Petrus Alphonsi (also known as Peter Alfonsi; born Moses Sephardi) was a Jewish Spanish physician, writer, astronomer, and polemicist, who converted to Christianity. [Wikipedia summarizing Tolan]

Born at an unknown date in the 11th century in Huesca, when the city still was part of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), he embraced Christianity and was baptized at Huesca on St. Peter’s Day, 29 June 1106. In honor of the saint Peter, and of his royal patron the Aragonese King Alfonso I and godfather he took the name of Petrus Alfonsi (Alfonso’s Peter).

Petrus was born a Jew while living in al-Andalus, and after he rose to prominence, he converted to Christianity. In his life and writing he carried the tension of dual Christian and Jewish identity with great awareness.

His environment gave him an advantageous knowledge of Christianity, Judaism and Islam that would later prove useful in his polemics. John Tolan mentioned in his book Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers that “Alfonsi’s texts were received enthusiastically—he became an auctor, an authority to be quoted. His success was due in large part to his ability to bridge several cultures: a Jew from the [Muslim] world of al-Andalus.” His knowledge of these different religions is what makes Alfonsi unique and why he is essential to be studied when looking at Jewish-Christian and Christian-Moslem debate.

According to Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi was reared in a society in turmoil: a place of chaos and political instability, where Judaism was in conflict with science, and Islam and Christianity were becoming a larger influence. His background was conveniently placed in the center of contention between religions and circumstances that surrounded his upbringing, and provided the framework for apologetics and polemics that would shape Medieval Judaic perception.

Like many converts of his time, Alfonsi was accused of bad faith by the Jewish community and to counter this, as well as to show his zeal for his new faith he wrote a work attacking Judaism and defending the truths of the Christian faith. It became one of the most widely read and used anti-Jewish polemical texts of the Middle Ages, as Tolan shows. Alfonsi wrote the Dialogues in 1110; he presents them as a disputation between his former Jewish self (Moses) and his current Christian self (Peter). He divides it into twelve “Dialogues” or chapters: and the first four attack Judaism, the fifth attacks Islam, and the last seven defend Christianity. (see below for further details)

Prayer and reflection: Petrus Alfonsi faced the challenge of combining his Jewish identity and Christian faith in a way that harnessed and developed the tools and resources of Jewish-Christian polemics. This strategy would continue with disastrous effects for many centuries. His own sharp mind, and ability to master several fields of emerging knowledge, science and philosophy was not able to reconcile the disjuncture between the church and Israel. May Messianic Jews today have wisdom and insight to see the right relationship between Israel and the church, and their own particular role, without falling victim to prejudice, stereotyping and the ‘teaching of contempt’. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers – John Victor Tolan – University Press of Florida (30 Nov. 1993)

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/ptr/theology/research/CMR1900/Petrus-Alfonsi.pdf

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/12022/Wacks_Petrus_Alfonsi_postrpint.pdf?sequence=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Alphonsi

Author’s Postprint version. Please cite published version: Wacks, David. “Conflicted Identity and Colonial Adaptation in Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogus Contra Judaeos and Disciplina Clericalis.” Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain. Ed. Gregory B. Kaplan & Amy Aronson-Friedman. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 69–90. http://www.brill.nl/marginal-voices

From Peter Chessworth

Biography
Petrus Alfonsi is one of the key actors in the transmission and assimilation of Arabic scientific, literary and religious texts and ideas to Latin Europe in the early 12th century. His impact is attested in the survival of roughly 160 manuscripts of his works, in the frequent use made of them by key authors from the 12th century to the 16th, and in their wide diffusion through early printed editions.

Petrus Alfonsi was born Moses, a Jew from al-Andalus. He was educated in Hebrew and Arabic; his writings show familiarity with the Talmud, with texts of Arabic astronomy, medicine and philos- ophy, and with the Arabic wisdom traditions. Moses converted to Christianity, and the first date associated with his life is that of his baptism, on June 29, 1106, in the cathedral (and former mosque) of Huesca. He explains that he took the name Petrus in honor of St Peter and Alfonsi in honor of his godfather, King Alfonso I of Aragon. This probably indicates that he played a role in Alfonso’s court, perhaps as royal physician and astrologer.

At some point between 1110 and 1116 Alfonsi went to England, where he taught astronomy, and in 1116 produced his Tabulae astro- nomicae (‘Astronomical tables’), a somewhat flawed Latin version of al-Khwārazmī’s Zīj al-Sindhind, a set of astronomical tables with accompanying ‘canons’ or explanatory texts. Two of his students in England are known by name: Walcher of Malvern and Adelard of Bath. Walcher composed a text on how to predict eclipses, based on the teachings of Alfonsi, and Adelard revised and improved Alfonsi’s Latin version of al-Khwārazmī’s text. According to one manuscript of Alfonsi’sDisciplina clericalis (‘Clerical instruction’), he served for a time as royal physician to King Henry I of England. Sometime in the 1120s, it seems, he was in France, as he wrote anEpistola ad peripateticos in Francia (‘Letter to the peripatetics in France’), in which he complains of his lack of students, professes his expertise in the art of astronomy, and lambastes Latin intellectuals for preferring the study of grammar and logic to the ‘hard science’ of astronomy.

The works of Petrus Alfonsi provide a fascinating glimpse at how the Latin West adapted and transformed the intellectual and cultural legacy of the Arab world. The historical Alfonsi himself imported new texts and new ideas into England and France: the aphorisms and fables of the eastern Wisdom traditions, astronomical texts and knowledge, and his own interpretations of the Qur’an and Talmud suffused with Hispano-Arab religious polemics. He shaped this knowledge to fit the needs and desires of his pan-European Latin readers. His rationalistic religious disquisitions reflect the concerns of the theologians of the 12th-century renaissance, of faith seeking under- standing. He passionately defended astronomy and affirmed that the study of nature could reveal God’s designs for creation. And the moral aphorisms of the Disciplina are directed to the edification of a proud new educated clerical elite.

His readers, copyists and continuers were to perpetuate the pro- cess of ‘naturalization’ of the Jewish and Arabic elements of Alfonsi’s thought, using the Dialogues to inform a new, harsher anti-Judaism, mining the Disciplina as grist for their sermon tales and instructive fables.

Like many converts of his time, Alfonsi was accused of bad faith by the Jewish community and to counter this, as well as to show his zeal for his new faith he wrote a work attacking Judaism and defending the truths of the Christian faith. It became one of the most widely read and used anti-Jewish polemical texts of the Middle Ages, as Tolan shows. Alfonsi wrote the Dialogues in 1110; he presents them as a disputation between his former Jewish self (Moses) and his current Christian self (Peter). He divides it into twelve “Dialogues” or chapters: and the first four attack Judaism, the fifth attacks Islam, and the last seven defend Christianity.

Up until the Dialogi contra Iudaeos, the Augustinian tradition was followed in Christendom which allowed relative tolerance to the Jewish people, and for the most part up until this point the attacks on the Jewish people were localized and more importantly, not organized. There was no literature before Petrus Alfonsi’sDialogi condemning Judaism as a whole. There was no document for people to latch on to and group up against the Jewish people.

Alfonsi attempted to prove Christianity by disproving Judaism. The difficulty in proving Christianity through the invalidity of Judaism is that the basic tenets of Christianity originate in the Old Testament; if a polemicist proves the Old Testament is invalid, then ipso facto he also proves the invalidity of Christianity. Petrus attempted to avoid this problem, and refutes Judaism with their own weapons by challenging the Talmud and rabbis.

This work presented a point of view contrary to previous Christian philosophy because Christians claimed that the Jews were blindly practicing the Old Law. Petrus Alfonsi initiated a differing idea that “the Jews no longer followed the Old Law; they follow a new and heretical law, that of the Talmud.” Petrus’ belief was that the Jewish leaders were knowingly and willfully leading their flock astray. He believed that they purposely lied in order to conceal their sin of killing Jesus, in spite of the fact that they knew that he was the Son of God. Petrus Alfonsi also claimed that the Talmud was written to keep the Jewish people from seeing that Jesus was the Son of God; he called the Talmud “a fabric of lies” and a “heretical book.”

What makes this doctrine so radically different from previous Christian polemics is that they tried to prove the validity of Christianity by pointing out scriptures in the Old Law that confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God. With this belief, it portrayed the Jews as a people who would eventually see the truth and would ultimately convert to Christianity. Petrus’ new concept claimed that the Jewish leaders were blatantly lying and had attempted to cover up the truth. This new concept obviously would create a new type of tension between Christians and Jews.

The Augustinian tradition afforded Jews in Europe a tolerance throughout the Latin West that was not shared among other religions. This tradition did not place any emphasis on Judaism being heretical, but rather pointed to the fact that the Jews had a pivotal part to play in the spreading of Christianity. This doctrine was originally written to explain why Jews were not converting to Christianity. Since the Jews were the ones who had kept the law, it would seem logical that they would know whether the savior had come, and this presented a problem within Christian society. Daniel Lasker said of Petrus’ ideology that “These innovations signaled the beginning of the end of the relative Christian tolerance of Jews and Judaism inspired by the writings of Augustine.” Other authors before Petrus had used harsher rhetoric; there was seldom any deviation from the Augustinian tradition.

Alphonsi “was probably the first to connect the ‘ineffable’ trinity with the ‘ineffable’ Tetragram“.^[10]

The Augustinian tradition assumed that, once the Jews’ purpose was served, they would convert to Christianity, but the Jews were not converting and people were looking for a new explanation. Alfonsi attempted to explain this discrepancy by stating that Judaism is heretical, and that the Jewish leaders have knowingly covered up the truth. He made his claim specific to the religion and Jewish leader, but not to the people as a whole. He did this through pointing out scientific inconsistencies in the belief of Judaism.

Alfonsi’s polemical work did not signify that the twelfth century was filled with violence between religions, or that the Christians were actively crusading against the Jews for conversion. At this time the Augustinian tradition remained and Christians assumed that the Jews would just progress towards becoming Christians. During Alfonsi’s life, his work set the stage and afforded the language that would enable later persecutions, rather than his polemics developing out of Jewish persecution. Although Alfonsi may not have been the man who was forcibly converting Jews, his writings did enable later polemicist to fabricate even bolder claims of the Talmud including that it was satanic. These new writings and ideals influenced the thought of many others in the Latin West for years to come.

Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogi contra Iudaeos was not an entirely new polemical concept; he used the same arguments and cited the same Old Testament prophecies that polemicists before him had been using. Before Alfonsi’s Dialogi contra Iudaeos, Medieval Latin knew very little about the religious beliefs and practices of the Jews living within their own city. Most Christians did not know the contents of the Talmud, and some did not even know of its existence. This lack of knowledge provided a problem for Christians who were trying to prove the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and they were doing this without even knowing the basics of Judaism.

What made Petrus Alfonsi’s work unique and gave him a level of influence that was unmatched by any of the preceding polemicists was his knowledge of Judaism combined with his new concept on how to perceive it. As stated earlier, Petrus’ unique upbringing gave him a particular advantage to be an authority on polemics. Because Petrus came from Iberia, a place where polemics were initiated from actual dialogue and actual knowledge of rival religions, he was able to bring his Andalusian polemic with his firsthand knowledge of Judaism out of Iberia to Latin Europe, and transform the Latin polemical tradition.

The Dialogi contra Iudaeos represented a turning point in not only polemical strategy, but also the perception of Judaism. In the Dialogi, Alfonsi argued with himself as his old Jewish self (Moses) and his new converted Christian self (Peter). What made this particular strategy of polemics so influential was the ability to control the argument legitimately without the need of a second party. Since the argument was between Judaism and Christianity, and Alfonsi was once a Jew and then a Christian, he was able to argue both sides with accuracy. By arguing against himself in the Dialogi, he was able to set the parameters of the argument without any unforeseen issues from a second party. Petrus was able to make each side say what he wanted; because of this, it was authoritative, and became a damaging piece to the perception of the Jews.

The polemics between Moses and Peter seemed to have a friendly tone in their voices, but the arguments that the Dialogi presented were a radically new way to attack Judaism. It was far more negative than any of the Latin works influenced by the Augustinian tradition. Alfonsi viewed Judaism as a conspiratorial, anti-Christian sect. Although he claimed that Judaism did follow the Old Law, he said that it is “only in part, and that part is not pleasing to God.” He also challenged the general idea that the Jews unknowingly killed the son of God, and said that they killed Jesus out of envy. He said that, “God revealed to their priests the Temple would be destroyed and the Jews scattered as punishment for the Crucifixion; the priests, out of malice and envy, hid this revelation from their people.”

This was a clear deviation from the Augustinian tradition, and was only successful because of the unique position as a Jewish convert that Petrus Alfonsi occupied. Because of his knowledge of the Talmud and Judaism, that until then was unprecedented by Christian polemicists, it validated his anti-Judaic position. This knowledge made him an authority, and allowed some people to begin to question the longstanding Augustinian tradition of tolerance, which was problematic for the Jews on many different levels. This not only became a threat to Jewish communities in creating new contentions between Jews and Christians that had not previously existed, but also Jews had to worry about the possibility of losing their position of tolerance with Christendom. With these new polemical works came the issue of what was the purpose of the Jew. If the Jews’ position no longer fell in line with acceptance within Christendom, then they would be forced into a new role, that of intolerance.

Various Arguments of the Dialogi contra Iudaeos[edit]

Alfonsi’s claim that was the most deleterious to Jewish-Christian relations was that the Jews knew that Christ was the Son of God and still killed him. John Tolan says that “Alfonsi was the first Latin writer of anti-Jewish polemic to assert that the Jews were guilty of deicide .” In the tenth titulus of the Dialogi contra Iudaeos, Alfonsi declares “that Christ was crucified and killed by the Jews of their own spontaneous will.” He claimed that the Jewish leaders were a deceitful people that should not be trusted, and since Alfonsi used to be a Jew, he was qualified to reveal their thinking process.

When the Jews were accused of killing the Son of God, there were three responses given in an attempt to justify why this action was done. The first response was that the Crucifixion was necessary, according to Moses, for it “fulfilled his will.” The second point that Moses makes is that many of the Jews’ ancestors were not a part of the Crucifixion and were already living somewhere else in the world; Judah killed Christ, not Israel. The last point Moses makes is that the Jews had a right to kill him because they had a just judgment of Jesus being a magician. Peter retaliates with valid counterpoints that are clearly better constructed than Moses’ points. This is not to say that Moses’ arguments were not well thought out; it is merely that Peter puts together a better articulated argument. Once Moses conceded that Peter was making valid points, he questioned then why the Jews would kill Jesus, because there were many Jews that were known for their wisdom. Peter then says that “since they denied him and slew him from envy, this is why they are guilty of such a great crime He said they decided to kill Christ “not in order to fulfill his will, but from the poison of hatred and envy.” Previous polemicists have claimed that the exile of the Jews was due to the Crucifixion, but what was new was the idea that at least a small number of rabbis knew that Jesus was the Son of God before they killed him and that the rabbis also knew this was the reason they were in exile.

Petrus’ attack, although directed at Judaism, does not attempt to challenge the Jewish people; he reserves his polemics for the rabbis and rabbinical Jewish writings. This is particularly interesting because his polemics demonstrate that the Jewish people were not impenitently heretical but rather misguided by envious rabbis who wanted to retain power over the Jews. If this was the case, then there was hope for the Christians that the Jews could convert.

This perception of the Jews being capable of conversion if they were just enlightened of the truth about the deceitful rabbis was not injurious to the Jews in the immediate future, but rather to Judaism as a whole over a long period of time. These concepts that flipped the Augustinian tradition upside-down laid the groundwork and afforded the language that would enable Christians to persecute the Jews for the purpose of conversion. According to Christians, once the Jews had discovered the truth that Alfonsi had, they would convert because the truth was self-evident. However, this was not the case and it gave Christians and later polemicist the impetus for developing a culture that would require a new position for the Jews.

When Alfonsi used the Talmud in his arguments, his goal was to expose it as “devoid of divine inspiration” and he did this through proving the Talmud was “contrary to logical and scientific fact.” The way that Alfonsi used the Talmud was completely different from how Christians in the past had used it. Previously Christians would merely peruse the Talmud for inflammatory references to Jesus in order to invoke Christian disdain towards the Jews. When Petrus Alfonsi quoted from the Talmud, he ignored any such slanderous language, and focused on references that would contradict philosophical logic or scientific fact. He proved philosophical fact in his polemics by discussing how the corporeality of God could not exist because it contradicted the dominant Aristotelian theory, and that the Talmudic rabbis saw such scriptures as “God created man in his own image,” as literal. In the Dialogi contra Iudaeos Petrus attacked the mystical tradition called Shi’ur Qomah. He showed how science of his day clearly contradicted the Talmudic claim in hopes of discrediting the validity of it being divinely inspired.

ALFONSI, PETRUS (called before baptism Moses Sephardi, “the Spaniard”):

A controversialist and physician in ordinary to King Alfonso VI. of Castile; born at Huesca, Aragon, in 1062, and died in 1110 at the age of forty-eight. He embraced Christianity and was baptized at Huesca on St. Peter’s day, June 29, 1106, in his forty-fifth year. In honor of the saint and of his royal patron and godfather he took the name of Petrus Alfonsi (Alfonso’s Peter). Like all the apostates of his time, he sought to show his zeal for the new faith by attacking Judaism and defending the truths of the Christian faith. He composed a series of twelve dialogues against the Jews, the supposed disputants being Mose and Pedro (= Moses Sephardi and Petrus Alfonsi, or, in other words, himself before and after conversion). Though the work is overpraised by Raymund Martin, in his “Pugio Fidei,” and others equally biased, it is but little known to-day; and, as Steinschneider observes (“Hebr. Uebers.” p. 933), fully merits the oblivion into which it has fallen. The “Dialogi in quibus impiæ Judæorum . . . opiniones . . . confutantur,” the full title of which is given in Wolf, “Biblioteca Hebræa” (i. 971) and Fürst, “Bibl. Jud.” (i. 36), appeared at Cologne in 1536 and later in “Biblioteca Patrum” (xii. 358, xxi.; ed. Lugdunensis, p. 172; ed. Migne, t. 157, p. 535). Other books are ascribed to him, and he is sometimes confounded with Petrus Hispanus of the thirteenth century. See Steinschneider (l.c. p. 470, § 282; p. 934, § 557, note 208), who regards him as the probable translator of the “Canones Tabularum” (“Cod. Corp. Chr.” 283, 13; f. 141b) from the Arabic. It is ascribed to one Petrus Anfulsus, who is very likely identical with Alfonsi (see Steinschneider, “Hebr. Bibl.” 1882, xxi. 38; “Hebr. Uebers.” pp. 985, 986, § 589).

Another controversial tract, described as a dialogue “Inter Petrum Christianum et Moysem Hæreticum” (Codex Merton, 175b, f. 281; in Coxe’s “Cat.” p. 69), is said to have been written by Petrus Alphonsi (compare “Hebr. Bibl.” xxi. 38). In Cambridge University, England, there is a manuscript of the fifteenth century bearing the title: “De Conversione Petri Alfonsi Quondam Judæi et Libro Ejus in Judæos et Saracenos,” which is mentioned in Steinschneider’s “Polemische und Apologetische Literatur,” 1877, p. 224 (compare p. 235, No. 5, s.v. Epistola).

Alfonsi’s fame rests chiefly on a collection of thirty-three tales, composed in Latin. This collection has enjoyed a most remarkable popularity, and is, on that account, an interesting subject of study in comparative literature. It is entitled “Disciplina Clericalis,” or “A Training-school for the Clergy,” and was often used by clergymen in their discourses, notwithstanding the questionable moral tone of some of the stories. The work is important as throwing light on the migration of fables, and is almost indispensable to the student of medieval folk-lore. Translations of it into French, Spanish, and German are extant; and Joseph Jacobs has recently discovered some of the stories at the end of Caxton’s translation of the fables of Æsop, where thirteen apologues of “Alfonce” are taken from the “Disciplina Clericalis.”

An outline of the tales, by Douce, is prefixed to Ellis’ “Early English Metrical Romances.” Nearly all the stories are adopted in the “Gesta Romanorum.” Chapters ii. and iii. were done into Hebrew and issued under the title , “Book of Enoch,” Constantinople, 1516; Venice, 1544 and 1605. An early French translation of this Hebrew extract was made prior to 1698 by Piques, and August Pichard published another version in Paris, 1838.

Bibliography:

• The whole literature is put together and discussed in Steinschneider’s Hebr. Uebers. (pp. 934-935). Mention should be made of the scholarly edition of F. W. V. Schmidt, Berlin, 1827, to whose notes Steinschneider offers very valuable emendations and parallels from Oriental and Western folk-lore.
• Steinschneider, Manna, 1847, pp. 102, 114;
• idem, Cat. Bodl. cols. 549, 550, 733, 734;
• idem, Jewish Literature, p. 174;
• the authorities mentioned in B. P[ick]’s article, Pedro Alfonso, in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia, vii. 864, 865;
• A. Clouston, Flowers from a Persian Garden, p. 100, London, 1890;
• Jacobs, Jewish Ideals, 1896, pp. 141-143, lays stress on Alfonsi’s importance as one of the intermediaries between Eastern and Western folk-lore, and quotes one of Caxton’s stories from “Alfonce.”

Today’s double entry tells the sad story of the role and reputation of Jewish Christians in the early middle ages. Trusted by no-one, and with little to help them in their marginalized identities, they were given scant protection or respect by either Jews or Christians. This was symptomatic of the hostility and distrust between the two communities rather than the particular failings of individual ‘converts’.

1320: “Pope John XXII issues Bullarium Romanum, ordering that Jews who convert to Christianity must be allowed to keep their property. The implication is that Jews who don’t convert won’t necessarily have their property rights protected.”

Paola Tartakoff’s fascinating and detailed study of the life of ‘converts’ in Spain in the Middle Ages gives much new detail on the motives, personalities and experiences of Jews who ‘converted’ to Roman Catholicism, the pressures they were placed under to prove themselves and conform to their new faith, the difficulties they faced or created in relation to their Jewish families and communities, and the failures of the Catholic Church to welcome and support them.

Prayer: Father, forgive the illicit means of persuasion, the unethical pressure and the outright hostility that was placed on Jews who ‘converted’. Forgive also those who took this step for insincere reasons, and whose actions brought shame upon them. May your church and Israel both recognize the mysterious bond between the church and Israel, and understand the role of Jewish believers in Yeshua as a bridge between the two communities, with a significant role to play in your purposes for all humanity and all nations. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391

Paola Tartakoff

http://www.medievalists.net/2011/08/01/christian-kings-and-jewish-conversion-in-the-medieval-crown-of-aragon/

June 27, 1967, the Israeli Knesset extended Israel’s legal and administrative jurisdiction to all of Jerusalem, and expanded the city’s municipal borders. Levi Eshkol assured the spiritual leaders of all faiths that Israel was determined to protect the Holy Places. The Knesset passed the Protection of Holy Places Law granting special legal status to the Holy Sites and making it a criminal offence to desecrate or violate them, or to impede freedom of access to them. Jerusalem became a reunified city that ensured freedom of religion and access to holy sites for all.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the re-unification of Jerusalem after the 6 Day War. May if be a city of peace, for all its inhabitants, neighbours and visitors, and may your justice, peace and freedom be exemplified by the conduct of its citizens. Bring peace, we pray, O Lord, in Yeshua’s name! Amen.

http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/ReunificationJerusalem.asp

Despite Israel’s appeal to Jordan to stay out of the war, Jordanian forces fired artillery barrages from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Although Israeli forces did not respond initially, not wanting to open up a Jordanian front in the war, Jordan continued to attack and occupied UN headquarters in Jerusalem. Israeli forces fought back and within two days managed to repulse the Jordanian forces and retake eastern Jerusalem. (For more details, see War: Jordanian Front)

On June 7, 1967, IDF paratroopers advanced through the Old City toward the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, bringing Jerusalem’s holiest site under Jewish control for the first time in 2000 years. There are sound recordings of the scene, as the commander of the brigade,Lt. General Mordechai (Motta) Gur, approaches the Old City and announces to his company commanders, “We’re sitting right now on the ridge and we’re seeing the Old City. Shortly we’re going to go in to the Old City of Jerusalem, that all generations have dreamed about. We will be the first to enter the Old City…” and shortly afterwards, “The Temple Mount is in our hands! I repeat, the Temple Mount is in our hands!” General Rabbi Shlomo Goren, chief chaplain of the IDF, sounded the Shofar at the Western Wall to signify its liberation. To Israelis and Jews all over the world, this was a joyous and momentous occasion. Many considered it a gift from God.

Israeli Reaction to the Recapture of the Western Wall and the Old City of Jerusalem

“For some two thousand years the Temple Mount was forbidden to the Jews. Until you came — you, the paratroopers — and returned it to the bosom of the nation. The Western Wall, for which every heart beats, is ours once again. Many Jews have taken their lives into their hands throughout our long history, in order to reach Jerusalem and live here. Endless words of longing have expressed the deep yearning for Jerusalem that beats within the Jewish heart..You have been given the great privilege of completing the circle, of returning to the nation its capital and its holy center…Jerusalem is yours forever.”

–Commander Motta Gur to his brigade upon their recapture of Jerusalem’s Old City and holy sites

“We have returned to all that is holy in our land. We have returned never to be parted from it again.”

–Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, upon reaching the Western Wall

“The Wall was before us. I trembled. There it was as I had known it—immense, mighty, in all its splendor…overcome, I bowed my head in silence.”

–General Uzi Narkiss, Head of Central Command during the Six Day War

“I felt truly shaken and stood there murmuring a prayer for peace. Motta Gur’s paratroopers were struggling to reach the Wall and toudh it. We stood among a tangle of rugged, battle-weary men who were unable to believe their eyes or restrain their emotions. Their eyes were moist with tears, their speech incoherent. The overwhelming desire was to cling to the Wall, to hold on to that great moment as long as possible.”

–Chief of Staff Yitzchak Rabin

“I am speaking to you from the plaza of the Western Wall, the remnant of our Holy Temple. ‘Comfort my people, comfort them, says the Lord your God.’ This is the day we have hoped for, let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation. The vision of all generations is being realized before our eyes: The city of God, the site of the Temple, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, the symbol of the nation’s redemption, have been redeemed today by you, heroes of the Israel Defense Forces. By doing so you have fulfilled the oath of generations, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.’ Indeed, we have not forgotten you, Jerusalem, our holy city, our glory. In the name of the entire Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, I hereby recite with supreme joy, Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us in life, who has preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day. This year in Jerusalem – rebuilt! “

–General Shlomo Goren, Chaplain of the Israeli Defense Forces, at the Western Wall

In a statement at the Western Wall, Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan indicated Israel’s peaceful intent and pledged to preserve religious freedom for all faiths in Jerusalem:

To our Arab neighbors we extend, especially at this hour, the hand of peace. To members of the other religions, Christians and Muslims, I hereby promise faithfully that their full freedom and all their religious rights will be preserved. We did not come to Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Places of others.

Before visiting the Western Wall, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol met with the spiritual leaders of different faiths in his office and issued a declaration of peace, assuring that all holy sites would be protected and that all faiths would be free to worship at their holy sites in Jerusalem. He declared his intention to give the spiritual leaders of the various religions internal management of their own Holy Sites. Defense Minister Dayan immediately ceded internal administrative control of the Temple Mount compound to the Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust) while overall security control of the area was maintained by Israel. Dayan announced that Jews would be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but not to hold religious services there.

Dayan also gave immediate orders to demolish the anti-sniping walls, clear the minefields and removed the barbed-wire barriers which marked the partition of Jerusalem. Within weeks, free movement through Jerusalem became possible and hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews flocked to the Old City to glimpse the Western Wall and touch its stones. Israeli Muslims were permitted to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock for the first time since 1948. And Israeli Christians came to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

On June 27, 1967, the Israeli Knesset extended Israel’s legal and administrative jurisdiction to all of Jerusalem, and expanded the city’s municipal borders. Eshkol again assured the spiritual leaders of all faiths that Israel was determined to protect the Holy Places. The Knesset passed the Protection of Holy Places Law granting special legal status to the Holy Sites and making it a criminal offence to desecrate or violate them, or to impede freedom of access to them. Jerusalem became a reunified city that ensured freedom of religion and access to holy sites for all.

The religious freedoms enjoyed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the reunified Jerusalem had been un heard of during Jordanian occupation of the city, prompting even a former Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations, Adnan Abu Odeh, to acknowledge that “the situation in Jerusalem prior to 1967 [under Jordanian rule] was one of … religious exclusion” whereas post-1967, Israel seeks “to reach a point of religious inclusion …” (The Catholic University of America Law Review, Spring 1996).

Julian the Apostate, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek.

A member of the Constantinian dynasty, Julian became Caesar over the western provinces by order of Constantius II in 355 and in this role campaigned successfully against the Alamanni and Franks. Most notable was his crushing victory over the Alamanni in 357 at the Battle of Argentoratum despite being outnumbered. In 360 in Lutetia (Paris) he was proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers, sparking a civil war between Julian and Constantius. Before the two could face each other in battle, however, Constantius died, after naming Julian as his rightful successor. In 363, Julian embarked on an ambitious campaign against the Sassanid Empire. Though initially successful, Julian was mortally wounded in battle and died shortly thereafter.

Julian was a man of unusually complex character: he was “the military commander, the theosophist, the social reformer, and the man of letters”. He was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, and it was his desire to bring the Empire back to its ancient Roman values in order to save it from dissolution. He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy and attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at the cost of Christianity. His rejection of Christianity in favour of Neoplatonic paganism caused him to be called Julian the Apostate (Ἀποστάτης Apostates, “a person who has abandoned their religion, principles”) by the church. He was the last emperor of the Constantinian dynasty, the empire’s first Christian dynasty.

Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple

In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Temple rebuilt. A personal friend of his, Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort:

Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt.

The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to the Galilee earthquake of 363, and to the Jews’ ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time. Julian’s support of Jews caused Jews to call him “Julian the Hellene”.

Prayer: Lord, help us to learn from this complex character and the times in which he lived, to reckon our days as but a short span, and to seek to glorify you in all that we do, recognizing that only you can achieve your divine purposes with your church, Israel and all nations. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10482.html

http://www.fisheaters.com/juliantemple.html

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Tisha-BeAv-The-Third-Temple-that-wasnt

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)}

JULIAN THE APOSTATE°

JULIAN THE APOSTATE° (Flavius Claudius Julianus; 331–363 C.E.), Roman emperor 361–363 C.E. As a child Julian escaped the slaughter of his immediate family during the struggles for the throne after the death of his uncle Constantine the Great. Although in his youth Julian received a Christian education under the supervision of Eusebius, the bishop of Nicomedea, he later was greatly influenced by Greek philosophy and ideas. In 355 Emperor Constantius appointed Julian governor of Gaul, where he proved to be an outstanding soldier and administrator, defeating the invading German tribes, and strengthening the provincial administration. In 360 Julian’s troops, ordered to join Constantius in the war against Persia in the East, mutinied and declared Julian emperor. When Constantius suddenly died the following year, Julian became the undisputed ruler over the entire Empire.

Julian saw Christianity – which within a generation had ceased to be a persecuted belief and had become the official religion persecuting others – as a sickness within the body politic, and felt deep revulsion toward it from an ethical-religious viewpoint. Although he issued an edict of universal religious toleration, he gave practical expression to his opposition to Christianity by founding a pagan cult in which he served as pontifex maximus. He established regulations governing the behavior and way of life of the pagan priests, formulated important ethical values, and forbade certain books because they were inimical to pagan religious belief. His polemics against Christianity were reinforced by the use of imperial influence – though not force – on behalf of paganism. His writings reveal his knowledge of the Bible and the New Testament. Many of the themes in his polemic Against the Galileans (as the Christians were known) have some relevance to Judaism, but they must be judged less in terms of his friendship to the Jews than of his hatred of Christianity. He chides Christianity for having adopted the worst aspects of paganism and Judaism, and for having broken away from Judaism; he writes that the beliefs of the Jews are identical with or only slightly different from those of other nations, with the exception of belief in one God; and on various occasions he denies the allegorical interpretation of Christianity, deriving his arguments from the Bible.

Julian discussed Jewish monotheism from two viewpoints: first, he refuted the Christian claim that Jesus, the Logos, is God, since the Bible recognizes only one God (Againstthe Galileans, 253Aff.); second, he attempted to fit Judaism into the pagan pantheon and isolate Christianity. He therefore argued that the Jews are the chosen people of their god, who is their particular national and local deity (or daemon) and watches over them, just as do other city gods and national deities “who are a kind of regent for the king” (ibid.99E, 115D, 141C–D, 176A–B). However, he was not pleased with Jewish zealousness against other gods, and with the Jews’ observance of the Sabbath. He compared the myths of Genesis with the Homeric epic and the Platonic cosmogony, and argued that paganism’s religious tradition and view of godhood is superior to Judaism’s. He found supporting evidence in the Jewish history of bondage, and the fact that the Jewish people never spawned great military leaders, philosophers, lawmakers, natural scientists, physicians, musicians, logicians, etc. in proportion to their numbers – reflecting negatively upon their religion.

Julian’s attitude toward the Jews was generally defined by the needs of his polemic against the Christians. Just before Julian embarked on his Persian campaign he promised to abolish the anti-Jewish laws and to rebuild the Temple where he would join the Jews in worship (Letter to the Community of the Jews, no. 51, 396–8). Shortly after this he wrote that “even now the temple is being raised again” (Letter to a Priest, 295c). Jewish sources contain only vague hints of these activities. R. Aha said that the five sacred objects present in the First Temple were missing in the Second (TJ, Ta’an. 65a; ibid. Hor. 47c; Yoma 21b), implying that the Third Temple would be built without any of these. He also said that it would be rebuilt before the Messiah (TJ, Ma’as. Sh. 56a). Jerome reports that some Jews interpreted sublevabuntur auxilio parvulo (Dan. 11:34) to refer to this episode (Commentary to Daniel 717). A fuller account is found in Ammianus Marcellinus where Julian is said to have wanted to found the Temple as a memorial to his rule. He arranged for money and building materials to be provided, appointing Alypius of Antioch, but after several attempts to build on the site he was discouraged by a fire which broke out in the ruins there (Res Gestae 23:2–3). The Church Fathers embellished the story in various ways adding that the Jews received Julian’s proposal enthusiastically, coming in thousands to the Temple Mount with stones in their hands, but when the first stones were laid the Jews were threatened by earthquakes and hurricanes, and finally driven off by a heavenly fire and specter of Christ (Gregory of Nazianz, Contra Julianum, Oratio, no. 4, 2:149–50; Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 3:196; Sozomenus,Historia Ecclesiastica, 5:214–5). Two important facts may be gathered from these sources: (1) Julian wished to rebuild the Temple to strengthen paganism against Christianity (he saw Judaism and paganism as having sacrificial rites in common); (2) he wished to refute Jesus’ prophecy concerning the Temple (Luke 21:6; Matt. 24:2). Later Christian writers claimed that at Julian’s decree to rebuild the Temple the Jews massacred the Christians, burning churches at Ashkelon, Damascus, Gaza, and Alexandria (Ambrose, Epistles, 1, no. 40:14–15; Sozomenus, loc. cit. 5:22). Most scholars accept rather the opposite view of Bar Hebraeus that the Christians in anger at the decree killed the Jews of Edessa (Chronography, 63). A Hebrew inscription quoting part of Isaiah 66:14 found on the Western Wall in 1969 has been ascribed to this period of messianic revival. Julian’s works were published with an English translation by W.C. Wright under the title The Works of the Emperor Julian (3 vols., 1913–23).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

80. Adler, in: JQR 5 (1892/3), 591–651; Graetz, History, 2 (1956), 595–603; J. Bidez, La Vie de l’Empereur Julien(1930), 306ff.; P. de Labriolle, La Réaction Païenne(1934), 401–10; J. Vogt, Kaiser Julian und das Judentum (1939); J. Heinemann, in: Zion, 4 (1939), 269–93; M. Hak, in: Yavneh, 2 (1940), 118–39; Alon, Meḥkarim, 2 (1958), 313f.; J. Levy, Olamot Nifgashim (1960), 221–54 (= Zion, 6 (1941), 1–32); S. Lieberman, in:Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves, 7 (1939–44), 395–446; idem, in: JQR, 36 (1945/46), 239–53; 37 (1946/47), 329–36; I. Sonne, ibid., 307–28; M. Simon, Verus Israel (1948), 139–44 and index; A. Momigliano (ed.), The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (1963); E.E. Urbach, in:Molad, 19 (1961), 368–74; D. Rokaḥ, in: Ha-Ishiyyut ve-Dorah, Koveẓ Harẓa’ot she-Hushme’u ba-Kenes ha-Shemini le-Iyyun be-Historyah (1963), 79–80. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.P. Brock, “The Rebuilding of the Temple Under Julian: A New Source,” in: PEQ, 108 (1976); G.W. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (1978).

[David Rokeah]

‘There were perhaps five different Arthur A. Cohens, and nearly all had cult followings. In order of appearance (roughly speaking), they are: Cohen the neo-Orthodox Jewish theologian; Cohen the astonishingly successful book publisher, herald of the “paperback revolution”; Cohen the magnanimous organizer of salon gatherings and anthologies; Cohen the aggadic novelist; and Cohen the challenging and occasionally cryptic post-Holocaust theorist. A few additional selves might be teased out of his variegated life, but at least these five deserve separate mention. Their areas of accomplishment were discrete, as were, in many cases, their audiences. At the time of his death, fifteen years ago of leukemia at the age of 58, Cohen had no lack of admirers; his inclusion in Dan Cohn-Sherbok’s  ‘Fifty Key Jewish Thinkers’ (of all time) is testimony to the seriousness with which he has been taken. At the present moment, however, it seems that his posthumous fate is hanging in the balance. Perhaps the very fact of his versatility has made categorization too strenuous a task…’

[In ‘Prooftexts’: A Journal of Jewish Literary History’ Volume 23, Number 2, Spring 2003, pp. 259-267. Indiana University Press]

”The fear of anti-Semitism has waned and the hope for the restoration of Israel has been fulfilled; neither is now an effective reason for holding on to Jewish identity. Now as never before it will be possible for the Jewish people and the state of Israel to survive but for the Jewish religion to perish.” (”Why I Choose to Be a Jew,” published in Harper’s in April, 1959 218:1307, pp. 63-66)

Arthur Allen Cohen (June 25, 1928 – September 30, 1986) was an American Jewish scholar, art critic, theologian, publisher, and author.

Scholar David M. Stern has written of Cohen: “Though he was best known as a novelist and theologian, he also pursued successful careers as a highly regarded editor and publisher, as an expert collector and dealer in rare books and documents on twentieth-century art, and as a man of letters and cultural critic who wrote with equal authority on modern European literature, medieval Jewish mysticism, the history of Dada and surrealism, and modern typography and design.”

The New York Times reported his death:

Arthur A. Cohen, a novelist, a publisher and an author of many works on the history of modern Jewish thought, died yesterday morning of cancer at his home in New York City. He was 58 years old.

Mr. Cohen won the National Jewish Book Award for his 1983 novel ”An Admirable Woman.” In an article distributed with the book by the publisher, Mr. Cohen said Erika Hertz, the heroine of his novel, had been ”suggested to me by the remarkable personality and intellectual career of an old friend, Hannah Arendt.”

Another of his five novels, ”A Hero in His Time,” tells of two Russian poets who travel to the United States on a cultural mission, one of them to celebrate poetry, the other to celebrate himself.

”In the Days of Simon Stern,” Mr. Cohen’s novel about America as a refuge for the Messiah, was described by Cynthia Ozick in The New York Times as ”a serious and vastly conceived fiction bled out of the theological imagination.”

Mr. Cohen’s theological interests went far beyond fiction. Born in New York City, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy and comparative religion. In 1950 he enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, where for three years he studied medieval Jewish philosophy. He was a visiting lecturer in religion at Brown University and a visiting lecturer in theology at the Jewish Institute of Religion.

His nonfiction books include ”Martin Buber,” a study of the Jewish religious philosopher; ”The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust,” and ”Herbert Bayer: The Complete Work.”

Despite his long illness, Mr. Cohen wrote and edited two books scheduled for publication within the year: ”Artists and Enemies: Three Novellas” and ”A Handbook of Jewish Religious Thought,” edited with Paul Mendes-Flohr.

Mr. Cohen also wrote for many magazines and journals. In the article ”Why I Choose to Be a Jew,” published in Harper’s in 1959, he wrote:

”The fear of anti-Semitism has waned and the hope for the restoration of Israel has been fulfilled; neither is now an effective reason for holding on to Jewish identity. Now as never before it will be possible for the Jewish people and the state of Israel to survive but for the Jewish religion to perish.”

Replying in 1980 to an interviewer who said that Mr. Cohen’s novels were marked by lengthy parables, dialectical discussions and dream sequences, the author replied: ”I think of them as something extra delivered by the novelist, a discipline delivered as a bonus about a subject not familiar to all readers. There’s an impatience with intellectual endeavor. We have the attitude that the mind is not an operating generative force. We’re only concerned with the imagination acting as an immediate sensation.” Founded Publishing Companies

In 1951, while attending the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Mr. Cohen founded the Noonday Press with a friend, Cecil Hemley. In 1954 he founded Meridian Books, which was acquired in 1960 by the World Publishing Company. He was also the editor in chief of Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Mr. Cohen was on the board of the PEN American Center, and he played an active role in the weeklong International PEN Congress that brought dozens of foreign writers to New York last January. He was also the chairman of the board of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. On the street level of his East Side townhouse, he founded Ex Libris, an antiquarian bookstore devoted to rare, out-of-print materials on 20th-century art.

An excellent study of his theological and fiction writing, and biographical sketch, is Emily Kopley’s “Arthur A. Cohen’s Messianic Fiction” which gives a comprehensive and well-written overview of the life and thought of Arthur Cohen, setting his messianic fiction in the context of Jewish religious philosophy and American literature. Read and enjoy!

Prayer: Thank you Lord for this giant of Jewish thought, who expressed his own messianic yearnings through fiction as much as through theology. Just as he connected with Jewish tradition, contemporary culture and post-holocaust uncertainty, help us to communicate clearly our own messianic consciousness revealed and restored in Yeshua the Messiah. In His name we pray. Amen.

Emily Kopley’s “Arthur A. Cohen’s Messianic Fiction”

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/01/obituaries/arthur-a-cohen-author-dies-at-58.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_A._Cohen

https://www.academia.edu/3059187/Review_of_Arthur_A._Cohen_and_Paul_Mendes-Flohrs_20th_Century_Jewish_Religious_Thought_Philadelphia_JPS_1987_2009._xix_1163_pp._

https://www.academia.edu/9647431/_Arthur_A._Cohen_s_Messianic_Fiction._Rethinking_the_Messianic_Idea._Ed._Michael_Morgan_and_Steven_Weitzman._Indiana_UP_2015._372-403

http://hqinfo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/cult-books-arthur-cohen.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/studies_in_american_jewish_literature/v028/28.kopley.pdf

In Great Britain an “Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children” took effect. This act of Parliament grew out of case involving Jacob de Mendez Berta and his daughter Mary who became a Protestant. According to one source, the father refused to continue to support his daughter after she converted and her newly adopted Protestant community did not want to shoulder the burden of her support. Hence, this legislation was adopted and would stay in effect until the middle of the 19th century.

Prayer and Reflection: This act was passed to enforce the rights of children to be maintained by their parents, and yet shows a prejudice against the Jewish people, recently returned to the UK after 1660. It does not appear to have been applied except in this one case, but stayed on the statute books until the emancipation of the Jews in the 19^th century. Lord, help our governments to welcome and affirm the stranger, the immigrant and asylum seeker, and not impose restrictions on them. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/jewish-history-do-you-know.html

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nu1mI4lu_AYC&pg=PA308&dq=%E2%80%9CAct+to+oblige+Jews+to+maintain+and+provide+for+their+Protestant+children%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rVGKVZydB6qy7QbRyYbwDQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CAct%20to%20oblige%20Jews%20to%20maintain%20and%20provide%20for%20their%20Protestant%20children%E2%80%9D&f=false

Jewish Marriages and the English Law

Henry Straus Quixano Henriques

“The named book, “Augenspiegel” [Eye Glasses], was and is scandalous and offensive to the pious ears of Christians and is excessively favorable to the impious Jews and moreover it must be removed from circulation and from the hands of Christians and its use must be inhibited.” (Pope Leo X)

Johann Reuchlin (sometimes Johannes) (22 February 1455 – 30 June 1522) was a German-born humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew, whose work also took him to modern-day France, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. Most of Reuchlin’s career centered around advancing German knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

A little over five hundred years ago, in September 1511, a compact book entitled Eye Glasses appeared at the international Frankfurt Book Fair and immediately polarized Europe. The author was the universally respected scholar and jurist Johannes Reuchlin, but the subject of Eye Glasses was not destined to find universal acclaim: it was a comprehensive legal and theological defense of Jewish writings. The context of the publication heightened the controversy, for Reuchlin wrote the defense in order to thwart a dangerous persecution that was aiming to destroy every Jewish book in the Holy Roman Empire. After the ensuing intellectual and political storms had passed, Josel of Rosheim, the most influential Jewish leader of Renaissance Germany, described the historic intervention as a “miracle within a miracle,”¹remembering with unabated amazement that a Christian scholar had defended the Jews and, more astonishing, that he had prevailed.

The unprecedented defense of Judaism was a response to an unprecedented attack that began in earnest in 1509. Until then, campaigns against German Jews, though numerous and often effective, had been limited to individual territories within the empire. The goal of the 1509 persecution was to weaken and break the surviving Jewish communities in one comprehensive effort by confiscating and destroying every Jewish book except the Hebrew Bible, thereby making it impossible to practice the religion properly. This aggressive strategy, carefully formulated to be compatible with imperial law, was initially spearheaded by Johannes Pfefferkorn, a recent convert to Christianity who had been agitating against Jewish communities in Germany since 1505. By the end of 1509, the confiscation campaign was being supported by the emperor, the archbishop of Mainz, the University of Mainz, the University of Cologne, the powerful Dominican convent in Cologne, the Observant Franciscan Order, and the papal Inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraeten.

Johann Reuchlin was born at Pforzheim in the Black Forest in 1455, where his father was an official of the Dominican monastery. According to the fashion of the time, his name was graecized by his Italian friends into Capnion (Καπνίων), a nickname which Reuchlin used as a sort of transparent mask when he introduced himself as an interlocutor in the De Verbo Mirifico. He remained fond of his home town; he constantly calls himself Phorcensis, and in the De Verbo he ascribes to Pforzheim his inclination towards literature.

Here he began his Latin studies in the monastery school, and, though in 1470 he was a short time in Freiburg, that university seems to have taught him little. Reuchlin’s career as a scholar appears to have turned almost on an accident; his fine voice gained him a place in the household of Charles I, Margrave of Baden, and soon, having some reputation as a Latinist, he was chosen to accompany Frederick, the third son of the prince, to the University of Paris. Frederick was some years his junior, and was destined for an ecclesiastical career. This new connection did not last long, but it determined the course of Reuchlin’s life. He now began to learn Greek, which had been taught in the French capital since 1470, and he also attached himself to the leader of the Paris realists, Jean à Lapide (d. 1496), a worthy and learned man, whom he followed to the vigorous young university of Basel in 1474.

Initially, the most potent weapon against the Jews was the printing press. Before Emperor Maximilian authorized destruction of Jewish books, Pfefferkorn and the faculty of theology at Cologne published a series of stridently anti-Jewish tracts: Mirror of the Jews (1507), Confession of the Jews (1508), How the Blind Jews Observe Their Easter (1509), and The Enemy of the Jews (1509), all of which appeared simultaneously in both German and Latin editions. Counting the German originals and the Latin translations, these books went through an astounding twenty-one editions within three years. Although ostensibly published as missionary tracts, the inflammatory pamphlets were designed to stoke the fires of Christian anti-Semitism. They assailed contemporary Judaism as a heresy (i.e., as being a perversion of biblical Judaism) that must be rooted out, and they depicted Jewish customs and prayers as intolerable blasphemies against God. Moreover, the pamphlets insisted that Jewish moneylenders were engaged in a pervasive effort to destroy Christian society. These pamphlets rapidly built the political momentum that, in August 1509, secured the decisive step from Maximilian: a mandate to confiscate and destroy the offending Jewish books.

Implementation of the new policy began in September 1509 in Frankfurt am Main, home to one of the three most prominent Jewish communities in Germany (the other two being Worms and Regensburg). Despite strong resistance from Jewish leaders, a complete confiscation in Frankfurt was carried out by April 1510, and other Rhineland communities, including Worms, also suffered confiscations in 1509 and 1510.

This action occurred at a time when all of Europe was contemplating the end of Judaism. After the expulsion of the world’s largest Jewish community from Spain in 1492 and the forced Portuguese conversion of 1497, European Judaism was tottering at the edge of the abyss. Jews had long since disappeared from England (expulsion 1290) and France (expulsion from crown territories, 1394). Expulsions had also been mandated in many individual territories across the Holy Roman Empire—Vienna (1420/21), Cologne (1424), Bavaria (1442/50), Würzburg (1453), Passau (1478), Mecklenburg (1492), Magdeburg (1493), Württemberg (1498), Nuremberg (1498–99), Ulm (1499), and Brandenburg (1510), to name but a few. During the second half of the fifteenth century, the area open to Jewish residency contracted with every passing year. Various jurisdictions in Italy, the only major homeland to western European Jewry outside of the empire in 1509, were following suit. As a result of the spread of Spanish rule, Jews were banished from Sicily in 1492 and from the Kingdom of Naples through a series of expulsions, with the strongest intensity during 1511–14, that concluded in 1541. This moment in history, which instigated the early modern exodus to Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, marks the nadir of Jewish life in western and central Europe prior to the Holocaust.

The trials of Reuchlin elicited many defenses and attacks and also resulted in two preliminary verdicts. A 1514 episcopal court in Speyer pronounced Reuchlin innocent of all charges of having “favored” Jews and, in an unprecedented ruling, assessed the papal inquisition (in the person of Jacob Hoogstraeten) for the defendant’s court costs. An appeals court at the Roman Curia reached a similar verdict in 1516. Nonetheless, on 23 June 1520, just eight days after signing the first thundering condemnation of Martin Luther, Leo X issued a verdict against Reuchlin. In the aftermath of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses (1517), the Vatican was simply no longer in a position to allow challenges against inquisitional forces in Germany to go forward. Indeed, in April 1521, at the beginning of the Diet of Worms (where Luther would be condemned by the estates of the empire), Pfefferkorn wrote: “Yes, Reuchlin, if the Pope had done this to you eight years ago, Martin Luther and your disciples … would not have dared to wish or contemplate what they are now publicly pursuing to the detriment of the Christian faith. Of all this, you alone are the spark and the enabler, to drive the holy church into error and superstition.”¹⁵ Reuchlin, however, ultimately repudiated Luther’s movement and remained a Catholic until his death on 30 June 1522.

Despite the papal condemnation, a permanent foundation had been laid for Christian Hebrew studies. We can assume that Reuchlin was not the only Christian of his generation who admired his Jewish books and acquaintances, but he was the first to represent Jewish theology and Jews themselves with a measure of benevolence, sometimes even unqualified admiration, in public discourse. When it came to a few Jewish thinkers, his opponents’ accusations, though bitterly formulated, that he valued Jewish authorities more than the doctors of the church were not entirely specious. Major Jewish scholars such as David Kimhi, Rashi, Joseph Gikatilla, and, above all, Moses Maimonides impressed him at a very deep level. It is not astonishing that he acknowledged the importance of Talmudic and medieval Jewish scholarship—even Luther consulted Jewish scholarship for his Old Testament exegesis—but it is striking that he so openly registered agreement with the wisdom and piety of the Jewish authors he studied. Yet, once again, Reuchlin would have considered his attitude nothing more (and nothing less) than a reasonable and just academic judgment of the works themselves.

Despite Reuchlin’s many victories, Eye Glasses was finally condemned by Leo X on 23 June 1520: “The named book, Eye Glasses, was and is scandalous and offensive to the pious ears of Christians and is excessively favorable to the impious Jews and moreover it must be removed from circulation and from the hands of Christians and its use must be inhibited, etc.” The pope almost certainly made this decision in order to bolster the authority of the church in Germany as it faced the major threat of Luther’s movement.

In this book, the last publication in the Reuchlin Affair, Pfefferkorn calls for a civil trial of Reuchlin at the Diet of Worms and for the public execution of Reuchlin as a heretic. Although Reuchlin, too, had called for a civil trial, it did not take place and he was not condemned and executed. He died in Stuttgart on 30 June 1522.

Prayer: Lord, forgive our intolerance of the other, our obscurantism and our intellectual idleness. Help us to worship you with all our minds, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Click to view a digitized version from the Munich Digitization Center

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Johann_Reuchlin

http://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/exhibitions/Reuchlin/index.html

http://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/exhibitions/Reuchlin/essay-section1.html

Item VI.4, title page. The Letters of Obscure Men
(1517), the first edition of part two.
From the Klau Library, HUC-JIR (Cincinnati).
go to gallery

“If the greater part of Palestine is given to the Jewish people, this would be a severe blow to the religious attachment of Catholics to this land.”

“It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before.”

The following letter, written by the apostolic delegate to Washington, Archbishop A.G. Cicognani, to President Roosevelt’s special envoy to the Vatican, Ambassador Myron Taylor, explains that the Pope’s willingness to help save 4,000 Slovakian children and getting them to Palestine should not be interpreted as support for the creation of a Jewish state there.

APOSTOLIC DELEGATION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 3339 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C., No. 219/43, June 22 1943

Your Excellency,

In reference to our conversation of a few days back, I wish to present for Your Excellenecy’s consideration and attention the following points relative to the situation in Palestine.

The Holy See has despite grave difficulties constantly manifested deep interest and concern in “non-arians.” This is quite clear from the recent action taken in favor of the Jewish youths and infants interned in Slovackia to prevent their removal from that Republic.

The aid of the Holy See has recently been enlisted to assist In the removal of difficulties so that Jewish children may be transported to Palestine. Their immigration from European countries has been permitted by this British Government.

Although the Holy See is deeply interested in the welfare of these children, it seems opportune to recall at this time of general question of the “Hebrew Home” in Palestine. Since 1917, when the question first arose, the Holy See has made known its attitude on the point and has repeated it in several formal documents.

In 1919 His Holiness, Pope Benedict IV, in speaking to a Consistory of Cardinals, mentioned the great solicitude the Popes have shown for the preservation of the venerable and holy places in Palestine. For years they hare sacrificed to keep them from the hands of infidels. Now that their possession has been secured, it must be protected and strengthened. If the power of the infidels in Palestine increases, the monuments will again be in danger. (A.A.S. Vol. XI, page 100).

On June 13, 1921, the same Sovereign Pontiff pointed out that although he did not want to interfere with any rights of the Jewish people, neither did be desire to prejudice in any way the rights of Christians in Palestine. (A.A.S. Vol. XIII, page 283). The attitude of the Church was set forth in an “Aide Memoire” to the Council of the League Of Nations on June 4, 1922. A copy is attached to this letter. There is also a copy of a letter from Cardinal Gasparri under date of March 6, 1922.

In this question two points must be considered. The first concerns the Holy Places (for example, the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Bethlehem, etc.). Catholics rejoice in certain rights regarding these places and in justice their rights must be recognized, and respected. Repeated formal assurances that these rights will be respected are ever necessary and will again be required after the present war,

The second point concerns Palestine itself. Catholics the world over are piously devoted to this country, hallowed as it was by the presence of the Redeemer and esteemed as it is as the cradle of Christianity. If the greater part of Palestine is given to the Jewish people, this would be a severe blow to the religious attachment of Catholics to this land. To have the Jewish people in the majority would be to interfere with the peaceful exercise of these rights in the Holy Land already vested in Catholics.

It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before.

If a “Hebrew Home” is desired, it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave new, international problems would arise. Catholics the world over would be aroused. The Holy See would be saddened, and justly, so, by such a move, for it would not be in keeping with the charitable assistance non-arians [sic] have received and will continue to receive at the hands of the Vatican.

I am confident that from these points, Your Excellency will appreciate the position of the Holy See in this matter.

‘With sentiments of esteem and every good wish, I remain

Yours very sincerely,

(Signed) A. G. CICOGNANI, Archbishop of Laodicea, Apostolic Delegate.

Prayer: This letter speaks for itself, despite the diplomatic niceties and sensible provisos. Amen, Lord have mercy!

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/vatpal.html

http://www.thebereancall.org/content/september-1999-q-and-a-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII_and_Judaism

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American theologian, ethicist, public intellectual, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years [Wikipedia summary]. The brother of another prominent theological ethicist, H. Richard Niebuhr, he is also known for authoring the Serenity Prayer:

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Among his most influential books are Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man, the second of which Modern Library ranked one of the top 20 nonfiction books of the twentieth century.

Starting as a minister with working-class and labor class sympathies in the 1920s oriented to theological pacifism, he shifted to neo-orthodox realist theology in the 1930s and developed the theo-philosophical perspective known as Christian realism. He attacked utopianism as ineffectual for dealing with reality, writing in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944):

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Niebuhr’s realism deepened after 1945 and led him to support American efforts to confront Soviet communism around the world. A powerful speaker, he was one of the most influential thinkers of the 1940s and 1950s in public affairs.

Niebuhr battled with religious liberals over what he called their naïve views of the contradictions of human nature and the optimism of the Social Gospel, and battled with the religious conservatives over what he viewed as their naïve view of scripture and their narrow definition of “true religion”. During this time he was viewed by many as the intellectual rival of John Dewey. Niebuhr was also one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action and spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Niebuhr’s long-term impact on political philosophy and political theology involve his utilizing the resources of the Christian faith to argue for political realism and his contributions to modern just war thinking. His work has also significantly influenced international relations theory, leading many scholars to move away from idealism and embrace realism. Many leading political scientists, such as George F. Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and political historians, such as Richard Hofstadter, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Christopher Lasch, have noted his influence on their thinking. Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr’s book The Irony of American History “the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy”.

As a young pastor in Detroit, he favored conversion of Jews to Christianity, scolding evangelical Christians who were anti-Semitic or ignoring them. He spoke out against “the unchristlike attitude of Christians” and what he described as his fellow Christians’ “Jewish bigotry”. His 1933 article in the Christian Century was an attempt to sound the alarm within the Christian community over Hitler’s “cultural annihilation of the Jews”. Eventually his theology evolved to the point where he was the first prominent Christian theologian to argue it was inappropriate for Christians to seek to convert Jews to their faith.

As a preacher, writer, leader, and adviser to political figures, Niebuhr supported Zionism and the development of Israel. His solution to anti-Semitism was a combination of a Jewish homeland, greater tolerance, and assimilation in other countries. As early as 1942, he advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine and their resettlement in other Arab countries. His position may have related to his religious conviction that life on earth is imperfect, and his concern about German anti-Semitism.

Prayer: Lord, we thank you for the prophetic life, voice and ministry of the Niebuhr brothers. Help us to ‘understand the times’ and stand alongside the Church and Israel in the pursuit of justice, peace and reconciliation. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/niebuhr_reinhold.html

http://www.jewishjournal.com/martini_judaism/item/reinhold_niebuhr_where_are_you_now

https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/scjr/article/viewFile/1517/1370

http://wipfandstock.com/nationhood-providence-and-witness.html

“Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me.  Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.  Oh well, it doesn’t matter.  I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.

“Paper has more patience than people.”  I thought of this saying on one of those days when I was feeling a little depressed and was sitting at home with my chin in my hands, bored and listless, wondering whether to stay in or go out.  I finally stayed where I was, brooding.

Yes, paper does have more patience, and since I’m not planning to let anyone else read this stiff-backed notebook grandly referred to as a “diary” unless I should ever find a real friend, it probably won’t make a bit of difference.

Now I’m back to the point that prompted me to keep a diary in the first place:   I don’t have a friend.

Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a thirteen-year-old girl is completely alone in the world.  And I’m not.  I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends.  I have a throng of admirers who can’t keep their adoring eyes off me and who sometimes have to resort to using a broken pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom.  I have a family, loving aunts and a good home.

No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend.  All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time.  I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things.  We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.  Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other.  In any case, that’s just how things are, and unfortunately they’re not liable to change.  This is why I’ve started the diary.

To enhance the image of this long-awaited friend in my imagination, I don’t want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend, and I’m going to call this friend Kitty.

Since no one would understand a word of my stories to Kitty if I were to plunge right in, I’d better provide a brief sketch of my life, much as I dislike doing so.

My father, the most adorable father I’ve ever seen, didn’t marry my mother until he was thirty-six and she was twenty-five.  My sister Margot was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1926.  I was born on June 12, 1929.  I lived in Frankfurt until I was four.  Because we’re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, when he became the Managing Director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam.  My mother, Edith Holländer Frank, went with him to Holland in September, while Margot and I were sent to Aachen to stay with our grandmother.  Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot.

I started right away at the Montessori nursery school.  I stayed there until I was six, at which time I started first grade.  In sixth grade my teacher was Mrs. Kuperus, the principal.  At the end of the year we were both in tears as we said a heartbreaking farewell, because I’d been accepted at the Jewish Lyceum, where Margot also went to school.

Our lives were not without anxiety, since our relatives in Germany were suffering under Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws.  After the pogroms in 1938 my two uncles (my mother’s brothers) fled Germany, finding safe refuge in North America.  My elderly grandmother came to live with us.  She was seventy-three years old at the time.

After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews.  Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to go to theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes. Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc.  You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on.  Jacque always said to me, “I don’t dare do anything anymore, ’cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”

In the summer of 1941 Grandma got sick and had to have an operation, so my birthday passed with little celebration.  In the summer of 1940 we didn’t do much for my birthday either, since the fighting had just ended in Holland.  Grandma died in January 1942.  No one knows how often I think of her and still love her.  This birthday celebration in 1942 was intended to make up for the others, and Grandma’s candle was lit along with the rest.

The four of us are still doing well, and that brings me to the present date of June 20, 1942, and the solemn dedication of my diary.”

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the diary of Anne Frank, showing us the realities of the past from such a fresh and heart-rending perspective. Her life and memory are precious to all, and yet we long for the healing of the the memories of the past, and true repentance, reconciliation and restoration between those who are alienated from one another. Lord, establish your kingdom in our days, we pray, in Yeshua’s name. Amen.

https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Diary-of-Anne-Frank-June-20-1942