon, and Elie Nicolas (Paris-Louvain, 1997), 358.
At least until the middle of the thirteenth century, the Glossa ordinaria was the standard commentary studied at the University of Paris. It was also an important source for commentators in subsequent centuries. See Froehlich, “Christian Interpretation,” 518–559; Lesley Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary (Leiden, 2009), 193–239;
On the circulation of the Historia scholastica in the thirteenth century, and its place in the exegesis of that time, see: Mark J. Clark, “The Commentaries on Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica,” Sacris erudiri 44 (2005): 301–309; Mark J. Clark, “Le cours d’Etienne Langton sur l’Histoire scolastique de Pierre le Mangeur: le fruit d’une tradition unifiée,” in Dahan, Pierre le Mangeur, 243–266. In both of these works (the Glossa ordinaria and the Historia scholastica) we can find Jewish interpretations, especially in Comestor’s work, where it appears rather frequently (see n. 5).
By geographical breakdown, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Comestor, and Peter the Chanter were French. Andrew of St. Victor, Herbert of Bosham, and Stephen Langton were English (though they spent part of their careers in France). Nicholas of Manjacoria (d. 1145) was Italian (see Eva de Visscher, “Cross-religious Learning and Teaching: Hebraism in the Works of Herbert of Bosham and Contemporaries,” in Crossing Borders, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures, ed. Piet Van Boxel and Sabine Arndt (Oxford, 2009), 123. See there for more references); By monastic affiliation: Hugh of St. Victor and his student Andrew were Victorines, Nicholas of Manjacoria a Cistercian, Peter Comestor and Peter the Chanter were secular clerics.
For example, the dispute as to whether the Bible should be studied directly or through the Sentences. See ibid., 26–28, and the references there; On the differences between theology studies in Paris and Oxford, see also Monika Asztalos, “The Faculty of Theology,” in A History of the University in Europe: Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symeons (Cambridge, 1992), 1: 420–433.
See Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens, 314–322; Görge K. Hasselhoff, Dicit Rabbi Moyses: Studien zum Bild von Moses Maimonides im lateinischen Westen vom 13 bis zum 15 Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 2004);
Wolfgang Kluxen, Maïmonide et l’orientation métaphysique des scolastiques latins au XIIIe siècle, in Maïmonide, philosophe et savant (1138–1204), ed. Tony Levy and Rāshid Rushdī (Leuven, 2004), 395–409. Aquinas refers to Ma imon ides in the Summa Theologia. For a list of these references, see Dahan, Les intellectuals chrétiens, 317 n. 47. Evidence that William of Auvergne was acquainted with the Guide of the Perplexed can be found in his De Universo and De Legibus.
For examples, see: Joseph Guttmann, “Gillaume d’Auvergne et la literature Juive,” Revue des études juives 18 (1889): 243–255 (notes).
See, for example: Mercedes Rubio, Aquinas and Maimonides, on the Possibility of the Knowledge of God: An Examination of the Quaestio de attributis (Dordrecht, 2006); David B. Burrel, “Aquinas’ Debt to Maimonides,” in A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture: Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. Ruth Link-Salinger (Washington, DC, 1988), 37–48.
Earlier examples of Christian polemic based on knowledge of Jewish material are that of Agobard of Lyons (769–840) and his successor Amolo (d. 852), see Bernard Blumenkranz, Les auteurs chrétiens latins du moyen age sur les juifs et le judaïsme (Paris-Louvain, 2007), 152–168, 195–200;
Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, 1999), 123–145;
A. Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos: A Bird’s Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (London, 1935), 348–365; Merchavia, Ha-talmud, 71–92. They were followed by the eleventh to twelfth centuries scholars Peter Alfonsi and Peter of Cluny.
See Yvonne Friedman, ed., Petri Venerabilis Adversus Iudeorum inveteratam duritiem, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 58 (Turnhout, 1985);
Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogue against the Jews, trans. Irven M. Resnick (Washington, DC, 2006); Cohen, Living Letters, 201–18, 245–270; Williams, Adversus Judaeos, 384–394;
John Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers (Gainseville, 1993), 12–41; Both scholars used Talmudic material—Alfonsi due to his Jewish record and Peter of Cluny as a result of the Christian world’s discovery of the existence of this literature and the central role it played for the Jews (of which it had previously been unaware).
Various arguments were raised against the rabbinic literature. Some of them related to its use by the Jews—namely, that it was the Talmud that kept them from accepting the Christian faith, or its encouragement of anti-Christian behavior. Other arguments, however, such as that which ascribed heretical view about God or defamation of Jesus and the saints to these works, related to the texts themselves, whoever read them; There is extensive literature about the “Talmud Trial.” See, for example, Isidore Loeb, “La Controverse de 1240 sur le Talmud,” Revue des études juives 1 (1880): 247–261; 2 (1881): 248–270; 3 (1881): 39–57;
Gilbert Dahan and Elie Nicolas, eds., Le brûlement du Talmud à Paris, 1242–1244 (Paris, 1999);
Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, 1982), 60–72; Merchavia, Ha-talmud, 227–290.
On the Dominican mission in Catalonia and its unique approach, see: Cohen, Friars, 103–169; Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley, 1989), 67–85.
On the Barcelona disputation, see, for example (among many works): Robert Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond, The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath (Berkeley, 1992); Cohen, Friars, 108–128.
Olszowy-Schlanger, “The Knowledge and Practice,” 108 and n. 5; Smalley, Study, 155; Michael Signer, Introduction to Andreas de Sancto Victore, 21–22; Frans van Liere, Introduction to Andreas de Sancto Victore, Expositio Hystorica in Librum Regum, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 53A (Turnhout, 1996), 29–37; For example, Andrew of St. Victor, the acme of Christian Hebraism in the twelfth century, could not read Hebrew texts in the original. On this, see: Signer, Introduction to Andreas de Sancto Victore, 221–227; Berndt, André de Saint Victor, 201–213, esp. 212–213; The exception to the rule was Herbert of Bosham, to whom scholars ascribe good knowledge of Hebrew and the ability to read Hebrew texts. See: Loewe, “Herbert of Bosham’s Commentary”: 48–58, esp. 54; Goodwin, “Take Hold,” 152, 164–167, and also Appendix. Goodwin takes a more cautious approach toward Herbert’s knowledge of Hebrew, but does not dispute Loewe’s statement.
On the study of Oriental languages by the Dominicans, see André Berthier, “Les écoles de langues orientales fondées au XIIIe siècle par les Dominicaines en Espagne et en Afrique,” Revue Africaine 73 (1932): 84–102.
On Nicholas’ use of Jewish sources, see: Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh, 1963), 137–246; Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers;
Ari Geiger, “A Student and an Opponent: Nicholas of Lyra and his Jewish Sources,” Nicolas de Lyre, franciscain du XIVe siècle, exégète et théologien, ed. G. Dahan (Turnhout, 2011), 167–203.
Nicholas’ anti-Jewish polemics are found mainly in the polemical works written by him as well as in his Postilla. See: Deanna Copeland Klepper, “Nicholas of Lyra’s Questio de adventu Christi and the Franciscan Encounter with Jewish Tradition in the Late Middle Ages,” (PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, 2005); Cohen, Friars, 185–191; Hailperin, Rashi, 157–184; Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 82–108.
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Geiger, A. (2015). What Happened to Christian Hebraism in the Thirteenth Century?. In: Baumgarten, E., Galinsky, J.D. (eds) Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137317582_4
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