Jewish books in Christian hands.Theology, Exegesis and Conversion under Gregory XIII (1572-1585)

240 Pages·2016·2.339 MB·English

by  Piet van Boxel

JEWISH BOOKS IN CHRISTIAN HANDS
Theology, Exegesis and Conversion
under Gregory XIII (1572-1585)

STUDI E TESTI
498
Piet van Boxel
JEWISH BOOKS
IN CHRISTIAN HANDS
Theology, Exegesis and Conversion
under Gregory XIII (1572-1585)
CITTÀ DEL VATICANO
BiBlioteca apostolica Vaticana
2016
–
Pubblicazione curata dalla
Commissione per l’editoria della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana:
Marco Buonocore (Segretario)
Eleonora Giampiccolo
Timothy Janz
Antonio Manfredi
Claudia Montuschi
Cesare Pasini
Ambrogio M. Piazzoni (Presidente)
Delio V. Proverbio
Adalbert Roth
Paolo Vian
Descrizione bibliografica in www.vaticanlibrary.va
Proprietà letteraria riservata
© Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2016
ISBN 978-88-210-0947-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter 1: Church Policy towards the Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter 2: The Preachers’ Manuals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 3: The composers of the Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 4: Procedure of the Compilations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter 5: The Exegetical Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 6: Scope of the Undertaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Chapter 7: A Jewish Encyclopaedia and Dictionary for Christians . . . 151
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Appendices
I Vat. lat. 14628 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
II Vat. lat. 14630 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
III Vat. lat. 14629 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
IV Borg. lat. 149 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
VI Vat. lat. 14628, 250r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Index of Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the long process that has led to the completion of this book I have
received support from many people and institutions. I am indebted to the
staff of the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, who helped me to navigate its
incomparable resources and, in particular, provided me with the means of
spending countless hours reading and re-reading the manuscripts that are
the subject of this book. In my own Bodleian Library the staff were always
helpful and supportive. During my years as Fellow Librarian at the Oxford
Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, I was fortunate to receive constant
assistance from the Library staff, César Merchan-Hamann and Milena
Zeidler. The unparalleled collections of the British Library were indispen-
sable for my work. My research greatly benefited from the three semesters
that I spent at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at
the University of Pennsylvania, where the Center’s Director David Ruder-
man stimulated debate and fruitful intellectual exchange. Although we do
beg to differ, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin has animated my own study of cen-
sorship. The countless discussions with my colleague Arthur Kiron, the
Curator of Judaica Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Library,
have been a continuous source of inspiration and intellectual stimulus. A
special debt of thanks goes to Theodor Dunkelgrün who shared my enthu-
siasm for the subject and was always on the lookout for relevant sources
that would aid my research. Michela Andreatta generously shared with
me her important findings in the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna. I am
indebted to Laura Macy for her exemplary copyediting of the manuscript.
Over the years my wife Joanna Weinberg has been my precious supporter
and invaluable guide through the intricate world of Hebraic scholarship.

PREFACE
This is a book about Hebrew books, their owners and readers. Seven
manuscripts from the Vatican Library, dating from 1578 to 1583, provide
the basic evidence for this study. Unravelling the complex interrelation be-
tween these manuscripts, I attempt here to explore the multifarious ways
that Hebrew books were read, analysed and judged by members of the
highest echelons of the Roman Church.
Throughout the sixteenth century a wealth of Jewish literature had
been made accessible to all readers. Christian printers with Jewish col-
laborators produced a wide range of Hebrew books for a Jewish as well
as Christian clientele. One of the most prolific printers, the Flemish entre-
preneur from Antwerp, Daniel Bomberg, set up a printing press in Venice
in 1515. Bomberg printed nearly 200 Hebrew books over the course of
30 years. His first major publication (1516-17) was the so-called rabbin-
ic Bible (Mikraot Gedolot): the Hebrew Bible with the Targum (Aramaic
paraphrases), accompanied by a selection of medieval commentaries. In
subsequent years it was republished with both some additions and some
significant omissions. For Christians, in particular, the various rabbinic
Bible editions represented a virtually complete summa of Jewish exegesis.
In 1520-23 Bomberg also published the Babylonian Talmud.
The Church’s appreciation of Jewish books was not unequivocal, shift-
ing from high appreciation to condemnation, from printing to burning.
As ever, the centrepiece of Jewish tradition, the Talmud, became a target
for negative assessments of Jewish writings. But other works, such as the
medieval biblical commentaries, also ran the risk of suffering the same
fate. After the burning of the Talmud in September 1553 and the intro-
duction of censorship of Hebrew books eight months later, Hebrew books
continued to be read, but were also scanned with ever more intensity for
their supposed heretical content. Under Gregory XIII the scrutiny of Jew-
ish literature went hand in hand with a renewed effort to show the Jews
the errors of their ways and persuade them to convert. Representatives
of the Jewish community were made to attend obligatory sermons. The
success of these sermons is difficult to gauge. We do not know the exact
numbers of Jews who turned to the Casa dei Catecumeni during Gregory’s
reign in order to receive instruction leading to baptism. The unease with
6 PREFACE
this Catholic endeavour, on the part of the Jews, seems to be reflected
in a letter to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto by the renowned Roman legal
expert Lazarus de Viterbo. In his letter Lazarus defended his coreligion-
ists against the old accusations of having falsified those portions of Holy
Scripture which seemed to contain proofs of the truth of Christianity. It
seems that such charges were proclaimed even from the pulpit1. Lazarus’
letter is a rare testimony. Extant documents rarely inform us how Jews
experienced and reacted to Christian evaluations of their own tradition.
From the Christian side, however, we have rich documentation, as will be
argued in this study, about the way Jewish texts were read and then used
both in sermons and in other contexts. The manuscripts discussed in this
study preserve a unique testimony to the way Christian theologians set
about their task of reading Hebrew books.
1 David Kaufmann, ‘Lazarus de Viterbo’s Epistle to Cardinal Sirleto Concerning the In-
tegrity of the Text of the Hebrew Bible’, in Jewish Quarterly Review 7 (1895), 278–96 at 281–2.