‘ You say that the Messiah has come … ’: The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages
2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.jmedhist.2005.06.002
ISSN1873-1279
Autores Tópico(s)Archaeology and Historical Studies
ResumoAbstract This article suggests that the ‘Disputation of Ceuta’ provides a link between the Christian anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue – that of the coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which finds its fullest expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist's meeting with the North African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in the Disputation's text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and Christians. Keywords: Jewish and Christian relationsMediterranean trade in the middle agesCeutaGenoaScriptural exegesis, Almohads Acknowledgments I would like to thank Prof. William Chester Jordan, my teacher and supervisor, for introducing me to the Ceuta Disputation, and for being such a patient and attentive critic. I also thank the two anonymous readers of this article's first version for their critical comments, which have greatly improved its argument. Notes 1 Die disputationen zu Ceuta (1179) und Mallorca (1286): zwei antijüdische schriften aus dem mittelalterlichen Genua, ed. Ora Limor (Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1994). 2 Incipit disputatio inter Guilielmum Alphachinum Ianuensem et quendam sapientissimum Iudeum Mo Abraym nomine, que fuit facta Septe; Limor, Die Disputationen, 137. Limor speculates that the ‘Mo’ in ‘Abraham Mo’ might be either a part of his first name (‘Moses’), or of an honorary title like ‘mori’ or ‘morenu’, ‘my/our teacher;’ Die Disputationen, 3. 3 Die Disputationen, 137. 4 Die Disputationen, 142. 5 Die Disputationen. Et Christiani quare non circumciduntur? 6 Die Disputationen. Ad hec Guilielmus Alfachinus Ianuensis respondit: ‘Dic michi prius, si cuncta que prophete dixerunt pro firmo habebis, et ego postea respondebo tibi’. Iudeus dixit: ‘Si ea que prophete prophetaverunt pro firmo non haberem, Iudeum me esse non confiterer’. 7 Die Disputationen, 137-8. 8 Die Disputationen, 138-40. 9 Die Disputationen, 140. Iudeus dixit: ‘Quanta tibi ostendere oportet completa esse ex prophetis, si vis probare, quod Messias venit?’ Guilielmus respondit: ‘Dic, quod velis, et ego respondebo tibi’. 10 Die Disputationen, 141. Tu scis, quia diabolus propter superbiam de celo in terram deiectus est, et ideo deus hominem fecit, ut de eius stirpe angelicus ordo, qui fuerat imminutus, compleretur. Homo vero creatus et in paradiso positus suasione diabolica peccavit, et statim discordia inter angelos et homines tam magna fuit, quod preces eos postea noluerunt audire. Sed venit mediator dei et hominum Messias quem tu dicis, mittere hanc pacem, et misit; de qua propheta fuerat locutus. This might be an echo of St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? or more directly of Gilbert Crispin's writings: see Anna Sapir Abulafia and G. R. Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), xxxiii. 11 Die Disputationen, 142. Magis oportet te aperte ostendere et monstrare Messiam venisse quam nondum ostendisti. 12 On the role of this passage in Jewish-Christian inter-religious polemics see Robert Chazan, ‘Daniel 9:24-27: exegesis and polemics’, in Contra Iudaeos: ancient and medieval polemics between Christians and Jews, ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1996), 143-59. 13 Die Disputationen, 142-3. Et ideo non debes dubitare, sed firmiter credere Messiam venisse. 14 Die Disputationen, 143-4. 15 Die Disputationen, 145-8. The second question in particular seems to be troubling the Jew: he asks it three times. 16 Die Disputationen, 148-50. 17 Die Disputationen, 150. 18 Die Disputationen, 154. Sanson vero quid fecit? Tercia die portas et signacula aperuit et confreit, et custodes usque ad mortem formidavit. Sanson iste ‘sol’ interpretatur, et Messias, qui Latine dicitur Christus, verus sol fuit, quia totum mundum illuminavit. 19 Die Disputationen, 155, 157. 20 Die Disputationen, 161. 21 Die Disputationen, 164. See the reading of the verse by Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) (1085-1158), in Schiloh: ein beitrag zurg geschichte der messiaslehre, Part I: die auslegung von Genesis 49:10 im altertume bis zu ende des mittelalters, ed. Adolf Posnanski (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1904), 127-8. 22 Die Disputationen, 166. Nunc itaque ostende michi sceptrum, ostende michi ducatum vel potestatem ulam, quam ab illo tempore habuisti! Quod nullo modo ostendere neque probare poteris. Et si hoc verum est, quod omnino verum, neque contra probare potes, indubitanter credere debes, quod Messias venit, et cuncta, que de illo prophete dixerant, sit adimpletum. Unde te victum confiteri debes, et si vis salvus fieri, Christianum te esse et baptizari oportet. 23 Die Disputationen, 166. Vere Messiam venisse credo, et cuncta, que prophete prophetaverunt, sit adinpletum, et superatum me confiteor, et Christianum me facere et batizare [sic] libenti animo volo. 24 See the recent translation and commentary by Irven M. Resnick, Odo of Cambrai, Disputatio contra Judaeum Leonem nomine de adventu Christi filii Dei (On original sin and a disputation with the Jew, Leo, concerning the advent of Christ, the son of God: two theological treatises) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 85. 25 Abulafia and Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, xxvii, 17; Anna Sapir Abulafia, ‘An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument in the Jewish-Christian debate’, Studia Monastica 26 (1984), 64-5. 26 Anna Sapir Abulafia, ‘Jewish-Christian disputations and the twelfth-century renaissance’, Journal of Medieval History 15 (1989), 105-25. 27 La controversia Judocristiana en España (desde los orígenes hasta el siglo XIII), ed. Carlos del Valle Rodríguez; Homenaje a Domingo Muños León (Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas; Instituto de Filología, 1998), 124. 28 Bernard Blumenkranz, Les auteurs Chrétiens latins du moyen âge sur les juifs et le judaïsme (Paris: Mouton & Co, 1963), 237-9. Another work with a messianic theme, supposedly written by an eleventh-century rabbi from Morocco, has an uncertain provenance (Rabbi Samuelis marochiani de adventu messiae quem judaei temere exspectant liber, PL 149). Ora Limor has recently argued that ‘rabbi Samuel's’ epistle was written in the fourteenth century by its alleged translator, Alfonso Buenhombre, a Spanish Dominican friar (‘The epistle of Rabbi Samuel of Morocco: A best-seller in the world of polemics’, in Contra Iudaeos, ed. Limor and Stroumsa, 177-94). 29 There is one exception: Robert Chazan argues that the Christian assault on the Jewish hope for future redemption by a Messiah is the sign of a new aggressive missionising in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (‘Undermining the Jewish sense of future: Alfonso of Valladolid and the new Christian missionizing’, in Christians, Muslims, and Jews in medieval and early modern Spain, ed. Mark Meyerson and Edward English (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 179-94). 30 Tertullian, Liber Adversus Judaeos; Isidore of Seville, De fide catholica ex veteri et novo testamento contra Iudaeos ad Florentinam sororem suam (PL 83). Lukyn Williams's overview of medieval Christian contra Judaeos literature remains useful in many respects: A. Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos; a bird's-eye view of Christian apologiae until the renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935). For a newer overview see Gilbert Dahan, La polémique chrétienne contre le judaïsme au moyen âge (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), translated into English as The Christian polemic against the Jews in the middle ages, trans. Jody Gladding (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), or Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte (11.-13. Jh.), mit einer ikonographie des Judenthemas bis zum 4. Laterankonzil (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991). 31 Dahan, The Christian polemic, 42. 32 Isidore, De fide, PL 83; Petrus Damiani, Antilogus contra Judaeos, PL 145; Petrus Alfonsus, Dialogi, PL 157. On the Christian polemical use of Gen. 49:10 see Adolf Posnanski, Schiloh: ein beitrag zur Geschichte der Messiaslehre, Part I, 302-24; 347-9. 33 Amos Funkenstein, ‘Basic types of Christian anti-Jewish polemics in the late middle ages’, Viator 2 (1971), 373-82. It appeared earlier in Hebrew in Zion 33 (1968), 125-44. See Simon Schwarzfuchs ‘Religion populaire et polemique savante: le tournant de polemique judeo-chretienne au 12e siècle’, in Medieval Studies in honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. Bat-Sheva Albert, Yvonne Friedman and Simon Schwarzfuchs (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1995) for a more recent analysis of the evolution of Christian and Jewish inter-religious polemics. 34 Funkenstein, ‘Basic types’, 373. 35 Funkenstein, ‘Basic types’, 377. 36 Funkenstein, ‘Basic types’, 374, 379-81. 37 Norman Roth, ‘Disputations, Jewish-Christian’, in Medieval Jewish civilization: an encyclopedia, ed. Norman Roth (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), 216. 38 Dahan, The Christian polemic, 48. 39 Jeremy Cohen, ‘Scholarship and intolerance in the medieval academy: the study and evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom’, The American Historical Review 91 (1986), 596. 40 Abulafia, ‘Jewish-Christian disputations’, 105-25; Abulafia, ‘An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument’, 55-74; ‘Twelfth-century humanism and the Jews’, in Contra Iudaeos, ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa, 161-75. Her argument in the last article is developed further in her book Christians and Jews in the twelfth-century renaissance (New York: Routledge, 1995). 41 Funkenstein, ‘Basic types’, 377. 42 Abulafia, ‘An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument’, 56-7. 43 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants: three medieval anti-Jewish works from Genoa’, Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991), 43; Die Disputationen, 31. In both works Limor discusses the Ceuta Disputation in conjunction with the Disputation of Majorca. 44 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 38. 45 Ibid., 39. 46 Roth, ‘Disputations, Jewish-Christian’, in Medieval Jewish civilization, 216. 47 Incipit disputatio inter Guilielmum Alphachinum Ianuensem et quendam sapientissimum Iudeum Mo Abraym nomine, que fuit facta Septe; Limor, Die Disputationen, 137. 48 R.J.Z. Werblowsky, ‘Crispin's Disputation’, The Journal of Jewish Studies 11 (1960), 70; Abulafia and Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, xxvii. 49 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 46. 50 Werblowsky, ‘Crispin's Disputation’, 70, 74. 51 Limor, Die Disputationen, 11. 52 Of course there existed many versions of the Latin Bible in the twelfth century. It was precisely to ensure uniformity of the text that abbot Stephen Harding produced his Cîteaux bible in 1109 after consulting Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts of the testaments (see ‘Bible’, and ‘Bible, Cistercian’ in: Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph Strayer (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1983), vol. 2, 213, 219). However, the discrepancies between biblical quotations in the Ceuta Disputation and the Vulgate are so significant in many cases that it is difficult to explain them by the author's reliance on a variant text of the Vulgate. Examples: Dan. 9:26: The manuscript: Cum duce venturo erit vastitas, et in fine belli destructa desolacio; Die Disputationen, 145. The Vulgate: Et civitatem et sanctuarium dissipabit populus cum duce venturo; et finis eius vastitas, et post finem belli statuta desolatio. Hos. 13:14: The manuscript: Eros [sic] mors tuus, o inferne, et ero mors tua; Die Disputationen, 153. The Vulgate: Ero mors tua, o mors! Morsus tuus ero, inferne! Ps. 44:12: The manuscript: Quia concupivit rex decorem tuum; Die Disputationen, 164. The Vulgate: Et concupiscent rex decorem tuum. In two cases I was unable to locate the exact source of the quotation: Scapulas meas et ignoravi, maxillas et alapas, Hieremias dixit; Die Disputationen, 151. Suspendamus in lingo; Die Disputationen, 152. 53 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 47; Limor argues that spoken Italian peeks through the Latin text, especially in the use of con instead of cum; Die Disputationen, 11. 54 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 47. 55 Die Disputationen, 142. 56 There are only a few exceptions. At one point, the Jew introduces an argument that at the time of the Messiah the ‘Roman river’ should run with oil (Nonne in tempore Messie … flumen Rome, id est summitas huius fluminis, oleo discurere …). Limor finds a similar passage in Orosius, Historiae adversum paganos VI, 18; Die Disputationen, 140. Guilielmus's interpretation of Prov. 30: 18-20 also departs from scriptural exegesis, and appears to be his own invention; Die Disputationen, 160-3; Limor, ‘Missionary Merchants’, 37. 57 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 47. 58 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’. Limor finds some similarities between the Ceuta text and Damiani's Letter (the works are found in the same manuscript), although she cannot prove a direct borrowing; Die Disputationen, 10. 59 Given the fact that Damiani wrote his Antilogus as a letter to a layman, Honestus, it is possible that vernacular versions of this work existed in the twelfth century. Crispin's Disputatio Iudei et Christiani enjoyed great popularity during this period: twenty manuscripts of it survive from the twelfth century. Parts of the work were translated into Hebrew (Abulafia and Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, xxvii). It is possible that vernacular translations existed as well. David Berger argues that there might have been a collection of polemical material from various authors circulating in France in the twelfth century, which contained quotations from Gilbert Crispin. See his ‘Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben: a study in the transmission of medieval polemic’, Speculum 49 (1974), 46. 60 See The Jewish-Christian debate in the high middle ages: a critical edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with an introduction, translation, and commentary, ed. David Berger (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 67. See also pages 96, 100, 74-5, 200. 61 Die Disputationen, 157-9. Nonne, dixi tibi, Christiane, quia allegoriam numquam accipiam nec accepi nec ad ipsa accipiendam in lege preceptum nullum habui? Et tu iterum me illam accipere constringis. 62 Michael Signer, ‘God's love for Israel: apologetic and hermeneutical strategies in twelfth-century biblical exegesis’, in Jews and Christians in twelfth-century Europe, ed. Michael Signer and John Van Engen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 126, 129. 63 Robert Chazan, ‘Daniel 9:24-27: exegesis and polemics’, in Contra Iudaeos, ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa, 147. 64 See Rabbi Samuel ben Meir's Commentary on Genesis, ed. Martin Lockshin (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 359: ‘Lo’ The scepter shall not depart from Judah: the kingship that has been granted to him – that all twelve of his brothers shall bow low to him (vs. 8) – that greatness of his shall not cease nor shall mehoqeq – power – cease from his progeny, until he, i.e. Judah, comes to Shiloh – in other words until a Judaean king, Rehoboam the son of Solomon, comes to Shiloh, which is near Shechem, to renew the monarchy’. 65 Die Disputationen, 161-62. It seems that Alphachinus drew his inspiration from the Wisdom of Solomon. Comp. to Wis. 5:10 (And as a ship that passeth through the waves: whereof when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found, nor the path of its keel in the waters), and Wis. 14:1-5 (Again, another designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carrieth him. For this the desire of gain devised, and the workman built it by his skill. But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path among the waves, shewing that thou art able to save out of all things, yea though a man went to sea without art. But that the works of thy wisdom might not be idle: therefore men also trust their lives even to a little wood, and passing over the sea by ship are saved). 66 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 37-8. 67 Nil mirum, si hoc ignoras, quia sexaginta annos nondum habes, et mille centum septuaginta et novem anni conpleti sunt quod hoc evenit, et tam longe a Roma natus fuisti. And again: Unde debet intelligi, quod mille centum septuaginta novem anni completi sunt, ut superius dixi, quod hoc evenit; Die Disputationen, 140, 143. 68 Hilmar Krueger, ‘Genoese trade with northwest Africa in the twelfth century’, Speculum 8, No. 3 (July, 1933), 377. 69 Mohamed Cherif, Ceuta aux époques almohade et mérinide (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 1996), 138-9. 70 Krueger, ‘Genoese trade with northwest Africa in the twelfth century’, 382. On the trade between Genoa and the North African ports see also Georges Jehel, L'Italie et le Maghreb au moyen âge: conflits et échanges du VIIe au XVe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), 58-68. On the growing number of commercial contracts between Genoa and Ceuta (1160-1191), see David Abulafia, The two Italies: economic relations between the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 113, 158, 166, 182. 71 David Abulafia, ‘The role of trade in Muslim-Christian contact during the middle ages’, Mediterranean encounters, economic, religious, political, 1100-1550 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 8-10. 72 Die Disputationen, 137. 73 Die Disputationen, 140. 74 Die Disputationen, 166. 75 Die Disputationen, 166. Quoniam Mussumuti isti mali et pessimi sunt valde, et si hoc forte scirent, nos et vos in periculo mortis erimus; et tantum pro me per totum mundum nollem evenire. One can also interpret Abraham's words as a ruse to avoid immediate conversion. 76 Mark Cohen, Under crescent and cross: the Jews in the middle ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 61. 77 H. Z. Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), vol. I, 120. 78 Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in medieval Spain: cooperation and conflict (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 122. 79 Hirschberg, 193. 80 There is no firm evidence on the presence of Jews in Ceuta before the late eleventh century. See Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa, 355. E. G. Cravioto attempts to prove the existence of a Jewish community in Ceuta as early as the ninth century, but his argument is not convincing. See E.G. Cravioto, Notas para la historia de los Judios en Ceuta (Siglos XI-XVI) (Ceuta: Publicaciones Caja Ceuta, 1988), 16. 81 Hirschberg, 355. 82 Hirschberg, 118. 83 Cherif, Ceuta aux époques almohade et mérinide, 27-8. 84 Roger Le Tourneau, The Almohad movement in North Africa in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 59-60; Cravioto, Notas para la historia, 25. 85 Translated by Leon J. Weinberger in Twilight of a Golden Age: selected poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra (Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997), 97; Hirschberg, 123. 86 Limor, Die Disputationen, 6. 87 S.D. Goitein, A mediterranean society: The Jewish communities of the Arab World as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, vol. V: The Individual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 76-7. 88 E.G. Cravioto, Notas para la historia de los Judios en Ceuta, 25. 89 The ‘Westerner’; not to be confused with Joseph ben Yehuda Ibn ‘Aknīn who never left Spain, and was not Maimonides’ student. On the confusion between the two Josephs, perpetuated since the nineteenth century up to the present, see Norman Roth's article ‘Ibn ‘Aknīn, Joseph b. Judah’, in Medieval Jewish civilization: an encyclopedia, 341-8. Many thanks to Prof. Mark Cohen for the reference. 90 Roth, ‘Ibn ‘Aknīn, Joseph b. Judah’, 344; Hirschberg, 359. 91 Hirschberg, 137. 92 Quoted in Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), vol. I. 93 … con filiis et fratribus atque sororibus ac cognates in navem Ianuensium ascendit, et Hierosolimam perrexit, Christi nomine se in Iordane flumine baptizavit; Die Disputationen, 166. 94 Maimonides, Epistles of Maimonides: crisis and leadership, trans. by Abraham Halkin (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 126. 95 Ibid., 120. 96 Ibid., 126. 97 Ibid., 123. 98 Ibid., 128. 99 Ibid., 130. 100 Ibid., 131. 101 The text of the Majorca Disputation was published by Ora Limor in the same volume as the Ceuta Disputation. Die Disputationen zu Ceuta (1179) und Mallorca (1286): zwei antijüdische schriften aus dem mittelalterlichen Genua, ed. Ora Limor. It also appeared with a French translation and an introduction by Gilbert Dahan, as Inghetto Contardo, Disputatio contra Iudeos: controverse avec les juifs (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993). 102 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 47. 103 Ibid., 40. 104 Ibid., 44; Dahan, Inghetto Contardo, 26. 105 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 43; Die Disputationen, 31. 106 Limor, ‘Missionary merchants’, 38. 107 Dahan, Inghetto Contardo, 48; Limor, Die Disputationen, 37. 108 In Dahan's edition, Inghetto Contardo, 258. 109 Die Disputationen, 37. 110 Robert Chazan, ‘The Barcelona ‘Disputation’ of 1263: Christian missionizing and Jewish response’, Speculum 52 (1977), 825. See also Chazan, Barcelona and beyond: the Disputation of 1263 and its aftermath (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 111 Robert Chazan, ‘The Barcelona “Disputation” of 1263: Christian missionizing and Jewish response’, Speculum 52 (1977), 826. 112 David Berger posed the problem of the connection between the twelfth-century polemical works and the mid thirteenth-century missions to the Jews in ‘Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian contacts in the polemical literature of the high middle ages’, The American Historical Review 91 (1986), 577. 113 Robert Burns, ‘Christian-Islamic confrontation in the West: the thirteenth-century dream of conversion’, The American Historical Review 76 (1971), 1388.
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